Task 5: Potential Unethical Abuses of Mind Reader

Currently, I am a researcher researching in a device that can read people’s mind. This device will be useful in criminal investigation to tell if the suspect is innocent or guilty and to help in conveying message for people who are fully paralyzed. However, there can be someone who may abuse the uses of this device. Some of the potential unethical abuses can be invading of other people’s privacy and stealing of other people’s ideas. For examples, reporters may use the device to invade into the privacy of celebrities and people in business may use the device to steal the idea of the opponent. With these potential unethical abuses, people may feel insecure and even not wanting to accept this device. Therefore, to secure the people and to minimize the people from abusing the device, some rules and regulations will need to be set. For example, sale of the device may be restricted by setting certain terms and conditions. One of the possible terms can be a requirement of a letter of consent from doctor when the device is to be purchased as a domestic product for fully paralyzed people. With the restriction of sales, device will not be too widely being used and people will be more secured. Also, some laws could be set to punish people who use this device to invade other people’s privacy or to steal other people’s ideas. This can further prevent people from abusing the device as they will be punished if they abuse the device. In conclusion, this device that I am researching can be useful but some people may abuse the use of this device and use it in the wrong purpose. As to prevent people from abusing the device, some rules and regulations will be needed.

Task 4: Difficulties which I have in Writing in My Engineering Classes

In terms of writing, among all the current modules, which I am taking, I find the module CM1502 to be the most difficult as I need to produce a lab report for every experiment done. Every lab report requires five sections: introduction, procedures, calculations of data, discussion and conclusion. I have difficulties in writing all sections except for the section on calculation. The introduction and procedures in the lab report are normally a summary of the information given in the lab manual. Usually, I have difficulty in capturing all the main points in the first reading; thus, I will read the lab manual a few times before writing. This is actually quite time consuming as my reading speed is slow. In order to shorten the length of time in future, I will try to increase my reading speed by reading more English materials. In addition, the other difficulty, which I faced on writing introduction and procedures, is the restructuring of the sentence structure on paraphrasing. Normally, I tend to write clumsy long sentence and sometimes it is hard to understand my work. Thus after writing, I will go through my work again to revise the sentence so as to ensure that a clearer message is being delivered to the reader. I think to further solve this problem, I will have to do more reading. As for discussion and conclusion, I have difficulty in having a good paragraphing if I start writing directly. As to ensure a better paragraphing, habitually, I will first list down all the points, which I am going to write, on a piece of rough paper and have a careful arrangement before I start writing. It is like doing the mind mapping and outlining. In short, the difficulties that I have on writing lab report are capturing of main points on doing summary, writing of good sentence structure and having good paragraphing. In solving these difficulties, normally, I will read the material several times before summarizing, revise my sentences and practice mind mapping and outlining. I will do more reading in future as to further improve my writing.

Task 3: Summary of "Make Solar Energy Economical"

Amount all the sources of energy, sun is the best. Energy provides by the sun is in abundance, free of charge and pollution free; but, some obstacles are faced in using this energy from the sun. These are the main obstacles faced: the amount of useful energy obtainable is much lesser than those provided, the energy conversion method is costly and the energy collected can only be stored in small quantity. Currently, some solutions have been suggested but engineers are still in the process of making the solutions workable. Present solar cells, generally made of silicon, only have an efficiency of energy conversion up to twenty percent and the high manufacturing cost causes the converted electric energy to be costly. As to ensure a more economical usage of solar cell, an improvement in efficiency and reduction in cost of material are required. A new material, nanocrystals, has been found to be able to provide a higher efficiency but it has yet being scaled up. Another factor causing electric energy to be costly is because the material used for the manufacturing of solar cell needs to be very pure as not to obstruct the flow of electric charges. One of the suggestions made is to use thinner material and thus enabling material with lower purity to be used. The other suggestion is to incorporate dye molecules and titanium dioxide molecules in the material for better absorption of sunlight and collection of electric charges. As for the problem of storage, suggestions have been made to study the process of photosynthesis and to combine the technology of fuel cell and solar energy utilizing the energy from solar energy to convert water into hydrogen that is used to power fuel cell. If all the obstacles are solved, it will be possible for the sun to be the main energy provider. (“Make Solar Energy Economical,” n.d.)

References

Make solar energy economical. (n.d.). Retrieved September 28, 2008, from http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9082.aspx

Assignment 1: Why People Resist New Technology

One of the reasons people resist new technology may be people’s fear of losing their job. With reference to the past, one can see that during the Industrial Revolution, the number of people employed in both primary and secondary industries was greatly reduced when technology was introduced. In that period of time, with the development of technology, many machines were invented. As a result, the jobs of hundreds and thousands of people were replaced by machines. Looking at the sector of agriculture in the primary industry, threshers were invented to replace people in the job of wheat harvesting. As for the secondary industry, in the sector of manufacturing, sewing machines were introduced into the clothing industry and the number of seamstresses required was reduced. All these substitutions of labourers with machines were due to the higher job efficiency and consistency delivered by the machines. This rate of substitution exists even today. In the competitive world that we are living in now, job efficiency is of even higher importance. This causes a higher focus on research and development. Hence, there will be more introductions of new machines, posing an ever growing threat to people’s jobs. For example, in Kodak, a filmmaking company, a machine for mixing of filmmaking ingredients replaced the jobs of 14 workers (Hagenbaugh, 2002, para. 23). In addition, these machines are connected to controls rooms where only a few workers are needed there to watch computer screens (Hagenbaugh, 2002, para. 24). Therefore, one of the potential reasons for people to resist new technology is the fear of being made obsolete.

Reference

Hagenbaugh, B. (2002, December 13). U.S. manufacturing jobs fading away fast. September 12, 2008, from http://www.usatoday.com/money/jobcenter/workplace/2002-12-13-factory-jobs_x.htm

Task 2: One of My Common Grammar Mistakes

One of the common grammar mistakes, which I make on writing, is the missing of articles. I am not sure of when and where to use the article and often make mistake on missing the article out. I had missed out more than five articles in my draft for the first assignment. I think this is actually quite serious. Therefore, in this article, different types of articles will be defined and some tips on article usage will be done.

Basically, there are a total of three articles: “the”, “a” and “an”. They are being classified into two categories being definite article and indefinite articles. “The” is a definite article and “a” and “an” are indefinite articles. A definite article is used when it is referring to a specific object. On the opposite, an indefinite article is used when it is not referring to a specific object. The only difference between “a” and “an”, under the category of indefinite articles is, “an” is normally used if the subject, which one speaks, starts with vowels. In short, a total of three articles are available for usage and they are being classified into definite articles and indefinite articles.

In the following are some tips which I found on internet, on the usage of articles. Firstly, after an indefinite article is used on mentioning something, one can repeat the object with the definite article, “the”. An example is “I live in a house. The house is beautiful”. Next, objects that are referring to water, oceans and seas are to be used with articles. One of the examples is “The Pacific Ocean is large”. As for countries, states, provinces, lakes and mountains, articles will not be used unless the country is a collection of states. For example, Singapore is only a country; hence it will be mentioned without an article but for the United States, which is a collection of states, will be mentioned as “The United States”. Next, articles should not be used when one is talking about things in general and when one is talking about meals, places and transport. One of the examples is “She had lunch at home”. Lastly, articles should not be used with a plural countable noun and with an uncountable noun. For example, when one says “cats are cute” and “this information is useful”, articles will not be used. In summary, the application of an article depends on the form of subject.

In conclusion, there are two types of articles, indefinite and definite articles, and the usage of articles is dependent on the subject.

(Below is the assessment which I did.)

SELF Materials Articles Elementary

Fill in the gaps in this story, using a, an, the, or the zero article (Ø)

Last week I went to ____an____ exhibition of ____zero____ paintings at ____the____ Tate Gallery in London. I’m not really ___a_____ great art lover but I’d read lots of good reviews of ____the____ exhibition and I was keen to see it. When I arrived, there were already some people waiting outside for ____zero (wrong)_the (answer)___ doors to open. I joined ___the_____ queue and in ___the_____ end ___zero (wrong)__the (answer)___ doors opened and we went inside to see ____the____ show.

Now I must be honest and admit that many of ____the____ paintings disappointed me. Although I spent a lot of time looking carefully at ___zero_____ each one, I had difficulty understanding what ____the____ artist was getting at. Finally as I was looking rather stupidly at one of ____the____ paintings and trying to decide if it was ___the_____ right way up or not, ____an____ old gentleman came up behind me and started to explain ____the____ whole thing to me. He kindly answered all of ___zero_____ my questions and we talked for over ____an____ hour. Then he said he had ____an____ appointment and had to go, so we shook hands and said goodbye. I went round the gallery once more and now I found that all ___the_____ paintings seemed really beautiful.

It was only as I was leaving ____the____ gallery that I found out who ___the_____ old man was- his self-portrait was on ____zero (wrong)_the (answer)___ posters advertising ____the____ exhibition!

(Taken from Progress to First Certificate Student’s Book by Leo Jones, CUP 1990)

Additional: Important Requirements of Engineer

Both articles, “Introduction to the grand challenges for engineering” and “The expanding world of engineers”, provide important requirements to be in the profession of engineer. In the first article, the requirement is being daring to face challenges. In the second article, the requirement is to acquire systematic and critical thinking mind. I feel that both requirements are of equal importance. Being daring to face challenges is like the spirit required and systematic and critical thinking mind is the skill required. In order to overcome the challenges in the shortest and most economic method and be great in the profession of engineering, spirit and skill are both required.

If one only has the skill and not spirit, meaning having systematic and critical thinking mind and not dare to face challenges, current state of living and economy may remain stagnant. Engineers may just be complacent with current state. They may not dare to face challenges and search for alternative as making changes could sometimes be very troublesome. For example, in the first article it stated that “New systems for drug regulation and approval will be needed when medicines are designed for small numbers of individuals rather than patient populations as a whole”. In this example, one could know that when alteration is made, a system may have to change and it will involve many people and money. This could be a large project and might take years to complete. If one does not have the spirit and not dare to do it, even with problem identified, no changes might be made for improvement.

On the other hand, if one only has the spirit and not skill, meaning being dare to face challenges and does not have systematic and critical thinking mind, solution may be found in a non-economical way resulting the growth of economy to be less significant. Without systematic and critical thinking mind, one may not have the ability to point out the real problem and may detour in finding the most effective and economical solution. In the first article, it stated “cheaper polluting technologies often remain preferred over more expensive”. It is unwise of engineer to come up with solution which requires unnecessary spending of time and money as employer will not be pleasant with it. Therefore, with only spirit, the growth of economy may be less significant as more time and money may be spent on finding exact solution and reputation of engineer will not be good.

With both skill and spirit, meaning having systematic and critical thinking mind and being dare to face challenges, solution to challenges could be found in a quicker and more economical way. This will enable economy to grow at a faster rate resulting engineers to have higher reputation. In conclusion, both systematic and critical thinking mind and being daring to face challenges are of equal importance to the profession of engineer. Only with both, one could then make great accomplishment and improve economy.

Task 1: Most Important Challenge to the Profession

From the article, “Introduction to the grand challenges for engineering”, I feel that the most important challenge is the sustainability of civilization’s continuing advancement in term of energy. With the world getting more advances, demand of energy is higher. Energy is consumed largely in the form of electricity and petroleum.

Advance of technology has created high dependency of people on electrical appliances. Electrical appliances are very common nowadays and computer is a good example of it. Usage of computer is now very common due it being very convenient for searching of information and text editing. For the search of information, there is internet providing pool of information. As for text editing, there is Microsoft Word which editing could be done anytime without making a mess of the work. Electrical appliances have made life easier for people and thus increase the reliance of people on them resulting in high usage of electricity.

Also with the advance in technology, world has been more well developed and economy has improved. With a better economy and people being wealthier, vehicles become more affordable. Increase in transportation has resultant consumption of petrol to grow. In the recent month, price of petrol has been high. One of the reasons is because of the running down of petrol and supply being unable to meet the demand. This in turn causes a series of rise in food price due to cost of transportation resulting in higher standard of living and an economy downturn. From this event, one could see that the sustainability in the balance of supply and demand is very important.

Unfortunately, fossil fuel being the main source for petroleum and electricity is a limited resource and it is estimated to be able to last for only another fifty years. Thus research on alternative resources conducted hoping to find a suitable one to replace fossil fuel is important. Finding alternative source of energy is not easy, many problems have been faced. For example, in the case of solar energy, even though sunlight is abundant and provided lots of heat energy, the efficiency in converting the energy into useful energy like electrical energy is low. Also it is relative more expensive and requires a large amount of land area for the collection of energy. In comparing to the current major energy source, fossil fuel, alternative sources of energy like solar energy are less feasible.

In conclusion, sustainability the balance of supply and demand of energy is very important. With the increasing of demand and no solution, meaning supply unable to meet demand, world economy will be affected. Even though many alternative sources have been found, they are still not as feasible in comparing to fossil fuel. Lots of work is still required from engineers in solving the problems.