Day 1:
1. Importance of Water - Dirty and Clean (Professor Ng
Wun Jern)
I have learnt a few things from this plenary session.
Firstly, I knew more about the specific diseases such as Cholera, Typhoid
Fever, and Dysentery and not all
microbes are bad. Secondly, I have learnt why should pollution bother how bad
it is and us. Some examples of how pollution affects us are smell, chronic
health risk, social and economical impacts. Also, 1.1 billion people have no access to water and 2.4 billion
people have inadequate water
sanitation. Lastly, I understood that there are still solutions to solve the
problems and that an expanding industries meets urgent needs where innovation
and entrepreneurship opportunities for students. And some of the technologies
used are membranes for reclamation and water distillation. It will be an
opportunities to make a difference for others and not only for yourself.
2. Revolution of Microelectronics Technology
(Professor Yeo Kiat Seng)
Microelectronics Technology are the transformation of
higher value added products. This is due to supply change and increase of
customer needs. This plenary session have talked about Integrated Circuits and
how Electronics are used. Integrated Circuits are invented in year 1958 and
Electronics in pervasive - the
'brain' of electronics gadgets. Electronics enables entertainment, medicine,
communication and transport. Also, I have learnt an acronym regarding
Integrated Circuits. There are Nine 'O's in Integrated Circuits - Bio, Radio, Auto, Info, Nano, Water=Hydro=H20, Audio, Video, Energy=m.c^2=m.c^two.
The use of Bio-nano Electronics are programmable blood, electronic contact
lens, brain implant, epiretinal implant-which enables the blind to see. A
question was asked, Will brain implant cause cancer? The reply by the professor
was no, reason being that the frequency of the brain implant can be turned down
which will reduce the radioactive waves.
3. Innovative breakthroughs in Nano-Science and
Nano-Technology (Professor Ma Jan)
This plenary session is about Bio-Technology,
Nano-Technology and Defense Technology. I have learnt a few things in this
session. Firstly, I learnt about the concept of smaller size for a fixed volume
= larger surface area. Secondly, I have found out that in the future, there
will be Quantum Dots (QD), which will shrink huge amount of information into a
small object. The example given was that it is able to shrink information of
house of library of congress in a sugar cube. Lastly, I have learnt that nano-technology
can form a very strong material. Such material is usually called Biomineralized
Fluoridate. An example of how this material works will be through the use of
making a soldier's armor. This allows the soldier to have better protection
that then enables them to stay longer in the battlefield. Another example of
how using nano-technology can be used to build nano-object such as flies to
spot its enemy way up in the sky or very near them. This will help the soldier
to locate their enemy easier and faster.
4. IT for Animation (Professor Seah Hock Soon)
Computer animation is used predominantly used in video
games, and movies are also increasingly reliant on animation and computer
graphics special effects. This plenary session have taught me a few things.
Firstly, animation usually used 24 frames per second and one kind of animation
will be stop motion that is storytelling. It will be drawing many frames and
filming it all at one go. However, such kind of animation requires manual labor
and it will cost alot of money to hire people to draw the frames for the
animation, as it is tedious and tough. Secondly, I have also found out that it
will be much cheaper to use 3D animation instead of 2D as 3D do not depend much
on manual labor but through the use of IT instead. Lastly, mathematics are
involved such as Linear Algebra, Geometry and Calculus. In this plenary
session, I can see that we can use IT for Animation and how does IT really
help.
5. Disappearing glaciers, rising sea levels, and why
gravity is even more important than you think (Assistant Professor Emma Hill)
The most important point in this plenary session is
that sea-level rise will not be the same everywhere. The sea-level rise 1.8mm
each year. The speaker have showed us a diagram of the Earth and said that when
the glaciers melt, not only will the sea levels rise but the land area which is
covered with glaciers will rise. She showed us a module of the earth and that
the glaciers are pushing down the land and causing the land to be lower than
other parts of the world. A satellite that is called The Gravity Recovery and
Climate Experiment (GRACE) obtains this module. Another thing I have learnt
through the talk is that sea-level rise will be highest and farthest from the
glaciers. For this, many of us who do not think that sea-level rise will affect
us will actually be wrong. Therefore, we need to start planning ahead on
finding a solution to solve the problem.
