Engineering Newsletter Issue 2

Page 1

Quarterly-Published Newsletter of

ISSU E

02

Engineering Quote A

scientist

discovers

that

which exists. An engineer creates that which never was. Theodore Von Karman

Engineering Joke There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift to fix things.

After working for 30

years,

he

retired.

Several

years later, he was contacted by his company to fix an expensive electronic machine. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying

this

complicated

machine. At the end of the day, he marked with a chalk a

Nuclear Medicine: continued Some common applications of nuclear medicine include diagnosis and treatment of hyperthyroidism, bone scans for orthopedic injuries, cardiac stress tests to analyze heart function, lung scans for blood clots, and liver and gall bladder procedures to diagnose abnormal function or blockages. The resolution of structures of the body appearing in images obtained with nuclear medicine may not be as clear as with other imaging techniques such as CT and MRI. However, nuclear medicine scans for a number of applications are more sensitive than other techniques. Also, they provide functional information (i.e. biological changes) about virtually every major organ system within the body which is often unobtainable with other imaging techniques such as x-ray, ultrasound, CT scan or MRI scan, which provide very good anatomical information. This is why images obtained by nuclear medicine techniques are often combined (registered) with CT or MRI

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING

Ma r ch 2009

University of Nicosia

images which offer better anatomical information (Figures 2 and 3). In conclusion, nuclear medicine combines chemistry, physics, maths, computer technology, and medicine in using radioactivity to diagnose and treat disease. So far, it has been successfully used in neurologic, oncologic, orthopedic, renal, cardiac, pulmonary, and many other applications. In the years to come, as more is learned about the fundamental processes of diseases, as new radiopharmaceuticals and analysis tools are developed, and as molecular imaging becomes possible, nuclear medicine will prove to be an invaluable tool in the diagnosis and treatment of some of the most critical diseases challenging modern medicine.

This issue Nuclear Medicine

Message from the Head of the Department

Global Warming Research Funding Quizzes, Small but Cute …

An engineering student at the University of Nicosia has the option to enroll in one of our two accredited university programs: Computer

Engineering

or

Electronics Engineering. Both programs lead to a Bachelor degree and have duration of four years.

References: 1.

http://www.snm.org Society of Nuclear Medicine

2.

http://www.radiologyinfo.org RadiologyInfo

It is our goal and duty as faculty of the Engineering Department to

make

sure

that

these

evaluation

and

improvement.

said to them “This is where

Engineering and technology are

your problem is”. The faulty

two of the most rapidly changing

part was replaced and the

fields, and academia has to

machine

ensure that what we offer at the

perfectly.

university level perfectly reflects

The company asked for an

the needs of today’s industry.

itemized bill of his charges. The engineer sent them an

Both engineering curricula have

invoice for 10,001€ indicating

Figure 2

Figure 3

1€ for the chalk mark and 10,000€ for knowing where to

Research Funding

put the mark. He was paid in

Dr Antonis Hadjiantonis

full and retired again in peace!

Department of Engineering UNIVERSITY OF NICOSIA 46 Makedonitissas Avenue P.O. Box 24005 1700 Nicosia CYPRUS (+357) 22841500 phone (+357) 22357481 fax www.unic.ac.cy

The Department of Engineering, as Host Organization under the Cyprus Academic Research Institute (CARI), has been recently awarded funding of €130.000 from the Research Promotion Foundation (RPF) for research on new Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) architectures and their evaluation. The research will mainly explore WavelengthDivision Multiplexing Passive Optical Network (WDM-PON) technologies. The consortium also includes the University of Cyprus, the

gone through a strict internal evaluation

University of Patras, PrimeTel PLC, and an individual researcher, Professor Mohamed A. Ali from the City University of New York, who is considered a pioneer in the field of optical communications and the convergence of fixed and wireless networks. One of the research project objectives is the invitation of Prof. M. A. Ali to give a series of talks on the current research trends in Optical Access and Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC). The first of these talks was successfully held at the University of Cyprus.

process

by

the

faculty of the department where both

pathways

have

been

significantly improved by adding a

number

electives,

Dr George Gregoriou

Nuclear Medicine

programs undergo continuous small “x” on a small chip and

worked

Get Tuned

of

thus

engineering making

both

programs significantly richer and more competitive.

The new

program paths will be adopted as of the next fall semester.

Prof. Anastasis Polycarpou Head – Dept. of Engineering

Nuclear medicine is a medical imaging technique which uses small amounts of radioactive substances, known as radiopharmaceuticals, in order to diagnose or treat a variety of diseases. These substances, which are administered through inhalation, injection or orally in small safe doses, are attracted to specific organs, bones, or tissues. Radiopharmaceuticals accumulate in the organ or area of the body being examined and emit gamma rays which may be detected externally by special gamma cameras (detectors) which rotate around and close to the patient (Figure 1) and take measurements (projections) from different angles/views. These measurements are then used by computers in order to convert (reconstruct) the gamma ray projections into images of the area of the body which is being imaged. Usually the cameras are placed close to the patient in order to get the highest image quality possible. The length of time for nuclear medicine procedures varies greatly, depending on the type of exam. The actual scanning time for nuclear imaging

Figure 1 exams can take from 20 minutes to several hours and may be contacted over several days. Nuclear medicine techniques include positron emission tomography (PET), single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), cardiovascular imaging and bone scanning. Nuclear medicine may yield more precise information than exploratory surgery. Nuclear medicine is cost effective and can locate abnormalities early in the progression of a disease and long before any medical problems are apparent with other diagnostic tests. This way, a disease may be treated early in its course when there may be a more successful prognosis. Because the doses of radiotracer administered are small, diagnostic nuclear medicine procedures result in low radiation exposure, acceptable for diagnostic exams. Therefore, the radiation risk is very low compared with the potential benefits. Continues …


th

Small but cute! Do you know that every computer on the network has a unique address that is specified by the Internet Protocol (IP) in place? The original inventors of TCP/IP defined an IP address as a 32-bit number and this protocol was named IP version 4 (IPv4).

Since the mid-19 century there are records of land and sea temperatures (using thermometers) at least in some European countries and the US. From the measurements taken over the last 100 years the average global temperature (near o surface) has increased by 0.74 ± 0.18 C, according to IPCC’s (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fourth Assessment Report (2007). Here we have to clarify that this temperature increase is not the same in all regions of the planet. For example in the Arctic region the temperature increase is almost the double of the global average while in the Antarctic region, warming is negligible. Moreover through the temperature records one can observe that eleven out of the past twelve years are the warmest since 1850. The probability to have these very warm years one after the other, purely by chance, is extremely small.

With a 32-bit address, you can connect approximately 4.3 billion devices on the network. However, as people in the mid nineties started worried about running out of

unique

addresses,

they

introduced IPv6 which supports a 128-bit

address.

With 38

protocol,

3.4x10

can

this be

allocated, which is an enormous number.

As of today, the IP in

place is still version 4.

Do

you

know

that

an

The global temperature increase has been related to the increase of manmade greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide) concentration in the atmosphere. How can we be sure that the increase of greenhouse gases is due to human activity and not due to natural causes (perhaps volcanic eruptions)? The answer is given from isotopic analysis which can distinguish among sources of emission that leave their chemical fingerprints. For this reason scientists are confident that for the biggest part the increase of green house gases concentration is due to the combustion of fossil fuels.

advanced microprocessor is made out of 2 billion transistors? The transistor is considered to be the most important discovery of the 20th century as to the fact that transistors constitute the main building blocks of all electronic devices. produced fabrication

They can be mass with

an

process

automated on

a

semiconductor substrate, such as silicon, at a very low cost. More importantly, transistors can be integrated into a tiny chip (IC) to build different electronic circuits.

This year carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration reached 385 ppm (parts per million), almost 36% higher than it was in th 18 century, just before the industrial revolution. The CO2 concentration can be traced back in time with high accuracy from the chemical analysis of babbles of atmospheric air trapped in layers of glacial ice through the ages. In this way scientists have a 650,000 years old record for the chemical composition of the atmosphere. In addition using tree rings and ocean sediments the scientists can reconstruct a temperature record of the past.

Global Warming: Is it really happening? In the last couple of years, we hear and read a lot about the global average temperature rise of planet Earth and its consequences for the ecosystem. How sure are we about this temperature rise and the actual causes of this climate change? Dr Marios Nestoros By comparing the temperature record and the greenhouse gas concentration record one can see that they have a very similar trend. Strictly speaking this fact does not consist of a proof, but just an indication of the relation between the two. In order to clarify the situation one has to identify all the main mechanisms/factors that induce this temperature rise. In the scientific terminology of global warming these factors are called radiative forcing components or simply forcings (see Figure). These are mainly the greenhouse gases, snow, black carbon particles in the atmosphere, the aerosols and of course we shouldn’t forget the sun and the variations of its activity. Some forcings are positive (green house gases, ozone and increased solar irradiance) since they increase temperature while others have the opposite effect (aerosol gases as well as the clouds which This Issue’s Q&A reflect the incoming solar radiation) and are negative. An important task of the IPCC was to accurately quantify the different forcings and their uncertainties. This task was carried out successfully from IPCC workgroups using modeling and observational studies.

The forcings are introduced into complicated mathematical models, based on physics conservation laws (momentum, mass, energy) taking into account the interaction between land, ocean and atmosphere as well as physico-chemical reactions between the various atmospheric gases. The models provide a solution for the temperature profile around the world. The accuracy of the models can be checked using real events, e.g. the eruption of a volcano and the release of volcanic gases in the atmosphere. The models are then asked to predict the temperature variation due to such events. If the numerical results agree with the experimental data for several such events, then the degree of confidence for the models is high. For this task eighteen modeling groups all around the world, working under IPCC, developed a comprehensive and closely coordinated ensemble of simulations. The results of the models taking into account only the natural climate influences (e.g. variability in solar activity, volcanic eruptions and subsequent release of greenhouse gases) are far away from reality (experimental data). Contrary when the models take into account human induced green house gases, the agreement with the temperature record over the last hundred Technology Tipgood. These results years is extremely make IPCC confident that the manmade green house gases are mainly responsible for the increase of the

average global temperature, or using their own words: “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged th temperatures since the mid-20 century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic green house gas concentrations”. According to IPCC terminology, very likely is indicating probability greater than 90%.

EYE ON TECHNOLOGY A recent survey by AFP in Japan has shown that Japanese kids are addicted to mobile phones. They are using their phones to send tens of messages during the day while eating, being at school, or even taking bath. According to the survey, 46% of

The next step for IPCC was to use the successful models to predict the future. The results for the simulations are not very encouraging since they show that even if we achieve a stabilization of the greenhouse gases at the current levels, the temperature will continue rising for the next two decades. In other words the global climate has an inertia which in a big extend is due to the great heat capacity of the oceans. Furthermore the simulations done for plausible amounts of greenhouse gas emissions predict an o increase of 0.2 C per decade, from which nearly half is due to the inertia mentioned above. Another important outcome of the predictions for the future is that the removal of excess CO2 via natural processes will be less efficient due to warming.

teenagers aged 13-14 and 96% of teenagers aged 16-17 own a cell phone. 25% of kids aged 1112 has one as well.

Due to the wide availability of internet-based

mobile

phone

infrastructure in Japan, most of the kids are using their phones to send emails to friends, read books, surf on the internet, listen to music or watch videos, as well as chatting. A significant number of these kids send or receive more than 50 emails on their cell phone per day. Almost 20% of them use their phone to send or receive messages during class. The survey reveals that their parents are unaware of the imminent dangers of internet-

[1] National Geography, Changing Climate, Special Report, 2008

equipped

mobile

phones.

Children often provide personal

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

information

[3] http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library

require setting a user profile. As

/GlobalWarmingUpdate [4] “The physical science behind climate change”, Scientific America, August 2007

a

result,

victims

on

they of

pedophiles.

websites

can

that

become

fraudsters Children

and

do

not

know how to protect themselves

Questions & Answers Technology Tip

and

they

are

vulnerable

to

exploitation and misconduct.

Propagation of voltage signals in

signals inside the optical fiber is

unshielded pair of copper wire is

about 66% of c.

The survey has shown that more than 80% of mobile phones used

approximately 96% of the speed of

by high-school students do not

light in vacuum, c. Propagation in

Wait a minute! If all the above are

coaxial cable (used for TV signals)

true, how come the optical fiber

varies between 66-85% of c

transmission is considered orders

depending on the insulation used.

of magnitude faster than the

filtering capabilities against spam

Propagation in twisted pair (used in

aforementioned means of

email or adult content. Lastly,

telephones) is even slower, about

transmission? Answer in the next

mobile

59% of c. Propagation of light

issue!

magnetic radiation which could

have

any

potentially

protection harmful

against

sites.

In

addition, they do not have any

phones

emit

electro-

be harmful to human health.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.