E-portfolio task 3

The accessibility of water for drinking and other uses has arisen to a crucial issue.  Insufficient of water supply has caused hardship in human life such as poor health. This is due to the distribution of water is uneven; weather condition, political and economic barriers are also contribute to this problem. Moreover, most of the water is not suitable for most purpose as water is salty, or appears in the form of snow or ice, or even underground aquifers. The worst is some of the water supply in developing countries is being polluted. Since the usage of water in different aspects is increasing, engineers have to seek a method to encounter the needs as current technology unable to provide adequate clean water supply. Diverting the flow of water to regions that faces scarcity is one of the methods used to overcome this issue. However, it is unable to meet agricultural needs and the distribution of water could be uneven and thus become political issue. Desalination able provide clean supply water, but it is impractical as this method is costly and requires lots of energy which only suitable for seaside cities in plentiful countries.  Even though improvement in new technologies have a better approach to the water problem, yet it is still cannot be solved and other approaches will be needed. For example, there are improvements done on recycling of wastewater and sewage treatment.  The concept of reducing water use also has to be bear in human mind. “Dripping irrigation” is an advance for agricultural irrigation in order to minimize the water demand for agriculture. Another better approach would be small decentralized distillation units which applies economical distribution of water to rural and low-income areas. Indeed, technological solutions to the water problem should be address to inequitable distribution of water resources.

The original passage "Provide ccess to clean water" is from http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/

E-portfolio task 2

One of my common mistakes is tense. According to Wikipedia, grammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs. [1] Generally, we can categorise the tenses into three main groups which are past, present and future. Each of this has simple forms, progressive forms, perfect forms, and perfect progressive forms. 

Simple present tense is used to express the action or situation that exists only now or being repeated in a period of time. For example, “I work at a law firm.” While the simple past tense is used to express the action or situation that already ended. For example, “I worked at a law firm last before.” To describe action or situation that will be happen in the future, simple future tense will be used. For example, “I will work at a law firm next month.” 

Present progressive tense is used to show the action that is happening now. This tense is formed by using am or is or are with the verb form ending with -ing. For example, “I am working at a law firm now.” But we use past progressive tense to describe the action that is happening in the middle of the other action. This tense is formed by using was or were with the verb form ending with -ing. For example, “I was studying in NUS before I work at this law firm.” To show an action will be in the progress in the future, future progressive tense will be used. This tense is formed by using will be or shall be with the verb form ending with -ing. For example, “I will be working at the law firm next month.” 

How to describe an action that already happened in the past but it is related to present? Present perfect tense is the correct one to be used. For example, “I have worked at this law firm since 2005.” Past perfect tense describes how long an action had taken place before another action. For example, “I had worked as a promoter before I work at a law firm.” While the future perfect tense shows an action will be in progress in the future before another action had taken place. For example, “By the time waiting for result, I will have worked at a law firm.” Briefly, all these above are the correct ways to use the different tenses.

References:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_tense
[2] http://stcloudstate.edu/grammar/tenses.html#simple

[3] http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/english_tenses.htm
[4] http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/sequence.htm

Exercises (http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/exercises/test.htm)

The sentences below contain common verb form mistakes. Find the errors and correct them.

EXAMPLES:
went
A) She would always go on vacation last summer.

1. When I was a kid, I dreamt that I would always be a doctor when I grew up.
2. I would live in Paris with my family when I was a child.
3. I used to going to the park with my pet every day when I lived in Los Angeles.
4. When he asked for help with his project, I told him I was going to help him.
5. She would constantly be tall when she was in elementary school.

Answers:

1. When I was a kid, I dreamt that I would always be a doctor when I grew up.

used to
2. I would live in Paris with my family when I was a child.

go
3. I used to going to the park with my pet every day when I lived in Los Angeles.

would
4. When he asked for help with his project, I told him I was going to help him.

used to
5. She would constantly be tall when she was in elementary school.

E-portfolio task 1

In my opinion, the greatest invention by human thus far is the operation of various machines by using electricity. Invention of these machineries has definitely made our life easier in one way or another. Worldwide, there is a wide range of energy resources available to generate electricity. Since the sources of fossil fuels are finite, I think researches being carried out to allow nuclear energy and solar energy to replace the role played by fossil fuels is of utmost importance to the profession.

Nuclear fuel is made from naturally occurring radioactive element such as uranium. Although nuclear energy is a form of non-renewable energy, nuclear fuels could last up to centuries, even when the demand for it increases. During normal operation, nuclear power plants do not emit dangerous fumes such as carbon dioxide, smoke or other gases which contribute to global warming. However, the “spent” fuel stays dangerously radioactive after fusion occurs. Nuclear reactors also have waste disposal problems. These reactors produce nuclear waste products which emit dangerous radiation. As nuclear radiations harm the cells of the body which can lead to severe illnesses in human beings, the reactors cannot be disposed off like ordinary garbage. [1]Therefore, the main challenge faced by the engineers now is to find a way to operate nuclear power plants in such a way that nuclear fusion does not release contaminants into the environment and nuclear waste problems are managed properly so as not to harm the ecosystem.

Solar electricity is created by converting solar energy from the sunlight. Even though solar energy is the most abundant energy source on the planet, solar electricity is only used for space heating and hot water production. This is because the amount of sunlight that arrives on the earth's surface is not constant depending on the location, time and the weather conditions. [2]Another problem is that there is no sunlight during the nights or during rainy days. Perhaps it sounds impractical to capture and store the sunlight, but the advantages that come with the usage of solar energy cannot be denied. Unlike the process of burning fossil fuels which is a major contributor to the green house effect and human health problems, solar energy is non-polluting. Besides that, solar energy is a form of renewable energy hence we need not have to worry whether this source of energy will run dry one day. Thus, it is worth for the engineers to seek for solutions to collect large amount of solar energy and maximising its usage.

If fossil fuels can no longer support the generation of electricity, then there will be an emergence of energy crisis. From this, we can conclude that it is essential for engineers to do researches and developments on solar and nuclear energy due to the fact that fossil fuels are not a long-lasting source of energy.


References
[1] http://library.thinkquest.org/3471/nuclear_energy.html
[2] http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/renewable/solar.html