Global Pulse 2010-Empowering Women and Girls

Women and girls in many countries have made major strides in achieving greater equality and access to economic opportunity in recent years. However, they still trail men significantly in areas such as economic and political participation and are rarely viewed as change agents or leaders in society.

Women and girls continue to face challenges. These include violence, early marriage, high rates of HIV/AIDS infections, access to credit, land ownership, fair pay for formal employment, and food security and nutritional problems. Improving the lives of women and girls is therefore a universal good for our societies. An empowered woman or girl can make significant contributions to her family, community and her nation's economy.

As President Obama summarized in his Cairo speech, "I am convinced that our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons. Our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity—men and women—to reach their full potential."

Awareness to sexual harassment (by Sumyee Fong)

Sexual harassment is unwanted and offensive sexual advances or of sexually offensive remarks or acts, especially by one in a superior or supervisory position or when acquiescence to such behavior is a condition of continued employment, promotion or when acquiescence to such behavior is a condition of continued employment, promotion, or satisfactory evaluation. In other hand, sexual harassment is coercion, threat or bullying of a sexual nature in the manner of unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment is a form of illegal employment discrimination in many countries. Sexual harassment can be divided into sexual abuse or sexual assault. In society nowadays, women and girls are dare to face different kind of challenges, to defend for women’s right, preventing for sexual harassment has become key goals of legal decision-making.

Illegal sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances. Due to the different level or standard, often but not always, the harasser is in a position of power or authority over the victim. Sexual harassment by harasser may embrace any sexually motivated behavior considered offensive by the victim. Legal recourse is available in cases that occur in the workplace, though it is very difficult to obtain convictions. The harasser can be anyone included client, colleague, teacher or professor, boss or stranger. They may not directly harass to the victim but their attitude and behavior offensive.
The victim can be any gender. The harasser can be any gender. It is not necessary have to be of the opposite sex.

Sexualized environments are environments where obscenities, sexual joking, sexually explicit graffiti, viewing Internet pornography, sexually degrading posters and objects, etc., are common. None of these behaviors or objects may necessarily be directed at anyone in particular or intended as harassment. However, they can create an offensive environment, and one that is consistent with "hostile environment sexual harassment". The harasser may be completely unaware that his or her behavior is offensive or constitutes sexual harassment or may be completely unaware that his or her actions could be unlawful. Misunderstanding between Female-Male Communication: It can result from a situation where one thinks he/she is making themselves clear, but is not understood the way they intended. The misunderstanding can either be reasonable or unreasonable. An example of unreasonable is when a man holds a certain stereotypical view of a woman such that he did not understand the woman’s explicit message to stop.(Heyman, 1994)


For those women who are being harassed by their superior, half of them might not dare to voice out or report to the police due the unwanted joblessness. The sexual harassment will be continuing unless enforcement carried out to the harasser.

Effects of sexual harassment can vary depending on the individual, and the severity and duration of the harassment. Often, sexual harassment incidents fall into the category of the "merely annoying." However, many situations can, and do, have life-altering effects particularly when they involve severe/chronic abuses, and/or retaliation against a victim who does not submit to the harassment, or who complains about it openly. Indeed, psychologists and social workers report that severe/chronic sexual harassment can have the same psychological effects as rape or sexual assault.

Here are some common effects to the victim
• Loss financial support/ jobless
• Decrease work performance / academic performance
• Dread to the stranger or opposite gender and loss trust to them.
• Loss of self-confident
• Loss or trust in environment similar to the harassment occurred
• Defamation of character and reputation
• Extreme stress upon relationships with significant others


How to against sexual harassment?
• By law- there is only one law in existence that come close to dealing with the issue of sexual harassment in Malaysia-Panel Code, section 509.
“whoever, intending to insult the modesty of any women, utters any words, makes any sound or gesture or exhibit any object, intending that such word or sound shall be heard, or such gesture or object shall be seen by such woman, shall be punish with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 5 years or with fine, or with both”.

Source: Lawyerment.com.my (Malaysia Online Legal Resources)

HyperText Markup Language

What is HMTL? The language called HMTL, which stands for HyperText Markup Language, is used to write pages for the Web. HTML consists of a set of tags, commands that tell the browser to perform specific functions. The HTML tags go at the beginning and end of the HTML file, the head tags enclose the page title tags, and the body tags enclose the content of the page. Tags enclose within another set of tags are called nested tags. Heading tags cause text to be printed in six sizes, paragraph tags enclose a paragraph of text, and the line break tag starts a new line.



The two kinds of lists used most often are unordered lists and ordered list. The unordered list tags produce an indented list with a browser-supplied character in front of each item, probably a small circle or square. The ordered list tags cause the browser to the number the indented list item in order, usually 1, 2, and so forth. Each item in a list is preceded by a single list item tag.

With HTML, we can create our own Web site. Below link is a tutorial that teaches ue everything about HTML. HTML is easy to learn and you will enjoy it

Nanotechnology in Manufacturing

Manufactured products are made from atoms. The properties of those products depend on how those atoms are arranged. If we rearrange the atoms in coal we can make diamond. If we rearrange the atoms in sand (and add a few other trace elements) we can make computer chips. If we rearrange the atoms in dirt, water and air we can make potatoes.



Today's manufacturing methods are very crude at the molecular level. Casting, grinding, milling and even lithography move atoms in great thundering statistical herds. It's like trying to make things out of LEGO blocks with boxing gloves on your hands. Yes, you can push the LEGO blocks into great heaps and pile them up, but you can't really snap them together the way you'd like.

In the future, nanotechnology will let us take off the boxing gloves. We'll be able to snap together the fundamental building blocks of nature easily, inexpensively and in most of the ways permitted by the laws of physics. This will be essential if we are to continue the revolution in computer hardware beyond about the next decade, and will also let us fabricate an entire new generation of products that are cleaner, stronger, lighter, and more precise.

It's worth pointing out that the word "nanotechnology" has become very popular and is used to describe many types of research where the characteristic dimensions are less than about 1,000 nanometers. For example, continued improvements in lithography have resulted in line widths that are less than one micron: this work is often called "nanotechnology." Sub-micron lithography is clearly very valuable (ask anyone who uses a computer!) but it is equally clear that conventional lithography will not let us build semiconductor devices in which individual do-pant atoms are located at specific lattice sites. Many of the exponentially improving trends in computer hardware capability have remained steady for the last 50 years. There is fairly widespread belief that these trends are likely to continue for at least another several years, but then conventional lithography starts to reach its limits.

If we are to continue these trends we will have to develop a new manufacturing technology which will let us inexpensively build computer systems with mole quantities of logic elements that are molecular in both size and precision and are interconnected in complex and highly idiosyncratic patterns.


Four Generations

Mihail (Mike) Roco of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative has described four generations of nanotechnology development (see chart below). The current era, as Roco depicts it, is that of passive nanostructures, materials designed to perform one task. The second phase, which we are just entering, introduces active nanostructures for multitasking; for example, actuators, drug delivery devices, and sensors. The third generation is expected to begin emerging around 2010 and will feature nanosystems with thousands of interacting components. A few years after that, the first integrated nanosystems, functioning (according to Roco) much like a mammalian cell with hierarchical systems within systems, are expected to be developed.





Resource: http://www.zyvex.com/nano/

Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology | Video on TED.com

Resource: Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology | Video on TED.com


At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data -- including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he'll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all.


About Pranav Mistry

Pranav Mistry is the inventor of SixthSense, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the world of data.

I am Quantity Surveyor..

A quantity surveyor (QS) is a professional working within the construction industry concerned with building costs.

The profession is one that provides a qualification gained following formal education, specific training and experience that provides a general set of skills that are then applied to a diverse variety of problems.[1] Predominantly these relate to costs and contracts on construction projects. Other areas in which QS find employment include property surveys for hidden defects on behalf of potential purchasers, running estates, valuing the mineral deposits for mining companies, selling property and even Leasehold Reform Act work.[1]

There are around 75,000 professional QSs working in the UK...
Goto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantity_surveyor


The history of Quantity Surveying
The profession developed during the 19th century from the earlier "measurer", a specialist tradesmanTradesmanA tradesman is a skilled manual worker in a particular trade or craft. Economically and socially, a tradesman's status is considered between a laborer and a professional, with a high degree of both practical and theoretical knowledge of their trade...
(often a guildGuildA guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade.The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel and a secret society...
member), who prepared standardised schedules for a building project in which all of the construction materials, labour activities and the like were quantified, and against which competing builders could submit priced tenders. Because all tenders were based on the same schedule of information, they could be easily compared so as to identify the best one.

The professional institutionProfessional bodyA professional association is a non-profit organization seeking to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals engaged in that profession, and the public interest.The roles of these professional associations have been variously defined: "A group of people in a learned...
with which most English-speaking quantity surveyors are affiliated is the UK-based Royal Institution of Chartered SurveyorsRoyal Institution of Chartered SurveyorsThe Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is an independent, representative professional body which regulates property professionals and surveyors in the United Kingdom and other sovereign nations....
(RICS). Others are the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), Quantity Surveyors International (QSi) and Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors (ICES) http://www.ices.org.uk/. Those who are qualified members of the RICS are allowed to use the term "Chartered Quantity Surveyor" or simply "Chartered Surveyor".

The QS usually reports to Project Manager or Project Director and provides advice in the decision-making process throughout the management of a project from initial inception to final completion. The QS handles estimating and cost control, the tendering process and, after contract award, the commercial interface. QSes should be able to carry out estimating and measurement of construction works prior to tender, producing the bill of quantities; produce tender documentation and manage the tender process; clarify and evaluate tenders; and manage the resultant contract through monthly valuations, variations control, and assessment of claims.
Goto: The profession developed during the 19th century from the earlier "measurer", a specialist tradesmanTradesmanA tradesman is a skilled manual worker in a particular trade or craft. Economically and socially, a tradesman's status is considered between a laborer and a professional, with a high degree of both practical and theoretical knowledge of their trade...
(often a guildGuildA guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade.The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel and a secret society...
member), who prepared standardised schedules for a building project in which all of the construction materials, labour activities and the like were quantified, and against which competing builders could submit priced tenders. Because all tenders were based on the same schedule of information, they could be easily compared so as to identify the best one.

Goto: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Quantity_surveyor

USM APEX University

PERUTUSAN NAIB CANCELOR 2010
Universiti APEX Menperkukuhkan ASAS

University Sains Malaysia
There was a motivation talk given by University Science of Malaysia Vice-Chancellor, Prof.Tan Sri Dato ‘Dzulkifli Abdul Razak on 3rd February 2010 in USM Dewan Budaya at 9.30am. The theme of the talk is ‘ Universiti APEX Memperkukuhkan Asas’, which meant how USM as an APEX university strengthening the foundation based on the 7 APEX points. According to the USM Vice Chancellor, USM is facing many critical challenges to realize APEX. APEX is an acronym that stands for Accelerated Program for Excellence, which means that it has wide boundaries in term of its definition. He also said that agenda APEX is a national aspiration that must be achieved by all higher institutions, so that the quality of our country can be improved in the future. Life is unpredictable as mentioned in one of the 7 APEX points which is uncertain future. A bright future can be achieved if we transform all the higher education for a sustainable tomorrow.



In generally, when we talking about APEX, we should think the new way and new style to do things. We have to be change and eliminate the ‘old’ style way to solve the problems. Whenever we consider the ‘old’ ways to solve problems, we should think a better way to cover it and produce more efficient effects, so that our future will be more different. Dare to be changed, and bear the risks in courage. Move forward to create a different future without forget our roots (essence/ basic fundamental of our being). Transformation is the first step we need to do in order to achieve APEX.

The process of transformation is not an easy matter. It is not only depends to an organization, but is the effort of combinations from many organizations. As an APEX university, USM had took the first step to change the ‘old’ style since many years ago. Let us have a review about the past 10 years, what USM had actually changed to achieve APEX reputation:

 Year 2000 – finding for fund to improve USM surrounding conditions.
 Year 2001 – internationalize and introduce programme of ‘Alam Intelektual Hari Muka’ to the world
 Year 2003 – out of the box: University in the context of economy era.
 Year 2004 – upgrading the programme of ‘Out of the Box’
-University in the garden
-Paid attention to the surrounding environment for next generation
-Move forward to the new context of era
 Year 2005 – Education Revolution
-Planning for the bright future, university in garden.
 Year 2006 – Tsunami disaster : APEX programme to overcome the disaster after-effects
 Year 2007 – meet the Nine Malaysia Plan and coordinate the university programme with it
 Year 2009 – achieve APEX (Accelerated Program for Excellent) reputation
 Year 2010 – Dewan Tun Syed Putra (DTSP) will be the most symbolic building in USM
 Year 2011/2012 – strengthening the fundamental principles
-Delivering the excellent within 1 year
-Driving transformation and change for the future


Agenda APEX- putting in context- Fast Forward!
National Mission
- Raising the capacity for knowledge and innovation
- Moving the economy fast forward

APEX Agenda
- Transform the higher education
- Reaching out towards the ‘bottom billion’
- ‘Blue Ocean’ strategy to change the management

National KRA
- Enhanced, Robust Education system
- The new economy model in sustainable context
- Improving low income household groups
- Improving rural basic infrastructure and transport
- Enhanced public safety


Laying the foundation for change to become more sustainable

3 main principles i.) society
Ii.) environment
iii.) economy system
*Peter Joseph view- A resource is base on the economy to generate the knowledge.


7 APEX Point in APEX University
 Uncertain future
 Uniqueness
 Sustainability
 Humanity
 Universality
 Change
 Sacrifice

http://www.usm.my/my/berita-penuh.asp?id=7693&idform=7

Peter Joseph: " Where are We Going"

Peter Joseph: “Where are We Going?”
Posted in Media by Brenton Eccles on December 22, 2009



It’s pretty amazing when The Simpsons writers seem to have a stronger grip on an appropriate method of solving social problems than do most political commentators, as Peter Joseph, director of The Zeitgeist Movement, so appropriately highlighted in his November 15th Maharishi University of Management lecture entitled “Where are We Going?“:

“Mom, I know your intentions are good. But aren’t the police a protective force that maintains the status quo for the wealthy elites? Don’t you think we ought to attack the roots of social problems instead of jamming people into overcrowded prisons?”...
Goto: http://thezeitgeistmovement.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/peter-joseph-where-are-we-going/


Peter Joseph is an American non-commercial film director and activist. He wrote, directed, produced, scored the musical track for and narrated two documentary films, Zeitgeist, the Movie in 2007 and its sequel, Zeitgeist: Addendum in 2008[1]. He decided to release them to be openly and freely distributed on the internet via Google video and BitTorrent, to encourage the worldwide spread of these films. He is also the founder of The Zeitgeist Movement, an organization with over 370,000 subscribers....
Goto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Joseph


The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture. There are many people today who are concerned with the serious problems that face our modern society: unemployment, violent crime, replacement of humans by technology, over-population and a decline in the Earth's ecosystems....
Goto: http://www.thevenusproject.com/