Describe the design of complex digital systems using a (SystemVerilog and SystemC based) behavioural synthesis approach. Provide understanding of the algorithms which underpin behavioural synthesis including scheduling, allocation and binding. Gain hands-on experience in the application of behavioural synthesis to generate designs optimised for user-defined constraints. Describe digital design for testability techniques at the behavioural and RTL levels. Provide an overview of emerging SoC design and test methods. Describe system level low power design methods. The module will use the hardware description language SystemVerilog (and also SystemC), introduced in ELEC6236 Digital System Design.
Digital technologies ranging from the Internet to cloud computing, artificial intelligence, etc. are often not just a key part of organisational operations; they also create opportunities for developing new digital businesses and their applications can have a profound impact on society at large. The focus of the module is to help students understand the evolution, implementation and impact of digital technologies as well as digital business transformation, strategies and models. In addition, the module will discuss emerging digital trends and innovation. Students will have the opportunity to learn about basic concepts of digital technologies and information systems as well as their role in organisations and society. The module will also examine how digital technology is reshaping product markets and services, business models, organisational structures and relationships between organisations and their customers.
‘Prisons don’t work’ exclaimed author Will Self to the BBC in 2011 reflecting significant public concerns regarding issues such as cost, reoffending and overcrowding through to the perception of ‘gilded lifestyles’ led by inmates. In this module we will explore the period of English history in which the modern prison system emerged and consider the reasons behind this development. Set against a background of social tensions, rising crime rates and dissatisfaction with the alternative punishments such as execution and transportation we will begin our study in the late eighteenth century when the concept of the prison as a form of punishment (as opposed to purely holding criminals pre- and post-trial) was a new one in England. We will look at the work of contemporaries who identified the need to develop the role of the prison as a site of both discipline and reformation for criminals and how their influence led to the penitentiary emerging through the nineteenth century as the primary mode of punishment. We will question the motivations behind the emergence of the prison: was this driven by humanitarianism and an emphasis on the ability to reform or was the incarceration of criminals a form of social control? The spate of prison building and rebuilding across the nineteenth century saw the establishment of over 90 new establishments and we will be researching the planning and organisation of these structures with case studies such as Millbank and Pentonville (London), Bristol and Reading. From surveys of individual institutions we can uncover the regimes that were in place and how the makeup of prison populations related to social problems. We will explore the tensions that existed between prisoners, prison authorities and the government across the nineteenth century and how these ultimately led to the Prisons Act in 1898 taking all prisons out of private ownership and into central government’s control. You will have the opportunity to research one prison of your choice in detail as the basis for your essay and to consider how it evolved in light of the wider debates and reforms across our period. Alongside the wider context of prison reforms we will undertake a close examination of the treatment of particular groups of criminals and the experiences of individual criminals. We will look at groups such as women, children and the insane to consider how philanthropic and medical developments influenced attitudes across the nineteenth century and the role played by particular individual reformers including Elizabeth Fry, Mary Carpenter and Joshua Jebb. In particular debates surrounding the establishment of specific institutions to house these ‘minority’ groups (e.g., Holloway, Parkhurst and Broadmoor) will be considered. We will then move to consider the experiences of the prisoners themselves through their surviving memoirs, letters and biographies and by the use of literature (e.g., Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1860)). The module asks you to reflect critically on debates surrounding the intentions of modern forms of punishment by examining their historical roots. We will demonstrate how current debates surrounding the ‘effectiveness’ or ‘success’ of imprisonment are necessarily coloured by the motives of reformers across the long nineteenth century in England.
This module highlights and analyses the link between language structure and its situation of occurrence.
The aim of the course is to convey the conceptual ideas of our universe to students with no formal physics training. We will progress from Big Bang to our current understanding of the Universe. This journey starts in our Solar System and ends with discovering the most distant object in the Universe, Quasars. Students will also learn how astronomical sources, such as Black Holes and Supernova are observed and the differences between Dark Energy and Dark Matter. Finally, they will learn how astronomy research has resulted in useful technologies here on Earth. With their new understanding of our Universe and the scientific justifications for what astronomers observe, the students will be equipped to critique astronomy news and explain the physics of our Universe. The course is designed for students who do not have an A-level in physics or maths.
This module will provide you with guidance and support throughout the writing of your dissertation. From discussing your initial ideas of your dissertation through the process of actually writing the document, this module will provide you with the information and support required from both the teaching staff and your allocated Dissertation Supervisor.
On this module you will undertake an empirical research study on a topic of your choice relevant to your programme. You will collect and analyse data and report on your findings critically reflecting on and evaluating your methods. This process will enable you to demonstrate skills and knowledge acquired throughout the taught component of your programme. You will work independently, with guidance and support provided by teaching staff and your dissertation supervisor.
This module provides you with a structure and some key milestones in the preparation and development and implementation of a selected research project. Your small-scale project can take different forms and be situated in a range of contexts. For example, a qualitative exploration, a quantitative examination or some form of investigation and analysis of an appropriate topic. You will be allocated a dissertation supervisor who will guide your independent research design, data collection and write up, according to accepted academic standards.
This is your final module and the largest that you will complete during your MSc studies. In this module you will undertake, with guidance from an academic supervisor, a small-scale research project in an area of your interest.
The dissertation is an opportunity for you to pursue a piece of independent legal research on an issue of interest to you which may arise from one of the other units studied by you or as a result of your own curiosity concerning a particular legal problem. The dissertation also allows you to consolidate and then showcast the knowledge and skills you have acquired during the taught part of the LLM. The Dissertation is core to the LLM Maritime Law, LLM International Commercial and Corporate Law, LLM International Law and Human Rights and the LLM Masters in Law, which means that it must be taken and passed.
You will undertake a substantive piece of independent academic work, performing economic research on your chosen research topic. You will motivate your research topic, survey and review the relevant academic literature and identify gaps in our knowledge by proposing a research question, identify and apply appropriate methods, present and interprete your results and your conclusions. This is designed to demonstrate your ability to manage your own learning, to draw together information from a variety of sources, to demonstrate your ability to understand and convey the current state of academic research on an economic topic and to make use of a range of concepts and techniques that are state of the art in economic research.
The first part of the course is devoted to exploring a given topic via group work, assessed via short, written summary (extended abstract) and oral presentation. The second part consists of an individual dissertation that is assessed via a written report. The content and the scope of both group work and individual dissertations are based on physics and astronomy ideas with the focus on independently researching them, report writing in a style of scientific papers, presentation skills as well as effective team working.
The dissertation stage of your Postgraduate programme involves an extended, independent investigation of a topic of your own choosing and the preparation of a 10,000 word dissertation describing your work. Essentially, the dissertation is a test of your ability to create and investigate, on your own initiative, a text which demonstrates a Masters level understanding of a particular subject issue.
On this module you will undertake an empirical research study on a topic of your choice relevant to your programme. You will collect and analyse data and report on your findings critically reflecting on and evaluating your methods . This process will enable you to demonstrate skills and knowledge acquired throughout the taught component of your programme. You will work independently, with guidance and support provided by teaching staff and your dissertation supervisor.
Your dissertation will give you an opportunity to conduct a small-scale, independent empirical research project on a topic which you choose relevant to your particular degree programme. Guided by an academic supervisor, you will use appropriate methodological tools (introduced on your first and second year methods modules) to collect data, undertaking an ethics application where required. You will develop your skills in managing information, analysing data, and critically evaluating the literature relevant to your project. You will produce a clearly written and presented report of your research.
The Masters dissertation gives you the opportunity to undertake an extended piece of independent research in Applied Linguistics or English Language Teaching, with guidance from a supervisor.
