Thursday, July 9, 2015

Daydreaming and enjoy the little things.
   I agree with the statement, the people should somethings do things that they do not enjoy doing.  It is true for several reasons. The worker do not pay very well, in consequently they are unhappy. This is a big and seriously problem In Latin-American countries. The worker, and special women, recipes low salaries.  This systems production is unequal. The companies transnational in Mexico have a “maquilas”. The maquilas are continuous and serial production sytems.  A high percent many us worker should working 24 hours per day. Obviously, the people do not enjoy doing. The worker do not free time for cure a families, always they are tired and awake at finish jobs.
   The other reason is that young people in the world are not valid options for work in their professions. They end up working on things that leaves unsatisfied. This situation are dangerous all societies, because the younger people do not enjoy, endangers the whole society. When as young people are the future of social systems and they ensure their survival of cultures.
    In positive in first world the younger people have different problems.  For example in USA some younger are a lot free time, many opportunities, good jobs, and good money, but they are busy trivial things. Young people are disenchanted because it has everything.
  In conclusion, governments and economic systems should take decisions to society beings rather than enjoy what they do. Bet on a more equal and balanced society have happier citizens. Humans must learn to enjoy the simple things. I think we must learn  daydreams.

https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gifDavid Lozano

Monday, June 29, 2015

IEC 61850 Standard for critical funtions
          

     Over the past five year, my research interest  have focused on improving and optimization of IED-based control and protection schemes for electric substations. I am particularly interested in the use of IEC 61850 Standard, and associate communication links as a reliable network for critical funtions, such as trip or interlocking signals. My work is around the main grid of Colombian  electric transmission network, where the design engineers had been very cautious and distrustful about the advantage of communication facilities of protective relays and control IED's. Traditionally communication protocols, as IEC 61850, had been accepted  only for non critical functions (remote control, state supervision, and alarms). However, trip and interlocking signals, which manage the principal system safety,  are designed with the old technology based on cooper wired circuit, under the moot pretext to be a proved technology. These approachs belong to past. Concepts relative to modern methods to manage functions in substation through IEC 61850 (e.g. process bus and sampled values) must be in the  next generation of substations. As adhering  to this stream at this point in my career, my primary interest in the inmediate future is to structure a coherent plan for use IEC 61850 Standard for critical functions in substation's control and protection schemes.



Friday, June 26, 2015

The decision of working at the academy

by: Juan Mejia


   Working at the academy was one of the most important decisions in my professional and personal life. Fourteen years ago, I was finishing my 18-moths bachelor’s thesis while I was looking for a job in Chemical Engineering.  By these days, there were not enough job offers because the Colombian economy was very bad. However, I succeeded in a job application at a car brakes company in Bogotá until I had the interview. That was my first and last job application in my life for a company.  What was the reason? That morning, I woke up very early in the morning and travelled from Chapinero Alto to Fontibón by bus (a 80 minutes journey), wearing uncomfortable  clothing (a suit).  I reached the company doors about 20 minutes earlier of the interview appointment so I had to wait outside, as if I were selling something. The interviewer was a very kind woman at her 50’s (I guess). She picked me up and walked me through the company production area. It was a large area with a lot of equipment. The production process was noisy and dusty, and very dangerous, not only because of the machines risks but also for the raw materials used in the process. One of these materials is Asbesto, a well-known cancerous material. I was not excited with the idea of working in that place. In fact, most of chemical, and related industries are similar. Then I realized that I did not want to work at industry.  It was a very stressful moment as I thought “I have spent 6 years of my life, just for that?”. I got depressed until I returned to Medellin, when I was hired by a new professor, Dr. Farid Chejne, as research assistant student in a research project related to alternative energy. After 6 months, I noticed that I loved what I was doing and professor Chejne suggested me to study a master in chemical engineering. In that moment, I got excited with the idea of having a professional life doing research and teaching. In summary, a little experience can change a whole life. I agree with the wise expression “nothing is free”.

The event that changed my life

            One of the most important event that changes my life was became a teacher.  When I finished my graduated studies in Chemical Engineering at the National University of Colombia, I had the opportunity to be hired as assistant instructor to teach Process Control. At this moment I had to teach my classmates. It was so hard, but I learned early the necessity of keep the role that the live gives you in this moment.  I am gratefully with the three professors who oriented me. Each one of them had his own style of teaching. This gave me the opportunity to consolidate not only my own style of teaching but also to share their material. It is known that in the 19ths, the access at the information made the difference and gave you more advantages. Since then I could learn more are more. All in all, I doesn’t conceive my live without teaching.


My research interest
 
 
       My main research topic is focused in the dynamics of chemical elements in Agricultural soils. The knowledge of pool of elements and ions movement in soils has a big importance in environmental and agriculture issues. The ions can be the nutrients that plant need for growing, on a hand, and can be the contaminants that moved throw soil reaching groundwater, on the other hand, producing pollution. My first research was about magnesium in soils cropped with coffee plant that exhibited deficiencies with these element. We stated that continuous potassium fertilization could drives a difficulty to the plant for uptaking magnesium, and the balance between the two nutrients was necessary to control magnesium deficiencies. Next, I was interested in knowing how much fertilizing was lost by lixiviation after the application in soils. There was a strong relationship between the clays types in soils and the amount of fertilizing moved out the soil. Soils developed from volcanic ash have not the ability of retain cations. Now I am interested in the behavior of heavy metals in soils, and why they can be took for the root's plant and translocate to their tissues, and became part of the food chain. This is a concern for the food security.
Research Statement
 
   My main research interests are related to the extraction and purification of bioactive molecules and food lipids, as well as the design of processes for a profitable utilization of food industry by-products.
 
   I have worked in various research projects, such as the valorization of lactose for producing lactobionic acid by means of a catalytic oxidation reaction using gold nanoparticles supported on silica mesoporous materials; the extraction of different food lipids and the design of process for obtaining functional lipids such as palmitoleic acid, and essential fatty acids. Actually, I am the director of a big project, whose main objective is the production of functional foods for pregnant and nursing mothers, and children belonging to the early childhood. Moreover, I am the supervisor of various master's students, whose projects include topics such as the production of fermented milks naturally enriched with essential fatty acids, the microencapsulation of special oils for applications in the food industry, the valorization of the by-products of some Amazonian fruits, etc.
 
   In the next future I just want to do a postdoctoral fellow in which I can use nanotechnology for food applications.
 

 
 Professor
 Sung Yung
 
Academic writing

David Lozano

 

The event that changed my life

  The  event that changed my life a lot is to have the first child.  In 1987 everything changed. My life changed when I knew a notice “I was going to be a father” .  In my twenties, I was a very carefree arts student. I had panic and I was bored. However I needed to be  thoughtful. As me That was going to be my life and destiny of my son?  I took prompt decisions. First , I was to get a steady job, but this was very difficult for my lack experience. So I opened a little business of making frames for other artist. Second, I wedded with Esperanza, she is my current wife. Third I told my parents, I was going to have a child. Finally I got a warmer and friendly apartment. Today I do not regret my decision, My son is a 26 year old, he is a science political. He accompanied by his brother Antonio whom was 18 years old. My life is properly organized and I can exercise my career as an artist and teacher. Until  the event changing  forever my life.
Human rights in comparative view

    My research interest actually is the comparative studies in indigenous and afrodescedents community rights in all the american countries. I have been working in human rights for indigenous and afrocolombian people for many years.  In my two tesis of master and phd degree I studied the relation ship between the practice of the community law and the sentences of the supreme court. I demonstrated that in some fields, like corporal punishments and due process, the argumentation of the Supreme Court was too ambiguous and do not give rules for developing the own rule of law in each group or community. In fact, may be without bad intentions, the jurisprudence was constructed with an assimilationist spirit. If we found the way every country has developed his own jurisprudence, and do comparisons between categories and specifics rights, I thing that we can really develop an integral understanding of the sens of case law control in modern constitutionalism.  
 My research and educational field
 
     My main interest research and educational field is agroecology. This is a relatively new science emerging from complexity and its application to the studies of the agro ecosystem.  Agro ecosystem is, in fact, a complex unity involving social, political, economics, technological (in sum cultural) variables interacting with ecosystemic factors (geology, geomorphology, soils, climate, fauna). The agroecology tends to understand this complexity, studying, at the same time all these variables. It means that agro ecology requires a new interdisciplinary science approach, including the communities knowledge.  Many biophysical phenomena can be explained by cultural factors.
 
So, I am interested to study the relationship between climate change (CC) and the small farmer's cultural ways to deal with. Right now, I am conducting several Ph.D. researches in a coffee small growers region near to Bogota, trying to explain how these small peasants can be adapted to the CC using a great scope (array?) of practices.
 
Many of this practices are related to the management of the agrobiodiversity. Therefore, my research team is involved in a new concept we developed, referring to the Main Agroecological Structure of farms.  As a result, we are studying  many relationships between insects (pollinators, natural enemies), plants and human beings.  On the future we hope to improve our understanding of these relationships in order to provide some guidelines for public policy.
 
 
One event that change my life

 
    One of the most important events that changed my life was my mother's death. I was studying my PhD in Canada, when I knew my mother got lung cancer with six brain metastasis. I was very nervous and sad, and I could not stop crying. I began to do some research about the type of cancer she had, and I realized that her life expectancy was very low. I was far away from my home, and I thought "my mother will dye and I will not be with here". It was very difficult for me to continue my work at the lab, because the only thing I wanted to do was to buy a ticket and go home. This bad experience changed my thought about life.
The lost of friends and classmates


       Lost of friends and classmates during my bachelor's studies was a situation that change my way of regard toward life. I enrolled at Caldas University for studying Geology at an age of 18 years old. When I was in third semester, in 1985, The Nevado del Ruiz volcano did eruption, killing near of 20.000 people in Armero village. This is the worst natural disaster in Colombia. At moment of this tragedy, one group of classmates were in a fieldwork for the Palaeontology course, looking fossils near Armero. They were at this town for getting a hotel and sleeping there when the eruption started. Nine roommates and the professor died this night when a flood passed by the streets of village. For me was a very hard experience, because I could not understand why this young people was in the wrong place in the wrong date. I knew them and they were valuable people, but I did not enough time for share with them. I learned at this moment that life is short and whatever can happens. After that, I realize that One should share with loved ones as much as possible, because It is not possible know how long We will be together.

Luis Polo 

Professor SunYung

Academic Writing

26 June 2015

The event that changed my life

Doing the Master Program in Public Health is the event that changed my life a lot. I completed my master degree in Public health at the National University of Colombia in 2006. Before that, I was working hard under pressure and I had many activities, and the bad payment, because, I did not have a specialization. After work six years as a professional and three years doing the Master, I could change my life and my family too. All in all, the quality of life and welfare in my home improved remarkably, after this moment.
The day that changed my life 
 
     The day that changed my life forever was that I met the girl who later became my wife.
 It happened on a bus stop, while I was traveling as a globetrotter, far of my house, far of my country.
 For two weeks we built a strong friendship which later originated a new family. At that time we
 were two carefree young people; our main concerns were music, parties, rides and, such as other people of that generation. Our life was quiet and very simple. After 35 years of that day on a bus stop, it had ocurred all kind of facts, some very happy as we had each of our two sons, many days of sadness or discord. However, the most important it has been a great learning about how it is possible to share the good and the bad moments of the life between two persons. All in all, this experience helped me learn about tolerance, patience and people's relationships. 
 





    

My jungle experience


I got my first job as a scientific researcher on the tropical rain forest, earlier in the 80's, and for me it was a great experience. In fact, at that time, I only had lived in an urban environment and I knew nothing about the amazon jungle. So, when I arrived to Araracuara, a so far from nowhere land, I began to learn many new things about life as a whole. I learned hunting, fishing, walking in the forest, eating new food, but the most important, I learned many things  about values. I learned that solidarity, cooperation, and wisdom are much more important to survive on that environment tan many others virtues people believes accept in our society (power, richness,  fame). All in all, I appreciate all simple things coming from friendship and solidarity.
The best disagreement I ever had in my life was with a woman that even today is my wife. It passed thirty one years ago, in one small city called Louvain la Neuve, on Belgium. I was just arrived to study in the sociology faculty on campus. One of my first nights in city I went at a little bar called Tio Conejo, owned by a peruvian guy. He asked me for some salsa music for share. I went to my room and carried a couple of tapes of cuban son. But, when I arrived newly, the peruvian was not here. I was attended for a colombian girl with caribean accent. She told me that in this bar people only listened authentic salsa. And she never had knew about someone like Matamoros or Orquesta Aragon. I could not change her mind. I was so angry that I leaved loudly the local. Some days after, I found her at the sports center. I was still angry, but she smile me so kindly that I knew that she was only flirting. So I keep my revenge for later. But this is another history that I will tell you some day.  
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Monday, June 22, 2015