Engineering

This open access book, published to mark the 15th anniversary of the International Software Quality Institute (iSQI), is intended to raise the profile of software testers and their profession. It gathers contributions by respected software testing experts in order to highlight the state of the art as well as future challenges and trends. In addition, it covers current and emerging technologies like test automation, DevOps, and artificial intelligence methodologies used for software testing, before taking a look into the future. The contributing authors answer questions like: "How is the profession of tester currently changing? What should testers be prepared for in the years to come, and what skills will the next generation need? What opportunities are available for further training today? What will testing look like in an agile world that is user-centered and fast-paced? What tasks will remain for testers once the most important processes are automated?" iSQI has been focused on the education and certification of software testers for fifteen years now, and in the process has contributed to improving the quality of software in many areas. The papers gathered here clearly reflect the numerous ways in which software quality assurance can play a critical role in various areas. Accordingly, the book will be of interest to both professional software testers and managers working in software testing or software quality assurance.

A detailed account of various applications and uses of transparent ceramics and the future of the industry In Transparent Ceramics: Materials, Engineering, and Applications, readers will discover the necessary foundation for understanding transparent ceramics (TCs) and the technical and economic factors that determine the overall worth of TCs. This book provides readers with a thorough history of TCs, as well as a detailed account of the materials, engineering and applications of TC in its various forms; fabrication and characterization specifics are also described. With this book, researchers, engineers, and students find a definitive guide to past and present use cases, and a glimpse into the future of TC materials. The book covers a variety of TC topics, including: ●      The methods employed for materials produced in a transparent state ●      Detailed applications of TCs for use in lasers, IR domes, armor-windows, and various medical prosthetics ●      A review of traditionally used transparent materials that highlights the benefits of TCs ●      Theoretical science and engineering theories presented in correlation with learned data ●      A look at past, present, and future use-cases of TCs  This insightful guide to ceramics that can be fabricated into bulk transparent parts will serve as a must-read for professionals in the industry, as well as students looking to gain a more thorough understanding of the field.

Practical Power Plant Engineering offers engineers, new to the profession, a guide to the methods of practical design, equipment selection and operation of power and heavy industrial plants as practiced by experienced engineers. The author--a noted expert on the topic--draws on decades of practical experience working in a number of industries with ever-changing technologies. This comprehensive book, written in 26 chapters, covers the electrical activities from plant design, development to commissioning. It is filled with descriptive examples, brief equipment data sheets, relay protection, engineering calculations, illustrations, and common-sense engineering approaches. The book explores the most relevant topics and reviews the industry standards and established engineering practices. For example, the author leads the reader through the application of MV switchgear, MV controllers, MCCs and distribution lines in building plant power distribution systems, including calculations of interrupting duty for breakers and contactors. The text also contains useful information on the various types of concentrated and photovoltaic solar plants as well as wind farms with DFIG turbines. This important book: *    Explains why and how to select the proper ratings for electrical equipment for specific applications *    Includes information on the critical requirements for designing power systems to meet the performance requirements *    Presents tests of the electrical equipment that prove it is built to the required standards and will meet plant-specific operating requirements Written for both professional engineers early in their career and experienced engineers, Practical Power Plant Engineering is a must-have resource that offers the information needed to apply the concepts of power plant engineering in the real world.

Guides professionals and students through the rapidly growing field of machine learning with hands-on examples in the popular R programming language Machine learning--a branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) which enables computers to improve their results and learn new approaches without explicit instructions--allows organizations to reveal patterns in their data and incorporate predictive analytics into their decision-making process. Practical Machine Learning in R provides a hands-on approach to solving business problems with intelligent, self-learning computer algorithms.  Bestselling author and data analytics experts Fred Nwanganga and Mike Chapple explain what machine learning is, demonstrate its organizational benefits, and provide hands-on examples created in the R programming language. A perfect guide for professional self-taught learners or students in an introductory machine learning course, this reader-friendly book illustrates the numerous real-world business uses of machine learning approaches. Clear and detailed chapters cover data wrangling, R programming with the popular RStudio tool, classification and regression techniques, performance evaluation, and more.  Explores data management techniques, including data collection, exploration and dimensionality reduction Covers unsupervised learning, where readers identify and summarize patterns using approaches such as apriori, eclat and clustering Describes the principles behind the Nearest Neighbor, Decision Tree and Naive Bayes classification techniques Explains how to evaluate and choose the right model, as well as how to improve model performance using ensemble methods such as Random Forest and XGBoost Practical Machine Learning in R is a must-have guide for business analysts, data scientists, and other professionals interested in leveraging the power of AI to solve business problems, as well as students and independent learners seeking to enter the field.

Most of the reliability literature is directed towards non repairable systems, that is, systems that fail are discarded. This book is mainly dedicated towards providing coverage to the reliability modeling and analysis of repairable systems that are repaired and not replaced when they fail. Most of the equipment - mechanical or otherwise -are repairable and are subjected to maintenance actions- reactive or proactive- at various levels. Maintenance actions are carried out either to preserve a system or to renovate it to a specified functionable state. Maintenance actions are also characterized by the degree (perfect or imperfect) to which a system can be restored, i.e., to an 'as good as new condition' (AGAN), or 'as bad as old condition' (ABAO). Mathematically perfect repair is modeled using a renewal process (RP). Since it represents much idealized situation, this model has restricted applications in the analysis of repairable systems. At the other extreme, the ABAO repair is mathematically modelled using a Non-Homogenous Poisson Process (NHPP). These assumptions are very unrealistic for probabilistic modeling and leads to major distortions in statistical analysis. This unique book provides a comprehensive framework for the modeling and analysis of repairable systems considering both the non- parametric and parametric approaches to deal with the failure data. The book presents MCF based non-parametric approach with several illustrative examples and the generalized renewal process (GRP) based arithmetic reduction of age (ARA) models along with its applications to the systems failure data from aviation industry. The book also covers various multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM), integrated with repairable systems reliability analysis models to provide a much better insight into imperfect repair and maintenance data analysis. A complete chapter on an integrated framework for procurement process is added which will of a great assistance to the readers in enhancing the potential of their respective organization. This book also presents FMEA methods tailored for GRP based repairs. This text has primarily emerged from the industrial experience and research work of the authors. A number of illustrations have been included to make the subject lucid and vivid even to the readers who are relatively new to this area. Besides, various examples have been provided to display the applicability of presented models and methodologies to assist the readers in applying the concepts presented in this book.