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Curious Cat Science and Egineering blog full tag cloud
MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives
MIT is providing seed funding to faculty to encourage global research. The seed funds cover a variety of expenses, including exploratory field research, workshop materials and instrument costs. Each proposal is eligible for up to $20,000 in funding. Research and collaboration can take place anywhere in the world on any topic. For all projects, up to $10,000 in additional funding is available for undergraduate and graduate student participation.
MISTI country programs also offer five country-specific seed funds for collaborative research involving France, India, Italy, Japan or Spain.
This is a good use of their huge endowment. So is the Open Courseware initiative. As is their elimination of tuition for those with families earning less than $75,000. Good for MIT.
Related: Global Engineering Education Study - MIT Faculty Study Recommends Significant Undergraduate Education Changes - Funding Medical Research
The annual ranking of research Universities are available from Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University. The methodology values publications and faculty awards which provides a better ranking of research (rather than teaching). Results from the 2008 rankings of Top 500 Universities worldwide, country representation of the top schools:
| location | Top 100 | % of World Population |
% of World GDP | % of top 500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 54 | 4.6% | 27.2% | 31.6% |
| United Kingdom | 11 | 0.9 | 4.9 | 8.3 |
| Germany | 6 | 1.3 | 6.0 | 8.0 |
| Japan | 4 | 2.0 | 9.0 | 6.2 |
| Canada | 4 | 0.5 | 2.6 | 4.2 |
| Sweden | 4 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 2.2 |
| France | 3 | 0.8 | 4.6 | 4.6 |
| Switzerland | 3 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 1.6 |
| Australia | 3 | 0.3 | 1.6 | 3.0 |
| Netherlands | 2 | 0.2 | 1.4 | 2.4 |
| Denmark | 2 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 0.8 |
| Finland | 1 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 1.2 |
| Norway | 1 | 0.1 | 0.7 | 0.8 |
| Israel | 1 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 1.2 |
| Russia | 1 | 2.2 | 2.0 | 0.4 |
| China | 20.5 | 6.6 | 6.0 | |
| India | 17.0 | 1.9 | 0.4 |
There is little change in most of the data from last year, which I think is a good sign, it wouldn’t make much sense to have radical shifts over a year in these rankings. Japan lost 2 schools in the top 100, France lost 1. Denmark (Aarhus University) and Australia (University of Sydney) gained 1. Last year there was a tie so there were 101 schools in the top 100.
The most dramatic data I noticed is China’s number of top 500 schools went from 14 to 30, which made me a bit skeptical of what caused that quick change. Looking more closely last year they reported the China top 500 totals as (China 14, China-Taiwan 6 and China-Hong Kong 5). That still gives them an impressive gain of 5 schools.
Singapore has 1 in the 102-151 range. Taiwan has 1 ranked in the 152-200 range, as do Mexico, Korea and Brazil. China has 9 in the 201-302 range (including 3 in Hong Kong). India has 2 in the 303-401 range.
University of Wisconsin - Madison is 17th again 
My father taught there while I grew up.
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Report recommends steps to improve engineering education in India
Majority of engineering graduates not employable: Experts
The issue is not the best universities which are excellent. But the huge numbers of graduates are not receiving that type of education.
Related: Engineering Education in India report (draft version) - Asia: Rising Stars of Science and Engineering - Best Research University Rankings (2007) - Education is Opportunity - Korean Engineering Education - Engineering Education Worldwide
Several years ago we posted about the report on the USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates. The authors, and two others, have written a new report that provides some useful additions - Getting the Numbers Right: International Engineering Education in the United States, China, and India
Related: Filling the Engineering Gap by Vivek Wadhwa - Engineering Economic Benefits - posts on engineering education - Science Serving Society - Authors of Scientific Articles by Country - Educating the Engineer of 2020: NAE Report
Once again engineering and computer science graduates are receiving the highest starting salaries. Previous posts: Lucrative college degrees (2006) - starting salaries for engineers (2005) - High Pay for Engineering Graduates 2007.
According to a survey, these are the top-paying majors for 2007-08 bachelor degree graduates:
$63,616 — Chemical engineering (up 6.5%)
$59,962 — Computer engineering
$59,873 — Computer science (up 14.7%)
$58,252 — Industrial/manufacturing engineering
$57,821 — Mechanical engineering (up 5.7%)
$57,999 — Aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical engineering
Source: Spring Survey, National Association of Colleges and Employers
Engineering Jobs Top U.S. Skills Shortage List
Grads’ job prospects weakening by degrees
“I’m finding jobs pulling at me left and right,” he said last week at a manufacturing industry job fair at the college. “The professors told us there’s such a demand, if you go to a job fair, you can walk out with a job.”
Vela, 35, happens to be in a field where demand remains strong, despite the uneven economy. Overall starting wages for mechanical engineering grads will be up 3.4 percent this year, with an average salary offer of $56,429, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. For many other college grads looking for a job at this time of year, the prospects are not as sweet.
Related: Career Center report high increase in demand for computer science graduates - IT Employment Hits New High Again - S&P 500 CEOs - Again Engineering Graduates Lead
Better higher education will change lives by Shashi Tharoor
India is entering the global employment marketplace with a self-imposed handicap of which we are just beginning to become conscious - an acute shortage of quality institutions of higher education. For far too long we have been complacent about the fact that we had produced, since the 1960s, the world’s second largest pool of trained scientists and engineers.
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Whereas countries in the Middle East, and China itself, are going out of their way to woo foreign universities to set up campuses in their countries, India turns away the many academic suitors who have come calling in recent years. Harvard and Yale would both be willing to open branches in India to offer quality education to Indian students, but have been told to stay away. Those Indians who choose to study abroad easily get scholarships to do so - currently 80,000 of them are in the United States alone.
Related: Science and Engineering in Global Economics - Global Research University Rankings (2007) - The Role of Science in Economy - The Importance of Science Education - Engineering graduate: USA, China, India - posts on engineering education
An interview with the Managing Director of Texas Instruments, India - How to mould great ‘intrapreneurs’
We also encourage small teams of engineers with an ‘intrapreneurial’ mindset to work on creative ideas and validate these with customers and our worldwide marketing teams. Some of these ideas could lead to potential breakthroughs for the future.
At TI, we also recognise that ‘collaborative innovation’ can have a powerful impact on our customers. This drives us to actively partner with several innovative companies, who develop applications on our platform. Over the last two decades, we have also built an extensive partner network of over 650 reputed Indian Universities - who are working closely with us on many innovative programs.
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I joined TI in 1986, after graduating from IIT, Kharagpur with a B.Tech in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering. While working for TI, I received my Ph.D in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT, Kharagpur and also an Executive MBA degree from the University of Texas, Austin
Related: Marissa Mayer on Innovation at Google - Engineer’s Future Prospects - The Future is Engineering - Entrepreneurial Engineers
The top five countries in terms of installed capacity are:
Global capacity was increase by 27% in 2007. Record installations in US, China and Spain:
“We’re on track to meeting our target of saving 1.5 billion tons of CO2 per year by 2020”, said Steve Sawyer, “but we need a strong, global signal from governments that they are serious about moving away from fossil fuels and protecting the climate.”
Meeting energy needs using wind power is growing very rapidly, which is a great thing. It is still a small contributor to our overall energy needs but every bit helps.
Related: USA Wind power capacity - Capture Wind Energy with a Tethered Turbine - Wind Power Technology Breakthrough
Google, Gates, Indian Diaspora Bet on Children by Andy Mukherjee
Born into a poor, illiterate family in the western Indian state of Gujarat, Patel was lucky to break free of the poverty trap. Several people from his community had prospered in East Africa. They supported his studies.
…
at 30 U.S. cents per child per year, the basic math, reading and writing skills required to help young learners retain their interest in education and keep them from dropping out of school are ridiculously cheap. It’s also critical enough to have caught the attention not just of wealthy Indian communities overseas but also of the Menlo Park, California-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Together, the two charities offered to help 10 million students for three years by pledging $9 million last year to Read India, an initiative of Pratham, a Mumbai-based not-for- profit organization for which Patel is a fund-raiser. Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google Inc., chipped in last month with a $2 million grant to help fund Pratham’s annual survey of the qualitative aspects of primary education in India.
Related: Make the World Better - Using Capitalism to Help People - What Kids can Learn
Jules Verne predicted cars would run on air. The Air Car is making that a reality. The car is powered by compressed air which certainly seems like an interesting idea. Air car ready for production:
The car is said to have a driving range of 125 miles so by my calculation it would cost about 1.6 cents per mile. A car that gets 31 mpg would use 4 gallons to go 124 miles. At $3 a gallon for gas, the cost is $12 for fuel or about 9.7 cents per mile. I didn’t notice anything about maintenance costs. I don’t see any reason why the Air Car would cost more to maintain than a normal car.
The air car was named one of Time magazine’s best inventions of the 2007.
Five-seat concept car runs on air
Related: The History of Compressed Air Vehicles - Car Elevator (for parking) - Electric Automobiles - VW Phaeton manufacturing plant
The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities provides another estimate of the top universities. The methodology is far ideal however I still find it interesting. The various attempts to rank schools can provide a general idea of impact of various institutions (though the measures are fairly crude). Still a sensible picture (especially at the country level) can emerge. And the various rankings should be a able to track shifts in the most influential institutions and relative country strength over time. How quickly those rankings track changes will vary depending on the measures used. I would imagine most will lag the “real” changes as it is easy to imagine many measures that would lag. Still, as I have said before, I expect the USA will lose in relative ranking compared to China, India, Japan, Singapore, Mexico…
The ranking methodology used here weighed rankings in: Jiao Tong academic rankings, Essential Science Indicators, Google Scholar, Alexa (a measure of web site visits to universities) and The Times Higher World University Rankings.
Country representation of the top universities (number of top schools in each country):
| location | Webometrics Top 100 |
Jiao Tong Top 101 |
% of World Population |
% of World GDP* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 53 | 54 | 4.6% | 30.4% |
| Germany | 10 | 5 | 1.3 | 6.3 |
| Canada | 8 | 4 | 0.5 | 2.5 |
| United Kingdom | 6 | 10 | 0.9 | 5.0 |
| Australia | 3 | 2 | 0.3 | 1.6 |
| Japan | 1 | 6 | 2.0 | 10.3 |
| The rest of Europe | 16 | 13 | ||
| Brazil | 1 | 0 | 2.8 | 1.8 |
| Mexico | 1 | 0 | 1.6 | 1.7 |
| Israel | 0 | 1 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
* IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, September 2006 (2005 data)
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Great report - The Atlas of Ideas: How Asian innovation can benefit us all by Charles Leadbeater and James Wilsdon:
| Year | China | France | Germany | Japan | Korea | UK | US | EU-15 |
| 1995 | 2.05 | 6.09 | 7.62 | 8.65 | 0.79 | 8.88 | 33.54 | 34.36 |
| 1998 | 2.90 | 6.48 | 8.82 | 9.42 | 1.41 | 9.08 | 31.63 | 36.85 |
| 2001 | 4.30 | 6.33 | 8.68 | 9.52 | 2.01 | 8.90 | 31.01 | 36.55 |
| 2004 | 6.52 | 5.84 | 8.14 | 8.84 | 2.70 | 8.33 | 30.48 | 35.18 |
Excellent reading, the report is full of useful information I have not been able to obsorb yet.
Related: Diplomacy and Science Research - The World’s Best Research Universities - Engineering the Future Economy - Worldwide Science and Engineering Doctoral Degree Data - USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates - Increasing American Fellowship Support for Scientists and Engineers
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This is a fascinating interview discussing what children can learn if given a computer and little, if any, instruction. Very Cool. Links on the progress since this interview are at the end of the post.
A: Yes. It started out as a joke but I’ve kept using the term … This is a system of education where you assume that children know how to put two and two together on their own. So you stand aside and intervene only if you see them going in a direction that might lead into a blind alley.
The interview explores what happened when:
What he discovered was that the most avid users of the machine were ghetto kids aged 6 to 12, most of whom have only the most rudimentary education and little knowledge of English. Yet within days, the kids had taught themselves to draw on the computer and to browse the Net. Some of the other things they learned, Mitra says, astonished him.
Testimony of Vivek Wadhwa to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce,
May 16, 2006.
Vivek Wadhwa has continued the work published in the Duke study: Framing the Engineering Outsourcing Debate. In the testimony he provides an update on the data provided in the report.
Differentiating between dynamic and transactional engineers is a start, but we also need to look at specific fields of engineering where the U.S can maintain a distinct advantage. Professor Myers lists specializations such as systems biology and personalized medicine, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics that he believes will give the U.S a long term advantage.
Our education system gives our students broad exposure to many different fields of study. Our engineers learn biology and art, they gain significant practical experience and learn to innovate and become entrepreneurs. Few Indian and Chinese universities provide such advantages to their students.
The dynamic and transactional differences were mentioned in his business week article: Filling the Engineering Gap.
The conclusion he presents seems wise to me.
Alarm as white-collar jobs vanish overseas (link broken so I removed it), Australian Financial Review:
There has been a steady progression up the value scale in work sent to low-cost countries – from manufacturing to data processing, call centres and computer software.
Now there is evidence that China and India are competing for high-level jobs in financial services, industrial design, architecture, research and development, engineering, medicine and even management areas such as human resources and business consulting.
Every country realizes the value to their economy of jobs in science, engineering and technology. Countries are taking steps to create a environment that will attract those jobs. Countries that do this less effectively will suffer.
Previous posts on the topic of economics, science and engineering
Women at IIT an endangered species, Anjali Joseph, Times of India:
‘Women engineers are on increase’, Express India:
The women engineers were mostly specialised in electrical civil, computer and information technology, it added.
The revolution in women joining engineering courses was witnessed mostly in the southern states starting with Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, ‘the northern India with an exception of Delhi, has to improve its position’.
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