RC-INSANE – an interactive environment for nonlinear analysis of reinforced concrete structures

The development of numerical and computational resources that can present reliable models for the analysis of reinforced concrete structures is mainly driven by its widespread use. Considering that reinforced concrete is a composite material and bond is the load-carrying mechanism, these models must consider that the structural behavior is affected by the interaction between concrete and reinforcement. On this basis, the Finite Element Method (FEM) is a well-established method able to provide consistent results for reinforced concrete modeling through reinforcement and bond models. Nevertheless, to simplify the analysis, the hypothesis of strain compatibility between concrete and reinforcement is usually considered. Under certain loads and specific geometries, this hypothesis is not valid, and the bond-slip phenomenon must be considered to fully characterize the structural behavior. To fulfill this need, this paper presents a graphic interface that enables the modeling of reinforced concrete structures through discrete and embedded reinforcement models, with the possibility to include the bond-slip phenomenon based on several constitutive laws proposed in the literature. The computational implementations were held in the INSANE (INteractive Structural ANalysis Environment), an open-source software based on the Object-Oriented Programming paradigm, which enclosures several constitutive models for nonlinear concrete modeling and different numerical techniques, and a post-processing application able to represent the results by way of a friendly-user graphic interface.

Implementation of a Graphic Interface Development Tool for Prolog

The work examines the current problems of the spread of use of logical programming in the development of commercial multi-platform software applications, tools for convenient development of a modern graphical interface to the logical programs. Libraries with similar concepts of use have been analyzed and described. The purpose of the proposed concept, which is implemented as an open source library, is described, and the advantages of the proposed tools over similar existing tools are indicated. The main feature and advantage of the proposed concept is the implementation of Prolog business logic and interface by means of JavaScript usage of child processes. The proposed concept of interface to Prolog takes full advantage of the possibilities provided by async await. A framework library has been created for the use of Logic Programming in graphical interface development without losses in the application performance. The paper describes the proposed concept and the developed framework (library). The ways to further improve the possibilities for expanding the purpose of the implemented library were identified. The directions of further simplification for programmers of integration of the graphic interface to logical programs have been defined. A significant advantage of the proposed tool is the easy-to-use functions to wrap and control the correctness of requests to the Prolog. The main goal of the library is to create an environment for the Prolog developers where they can create any type of software, which is meant to be user friendly, fast, and cross platform using modern and flexible. This concept also tries to solve disadvantages and architectural problems that were found in other libraries. The safety of library functionality has been analyzed. The concept of potential horizontal application scalability is described. Conclusions and future of libraries were introduced, in which the usage of TypeScript for type-safety and avoidance of run-time errors is mentioned. Overall, the library extends the use of Prolog beyond logical programming and takes a leap forward in its progress.

MoloVol: an easy-to-use program to calculate various volumes and surface areas of chemical structures and identify cavities

Cavities are a ubiquitous feature of chemical structures encountered in various fields ranging from supramolecular chemistry to molecular biology. They are involved in the encapsulation, transport, and transformation of guest molecules, thus necessitating a precise and accessible tool for estimating and visualizing their size and shape. MoloVol, a free, user-parametrizable, open-source software, developed for calculating a range of geometric features for both unit cell and isolated structures is presented here. MoloVol utilizes up to two spherical probes to define cavities, surfaces, and volumes. The program was optimized by combining an octree data structure with voxel-partitioned space allowing for even high-resolution protein structure calculations at reasonable timescales. MoloVol comes with a user-friendly graphic interface along with a command line interface for high throughput calculations. It was written in C++ and is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux distributions.

A Space for Making: Collaborative composition as social participation

Music composition is traditionally regarded as an act of individual creation and expression, but can be approached, through the aid of digital platforms, as an activity that encourages learning through social participation. This article describes the development of a tablet-based app, Paynter, intended as a digital graphic interface for group collaborative composition and its experimental use in a primary school in Salford, UK, alongside musicians from the BBC Philharmonic orchestra. The app created a framework for a negotiated language of symbols used by two groups of students at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 to tell stories through sound and music. Its functionality enabled compositional thinking to emerge collectively from groups with relatively little exposure to the idea of composing and little knowledge of traditional notational or digital sequencing technologies. The research is grounded in a theoretical context of constructivist approaches to education.

Flame: an open source framework for model development, hosting, and usage in production environments

This article describes Flame, an open source software for building predictive models and supporting their use in production environments. Flame is a web application with a web-based graphic interface, which can be used as a desktop application or installed in a server receiving requests from multiple users. Models can be built starting from any collection of biologically annotated chemical structures since the software supports structural normalization, molecular descriptor calculation, and machine learning model generation using predefined workflows. The model building workflow can be customized from the graphic interface, selecting the type of normalization, molecular descriptors, and machine learning algorithm to be used from a panel of state-of-the-art methods implemented natively. Moreover, Flame implements a mechanism allowing to extend its source code, adding unlimited model customization. Models generated with Flame can be easily exported, facilitating collaborative model development. All models are stored in a model repository supporting model versioning. Models are identified by unique model IDs and include detailed documentation formatted using widely accepted standards. The current version is the result of nearly 3 years of development in collaboration with users from the pharmaceutical industry within the IMI eTRANSAFE project, which aims, among other objectives, to develop high-quality predictive models based on shared legacy data for assessing the safety of drug candidates.

Development of a Low Cost Wireless Sensor Network for Surveillance Along Kenya-Somalia Border

Surveillance along the Kenya-Somalia border has been a big challenge that has continuously puzzled the security personnel, due to insurgency of armed militia Al-Shabaab from Somalia , the Kenyan government proposed construction of a barrier wall. This project developed a low cost wireless sensor network surveillance system to be deployed along the Kenya-Somalia border. The research study utilized two PIR sensor for detecting human intrusion, one motion is detected the sensor transmit the data via an Xbee module. Arduino microcontroller was used to process the data collected by the sensor before transmission. The system developed has two units, the Transmitter unit and a User Graphic interface running on Tuna Term software that displays the received data. During testing, the prototype system detected human intrusion, using the Arduino serial monitor the results were displayed before being package for transmission.

Analysis of modern human-computer interfaces

This article describes two research methods that are currently used in the study of graphical interfaces. The examined aspect is human-computer interaction (HCI), which is carried out by means of manipulators, which are input devices, and by means of which the tester performs the tasks set in the research scenario, which are presented using a graphical interface (GUI). The analysis covers the path the cursor follows, its speed and time. The path that the cursor takes is also drawn, and it is divided into stages because there are intermediate elements between the start and end elements. Due to the fact that it is impossible to describe numerically the feelings of the examined person, and these feelings are important for the study, the so-called usability tests, in which, among others, the ergonomics of controllers and the graphic interface itself was examined.

Development of a software for the control and the supervision of the climatic parameters under greenhouse

To meet the climatic needs of plants, there is a growing interest in the development of methods to automatically and continuously detect the constraints on plants, and to use water and nutrients under greenhouse crops in a rational way. The objective of this work is consecrated to the development of a software for the control and supervision of climatic parameters under greenhouses by an automatic process using LabVIEW. The system carried out makes it possible to measure the various values of the physical sizes resulting from various sensors (temperature, humidity, illumination, content of CO2, moisture of the ground,…). In order to visualize in real time, the evolution of the various climatic parameters, a graphic interface of supervision was developed by using the programming language LabVIEW. The latter makes it possible to integrate functions of control such as the modification of the instructions and the control commands to maintain the conditions adapted to the culture under greenhouse. The installation of such a strategy must take account of the economy of the water resources, nutritive elements and electric power while making it possible to the farmers to increase their productions as well in quantity and in quality.