A summary of the 'Engineering Education for Sustainable Development:Toolkit of Information & Teaching Material'

This paper reflects on the critical need for an urgent transformation of higher education curriculum globally, to equip society with professionals who can address our 21st Century sustainable living challenges. Specifically it discusses a toolkit called the ‘Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program’, which is a freely available, rigorously reviewed and robust content resource for higher education institutions to access content on innovations and opportunities in the process of evolving the curriculum...

Left versus right hemisphere differences in brain connectivity: 4-Tesla HARDI tractography in 569 twins

Diffusion imaging can map anatomical connectivity in the living brain, offering new insights into fundamental questions such as how the left and right brain hemispheres differ. Anatomical brain asymmetries are related to speech and language abilities, but less is known about left/right hemisphere differences in brain wiring. To assess this, we scanned 457 young adults (age 23.4±2.0 SD years) and 112 adolescents (age 12-16) with 4-Tesla 105-gradient high-angular resolution diffusion imaging. We extracted fiber tracts throughout the brain with a Hough transform method. A 70×70 connectivity matrix was created, for each subject, based on the proportion of fibers intersecting 70 cortical regions. We identified significant differences in the proportions of fibers intersecting left and right hemisphere cortical regions. The degree of asymmetry in the connectivity matrices varied with age, as did the asymmetry in network topology measures such as the small-world effect.

Changes in anatomical brain connectivity between ages 12 and 30: A HARDI study of 467 adolescents and adults

Graph theory can be applied to matrices that represent the brain's anatomical connections, to better understand global properties of anatomical networks, such as their clustering, efficiency and "small-world" topology. Network analysis is popular in adult studies of connectivity, but only one study - in just 30 subjects - has examined how network measures change as the brain develops over this period. Here we assessed the developmental trajectory of graph theory metrics of structural brain connectivity in a cross-sectional study of 467 subjects, aged 12 to 30. We computed network measures from 70×70 connectivity matrices of fiber density generated using whole-brain tractography in 4-Tesla 105-gradient high angular resolution diffusion images (HARDI). We assessed global efficiency and modularity, and both age and age 2 effects were identified. HARDI-based connectivity maps are sensitive to the remodeling and refinement of structural brain connections as the human brain develops.

Discovery of genes that affect human brain connectivity: A genome-wide analysis of the connectome

Human brain connectivity is disrupted in a wide range of disorders from Alzheimer's disease to autism but little is known about which specific genes affect it. Here we conducted a genome-wide association for connectivity matrices that capture information on the density of fiber connections between 70 brain regions. We scanned a large twin cohort (N=366) with 4-Tesla high angular resolution diffusion imaging (105-gradient HARDI). Using whole brain HARDI tractography, we extracted a relatively sparse 70×70 matrix representing fiber density between all pairs of cortical regions automatically labeled in co-registered anatomical scans. Additive genetic factors accounted for 1-58% of the variance in connectivity between 90 (of 122) tested nodes. We discovered genome-wide significant associations between variants and connectivity. GWAS permutations at various levels of heritability, and split-sample replication, validated our genetic findings. The resulting genes may offer new leads for mechanisms influencing aberrant connectivity and neurodegeneration. © 2012 IEEE.

Diffusion imaging protocol effects on genetic associations

Large multi-site image-analysis studies have successfully discovered genetic variants that affect brain structure in tens of thousands of subjects scanned worldwide. Candidate genes have also associated with brain integrity, measured using fractional anisotropy in diffusion tensor images (DTI). To evaluate the heritability and robustness of DTI measures as a target for genetic analysis, we compared 417 twins and siblings scanned on the same day on the same high field scanner (4-Tesla) with two protocols: (1) 94-directions; 2mm-thick slices, (2) 27-directions; 5mm-thickness. Using mean FA in white matter ROIs and FA skeletons derived using FSL, we (1) examined differences in voxelwise means, variances, and correlations among the measures; and (2) assessed heritability with structural equation models, using the classical twin design. FA measures from the genu of the corpus callosum were highly heritable, regardless of protocol. Genome-wide analysis of the genu mean FA revealed differences across protocols in the top associations.

Genetic influences on sulcal patterns of the brain

We present a shape-space approach for analyzing genetic influences on the shapes of the sulcal folding patterns on the cortex. Sulci are represented as continuously parameterized functions in a shape space, and shape differences between sulci are obtained via geodesics between them. The resulting statistical shape analysis framework is used not only to construct populations averages, but also used to compute meaningful correlations within and across groups of sulcal shapes. More importantly, we present a new algorithm that extends the traditional Euclidean estimate of the intra-class correlation to the geometric shape space, thereby allowing us to study heritability of sulcal shape traits for a population of 193 twin pairs. This new methodology reveals strong genetic influences on the sulcal geometry of the cortex.

Is there a difference between supervising international and domestic graduate students in Engineering and IT?

This paper explores a key issue identified in two studies of factors influencing the success of international and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) higher degree research graduate students. The studies include “A model for research supervision of international students in engineering and information technology disciplines” (MRS), which focused on identifying factors that influence successful supervision of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and international higher degree research (HDR or graduate) students in Engineering and IT disciplines in three Australian universities, and “Culture, language and the whole graduate experience: Exploring best practices in international graduate supervision” (BPS), which focussed on exploring perceptions regarding best practices in graduate supervision by diverse stakeholders across Australia. Findings suggest most supervisors do not differentiate between international (or CALD) graduate students and non-CALD(domestic) students in terms of factors influence success in graduate studies.

Place making facilitators of knowledge and innovation spaces: Insights from European best practices

Knowledge economy seeks its nourishment from diversity and dissemination of ideas and creativity of its talent base. This has led to the acknowledgement of place making as a major strategy to attract and retain the knowledge base into the emerging knowledge and innovation spaces. The study seeks to explore the adoption of place making in this context. Literature and practice provide information to understand the evolution of various spatial typologies and the specialised role of place making in such locations. This helps in determining the key facilitators of place making. The paper takes an interdisciplinary approach and develops an integrated conceptual framework considering dimensions and facilitators of place making. Through the lens of the framework, best practices across Europe—i.e., Cambridge Science Park (UK), 22@Barcelona (Spain), Arabianranta (Finland), Strijp-S (Netherlands), and Digital Hub (Ireland)—are scrutinised to highlight various approaches to place making. The findings provide insights and a discussion into the interplay of form, function, image and underlying processes in globally emerging spatial typologies of contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces.

Traffic and nucleation events as main sources of ultrafine particles in high-insolation developed world cities

Road traffic emissions are often considered the main source of ultrafine particles (UFP, diameter smaller than 100 nm) in urban environments. However, recent studies worldwide have shown that - in high-insolation urban regions at least - new particle formation events can also contribute to UFP. In order to quantify such events we systematically studied three cities located in predominantly sunny environments: Barcelona (Spain), Madrid (Spain) and Brisbane (Australia). Three long term datasets (1-2 years) of fine and ultrafine particle number size distributions (measured by SMPS, Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer) were analysed. Compared to total particle number concentrations, aerosol size distributions offer far more information on the type, origin and atmospheric evolution of the particles. By applying k-Means clustering analysis, we categorized the collected aerosol size distributions in three main categories: “Traffic” (prevailing 44-63% of the time), “Nucleation” (14-19%) and “Background pollution and Specific cases” (7-22%). Measurements from Rome (Italy) and Los Angeles (California) were also included to complement the study. The daily variation of the average UFP concentrations for a typical nucleation day at each site revealed a similar pattern for all cities, with three distinct particle bursts. A morning and an evening spike reflected traffic rush hours, whereas a third one at midday showed nucleation events. The photochemically nucleated particles burst lasted 1-4 hours, reaching sizes of 30-40 nm. On average, the occurrence of particle size spectra dominated by nucleation events was 16% of the time, showing the importance of this process as a source of UFP in urban environments exposed to high solar radiation. On average, nucleation events lasting for 2 hours or more occurred on 55% of the days, this extending to >4hrs in 28% of the days, demonstrating that atmospheric conditions in urban environments are not favourable to the growth of photochemically nucleated particles. In summary, although traffic remains the main source of UFP in urban areas, in developed countries with high insolation urban nucleation events are also a main source of UFP. If traffic-related particle concentrations are reduced in the future, nucleation events will likely increase in urban areas, due to the reduced urban condensation sinks.

Enhancing the learning experiences through Industry-Based Learning from Indonesian university perspective

This paper investigates how students’ learning experience can be enhanced by participating in the Industry-Based Learning (IBL) program. In this program, the university students coming into the industry to experience how the business is run. The students’ learning media is now not coming from the textbooks or the lecturers but from learning by doing. This new learning experience could be very interesting for students but at the same time could also be challenging. The research involves interviewing a number of students from the IBL programs, the academic staff from the participated university who has experience in supervising students and the employees of the industry who supported and supervised the students in their work placements. The research findings offer useful insights and create new knowledge in the field of education and learning. The research contributes to the existing knowledge by providing a new understanding of the topic as it applied to the Indonesian context.