Creating New Design-Build-Test Experiences as Outputs of Undergraduate Design-Build-Test Projects

This paper describes a methodology of using individual engineering undergraduate student projects as a means of effectively and efficiently developing new Design-Build-Test (DBT) learning experiences and challenges.
A key aspect of the rationale for this approach is that it benefits all parties. The student undertaking the individual project gets an authentic experience of producing a functional artefact, which has been the result of a design process that addresses conception, design, implementation and operation. The supervising faculty member benefits from live prototyping of new curriculum content and resources with a student who is at a similar level of knowledge and experience as the intended end users of the DBT outputs. The multiple students who ultimately undertake the DBT experiences / challenges benefit from the enhanced nature of a learning experience which has been “road tested” and optimised.
To demonstrate the methodology the paper will describe a case study example of an individual project completed in 2015. This resulted in a DBT design challenge with a theme of designing a catapult for throwing table tennis balls, the device being made from components laser cut from medium density fibreboard (MDF). Further three different modes of operation will be described which use the same resource materials but operate over different timescales and with different learning outcomes, from an icebreaker exercise focused on developing team dynamics through to full DBT where students get an opportunity to experience the full impact of their design decisions by competing against other students with a catapult they have designed and built themselves.

Generic Architecture and Semiconductor Intellectual Property Cores for Avanced Encryption Standard Cryptography

A generic architecture for implementing the advanced encryption standard (AES) encryption algorithm in silicon is proposed. This allows the instantiation of a wide range of chip specifications, with these taking the form of semiconductor intellectual property (IP) cores. Cores implemented from this architecture can perform both encryption and decryption and support four modes of operation: (i) electronic codebook mode; (ii) output feedback mode; (iii) cipher block chaining mode; and (iv) ciphertext feedback mode. Chip designs can also be generated to cover all three AES key lengths, namely 128 bits, 192 bits and 256 bits. On-the-fly generation of the round keys required during decryption is also possible. The general, flexible and multi-functional nature of the approach described contrasts with previous designs which, to date, have been focused on specific implementations. The presented ideas are demonstrated by implementation in FPGA technology. However, the architecture and IP cores derived from this are easily migratable to other silicon technologies including ASIC and PLD and are capable of covering a wide range of modem communication systems cryptographic requirements. Moreover, the designs produced have a gate count and throughput comparable with or better than the previous one-off solutions.

Inverse Class E amplifier and oscillator phase noise characteristics

This paper gives the first experimental characterisation of the phase noise response of the recently introduced Inverse Class E topology when operated as an amplifier and then as an oscillator. The results indicate that in amplifier and oscillator modes of operation conversion efficiencies of 64%, and 42% respectively are available, and that the excess PM noise added as a consequence of saturated Class E operation results in about a 10 dB increase in PM over that expected from a small-signal Class A amplifier operating at much lower efficiency. Inverse Class E phase transfer dependence on device drain bias and flicker noise are presented in order to show, respectively, that the Inverse Class E amplifier and oscillator follow the trends predicted by conventional phase noise theory. © 2007 EuMA.

MODULATED BACKSCATTER MICROWAVE SECURITY SENSOR

A system capable of deployment as a microwave security sensor which can automatically reject background clutter is presented. The principle of operation is based on analog homodyne detection using 1. Q single side-band down conversion of an AM backscattered modulating signal envelope. A demonstrator is presented which operates with a carrier frequency of 2 GHz and 500 KHz backscattered signal. When deployed in a multipath rich open plan office environment the S/N ratio obtained at the detection output was better than 20 dB at 20 in range with 20 dBm EIRP in a 2 MHz detection bandwidth despite the presence of time varying and static clutter. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 51: 2492-2495, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.24636

Dual-mode retrodirective/phased array

A method for producing a retrodirective (self-tracking) antenna, which can also be operated as a phased (selectively pointed) array through the addition of a simple switching circuit and DC bias offset adjustment, is presented. Phase adjustment to individual antenna elements is shown to be readily carried out by a simple frequency pushing technique, applied to a PLL circuit, thus replacing the requirement for additional phase shifters. Practical results when applied to a ten-element array operating at 2.4 GHz are shown for both modes of operation.

Creating Safety for Trauma Survivors: What can Therapists do?

This paper serves as a reminder to those working clinically in the field of trauma of the necessity for therapists to adequately include issues of safety within the therapeutic process. Addressing these issues is an integral part of the therapy and not simply a practical prerequisite or a parallel process. Validation of this thesis is drawn from trauma literature and an account of safety issues relating to the therapeutic setting and processes is given. Case examples illustrate the type of issues that might usefully be addressed within the therapeutic context to increase individual and family safety for clients as they continue to live within their local communities. This paper draws on recent work undertaken at the Family Trauma Centre. This Centre, based in South Belfast, is in its second year of operation. The Family Trauma Centre has a primary remit to provide clinical treatment for children and their families suffering from the traumatic effects of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. The community context for this work has been one of continuous low-grade conflict in the midst of a ‘Peace’ process.

Beyond the shadow space: architecture as a professional and creative process; during and post-conflict.

Introduction

Much has been written about the impact of conflict on the physical nature of cities; most obviously perhaps the damage, destruction, defensive construction and spatial reconfigurations that evolve in times of conflict. Set within the context of Belfast, Northern Ireland, this paper will focus on three areas. First, a closer reading of the long-term physical impact of conflict, in particular, the spatial forms and practices that persist conceptually and culturally, and/or resist re-conceptualisation. Secondly, the effect of conflict on the nature of architectural practice itself, considering whether issues such as appointment and procurement impacted on architectural expectation and the context of operation. Thirdly, the effect of conflict on people, in particular in relation to creativity and hence the psyche of practice itself. This section will also identify the conditions that undermine or support design quality and creativity not only within times of conflict but also as society evolves out of the shadow space. 1
Twelve years on from the Peace Agreement,2 it may seem remarkable from an external perspective that Northern Ireland still needs to be reflecting on its troubled past. But the immediate post-conflict phase offered the communities of Northern Ireland place and time to experience ‘normal life’, begin to reconcile themselves to the hurt they experienced and start to reconfigure their relationships to one another. Indeed, it has often been expressed that probing the issues too much, at too early a phase, might in fact ‘Open old wounds without resolving anything’ and/or ‘Destabilise the already fragile political system.’3 This tendency not to deliberate or be too probing is therefore understandable and might be the reason why, for example, Northern Ireland's first Architecture and Built Environment policy, published in June, 2006, contains only one routine reference to ‘the Troubles’.

Clearly, however, there is a time in the development of a healthy, functioning society, when in order effectively to plan its future, it must also carry out a closer reading and deeper understanding of its past. As Maya Angelou puts it, ‘History, despite its wrenching pain/ Cannot be unlived, and if faced/ With courage, need not be lived again.’4

Increasingly, those within the creative arts sector and the built environment professions are showing interest in carrying out that closer reading, teasing out issues around conflict. This was led in part by the recent publication of the Troubles Archive by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.5 Those involved in the academic or professional development of future generations of architects are also concerned about the relevance of a post-conflict condition. As a profession, if architects purport to be concerned with context, then the almost tangible socio-political circumstances and legacy of Northern Ireland does inevitably require direct eye contact. This paper therefore aims to bring the relationship between conflict and architectural practice in Northern Ireland into sharp focus, not to constrain or dull creative practice but to heighten its potential.

Counselling and Mental Health Nursing: The Interface

In this piece, the authors suggest that the long term misinterpretation of the subtle and unique differences between the concepts of “counselling” and “nursing” has fuelled an uncertainty within mental health as to the true nature and essence of the role / scope of professional practice of the mental health nurse, which has important implications for practitioners, educators and patients alike.

Peer Rating for Feedback in Group Projects

The National Student Survey (NSS) in the UK has since 2005 questioned final year
undergraduate students on a broad range of issues relating to their university experience.
Across disciplines and universities students have expressed least satisfaction in the areas of
assessment and feedback. In response to these results many educational practitioners have
reviewed and revised their procedures and the UK Higher Education Academy (HEA) has
produced guidelines of best practice to assist academics in improving these specific areas.
The Product Design and Development (PDD) degree at Queen’s University Belfast is
structured with an integrated curriculum with group Design Build Test (DBT) projects as the
core of each year of the undergraduate programme. Based on the CDIO syllabus and
standards the overall learning outcomes for the programme are defined and developed in a
staged manner, guided by Bloom’s taxonomy of learning domains.
Feedback in group DBT projects, especially in relation to the development of personal and
professional skills, represents a different challenge to that of individual assignment feedback.
A review of best practice was carried out to establish techniques which could be applied to
the particular context of the PDD degree without modification and also to identify areas
where a different approach would need to be applied.
A revised procedure was then developed which utilised the structure of the PDD degree to
provide a mechanism for enhanced feedback in group project work, while at the same time
increasing student development of self and peer evaluation skills. Key to this improvement
was the separation of peer ratings from assessment in the perception of the students and the
introduction of more frequent face to face feedback interviews.
This paper details the new procedures developed and additional issues which have been
raised and addressed, with reference to the published literature, during 3 years of operation.

High contrast plasma mirror: spatial filtering and second harmonic generation at 10(19)Wcm(-2)

Recently, the use of plasma optics to improve temporal pulse contrast has had a remarkable impact on the field of high- power laser-solid density interaction physics. Opening an avenue to previously unachievable plasma density gradients in the high intensity focus, this advance has enabled researchers to investigate new regimes of harmonic generation and ion acceleration. Until now, however, plasma optics for fundamental laser reflection have been used in the sub-relativistic intensity regime (10(15) - 10(16)Wcm(-2)) showing high reflectivity (similar to 70%) and good focusability. Therefore, the question remains as to whether plasma optics can be used for such applications in the relativistic intensity regime (> 10(18)Wcm(-2)). Previous studies of plasma mirrors (PMs) indicate that, for 40 fs laser pulses, the reflectivity fluctuates by an order of magnitude and that focusability of the beam is lost as the intensity is increased above 5 x 10(16)Wcm(-2). However, these experiments were performed using laser pulses with a contrast ratio of similar to 10(7) to generate the reflecting surface. Here, we present results for PM operation using high contrast laser pulses resulting in a new regime of operation - the high contrast plasma mirror (HCPM). In this regime, pulses with contrast ratio > 10(10) are used to form the PM surface at > 10(19)Wcm(-2), displaying excellent spatial filtering, reflected near- field beam profile of the fundamental beam and reflectivities of 60 +/- 5%. Efficient second harmonic generation is also observed with exceptional beam quality suggesting that this may be a route to achieving the highest focusable harmonic intensities. Plasma optics therefore offer the opportunity to manipulate ultra-intense laser beams both spatially and temporally. They also allow for ultrafast frequency up-shifting without detrimental effects due to group velocity dispersion (GVD) or reduced focusability which frequently occur when nonlinear crystals are used for frequency conversion.

Reconfigurable beam forming using phase-aligned Rotman lens

The authors describe how a standard Rotman lens design can be readily adapted in order to allow reconfigurable beam
forming. This is achieved by applying concurrent excitations to the modified Rotman lens. A rationale for the design and
underlying behaviour of the modified, phase-aligned, Rotman lens as well as the deficiencies of a conventional Rotman lens
in this mode of operation are provided. Simulated and measured results are provided in order to illustrate the feasibility of the
approach suggested.

Handwritten undergraduate case reports

Background: This article describes a 'back to the future' approach to case 'write-ups', with medical students producing handwritten instead of word-processed case reports during their clinical placements. Word-processed reports had been found to have a number of drawbacks, including the inappropriate use of 'cutting and pasting', undue length and lack of focus. Method: We developed a template to be completed by hand, based on the hospital 'clerking-in process', and matched this to a new assessment proforma. An electronic survey was conducted of both students and assessors after the first year of operation to evaluate impact and utility. Results: The new template was well received by both students and assessors. Most students said they preferred handwriting the case reports (55.6%), although a significant proportion (44.4%) preferred the word processor. Many commented that the template enabled them to effectively learn the structure of a case history and to improve their history-taking skills. Most assessors who had previously marked case reports felt the new system represented an improvement. The average time spent marking each report fell from 23.56 to 16.38minutes using the new proforma. Discussion: Free text comments from the survey have led to the development of a more flexible case report template better suited to certain specialties (e.g. dermatology). This is an evolving process and there will be opportunities for further adaptation as electronic medical records become more common in hospital. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2012.

New challenges faced by carers during their child's hospital admission under segregation

Introduction
This paper presents the results of a qualitative study of CF family carers at the Belfast Paediatric CF Centre. The aim of this study was to describe the carer experience of their child’s admission to hospital under segregated care arrangements, and to highlight the meaning of segregation and cross infection from the carer perspective.

Method
Carers of children with CF who were admitted for two week IV antibiotic treatment during the study period were eligible to participate in this qualitative study. A consecutive series of eligible carers were approached in order of admission and within the time constraints of KR who was present two days each week. Recruitment of carers ended when no new themes emerged. Ten carers, 9 mothers and 1 couple, were interviewed about their experiences (mean age of child: 11.8 years; range: 1-17 years). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyse and interpret the interview data.

Results and discussion
Balancing demands and dilemmas was the main contextual theme or experience of being a carer of a child with CF, and particularly so during admission to hospital. Many decisions were required every day that resulted in ‘double binds’ comprising uncertainty and stress. Three secondary themes captured the essence of carers’ experiences specifically related to segregation: managing risk and uncertainty; the burden of admission; and getting through each day. These themes will be described with examples illustrating the challenges faced by carers during their child’s hospitalisation, and the impact of segregation upon carers.

Significance Driven Computation on Next-Generation Unreliable Platforms

In this paper, we propose a design paradigm for energy efficient and variation-aware operation of next-generation multicore heterogeneous platforms. The main idea behind the proposed approach lies on the observation that not all operations are equally important in shaping the output quality of various applications and of the overall system. Based on such an observation, we suggest that all levels of the software design stack, including the programming model, compiler, operating system (OS) and run-time system should identify the critical tasks and ensure correct operation of such tasks by assigning them to dynamically adjusted reliable cores/units. Specifically, based on error rates and operating conditions identified by a sense-and-adapt (SeA) unit, the OS selects and sets the right mode of operation of the overall system. The run-time system identifies the critical/less-critical tasks based on special directives and schedules them to the appropriate units that are dynamically adjusted for highly-accurate/approximate operation by tuning their voltage/frequency. Units that execute less significant operations can operate at voltages less than what is required for correct operation and consume less power, if required, since such tasks do not need to be always exact as opposed to the critical ones. Such scheme can lead to energy efficient and reliable operation, while reducing the design cost and overheads of conventional circuit/micro-architecture level techniques.

Tanker Mission Implication on a Civil Aerial Refuelling Transport System’s Benefit Evaluation

As the emphasis on initiatives that can improve environmental efficiency while simultaneously maintaining economic viability has escalated in recent years, attention has turned to more radical concepts of operation. In particular, the cruiser–feeder concept has shown potential for a new generation, environmentally friendly, air-transport system to alleviate the growing pressure on the passenger air-transportation network. However, a full evaluation of realizable benefits is needed to determine how the design and operation of potential feeder-aircraft configurations impact on the feasibility of the overall concept. This paper presents an analysis of a cruiser–feeder concept, in which fuel is transferred between the feeder and the cruiser in an aerial-refueling configuration to extend range while reducing cruiser weight, compared against the effects of escalating existing technology levels while retaining the existing passenger levels. Up to 14% fuel-burn and 12% operating-cost savings can be achieved when compared to a similar technology-level aircraft concept without aerial refueling, representing up to 26% in fuel burn and 25% in total operating cost over the existing operational model at today’s standard fleet technology and performance. However, these potential savings are not uniformly distributed across the network, and the system is highly sensitive to the routes serviced, with reductions in revenue-generation potential observed across the network for aerial-refueling operations due to reductions in passenger revenue.