Portfolio 7

In this final post for this module, I would like to highlight my problems and experiences in writing essays and how this module has made me improve my English skills.

One of the main problems I face in my university classes is writing essays. Though I may know extensively about the topic, I face difficulty when it comes down to putting all the points together and organising my essay. Also, I find it difficult to start an essay and I end up spending more than half of my time pondering about it. Another problem I face is vocabulary. Since my vocabulary is not so good, I have a hard time expressing my right thoughts in the essay.

The module EG1471 has given me an opportunity to learn many new skills in English. Firstly, I learnt what academic writing was about and how to write a proper argumentative essay. I now know how to go about an essay and the steps involved in its writing. Secondly, through this module, I was able to sharpen my grammar skills and also learn new words.

One of the major improvements I can see in myself is that I can now write essays confidently and efficiently, without thinking about what I have to do next. This is mainly due to the training from my tutor and the two writing assignments which we were asked to write. Moreover, I have improved my ability to find grammatical errors in sentences through this module; thanks to the numerous text editing passages my tutor gave for practice.

The most important aspect of learning a language is continuing to improve on it. In this context, I think the best way to keep improving myself, would be to maintain blogs as this would not only help me improve me English, but would also make me think about the post I’m writing about. Furthermore, I will continue reading more books, journals and newspapers to improve upon my language. Lastly, I would like to thank Ms.Khoo in helping me through this module and my essays. I found this module very interesting and helpful.

My grammar mistakes

This article discusses about the three main grammar errors I tend to make.

I usually use "which" for a restrictive clause, instead of using "that". This is incorrect since it creates ambiguity about the sentence's meaning. For example, the sentence "The court honoured the complaints that were less than 30 days old" is a restrictive sentence, which means that the court honoured only those complaints that were less than 30 days old and not others. On the other hand, the sentence "The court honoured the complaints, which were less than 30 days old" is an unrestrictive sentence which means that those complaints which were honoured were less than 30 days old.

Also, I tend to miss out commas after connectors such as additionally, furthermore and hence. Whenever we use sentence connectors, we should place a semicolon before the connector and a comma after it. For example "Hence, the Government should regulate and ban such products from the market."

Another mistake I commonly make is missing out the article "the". "The" is used for specific nouns or certain proper nouns such as oceans, seas, countries and buildings. I usually miss out "the" for the buildings. For example, it should be "The Eiffel Tower was built on ..." rather than "Eiffel Tower was built on... ". I think this error can be corrected by being more aware of what I'm writing and not forgetting to put the articles before proper nouns.

Portfolio 4 and 5

This post is based on the roundtable discussion held on 5th March, 2009. Our discussion was based on whether there is a need to regulate nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is that  realm of science that deals with particles which are so small that they cannot been seen by naked eye. The particles are measured in nanometers, which is a hundred thousand times the width of a human hair. The advent of nanotechnology brings with it limitless possibilities that mankind could have only dreamt of. Though it has its positive uses, it also has certain side effects which brings in the need to regulate this technology.

Use of nanotechnology in the cosmetic industry has sparked concerns on the human health. The proponents state that the use of this technology for cosmetic purposes can literally change a "beggar to a prince". Skin products coupled with nano particles, improve its efficiency and also make them more eye-catching. Though this might be true, the health risks posed by them cannot be neglected. The proponent's view about this was that large scale production of such cosmetics would be of great advantage and that it would pose no harm. This fact is not true since Britan's Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering have clearly found that these microscopic particles behave in an unpredictable way, causing skin problems and other disorders. This calls for regulation of cosmetics containg nano particles. Regulation should be in the form of banning those products which are known to be toxic and allowing only those which are found to be hazard-free. 

Apart from cosmetics, the use of nanotechnology in electronics is gaining importance. By altering the microscopic configuration of materials, we can create new materials which are much stronger than steel but much lighter than it. The proponents argued that, if any regulation was imposed on this technology, the developments in the cellphone industries and computer industries would come to a stand still. Our reply to this was that though developments may seem to come to a stop, in reality it would not happen. This is because the regulation of this technology will be implemented in such a way that it does not affect the development of the industries. The products should be thoroughly scrutinized for any harful effects and only then released to the public. This would not only ensure public health and safety but also contribute towards the development of the technology.

While nanotechnology would bring about benefits for mankind, care must be taken to mitigate, if not prevent, any negative consequences. This invention ought to improve our life, and not create more problems for us. In order to prevent nanotechnology from straying from its original objective, government regulation must be grounded appropriately.

Summary of Lecture

This essay is a summary of the lecture presented by the three guest speakers: Professor David Palmer , Dr. Benjamin Sovacool and Associate professor Bala on the 30th January.

The first speaker, Professor David Palmer, discoursed on Carbon Capture and Storage. He began his talk by addressing the problem of climate change, especially due to increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and what we could do about it. He then discussed about the two main ways of CCS - oil field dumping and ocean storage. He went on to talk about the feasibility of this method and the various factors which impeded its growth.

The next speaker, Dr.Benjamin Sovacool, based his talk on using STS to address energy and technology issues. He first described the traditional analysis of technology and the four different types of determinism. He then exemplified this by two case studies, related to renewable energy and electric cars. He discussed about the economic, cultural and political challenges faced by renewable energies and electric cars. He concluded his talk by stating that the STS approach was a unique one and that is was very efficient.

The final speaker, Professor Rajasekhar Bala, spoke about climate change assessment and mitigation. He discussed about various GHGs and the consequences of increased levels of carbon dioxide. He then emphasized on ways to control the amount of GHGs in the Earth's atmosphere, especially through Carbon capture and Sequestration. He concluded by taking about the government's role in global warming and ways to improve it.

I liked the two case studies by Dr.Sovacool and found them very interesting. I have never thought of the cultural challenges that technologies faced, and was enlightened with his talk.

Singapore's Global Warming Policies

If you had a big globe with a coat of varnish on it, the thickness of that varnish, relative to the globe, is pretty much the same as the thickness of the earth's atmosphere as compared with the Earth itself. Presently, the composition of this atmosphere is being changed by chemicals and toxic gases, leading to global warming. In this context, Singapore has always directed her policies towards the reduction of gases such as CO2 and CO by the use of efficient power generation and mass public transport.

The first problem, is the power generation in Singapore, which consumes more than half of its fuel. In view of this, the government has adopted a combined cycle method using steam and gas turbines. This has increased the power generation efficiency from 38% to 44%. Moreover, the fuel oil powered plants have been replaced by duel-fuel plants, thereby reducing the amount of CO2 by 37%.

Another problem is that of transportation, which uses 16% of the country's fuel. Singapore has a very good network of public transport, and the government has promoted it's use for the past few years. The ownership of private cars are also discouraged through high taxation and the number is controlled by the highly priced quota. Use of alternate fuel and green cars have been encouraged by providing tax incentives due to which more people have started to use green cars in the present.

In short, Singapore has attended to the problem of global warming and has adopted various strategies to curb the emission of greenhouse gases. This has led to the growth of clean energy like biomass and solar cells, which are the main sources of energy for the future. As Al Gore said in his documentary of 'The Inconvenient Truth', "The solutions are in our hands. We just need to have the determination to make them happen".

References:

Energy for growth – National Energy Policy Report

Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore

ISBN 978-981-05-9512-8 Nov 2007

Picture: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3253/2319745704_211fef0bb0_o.jpg

The expanding world of engineers

Almost all the things we see and use today including buildings, flyovers, bridges, televisions and computers are made or designed by engineers. Without them, there would be almost no technological development in the world. It is only due to their systemic and holistic approach in designing solutions which has led to such a rapid technological boom.

Universities are the main bastions for engineers which provide them with the essential training and experience they require for their job. The difference lies in the way the engineering course is different from other courses like Arts and Social Sciences. The lectures for engineering students are more focused on real-life problems and how to solve them in a systematic way. Comparing this with lectures of other faculties, these lectures are less philosophical and are more problem-based. Also, the tutorials have more word problems rather than just solving direct sums and the labs serve as a platform for hands-on training and experience of problems based on real-life situations. The internships also gives the engineer an invaluable experience to his career.

Besides all these, another necessity for an engineer is his experience. Without this, he is merely a student. Experience provides the engineer with knowledge on how to tackle situations and how to think in a different way. This in turn makes an engineer think in a systematic way to solve the problem. It is not their skill which makes them premium, but their inventiveness and their way of approach and thinking.

The Burj Al Arab, Taipei tower and the Large Hedron Collider- nothing could have been designed, if it were not for the engineers. Their way of systemic analysis of complex information and their holistic approach to designing solutions, has made this possible. In this context, the training provided by the university, to the engineering students is indispensable and has created a cohort of engineers who can now build just anything from scratch.