Hisham Alnajjar

Successful integration of informal learning in engineering education

Research suggests that an emerging environment of ubiquitous information technology affords seamless movement between formal learning, informal learning, and the workplace. This paper reviews research data from one successful teaching and learning methodology that leverages seamless movements between informal and formal learning in engineering education. The research is an ongoing pilot study at the University of Hartford using data from selected technical mathematics and communication electronics courses. The research data suggests that clearly defined academic jurisdictions have a positive correlation with successful integration of formal learning, informal learning, and the workplace. However, themes from the data also suggest that crossing academic boundaries involves more than technology issues and could raise the specter of unintended social-dramas. One theme suggests that, in a seamless environment without clearly defined academic jurisdictions, opportunities for collaboration could be misinterpreted as encroachments. To mitigate issues of competing jurisdictional interests this study employs Learner Agent Objects (LAO) individual portfolios. LAO portfolios are collections of evidence-based artifacts representing a learners academic experience that independently moves with the learner as data network nodes between jurisdictions in engineering education and the workplace.

Work in progress - the Five Paragraph Essay in Junior/Senior Electrical Engineering courses

To strengthen the writing of junior and senior electrical and computer engineering students, we are adding several writing assignments based upon the five paragraph essay format to our junior and senior courses. The five paragraph essay format, almost universally taught in middle and high schools, requires the student to clearly and concisely analyze and communicate a single idea, beginning with a single paragraph that states the overall point, three supporting paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph. During the Spring 2008 semester, these essays will be used in electromagnetic field theory, engineering practice, and capstone design project courses. In each course, the students will be asked to describe concept or argue why a specific design choice must be made without presenting just a mathematical calculation. The paper will include a discussion of the format, and graphic organizers used to help students write the essays, as well as the rubric used for grading the essay. Since a sizable fraction of our students are non-native speakers of English our evaluation on their performance will be compared to the performance of students writing these essays in English as a second language courses as reported in education literature.

Deep learning classifier with optical coherence tomography images for early dental caries detection

Dental caries is a microbial disease that results in localized dissolution of the mineral content of dental tissue. Despite considerable decline in the incidence of dental caries, it remains a major health problem in many societies. Early detection of incipient lesions at initial stages of demineralization can result in the implementation of non-surgical preventive approaches to reverse the demineralization process. In this paper, we present a novel approach combining deep convolutional neural networks (CNN) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging modality for classification of human oral tissues to detect early dental caries. OCT images of oral tissues with various densities were input to a CNN classifier to determine variations in tissue densities resembling the demineralization process. The CNN automatically learns a hierarchy of increasingly complex features and a related classifier directly from training data sets. The initial CNN layer parameters were randomly selected. The training set is split into minibatches, with 10 OCT images per batch. Given a batch of training patches, the CNN employs two convolutional and pooling layers to extract features and then classify each patch based on the probabilities from the SoftMax classification layer (output-layer). Afterward, the CNN calculates the error between the classification result and the reference label, and then utilizes the backpropagation process to fine-tune all the layer parameters to minimize this error using batch gradient descent algorithm. We validated our proposed technique on ex-vivo OCT images of human oral tissues (enamel, cortical-bone, trabecular-bone, muscular-tissue, and fatty-tissue), which attested to effectiveness of our proposed method.

Characterization of human oral tissues based on quantitative analysis of optical coherence tomography images

In this paper, five types of tissues, human enamel, human cortical bone, human trabecular bone, muscular tissue, and fatty tissue were imaged ex vivo using optical coherence tomography (OCT). The specimens were prepared in blocks of 5 x 5 x 3 mm (width x length x height). The OCT imaging system was a swept source OCT system operating at wavelengths ranging between 1250 nm and 1360 nm with an average power of 18 mW and a scan rate of 50 to 100 kHz. The imaging probe was placed on top of a 2 x 2 cm stabilizing device to maintain a standard distance from the samples. Ten image samples from each type of tissue were obtained. To acquire images with minimum inhomogeneity, imaging was performed multiple times at different points. Based on the observed texture differences between OCT images of soft and hard tissues, spatial and spectral features were quantitatively extracted from the OCT images. The Radon transform from angles of 0 deg to 90 deg was computed, averaged over all the angles, normalized to peak at unity, and then fitted with Gaussian function. The mean absolute values of the spatial frequency components of the OCT image were considered as a feature, where 2-D fast Fourier transform (FFT) was done to OCT images. These OCT features can reliably differentiate between a range of hard and soft tissues, and could be extremely valuable in assisting dentists for in vivo evaluation of oral tissues and early detection of pathologic changes in tissues.

Engineering practice-a junior level course to develop the "SOFT SKILLS" in engineering.

Engineering Design is the driving force in many engineering programs with little emphases on the other considerations such as feasibility, financial, environmental, social, and regulatory aspects despite the major push by ABET. This course in Engineering Practice focuses on addressing the above concerns in a one credit course that is required of all juniors in a team setting. The paper explains the philosophy, practice, expectations, setup and results of teaching this course for several years.

Model Based Control Design Using SLPS “Simulink PSpice Interface”

This paper elaborates on the new integration offered with the PSpice SLPS interface and the MATLAB simulink products. SLPS links the two widely used design products, PSpice and Mathwork’s Simulink simulator. The SLPS simulation environment supports the substitution of an actual electronic block with an “ideal model”, better known as the mathematical simulink model. Thus enabling the designer to identify and correct integration issues of electronics within a system. Moreover, stress audit can be performed by using the PSpice smoke analysis which helps to verify whether the components are working within the manufacturer’s safe operating limits. It is invaluable since many companies design and test the electronics separately from the system level. Therefore, integrations usually are not discovered until the prototype level, causing critical time delays in getting a product to the market.

FM Transmitter System for Telemetrized Temperature Sensing Project

Small, inexpensive, traditional analog-type telemetric systems have been developed from 1960th. Since the cost of the device is significantly low, it still can be used for one-time use purposes. This paper highlights a methodology of sending a FM signal from the FM transmitter which is based on an inexpensive FM wireless microphone to measure high-altitude ambient air temperature. The FM signal is received by a conventional home FM receiver. This research has focused on the following three aspects;