Knowledge Departments and Invenrelation: 各知識領域介紹和關聯式創新（國際英文版）

By Shih-Yu Chang, Andrew An-Chu Chang and Ray Hsu-Jui Chang

The structure of this book is composed by the explanations of each department (about 50 departments are discussed). For each department, there are three sections: the first section is about the high level introduction of knowledge studied at this department, the second section is about current research problems investigated by researchers/facult

• Language: English
• Publisher: EHGBooks
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781625035677

Shih-Yu Chang

I am a data scientist. This means that I like to use data to solve problems, whether through machine learning, statistical analysis or data visualization. Currently, I work as a technical lead at an artificial intelligence company in Silicon Valley that specializes in automating backend office works. I am also a professor at San Jose State University and Whitewater University of California and provide courses about artificial intelligence.

Book preview

Department of Computer Science

Computer science is the discipline that systematically studies the theoretical basis of information and computing and how they are implemented and applied in computer systems.    Since ancient times in China, simple manual devices like abacus has helped chinese people in performing calculations. At 17th century in Europe, Blaise Pascal invented a mechanical calculator. More complicated electrical machines were created to do specialized analog calculations in the early 20th century. The first digital electronic calculating machine was implemented during World War II. The processing speed, storage capability and functionality of computers has been improved continuously and dramatically since then.

    The capability of computers to process generalized sets of instructions, called programs, in their processor enables them to perform various kinds of  tasks. We can find that computers are deployed as information processing units in a very wide variety of industrial and consumer uages. For example, we have electrical pots and automated ovens in cookhouse; remote control cars and robotics in garden. At industry, we have factory computing devices such as industrial robots and computer assisted tools. In general purpose, devices like personal computers and mobile devices such as smartphones almost become necessary part of our daily life. Basically, the study of computer science can be classified as following fields. 

Algorithm

    An algorithm is a well-defined computational process that takes one or a set of values as input and, after a series of defined computational processes, produces one or a set of outputs. Algorithms are an important area of computer science research and the basis of many other computer science technologies. The algorithm mainly includes data structure, computational geometry, graph theory and so on. In addition, the algorithm includes many miscellaneous items, such as pattern matching, partial number theory, and so on.

Information theory and coding theory

      Information theory is related to information quantification, created by Claude E. Shannon, to find the fundamental limits of signal processing operations, such as compressed data and reliable data storage and communication. Coding theory is the study of coding and the specific application properties to which they apply. The code is used for data compression, cryptography, forward error correction, and is also used for network coding. The purpose of research coding is to design a more efficient and reliable method of data transmission.

Programming Language

      Programming language theory is a branch of computer science that deals with the design, implementation, analysis, description, and classification of programming languages, as well as their individual characteristics. It belongs to the discipline of computer science and is influenced  by mathematics, hardware/software engineering, logics and linguistics. It is a recognized branch of computer science and an active research field. Research results have been published in numerous academic journals, computer science, and engineering publications.

Formal Methods

  Formalization is a special mathematical-based technique for formal specification, development, and formal verification of software and hardware systems. In terms of software and hardware design, the motivation for the use of formal methods, like other engineering disciplines, is to contribute to the reliability and robustness of the design through proper mathematical analysis. However, the use of formal methods introduces high costs, meaning that they are usually only used in high-reliability systems where security or security is paramount. The best description of formal methods is the application of various theoretical computer science foundations, especially computer logic calculus, formal language, automata theory and formal semantics, in addition to type systems, algebraic data types, and software and hardware.

Distributed Systems

    Concurrency is a property of a system that can perform multiple calculations that may interact with each other at the same time. Some mathematical models, such as Petri nets, process calculus, and PRAM models, were created for general concurrency calculations. Distributed systems extend the idea of parallelism to multiple computers connected by networks. Computers in the same distributed system have their own private memory, and they often exchange information to achieve a common purpose.

      Recently, Cloud Computing is a successful technology by applying distributed systems. It is an interaction model for Internet-based services that typically involves providing dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources over the Internet. In the past, the cloud was often used to represent the telecommunications network, and later used to represent the abstraction of the Inter-connected computing devices and the underlying infrastructure. As a result, cloud computing can even make you experience 10 trillion operations per second, with such powerful computing power to simulate nuclear explosions, predict climate change, and market trends. Users can access the computing resources through computers, laptops, mobile phones, etc., and perform calculations according to their own needs.

Database System

A database is a structured collection of data, generally stored and accessed electronically from a computer system. With the increase of complexity of data,  database is often developed by using formal design and modeling techniques. The database management system (DBMS) is the software system that interacts with users, applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze the data. The DBMS software also includes the core facilities provided to administer the database. Database-management systems can be classified according to the database types that they support. Relational databases became dominant in the 1980s. Relational database type models data as rows and columns in a series of tables, and the vast majority use SQL for writing and querying data. In the 2000s, non-relational databases that use NoSQL query language  became popular due to the raise of Big Data.

      What is the Big Data? Big data is a collection of data that cannot be crawled, managed, and processed by regular software tools over a period of time. Big data technology refers to the ability to quickly obtain valuable information from various types of data. Technologies for big data, including massively parallel processing (MPP) databases, data mining grids, distributed file systems, distributed databases, cloud computing platforms, the Internet, and scalable storage systems. 3Vs (volume, variety and velocity) are three characteristics of Big Data. Volume indicates to the amount of data, variety means the number of types of data and velocity is the speed of data processing. According to such 3Vs properties, the challenges of big data management motivate the design of new query language, e.g., NoSQL, to handle Big Data.

Operating System

      The operating system is a computer program that manages computer hardware and software resources, and is also the kernel and cornerstone of the computer system. The operating system needs to handle basic tasks such as managing and configuring memory, prioritizing system resource supply and demand, controlling input and output devices, operating the network, and managing file systems. The operating system also provides an operator interface that allows the user to interact with the system. The types of operating systems are various, and the operating systems installed on different machines can range from simple to complex, ranging from embedded systems for mobile phones to large operating systems for supercomputers. Many operating system manufacturers do not agree on the scope of their coverage. For example, some operating systems integrate graphical user interfaces, while others use only the command line interface and treat graphical user interface as a non-essential application.

Artificial Intelligence

      This branch of computer science aims to create man-made systems that can solve problems as humans and communicate with general people. Whether in theory or in application, researchers are required to have detailed and comprehensive expertise in a variety of disciplines, such as applied mathematics, logic, semiotics, electrical engineering, spiritual philosophy, neurophysiology, and social intelligence. The field of intelligent research is applied to other subject areas that require computational understanding and modeling, such as finance or physical science. The field of artificial intelligence began to formally originate from Alan Turing, an artificial intelligence pioneer who proposed the Turing experiment to test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.

Invenrelation (Department of Computer Science):

Apply the process of  keyboard typing  (in Computer Science) to personality type (in Anthropology).

Using computer (data science) to identify trend of using new words in a language.

Programmable smart materials.

Apply the concept of personality type (in Anthropology) to  keyboard macro  (in Computer Science).

Apply the concept of prevention deadlock (in Computer Science) to lease (in Accounting).

Any common things among: dgca (in Computer Science), ordinance(in Law).

Any different things among: medicare cost (in Banking, Finance, Insurance), coding (in Computer Science).

Apply the concept of lease (in Accounting) to soar cognitive architecture (in Computer Science).

Genealogy (in History) properties: toughness,completeness; are applied to make part of    addition (in Computer Science).

GSL: gnu scientific library  (in Computer Science) properties: correctness, scalable, are applied to make part of food sculpture (in Art) and unnecessary roughness (in PE and Sports).

Department of Electrical Engineering

    Electrical engineering is a engineering field derived from physics focusing at electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. This field becomes more popular in the later half of the 19th century after commercialization of the electric telegraph, the telephone, and electric power distribution and usage. At the beginning of 20th century, wireless broadcasting and media recording made electronics become indispensable from daily life. The invention of the transistor, and later the integrated circuit in the middle of 20th century, reduce the cost and size of electrical devices making people affordable to utilize these devices in their home and work.

    The scope of electrical engineering broadly covers branches in this field, but in some places the term electrical engineering sometimes does not include electronic engineering. In this case, electrical engineering refers to power systems involving large energy (such as power transmission, heavy-duty motor machinery and electric motors), while electronic engineering refers to electronic systems that handle small signals (such as computers and integration circuits). Another distinction is that power engineers focus on the transmission of electrical energy, while electronic engineers focus on the use of electronic signals for information transmission. The scope of these sub-areas sometimes overlaps: for example, power electronics uses power electronics components to transform and control electrical energy; for example, smart grids detect the power supply of a power supplier and the power usage of a typical home user, therefore, power is adjusted based on these collected power usage information in order to save energy, reduce losses, and enhance the reliability of transmission networks. The electrical engineering has following subfields.

Power Electronics

    Power electronics mainly involves the steps of generating, transporting and distributing electrical energy, as well as the design of some related equipment. These devices include AC-DC converters (rectifiers, choppers, inverters and inverters), transformers, generators, relays, special high-voltage power applications and other power electronics devices. Most governments invest in building and maintaining transmission network systems to connect large generators to local power users. By connecting the appliance to the grid, the user can get the energy in the form of a commodity without having to purchase the generator to generate electricity. The work of power electronics engineers is primarily to design and maintain the grid and connected power systems. This online facility gives the grid extra power, either power or both. Another type of power system known as lower network is better than online systems in some cases, for example, on a moving vehicle that cannot be connected to the grid. The use of satellite to control the power system is one of the directions of power electronics research. With a real-time feedback system, it can avoid power fluctuations and reduce the probability of power outages. For example,  satellite navigation system can provide a unified timing system for automatic dispatching of power systems, fault recorders, relay protection, monitoring systems, and automatic control of power plant units, enabling each subsystem to follow accurate and uniform timing for stable works.

Control Engineering

    Control engineering focuses on modeling the possible behavior of complex dynamic systems and designing controllers to facilitate dynamic systems to evolve in an ideal manner. Control engineering is widely used, such as flight systems and propulsion systems for aircrafts, and cruising and fixed speed systems for automobiles. Developing excellent control theory is fundamental to improve industrial automation. Engineers use electronic circuits, digital signal processors, microcontrollers, and programmable logic controllers to implement embedded systems. With the development of technology, the size of control system and the required power to operate it becomes smaller, but the function is constantly improving. Control engineers often use the concept of feedback when designing a control system. For example, a car with a cruise fixed speed function continuously monitors the speed of the car and reports it to the control system, which then adjusts the output power of the internal combustion engine based on the speed of the current car. If the control system is able to get feedback at regular intervals, an appropriate response can be made according to the control theory.

Electronic engineering

    The scope of electronic engineering covers the design and testing of electronic circuits consisting of electronic components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, and transistors. Basic analog circuits and digital circuits are the basic elements that make up any modern electronic information system. Prior to the Second World War, the scope of electronic engineering research was limited to various communication technologies, radar, commercial radio, and early television technology. After the war, as consumer electronics began to develop, the field quickly expanded to modern televisions, radio systems, computers and microprocessors. Prior to the invention of the integrated circuit in 1959, the electronic circuit was also manually assembled from discrete electronic components. The disadvantages of these discrete electronic circuits are large footprint, low power efficiency, and limited speed, but they are still used in certain special applications. An integrated circuit can integrate a large number of microelectronic components (primarily micro-transistors) onto a small chip of approximately the same coin size. This also opens up the possibility of creating high-performance computers and other electronic devices that exist everywhere in the world today.

Microelectronics

    Microelectronics focuses on the design and microfabrication of extremely small circuits in integrated circuits. This extremely small size circuit can also be fabricated as a conventional electronic device. The most common microelectronic devices include semiconductor transistors, resistors, capacitors, and inductors that can be fabricated to microscopic dimensions. Nanoelectronics is more advanced, and the scope of research has also turned to devices with feature sizes up to the nanometer level. Modern electronic devices have reached the nanometer level, and 100 nanometer process technology has become the industry standard in 2002.

  The manufacturing process of microelectronic devices requires physical and chemical processing of silicon (a compound semiconductor such as gallium arsenide or indium phosphide at high frequencies) to provide an ideal charge. Transmission and current control (in microelectronics, not the higher the better). In the study of these manufacturing processes, a lot of knowledge in chemistry and materials science is needed, and the quantum mechanical effects of electrons at low feature sizes must be considered. Basic semiconductor devices include diodes, bipolar transistors, metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors, and metal semiconductor field effect transistors.

Signal Processing

    Signal processing refers to the analysis and control of signals. Signals can be divided into analog signals and digital signals, where the former varies continuously with real information, while the latter is based on a series of discrete numerical changes that represent real information. Analog signal processing typically involves the audio device amplifying or filtering the audio signal, and the telecommunication device modulating and demodulating the telecommunications signal. The analog signal and the digital signal can be converted into each other through an analog to digital converter and a digital to analog converter. As the basis of modern multimedia technology, digital signal processing often involves data compression, error detection, error correction of sampling signals, especially basic theories such as linear time-invariant system theory and Fourier transform. Signal processing involves many mathematical theories and a lot of mathematical operations. With the development of communication, control, radio and television, power electronics, biomedical engineering, etc., the application range of signal processing continues to expand. Although many analog systems have been replaced by digital systems with the rapid development of digital signal processing, analog signal processing remains an integral part of many control systems.

    Digital signal processing can be implemented on field programmable gate arrays, application specific integrated circuits, and microprocessors. Integrated circuits with digital signal processor functions such as standard definition television, high definition television, radio and mobile communication devices, hi-fi equipment, and Dolby sound are available in many modern electronic systems and electronics. Algorithms, global mobile communication systems, mobile phones, digital audio players, cameras and digital cameras, car control systems, silent headphones, digital spectrum analyzers, smart rocket navigation, radar, various image processing, video processing, voice processing, etc.

Communications Engineering

    Communications engineering is primarily concerned with the transmission of information over the coaxial cable, optical fiber, free space, etc. In order to realize the transmission of information in free space, it is necessary to encode the information into a carrier whose frequency is suitable for transmission. This process is called modulation. Common analog modulation techniques include amplitude modulation and frequency modulation. The choice of modulation technology affects the cost and performance of the system. Usually engineers need to measure the pros and cons of these two factors in many ways to get the best results. Once the information propagation characteristics of the communication system are determined, the communications engineer can begin designing the transmitter and receiver. Sometimes, these two devices can form a two-way communication system, and realize the function of sending and receiving at the same time. This system is called transceiver. When designing a transmitter, the power loss is a key consideration, and this parameter is closely related to its signal strength. If the strength of the transmitted signal is not high enough, the signal is likely to be disturbed by noise and the required information cannot be obtained by receiver correctly.

    As mobile phones become a common portable device in people's daily lives, technicians have gradually added a number of additional functions beyond voice calls, such as text messaging and Wi-Fi, making the phone a mobile Internet device. These convenient and fast services are based on basic communication technologies such as general packet radio services, EV-DO or 3/4G. At present, 5G is already in the research and testing stage.

Measurement Devices

    Meters and sensors measure physical quantities such as pressure, temperature, etc., using different states of the object under different conditions. Since electrical signals can be easily processed (analog signal processing, digital signal processing), many modern instruments operate on the principle of electrical sensing. In order to manufacture these instrumentation devices, designers need to have a good basic knowledge of physics, especially in the fields of electromagnetism, materials science, and semiconductor physics. For example, a radar tachometer uses a difference between the frequency of an object in motion and its own frequency (Doppler effect) to achieve speed measurement; while a thermocouple uses temperature difference to measure temperature.

    Control systems often need to obtain information from outside and give the outside world a certain control signal. Let’s take car as an example, the cruise fixed speed system needs to use a speed sensor or a speed meter to monitor the motion state of the car, and then transmit this information to the central processor, which according to the driver's preset target speed and current speed. The difference determines the state of engine operation. Therefore, measurement technology is an important part of control engineering, but it is more concerned with the extraction of physical quantities. At present, measurement technology is moving towards miniaturization and rapid development, and its precision is also constantly improving.

Computer Engineering

    Computer engineering mainly refers to the design of computers and computer systems. It includes the design of computer hardware/software, portable electronics, supercomputers, etc. Computer engineering also involves software for hardware systems. With the development of computer engineering, the integration scale of integrated circuits such as ASICs and system chips has been continuously improved, and functions have been continuously enhanced. The scale of integrated circuits has been increasing since its inception. At present, the design, simulation and verification of VLSI are gradually supported by electronic design automation tools. Designers can now focus on building the logic functions of a circuit system while completing the tedious task of wiring, layout, and layout with computer-aided tools. The capabilities of mainstream hardware description languages such as Verilog and VHDL enable designers to design complex hardware circuits in a computer-like manner. Practitioners in the computer engineering profession need to have a good understanding about electronics, and should also have certain knowledge about computer operation and programming.

Invenrelation (Department of Electrical Engineering):

How to apply food science knowledge to concepts about  IIS (in Electrical Engineering) ?

How to apply clothing design methods to idea related to  APM (in Electrical Engineering) ?

Ｗhat we can observe from  Wheatstone Bridge (in Electrical Engineering) with microscopic perspective.

How to teach concept about  Logarithmic Taper (in Electrical Engineering) to people whose background is not Electrical Engineering ?

Ｗhat is the limitation of applying  802.11a (in Electrical Engineering), with respect to timing, place or context considerations?

Ｗhat is the future developing trend of Electrical Engineering?

How to reconstruct the knowledge architecture of Electrical Engineering.

How to reformulate the conceptual relations of  Gas Gauge (in Electrical Engineering).

How we can apply ideas from  EMI (in Electrical Engineering) to design education tools ?

How we can apply ideas from  TD-SCDMA (in Electrical Engineering) to design games?

Department of Civil Engineering

    Civil engineering is an engineering field that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built living environment facilities around us. These facilities include buildings, industrial facilities, power transmission facilities, business facilities, transportation facilities, tunnels, water collection facilities, water treatment facilities, and recycle facilities, etc. With the increasing population and its demand for environmental resources, civil engineers are facing several challenges. They can be listed as following.

Coastal Engineering

Coastal engineering is concerned with the civil engineering about  coastal areas. The purpose of coastal engineering is to defense coastal area against flooding and erosion, respectively.  The coastal engineers provide design services and environmental analysis and assessment for a variety of port and coastal projects. They also work on the design and restoration of beach and coastal projects such as docks, dams, water platforms, anti-waves, shoreline defense equipment and the entrance strait. The designed projects are in harmony with the surrounding environment, minimizing the potential impact on environmental resources.

    Engineers at this field have to use state-of-the-art scientific instruments to measure water depth, water flow, water waves, water levels and sediment transport. These measurements are used primarily in the validation of specialized software for water, water and sediment transport, as well as data modeling processes such as beach changes and seabed morphology. Accurate description of marine environmental conditions and the use of these tools to implement processes are key to the success of coastal infrastructure design. In order to save cost, engineers often use collected and simulated weather, water flow and wave information to assess downtime for offshore, coastal and nearshore installations and equipment, including terminals and wind turbines, to maximize equipment availability and increase productivity with reduced risk.

Construction Engineering

    Construction engineering studies methods and tools that can increase value to construct projects with a focus on resources management. Understanding the nature and structure of development resource provides a foundation for modeling, quantifying, and reducing potential risks about constructing projects. After learning the basic theories and basic knowledge of engineering mechanics, soil mechanics, surveying, housing architecture and structural engineering, students have the ability to engage in civil engineering project planning, design, research and development, construction and management and civil engineering education. 

Earthquake Engineering

    Earthquake engineering is an engineering science that takes effective measures to prevent various disasters that may be caused by sudden earthquake attacks. Based on seismology and geology, it mainly studies the characteristics of ground motion and the destruction of buildings during earthquakes, involving many aspects of engineering such as civil engineering, machinery, electronics, and water conservancy. Topics include seismic genesis, seismic waves, faults, strong ground motion studies and measurements, seismic damage caused by structures, simulated seismic tests, model and prototype structural dynamic tests, linear and nonlinear structural responses, soil and rock properties, interaction of soil and pile foundation, and earthquake and tsunami.

    The research results at this field can be used to: (1) provide basis and method for designing seismic structure; (2) provide basis for seismic intensity zoning and identification, etc; (3)