brain mapping

More too often, scientists face the dilemma that an advent of a technology is undesirably attached with unethical abuses. Brain mapping is a case in point. It can predict brain diseases and investigate criminal cases through brain images scan. Yet, it is also subject to violate people’s privacy. Three ways can be adopted to minimize the unethical usages of brain mapping.

A mature legal environment is the most powerful means to limit the unethical usages of brain mapping. Experience related to intellectual properties cross countries can be borrowed to modify the related laws. Such explicit instructions give a direct warning to those who are intended to take advantage of the imperfectness of the law. Using legal consequences to suppress the abuses is quite passive, yet we cannot ignore its effectiveness.

To further eliminate the unethical uses, researchers, who have a comprehensive understanding of their technology, should tailor a series of prevention measures. For brain mapping, the usages are restricted to certain jobs employment and brain disorder check. Therefore, clear criteria shall be set up to judge the eligibility of cases that fall into these categories. Regulated guidelines can save unnecessary effort to deal with the ethical issues in advance.

The third way to minimize the unethical usage is to improve public overall awareness. This method addresses the root of the issue; however, it will take a long time to be effective.

In all, technology abuse cannot be wiped out so far. To minimize the negative effect on society, a mature legal environment is needed; researchers should make their effort to establish guild lines for prevention; education to improve public awareness is also essential.

Portfolio task 4: Writing difficulties in engineering classes

The word “essay” has haunted me since my bridge course commenced in CELC. Dreaming the university life could call it an end, I was only to find it appeared with a higher frequency in my courses: term essay, portfolio, and summary. That I am quite average in my work results in my worry and fear about English. The writing difficulties I addresses in this entry will be more about EG1471 since I do not take many engineering modules this semester. Basically long winded and vague expressions, low producing speed and limited vocabulary rank the top three among my weaknesses in English writing.

Vague meaning often comes hand in hand with the slow process. Occasion is I was trying so hard to put lots of ideas within maybe only two to three sentences. More than often, my efforts turned out to be long-winded sentences with ambiguous meaning. The more time I spend writing a sentence, the longer it takes for the readers to understand. Be direct and simple is the solution. Shorten the sentences and, if necessary, split them. Self-editing is also an approach to delete the meaningless words or phrases. Making every word count reduces ambiguity and the length. Slow as this process may be, it is worthy and indispensible for writing. Future writing in engineering classes is more academic as it is related to lab reports and presenting facts and theory. Clear and organized writing is highly-valued.

The consistently weak in my writing is not only due to the sentences structure but also the impropriate word choices and rudimental vocabulary. Even though the readability of my writing is improved, my words still look pale and weak in accuracy because of the limited vocabulary. No input, no output. Without a strong storage of words to back me up, the writing is doomed to be at a beginner's level. To enlarge my vocabulary is the root to clear the symptoms like vague expression and low speed of writing. The root to get a large vocabulary is to expose myself to English, namely, read more.

Besides to be concise and accurate, I have to change my attitude and accept the fact that I have to live with English, moreover, advanced English. Though it just happens that I am quick tempered (though hardly can be identified by appearance) and a good command of English calls for accumulation/ time, I still get joys from reading English books. Utilizing the areas I interest in to activate those I used to escape may help me to be a self-starter in learning and progress faster.

Summary

A group of scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new solar energy technology which is more efficient and can greatly reduce the carbon dioxide emissions.
Conventionally, scientists use semiconductor materials like silicon to produce solar cells and photovoltatic panels. Portion of the light incident on the semiconductor materials is absorbed to activate the electrons. Electric field(s) within the photovoltalic cells forces the electrons flow in certain direction to generate current. However, the process is too costly to make it a feasible alternative to the electricity form the power grid. The major breakthrough of the new technology is to minimize the solar cell to a postage stamp size and improve the efficiency from the conventional 14% to nearly 80%. The systems consist of lenses that can automatically trace the movement of the sun all the time and let the sunlight incident perpendicularly onto the solar cells. The lenses are incorporated into glass buildings and window panes to provide nearly 50% of the energy needed of the building operation.
In US today, residential and commercial buildings use 2/3 of all electricity and produce 35% of all carbon dioxide emissions, which is a great proportion. Both Anna Dyson, an architectural scientist, and Michael Jensen, a mechanical engineer, confirmed that the new technology is critical to reduce our dependency of fossil fuels and global warming.
The full-size prototype will be installed into the building at the Center for Excellence and Environmental Energy Systems and the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

(252 words)
The original passage “Mechanical Engineers Create High-tech Solar Panels” is from http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0507-bringing_sunlight_inside.htm

Exercises on prepositions

1 He made his escape by jumping ______ a window and jumping ______ a waiting car.

A. over/into

B. between/into

C. along/up

D. by/on

E: up to/ out of

2 To get to the Marketing department, you have to go ______ those stairs and then ______ the corridor to the end.

A. over / into

B. between / into

C: out of / between

D: out of / into

E: up / along

3 I saw something about it ______ television.

A: in

B: on

C: at

D: through

E: with

4 I couldn't get in ______ the door so I had to climb ______ a window.

A: through / in

B: between / into

C: out of / between

D: out of / into

E: up / along

5 She took the key ______ her pocket and put it ________ the lock.

A: over / into

B: between / into

C: out of / in

D: by / on

E: up to / out of

6 He drove ______ me without stopping and drove off ______ the centre of town.

A: from / into

B: towards / over

C: along / up

D; past / towards

E: in / next to

7 I took the old card ______ the computer and put ______ the new one.

A: through / in

B: out of / in

C: out of / between

D: out of / into

E: up / along

8 I went ______ him and asked him the best way to get ______ town.

A: from / into

B: towards / over

C: along / up

D: by / on

E: up to / out of

9 It's unlucky to walk ______ a ladder in my culture. I always walk ______ them.

A: through / in

B: out of / in

C: under / around

D: out of / into

E: up / along

10 The restaurant is ______ the High Street, ______ the cinema.

A: through / in

B: out of / in

C: under / around

D: in / next to

E: up / along

11 Sally left school ______ the age of 16 and went to work ______ a bank.

A: through / in

B: out of / in

C: under / around

D: in / next to

E: at / in

12 He jumped ______ the wall and ______ the garden.

A: over / into

B: towards / over

C: along / up

D: by / on

E: up to / out of

13 He was driving ______ 180 miles per hour when he crashed ______ the central barrier.

A: at / into

B: out of / in

C: under / around

D: in / next to

E: at / in

14 She ran ______ the corridor and ______ the stairs to the second floor.

A: from / into

B: towards / over

C: along / up

D: by / on

E: in / next to

15 John is the person standing ______ the window, ______ the woman with the long blonde hair.

A: at / into

B: beside / next to

C: under / around

D: in / next to

E: at / in

16 When the bull ran ______ me, I jumped ______ the fence.

A: from / into

B: towards / over

C: besides /next to

D: by / on

E: in / next to

17 Look, that car's ______ fire.

A: through

B: with

C: in

D: into

E: on

Answers will be in the comment. Have a try first~

Reference: http://www.better-english.com/grammar/prepositions.htm

Hu Xuan’s pitfall

One of my common grammar mistakes is prepositions. My problem is to decide which one to use and which one not to use. There are only a few prepositions words in English. However, they are used extremely frequently, expressing various meanings in the context. So far, I have already used three prepositions in this blog entry. Here comes the 4th. The meanings of sentences vary a lot with different choices of prepositions.

Example: Were there any calls for me?
You had a call from Fred.
I made a call to a friend in London.

In what way, prepositions are used?

Prepositions are usually used before none, pronouns or gerunds. They show the relationship between a noun or pronoun and another word or words.

Example: The girl on the bike looked at the children on the swing.

The most commonly used prepositions are about, above, among, at, in, on, before, behind, between, during, for, from, into, over, towards, until, upon, within, without.

More often, prepositions are used with other words.
#With verbs:
e.g. aim at; allow for; appeal to; believe in; blame for; coincide with; comment on; refrain from; insist on
#With adjectives and participles:
e.g. Accompanied by; accustomed to; characterized by; common to; comparable with; equal to; essential for; inferior to; worthy of; regardless of; indifferent to…
#With nouns and phrases
e.g. in accordance with; a capacity for; to a high degree; the opposite of; for the purpose of; with reference to

How to improve?
Basically, there is no short cut to improve the accurate usage of prepositions. The best way is to familiarize ourselves with the words in phases. Given the context, we can understand better. To read more also helps us to differ the various usages of the prepositions.

Here is a short essay I extracted from http://www.english-test.net/lessons/48/index.html for your leisure reading.

Our learner was in a terrible state. He knew he wanted to go somewhere but he didn't know how. At this moment he was standing near a bridge. Should he go by bus, by train, by car, by boat or possibly quite simply on foot? He could walk across the bridge, under the bridge but he couldn't possibly jump over the bridge. He just knew he wanted to get out of town. Once he had arrived there by car he could obviously get out of the car or the train or the bus but he'd have to get off the boat. And now he had arrived in the town centre and was sitting inside the tourist office looking out of the window. Well, he couldn't actually see through the window because the glass was very dirty. He left the tourist office and stood outside for a few minutes thinking what to do next. He saw a policeman coming towards him and he thought he'd ask him where to go.But the policeman walked past him and went along the street taking no notice of him. Anyhow when he thought about it, what could a police officer do for him? The trouble was that he didn't speak the language although he had learnt a few phrases by heart. He knew how to say: On what day is there a festival? At what time do the shops shut? Can I put my bike against the wall? None of these questions would be of use to him. What he really wanted to know was: Where is there a hotel? He was on the point of giving up when he saw a wonderful hotel in front of him. He walked up to the reception and within minutes he was sitting in a beautiful bedroom that looked over the sea. He had a fabulous meal in the restaurant and then went back to his room. He got into bed and fell into a deep sleep. It was in the middle of the night that he suddenly realized he wouldn't have enough money to pay for the accommodation. He decided to continue with his sleep and when he woke up he got ready and went down to the restaurant for his breakfast. He didn't leave that hotel for three weeks. That was how long it took for him to pay for that overnight stay by working in the kitchen as a washer up.

References: http://clc.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/getFile.do?id=20711#260,5,Prepositions used with verbs

W2T2

As far as I am concerned, the increasing globalization imposes ever greater challenges to engineers in today’s world as Article 2 described. Globalization increases life complexity by binding every aspect of life together. This implies that aside from specialized in their corresponding frontier technology; engineers are required to provide a border perspective under the international background.

Globalization speeds the world’s expanding. Masses of new information and knowledge come from researches are disseminated world widely through global media every day. It is inevitable for engineers to shape their effective reading and critical thinking skills so as to take advantage of the available information around us and keep updated to the cutting edge findings. Nonetheless, ideas and information shall not be confined locally. No individual alone can possibly digest and assimilate all the information in any technology area. International conferences and seminars provide engineers wider platforms to integrate thoughts and spark new ones. Pressing issues like food and security, water shortage and global warming also call for borderless cooperation. Openness and active participation in technology sharing has become the new theme in academy.

In order to seek both efficient and economic solutions to global issues, engineers should embark on their skilled areas and make technical breakthroughs to achieve the optimal world distribution. Silicon Valley in US and bio-valley in India are two representatives of work specialization.

Besides, engineers have to adopt a more dynamic and comprehensive approach to the applications. Taking the construction of bird nest in Peking for example, whether the design can fit its location surroundings and express the green Olympics has the equal importance of its solidity.

Globalization makes the world of engineers a giant jigsaw puzzle. On one hand, engineers have to focus on their own piece. On the other hand, they cannot lose the sight of the big picture.