An Ontological Approach to Chemical Engineering Curriculum Development

Continuous reflection and evolution of curricula in chemical engineering is beneficial for adaptation to evolving industries and technologies and for improving student experience. To this end it was necessary to develop a method to enable a holistic reflection on the curriculum and to examine potential areas of improvement and change. The curriculum was modelled using knowledge modelling through the development of an ontology, Chemical Engineering Education Ontology (ChEEdO) in the Protégé 3.5 environment. ChEEdO models topics, taught modules and the learning outcomes of the modules within the domain of chemical engineering. The learning outcomes were related to the topics using verb properties from Bloom’s taxonomy and the context of each learning outcome. The functionality of semantic reasoning via the ontology was demonstrated with a case study. The modelling results showed that the ontology could be successfully utilised for curriculum development, horizontal and vertical integration and to identify appropriate pre-requisite learning

Perceptual impact of environmental factors in sighted and visually impaired individuals

To a visually impaired individual the physical world presents many challenges. For a person with impaired sight, wayfinding through a complex environment is fraught with dangers, both actual and imagined. The current generation of mobility aids have the possibility of addressing a broad range of physical issues through technological solutions. The perception of difficulty however, can mean that many visually impaired individuals are fearful or uncomfortable about independent mobility or travel. In this context it becomes necessary to discover exactly what environments, environmental factors or items constitute a ‘perception of difficulty’ in the individuals mental landscape and may trigger a negative response before they interact with the physical environment. This paper reports on research, which sought to ascertain what levels of perceptual difficulties specific environments and factors presented to individuals. The research was conducted with both visually impaired and sighted groups and compared differences and similarities in perceptual difficulty between these two groups

Model Integration Using Ontology Input-Output Matching

This paper introduces ontology controlled model integration framework using inputoutput matching in the domain of biorefining. The framework builds upon the existing framework and replaces the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) object bus with more flexible semantic repository. Semantic Web Services Description Ontologies (OWL-S) are used to describe model inputs, outputs, preconditions, operating environment and its functionality. The OWL-S enables the automation of model integration through (i) discovery, (ii) selection, (iii) composition, and (iv) execution stages. This concept has been verified with a small scale model integration to demonstrate the flexibility of model integration through all four stages of the process

Comparison between audio and tactile systems for delivering simple navigational information to visually impaired pedestrians

Many of the current GPS (Global Positioning Systems) navigation aids use an audio method to deliver navigation information to the user. For the visually impaired person this method can be problematic. The visually impaired pedestrian relies heavily on information contained within the ambient sound environment; for location and orientation information, navigation information, and importantly, safety information. In this paper we present the design of an innovative tactile interface and verification of results obtained through experimental trials. This pilot study compared the efficiency of the tactile interface, to an audio method of delivering simple navigational information. The findings indicate that the tactile interface could be used successfully by blind and sighted pedestrians and may offer advantages over auditory interfaces

Techno-economic assessment of natural gas displacement potential of biomethane: A case study on domestic energy supply in the UK

Mathematical modelling and optimisation at both household and energy supply network levels were developed to study the transformation of the natural gas-based domestic energy supply system with the introduction of biomethane generation, processing and utilisation based on a range of feedstock and conversion technologies. Biomethane processing includes, among other options considered, the conceptual development of a novel approach for upgrading biogas which utilises existing onshore natural gas processing capacity. Four different objective functions were considered for optimisation, representing different economic and environmental propositions, to identify the best path for introducing biomethane with multiple types of feedstock. Applying these objective functions to UK’s domestic energy supply, and assuming a range of subsidies available, it was established that a technically significant displacement of natural gas could be achieved, with displacement capabilities of 48%–72%, and greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions between 64% and 80%. Economically, these ranges of achievement would correspond to various levels of capital investment and economic viability, depending on the objective functions. Those cases leading to a positive net present value (NPV) appeared to heavily rely on subsidies and could run into a significant loss if subsidies were removed in the operational phase. In contrast, optimisation not assuming any subsidies in the first place could lead to a fundamentally economically viable system, but at the cost of a significantly lower level of biomethane penetration compared to the cases assuming subsidies. Overall, the results have indicated the importance of carefully selecting optimisation objectives, and revealed the potential consequences of adopting financial subsidies in developing the biomethane infrastructure

On the development of a stochastic optimisation algorithm with capabilities for distributed computing

In this thesis, we devise a new stochastic optimisation method (cascade optimisation algorithm) by incorporating the concepts from Markov process whilst eliminating the inherent sequential nature that is the major deficit preventing the exploitation of advances in distributed computing infrastructures. This method introduces partitions and pools to store intermediate solution and corresponding objectives. A Markov process increases the population of partitions and pools. The population is distributed periodically following an external certain. With the use of partitions and pools, multiple Markov processes can be launched simultaneously for different partitions and pools. The cascade optimisation algorithm is suitable for parallel and distributed computing environments. In addition, this method has the potential to integrate knowledge acquisition techniques (e. g. data mining and ontology) to achieve effective knowledge-based decision making. Several features are extracted and studied in this thesis. The application problems involve both the small-scale and the large-scale optimisation problems. Comparisons with the stochastic optimisation methods are made and results show that the cascade optimisation algorithm can converge to the optimal solutions in agreement with other methods more quickly. The cascade optimisation algorithm is also studied on parallel and distributed computing environments in terms of the reduction in computation time.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo