Philosophical Foundations of Biological Engineering

Biological engineers apply engineering methods to biological systems. There is a current interest in revising or establishing new biological engineering curriculums and courses. This paper gives a philosophy from which biological engineering curriculums can emerge. Biological engineering should have the conceptual framework of a broad, fundamental, and integrative discipline. Biological engineers should be capable of synthesizing their creations from many disparate sources and of communicating with practitioners from many distinct disciplines. Hierarchical competencies are given to distinguish all college graduates, all engineering graduates, and all biological engineering graduates. Basic engineering concepts and basic biology concepts are sometimes conflicting, but must nevertheless be incorporated in undergraduate courses. Specific required courses will vary from university to university, but all biological engineering curriculums must include courses on engineering topics, life sciences topics, and courses that integrate the two. Issues of interfaces between biological engineers and biologists, and with potential employers are also considered. This paper was intended to guide the establishment of new or revised biological engineering programs.     

From rocket scientists to financial engineers

In the past, rocket scientists-people with advanced degrees in sciences-have been employed in Wall Street to develop new financial products by using financial engineering models. Today, these people are called financial engineers. Engineering schools and mathematics departments in universities are conducting multidisciplinary courses in subjects that apply science and engineering concepts to finance. Many postgraduate degree holders in engineering choose to study financial engineering on a further postgraduate course. Financial engineering is becoming increasingly important in the new economy. The article explains what financial engineering is, discusses career prospects and professional affiliations, and presents the profiles of students who have enrolled on financial engineering courses     

Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Controls Laboratory

An interdisciplinary controls laboratory has been developed at Lehigh University for teaching system dynamics and controls to senior undergraduate students from the various departments in the engineering college. A team effort was successful in planning, designing, funding, and constructing the experiments. After students learn control theory in courses offered in the individual departments, they jointly conduct experiments on realistic processes and devices that represent common control problems in the three engineering disciplines: chemical, electrical and mechanical. The students sare grouped into interdisciplinary teams to encourage cross-fertilization. The laboratory has been operational for three years, and the response from the students has been very positive.     

Improving Learning in First‐Year Engineering Courses through Interdisciplinary Collaborative Assessment

This paper describes a feedback process that assessed first‐year engineering student learning using a mastery exam. The results were used to improve learning and teaching in first‐year courses. To design the initial exam, basic knowledge and concepts were identified by instructors from each of the host departments (Chemistry, Math, Physics and Computer Science). In 2004, the 45‐item exam was administered to 191 second‐year engineering students, and in September 2005, the revised exam was administered to the next class of second‐year engineering students. The exam was analyzed using Item Response Theory (IRT) to determine student abilities in each subject area tested. Between exam administrations, workshops were conducted with the four department instructor groups to present exam results and discuss teaching issues. The exam provided a learning assessment mechanism that can be used to engage faculty in science, mathematics, and engineering in productive linkages for continual improvement to curriculum.     

Vocational education as preparation for university engineeringmathematics

SARTOR 3 clearly states that A-levels and Advanced GNVQs are suitable preparation for accredited engineering degree courses. In this paper, a comparison is made between the mathematical competence of students with Advanced GNVQs, and those with A-levels. The basis of this comparison is the results of a mathematics diagnostic test taken during induction week at university. The test covers fundamental areas of mathematics which underpin the study of engineering in higher education. The results indicate that A-level students, of all grades, have better basic mathematical skills than those from the vocational route     

Promoting Active Learning with Cases and Instructional Modules

In this paper, we propose the use of cases and instructional modules to teach invention, engineering design, and elements of technology management. One way to learn is to study and reflect upon the experience of others. Such experience may be captured in a case. Cases promote active learning by requiring students to assume the roles of participants in the decision making process. Cases are also a vehicle for raising business issues and human resources concerns not usually considered in traditional engineering courses. Real world design and engineering involves risk and uncertainty, tradeoffs and priorities, ethical issues, human elements, and impact assessment. Cases expose students to open ended, ill defined problems whose solution often depends on making assessments, judgments, and decisions about the technical competencies of the organization.     

Systematic Design of a First-Year Mechanical Engineering Course at Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University offers a first-year course titled Fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering to introduce undergraduate students to the discipline of mechanical engineering. The goals of the course are to excite students about the field of mechanical engineering early in their careers, introduce basic mechanical engineering concepts in an integrated way, provide a link to the basic physics and mathematics courses, and present design and problem-solving skills as central engineering activities. These goals are met through a combination of real-world engineering examples, classroom demonstrations, and hands-on experience in assignments and laboratories. Over the eleven semesters that this course has been taught, teams of first-year students have designed and assembled energy conversion mechanisms using miniature steam engines and Meccano sets to drive a mobile vehicle or to generate electricity for lighting a bulb. This paper describes the systematic process used to design this course and emphasizes this process of carefully integrating lectures with classroom demonstrations, laboratory experiments and hands-on projects to encourage students' active learning.     

Mathematics and Measurement

In this paper we describe the role that mathematics plays in measurement science at NIST. We first survey the history behind NIST’s current work in this area, starting with the NBS Math Tables project of the 1930s. We then provide examples of more recent efforts in the application of mathematics to measurement science, including the solution of ill-posed inverse problems, characterization of the accuracy of software for micromagnetic modeling, and in the development and dissemination of mathematical reference data. Finally, we comment on emerging issues in measurement science to which mathematicians will devote their energies in coming years.     

A New Senior Level Course in International Design

The internationalization of the design arena is incontestable. Although many engineering design educators support the idea of incorporating international design issues into engineering design courses, only a few engineering design programs appear to actually give proper consideration to these topics. We recently originated and developed a course entitled “International Design,” which we first team-taught in the Spring of 1997 at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology in Ishikawa, Japan. The course, open to senior and graduate students of various engineering disciplines, featured lectures and a quarter long team design project. The philosophy and contents of the course are presented in this paper.     

Engineering in Context: An Empirical Study of Freshmen Students' Conceptual Frameworks

Calls for curricular reform in engineering include teaching engineering principles in the broader context of society. In this paper, we empirically investigate how freshmen students perceive the broader societal context of science and technology. We explored the questions:

• ? What is the framework of knowledge and attitudes of engineering freshmen on science, technology and society (STS) issues?
• ? How different are their frameworks from those of students in other majors?
• ? We used a structured, open-ended interview methodology to elicit knowledge about two STS issues: “human energy needs” and “global climate change.” Our sample consists of ninety-two students. Each student was interviewed about one topic. First, we found that there was no difference in the attitude expressed about technology by engineering students and students who are not engineering majors. Both groups think science and technology solve problems more often than they create problems. Second, we found that, although the difference is not large, engineering students consistently mentioned more concepts than students with other majors, and they mentioned these concepts more often. Qualitatively, the specific concepts mentioned by the two groups were almost identical for both topics. The engineering students mentioned more technological concepts and students in other majors mentioned more societal concepts for the human energy needs topic. In summary, the knowledge and perceptions of STS issues of freshmen engineering students and students who are not engineering majors are largely similar. This suggests that common, interdisciplinary STS courses are a good approach for providing general technological literacy for both groups.

     

Highly complex proofs and implications of such proofs

Conventional wisdom says the ideal proof should be short, simple, and elegant. However there are now examples of very long, complicated proofs, and as mathematics continues to mature, more examples are likely to appear. Such proofs raise various issues. For example it is impossible to write out a very long and complicated argument without error, so is such a 'proof' really a proof? What conditions make complex proofs necessary, possible, and of interest? Is the mathematics involved in dealing with information rich problems qualitatively different from more traditional mathematics?     

Engineering mathematics in the UK: SARTOR-a timely opportunity forreform

SARTOR 3 provides a new framework for the formation of Engineers in the UK and within it the skilled application of a distinct body of knowledge based on mathematics is explicit. This paper presents a critical overview of the mathematical requirements and expected mathematical outcomes for engineering degrees. The issues associated with mathematical preparedness of students entering engineering degrees are examined. The requirements for both Chartered and Incorporated Engineers are identified and the rationale behind a set of proposals for their mathematical education is described. The paper outlines recommendations that will allow benchmarking of the mathematical aspects of degree programmes     

Advancing Engineering Education in P‐12 Classrooms

Engineering as a profession faces the challenge of making the use of technology ubiquitous and transparent in society while at the same time raising young learners' interest and understanding of how technology works. Educational efforts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (i.e., STEM disciplines) continue to grow in pre‐kindergarten through 12th grade (P‐12) as part of addressing this challenge. This article explores how engineering education can support acquisition of a wide range of knowledge and skills associated with comprehending and using STEM knowledge to accomplish real world problem solving through design, troubleshooting, and analysis activities. We present several promising instructional models for teaching engineering in P‐12 classrooms as examples of how engineering can be integrated into the curriculum. While the introduction of engineering education into P‐12 classrooms presents a number of opportunities for STEM learning, it also raises issues regarding teacher knowledge and professional development, and institutional challenges such as curricular standards and high‐stakes assessments. These issues are considered briefly with respect to providing direction for future research and development on engineering in P‐12.     

The Holistic Curriculum

As with any well-founded engineering program, the goal of the holistic curriculum is to prepare students to embark on a career in which their success is conditional on life-long learning, critical thinking and decision making, teamwork, leadership, and commitment. Rather than assuming that these qualities will be instilled in our students as they travel through a well-crafted sequence of challenging engineering courses, the faculty explicitly demands that these objectives be met by collaborating on courses, through coordinated design projects among as many as eight different courses and six different professors, and by continual assessment and improvement. Students are encouraged and required to teach other students concepts that they have mastered. While we are constantly changing, this culture existed in our department before any of the present faculty arrived, and we believe that it can be created in other departments.     

关于拓宽数学研究与应用范围的思考

通过分析数学发展的动力与趋势，阐述拓宽数学研究与应用范围，推动数学与其它学科交叉的必要性与重要性，提出实施“拓宽数学研究及应用范围，推动数学与其它学科交叉”的一些政策性思考。     

Applications of limited-extent waves: an introduction

This feature issue of Applied Optics is devoted to the theoretical and the experimental aspects of Gabor and wavelet transforms and to their optical implementations and applications. Subjects related to the Gabor scheme and wavelets have evolved under the influence of ideas originating primarily in physics and engineering. The powerful mathematical formalism and techniques that have been recently introduced, have, however, stimulated much greater interest among scientists of various disciplines and backgrounds. The purpose of this feature issue of Applied Optics is to further stimulate interest in this topic in the community of scientists working on optical techniques, in which it is expected that important applications of these concepts and techniques have yet to be developed.     

Generalizing the safety factor approach

Safety factors (uncertainty factors) are used to avoid failure in a wide variety of practices and disciplines, in particular engineering design and toxicology. Although these two areas have similar problems in their use of safety factors, there are no signs of previous communication between the two disciplines.The present contribution aims at initiating such communications by pointing out parallel practices and joint issues between the two disciplines. These include the distinction between probabilistic variability and epistemic uncertainty, the importance of distribution tails, and the problem of countervailing risks. In conclusion, it is proposed that future research in this area should be interdisciplinary and make use of experiences from the various areas in which safety factors are used.     

Integrating Design Across the Engineering Curriculum: A Report From the Trenches

Abstract The emphasis from ABET to integrate the design experience across the curriculum has initiated a call for action to engineering departments across the country. This challenges engineering educators to include design in a wide variety of engineering courses and to prevent this emphasis from foreshadowing the subject material of each course. A comprehensive approach is needed where the design work is not a separate entity, but rather is an additional tool which can be used to teach the fundamentals of engineering. This paper reports on the advances of one institution in responding to the call to integrate design across the engineering curriculum. The U.S. Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) has established a design philosophy that treats design education as a developmental process to be practiced during each of the four undergraduate years. To put that philosophy into practice, the USCGA has restructured the engineering curriculum to ensure that students experience design content in their courses each year. This viewpoint of design as a developmental process is consistent with the broad educational objectives of the institution. This paper presents examples of design work from courses in each year of the students' education to illustrate the variety of design problems used to incorporate design across the curriculum. The experiences at the U. S. Coast Guard Academy have been positive and indicate the design across the curriculum initiative can be implemented without drastically impacting faculty workload.     

Design theory: a foundation of a new paradigm for design science and engineering

In recent years, the works on design theory (and particularly the works of the design theory SIG of the design society) have contributed to reconstruct the science of design, comparable in its structure, foundations and impact to decision theory, optimization or game theory in their time. These works have reconstructed historical roots and the evolution of design theory, conceptualized the field at a high level of generality and uncovered theoretical foundations, in particular the logic of generativity, the “design-oriented” structures of knowledge, and the logic of design spaces. These results give the academic field of engineering design an ecology of scientific objects and models, which allows for expanding the scope of engineering education and design courses. They have contributed to a paradigm shift in the organization of R&D departments, supporting the development of new methods and processes in innovation departments, and to establishing new models for development projects. Emerging from the field of engineering design, design theory development has now a growing impact in many disciplines and academic communities. The research community may play a significant role in addressing contemporary challenges if it brings the insights and applicability of design theory to open new ways of thinking in the developing and developed world.     

Student Perceptions of High Course Workloads are Not Associated with Poor Student Evaluations of Instructor Performance

Many engineering faculty believe that when students perceive a course to have a high workload, students will rate the course and the performance of the course instructor poorly. This belief can be particularly worrying to engineering faculty since engineering courses are often perceived as uniquely demanding. The present investigation demonstrated that student ratings of workload and of overall instructor performance in engineering courses were not correlated (e.g., Spearman's rho = 0.068) in data sets from either of two institutions. In contrast, a number of evaluation items were strongly correlated (Spearman's rho = 0.7 to 0.899) with ratings of overall instructor performance across engineering, mathematics and science, and humanities courses. The results of the present study provide motivation for faculty seeking to improve their teaching and course evaluations to focus on teaching methods, organization/preparation, and interactions with students, rather than course workload.