Acuril XL 2010

June 2nd, 2010

The Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL) originated as part of a movement for Caribbean cooperation at the university level, initiated in the late l960’s by the Association of Caribbean Universities (UNICA). At that moment Sir Philip Sherlock, of the University of the West Indies, at Mona, Kingston, Jamaica, was its Secretary General.

Major objectives of ACURIL are as follows:
a. to facilitate development and use of libraries, archives, and information services, and the identification, collection and preservation of information resources in support of the whole range of intellectual and educational endeavors throughout the Caribbean area;
b. to strengthen the archival, library and information professions;
c. to unite information workers in them, and to promote cooperative activities in pursuit of these objectives.

Systems Link International will be participating at this years event in Santo Domingo, Dominica Republic. It will be the 40th ACURIL’s Conference to be held 6-12 June, 2010,  at the  InterContinental V Centenario  Santo Domingo Hotel, Dominican Republic.

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Forensic Engineering Added to ICE Journals Offering

June 2nd, 2010

Learning the lessons of the past is as important as understanding the possibilities of the future.

A new addition to the prestigious ICE Proceedings suite of journals, Forensic Engineering focuses on examining not only failure but also under-performance or non-compliance to promote understanding and future best-practice.  The journal is chaired by Eur Ing Prof. Costas Georgopoulos.

Forensic Engineering equips the engineering community with the knowledge to achieve the highest standards in constructing facilities and encourages the effective application of engineering principles on the ground.

Unlike other journals in the field, only ICE’s Forensic Engineering journal offers:
•    endorsement by the world’s longest established civil engineering authority, the Institution of Civil Engineers
•    dedicated webpage on the world’s most comprehensive civil engineering resource, ICE Virtual Library
•    direct access to ICE’s membership of over 80,000
•    detailed focus on both modern and traditional forensic engineering topics
•    case studies, briefings, technical reports and applied research in a single volume, four times a year.

Forensic Engineering is required reading for engineers and other practitioners such as architects and projects managers in government, industry and academia, particularly those concerned with constructed facilities that fail to perform as intended.

The journal is currently welcoming submissions from the academic and practitioner communities in civil engineering.  To read more about the journal, visit the homepage where you can view the full aims and scope and editorial advisory panel.  You can also download the details of the journal’s call for papers in PDF format.

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The Short-Term Hydrogen Economy: Fueling Fuel Cells from Natural Gas

May 28th, 2010

Introduction

As the supply of fossil fuels decreases, it is quite possible that future stationary or mobile energy systems will use hydrogen fuel cells. Natural gas has been proposed as a transition fuel as it is currently plentiful and has an existing infrastructure.

The process of generating hydrogen from natural gas (mostly methane) is outlined in Figure 1. After sulfur removal, steam and methane are combined and reacted at high temperature in a “steam reformer.” The effluent contains some carbon monoxide and water, which are reacted in a “water-gas shift reactor” to form carbon dioxide and additional hydrogen. The gases exiting the shift reactor are separated, with pure hydrogen product.

This paper will focus on the reactions that occur within the steam reformer and determine the equilibrium conversion of methane and water to hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. It is important to know the chemical compositions to determine natural gas requirements for a fueling station with an on-site reformer as well as size the reactor and separation units.

Methane Steam-Reforming Reactions

The steam reforming reaction is given as

CH4 + H2O ↔ 3 H2 + CO

This reaction is reversible. The methane conversion is determined from the equilibrium constant, which is given below as a function of the number of moles n of the individual components:

To read full article please click HERE…

engineeringcases.knovelblogs.com 28 May 2010 http://engineeringcases.knovelblogs.com/2010/05/19/the-short-term-hydrogen-economy-fueling-fuel-cells-from-natural-gas/

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Knovel Expands Roster of Publishers

May 28th, 2010

Knovel is pleased to welcome five new partners to their roster of over 70 international societies and publishers.

NEW YORK, May 17, 2010 – Knovel, a Web-based application integrating technical information with analytical and search tools, is pleased to welcome five new partners to a group of more than 70 international professional societies and publishers that currently work with Knovel to ensure engineers have access to relevant and reliable content. The new partners include ASM International: The Materials Information Society, Chemical Publishing, Project Management Institute (PMI), Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) and Transportation Research Board (TRB).

Content in Knovel’s Transportation collection has doubled since its launch in July 2009. The new partnership with TRB enables Knovel to offer access to the renowned Highway Capacity Manual and a range of titles focused on sustainability of systems and mobility solutions. Much of the content will include interactive charts, tables and graphs.

“Knovel’s comprehensive collection of engineering content continually grows, and we are thrilled to offer a wealth of new additions in 2010 including expanded material property information from ASM,” says Delores Meglio, vice president, publisher relations for Knovel. “Chemical Publishing will offer digital content via Knovel for the first time, and PMI’s content is particularly valuable for engineers striving for leadership roles.”

To read full article please click HERE…

knovel.com 28 May 2010 http://why.knovel.com/company/press/445-knovel-expands-roster-of-publishers.html

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Purdue-based company helping Chile rebuild

May 25th, 2010

The February earthquake and tsunami in Chile ravaged much of the country, killed more than 500 people and left businesses and individuals around the world wondering how they could help the survivors.

Frank and Patricia Mason have never been to Chile, but Cindas LLC, the company they own in the Purdue Research Park at West Lafayette, provides technical, electronic databases to government research facilities, corporations and universities around the world.

When the Masons met a representative from Chile’s university system at a seminar in the Dominican Republic in March, and heard of the devastation caused by the 8.8-magnitude earthquake, they quickly made a decision.

“The idea came up, ‘Why don’t we see if some of our engineering products would be useful’,” Frank Mason said. “Maybe we can make a small difference.”

Cindas has donated the use of five of the company’s web-based products to three Chilean universities. The free use of information in the databases for the next two years will assist engineers in rebuilding Chile’s infrastructure.

The fifth strongest earthquake on record hit the country’s industrial region the hardest, with the epicenter located 70 miles from Concepcion.

The web-based products donated by Cindas are Aerospace Structural Metals Database, the Thermophysical Properties of Matter Database, the Microelectronics Packaging Materials Database, the Structural Alloys Handbook and the Damage Tolerant Design Handbook.

“We just decided that was the thing to do. Maybe it will make a difference,” Patricia Mason said. “Other publishers at the meeting have followed our lead.”

To read full article click HERE…

jconline.com 20 May 2010 http://www.jconline.com/article/20100520/BUSINESS/5200325/Purdue-based-company-helping-Chile-rebuild

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New Natural Gas Theory Off the Beaten Path

May 24th, 2010

Frank Mango thinks natural gas could actually be a renewable energy source, as opposed to a depleting fossil fuel.

The Houston-based geoscientist posits this theory in a new study published by British research journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

Mango’s study, “Natural catalytic activity in a marine shale for generating natural gas,” asserts that natural gas is being made in real time in shale plays around the world, and if scientists can control that chemical reaction, production of certain fields could be sustained for decades longer than previously assumed.

It’s called a “catalytic path,” and it refers to an enzyme agent somewhere in the source rock that starts and sustains the chemical breakdown of large, source rock molecules into smaller, natural gas molecules in real time and at low temperatures.

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McGraw-Hill Professional Launches AccessPhysiotherapy

May 22nd, 2010

NEW YORK, NY, March 22–AccessPhysiotherapy™ (http://www. accessphysiotherapy.com), an essential online resource for physical therapy (PT) students and educators integrating renowned medical resources with rich multimedia and customizable curriculum functionality, is the latest product to be launched in McGraw-Hill Professional’s acclaimed suite of digital learning platforms for medical students and physicians.

Continuing the innovations begun with McGraw-Hill’s respected Access medical and scientific online learning platforms, AccessPhysiotherapy provides searchable, full-text access to eleven leading McGraw-Hill physical therapy and internal medicine titles, including Orthopaedic Examination, Evaluation, and Intervention; Imaging in Rehabilitation; and Pharmacology for the Physical Therapist, along with interactive imaging content, curricular management tracking tools and tests, more than 80 videos, an exclusive series of neurology lectures, and image banks.

“Physical therapy students and educators have long had a need for specific content that addresses the unique needs of their field,” says Scott Grillo, vice president and medical publisher of McGraw-Hill Professional. “AccessPhysiotherapy was developed with these needs in mind, and provides a multimedia-rich solution to the educational challenges faced by current and future PTs.”

Bringing together content from across McGraw-Hill Education, AccessPhysiotherapy also includes Anatomy and Physiology Revealed, a powerful cadaver dissection tool that offers users an unparalleled ability to explore the body and its systems. In the coming months, the site will also feature videos from Clinical Sports Medicine, a DVD developed by McGraw-Hill Australia for the critically-acclaimed textbook by the same name.

Click HERE to read full article.

accessmedicine.com 22 March 2010 http://www.accessmedicine.com/public/pressRoom.aspx?id=34

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Special Thanks to CINDAS for Their Donation to Chilean Universities!

May 7th, 2010

CINDAS LLC, a West Lafayette (Indiana) based company which provides technical, electronic databases to governmental research facilities, corporations and universities world-wide has donated the use of five of its web-based products to three Chilean universities devastated by the recent earthquake in Chile. The products are the Aerospace Structural Metals Database, the Thermophysical Properties of Matter Database, the Microelectronics Packaging Materials Database, the Structural Alloys Handbook and the Damage Tolerant Design Handbook.

The donation benefits the University of Talca, which is key for the development of the Maule Region where it is located (one of the three most devastated areas by the earthquake and the tsunami).  The University of Talca has 7000 students and 400 faculty
staff. Their estimated cost of reconstruction totals $9 million (USD).  The second university that will benefit from the CINDAS donation is the University of Concepción, located in the Region del Bio Bio.  This is the fourth largest university in the country, and probably the one that was hit the worst, not just by the earthquake, which caused a fire at the Chemistry Faculty Labs, but also by the powerful tsunami that nearly washed out its Marine Biology Department, located in Dichato. Universidad de Concepción has a population of over 21,700 students, which are enrolled in graduate and postgraduate programs.  For
more than 90 years, the University of Concepción has been key for the cultural, educational, technological, and economic development of the Region.  Their total estimated damage is $50 million (USD).

The third university is Universidad Santa María. Its main campuses are located in Valparaíso and Talcahuano where the campus library building suffered tremendous damage. For over 80 years USM, with a student population of 15,000, has distinguished itself as a first level university and research center in technologies. It is well-respected in the electronics and infrastructure industry for its consultants and researchers.

CINDAS LLC owners Patricia and Frank Mason of West Lafayette recently met with library representatives from Chile at an international Seminar of Innovation of Technological and Scientific Information in the Dominican Republic, sponsored by Systems Link International.  After hearing about the destruction of university buildings and the loss of research facilities, projects and data, the owners decided to offer free use of their products to the three universities for two years’ time. The information in the five databases will assist engineers in rebuilding the infrastructure of the country.

Upon hearing about the offer, Systems Link International President Robert Wing said that this generous offer will no doubt help not only the benefited universities, but also the engineers in the country in their study and development of better structures that will allow reducing the damage that this type of catastrophic natural disasters can cause to the country’s infrastructure.  This donation is also a reflection of the interest that the scientific publishers have in helping the development of research in the Latin American Region.

It is expected that the libraries will re-establish some internet connectivity in April and begin using the databases at that time.

CINDASdata.com 15 April 2010 https://cindasdata.com/products/updates#1271453228

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To Be the Best, Learn From the Rest

May 6th, 2010

YOUR plane crashes and you find yourself stranded in the middle of a vast jungle. How would you work out which fruits are safe to eat and where to find clean water? You could muddle along on your own for a while, but you would probably end up sick and very hungry. Far better to find some friendly locals and learn how they do things.

Learning from others is something we do all the time, not just in extremis. We are more reliant on so-called “social learning” than any other animal – it is thought to be at the core of culture and tradition and is credited with our successful colonisation of the planet. Yet no one knows exactly how social learning works. Obviously, copying others allows us to acquire useful knowledge without having to bear the costs of working everything out for ourselves. But there is a catch. If societies are to adapt to changing conditions, there must be innovation too – people cannot blindly copy everything because the information may be wrong, outdated or unavailable.

This problem has occupied Kevin Laland of the University of St Andrews, UK, for some time. “Individuals ought to be selective with respect to when they rely on social learning and from whom they learn,” he says. “Natural selection ought to have fashioned specific adaptive learning strategies.” But what are these strategies? If social learning is such a powerful force in our species’ success, surely we need to know when, where and why it happens. Yet previous attempts to answer these questions have only scratched the surface. Laland realised that if he was going to get anywhere he would have to come up with an original approach.

Until then, only a tiny fraction of the possible learning strategies had been investigated. The most thoroughly researched was the “conformist transmission model” – the idea that a person is more likely to copy traits that are common in the population than those that are rare. An alternative is “copy an expert”, which seems like a reasonable rule to follow when buying a new computer or shares on the stock market, for example. “Copy the most successful” also makes intuitive sense, although in our celebrity-oriented world there is a chance it might backfire – George Clooney may endorse a certain brand of coffee, but does he really know any more about beverages than the next person?

Click HERE to read full article.

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Diversity in Corals Affects Their Susceptibility to Temperature Change

May 6th, 2010

Washington, May 5 (ANI): The existing diversity in some coral populations could make them more susceptible to extreme temperature disturbances – such as those predicted from climate warming, according to an international team of marine biologists.

The team demonstrated that natural selection acting on the species of algae living within corals might determine which partnerships will survive when confronted with extreme temperatures changes.

Corals form symbiotic relationships with photosynthetic algae in order to survive. The algae provide the corals with nutrients and energy, while the corals provide the algae with nutrients and a place to live.

Scientists said that this delicate symbiosis is sensitive to changes in the environment, and especially to changes in temperature.

Click HERE to read full article.

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