Maha Graduates:

Maha is celebrating three successful Ph.D. defenses! The first took place at the beginning of November: Mike Sprengel defended on November 10^th, presenting his work on the invention of a new architecture for hydraulic hybrid transmissions, as well as the modeling and comparison of several different hydraulic transmission architectures, especially in terms of the achievable efficiency of these systems.

Timothy Opperwall defended on November 30^th, and presented his work in modeling and measuring the noise emissions of external gear machines.

Finally, on December 7^th, Guido Francisco Ritelli defended his thesis entitled “Active Oscillation Reduction in Hydraulic Load Handling Machines with Energy Implications.” Congratulations to Mike, Tim and Guido!

New Faces at Maha:

Maha would like to welcome visiting scholars Francesco Napolitano and Matteo Foà. Both will be working under Dr. Vacca.

As part of the Apps & Apps (Appetizers and Applications) event, Students in the Agricultural Technology & Innovation Learning Community, newly organized by Dr. Dennis Buckmaster and Amy Jones, are learning how mobile devices can be used to make better land, personnel, and machinery decisions.

Dennis Buckmaster explains the CANdroid – an open source device that can collect machine data. Data-driven agriculture is changing rapidly and the best opportunities require familiarity with the technology.

Students in ABE 325 (Soil and Water Resource Engineering) practice their surveying skills.  During this Lab they were at Pickett Park measuring channel cross-sections.

Xia Zhao has joined us from the Central City District in Xining, China. She is working with Professors Bernie Engel and John Harbor (EAPS) on landuse change and its hydrological impact. She is visiting from the Geographic Science Department of Qinghai Normal University. Please make her feel welcome.

Dr. Changqing Cai joined the Department of Agricultural Biological and Engineering (ABE) at Purdue University as a visiting scholar December 1^st, 2015. At Purdue University, she will be working with Dr. Jiqin Ni and his team for one year on modeling and control of animal environmental systems.

Dr. Cai is Professor of Electrical and Information Engineering at Changchun Institute of Technology (CCIT) in Jilin Province, China. Over the past 10 years, she has lead or participated in 20 research projects, most of which focus on the realization of agricultural modernization in Jilin Province, especially on Greenhouse Environmental Regulation and Control in Cold Region using remote data acquisition and intelligent control.

Dr. Cai enjoys the outdoors and exercise in her free time, and loves to play badminton with friends. Her office is in ABE Room 107A. Welcome Dr. Changqing Cai to ABE.