The goal of this study was to compare the relative performance of two noninvasive ventilation sensing technologies on adults during artifacts. We recorded changes in transthoracic impedance and cross-sectional area of the abdomen (abd) and rib cage (rc) using impedance pneumography (IP) and respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP) on ten adult subjects during natural breathing, motion artifact, simulated airway obstruction, yawning, snoring, apnea, and coughing. We used a pneumotachometer to measure air flow and tidal volume as the standard. We calibrated all sensors during natural breathing, and performed measurements during all maneuvers without changing the calibration parameters. No sensor provided the most-accurate measure of tidal volume for all maneuvers. Overall, the combination of inductance sensors [RIP(sum)] calibrated during an isovolume maneuver had a bias (weighted mean difference) as low or lower than all individual sensors and all combinations of sensors. The IP(rc) sensor had a bias as low or lower than any individual sensor. The cross-correlation coefficient between sensors was high during natural breathing, but decreased during artifacts. The cross correlation between sensor pairs was lower during artifacts without breathing than it was during maneuvers with breathing for four different sensor combinations. We tested a simple breath-detection algorithm on all sensors and found that RIP(sum) resulted in the fewest number of false breath detections, with sensitivity of 90.8% and positive predictivity of 93.6%.

Kyle Gullings is a composer of diverse, versatile music for the stage and concert hall. Through intimate chamber, vocal, and stage settings, his music traverses wide-ranging topics such as Sumerian legends, nuclear war, and the American Dream. He has been named a national finalist in composing competitions sponsored by SCI/ASCAP (twice) and the National Opera Association (one of three works selected).Dr. Gullings is committed to improving the quality and efficiency of undergraduate music theory and composition education through classroom innovation, collaboration, and scholarship. In addition to teaching in the core music theory sequence, he maintains a growing interest in developing, practicing, and sharing efficient assessment methods. SEEKING NEW PERSPECTIVES: ENGINEERS EXPERIENCING DESIGN THROUGH CREATIVE ARTS AbstractThe engineering curriculum of necessity focuses heavily on technical subjects-mathematics, chemistry, physics, and the large body of discipline-specific material. The arts are frequently present only in vestigial form and are regarded as tangential at best to the real engineering curriculum. However, an experience of the creative arts beyond the superficial might reveal that the artist and the engineer are not as different as is usually supposed. The University of Texas at Tyler has conducted an experimental project in which engineering students were encouraged to experience the design process afresh from the perspective of the creative arts. Juniors in electrical engineering worked under the mentorship of arts faculty in a chosen medium (studio art, writing, or music) to produce legitimate works of art that were displayed, performed, or read publicly, and documented how their experiences of design in the arts have informed and shaped their perspectives as engineers. The structure, expectations, and results of this course are described in this paper. A pedagogical crisis presents an opportunityThe BSEE and BSME curricula of the University of Texas at Tyler include a required course entitled "Design Methodology in Engineering." The course's catalog description states that it is "an overview of design activity in engineering" and includes "the product design process; project planning; quality function deployment; design specifications; concept generation and selection; system and subsystem design." This course would appear to have prima facie relevance and value to engineering students; however, its reception among EE students has been lukewarm at best. Thirty-one graduating EE seniors between 2011 and 2013 (the latest years for which data have been compiled) assessed the usefulness of Design Methodology as 2.65 on a scale of 1 -5 with 1 representing "Little Usefulness," 3 representing "Useful," and 5 representing "Essential." (Eight students chose the extremes of this scale, with six choosing "Little Usefulness" compared to two choosing "Essential").Design Methodology had traditionally been taught by Mechanical Engineering faculty to mixed classes of EE and ME students. However, circumstances i...

No abstract

He received his BA degree from Gettysburg College and his MA and Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

This paper proposes a simplified method for designing four-coil resonant wireless power transfer (WPT) networks by sequential application of impedance reflection through mutual inductances.Experimental validation is presented, and accuracy and limitations of the method are described.The method appears useful for first-pass (approximate) design, but accurate simulation requires consideration of mutual inductances of non-adjacent coils.