How to handle your studies effectively?

1) Spend time everyday working on the subject matter

Devoting time periods each day for study means that frequent learning advancements will occur organically. Learning almost any subject (engineering, mathematics, economics, psychology) can be compared to learning languages – if you don’t regularly “use” it, then you’ll lose it.  Spending regular time reading, writing, thinking and researching each day will also get you into good organisational habits.

2) Understand via questioning

When revising material, ask yourself questions that facilitate understanding.   For example, if you are reading a section within a book, then ask yourself:  “What are the main points / ideas of this section?”;  “What is the author trying to tell me?”;   “Why does the conclusion follow from the premise?”  This will develop critical reasoning and enable you to summarise the section in your own words and style.

3) Concentrate for no longer than 50 minutes

Giving yourself regular breaks is an essential part of effective studying, as a break will freshen the mind and relieve stress.  My advice is to study for no longer than 50 minutes before taking a 10 minute break.  The break might involve a drink or snack to keep your energy up.

4) Consider simple cases first

Many people learn a new idea most effectively by starting with simple and introductory examples, rather than general and abstract theories. Get your confidence up by trying to understand a basic case of a more general idea.  By moving from the simple to the more abstract, you’ll master different levels of knowledge and detail, logically progressing to comprehending the ideas deeply.

5) Examine past test papers

If a subject’s syllabus does not change much from year to year, then it is a good idea to locate past test papers for the subject and to study them carefully. Complete as many as you can. What kinds of questions have been asked in previous years?  Not only will this familiarise yourself with subject-matter, but it will also give you a guide on what questions teachers have found important over the years, plus it will inform you on what level of details in answers / solutions are required.

6) Engage with the material to help the learning process

A positive attitude can go a long way to break down mental barriers to learning.  Try to stay positive when studying seemingly tedious or dry material.  If certain content seems irrelevant or downright boring then ask yourself, or your teacher, how the ideas can be motivated and contextualised.

7) Don’t give up: You can do it!!

If you persevere with sustained and strategic study habits, building confidence along the way, then you’ll SUCCEED in your examinations.  You can do it!!

By: Dr. Chris Tisdell

MIT FInal Year Projects

Nano-Set'14 -- Engineering Competition

The present energy crisis and future energy demands have triggered a significant interest in the development of energy sources and efficient power generators to cater the needs across the globe. Therefore, it is the need of the day to take initiative in this area.

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore is going to organize a three day International conference on the impact of nanoscience on energy technologies (NanoSET-2014) from 18-20 March 2014.

The purpose of this conference is to bring together ideas and solutions from all over the world where researchers, engineers, academics as well as industrial professionals from diverse backgrounds will share their thoughts for further development in building renewable sources of energy. The conference will cover areas like Clean Energy, Solar, Hydro, Wind, Biomass, Fuel Cell, batteries and energy utilization by means of environmental and economically sustainable technologies.

To deliberate on the energy technologies and to share their achievements in this area, experts from the international Universities especially; from KTH (Sweden), Delaware (USA), Manchester (UK), UCL (UK), St. Andrews (UK), Edinburgh (UK), Aalto (Finland), Tianjin (China), Tsinghua (China), Hebei university (China), and Lancaster University (UK) are expected to participate. The organizers/participants of the conference would be able to provide solutions based on the need of the 21st century after having free and frank deliberations on the energy issues. It can also help to make Energy Policies for the country.

Stress Analysis of different combinations of POPSICLES

What the heat is???

Heat has always been perceived to be something that produces in us a sensation of warmth, and one would think that the nature of the heat is one of the first things understood by mankind. Actually the mankind is looking in wrong direction. The nature of heat is very different from what we are thinking about, from millions of years. It is quite amazing to know that the thing which we are considering the simple one, and we are claiming ourselves to be the true interpreters of it, is still unknown to us until the beginning of middle of nineteenth century.

It is the middle of nineteenth century, when we had a true physical understanding of the nature of heat due to the development of kinetic theory. Actually the kinetic theory treats the molecules of a substance as tiny balls that are in motion and thus possess kinetic energy. These tiny balls (molecules) are capable of rotating about their own axis, vibrating about their mean position, and translation from one place to another. These movements arise due to intermolecular interactions, external disturbances and any other driving force. These movements, especially the translational one, are what we called heat. And the warmth we sense is actually the effect of these movements and nothing else. We are considering this warmth as a substance, and that is totally wrong. But there is another surprise here. In the mid of nineteenth century although we are able to relate that warmth with the movement of molecules but still we are not looking in true direction. At that time a French chemist Antoine Lavoisier proposed caloric theory. He says that although heat is generated due to molecular movements but it flows like a fluid like substance that is massless, colorless, odorless and tasteless substance that can be poured from one substance to another. Note that he is thinking the heat as generated by the movement of molecules rather than saying that heat itself is the movement of molecules. He says that when heat (which he called caloric) is added to a body its temperature increased; and when caloric was removed from the body, its temperature decreased. When a body could not contain any more caloric, much the same way as when a glass of water could not dissolve any more salt or sugar, the body was said to be saturated with caloric. And you will be surprised to know that the words like saturated liquid and saturated vapors which we are using today are based on this interpretation of caloric theory. So that is how the words saturated liquid and saturated vapor emerge. But there is another surprise here. Recent experiments shows that the thermal conductivities of the same material at same operating conditions are not same on NANO scale. But our recent concepts about heat suggests that it must be same. But a great deviation is experienced when two specimens of same material, one on large scale and other on NANO scale are tested for thermal conductivities. These results astonished the scientists, leaving room to again think about that what heat is??

Source: Heat and Mass transfer by Cengel ….

Research By: Engr. Ammar Aziz   

The World's first Seismograph

Actually seismograph is a word devoted to the measurement of earthquakes precisely. As far as earthquake is concerned, it is one of the most disastrous hazards faced by humans in their history, and still we are experiencing it.

As we all know that it is scientifically proved fact that the mountains are actually designed by ALLAH to control the earthquakes on earth. But there is a question here. Why earthquakes hit mostly the regions populated with mountains? The answer to that question is simple. Because most of the patients are found to be in a doctor’s clinic!!!

The history of china tells us that it experienced many earthquakes in ancient times due to presence of mountainous region. So to deal with that they strongly feel that they must have something to deal with earthquakes. Unfortunately in the modern era, we are still unable to control the earthquake but at that time a wonderful thing happened. A Chinese guy, Zhang Heng invented the world’s first ever seismograph for the prediction of earthquake. Let us see how it works. Actually this seismograph is based on very simple but intelligent principles of vibration. Ok let us discuss it:

The material chosen for this seismograph is fine cast bronze. This seismograph had a diameter of eight ‘chi’, and was shaped like a wine jar. Keep in mind that ‘chi’ is the unit of length used by Chinese for the measurement of length in ancient times. Calculations show that one chi is almost equal to 0.237 meters. As in this case the diameter of wine jar is eight chi, it implies that its diameter is almost 1.896 meters. So now it is easy to imagine the size of that seismograph. Inside this wine jar, Zhang Heng made it possible to hang a mass with some string (you can say it a pendulum). He clamped the string at the one end with a hole in the top lid of the wine jar. And at the second end he attached a mass. After adjusting the pendulum within the jar he surrounded the pendulum within the jar by eight levers pointing in eight directions. These levers are aligned in such a way that the angle between them is 45 degrees. So that the eight levers are covering the 360 degrees. He projected the some length of levers outside the wine jar and here he attached the crafted dragon mouths. So there are 8 dragons total on the outside of jar. Below each dragon he precisely aligned the crafted toads. Zhang Heng then place the balls within the mouth of each dragon. Now let us see how this arrangement works. A strong earthquake in any direction would tilt the pendulum inside the jar in that direction. The mass of pendulum strikes the lever in that direction. Due to which this lever transforms the momentum from the mass of the pendulum to corresponding ball within the mouth of the dragon. This ball fell in the mouth of the toad with clanging sound. So two purposes are achieved simultaneously with this invention. It enabled the personnel to determine the time of earthquake by hearing the clanging sound of ball. And it enabled the personnel to determine the direction of occurrence of earthquake by determining that which ball among the eight fell into the mouth of toad. It is quite amazing to know that how intelligently people are thinking at that time.

Conceived and Complied by: Engr. Ammar Aziz