Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University), 2019
We present a four-year electronics-ICT educational master program at Ghent University in Belgium.... more We present a four-year electronics-ICT educational master program at Ghent University in Belgium. The students develop knowledge and skills from novice to experienced electronic circuit designers. In the corresponding topics, the immersion into engineering problems is deepened. The horizontal and vertical alignment of courses in the four-year master program at our university is discussed. The curriculum of the four-year master program is highly projectoriented and all topics are clustered around a well-considered set of standards. This clustering supports the logical structure of the program, with students gradually acquiring the necessary competences. All standards and their mutual interaction are extensively discussed in the paper. We also focus on four design-implement projects included in the electronics-ICT program, explicitly following CDIO-guidelines. Whereas the first-year project has a limited level of difficulty, the challenges increase significantly in the course of the next years. Students learn that product design is an iterative process on different levels, where the design strategy can be changed continuously based on important and crucial feedback. Different evaluations have demonstrated that our students are not only aware of CDIO-principles, but are also convinced of the quality of the results obtained by following the standards.
Manganese (Mn) removal in drinking water filters is facilitated by biological and physico-chemica... more Manganese (Mn) removal in drinking water filters is facilitated by biological and physico-chemical processes. However, there is limited information about the dominant processes for Mn removal in full-scale matured filters with different filter materials over filter depth. Water and filter material samples were collected from 10 full-scale drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) to characterise the Mn removal processes, to evaluate the potential use of enhancers and to gain further insight on operational conditions of matured filters for the efficient Mn removal. The first-order Mn removal constant at the DWTPs varied from 10−2 to 10−1 min−1. The amount of Mn coating on the filter material grains showed a strong correlation with the amount of iron, calcium and total coating, but no correlation with the concentration of ATP. Inhibition of biological activity showed that Mn removal in matured filters was dominated by physico-chemical processes (59–97%). Addition of phosphorus and trace...
Drinking Water Engineering and Science, Jul 30, 2018
The use of biofilters to produce drinking water from anaerobic groundwater is widespread in some ... more The use of biofilters to produce drinking water from anaerobic groundwater is widespread in some European countries. A major disadvantage of biofilters is the long start-up period required for virgin filter medium to become fully functional. Although individual aspects of biofilter start-up have previously been investigated, no comprehensive study in full scale using inherent inoculation has previously been documented. A thorough investigation of a full-scale drinking water biofilter was carried out over 10 weeks of start-up. The many spatial and temporal changes taking place during start-up were documented using a holistic approach. In addition to collection of many samples over time (frequency) and space (filter depth), this study entailed the use of multiple sample media (water, backwash water and filter media) and multiple types of analyses (physical, chemical and microbiological). The decrease in filter effluent concentrations of individual substances to compliance levels followed a specific order that was shown to coincide with the spatiotemporal development of bacteria on the filter media. Due to the abiotic nature of the iron removal process, iron disappears at the earliest in the start-up period followed by substances that require growth of microorganisms. Ammonium disappears next, with nitrite appearing briefly near the end of ammonium removal, followed by manganese. The thorough overall picture obtained by these efforts provides guidance for optimization and monitoring of the start-up. Guidance for optimization includes shortening the start-up by focusing on kick-starting the ammonium removal; limiting the monitoring burden (at-line measurements of ammonium in finished water supplemented with manual manganese measurements when ammonium removal is complete); and improving filter design by isolating the removal processes in separate, smaller filters.
Engineering education is under the sway of wide-ranging dynamics and drifts that have bearing on ... more Engineering education is under the sway of wide-ranging dynamics and drifts that have bearing on how education is enacted in relation to the research and innovation obligations of universities. Academic, applied, and third mission drifts seem to configure higher education in new ways. The article sets out to critically explore how knowledge production is discursively enacted in the teachingresearch-practice-nexus in engineering universities of applied science (UAS) in Denmark. This paradigmatic case study maps discursive positionings and discusses how these positionings aspire to transform engineering education in the light of the wide-ranging drifts in higher education. Based on 17 qualitative in-depth interviews with researchers, teachers, and managers, the article maps the discursive positions taken and not-taken in relation to the enactment of the teaching-research-practice-nexus. The exploration is guided by a theory-method-package inspired by situational analysis and interviewing methods developed in practice-based approaches as interview-to-the-double. The analysis identifies four discursive positions in the teaching-research-practice-nexus that enact knowledge production in engineering UAS differently. Furthermore, three unavailable discursive positions are identified. Interpretive flexibility makes different discursive enactments of knowledge production possible. The study concludes that (1) that the primary mission of UAS in Denmark is teaching; research and engagement with practice are subordinate missions; (2) that the applied and third mission drift has been effective in instituting alternative discursive enactments; (3) some positions are seemingly discursively illegitimate. The undisputability of the educational mission-and the applied and third mission drifts-seems to effectively outweigh academic drift in the Danish UAS.
Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University), 2019
We present a four-year electronics-ICT educational master program at Ghent University in Belgium.... more We present a four-year electronics-ICT educational master program at Ghent University in Belgium. The students develop knowledge and skills from novice to experienced electronic circuit designers. In the corresponding topics, the immersion into engineering problems is deepened. The horizontal and vertical alignment of courses in the four-year master program at our university is discussed. The curriculum of the four-year master program is highly projectoriented and all topics are clustered around a well-considered set of standards. This clustering supports the logical structure of the program, with students gradually acquiring the necessary competences. All standards and their mutual interaction are extensively discussed in the paper. We also focus on four design-implement projects included in the electronics-ICT program, explicitly following CDIO-guidelines. Whereas the first-year project has a limited level of difficulty, the challenges increase significantly in the course of the next years. Students learn that product design is an iterative process on different levels, where the design strategy can be changed continuously based on important and crucial feedback. Different evaluations have demonstrated that our students are not only aware of CDIO-principles, but are also convinced of the quality of the results obtained by following the standards.
Manganese (Mn) removal in drinking water filters is facilitated by biological and physico-chemica... more Manganese (Mn) removal in drinking water filters is facilitated by biological and physico-chemical processes. However, there is limited information about the dominant processes for Mn removal in full-scale matured filters with different filter materials over filter depth. Water and filter material samples were collected from 10 full-scale drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) to characterise the Mn removal processes, to evaluate the potential use of enhancers and to gain further insight on operational conditions of matured filters for the efficient Mn removal. The first-order Mn removal constant at the DWTPs varied from 10−2 to 10−1 min−1. The amount of Mn coating on the filter material grains showed a strong correlation with the amount of iron, calcium and total coating, but no correlation with the concentration of ATP. Inhibition of biological activity showed that Mn removal in matured filters was dominated by physico-chemical processes (59–97%). Addition of phosphorus and trace...
Drinking Water Engineering and Science, Jul 30, 2018
The use of biofilters to produce drinking water from anaerobic groundwater is widespread in some ... more The use of biofilters to produce drinking water from anaerobic groundwater is widespread in some European countries. A major disadvantage of biofilters is the long start-up period required for virgin filter medium to become fully functional. Although individual aspects of biofilter start-up have previously been investigated, no comprehensive study in full scale using inherent inoculation has previously been documented. A thorough investigation of a full-scale drinking water biofilter was carried out over 10 weeks of start-up. The many spatial and temporal changes taking place during start-up were documented using a holistic approach. In addition to collection of many samples over time (frequency) and space (filter depth), this study entailed the use of multiple sample media (water, backwash water and filter media) and multiple types of analyses (physical, chemical and microbiological). The decrease in filter effluent concentrations of individual substances to compliance levels followed a specific order that was shown to coincide with the spatiotemporal development of bacteria on the filter media. Due to the abiotic nature of the iron removal process, iron disappears at the earliest in the start-up period followed by substances that require growth of microorganisms. Ammonium disappears next, with nitrite appearing briefly near the end of ammonium removal, followed by manganese. The thorough overall picture obtained by these efforts provides guidance for optimization and monitoring of the start-up. Guidance for optimization includes shortening the start-up by focusing on kick-starting the ammonium removal; limiting the monitoring burden (at-line measurements of ammonium in finished water supplemented with manual manganese measurements when ammonium removal is complete); and improving filter design by isolating the removal processes in separate, smaller filters.
Engineering education is under the sway of wide-ranging dynamics and drifts that have bearing on ... more Engineering education is under the sway of wide-ranging dynamics and drifts that have bearing on how education is enacted in relation to the research and innovation obligations of universities. Academic, applied, and third mission drifts seem to configure higher education in new ways. The article sets out to critically explore how knowledge production is discursively enacted in the teachingresearch-practice-nexus in engineering universities of applied science (UAS) in Denmark. This paradigmatic case study maps discursive positionings and discusses how these positionings aspire to transform engineering education in the light of the wide-ranging drifts in higher education. Based on 17 qualitative in-depth interviews with researchers, teachers, and managers, the article maps the discursive positions taken and not-taken in relation to the enactment of the teaching-research-practice-nexus. The exploration is guided by a theory-method-package inspired by situational analysis and interviewing methods developed in practice-based approaches as interview-to-the-double. The analysis identifies four discursive positions in the teaching-research-practice-nexus that enact knowledge production in engineering UAS differently. Furthermore, three unavailable discursive positions are identified. Interpretive flexibility makes different discursive enactments of knowledge production possible. The study concludes that (1) that the primary mission of UAS in Denmark is teaching; research and engagement with practice are subordinate missions; (2) that the applied and third mission drift has been effective in instituting alternative discursive enactments; (3) some positions are seemingly discursively illegitimate. The undisputability of the educational mission-and the applied and third mission drifts-seems to effectively outweigh academic drift in the Danish UAS.
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Papers by Loren Ramsay