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General / Anything / GKP Youth Award 2003 |
on: Apr 24th, 2003, 1:33am |
| Started by pearljumo | Last post by pearljumo |
Announcement
The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) has just launched the GKP Youth Award. We invite submissions from youth led projects from all over the world.
The GKP Youth Award is part of the Youth Creating Digital Opportunities (YCDO) framework. YCDO is a coalition of organisations spearheaded by the GKP, Taking IT Global (TIG), International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and Digital Youth Consortium. Visit YCDO's online community at http://www.ycdo.net.
Through this award, the GKP aims to reward and bring international recognition to the outstanding work of young people who have used information communication technologies (ICT) for the promotion of development in their communities.
The winning project will receive USD10 000.
Finalists will also be presented with the opportunity to showcase their projects to an international body of ICT4D policy makers and practitioners at the ICT4D Platform (http://www.ict-4d.org ), held in conjunction with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in December 2003.
The winner will be selected from a wide array of ICT for development (ICT4D) projects that have been successful in meeting their stipulated set of objectives through the efficient and effective use of ICT. The award-giving ceremony will be held at the ICT4D platform.
Furthermore, submissions for the Youth Award from the Asia Pacific community can also be used as applications for participation at the InfoSoc Malaysia 2003 conference. This is an international conference and exposition attended by international public, private and civil society members.
InfoSoc Malaysia will take place in Melaka from 21-24 June 2003. This year the theme of the conference is “Empowering Youth for Value Creation”.
More information is available at: www.globalknowledge.org
Send enquiries & submissions to: youthaward@gkpsecretariat.org.my
Deadline: 31 August 2003
Opportunity for Asia Pacific Youth for InfoSoc Malaysia 2003
Send enquiries & submissions to: youthaward@gkpsecretariat.org.my
Deadline: 25 April 2003
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Actions / Actions / Countering invasion of bacteria |
on: Apr 10th, 2002, 5:35am |
| Started by Admin | Last post by Admin |
Recent discoveries by medical community had evidently proposed the increase of deadly strains of bacteria showing greater resistance to newly developed stronger drugs. As drug dosage and concentration prescribed increase in boosting our immune system to counter the invading bacterias, the bacterias builds up its defences against the drug attacks, thereby increasing its resistance against any effective antibiotic. Bacterias are able to disrupt the antibiotic mechanism in which the fight against it seems endless.
Vaccinations and improving health care and sanitation in the Third World are expected to limit the spread of diseases. However, a greater antibiotic which acts differently from the conventional ones are currently being sought after in order to prolong the duration of bacteria resistance against it and ultimately effectively in wiping out the bacteria sooner. Scientist had come up with antimicrobial agent against pathogens in animals and plants by looking for antibiotics among organisms nearer to the human branch on the evolutionary tree.
Bacterias and fungi synthesize chemicals which destroys their similar competitors while themselves intact. The mechanism acts where the substance enters the cytoplasm of bacterial cell and disrupting specific targets from producing essential compounds needed for growth and development. In this case, it usually attacks the cell’s protein factories called ribosomes.
However in larger organisms of plants and animals, this applies by break down of the targeted bacterial cell membrane, as relative discoveries of the many compounds in animals and plants where it is harder for bacteria to build a resistance against, where cell membrance targets specific molecules. Consequently, the break down of the cell membrane result in the outflow of essential nutrients or inflow of toxins into cytoplasm, effectively poisoning and killing the bacteria.
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Actions / Actions / Solution to food shortage |
on: Apr 10th, 2002, 5:33am |
| Started by Admin | Last post by Admin |
Currently, several solutions are in place to overcome the problem of global food shortage we are facing now. This mainly centres in the extensive research and development undergoing in laboratories worldwide, dealing with the newly discoveries to alternative environmentally friendly methods in order to maintain a sustainable food supply in the long term.
The first problem to overcome is its external factors with the maintenance of proper management on the irrigation and regulation of fertilizations on agricultural land. A systematic and organizational planning on land mass, including the specialization of workforce to deal with the stages of agriculture sectors, with assistance from government to oversee the smooth implementation of food production throughout the process. It is with regulation of this that soil fertility is preserved and it is done with least cost, reducing the usage of machineries in handling to decrease the emission of byproducts from it, taxing and exhaustion caused to the land and environmental friendly products(fertilizers) in the right ratio balance of volume per area of land in equilibrium. Also not left out is the distribution of food supply, as in the case to the areas where availability of infrastructure of distribution is limited, therefore it would be better if there exist a network of quantitisation of balance food supplies with the ratio gender of population, nutritional needs and economical income of the country. With this network in place, it is hope that food produced would reach everyone and organisms worldwide to be benefitted so that such a move is worthwhile in the objective of feeding the world population and not to be drained and wasted. In the factory manufacturing process of producing packaged and cooked food, regulations would ensure the standard requirements of additives and preservatives added are followed not to endanger global population health.
Besides that, promoting the diversification of food resources worldwide to diversify the various nutritional values intake of flora and faunas, especially plants. The current method given is by crop rotation of plants by seasons or yearly basis. Discoveries of certain exotic plant species high in nutritional and medicinal values had give hope for scientist to find for cure to incurable illnesses, multiple nutritions to improve the nutritional diets of organisms or newly discovered nutrition substance to be studied further. Furthermore, archaeologist had excavated ancient settlements had been germinated successfully, with this it can be an alternative food source. It is hope with food diversification we are able to enlarge the gene pool of the organism population to overcome the problem of genetic erosion. Indirectly through crop rotation, we are able to maintain the ratio balance of the soil nutrient to prevent rapid deterioration of the soil condition; foster reafforestation, wetlands restoration and habitat revitalization.
One of the breakthrough in science and technology is the use of genetic application as an alternative, which is viewed as a long term prospect in the food production industry through selective breeding, artificial insemination, cloning and genetic engineering. The aim of this application due to many factors, which are to increase the yield and nutritve value of crop plants; increasing the growth rate, meat production, milk yield, milk yield and egg production of livestock; changing from fat to lean varieties of livestocks in response to consumer demands; addition of combination of genes into livestocks and vegetation so that organism metabolism produce ‘multinutrient’ contents for consumption; producing pest resistant and disease resistant varieties in plants and animals and producing plants and animals that are tolerant of environmental changes. With this technology also, we should adopt to sustain reserves and resources through the maintenance of gene bank of wild populations of organisms; rare breeds of animals; crops in cultivation; botanic gardens and zoological gardens; seed banks; sperm banks; cels in tissue culture and frozen embryos to maintain current genetic diversity for future uses and research onto it.
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| 6 |
Actions / Actions / Pollution detection |
on: Apr 10th, 2002, 5:29am |
| Started by Admin | Last post by Admin |
The recent development of biological detectors has led to development of further refine tools and mechanism in assisting the application of it for instant clean up of contaminants upon detection. Impossible for now as it may seems, but it would revolutionise how such ‘detect-cleaner’ operations to be dealt with, to be used for hazardous industrial waste and household. Perhaps in future, the advertisement for products like ‘XXXX Biosensors: Fast, Efficient, Easy to Use, Widely Applicable Anywhere!’,’Quality, Durable, Agile, Reusable is what QDAR BioDetClean is. It biologically detects and clean up the mess made!’.
Mechanism of this detectors are still at its infancy, only much had been development on its detection but not for the clean up. Factors which should be considered in the usage of it are the time efficiency of detection, ability to detect the specific contaminant on site, accuracy on the vital qualitative and quantitative analysis to the degree of contaminants accumulated on site, method of detection either by luminescence, machine based, or markers, cost of the technology, efficiency of clean up, side effects or production of byproducts, variability in use with other applications of different onset of pollution(water,land,radioactive and air) and area per volume of the site that can be covered which can be accomodated by this detector.
Example of this biosensor was developed by Scottish scientist, where the biological detector is a bacteria. It is a simple and economical tool in the detection of pollutants on land and water. Degree of pollution is indicated by the luminescence intensity of the bacteria, where it lights up with site of minimal or clean site whereas lights will go out in the opposite situation. It is examined in laboratory where duration of detection is approximately 10 minutes. Scientist developed the glowing bugs by inserting a gene,through genetic engineering, into the bacteria that makes them glow. The bacteria not only detect pollution but also offer a clean-up strategy by quickly indicating how polluted the sample is |
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| 7 |
Actions / Actions / R & D: Water pollution |
on: Apr 10th, 2002, 5:25am |
| Started by Admin | Last post by Admin |
Biosparging (Water Pollution R & D)
-> operates similar to bioventing, except that this operates at saturated zone.
-> air and nutrients are incorporated to the saturated zone to stimulate the biological activity of the indigenious microorganisms. It is used to decrease the concentration petroleum constituents that is soluble to groundwater, absorbed to soil below the water table and within the capillary fringe.
-> effective in reducing petroleum products at underground storage tank (UST) sites. Biosparging is most often used at sites with mid-weight petroleum products (e.g., diesel fuel, jet fuel); lighter petroleum products (e.g., gasoline) tend to volatilize readily and to be removed more rapidly using air sparging. Heavier products (e.g., lubricating oils) generally take longer to biodegrade than the lighter products, but biosparging can still be used at these sites.
-> this process promotes the biodegradation of constituents rather than volatilization
Factors influencing the process:
the permeability of the soil which determines the rate at which oxygen can be supplied to the hydrocarbon-degrading microorganisms in the subsurface
the biodegradability of the petroleum constituents which determines both the rate at which and the degree to which the constituents will be degraded by microorganisms.
temperature of the groundwater
pH levels
presence of sufficient electron acceptors, and
nutrient concentrations.
-> this process works with such mechanisms:
maximise and optimize the influence of the plume to for efficient removal from the system.
provide optimum monitoring and vapor extraction points to ensure minimal transfer of the vapor plume and no undetected migration of either the dissolved phase or vapor phase plumes. In shallow applications, in large plume areas, or in locations under buildings or pavements, horizontal vapor extraction wells are very cost effective and efficient for controlling vapor migration.
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| 8 |
Actions / Actions / R & D: Soil Pollution |
on: Apr 10th, 2002, 5:23am |
| Started by Admin | Last post by Admin |
Biopiles
-known as biocells, biomounds, bioheaps and compost piles.
-Works in the principle of decreasing the concentration of petroleum constituents excavated in soil through biodegradation.
-Operates by applying pressure or heaping of polluted soil into piles and boost the aerobic microbial activity within the soil through aeration with addition of nutrients, moisture and minerals. In effect, this leads to decomposition of constituents through microbial respiration. This process is similar in landfarming, as the are both above ground, engineered system that use oxygen to increase the growth and development of bacteria which decompose the petroleum constituents above the soil. Oxygen are provided by forcing air to move by injection or extraction through slotted or perforated piping placed throughout the pile.
-proven effective in reducing concentrations of nearly all the constituents of petroleum products typically found at underground storage tank (UST) sites. Lighter (more volatile) petroleum products (e.g., gasoline) tend to be removed by evaporation during aeration processes (i.e., air injection, air extraction, or pile turning) and, to a lesser extent, degraded by microbial respiration.
-Effectiveness of this process depends on soil charactherisitics, constituents charactheristics and climate conditions.
Bioventing(R&D soil pollution)
-in situ remediation technology where indigenious microorgranisms are used as agent in decomposition of organic materials seeping to soil in unsaturated zone. The activity of the bacteria is improvised by the addition of oxygen, into the unsaturated zone by extraction or injection wells and also nutrients.
-This process has a resemblance to soil vapour extraction, except that this process promotes the decomposition of contituents and decrease volatilization using softer air flow compare to soil vapour extraction.
-Effectiveness of bioventing depends on these particular factor:
·i. The permeability of the petroleum-contaminated soils. This will determine the rate at which oxygen can be supplied to the hydrocarbon-degrading microorganisms found in the subsurface.
·The biodegradability of the petroleum constituents. This will determine both the rate at which and the degree to which the constituents will be metabolized by microorganisms.
.proven to be very effective in remediating releases of petroleum products including gasoline, jet fuels, kerosene, and diesel fuel. Bioventing is most often used at sites with mid-weight petroleum products (i.e., diesel fuel and jet fuel), because lighter products (i.e., gasoline) tend to volatilize readily and can be removed more rapidly using SVE. Heavier products (e.g., lubricating oils) generally take longer to biodegrade than the lighter products
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| 9 |
General / Anything / Poetry 2 |
on: Apr 10th, 2002, 5:21am |
| Started by Admin | Last post by Admin |
Environment for we to guard & be protected,
Guarantees a greatest of insurance to life ever offered.
Pollute more as we to continue,
Inhibiting the ailing ecological warnings
Causing the casualties of priceless biodiversity revenue.
The wrongs we done to nature,
Shall we to correct & nurture,
For time in recovering what we lost,
Will be gain as ours
in the end .
Thoughts & talks given,
But no actions taken,
Are nothing but a mere,
Empty chatters representation of caricature.
Love & care we to nurture the nature should be lauded,
for what nature harness back to us rewarded,
a precious gem of wealth,
encouragement to the lasting of our health
of our Earth’s ecology.
Beauty is said to be in the eyes of beholder,
As nature should be considered as every living being’s caregiver.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,
universal environmental cycle,
couple with other preventative measures,
to ensure achievements of success in combating pollutions,
for every individuals to enjoy with pleasure,
in the hope for expansion of Earth’s civilisation .
Sharing & diversification of ecological resources carefully,
brings to the wise utilization of its provision smartly .
We know of philosophy interwoven with way of life without question,
Then nature & pollution should repel with utter contradiction.
Nature’s harmonious beating of biorhythm,
evidence of a healthy nature paradigm ,
an effort we must constantly conserve preciously ,
to the fullest contentment eternally .
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| 10 |
General / Anything / Poetry 1 |
on: Apr 10th, 2002, 5:20am |
| Started by Admin | Last post by Admin |
Rainfall as it is unanimous,
with the tears of sadness,
Of what has been done to the environment,
Cannot be fully forgiven.
Pristine environment that envelops rainforest,
Panoramic view of the mountain top usher us,
For all the serenity that pervades,
We should preserve it with everlasting grace.
Clandestine nature grace the environment with color,
We are to conserve it well in full of splendor.
What are we to do in question?
Is to accomplish the mission,
With determination, effort & will,
That will pay off greatly.
Chirping of birds in the wilderness,
Harmonious choir surrounds with such mildness.
What the wilderness there is to share,
Is for us to return this kindness with care.
Breathtaking sceneries that nature provides,
We are to explore what lies,
Of the ever powerful forces of nature in brilliance,
Which was bestowed upon in grandness.
From the high mountain tops to the deep sea terrains,
Full of enrichment of diversity of life which reigns,
In the search for more treasures which lies beneath,
Brings the full knowledge for us to be enriched.
Addressing the problems & conditions of pollution,
Should we to do it with great accurate information,
The next step for us to react upon,
To take action to correct for the wrongs done.
On how articulate & calm we to deal with problems,
Should we put into considerations,
Of all the questions that belies,
What, who, where, which, how, why,
With which plans are coordinated properly,
Put into actions in effect immediately.
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