the effects of "mapping the brains" on our society - Porfolio 5

Most of people think “reading people’s mind” is an idea that could just be in fairy tales. But this fairy tale is coming true with the development of the technology named Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The technology promises positive potentials in some related-brain diseases treatment and also criminal investigation as well. However, ethical and legal issues in the development and application of fMRI that are thought to be the negative effect of the technology are still under experiment and public consideration.

How fMRI could affect our society?
Firstly, fMRI can detect and locate brain activity, so enable computer analyze then determine correctly what words and visual images the person is thinking of. In the term of investigation, on the one hand, the technology could function well in detect the information the person’s brain. A terrorist’ brain, for example, will contain many information and visual images of weapons, bomb and shooting. In the group of people are being considered as the criminals, the police could distinguish and arrest the right person more easily by using fMRI. Moreover, in a company, the boss could also check if his managers and worker are lying or cheating him. On the other hand, evaluating this technology on the aspect of ethical issues, many questions could be raised. “Who have the right to use this technique, read and store data of people’s brains?” “What would be happening if the computer did not function well and give the wrong data?” “Are the visual images and information from brain are reliable to determine the nature of the person?” As the result, a good person could be thought to be a bad worker, a liar in work place and in society accidentally; a man could be arrested because of some criminal information obtained from his brain.
Secondly, in the issues of testing with children, the technology could create a chaos among parents’ opinion. Parents want to know whether their children are talented at a particular subject. That might be a good idea when you have directional orientations for your children and support their talents. On the contrary, the talents and interests could be able to change in the effect of surroundings. Then the above idea “checking children’s talents” could have negative effects when parents themselves get confused about the “talent- orientation” from children’s brains overtime.
Furthermore, development of fMRI could support the techniques in treatment of some serious brain-diseases. “The technology could eventually lead to the use of brain scans to identify thoughts and could have applications in the study of autism, disorders of thought such as paranoid schizophrenia, and semantic dementias such as Pick’s disease.”(“National Science Foundation”, 2008).

In the perspective of a researcher of brain mapping, I think minimizing potential unethical abuses depends mostly on governments. The governments should decree the laws and regulations of use of the technology fMRI in some limited aspects of life such as criminal investigation and medical treatments. It is also necessary to have the data and information obtained from human’s brains saved and stored safely once the computer has scanned brains for treatments.
In summary, although fMRI has negative effects on our society that must be considered in terms of ethical and political issues, the technology promises the positive potential in criminal investigations and medical treatments. Beside scientist and engineering are working to develop this technology, the governments also need to build laws of usage of fMRI so that the technology could be developed and applied legally with the agreements and support from public.

References
National Science Foundation. (2008, May 30). A computer that can “read” your mind
[Press release 08-091]. Retrieved August 6, 2008, from http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111641&org=olpa&from=news

the method is suitable for my homecountry

With the development of societies, human beings have been exploiting and overusing resources but they have the limit. This problem is not exceptional for my country, Vietnam. The recent concerns are how to deal with the increasing amount of rubbish, how to reuse and recycle things that we dispose, actually taking the perspective of a future engineer, I think zero waste system seems to promise potential to solve that. First of all, Vietnam is also in a similar context with many other countries, using more and more resources for industries to catch up the common development of the world and serving the increasing needs of people. Rubbish is, however, not treated well by the current method: landfills. A conspicuous problem is that waste is constantly leaking from reservoirs and causes many pollutions to our living environment and harms humans’ health. Incinerators could be considered as alternative methods, however, it required much energy to burn rubbish and might exhaust some poisonous gases. In contrast, with zero waste system, we could classify kinds of rubbish and separate them into particular recycling process. So we can reduce significantly the amount of rubbish released into the environment, and also reduce the need for incinerators and landfills. That means we also prevent the risks from the leakage of waste from landfills and the cost for incinerators. In addition, by recycling used products, turning rubbish into the useful products, we can have a small business, create jobs for people and make money. In conclusion, I, a would-be engineer, strongly believe that zero waste system could be applied in my home country to solve the increasing amount of rubbish, prevent pollution in natural environment by reusing and recycling used products.

My difficulties in MLE1101 class- porfolio 4

This is my first year in university, a big change from high school to the higher education environment, I think. I have, obviously, been dealing with many difficulties and challenge in this new studying environment. My modules in this semester cause me some confused and worried because of my non-speaking English background and many brand new concepts.

Firstly, language is the most important thing I have to master parallel with my engineering curriculum. It is said that engineers are working with formulas and figures most of time. However, in term of language, the way I read and we write also plays a very important in our study because I must read textbook and listen to my lecturers as well as do reports. Naturally, those things are the difficulties for an engineer in general and even more difficult for international students who do not have a speaking English background. I often read slowly to understand what the points are in the lectures, and in textbooks. I also get troubles in writing since I am required to change my writing style, I mean, the English grammars and sentence structures from my mother tongue. And how am I solving these problems? First, I am lucky to take an English class in university now so that I have opportunities to learn more reading and writing strategies from my professor and textbooks. Furthermore, I have time to discuss with my classmate and improve English each other. Meanwhile, in my other modules’ textbooks, I often try to read twice or three times until I understand. Besides studying, I also listen to radio, for example BBC or VOA, to get catch new words and improve my listening skill also. Reading academic articles related with engineering or science helps me to upgrade my reading speed and I can learn new writing style and sentences or paragraphs organizations.

Secondly, English causes me some problems, but the brand new concepts trouble me more. Particularly, although I could know the meaning of the words, I could not understand what they mean because I have to get stuck into the real knowledge engineering and technology to understand it. So what I have done to deal with this big problem is I try to transfer these word- concepts into visual concepts. In MLE1101 class, for example, talking about polymers, polymerization and particle reinforced composite materials, it is extremely to understand those concepts without pictures about them. Moreover, if I still have difficulties with my visual concepts, asking for help from my professors and tutors is also the best way to clarify your mind. Otherwise, studying in a group, and discussing with my friends not only gives me chance to ask but also helps me out discovering my misconception sometimes.

In conclusion, having difficulties in studying is the common things for every students, especially for international students, but the important thing is how you could figure out the way to overcome. To me, trying to improve my own English, having visual concepts and discussing with my friends, tutors, and professor are my way to get over my difficulties and challenges in my university time.