Predict and forestall potential abuses

Nowadays, our living standard has been raised to a new level due to numerous scientific inventions. However, in order to avoid misusing any specific new invention, it is obvious that we have to examine and fully understand it. Take, for example, a new technology called fMRI-functional magnetic resonance imaging- is very promising in that it enables us to have a closer look inside one’s brain. Because this technology is so powerful, there is a need explore any of its respects to forestall even the smallest abuse potential. In my opinion, the best way to make this happen is to implement this fMRI broadly in all aspects of our life where it appears useful, says, criminal investigation, diseases diagnosing, security checking so and so on. Nevertheless, this activity should be regulated and observed carefully and regularly by those who understand this technology in order to give emergent halt as soon as potential problem arises. After that, feedback should be analyzed so as to provide people with a comprehensive scenario of both advantages and disadvantages which may occur if fMRI is deployed on a full scale. By this way, scientists, law-makers and politicians can work together to set up standards for deploying fMRI, both in terms of technology and ethics. Once all possible abuses have been detected and analyzed, people also have to answer the question how to minimize those possibilities. Personally, careful observation and compliance to standards set as mentioned above is the best solution. Also, a penalty for violating those standards should also be issued by lawmakers and politicians to compel people to comply with the laws.

Writing difficulties!!!

It is generally agreed that writing is one of indispensable parts of university life. For engineering course, even though writing is not the most important skill which a student needs to acquire, yet it cannot be underestimated for any reason. Thus, improving writing skill is by no means necessary .Personally, one of my difficulties when working on any writing assignment in engineering course is that I cannot generate enough interesting ideas to write about and grammatical mistakes also contribute to my writing difficulties.
Having attended module Eg1471 and read several books on university writing, I have drawn certain ways to resolve my writing difficulties. First of all, I will discuss ways that could help me generate more ideas for my writing assignment. Since most of engineering writing assignment is about responding to some scientific or technology articles, thus, reading more books and articles on the same topic will definitely help. The more books and articles I read, the more general view I will have about a specific topic I have to work on. Take my assignment to write an essay responding to climate change as an example. Initially, I had no idea what I should write about, where I should start and how I would demonstrate my ideas. Then I spent time working on articles on climate changes from NUS library as well as online resources. Different articles I read have varied ways to approach the problem and discuss different obstacles as well as solutions that encompass climate change. As a result, I have not only collected enough useful information to start working on my assignment but also acquired an in-depth view of climate change. All would help me complete my assignment with sense of satisfaction.
Secondly, grammatical mistakes also pose difficulty for me. However, since it is obvious that the best way to improve grammar in English is to study and do more exercises, this problem come into re-reading grammar lessons and practicing myself whenever possible.
Two of my writing difficulties described above can be tackle with a strong enough determination and consistence and I believe that I possess these two characteristics.

Climate change - Another effect

Recent expanded research and in-depth scientific reports have proven the existence of climate change by dramatic increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, people seem to be unaware of the critical side-effect of climate change which is the high level of absorption of CO2 ¬by the oceans.
Chemically, when CO2 is absorbed by the oceans, it lower the pH which is the scale to measure whether the water is acidic or basic. For a long time before industrial era, the nature has done a great job in keeping the pH of the oceans nearly unchanged about 8.1(slightly basic) through the equilibrium of acids from volcanoes and bases released by the weathering of rock. However, since the industrial era begun, the pH of the oceans has declined by 0.1 unit, a relatively small number for most of us. Yet, if we take into account the fact that the decline took place in only 50 to 80 years under the industrial era while it would take the nature 5000 to 10000 to carry out the same drop, such an amazing difference. Further predicts of another drop by 0.4 unit in the century and 0.7 beyond 2100 have been made.
The question is how the decline in pH of the oceans affect its ecosystem, and furthermore, us? According to the article, 89% of absorbed CO2 exists in form of bicarbonate ion (-HCO3-), 10% as carbonate ion(CO32-) and 1% as dissolved gas. Many sea creatures intake carbonate ion to build their own skeletons such as snails, urchins, clams, crabs. Carbonate ion also support the phytoplankton whose role in forming food chain in the oceans is indisputable. The more CO2 we dispose into atmosphere, the more CO2 ¬ is absorbed by the oceans which raises the rate of dissolved CO2 and thus, lowering the concentration of carbonate ion. As a result, creatures find it hard to build their structure, the food chain in the oceans is affected and the whole ecosystem may experience significant turmoil. Furthermore, throughout evolution, most sea creature have developed their metabolism subjected to narrow range of pH, therefore, change in pH scale could result in drastic effect to those creature.
We are counting on the oceans to resolve the climate change without being aware of the long-term effects and even if we know, there is one dilemma need to be reconciled “Society can continue to depend on the ocean for help, but the cost is a rising threat to all marine life”

Information adopted from "Rising Acidity in the Ocean: The Other CO2 Problem" , http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rising-acidity-in-the-ocean

Common grammatical mistake!

One of the mistake I tend to make whenever writing an essay is Subject-Verb Agreement (SVA) which is undoubtedly important to make reader feel smooth and interested in ideas presenting in an essay. Having referred to some kinds of books, I have drawn a correct grammatical usage of this structure as well as several effective exercises for anyone to master this grammar point. For SVA, we may not be confused when using simple tenses such as simple present, simple past and so forth. However, since the higher we learn, the more complicated and diverse grammatical structures we need to apply in our essay to attract readers, thus, mistakes are more likely to occur. The first note-worthy point is relevant to countable and uncountable nouns. Basically, after countable nouns in single form and uncountable nouns, we use singular verbs and conversely, after countable nouns in plural form, plural verbs are required. Another important point is “Each” and “Every”. As such, after these two words, we always use singular verbs. Take, for example, the sentence “Every man, woman and child in the world _____(need) love. We may note that there are three subjects in above sentence and some may fill in the blank with “need” yet this is not the correct answer since we have the word “Every” so that singular verb is the most appropriate solution, e.g “needs” . Another worth-mentioning special case is that when we have an sentence in the form of Subject(1), along with( together with , accompanied by ) Subject(2), then the verb in this sentence must agree with the Subject(1), not with Subject(2). Whereas, if we have a sentence in either of the forms : ‘Either Subject(1) or Subject(2)’ or ‘ Neither Subject(1) nor Subject(2)’, the verb must agree with the Subject(2). Last but not least, some nouns may end with “s” but they are not plural nouns including means, news, politics, mathematics, physics and so forth, thus, we have to use singular verb after these nouns. The rules above may appear trivial and familiar with you, but without regular practice, anyone can make even the most obvious mistakes. The content and example in this essay is quoted from the book UNDERSTANDING AND USING ENGLISH GRAMMAR (second edition) of Betty Schrampfer Azar .

Challenges await Engineering

Having read both achievements and challenges of engineering mentioning in two articles namely “Introduction to the Grand Challenges for Engineering“ and “The expanding world of engineering”, I have acquired invaluable incentives and orientation for my future prospective profession as an engineer in twenty-first century. Those challenges stated in both articles are visible and require the inter-disciplinary knowledge ranging from science, engineering, political to governmental and most importantly, environmental as environmental-involved issues has virtually affected many aspects of our life.

Among mentioned challenges posed by the development of civilization over the shoulders of engineers, I consider the fact that the distribution of engineering accomplishments evenly in the world (“Introduction to the Grand Challenged for Engineering”) as the most significant and undoubtedly, it requires instant response. As we are living in the planet where globalization has made it smaller and more inclusive, the interaction among people would vitally affected the movement of mankind civilization. As such, if in the world there existed any country or region where technology advances have not been updated to the sophisticated level to deal with local problems, surely the rest of the world would be impacted accordingly more or less. Take, as an example, the food scarcity and hygiene issue in Africa resulting from the shortage of technology investment. In this continent, many countries have been forgotten in the world map and the people here must live with a minimum living standard. Agriculture activities are made by hands or primitive tools due to lack of concern as well as technology aid from the rest of the world and this leads to an obvious aftermaths: millions of people are died every year of hunger, deadly diseases occurred and spread like wild fire because of poor hygiene condition, the economy falls far away behind the development of civilization and many others. More importantly, loving in such horrible condition for a long time is most likely drive the people here to the armed conflicts for food and, thus, putting Africa in incessant turmoil and moreover, posing a threat over the world security. Since a significant issue, distributing of engineering achievements should be concerned and carried out with a long-term consideration and involves inter-disciplinary attempts so as to yield the highest possible result and partly contribute to make the world a better place to live