What Can I Do to Stop Climate Change?

Climate change is any long-term significant change in the “average weather” of a region or the earth as a whole according to wikipedia [1]. This phenomenon which is the earth climate change is normal since earth's climate is dynamic and always changing through a natural cycle [2]. But the 21st century has been facing huge problems which are the results of climate change. It has been the headlines of every articles, main agenda in every international and national conventions and the main topic of every discussion, a hot item anywhere in short. Add on to that the recent press releases in the televisions, newspapers and even in the internet that climate change effects have been going worst and years passed by and immediate but long term plans and solutions must be made to stop the continuing damages. Being a student growing up, this facts which are obviously contradicting each other and had somehow caused some confusion in my young mind. Why are we going to stop climate change if it is natural in nature? In what way climate change destroy the mother earth? These and a lot of questions were running in my mind the first time I encountered such facts. Later as I have grown up and learned a lot from all the information I gathered and learned from school, the answers to all the questions that made me confused for years were finally answered. The latest or the current status of the effects of climate change were already severe and that made me shocked when I knew the causes of transforming the natural occurring climate change into an abnormal force that drives human species from extinction in the near future.

According to www.edugreen.teri.res.in the causes of climate change were categorized into 2 categories; the natural cause or the internal factors and the other one is the non climatic factor, external factors, but it is now commonly called human cause. Natural cause as the word implies, are caused by natural phenomenon that are happening within the earth's natural resources such as volcanic eruptions, continental drift and ocean currents. These phenomenon contribute to climate change. But these phenomenon are natural forces in nature and there's no way for us humans to stop it. But what is really the alarming cause of climate change are those the results of man's daily activities. Because of the fast paced improvement of man's quality of life, the change of earth's climate that are occurring today have been speed up because of man's activities, and this trend has made the whole world worried a lot. The modern climate change is what we commonly known today as the global warming. The sudden rise in the average temperature in the earth had caused major calamities such as flash floods due to rise of sea levels because of melting of ice in some portions of the earth and stronger and frequent typhoons hitting the land. Many researches resulted to a common finding, the cause of this unusual warming in the earth's atmosphere is the increasing volume of greenhouse gases emitted by human being specially carbon dioxide (CO2). During the modern era, the naturally rising carbon dioxide levels are implicated as the primary cause of global warming since 1950. It is very evident that the main reason of such drastic rise in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emissions is the migration of people to industrialization. The fast changing trend of technology has worsen the problem of proper disposing of greenhouse gases. With more and more industries and devices were created which resulted more jobs for people over the years. More people from rural areas migrated to cities for such opportunities the urbanization has to offer. More agricultural land and forests were converted to urban lands and subdivisions to accommodate more migrating people. This land conversion also has become a cause for the speeding up of climate change. There are different scenarios of climate change contributions but share a common cause; it is technology that is the major contributor to the abnormal change in climate and global warming together with the inappropriate human usage of technologies. The present scene has becoming more complicated and severe because of the blowing number of people around the world all contributing tremendous volume of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “ that global warming is occurring and that is very likely 90% certain man-made. Sooner or later, this findings could easily increase to 100% if no actions or solutions to be taken. The fight against climate change and global warming is a serious war and everybody should take part of it.

Human being can be described as a criminal armed with high powered weapon and our mother earth is the defenseless victim. Guess what the high powered weapon that slowly killing the victim, “it is the technology”. Time will come our mother earth will die and the hope for saving the earth is in our hands.

The responsibility of finding solutions to stop climate change and global warming lies in the hands not only of the powerful nations and individuals but in the hands of everyone of us, every person living in this world. Everyone should contribute by sharing their knowledge and ideas that leads not only short term but long term solutions. Theres no need to be a superhero with superpowers to save the world from total destruction.

Being a student is not a hindrance in helping to alleviate the speeding climate change and minimizing the global warming. I can't deny that as a student, my capabilities and skills are limited, but in simple ways I can contribute to the world wide combat against climate change. Great things starts from simple beginnings as the saying goes. Experts and environmentalists from all around the world had identified simple solutions to minimize the effects of climate change. As I read some of them, I can't believe that the suggested solutions were very simple and somehow easy to do. Everyone regardless of their professions, status in life and educational attainment can do it.

But why was that the condition of climate change has becoming more severe in these past years if the remedy are very simple? The awareness to these solutions plays a major role in our combat for solving climate change and global warming. No matter how handy and easy the solutions are if everyone doesn't know and not even aware of the problem we are facing right now. Everything will be useless.

Awareness of Climate Change and its Solutions

As a student in the field of Information Technology, helping to the people specially those who are uneducated or unaware of the present situation of global warming and its solutions would be very easy for me. With the help of the internet and the web, proper dissemination of information could be very easy and very fast with the aid of internet resources and activities like blogging, forums, groups and even in social networking sites like multiply and facebook. The message could be relayed to everybody easily and quickly to level up their awareness level to the problem we are facing on global warming. I think if the people are aware, everything will fall into pieces. From this simple and cost efficient solutions, if everyone will do it, we could reduce millions of tons of greenhouse gases we emit on the atmosphere. In lesser time, life goes back to normal. That's the essence of sharing a bit of information to everyone. You help everyone to take part of the world wide combat against global warming without losing anything from you. Another way of disseminating information to increase the level of awareness of everybody is creating a advocacy group in school or in the community to have a full force in fighting climate change and global warming. Just like in the University of Southeastern Philippines – Obrero Campus, an advocacy group composed of Information Technology students were created with the primary goal of disseminating information on the effects of abusing the use of technologies in the environment. The group was called Green Campus Computing. Banners were created by the members of the group and posted it in some portions of the school and in some bulletin boards inside the school for all students and faculty and staff to read and also made them realize that before we have fun using our latest appliances and gadgets, imagine also the effects of using it too much. People in the field of Information Technology has the edge among other fields in our university since we are well acquainted on the latest technologies and its effects in the environment, so its time for us to return the favor.

The academe and the government also play a major role in the awareness level of its respective constituents. These institutions are powerful and influential enough to make its members follow. In the academic sector where I belong, the inclusion of environmental issues and concerns in school curriculum could be of great help and this goes to all school levels, from elementary to college level. If not, conducting seminars and forums about climate change and global warming in schools could again very effective. The government must join world wide conventions and initiatives in fighting global warming and they must relay the message to its citizens thought its different departments.

The biggest challenge for me as a Information Technology student at the same time an advocate against speed up of climate change and global warming was that how can I disseminate such information without creating any misconception or confusion on the their part. It is easy to say to them that using technology is the major contributor of speed up of climate change and global warming, but without causing any trauma that will force them to resist from using technologies. Life without technologies is useless. Technologies have become a commodity because of the benefits they provide to its users and consumers. I think people won't survive if there is no technologies on their side. Everything that is too much is not good and technologies itself is not exempted.

Energy Conservation and Practical Decision Making

Use technologies wisely, this is the best way to explain. We need to conserve every energy that our technologies are using. There are research findings that electronic appliances, gadgets and devices emit huge amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I think 99% of houses in the cities and urban lands all around the world have 2 or more electronic appliances and in a worst case scenario, majority using all of them at the same time in an average of 20 hours everyday. Try to imagine the volume of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases human being emit everyday and this goes for 365 days a year!. That's how our world has been experiencing right now. The atmosphere has been absorbing poisons coming from us everyday. I'm not saying stop using technologies instead, be practical in using it. Use only technologies or electronic appliances that serves your needs at a given time. Don't use all electronic appliances all together at the same time, this might cause overload and also might cause fire. The smoke coming from burning house could also contribute to climate change. From the average of 20 hours everyday, try to reduce it to 15 hours daily. The 5 hours less could reduce our greenhouse gases emission of a huge volume and could extend our existence here on earth for few hours. Unplugging appliances you are not using, scheduled ironing of clothes and turning of the lights when no one is using could be practical ways of conserving energy while saving some money from your electricity bills. Proper discipline and practicality of using technologies could be of great help in fighting global warming and climate change.

According to Sharon Hays, the leader of the U.S delegation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007) in Paris, France and also the deputy director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, “the U.S which emits the most greenhouse gases, has so far not accepted any form of reduction in such emissions, either as part of international efforts or domestically.” I wasn't surprise that U.S is the number one when it comes to the greenhouse gases emission since it is very evident in the civilization and the technology advancements of the country. But what made me really surprised was that the americans has not supported any efforts both globally and locally when it comes to fighting against climate change and global warming. They are reluctant to support maybe because they are afraid to lose a penny from their wallets and they don't want to sacrifice a little time of their pleasures for the benefit of everybody. I understand that people of these days specially in the highly civilized countries like U.S.A and Japan to live without technology but its up to their conscience. They are old enough to know what is right and wrong. The Philippines is a 3rd world country, and we emit a little less greenhouse gases than those countries like Japan and U.S. But what made me really frustrated was that 3rd world countries like the Philippines were those who were badly affected by global warming and climate change. Stronger typhoons hit the country leaving thousands of people homeless and killings lives of defenseless people. The forces of nature will not identify american or japanese to be its casualties (just a joke). What's the message of this is that why wait for them to action? We have our own little way of fighting global warming. According to Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), “ The economic costs of waiting to act will be severe.”. Theres no need to wait if we already have the solution.

Everybody has the luxury of using technologies for our own good. We have the right to use it provided we can afford to have it. People in the field of Information Technology like me even though I'm still a student must adopt to what's the latest technologies in the market. Sadly sometimes I can't afford to do so. At first, I was somehow frustrated but later I realized that always having the latest technologies in the market was not always good and could also contribute to the problem on global warming and climate change.

We cannot deny the fact that technology development or inventions and innovations are becoming very fast which resulted to huge no. of technologies in the market. People will buy this latest gadgets. But we are living in the age where technologies has become obsolete even before it is implemented or introduced in the market. With the rapid technological innovations, in a few months time, new models will be released in the market with added features than those of the older ones. Again, people will patronize such technologies. This scenario will recursively occur over time. Now the question will be what will happen to those obsolete devices? How are we going to dispose it? We all know that these are non-biodegradable. These wastes was named Electronic wastes or “e-wastes”. “These are wastes type consisting of any broken or unwanted electrical or electronic device” (wikipedia.org). Problem of disposing such wastes had caused a lot of headache to different countries since these are non-biodegradable wastes. As years passed, the no. of such e-wastes continues to increase. These wastes also contains substances that contribute to the global warming. However, there are some solutions to this problem like junk shops and recycling. But not all can be sold and recycled. Be practical in your decision making in buying gadgets and electronic devices. Being in the field of Information Technology doesn't mean you buy every new technology that will be introduced in the market. Buy only those that suits your needs. Also be selective on each technology. Buy those technologies that are environment friendly technologies. Choose technologies that are energy star and energy efficient. Practical decision making in buying and disposing electronic devices and gadgets could be of great help in the reduction of greenhouse gases emission in the atmosphere. As a student with limited resources specially financial, it is very easy to do it.

Looking at the environment I am leaving right now, everything were already dominated by technology. Bu just merely observing every technology human being is using, you can identify which technology contributes to global warming. That's why each and everyone of us should be aware and responsible enough to do our roles as human being. I believe that being a student with limited capabilities, I have the guts to make earth a better place in the future. As what I have saying in the early part, the battle against climate change and global warming is not an individual battle, it is a battle that everyone of us should participate.

We cannot change the reality, the reality that people depends on technology to survive. I believe that it is impossible to eradicate technology in this world. Human will not survive if there is no technology besides them. At the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 19th century, many thought that technology is perfect. They made people lives simple and organized. Later on they realized that the more helpful technologies were, the more destructive it becomes. God is really Good. Everything that He created were always in a balance.

As a summary, students play an important role in finding the solutions to climate change and global warming. Honestly, I was really surprised with the suggested solutions against climate change. I think if everyone knows it before, this problem should not get this huge and worst. These solutions seemed to be very simple but it is very difficult to do. People are obsess with technology. Sacrificing a little bit of their income and pleasure in exchange of mother earth's rehabilitation seemed to be very difficult to do. But reality again speaks to itself, we cannot take away technology from human. Technology is the key to success of mankind. But can we do it without compromising the life of our mother earth and risking our lives? I recall one of the folk song of a famous band Asin, “Hindi nga masama ang pag-unlad kung hindi nakakasira ng kalikasan” from their song “Masdan mo ang Kapaligiran”. We need to balance everything. It is not late to action against this problem. Just keep in mind that we are doing it not only for us but also for those who will follow us.

references:

[1].http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change#The_memory_of_climate

[2].http://www.eoearth.org/article/Causes_of_climate_change

[3].http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=10-solutions-for-climate-change

[4].http://www.loka.org/idt/SocialEffects.htm

[5].http://ccir.ciesin.columbia.edu/nyc/pdf/q1a.pdf

My Plans as an I.T Professional to be....

Honestly, I am not yet ready to be called a professional specially in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) because of the underlying pressures on this field. Everybody seems to expect a lot from you knowing the fact that the world today, regardless of what culture, races, interests and field you are, seems to be attached and connected by a single word “technology”. But what really pressures an Information technology professional is that he or she needs to cope up with the fast pace development of technology. I think every information technology professional is aware that we are all living in an era where obsolescence comes in an instant. Technology becomes obsolete way before it has reached the market. It is safe to say that technology has become a commodity. People will not live without technology and no one will disagree with me if I say so. People are really obsess with technology. As of this moment, a single day will not be enough to name all the technologies developed for the past 8 years. I always believe in the saying “ necessity is the mother of all inventions”, technologies were created to serve human needs. This reason somehow makes me excited to become an Information technology professional, I want to be part of this roller coaster ride of this technology development and also to serve for the good of mankind.

But the reality speaks to itself and I cannot escape the fact that I will soon belong to the world of Information and Communication Technology. But the toughest challenge for the Information Technology professionals in the future (and that's include me of course) is that what makes us unique from the present professionals with such brilliant ideas? And what will be the innovations and new technologies should we introduce in order for us to fully compete or even outperform the current technologies? These questions could provide very interesting and very imaginative answers.

The world that we are living in nowadays is facing huge and serious problems in spite of the technology advancements. These problems needs to be solved to save human from total destruction. Yes technologies were created to improve the quality of life, but it was later discovered that technology itself is the number 1 contributor to the number 1 problem the world is facing right now, the climate change or the global warming. Technology side-effects were later discovered through frequent usage of technology that inventors and developers have not anticipated and didn't expected to happen. This side-effects has forced every professionals to an option, a trade offs between aiming to improve the quality of live of every single human being and also to prevent the total destruction of the world because of these technologies. With this dismal findings, I agree with one of my classmate's idea in our Future Technology class. He said that “ technology that human created will also kill humans”. This fact is very alarming. But come to think of it, with this huge problems we are facing, Information Technology professionals will have the opportunity to think of the immediate solutions to minimize and even eradicate this problems. This will provide a bright future for the Information Technology professionals who will be the next in line to combat this problems that is the legacy of the technologies that once used by everyone to improve quality of life but now already part of our long history.

Now, if I assumed that I am an Information Technology professional already, what will be the innovations and inventions I will introduce and contribute to improve the quality of life without even compromising the life of our mother nature? This is my chance to broadcast to the world what are my ideas regarding the features of this new technologies. There's no need for me to wait for the future to speak up my ideas. Among of the technologies which I would like to introduce and innovate are the following.

All in one body check-up machine – the first technology will be in the field of medicine. This is one of the fields where technology development was in total focus. As of this moment, a lot of new technologies were proposed to be able to detect and recognize variety of human diseases without being manually checked-up by a doctor. This technology was introduced by our classmates in our technology class. The concept of this present technology proposal is that the technology is in a form of a microchip. No doubt that the main advantage of this technology is the portability and its size. But it has the disadvantage of putting human life at risk. Since it is embedded inside the human body, proper placing is very crucial. Microchip also contains silicon and other elements which are also poisonous to the human body.
Now, the technology I have in my mind is somehow an innovation of the said microchip technology. This time, the technology will be using laser effects to capture an image of the human body through scanning process. But this is not just simply capturing an image of the human body. The laser will penetrate inside the human body to capture and analyze the image and generate a printed report which will serve as the diagnosis results. The doctor will simply interpret the results to the client. The entire consultation or check-up process will last only for 20 mins than the traditional where you wait for a day or more. The advantage of this laser technology is that it is very safe to use and the generation of reports will be very easy also. The disadvantage of this technology is that it is bulky and more expensive since it needs a lot of hardware.


Cell sites as wifi hot spots – the next technology will be an innovation of the current state of wireless technology. Wireless technologies has been the most famous invention of the millennium. Many networks has migrated from wired to wireless technologies. This wireless technologies has been commonly known to the term wifi or wireless fidelity. But the current wifi technology or hot spots as we called it has a lot of limitations. First, is the distance. The signal from a wifi hot spot or access point could reach to only few meters. And this hot spots are not for free of course. Most wifi hot spots are commercial establishments, coffee shops and fast food chains where you need to buy something from them before you gain access.
Now this technology will use cell sites from different network companies to become a wireless access point (WAP). This will provide a wide range of wifi signals to allow users to stay connected over the INTERNET wherever they are. With this innovation, an entire city or geographical location could become a wifi hot spot. Although it is a little slower than the current wifi technology, this will provide greater accessibility to users. With this you can bring your laptop or other wifi ready gadgets anywhere without any worry of signal problems. But the best thing with this technology is it is FREE.



Artificial Intelligence for Solid Waste Management Problems – artificial intelligence is one of the well loved field in computer science. Everybody seemed to be interested in this subject matter. To date, this field has reached a lot of milestones when it comes to the capabilities and abilities that artificial intelligence can do. Lots of A.I projects were developed with a certain level of intelligence. The best example will be the deep blue machine by IBM. This A.I defeated the world's no. 1 chess player Gary Kasparov of Russia in a chess game. That are more to imagine when it comes to level of intelligence a machine can contain.
Proper garbage and waste disposal on the other hand is one of the worst problem here in the world specially in the Philippines. People are becoming lazy in segregating their garbages. And the result a lot of garbage dumped and becoming useless in the dump sites. People throw tons of garbages and waste a day both the biodegradable and non biodegradable, but our dump sites are not unlimited and time will come it cannot accommodate wastes anymore. This will be a problem that must be given a high priority and machine intelligence could help a lot on this matter.
This proposed technology will be an artificial intelligence (a robot or a machine) that has the capabilities to identify and segregate garbages and wastes. This task I believe is impossible for humans to perform but the intelligent machines as we called it could do so. If wastes are properly segregated, then good things will come out next. Biodegradable wastes could be used as a natural fertilizer and even used as an alternative to fuel through a form of methane gas. Upon thinking of this technology, I recalled the debate or the arguments that took place in our Future Technology class. The debate has something to do with could A.I eliminate humans?. This technology will be one of the answers. Why we think creating intelligent machines to destroy us if we can make them work for the betterment of mankind?
Actually, the capabilities of this technology is way way low from the level of intelligence the present machines could do. But what more important here is it serves a lot of purpose to improve the quality of life.


Automated electricity consumption controller for homes – this technology will be in a form of circuit installed in every home to control the electricity consumption of every home. This will function like a bandwidth manager in a computer networks. This technology has features to limit the maximum consumption of every home. A person can do this by setting up the average kilowatt per/hour consumption. Then this technology will control the consumption ensuring that the consumption will not exceed the ideal power consumption. This technology also is intelligent enough to do such things. For example, if it is morning, this technology limits the usage of lights and gives a high priority to other important appliances. This technology is flexible enough to cater the unexpected needs of users. This circuitry also acts as a circuit breaker in case of short circuit occurs in any appliances or wirings at home.

I am doubtful if this technology will materialize since the needs of everyone is dynamic. But the main reason for creating such circuitry is to fully maximize the power consumptions in every home also to prevent energy wastes. This is one of the ways to help lessen the cause of climate change.



The above mentioned technologies has a common denominator and that is to improve the quality of life without even compromising the life of our mother nature. We cannot deny the fact that everything in this world are balanced. Yes technology could change human beings completely; its lifestyle, its culture and its way of living. But exploiting technologies to the extent that it will destroy human race is injustice. I always recall one of my classmate's idea with regards to technology, technology was created in preparation for war. At some point he was right, but it people will just open their eyes wide and look around their environment, they will see the bigger needs of technologies to the improvement of human life. Now its not easy to become an Information Technology professional in the future. Not just invent and innovate in your mind. You also needs to think the consequences your brilliant ideas could create. Its a matter of life and death. Life because you create technology because there is a need. But death because you will never know that what you have created to improve your life could also be the reason for everybody to suffer. Necessity is the mother of all inventions. It is need that drives every human to create technology. But everything in this world needs to be balanced. This will be the toughest challenge for us in the future. How are we going to balanced or job with our responsibilities. Always remember that “technology is useless if human don't know how to use it in the right way” - RSG

Why Use Technology?

The rapid evolution was never expected by anyone even those who lived in the past. Although there are some expectations and prediction that technology will change the lifestyle of people, but not to the extent that everything seems to be just one click. In the past centuries since the beginning of the industrial revolution, inventions were made because of the curiosity of some great persons from the past. The benefits were later discovered after it has been developed and used.

Today, where almost all technologies from different fields were almost perfected, there are instances where the market couldn't cope up with the fast pace evolution of technology. New innovations were developed even when the technologies were on the peak of its success. But the questions are Is there a need to use these technologies? What are the reasons why we use these technologies.


Reasons why we use technology:

* make difficult things easy - technology can do things which are very difficult for humans to do such as in a construction or in a factory. Technologies were created such as computers were created to solve even the most complex problems faster than human can.


* make lives comfortable - comfortable not in the sense that we become lazy. Comfortable because of the speed, accuracy, accessibility, portability,economical and saves a lot of time and effort.


* fun and entertainment - users could experience of total entertainment through the technologies the market has to offer.



There are a lot of factors that influenced people to use technology today:

* History - the start of what the present looks like.


* Environment - the environment we are living is revolving around the latest technology. Now its up to us to go with the flow of our environment. But according to my sociology class, people will always be influenced by its environment.


* needs - lastly, we are influenced because of our needs. Needs that we need to satisfy.



Factors that leads to technology change:

* competition - the healthy competition in the market makes the technology continuously changing. Vendors keeps on thinking on the future features of technology.


* market demands - another factor that leads to technology change is the market demand. Because of the advantages that the technology gives to users, the demand for these technologies increases up to a certain moment that technology creates the demand.

Future Technology Proposal: Holographic Books

One of the subject offered in the Bachelor of Science in Computer Science of the University of Southeastern Philippines is the Future Technology. This subject is a very interesting subject because it allows us to know what are the latest trend in technology and how these existing technologies emerged in the market. But one thing that makes this subject very interesting and exciting is that we were tasked to look for a technology in which we will proposed on what will be the future looks like for our selected technology. This will force us to extract our creative juices for us to think of a unique and high-tech proposal.

The first thing we did for this subject is to create a group that is composed of 3 members each. Honestly, grouping alone seems to be a very difficult part for us. We are 4 in the group which are my classmates since we are in our freshmen years. This is the first time that we will not be together as group mates. We have decided to divide our group into 2 members each and look for another person as the 3rd member. So, settling our group alone was such a very difficult task.

The next step is looking for a topic to proposed. Again looking for a topic seemed to be the most difficult task for this subject. There are a lot of technologies but the main problem is what will be the future looks like for this technologies?. There are instances in life that good thoughts come in an unexpected manner. One fine afternoon, while waiting for our class, some of my classmates were very busy reading pocket books. One of my groupmates John Lee interrupted them by reading the pocketbook aloud and trying to imagine the scene. With this, an idea came into my mind to have a holographic book in which when you open a book, a holographic image of the content will be displayed and there will be voices which will serve as the narration of the content.

We tried to proposed this topic to our instructor, which he approved. Thank God the first part of our agony has come to an end. The next for our group now is to plan on how are we going to design that holographic book.

I think nothing is impossible now as far as technology is concerned. With the proper discipline and dedications, I think there will be no problems in creating that what we so called the future of book technology.

e=mc2 proven to be correct after 103 years

Finally, after 103 years of thorough study and experimentation of the one of the most celebrated formula in the history, the formula which was formulated by German Scientist Albert Einstein was finally proven.

The formula has been proven thanks to the joint efforts and dedication of the German, French and Hungarian physicists.

Using the mightiest supercomputers available, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.

According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons. Read full Article.

In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.

When I was in my high school and in my early college years, I have always heared of this formula E=MC(2) which was created by one of the most popular man in science and in history Albert Einstein. But that time, the theory of relativity in which this formula which is also interpreted as the energy and mass are equivalent was not yet proven. It takes 103 years of experimentation, research and analysis in order for this formula to be validated. Also it takes the intelligence and power of the latest supercomputers in which Einstein has never witnessed.

This proves that Albert Einstein is a phenomenal man in the field of science. His ideas is amazing that it takes more than a century for it to become a part of the reality. There are still ideas in which Einstein has been working when he is alive.

Not only that Einstein was known because of his marvelous ideas and theories in the field of physics. Also he was also one of the favorite celebrity to be made as a cartoon character. This is also the other way of knowing who Albert Einstein is.

"In light of knowledge attained, the happy achievement seems almost a matter of course, and any intelligent student can grasp it without too much trouble. But the years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alterations of confidence and exhaustion and the final emergence into the light -- only those who have experienced it can understand it."

-Albert Einstein

Reserch Topics Derived from SONA

Automated study of Land Conversion in the Philippines

Main problem in which the country is facing right now is the high price of rice. This is because the supply os very low and the demand is very high. There are numerous reasons on why the country is experiencing rice shortage such as calamities like typhoons and el- nino. But there are also reasons in which man made and can be studied and it is what we call " land conversion" in which rice fields are converted to crop land or banana plantation to earn more money.


The study will be a simulation model of the farms (by region) in which we can visually see the effects of land conversion to rice production. The model could be a good tool on showing the effects both positive and negative when land conversion is done in huge hectares. It is very helpful to all concerns such as the government and farmers in their decision making.

Software Development and Production Training for public high school Students

According to Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's State of the Nation Address, there will be a need for IT professionals and software developers in the next couple of years. Software development (aside from outsourcing and call center) will be the in demand profession in the future locally, nationally and internationally.


Objectives of the Proposal:


1. Provide students more knowledge on what are the latest trend and development in the world of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
2. train students the best techniques and skills needed for software development.
3. prepare students to be a good IT professional as early as possible
4. Furnish the talent of young filipinos to become globally competitive when it comes to software development.
5 prepares the country to become the source of the best IT manpower in the world.


According also to Dr. Randy S. Gamboa, there is no need to take a 4 yr. BSCS and BSIT degree courses to produce a good quality softwares. Even a highschool student can learn all the needed skills, training and techniques and can have all the needed resources to produce top of the line softwares. We can start training students as early as their highschool.


We filipinos are very resourceful, we can always maximize on the limited resources that we have. Our talent is not limited on what we have but on what we can do. That's according to 2 gentlemen from the IBM. Lack of resources will never be a hindrance for filipinos.

Pros and Cons of Free Text Messaging in the Philippines

In her recent SONA, the president mentioned the possibility of free text messaging in the country. During the time of her SONA, the cost of a text message was .50 cents. A study must be conducted to determine what are the positive and negative issues that need to be considered for this proposal to materialized. Although free text is very good for consumers but both sides must also be taken part to avoid bias.

Objectives of the Study:
- To determine the Pros and Cons of Free Texting to :

1. network providers
2. subscribers (of any type and level)
3. companies(both commercial and government)
4. The quality of services provided to the providers.

Publishing a research in Top-Tier Organizations

ACM and IEEE are two of the most popular and the most influencial organizations in the industry right now specifically in the field of engineering and information technology in general. These organizations conduct researches which are very relevant to the readers. Journals, papers and researches that are found in their websites are sure to be informative, reliable and relevant. Readers has a guarantee that what they read are reliable since it is well evaluated by such an expert. I think anyone can or have their work published on such prestige and well renounce organizations provided that you follow on the criteria which they establish. I have read some journals and researches and based on my observations, some of their criteria are as follows:

1. Relevance factor - is the journal or the research serves a major role in providing a new dimension in learning? Not only relevant to the readers but also the journal or the research also related to the context in which organiozation's are expert with.

2. Reliability factor - is the author of the research really has a knowledge on the topic he/she is researching? It is important also to know whether the author has a knowledge on what he/she is doing. Addon to the reliability factor, does the work is based on previous works or articles which are from reliable sources? It is also important to know that the theories and information are based from facts.

3. Uniqueness factor - does the paper has not been published before? or is the paper is not copied from the work of others? The organization must review the work very carefully to avoid issues like plagiarism. They must also inspect proper referencing styles.

4. Presentation factor - does the paper well presented to be easily understood by its readers? Or the paper/journal's topic is well organized for its readers.Seeing your work published in these organizations website means that you are a good researcher and your work is well recognize by everybody.

I think this should be the goal of anyone, to see their work published in ACM,IEEE and many more.

How Research are Evaluated?

It is very important for a work to be evaluated in order to determine if that work has served a particular purpose. Especially research paper, it should be evaluated thoroughy since it serves as a foundation of new knowledge in a specific field. Evaluating a research whether it is good or bad will play a major role in the development of the new learnings and also to determine its reliability and relevance.According to Todd Litman, "Good research reflects a sincere desire to determine what is overall true, based on all available information, as opposed to bad research that starts with a conclusion and identifies supporting factoids (individual facts taken out of context)."[1]. This means that a good research is conducted to prove that a certain phenomena is true or false but we need available information in order for us to support our findings. This is one characteristics of a good research.

For me, I can say that a research is good if it can solve a particular problem either global, national or local problem, or maybe discover a new dimension in the field in which it is conducted, discovery that will shock all. The research is important if it is being used by everybody in the society to solve a problem. In short, a research is good if it is relevant and can others can benefit from it. A research is also good if it possesses uniqueness. Unique in a sense that it is not conducted before. Although there are some researches already conducted that are topic related, the research should not be the same with the previous researches. A research is good if it is unbiased. A research should present its findings based on the results and the researcher must not manipulate data. And last, a research is good if it can provide consice and reliable resources to verify that the theories and ideas presented in the research were based on previous researches conducted prior to the work. These will make the research more reliable and also to prove that the researcher is doing some readings and has a lot of knowledge of the topic and not just pretending.

How Research are Evaluated?

I think these are the criteria for evaluating a research:

1. relevance - The research should answer the question "What is the purpose of conducting the research?"

2.uniqueness - "Is the research not conducted before?"

3. presentation (grammar etc.)- "Is the research presented well for readers to understand?"

reference:

[1] http://www.vtpi.org/resqual.pdf

State of Computer Science Research

According to Latanya Sweeney [1], computer science research can be divided into 3; theoretical computer science, programming languages and systems and artificial intelligence (AI). Computer Science is a very young discipline which is still evolving as years have passed [3]. Up to this moment, many research groups, companies and even schools conducting some researches regarding the 3 divisions of computer science research.

The article I found is entitled "Computers trained to "read" mind images of words" (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2939892820080530?sp=true). The article was about how the computer was used inorder to perform one of which I think very impossible to know or determine, and that is reading a person's mind by looking at scans of their brains as they thought about specific words[2]. This article belongs to the programming languages and systems division of the computer science research. As far as the state of computer science research is concern, this research marks another milestone when it comes to computer application. Unlike on past researches which focuses only on optimization of algorithms and mathematical concepts, this research focuses on the new trend of computer application, in this case in the field of human anatomy. The discipline of the research is really unique from other researches on the past. This findings is very important in order for the scientist to know how our brain stores information.

Technical topics Mentioned:

- human - computer interaction
- bioinformatics

References:

[1] http://privacy.cs.cmu.edu/dataprivacy/projects/csresearch1.pdf
[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2939892820080530?sp=true
[3] http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~feit/papers/exp05.pdf.
[4] http://www.answers.com/topic/state

Water-Fueled Vehicle

Filipino Engr. Daniel Dingle and American Stanley Meyer invented a new trend in automobile technology. The vehicle uses "tap water" as its fuel. The vehicle was called "water-fueled vehicle" or Hydrogen-Oxygen Powered Car (HOPC). According to this secret technology, through the separation technique called "electrolysis", 2 particles of water can be separated into hydrogen (2H) and oxygen(O) gases. This flammable gases will serve as the fuel for the vehicle which is a good alternative to ever increasing price of gasoline. According also to the U.S Department of Energy, hydrogen-oxygen is 50% more powerful than gasoline. Companies such as Honda, BMW and Chevrolet already released limited number of this Hydrogen_Powered cars. But the price is $300,300 or more than 12 million pesos.

With this new technology, 1 gallon of water allows this car to run a distance of 100 to 300 miles. That's a very far distance already. Conversion of ordinary vehicle to Water-Fueled vehicle is possible.There's no need to worry since all the electrical and mechanical system of the ordinary vehicle can still be used.

I think the government should support this project because this will be the best solution for the oil crisis that the world is facing right now. I don't know the reason why the government has no action for supporting the project. Mr. Dingle has perfected this research already for 30 years.

Water-Fueled vehicle is the best way to solve world oil crisis.

RP Made Solar- Powered Car Unleased

The first solar-powered car that was made here in the Philippines was finally released which will promote the country's usage of alternative energy like solar power. The solar-powered car was named "Sinag" by its creators who are students from De La Salle University Engineering Department. The car weighed 150 kilograms.

"Sinag" solar-powered car will represent the country in the world solar challenge this coming October in Australia.

Detection and Localization of Network Blackholes

According to wikipedia[1], blackholes in networking refer to places in the network where incoming traffic is silently discarded or dropped without informing the source that the data did not reached its intended recipient.

Detection and localization of network black holes was the main concern of this research. The main purpose also for doing such research is that there is a need for providing a new algorithm for detection and localization of network blackholes. The paper discussed the importance of creating such algorithm and how they have done it. The paper also included the experimentation and evaluation of the algorithm. This research is very interesting since network blackholes are very difficult to detect and to localized in a network since we are only dealing with signals and bits. It is very challenging to study such type of application.

When it comes to relevance, this paper is very relevant since this type of network problem is inevitable when transmitting data packets through a medium. There is a tendency that data packets silently drops w/out informing the sender that the connection was unsuccessful. Detection at the same time localization of this blackhole is very intelligent idea to solve the problem by providing algorithms for sending alarms if such scenario occurs. But take note of the title of the research, it focuses only on the detection and localization, not on recovery. It leaves as a challenge to other researchers and other technical reader that will read the paper to continue the development of an algorithm not only detect and localize but also allows the automatic recovery from network blackholes. When it comes to the presentation, the researchers explained the topic very well and provided information such as the experimentation. But one problem of the paper is that there are many technical terms and acronyms w/c is very difficult to understand specially for readers who are not familiar with the context of the research.

References:

[1]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_%28networking%29
[2]. http://research.microsoft.com/netres/publications/infocom07-score.pdf

Spam Filtering Based on Preference Ranking

Wikipedia[1] defines spamming as the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages.

The research was about creating another solution to the most common problem to the internet nowadays w/c is spamming. The research aims to create another solution to spam this time by using preference ranking. The paper discussed spam filtering algorithm and what are the features of this new algorithm of spam filtering. "Email filtering is the process of monitoring incoming (or outgoing) email and then taking certain actions to that email (Mingjun Lan, Wanlei Zhou, 2005 )[2]. This spam filtering algorithm uses the technique called the preference ranking. "Preference ranking is to calculate the similarity among various documents from a user's preference sources (Mingjun Lan, Wanlei Zhou, 2005)[2]. This research is very relevant in solving w/c I think a world wide problem. The cost of spam to factors such as waste of bandwidth, to ISP services and time is very dramatic [3]. These spams can cause clogging to servers and marks a huge increase to the load of email servers. Providing a spam filtering algorithm could be really a great help to lessen email spam.

Knowing the fact that there are already existing solutions or anti-spam technology such as gateway filtering and Heuristic filtering [2], the researchers completely explains what is unique in the algorithm w/c the paper discussed. It is advantage to readers to know such algorithms in order for them go gain insights about the anti-spam technology and what is unique about this new technique. The research also shows all the relevant information in the research such as the related researches being conducted prior to their work, the experimentation and the testing and evaluation. But one thing is not clear to me, it was not emphasized on the paper on what is its difference to other technology when it comes to performance.

The research is very useful and important because this spamming problem is not yet solve up to this moment. This problem will result to some serious problem such as server clogging, network traffic and most of all lost of revenue for company that makes a living trough the internet. It is a challenge for all future IT and CS professionals to create a more powerful algorithm to solve this problem.

References:

[1]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spamming
[2]. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ie5/10445/33169/01562654.pdf
[3]. http://www.prismemail.com/abouteconomics.php

Using Virtual Public Transport for Treating Phobia

Wikipedia[1] defines virtual reality (VR) as a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, be it a real or imagined one.

The paper discussed how virtual reality is used in order to treat phobia. The paper is actually a documentation of a simulation program w/c is used by patients for the therapy. As you read along the paper, you will find all the necessary information or important information about the paper such as its advantages, how the program is implemented and the hardware and software requisites in order for the program to run. The program by the way is a simulation of a train station complete with the sound effects in order for the patients feel as if they were in the actual train station. It is a great help specially for psychotherapist in dealing with their patients. There's no need for doctors in doing the therapy outside. But more importantly, another application of computer and virtual reality is discovered and computer is applied in a more important system as in psychotherapy.

Being a curious reader, it is not bad to assess and evaluate work of others. I find the paper very good and interesting to read because of 2 points. First, the author provides a background about phobia and psychotherapy for treating phobia. It is very important for technical reader who will read the paper in the future to know the background of the problem domain so that it will be easy for the reader to understand the paper. Second, the author enumerated the advantages and disadvantages of the system w/c I think again is very important. Very important for every research or application to know the advantages and disadvantages(if any) so that readers know what are the points that needs to be improved in the system in the future. This will also give an option for users to implement the system. But most importantly, bias were eliminated. There was hidden agenda from the system.

The paper goes to prove that Virtual Reality (VR) is not useful entertainment and educational field but also for medical applications such as in psychotherapy.

References:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality
[2]http://www.icdvrat.reading.ac.uk/2004/papers/S02_N3_Sik_Lanyi_Laky_ICDVRAT2004.pdf