Thursday 27 November 2014

Learning Smart - a community-driven, best learning resource sharing website.

Dr James Xue from Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies, University of Northampton and Ahmed Salim (an MSc Computing student) have developed a community-driven, best learning resource sharing website. 



Originally developed as his Ahmed's dissertation under James supervision, it is now live at  www.learningsmart.co.uk

The following are some of the main features: 
  1. Top-five resource list for each subject area is updated at real-time (nearly) automatically based on real users’ reviews (one user can only review a resource once, this stops fake reviews)
  2. Learning resources are classified based on levels of difficulty (e.g., beginner, intermediate, advanced) so that learners won’t waste time searching for the right resources or reading inappropriate resources.
  3. Any contribution (upload and review of resources, interaction with other learners) will be rewarded some points, top contributors are displayed on the home page. As a result, more good resources are expected.
  4. Users can create learning groups and other learners at similar levels can join the groups.
  5. Messaging service allows learners to discuss issues on a one-to-one basis.
  6. Seamless Facebook integration to reach wider audience. e.g.,Facebook login, cross comments on both sites.
  7. Personalised reading lists allow learners to create their own learning portfolio.
James Xue "... this site will benefit our students and other learners in general in many aspects. e.g., it’s a good addition to our “Module Reading List” as they are created and reviewed by the community (instead of the lecturers). It encourages collaborative learning..."

Go have a go yourself go to http://www.learningsmart.co.uk/ 


If you'd like to find out more about Computing at the University of Northampton go to: www.computing.northampton.ac.uk. All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with

Monday 24 November 2014

Design and Implementation a Real Time Healthcare System Based on WSN

A recently published paper by Dr Ali Al-Sherbaz 

Design and Implementation a Real Time Healthcare System Based on WSN 
Murtadha G. Kadhim, Samir J. Mohammed, and Ali Al-Sherbaz

Journal Of Telecommunications

Volume 27, Issue 1, September 2014


Abstract— The development of monitoring systems of healthcare on the basis of WSN has seen a significant increase on a large scale in previous years. These systems are more prevalent because of the importance of human life and the provision of appropriate technologies to be applied. Therefore it must be appropriate to the requirements of healthcare. In this paper, a real- time healthcare monitoring system based on WSN is designed. The system senses and displays ECG, SPO2, Heart Rate (HR), Breathing, respiratory rate, Blood pressure and temperature of a patient. A new algorithm is developed in this paper to measure a respiratory rate from breathing (Airflow sensor). The system features a friendly GUI in base station which is easy to use, and very simple to administer by a specialist doctor. The network technology, which is used in the system is a star topology with wireless ZigBee protocol. In base station, LabVIEW software and Visual studio 2012 are used to do tasks such as a processing, monitoring, graphical user interface, reporting, and alarming. The aim of this paper is to design a real time healthcare monitoring and alarming system using WSN for sensing breathing, ECG, temperature, SPO2, and blood pressure through Zigbee protocol







If you'd like to find out more about Computing at the University of Northampton go to: www.computing.northampton.ac.uk. All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with

Double tag car parking secure system based on RFID

A recently published paper by Dr Ali Al-Sherbaz 

Double tag car parking secure system based on RFID
Ahmed Al-Baghdadi, Mahmoud Al-Shammari and Ali Al-Sherba

Journal Of Telecommunications

Volume 27, Issue 1, September 2014


Abstract—Radio frequency identification system technology is employed in this proposed security system in order to create high level of accuracy as possible. Whereas the accuracy is considered as a heart of system because any simple error may lead to breach whole security system. Beside the accuracy we should close all the expected Illegals methods which could be exploited for illegal entry. Our solution represented by eight main stages, the first stage consists of embedding the ID into a tag and assigning the same to a car. The second stage is reading the IDs from the RFID tags in the reading range. The third stage is checking from the matched tags. The fourth stage involve take the decision about open the gate. In the fifth stage the camera capture a photo of the car and save it with the date of entry. The sixth stage involves opening gate and change the traffic light to green color. The seventh stage is checking the under gate arm area by using loop detector sensor. In the final stage change the traffic light to red and close the gate. 

Full Text: http://www.scribd.com/doc/241492521/Double-tag-car-parking-secure-system-based-on-RFID


If you'd like to find out more about Computing at the University of Northampton go to: www.computing.northampton.ac.uk. All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with

Monday 17 November 2014

IEEE 1609.4 for safety and non-safety messages dissemination in VANET

A recent paper by Dr Ali Al-Sherbaz in partnership with  College of Information Engineering, Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq looks at a VANET protocol for safety and non-safety message dissemination.


Evaluation Study of IEEE 1609.4 Performance for safety and non-safety messages dissemination
Mina Alaa1, Mohammed A. Abdala2, Ali Al-Sherbaz3,

1,2Network Engineering Department, College of Information Engineering, Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq 3Computing and Immersive Technologies Department, The University of Northampton, School of Science and Technology, Northampton, U.K.
International Journal of Enhanced Research in Science Technology & Engineering, ISSN: 2319-7463Vol. 3 Issue 11, November-2014, pp: (29-36)



Abstract

 The IEEE 1609.4 was developed to support multi-channel operation and channel switching procedure in order to provide both safety and non-safety vehicular applications. However, this protocol has some drawback because it does not make efficient usage of channel bandwidth resources for single radio WAVE devices and suffer from high bounded delay and lost packet especially for large-scale networks in terms of the number of active nodes. This paper evaluates IEEE 1609.4 multi-channel protocol performance for safety and non-safety application and compare it with the IEEE 802.11p single channel protocol. Multi-channel and single- channel protocols are analyzed in different environments to investigate their performance. By relying on a realistic dataset and using OMNeT++ simulation tool as network simulator, SUMO as traffic simulator and coupling them by employing Veins framework. Performance evaluation results show that the delay of single- channel protocol IEEE 802.11p has been degraded 36% compared with multi-channel protocol.





If you'd like to find out more about Computing at the University of Northampton go to: www.computing.northampton.ac.uk. All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with

Tuesday 4 November 2014

What do Computing students do? STEM

Ben Foward, a second year student within the Department of Computing and Immersive  Technologies, University of Northampton, has been actively involved with STEM outreach activities. These include running activities but also being the student representative on the university-wide STEM Steering Group (http://mypad.northampton.ac.uk/stem/stem-steering-group/) . 

A example of an activity taken from http://mypad.northampton.ac.uk/stem/2014/10/29/be-steam-event-success/ is shown below:

BE STEAM Ideas wall
Students were able to find out how they can get involved in the University’s STEM Champion Programme, and the growing STEM network and the aims of the STEM Steering Group which represents staff and students from across Schools and professional services.
BE STEAM Biosciences How clean is your ....
Activities were led by STEM Champions including Ben Forward and Eunice Quason who demonstrated Greenscreening techniques (part of the Digital Leaders project), Ronan Egan and Julia Taylor who challenged fellow students to see how clean their hands and environment were, Izzie Trott cooked up some exciting experiments in her Kitchen Chemistry and Murhib Uddin got students thinking about introducing children to engineering through his Knex Challenge.
For more information go to: http://mypad.northampton.ac.uk/stem/


If you'd like to find out more about Computing at the University of Northampton go to: www.computing.northampton.ac.uk. All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with

Monday 3 November 2014

Problems first, second and third DOI: 10.4018/ijqaete.2014070104

A paper has recently been published in International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education on problem-solving and programming by two members of the Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies, University of Northampton.



Problems First, Second and Third. 
Gary Hill and Scott Turner
DOI:  10.4018/ijqaete.2014070104

Abstract
This paper considers the need to focus initial programming education on problem-solving, prior to the teaching of programming syntax and software design methodology. The main vehicle for this approach is simple Lego based robots programmed in Java, followed by the programming of a graphical representation/simulation to develop programming skills. Problem solving is not trivial (Beaumont & Fox, 2003) and is an important skill, central to computing and engineering. The paper extends the authors earlier research on problems first and problem solving (Hill & Turner, 2011) to further emphasise the importance of problem-solving, problem based learning and the benefits of both physical and visual solutions. An approach will be considered, illustrated with a series of problem-solving tasks that increase in complexity at each stage and give the students practice in attempting problem-solving approaches, as well as assisting them to learn from their mistakes. Some of the problems include ambiguities or are purposely ill-defined, to enable the student to resolve these as part of the process. The benefits to students will be discussed including students' statements that this approach, using robots, provides a method to visually and physically see the outcome of a problem. In addition, students report that the method improves their satisfaction with the course. The importance of linking the problem-solving robot activity and the programming assignment, whilst maintaining the visual nature of the problem, will be discussed, together with the comparison of this work with similar work reported by other authors relating to teaching programming using robots (Williams, 2003). In addition, limitations will be discussed relating to the access to the physical robots and the alternative attempts to simulate the robots using three options of, Microsoft Robotics Studio (MSRS), Lego Mindstorms and Greenfoot simulators.





To read a preview of the paper go to: http://www.igi-global.com/viewtitlesample.aspx?id=117560&ptid=91662&t=Problems%20First,%20Second%20and%20Third



If you'd like to find out more about Computing at the University of Northampton go to: www.computing.northampton.ac.uk. All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with