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Particularly during the past ten years, the mobile communications industry has grown by orders of magnitude, fueled by digital and RF circuit fabrication improvements, new large scale circuit integration, and other miniaturization technologies that make portable equipment smaller, cheaper, and more reliable. A key area within the telecommunication industry covers base stations and switch systems. Communications providers now require systems that provide significantly increased switching capacity. Combining both increased capability with size reduction is resulting in smaller printed circuit boards (PCBs) with more components placed on them. A potential solution to this is to embed some of the components within the board. The components which would be suitable for such a transition would be passives such as resistors, capacitors and inductors. This paper describes the work done in designing and manufacturing a PCB for the telecommunications industry with embedded resistors and microvias.

There has been increasing interest in the development of printable electronics to meet the growing demand for low‐cost, large‐area, miniaturized, flexible and lightweight devices. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the electronic applications of novel printable materials.

The paper addresses the utilization of polymer nanocomposites as it relates to printable and flexible technology for electronic packaging. Printable technology such as screen‐printing, ink‐jet printing, and microcontact printing provides a fully additive, non‐contacting deposition method that is suitable for flexible production.

A variety of printable nanomaterials for electronic packaging have been developed. This includes nanocapacitors and resistors as embedded passives, nanolaser materials, optical materials, etc. Materials can provide high‐capacitance densities, ranging from 5 to 25 nF/in², depending on composition, particle size, and film thickness. The electrical properties of capacitors fabricated from BaTiO₃‐epoxy nanocomposites showed a stable dielectric constant and low loss over a frequency range from 1 to 1,000 MHz. A variety of printable discrete resistors with different sheet resistances, ranging from ohm to Mohm, processed on large panels (19.5×24 inches) have been fabricated. Low‐resistivity materials, with volume resistivity in the range of 10⁻⁴‐10⁻⁶ ohm cm, depending on composition, particle size, and loading, can be used as conductive joints for high‐frequency and high‐density interconnect applications. Thermosetting polymers modified with ceramics or organics can produce low k and lower loss dielectrics. Reliability of the materials was ascertained by (Infrared; IR‐reflow), thermal cycling, pressure cooker test (PCT) and solder shock testing. The change in capacitance after 3× IR‐reflow and after 1,000 cycles of deep thermal cycling between −55°C and +125°C was within 5 per cent. Most of the materials in the test vehicle were stable after IR‐reflow, PCT, and solder shock.

The electronic applications of printable, high‐performance nanocomposite materials such as adhesives (both conductive and non‐conductive), interlayer dielectrics (low‐k, low‐loss dielectrics), embedded passives (capacitors and resistors), and circuits, etc.. are discussed. Also addressed are investigations of printable optically/magnetically active nanocomposite and polymeric materials for fabrication of devices such as inductors, embedded lasers, and optical interconnects.

A thin film printable technology was developed to manufacture large‐area microelectronics with embedded passives, Z‐interconnects and optical waveguides, etc. The overall approach lends itself to package miniaturization because multiple materials and devices can be printed in the same layer to increase functionality.

What is it about academia anyway? We profess to hate it, spend endless amounts of time complaining about it, and yet we in academia will do practically anything to stay. The pay may be low, job security elusive, and in the end, it's not the glamorous work we envisioned it would be. Yet, it still holds fascination and interest for us. This is an article about American academic fiction. By academic fiction, I mean novels whosemain characters are professors, college students, and those individuals associated with academia. These works reveal many truths about the higher education experience not readily available elsewhere. We learn about ourselves and the university community in which we work.

For individuals and organizations who seek grant money, this guide details major information resources useful to identifying sources of financial sponsorship. It covers grants made by government agencies, by private foundations, and by business and industrial concerns, and should be of interest to persons seeking financial support for organizational or community projects, or individual scholarly endeavors. Excluded from this guide are general materials that review the history of charitable giving, or the role of philanthropy in society, as well as information sources devoted exclusively to scholarships and loans for undergraduate education.

President Bush recently announced that Northern Telecom had received a presidential award recognising innovation and leadership in protecting the environment. Fulfilling a pledge made in 1988, Northern Telecom became the world's first large electronics company to meet a public commitment to eliminate ozone‐depleting CFC‐113 solvents from its 42 worldwide manufacturing operations. The goal was achieved nine years ahead of the mandate set by the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement signed by 68 nations that calls for the elimination of CFCs and other ozone‐depleting substances by the year 2000.

The purpose of this study is to numerically analyze the thermal and entropy generation characteristics on two-dimensional, incompressible, laminar single-phase flow of Al₂O₃-water nanofluid in a micro-channel subjected to asymmetric sinusoidal wall heating with varying amplitude, length of fluctuation period and phase difference of applied heat flux for Reynolds number in the range of 25-1000.

The numerical computation is based on the Finite Element Method and the Lagrange finite element technique is used for approximating the flow variables within the computational domain.

The average Nusselt number increases with increasing Reynolds number (Re) for all the volume fractions of nanofluid. However, the total entropy generation decreases up to a critical value of Re and increases thereafter. Increase in volume fraction shifts the critical Re towards the lower Re regime. The average Nusselt number and total entropy generation increase with amplitude and length of fluctuation period of heat flux. The optimal choice of volume fraction for lesser entropy generation and higher heat transfer is found to be 3 per cent independent of the value of amplitude, length of fluctuation period and phase difference of the heat flux.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, the interplay of various parameters concerning non-uniform heating in achieving the maximum heat transfer with minimum irreversibility has not been investigated. Focusing on this agenda, the results of this study would benefit the industrial sector in achieving the maximum heat transfer at the cost of minimum irreversibilities with an optimal choice of inlet Reynolds number, volume fraction of nanofluid, amplitude, length of the period of fluctuation of heat flux and phase difference of applied heat flux.

Online resources can be helpful for students and can augment the content presented in learning environments. A team consisting of four biologists, a graduate student, instructional designer and media developers collaborated on the design, development and evaluation of first-year biology online tutorials in a Canadian University. The tutorials were designed to address knowledge gaps resulting in low success rates and attrition of first-year students in biology. The decrease in the number of students in STEM has alarmed educators, prompting a call for efforts to increase STEM majors in universities. Large class sizes, such as first year biology with ∼900 registrants annually, with detail-oriented, content-heavy loads, can result in low success rates and attrition.

Active learning methods, including online formative assessments, which encourage student engagement in course material, can be effective in large introductory science classes, and thus, the authors provided engagement with tutorial online resources. The authors identified the tutorial topics by analyzing previous years' tests, student feedback and pedagogical research in undergraduate biology. The top five topics identified as common misconceptions or troublesome concepts within the course were selected. Standard instructional design processes were used to produce high-quality online tutorials. Tutorials included learning materials, videos, animations, self-assessments, reflective questions and badges to facilitate deep learning of the topics. Effectiveness of the tutorials was evaluated using quantitative methods and quasi-experimental design to compare the student learning results between the control year (without tutorials) and the year when tutorials were offered. Pre- and posttests measuring conceptual understanding were administered to assess gains in student learning. Additionally, student engagement was measured using the Classroom Survey of Student Engagement (CLASSE), and data from learning management system was collected.

Results of the study show that the tutorials were an effective means of providing supplementary assistance to students as well as fostering a gain in students' levels of engagement with the course. Data analysis indicates that there was a significant increased gain in learning of core concepts in biology. Specifically, using formative online assessments resulted in measurable learning gains in students who participated voluntarily, in comparison to students who chose not to engage in self-paced quiz testing.

As seen from the description earlier, the tutorials, and this project, provide suitable university-level complexity to address specific learning gaps in the first year course. They provide a valuable service to students in terms of representing content in an alternate format and motivating students as they engaged with videos and self-assessment most frequently. The project adds to the teaching and learning environment with respect to program design, mode of delivery and scheduling by providing self-paced tutorials that focus on specific concepts in biology. Students may review these resources whenever and as often as they feel necessary to better master the concepts. This makes the content applicable for the various preferences for approaches to learning and accommodation requirements found in students. Importantly, using formative online assessments resulted in measurable learning gains in students who participated voluntarily, in comparison to students who chose not to engage in self-paced quiz testing.

Learning about sustainable development in dedicated curricula can be beneficial for students’ personal and professional development and societies alike. However, for various reasons the implementation of sustainable development modules in existing curricula can be difficult in many fields of study. This paper aims to propose an alternative route to give students the chance to learn about sustainable development without the need to change the structure of their study program.

The current paper elaborates on the idea that many fields of study have mandatory courses on empirical research methods and these courses can function as a platform to teach applied empirical research methods in combination with education on sustainable development. A three-phase model is proposed to implement sustainable development topics in existing curricula, taking students’ current methodological competency level into account.

The proposed model provides a chance to combine education on sustainability with thorough training in scientific research methods. Example projects and evaluation results from an existing social science curriculum and its integration into a real-world laboratory on sustainable energy use illustrate the different phases and their goals.

The model offers the opportunity to implement education on sustainability into existing curricula without the need for difficult structural changes. It extends students’ learning on sustainability without impairing their learning of research methods. A discussion of the model’s limitations and boundary conditions helps to understand its potential use cases and challenges.