We are truly happy for the successful defense of your Master’s Thesis, “Applications of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Supply Chain Risk Assessment,” co-advised by Dr. Ruihong Huang and by our lab’s Director Dr. Zenon Medina-Cetina, along with the support of Dr. Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna, a member of your graduate committee.

Your research developments of new NLP’s algorithms running in our lab’s GPU’s NVIDIA technology, is a major milestone to assimilate massive real-time media information into our supply chain risk models, based on Probabilistic Artificial Intelligence (PAI), for risk assessment and management of spatio-temporal processes.

The addition of non-structured information into our models, places our lab at the forefront of innovation in the simulation of risk scenarios for critical supply chains in North America. This research as part of our lab’s projects sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the DHS Science and Technology Directorate, through the Cross-Border Threat Screening and Supply Chain Defense, a DHS’ Center of Excellence at Texas A&M University.

Your contributions in our lab will soon show global social, economic, and environmental impacts, when we release our Bayesian Risk Platform for Supply Chains this summer, and when we publish the corresponding reports and papers. For which we couldn’t be happier and proud for having you as a member of our team!

Many congratulations Aayush!

In honor of his graduation ceremony last Friday, we have captured Juan Pablo Alvarado Franco\’s path to becoming 2023 PhD Graduate in Geotechnical Engineering from the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University. He is the 14th PhD graduate from SGL – Stochastic Geomechanics Laboratory!

Alvarado originally hails from Colombia, where he obtained both his undergraduate and graduate degrees. He attended the Universidad de Los Andesfor his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering and his Masters degree in Civil Engineering with a focus in Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering.

Once he finished his Masters degree, Alvarado went on to work within industry for five years with Ecopetrol, one of the biggest oil and gas companies in Colombia, and later he worked for Cenit Transporte y Logística de Hidrocarburos, a hydrocarbons transportation and logistics subsidiary company of Ecopetrol.Where he worked as a geotechnical risk professional focusing on data analysis as well as the development and application of models to assess geotechnical hazards along the paths of onshore pipelines. During this time, Alvarado gained an interest in landslide risk assessment and management, something important to him since landslides have been a prevalent natural threat affecting the infrastructure and population of Colombia.

After gaining industry experience, Alvarado decided to apply for a PhD program in the U.S. via the Fulbright Colombia program. He was awarded a FulbrightScholarship to study in the U.S. in 2017.

Alvarado said that while he was researching PhD programs and advisors, he ran across Dr. Zenon Medina-Cetina, Associate Professor in the Zachry Department at Texas A&M. At first he saw that Dr. Medina-Cetina\’s research on Bayesian spatio-temporal risk assessment and management, aligned with his professional interests, particularly after learning more about his lab projects at the SGL – Stochastic Geomechanics Laboratory.

Once Alvarado connected with Dr. Medina-Cetina, he guided him through his PhD application. By Fall of 2018, Alvarado had started his PhD program at Texas A&M as a Fulbright student and under the advisorship of Dr. Medina-Cetina and SGL team member. Later, from the Summer of 2020, Alvarado transitioned to be fully sponsored by Dr. Medina-Cetina until the completion of his PhD program.

Since his move to Texas, Alvarado worked on the application of Bayesian Methods for the risk assessment of landslides, which was the main focus of his PhD Dissertation defense in mid October. Through it’s international and interdisciplinary research, SGL has allowed Alvarado to also conduct and lead research on risk assessment of U.S. supply chains, in projects sponsored by the Cross-Border Threat Screening and Supply Chain Defense (CBTS), a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence led by Texas A&M University. With this project, Alvarado has developed leadership and mentoring skills while managing a research team that includes undergraduate, masters, and PhD students as well as working with experts from industry, government, and academia.

Given all that work, Alvarado is excited and continues to be optimistic about the research they are doing and what the future holds. He is most excited about the possibility of applying his scientific, engineering, and technical skills and leadership, into innovative solutions requiring a probabilistic risk framework and interdisciplinary collaborations.

Thanks to the SGL reputation and his emergence as a rising star in his field, Alvarado received multiple job offers, making a decision to join Geosyntec Consultants, an international consulting and engineering firm. He will be joining them at the beginning of the New Year, at their Houston branch.

With his busy schedule, Alvarado has managed to make time for things he enjoys doing outside of work and school including swimming, reading, playing video games and any and everything related to soccer. He married his wife in 2020 in Colombia and she was able to join him and move to College Station in 2021 along with their dog Lucrecia, a social media pet star.

Two SGL students from the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University, presented their team’s research poster this week at the American Geophysical Union (AGU23) Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. Billy Hernawan and Juan Pablo Alvarado Franco presented their team’s work titled ‘Probabilistic Offshore Landslides Hazard Mapping: Integrating Observations, Models and Experts’ Knowledge through a Bayesian Framework,’ within the Natural Hazard subtopic. This work was co-authored by their PhD advisor Dr. Zenon Medina-Cetina, and by former SGL member Dr. Patricia Varela.

The main findings of the poster presented a Bayesian Framework, as a systematic way to integrate sources of evidence to calibrate the parameters of a landslide forward model (infinite slope). With submarine landslides acting as a major geological threat affecting underwater infrastructure and coastal communities, the type of site characterization evidence and its amount in the form of physical observations, play an important role in the production of landslide hazard maps. The Bayesian probabilistic calibration developed by Dr. Medina-Cetina’s team, produces more certain model predictions in the form of probability density functions, and can be updated when new evidence becomes available. Reducing further the uncertainty of the model predictions.

AGU, established in 1919, is a global community supporting more than half a million advocates and professionals in the Earth and space sciences, covering disciplines from Atmospheric Sciences, Natural Hazards, to Global Environmental Change. The conference is being held until the 15th of December and brings together more than 25,000 attendees to explore how Science Leads the Future. (www.agu.org)

“The conference brings together researchers from all over the globe to share their most recent work on anything related to geo research. Our work represents a breakthrough in hazard assessment.” Said Hernawan, who also mentioned that it was beneficial to learn about what others are doing within the natural hazard division and the geo field research.

You can learn more about Hernawan and Alvarado’s work by checking out the SGL website or reaching out to them via LinkedIn.

Dr. Sychterz is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Illinois. She is also an Affiliate Faculty within the Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois. With her team at SMARTI lab, they harness geometrically nonlinear systems, such as tensegrity structures and origami, for adaptive civil infrastructure. She obtained her PhD in 2018 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne– EPFL addressing the novel use of control algorithms, statistical diagnostic tools, and real-time feedback on a full-scale tensegrity structure to enable smooth deployability, damage detection, adaptation, and learning. She completed her masters and bachelors of science at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Dr. Sychterz completed a postdoctoral position at the University of Michigan on actuator optimization of adaptive origami structures.

Current infrastructure is designed and built such that it must simultaneously comply with all possible loads. This leads to over-designed structures that are inefficient in terms of energy and cost. A structure that can self-identify damage, adapt, and learn for future events addresses the emerging field of intelligent infrastructure and structural health monitoring through inspiration from biology. To achieve this type of structure requires balance of structural engineering, architecture, mechanical engineering, computer science, and robotics. Deployable active structures that change shape either autonomously or remotely to accommodate challenging environments are rare. Tensegrity structures are geometrically non-linear, they are ideal candidates for studying deployable structures (http://youtu.be/FeXxjerleZE). Through actuation, origami-inspired structures can also be repeatedly deployed for ease of transportation and installation.

The grand challenge of this work is addressing uncertainties between modeling and experimental testing for large-scale shape changing structures. To address this challenge, SMARTI lab employs optical tracking and computer vision for high-definition measurement and additive manufacturing for optimized connections. This seminar presented work on adaptive and deployable structures using sustainable materials and control algorithms for resilient infrastructure. *

*Abstract and Bio provided by Ann Sychterz

Xiaoyan Long Phd PE DGE , visited Texas A&M University on November 10th to present her work on “Floating Offshore Wind Overview” to Civil Engineering Graduate Students. The graduate seminar, Structures, Geotechnical and Construction Division is instructed by Dr. Zenon Medina-Cetina, Associate Professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University. Dr. Long was introduced by her former Ph.D. advisor, Dr. Charles Aubeny, also a professor in the Zachry Department.

Dr. Long is the principal consultant and technical authority for Fugro USA Marine, Inc. in Houston, TX. She has over 15 years\’ consultancy and management experience specializing in marine site characterization, foundation design, well geotechnical and interdisciplinary geo-hazard assessment. She obtained her master’s degree from Tongji University in China and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Texas A&M University . She is a registered professional engineer in Texas and Ohio and a board-certified geotechnical engineer. Dr. Long has published over 30 technical papers and is serving as the Honorary Secretary of the SUT – US Society for Underwater Technology in the U.S.executive branch committee.

In the seminar, Dr. Long emphasized how floating offshore wind is emerging as a promising source of renewable energy generation. The presentation aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of floating offshore wind development. Aspects included floating wind market overview, subsea cables, floater technology, mooring and anchoring will be presented together with the discussions of geohazard and site characterization considerations for floating wind farms. *

*Abstract and Bio provided by Dr. Xiaoyan Long

Timo Hartmann, Ph.D., visited Texas A&M University on November 3rd to present his work on “ASHVIN Project – Assistants for Healthy, Safe, and Productive Virtual Construction Design, Operation & Maintenance Using a Digital Twin,” to Civil Engineering Graduate Students. The graduate seminar, Structures, Geotechnical and Construction Division is instructed by Dr. Zenon Medina-Cetina, Associate Professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University. This seminar was facilitated by Stephanie Paal, Ph.D., an Associate Professor in the Zachry Department and a Williams Brothers Construction Company Associate Professor.

Dr. Hartmann has always been intrigued by the working processes of construction, engineering, and architectural professionals and how they design the complex engineering systems that keep our societies ticking, moving, and thriving. While he is in awe of how engineers deal with the complexity of their designs, he tries to provide managerial and technical solutions that improve how they work. He believes in the digitalization of the industry in the sense that computational tools have the potential to allow engineers to design significantly different than they were able before – individually, but more importantly together in integrated engineering efforts. To develop such tools, it is important to consider both technical and social factors working in close collaboration with practitioners.

Hartmann received a Ph.D. from Stanford University where he was a student at the CIFE – Center for Integrated Facility Engineering. His work has been published in Advanced Engineering Informatics, the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Building Research and Information, Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, Design Studies, or ITCON. He is the handling editor of Advanced Engineering Informatics where they explore the science of engineering knowledge formulation with computational methods and Engineering, Construction, and Architectural Management where we would like to explore how to best manage collaborative and integrated engineering projects.

ASHVIN Projectis a large-scale EU funded project (€5,609,858.75) that aims at enabling the European construction industry to significantly improve its productivity, while reducing costs and ensuring absolutely safe working conditions. To this end, Ashvin provides a proposal for a European wide digital twin standard, an open-source digital twin platform integrating IoT and image technologies, and a set of tools and demonstrated procedures to apply the platform and the standard proven to guarantee specified productivity, cost, and safety improvements.

The envisioned platform provides a digital representation of the construction product at hand and allows to collect real-time digital data before, during, and after production of the product to continuously monitor changes in the environment and within the production process. Based on the platform, Ashvin develops and demonstrates applications that use the digital twin data. These applications will allow it to fully leverage the potential of the IoT based digital twin platform to reach the expected impacts (better scheduling forecast by 20%; better allocation of resources and optimization of equipment usage; reduced number of accidents; reduction of construction projects).

The Ashvin solutions can overcome worker protection and privacy issues that come with the tracking of construction activities, provide means to fuse video data and sensor data, integrate geo-monitoring data, provide multi-physics simulation methods for digital representing the behavior of a product (not only its shape), provide evidence based engineering methods to design for productivity and safety, provide 4D simulation and visualization methods of construction processes, and develop a lean planning process supported by real-time data.*

*Bio and Abstract provided by Dr. Timo Hartmann

]]> https://zenon-sgl.tamu.edu/seminar-series-dr-prateek-shah-on-the-repair-and-retrofit-of-structures/ Fri, 27 Oct 2023 22:03:58 +0000 http://localhost:8888/new/seminar-series-dr-prateek-shah-on-the-repair-and-retrofit-of-structures/ College Station, TX-

Prateek Shah, Ph.D., visited Texas A&M University on October 27th to present his work on \”Repair and Retrofit of Structures,” to Civil Engineering Graduate Students. The graduate seminar, Structures, Geotechnical and Construction Division is instructed by Dr. Zenon Medina-Cetina, Associate Professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University. This seminar was facilitated by Kinsey Skillen, PhD, an Assistant Professor, also in the Zachry Department.

Dr. Shah works at Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. (WJE) in San Francisco, CA. He specializes in the repair and retrofit of structures, large-scale structural testing, nonlinear analysis of structures, and post-disaster structural evaluations and assessment. Prior to joining WJE, he received his BS, MS, and PhD in Civil Engineering (Structures) from Purdue University. As a graduate research assistant at Purdue University’s Bowen Lab for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research, his primary research focused on estimating seismic drift demands, post-earthquake reconnaissance, large-scale testing and repair and rehabilitation of reinforced concrete structures.

In the United States, a large stockpile of buildings are vulnerable to damage and/or collapse during strong ground shaking. Demolition and reconstruction of all such seismically vulnerable buildings is not feasible because of the monetary and environmental costs associated with such demolition and reconstruction. Hence, seismically vulnerable buildings must be repaired and/or retrofitted to help them survive future ground shaking. In this talk, repair and retrofit strategies for existing, seismically vulnerable buildings was discussed. Emphasis was placed on using simple analysis and design methods. *

*Abstract & bio provided by Dr. Shah

Rolando Chacón , Ph.D., visited Texas A&M University on October 20th to present his work on \”The Role of Simulations in Digital Twinning Structures & Infrastructures. A Set of Examples of European Infrastructure Systems,” to Civil Engineering Graduate Students. The graduate seminar, Structures, Geotechnical and Construction Division is instructed by Dr. Zenon Medina-Cetina, Associate Professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University. This seminar was facilitated by Dr. Carlos Quintero-Febres ,an Instructional Professor in the Zachry Department.

Dr. Chacón holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the Universidad de los Andes (VE) in Venezuela and earned a MSc and PhD from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona, Spain. He has been an associate professor at UPC since 2009. His research has focused on advanced inelastic analysis of steel structures, with emphasis on structural problems related to plate buckling, stability, and dynamics. Currently his research encompasses the integration of analysis simulations, and measurements in the context of new human-structures interfaces, such as digital twins. He has received recognition in both teaching and research, being awarded the European EUCEET, European Civil Engineering Education and Trainingin 2021 for teaching and the David Luque award from UPCNET-UPC in 2013. As a researcher he was recognized as the Best Young Researcher in Eurosteel in 2008.

In the seminar, Dr. Chacón presented a set of twinning experiences of connection between physical data, numerical simulations, and comprehensive 3D representations of real structural assets. From educational lab experiences on simple elements to major European infrastructure systems (buildings, bridges, or stadiums), the set of examples of comprehensive digital twins are aimed to illustrate challenges and benefits of digitization and advanced numerical modelers on the verge of this convergence of fields. *

*Abstract and bio and photos provided by Dr. Chacón.

DV Griffiths, PhD and professor of Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines visited Texas A&M University on October 13th to present his work on “Computational Slope Stability Analysis” to Civil Engineering Graduate Students. The graduate seminar, Structures, Geotechnical and Construction Division is instructed by Dr. Zenon Medina-Cetina, Associate Professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Dr. Griffiths’ work is currently some of the most cited in geotechnical engineering literature on slope stability analysis. His research interests include application of finite elements and risk assessment methodologies in geotechnical engineering. In 2020, Dr. Griffiths was inducted as a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

His presentation focused on the factor of safety and significant contrast between factors on loads, as opposed to factors on strength. A classical slope problem solved by Taylor’s charts from the 1930s is revisited using:

1. Simple optimization assuming circular failure mechanisms
2. Elastic-plastic finite elements with strength reduction and
3. Upper- and lower-bound finite element limit analysis

Results show the benefits of the finite element approaches, especially as slope becomes relatively flat where the simple approach starts to overestimate the factor of safety. Slope stability analysis remains a central activity for geotechnical practitioners and is a continued area of interest and research for academics.*

*Abstract & bio provided by Dr. Vaughan Griffiths.