Methodologies and strategies for enhancing the undergraduate experience for BA/BSC product design students through collaborations with designer Moritz Waldemeyer

This paper examines methodologies and strategies used to enhance learning and the Undergraduate experience for BA(Hons) and BSc(Hons) Product Design students. Specifically, it details a number of projects in collaboration with an external designer, (Waldemeyer) Moritz Waldemeyer and how this has led to enhanced student experiences and high profile work opportunities both during studies and upon graduation. This includes work with Mercedes, Ellie Goulding, Take That, Electrabel, Laikingland and The Olympic Closing Ceremony and Paralympics, 2012. The paper describes the progression of Waldemeyer from a one-off guest lecturer to becoming a visiting lecturer at Middlesex University facilitating a live Design Project as part of the curriculum along with Laikingland. This led to the placement of students on commercial projects outside of the University and finally, to Waldemeyer becoming a Designer in Residence. The paper demonstrates how the live projects motivated the partaking students to develop vital skills leading to a high proportion of high level degree outcomes. Their increased confidence and competency on working to live deadlines has led to a number of them setting up or working in successful design studios, launching products on Kickstarter and being taken on as Graduate Teaching Assistants at Middlesex University. Techniques such as presentation and visualisation skills, thinking on the job, iterative prototyping, physical computing skills and group work contributed to the success of this approach alongside encouragement and facilitation from the participating tutors

Innovations in learning and teaching interactions between BA (Hons) Product Design and BSc (Hons) Product Design engineering students on design projects

This paper examines methodologies and strategies used to motivate BA (Hons) Product Design (BAs) and BSc (Hons) Product Design Engineering students (BScs) to successfully work in pairs to design innovative and unusual kitchen gadgets. This was a live project with an industrial partner, in this instance design-led leading kitchen gadget company ‘Joseph Joseph’ (JJ). It details motivational techniques championed by the tutor(s) to enhance the product outcomes, enthuse and benefit students including the pioneering pairing of BAs and BScs within the Product Design Engineering Department of Middlesex University for the very first time. Techniques such as enhanced visualisation through meditation, skill sharing, iterative prototyping, body-storming and presentation skills are examined to ascertain how the project received very high satisfaction and engagement rates from students as well as fulfilling the client brief to a very high standard. A detailed feedback questionnaire was filled in by each student and acts as statistical validation of method and satisfaction rate. Several outcomes from this project were of a high enough standard to be taken to the second stage of consideration for manufacture by the top stainless steel manufacturer in Germany. The paper concludes that creativity is greatly enhanced by skill sharing, many quick activities in the initial ideas stage and a long period of functionality development in the workshops. This is done before final designs can be more fully worked out using the best of BA/BSc knowledge and skills

Peak-to-mean power control and error correction for OFDM transmission using Golay sequences and Reed-Muller codes

A coding scheme for OFDM transmission is proposed, exploiting a previously unrecognised connection between pairs of Golay complementary sequences and second-order Reed-Muller codes. The scheme solves the notorious problem of power control in OFDM systems by maintaining a peak-to-mean envelope power ratio of at most 3dB while allowing simple encoding and decoding at high code rates for binary, quaternary or higher-phase signalling together with good error correction

Nested Hadamard Difference Sets

A Hadamard difference set (HDS) has the parameters (4N2, 2N2 − N, N2 − N). In the abelian case it is equivalent to a perfect binary array, which is a multidimensional matrix with elements ±1 such that all out-of-phase periodic autocorrelation coefficients are zero. We show that if a group of the form H × Z2pr contains a (hp2r, √hpr(2√hpr − 1), √hpr(√hpr − 1)) HDS (HDS), p a prime not dividing |H| = h and pj ≡ −1 (mod exp(H)) for some j, then H× Z2pt has a (hp2t, √hpt(2√hpt − 1), √hpt(√hpt − 1)) HDS for every 0⩽t⩽r. Thus, if these families do not exist, we simply need to show that H × Z2p does not support a HDS. We give two examples of families that are ruled out by this procedure

A Survey of Hadamard Difference Sets

A (v, k, λ) difference set is a k-element subset D of a group G of order v for which the multiset {d1d2-1 : d1, d2 ∈ D, d1 ≠ d2} contains each nonidentity element of G exactly λ times. A difference set is called abelian, nonabelian or cyclic according to the properties of the underlying group. Difference sets are important in design theory because they are equivalent to symmetric (v, k, λ) designs with a regular automorphism group [L]

A Note on New Semi-Regular Divisible Difference Sets

We give a construction for new families of semi-regular divisible difference sets. The construction is a variation of McFarland\u27s scheme [5] tor noncyclic difference sets

Research Announcement: Recursive Construction for Families of Difference Sets

A (v, k, λ) difference set is a k-element subset D of a group G of order v for which the multiset {d1d2-1 : d1, d2, ∈ D} contains each nonzero element of G exactly λ times; n = k-λ

Rely to Comment on \u27Nonexistence of Certain Perfect Binary Arrays\u27 and \u27Nonexistence of Perfect Binary Arrays\u27

Yang\u27s comment [C] is based on a lemma which claims to construct an s0 x s1 x s2 x ... x s, perfect binary array (PBA) from an s0s1 x s2 x ... x sr PBA

Peak-to-Mean Power Control in OFDM, Golay Complementary Sequences, and Reed–Muller Codes

We present a range of coding schemes for OFDM transmission using binary, quaternary, octary, and higher order modulation that give high code rates for moderate numbers of carriers. These schemes have tightly bounded peak-to-mean envelope power ratio (PMEPR) and simultaneously have good error correction capability. The key theoretical result is a previously unrecognized connection between Golay complementary sequences and second-order Reed–Muller codes over alphabets ℤ2h. We obtain additional flexibility in trading off code rate, PMEPR, and error correction capability by partitioning the second-order Reed–Muller code into cosets such that codewords with large values of PMEPR are isolated. For all the proposed schemes we show that encoding is straightforward and give an efficient decoding algorithm involving multiple fast Hadamard transforms. Since the coding schemes are all based on the same formal generator matrix we can deal adaptively with varying channel constraints and evolving system requirements

A Summary of Menon Difference Sets

A (v, k, λ) difference set is a k-element subset D of a group G of order v for which the multiset {d1d2-1 : d1,d2 ∈ D, d1 ≠ d2} contains each nonidentity element of G exactly λ times. A difference set is called abelian, nonabelian or cyclic if the underlying group is. Difference sets a.re important in design theory because they a.re equivalent to symmetric (v, k, λ) designs with a regular automorphism group. Abelian difference sets arise naturally in the solution of many problems of signal design in digital communications, including synchronization, radar, coded aperture imaging and optical image alignment. A Menon difference set (MDS) has para.meters of the form (v,k,λ) = (4N2,2N2 - N,N2 - N); alternative names used by some authors are Hadamard difference set or H-set. The Menon para.meters provide the richest source of known examples of difference sets. The central research question is: for each integer N, which groups of order 4N2 support a MDS? This question remains open, for abelian and nonabelian groups, despite a large literature spanning thirty years. The techniques so far used include algebraic number theory, character theory, representation theory, finite geometry and graph theory as well as elementary methods and computer search. Considerable progress has been made recently, both in terms of constructive and nonexistence results. Indeed some of the most surprising advances currently exist only in preprint form, so one intention of this survey is to clarify the status of the subject and to identify future research directions. Another intention is to show the interplay between the study of MDSs and several diverse branches of discrete mathematics. It is intended that a more detailed version of this survey will appear in a future publication