Engineering education needs major reform warns IEEE president

eurekamagazine.co.uk
March 30, 2011

The IEEE's president and ceo has warned of a need to change engineering education to ensure graduates are prepared for the challenges of a modern global economy.

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Europe to Bans Cars from Its Cities By 2050

Engineering Economist
April 4, 2011

The whole "Alternative Fuel Vehicles Industry" could be much better, considering that many alternative fuels are already available.  Who is really at fault for the many polluting vehicles that come off of the assembly line every day?  Is it the companies making those cars or is it the consumers who purchase them?

How can you and I bring about this much needed change?
According to Plunkett Research, as of December 2010 more than 42.8 million alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles have been sold worldwide, compared to around 900 million cars and light trucks in use in the world in 2010.  This indicates that consumers are willing to buy environmentally-friendly vehicles, if they are available and affordable.

The European Commission has propose an "ambitious plan to increase mobility and reduce emissions."  It propose a roadmap for different types of journey within cities, between cities, and long distance.  In the document "Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area" (PDF), it calls for a gradual reduction of gasoline vehicles in favor of electric vehicles and improvement of rail transport. The Commission wants to "halve the use of conventionally-fueled cars in urban transport by 2030" before getting rid of them entirely by 2050.  It sees gasoline and diesel-driven cars banned from cities across the continent by 2050.  The main goals will include:

• No more conventionally-fuelled cars in cities.
• 40% use of sustainable low carbon fuels in aviation; at least 40% cut in shipping emissions. 
• A 50% shift of medium distance intercity passenger and freight journeys from road to rail and waterborne transport.
• All of which will contribute to a 60% cut in transport emissions by the middle of the century.

The plan wants to reinvented the transport system with intelligent transport information systems and to become world leader in safety and security of transport in aviation, rail and maritime.  It says, "By 2050, move close to zero fatalities in road transport. In line with this goal, the EU aims at halving road casualties by 2020."

The outsiders of Europe, UK opposed this proposal. Norman Baker, the transport minister said on BBC "We will not be banning cars from city centers any more than we will be having rectangular bananas."



Source

• Transport 2050: Commission outlines ambitious plan to increase mobility and reduce emissions 
• Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area - Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system 

People must get their facts right on land issues

Issues relating to land such as renewal of land lease which include premium, period of lease and automatic renewal, can easily be solved if people have interests to seek fair explanations from competent officers in the Land Survey department.  

Instead, they rather keep their doubts unanswered and get misled by irresponsible people. The opposition has been capitalizing on them to gain political mileage. Hence, there have been numerous misinterpretations and misunderstanding on such issues. Obviously, they have been making mountains out of mole hills in the case of issues relating to lands.   

Understandably, civil servants  especially those in Land and Survey department are very disappointed that such issues are constantly being exploited by  certain quarters and questioning their integrity despite the fact that they have shown facts and figures to explain the real situation. 

Generally, the people must have good understanding of various government organizations, each with their own roles and functions, to enable them to get the services that they need. 

More so now as the management gets more complicated to handle voluminous workload in development. Besides, bureaucracy can be reduced with competency of civil servants in their jobs and if members of the public know where to zoom in to get the services that they really need. 

Understandably, the government has been making conscientious efforts through the program of Sejiwa Senada and seminar on development and grass root leadership for community leaders to share information with the people in order to move in the same direction with it.

Preferably, the people regardless of their political affiliations should maintain a rapport with the government in order to benefit from its services.   They should not dwell on negative information that can make them getting further away from the network of government dealings; any negative information can put people into isolation and render them unable to get help that they need from the government.

Obviously the people need to get their facts right about issues relating to land and those about forests management. It is a fact that 70% of the State is and will forever be forested and another 14% remain as secondary forests.  

Sarawak is covered by 10.338 million hectares (103,380 km sq) of forest, which comprises 84% of the State’s total surface area and equates to 4.1 hectares (0.041 km sq) per person. 

Sarawak has a long history of forest conservation, with the Forest Department managing and conserving the State’s forest resources. The Department through collaboration with other government agencies, such Sarawak Forestry Corporation and STIDC ensures forests are maintained and preserved.

The state government is enforcing sustainable forest management policy, which means that timber harvesting is limited to particular units of land. Each unit has a plan which dictates how harvesting can be carried out, the species that can be removed, the minimum cutting diameter limits, the annual harvest area and the volume of timber allowed. The plan also sets out the penalties for damaging residual trees.

Regrettably, the residents of Kuching city do not appreciate that the development of Central Sewerage System, once completed, will make them proud and delightful with the high quality of water at Sungei Sarawak and the environment in the city as a whole.  

The present sewerage system does not provide the level of quality hygiene that is good for the livelihood especially with the growing population.  The affluent that flows from septic tanks at home goes to the main drain and finally end up polluting Sungei Sarawak 

Works are now in progress to dig underground sewage pipes that will eventually be connected to all the sewerage pipes from homes.  Later all the sewers will be treated at a central treatment plant before they get into the river.  

Understandably, the construction works now being carried out along the roads may cause some inconveniences to motorists. But the project is worth the sacrifices in building Kuching as a beautiful and livable city of the future. 

Besides, the people must learn to appreciate that they have to pay for services that they expect to come up with the higher level of styles of living in the cities. They must also appreciate that since the 70s, there have never been increases in rates though more and more services are being provided to them. 

The user pay concept may cover services like pollution control, waste disposal, transportation or any other services.  

By the year 2013, the local councils may have the machinery on the ground in order to improve their services to the people and cope with the problems of increasing population, services and maintenance at all levels. 

For example, city councils of Kuching for North and South, probably Padawan and Samarahan, which is catching up quite clearly, Bintulu, Miri and Sibu, have to pay special attention to the requirement of services and development of lots of amenities that have to be undertaken at the ground level. 

Obviously, they should develop their sufficient capability to implement most of service- oriented development projects for the people towards the year 2020 and beyond.

benuasains

 *Photos Source: 

google.com

uncleawangcapture.blogspot.com

Human-powered drill for clean water in developing nations built by student engineers

BYU
April 1, 2011

The contraption looks like a spear that impaled a wheel of fortune, but it does more than give contestants a chance to buy a vowel or solve the puzzle.  The device is actually a human-powered drill built by a team of BYU engineering students, who hope it will help Tanzanians drill the 250 feet required to access clean drinking water.
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Advance in microchannel manufacturing opens new industry applications

Oregon State University
April 1, 2011

Engineers at Oregon State University have invented a new way to use surface-mount adhesives in the production of low-temperature, microchannel heat exchangers - an advance that will make this promising technology much less expensive for many commercial applications.
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Sarawak enjoys certain autonomy to move forward

Sejiwa Senada - Serian

The people of Sarawak value the wisdom of the Federal leadership, from the early days, to accord a certain autonomy and initiative to Sarawak in serving the welfare and interests of the people. For this reason, the State has been able to fulfill the promises to the Rakyat and adapt to changing situation and move forward. Hence, the people have been able to move forward and generally enjoy greater comfort in life.

However, the Government must make continuous efforts and spend bigger expenditure in development in order to meet the rising expectation of the people.   The task can only be carried out by the leadership that has the experience and continuity in the administration.  The opposition may shout for Change and reform but nothing will change except their voices. 

Sarawak will not have the capability to provide efficient services to the people and move further steps ahead without political stability and continuity in the administration. The people must be fully aware of this.  They have not been able to benefit anything from the rhetoric and promises of the opposition. 

Indisputably, the state has been able to bring about positive changes to the people and help to alleviate the hardship of those in the lower income group. The fact that the level of poverty has gone down from more than 30% in 1981 to 5% only now is proof of this.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Patinggi Haji Mohd. Najib Tun Abdul Razak, through the NKRA program, has given an additional allocation of RM5.7 billion for Sarawak to catch up in the development of roads and infrastructure for the supply of water and electricity to rural areas. 

Sejiwa Senada - Serian

Obviously, he realizes that the additional allocation outside the 10^th Malaysia Plan is the only way to bring up the people in Sarawak on the same level as their counterparts in Peninsular Malaysia. With that kind of sentiment, it will be easier for the people of Sarawak and Sabah to be fully one with their counterparts in Peninsular Malaysia under the concept of 1Malaysia.

Sarawak, with the additional allocation, is constructing 166 road projects, with a total length of 700KM, at various stages of development; one third of them have already been completed. It has connected 12,000 units of houses with electricity and 4,000 units of houses with water supply under the rural electricity and clean water supply programs.

Besides, a total of 5,238 units of houses have either been constructed or repaired under housing program for poor families. A total of 2,866 heads of families have been given various forms of assistance under the poverty eradication program.  About 95% from 66% now of rural households will be supplied with electricity by the end of next year and 90% of them from 57% now will be supplied with clean water supply.  This is a big jump from what ever the State has done before in the history of Sarawak’s implementation of development program. Thanks to the Federal initiative of National Key Results Areas (NKRA).

Obviously, the Prime Minister, after making frequent visits to Sarawak, is knowledgeable of the fact, without further convincing, that Sarawak needs to catch up in terms of development with other States in Peninsular Malaysia. It was obvious to him, through investigations of National Key Result Areas (NKRA)  that Sarawak and Sabah need extra help to intensify development of basic infrastructure like roads and water and electricity supplies. Besides, efforts to eradicate poverty, which still confronts the people in Sarawak, must also be intensified. 

Sejiwa Senada - Serian

Indisputably, Sarawak’s success is attributable to Barisan Nasional’s way of serving the people and the State.  The State Government  has been able to plan development not only for one or two years or five years for one State elections but as far as it can forecast with the prevailing peace and  political stability.  Obviously, the State must continue to have good leaders, who have the experience, wisdom and foresight to move forward.

The initiative of the Prime Minister to raise the level of effectiveness of Barisan Nasional in administering the State and country will be able to fulfill the objective of 1Malaysia to make the welfare and interests of the Rakyat a priority.  In this respect, the State government must give special emphasis to special areas in development for it to reach the target groups.

Obviously, it must take into consideration the differences in the situation due to Sarawak’s large land size and small population.  The population is scattered in more than 5,000 settlements comprising of traditional kampong and longhouses and more than 50% of them, each has 30 families only.

Regrettably, the opposition has been instigating the people to get angry with the government for its narrow political agenda. The State election on April 16 is the choice between the track record of service of the State Government and empty promises and rhetoric of the opposition. Only Barisan Nasional has the means and capability to ensure greater progress, prosperity and comfort in life for the people toward the year 2020 and beyond. 

Sejiwa Senada - Serian

Essentially, the people must preserve their unity, harmony, stability and continuity in the way they do things even though their objective may change with time.  The Bidayuh community at one time was disorganized and badly disunited. Then some members, who were graduates, considered that they should become candidates in the elections. That was 40 years ago.  But nowadays, the State has been able to produce thousands of graduates that there are just not enough seats in Sarawak or even in Malaysia to give opportunities to all graduates to become  candidates in any elections.

Hence, they must preserve their unity and harmony and learn to be steadfast in their support to leaders, whom they have chosen to represent them in the government. More so as the government believes that in what ever is being done in development must reach the target groups. This is the hallmark of the leadership of Barisan Nasional that will push forward Malaysia and Sarawak to become more progressive and prosperous after the next elections.

The opposition, whatever names it calls itself, does not have members, who have dedication to struggle for the people, State and country. The so-called Pakatan Rakyat only wants power.  However, it does not have the legacy of Barisan Nasional in the State elections on April 16.

Sarawak, with lots of initiatives being supported by the Federal Government, will be able to achieve the target of being a developed nation by the year 2020. 

benuasains

 *Photos Source: 

google.com

 

Quantum Dots as Solar Cells

Technology Review
April 4, 2011

The key to using silicon in electronic devices such as transistors and solar cells lies in doping, or adding in small quantities of other elements, to create an excess of electrons (n-type) or positively charged holes (p-type) that change the material's conductivity. N-type and p-type silicon are butted together to form p-n junctions, the basic building blocks of electronic devices such as solar cells, light-emitting diodes, and transistors.
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