Advert for budding entrepreneurs - Genesis

Discover how your innovation and creativity can start up a new business

The NES events department is proud to present to you Genesis-Discover your business idea with innovation and creativity. Join us in an interactive and fun-filled evening where you will get a chance to get up close and personal with the CEO of Stikfas! This student dialogue session will provide you with a unique insight into the minds of today's successful entrepreneurs - how creativity and innovation has played a part in initiating and sustaining their business? What provided the spark and inspiration for their original products? Furthermore, the post-dialogue session will serve as a networking platform for you as you will get the chance to interact and mingle with the speaker.

Date: 30/10/2008 Thursday
Venue: CIT Auditorium, Computer Center Level 2 (Opposite Central Library)
Time: 6.30pm to 8.30pm
Dress Code: Smart Casual

Kindly register at http://www.nes.org.sg/

Advert for budding entrepreneurs - TiE NUS Youth Group

The Youth Group of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) are presenting an introductory talk with a panel of speakers:

23 October 2008 (Thurs) 6.30pm - 8pm @ LT18 (BIZ).
Smart casual. Free admission. RSVP via email.

Check out their website if you're interested. By the way, I am in no way affiliated with this organization. I'm posting this because several classmates are interested in starting their own business in the future. Thanks.

An abstract of my life

If my life were to be a scientific study, what might it look like? After more than sixteen years of study, the main literature review will be completed by May 2009 in the form of a BSc. (Hons.) in Life Sciences. There was much trial-and-error experimentation in the preliminary stages. Experimentation will still continue, following in the spirit of science, with ongoing data assimilation and regular updating of protocols according to experience. The predicted result is a Second Upper Honours. Hopefully this will enable me to advance my current phase of basic sciences into future pursuits involving exciting human studies.

It's the people who really matter - Thanks everyone!

Upon reflection, I realize that my group’s project has progressed smoothly and I feel that this project is one of the more successful projects which I have done in NUS. What are some possible reasons for our smooth progress?

1. Effective and efficient teamwork. Danny and Jia Hao are cooperative, hardworking, focussed and fair. Moreover, they were tolerant even when I did extensive changes to their work and they demonstrated initiative by volunteering to take on responsibilities.

For instance, Danny voluntarily brought his lap-top for all our project meetings even though Jia Hao and I had not requested this of him. He also found and read a relevant book from CELC for our literature review. On the other hand, Jia Hao set up, monitored and gathered the data from our online survey. He also offered to generate the graphs for our report, efficiently utilizing the analytical skills which he had developed through his courses in statistics.

In short, Danny and Jia Hao are good team-mates. Their steady contributions motivated me to stay on task and on time and I feel fortunate to have them as classmates, team-mates and friends.

2. A clearly defined procedure. The stepwise guide to research and report writing in this module has provided a useful framework.

In particular, I initially thought that defining a problem statement and hypothesis for the project was rather tedious. However, these helped to give purpose and direction during the process of report writing.

Besides that, peer reviewing and conferencing were valuable sources of feedback from different individuals’ perspectives. We received useful suggestions and realized that we had overlooked several points in our report.

3. Luck? We were fortunate to obtain 100 survey responses in a short period of 10 days. Perhaps this was due to our choice of topic although it was more probable that friends had helped us by participating in our survey. Survey respondents contribute significantly towards any survey study even though their input may be poorly acknowledged.

Although a survey study is quite different from conventional scientific research, the human aspect is important in both. After completing this project, I feel more convinced of the synergistic benefits of team-work.

Where is the end of plagarism?

Is it practical to try to "prevent" plagarism?

We are in the midst of an "information age". In the future, we can probably expect the volume of information to increase exponentially. In light of this, to what extent can plagarism be controlled or avoided? To the world outside of academia, academia may appear antiquated and steeped in tradition (while remaining proud of it). Is it about time to re-vamp the system of academic writing in order to keep up with the demands of this time and age?

In how many ways can we expect a certain piece of information to be re-written in order to avoid plagarising a piece of writing? Exactly when does a piece of information become "common knowledge" and be free of of its "author"-right (analogous to copyright?)? When it becomes published in textbooks? Why aren't the authors of the textbook (and students who use the textbook) guilty of plagarism then? Usually, writers are encouraged or expected to cite the original primary work instead of secondary sources whenever this is possible. The boundaries seem to be defined vaguely; nevertheless, watchdogs are vigilantly guarding the "author"-right and are quick to catch any slip-ups without mercy.

Moreover, academic writing often involves the specific use of specific words. In re-writing a particular part, there is a chance that the original meaning gets subtly distorted. On the other hand, extensive use of quotations, especially block quotations, appear unwieldy. In scientific writing, quotations are not commonly utilized. Instead, a piece of information may be followed immediately by several numbers (indicating reference sources); a practice which is less wordy but still cumbersome and distracting to the reader.

The original intention behind referencing and avoiding plagarism is to give proper recognition to an individual for a novel idea. However, have individuals been spending excessive and unnecessary time and effort in doing extensive re-writing in order to avoid plagarism? Could this collective time and effort have been put to better use otherwise? Which is more important: the means of avoiding plagarism or the ends of avoiding plagarism?

Outside of academia, there are copyright issues. However, if I recall correctly, the copyright for a piece of work dies with its author. Yet in academia, the "author"-right of a piece of information can live on indefinitely beyond the lifespan of its author.

Moreover, take the example of the music industry. Isn't it strangely common for a piece of music to be reborn in various versions, all of which can be traced back to the original piece? Yet each piece seem to be recognized as stand-alones and not blatent "copies" which violate copyright laws. Why does this apparent discrepancy in standards arise?

Is it practical or even possible to try to "prevent" plagarism?