Engineering Commons^™

Bounty Techniques For Web Vulnerability Scanning, Tanzer Abazi, Mentor Hoxhaj, Edmond Hajrizi, Gazmend Krasniqi

UBT International Conference

With the advancement of technology and the raising of massive amount of data, the used techniques for data security are continually a challenge. This paper contributes on identifying the gaps and evaluating security level on web portals hosted or managed by Republic of Kosovo institutions or businesses, whose data privacy and security could be a big business concern. The results have been obtained from real case scenario, where 25 security researchers have contributed in white hack activities. These activities, were part of a one day conference called. “The DAY when hacking is legal”, held in Pristine.

Security Concerns Of New Alternative Telecommunication Services, Arbnora Hyseni, Krenare Pireva, Miranda Kajtazi

UBT International Conference

With the advancing new era of communication, the so-called era of ‘being always online’ many providers offer their services for free. In that sense a small company or a virtual company becomes a huge competitor for different traditional telecommunication providers. Using the same services such as: voice calls, video calls, chat and similar services, the internet technology has made huge changes how users make use of such services . Instead of using these services, users shall install applications that are specialized for offering these services via applications, such as: Viber, WhatsApp, Facebook, Google Talk etc.. During the installation and update …

Internet Of Things: From Applications, Challenges And Standardization To Industry Implementations, Xhafer Krasniqi

UBT International Conference

The Internet of Things that is defined as anything that can be accessible anytime and anywhere provides connectivity to different objects and sensors around us and which will enable the transfer of different data between these objects and devices. A thing in the Internet of Things can be any natural or man-made object that can be assigned an IP address with a capability to exchange date over a network. There is a huge number of applications of IoT to benefit users, such as health monitors, smart homes, connected cars etc. If everything around us is connected and information about these …

From Traditional Markets To E-Commerce And Finally To Social Media Commerce, Ardian Hyseni

UBT International Conference

These days, getting new customers is much easier than in the past. People and customers are online sharing and exchanging ideas on products and it has become easier to find products over the internet and lately; with social media, where people can look for information from reviews and comments on sites. This way has changed shopping to a social experience and is the key element to the growth of social commerce. Businesses want to connect with people and customers which they do business, also they want customers opinions and reviews. By using social media, companies can now easily create an …

Randomizing Ensemble-Based Approaches For Outlier, Lediona Nishani, Marenglen Biba

UBT International Conference

The data size is increasing dramatically every day, therefore, it has emerged the need of detecting abnormal behaviors, which can harm seriously our systems. Outlier detection refers to the process of identifying outlying activities, which diverge from the remaining group of data. This process, an integral part of data mining field, has experienced recently a substantial interest from the data mining community. An outlying activity or an outlier refers to a data point, which significantly deviates and appears to be inconsistent compared to other data members. Ensemble-based outlier detection is a line of research employed in order to reduce the …

Case Studies For A Markov Chain Approach To Analyze Agent-Based Models, Florian Kitzler, Martin Bicher

UBT International Conference

Agent-Based Models have become a widely used tool in social sciences, health care management and other disciplines to describe complex systems from a bottom-up perspective. Some reasons for that are the easy understanding of Agent-Based Models, the high flexibility and the possibility to describe heterogeneous structures. Nevertheless problems occur when it comes to analyzing Agent-Based Models. This paper shows how to describe Agent-Based Models in a macroscopic way as Markov Chains, using the random map representation. The focus is on the implementation of this method for chosen examples of a Random Walk and Opinion Dynamic Models. It is also shown …

Xml For Business To Business Data Exchange, Geraldine Gray, David Kerwick

The ITB Journal

This paper examines to use of XML for business to business data exchange. Starting with creating an XML document from an existing data source and transmitting that document, we explain some of the supporting standards for XML which facilitate automated processing and transformation of an XML document. Finally we look at the advantages of using XML, and why it is expected to revolutionise electronic data interchange.

Agv Controlled Fms, Fergus G. Maughan

The ITB Journal

One of the key factors that prevent the implementation of Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) is the elaborate cost associated with the control software. In a FMS there is often a wide range of equipment such as personal computers Programmable Logical Controllers (PLCs), CNC Machines or robots, each of these having their own “intelligence” and library of data. Providing a means of communication between these individual controllers has traditionally been achieved using a Local Area Network (LAN). This proves more expensive when traditional manual operated machines have to be integrated into the system. The model described in this paper provides an …

Fuzzy Logic And Neural Networks - A Glimpse Of The Future, Raymond Manley

The ITB Journal

In 1965 Lofti Zadeh published his paper on fuzzy set theory , putting it forward as a way of more closely realising the human thought process. Many systems developed to aid human activities have been based on definitive , yes/no, type decision making processes. An example is the way all computers are based on the binary logic system where only two possible and separate logic levels are allowed, a logic 1 or logic 0. However, we know from everyday experience that humans think in terms of vague linguistic categories, for example, the weather is fairly good today. "Fairly good" represents …

Dr. Allan Guymon Undergraduate Seminar | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Photopolymerization has taken an increasing prominent role as a tool in providing unique properties for a wide array of advanced materials. The inherent spatial and temporal control allow great ability to tailor processing conditions and change ultimate properties. This talk will focus on two projects, including work from two Utah State alumni, in which photopolymerization enables directed structure both on the micron and nanometer size scale for unique functionality.

Engineering A New Home: Creating A Repository Collection For Faculty And Building A Larger Digital Presence For The School Of Engineering, Lauren Todd, Emily Symonds Stenberg

WashU Libraries Presentations

This talk is an expanded version of one given at the 2015 MOBIUS conference. Washington University librarians Emily Stenberg and Lauren Todd explain how they created and manage a collection in the university’s repository Open Scholarship for the Computer Science and Engineering department. This presentation will highlight how they developed a step-by-step workflow, addressed customization requests from the department, what really happened once that plan was implemented, and how they handle Bepress troubleshooting and faculty concerns. The presenters will also discuss how this project has helped them offer Open Scholarship as a service to other engineering faculty.

Vision: An Engineer's Tool In The Fight Against Eye Disease | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

If you’ve seen the latest news headlines about Dr. Elizabeth Vargis, you’d think she was an ophthalmologist – a medical expert on vision-related disease and treatment. But Vargis is no physician. She’s an engineer – pure and simple.

Dehalococcoides Abundance And Alternate Electron Acceptor Effects On Large, Flow-Through Trichloroethene Dechlorinating Columns, Babur S. Mirza, Darwin L. Sorensen, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. Mclean

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Trichloroethene (TCE) in groundwater is a major health concern and biostimulation/bioaugmentation-based strategies have been evaluated to achieve complete reductive dechlorination with varying success. Different carbon sources were hypothesized to stimulate different extents of TCE reductive dechlorination. Ecological conditions that developed different dechlorination stages were investigated by quantitating Dehalococcoides 16S rRNA (Dhc) and reductive dehalogenase gene abundance, and by describing biogeochemical properties of laboratory columns in response to this biostimulation. Eight large columns (183 cm × 15.2 cm), packed with aquifer material from Hill AFB, Utah, that were continuously fed TCE for 7.5 years. Duplicate columns were biostimulated with whey or …

The Development Of A Fluorescence-Based Reverse Flow Injection Analysis (Rfia) Method For Quantifying Ammonium At Nanomolar Concentrations In Oligotrophic Seawater, William Abbott

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis was to adopt a reverse flow injection analysis (rFIA) technique to the fluorometric analysis of the reaction o-phthaldialdehyde (OPA) with ammonium, allowing accurate measurements of ammonium concentrations lower than the detection limit of the widely used indophenol blue (IPB) colorimetric method while accounting for the background fluorescence of seawater. Ammonium is considered an essential nutrient for primary productivity, especially in the nutrient depleted surface ocean where as the most reduced form of dissolved inorganic nitrogen, it is readily assimilated via metabolic pathways. Challenges in the quantification of ammonium require more sensitive analytical techniques for …

Design, Fabrication And Analysis Of A Paver Machine Push Bar Mechanism, Mahendra Palnati

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Now-a-days, the major challenge that’s being faced by the concrete industry is the cleaning of concrete handling equipment. Concrete consists of aggregates, which harden with time, and the transportation of concrete mixture within the plant is a significant problem. This will not only increase the overall maintenance cost, but will lead to loss of raw materials, affect the rate of production, and reduce the lifetime of concrete handling equipment.

The present study focuses on the design and implementation of an adaptive cleaning mechanism in the concrete industry and its importance in achieving efficient cleaning, which is tested to verify its …

Effect Of Mineral And Chemical Admixtures On Durability Of Cementitious Systems, Victor Tran

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mineral and chemical admixtures are used today in almost all concrete mixtures to improve concrete fresh and hardened properties, and to enhance concrete durability. In this study, four mineral and four chemical admixtures were investigated: namely, metakaolin (MK), silica fume (SF), Class F fly ash (FA), blast-furnace slag (BFS), two high-range water reducers (SP), water reducer/retarder (WRD), and air-entrainer (AEA). The objective of this study is to assess the effects of commonly used mineral and chemical admixtures on the durability of the cementitious system. Two durability issues were addressed in this study: the potential of the cementitious system to generate …

Synthesis, Characterization And Ferroelectric Properties Of Ln-Type Znsno3 Nanostructures, Corisa Kons

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With increasing focus on the ill health and environmental effects of lead there is a greater push to develop Pb-free devices and materials. To this extent, ecofriendly and earth abundant LiNbO₃-type ZnSnO₃, a derivative of the ABO₃ perovskite structure, has a high theoretically predicted polarization making it an excellent choice as a suitable alternative to lead based material such as PZT. In this work we present a novel synthesis procedure for the growth of various ZnSnO₃ nanostructures by combined physical/chemical processes. Various ZnSnO₃ nanostructures of different dimensions were grown from a ZnO:Al template …

Leveraging Large Data Sets In Continuous Chromatography Applications: Monitoring Critical Process Parameters Using Mvda, Engin Ayturk

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Continuous multicolumn chromatography is gaining momentum in the industry as an enabling technology to establish continuous biomanufacturing platforms for monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins. Some companies are exploring continuous multicolumn chromatography processes as a stand-alone unit operation to improve specific productivity and/or reduce buffer consumption, while other companies are considering an integrated continuous downstream process based on continuous multicolumn chromatography.

One of the key features of continuous multicolumn chromatography is the amount of data generated during a single manufacturing batch or campaign. Traditional chromatography processes typically yield one (or a few) elution peaks per batch. Continuous chromatography processes, on the …

Cder's Emerging Technology Team, Kurt Brorson, Sau Lee

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

The newly formed Emerging Technology Team (ETT) draws membership from all CDER quality review, research and inspection functions, including Office of Biotechnology Products. The goal of the ETT is provide a primary point of contact for external inquiries regarding emerging technology in pharmaceutical and biotechnology manufacturing and quality control. The ETT will partner with review offices in a cross-functional manner and identify regulatory strategy and resolve roadblocks to new technologies relating to existing guidance, policy or practices related to review or inspection. The ETT’s initial focus will be innovation on novel products, manufacturing processes, or testing technologies or processes to …

Monitoring And Control Of Reproducibility In Quasi-Continuous Integrated Production Processes Of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, Reiner Luttman, Sven Oliver Borchert, Jan Patrick Voss, Gesine Cornelissen

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

The development of integrated production processes include the combination and transformation of current batch oriented unit operations into linked sequential/parallel production strategies.

The presented process starts with a two-stage upstream consisting of cell cultivation and subsequent protein production, which in turn results in a five step downstream process, consisting of cell clarification via a separator, retention of cellular debris using microfiltration, concentration of the secreted product by ultrafiltration with subsequent buffer exchange through diafiltration, followed by a final purification using column chromatography.

The three main operations cell breeding, protein production and the complete downstream line are running in series, but …

Exploring Continuous And Integrated Strategies For The Up- And Downstream Processing Of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells, Barbara Cunha, Tiago Aguiar, Ricardo Silva, Cristina Peixoto, Manuel Carrondo, Margarida Serra, Paula Alves

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

The integration of up- and downstream unit operations can result in the elimination of hold steps, thus decreasing the footprint, and ultimately can create robust closed system operations. This type of design is desirable for the bioprocess of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC), where high numbers of pure cells, at low volumes, need to be delivered for therapy applications. The aim of this work is to perform a proof of concept of the integration of a continuous perfusion culture in bioreactors with a tangential flow filtration (TFF) system for the concentration and washing of hMSC. In particular, we have evaluated …

Pat Concepts For Chromatography: Real-Time Monitoring, Real-Time Control, And Cause Of Error Diagnostics, Nina Brestrich, Tobias Hahn, Adrian Sanden, Till Briskot, Jurgen Hubbuch

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

In the recent years, the growing competition in the biopharmaceutical industry due to biosimilars combined with market fluctuations and increasing product pipelines have given rise to the evaluation of continuous processing. Advantages include smaller equipment that may be disposable, an overall process intensification as well as steady-state operation. As variability should be managed by the continuous process itself to insure a consistent product quality, the development of advanced Process Analytical Technology (PAT) concepts is one crucial aspect for the implementation of continuous processing.

In chromatographic protein purification, process variability can lead to variations in retention volumes or peak shapes of …

Quality Systems For Continuous Manufacturing, Ron Branning

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Continuous manufacturing is a familiar concept in large volume commercial commodity operations such as glass and plastic production. In the wake of the Tylenol cyanide poison scare in the 1970’s, pharmaceutical production at the J&J subsidiary McNeil converted to virtually closed, continuous manufacturing. Several Biotech firms tried to develop fermentation unit operations in the 1990’s that were based on the continuous manufacturing concept. Today there are a number of initiatives to update and realize the concept from bench top, such as MIT and Novartis’ sponsorship of start up firm Continuus’ production of solid dosage forms in Boston, to biodefense tractor-trailer …

Dynamic Oncolytic Measles Virus Production, Tanja Grein, Denise Salzig, Michael Muehlebach, Peter Czermak

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Oncolytic viruses can be effective weapons against cancer with few treatment options. For example the tissue culture–adapted Edmonston strains of measles virus (MV) have altered its receptor specificity and became selectively oncolytic with attenuated pathogenicity. Russel et al. showed in 2014 full remission in an advanced stage multiple myeloma patient after systemic application of genetically modified MV. In this clinical trial, the patient was treated by intravenous infusion of 10¹¹ TCID₅₀ (50% tissue culture infectious dose) - of an engineered MV encoding human sodium iodide symporter. Appropriate medical treatment with oncolytic viruses calls for high concentrations and absolute …

Transforming The Present Into The Future With Uncertainty And Imprecision, Chales Cooney

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

No abstract provided.

How Continuous-Like Processes Improve Affordability For Viral Vaccines - Example Of Laiv, Jose Castillo

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Designing a continuous process for a life viral vaccine could be seen useless, and challenging, as the virus infection will kill the cell substrate after 2-5 days of infection.

From the technical perspective, chaining the operations of cell culture under perfusion and viral production, clarification and capture / concentration is an efficient option to setup a small scale continuous automated process to manufacture massive amounts of viral vaccines.

We will show how beneficial it can be in terms of process development, manufacturing simplicity, capital expenditure and cost of production. Also, we will show how this approach can help producers of …

Advanced Computational Tools To Enhance Continuous Monoclonal Antibody Production, Maria M. Papathanasiou, Ana Quiroga, Athanasios Mantalaris, Efstratios Pistikopoulos

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Leading pharmaceutical companies invest high percentage of their revenue in the improvement of existing technologies used for the production of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Recently, there has been a paradigm shift towards the development of continuous/quasi-continuous purification operations, aiming to reduce capital and operational costs [1]. At the moment, however, there are no standardized methods and/or tools that can be used for global control and monitoring of integrated processes.

Mathematical models and advanced computational tools can be the key for the development of robust, integrated processes, as they can provide valuable insight in the process dynamics and ensure optimal operation [2]. …

Protein Refinery Operations Lab (Pro Lab): A Sandbox For Continuous Protein Production & Advanced Process Control, Mark Brower, David Pollard, Finn Hung

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Significant strides towards implementation of continuous bioprocessing are being made at an ever increasing rate. Advances in technology for traditional unit operations such as cell-retention devices in perfusion cell culture, continuous multi-column chromatography (CMCC) and single-pass tangential flow filtration have led to demonstrations of both semi-continuous and fully-continuous protein production processes operating at periodic steady states at the pilot-scale. Previous proof of concept work at Merck & Co., Inc. has shown an automated (DeltaV) and single-use monoclonal antibody (mAb) purification scheme through Protein A CMCC and pH viral inactivation with minimal human interaction for 30 days fed from a perfusion …

A Regulatory Perspective On Continuous Perfusion Production Of Rfviii, Robert Kozak

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Continuous perfusion production has enabled flexible manufacturing of rFVIII, a large complex Biotech Product, for over two decades. Continuous improvement has driven frequent process, equipment and facility changes successfully performed utilizing comparability exercises.

Challenges in evaluating changes made to a continuous perfusion process includes assessment of impact to quality product attributes throughout the entire fermentation campaign which can be months in duration. Examples of process changes requiring more studies, those successfully supported by small scale development runs and API commercial characterization and an example resulting in non-implementation will be reviewed. Impact of changing Regulatory Environment on submission package requests will …

Small-Scale Platform For Rapid On-Demand Manufacturing Of Recombinant Proteins, J. Christopher Love

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

The current timeline for manufacturing high-quality recombinant proteins used for therapeutics and vaccines, and delivering them to patients, typically requires many months. There are many circumstances, however, where the rapid production, release, and delivery of these biologics could address unmet medical needs, including shortages, emergency situations, and pandemics. This talk will present a new platform developed to produce biologic medicines on demand called Integrated and Scalable Cyto-Technology (InSCyT). This platform comprises an integrated, subliter-scale portable system for the (semi)continuous operation of fermentation, filtration of cell debris from secreted product, innovative affinity-based purification, polishing, and finishing. This program also emphasizes integrated …