A new network of development in Engineering education in the UK

Many engineering education organisations exist worldwide to enhance the learning experience of student engineers and to foster an environment conducive to preparing graduates for an ever changing future. Recent developments in UK Engineering Education are presented, together with a brief underlying philosophy, exploring a networking model to connect enthusiasts and provide support for their developments and innovations

Why aren't users using protection? Investigating the usability of smartphone locking

One of the main reasons why smartphone users do not adopt screen locking mechanisms is due to the inefficiency of entering a PIN/pattern each time they use their phone. To address this problem we designed a context-sensitive screen locking application which asked participants to enter a PIN/pattern only when necessary, and evaluated its impact on efficiency and satisfaction. Both groups of participants, who prior to the study either locked or did not lock their phone, adopted our application and felt that unlocking their phone only when necessary was more efficient, did not annoy them and offered a reasonable level of security. Participants responded positively to the option of choosing when a PIN/pattern is required in different contexts. Therefore, we recommend that designers of smartphone locking mechanisms should consider ceding a reasonable level of control over security settings to users to increase adoption and convenience, while keeping smartphones reasonably secure

Variations of radiocarbon in tree rings: southern hemisphere offset preliminary results

The Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland and University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand radiocarbon laboratories have undertaken a series of high-precision measurements on decadal samples of dendrochronologically dated oak (Quercus patrea) and cedar (Libocedrus bidwillii) from Great Britain and New Zealand, respectively. The results show a real atmospheric offset of 3.4 ± 0.6% (27.2 ± 4.7 ¹⁴C yr) between the two locations for the interval AD 1725 to AD 1885, with the Southern Hemisphere being depleted in ¹⁴C. This result is less than the value currently used to correct Southern Hemisphere calibrations, possibly indicating a gradient in Δ¹⁴C within the Southern Hemisphere

Towards a radiocarbon calibration for oxygen isotope stage 3 using New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis)

It is well known that radiocarbon years do not directly equate to calendar time. As a result, considerable effort has been devoted to generating a decadally resolved calibration curve for the Holocene and latter part of the last termination. A calibration curve that can be unambiguously attributed to changes in atmospheric ¹⁴C content has not, however, been generated beyond 26 kyr cal BP, despite the urgent need to rigorously test climatic, environmental, and archaeological models. Here, we discuss the potential of New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis) to define the structure of the ¹⁴C calibration curve using annually resolved tree rings and thereby provide an absolute measure of atmospheric ¹⁴C. We report bidecadally sampled ¹⁴C measurements obtained from a floating 1050-yr chronology, demonstrating repeatable ¹⁴C measurements near the present limits of the dating method. The results indicate that considerable scope exists for a high-resolution ¹⁴C calibration curve back through OIS-3 using subfossil wood from this source

Data Driven Authentication: On the Effectiveness of User Behaviour Modelling with Mobile Device Sensors

We propose a lightweight, and temporally and spatially aware user behaviour modelling technique for sensor-based authentication. Operating in the background, our data driven technique compares current behaviour with a user profile. If the behaviour deviates sufficiently from the established norm, actions such as explicit authentication can be triggered. To support a quick and lightweight deployment, our solution automatically switches from training mode to deployment mode when the user's behaviour is sufficiently learned. Furthermore, it allows the device to automatically determine a suitable detection threshold. We use our model to investigate practical aspects of sensor-based authentication by applying it to three publicly available data sets, computing expected times for training duration and behaviour drift. We also test our model with scenarios involving an attacker with varying knowledge and capabilities.Comment: In Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Mobile Security Technologies (MoST) 2014 (http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.6674

Old World megadroughts and pluvials during the Common Era

Climate model projections suggest widespread drying in the Mediterranean Basin and wetting in Fennoscandia in the coming decades largely as a consequence of greenhouse gas forcing of climate. To place these and other “Old World” climate projections into historical perspective based on more complete estimates of natural hydroclimatic variability, we have developed the “Old World Drought Atlas” (OWDA), a set of year-to-year maps of tree-ring reconstructed summer wetness and dryness over Europe and the Mediterranean Basin during the Common Era. The OWDA matches historical accounts of severe drought and wetness with a spatial completeness not previously available. In addition, megadroughts reconstructed over north-central Europe in the 11th and mid-15th centuries reinforce other evidence from North America and Asia that droughts were more severe, extensive, and prolonged over Northern Hemisphere land areas before the 20th century, with an inadequate understanding of their causes. The OWDA provides new data to determine the causes of Old World drought and wetness and attribute past climate variability to forced and/or internal variability

NotCal04; comparison/ calibration 14C records 26-50 cal kyr BP

Author Posting. © Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of Dept. of Geosciences, University of Arizona for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Radiocarbon 46 (2004): 1225-1238.The radiocarbon calibration curve IntCal04 extends back to 26 cal kyr BP. While several high-resolution records exist beyond this limit, these data sets exhibit discrepancies of up to several millennia. As a result, no calibration curve for the time range 26–50 cal kyr BP can be recommended as yet, but in this paper the IntCal04 working group compares the available data sets and offers a discussion of the information that they hold