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Showing posts from March, 2007

Principles of sustainable design

From wikipedia... While the practical application varies among disciplines, some common principles are as follows: Low-impact materials: choose non-toxic, sustainably-produced or recycled materials which require little energy to process Energy efficiency: use manufacturing processes and produce products which require less energy Quality and durability: longer-lasting and better-functioning products will have to be replaced less frequently, reducing the impacts of producing replacements Design for reuse and recycling: "Products, processes, and systems should be designed for performance in a commercial 'afterlife'." [3] Biomimicry : "redesigning industrial systems on biological lines ... enabling the constant reuse of materials in continuous closed cycles..." [4] Service substitution: shifting the mode of consumption from personal ownership of products to provision of services which provide similar functions, e.g. from a private automobile to a carsharing ser

Publish or Perish!

As lecturers we were told to publish or perish. We were also told that Teaching students are just 'bread butter'. So I guess, we just put bread onto butter and not be too fancy making pizza. Instead a big chunck of our time suppose to be doing research. I guess writing article is one way of publishing. There's no need for reference the article is checked relatively quick by the editor. I think it's a good trend where we'll publish quickly whatever we found for the benefit of mankind.

Filling up E-Science Fund. Pretty darn hard.

I was asked to do research as part of my job as a lecturer here in UTeM. E-Science Fund need to be filled in real time web based application. But it was so slow. The page loads slowly taking its own sweet time, you have to update each time you put an item in the answer box, and to worse thing is if you are idle for maybe 5 minutes, you'll be out of the system and your data will not be saved automatically. Everything is slow in here. They should repair the system or else no one will want to waste their time filling it up. The time should be spend doing research not filling up form after form be it soft copy online. I did the short term grant from UTeM itself last time and it was not this bad.

Duduk lama boleh bawa maut

X Boleh duduk lama2 la. lunch kena berjalan keluar. lab tutorial kena jalan jangan naik keta. Darah pekerja habiskan masa berjam-jam hadap komputer mungkin jadi beku WELLINGTON: Pekerja pejabat yang menghabiskan masa terlalu lama duduk di meja masing-masing meletakkan nyawa mereka pada risiko tinggi, kata penyelidik. Institut Penyelidikan Perubatan di New Zealand mendapati mereka berisiko tinggi menghadapi masalah darah beku yang boleh membawa maut. Penyelidik mendapat satu pertiga daripada pesakit yang dimasukkan ke hospital kerana menghidap trombosis pembuluh darah vena (DVT) atau pembekuan darah, adalah pekerja pejabat yang menghabiskan masa berjam-jam mengadap komputer. Kajian akan disiarkan dalam New Zealand Medical Journal. DVT ialah pembentukan darah beku dalam pembunuh darah vena, terutama di kaki. Pembekuan boleh merebak ke hati, paru-paru atau otak, menyebabkan sakit dada, sesak nafas dan kemungkinan maut disebabkan serangan jantung atau angin ahmar. Keadaan itu juga digela