A Survey of Faculty Teaching Practices and Involvement in Faculty Development Activities

As part of its program assessment activities, the Southeastern University and College Coalition for Engineering Education (SUCCEED) conducted a faculty survey of teaching practices, involvement in faculty development programs, and perceptions of the importance of teaching in the faculty reward system. The survey was first administered late in 1997 and a modified version was administered late in 1999. This paper summarizes results from the 1999 survey that address the two questions: (1) to what extent do engineering faculty write instructional objectives and use active and team‐based learning?; and (2) how effective are faculty development programs at changing professors' teaching practices? The results indicate that well over half of the 1999 respondents were using the stated teaching methods, with most attributing their use of the methods to their participation in teaching workshops and seminars.     

Environmental Modeling—A Project Driven,Team Approach to Theory and Application

Environmental modeling is an important tool for understanding and managing complex environmental systems. Regardless of discipline, complete modeling includes a number of steps, ranging from conceptualization to application. However, modeling courses often focus on just one, or at most a few, of the steps and frequently are assignment‐driven. Moreover, they often present numerical procedures as recipes, without regard to theory or limitations and without regard to “real‐world” application. In this course, we unify the modeling sequence by exposing students to the full spectrum of modeling (mathematics, physics, and numerical methods) in the context of surfactant‐enhanced remediation of contaminated soils, a technology being developed at the University of Oklahoma. An innovative course structure is used that couples team learning with a project‐driven syllabus (also referred to as just‐in‐time learning) and combines mathematical and physical modeling via data from laboratory and field testing. Other thematic areas can easily be developed in the same framework. We believe the course pedagogy is highly portable and can serve as an example for any modeling course or for many other courses in an engineering curriculum.     

A Model for Peer and Student Involvement in Formative Course Assessment*

This paper discusses a protocol and rationale for peer and student involvement in the assessment of courses in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. The protocol is based upon elements of good teaching practice, and on standards for peer review as used in journal publication. It has been “prototyped” in nine engineering courses over the past two years and has generally been found to be a good mechanism for near real-time monitoring that creates constructive feedback for teaching and learning quality control. Major features of this ongoing project will be summarized, including faculty attitudes and required time commitment.     

Heat sources — technology, economy and environment

Heat sources for heat pumps in buildings as well as in industry are discussed. Furthermore, some environmental aspects concerning choice of heat source are highlighted. Only systems for heat pumping are included, i.e. air-conditioning types which can also partly work as heat pumps are excluded. Recent heat pump installations in Sweden are mainly in small systems. Ambient air, exhaust air, soil and rock are the most common heat source types. Data on COP, investment costs, working fluids, present Swedish market etc. for these types of heat sources are given. Data on industrial heat pump installations in some countries and distribution of these according to heat pump type and industry sector as well as heat source temperatures are reported. Process integration aspects when choosing heat source size and temperature are also discussed as well as the relation between these parameters and the choice of heat pump type. Finally, the influence on the economy of the heat source temperature is presented. The cost-effectiveness of heat pumps for reducing CO₂ emissions compared with other heating technologies is discussed. The main results are: (1) heat pumps can in many cases in the future contribute to a reduction of CO₂; (2) there is a rather big difference, for larger systems a major difference, between the water-based and the ambient air-based heat pumps in terms of efficient reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.     

Metallische Werkstoffe — Eigenschaften,Verarbeitung, Anwendung in der Konstruktion

Metallic materials, properties, treatment, application in constructions . The main purpose of material research is to improve the properties of metals. Therefore it is necessary to study the influence of production, machining and construction on the properties of structural parts.     

Optimization of Grinding Process Through Design of Experiment (DOE)—A Comparative Study

Grinding is one of the most important processes for producing discrete components with high precision, and it accounts for about 20% to 30% of the total expenditure on machining operations in industrialized nations. So, it becomes imperative that the grinding process with its parameters must be understood properly to have good control over the quality, productivity, and cost aspects of the process. Many experimental investigations reveal that depth of cut, wheel speed, and work speed are the major influential parameters that affect the quality of the ground part. Determination of optimum parameters lies in the proper selection and introduction of suitable design of experiments (DOEs) at the earliest stage of the process and product development cycles. This paper compares and contrasts factorial design with Taguchi's design of experiments used in the determination of optimum grinding conditions. Optimum grinding conditions and grinding cycle time were estimated for each DOE and results were compared and analyzed. ANOVA analysis was carried out for the interpretation and for obtaining insight into the process as a whole.     

Zeolite heat pump — adsorption of methanol in synthetic zeolites 13X, 4A and 5A

The adsorption isotherms for methanol adsorption in synthetic zeolites 13X, 4A and 5A were measured gravimetrically at various temperatures. The model of Langmuir and the potential theory were used for correlating the equilibrium data. The monolayer capacity was calculated using these two models. A small deviation at elevated temperatures was observed. The differential heat of adsorption was measured calorimetrically for all three zeolites. The isosteric heat of adsorption was calculated for zeolite 13X using measured equilibrium data. The log p, 1/T equilibrium diagram for zeolite 13X was computed using the Langmuir equation.     

Developing Criteria for an On‐Line Learning Environment: From the Student and Faculty Perspectives*

The research literature abounds with articles about distance learning from the perspectives of students, faculty, and administrators. Most of these articles discuss the details of transitioning to on‐line learning environments. Research is beginning to pay attention to quality issues in distance learning. This article discusses a three‐phase developmental study conducted in a graduate school. Students were asked to brainstorm and develop a set of quality indicators. These indicators were ranked by a second group of students. Then the indicators were given to a group of faculty for another ranking. In this study it was shown that there was a very great agreement on the relative importance of the various potential indicators of quality in courses delivered via an on‐line medium.     

A note on the first-passage problem and VanMarcke’s approximation — short communication

Given a scalar, stationary, Markov process, this short communication presents a closed-form solution for the first-passage problem for a fixed threshold b. The derivation is based on binary processes and the general formula of Siegert [Siegert AJF. On the first-passage time probability problem. Physical Review 1951; 81:617–23]. The relation for the probability density function of the first-passage time is identical to the commonly used formula that was derived by VanMarcke [VanMarcke E. On the distribution of the first-passage time for normal stationary random processes. Journal of Applied Mechanics ASME 1975; 42:215–20] for Gaussian processes. The present derivation is based on more general conditions and reveals the criteria for the validity of the approximation. Properties of binary processes are also used to derive a hierarchy of upper bounds for any scalar process.     

“Heat pumps — status and trends” in Asia and the Pacific

In Asian and Pacific regions, economic growth in the last decade has propelled the use of air-conditioners for space cooling along with the use of reversible heat pumps for year round space conditioning. This has led to the rapid increase of electricity demand for air conditioning in summer. To cope with the increasing power demand and the requirement for efficient energy use for space conditioning, governments and energy supply utilities have encouraged effective use and leveling of power load using a heat pump with thermal storage systems and gas cooling systems, by enacting financial and promotional supports. Status and trends of heat pumps in Asian and Pacific regions, related to the use of heat pumps for space heating and cooling were surveyed from the view points of climate, energy consumption, technologies, markets and promotion measures.     

A Miniature Short Stroke Linear Actuator—Design and Analysis

We report a newly developed miniature short stroke tubular linear permanent-magnet actuator for robotic applications. Compared to a rotary-to-linear mechanism, the linear actuator has the advantages of efficiency, thrust control, and compact size in generating linear motion. We optimized the electromagnetic force of the actuator analytically by selecting appropriate dimensions and then predicted the force produced by the winding currents by the finite-element method under the brushless dc excitation scheme. We analyzed the actuation performance by dynamic modeling of the actuator. We constructed and tested a prototype on a specially designed test bench to verify the design. Finally, we analyzed and measured the end effect on the magnetic force due to the limited length of the stator core and translator.     

EUROCONTROL—Systemic Occurrence Analysis Methodology (SOAM)—A “Reason”-based organisational methodology for analysing incidents and accidents

The Safety Occurrence Analysis Methodology (SOAM) developed for EUROCONTROL is an accident investigation methodology based on the Reason Model of organisational accidents. The purpose of a SOAM is to broaden the focus of an investigation from human involvement issues, also known as “active failures of operational personnel” under Reason's original model, to include analysis of the latent conditions deeper within the organisation that set the context for the event. Such an approach is consistent with the tenets of Just Culture in which people are encouraged to provide full and open information about how incidents occurred, and are not penalised for errors.A truly systemic approach is not simply a means of transferring responsibility for a safety occurrence from front-line employees to senior managers. A consistent philosophy must be applied, where the investigation process seeks to correct deficiencies wherever they may be found, without attempting to apportion blame or liability.