Advances in vascular tissue engineering

Coronary and peripheral artery bypass grafting is commonly used to relieve the symptoms of vascular deficiencies, but the Supply Of autologous artery or vein may not be sufficient or suitable for multiple bypass or repeat procedures, necessitating the use of other materials. Synthetic materials are suitable for large bore arteries but often thrombose when used in smaller arteries. Suitable replacement grafts must have appropriate characteristics, including resistance to infection, low immunogenicity and good biocompatability and thromboresistance, with appropriate mechanical and physiological properties and cheap and fast manufacture. Current avenues of graft development include coating synthetic grafts with either biological chemicals or cells with anticoagulatory properties. Matrix templates or acellular tubes of extracellular matrix (such as collagen) may be coated or infiltrated with cultured cells. Once placed into the artery, these grafts may become colonised by host cells and gain many of the properties of normal artery. Tissue-engineered blood vessels may also be formed from layers of human vascular cells grown in culture. These engineered vessels have many of the characteristics of arteries formed in vivo. Artificial arteries may be also be derived from peritoneal granulation tissue in body bioreactors by adapting the body's natural wound healing response to produce a hollow tube. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The engineering link project: Learning about engineering by becoming an engineer

There has been a greater emphasis over the past few years of encouraging high school students to take up engineering as a career. This is due to a greater need for engineers in society, particularly in areas that are suffering a skills shortage. Both the engineering profession and universities across Australia have moved to address this shortage, with a proliferation of engineering outreach activities and programs the result. The Engineering Link Group (TELG) began the Engineering Link Project (ELP) over a decade ago with a focus on helping motivated high school students make an informed choice about engineering as a career. It also aimed at encouraging more high school students to study maths and science at high school. From the start the ELP was designed so that the students became engineers, rather than just hear from or watch engineers. Real working engineers pose problems to groups of students for them solve over the course of a day. In this way, students experience what it is like to be an engineer. It has been found that the project does help high school students make more informed career choices about engineering. The project also gave the students real life and practical reasons for studying sciences and mathematics at high school. © 2005, Australasian Association for Engineering Education

Global engineering education: Australia and the Bologna process

This paper presents a critical comparison of major changes in engineering education in both Australia and Europe. European engineering programs are currently being reshaped by the Bologna process, representing a move towards quality assurance in higher education and the mutual recognition of degrees among universities across Europe. Engineering education in Australia underwent a transformation after the 1996 review of engineering education1. The paper discusses the recent European developments in order to give up-to-date information on this fast changing and sometimes obscure process. The comparison draws on the implications of the Bologna Process on the German engineering education system as an example. It concludes with issues of particular interest, which can help to inform the international discussion on how to meet today’s challenges for engineering education. These issues include ways of achieving diversityamong engineering programs, means of enabling student and staff mobility, and the preparation of engineering students for professional practic e through engineering education. As a result, the benefits of outcomes based approaches in education are discussed. This leads to an outlook for further research into the broader attributes required by future professional engineers. © 2005, Australasian Association for Engineering Education

Future Engineers Australia Management Project: Turning high school students into engineering entrepreneurs

There has been a strong move towards entrepreneurial education in high schools and at universities over the past few years. This has been echoed by a call from state governments around Australia to promote enterprise thinking and education in high schools. It also parallels the push within engineering to learn across the traditional boundaries , particularly between engineering and business. To meet this call, The Engineering Link Group (TELG) developed the Future Engineers Australia Management Project (FEAMP) in 2003. The project is based around Enterprise Education, and was inspired by the Smallpeice Year 12 Engineering Management course in the UK. The idea was to take high school students in years 11 and 12 and turn them into ‘engineering entrepreneurs’. This paper presents the design, development and evaluation of FEAMP as a five day residential course for year 11 and 12 students who want to learn more about being entrepreneurs and managers. It is a hands-on activity where the students invent, develop and sell an engineering concept to venture capitalists and ultimately to customers at a trade fair. It has been run successfully for two years, going from strength to strength. © 2005, Australasian Association for Engineering Education

The role of software tools in influencing creative problem solving in engineering design and education

Creativity is increasingly recognised as an essential component of engineering design. This paper describes an exploratory study into the nature and importance of creativity in engineering design problem solving in relation to the possible impact of software design tools. The first stage of the study involved an empirical investigation in the form of a case study of the use of standard CAD tool sets and the development of a systems engineering software support tool. It was found that there were several ways in which CAD influenced the creative process, including enhancing visualisation and communication, premature fixation, circumscribed thinking and bounded ideation. The tool development experience uncovered the difficulty in supporting creative processes from the developer's perspective. The issues were the necessity of making assumptions, achieving a balance between structure and flexibility, and the pitfalls of satisfying user wants and needs. The second part of the study involved the development of a model of the creative problem solving process in engineering design. This provided a possible explanation for why purpose designed engineering software tools might encourage an analytical problem solving approach and discourage a more creative approach.