Engineering &…

Engineering and science have become increasingly at odds with religion, or so it seems. On Tuesday, John E. Jones III, a federal judge, ruled that it was unconstitutional for a Pennsylvania school district to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in high school biology courses, citing that it is a religious viewpoint that promotes “a particular version of Christianity.” He argues that “To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.” The entire ruling can be found here.

While people may not settle the heated debate over Intelligent Design versus Darwinism any time soon, there are those who find quite meaningful and peaceful ways of incorporating faith into science and engineering. Armed with a master’s degree in divinity and Ph.D. in electrical engineering, W. Kent Fuchs, Dean of Cornell University’s College of Engineering has found many similarities between his two fields of study. Both engineering and religion, he says, are designed to provide assistance, albeit in very different ways- one tangible and the other spiritual. To improve the relation between the two subjects, he suggests that “we have lost track of the human component of what we do. We have focused on the technology, not on the good that it can do.” Read more about Fuchs’ philosophy on the links between engineering and religion in PRISM.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:

1. 532.35 cm³ gluten
2. 4.9 cm³ NaHCO₃
3. 4.9 cm³ refined halite
4. 236.6 cm³ partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride
5. 177.45 cm³ crystalline C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁
6. 177.45 cm³ unrefined C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁
7. 4.9 cm³ methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde
8. Two calcium carbonate-encapsulated avian albumen-coated protein
9. 473.2 cm³ theobroma cacao
10. 236.6 cm³ de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size #10)

To a 2 liter jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/°F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two and three with constant agitation. In a second 2 liter reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpm, add ingredients four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is homogenous.

To reactor #2, add ingredient eight, followed by three equal volumes of the homogenous mixture in reactor #1. Additionally, add ingredient nine and ten slowly, with constant agitation. Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction.

Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer, place the mixture piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460°K oven for a period of time that is in agreement with Frank & Johnston’s first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown. Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25°C heat-transfer table, allowing the product to come to equilibrium.

In honor of World AIDS Day, ASEE would like to extend its condolences to the millions of people who are afflicted by this horrible and devastating epidemic. Issues of funding have long plagued the end to this disease. However, some progress has been made since the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation identified the 14 Grand Challenges in Global health. One of the top priorities in these challenges involves engineering an HIV vaccine that is easily replicated and then distributed to the areas of the world that need it the most. One of the major roadblocks in developing a vaccine that meets these criteria, however, is making the scale of production economically feasible while still maintaining quality. According to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative,

As product development moves forward, a key question for developers is whether a promising vaccine concept can actually be produced effectively and affordably as a candidate vaccine. The design and implementation of a vaccine manufacturing process – known as “bioprocess development” – requires a wide range of chemical and mechanical engineering, biochemistry, and microbiology skills….

To meet regulatory requirements, a developer must devise a process that can produce vaccine in the relatively small amounts needed for trials and also develop a process that can produce the amounts needed for large-scale use. But increasing the scale of a manufacturing process is not just a matter of a larger supply of ingredients and bigger equipment. Many manufacturing processes vary in non-linear ways as scale increases and as a result, technical processes that work in small volumes in a laboratory may not work at large scales….

At large scales of production, small differences in yields or manufacturing efficiency can have a major impact on costs. Getting the process right for a particular vaccine is crucial to its profitability for developers and its affordability for users.

Click here for the full brief on the obstacles engineers and scientists face in developing an HIV vaccine.