Software Design Tools Research Articles

Technical Communication During Nuclear and Radiological Emergencies With the Tools to Support International Assessment and Prognosis

The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Incident and Emergency Centre (IEC) has custom designed software tools to support assessment and prognosis of nuclear and radiological emergency scenarios, aimed at ensuring consistent and concise technical reports for emergency assessments. In this paper the functionality, updating and structural development of emergency communications tools is presented, that lead the user through a series of questions with the aid of instructions that will collect relevant technical details and organize them into standardized reports. These reports can be exported for use in internal communication or communication with external stakeholders. This paper discusses enhancements in the suite of tools, specifically the reactor assessment tool (RAT), which was updated, the emergency response action, and the radiological source assessment tools, which were expanded and finally the development of two dose assessment tools (DAT) for internal and external exposure to radioactive substances.

Crisflash: open-source software to generate CRISPR guide RNAs against genomes annotated with individual variation.

SummaryCRISPR/Cas9 system requires short guide RNAs (sgRNAs) to direct genome modification. Most currently available tools for sgRNA design operate only with standard reference genomes, and are best suited for small-scale projects. To address these limitations, we developed Crisflash, a software tool for fast sgRNA design and potential off-target discovery, built for performance and flexibility. Crisflash can rapidly design CRISPR guides against any sequenced genome or genome sequences, and can optimize guide accuracy by incorporating user-supplied variant data. Crisflash is over an order of magnitude faster than comparable tools, even using a single CPU core, and efficiently and robustly scores the potential off-targeting of all possible candidate CRISPR guide oligonucleotides.Availability and implementation https://github.com/crisflash Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Development and testing of software tool for warehouse design and picking optimisation

Development and testing of software tool for warehouse design and picking optimisation

“ADVANCED COURSE ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING” ЯК ПЕРША МОДЕЛЬ ПІДГОТОВКИ ФАХІВЦІВ З ІНЖЕНЕРІЇ ПРОГРАМНОГО ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ

Designing a mobile-oriented environment for professional and practical training requires determining the stable (fundamental) and mobile (technological) components of its content and determining the appropriate model for specialist training. In order to determine the ratio of fundamental and technological in the content of software engineers’ training, a retrospective analysis of the first model of training software engineers developed in the early 1970s was carried out and its compliance with the current state of software engineering development as a field of knowledge and a new the standard of higher education in Ukraine, specialty 121 “Software Engineering”. It is determined that the consistency and scalability inherent in the historically first training program are largely consistent with the ideas of evolutionary software design. An analysis of its content also provided an opportunity to identify the links between the training for software engineers and training for computer science, computer engineering, cybersecurity, information systems and technologies. It has been established that the fundamental core of software engineers’ training should ensure that students achieve such leading learning outcomes: to know and put into practice the fundamental concepts, paradigms and basic principles of the functioning of language, instrumental and computational tools for software engineering; know and apply the appropriate mathematical concepts, methods of domain, system and object-oriented analysis and mathematical modeling for software development; put into practice the software tools for domain analysis, design, testing, visualization, measurement and documentation of software. It is shown that the formation of the relevant competencies of future software engineers must be carried out in the training of all disciplines of professional and practical training.

Application of model-based design tool X2C in induction machine vector control

Open source software tools for model-based design of embedded control systems represent a new method for rapid development and testing of advanced control structures in modern electric drives. The new concept of one of those tools, X2C, is presented in this paper, and in order to evaluate its performance in the development of complex control systems, it is applied to implement induction machine vector control. Based on the simulation model of the drive developed in PLECS, the parameters of the controllers were determined. The algorithm for the vector control of the induction machine was developed in X2C, implemented on the digital signal processor and applied to the real system. The system was tested during the no-load acceleration, deceleration, and reversing of the motor, while measuring the electrical and mechanical variables. Finally, the quantitative comparison of the experimental results and the results obtained by the equivalent simulations, based on the Integral Squared Error criterion, revealed that these results were well matched. This finding suggested that the control system was successfully implemented, thereby confirming the effectiveness of X2C tool in this particular type of application. With this work it has been shown that a transition from simulation to actual environment is rapidly achieved, with a simple verification of implemented methods accompanying the process. Realization of this work is a step forward in the utilization of open source software packages for implementation of induction machine vector control with the purpose of rapid verification of simulation models.

An integrated approach for sustainable product design: concurrent application of DFMA, DFE and CAD/CAE principles and tools

Contemporary Caribbean manufacturing organisations are faced with the issues of maintaining low manufacturing costs and producing eco-friendly and sustainable products, whilst ensuring efficient assemblies and short product development times. However, lack of specialised training and capital to invest in technologically intensive design methods hinders modernisation of the current product design processes. In this regard, this paper presents an integrated approach for sustainable re-design of products through the concurrent application of design for manufacture and assembly (DFMA), design for environment (DFE) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) in an effort to mitigate these issues while utilising existing computer-aided design (CAD) software tools and techniques. The proposed integrated approach attempts to improve overall assembly efficiency, product sustainability and component performance while simultaneously lowering manufacturing costs and ease of implementation. A case study of a computer keyboard shelf assembly was used to demonstrate the potentiality of the proposed approach. Significant improvements were observed in the study in the form of assembly labour cost, part count and total manufacturing cost which were reduced by 28%, 29% and 42%, respectively. The novel approach contributed by this study can allow Caribbean manufacturers to systematically and cost-effectively optimise their designs to better satisfy modern market requirements, thus ensuring product success.

Stand-alone power supply system with DC photo-diesel source

An object of research is a diesel power supply system of the decentralized village of Tokma, Irkutsk Region, Russia. The objective is to increase the contribution of the PV part of a photo-diesel electrical system operating in parallel with a diesel power plant to a stand-alone distribution network of DC compared to parallel PV and diesel stations operating on AC; quality improvement and voltage stabilization in the electrical network; cost reduction of generated electricity. Optimization of the characteristics of a stand-alone power supply system at a DC is a difficult task, due to the impossibility of conducting tests in a real electric power system, and the use of physical modeling because of its extreme complexity. Given this fact, the task is to design software and hardware tools for optimizing the parameters of a DC photo-diesel power system. The developed models use MS Excel, MatLab/Simulink software packages, as well as weather data bases. A software tool has been developed that allows for simulation modeling of operating modes of photo-diesel power supply systems, generation, consumption and insolation level of a decentralized consumer, as well as determining rational technical and economic parameters; criteria of expediency and efficiency of constructing photo-diesel electric systems with DC have been identified. As a result, the level of voltage drop is reduced compared to the AC power supply system, the cost of 1 kWh of electrical energy is lower than in the AC power supply system, and the negative environmental impact is reduced.

Text to Speech Synthesis System in Yoruba Language

Previous and existing studies convert texts to speech (English Language) without consideration for indigenous languages. This project work is an effort to design a speech extension that can convert the highlighted text displayed by a web browser to speech considering the indigenous Yoruba language through a designed software tool specifically attached to Mozilla internet as a plug-in. This software tool allows the user to highlight the text on the web page with the mouse. The selected text provides an input to the speech program that runs in the back end. The objective of this project work is to design a program that will help people with weak eyesight, those that lack in pronunciation skills and those learning the Yoruba language as an additional language skill; it is also designed to solve problems that exist when using the manual system which include difficulty in reading and misinterpretation of information. The methodology used to convert the text to speech are the API (Google-translate, speech’.org and ttsyoruba.com) and the programming language used for the web is JavaScript. A text to speech extension is an application that converts the highlighted texts into spoken words by analyzing and processing the text in the Yoruba language. The use of the text to speech is to read out the highlighted text to the user in the Yoruba language which can be saved as an audio file.

Optimized design of robust resonator with distributed time-delay

An extension of the well-known delayed resonator concept is proposed with the objective to enhance its robustness in vibration suppression under guaranteeing stability of the overall set up. The novel resonator feedback is based on an acceleration measurements passing through a delay of polynomial distribution. The feedback design is formulated as an optimization problem over the parameter set formed by the polynomial coefficients and the gain of the delay free part. The first objective is to minimize the sensitivity of the resonator performance with respect to variations of the excitation frequency, i.e. to widen its frequency stop-band centered at the nominal excitation frequency. The second, equally significant objective is to guarantee that this does not lead to instability of the overall mechanical system coupled with the absorber and to ensure sufficient stability margin. The arising non-convex and non-smooth optimization problem is widely discussed and a penalty method is developed, where the unconstrained problem in every iteration step is solved using available software tools for optimization and spectral design of time delay systems. The proposed design technique is validated by simulations for two case study examples.

Teaching From 1 to 9: A Progressive Teaching and Learning Experience

The peak quality of teaching and learning experience cannot be developed or fostered overnight; however, adopting a course design and delivery framework is instrumental in achieving such a level of peak quality at the teaching and learning process. This paper introduces a novel double-loop course design and delivery process and overall syllabus and course design framework that has been developed over the years and achieved great popularity among many engineering students. Over the time, a unified course design and delivery framework that encapsulate long lists of best practices have been developed which will be described in detail in this paper. A software tool for unified course design called Touch-it, a data-driven course analytics system, and grade reporting systems that augment the proposed framework will be highlighted as well. The experience reported should be useful for early career instructors or those who might be struggling in their teaching career.

Using model predictions of soil carbon in farm-scale auditing - A software tool

We introduce a software tool for optimal sampling design in the context of farm-scale soil carbon auditing, where the amount of sequestered soil carbon will be estimated from a random sample. Existing tools do not use available ancillary information, or do not have the functionality needed for farm-scale soil carbon auditing.Using a grid of predicted carbon content with associated uncertainty, the software optimises a stratified random sampling design, such that the profit is maximised on the basis of sequestered carbon price, sampling costs, and a trading parameter that balances farmer's and buyer's risks due to uncertainty of the estimated amount of sequestered carbon.As the algorithm is computationally intensive, the package is written in Julia for speed. From a case study we conclude that our software is an effective tool for farm-scale soil carbon auditing, and that it outperforms the existing tools in terms of efficiency and functionality.

Regenerator design optimization: Results from REGEN 3.3

The results from an extensive parametric study using the most recent version of the regenerator design software tool, REGEN3.3, are presented. By compiling the results from more than 10,000 applications of REGEN3.3 for three different temperatures (35 K, 60 K and 80 K), a wide range of frequencies (30–300 Hz), and a variety of regenerator length, inverse mass flux, and cold end phase angles, a group of performance maps have been generated that will enable regenerator optimization without having to learn REGEN3.3. Optimum results, defined by maximum COP values, are also provided in the form of a convenient correlation whereby the COP can be calculated directly from chosen values of cold end temperature, frequency, inverse mass flux, length, and cold end phase angle. One of the more interesting results revealed by this study is that the optimum value of COP is very broad. That is, changes by as much as 15% to 20% in the length, inverse mass flux, or cold end phase away from their optimized values degrade the COP by only 2%.

Perspective: Computational chemistry software and its advancement as illustrated through three grand challenge cases for molecular science.

The field of computational molecular sciences (CMSs) has made innumerable contributions to the understanding of the molecular phenomena that underlie and control chemical processes, which is manifested in a large number of community software projects and codes. The CMS community is now poised to take the next transformative steps of better training in modern software design and engineering methods and tools, increasing interoperability through more systematic adoption of agreed upon standards and accepted best-practices, overcoming unnecessary redundancy in software effort along with greater reproducibility, and increasing the deployment of new software onto hardware platforms from in-house clusters to mid-range computing systems through to modern supercomputers. This in turn will have future impact on the software that will be created to address grand challenge science that we illustrate here: the formulation of diverse catalysts, descriptions of long-range charge and excitation transfer, and development of structural ensembles for intrinsically disordered proteins.

Digital Superconducting Electronics Design Tools—Status and Roadmap

At the start of the most ambitious development program for superconducting electronics circuit design tools to date-the IARPA SuperTools Program-we compile a comprehensive overview of the state of design tool development and use in the superconducting electronics community. Earlier design software roadmaps and tools were focused heavily on the device and gate level, with reasonably simple synthesis at the level of thousands of gates. Today, this is mostly still adequate for analog circuits, but completely inadequate for very large scale integration digital systems. Superconducting electronics circuit design tools today are still fragmented, incomplete, and insufficient for the design of very large scale integration circuits. Electronic design tools should enable design and verification of integrated circuits from process modeling right up to full system yield and reliability modeling. Progress and requirements to bring about sophisticated design tools are discussed.

A review of microgrid development in the United States – A decade of progress on policies, demonstrations, controls, and software tools

Microgrids have become increasingly popular in the United States. Supported by favorable federal and local policies, microgrid projects can provide greater energy stability and resilience within a project site or community. This paper reviews major federal, state, and utility-level policies driving microgrid development in the United States. Representative U.S. demonstration projects are selected and their technical characteristics and non-technical features are introduced. The paper discusses trends in the technology development of microgrid systems as well as microgrid control methods and interactions within the electricity market. Software tools for microgrid design, planning, and performance analysis are illustrated with each tool’s core capability. Finally, the paper summarizes the successes and lessons learned during the recent expansion of the U.S. microgrid industry that may serve as a reference for other countries developing their own microgrid industries.

Neural Network Forecasting of Precipitation Volumes Using Patterns

Precipitation is an important part of hydrological and meteorological models. For this reason, the development of adequate mathematical techniques and the design of software tools for the processing of large volumes of collected observations are important tasks. In particular, this refers to methods using modern approaches based on neural networks. In addition, studies of various precipitation processes are actual in the context of global warming and climate change. The paper is devoted to a detailed study of the possibility of constructing high-precision precipitation forecasts based on neural networks within patterns as a data mining technique for the meteorological data processing. A sufficiently high accuracy of forecasts is demonstrated for various characteristics of test patterns: up to 97% of one-day forecasts and up to 90% of two-day forecasts are successful. In the software sense, the work with neural networks is based on the deep learning library Keras for the programming language Python. For the sake of illustration, graphics are prepared using MATLAB software solutions.

Assessing data analysis performance in research contexts: An experiment on accuracy, efficiency, productivity and researchers’ satisfaction

Any knowledge generation process involves raw data comprehension, evaluation and inferential reasoning. These practices, common to different disciplines, are known as data analysis, and represent the most important set of activities in research contexts. Researchers use data analysis software methods and tools for generating new knowledge in their daily data analysis. In recent years, data analysis software has been incorporating explicit references in modelling of cognitive processes, in order to improve the assistance offered in data analysis tasks. However, data analysis software commercial suites are still resisting this inclusion, and there is little empirical work done in knowing more about how cognitive aspects inclusion in software helps researchers in analyzing data.In this paper, we evaluate the impact produced by the explicit inclusion of cognitive processes in the assistance logic of software tools design and development. We conducted an empirical experiment comparing data analysis performance using traditional software versus data analysis performance using software-assistance tools which incorporate cognitive processes in their design. The experiment is designed in terms of accuracy, efficiency, productivity and user satisfaction during the data analysis made by researchers. It allowed us to find some clear benefits of the cognitive inclusion in the software designed for research contexts, with statistically significant differences in terms of accuracy, productivity and researcher's satisfaction in support of this explicit inclusion, although some efficiency weaknesses are detected. We also discuss the implications of these results for the priority of cognitive inclusion in the software tools design for research contexts data analysis.

Location-Optimized Aerodynamic Rotor Design of Small Wind Turbines and Lightweight Implementation Using Additive Hybrid Material

Abstract Wind power plays a crucial role in supplying cities with renewable energy. Combined with short transport routes, it is essential to establish site-specific small wind turbines in the urban environment. An increasing interest in small, decentralized, vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWT) can be observed here. However, concepts with low visual and auditory effects and economic efficiencies are largely limited. The project part described in this paper enables a specially developed design software tool of rotor geometries optimized for such boundary conditions. By using fiber-reinforced structures in combination with selective laser sintering, it is theoretically possible to economically produce even the smallest quantities of these geometries for a typical service life of wind turbines. The results presented and discussed in this work can serve as a basis for a subsequent feasibility study.

Mathematical Modeling of a Linear-Induction Motor Based on Detailed Equivalent Circuits

Electric drives based on traction linear-induction motors are used in industry and city transport. The main advantages of this electric drive are unrestricted acceleration and vehicle climbing angles, as well as ecological cleanliness. The development of high-speed design and analysis software tools for linear electric motors is thus becoming quite timely. The use of the finite-element method for solving field problems in a three-dimensional setting and dynamic vehicle-operation regimes is time-consuming. It is proposed to use a detailed magnetic equivalent circuit of a linear-induction-motor longitudinal section with the introduction of the Bolton coefficient to correct for the transverse-edge effect in a solid secondary element. Model features based on multilayer magnetic equivalent circuits are shown, and the effect of the number of layers on the designed motor-traction force is evaluated. When selecting an appropriate pole pitch-to motor gap ratio, a two-level equivalent circuit turns out to be suitable. The secondary element is represented in the model as a set of rectangular rods connected in parallel. The influence of the calculation method of the secondary rods’ motional EMF on the motor-traction-force accuracy is shown. The greatest error is observed in a low-slip region (when the motor passes into a generative braking regime) and the simplest spatial derivative of the magnetic flux. When the derivative calculation formula becomes more complicated, the indicated error sharply decreases. Another way to reduce the calculation error of the motional EMF in the secondary element circuit is to increase the number of these circuits by decreasing the width of the elementary rod. The prominence of the detailed magnetic equivalent-circuit method and convenience of online viewing should be noted.

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF PONs TOPOLOGIES

In this paper a performance analysis of passive optical networks (PONs) topologies is proposed. A powerful software design tool “OptiSystem” is used to analyze the performance and compare between two types of PONs topologies which are tree or star topology and bus topology. The performance analysis and comparison is performed in terms of communication distance, Q-factor, and bit error rate (BER) for each network topology. The proposed results are important to determine the maximum communication distances that can be reached by each topology with certain network parameters.