Year: 2021

Artyom Artyomov has come a long way from once a student of St. Petersburg Mining University to the Head of the Survey Department at Saint Petersburg Metropolitan. Artyom shared his story of why he chose to study mining engineering.

Realizing the need for structural assessments of existing buildings and facilities, an operator of the Saint Petersburg Metro established the department in 2003. Many of its current employees are graduates of Mining University. And as for Artyom, he descended from a family of mining engineers. Both his parents and grandmother were academicians who worked at the university.

“My father was an Associate Professor at the Department of Blasting Work. Nowadays Mining University is cooperating with Orica, an Australian-based provider of commercial explosives, that helped open a research lab here. But even 20 years ago, the university had a lot to offer to its students. One day my father brought me along to his workplace. He held a seminar on the processes of rock destruction and explosion caused by blasting chambers. I have to say I was deeply impressed with what I saw and heard that day. All professions that interested me before – they no longer mattered. My only interest from that moment on was to become a powderman. And thas it when I decided to study mining,” admits the graduate.

Artyom wanted to be a mining engineer. But upon completing his education, he changed his plans due to receiving a job offer from Metrostroy, an organization responsible for building metro stations and tunnels in St. Petersburg. 

“Mining engineers – they build mines, and we – mine surveyors – build tunnels and engineering constructions. There are some similarities, and there are differences, too. Our metro is one of the deepest in the world. So it was a fantastic experience of great value that I made use of then, and that lets me build a rewarding career now,” shares Artyom.

After changing Metrostroy for Saint Petersburg Metropolitan, the Mining University’s graduate joined the Survey Department. He started his career as a first category engineer, and in five years he advanced to the head of the department. 

“I am the leader of the team of 10 survey engineers. What we do is check the technical condition of sub-surface and surface facilities of the metro system. We determine how badly they are affected by external impacts. And based on it, advise on how safe it is to operate them onwards. To put it differently, we provide information on whether repair works are essential and what kinds of work need to be done. We also inform if the start date can’t be postponed or, if it can, for how long it can be suspended,” notes Artyom.

According to him, from 10 to 40% of engineers working at the organization are the Mining University’s graduates, with an actual figure varying from department to department. Many are either surveyors or geodesists. Some studied ‘Mine and Underground Construction’, some chose such program as ‘Construction of Sub-Surface Facilities’. Among Artyom’s colleagues are former students who underwent their internships at the Metro and then decided they wanted to work there. Graduates of such faculties as ‘Applied Geology’ or ‘Mining Engineering’ are also employed at the state municipal company.

Inspired as a child by his father’s presentation, Artyom completed the ‘Blasting Work’ program. Yet the high quality of education he received allows him to work effortlessly for the company managing the city’s metro system. 

Cooperation between Saint Petersburg Metropolitan and Mining University extends beyond the area of education.

“The university is an important partner for us. We may not be a scientific organization, but we stay in touch with scientific communities. Furthermore, sometimes we need outside help – for instance, cannot perform surveys on our own, or need an additional expert opinion. When we face these issues we often reach out to Mining University,” says Artyom.

The Russian fellow, a former student of Saint Petersburg Mining University, is happy to be where he is now and work for the Metro. As he proudly notes, “Saint Petersburg Metropolitan is one of the world’s safest and easily accessible rapid transit systems, equipped with video surveillance, facial recognition and accident prevention systems.”  

Universiti Teknologi MARA‘s Associate Professor Dr Roslina Ab Wahid’s article titled “A Draft Framework for Quality Management System Auditor Education: Findings from the Initial Stage of a Delphi Study” has been published in The TQM Journal – a Q1 Scopus Journal, on 15 December 2020 by Emerald Publishing Limited.

Dr Roslina, an Associate Professor of Quality System and Operational Excellence at the Arshad Ayub Graduate Business School, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia, has written the article with Prof. Nigel Peter Grigg from the Department of Operations and Engineering Innovation, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

The article is part of the output from an international research collaboration project between Universiti Teknologi MARA (Malaysia), Massey University (New Zealand) and Monash University (Australia). Dr Roslina was appointed as the Project Leader of this Delphi study on Auditor Education during her industrial placement at Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JAS-ANZ) last year.

The article highlights the purpose of the research as changes in structure and conceptual underpinnings of ISO 9001 would necessitate the need for the quality management system (QMS) to acquire a wide knowledge base and skill set to effectively evaluate contemporary QMS and add value to the process. Hence, this study presents an open curriculum framework of the knowledge, skills and attributes for quality auditor education.

In addition, the article describes the first two phases of a three-phase study examining the educational requirements for external quality auditors (EQAs). Phase 1 involves a review of relevant international literature on auditor competence and education; Phase 2 involves the collection of qualitative data from a panel of experts, combined with the initial round of a Delphi study. Thematic analysis is used to analyze the findings from the questionnaire.

The findings of this study suggest there is a need to improve EQAs education, as most experts reported the quality of audit to be varying, inconsistent, poor and diminishing in value. This article highlights the need for a broader EQA education based on the gap identified in its performance. In conclusion, the resulting framework can be adopted by accreditation and certification bodies to evaluate and improve their auditors’ audit performance.

The current issue and full-text archive of this journal are available on Emerald Insight at https://www.emerald.com/insight/1754-2731.htm.

The College Representative Committee (JPK) of Melati Residential College from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Shah Alam took an initiative to organize a program called “Learning through Pandemic: Global Students’ View” which was held in two sessions on 12 December 2020 and on 19 December 2020 via Youtube platform of Melati TV Official.

This program is organized by the Exco for International and Foreign Affairs led by Nor Adilla binti Muhamad Yunos with guidance from the exco`s advisor, Mr. Mustakim bin Hashim. This program brings a list of panel university student leaders from abroad to provide insights into the learning system run at their respective countries especially their own universities.

The “Learning through Pandemic: Global Students’ View” program is an online program that involves students’ leaders from overseas universities to share their opinions and views towards online distance learning.

There were two sessions held, the first program was “Learning through Pandemic: Global Students’ View” which involved panels from Indonesia, Japan, Brunei and Australia. The total number of viewers for this session were 5044. This is followed by the second session “Learning through Pandemic: Global Students’ View 2.0” involving panels from Egypt, Turkey, United Kingdom, and Malaysia to explore more about online distance learning globally. There were 3022 viewers for this session.

According to the head of the program, Nor Adilla, “Apart from knowing the global learning process implemented during the pandemic that currently affects most parts of the world, we can also strengthen relations with students and universities from abroad even though our country border has been and is still being closed. Furthermore, now is not the right time for us to go abroad to establish global relations. However, this kind of online program implemented to some extent can help us in enhancing cooperation with foreign parties. ”

Throughout this program, university students can take it as an eye-opener for them on the learning methods implemented in foreign universities and it can give ideas and help students in managing online learning methods more effectively. It is because this program can offer students various ways of learning in the new norms by sharing views from students globally.

The Singapore Management University (SMU) announced that its School of Information Systems (SIS) has been renamed School of Computing and Information Systems (SCIS) to project the expanded aspirations and role of the School beyond Information Systems to include computing which encompasses Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Software Engineering.

The new name, which came into effect on 1 January 2021, was unveiled today at a ceremony attended by SMU’s Board of Trustees, senior management, SCIS Board of Advisors, faculty, staff, students as well as industry partners.

Explaining the rationale for the School’s renaming, Professor Pang Hwee Hwa, Dean of School of Computing and Information Systems, said “The change of the School’s name is timely and necessary. Over the last few years, in response to changes in technologies, nature of jobs, and market demands, we have been refreshing and augmenting our undergraduate and postgraduate education programs to go beyond Information Systems, particularly in the science of computing, hard-core programming, and technology development.”

“To contribute to SMU Vision 2025’s strategic priority of Digital Transformation, the School has identified 9 technology areas in which to go more deeply, the vast majority of which are in the Computer Science field. In addition, two-thirds of our faculty are computer scientists, and the School has developed a research profile with a strong emphasis on Computer Science. SMU is also moving to formalize Computer Science as a faculty discipline under the School, in addition to the existing Information Systems discipline,” Professor Pang Hwee Hwa added.

“Hence, the new name reflects our inherent strengths as well as our direction of growth. It will place the School on an even stronger footing to attract prospective students, faculty and research funding.”

The renaming of the School is in line with SMU Vision 2025’s three Strategic Priorities – Digital Transformation, Sustainable Living, and Growth in Asia – which serve as cross-disciplinary focal areas that cut across the schools at SMU and focus the University’s efforts on areas of particular economic and social relevance to Singapore and the region.

Digital Transformation involves spearheading cutting-edge ideas to digitally transform the private and public sectors and develop robust insights into the impact of digitalization on customer and citizen experience. SCIS will contribute to this strategic priority through three School strategies.

Focus on intelligent collaborative systems

The main enablers of digital transformation are commonly identified as solutions involving technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, automation. For many jobs and tasks, the future lies in humans and machines working in partnership. Hence, intelligent collaborative systems will be essential. Such systems require three clusters of capabilities, namely, intelligence, collaboration and systems.

Intelligence will derive from Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, which cover data management and analytics, planning and optimization, as well as machine learning and intelligence.

The second cluster centers on human-machine collaboration, which entails sensing and multimedia processing, as well as human-machine interaction designs.

Expertise in building computing systems is the third cluster. It includes software engineering to create correct and scalable systems, cybersecurity to safeguard privacy and security, and managing information systems.

Going forward, SCIS will focus its faculty hiring to enhance research capabilities in the high-growth fields of Computer Science like Data Management & Analytics, Intelligent Systems & Optimization, Machine Learning & Intelligence, Pervasive Sensing & Systems, Multimedia, Human-Computer Interaction, Software Engineering, and Cybersecurity.

Cutting-edge research that emphasizes academic scholarship alongside practice scholarship

Digital transformation happens only when computing technology is put into practical application; this involves practice scholarship. The second School strategy is to cultivate the twin pillar of academic scholarship in computing technology, and practice scholarship in solution development. The application domains that SCIS is strong at include Urban Systems & Operations (such as maritime traffic management and crowd management), Active Citizenry & Communities (such as understanding job and skills requirements), and Safety & Security (such as police patrol and ambulance placement).

A transformative education in computing technology and solution development

Through its comprehensive portfolio of degree programs, SCIS aims to produce graduates who are not only trained in computing technology but also practical solution development. In recent years, the School has evolved its education programs by launching interdisciplinary programs that combine computing with disciplines in other SMU schools,  creating new programmes that train students in deep technical skills, modernizing the Digital Transformation major in BSc (Information Systems) degree to equip students with the business and technology skills to create value for businesses and society by applying emerging technologies to develop end-to-end IT solutions, and introducing the Ph.D. in Computer Science program alongside the Ph.D. in Information Systems program, and the Doctor of Engineering program to cultivate practice scholarship.

SCIS, along with the other SMU schools, will continue to create more pathways for its students to supplement depth in computing with breadth in business and social science disciplines, such as the second major in Digital Business that will commence in August 2021. There are also plans for students from other schools at SMU to acquire computing skills that are essential for their professions.

Herri Trilaksana, S.Si., M.Si., Ph.D, Physics lecturer of Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) is working on an innovative way to utilize Mach-Zehnder Interferometer through which the levels of heavy metals in water can be determined.

Mach-Zehnder Interferometer is one of the practical tools in the Physics Laboratory of Faculty of Science and Technology, UNAIR. This tool is often used for lab work in the field of optics to determine the variation of the relative phase shift by separating light from a source.

“To provide innovation to students on how to make something new from existing teaching or educational equipment, into something that increases their capacity. That is making educational scale equipment suitable for research scale equipment,“ Dr Herri Trilaksana said.

The research that has been running since mid-2019 is divided into two different stages. First, it is based on the construction of an instrument system that uses an Arduino microcontroller device to command Mach Zehnder interferometer equipment.

“This stage has been completed and has been tested for synthetic samples at the laboratory level,” explained the Head of Physics Department.

Lendy Pradhana Hartono, one of the students taking part in the research, said that the interferometer which divides the light beams (laser, ed) from one source was directed to something to be measured. The two beams of light were put back together and made to undergo a change in path and it was found that the superposition between the two beams was different.

“In this study, one of the beams was passed to the liquid which we stained with cadmium. When a concentration of cadmium exists, its superposition changes. The result of the superposition forms a round fringe or image that will change or flash. The changes in the fringe are analyzed, ” said the Physics student.

The mathematical results, the refractive index results, gained from the fringe blinks. The refractive index will determine whether the sample is really pure water or has impurities in it. The second stage is in the application section for environmental sample analysis.

The test was carried out ten times with a concentration of 0.5-5 ppm (parts per million, ed) where each concentration was tested 5 times.

For research management, Heri explained,  “At the moment, laboratories outside the physics department have not been involved because it’s still focused on electronic instrumentation.”

Furthermore, there will be collaborations with several chemical laboratories to test the reliability of the results. So far for this study, a collaboration has been done with Prof. Kenneth Grattan in City, the University of London in England.

Herri hopes that with the Arduino-based mach zehnder interferometer equipment, inexpensive sample measurements can be done compared to existing methods with better or higher accuracy than existing ones.

“The second hope is that we will be able to modify some of the equipment in the photonics lab which was originally only at the learning level to become suitable equipment for use in research,” concluded the lecturer who focuses on optics.

Jasper den Besten, a professor at HAS University of Applied Sciences (‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands), shared his opinion on Urban Greenhouse Challenge: Reforest, an international competition of student projects.