Transition from campus to corporate: It's not just about engineering knowledge

It’s been two weeks since I started to have a “real” work for an international company that manufactures engineering and technology products. But it’s actually been more than two months since I got accepted in the company because I had to undergo through this so called “new-hire” employee training for 2 months before I get to handle my job functions. In that duration, I had to make huge adjustments to cope up with the huge changes that I faced. The following things are the ones I learned and am still trying to change.

 

1.    1.   School Mindset – College is full of theoretical stuff especially in engineering that is why I was often told by my mentors at work to think in terms of applications and not in ideal conditions.  In the real world (yes you are said to be in the real world once you work), there is no ideal system and everything affects everything. The company I work for manufactures engineering materials and provides solutions to customers who are mostly industrial. My job is to make sure I give the customers the right product for their applications. And in my case, I can’t just give what is the ideal solution for the customer. There are many things to consider aside from the applications of the customer. The economics also plays a huge role because as expected, the customer always wants to cut cost and the same time to have the best product and because it is still the customer who decides. I cannot also give products to any customer. For example, I cannot give products to places which we are “red flagged” especially those countries who are at war because the products might be used for weapons of destruction. 

    

     But anyway, being logical and analytical is surely an advantage at work. In my case, I am not easily convinced of something unless I see the science and math behind what was being taught to me so even though being theoretical is not really an advantage, the attitude of being detail-oriented and practicing deductive reasoning is a plus.

At work, the theoretical things learned at school is just a small part of what is actually needed.

  

2.     2.  Dealing with colleagues. – In college, you can definitely choose who to go with during lunch or during a lakwatsa. But at work, you cannot actually choose who your workmates would be. It’s hard for me at first because I don’t really like to mingle with people whom I am not really close to. But I understood that good relationship with my workmates is really important since we would be working as a team. And even people who are not directly on my team are also good to befriend because of the great leverage that their connections can give in the future.

Instead of being resistant to make new friends, I had to change to a more approachable and friendlier person.

 

3.     3.  Communicating with others – In the office, I noticed that all people who are on the top are good communicators. But being good in communicating is not just important for presentation purposes but also for establishing camaraderie  and networking with people which are great leverage in climbing the corporate ladder. Well, that is what most people want but I don’t really like to climb the corporate ladder if I don’t like the job function of my boss. I believe stress can kill any motivation I have in going to work so stress is something I am really careful to deal with. Many people are sick just because of stress. 

One great way as I learned to reduce stress is to work with people you like working with but since you can't choose your workmates, you have to like working with the people around you and it starts with communicating with them.

t   The takeaway in this article is that succeeding in work is not just about how intelligent you are.  As I heard from our HR, "IQ gets you hired, EQ gets you promoted."



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Heat and Mass Transfer Unit Operations Mindmap

 For separation and purification processes in the chemical industry, mass transfer operations are most commonly used. These unit operations utilize the difference of concentration of materials between two phases to do mass transfer.

Simultaneous mass and heat transfer operations involve mass and heat transfer occurring at the same time in one unit. These operations involve phase phase thus, evolution and absorption of  heat is inevitable.

Genetic Secret of Extending Youthful Human Life

AGE LOC: DNA the New Wave

Spectacular new discoveries have unlocked another wonder of genes - the ability to control aging.  Geneticists now know that there is a way to interfere with aging at the genetic level. They are now using DNA to map out a new genetic world. Scientists in the academic and commercial laboratories are now working on how to make the fictitious "fountain of youth" into a reality by using genes. 

According to Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, a geneticist, there is something in the genes that affects aging. She has found a simple genetic mutation that can double the lifespan of a simple worm. She unlocked the genetic secret of longevity in roundworms — and now she’s working to do the same for humans. Now, in her lab in the university of California, she and her team are now using genetic technology to change the course of human aging.  The lessons from that discovery and studies of others in the academe are pointing to how we might one day significantly extend youthful human life. 

 Dr. Cynthia Kenyon

 Currently, commercial laboratories are also riding into this new wave of discoveries. Dr. Joe Chang of Nu Skin is looking on gene cluster in mitochondria and gene expression to delay youthful aging. According to him, changing the gene expression profile of gene cluster has a positive or negative effect to biological aging. He and his team are working on how to make the gene expression profile as close as possible to the one we have when we were young.

No doubt, this is truly the next generation wave not just for the scientific world but the business world as well.  Do you want to know more on how to ride into this next generation wave? Are you interested to be partners with us in doing business with these genetic-based products? Kindly comment your contact details so that we can contact you.

Pneumatic Transport Explains "Foam" Storm

After a storm on Tuesday morning, Aberdeen's Footdee, a village in the Northern Scotland looked as if it was hit by a sudden snow storm.

According to the BBC report, a local resident Lindsay Gordon said: "I have lived in Footdee since just before 2000, you get storms of course. You could tell by the sounds this was a serious storm, the windows were rattling. I looked out of the window and the North Sea was advancing toward us. Luckily it was just foam."

According to Professor Christopher Todd, marine ecologist at the Scottish Oceans Institute, the strong winds battering the Aberdeenshire coast had led to an "incredible amount of wave action".

Prof. Todd said that the air had "piled into the water" and mixed up with organic material producing foam which most likely to be the product of whipped phytoplankton mucus. Most phytoplankton are too small to be seen but they can form an algal bloom in the spring and, to a lesser extent, in the autumn. But there is no need to worry because the foam is a stable organic material posing no health danger.

Sea foam spilling from the sea.

Relating this natural phenomenon to particle technology, how a sea foam storm covers a village can be explained by the so called "pneumatic transport". The sea foam was brought to land by the strong winds by mechanism similar to pneumatic transport. Because of the high velocity and high volume of air, the wind was able to suspend the organic material from the sea into the strong current of air. The organic sea material was whipped in a whirlpool of turbulent gale. The sea acted like a washing machine producing the a sea foam storm which eventually reached and covered the nearby village. 

The use of gases  has been used successfully in industry to transport a wide range of materials specifically particulate solids such as wheat flour and grains to coal and plastic chips. The flow of gas "fluidized" the solid particulates  so they act like fluids that can flow through pipelines.  

Pneumatic transport in industry.

Applications of Fluidization in Food Industry

Fluidization is one of the technologies commonly used in the agro-food industry. It basically covers drying, cooling, agglomeration, granulation, and coating of food products. Fluidization is common because it is ideal for the processes of a wide range of both heat sensitive and non-heat sensitive products.

By fluidization, particulate materials are able take the properties of fluid. Gas (usually air) is made to pass through a product layer under controlled conditions to create uniform processing conditions. The gas performs two functions. It supports the weights of the particles and enabling them to flow with the gas. It is also it serves to cool, heat or dry the particles at direct contact with the solids material.

Fluid Bed Drying

Even though in recent years frozen foods increased its popularity, drying is still an important operation in the food industry especially in the preservation of food products. And fluid bed drying has significant advantages over traditional frying techniques.  It lessens the risk of food particles being overheated as well as giving easy material transport, high rates of heat exchange at high thermal efficiency. 

Fluid bed drying is for powders, granules, agglomerates, and pellets with an average particle size normally between 50 and 5,000 microns. For very fine powders or highly elongated particles, vibration for successful fluid bed drying is required.

Fluid Bed Cooling

It is somehow similar to drying but in fluid bed cooling, cold gas (usually ambient or conditioned air) is used instead. It is desired to remove heat from the particles but it additionally requires conditioning of gas to prevent the loss of volatiles or moisture. Cold surfaces can also be used to help remove heat further. 

Fluid Bed Granulation

Granulation transforms suspensions or solutions into dry, free flowing, dustless granules using granulators. Particles in suspension or solution are sprayed onto warm air, simultaneously drying and agglomerating the product.

Fluid Bed Pelletization

Pellets can be formed in 2 ways: liquid-layering and powder layering. Liquid-layering uses top spray coater to layer the active particle onto an inert core then forming the shape of a pellet. The spraying is done simultaneously with drying. Powder layering is done when the active particle is in the form of powder. Pelletization is achieved using a sprayer and liquid binder solution to hold the particles together. After that, the pellets are then dried.

Fluid Bed Coating

Food coating more commonly known as encapsulation, has a lot of functions including increasing shelf-life, masking taste or odor, improving visual appeal and improving ease of handling. Layering can be designed to lessen the release of constituents from the food particles. This is usually used for finer particles. Coating is done using an atomizer. Then particles are dried with air blowing upward through the column. 

References:

GEA Pharma Systems. Fluid bed processes - drying, cooling, agglomeration, granulation, pelletizing and coating of particulate materials. Sept. 22, 2012. http://www.gea-ps.com/npsportal/cmsdoc.nsf/webdoc/ndkw73fb8j

Smith, Peter. Applications of Fluidization in Food Industry. Victoria: Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd. 2007

Pollen-free Bio engineered Plants for Allergic People

If you are allergic to airborne substances especially to pollen but love to grow plants in your house, this is good news for you!

In a collaborative project between the Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas (IBMCP) and BIOMIVA S.L. (Spain) modified genes were injected to pelargonium plants which are now one of the most popular garden and house plants around the world. One gene was bioengineered to selectively destroy pollen-producing anthers consequently producing pollen-free plants. Another gene, encoding an enzyme Isopentenyl phosphotransferase (ipt) was bioengineered to increase the amount of cytokinin, a plant hormone thus preventing leaf falling or aging. 

The modified genes were carried into the plant’s genome using bacteria carriers which are able to transfer DNA between itself and the plants’.  Individual plants were then grown from the cells.

The bioengineered plants were observed to have smaller leaves and flowers with more vibrant colors compare to their natural counterparts. They are also expected to be able to survive longer because of the extra cytokinin.

One of the researchers from IBMCP, Dr Luis Cañas explained, "The ipt enzyme catalyzes the rate-limiting step for cytokinin biosynthesis in plants and consequently extra ipt, provided transgenically, produces more cytokinin and prevents the plant cells from aging. In addition, the use of an anther-specific promoter from pea driving the expression of a bacterial gene (ribonuclease), prevents the development of male progenitor cells into anthers and pollen, resulting in pollen-free flowers." 

Harvesting Water from Air: A Possible Solution to Drought

Drought is a common phenomenon in several areas of world. This is bad for the farmers as well as for us in general because the production of food is adversely affected.  The ideal solution for drought since there’s no rain is to create a source of water. And we know that air holds water when it is humid. Therefore we can get water from air. However, harvesting water from thin air sounds like a crazy idea. But a young Melbourne-based inventor was able to make the crazy idea work. 

Edward Linacre invented an equipment that actually able to do it. He was able to show that his air drop irrigation concept can produce significant amount of water through his pilot setup at the back of their house. Moreover, he was able to prove that it can also work in large scale. His work made him the winner of the James Dyson Award 2011 and he received US$14,000 as a prize as well as sponsorship for his design school faculty.

His invention seems high-tech but actually he was just able to transform an ancient cooling technique into a new sub-surface irrigation system that can be used in farms. His design only uses the simple process of condensation to harvest water from the air. He was able to make air channels through an underground network of piping that rapidly lowers the air temperature near to the soil temperature. This process creates a system of 100-percent humidity, from which water can then be harvested. The harvested water is then collected in an underground tank which can already be pumped out via sub-surface drip irrigation hosing. 

So let's hear from Edward himself how he created his awesome air drop irrigation concept.