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This paper describes the undergraduate radar course taught at the Escola Universitària Politècnica del Baix Llobregat (EUPBL) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain. At present, the EUPBL offers a three-year degree in Technical Telecommunications Engineering. This paper briefly describes the EUPBL, the organization of the degree program, the structure of the radar course, the evaluation methods, and two practical exercises on a sonar demonstrator and a global positioning system kit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ac-powered contactors are extensively used in industry in applications such as automatic electrical devices, motor starters, and heaters. In this work, a practical session that allows students to model and simulate the dynamic behavior of ac-powered electromechanical contactors is presented. Simulation is carried out using a rigorous parametric model of the ac contactor that avoids simplification assumptions and is thoroughly explained. The goal of this practical is to introduce students to the topic of dynamic simulation of real devices. It covers both the transient and the steady-state response of the electromechanical system under study. The proposed methodology is flexible and not particularly time-consuming, and it allows the students easily to change the electromechanical constants of the contactor they are studying. The results of the simulations were compared with experimental data acquired by the students; a close similarity between real and simulated data was observed. The Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Spain, has incorporated the simulation methodology proposed in this paper in a practical session of an electrical engineering course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying fundamental Computer Architecture and Organization topics requires a significant amount of practical work if students are to acquire a good grasp of the theoretical concepts presented in classroom lectures or textbooks. The use of simulators is commonly adapted in order to reach this objective. However, as most of the available educational simulators focus on specific topics, different laboratory assignments usually require the use of different simulators. This paper presents a graphical and interactive reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processor and memory simulator that allows active learning of some theoretical concepts covered in Computer Architecture and Organization courses. The simulator can be configured to present different processor views, from a simple serial one, without caches or pipelines, to a more realistic one with caches and superscalar execution. This approach allows a set of increasingly complex code-based laboratory assignments to be developed using a single simulator, covering topics ranging from assembly language programming to the analysis (If the different kind of cache misses, pipeline hazards or branch prediction hits and misses produced during a program execution. The simulator has been included in a an automatic assessment system that helps the students to complete the assignments and helps teachers to evaluate the correctness of the students solutions in different environments, such as high-enrollment courses or distance education. Since 1996, both the simulator and the automatic assessment system have been successfully used by more than 5000 students in Computer Architecture and Organization courses at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This article explores the factors favoring the enrollment in engineering studies in Spain, analyzing gender differences. Background: Understanding the motivation of choosing engineering studies is very important in order to strengthen this choice in future promotions in Spain, considering that it is well below the average of the European Union at the present time. Research Questions: What are the main factors that influence students to choose engineering studies? Are there any noticeable differences between those affecting male and female students? Methodology: Data were collected from a survey completed by 624 students and an exploratory study was performed extracting five components. Independent sample $T$ -tests were used to determine significant differences between the answers of males and females. Findings: The factors found in the exploratory analysis were “Interest and development,” “Career advice and previous contact,” “Outcome expectations,” “Social influences” and “Not preferred option.” Significant differences between the answers given by males and females were also found. The outcome of this study is important for the development of new interventions aimed to increase interest, enrollment, and retention of engineering students, especially among females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Campus of Excellence (ICE) program, promoted by the Ministry of Education of the Spanish Government, is working to improve the quality and excellence of the Spanish universities and their environments. Similar programs have been carried out in France (with the Op?ration Campus program) and Germany (with the Exzellenzinitiative program). All of them are based on additional funding for the best universities, with the intention of achieving excellence and more international presence. Another common characteristic of the three previous programs is that they consider reinforcing research activities, by supporting Ph.D. schools and research institutions, the key to achieving the proposed objectives. On the other hand, other multinational organizations, like the European Commission, have also promoted similar initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]