Biotechnologies

18 Oct Engineering Power – Vol. 13(2)

Croatian Academy of Engineering (HATZ)
2018

A large part of present technological achievements results from research and continuing advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is a part of computer science that aims to create intelligent machines, capable of thinking, acting and learning like humans. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning a variety of subfields, among which machine learning (ML) and computer vision (CV) are generally regarded as core parts of AI. CV is a field that aims to give the computer visual understanding of the world from images. ML is a field of study that gives computers the ability to learn how to solve a certain task. It is particularly suited for problems that may seem relatively simple for humans, but are rather difficult to solve by using classical image processing approaches. CV and ML fields have a significant overlap where many CV problems can be solved using ML techniques. Several papers listed below present a part of CV and related ML research conducted by experts from two laboratories of the Center of Excellence for Computer Vision (CRV) at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing and also by CRV collaboration researchers. The first laboratory involved is Human-oriented Technologies Laboratory (HOTLab) led by Prof. Igor S. Pandžić, Ph.D., while the second laboratory involved is Advanced Shape Reconstruction and Registration Laboratory (SHARK Lab) led by Tomislav Pribanić, Ph.D., Associate Prof. Nowadays one heavily studied ML application is certainly face analysis (FA) presented in one of the papers below. Applications of FA technologies range from marketing and entertainment to automotive industry in which, for instance, the goal is fatigue detection for vehicle driver. Another paper presented discusses two thoroughly researched CV tasks: object localization and semantic segmentation. The former attempts to find objects in the input image, where minimum bounding rectangle of the object and the associated object class are the ideal output. The latter is somewhat more detailed where each image pixel is assigned to the corresponding class label. Interesting applications can be found in traffic control systems and medical imaging. The next paper presents ML in the context of image categorization and image similarity whereby a commercial service was developed, enabling buyers of certain products to find visually similar objects of interest. The camera is the essential tool used in CV. For numerous geometry related tasks the camera requires calibration which affects many applications such as geocoding, as explained in another paper. A geometrically calibrated camera is a basis for the 3D passive and 3D active reconstruction system too. 3D scanning systems are extensively used in fashion design and development and medical applications such as human back surface analyses. The last two papers put emphasis on those two applications.

18 Oct Enineering Power – Bulletin of the Croatian Academy of Engineering – Vol. 12(3)

Croatian Academy of Engineering (HATZ)
2018

Biomedical engineering is one of the fastest developing fields, which touches many specialties and provides a basis for the faster development of medical science. Close and fruitful cooperation of medical doctors and engineers results in team synergy, thus enabling faster progress than in the case when everyone works seperately in their own "silos". At the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Mechanical engineering and Naval Architecture we recognised the necessity of such cooperation more than ten years ago. Today, our several engineer teams are teames up with medical doctors in projects related to medicine. As pathological conditions in the cardiovascular system (such as atherosclerosis, formation of aneurysms, valvular jeart diseases, etc.) are strongly interlinked with the hemodynamics of the cardiovascular system and tissue remodeling, they attract interest of our departments. The Department of Fluid Mechanics is now in charge of hemodynamics and the Department of Mechanics is in charge of tissue remodeling and formation of aneurysms.The papers provide the Department of Fluid Mechanics team with a short overview over research activities and results in the field of hemodynamic modeling of the cardiovascular system. We have developed models and numerical methods with different levels of complexity: from a lumped parameter model to one-dimensional and quasi two-dimensional to three-dimensional model.

18 Oct Enineering Power – Bulletin of the Croatian Academy of Engineering – Vol. 13(1)

Croatian Academy of Engineering (HATZ)
2018

This issue is dedicated to the scientific work in the field of biomechanical engineering in the Laboratory for numerical Mechanics at the Faculty of Mechanical engineering and Naval Arhitecture, University of Zagreb. Our work concerns modeling of soft tissue behavior, particularly abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) development. We addressed the problem of intraluminal thrombus enlargement within abdominal aortic aneurysm. Our mail goal was to develop a theoretical and computational biochemomechanical model of evolving properties of ILT incorporated into an initially healthy artery.We showed that thrombus-laden lesions can either arrest or rupture depending on the biochemical (e.g., concentration of elastases) and biomechanical (stiffness of fibrin) properties of the ILT. The herein presented results are the results of fruitful cooperation with Jay D Humphrey's group from Yale university, USA, Gerhard Holzapfel's group from TU Graz, austria, Seungik Baek from Michigan state University, USA and Ivo Lovričević, Medical School, University of Zagreb. The scientific work in our group was supported by grants from the Croatian Science Foundation project IP-2014-09-7382 and Installation Grant to I. Karšaj.

18 Oct Enineering Power – Bulletin of the Croatian Academy of Engineering – Vol. 13(2)

Croatian Academy of Engineering (HATZ)
2018

A large part of present technological achievements result from research and continuing advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is a part of computer science that aims to create intelligent machines, capable of thinking, acting and learning like humans. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning a variety of subfields, among which machine learning (ML) and computer vision (CV) are generally regarded as core parts of AI. CV is field that aims to give the computer visual understanding of the world from images. ML is a field od study that gives computers visual understanding of the world from images. ML a field of study that gives computers the ability to learn how to solve a certain task. It is particularly suited for problems that may seem relatively simple for humans, but are rather difficult to solve by using classical image processing approaches. CV and ML fields have a significant overlap where many CV problems can be solved using ML techniques.

18 Oct Enineering Power – Bulletin of the Croatian Academy of Engineering – Vol. 13(3)

Croatian Academy of Engineering (HATZ)
2018

Civil engineering is one of the oldest and broadest engineering fields, dealing with the design and construction, but also with the maintenance of the naturally and physically built environment. It includes a vast spectrum of works such as buildings, roads, railways, bridges, canals, dams, sewage systems etc. It is a fact that civil engineering does not develop at the same progressive rate as some other engineering disciplines (i.e. mechanical, electrical or computing engineering) where new discoveries are introduced practically on a daily-basis.The objective reasons for this are to be found in the nature of civil engineering which has been developing gradually not for centuries, but milleniums. However, the implementation of numerical codes, modernization of investigation and testing equipment, much more powerful construction machines have all led to the implementation of innovative techniques and technologies in civil engineering over the last few last decades. The papers listed below represent a part of the scientific and professional work of experts of the Department of Geotechnics, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Zagreb. The Department of Geotechnics is one of nine departments of the Faculty of Civil Enineering, University of Zagreb. The Department of Geotechnics is one of nine departments of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and it is organised in two chairs, the Chair of Soil and Rock Mechanics and the Chair for Geotechnical Engineering.

18 Oct Jubilee Annual 2017-2018 of the Croatian Academy of Engineering

Croatian Academy of Engineering (HATZ)
2018

It is customary for the Academy to present the appropriate form of its activities in the annualsof the academy, which are issued yearly in Croatian or English. So, Annual 2016 of the Croatian Academy of Engineering was published in which our members in their papers deal with the current burning topic entiled "The State and theFfuture of Technical and Biotechnical Sciences in Croatia in the 21st Century" which certainly contributed to considerations and decisions related to the future of science and economy. You now have in front of you our Annual 2017-2018 in english under the title "Annual 2017-2018 of the Croatian Academy of engineering". The significant aim of this edition is to make a contribution and historical review of activities over the past years and to make you familiar with the type and membership of the Academy.