Use of Living Systems to Teach Basic Engineering Concepts

2010 ◽  
pp. 96-107
Author(s):  
Kauser Jahan ◽  
Jess W. Everett ◽  
Gina Tang ◽  
Stephanie Farrell ◽  
Hong Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Cumberland County ◽  
Engineering Discipline ◽  
Rowan University ◽  
Rapid Dissemination ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Aquatic Sciences ◽  
Dynamic Website

Engineering educators have typically used non-living systems or products to demonstrate engineering principles. Each traditional engineering discipline has its own products or processes that they use to demonstrate concepts and principles relevant to the discipline. In recent years engineering education has undergone major changes with a drive to incorporate sustainability and green engineering concepts into the curriculum. As such an innovative initiative has been undertaken to use a living system such as an aquarium to teach basic engineering principles. Activities and course content were developed for a freshman engineering class at Rowan University and the Cumberland County College and K-12 outreach for the New Jersey Academy for Aquatic Sciences. All developed materials are available on a dynamic website for rapid dissemination and adoption.

Discontinuous and continuous transitions of collective behaviors in living systems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Li ◽  
Tingting Xue ◽  
Yu Sun ◽  
Jingfang Fan ◽  
Hui Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Collective Motion ◽  
Finite Size ◽  
Continuous Phase ◽  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Finite Size Scaling ◽  
Continuous Transition ◽  
Collective Behaviors ◽  
Large Groups

Abstract Living systems are full of astonishing diversity and complexity of life. Despite differences in the length scales and cognitive abilities of these systems, collective motion of large groups of individuals can emerge. It is of great importance to seek for the fundamental principles of collective motion, such as phase transitions and their natures. Via an eigen microstate approach, we have found a discontinuous transition of density and a continuous transition of velocity in the Vicsek models of collective motion, which are identified by the finite-size scaling form of order-parameter. At strong noise, living systems behave like gas. With the decrease of noise, the interactions between the particles of a living system become stronger and make them come closer. The living system experiences then a discontinuous gas-liquid like transition of density. The even stronger interactions at smaller noise make the velocity directions of particles become ordered and there is a continuous phase transition of collective motion in addition.

scholarly journals Integrative concept of homeostasis: translating physiology into medicine

F1000Research ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 299
Author(s):  
Ivan Spasojević
Keyword(s):  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Initial Condition ◽  
Adult Human ◽  
Input Side ◽  
Tremendous Amount ◽  
To Come ◽  
Integrative Concept ◽  
The One ◽  
Reductionist Approach

To truly understand living systems they must be viewed as a whole. In order to achieve this and to come to some law that living systems comply with, the reductionist approach, which has delivered a tremendous amount of data so far, should be complemented with integrative concepts. The current paper represents my humble attempt towards an integrative concept of homeostasis that would describe the (patho)physiological setup of adult human/mammal system, and that might be applicable in medicine. Homeostasis can be defined as time- and initial-condition-independent globally stabile state of non-equilibrium of a living system in which the interactions of system with the surroundings and internal processes are overall in balance or very near it. The presence of homeostasis or the shift from homeostasis of an adult human/mammal system can be described by equation that takes into account energy and informational input and output, catabolism and anabolism, oxidation and reduction, and entropy, where changes in the input should equal changes in the output within a specific period of time. Catabolism and oxidation are presented on the input side since the drive of the surroundings is to decompose and oxidize living systems, i.e. systems are under constant 'catabolic and oxidative pressure'. According to the equation, homeostasis might be regained by changing any of the input or output components in a proper manner (and within certain limits), not only the one(s) that has/have been changed in the first place resulting in the deviation from homeostasis.

Instructional Design for Millennials

2016 ◽  
pp. 1980-2004
Author(s):  
William Loose ◽  
Teri Marcos
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Instructional Design ◽  
State Standards ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Changing Practice ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Delivery Models

The authors have worked since 2000 to prepare school leaders at two California Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) in partnership with K-12 public, private, and charter schools. While transforming their programs into virtual delivery models, as an option for students, both online and face-to-face hybrid formats require conditions that help students effectively succeed as learners. Over fifteen years the authors have narrowed discussions for efficient facilitation and mapping to course content while personalizing lessons to deeply engage their learners' creation of new knowledge. They make twenty-three recommendations for streamlining course content, assignments, and assessments to meet individual needs of students while meeting the expectations and challenges of changing national and state standards. The authors conclude that ‘thinking anew' through faculty ideation is a must for IHEs as the changing learner demands changing practice.

Instructional Design for Millennials

2016 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
William Loose ◽  
Teri Marcos
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Instructional Design ◽  
State Standards ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Changing Practice ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Delivery Models

The authors have worked since 2000 to prepare school leaders at two California Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) in partnership with K-12 public, private, and charter schools. While transforming their programs into virtual delivery models, as an option for students, both online and face-to-face hybrid formats require conditions that help students effectively succeed as learners. Over fifteen years the authors have narrowed discussions for efficient facilitation and mapping to course content while personalizing lessons to deeply engage their learners' creation of new knowledge. They make twenty-three recommendations for streamlining course content, assignments, and assessments to meet individual needs of students while meeting the expectations and challenges of changing national and state standards. The authors conclude that ‘thinking anew' through faculty ideation is a must for IHEs as the changing learner demands changing practice.

Trends and Issues of Virtual K-12 Schools

2011 ◽  
pp. 1898-1901
Author(s):  
Belinda Davis Lazarus
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
The United States ◽  
Virtual Schools ◽  
Virtual School ◽  
Virtual High School ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Start Up ◽  
Rapid Pace ◽  
K 12

Increasingly, K-12 schools are delivering instruction via Internet courses that allow students to access course content and complete assignments from home. According to a recent survey conducted by Education Week, 27 states in the United States have spent public monies to establish virtual public or charter schools. For example, over the past 5 years, the Florida Virtual School has spent $23 million and offered 62 online courses to over 8,000 students. Kentucky Virtual High School, which offers approximately 40 courses and enrolls approximately 750 students annually, has a budget of about $400,000 per. The Michigan Virtual High School is funded for $15 million for start-up costs with $1.5 million allocated annually for operational costs. And the Virtual High School International, a nonprofit collaborative of 200 national and international schools with a budget of $10 million, offers 160 courses to students in 16 countries. In spite of declining budgets, the growth of K-12 virtual schools continues at a rapid pace (Park & Staresina, 2004).

scholarly journals Implementing Engineering and Sustainability Curriculum in K-12 Education

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie L. Robinson ◽  
Jennifer A. Mangold
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Students ◽  
Industrial Ecology ◽  
School Students ◽  
Engineering Project ◽  
Engineering Discipline ◽  
Applied Design ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Sustainability Curriculum ◽  
The University ◽  
Engineering Projects

Introducing students to engineering concepts in early education is critical, as literature has shown that students’ degree of comfort and acceptance of science and technology is developed very early on in their education. While introducing engineering as a potential profession in K-12 classrooms has its own merits, it has also proven itself to be useful as a teaching tool. Engineering can lend itself to concepts that can engage students in critical thinking, problem solving, as well as the development of math and science skills. In engineering higher education there has been an increased focus on industrial ecology and sustainability in order to help students understand the environmental and social context within today’s society. The authors of this paper discuss the importance of these attributes when introducing engineering to K-12 students. Engineering and sustainability are not two mutually exclusive concepts, but sustainability should be considered throughout the practice of the engineering discipline. The ADEPT (Applied Design Engineering Project Teams) program at the University of California, Berkeley was established to design and deploy a standards-based engineering curriculum for middle schools and high schools (grades 6–12) designed to integrate mathematics and science concepts in applied engineering projects, inspire secondary students, and strengthen the classroom experience of current and future faculty in math, science, and engineering. This paper discusses the importance of introducing engineering and sustainability in K-12 classrooms. Example modules that were developed through the ADEPT program are presented as well as a set of recommendations that were designed as a guideline for educators to incorporate engineering and sustainability in K-12 classrooms. While the module discussed here was designed for middle school students, the curriculum and criteria recommended can be adapted to primary and secondary education programs.

Art as a Living System: Interactive Computer Artworks

Leonardo ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 165-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christa Sommerer ◽  
Laurent Mignonneau
Keyword(s):  
Image Processing ◽  
Human Computer Interaction ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Artificial Life ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Time Interaction ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Interactive Installations

The authors design computer installations that integrate artificial life and real life by means of human-computer interaction. While exploring real-time interaction and evolutionary image processes, visitors to their interactive installations become essential parts of the systems by transferring the individual behaviors, emotions and personalities to the works' image processing. Images in these installations are not static, pre-fixed or predictable, but “living systems” themselves, representing minute changes in the viewers' interactions with the installations' evolutionary image processes.

scholarly journals REPLICATION AND EVOLUTION OF QUANTUM SPECIES

2004 ◽  
Vol 04 (03) ◽  
pp. R27-R38 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARUN K. PATI
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Information ◽  
Artificial Life ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Closed Universe ◽  
Basic Features

We dwell upon the physicist's conception of 'life' since Schrödinger and Wigner through to the modern-day language of living systems in the light of quantum information. We discuss some basic features of a living system such as ordinary replication and evolution in terms of quantum bio-information. We also discuss the principle of no-culling of living replicas. We show that in a collection of identical species there can be no entanglement between one of the mutated copies and the rest of the species in a closed universe. Even though these discussions revolve around 'artificial life' they may still be applicable in real biological systems under suitable conditions.

scholarly journals Systèmes vivants : Lois locales et globales, invariance d'échelle

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 195-218
Author(s):  
Pierre Bricage
Keyword(s):  
Power Law ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Duration Time ◽  
Constructal Law ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Qualitative Characteristics ◽  
Organizing Principles

To survive that is 'to eat and not to be eaten', to live on [9, 11]. Any living system [10], to survive and live on [9], whatever is its spatial [28] and temporal [23, 29, 35] level of organization, owns 7 invariant qualitative characteristics (degrees of freedom) [19]. Any alive system is formed by embedding and juxtapositions [17] of pre-existing systems [22]. How are the local quantitative laws, of their spatial-temporal structuring and functioning, associated with these qualitative characteristics independently from the dimensional scales? How are they independent/dependent from the new global level of organization and the local situations of emergence? How do the local actors become mutually integrated into their global whole? And reversely (systemic constructal law [4]), why and how is the global whole reciprocally integrating the local parceners [18, 20]? At every level of organization, the evolution of the living systems obeys 5 organizing principles of emergence [33] and the space (the volume of the adult system VA) and the duration (time of generation tg) are linked through a power law (generalized Kepler's 3rd law like VA2 = C.tg3), a law of growth (figure 3) and exchange (figure 4). As all the sub-systems which live in it, the whole Universe is living in an ecoexotope that it can share with other Universes.

Living Machines

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony J. Prescott ◽  
Paul F. M. J. Verschure
Keyword(s):  
Biological Systems ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Living System ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Novel Technologies ◽  
Biological Component

Biomimetics is the development of novel technologies through the distillation of principles from the study of biological systems. Biohybrid systems are formed by at least one biological component—an already existing living system—and at least one artificial, newly engineered component. The development of either biomimetic or biohybrid systems requires a deep understanding of the operation of living systems, and the two fields are united under the theme of “living machines”—the idea that we can construct artifacts that not only mimic life but share some of the same fundamental principles. This chapter sets out the philosophy and history underlying this Living Machines approach and sets the scene for the remainder of this book.

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