Since 2008, she has been teaching as an assistant professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Hartford. Her current research interests are audio and speech signal processing, acoustic scene classification, speaker identification and verification, and teaching with new educational methods, including peer instruction, personal response systems, video games, and stateof-the-art CAD tools.

Dr. Krista M. Hill is an associate professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Hartford in Connecticut. PhD and MSEE from Worcester Polytechnic Inst. in Worcester MA, and previously a project engineer at Digital Equipment Corp. She instructs graduate and undergraduate computer engineering computer courses, directs graduate research, and performs research involving embedded microprocessor based systems. Her current projects involve small system design, signal processing, and intelligent instrumentation. Presenting Test Benches and Device Characteristics of Programmable Logic In An Introductory Logic Circuits Course AbstractIn the fall semester of 2011, we introduced the complex programmable logic device (CPLD) in our introductory logic circuits course. We specifically chose to use a CPLD as it is a modern logic device and includes the use of modern CAD tools and allows for hands-on activities. This paper considers test benches as well as CMOS device characteristics which are each important to the students' learning experience about CPLDs. In our prior research we identified test benches as a critical aspect in the use of logic circuit CAD tools. This paper first outlines our effort to better introduce students to test benches.Previously, in teaching with traditional TTL logic, the presentation of device characteristics such as signal Voltage levels, device loading, and propagation delay was immediately available. With the move of other educators from such a hands-on, to a hands-off approach using a development board, the presentation of device characteristics appears to be missing from the curriculum. In using our CPLD module we are discovering ways, in the context of CMOS devices, to introduce long standing basic concepts back into our introductory logic circuits course.Students in such an introductory course must be aware that they are dealing with real circuits and that logic signals are represented with physically measurable quantities. The logic circuits lab must be tangible, demonstrating the connection between digital and analog concepts, such as Voltage and current. Our students take their first electric circuits course the same semester as introductory logic circuits which means that these ideas are new to our students. As such we limit our discussion to presenting the device characteristics of logic circuits.The device characteristics of CMOS gates differ from traditional TTL devices in several important ways. Students discover that for CMOS the transition region between logic high and logic low is extremely narrow which causes a gate to be sensitive to noise present in a slowly changing input. Given such sensitivity, this paper presents a feedback test circuit useful for investigating the transition region. Also, given that some CPLDs include Schmitt trigger capability, our students investigate how such capability reduces sensitivity to noise. Students also learn about propagation delay and static loading such as that with an LED.In performing our research we assessed our stu...

Since 2008, she has been teaching as an assistant professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Hartford. Her current research interests includes audio and speech signal processing, bowel sound detection, speaker identification and verification, and teaching with new educational methods, which includes peer instruction, personal response systems, video games, and state-of-the-art CAD tools.

Dr. Krista M. Hill is an associate professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Hartford in Connecticut. PhD and MSEE from Worcester Polytechnic Inst. in Worcester, Mass., and previously a project engineer at Digital Equipment Corp. She instructs graduate and undergraduate computer engineering computer courses, directs undergraduate and graduate research. Her current projects involve small system design, signal processing, and intelligent instrumentation.c American Society for Engineering Education, 2017 Using Torch in Exploratory Signal Processing AbstractThis research considers Torch along with two other packages that student researchers could use to assess the content in audio recordings. Our prior efforts have involved biomedical engineering undergraduate senior projects in our college. This research has application in our bowel-sounds project, which assesses abdominal sounds in newborn babies as signs of digestion. The research can potentially be used to estimate statistics, such as when a baby is crying or snoring.Our focus has shifted, from making recordings, which are large in file size and may be several hours to two days in length, to considering the contents of the recordings. Our recorder automatically splits a session across multiple files, as a single file would likely exceed the FAT32 file system limit. Initially we used the well-known Audacity sound editor to manually select segments of a given recording for analysis.The goal of this specific research is to consider and compare three packages, namely Torch, MATLAB, and Octave, then pick one for our next phase in research. This paper presents two examples, comparing execution times for various data set sizes. In many institutions MATLAB as well as Octave which is similar, are standard tools. I considered Torch as an alternative as it uses Lua, which is a powerful, fast, lightweight, and dynamically typed scripting language. Also, in reviewing the listing of Torch packages, there are resources for handling audio files, natural language processing, visualization, and machine learning.The examples in this paper are straightforward and can be understood by students having an introduction to signal processing. Students in our electrical engineering program as well as biomedical engineering with electrical engineering concentration will have some experience with MATLAB scripting. They should also be able to use prewritten Torch scripts.My role is as an instructor, planning for and directing our student work. In our next step, we will use one package to develop tools for student researchers, to first assist and eventually automate the analysis of such sound files. Given the investigative nature of our overall research, I avoided compiled languages such as C, C++, or Java, as developer convenience is more important than execution performance. Due to time limitations I was not able to consider Scilab, Scientific Python, SageMath, or a number of others.In reviewing this research I am convinced that Torch has potential for use as a t...