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Learn OpenRefine! New Learn & Create Xpress Class!!

Using OpenRefine for Cleaning Up Spreadsheet Data!!!

We have joined with the Engineering Technology Centers to present a new series of classes!! The Learn & Create Xpress Classes will cover a variety of topics and are scheduled for Thursday afternoons at 2:00 p.m. in the Engineering Library Creative Space. The classes are half an hour long and are limited to 20 participants. Click on the link to register! They are also FREE!!

 

This Thursday, April 12, 2018, the class is Using OpenRefine for Cleaning Up Spreadsheet Data! OpenRefine is a free tool for reviewing and cleaning up spreadsheet or tabular data. Save yourself a lot of time by using OpenRefine to identify and fix problems in your tabular data. Automated functions easily and quickly handle common problems, such as splitting cells that contain multiple data values, detecting duplicates and typos, standardizing date formats, and trimming extra spaces from cells. OpenRefine also keeps track of all your steps, so you can easily reuse them or undo them if necessary.

Feel Free to bring your own laptops and download the software before the class:   https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/wiki/Installation-Instructions

Brian Westra from Hardin Library for the Health Sciences is the presenter!

 

Final Learn & Create Xpress Class:

4/19/2018: 2D & Vector Design with CorelDRAW. CorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor and image-editing software package.  Learn about power that CorelDRAW gives you to create digital art! Presenters: John Kostman & Diem Nguyen, Engineering Electronic Shop.

 

Xpress classes are limited to 20 participants – and they are filling up! To register for each class head to the Learn & Create Xpress Classes webpage! Each class has a registration link and the option of being put on a wait list if the class is already full!

Don’t miss out on learning about OpenRefine – sign up now!

Join us for Library Events During Engineering Research Week!

The University of Iowa College of Engineering has expanded its traditional Annual Research Open House event into a Research Week, celebrated this year from April 9-13.  The week now features numerous activities that showcase how Engineering impacts the university’s stratetic direction in conducting leading-edge research.

We are excited to be participating in Research Week!!

 

On Thursday, April 12, the 10 Kick-Start Award winners will be presenting posters and talking about their award-winning projects! Check here for information on the students and their fascinating and diverse projects! They will be presenting their posters between 2:00 and 4:00. Stop in!

 

 

Also on Thursday, April 12 is a free Learn & Create Xpress Class! It will be  held in the Engineering Library Creative  space beginning at 2:00 pm. Brian Westra from the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, will be presenting a class on OpenRefine. OpenRefine is a free tool for reviewing and cleaning up spreadsheet or tabular data! Save yourself a lot of time by using OpenRefine to identify and fix problems in your tabular data. Automated functions easily and quickly handle common problems, such as splitting cells that contain multiple data values, detecting duplicates and typos, standardizing date formats, and trimming extra spaces from cells. OpenRefine also keeps track of all your steps, so you can easily reuse them or undo them if necessary. Feel free to download the free software (here) and bring your own laptop to class. Class size is limited, so be sure to register today!

On Friday, April 13, 2:00 t0 4:00.  Living Books will be available to check-out in the library! Join us as books come alive! Researchers stand in for books, you are able to “check them out” for  15 minutes and take that time to talk one-on-one with Engineers about their inspiring research! Researchers from the Dept of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering will be available! Come and learn more about research being done in your area of study or explore an entirely new area! Stop in and check out a living book! Refreshments will be provided!

Here is a comprehensive list of all the activities and opportunities going on throughout the week! All events are open to the public!

Monday, April 9

Mars Rover Prototype Demonstration
University of Iowa Robotics Club
The University of Iowa Robotics Club designed, built and programmed a prototype Mars rover to compete in The University Rover Challenge (URC). The URC is hosted annually by the Mars Society at their Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) near Hanksville, Utah. Teams competing in the University Rover Challenge build a rover to compete and perform varied tasks deep in the Utah desert simulating realistic Mars rover operation and procedures. Come see the Rover in action!
2:00 – 3:00, 2040 Seamans Center

Tuesday, April 10

Introduction to Systematic Reviews
Qianjin (Marina) Zhang, Engineering & Informatics Librarian
Systematic Reviews is a research method that is commonly used in medical and public health but increasingly adopted by researchers in education, social sciences and, even, engineering. This workshop will introduce concepts about systematic reviews and narrative reviews, which is also called literature reviews, and differences between the two types of reviews. We will also discuss when and how to conduct a systematic review as well as the library services that support your systematic review project
11:30 – 12:30, Creative Space, 2001 Seamans Center

Wednesday, April 11

20 Years of Saving Lives – Making Vehicles Safer
National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) staff
Drive the NADS simulators and discuss how they could be used in your research, education, and outreach activities. Student-led research projects may be able to use the simulators at low or no cost!
11:30 a.m. -12:00 Noon – presentation, 12:00 Noon – 1:00 p.m. – simulator demonstrations, 4602 Seamans Center

Thursday, April 12

Going to Graduate School Workshop
Allan Guymon, DEO Chemical & Biochemical Engineering
This seminar is targeted to undergraduate student who are considering graduate school.
• The application process for graduate school
• Information about how to get financial support through fellowships & stipends
• Information on BS/MS program
• Future job opportunities
There will be a significant amount of times devoted to questions. Undergraduate students from all disciplines are invited to attend, Refreshments provided.
11:30 am – 12:30 pm, 3111 Seamans Center

Research Open House Poster Fair
More than 110 posters will showcase the research activities and accomplishments of the College of Engineering’s graduate and undergraduate students.
2nd Floor Lobby, Seamans Center
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
5:00-6:00 p.m., W10 Pappajohn Business Building.

Paul D. Scholz Symposium on Technology and its Role in Society
“Engineering and Natural Disasters.”
5:00 – 6:00 p.m.
W10 Pappajohn Business Building
A panel of three speakers will each give a 5-10 minute presentation followed by a moderated discussion and questions from the audience. The speakers are Daniel Miller from Stanley Consultants, Ron Knoche from Iowa City Public Works, and Professor Gabriele Villarini from the IIHR–Hydroscience & Engineering. The free, public symposium was named in 1993 to honor the late Paul Scholz, 20-year Tau Beta Pi advisor and associate dean of the UI College of Engineering (1979-1992). Scholz was inducted as a member of the Legacy of Iowa Engineering in 2006.
Co-sponsors are the UI Tau Beta Pi chapter, Tau Beta Pi alumni, and the College of Engineering.

Friday, April 13

Student Recognition Luncheon
Hotel Vetro
11:30 a.m. -1:30 p.m.
All faculty, staff and student poster presenters and judges are invited to attend, please RSVP to kristina-venzke@uiowa.edu.

Engineering Living Library
A living library has researchers stand in for books.  Instead of checking out print books, library users can read a person’s bio and if they choose that “book” then there is a 10-15 minute check out time where the library user can ask the living book questions about their research. This is a fun and inviting event for all participants.  Snacks and refreshments will be provided.
2:00 -4:00 p.m., 2001 Seamans Center

The university community and public are invited to attend any of the public scheduled events throughout the week.

Take advantage of this exciting opportunity to see all the innovation coming from the UI College of Engineering!

Check Out a Living Book!

ENGINEERING LIVING LIBRARY EVENT!!
Friday, April 13, 2018 
2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Lichtenberger Engineering Library 
Friday the 13th could turn out to be your lucky day!! Why? Because that’s the day we’re having a Living Book event! As part of National Library Week and the University of Iowa College of Engineering Research Week, we are providing the chance for you to check out Living Books!

From 2:00 to 4:00 pm on April 13th, researchers will become “living books,” giving you the chance to check them out for a 10-15 minute period and talk one-on-one about their research! A perfect opportunity to visit with a researcher in your area of study – or explore and entirely different aspect of engineering!

Researchers from the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, will be in the Engineering Library eager to share their research experiences!

Amina Grant, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Researching Lead and Copper in Iowa Drinking Water.  She will be available to talk about her research on small or very small water systems in Iowa. Talk with her about her research and her overarching goal of providing a publicly accessible database.

Benjamin King, Dept. of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, will be sharing Researching the Development of Aerosols for Targeted Drug Delivery in the Lungs. His research allowed him to design and synthesize polymer-coated gold nanoparticles functionalized for targeted delivery in the lungs.  Check this Living Book out for 15 minutes and learn about his research dealing with inhaled therapies!

Researching Human Exposure to Persistent Organic Pollutants like PCBs, Pesticides, and Siloxanes is Rachel F. Marek’s research focus! Her research involves analysis of PCBs, their breakdown particles and other environmental contaminants. Her study involves monitoring pesticides at farm houses, lab experiments with siloxanes, and novel instrument applications for monitoring environmental contaminants to ascertain whether people – especially children – are exposed to harmful chemicals. Don’t miss the chance to explore Rachel’s research with her!

Michael Rendleman, Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering, will be available to discuss his research: Researching Cancer Outcome Prediction with Machine Learning and Genomics. Tumor characterization is an integral part of personalized oncological medicine. In his research, he applies ” machine learning algorithms and techniques to publicly-available clinical data to infer missing values and to predict positive patient outcomes.” Come visit and learn about how this will provide a new path for clinical decision support!

Researching Artificial Intelligence and Virtual and Augmented Reality to Facilitate Environmental Research is the fascinating topic on which Yusuf Sermet, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is working. A recent project with which he has been involved is “Flood Expert.” Flood Expert is “. . . an intelligent system designed to improve societal preparedness for flooding by providing a knowledge engine that uses voice recognition, AI (artificial intelligence), and NLP (natural language processing) . . . The interaction and delivery channels include voice and text input via web-based systems, agent-based chat bots (e.g., MS Skype, Facebook Messenger), smartphone and augmented reality applications (e.g., Google Now, MS Cortana, MS HoloLens), automated web workflows (e.g., IFTTT), and smart home devices (e.g., Google Home, Amazon Echo). . .

Don’t miss this opportunity to ask questions and visit one-on-one with researchers! Mark your calendars now!

Friday, April 13, 2018 
2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Lichtenberger Engineering Library 

 

Camtasia & Video Creation! New Learn & Create Xpress Class!

We have joined with the Engineering Technology Centers to present a new series of classes!! The Learn & Create Xpress Classes will cover a variety of topics and are scheduled for Thursday afternoons at 2:00 p.m. in the Engineering Library Creative Space. The classes are half an hour long and are limited to 20 participants. Click on the link to register! They are also FREE!!

 

This Thursday, April 5, 2018, the class is Camtasia & Video Creation! You’ll learn to create and edit video tutorials via screencast using the Camtasia software suite! PC World calls Camtasa a “full-featured education/information video tool.”  John Kostman from the Engineering Electronic Shop is the presenter.

Future Learn & Create Xpress Classes:

4/12/2018: Managing Data with OpenRefine. Presenter: Brian Westra, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences.

4/19/2018: 2D & Vector Design with CorelDRAW. CorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor and image-editing software package.  Learn about power that CorelDRAW gives you to create digital art! Presenters: John Kostman & Diem Nguyen, Engineering Electronic Shop.

Each of these classes are limited to 20 participants – and they are filling up! To register for each class head to the Learn & Create Xpress Classes webpage! Each class has a registration link and the option of being put on a wait list if the class is already full!

Don’t miss out on learning about the Camtasia software suite – sign up now!

It’s Pi Day 2018!!

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286….

March 14th is Pi Day!!!

 

Beginning geometry students might remember finding the area of a circle – pi x radius squared…. But, what is Pi (π) and why does it rate its very own day?

Pi is one of the most famous and mysterious of numbers. Defined as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to it’s diameter, Pi seems simple. However, it is an irrational number. An irrational number cannot be expressed exactly as a fraction and the decimal representation therefore never ends, nor does it ever settle into a permanent repeating pattern. Scientists have calculated billions of digits of Pi, starting with 3.14159265358979323…. with no end in sight. It could be calculated to infinity and there would be absolutely no way to know which number would come next.

Pi is not only irrational, it is also transcendental! A transcendental number is a number that is not a root of any algebraic equation having integral coefficients, as π  or e. All transcendental numbers are irrational, but not all irrational numbers are transcendental. . .

Pi is used all around us every day – Christian Constanda, the University of Tulsa’s C.S. Oliphant professor of mathematical sciences, says, “Look at a football: when you compute the volume, then Pi gets involved in the formula.” Constanda also said, “If you drive through a puddle, creating a wave with the car, that involves Pi. If you see a tornado, that definitely involves Pi.”

Designers Cristian Ilies Vasile and Martin Krzywinski transformed the number pi into stunning works of art. Check out Martin’s website for an explanation of how he creates his amazing works.

 

Dots are used to represent the adjacency between digits showing the progression and transition for the first 10,000 digits of pi. DailyMail
Accuracy of 10,000 rational approximations of π for each m/n and m=1…10000. Martin Krzywinski.

 

 

Want to see what 100,00 digits of Pi look like? Go here.

Some Pi Day Fun Facts:

  • In the Star Trek© television episode, Wolf in the Fold, Spock defeats an evil enemy in the Enterprise’s computer system. How? He ordered it to “compute to the last digit the value of pi.” Which we know can not be computed!
  • The number 360 occupies the 360th position in the digits of Pi.
  • Divide the length of a river – with all the bends and curves – by the length of the river would be “as the crow flies,” the average ration will be approximately Pi. Watch this youtube video for an explanation!
  • In 2008 a crop circle with Pi embedded in it appeared near Barbury Castle in Wiltshire, England.

Want to impress your friends with how many digits of Pi you can recite? Here is a song that should help you remember….

Code Embed: Cannot use CODECJ3 as a global code as it is being used to store 4 unique pieces of code in 15 posts

The Pi Song. Originally sung by Hard ‘N Phirm. Sept. 17, 2006

Take a look around today – how many instances of Pi can you find? Or sit and contemplate a piece of your favorite pie…

Just remember – you’d be irrational to not celebrate Pi Day!

 

Resources:

Adrian, Y. E. O.. The pleasures of pi,e and other interesting numbers. 2006. Singapore : World Scientific. Engineering Library QA95 .A2 2006

Posamentier, Alfred S. 2004. [Pi] : a biography of the world’s most mysterious number. Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books. Engineering Library QA484 .P67 2004

Maths has never looked so appealing! Oct. 3, 2013. dailymail.com

The Pi Song. Originally sung by Hard ‘N Phirm. Sept. 17, 2006. youtube.com

Mead, Wendy. March 13, 2015. Fascinating Facts About Pi Day & Birthday Boy Albert Einstein. A&E Television Network, LLC. Bio.

Rouse, Margaret. Definition : Transcendental Number. TechTarget. WhatIs.com

West, Marc. July 1, 2008. Pi appears in a crop circle. +plus magazine .

Interesting Facts about Pi. 2016. Buzzle.com

Walton, Rod. March 14, 2014. Pi common in everyday life, not just dessert. Tulsa World .

Swanson, Ana. March 14, 2015. 10 stunning images show the beauty hidden in pi. The Washington Post .

Martin Krzywinski Science Art. 1999-2018.  Martin Krzywinski.

 

Other Resources:

Stewart, Ian. 2013. Visions of infinity : the great mathematical problems. New York, NY : Basic Books. Engineering Library QA93 .S75 2013

Stewart, Ian. 2015. Professor Stewart’s incredible numbers. New York : NY : Basic Books. Engineering Library QA241 .S8123 2015

Happy Pi Day (3.14) Domino Spiral. March 13, 2011. youtube.com

Early Pi(π) Day Celebration on FRIDAY!!!

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286….

We’ll be celebrating Pi Day THIS Friday, March 9th – before spring break!!!

We’ll be celebrating in the Engineering Library and will serve apple pie bites from 1:00 to 3:14 p.m. (when else?!) or while supplies last! We will also have free coffee – did I mention the pie bites, coffee, and lemonade are free? Come early – these tasty bites go fast!

 

Is your mouth watering yet?

 

We’ll see you in the Engineering Library on March 9th,

1:00 to 3:14 p.m.

Be there or be square –

after all, you’d be irrational to not celebrate with us!