Professor Ladimer Nagurney Lectures on Disaster Communications at UMASS

Last week Professor Ladimer Nagurney gave a guest lecture on Disaster Communications in a course entitled Humanitarian Logistic and Healthcare at UMass. The course deals with responses to disasters and how humanitarian operations differ from other supply chain operations. It was interesting speaking to non-engineers on radio communications.

The lecture was posted at  

http://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/LNagurney-ICT-class.pdf

Society of Women Engineers Wins $5,000 Grant from Newman's Own

(L-R) Laurie Granstrand, manager of graduate programs in CETA; Lou Manzione, dean of CETA; Amy Golebieski, secretary of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE); Elsa Chin, Newman’s Own Foundation; Amy Sinkiewicz, president of SWE; Jenna Daly, member of SWE; Annie Becerra, vice president of SWE; and Roshel Vas, member of SWE.

 

The University's Society of Women Engineers won a $5,000 grant from Newman’s Own Foundation and was presented with a check during the America East Basketball Tournament at Chase Arena on Friday, March 2. The chapter received an honorable mention in the third annual Newman’s Own Foundation Campus Community Service Challenge.

The Society of Women Engineers was recognized for its efforts to expand SWEET Day (Society of Women Engineers Educating for Tomorrow), an annual event that brings high school students to campus to participate in engineering activities and demonstrations. The society plans to use the grant money to increase the number of students invited to SWEET Day.

The Newman’s Own Foundation Campus Community Service Challenge was developed to encourage the practice of philanthropy among younger generations, specifically on college campuses. Each of America East’s nine member universities nominated a student group for a Newman’s Own Foundation grant. The Foundation awarded more than $100,000 in grants through the competition.

Dautova, Milanovic, and Hammad Present Paper at Conference in India

Lyutsia Dautova, master of engineering student; Ivana Milanovic, associate professor of mechanical engineering, CETA; and Khaled J. Hammad, assistant professor of engineering at Central Connecticut State University, presented a research paper at the International Conference on Innovation and Trends in Applied Computing (ITAC), which took place in Nagpur, Maharashtra, India, in February.

The paper, "Experimentally Validated CFD Model of a Turbulent Jet Stirred Tank," focused on the capability of general purpose computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code to predict flow field inside a jet-stirred cylindrical vessel. The goal was to assess turbulence models and provide numerical data for various configurations of a fully developed turbulent jet. ANSYS Fluent was used to model the submerged jet issued vertically downward from a long pipe. Simulation results for symmetrical jet placement were validated with Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements.

This work can be found in the ITAC 2012 proceedings published in book form: Dautova, L., Milanovic, I., & Hammad, K. J. (2012). Experimentally Validated CFD Model of a Turbulent Jet Stirred Tank. In M. Kshirsagar, B. Patil, U. Gawande, L. Manzione, D. Shetty, & T. Eppes (Eds.), Proceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Trends in Applied Computing. (pp. 7-13). Nagpur, Maharashtra, India.

Competition for Architecture Students to Design a Home with 'Visitability'

College and university students around Connecticut who are enrolled in an architectural curriculum are being challenged to design a 2,000-square-foot home using the three features of "visitability" in the final home plan, incorporating features that make the dwelling accessible to people of all ages and abilities.

The three main features of visitability in home building design include one zero/no step entrance, hallways that offer at least 32” of clear passage as well as wider hallways, and a bath on the main living floor that is large enough for someone with a mobility device or wheelchair to use.

Working with University of Hartford Associate Professor of Architecture James Fuller, the Connecticut Association of Centers for Independent Living, SILC and Independence Unlimited are sponsors of the 2012 Visitability Home Design Contest. These agencies hope to encourage young architects to utilize their skills in creating home plans that meet all of a family’s needs throughout their lifetime.

The design contest is offering prizes to those students or teams of students that apply the principles of visitability to creative home designs that are also aesthetically pleasing and practical. A plot plan, floor plan and scale model of the final design is required in order to participate in the contest.

Registrations are being accepted until March 23 to participate in the contest, with entries due April 25, 2012. Awards will be presented on June 7, 2012. All participants will receive a certificate.

To register for the contest, please contact Susan Salters at 860.523.5021 ext. 104 or email  ssalters@independenceunlimited.org. You can also contact Associate Professor James Fuller at 860.768.5137 or fuller@hartford.edu.

Independence Unlimited is a non-profit, non-residential center for independent living that helps Connecticut residents with disabilities to live independently in the community. Our goal is to increase the number of homes built with basic, simple accessibility features so people of all ages and abilities can find their place to call home.

For more information, contact Salters at 860.523.5021 ext. 104 or email  ssalters@independenceunlimited.org. You can also follow Independence Unlimited on Facebook.

Source: http://www.hartford.edu/daily/Articles.asp?MainID=12589&Category=1

O'Shea Claims Conference Lacrosse Honors for Third Time This Season

O'Shea Claims Conference Lacrosse Honors for Third Time This Season

For the third time in four weeks, University of Hartford men’s lacrosse player Kevin O'Shea was named the America East’s Rookie of the Week.

O’Shea took home the top rookie honor after pouring in a career-high five points on three goals and a pair of assists in the Hawks’ 20-6 victory over Brown last Wednesday. The hat trick was the second of his career.

In a game at fith-ranked Massachusetts on Saturday, he accounted for two of Hartford’s five goals in the loss, marking his fourth multi-goal outing in five games.

A native of Dix Hills, N.Y., O’Shea leads the Hawks’ attack and is ranked among America East leaders with 14 points, including a team-best 11 goals. The league's top freshman in points and goals, O’Shea is tied for fourth in the league with 2.80 points per game and also ranks fourth with 2.20 goals per game

Professor Crosbie published in Hartford Courant

Michael Crosbie, chair of the department of architecture in the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture, had an opinion article published in the Thursday, March 15, edition of the Hartford Courant. Crosbie wrote about the wastefulness involved in constructing the tallest building in the world in the middle of the desert city of Dubai. Click here to read his article.

Fang Presents Two Research Papers at TRB Meeting

Clara Fang, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, CETA, presented two research papers at the 91st Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting held in Washington, D.C., in January.

Co-authored with graduate student Patrick Creary and Alireza Jamalipour, P.E., of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, the paper entitled "Development and Practical Application of Artificial Neural Networks in Bridge Level Condition Prediction" developed a revised algorithm. The neural nets algorithm is capable of producing an accurate prediction down to a root mean square error of 10.05% on the best trial. This study considers data mining of about 10,000 inspection records from more than 5,000 bridges in Connecticut during the time span of 2006 to 2009.

The research titled "An Evaluation of the HCM 2010 Operational Analysis Methodology for Interchange Ramp Terminals Using Field Data" was co-authored with colleagues at the University of Florida and is funded by the National Academies. Data was collected at eight sites (two in Connecticut) representing various types of interchanges, with different geometric and traffic characteristics. The research developed a new lane utilization model, modified the effective green time estimation and calibrated queue length prediction. The research findings were incorporated into the new edition of the Highway Capacity Manual 2010, the single most cited traffic engineering guide worldwide.

The TRB Annual Meeting is the premier conference in transportation, attracting more than 10,000 attendees each year. The conference has a research paper acceptance rate of less than 50%.

Vigeant Receives Highly Competitive NSF CAREER Award

Michelle Vigeant, assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department and Acoustics Program in the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture (CETA), has been awarded a highly competitive Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). She is the first University of Hartford faculty member to receive an NSF CAREER Award.

The NSF CAREER grant is the most prestigious award for a junior faculty member in engineering and the sciences, and it is sought by researchers from top science and engineering programs around the country. Vigeant received the award on her first attempt, which is extremely rare.

Vigeant was awarded $422,814 over a five-year period for her project, “Importance of
Late-Sound-Field Properties and Listener Envelopment to Room Acoustic Quality and Design.” The grant runs from June 1, 2012 to May 31, 2017. See the abstract for Vigeant’s award.

The overall goal of the project is to investigate the sense of acoustics quality in concert halls and to find a measurable quantity that can be used to quantify the acoustics of halls. A particular component of perceived concert hall acoustics is listener envelopment, the sense  of being immersed in the sound in the hall, or in other words the perception that sound is arriving in all directions, not just from the front. This property will be investigated in great detail and its relationship to perceived quality will also be investigated. The project includes taking measurements in a number of concert halls in both the United States and Europe. In addition, international collaborations will be established with Dr. John S. Bradley at the National Research Council of Canada and Prof. Michael Vorländer of the Institute for Technical Acoustics at RWTW Aachen University in Germany.

The project will include research opportunities for approximately 15 undergraduate students in the acoustics program at the University of Hartford. Women students in particular will be recruited to work on the project, as women remain under-represented in the engineering profession. Over the course of the five-year project, three students will assist with the research per year, with one during the academic year and two during the summer months. The students will get to participate with taking measurements in concert halls and also testing human subjects using listening tests in the anechoic chamber in the University of Hartford’s Acoustics Laboratory. A summer program for undergraduate students working in the STEM fields will be created to promote a sense of community and also to provide seminars about relevant topics, such as pursuing graduate studies.

The grant proposal also includes educational outreach in local area elementary and middle-schools to expose young students to science and to a woman scientist role model by interacting with the students through educational activities. Vigeant will collaborate with the Connecticut Science Center to enhance the educational outreach for fifth-grade students for the unit on sound. In addition, through a collaboration with the Acoustical Society of America’s Education Committee, Vigeant will create activity kits to introduce students to the topics of sound through interactive, hands-on activities. The kits will be tested in local area schools, including the University of Hartford’s Elementary Magnet School and Annie Fisher School (K-8), which includes a STEM focus in their curriculum. 

Vigeant earned a PhD in engineering, focusing on architectural acoustics, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and she received a BSc in mechanical engineering from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Her research interests include architectural acoustics, specifically room acoustics measurement parameters and computer modeling. She is a member of the Acoustical Society of America, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Society for Engineering Education.

 
The NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.

Track and Field Teams Set Nine School Records Many of them CETA students!

The University of Hartford men’s and women’s track and field teams wrapped up competition at the 2012 America East Indoor Track & Field Championship at the BU Track and Tennis Center. The two squads combined to match or break nine school records over the two-day championship meet.
Senior sprinter Anderson Emerole    CETA STUDENT had the top performance of any Hawk, picking up a second-place finish in the men’s 400-meter dash final Saturday. Emerole crossed the line in 48.26 seconds, breaking his own school record, which he set in 2011, by .14 seconds. Emerole’s second-place finish earned eight points for the Hawk men.
The men broke two more records in the distance events, with junior Wayne Lawrence and senior Andrew Chalmers improving their own top school marks.
Lawrence broke his own record in the 1,000-meter run, covering the distance 2:31.77, more than one second better than the previous record. Lawrence finished 10^th in the event at the championship.
Chalmers, who set the record for the 5,000 meters at the championship meet on Friday, finished the 3,000 meters in a time of 8:32.14, .54 seconds faster than his 2011 record pace. Chalmers finished 13^th overall in the event.
"Andy Chalmers has been on fire," said head coach Mike DuPaul. "In the past three weeks, he's run a lifetime best time in the 400, 800, mile 3,000 and 5,000 meters, the last three of which were also school record times."
Jonathan Choiniere and John Busque also posted personal-best times Saturday Choiniere improved his mile time by nearly seven seconds while Busque lowered his best time by more than ten seconds in the 5,000 meters.
In addition to Chalmers’ record-setting run on Friday, the men matched or tied two other records. Senior Cody Adamson  CETA STUDENT  tied the school mark in the 60-meter hurdles with his time of 8.86 seconds. The Hawks also set a new school record in the distance-medley relay.
On the women’s side, freshman Sam Crisafulli set a school record in the 80-meter run, finishing seventh overall. Crisafulli completed the race with a time of 2:17.47. The freshman’s time at the championship broke the record she set at that distance last December.
In the sprint finals, a pair of women picked up points with seventh-place finishes. Junior Priscilla Appiagyei  finished seventh in the 400-meter final with her time of 57.58. Freshman Tiffany Harrison posted a time of 1:15.99 to finish seventh in the 500-meter dash. Harrison set the Hartford record in the distance in the championship preliminary round Friday.
The Hawk women set one other record on day one of the championship as the distance-medley relay bettered the school mark.
In the field, sophomore Alisha Beeman also picked up a seventh-place medal in the high jump, clearing a height of 1.58 meters.

CETA student Kudernatsch Named America East Baseball Player of the Week

University of Hartford senior infielder Simon Kudernatsch scored the first America East Player of the Week honor as announced by the league on Tuesday afternoon. The Czech Republic native opened up his final campaign with the Hawks by hitting .615 against #15 Oklahoma on 8-of-13 at the plate with three runs scored and six RBI over the three game series.

Batting in the number two spot, Kudernatsch finished the weekend series with a 1.000 slugging percentage, a .643 on-base percentage and a .923 fielding percentage at third base. Four of his eight hits went for extra bases including a team-best three doubles and the Hawks first triple of 2012.

Kudernatsch opened the season and the series with a 4-of-5 performance at the plate to tie his career high for hits in a single game. He also scored two runs and knocked in one in Friday’s opener. On Saturday, Kudernatsch finished 3-of-4 at the plate, while driving in four runs. He added another RBI in Sunday’s series finale, while also successful in his only stolen base attempt of the weekend.

It's Two Straight Weekly Honors for Lacrosse's O'Shea

For the second-straight week, University of Hartford lacrosse player Kevin O'Shea was tabbed the America East Rookie of the Week as announced by the conference office on Monday afternoon. O’Shea earned the honor of the league’s top rookie after scoring twice and adding an assist in Hartford’s 15-14 overtime loss to Holy Cross on Saturday.

A freshman attackman, O’Shea got his afternoon going on Saturday with an assist on Hartford’s fourth goal of the afternoon in its home debut. He followed suit with the Hawks’ fifth marker with 7:48 to go in the first to provide Hartford with a 5-3 advantage. O’Shea, who also picked up four ground balls, netted his final goal with eight minutes left in the second quarter, an unassisted score that put Hartford ahead by one point at 7-6.

Last week, O’Shea took home the accolade after handing in a high-scoring performance in his collegiate debut at then-ranked No. 8 Maryland. He came off of the bench to net a hat trick in the Hawks’ season opener, a 12-6 loss to the Terrapins.

O’Shea is tied for the team lead in points (6) and has netted a squad-best five goals

Triple Amputee Athlete Cameron Clapp to Give Talk on March 8

Please join the Prosthetics and Orthotics Program and the Center for Health, Care and Well-being (ENHP) in welcoming Cameron Clapp to campus.

Clapp is a triple amputee athlete who competes in running, swimming and golfing events. A mentor and advocate for other amputees, Clapp will share his story of overcoming adversity and becoming a successful athlete and actor.

Clapp will speak on Thursday, March 8, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in Wilde Auditorium. His talk is free and open to the public.

Download a flyer about Clapp's upcoming talk.