portfolio 5

The technology that can be used to read people’s mind seems unbelievable at first, but it has been created by scientists. In fact, it does not tell what the person tested is thinking directly. This technology can show the activity of the brain tested, and researchers will study the graph of the brain to predict what the person is thinking. Undoubtedly, this technology has the function to read one’s mind. According to Lou Marano, this brain mapping technology can help some deaf people to hear and reveal the contents of a person’s memory and so on. Such technology, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), however still has some unethical abuses. Firstly, this technology is not developed enough yet. The accuracy needs to be increased. A technology which is not well developed cannot be put into use. Also, since this technology cannot have the right prediction, people cannot rely on this method. The result of it can only be a reference for examiner. Secondly, some criminals may also want to use this technology to know some information. Some security information is so important that it relates the lives of many people. Once those criminals control such technology, it is quite dangerous. It is just like drug. It can be used to save lives. However, if it is abused, some lives will be in danger. So in such situations, the use of fMRI should be limited. The purpose of using should be checked when using fMRI. Besides, this technology, brain mapping, can show what a person is thinking. There is a large chance that people do not want the others know what they are thinking. When applying this technology, people who using it should have the consent of people tested and the result should also be kept well. The graph of the brain mapping is also a kind of privacy.

E-Portfolio4

In my engineering classes, I have writing tasks only in lab. Although it seems that writing a lab report is not as difficult as writing a poem, it is still difficult for me for a various reasons. At first, since I have never write lab reports in English, I need some time to adjust to this kind of writing style. In my hometown, I have only written lab report in Chinese. The English lab report is a totally new thing for me. Besides the new writing style, I have difficulty in the accuracy in writing the lab report. I do not know the name of those apparatus and laws. Most of the time, I can merely use some simple inaccurate words to replace those unfamiliar words. The lab report written in this way will definitely not be nice. This is also a major problem. I had just done a physics lab this morning. When I was writing the lab report, I found that it was even harder than conducting the experiment. I met many situations that I thought for a name of something I used during the lab. I even do not know how to find those names in dictionary. These are the writing difficulties I meet in engineering classes. To solve this problem, I need to enlarge my vocabulary. I should remember more words to help me understand the experiment and write lab reports. However, it is not easy. Some words I will not meet except in experiments. For these words, I can only try to take some note whenever I meet them. It will take a long time. All in all, to learn English well, working hard is the only way.

E-portfolio3

Lack of water is now a serious problem in almost every country. Providing Access to Clean Water precisely introduces the serious situation of lack of clean water and some technologies to solve this problem. Our planet has enough water actually, but clean water cannot be found in some places where people suffer from shortage of clean water. In some regions having enough water, people still cannot have access to it because of political and economic reasons. Besides, agriculture and industry take most of water we use. Although we have enough water in our planet, we cannot use it because it is in oceans. Salty water takes up most of the water in our planet. And in the small percent of the water in the world, most of it exists as snow or ice. People cannot use it directly. Usually we humans use the water from underground. However, humans use it so fast that it even cannot refill itself. Nowadays, clean water is transited from where it is abundant to where it is in short in some countries, but this method is not perfect and it still has some drawbacks. It cannot be applied for a long term. People now use different methods to deal with scarcity of water. Desalination is one of the methods used, especially in Middle East. It can provide clean water significantly, but it can only be applied in some seaside cities in rich countries because of high expense. To improve the method of recycling wastewater is another way to provide clean water. The recycled water can be put to use in industry. Also, people can try to reduce the water use. In recent years, finding more water resource is tough, but people can try to use water efficiently. Furthermore, people also need to find some methods to deal with uneven distribution of water. All in all, engineers still have to face this serious lack of water.

Reference: Grand Challenges for Engineering, Sep 26,2008 http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9142.aspx?printThis=1

Articles(W5T2)

I usually made some grammar mistakes when I speak or write in English. When I communicate with others in English, I have not enough time to think about whether the next sentence is correct or not. When I write in English, I also get confused when trying to form some complex sentences. Among those grammar mistakes I usually made, mistakes on the uses of articles are common. Although the use of articles seems easy, it is important in academic writing. In daily life, we may not pay much attention to these small mistakes. However, when doing some academic writing, we will get used to those wrong uses in oral English. That is why we should pay attention to articles. Articles include “a”, “an” and “the”. “A” and “an” are both used before single thing. For example, we say “there is a banana/there is an apple on the table” when the number of the fruit is one. There is one thing needed to be emphasized. “An” should only be used before the words whose phonetics begin with vowels. Some words like “uniform” and “university” are special. They begin with a, e, i, o, u, but “an” cannot be used before them. Besides, some other words like “eight” should be used after “an”. “The” is used when word after it are mentioned before. For instance, we should say “the banana on the table/ the apple on the table” when we want to talk about the fruit we mention above. Sometimes, there are some special situations. When we want to talk about some unique things, we should use the, like the sun, the earth. Some countries’ names also have “the”, for example, the united kingdom and the United States of America. Furthermore, in some situations we do not need to use articles. When the following word is in plural form, there will be no articles. It will be quite confusing when choosing the articles.And in the following part are some practices.
Fill in the gaps in this story, using a, an, the, or the zero article (Ø)

Last week I went to ________ exhibition of ________ paintings at ________ Tate Gallery in London. I’m not really ________ great art lover but I’d read lots of good reviews of ________ exhibition and I was keen to see it. When I arrived, there were already some people waiting outside for ________ doors to open. I joined ________ queue and in ________ end ________ doors opened and we went inside to see ________ show.

Now I must be honest and admit that many of ________ paintings disappointed me. Although I spent a lot of time looking carefully at ________ each one, I had difficulty understanding what ________ artist was getting at. Finally as I was looking rather stupidly at one of ________ paintings and trying to decide if it was ________ right way up or not, ________ old gentleman came up behind me and started to explain ________ whole thing to me. He kindly answered all of ________ my questions and we talked for over ________ hour. Then he said he had ________ appointment and had to go, so we shook hands and said goodbye. I went round the gallery once more and now I found that all ________ paintings seemed really beautiful.

It was only as I was leaving ________ gallery that I found out who ________ old man was- his self-portrait was on ________ posters advertising ________ exhibition!

(Taken from Progress to First Certificate Student’s Book by Leo Jones, CUP 1990)
Answer:
Last week I went to an exhibition of Ø paintings at the Tate Gallery in London. I’m not really a great art lover but I’d read lots of good reviews of the exhibition and I was keen to see it. When I arrived, there were already some people waiting outside for the doors to open. I joined the queue and in the end the doors opened and we went inside to see the show.

Now I must be honest and admit that many of the paintings disappointed me. Although I spent a lot of time looking carefully at Ø each one, I had difficulty understanding what the artist was getting at. Finally as I was looking rather stupidly at one of the paintings and trying to decide if it was the right way up or not, an old gentleman came up behind me and started to explain the whole thing to me. He kindly answered all of Ø my questions and we talked for over an hour. Then he said he had an appointment and had to go, so we shook hands and said goodbye. I went round the gallery once more and now I found that all the paintings seemed really beautiful.

It was only as I was leaving the gallery that I found out who the old man was- his self-portrait was on the posters advertising the exhibition!

(Taken from Progress to First Certificate Student’s Book by Leo Jones, CUP 1990)
Read the passage below and edit it by filling in the correct articles: ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’, or ‘zero article’(Ø). There are twenty errors altogether.

Personal information management has come long way since Filofax became ‘in’ thing for executives in late 1980’s.

Today, diaries are no longer made of paper- they are mini computers which can process information at touch of a button, allow users to surf Internet or even play music video clips. Not only that, typical personal digital assistant (PDA) can have memory capacity of 16 to 96 MB, or enough space to store information kept in more than 100 paper diaries.

Ever since Palm- mother of modern-day PDAs- launched Palm Pilot in 1996, much has changed. Colour screens and vast leaps in memory capacity have changed humble handheld gadget from mere digital Filofax to pocket multimedia hub.

However, once you decide to buy handheld products, it doesn’t stop there. More than 145,000 developers for Palm operating system (OS) alone are busy producing software and hardware accessories. This means that users can attach anything to their PDAs, from digital cameras to devices that massage their backs. Your palmtop can also be television remote control unit, game theatre, database, book reader, humble pocket calculator and even phone.

Some traditional phone manufacturers like Motorola (Accompli A388, available next month) and Nokia (Communicator 9210, available now for $1288) satisfy convergence -gadget fans by putting useful diary functions into their handsets. But Palm OS and Pocket PC products are still superior PDAs. Choice between two, however, is personal.

(Adapted from an article by Steve Dawson - Tech Talk, The Straits Times: Thursday, April 4, 2002)
Exercise 2 Answer Key

Read the passage below and edit it by filling in the correct articles: ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’, or ‘zero article’. There are twenty errors altogether.

Personal information management has come a long way since the Filofax became the ‘in’ thing for executives in late the 1980’s.

Today, diaries are no longer made of paper- they are mini computers which can process information at the touch of a button, allow users to surf the Internet or even play music video clips. Not only that, typical personal digital assistant (PDA) can have a memory capacity of 16 to 96 MB, or enough space to store the information kept in more than 100 paper diaries.

Ever since Palm- the mother of modern-day PDAs- launched the Palm Pilot in 1996, much has changed. Colour screens and vast leaps in memory capacity have changed the humble handheld gadget from a mere digital Filofax to a pocket multimedia hub.

However, once you decide to buy handheld products, it doesn’t stop there. More than 145,000 developers for the Palm operating system (OS) alone are busy producing software and hardware accessories. This means that users can attach anything to their PDAs, from digital cameras to devices that massage their backs. Your palmtop can also be a television remote control unit, game theatre, database, book reader, humble pocket calculator and even a phone.

Some traditional phone manufacturers like Motorola (Accompli A388, available next month) and Nokia (Communicator 9210, available now for $1288) satisfy convergence -gadget fans by putting useful diary functions into their handsets. But the Palm OS and the Pocket PC products are still the superior PDAs. The choice between the two, however, is personal.

(adapted from an article by Steve Dawson - Tech Talk, The Straits Times: Thursday, April 4, 2002)

The first item

In my opinion, one idea of Introduction to the Grand Challenges for Engineering is the most important to the profession. In that article, we can see a large number of grand challenges which have not been solved by engineers. These challenges are from various realms. Engineers from different countries face some problems together. Humans have to find some new resources to replace fossil fuels. And several environmental problems await engineers. The quality and quantity of water also worries engineers a lot. Although engineers have accomplished a lot of achievements, new challenges always come out as the time goes on. However, what concerns more is not whether engineers can find a solution. Engineers not only find out solution of these problems in laboratory, they have to find some feasible solutions. Engineers should apply what scientists find out into our daily life, so they will face our society. That solution must be as cheap as possible; otherwise government may not use it even if it is the most effective. Engineers should consider about money when overcoming various barriers. They need money to continue the research and live their own lives. They also have to face political obstacles. To solve some grand challenges needs the help from government. Besides, engineers also need to persuade people to try their new methods. What engineers face is not merely some technical barriers. We may believe engineers can solve most of the problems in laboratory, but they cannot apply all of them in daily life. Furthermore, as mentioned in the article, the achievements of engineers are distributed unevenly. Although in some developed countries people can benefit from engineers’ gifts, there are still a large number of people staying in poor life. Nevertheless, we can still believe that engineers can finally find out solutions and make the world a better place.