INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION DIGEST

October 2007

Copyright © 2007 World Expertise LLC – All rights reserved

A periodic electronic newsletter for engineering education leaders,

edited by Russel C. Jones, Ph.D., P.E., and Bethany S. Jones, Ph.D.

 

CONTENTS

 

1 - International developments

 

2 - US developments  

 

3 - Technology

 

4 - Students, faculty, education

 

5 - Energy

 

6 – Journals

 

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1 - International developments

 

Sputnik I in retrospect – In honor of the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik I, the October 5 issue of Science contains three articles describing both the science and the politics of the event.  “Sputnik and the Soviets,” written by Roald Sagdeev, recounts the events which led from the capture of German V-2 technology by the Russians, to the R-7 project focused on designing a launcher for a hydrogen bomb, but which resulted in Sputnik I, to the sending up of Sputnik 3 amidst political pressure from Khrushchev. “Science and Sputnik,” by John C. Mather, an official at NASA and the Goddard Space Flight Center, tells of his own research which was driven largely by Sputnik I and the ensuing reactions in science and engineering.  Finally, “Sputnik and Satellite Astronomy” by Giovanni F. Bignami, describes Europe ’s post-Sputnik reaction, which was to emphasize pure science, rather than some of the applications which characterized the US efforts, such as the rush to put a man on the moon.  Bignami concludes with pointing out that the biggest challenge for European researchers now is how to establish priorities in the face of so many important possible projects. (See http://www.science.org)

 

NYU Abu Dhabi set to open in 2010 – New York University and Abu Dhabi Emirate of the United Arab Emirates have signed an agreement by which NYU will open a comprehensive, research-based liberal arts campus in Abu Dhabi City , with students scheduled to arrive on 2010.  According to the NYU press release dated October 12, NYU Abu Dhabi will be a residential research campus modeled closely on its US partner, including its endorsement of academic freedom.  The Abu Dhabi government will provide land and funding for the entire operation, and will actively work to benefit from the opportunities available through NYU’s many overseas programs. The partnership will be launched next year with the “NYU Abu Dhabi Institute,” consisting of conferences, short courses and seminars to serve as a precursor to the intellectual connections which will be developed between NYU and the Middle East .  (See http://www.nyu.edu/public.affairs/releases)

 

New report on student mobility takes a global perspective – The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education has issued a detail analysis of international student mobility, taking a global – not a national – perspective, reports Scott Jaschik in the October 10 issue of Inside Higher Education.  Eleven countries dominate the study, the so called “major players,” (the US , the UK and Australia ), the “middle powers” ( Germany and France ), “evolving destinations” ( Japan , Canada and New Zealand ), and “emerging contenders,” ( Malaysia , Singapore and China ).  Of those eleven countries, five of them ( UK , Australia , Germany , Japan and New Zealand ) have more students from China than from any other country, while in the US , Indian students predominate.  When elements affecting international student enrollment are examined, four countries are notable for not requiring a student visa for period of less than three months ( Canada , France , Germany and New Zealand ).  Tuition is US$5000 or less per year in China , France , Germany , Japan , Malaysia and Singapore , and living costs are estimated to be “moderate” in Australia , Canada , France , Germany , New Zealand and the US . (See http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/10/mobile)

 

Funds received for final stage of work to revitalize Russian research – The US Civilian Research & Development Foundation has received an additional $1 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation to begin the final phase of a multiyear effort to resuscitate research as a part of Russia ’s science education programs. According to a CRDF press release, the Basic Research and Higher Education program has provided a model which has “revitalized and transformed science education in Russia .” (See http://www.crdf.org)

 

More people to be evacuated from Three Gorges Dam area – As a result of environmental damage caused by the Three Gorges Dam, China has determined that four million more people will have to be relocated away from the reservoir over the next ten to fifteen years, reports Shai Oster, along with Kersten Zhang, in the October 20 edition of the Wall Street Journal. In preparation for building the dam, 1.4 million people were already moved.  While the Three Gorges Dam project – still incomplete – has opened the Yangtze River to larger ships, it has also brought with it unexpected consequences, such as the collapse of the river banks in 91 places, pollution in the new lake, and landslides. (See http://www.wsj.com)

 

Indian bureaucracy hindering urgent higher education reform – Bangalore , India , is the focal point for an article on engineering education in the sub-continent written by Lucille Craft and published in the October 2007 issue of Prism. While a huge demand for engineers exists in India , and large numbers of engineering graduates have started to emerge from India ’s colleges and universities, the fact remains that more than half of those graduates are unsuited for employment.  In addition, because qualified graduates with undergraduate engineering degrees can earn such high salaries, there is little incentive for them to pursue the doctorate, become professors, and help to solve India ’s dual problems of quality and quantity. New and better educational institutions and programs are being designed, involving Indians who have succeeded in the US and now are returning home to “give back,” enormously successful companies such as WiPro which need to promote the preparation of quality graduates, and even a religious leader, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, who runs a engineering university with a particularly Indian slant and supplements the curriculum with e-learning.  (See http://www.asee.com)

 

Plans to expand Indian higher education pressure a system already at risk – Last June, third year students at Jalpaiguri Engineering College in India went on strike to protest the fact that no classes had been held for six months and they were not prepared for their examinations.  Engineering colleges are among the hardest hit in India ’s continuing lack of qualified professors, reports Shailaja Neelakantan in the October 12 on-line edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education.  According to the Indian government, 57% of faculty in the country’s colleges lacks the M. Phil, or Ph.D. degrees, and sources say that some institutions have 35% of their faculty positions unfilled.  And yet in face of this, India has announced plans to create five new top-tier Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, eight new Indian Institutes of Technology, and twenty new Indian Institutes of Information Technology, as only part of a larger plan to expand higher education.  Evidence points to the persistent drag of bureaucracy as the biggest barrier to finding solutions to this problem: without changes in policy and laws, successful outside fund-raising will continue to be punished by budget cuts, faculty salaries will remain painfully low for even the best people, there will continue to be no incentives for high performance in research, research will still not be funded, and politicians will be unwilling to push for tuition increases. (See http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i07/07a03701.htm)

 

 

2 - US developments  

 

US advised to create a Science and Security Commission – According to an October 18 press release from the National Academies, the US National Research Council issued a report based on meetings held regionally with officials from both universities and security agencies and concluded that a new agency, a Science and Security Commission, needs to be created to review government policies and practices affecting access to unclassified research.  “Science and Security in a Post-9/11 World,” available on the National Academies’ website, suggests that the new commission, co-chaired by the National Security Advisor and the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, look into such issues as how to ensure that US universities are not subjected to un-necessary restrictions on unclassified research, that the designation “sensitive but unclassified” is not abused, restricting publication rights and the participation of foreign-born researchers, that the US Departments of State and Commerce review their export-control policies, and that international researchers in the US be offered a supportive environment in which to work. The report states that a decline in US research productivity would itself be one of the greatest threats to national security. (See http://www8.nationalacademies.org)

 

Twenty year plan for energy research facilities reviewed – The US Department of Energy Office of Science has published an update on its 2003 publication, “Facilities for the Future of Science: A Twenty Year Outlook.”  That study was the first of its kind in the world, says the October 11 press release, and included a prioritized list of 28 scientific facilities that would either be developed or upgraded in the coming 20 years.  The new report, “Four Years Later: An Interim Report on ‘Facilities for the Future of Science: A Twenty Year Outlook,’” contains information about each of the projects, including the status, the current priority and the rationale behind any changes.  In 2003, for example, the first priority was ITER, an international collaboration in the field of fusion energy as a means of generating electricity. Now, four years later, six international partners have been identified and the construction of the fusion reactor will begin in fiscal 2008. On the other hand, 2003’s twelfth ranked priority, “B-particle physics at the Tevatron,” was delayed and then terminated. (See http://www.energy.gov)

 

Gore shares Nobel Peace Prize with IPCC – Richard A. Kerr and Eli Kintisch, writing in the October 19 edition of Science, emphasize how the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and to Al Gore appropriately recognizes both the hard science and the effective use of media which together resulted in substantial change in public awareness of climate change.  The IPCC has harnessed the work of thousands of unpaid scientists to painfully forge intergovernmental agreements using the best scientific knowledge, while Al Gore, building on a career as an elected public official who respects science, translated that knowledge into a film, An Inconvenient Truth, which reached broad audiences.  The final word in this article, however, is given to Matthew Nisbet of American University, who warns that a new infusion of energy will be needed to persuade people that emissions will have to be cut. (See http://www.sciencemag.org)

 

US students won’t participate in math and science testing – The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), part of the US Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, has stirred controversy with its decision not to administer the 2008 TIMSS-A, a test of math and science designed for students finishing high school who have taken advanced math and physics.  The last time the test was administered, in 1995, US students performed badly for the most part, when compared with students from fifteen other countries, reports Jeffrey Mervis in the September 28 issue of Science. The NCES says that it doesn’t have the money needed to administer the test, and that it has concerns whether the student cohort is consistent around the world.  Skeptics think that there is a fear that poor results in this round would reflect poorly on the Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2002. (See http://www.sciencemag.org)

 

Fed spending for academic research falls in FY 2006 – In the 2006 fiscal year, US universities spent more on academic research, as did industry, while the federal government spent less, when adjusted for inflation.  That was the bottom line of a report from the National Science Foundation, writes Jeffrey Brainard in the September 28 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education.  The last time federal spending on academic research did not keep pace with inflation was 1982. Statistics on the universities which received the most federal funds show Johns Hopkins University in the lead again, and little change in most of the rest of the rankings, with the exception of two shooting stars:  Case Western Reserve University rose 20 places to 24th, and the University of Maryland at Baltimore jumped 19 places to 53rd.  (See http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/09/2007092806n.htm)

 

Tufts promotes careers in public service, non-profits – Tufts University, a private institution, is attempting to support students who want to pursue a career in the non-profit sector.  It will help Tufts graduates pay off their undergraduate student loans if they become, for example, public school teachers, or government workers. The move is part of a strategy to encourage students to consider public service careers as they approach graduation, rather than having their job choice unduly influenced by the size of their student debt. Tufts undergraduates leave school with an average debt of $14,400.   Data show that almost half of government workers become eligible to retire in the next five years, making the Tufts program most welcome, reports Linda K. Wertheimer writing in the October 9 on-line edition of the Boston Globe.  (See http://www.boston.com)

 

Fifty years after Sputnik I, US and Russia collaborate in space – October 4, 2007 , marked the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik I, the first Earth orbital artificial satellite.  The event jolted the US into defending its international role in science and technology and into beginning an aggressive space exploration program, culminating in the first moonwalk in 1969.  Now Russia and the US are partners in space exploration, and the US National Research Council is launching an international seminar series on topics such as the International Space Station, writes John Bavier in an October 4 press release from the National Academies. (See http://www.nationalacademies.org)

 

 

3 - Technology

 

Libraries become selective in their affiliation with digitizing projects – The Boston Library Consortium which consists of 19 research and academic libraries, has turned down Google and decided instead to align itself with the Open Content Alliance, a group dedicated to making digital material as accessible as possible, reports Katie Hafner in the October 20-21 edition of the International Herald Tribune (pp. 17, 20). The Google initiative pays for the scanning, but requires users to utilize its own search engine, and limits the amount of information that may be downloaded.  The Boston Library Consortium’s decision may signal a move away from ventures with commercial ties: the US Library of Congress has declined to participate with Google and instead had formulated a more open approach.  But some institutions, such as the University of California , are working with several digitalization projects simultaneously: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and the Open Content Alliance.  (See http://www.iht.com)

 

Survey on campus computing gives useful information – The annual Campus Computer Project survey results have been released, reports Andy Guess in the October 24 issue of Inside Higher Education.  About 60% of the 555 colleges and universities surveyed said they had plans for a network disaster recovery, and fewer than half have a robust emergency notification system in place.  Virtual attacks on campus networks are down; physical theft of equipment is on the rise.  Other items of note: network security is the primary concern of IT officials; wireless networks continue to expand in popularity; open source software is better in theory than in practice; iPhones and the ilk are looming as a future challenge; and peer-to-peer file sharing has caused almost 83% of the respondents to craft policies against it. (See http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/24/computing)

 

Work behind growth in hard-drive capacity earns two the Nobel in physics – The 2007 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Albert Fert of France and Peter Grünberg of Germany who simultaneously discovered giant magnetoresistance (GMR), the basis for the field of spintronics and the driver behind the growth in hard-drive capacity. A GMR film is a very sensitive magnetic field detector, thus making possible the design much smaller disk drives.  Adrian Cho, with Daniel Clery, writing for the October 12 issue of Science, points out that Stuart Parkin of the USA worked on practical applications of GMR technology, but did not win the prize. One observer from the UK defended that decision, saying that the prize went to the physicists who discovered the effect. (See http://www.sciencemag.org)

 

Africa Connect hopes to improve internet connectivity – Africa Connect is a conference scheduled for Rwanda in October of this year which is expected to put pressure on African governments to slash the red tape which inflates the cost of internet connectivity, and to move on getting schools, hospitals and ministries on-line by 2012.  Sub-Saharan Africa remains a desert in terms of internet availability: only 4% of Africans have access, and the cost of painfully slow connection speeds is exorbitantly high.  In addition, frequent power failures, lack of content and old hardware are barriers.  State run phone monopolies, fortunately, have been supplanted by mobile systems, thus offering the possibility of some improvements. This article appeared in the October 20th edition of The Economist, (p. 64). (See http://economist.com)

 

Single password makes life easier for users on many campuses – A representative of Penn State University says that when they adopted InCommon, software that reduces passwords to a single log-in, password-related calls to the help desk, which used to account for about 80% of all calls, dropped to zero.  InCommon is run by Internet2 and is now being used by 45 colleges and universities, along with some businesses.  Users are grouped, then given access only to specific parts of the network.  Since the groups are common to all participating institutions, shared access is possible, and collaboration is facilitated.  One initial roadblock is that decisions on who belongs to what group and what each group is permitted to access can be very political.  And some smaller institutions do not have the technical expertise to adequately manage their user identities. Dan Carnevale reported on this in the October 12 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education. (See http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i07/07a03101.htm)

 

Internet domains in foreign scripts set to be tested – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the non-profit group who run the Internet under contract to the US government, writes Catherine Rampell in the October 11 on-line edition of the Washington Post.  After many years of being accused of stone-walling the use of foreign scripts on the Internet, ICANN is preparing to test the use of domains written entirely in those scripts to determine whether they will crash the system.  Opening the Internet in this manner raises many related problems: which version of similar scripts should be used and who should control which domains?  While waiting for ICANN to act, some countries have created their own domains in their own languages and their own Internets to use them.  The consequences of these independent moves concern some people who think that this works against the openness which is central to the Internet. (See http://www.washingtonpost.com)

 

 

4 - Students, faculty, education

 

Paying the price of admission – “I can get your kid into an Ivy,” is the title of an article published in the October 22 edition of Business Week.  In it authors Susan Berfield and Anne Tergesen profile Michele Hernandez, former admissions officer at Dartmouth , prolific popular author, and very high-paid college consultant.  Over the past decade Hernandez has positioned herself as a leading elite college coach who will work with students as early as the eighth grade preparing them for college admission. Parents pay as much as $40,000 for such guidance: Hernandez claims she is 95% successful in getting her clients into the school of their choice. (But Hernandez herself plays a significant role in shaping the colleges her clients apply to.)   Hernandez is seen by many admissions officers and other critics as over-rated, opportunistic, and offensive.  But Hernandez herself is undeterred: she recently expanded her business to include exclusive four day summer programs, which next year will cost $12,500 per student. (See http://businessweek.com)

 

Indian vice chancellors hear call for reform – “Seven IITs and a few IIMs cannot be considered as a knowledge base for the entire country,” stated Balachandra Mungekar, a member of the Indian Planning Commission, around a recent meeting of vice chancellors from 400 Indian colleges and universities.  According to a report published in The Times of India in its on-line edition of October 15, India’s entire education system is in great need of overhaul: it is out of touch with the needs of industry, there are not enough teaching staff, not enough people actually go to university, quality is questionable and problems with women’s access to schooling persist.  (See http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

 

Report outlines what makes a successful school – McKinsey, best known as a consulting company, has written a report on what makes a successful school system, according to an article in the October 20th edition of The Economist (pp. 80-81). “How the world’s best performing schools come out on top” tells us that there are three elements that the best school systems ( Canada , Finland , Japan , Singapore and South Korea ) have in common: they hire the best teachers, they get the best out of them, and they intervene when students show signs of falling behind. Smaller classes are not proven to be beneficial beyond primary grades, and the best school systems in the world aren’t particularly generous in their teacher pay scales. Those countries, do, however, select their teachers rigorously: teacher training is a competitive curriculum.  Once in the classroom, teachers in the top countries are expected to collaborate with each other as professionals, so that they accumulate a body of knowledge together.   (See http://economist.com)

 

Groups call for restructuring UK undergraduate degree classification system – A group organized by Universities UK and the Guild of Higher Education has called for a complete revamping of the classification of undergraduate degrees in the country, writes Aisha Labi in the October 16 on-line edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education.  The current 200 year old system does not reflect the ranges of knowledge appropriate for the 21st century. The report includes a description of something that looks suspiciously like grade inflation in the use of honors degree classifications (First, Upper Second, Lower Second, Third, Pass, Fail), and recommends that graduates receive a more thorough transcript and the European Degree Supplement which is part of the effort to facilitate student mobility across the EU. (See http://chronicle.com)

 

Today’s campus slang is all up in your grill – Do you speak campuspeak?  Then you know the meaning of ginormous, stella, thigh five, sketchy, yam on and chillax. If all this is foreign to you, you can read William Safire’s article “Campuspeak” in the September 30 on-line edition of The New York Times. (See http://www.nytimes.com)

 

Virginia Tech to begin new doctorate in engineering education – Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering will begin offering a Ph.D. in Engineering Education, only the second program of its kind in the US .  The first students will be admitted in January 2008, and typically will hold a bachelor’s or a master’s degree in engineering, reports Liz Crumbley in the university press release dated October 4. The faculty in the engineering education department are interdisciplinary, and come from disciplines as diverse as English, learning sciences and technology, linguistics, mass communication and eleven different engineering areas.   (See http://www.vtnews.vt.edu)

 

Harvard’s new president outlines her aspirations, concerns – When Drew Gilpin Faust was sworn in as the first female president of Harvard University recently, she took the opportunity to speak not of specific plans, but of the themes which will define her leadership, reports Sara Rimer in the October 13 print edition of The New York Times (p. A12).  Faust made it clear that she opposed the federal government’s emphasis on quantifiable accountability and its focus on jobs as the primary agenda for higher education, and she emphasized learning and knowledge as central to our humanity.  Faust expressed her support of scientific research and of continuing to make Harvard accessible to a wide range of people. (See http://www.nytimes.com)

 

Olin College of Engineering educates for boldness, courage – The Olin College of Engineering was featured in a long article by John Schwartz and published in the September 30 on-line edition of The New York Times. After a brief account of the founding of the college, resulting from a bold move on the part of the board of the Olin Foundation to put itself out of business by investing all of its money in a new engineering college, the reporter describes what makes this college different, beyond the fact that it has no departments, no tuition and no tenure.  The president, Richard K. Miller, speaks of the obligation to teach courage, in addition to teamwork, creativity and entrepreneurship.  Constance M. Bowe from the University of California , Davis , School of Medicine , thinks Olin is creating a kind of stem cell, which can become any other kind of cell.  Assistant Professor Benjamin Linder says he is trying to teach young engineers to be bold.  In closing President Miller maintains that if the US had more Olin graduates now, it would be better off. (See http://www.nytimes.com)

 

 

5 – Energy

 

University helps make US capitol more energy efficient – Virginia Tech, a public US university, has teamed with an investor to conduct an environmental make-over for some buildings in and around Washington , DC , reports David A. Fahrenthold, along with Meg Smith, in the October 16 on-line edition of the Washington Post. The $500 million earmarked for the project will go toward reducing electricity requirements, thus saving money for the building owners.  Some of those savings would go back to the investor. Virginia Tech’s role will be to oversee the entire project, and to study its results. It will also educate the public about the project and work to bring about similar energy savings on its home campus, located 270 miles away.  Two similar projects have been announced this year, one in Cambridge , Massachusetts ( USA ) and the other, led by the Clinton Climate Initiative, will be spread over several cities around the world. (See http://www.washingtonpost.com)

 

The risky side of investing in nuclear power – Mark Clayton’s article in the September 28 on-line edition of The Christian Science Monitor takes a somewhat different look at the resurgence of interest in nuclear power for domestic use in the United States . Clayton describes the financial investments needed to build new plants, and how the risks and benefits from such investments are viewed in various circles.  The US government has agreed to guarantee the investments against defaults, recognizing that these plants are risky undertakings.  Wall Street investment banks are being cautious and are pleased that the government is shouldering the burden of risk.  The new interest in nuclear power plants is being played out against the history of the 1980s, when Three Mile Island created a panic, many plants under construction were never completed and companies went bankrupt.  Those who support the development of more plants look to nuclear power as an antidote to greenhouse gas emissions, although ramping up to a level where nuclear power could make an impact on global warming is likely to take many decades. (See http://www.csmonitor.com)

 

Ethanol prices drop, dampening plans for industry expansion – The rise and drop of ethanol has been rapid.  In 2005 the US Congress mandated the use of renewable fuel in gasoline, setting off a rush to build ethanol plants, writes Clifford Krauss in the September 30 on-line edition of The New York Times.  In January 2005 there were 81 ethanol producing plants in the US : today there are 121. During that same time period, the number of plants under construction rose from 16 to 80.  But now some of those plans are on hold, and the price of ethanol continues to drop.  One of the drags on the market is the lack of appropriate methods of transportation.  Ethanol cannot be sent through a pipeline, so it requires trucks, trains and barges to move it from the heartland of the US where the corn is grown to the coastal markets where demand is highest. And there is a backlog of orders for the needed types of transportation, rail cars for example.  A new energy bill requiring even more use of ethanol to be blended with gasoline would solve the industry’s problems, perhaps. (See http://www.nytimes.com)

 

Remote Arctic oil and gas field begins production – As demand for energy has grown more acute, energy providers have been driven to more and more remote places to find sources of oil and gas, reports Jad Mouawad in the October 9 on-line edition of The New York Times.  The natural environment which must be confronted in order to tap the sources has sometimes been, until now, too severe to make exploitation of the resources economically viable.  But one such field, 340 miles north of the Arctic Circle , is just now beginning to produce.  Snohvit, under the Barents Sea , was considered too difficult to develop when it was discovered in 1981, because of ice and extreme cold.  But eventually engineers came up with a solution: production equipment right on the ocean floor, linked to a processing facility on a small island 90 miles away.  The first tankers carrying liquid gas from Snohvit are expected to arrive in the US this fall.   (See http://www.nytimes.com)

 

Plans for solar thermal plants move forward – PV technology, step aside for solar thermal.  Governments around the world are offering incentives to developers who are claiming that utility-scale solar projects, using mirrors to concentrate the sun’s rays to heat a liquid, can be economically attractive and help meet new requirements for  renewable energy. Photovoltaic devices have been installed on a small scale for a number of years in homes,  writes Brian Womack in this article in the on-line edition of the October 1 Investor’s Business Daily. In 2006 there were 1,700 megawatts of PV technology operating around the world. By contrast, there are plans to have 5,000 megawatts of solar thermal capacity available worldwide by 2012.  As the price of fossil fuels escalates, the price of solar power, which is gradually declining, becomes more attractive. Currently, the price of PV solar is over $.30 per kilowatt-hour, as compared with solar thermal, at $.20 - $.22 per kilowatt hour. (See http://www.investors.com)

 

A primer on climate change and new fuels – The October 2007 issue of National Geographic features two articles on fuel.  “Confronting Carbon: Carbon’s New Math” by Bill McKibben, invites readers to calculate the rate of carbon increase in the atmosphere, then carefully translates numbers into explanations of the issues of global warming, a description of several of the remedies that are popularly discussed, and exposes the trade-offs inherent in the choices to be made.  He concludes by writing that “global warming presents the greatest test we humans have ever faced.”  The second article is “Green Dreams,” by Joel K. Bourne, Jr. It includes short essays on corn ethanol, cane ethanol, biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol, and the benefits, drawbacks and possible unintended consequences of each, concluding with a note of inevitability: if the Middle East is investing in renewable energy (and it is) perhaps the age of oil is really drawing to an end. (See http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/ngm.html)

 

Using PV panels at home – So you have decided to do your part and purchase some PV panels for your home.  That decision is the easy part, according to an article by Jim Carlton in the October 4 on-line edition of The Wall Street Journal.  Installers, good or bad, are sometimes hard to find and slow to work.  The panels have to be aligned correctly and the electric-conversion equipment has to work just right in order for you to recoup the cost of your home system in the 10 year suggested framework, even with substantial government rebates.  Leasing a solar system is now possible, putting the burden of operating it on someone else’s shoulders. And parts of a home can be converted to use solar, a carport, for example, which generates energy for a home and for a hybrid car.  Or just purchase one of the 2,500 homes being built in California that come equipped with solar. (See http://www.wsj.com)

  

 

6 – Journals

 

Issues in Science an Technology – The Fall 2007 issue features a “Global Tour of

Innovation Policy”. An introduction notes that innovation requires much more than

creativity in the laboratory. Articles describe innovation in several noteworthy countries:

Belgium , Mexico , India , Korea , Japan and the United States . Additional articles cover

global trends in R&D spending, ethanol policy, and fixing US dam problems. (See

http://www.issues.org) 

 

European Journal of Engineering Education – Volume 32 Issue 5 includes articles on personality characteristics of engineers, teaching fluid mechanics, cooperative learning, and engineering management science. (See http://www.informaworld.com)  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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