Task 4:Difficulties Writing in Engineering Classes

Difficulty that I always encounter when I am writing in my engineering classes is language problems. Uncertainty in usage of grammar and vocabulary stops me from expressing my opinion thoroughly. Sometime these mistakes could result in distortion of meaning. Consequently, I can't state my stand clearly. Although there are rules when we are writing in English, these rules do not apply to all situation. We have meaning for preposition like on , after and for but when these words pair with a verb, forming phrasal verb, the meaning can change totally. For instance, "to ask after" means to ask for news of something or somebody while "to ask for" means request or demand. These uncertainty in usage of grammar and vocabulary has resulted in difficulty writing in my engineering classes. I realised my own weakness. Therefore, I try to resolve it by reading newspapers, books and novels. Firstly, when I learn a new word, I will look for the meaning of this word and try to memorize it. Moreover, I use new words that I've learned in my conversation so that I can familiarize with them. Secondly, I will discuss with my teacher and friends when I am confused about the usage of grammar and vocabulary. With the help of teacher and friends, I get to know my own mistake. Hence i can get improved and prevent my mistake to happen again. Another way to strengthen my language is to practise. Instead of doing practices that are given by my teacher, I also do some extra exercises such as online grammar and vocabulary exercise. From these exercises, I can have a great understanding about writing in a proper way. In order to make myself continue to improve, I try to make reading a habit. I am trying to keep this habit persistent so that I can intensified my language. Besides that, I also use English in my conversation rather than using my mother tongue. "Practice makes perfect". I will continue to do more exercises so that I can clear my doubt in grammar and vocabulary. Language problem is the difficulty that I face when I am writing in my engineering classes. I believe that by continue putting effort, I will be able to overcome this difficulty in a short time.

Task 3:Summary

Prevent Nuclear Terror

Collecting plutonium or highly enriched uranium is the main barrier to a terrorist to plan a nuclear attack. The first danger is highly enriched bomb-grade uranium produced for reactor might be diverted to terrorists. Besides, the second danger is the synthetic plutonium which is radioactive hazard in itself and a good fuel for nuclear bombs. Therefore, nuclear security is one of the most urgent policy issues in the 21st century. Besides its political and institutional aspects, it also poses acute technical issue. However, there are still many challenges of nuclear security like how to protect the materials, how to detect it especially at a distance, how to make a potential device harmless, emergency response, cleanup, and public communication after a nuclear attack and determining the attacker. The third danger is terrorists could create a more powerful homemade bomb with help from renegade professional designers. Responding to such homemade bomb involve engineering challenges ranging from monitoring to cleanup, of both people and places. Other than the challenges above, ensuring a nation using nuclear using nuclear power for energy does not extract plutonium for bomb building is also a touch challenge. In fact, a possible solution of the nuclear security’s problems is to develop a passive device which placed close to a reactor which able to show any removal of plutonium. It is better if the device could detect signs that the reactor was being used to maximize plutonium production instead of power. The second solution to prevent the transportation of fissile material is the “nuclear car wash”. It consist a complex scanning system that containers would pass by while on a conveyor belt. With the intelligence of systems and engineers, and understanding of nature’s nuclear secret through researches, these challenges can be overcame in the 21st century.

References
National Academy of Engineering (NAE). (2008). Prevent nuclear terror. (n.d.). Retrieve October 1, 2008, from http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9134.aspx