Water treatment (Neskantaga first Nation in Ontario)

Order Description
2.4.2 State of the Art (SOTA) Report
Each student will prepare and submit an individual state-of-the-art (SOTA) report as
described below.
Purpose of the SOTA Report
The purpose of the SOTA research is to gather the necessary background
information to tackle your project effectively. Engineering design is not a purely
creative exercise, but is built on what has been done before. When beginning a
design project, it is important to gather information and conduct research to find
answers to questions like:
? What is the nature of the problem, and how might technology be used to
create a solution?
? Has anybody solved this problem before? If so, how did they do it? How well
did it work? Can we improve on their solution?
? Has anybody solved a similar problem in a completely different domain?
Maybe the solution can be found in nature. The idea for Velcro came from the
way burrs stick to a dog’s fur.
? Are there some new or emerging technologies that can be applied to the
problem? Maybe these technologies make some old ideas feasible, or some
old problems solvable. Sometimes emerging technologies are solutions
looking for problems. The Goretex company developed a way to coat wire
with Teflon. The application they had in mind didn’t work out, but they
discovered that these wires made excellent guitar strings.
? What are the key analytical and/or experimental methods and techniques you
will need to successfully solve the problem?
Specific Requirements
The topic of your SOTA report should relate to what your team is doing for Design
Project III. The SOTA reports should be used to help identify the needs of a target
community, the potential avenues for meeting those needs, and the current state of
practice in this area. Each group member should work independently on their SOTA
report, ideally on a topic different from (but related to) the other group members.
Your SOTA report shall be prepared using a font size of 11 points and 1.5 lines
spacing and must be less than 2000 words plus figures. You must include a
reference list in APA style. This list should contain at least 10 references to scholarly,
reliable sources such as journal articles, books, trade publications, standards,
patents, and government websites. In your reference list, also include any other
sources you consult (for example, supplier websites, news media). The report must
contain the following:
1. Search Log and References
Search Log: Keep track of the process you follow to find information for your
SOTA report. Show evidence of brainstorming for keywords (diagram or list).
You are expected to search in the library catalogue and article databases (such
as Compendex and Scopus), and you may also use online search engines (such
as Google or Google Scholar).

For each place you look (catalogue, database, search engine), your search log
should include:
• the date you did your research
• where you searched, and your rationale for that choice
• what search terms you used, and how you combined them
• how you modified your search as you proceeded
Also make note of points such as: useful subject headings, searches that were
particularly helpful (or useless), problems you ran into and how you addressed those.
Upon completion of your research, the search log should be typed and added as an
Appendix to your SOTA report.
2. Survey and assessment of current technology and existing solutions.
The body of your report should present a summary of existing technology related to
your design topic. Some examples of what might be included are:
? a technical description of relevant engineering and scientific principles
? benchmarks of the best products/technologies/solutions
? identification of any relevant design failures and lessons to be learned
? examination of the design features and tradeoffs of the best-in-class designs
? identification of technological factors limiting performance. For example, in
digital photography, larger image sensors are more expensive but give better
images. The technological challenge is to reduce the cost of large sensors
and/or improve the performance of small ones.
3. Survey and assessment of relevant emerging technology.
As mentioned, emerging technology may make innovative solutions possible. In
your report, you should identify and discuss any relevant emerging technology.
? What new technologies are fundamentally reshaping the market? An example
would be digital technology and photography.
? What new technologies have potential to radically reshape the market in the
next few years? Examples include optical computing, DNA computing,
nanotechnology, etc. Assessment criteria may include the following:
? Performance in satisfying requirements.
? Human factors and ease of use.
? Technological tradeoffs and limitations.
? Technological readiness. Is the new technology sufficiently developed
to be practical? Where are we on the S-curve?
? Potential benefits. How much better is the new technology compared
to the best existing technology?
? Cost.
? Environmental friendliness.
The report must be submitted both as a paper copy and as an electronic copy
through Turnitin.com on Owl. All papers will be subject to submission for textual
similarity review to the commercial plagiarism detection software under license to the
University for the detection of plagiarism. All papers submitted will be included as
source documents in the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the
licensing agreement, currently between The University of Western Ontario and
Turnitin.com.