Excel to build and training a single artificial neurone

Two videos produced within the Department of Computing, University of Northampton, Uk on using Microsoft Excel to simulate a single artificial neurone, as a step towards building a neural network.

In the first video, Excel is used to build and show the principles of a single neurone.



In the second video the ideas from the video above are now extended to show, in a relatively simple way, how a single neurone can be trained.



What would be interesting to find a way to build this idea into a simple neural network. Comments and ideas are very welcome.


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

An analytical channel model for emerging wireless Networks-on-Chip

Opoku Agyeman, M., Vien, Q.-T. and Mak, T. (2016) An analytical channel model for emerging wireless Networks-on-Chip. In: IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing (EUC 2016). France: IEEE Computer Society. (Accepted)

Abstract
Recently wireless Networks-on-Chip (WiNoCs) have been proposed to overcome the scalability and performance limitations of traditional multi-hop wired NoC architectures. However, the adaptation of wireless technology for on-chip communication is still in its infancy. Consequently, several challenges such as simulation and design tools that consider the technological constraints imposed by the wireless channel are yet to be addressed. To this end, in this paper, we propose and efficient channel model for WiNoCs which takes into account practical issues and constraints of the propagation medium, such as transmission frequency, operating temperature, ambient pressure and distance between the on-chip antennas. The proposed channel model demonstrates that total path loss of the wireless channel in WiNoCs suffers from not only dielectric propagation loss (DPL) but also molecular absorption attenuation (MAA) which reduces the reliability of the system.

To read more go to An analytical channel model for emerging wireless Networks-on-Chip


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

Mini-project: CodeBugs and codeclub

Taken from post in http://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.co.uk/

Playing with the CodeBug

Codebug is great fun, the Blockly programming is more challenging than Scratch but that is ok. 

As a test a Codebug was used to control two glowbugs (see http://www.codebug.org.uk/learn/activity/74/glowbugs-wearables/#step446 for more details on Glowbugs and working with them on the Codebug). 


Routine

Repeat
  Set the  Glowbugs 0 and 1 to yellow;
  Scroll a message across the 5x5 grid saying yellow;
  if button A is pressed
    Set the Glowbugs 0 and 1 to red;
    Scroll a message across the 5x5 saying red;
  if button B is pressed
    Set the Glowbug 0 to blue;
    Scroll a message across the 5x5 saying blue;  

Driving a small motor

A simple transistor circuit is used here to get the CodeBug to control a small motor, turning it on or off.

Drawn using Schemeit (http://www.digikey.co.uk/schemeit/project/) 

The motor used here was a small cell-phone vibration motor, but it has been tried with other small motors.

Using ‘leg 1’ to switch the motor on or off, +5v comes from the CodeBug PWR connector and GND come from the CodeBug. It can only drive the motor in one direction.

In the code below Button A switches on the motor and Button B switches the motor off.

CodeClub

These little devices provide something different to a code. To see the coding interface go to http://www.codebug.org.uk/ (or see figures 1 and 2) and click on create.

Last two weeks

Week 1 

The code clubbers initially shared machines, playing with the CodeBug environment, practice downloading to the bug, writing a routine to scroll their short message. The challenge was then to develop a routine to have a smiley face and a grumpy face scroll across the screen.

Week 2

All have access to the simulation and code generation on codebug.org.uk but this time they don’t have the CodeBug each, they have complete a challenge and run it on the simulation before get a CodeBug to try it. This week's challenge was to get the smiley and grumpy face from week 1 to be selected via the buttons (A and B) - so it involved a loop and conditional statements. Most of them picked it up very quickly.

Two version were built - I reconstructed the ideas in figures 1 and 2 (the code clubbers often did a better version than mine shown here!).

Figure 1: Simple Scroll

The one shown in Figure 1 works by pressing A -scrolls :-) and B - scrolls :-( . Some spotted that the the 'nose' wasn't quite in the place. Some went and found the build sprite block and used that instead.

Figure 2 - Using the build sprite.

Lessons learnt

• Give them all access individually to the CodeBug website but not to the physical CodeBug straight away
• They are often a limited resources
• There is a great temptation from the code clubbers to focus on download to the actual device when the seem to get more done if the spend more time with website and its simulator first;
• When they have something interesting to put on the ‘bug’; then they can borrow a bug and try it out.
• They should do a bit of a show and tell.

Related posts
Basic Motor Control using CodeBug
messing around with Codebug

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with.If you'd like to find out more about Computing at the University of Northampton go to: www.computing.northampton.ac.uk.

Automated feedback and marking system

Ajit, S. (2016) Automated feedback and marking system in computing. Seminar Presentation presented to: Assessment in Higher Education (AHE) Seminar Day 2016, Manchester, UK, 30 June 2016.

Abstract
The recent National Student Survey (NSS) results for taught courses in Higher Education Institutions have once again revealed that assessment and feedback have obtained the lowest scores when compared to other aspects such as teaching, academic support, organisation and management, learning resources, personal development and overall satisfaction. This pattern is consistent with the scores obtained over the last ten years. It is imperative that universities need to look into ways of improving these scores. The Computing department at the University of Northampton have developed and used a tool to provide automated instant feedback to formative assessments for modules teaching programming. Initial evaluation of the tool by students has produced encouraging results and led to following research questions: 
a) What is the state of the art in automated marking? b) an automated marking and feedback systems enhance student learning, engagement and experience? c)Could they be developed for other areas in STEM? d) Could they be used for summative assessments? e) Is the quality of automated feedback superior to manual feedback? 

To read more go to:  http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/8528/


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

SlideAcross: novel distributing method for on chip multi-processor data

Zong, W., Wang, L., Xu, Q. and Opoku Agyeman, M. (2016) SlideAcross: a low-latency adaptive router for chip multi-processor.In: Proceedings of Euromicro DSD/SEAA 2016. Cyprus: IEEE. (Accepted)

Abstract
The non-uniform distributed traffic of chip multiprocessor (CMP) demands an on-chip communication infrastructure which is able to avoid congestion under high traffic conditions while possessing minimal pipeline delay at low load conditions. In this paper, we propose a low-latency adaptive router with a low-complexity single-cycle bypassing mechanism to meet the communication needs of CMPs. This router transmits a flit using dimension-ordered routing (DoR) in the bypass datapath at low loads. When the output port required intra-dimension bypassing is not available, the packet is routed adaptively to avoid congestion. The router also has a simplified virtual channel allocation (VA) scheme that yields a nonspeculative low-latency pipeline. By combining the low-complexity bypassing technique together with adaptive routing, the proposed router architecture can achieve low-latency communication under various traffic loads. Simulation shows that proposed router can reduce applications’ execution time by 16.9% in average compared to low-latency router SWIFT

To read more go to SlideAcross: a low-latency adaptive router for chip multi-processor. 

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

What have the computing PhD students been up to Jan-Jun 2016?

Here is a collection of outputs from the University of Northampton PhD students during January- June 2016 - they have been a busy bunch.

1. Abbas, R., Al-Sherbaz, A., Bennecer, A. and Picton, P. (2016) Development of scheduling process for the M2M communications system in smart cites. Panel Presentation presented to: School of Science and Technology Annual Research Conference, Newton Building, The University of Northampton, 02 March 2016.
2. Al-Dabbagh, M., Al-Sherbaz, A. and Turner, S. J. (2016) Development [of] a real-time ITS using VANETs: a case study for Northampton Town. In: SAI Intelligent Systems Conference 2016. IEEE. (Accepted)
3. Al-Rubaye, Z. (2016) Lameness detection in sheep through behavioural sensor data analysis. Poster presented to: Graduate School 11th Annual Poster Competition, The University of Northampton, 18 May 2016.
4. Al-Rubaye, Z., Al-Sherbaz, A., McCormick, W. D. and Turner, S. J. (2016) The use of multivariable wireless sensor data to early detect lameness in sheep. Workshop presented to: School of Science and Technology Annual Research Conference, Newton Building, The University of Northampton, 02 March 2016.
5. Al-Sadi, A., Al-Sherbaz, A., Turner, S. J. and Xue, J. (2016) The management of distributed software defined networks in smart cities. Workshop presented to: School of Science and Technology Annual Research Conference, Newton Building, The University of Northampton, 02 March 2016.
6. Al-Sadi, A., Al-Sherbaz, A., Xue, J. and Turner, S. J. (2016) Routing algorithm optimization for Software Defined Network WAN.In: Al-Sadeq International Conference on Multidisciplinary in IT and Communication Science and Applications (AIC-MITCSA) - IRAQ (9-10) May. Baghdad, Iraq: IEEE. 
7. Edan, N. M., Turner, S. J., Al-Sherbaz, A. and Ajit, S. (2016) Performance evaluation of QoS using SIP & IAX2 VVoIP protocols with CODECS. In: SAI Computing Conference 2016. London: IEEE. 9781467384605. (Accepted)
8. Oakes, J., Johnson, M., Xue, J. and Turner, S. J. (2016) Simplified deployment of virtual machines using an intelligent design engine. In: Proceedings of Science and Information (SAI) Conference 2016. London: IEEE. 9781467384605. (Accepted)
9. Olajubu, O., Ajit, S., Johnson, M., Turner, S. J., Thomson, S. and Edwards, M. (2016) A textual language for requirement modelling. Workshop presented to: School of Science and Technology Annual Research Conference, Newton Building, The University of Northampton, 02 March 2016.
10. Rose, T. J. and Bakaoukas, A. G. (2016) Algorithms and approaches for procedural terrain generation. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications. Barcelona, Spain: Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. (Accepted)

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

Northampton Computing Open Resources: over 7000 downloads

A selection of the open educational resources that have been released from the Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies, School of Science and Technology at the University of Northampton. The table below shows the views of the Jorum page and the items downloaded from the page. Some resources such as C programming have more individual items than say the summary of evolutionary algorithms.

	views	downloads
C Programming	1244	5886
Summary of Evolutionary Algorithms	830	337
Problem-Solving	688	929
Total	2762	7152

Based on figures from Jorum at 28/8/2016.

Summary of Evolutionary Algorithms

Click here for the resource: http://find.jorum.ac.uk/resources/19204

These slides are intended for undergraduate computing students, providing an overview of Genetic Algorithms, a concept of in artificial intelligence. As well providing an overview the material also include links to applications via web resources. The slides are taken from an undergraduate artificial intelligence module on the BSc Computing Programme at the University of Northampton. Possible uses of these including support material for second year, third year or masters level course on artificial intelligence.

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Click here for the resource: http://find.jorum.ac.uk/resources/19204

C Programming

Click here for the resource: http://find.jorum.ac.uk/resources/19192

In this material you will be introduced to some of the principles of programming, and specifically learn to write fairly simple programs using a programming language called C. An idea central to this material is that programming is about problem solving; you write a program to solve a particular problem. It is hoped that at the end of the material you should see that there is nothing magical or mysterious about programming. One of the features some people like about programming is you are making the computer do what you want. During the programming exercises, do not worry about making mistakes. In this material you will be expected to try out programs and eventually write your own. The target audience is anyone who wants to learn a programming language or is looking for some assessment questions around programming. The material was originally aimed at second year engineering students at the University of Northampton.

Click here for the resource: http://find.jorum.ac.uk/resources/19192

Problem-Solving

Author: Dr Scott Turner

http://find.jorum.ac.uk/resources/19001

These mini lectures are intended for undergraduate computing students, for providing simple steps in problem solving before the students learn a programming language. Problem-Solving and Programming is a common first year undergraduate module on the BSc Computing Programme at the University of Northampton. This material was taken from the problem solving part of the module and provides an introduction to five topics in problem-solving.

The resource can be found at: http://find.jorum.ac.uk/resources/19001

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