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Taking computer science and programming into schools: The Glyndŵr/BCS Turing project
Get PDF2012 and 2013 have been challenging years for Computer Science (CS) education in the UK. After decades of national neglect, there has been a sudden impetus to reintroduce CS into the 11-16 age school curriculums. Immediate obstacles include a generation of children with no CS background and an estimated need for 20,000 new CS teachers - existing UK IT teachers being insufficiently qualified and experienced. The Computing at School (CAS) movement has been instrumental in this quantum transition from an IT to Computing syllabus, as have the British Computer Society (BCS), leading UK universities and a number of major international technology companies, including Microsoft, Google, IBM, British Telecom and Facebook.This paper discusses the background to this position and the progress being made to address these challenges. It describes, in particular, the work of the BCS-funded Glyndwr University ‘Turing Project’ in introducing Welsh high-school students and staff to high-level programming and ‘computational thinking’. The Turing Project uses an innovative combination of Lego NXT Mindstorm robots, Raspberry Pi computers and PicoBoard hardware together with the Robot C and Scratch programming platforms. The paper discusses initial objectives and the general approach, describes focused delivery across different age groups and ability ranges and presents results and analysis demonstrating the effectiveness of the programme. Lessons learnt and future directions are considered in conclusion
Ibid
Get PDFThe exhibition comprised an improvised, multi-media site made by grouping together
seven elements formed from various media and materials. Found and made objects,
broken models and fractured forms, photographs, video and sound immersed
the viewer in a place of making and unmaking – a form of heterotopia - to speculate on the
notion of a work’s becoming and create new narratives of possibility. His new film ‘I am
from Leonia’ influenced by Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities (particularly the cities of
Leonia and Sophronia) was a new video piece made especially for this show at KDMOFA. In
the video which is played on a continuous loop, the viewer witnesses a figure steadily and
purposively sweeping his way around what appears to be an abandoned and ruined
building and attempting to fulfil the seemingly impossible blueprint referred to by the
inhabitants of Invisible Cities. (http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/17217/
Sound Through The Rabbit Hole: Sound Design Based On Reports of Auditory Hallucination
Get PDFAs video game developers seek to provide increasing levels of realism and sophistication, there is a need for game characters to be able to exhibit psychological states including 'altered states of consciousness' (ASC) realistically. 'Auditory hallucination' (AH) is a feature of ASC in which an individual may perceive distortions to auditory perception, or hear sounds with no apparent acoustic origin. Appropriate use of game sound may enable realistic representations of these sounds in video games. However to achieve this requires rigorous approaches informed by research. This paper seeks to inform the process of designing sounds based on auditory hallucination, by reporting the outcomes of analysing nearly 2000 experience reports that describe drug-induced intoxication. Many of these reports include descriptions of auditory hallucination. Through analysis of these reports, our research establishes a classification system, which we propose can be used for designing sounds based on auditory hallucination
Investigation into ultrathin CdTe solar cell Voc using SCAPS modelling
Get PDFUltrathin CdTe photovoltaic solar cells were produced by metal organic chemical vapour deposition in a single horizontally configured growth chamber. Solar cell activation was investigated by varying the duration of the CdCl2 layer deposition and 420°C thermal anneal to promote Cl diffusion into the CdTe. Thicker CdCl2 layers used in activation treatment resulted in a greater degree of sulphur interdiffusion, up to 2 at.-%, into the CdTe layer. The thicker CdCl2 activation layer was necessary to lower the reverse saturation current density for obtaining optimum experimental photovoltaic (PV) device performances. Modelling of the PV performances with equivalent solar cell structure for optimised devices using solar cell capacitance simulation software resulted in an overestimated open circuit voltage (Voc). The simulations showed that reduced acceptor states at the CdTe interface with the intermixed region resulted in the largest decrease in Voc when considering large back surface recombination velocities
GASPAD: A General and Efficient mm-wave Integrated Circuit Synthesis Method Based on Surrogate Model Assisted Evolutionary Algorithm
Get PDFThe design and optimization (both sizing and layout) of mm-wave integrated circuits (ICs) have attracted much attention due to the growing demand in industry. However, available manual design and synthesis methods suffer from a high dependence on design experience, being inefficient or not general enough. To address this problem, a new method, called general mm-wave IC synthesis based on Gaussian process model assisted differential evolution (GASPAD), is proposed in this paper. A medium-scale computationally expensive constrained optimization problem must be solved for the targeted mm-wave IC design problem. Besides the basic techniques of using a global optimization algorithm to obtain highly optimized design solutions and using surrogate models to obtain a high efficiency, a surrogate model-aware search mechanism (SMAS) for tackling the several tens of design variables (medium scale) and a method to appropriately integrate constraint handling techniques into SMAS for tackling the multiple (high-) performance specifications are proposed. Experiments on two 60 GHz power amplifiers in a 65 nm CMOS technology and two mathematical benchmark problems are carried out. Comparisons with the state-of-art provide evidence of the important advantages of GASPAD in terms of solution quality and efficiency
From celebrity criminal to criminal celebrity: the celebrification of sex crime in the UK
Get PDFFollowing the death of Jimmy Savile in 2011, a number of high profile British celebrities have been questioned about or arrested and charged with sexual offences. This article explores whether the high profile and thematic framing of sex crimes antecedent to this will presage any significant changes in how that form of crime, victim and offender is understood. The events leading up to the large numbers of celebrities being accused of sex crimes in the UK are discussed and ways of understanding and conceptualising the emergence of celebrity sex offenders are presented. Dominant discourses about sex offenders and victims of sex crimes are then considered and the implications of recent developments for these discourses are explored. The argument is made that a focus on the ‘extra-ordinary’ that celebrity sex offending undoubtedly entails will deflect attention away from the family root of most sexual abuse
Shamanic diffusions: a technoshamanic philosophy of electroacoustic music
Get PDFElectroacoustic music affords the possibility of creating journeys through non-realistic or illusory spaces, through the use of sonic materials. This article proposes the application of the concept of ‘technoshamanism’ as a principle for composing and performing electroacoustic works of this type. I shall commence by examining the use of the term ‘technoshaman’ in relation to psy-trance culture. Through consideration of Rouget’s (1985) definitions of ecstasy and trance, I will discuss the relationship of psy-trance culture to Rouget’s definition of trance. From this position I shall then propose the use of electroacoustic music in relation to Rouget’s definition of ecstasy. This will enable me to define ‘shamanic diffusions’ as an opposing technoshamanic approach to that which is used in psy-trance. Under this discussion, electroacoustic music will be considered as an ecstatic technology. I shall then conclude with some comments and speculation regarding how this concept may be useful as an approach for the composition and performance of electroacoustic music. For example, in various composed works I have used altered states of consciousness and hallucinations, as a principle for the design of sonic materials and musical structure. Through the course of this article then, I will describe a conceptual model through which to consider electroacoustic composition and performance
Active edge control in the precessions polishing process for manufacturing large mirror segments
Get PDFThe segmentation of the primary mirror is the only promising solution for building the next generation of ground telescopes. However, manufacturing segmented mirrors presents its own challenges. The edge mis-figure impacts directly on the telescope’s scientific output. The ‘Edge effect’ significantly dominates the polishing precision. Therefore, the edge control is regarded as one of the most difficult technical issues in the segment production that needs to be addressed urgently. This paper reports an active edge control technique for the mirror segments fabrication using the Precession's polishing technique. The strategy in this technique requires that the large spot be selected on the bulk area for fast polishing, and the small spot is used for edge figuring. This can be performed by tool lift and optimizing the dell time to compensate for non-uniform material removal at the edge zone. This requires accurate and stable edge tool influence functions. To obtain the full tool influence function at the edge, we have demonstrated in previous work a novel hybrid-measurement method which uses both simultaneous phase interferometry and profilometry. In this paper, the edge effect under ‘Bonnet tool’ polishing is investigated. The pressure distribution is analyzed by means of finite element analysis (FEA). According to the ‘Preston’ equation, the shape of the edge tool influence functions is predicted. With this help, the multiple process parameters at the edge zone are optimized. This is demonstrated on a 200mm cross-corners hexagonal part with a result of PV less than 200nm for entire surface
Printed monopole antenna with tunable band-notched characteristic for use in mobile and ultra-wide band applications
Get PDFA tunable band-notch printed monopole antenna is presented, exhibiting a wide impedance bandwidth from 1.5 to 5.5 GHz with good impedance matching (VSWR ≤ 2) and a tunable rejected frequency band from 2.38 to 3.87 GHz. The band-notching is achieved by adding an inner chorded crescent element within a driven element of a similar shape. By varying the value of the varactor, which is placed between the inner and outer arcs, the desired variable rejected can be obtained. Simulated and measured results show wide impedance bandwidth with a tunable band notch, stable radiation patterns, and consistent nearly constant gain. The antenna is suitable for mobile and portable applications. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:403–412, 2015
A Novel Model-Based Controller for Polymer Extrusion
Get PDFExtrusion is a fundamental technique of processing polymeric materials, and the thermal homogeneity of the process melt output is a major concern for high-quality extruded products. Therefore, accurate process thermal monitoring and control are highly invaluable for product quality control. However, most of the industrial extruders use conventional thermocouples whose measurements are limited to a single point and are highly influenced by barrel metal wall temperature. It has shown that the melt temperature varies considerably with the die radial position, and hence, point-based measurements are not sufficient to determine the actual thermal stability across the melt flow. Therefore, thermal control techniques based on such point/bulk measurements may be limited in performance. In addition, the majority of process thermal control methods are based on linear models and are not capable of dealing with process nonlinearities. In this study, a review of the previous work relating to extruder melt temperature control is presented while identifying their limitations. A novel model-based control approach is then proposed to control the polymer extrusion process incorporating a melt temperature profile prediction soft sensor and fuzzy logic. The results show that the proposed controller is good in achieving the desired average melt temperature across the melt flow while minimizing the melt temperature variance. The adjustments made by the controller to the manipulated variables confirmed that it has the capability of adjusting the suitable variables, depending on the different situations encountered. Therefore, this will be a promising alternative to linear control techniques and control techniques based on point/bulk thermal measurements which are common in the present industry