The ethics of curriculum development:Engineers and technicians in a context of development: Engineers and technicians in a context of development

South African higher education has, for the last twenty years, attempted to confront the legacy its past, particularly the lack of access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics-based (STEM) education by the vast majority of potential students. The current policy environment is dominated by a drive towards high skills jobs and innovation that links research to new forms of production and new services. With the promulgation of a new "Higher Education Qualifications Sub-framework" (HEQSF, 2013) in South Africa there has been considerable curriculum development work across a number of fields and disciplines to enable the "high skills" agenda. Many programs that served as entry qualifications to employment as computer engineering technicians have been subject to upward re-curriculation towards engineering programs. A concern is the lack of clarity around appropriate qualifications and skills levels for a developing country and what might differentiate engineering technician programs from professional engineering programs. There are deep concerns in South Africa about the need to transform society, in particular to ensure that the legitimate aspirations of black South Africans are met and that talented young citizens are able to access higher education and obtain qualifications that enable them to enter the workplace and contribute meaningfully to development. In this paper we discuss the ethics of curriculum development, and argue for an ethical framework to assist institutions to guide curricular decision-making in engineering. A methodology for curricular comparison was developed from the work of Karl Maton on "semantic waves" that was used to construct a systematic comparison between a technician and engineering programme in the field of computer engineering. We show distinct knowledge differences between two programs, one a technician's diploma and the other an professional engineering degree program. We use the findings to illustrate wider concerns about the ethics of/in engineering curriculum development in South Africa as a developing country with a transformation agenda

Software-Defined Radio FPGA Cores: Building towards a Domain-Specific Language

This paper reports on the design and implementation of an open-source library of parameterizable and reusable Hardware Description Language (HDL) Intellectual Property (IP) cores designed for the development of Software-Defined Radio (SDR) applications that are deployed on FPGA-based reconfigurable computing platforms. The library comprises a set of cores that were chosen, together with their parameters and interfacing schemas, based on recommendations from industry and academic SDR experts. The operation of the SDR cores is first validated and then benchmarked against two other cores libraries of a similar type to show that our cores do not take much more logic elements than existing cores and that they support a comparable maximum clock speed. Finally, we propose our design for a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) and supporting tool-flow, which we are in the process of building using our SDR library and the Delite DSL framework. We intend to take this DSL and supporting framework further to provide a rapid prototyping system for SDR application development to programmers not experienced in HDL coding. We conclude with a summary of the main characteristics of our SDR library and reflect on how our DSL tool-flow could assist other developers working in SDR field

Hierarchical Level of Detail Optimisation for Constant Framerate Rendering of Radiosity Scenes

The predictive hierarchical level of detail optimization algorithm of Mason and Blake is experimentally evaluated in the form of a practical application to hierarchical radiosity. In a novel approach the recursively subdivided patch hierarchy generated by a perceptually refined hierarchical radiosity algorithm is treated as a hierarchical level of detail scene description. In this way we use the Mason-Blake algorithm to successfully maintain constant frame rates during the interactive rendering of the radiosity-generated scene. We establish that the algorithm is capable of maintaining uniform frame rendering times, but that the execution time of the optimization algorithm itself is significant and is strongly dependent on frame-to-frame coherence and the granularity of the level of detail description. To compensate we develop techniques which effectively reduce and limit the algorithm execution time: We restrict the execution times of the algorithm to guard against pathological situations and propose simplification transforms that increase the granularity of the scene description, at minimal cost to visual quality. We demonstrate that using these techniques the algorithm is capable of maintaining interactive frame rates for scenes of arbitrary complexity. Furthermore we provide guidelines for the appropriate use of predictive level of detail optimization algorithms derived from our practical experience

The Genetics of Brain Wiring: From Molecule to Mind

What makes some people neurotic or schizophrenic or right-handed or fearless? The challenge in answering this is to map from genotype to anatomical and physiological phenotypes and beyond to behavior and cognition

A Glial Variant of the Vesicular Monoamine Transporter Is Required To Store Histamine in the Drosophila Visual System

Unlike other monoamine neurotransmitters, the mechanism by which the brain's histamine content is regulated remains unclear. In mammals, vesicular monoamine transporters (VMATs) are expressed exclusively in neurons and mediate the storage of histamine and other monoamines. We have studied the visual system of Drosophila melanogaster in which histamine is the primary neurotransmitter released from photoreceptor cells. We report here that a novel mRNA splice variant of Drosophila VMAT (DVMAT-B) is expressed not in neurons but rather in a small subset of glia in the lamina of the fly's optic lobe. Histamine contents are reduced by mutation of dVMAT, but can be partially restored by specifically expressing DVMAT-B in glia. Our results suggest a novel role for a monoamine transporter in glia that may be relevant to histamine homeostasis in other systems

Using a social justice approach to decolonize an engineering curriculum

2017 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)Globally there have been many changes in the roles of universities, in particular the increasing complexity of the university’s relationship with the state and society; it is thus unsurprising that there is a growing pressure on engineering programs to become more inclusive, innovative and ‘relevant’ to social needs. This study arises out of a call in South Africa, for the ‘decolonization’ of higher education. There is considerable debate and controversy about what a decolonized curriculum might comprise, and this paper sought to identify elements of a decolonized computer engineering curriculum through interviews with academic and practicing engineers, as well as a student survey. The findings suggest that there are different ways in which a curriculum might be understood as being decolonized (or progressing towards such a state). In this paper we argue that decolonizing a curriculum requires a systematic approach, such as understanding of curriculum development as an activity system in order to identify the elements that require change. We further argue that an appropriate framework, such as Nancy Fraser’s tripartite understanding of ‘social justice’ would ensure that the decolonized curriculum is also a socially just one. We use ‘fictive scripting’ to forecast a variety of possible scenarios for a socially just decolonized computer engineering curriculum, based on the data obtained from participants. We then presented these scenarios to faculty to gain their views towards further development. Results of our case study indicate that a socially just decolonized engineering curriculum may need more resources and staffing to achieve its purpose, compared to a more traditional curriculum. The case study suggests further that a decolonized curriculum has benefits, such as improving student motivation, enhancing relevance to the local context and helping to inspire innovative solutions for local needs

Pedagogical competence for engineering educators: Re-conceptualizing teaching portfolios

The demand for engineering graduates is increasing globally. National governments understand the importance of the sector for economic growth, while students are becoming more aware of the greater life opportunities open to them as a result of an engineering education. The role of effective teaching in the attainment of student outcomes is increasingly recognized and many engineering departments require faculty to meet standards of pedagogical competence. Our aim in this research was to investigate the role of teaching portfolios in the enhancement of engineering educators’ pedagogical competence, in particular engineering faculty’s changing understanding of key aspects of pedagogical competence over the process of developing teaching portfolios. We found several shifts in participants’ understandings and attitudes over a short course intended to support engineering academics in the construction of teaching portfolios for the purposes of tenure, promotion or awards. For example, participants shifted from describing or ‘showcasing’ their teaching and learning achievements towards a greater appreciation of the role of reflective practice, and from a focus on course content and ‘coverage’ towards an understanding of concept-building, sequencing and curricular coherence. This paper argues that a short course in the development of teaching portfolios for the purposes of tenure, promotion or teaching awards can contribute to the development of pedagogical competence amongst engineering faculty, but that considerable attention should be given to the complex issue of reflection on practice and that trustworthy assessment of teaching portfolios requires clear criteria for pedagogical competence at different levels of practice