3.3 Optical amplifiers Figure 22 shows in outline one possible structure for an Erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA). 2.4.1 Multimode distortion With multimode fibre, the main cause of pulses spreading is the multiple paths that signals can traverse as they travel along the fibre. This phenomenon of multimode distortion is illustrated in Figure 5. 7 Summary This course presents an understanding of ‘ethics’ as something related with ‘good’ and ‘bad’. There are other derivative words like ‘optimal’ that might also be used, and there are parochial words which are related to particular communities. When we talk about ethical things, we are liable to confront cultural differences that are reflected in differences in vocabulary. But there are other kinds of differences too. Things have different properties; for example, ‘appearance†5.7 The story so far In Act 1 of Landscape with Weapon, Dan, the dentist, has been disturbed by the defence project that his brother is working on. Dan, however, is a fairly mercenary individual, so he feels that having had the idea, Ned should aim for a good return. The company is keen to exploit Ned's work, but Ned has resisted handing over the IP for his invention because he wants to control who gets access to the weapon system that his work has enabled. In this Act Ned says weapons are empirical, 5.3 Ethics and ethos: ‘does mum know?’ In Act 1 we are presented with a fairly naïve Ned, who initially believes himself to be in control. We discover he is very proud of his intellectual achievements and less concerned with money. He explains his inventions and, when he does so, he finds analogies that highlight the aesthetics of what he is designing. At a crucial point in the conversation, his brother Dan asks: ‘does mum know?’ This is a really significant point in the play because it draws in another relationship and, as I 5.1 Introduction In this section I want to introduce Joe Penhall's play Landscape with Weapon. Having read the play several times, I must stress that it is a text that is particularly rich in ethical issues. These issues, however, are presented in a very down-to-earth way, in a very lively dialogue. I think the lesson from this is that you do not need to be in any kind of ‘formal’ situation to engage with ethics. Everyday conversation is littered with references and arguments about ethical matters, 4.7 The story so far This section looked at the play Last Call. The play is very rich in ethical issues, and one of the most interesting points that are made is that, whilst there are many ‘big’ ethical questions worthy of discussion and investigation, it seems to be in the everyday, routine conversations and dealings of people that ethical questions get to be asked and answered, even if this is not clearly recognised. A major ethical issue tackled in the play is loyalty: giving preference in som Introducing ethics in Information and Computer Sciences Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce materia 7.1 The engineer and society Section 2 outlined some of the needs for engineering. Society relies on engineers to create solutions to the problems involved in meeting those needs. This is a good time to pause and point out that inevitably, in return for all this fun and power, engineers have a responsibility to society. The people who employ our services, directly or indirectly, have to have an assurance that we are working within certain social, safety and ethical boundaries. Particularly given the increasing tren 6 A problem with sensors The problem we will look at in this section concerns the analysis of the design of a component used in cars that are fitted with airbags. The airbag has to be inflated rapidly when an electronic circuit in the system decides that a serious collision is taking place. The crucial component in the electronics is the accelerometer, which therefore has to be extremely reliable. Motor manufacturers have turned to a technology called MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) for these accelerometers, b Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: understand the basic structural issues of the Forth Road Bridge give examples of how engineers are trying to alleviate the wear and tear on the bridge. Introduction This unit focuses on the Forth Road Bridge that connects Edinburgh with Fife. This suspension bridge continues to face a number of problems regarding its deteriorating condition. The short video included in this unit illustrates some of the major structural issues facing bridges and examines some of the proposed changes to the use of the Forth Road Bridge to help increase its lifespan. 5.14 Response and damping You have learned so far in this chapter that when a musician plays an instrument, they force the primary vibrator to vibrate. If the primary vibrator is driven at one of its resonance frequencies, the normal mode of vibration corresponding to that resonance frequency will be excited. Now, in practice it is also true to say that even if the primary vibrator is driven at a frequency close to the resonance frequency, the normal mode will still be excited, but just to a lesser degree. In other wo 5.13.2 Circular membrane When a membrane that is stretched over a circular frame is struck, energy is supplied, which again causes the membrane to vibrate in a number of modes simultaneously. The first six modes in which the circular membrane can vibrate are shown in Figure 20. The diagrams comprise circles that are conce 5.13.1 Rectangular bar If a solid rectangular bar is excited by striking it, energy is supplied that starts the bar vibrating transversely. The bar will vibrate in a number of modes simultaneously since the striking action supplies energy over a range of frequencies. The motion of the bar will be the superposition of the standing-wave patterns of the excited modes. Assume for the moment that the rectangular bar is supported in such a way that both ends are free to vibrate and the effects of the supports can b 5.13 Other primary vibrators You saw in the previous two sections that stringed instruments and wind instruments possess primary vibrators that have harmonically related natural frequencies. As a result, these two classes of instruments produce notes that have a well-defined sense of pitch. In this section, I want to briefly introduce you to some primary vibrators that don't have harmonically related natural frequencies. Specifically we shall take a look at a rectangular bar, a circular membrane and a circular plat 5.11 Vibrating air column: standing waves in a conical tube The third configuration of air column that we shall consider is that enclosed by a conical tube. Figure 17 shows the normal modes of vibration for a conical tube plotted in terms of pressure. As you would expect, there is a pressure antinode at the closed tip of the cone and a pressure node at the open en 5.10 Vibrating air column: end effects In the previous two sections on standing waves in cylindrical tubes, we assumed that at an open end there must be a pressure node. In fact, the pressure node (and the corresponding displacement antinode) actually lies a small distance outside the tube. The effect is that the air column behaves as though it were a little longer than it really is by an amount called the end correction. Because of this end correction, the resonance frequencies will be a little lower than originally expect 5.8 Vibrating air column: standing waves in a cylindrical tube open at both ends The frequencies at which standing waves can be set up in an air column enclosed by a cylindrical tube that is open at both ends can be determined quite easily. Because both ends are open to the atmosphere, the pressure at these positions always remains at atmospheric pressure. In other words, there is no fluctuation in the pressure at the open ends so they must be pressure nodes (think ‘no-deviation’ in pressure). So, as we saw with the string fixed at both ends, the length L of th
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Although ethics is often viewed as an academic specialism or an add-on to training programmes in technology and science, it is in fact an area of the utmost relevance to professionals and, indeed, everyone. This free course, Introducing ethics in Information and Computer Sciences, draws upon examples taken from dialogues, plays and the media to discuss ethics and ethical issues within the context of Information and Computer Sciences. The course explores the importance of language and the role of