Creating a Software Assembly Line

This thesis describes a technical solution that improved the software development efforts needed to verify and validate a medical device, herein referred to as the “medical device.” The medical device had many software and hardware configurations that had to be developed, integrated, managed, and tested. There were a number of problems with the manual processes that were being used to verify and validate the product, so this project developed a system called the “Software Assembly Line” to continuously build software and automatically test it on multiple hardware configurations. As a result, software quality and predictability were improved, and the number of cycles required for formal verification and validation was reduced. The final project recommendation was to validate the Software Assembly Line according to 21CFR820.75, Process Validation

Dispositions for Good Teaching

The central focus of my work over the past 30 years has been to struggle with two overarching and related questions. First, what are the qualities of personhood that the adults in our nation’s classrooms must embody to be worthy of teaching our richly diverse students? And second, how do we best prepare ourselves and our colleagues for this work? In this article I reflect on the first of these questions, and do so in light of the fact that any discussion of “teacher dispositions,” either in pre-service or in-service contexts, is best engaged from the perspective of the students who populate our nation’s public schools. These children and young adults reflect a multi-faceted and increasingly broad spectrum of racial, cultural, linguistic, economic, religious, and sexual identities. The adults in these spaces determine, in large measure, both the tone and the outcome of schooling. On the one hand, we have teachers who are highly effective in working in diversity-enhanced schools, and on the other, we have those who are utterly unprepared and even destructive in their teaching. Having benefited from the former, an urban African American low-income student, upon receiving an academic award and scholarship at her high school graduation, acknowledged the work of her principal and teachers by saying, “You made us think we were smarter than we thought we were.” And having suffered from the latter, a Jamaican immigrant student said in a town meeting I facilitated for a school district outside New York City, “Some of our teachers steal our hope.

A Laboratory Investigation of the Properties of Coal-Bitumen Paving Mixtures

The principal objective of this study was to investigate the feasibility of using coal, and to a lesser extent coal mine wastes, as aggregate in bituminous paving mixtures. These local aggregates were laboratory tested in bitumen-aggregate mixtures and, more particularly, in so-called cold-mixes. The bitumen-aggregate mixtures were evaluated by the Immersion-Compression Test, ASTM D 1075-60, with modifications for cold mixtures recommended in the Public Roads Journal (4). In this initial study, since it was not possible to evaluate all types of mixtures, the primary question of whether coal and its waste products can be used as road aggregate could not be answered with finality. Aggregates are used in different types of mixtures, and serve in different degrees of importance in a pavement system. Therefore, other possibilities of the use of these aggregates must be evaluated before the primary question can be answered. Some definite conclusions were reached, and they are based upon the evaluation of the properties of the bitumen-aggregate mixtures made from the materials employed in this study. All of the combinations of binders and aggregates tested, however, lacked some property required in highway pavements

Organic waste - treatment options, opportunities and barriers

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Engineering and awarded by Brunel University.There is approximately 14 million tonnes of biodegradable organic waste produced by households in the UK every year which must be treated or disposed of. The EC Directive on Landfill (1999/31IEC), is likely to lead to an increase in compo sting and anaerobic digestion as methods to treat the waste stream diverted from landfill. Householders play an important role in separating their waste, which, if not performed efficiently can lead to contamination of the organic waste stream, and hence the compost product. A survey is used to determine the attitude and behaviour of householders to waste issues. It was found that residents in the less affluent area were less likely to home compost and had a less favourable attitude towards environmental activities than residents in the affluent area. A comparison of compost from centralised composting schemes treating different organic waste streams found that compost derived from household waste was of a slightly poorer quality than that obtained from gardens/parks waste. As more waste is recycled as compost, it is becoming increasingly important to find alternative uses for compost. Leachability data are used to determine the environmental availability of Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn contained in natural compost. Batch sorption data are used to determine uptake of additional Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn by compost and assess its potential use in remediation work, as an alternative to natural materials such as peat. The relative binding of these additional metals to compost is found to be in the order Pb>Cu≈Cd>Zn. The sorption of metals on compost takes place, at least in part, by exchange of calcium bound to the compost and there is evidence that the sorption occurs in both the humic and non-humic sites in the compost. The use of compost to bind metals in remediation work is discussed

The Future of Music: Reconfiguring Public Performance Rights

This article focuses on two concrete measures to improve the music industry prognosis. Public performance rights have long been an important piece of the economic pie that helps support the music business. This article suggests that the scope of public performance rights should be fundamentally reassessed and expanded. This expansion involves two specific and complementary reconfigurations

Design and fabrication of an autonomous rendezvous and docking sensor using off-the-shelf hardware

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has developed and tested an engineering model of an automated rendezvous and docking sensor system composed of a video camera ringed with laser diodes at two wavelengths and a standard remote manipulator system target that has been modified with retro-reflective tape and 830 and 780 mm optical filters. TRW has provided additional engineering analysis, design, and manufacturing support, resulting in a robust, low cost, automated rendezvous and docking sensor design. We have addressed the issue of space qualification using off-the-shelf hardware components. We have also addressed the performance problems of increased signal to noise ratio, increased range, increased frame rate, graceful degradation through component redundancy, and improved range calibration. Next year, we will build a breadboard of this sensor. The phenomenology of the background scene of a target vehicle as viewed against earth and space backgrounds under various lighting conditions will be simulated using the TRW Dynamic Scene Generator Facility (DSGF). Solar illumination angles of the target vehicle and candidate docking target ranging from eclipse to full sun will be explored. The sensor will be transportable for testing at the MSFC Flight Robotics Laboratory (EB24) using the Dynamic Overhead Telerobotic Simulator (DOTS)

Linking Global Citizenship Education and Education for Democracy through Social Justice: What can we learn from the perspectives of teacher - education candidates

The respective projects of education for global citizenship and education for democracy are inherently intertwined; the richness and salience of one is dependent on the expression of the other. While both of these ideals are varied and broad in definition, they are each gaining prominence in theoretical debates, in policy development, and at the school level, where the implementation of (formal) education takes place. In this article we examine the construction of meanings ascribed to global citizenship education, survey its position in the curriculum today, and connect it with education for democracy. Structured around the findings of a multi-faceted study with teacher-education candidates in education programs at an Ontario, Canada, university, this article uses data that demonstrates how education for democracy, like global citizenship education, is largely perceived in and between a binary of mainstream and critical orientations. Further, we find that central descriptors of critical perspectives have been coopted or conflated, resulting in reduced meaning. To add a practical element to this conversation, we present six proposals to develop and bolster the critical facets of education for democracy and global citizenship, including addressing the local in global, welcoming conflict in learning sites, and highlighting the primacy of equity in each approach