Engineering Vision Research Articles

Modified photoelectric performance by bandgap engineering in Al-doped α-Ga2O3 nanorod arrays

α-Ga2O3 has been attracted a focus of attention in ultraviolet detector applications due to its wide bandgap and cost-effective synthesis technology. This work presents Al-doped α-Ga2O3 nanorod arrays (AG-NRAs) synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method. The optical and photoelectric properties were systematically investigated. By adjusting Al-doping level, the bandgap can be regulated within a certain range from 4.39 to 4.78 eV. Solar blind UV photoresponse relied on the bandgap has been also studied by direct photocurrent measurements using a sandwich-structured FTO/AG-NRAs/FTO photoelectric device. The highest photocurrent density of 44.1pA/cm2 has been achieved in the specimen with Al-doping ratio of 0.15 with a rapid response time of 0.25 s. This finding offers an in-depth vision for bandgap engineering in AG-NRAs, and alternative approach for fabricating solar-blind UV detector.

The landscape of clinical trials in corneal regeneration: A systematic review of tissue engineering approaches in corneal disease.

The limited availability of a healthy donor cornea and the incidence of allograft failure led researchers to seek other corneal substitutes via tissue engineering. Exploring the trend of clinical trials of the cornea with the vision of tissue engineering provides an opportunity to reveal future potential corneal substitutes. The results of this clinical trial are beneficial for future study designs to overcome the limitations of current therapeutic approaches. In this study, registered clinical trials of bio-based approaches were reviewed for corneal regeneration on March 22, 2024. Among the 3955 registered trials for the cornea, 392 trials were included in this study, which categorized in three main bio-based scaffolds, stem cells, and bioactive macromolecules. In addition to the acellular cornea and human amniotic membrane, several bio-based materials have been introduced as corneal substrates such as collagen, fibrin, and agarose. However, some synthetic materials have been introduced in recent studies to improve the desired properties of bio-based scaffolds for corneal substitutes. Nevertheless, new insights into corneal regenerative medicine have recently emerged from cell sheets with autologous and allogeneic cell sources. In addition, the future perspective of corneal regeneration is described through a literature review of recent experimental models.

Model‐Based Architectural Patterns for Teaching Systems Engineering

AbstractSystems Engineering (SE) may be one of the fastest‐evolving engineering disciplines today. With each technological innovation, the practice of systems engineering is challenged to adapt. Two such practices that have been appearing in university curricula are Model‐Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and Architectural Patterns. The combination of MBSE and patterns has proven to be a powerful construct. This paper looks at the use of a space‐based patterns library (language) in a graduate‐level system engineering curriculum to teach MBSE. The International Council On Systems Engineering (INCOSE) “Systems Engineering Vision 2035” defines, that by 2035, the systems engineering practices will be based on a set of theoretical foundations and other general principles that are continuously taught as part of a systems engineering curriculum. This paper provides an approach and a solution to the needs of academic coursework for teaching model‐based systems engineering. The method presented in this paper details the usage of the pattern library concept developed for NASA and its usage by the systems engineering graduate students that eases the development of new space‐based systems architectures. Again, our objective is to incorporate INCOSE Vision 2035 in academia using Model‐Based Architectural Patterns for Teaching SE.

Building a Scientific Foundation for Security: Multilayer Network Model Insights for System Security Engineering

AbstractTo help incorporate security into INCOSE's Systems Engineering Vision 2035, the INCOSE systems security engineering working group endorses a paradigmatic shift to reframe systems security as trustworthy, loss‐driven, and capabilities‐based. Similar research out of Sandia National Laboratories has explored cutting‐edge approaches to systems security for national security applications. Together, these efforts highlight the need for—‐and a path toward—‐a scientific foundation for security. Leveraging underlying tenets of systems theory, observed security heuristics, and the concepts emerging from INCOSE's SSE working helps triangulate a set of “first principles” as part of a scientific foundation for security as an emergent systems property that incorporates traditional physical security designs, cyber security architectures, and personnel security programs—‐as well as the (often ignored) interactions between them. These first principles, in turn, are the basis for a set of derived systems security performance axioms that support current INCOSE SSE working efforts. We have demonstrated this approach's logic and designability with a multilayer network model‐based approach for systems security. The structure of this scientific foundation for security offers additional, innovative opportunities to achieve desired levels of trustworthiness, creative mechanisms to meet needs, innovative loss‐driven approaches, and enhanced capabilities—‐all aimed at producing more efficient and effective systems security solutions against current and emerging threats, uncertainties, and complexities.

A Framework to Use Bifurcation Analysis for Insight into Complex Systems Resilience

AbstractThe increasing complexity and integration of systems present challenges in understanding and managing these systems, as highlighted by the INCOSE Systems Engineering Vision for 2035. This complexity risks system failures due to insufficient understanding. Resilience Engineering is a field that focuses on system behavior in the face of disruptions. However, existing methods to measure resilience, such as probability‐based measures and linear recovery models, are limited by the non‐linear and dynamic nature of modern systems. Bifurcation Analysis, a mathematical system dynamics technique, offers a different perspective by examining how systems behave under changing conditions. This approach, developed in ecology and traditionally applied in fields including power systems and neural networks, can provide insights into the resilient characteristics of non‐linear systems. Despite its promise, Bifurcation Analysis is not usually associated with Resilience Engineering. This paper proposes using Bifurcation Analysis to understand system resilience better and support Resilience Engineering practitioners. It aims to bridge the gap between the two fields, offering a framework for integrating both approaches. This framework is then applied to a model system to demonstrate its potential to enhance the understanding of system resilience. Contributions are an overview of current Resilience Engineering and Bifurcation Analysis, a general‐use framework for practitioners, and an application of this framework. Future work will focus on applying the new framework to more cases, allowing for improved Resilience Engineering, and improving the framework to make it more accessible, versatile, and reliable.

Secure Design: A Principled Approach for Systems Engineers

AbstractINCOSE's Systems Engineering Vision 2035 sets a goal that security will be as foundational a perspective in systems design as system performance and safety are today. Such a design needs to be inherently secure (i.e., eliminate hazards, susceptibilities, and vulnerabilities to the extent possible and control the remaining ones are, while still enabling the system to meet performance requirements) and provide a basis for necessary security functionality. This paper discusses a principled approach and concepts for creating such a design. Activities for secure design across multiple MITRE sponsors and work programs with desired outcomes to the Vision 2035 goal inform. These activities include community outreach through workshops and public review of publications.

Security Interpretations and Elaborations on Systems Engineering Principles

AbstractINCOSE's Systems Engineering Vision 2035 includes thirty‐one mentions of security as part of the vision, including security to become as foundational a perspective to system design as performance and safety. INCOSE's Systems Engineering Principles technical product published a “first set of systems principles” (Watson, et al., 2022). This paper examines interpretations of these principles for security as captured in the vision and suggests modifications and possible additional principles to see security more integrated into the systems engineering process.

A Systematic Literature Review of Policy Analysis and Modeling in Systems Engineering

AbstractThe International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) defines systems engineering as “a transdisciplinary and integrative approach to enable the successful realization, use, and retirement of engineered systems, using systems principles and concepts, and scientific, technological, and management methods.” The evolution of engineering practices requires new research in the disciplinary intersections of scientific, technological, and management methods, especially when considering the INCOSE System Engineering Vision of 2035, which identified political, economic, social, technical, environmental, and legal factors as becoming modern tenets of system engineering success. Because vast amounts of research have been performed in multidisciplinary engineering areas, this paper examines the research landscape at the intersection of policy modeling and systems engineering by providing a systematic review of the literature to help guide future research based on trends and various guiding considerations. The results of this study will help identify gaps in the field while clarifying future research needs. We have applied the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta‐analyses (PRISMA) protocol, which yielded 38 peer‐reviewed papers related to policy modeling and systems engineering.

Visionary Innovations and The Highest Quality

Vision Engineering is a true British success story in designing and manufacturing high quality microscopes, digital instruments, and metrology systems. The Surrey-based company is also now targeting business growth in its manufacturing services division

A Computer Vision Engineering Management System for Automated Defect Detection in Electronic Components Manufacturing

Traditional digital image processing techniques face problems such as complex feature extraction and weak robustness when dealing with surface defects of multiple categories of electronic components. Deep learning is widely used in industrial defect detection. However, the performance of electronic component defect detection at the pixel segmentation level needs to be improved. For pixel-level defect detection, this paper constructs a defect detection model (ECSDDNet) for electronic component surface defects in computer vision engineering management system. To improve the segmentation accuracy and detection effect, three stages of experiments are conducted to address mis-segmentation problems and the shortcomings of the Unet network structure. Firstly, a classification network that can perform weight transfer is used to replace the encoding structure in the Unet network. Secondly, a simplified version of the feature fusion is proposed and added to the skip connection of the Unet network. Finally, label smoothing is used to optimize the loss and improve the generalization of the network. After the optimization experiment, some noisy contours and small defect contours that are mis-segmented are removed. Experimental results show that ECSDDNet has good segmentation effects on electronic component surface defects and can meet the segmentation and detection needs of electronic component surface defects.

The Reflex Republic: Physiologies of Art in the Early Soviet Union

Abstract In the immediate wake of the Russian Revolution, Pavlovian reflex conditioning was rapidly elevated to a universal materialist model for understanding and manipulating human behavior, including the production and reception of art. This article explores the little-known history of the “reflexology of art,” a movement that applied physiological concepts and techniques to drama, cinema, and literature with the aim of molding atomized individual subjectivities into a corporeal collective. This movement—which involved figures like Vsevolod Meyerhold, Sergei Eisenstein, and Sergei Tret'iakov—formed part of the highly politicized dialogue between science, politics and the arts in the 1920s. By reconstructing the critical discourse around the reflexology of art within the cultural production of the early Soviet state, the article sheds light on the contradictory impulses animating an avant-garde caught between deterministic visions of social engineering and the subversive passions of revolution.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the science of desalination- a far-reaching Review

Human civilization, science and technology are today in the midst of immense scientific rejuvenation, scientific ingenuity and engineering vision. Human scientific stance and ingenuity are in the middle of deep engineering catastrophe as regards provision of clean drinking water, proper sanitation and proper public health engineering. United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are today the pillars of man and mankind today. The domains of membrane science and desalination are the needs of science and technology today. The author deeply reiterates the veritable needs of the science of desalination in drinking water treatment and industrial wastewater treatment. In this article the author deeply touches upon the application areas and the concepts behind the application of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals which includes provision of pure drinking water. The vision of this study is to target the areas of water integrity and water sustainability in the futuristic vision and futuristic ingenuity of environmental engineering science and chemical process engineering.

A Model-Based Methodology for Life Cycle Assessment from Cradle-to-Grave Early in Product Design

The International Council for Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Vision 2035 states that future systems engineers will be required to routinely assess the environmental and societal impact of engineered systems. This paper addresses this need and presents a model-based methodology that expands the V-Model through the integration of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and the consideration of all life cycle stages from cradle-to-grave. The methodology is demonstrated using a Systems Modeling Language (SysML) model of a humanoid service robot. The case study demonstrates that Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) can support in assessing the environmental impact of a product from cradle-to-grave in early design stages. It, therefore, enables systems engineers to reduce environmental impact by identifying harmful components early on and adapting the product life cycle, when design changes are easy and incurred costs are low. This can support in verifying sustainability requirements and decision-making between different product variants to find the optimal sustainable solution. Finally, the case study is evaluated, limitations are discussed and recommendations for future research are provided.

Membrane Filtration of Surface water and Groundwater and the Application of Nanotechnology - A Far-reaching Review and a Visionary Future

The world of membrane separation processes and nanotechnology are in the avenues of new scientific regeneration and divinity. There are serious environmental engineering concerns in the global scenario. Excessive industrialization and rampant economic growth are threatening the global scientific and social fabric. Thus the need of conventional and non-conventional environmental engineering tools. In this treatise we discuss the rapid advances in the field of membrane separation processes and nanotechnology in the field of treatment of surface water and groundwater. The other areas of research endeavor are the application of membrane filtration and nanotechnology in arsenic and heavy metal groundwater remediation. This is a burning and vexing problem in many developing and developed nations around the globe. Thus the need of a deep scientific introspection and vast scientific and engineering vision in drinking water and industrial wastewater treatment.

The Disaster Protection System of Mountainous Rivers in Japan: The Example of the Akatani Watershed’s Reconstruction

On 5–6 July 2017, an unstable atmospheric condition caused an unusual concentration of rainfall above the Northern part of Kyushu Island, triggering a set of hydro-meteorological hazards. Within the affected area, the mountainous subwatershed of the Akatani River was significantly impacted by numerous landslides combined with debris flow and floods. National and local agencies deployed a plan of reconstruction to restore the floodplain and protect inhabitants. Regarding the hydrosystem in the Akatani watershed, this reconstruction project mainly focuses on the restoration of damaged protection systems and the construction of new infrastructures. Thus, this paper aims to explain the restoration plan of the Akatani River in terms of the strategic Japanese River System Sabo and then as a model of a national-scale spatial plan. It draws on (i) a literature review based on the historical evolution of Japanese protection systems and the River Sabo System; (ii) field surveys in 2019, 2022 and 2023, in conjunction with (iii) interviews with local, regional, and national officials; and (iv) a Geographical Information System analysis of previously and newly built protection systems through aerial photograph interpretation and geospatial data. Sabo works implemented in the Akatani watershed illustrate the engineering vision of Japanese river management. They also constitute a comprehensive system and include a downstream–upstream logic which echoes that of the River System Sabo. In addition, the disaster of July 2017 and the government’s response emphasize the continuous adaptation and improvement of the Japanese disaster management system, which mitigates severe disasters.

The vast scientific vision and scientific ingenuity in the field of nanofiltration, nanotechnology and water sustainability- A state of the art review

Science, man, mankind and vision are today in the avenues of scientific regeneration as regards application of United Nations and Global Sustainable Development Goals. Water sustainability and water integrity are the pillars of scientific regeneration today. They are the pillars of environmental pollution control today. Engineering, applied sciences and natural sciences needs to be re-envisioned and reframed as regards protection of human environment and ecological biodiversity. Human civilisation today stands in the pathway and crevice of scientific adjudication and engineering vision. Water sustainability and environmental sustainability are two opposite sides of the visionary engineering coin. In this article, the author deeply elucidates of the scientific and engineering vision of membrane separation processes such as nanofiltration, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. Besides the author deeply targets the needs of water sustainability in the futuristic emancipation of global research and development initiatives. A newer dawn in the field of water science and technology will usher in as humankind moves forward.

New Technology Installations To Ensure The Highest Quality

Hill Helicopter’s takes-off with new investment; new CMM at Driven Engineering opens new avenues; Vision Engineering launches new version of its Mantis; and Bowers Group upgrades Baty Fusion software

The Safety Aspect of Measuring System Trust

AbstractDigital transformation brings opportunities to improve how engineering data is tracked and interpreted. Safety analyses, a critical aspect of engineering, are more powerful when captured directly alongside foundational system models. Integrating analyses within the authoritative source of truth provides the team current information and improved context. A model‐based safety approach is a strong first step, but more opportunities await. The value of system safety metrics data increases significantly when elevated into actionable information that decision‐makers need. This paper articulates a specific approach to obtain the software safety aspect of the system trust metric for defense systems, recommends an initial structure of a system trust metric, and identifies future steps for this topic of research. Getting safety data into the digital engineering environment is the first step toward an overall system trust metric as described in the INCOSE 2035 Systems Engineering Vision.

Future Trends Influencing Technical Leaders and Technical Leadership

AbstractThis paper summarizes the authors' reflections on global trends and key factors influencing systems engineering in the post‐COVID era. The discussion builds upon INCOSE's Systems Engineering Vision 2035, as well as multiple virtual workshops and peer discussions conducted by the authors as part of their experience in INCOSE's Technical Leadership Institute (TLI). The authors focus on three key factors affecting technical leaders and their technical leadership role: (1) the heightened societal awareness of environmental concerns along with the associated demand for more environmentally friendly products, (2) the increasingly interconnected, multicultural, multigenerational work environment, and (3) the increasing capability of advanced digital tools, techniques, and processes. The authors' analysis acknowledges the need for technical leaders to think green, build an inclusive work environment, welcome differing viewpoints, avoid stereotyping, and expand their virtual tradecraft. Ultimately technology changes how technical leaders do their jobs, but not the job itself. Leaders must still set the vision and direction of the organization, communicate that vision to their stakeholders, and provide the resources and support that the team needs to achieve the vision. Emerging technologies offer leaders new and innovative means to do this in a more inviting and inclusive manner.

A systematic literature review of sociotechnical systems in systems engineering

AbstractSystems engineers use the term sociotechnical system in academic literature and in their practice. Sociotechnical systems are gaining more attention as systems engineers aspire to address the social elements of their systems engineering practice as well as societal challenges, such as those included in the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Vision 2035. Even though there is a basic working definition of sociotechnical system in the Systems Engineering Book of Knowledge (SEBoK), use of the term varies in systems engineering literature depending on application domain. As systems engineering research and practice venture into social domains, it is critical that systems engineers have a shared understanding of terms they use as a foundation of knowledge and practice. To contribute to this foundation, this study is a systematic literature review of how the term sociotechnical system is used in systems engineering literature. We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA) methodological framework and Web of Science (WoS) for conducting the systematic literature review. We only included peer‐reviewed systems engineering academic papers in this study, and these papers had to either explicitly define the term or implicitly define it by context in the paper. In total, 61 papers were included after inclusion criteria were met, and these were evaluated and synthesized into definition categories. Evaluation and synthesis were conducted according to the PRISMA framework by the study authors in order to manage bias. We found that most papers use sociotechnical system generically as a system that includes social (people) and technical elements. Papers with more refined definitions of sociotechnical system stem from two distinct theoretical traditions: ergonomics/safety and philosophy of engineering. We do not aim to propose a single, normative definition of sociotechnical system. This study is limited by including only systems engineering literature since sociotechnical system has established definitions in other disciplines (e.g., social sciences disciplines). However, the outcome of this study provides systems engineers with documented understanding of how the term sociotechnical system is used within systems engineering.