Portfolio 5

As time has passed, technology has been grown. Technology had developed to a certain stage like read and mapping the brain. In “A computer that can ‘read’ your mind” and “Ethics and mapping the brain” has described the positive and negative effects on society. To minimize the potential unethical abuses of a technology like cloning, there are two ways to do so.

Cloning is a new technology which brought recently on duplicating organisms. This is a great approached in this medical field as this technology tends to solve the problem of organ transplant. However, someone will misuse and abuse this technology by cloning his own self to commit crime. To minimize the potential unethical abuses of this, precaution with more details need to be done on cloning. Since cloning is using the embryo or cell in the body, it should be dispose after using. This is to ensure no one can reuse or misuse for his own benefit.

Besides solving the problem of organ transplant, it is also a way to stop some endanger species of animal for getting extinct. With is technology, animal like tiger won’t need a mate to produce next generation. However, if all animals are depending cloning from getting extinct, then female and even male animal will lose its nature ability to reproduce next generation. To avoid this happen, control of cloning animal is needed. Planning and strategized cloning on animals which are going to extinct is needed so that those animals are still remaining their own abilities.

In conclusion, where there is a new technology has developed, it definite brings benefits to the human as it is design to make our life better however in the same time is also will bring us problem as we are altering the nature.

Portfolio 4

Being able to speak doesn’t mean that being able to write well in academic writing. Academic writing is totally different with essays we always write in our high school. The way we need to present, the points of view which we pointed out, and the choice to word or vocabulary is really makes is the entire essential for an academic writing. When comes to academic writing, there are 3 difficulties I faced.
First of all, I still have really master the way of presenting an academic writing. As I still get use to the previous mattered I always do in my high school, I find I quite difficult to produce an academic writing. It isn’t easy as I have to write views which are really a fact and needed references to support my views.
Second of all, lack of vocabulary is one of the difficulties I am having too. As English isn’t my mother tongue, I find it difficult express my opinion or idea in English. Sometimes, I might also afraid that I will write a sentence that directly translated from my mother tongue. In order to avoid that, I tend to use simply English to express which can’t really accentuate my point of view.
Third of all, when a writing question is shown up to me, I might not enough points to support the writing question. As lack of reading material and information regarding engineering development during my previous school time, I find academic writing on writing 500 words and above is quite difficult. Although through searching internet to get more information regarding the writing question is very convenient, I can’t do that during the exam.
To resolve and continue to improve the difficulties I faced, one and only way is to read more. Only read more can increase my vocabulary. Once I have more vocabulary, I will find it easier to express my view. Beside, read more also let me expose me on information regarding the technology and know more about the is the world is going on.

Portfolio 3

Engineers Develop Smallest Device To Control Light, Advance Silicon Technology

ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2006) — An electrical engineer at the University of Texas at Austin has made a laser light blink while passing through a miniaturized silicon chip, a major step toward developing commercially viable optical interconnects for high performance computers and other devices.

Researchers for decades have sought to harness light as a messenger on silicon chips because light can move thousands of times faster through solid materials than electrons and can carry more information at once, while requiring less energy.

Ray Chen, a professor of electrical engineering, and graduate students Wei Jiang, YongQiang Jiang and Lanlan Gu created a chip made of silicon “photonic crystals” whose complex internal structure slowed light traveling through the chip. The laser light slowed down enough that a small electric current could alter, or modulate, the pattern of light transmission.

“We were able to get our new silicon modulator to control the transmission of laser light, while using 10 times less power than normally needed for silicon modulators,” said Chen, who holds the Temple Foundation Endowed Faculty Fellowship No. 4.

He will give an invited talk about the latest update on the miniaturized device on Jan. 25, at the Optoelectronics 2006 Symposia of the SPIE Photonics West Conference in San Jose, Calif.

For light to encode meaningful information, its intensity or other characteristics need to be modulated, just as air that passes through a person’s vocal cords is modulated to produce speech sounds by actions that include moving the lips and tongue. Because Chen was able to modify light using electric current, which itself is modifiable, he expects to be able to modulate the light to blink on and off at different rates, or to change in intensity.

Once such silicon modulators are combined with lasers on a silicon platform, these optical chips could become a mainstay of consumer electronic devices, telecommunication systems, biosensors and other devices. In computers, the light-modulating chips would primarily serve to send information between a computer’s microprocessors and its memory, a process called interconnection.

“In a Pentium 4, over 50 percent of the computer’s power is consumed by interconnection,” Chen said.

Other advantages of optical chips based on silicon photonic crystals would include their reduced risk of overheating due to lower power needs, the ability to fabricate optical chips primarily with traditional mass-production practices in a silicon foundry and the expected smaller size of optical modulators and other optical silicon elements of the future.

Chen initially published findings on the silicon modulator in the Nov. 28, 2005, issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters. That article described how less than 3 milliwatts of power was needed for light modulation. The length of the special silicon chip the light needed to travel before being modifiable was 80 micrometers (.08 millimeters). That is about 10 times shorter than the best conventional silicon optical modulators. Smaller components help drive manufacturing costs down,and also transmit signals faster.

The shortened length was possible because Chen’s laboratory designed the silicon photonic crystals that are the key component of the modulator to have large regions of regularly spaced, nanosize holes that light would have to traverse. Navigating the Swiss cheese-like regions of the crystals, called line defects, slowed the light’s passage considerably.

Since the November publication, Chen’s laboratory has continued evaluating the specialized silicon chips and learning how to change the blinking rate of laser light traversing their silicon modulator.

This research is supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Jiang is now a research scientist at Omega Optics Inc. in Austin, Texas.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Texas at Austin.

Summary

Technology has been continuously progressing as time passed. Now, and electrical engineer had invented smallest device to control light (Advance silicon technology). As light can move faster and required less energy than electron through solid materials, it has been a messenger on silicon chips.Ray Chen, a professor of electrical engineering, and graduate students Wei Jiang, YongQiang Jiang and Lanlan Gu created a chip made of silicon “photonic crystals” whose complex internal structure slowed light traveling through the chip. The laser light slowed down enough that a small electric current could alter the pattern of light transmission. Once such silicon modulators are combined with lasers on a silicon platform, these optical chips could become a mainstay of consumer electronic devices, telecommunication systems, biosensors and other devices. In computers, the light-modulating chips would primarily serve to send information between a computer’s microprocessors and its memory, a process called interconnection. The advantages of optical chips based on silicon photonic is to reduce the risk of overheating due to lower power needs, the ability to fabricate optical chips primarily with traditional mass-production practices in a silicon foundry and the expected smaller size of optical modulators and other optical silicon elements of the future. Smaller components help drive manufacturing costs down, and also transmit signals faster. The silicon photonic crystals that are the key component of the modulator to have large regions of regularly spaced, nanosize holes that light would have to traverse. Chen’s laboratory has continued evaluating the specialized silicon chips and learning how to change the blinking rate of laser light traversing their silicon modulator.

Portfolio 2- Active/Passive Voice

Active/Passive Voice

To start with Active/Passive Voice, we need to know that identified subject, verb, and object in a sentence.

Normally, a sentence is consisting of subject, verb, and object.

Example,
My mother is cooking dinner.

My mother is a subject
Is cooking is a verb
Dinner is the object

When sentence is written in active voice, subject comes after verb, and then verb comes after object.
When sentence is written in passive voice, object comes after verb, and then verb comes after subject.

Example,
Changing active voice to passive voice.

Active voice
The construction workers are building that tall building.
Passive voice
That tall building was built by the construction workers.

As we can see the example above, the one that highlighted in blue is the subject. In active voice, subject is normally place in the beginning of the sentence. When we want to change this active voice sentence to passive voice, we place the subject to the back of the sentence followed with a phrase ‘by’ (highlighted in red). While the subject is transfer to the back of the sentence in passive voice, the object must be transfer to the beginning of the sentence. In this time, the sentence will start with an object in the beginning, followed by a verb which is supposed to change it in to past perfect tense then followed by the subject.




Active Passive Time Reference

They make Fords in Cologne.
Fords are made in Cologne.
(Present Simple )

Susan is cooking dinner.
Dinner is being cooked by Susan
(Present Continuous )

James Joyce wrote "Dubliners".
"Dubliners" was written by James Joyces.
(Past Simple )

They were painting the house when I arrived.
The house was being painted when I arrived.
(Past Continuous )

They have produced over 20 models in the past two years.
Over 20 models have been produced in the past two years.
(Present Perfect )

They are going to build a new factory in Portland.
A new factory is going to be built in Portland.
(Future Intention with Going to )

I will finish it tomorrow.
It will be finished tomorrow.
(Future Simple )


Conjugation for the Passive Voice
We can form the passive in any tense. In fact, conjugation of verbs in the passive tense is rather easy, as the main verb is always in past participle form and the auxiliary verb is always be. To form the required tense, we conjugate the auxiliary verb. So, for example:

present simple: It is made
present continuous: It is being made
present perfect: It has been made

Here are some examples with most of the possible tenses:

infinitive
-to be washed

simple
-present (It is washed. )
-past (It was washed. )
-future (It will be washed.)
-conditional (It would be washed. )

continuous
-present (It is being washed. )
-past (It was being washed. )
-future ( It will be being washed.)
-conditional ( It would be being washed. )

perfect simple
-present (It has been washed.)
-past (It had been washed. )
-future (It will have been washed. )
-conditional (It would have been washed. )

perfect continuous
-present (It has been being washed. )
-past (It had been being washed. )
-future (It will have been being washed. )
-conditional( It would have been being washed. )

Exercise
Active or Passive Quiz
1. I ate a piece of chocolate cake. (answer: active)
2. The librarian read the book to the students. (answer:active)
3. The money was stolen. (answer:passive)
4. They are paid on Fridays. (active:passive)
5. The movie is being made in Hollywood. (answer:passive)

1. They make shoes in that factory.
_________________________________________
2. People must not leave bicycles in the driveway.
_________________________________________
3. They built that skyscraper in 1934.
_________________________________________
4. The course will be finished by July.
_________________________________________
5. The streets are being repaired this month.
_________________________________________

Answers
1. Shoes are made in that factory.
2. Bicycles must not be leaf in the driveway.
3. That skyscraper was built in 1934.
4. The student will finish the course by July.
5. They are repairing the streets this month.


http://esl.about.com/library/grammar/blpassive.htm
http://esl.about.com/library/quiz/blgrquiz_passive1.htm

Portfolio 1

In the 2nd article, I think that the most important to the profession is “The expanding world of engineers.”

From the day human started to civilize, things in this world started to change. From the basic needs like food, clothing, accommodation and even transportation have been improved years by years to make human more comfortable and convenient. Well, this all need to thank the great development and improvement of the technology by the creation of scientist and the improvising of the engineers led us come to a world now that we can have. And now, we have come to the expanding world of engineers.

In the article mention, as time passed, engineers are becoming so keen due to the need of the companies, organization and even nations. Engineers now are not just only building tunnels, or just manufacturing cars and aeroplans. They are far more beyond than that. Engineers are now highly needed to design and mange health-care systems, run data and a lot more as the grow of economy.

To cope up the demand of the society, more and more students are trained on this field. However, back to the day, only males and rarely considered to join this field, but currently, we can see that more and more females are joining in and are being active to contribute and make the people in this world for a better place to stay.

As we can see more and more students are joining this field to be an engineer, but this doesn’t mean that the world will be sufficient for engineers. The reason is because, this is not a stop for engineers to along. Great challenges are await them to accomplish like global warming, food, security and many more. Consequently, the demand of engineers will not stop until the earth stop it’s revolving.