The 40th volume of the journal "Advanced Engineering Forum" compiles from peer-reviewed manuscripts presenting the engineering solutions and research results dealing with contemporary problems in applied materials and processing technologies in mechanical engineering, applied mechanics and practice of designing, predictive control technique for a wind turbine system. The professionals, students, and scientific investigators working in the various engineering fields will find this volume of value.

Special topic volume with invited peer reviewed papers only.

Aggregated Book

Selected, peer reviewed papers from the 2013 2nd International Conference on Advanced Materials and its Application (AMA 2013), June 22-24, 2013, Wuhan, China

Bearing Capacity of Roads, Railways and Airfields includes the contributions to the 10th International Conference on the Bearing Capacity of Roads, Railways and Airfields (BCRRA 2017, 28-30 June 2017, Athens, Greece). The papers cover aspects related to materials, laboratory testing, design, construction, maintenance and management systems of transport infrastructure, and focus on roads, railways and airfields. Additional aspects that concern new materials and characterization, alternative rehabilitation techniques, technological advances as well as pavement and railway track substructure sustainability are included. The contributions discuss new concepts and innovative solutions, and are concentrated but not limited on the following topics: · Unbound aggregate materials and soil properties · Bound materials characteritics, mechanical properties and testing · Effect of traffic loading · In-situ measurements techniques and monitoring · Structural evaluation · Pavement serviceability condition · Rehabilitation and maintenance issues · Geophysical assessment · Stabilization and reinforcement · Performance modeling · Environmental challenges · Life cycle assessment and sustainability Bearing Capacity of Roads, Railways and Airfields is essential reading for academics and professionals involved or interested in transport infrastructure systems, in particular roads, railways and airfields.

Identifying plagiarism is a pressing problem for research institutions, publishers, and funding bodies. Current detection methods focus on textual analysis and find copied, moderately reworded, or translated content. However, detecting more subtle forms of plagiarism, including strong paraphrasing, sense-for-sense translations, or the reuse of non-textual content and ideas, remains a challenge. This book presents a novel approach to address this problem—analyzing non-textual elements in academic documents, such as citations, images, and mathematical content. The proposed detection techniques are validated in five evaluations using confirmed plagiarism cases and exploratory searches for new instances. The results show that non-textual elements contain much semantic information, are language-independent, and resilient to typical tactics for concealing plagiarism. Incorporating non-textual content analysis complements text-based detection approaches and increases the detection effectiveness, particularly for disguised forms of plagiarism. The book introduces the first integrated plagiarism detection system that combines citation, image, math, and text similarity analysis. Its user interface features visual aids that significantly reduce the time and effort users must invest in examining content similarity.

This book highlights cutting-edge topics in contemporary physics, discussing exciting advances and new forms of thinking in evolving fields with emphases both on natural phenomena and applications to modern engineering. It provides material for thought and practice in nanophysics, plasma physics, and electrodynamics. Nanophysics and plasmas are synergic physical areas where the whole is more than the sum of the parts (quantum, atomic and molecular, electrodynamics, photonics, condensed matter, thermodynamics, transport phenomena). The authors emphasize both fundamentals and more complex concepts, making the contents accessible as well challenging. Nanoscale properties and physical phenomena are explained under the umbrella of quantum physics. Advances made in the physical knowledge of the nanoworld, and its metrology are addressed, along with experimental achievements which have furthered studies of extreme weak forces present at nano- or sub-micron scales. The book does not focus in detail on the diversity of applications in nanotechnology and instrumentation, considering that the reader already has basic prior knowledge on that. It also covers an introduction to plasma universe phenomenology, the basics of advanced mathematics applied to the electromagnetic field, longitudinal forces in the vacuum, concepts of helicity and topological torsion, SU(2) representation of Maxwell equations, 2D representation of the electromagnetic field, the use of the fractional derivative, and ergontropic dynamics. The chapters include theory, applications, bibliographic references, and solved exercises. The synergies of the book’s topics demonstrate their potential in critical issues, such as relieving humans from barriers imposed by energetic and entropic dependencies and penetrating the realm of weak forces at the nanoscale. The book will boost both post-graduate students and mature scientists to implement new scientific and technological projects.

Design and manufacturing is the essential element in any product development lifecycle. Industry vendors and users have been seeking a common language to be used for the entire product development lifecycle that can describe design, manufacturing and other data pertaining to the product. Many solutions were proposed, the most successful being the Stadndard for Exchange of Product model (STEP). STEP provides a mechanism that is capable of describing product data, independent from any particular system. The nature of this description makes it suitable not only for neutral file exchange, but also as a basis for implementing, sharing and archiving product databases. ISO 10303-AP203 is the first and perhaps the most successful AP developed to exchange design data between different CAD systems. Going from geometric data (as in AP203) to features (as in AP224) represents an important step towards having the right type of data in a STEP-based CAD/CAM system. Of particular significance is the publication of STEP-NC, as an extension of STEP to NC, utilising feature-based concepts for CNC machining purposes. The aim of this book is to provide a snapshot of the recent research outcomes and implementation cases in the field of design and manufacturing where STEP is used as the primary data representation protocol. The 20 chapters are contributed by authors from most of the top research teams in the world. These research teams are based in national research institutes, industries as well as universities.

This book comprises a selection of the top contributions presented at the second international conference “Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions 2017”, held in March 2017 in Bolzano, Italy. Featuring forty-six papers by policy-makers, academics and consultants, it discusses current groundbreaking research in smart and sustainable planning, including the progress made in overcoming cities’ challenges towards improving the quality of life. Climate change adaptation and mitigation of global warming, generally identified as drivers of global policies, are just the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to smart energy transition. Indeed, equally relevant towards this current transformation – and key topics in this volume – are ICTs, public spaces and society; next economy for the city; strategies and actions for good governance; urban-rural innovation; rethinking mobility. The book’s depth in understanding and insightfulness in re-thinking demonstrate the breaking of new ground in smart and sustainable planning. A new ground that policy-makers, academics and consultants may build upon as a bedrock for smart and sustainable planning.