Uncertainty has replaced confidence as
economic reality bites science in the city-state and scientists find
that their research funds now come with strings attached.
When Neal Copeland and Nancy Jenkins, a renowned
husband-and-wife team of cancer geneticists, left the US National Cancer
Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, for the Institute of Molecular and
Cell Biology in Singapore in 2006, they joined a string of star names in
the city-state that suggested its remarkable investment in research was
paying off. Generous funds have flowed to science in Singapore for the
best part of a decade, and researchers from around the world have
followed. Drawn by hefty salaries and enviable working conditions, they
have rapidly given Singapore an international presence. The Genome
Institute of Singapore, for example, has asserted itself as one of the
most important basic genomics research organizations in the world.
Best
of all for scientists, despite Singapore's reputation for top-down
autocracy, its investment in research came with relatively few strings
attached. The administration realized that researchers prefer to have
the freedom to follow their curiosity and that, to attract the best
minds, they needed to loosen the reins. As a result, Singapore's
biomedical infrastructure seems set to enter the next stage in its
development, in which researchers looking for their next posts —
especially the much-sought promising young researchers and postdoctoral
students — are starting to consider Singapore, not only because of the
large grants, but also because of its scientific reputation and
intellectual ferment.
“To many outsiders, the Singapore experiment seemed too good to be true — and perhaps it was.”
To many outsiders, the Singapore experiment seemed too good to be
true — and perhaps it was. Singapore is not immune to the economic
pressure mounting on research communities around the world, and
policy-makers everywhere want returns on their investments. Rumours of
purse-tightening measures have grown over the past year, but researchers
in the city-state were still stunned by the news in September that
almost one-third of the total research budget will be abruptly shifted
to competitive 'industrial alignment funds'. Access to that funding will
now depend on researchers' abilities to show that their work has
industrial applications. The policy will affect all research but is
aimed particularly at the biomedical sciences, which are senior figures
feel are not pulling their weight.
Nobody should cry for
Singapore's scientists, who don't expect sympathy. They have been living
large and will continue, if they can prove themselves, to be paid
generously. And having to write grant applications is not enslavement —
it is the norm for most researchers around the world. The problem is not
Singapore's shifting priorities, but how the government is implementing
the change.
In response to a call for research proposals last
month, Singapore's scientists have had to scramble to draft
application-oriented proposals. They know that industrial contracts
would help. But, given the shaky state of the global pharmaceutical
industry, such contracts are not easy to come by. Many applications are
going in with a weak note: “industrial partner to be decided”.
Singapore's scientists worry that, given only weeks or months to secure
deals, they will be forced into unfavourable agreements. One researcher
at Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research says that the
policy is an attempt to turn the agency “into a contract-research
organization overnight”.
Researchers also worry that the
government has not made clear how it will review the sudden influx of
research applications. Singapore has used external review committees to
audit its institutes in the past. But reviewing individual grants is a
different and much more labour-intensive procedure if done properly.
Will Singapore be forced to rely on a small number of bureaucrats and
selected scientists for reviews? Frustrated by the changes, Copeland and
Jenkins have decided to leave Singapore. Many other scientists there
are also looking for new posts.
The government should move quickly
to clarify the grant-review process. Easing the industrial-application
restrictions would help scientists in the short term. More
fundamentally, as researchers have suggested, the government could phase
in the funding changes over the next few years, rather than introducing
them all at once.
Singapore's rapid transformation came about
through massive, perhaps even excessive, funding. The move to align
scientific objectives with economic reality is understandable. But it
would be a huge waste if doing so with undue haste and insufficient
planning were to destroy Singapore's impressive experiment.
Sigh, while this kind of change is not necessarily bad
for science or Singapore, I hope that the bureaucrats know what they are
doing.
Knowledge discovery NOT = product/application development
NOT = adoption NOT = successful deployment NOT = social impact/progress
The
argument for basic science is that it's generally difficult to direct
knowledge discovery to those with actual impact in the long run. If
Singapore is shifting the $$$ down one stage, then they might as well
spend it on the other stages also, or end up with lots of applied
research results +/- proof-of-concept showcases sitting on shelves. Good
ideas don't sell itself, but neither do potentially good applications.
I fully agree with the Editorial comments.The Singapore city-state Government should seriously consider the Editorial suggestion of ''
phasing in the funding changes, over the next few years, rather than
introducing them all at once.'' As rightly pointed out by the Editorial,
'' while the move to realign scientific objectives with economic
reality is understandable, it would be a huge waste if doing so with
undue haste and insufficient planning were to destroy Singapore's
impressive experiment", the city – state government should very
seriously consider these words of wisdom. Singapore should be an
example to other countries and retain its scientific community in their own city – state at all costs.
Competitive, peer reviewed grant processes should be
welcomed. The real problem is when the funding decisions aren't
transparent and can't therefore be shown to be merit-based. For example
in funding decisions from Singapore's Ministry of Education researchers
are often given no or little science-based explanation as to why some
grants have been rejected or approved. While this raises questions
about transparency and how merit based the decisions are, it also
impacts young researchers, most of whom have been trained outside of
Signapore, and who are struggling to learn how to obtain funding within
the Singapore system. Unfortunately attempts to explain these realities
to policy makers have either met with silence or hostility. I don't
know how much confidence we can have in these changes in direction if we
can't even get something as fundamental as peer-review to work in a
transparent and merit-based way.
It is interesting to see that when the changes to science
policy in Singapore are big enough to affect people like Jenkins and
Copeland, only then the press starts noticing. However, science policy
in Singapore over the last 7 years (my own time range of experience) was
never a stable affair. There were constant and severe shifts in policy
and direction, and the two above mentioned were also heavily involved in
this. Such changes affected the lives and futures of countless young
reasearchers who were foolish enough to listen to the promises of money
and possibilities only to find themselves forced to resign from running
contracts, including group leaders and PI's. In summary, these policy
changes do not come as a surprise to those who are there. There was
always a strange gap between what was being put forward by the top level
officials and what was being felt at the ground. Now both are aligned.
These in Singapore who are further from the huge biotech
research etc. funding pie, and are just plain university professors,
know all too well how totally ridiculous local bureaucracy in charge of
funding, promotions, etc often is here.
E.g. our current
tenure requirements, be it in economics, psychology, or mathematics
departments, include being a PI on at least SMYR1,065.85 (MYR1,065.85 ($250))K worth
of grant money, graduating a PhD student, and above the average teaching
evaluations.
(The truth is that in Singapore there are always
too many rules, designed mainly for purpose of nailing someone down, if
necessary)
Coupled with local labour laws heavily tilted in favour
of the employer, so that even a tenured professor can be fired at a
short notice without much pretext, and the constant itch of bureaucrats
to micromanage most everything (e.g. few months into your grant you can
easily get an order to cut spending on a specific line of important
items, for no given reason), in it's only fair that the pay is good.
@Brendan Orner: The problem is that bureaucratic fund
managers are too lazy to manage as many projects as possible. Only few
large projects end up getting funded. Without local connections and
track record, young researchers and newcomers have almost zero chance to
access this funding pie. There is no transparency in the review process
because proposals are screened internally by the all-powerful
university research council whose members may have conflict of interest
with the PI and may not have the expertise to evaluate. The young and
ordinary professors suffer from this process.
Completely agree with others having experience in
Singapore. An example from Lars Ericson, internal review within
university, is a very weird process to make young professors susceptible
to politics with senior professors. The internal reviewers are not
professional on your specific area. I also want to point out many
important decisions in a department are made by a few senior and
powerful people without consultation with most of other ordinary
faculty. Head or chair of the school can control some internal fund,
which usage is not transparent to most of faculty. They also have too
much power during tenure evaluation process. This kind of a university
system endow middle management people real power to affect your research
and academic life. I see some of young guys even try to be attached to
the powerful people in a department nailing down their colleagues.
Government should consider changing academic culture in Singapore for
creative research and providing pleasant work place for active young
researchers.
You can read Singapore response to this article in the
Science Special Report of the local Straight Times today (11 Dec 2010).
For an young faculty, it's discouraging to see that non-performers can
get away and even promoted if they managed to get large funding.
Performance assessment is heavily based on the monetary income of the
researchers and not the actual tangible research output places junior
faculty in a disadvantaged position. Young and hungry professors end up
to work for the rich and senior guys, who anyway take all the credits.
Did not get a chance to read the official response on
Saturday's special issue in newspaper but would like to comment some
personal thoughts here: When the massive biomedical funding came in a
decade ago especially for basic research, many in the community were
skeptical how long this would last (the motivation for eventual economic
returns was very clear to everyone from the very beginning). The heavy
funding for basic research is actually strengthened with the National
Research Foundation and Education Ministry funding support for the
coming years; it is understandable that A*STAR is clarifying its goal of
translational research (A*STAR is part of Trade and Industry Ministry).
In the local biomedical community, very few people would have the
illusion that Singapore will continue to devote most funds to support
blue sky type of basic research. The biggest psychological impact of
the recent realignment to local biomedical researchers probably is the
end of extramural grants from biomedical research council (BMRC). Even
though this was remedied with the increase in extramural funding from
other funding agencies, many individual PI felt the psychological shock
because BMRC has already built the reputation as a large funding source
supporting individual PI driven research. The overall landscape for
research funding in Singapore is still way better than most other
developed countries. Over the past decade when I talked to business
people, many were surprised about the scale of the Singapore experiment
for so much basic research. For these people and the commoners at large,
the recent realignment is not too drastic or sudden. Some even told me
that these are long overdue. Singapore has been pushing for
translational biomedical research especially for the past 5 years mainly
from science to medicine but translation is also important from science
to industry via biomedical technology innovations. Basic biomedical
researchers in many countries sometimes look down on translational
research; claiming that these have no science, little innovations and
low impact or too technical. Interestingly, many technology journals'
impact factors (IF) have skyrocketed over the past few years (just look
at the Nature series on technologies; and the dwindling IF on many pure
biology journals). A recent discussion with some publishers suggests
that many basic researchers turned away from pure biology research
partially because of the nick-picking behaviors of many reviewers in
these fields. Many groups spent bulk of resources revising papers to
satisfy tiny concerns (end up as many figures in supplementary
information) of reviewers to get into these journals (some even with
mediocre IF). The rate of diminishing returns in perfecting a figure or
two have driven many researchers into technology areas where the
reviewers are still fair and reasonably rigorous (just like the basic
research publishing 20 or 30 years ago). As more basic researchers
migrate into translational research worldwide, the scientific rigor has
improved. Biomedical people start realizing that there are also
scientific principles to be discovered and significant innovations in
even the so called technical areas. Studying or developing an engineered
system can be as valid scientifically as those focusing on the natural
or pathological systems. Moving a basic science discovery into something
useful for industry or healthcare requires more than just a
technician's contribution or pairs of hands. If Singapore as a
city-state's primary motivation for research is to build up
competitiveness for a knowledge economy, then the current realignment to
really focus on translational research is timely. Being a culturally
and geographically located interface between the east and west,
Singapore can source for bulk of the basic research discoveries
elsewhere and translate them in Singapore into useful technologies for
the society or the world. The strong and efficient team-based working
style and a large technical/engineering community is ideally suitable
for translational research that often require integrative
cross-disciplinary efforts and collaborations. Basic research still has
values in Singapore for many obvious reasons in education, in
maintaining scientific reputation as a credible place for R&D etc.
As Singapore builds a reputation as a translational research hub, some
values of the basic research will be substituted over time by high
quality translational research; and it will be great if Singapore
maintains a smaller but higher quality basic researchers community
mostly in academia while national research institutions or industry
R&D centers focus on translational research that yield more direct
impact to society.
The Singapore administration never intended to support
basic science. From the onset the goal was to attract pharma to set up
shop in Singapore. This was achieved by hiring a handful of high profile
scientists who are quickly reaching biological due dates (plus a few
younger cronies), thus generating loads of media attention. Getting the
same attention with actual quality work would have taken decades longer.
Now that pharma has followed suit, gears are switched at the basic
research front, and all remaining scientists (many of whom have nowhere
else to go) are turned into cheap workforce for the pharma companies
("work must show relevance for industrial applicability"). B.t.w.
fish con: thanks for the insightful official Singapore view about the
pityful state of sciences and publication system as a whole ... lol
I feel the article and comments put an heavy weight on
the political system rather than about the research environment in
Singapore. For example, bureaucracy in UK and western European countries
(take Germany and Netherlands as the examples) are never less than what
is existing in Singapore. The decision on the grants are never and can
never be transparent either as when the grant proposal is in the hand
of your competitors, there is little hope but to pray for a few more
positive views from different reviewers. Secondly, it is not easy for
young researchers to get a permanent faculty position in these countries
either, as here in western Europe the research position are very
limited and highly competitive, not to mention about how to climb up the
career stairs in the tiny 'city state' like Singapore. Looking at the
huge budget cut now in UK research and education, I would be surprised
if the researchers here are not facing with more stringent conditions
and rules than in Singapore. So, what is the fuss? The fact is,
Singapore is always fast in implementing changes in its research goal
since I joined IMRE in 1998. The country is a population with 1/5 of the
Netherlands, 1/15 of UK, and 1/20 of Germany, not to mention with the
size of the country. I guess it is better for them not good to stay at
the same position for 20 years in order to survive the competitiveness
from other emerging and rising countries. Sound very official right?
LOL.
@KC T-I think this is directed at me so I'll respond
directly. I think you misunderstood what I wrote. You mention that in
other countries you pray for a few more positive views from different
reviewers. Actually on many occasions some of the grants here haven't
even gone out for review or they were rejected with no explanation,
reviewers comments, or feedback. You also mention the level of
bureaucracy in Singapore. For example in 2009 for the basic Ministry of
Education grant the due date to our department was Nov 30th. There it
was approved and received signatures. Then it went up to the School
level where it again received signatures. Then it went the College
level for more signatures. Finally it hit the university's Research
Office where it again received signatures and approval was granted on
Feb 19th. So three months after submission we were finally allowed to
send it to the actual funding agency. By that time, of course the forms
had changed and had to enter everything into the new forms which had
different margins etc. After submission we then heard back from the
funding agency on Sept 6th. Through that whole process (almost 10
months) the ENTIRE extent of my feedback was this (in the past we've
often received less):
"This significance of the proposed research
is not strong because the proposal is diffuse and highly ambitious.
The PI should focus more tightly on key components of the prior proposal
that are viewed as strongest and best integrated. Each of the aims
and themes of this diffuse proposal could be a proposal in itself. The
PI is urged to focus more on one of these aims and flesh out the
mechanistic and translational strengths therein."
While this may be true, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that whoever wrote this read and understood the proposal
Do
you apply for MOE grants in IMRE (strangely I can't seem to find
someone with your initials on the IMRE website)? Also I don't
understand the point you are trying to make when you divide the
populations of various countries by the population of Singapore. How
does this justify sketchy research funding allocation policy?
@KC T and Brendan Orner: Brendan is not the only one
receiving such a funny feedback. We've received things such as "your
topic is very popular and there is nothing new to explore ...". And you
only beg for less than 100K S$ without manpower to explore this
particular idea. The proposal was rejected but the preliminary results
were accepted for publication in a top journal. The dilemma of the
research scene here is the double load of bureaucracy: the existing
local system and the management style imported from bureaucratic Europe.
A high-ranking officer with no background in your field can kill really
good proposals with such a hand-waving comment. And you have a lot of
such officers in the management which cost much more than the funding we
asked for.
@ Brendan: my last comments here. You are lucky to get
your proposal out of the university. Most of the proposals were already
ranked and rejected at the school level. I hope that the comments here
do not cost you job. I definitely stop here.
A physicist’s genius turns up in his boyhood geometry.Credit Illustration by Tomi Um
On November 26, 1949, Albert Einstein published an essay in the Saturday Review of Literature
in which he described two pivotal moments in his childhood. The first
involved a compass that his father showed him when he was four or five.
Einstein recalled his sense of wonderment that the needle always pointed
north, even though nothing appeared to be pulling it in that direction.
He came to a conclusion, then and there, about the structure of the
physical world: “Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.” The
second moment occurred soon after he turned twelve, when he was given “a
little book dealing with Euclidean plane geometry.” The book’s
“lucidity,” he wrote—the idea that a mathematical assertion could “be
proved with such certainty that any doubt appeared to be out of the
question”—provoked “wonder of a totally different nature.” Pure thought
could be just as powerful as geomagnetism.
This
month, we celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Einstein’s general
theory of relativity, one of his many ideas that brought lucidity to the
deeply hidden. With all the surrounding hoopla, it would be nice if we
could fathom something of what he actually accomplished and how he did
it. That turns out to be a tall order, because general relativity is tremendously complex.
When Arthur Eddington—the British astrophysicist who led the team that
confirmed Einstein’s predictions, during a solar eclipse in 1919—was
asked if it was really true that only three people in the world
understood the theory, he said nothing. “Don’t be so modest, Eddington!”
his questioner said. “On the contrary,” Eddington replied. “I’m just
wondering who the third might be.”
Fortunately,
we can study an earlier, simpler example of Einstein’s thinking. Even
before he received the little geometry book, he had been introduced to
the subject by his uncle Jakob, an engineer. Einstein became
particularly enamored of the Pythagorean theorem and—“after much
effort,” he noted in the Saturday Review—he wrote his
own mathematical proof of it. It is my intention to lead you through
that proof, step by logical step. It’s Einstein’s first masterpiece, and
certainly his most accessible one. This little gem of reasoning
foreshadows the man he became, scientifically, stylistically, and
temperamentally. His instinct for symmetry, his economy of means, his
iconoclasm, his tenacity, his penchant for thinking in pictures—they’re
all here, just as they are in his theory of relativity.
You may once have memorized the Pythagorean theorem as a series of symbols: a2 + b2 = c2.
It concerns right triangles, meaning triangles that have a right
(ninety-degree) angle at one of their corners. The theorem says that if a and b
are the lengths of the triangle’s legs (the sides that meet at the
right angle), then the length of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the
right angle) is given by c, according to the formula above.
Teen-agers
have this rule drummed into them by the millions, year after year, in
schools around the world, but most don’t give it much thought. Maybe you
never did, either. Once you do, though, the questions start coming.
What makes it true? How did anyone ever come up with it? Why?
For a clue to that last question, consider the etymology of the word geometry. It derives from the Greek roots gē (meaning “earth” or “land”) and metria
(“measurement”). It’s easy to imagine ancient peoples and their
monarchs being concerned with the measurement of fields or plots of
land. Officials needed to assess how much tax was to be paid, how much
water they would need for irrigation, how much wheat, barley, and
papyrus the farmers could produce.
Imagine a rectangular field, thirty yards by forty.
How
much land is that? The meaningful measure would be the area of the
field. For a thirty-by-forty lot, the area would be thirty times forty,
which is twelve hundred square yards. That’s the only number the tax
assessor cares about. He’s not interested in the precise shape of your
land, just how much of it you have.
Surveyors,
by contrast, do care about shapes, and angles, and distances, too. In
ancient Egypt, the annual flooding of the Nile sometimes erased the
boundaries between plots, necessitating the use of accurate surveying to
redraw the lines. Four thousand years ago, a surveyor somewhere might
have looked at a thirty-by-forty rectangular plot and wondered, How far
is it from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner?
The
answer to that question is far less obvious than the earlier one about
area, but ancient cultures around the world—in Babylon, China, Egypt,
Greece, and India—all discovered it. The rule that they came up with is
now called the Pythagorean theorem, in honor of Pythagoras of Samos, a
Greek mathematician, philosopher, and cult leader who lived around 550 B.C.
It asks us to imagine three fictitious square plots of land—one on the
short side of the rectangle, another on the long side, and a third on
its diagonal.
Next,
we are instructed to calculate the area of the square plots on the
sides and add them together. The result, 900 + 1,600 = 2,500, is,
according to the Pythagorean theorem, the same as the area of the square
on the diagonal. This recipe yields the unknown length that we are
trying to calculate: fifty yards, since 50 × 50 = 2,500.
The
Pythagorean theorem is true for rectangles of any proportion—skinny,
blocky, or anything in between. The squares on the two sides always add
up to the square on the diagonal. (More precisely, the areas
of the squares, not the squares themselves, add up. But this simpler
phrasing is less of a mouthful, so I’ll continue to speak of squares
adding up when I really mean their areas.) The same rule applies to
right triangles, the shape you get when you slice a rectangle in half
along its diagonal.
The rule now sounds more like the one you learned in school: a2 + b2 = c2. In pictorial terms, the squares on the sides of a right triangle add up to the square on its hypotenuse.
But
why is the theorem true? What’s the logic behind it? Actually, hundreds
of proofs are known today. There’s a marvelously simple one attributed
to the Pythagoreans and, independently, to the ancient Chinese. There’s
an intricate one given in Euclid’s Elements, which schoolchildren have
struggled with for the past twenty-three hundred years, and which
induced in the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer “the same uncomfortable
feeling that we experience after a juggling trick.” There’s even a proof
by President James A. Garfield, which involves the cunning use of a
trapezoid.
Einstein, unfortunately, left no such record of his childhood proof. In his Saturday Review
essay, he described it in general terms, mentioning only that it relied
on “the similarity of triangles.” The consensus among Einstein’s
biographers is that he probably discovered, on his own, a standard
textbook proof in which similar triangles (meaning triangles that are
like photographic reductions or enlargements of one another) do indeed
play a starring role. Walter Isaacson, Jeremy Bernstein, and Banesh
Hoffman all come to this deflating conclusion, and each of them
describes the steps that Einstein would have followed as he unwittingly
reinvented a well-known proof.
Twenty-four
years ago, however, an alternative contender for the lost proof
emerged. In his book “Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws,” the physicist
Manfred Schroeder presented a breathtakingly simple proof of the
Pythagorean theorem whose provenance he traced to Einstein. Schroeder
wrote that the proof had been shown to him by a friend of his, the
chemical physicist Shneior Lifson, of the Weizmann Institute, in
Rehovot, Israel, who heard it from the physicist Ernst Straus, one of
Einstein’s former assistants, who heard it from Einstein himself. Though
we cannot be sure the following proof is Einstein’s, anyone who knows
his work will recognize the lion by his claw.
It helps to run through the proof quickly at first, to get a feel for its over-all structure.
Step
1: Draw a perpendicular line from the hypotenuse to the right angle.
This partitions the original right triangle into two smaller right
triangles.
Step 2: Note that the area of the little triangle plus the area of the medium triangle equals the area of the big triangle.
Step
3: The big, medium, and little triangles are similar in the technical
sense: their corresponding angles are equal and their corresponding
sides are in proportion. Their similarity becomes clear if you imagine
picking them up, rotating them, and arranging them like so, with their
hypotenuses on the top and their right angles on the lower left:
Step 4: Because the triangles are similar, each occupies the same fraction f of the area of the square on its hypotenuse. Restated symbolically, this observation says that the triangles have areas fa2, fb2, and fc2, as indicated in the diagram.
(Don’t
worry if this step provokes a bit of head-scratching. I’ll have more to
say about it below, after which I hope it’ll seem obvious.)
Step 5: Remember, from Step 2, that the little and medium triangles add up to the original big one. Hence, from Step 4, fa2 + fb2 = fc2.
Step 6: Divide both sides of the equation above by f. You will obtain a2 + b2 = c2, which says that the areas of the squares add up. That’s the Pythagorean theorem.
The
proof relies on two insights. The first is that a right triangle can be
decomposed into two smaller copies of itself (Steps 1 and 3). That’s a
peculiarity of right triangles. If you try instead, for example, to
decompose an equilateral triangle into two smaller equilateral
triangles, you’ll find that you can’t. So Einstein’s proof reveals why
the Pythagorean theorem applies only to right triangles: they’re the
only kind made up of smaller copies of themselves. The second insight is
about additivity. Why do the squares add up (Step 6)? It’s because the
triangles add up (Step 2), and the squares are proportional to the
triangles (Step 4).
The logical link
between the squares and triangles comes via the confusing Step 4.
Here’s a way to make peace with it. Try it out for the easiest kind of
right triangle, an isosceles right triangle, also known as a 45-45-90
triangle, which is formed by cutting a square in half along its
diagonal.
As before, erect a square on its hypotenuse.
If
we draw dashed lines on the diagonals of that newly built square, the
picture looks like the folding instructions for an envelope.
As
you can see, four copies of the triangle fit neatly inside the square.
Or, said the other way around, the triangle occupies exactly a quarter
of the square. That means that f = 1/4, in the notation above.
Now for the cruncher. We never said how big the square and the isosceles right triangle were. The ratio of their areas is always one to four, for any such envelope. It’s a property of the envelope’s shape, not its size.
That’s the thrust of Step 4. It’s obvious when you think of it like that, no?
The
same thing works for any right triangle of any shape. It doesn’t have
to be isosceles. The triangle always occupies a certain fraction, f,
of the square on its hypotenuse, and that fraction stays the same no
matter how big or small they both are. To be sure, the numerical value
of f depends on the proportions of the triangle; if it’s
a long, flat sliver, the square on its hypotenuse will have a lot more
than four times its area, and so f will be a lot less than 1/4. But that numerical value is irrelevant. Einstein’s proof shows that f disappears in the end anyway. It enters stage right, in Step 4, and promptly exits stage left, in Step 6.
What
we’re seeing here is a quintessential use of a symmetry argument. In
science and math, we say that something is symmetrical if some aspect of
it stays the same despite a change. A sphere, for instance, has
rotational symmetry; rotate it about its center and its appearance stays
the same. A Rorschach inkblot has reflectional symmetry: its mirror
image matches the original. In Step 4 of his proof, Einstein exploited a
symmetry known as scaling. Take a right triangle with a square on its
hypotenuse and rescale both of them by the same amount, as if on a
photocopier. That rescaling changes some of their features (their areas
and side lengths) while leaving others intact (their angles,
proportions, and area ratio). It’s the constancy of the area ratio that
undergirds Step 4.
Throughout
his career, Einstein would continue to deploy symmetry arguments like a
scalpel, getting to the hidden heart of things. He opened his
revolutionary 1905 paper on the special theory of relativity by noting
an asymmetry in the existing theories of electricity and magnetism: “It
is known that Maxwell’s electrodynamics—as usually understood at the
present time—when applied to moving bodies, leads to asymmetries which
do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena.” Those asymmetries,
Einstein sensed, must be a clue to something rotten at the core of
physics as it was then formulated. In his mind, everything else—space,
time, matter, energy—was up for grabs, but not symmetry. Think of the
courage it required to reformulate nearly all of physics from the ground
up, even if it meant revising Newton and Maxwell along the way.
Both
special and general relativity are also profoundly geometrical
theories. They conceive of the universe as having a dimension beyond the
usual three; that fourth dimension is time. Rather than considering the
distance between two points (a measure of space), the
special-relativistic counterpart of the Pythagorean theorem considers
the interval between two events (a measure of space-time). In general
relativity, where space-time itself becomes warped and curved by the
matter and energy within it, the Pythagorean theorem still has a part to
play; it morphs into a quantity called the metric, which measures the
space-time separation between infinitesimally close events, for which
curvature can temporarily be overlooked. In a sense, Einstein continued
his love affair with the Pythagorean theorem all his life.
The
style of his Pythagorean proof, elegant and seemingly effortless, also
portends something of the later scientist. Einstein draws a single line
in Step 1, after which the Pythagorean theorem falls out like a ripe
avocado. The same spirit of minimalism characterizes all of Einstein’s
adult work. Incredibly, in the part of his special-relativity paper
where he revolutionized our notions of space and time, he used no math
beyond high-school algebra and geometry.
Finally,
although the young Einstein made his proof of the Pythagorean theorem
look easy, it surely wasn’t. Remember that, in his Saturday Review
essay, he says that it required “much effort.” Later in life, this
tenacity—what Einstein referred to as his stubbornness—would serve him
well. It took him years to come up with general relativity, and he often
felt overwhelmed by the abstract mathematics that the theory required.
Although he was mathematically powerful, he was not among the world’s
best. (“Every boy in the streets of Göttingen understands more about
four-dimensional geometry than Einstein,” one of his contemporaries, the
mathematician David Hilbert, remarked.)
Many
years after his Pythagorean proof, Einstein shared this lesson with
another twelve-year-old who was wrestling with mathematics. On January
3, 1943, a junior-high-school student named Barbara Lee Wilson wrote to
him for advice. “Most of the girls in my room have heroes which they
write fan mail to,” she began. “You + my uncle who is in the Coast Guard
are my heroes.” Wilson told Einstein that she was anxious about her
performance in math class: “I have to work longer in it than most of my
friends. I worry (perhaps too much).” Four days later, Einstein sent her
a reply. “Until now I never dreamed to be something like a hero,” he
wrote. “But since you have given me the nomination I feel that I am
one.” As for Wilson’s academic concerns? “Do not worry about your
difficulties in mathematics,” he told her. “I can assure you that mine
are still greater.”
I had just attended the award ceremony at the Palace in Sabah. It has the highest protocol in Sabah and the medals are all made up of real metals, unlike normal award cermonies. These are awards for service to the State of Sabah, similar to the Queen of England's awards. All other states in Malaysia have similar award cermonies. In 2015 there are around 1000 recipients. It was conducted a few times a year.
In my case, it lasted for 1.5 hours for around 300 recipients, the largest ever conducted. There were photographers where we can pay for the photographs taken during that time. Unfortunately, there is no video being taken. Therefore no chance for publication at national or personal video channels. A lost opportunity to make money and increase the prestige of these events all over Malaysia.
Imagine, if 1000 of the friends and relatives of the recipients are watching the event, there will be 1 million viewers in Sabah alone, making it the most popular event in Sabah. Even with just 100 per recipient, it is still around 100,000 viewers. With only 1.5 hours, it is just like watching a movie. There is so much drama during the award ceremony, due to mistakes being made. That will make the view interesting indeed.
The recipeints also include successful and rich people so they should be able to afford a video of the event. If the price is right, I would like to purchase one, which is similar to our marriage video. The commercial success of such an enterprise is not a certainty but it should be open for tender. Let the videographers tender for the rights and market the video just like this BCA.
http://ww2.sabah.gov.my/istana/ last updated on 11 Ogos 2011.
British Ceremonial Arts (BCA)
Members of the public who are awarded an honour in
either the New Year's Honours List or The Queen's Birthday Honours List
receive their award at a ceremony known as an Investiture.
Each year, around 2,600 people receive their awards personally from The Queen or a member of the Royal Family.
Around
25 Investitures are held each year. The majority happen in the Ballroom
at Buckingham Palace, but others take place at the Palace of
Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle,
and sometimes at Cardiff Castle in Wales. You can read more about Investitures here Media coverage of Investitures British
Ceremonial Arts (BCA) is contracted to film inside Buckingham Palace
(and Holyroodhouse and Cardiff Castle when required) during Investiture
ceremonies. This footage is available for each recipient to keep as a
record of their Investiture.
Each recipient is asked if they are
content for the moment of Investiture to be released for broadcast
purposes, and, if the recipient has agreed, news stations (BBC, ITV and
Sky) may contact BCA to ask for this footage. A list of recipients who
do not wish broadcasters to use this material is always sent to
journalists with each Investiture list.
BCA can be contacted on tel: 0118 977 6800/6900 or e-mail: info@bcafilm.co.uk.
A
Press Association reporter always interviews recipients on a pool basis
who may be of interest to the national media immediately after the
presentation of the award has taken place.
A Royal Rota of
photographers and television crews take their places at a press position
in the Quadrangle where recipients who are happy to be interviewed may
be photographed/filmed with their awards after the ceremony completes
(normally around 12.15 p.m.).
Reporters may also join this press
position, and to do so, they should contact Royal Communications no
later than 48 hours prior to the Investiture date.
Where do you think Malaysia is?
If you do not care about patents, it is obvious that you do not care about technology.
Samsung leads in wearable patents, South Korean researcher says
In a
report citing data from Thomson Reuters' Patent Search Service and World
Intellectual Property Service (WIPS), Samsung filed for the most amount
of patents for wearables between 2003 and 2014, with Philips second,
and Panasonic third.
Samsung Electronics has the most patents in wearable devices globally, a South Korean research institute has said.
Korea
Electronics Technology Institute (KETI), a government-backed researcher
of electronics components, in a report citing data from Thomson
Reuters' Patent Search Service and World Intellectual Property Service
(WIPS), said there were a total of 64,502 patents filed between 2003 and
2014.
The top 30 patent-holders accounted for 13.2 percent of the findings, with 8,539 patents.
Samsung filed for over 600 patents in the time period to become the
largest holder, while the Netherlands' Philips was the second-largest,
and Japan's Panasonic the third with over 400.
LG Electronics came fourth and Japan's Canon fifth, also with over 400 patents filed, KETI said.
Japan's Sony was eighth, while Microsoft and Qualcomm were 19th and 20th largest holders, respectively.
South Korea's Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), also a state-funded researcher, was 21st.
By
country, Japan was the largest holder of wearable patents with a total
of 17,813, accounting for 27.6 percent of all patents filed in the time
period. The US was second largest with 14,519 (22.5 percent),
followed by China with 14,423 (22.4 percent), and South Korea's 5,036
(9.4 percent).
Europe filed 4,117, accounting for 6.4 percent.
"Patent
filings in wearable devices [are showing an] increase starting in the
year 2012. Though Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and ETRI are
leading in patent filings in the top-tier, Japan has multiple companies
forming a strong group and US conglomerates are starting to file more,
making the future of wearable[s] a battlefield between US, Japan and
South Korea," KETI said in the report.
KETI was unavailable for comment. Source: ZDNet.co.kr
I admit that his comments are good and sincere but a few things need to be put into perspective.
"Malaysian university research needs a paradigm change. Instead of
following national agendas instituted by bureaucrats, bottom up thinking
needs to be appreciated and accepted. Most technologies already exist,
and don’t need to be re-invented. What is needed is applying these
technologies to community and industrial problems that exist outside
local universities."
Malaysian researchers are aware of this but implimented poorly. The reasons can be attributed to my comments later.
"Citations to research need reward rather than the production of raw
papers. A realization is needed that patenting concepts and products
that have no commercial value is a futile pursuit, although it fulfills a
university KPI."
Not actually true but more emphasis on Indexed journals that will somehow generate quality citations.
Not necessarilty true but many other nations also suffer the same situations. This is a global academic problem.
"Grant panels need to practice meritocracy, and grant funds to the most innovative rather than the conservative."
This is called the safe approach. The panels are pressured to provide value for money for the research fund.
Innovative research is just to risky and worse, not needed by Malaysia.
"Although overall research output is increasing from universities
within Malaysia, emphasis must now be put on producing quality research
if Malaysia is not to continually fall behind its other ASEAN neighbors."
I have not got the figures on rankings in ASEAN. It could be due to other reasons such as cost of living.
The cost of living in Malaysia is higher than in Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia. Malaysia needs to spend more to achieve similar results.
We are doing well compared to Indonesia, e.g. Compared to the size of Indonesia, Malaysia is therefore much much better.
This Murray Hunter is very good in his analysis of Malaysian situations. He supports his arguments with facts but may not interpret them for us, letting us judge for ourselves.Patent appliations versus approval facts need to be scrutinised because it may take at least 3 years for patents to get approval. If challenged, it will take even longer.My expereince with patent examiners from Japan and UK show that they are mostly not skilled in analysing new discoveries or concepts, with most of them getting it wrong. Even the simplest concepts they can miss whereas the obvious mistakes in other well established companies like Ferrari are ignored completely.Facts like differences between soft skin versus hard skin, are deemed as similar, which is absurd.I even had a patent examiner saying that my invention is impossible and yet commented that it is actually prior art. How can they be impossilbe when it is prior art? Mind boggling and yet they are still stubborn with their views. This is despite obvious differences in the claims, despite many similarities. Very very obvious similarities from established companies are ignored completely, and even impractical ideas are also accepted as patents. So patent approval is just a matter how much money we are willing to spend to defend our patents. Malaysia has not done that yet because they do not have much confiedence in their own inventions.
Image via Shutterstock. ‘Checkbook academia’ culture is placing the emphasis on quantity, not quality
MALAYSIA is spending about 5.9 percent of GDP on education and 1.13 percent of GDP on research and development. However as at 2014, no Malaysian universities have made the top 100 of the THES global or Asian university rankings, or QS World University Rankings.
This is in great contrast to universities with a similar start-up time
frame in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India, and even Saudi Arabia,
making the top 100 in the Asian rankings over the last few years.
Although Malaysia’s ranking is high (33rd place) in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) world innovation index in 2014, the level of resident patent applications and grants is still relatively low, being ranked 44th. Patent applications
have grown from 218 applications in 1999, to 1,199 in 2013, with only
39 granted in 1999, growing to 288 patent grants in 2013. When
considering that 10 percent of these applications have been made by only 10 companies in Malaysia, there is still a long way to go for Malaysian university research to have the impact that some feel within Malaysian Government circles is due.
Malaysian university researchers, according to a Malaysian Government bibliometric study in 2012,
recorded an output of 29,815 papers, although these figures may have
gone up since then. This placed Malaysia in 45th position in the world,
but only 50th based on citations, which is a good guide to the
usefulness of knowledge presented. In terms of the research impact
measured by citations per paper, Malaysia only ranked 136. This is in
contrast to Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan, which were ranked 46, 75,
and 84th respectively. Even papers produced in Indonesia, Vietnam, the
Philippines, and Saudi Arabia had greater citation rates per paper than
Malaysia.
There are a number of probable reasons contributing to this poor performance.
The first reason stems from the organizational structure of the
Malaysian research community itself. Research has been organized into
clusters with top down priorities formulated by ‘unknown sources’ within
particular ministries. These priorities are not always in line with
market or community needs. Most often, like the biotechnology plan, the
lead time to create commercial and bankable projects is too long. A
Government corporation like the Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation,
controlled by bureaucrats, is put in charge, where market needs often
don’t make sense to the administrators. Projects are often kept in the
hands of these corporations rather than commercialized, just to show the
bureaucrats are doing their jobs. (READ MORE: The growing gender imbalance in higher ed: Where have all the boys gone?)
Malaysian research is hindered by a lot of unnecessary costs, and bureaucracy. Although agencies like the corridor authorities
were set up with the view to decentralizing research and development,
most initiatives are still top down and controlled by bureaucracy. These
authorities are notorious in not talking to local community groups and
develop strategies like paddy estates
that local communities cannot accept, thus becoming ‘white elephants’.
In more sinister terms, many of these research and development projects
turn over community assets to government linked companies (GLCs), with
little or any community benefit.
The second major problem is the nature of Malaysian academia itself.
Research is a prerequisite to promotion within the Malaysian University
system. This requires academics producing papers to apply for senior
faculty positions. In some of the newer Malaysian universities, entering
prototypes and products into technology and invention exhibitions is a
way around producing papers. Consequently a large proportion of research
funds go into making up promotion materials, travel, and accommodation,
rather than actual research. Having a research grant is seen by many
researchers as a means to travel, be it to an exhibition or conference
in some exotic part of the world.
As a consequence, much university research output has little
community or market relevance. The paper or prototype was produced to
achieve a publishing KPI, or gain a medal at any of the international
exhibitions around the world. Paradoxically, Malaysian researchers are
travelling the world, but actually producing little if any output of any
commercial nature, even with the awards they are winning.
Many researchers with the above objectives in mind tend to work in
isolation from industry and the community. Unlike Thailand, universities
in Malaysia don’t have the same need to outreach to the community, so
there are very few research projects undertaken within local
communities. There is also very little collaboration with industry. This
is probably not the complete fault of the researchers as industry in
Malaysia tends to be still unsophisticated when it comes to university
collaboration.
As a consequence very few production prototypes ever get scaled up to
commercial production. Even if there are willing parties, university
bureaucracies often stall efforts to commercialize research with high
financial demands, and lack of time due to other responsibilities like
teaching by the researchers.
Many complex areas of research today, say in biotechnology, require
teams of specialists to make specific disciplinary contributions.
Although in Malaysia we see many papers with multiple authors, most of
them are passengers. Deans, Vice Chancellors, or senior members of
faculty are often put into paper authorships to curry favor for
promotional purposes.
Malaysian universities have tended to put emphasis on producing large
quantities of papers, rather than quality. Many academics are
practicing ‘checkbook academia’ by paying to place articles in
journals that can publish them within a month or so from submission. The
quantity of paper output rather than academic weight is the prime KPI
of Malaysian universities today. (READ MORE: Why business schools in Southeast Asia are ‘second class’)
In addition, many of the papers produced originate from the work of
students, who may or may not have their name on the paper as co-author.
The author has witnessed the ludicrous situation where many a Malaysian
academic delivers a paper at a conference, but is unable to answer
questions from the floor during question time. Some Malaysian academics
are producing over 30 papers per year from this method.
Malaysian academics are very hesitant to take up alternative methods
of research, such as ethnography and narrative in the social sciences.
This is a symptom of a general lack of innovation in the area of
research. The preferred route is a safe one where other research tends
to be duplicated within a Malaysian context. So in an engineering
conference or invention expo, one will tend to see lots of solar panel
concepts that have been revamped into new contexts, as an attempt to be
novel.
Malaysian academics tend to follow local leads. If for example,
Balanced Scorecard is popular at a particular university, then one will
see a number of faculty members doing their PhD thesis on Balanced
Scorecard.
Innovation is desperately needed in Malaysian university research,
but the panels who vet research grants tend to be bitterly conservative
and penalize any academic who tries to be innovative.
Malaysia needs to look at what China is doing with university
research. It is quickly becoming a powerhouse, looking at contemporary
problems and issues with strong research teams. The language barrier is
being broken with good editors employed to work up papers to
international standard.
Malaysian university research needs a paradigm change. Instead of
following national agendas instituted by bureaucrats, bottom up thinking
needs to be appreciated and accepted. Most technologies already exist,
and don’t need to be re-invented. What is needed is applying these
technologies to community and industrial problems that exist outside
local universities.
Citations to research need reward rather than the production of raw
papers. A realization is needed that patenting concepts and products
that have no commercial value is a futile pursuit, although it fulfills a
university KPI.
Grant panels need to practice meritocracy, and grant funds to the most innovative rather than the conservative.
Although overall research output is increasing from universities
within Malaysia, emphasis must now be put on producing quality research
if Malaysia is not to continually fall behind its other ASEAN neighbors. Image via Shutterstock.com
It is impossible to hide any wrong doing. It is proven by this article. The only way to solve this problem is to convince students and society that cheating does not pay. We can try to stop it by checking thoroughly all forms of academic misconduct. The second and most important is to continually try to convince students that misconduct does not pay. It destroys students. It is not the CGPA that counts, rather their ability to do or express things. No matter how great your paper qualifications, in real life, you will not go far if you do not have basic skills. It is the knowledge gained that matters that most. If we just copy blindly, we will not gain any knowlege at all. It is just a waste of time attending classes.
ONE of the more destructive traits of
Malaysia society today is academic dishonesty. It runs throughout many
facets of society. Academic dishonesty is not just an education issue,
it’s also prevalent within the civil service, business, and even
political walks of life.
A few high profile cases of academic dishonesty have arisen over the last few years. Two Federal deputy Ministers, Richard Riot (Human Resources) and Dr Ewon Ebin
(Science) were found to have fake degrees a couple of years ago. An
executive director of a private college of higher education affiliated
with a UK university, and pop star Fazley Yaakob was found to hold two fake degrees, and two public company directors were also found to have fake degrees. Many prominent figures in Malaysian society have bought ‘bogus degrees’ from unaccredited universities to enhance their qualifications and CVs. There are also cases of Malaysians trying to use fake degrees
to get work overseas in countries like New Zealand. However, this lack
of academic integrity is not limited to acquiring fake degrees.
A prominent academic has developed a collection of awards that could be considered dubious. Awards such as the Socrates Award in Education, Best Manager Award, and ‘The Name in Science’, awarded by “a designer award mill” called the Europe Business Assembly (EBA), purportedly located in Oxford, UK, appear to grant awards on application and payment,
rather than being scrutinized by any international panel. Other such
dubious awards include the “Merit of Commandeur” conferred by an
organization called the Belgian Chamber of Inventors (BCI), of which any
trace cannot be found through internet searches. This is not the first
time such awards have been controversial in Malaysia and the region.
There have been numerous issues in regards to plagiarism. Back in
2013, an Utusan Malaysia writer Ridhuan Tee was accused of plagiarism by
a Universiti Teknologi Malaysia lecturer Dr Aril Yasreen Mohd. Yassin.
Although the matter was never resolved, Ridhuan Tee was appointed an associate professor at Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (National Defence University).
Plagiarism in the copying of internet, book, and article material for
publications is widespread within Malaysia, although very few reports
ever rise to the public domain.
Adeline Lee Zhia Ern, a Malaysian writer, was caught plagiarizing Jack Canfield’s Chicken Soup for the Soul IV in her first book Lethal Lesson and Other Stories, and her book was withdrawn from the market and destroyed. An editor working for the New Straits Times, Brendan Pereira, was dismissed for plagiarizing the work of U.S. journalist Mitch Albom. Last year, the Malaysian national news agency Bernama suspended a journalist for plagiarizing an article from the Jakarta Post.
Plagiarism is not just confined to books. Australian Masterchef finalist Alvin Quah was accused of plagiarism by Rasa Malaysia’s Bee Yin Low from the Asian food blog Rasa Malaysia.
With the level of academic dishonesty in general society,
it’s not surprising that there is a lack of academic integrity within
Malaysian institutions of higher education.
With the level of academic dishonesty in general society, it’s not
surprising that there is a lack of academic integrity within Malaysian
institutions of higher education. However, what is surprising is the
extent of it, particularly among students, according to a recent survey.
These practices are not just restricted to students. A startling but not well publicized piece of research on student academic dishonesty
in Malaysia showed academic dishonesty was rampant. It was revealed
that students understand the university policies are towards plagiarism
and cheating, yet due to peer pressure and the feeling of security in
the collective culture, large percentages of students partake in
cheating in one form or another.
The study went on to state that 95.7% of students had partaken in some form of plagiarism.
Pic: AP.
The study went on to state that 95.7% of students had partaken in
some form of plagiarism, 96% had shared an assignment with other
students, 93% had cheated during tests, 92% had falsified data, 86% had
cheated in exams, and 90% had copied a friends assignment.
Due to the sheer number of students at Malaysian universities today,
it is almost impossible to use tools like ‘turnitin’ to check all
students’ work for plagiarism.
In addition, universities are worried about their reputations if pass
rates are poor, and often put extreme pressure on lecturers to pass
students. Failing a student in some faculties within a Malaysian
university would just lead to a long series of meetings and extra work
to reassess and pass them, many lecturers have told the writer.
Unfortunately, some staff at Malaysian universities are not good role
models to students. In of the few cases that came to public attention
two Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) lecturers who were caught
plagiarizing materials from the internet to produce an effective writing
handbook. The action taken against the authors was only a reprimand. A similar case involving a deputy vice chancellor of another university was ‘pushed under the rug’. However the IEEE banned any papers from the academic in any of their journals for 10 years.
Some lecturers use undergraduate student assignments as the basis of
papers they publish in academic journals. This accounts for the large
number of papers some lecturers are able to produce each year. Student
names are rarely added as authors to the lecturer’s submissions to
journals.
A number of deans and high office bearers within Malaysian
universities specifically hire staff from countries like Bangladesh to ghost write
for them. These staff members have no other duties other than to
produce papers and even books for their employers. This is in addition
to lecturers also putting their superiors name on their papers to carry
favour. Some staff members have also been known to employ a ghost writer to research and write their PhD thesis.
Plagiarism is extremely high among lecturers and professors within Malaysian universities, and only occasionally will any academic come out and publically talk about what is going on.
With the push over the last few years for Malaysian universities to rise in the world rankings,
publishing has become a very important issue for academics.
Universities have put a lot of funds into improving their volume of
articles published in academic journals.
Many methods are being used to get articles published and gain
citations for their work. Many Malaysian academics are using the
‘checkbook’ to just pay for publication. A number of academic journals
are now springing up using a ‘pay to publish’ approach, rather than the
‘double blind referee’ approach traditional to academic publishing in
the past. Lecturers also give papers at conferences where proceedings
are published in journals after the conference.
If one goes to Google Scholar and checks the publication citations of some of the new universities,
it will become very evident that many academics are gaining large
numbers of citations for their work within very short periods of time.
This has been particularly the case over the last three to four years.
High numbers of citations are being generated through the sheer volume
of papers where lecturers cite their own work, and make agreements with
other lecturers to cross-cite each other’s work.
Many other dishonest activities going on within Malaysian universities include;
The falsifying of student appraisal surveys to eliminate criticism of teaching,
The ‘cut and paste’ of curriculum from other universities when developing new courses,
Some foreign students who fail just to purchase a locally produced fake degree before returning home. Some even go to the convocation and take photos with their friends on graduation day,
There are still faculty members with dubious degrees and qualifications
within Malaysian universities today. As of today, there are still no
laws against this practice, and unfortunately some international
universities are cashing in on the Malaysian Ministry of Education’s
quest to improve qualifications among public university lecturers. Many
Malaysian lecturers are sent to overseas universities which guarantee a pass to gain their PhD.
Fraudulent academic practices and dishonesty is almost an
acceptable behaviour in Malaysia today, as the national and
institutional leaders have done very little to highlight the seriousness
of these offences.
There is currently a very low state of academic integrity within
Malaysian universities. However universities are only a microcosm of the
general society around them. Fraudulent academic practices and
dishonesty is almost an acceptable behaviour in Malaysia today, as the
national and institutional leaders have done very little to highlight
the seriousness of these offences.
Academically dishonest people are leniently dealt with in Malaysia,
which has given today’s younger generation ‘skewed ideas’ about morality
and ethics and so academic dishonesty has become a destructive modus operandi.
The prevalence of academic dishonesty shows that moral and ethical
standards are slipping in Malaysia and a whole new generation is being
told that it’s OK to steal the creative work and ideas of others. There
is a very high tolerance in Malaysian society for fraud, cheating and
mediocrity.
Malaysia is now a country where some ministers don’t know their own
portfolios, students don’t know their career disciplines, and university
professors who just don’t know their fields. This is costing Malaysian
society greatly. Mediocrity rather than meritocracy is favoured which
will affect Malaysia’s human capital competitiveness in the coming
years. This is a problem that is coming from the top of Malaysia’s
institutions, where reform is desperately needed.
Knowledge discovery NOT = product/application development NOT = adoption NOT = successful deployment NOT = social impact/progress
The argument for basic science is that it's generally difficult to direct knowledge discovery to those with actual impact in the long run. If Singapore is shifting the $$$ down one stage, then they might as well spend it on the other stages also, or end up with lots of applied research results +/- proof-of-concept showcases sitting on shelves. Good ideas don't sell itself, but neither do potentially good applications.
Government should seriously consider the Editorial suggestion of
'' phasing in the funding changes, over the next few years, rather than introducing them all at once.'' As rightly pointed out by the
Editorial, '' while the move to realign scientific objectives with economic reality is understandable, it would be a huge waste if doing so with undue haste and insufficient planning were to
destroy Singapore's impressive experiment", the city – state government should very seriously consider these words of wisdom. Singapore should be an example to other countries
and retain its scientific community in their own city – state at all costs.
Coupled with local labour laws heavily tilted in favour of the employer, so that even a tenured professor can be fired at a short notice without much pretext, and the constant itch of bureaucrats to micromanage most everything (e.g. few months into your grant you can easily get an order to cut spending on a specific line of important items, for no given reason), in it's only fair that the pay is good.
When the massive biomedical funding came in a decade ago especially for basic research, many in the community were skeptical how long this would last (the motivation for eventual economic returns was very clear to everyone from the very beginning). The heavy funding for basic research is actually strengthened with the National Research Foundation and Education Ministry funding support for the coming years; it is understandable that A*STAR is clarifying its goal of translational research (A*STAR is part of Trade and Industry Ministry). In the local biomedical community, very few people would have the illusion that Singapore will continue to devote most funds to support blue sky type of basic research.
The biggest psychological impact of the recent realignment to local biomedical researchers probably is the end of extramural grants from biomedical research council (BMRC). Even though this was remedied with the increase in extramural funding from other funding agencies, many individual PI felt the psychological shock because BMRC has already built the reputation as a large funding source supporting individual PI driven research. The overall landscape for research funding in Singapore is still way better than most other developed countries.
Over the past decade when I talked to business people, many were surprised about the scale of the Singapore experiment for so much basic research. For these people and the commoners at large, the recent realignment is not too drastic or sudden. Some even told me that these are long overdue. Singapore has been pushing for translational biomedical research especially for the past 5 years mainly from science to medicine but translation is also important from science to industry via biomedical technology innovations. Basic biomedical researchers in many countries sometimes look down on translational research; claiming that these have no science, little innovations and low impact or too technical. Interestingly, many technology journals' impact factors (IF) have skyrocketed over the past few years (just look at the Nature series on technologies; and the dwindling IF on many pure biology journals). A recent discussion with some publishers suggests that many basic researchers turned away from pure biology research partially because of the nick-picking behaviors of many reviewers in these fields. Many groups spent bulk of resources revising papers to satisfy tiny concerns (end up as many figures in supplementary information) of reviewers to get into these journals (some even with mediocre IF). The rate of diminishing returns in perfecting a figure or two have driven many researchers into technology areas where the reviewers are still fair and reasonably rigorous (just like the basic research publishing 20 or 30 years ago). As more basic researchers migrate into translational research worldwide, the scientific rigor has improved. Biomedical people start realizing that there are also scientific principles to be discovered and significant innovations in even the so called technical areas. Studying or developing an engineered system can be as valid scientifically as those focusing on the natural or pathological systems. Moving a basic science discovery into something useful for industry or healthcare requires more than just a technician's contribution or pairs of hands. If Singapore as a city-state's primary motivation for research is to build up competitiveness for a knowledge economy, then the current realignment to really focus on translational research is timely. Being a culturally and geographically located interface between the east and west, Singapore can source for bulk of the basic research discoveries elsewhere and translate them in Singapore into useful technologies for the society or the world. The strong and efficient team-based working style and a large technical/engineering community is ideally suitable for translational research that often require integrative cross-disciplinary efforts and collaborations. Basic research still has values in Singapore for many obvious reasons in education, in maintaining scientific reputation as a credible place for R&D etc. As Singapore builds a reputation as a translational research hub, some values of the basic research will be substituted over time by high quality translational research; and it will be great if Singapore maintains a smaller but higher quality basic researchers community mostly in academia while national research institutions or industry R&D centers focus on translational research that yield more direct impact to society.
B.t.w. fish con: thanks for the insightful official Singapore view about the pityful state of sciences and publication system as a whole ... lol
The fact is, Singapore is always fast in implementing changes in its research goal since I joined IMRE in 1998. The country is a population with 1/5 of the Netherlands, 1/15 of UK, and 1/20 of Germany, not to mention with the size of the country. I guess it is better for them not good to stay at the same position for 20 years in order to survive the competitiveness from other emerging and rising countries. Sound very official right? LOL.
"This significance of the proposed research is not strong because the proposal is diffuse and highly ambitious. The PI should focus more tightly on key components of the prior proposal that are viewed as strongest and best integrated.
Each of the aims and themes of this diffuse proposal could be a proposal in itself. The PI is urged to focus more on one of these aims and flesh out the mechanistic and translational strengths therein."
While this may be true, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that whoever wrote this read and understood the proposal
Do you apply for MOE grants in IMRE (strangely I can't seem to find someone with your initials on the IMRE website)? Also I don't understand the point you are trying to make when you divide the populations of various countries by the population of Singapore. How does this justify sketchy research funding allocation policy?