Me, UTM and Featured
On September 3, 2008 I posted a post regarding Reader's Digest publishing an adverts of UTM in which it contain my handsome photo.
This time around it's my alma mater who features my group photo on her website. This photo was taken by UncleSeng but somehow we don't know how the photo fell into the webmaster's hands.
Never mind about that, at least this shows that our photo is very hot and lookable.
Featured on UTM website on August 15, 2009
The one posing on the left is me, with my glasses of course! Just my random make about, I think God is reminding me of something, something very important. I think he's calling me to complete my second degree as soon as possible. God, if it's what you want, please do help me with this. Juggling between working life, financial and study is sure tough.
Eurocodes: Structures
Eurocodes: Moving with the times
From March 2010, all public sector works (in Europe) will need to be designed to Eurocodes and British Standards will no longer be updated. There are ten Eurocodes in total – one explaining the basis of design to Eurocodes and the principles behind them, one explaining load cases to be considered, one for each of the major materials – steel, concrete, timber, masonry, aluminium and composite construction – one for seismic design and one for geotechnical design. Each consists of a number of parts and is accompanied by national annexes, which give country specific values and guidelines. All ten Eurocodes have now been published as well as a large majority of the national annexes.
For your info, Eurocodes are a set of codes of practice for designing and buildings and civil engineers structures that are internationally unified.
As Europe moves to replace British Standards with Eurocodes, I believe Malaysia (which relies very much on the British Standards) will soon have to adapt to the new design codes. In my undergraduate years, I still remember the two codes which we used in our structural design works - BS 8110 and BS 5950. BS 8110 is the soul for reinforced concrete design while BS 5950 is for structural steelwork.
I don't know if it's a good thing or bad to change, but from what I know the change will be a good one as it is based on the latest science and positive advancement on the methods used. It also moves to narrow the discrepancies in the engineering vocabulary used across the globe. Having said that, lots of effort had been poured in to make this change.
Now that I am doing my masters I already started designing my composite slab according to Eurocodes, I am using Eurocode 4 at the moment. It takes a while to adapt to the changes because I have to relearn what I had learned previously. One thing for sure, the English used in Eurocodes is much easier to comprehend and straight forward. Good job for that!
The ten codes related to structures are as below and they cover every aspects of structures:
- EN 1990 Basis of design
- EN 1991 Eurocode 1: Actions on structures
- EN 1992 Eurocode 2: Design of concrete structures
- EN 1993 Eurocode 3: Design of steel structures
- EN 1994 Eurocode 4: Design of composite steel and concrete structures
- EN 1995 Eurocode 5: Design of timber structures
- EN 1996 Eurocode 6: Design of masonry structures
- EN 1997 Eurocode 7: Geotechnical design
- EN 1998 Eurocode 8: Design of structures for earthquake resistance
- EN 1999 Eurocode 9: Design of aluminium structures
Luckily I am still studying in UTM. This gives me the opportunity to download (for free) all the design codes. It's good to be a student, ain't it? We get free stuff most of the time, even if it's not free we still have the student's price priviledge.
Image: courtesy of Eurocodes
Malaysian University League
If there is one competition I'd like to watch, it would certainly be the Malaysian University League. QS Quacquarelli Symonds has just released the Times Higher Education-QS (THE-QS) World University Rankings 2008. (www.topuniversities.com)
From my very own understanding, this THE-QS ranking was only established four years ago, ever since it has has been closely scrutinise from students, employers and academics all across the world. A ranking to me is a ranking. Whether the ranking is of absolute depends on how a person sees it. Some may debate that these rankings define the success of a university in whole but I suggest that these rankings be a useful reference. It is very subjective though.
Why not head to this page to read more on the preview and methodology of the ranking system, that is provided if you are interested.
In the context of Malaysia, the overall rankings of our local universities are as below:
1st: Universiti Malaya - 230 (↑ 16 from 246)
2nd: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia -250 (↑ 59 from 309)
3rd: Universiti Sains Malaysia - 313 (↓ 6 from 307)
4th: Universiti Putra Malaysia - 320 (↑ 44from 364)
5th: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia - 356 (↑ 59 from 415)
What does the results show? Overall, improvement is there. Four out of the five Malaysia's very own league universities are improving while there is a slight drop in one of the universities. USM was just recently being promoted to an accelerated programme for excellence university, the so-called APEX University.
My university, you should know I study in UTM, has improved from last year's ranking and it is only the second year UTM is on the list. UTM should be able to catch up with USM and UPM in a matter of time if our new Vice Chancellor works hard enough to ensure UTM being listed as a research-based university. Nothing is impossible, have faith.
The Vice Chancellor, in his statement said that UTM has improved in three of the six criteria used in the rankings. UTM maintained a good standing in the recruiter’s review index, jumping to 158th place compared to 161 last year which signifies a remarkable acceptance of the industry’s confidence in UTM graduates. Due to the continuous efforts in international networking and marketing, significant improvements were made in the international staff indicator, moving from 495th position to 185th place and international students’ indicator soared from 446th place in 2007 to 214th place this year. (Source: UTM Today)
Citing Quacquarelli, "Malaysian universities would need to put in greater effort and sustained investments to gain more recognition in their research work and citations. Improvements should also be made to increase publications in research journals and citation profiles in international academia."
I wonder why am I saying all these, not that I want to be an academician at the moment. My confession is it does come across my mind, but not now because I believe a good academician should be well-rounded in theoretical and practical understanding.
(For further reading, read this and this.)
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