Monday, October 29, 2012

The Top Engineering Colleges in Kolkata


Located on the banks of the Hooghly River, Kolkata is considered the cultural capital of the country. The city also boasts of several higher educational institutions offering courses in engineering, medical and management. As of 2010, Kolkata is home to fourteen universities run by the state government. The engineering colleges in Kolkata are either affiliated with a university or institution that is based out of Kolkata or anywhere else.

Two of the country's oldest engineering colleges are located in Kolkata; the engineering department of Jadavpur University and the Bengal Engineering and Science University. Apart from that, Kolkata boasts of a number of engineering colleges and academic bodies. Let us take a look at the same.

West Bengal University of Technology (WBUT)

Founded in 2001, this academic body was set up in order to meet the necessity of for establishing an Engineering or Technology University in West Bengal. Currently located in Salt Lake, the university also has a hostel facility.Most of the engineering colleges in Kolkata are affiliated to this academic body.

Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Jadavpur University

One of the oldest engineering departments, the Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Jadavpur University is one of the best in the country. All major engineering courses are offered by the University. An autonomous body, the University offers both Undergraduate and Postgraduate Courses. Right from Architecture, to Mechanical, Electrical and Production Engineering-one can find the course of his or her choice.

Bengal Engineering and Science University

Established in 1856, Bengal Engineering and Science University is one of the oldest engineering colleges of the country. Almost 150 years down the line, the institute has gained the status of a deemed university. A paradise of place, the institute offers engineering courses both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Apart from the Department of Engineering,the institute also has a Department of Science and Humanities. The Faculty of Science offers general courses pertaining to the same and the Department of Humanities, started recently, offers courses in Human Resource Management.

Gradually, more educational institutions opened up across the city offering courses in engineering. Most of these engineering colleges absorb students on the basis of their performance at the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE). Two new engineering colleges in Kolkata are discussed below.

Adamas Institute of Technology

Established in 2008, Adamas Institute of Technology is affiliated to WBUT and approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). A comparatively new player in the field of engineering, this institute offers courses in Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Communication, Information Technology and Mechanical Engineering. The institute has recorded a good percentage of campus placements. Some of the recruiters of Adamas Institute of Technology comprise Wipro, Larsen and Toubro and IBM.

Heritage Institute of Technology

Barely a decade old, is the Heritage Institute of Technology one of the better known engineering colleges of Kolkata. Affiliated to WBUT and approved by the AICTE, the institute has an efficient infrastructure which is supported by a state-of-the-art learning environment.The college has recorded hundred placements over the years. Courses offered include B.Tech, M.Tech, MBA and MCA. The students of this institute were placed with top notch companies like Proctor and Gamble, Larsen and Toubro, Wipro and so on.

What "Rubber Vulcanisation" Is All About and How It All Happened?


Some of the first natural rubber products such as rubber balls, jars and boots were discovered by the Europeans when they travelled to The Amazon of Brazil in the 1730′s. These were brought back to Europe but to their surprise, these products were too brittle during the winters and too soft and sticky in the summers.

It was later discovered that this undesirable phenomenon was due the fact that the rubber molecules had not been vulcanized i.e. they had not been cross-linked. The molecules could easily flow and slide pass each other at elevated temperatures making the rubber soft while in the cold they tend to crystallize resulting in an increase in stiffness and brittleness.

Charles Goodyear in 1839 discovered by accident although he insisted that it was his sheer hard work, that the rubber molecules could be crosslinked with sulphur when exposed to heat. The term "vulcanisation" was coined from the words "Vulcan", the God of fire and "volcano" to signify that both heat and sulphur which is of volcanic origin were involved in the reaction.

Today it is also commonly used even for non-sulphur curing system such as radiation vulcanized natural rubber latex (RVNRL) and peroxide vulcanized natural rubber latex (PVNRL).

A rubber becomes a thermoset after vulcanization. Unlike a thermoplastic, it is no longer sensitive to extreme temperatures.

Since the advent of this discovery, vulcanization has been a very essential part of all processes concerned with the manufacturing of rubber products based on dry rubber. Hence the understanding of the chemistry of vulcanisation was biased towards dry rubber technology.

The solid rubber must first be masticated to soften it in order to remove its "nerviness" to allow for the addition and homogeneous mixing of the curatives, namely sulphur, zinc oxide, stearic acid and accelerators. Poor mixing would lead to uneven curing. Any poorly dispersed sulphur would inevitably lead to localized over-curing or "reversion" indicating poor heat ageing resistance.

The possibility of vulcanizing the rubber molecules within the dispersed rubber particles in the Natural Rubber (NR) latex was first investigated by Philip Schidrowitz in the period 1914 - 1918. His idea was to use prevulcanised NR latex for making latex foam products in order to eliminate the vulcanization stage for economical reason.

Most of the subsequent studies by Schidrowitz and other researchers found that prevulcanised latex was generally not suitable for foam products due to the inherently poor gel strength.

While the chemistry of dry rubber vulcanization is complex, the mechanism of vulcanisation of rubber particles in latex is even more so and remains a wonder even today, almost 90 years after the advent of the discovery of prevulcanisation of latex. Unlike dry rubber, where the curatives could be intimately mixed and dispersed within the rubber matrix itself, similar curatives remain dispersed and suspended separately in the latex along with the rubber particles at least immediately after compounding and mixing. At best, the curatives could only collide with the rubber particles.

Many researchers had put forward their different schools of thoughts over the past decades. While some of these were contradictory with one another, others raised more questions.

It seems likely that the first important step in the vulcanization of latex is the formation of sulphur-accelerator species in the serum which then becomes soluble in the presence of the hydrophilic non-rubbers. It is possible that the resultant active sulphurating agent attains some degree of surface active property. Hence a logical mode of transfer would be its absorption onto the rubber particle surface from the serum or the aqueous phase.

Once on the rubber particle surface, the sulphurating agent would lose some of its hydrophilic moieties resulting in an increase in the hydrophobicity enabling itself to migrate into the hydrophobic interior of the rubber particle to trigger the initial formation of polysulphidic cross-links followed by cross-link shortening with recycling of the sulphur into additional cross-linking, modification of polyisoprene chains etc.

Prevulcanised latex is therefore compounded latex in which the molecules of the rubber particles are chemically cross-linked (i.e. vulcanised). However there is no change in rubber particle size, shape and particle size distribution, the latex still retaining its original fluidity and colloidal property.

Advice For New University Students


From the relative controlled confines of High School to the free as a bird University environment. Okay a bit of a stretch; but, many students succumb to the freedoms that University allows. For one, there is really no regular check on whether one is keeping up. Sadly I have witnessed many students with potential fall into the trap of this "freedom". In high school one of my great teachers gave us a few pieces of wise advice. One was that time off and fun is more enjoyable and more enriching if it isn't every night. The idea being that if one takes some weekend time as a reward then it means more. My "big night off" was Friday night. After a heavy week of lectures, labs and clinic time (I am a dentist) I was ready for the socially 'unredeeming' life that a local pub had to offer. And Mongtreal had and still has some great palces to enjoy this part of life. Not exactly the stuff Nobel prizes are made of, or maybe it is. I loved the break from the routine and the social repartee was welcome. I tend to be a fun loving guy and this came out in those days. I had a Jewish classmate who observed the Sabbath starting at Sun Down on Fridays. I remarked, kiddingly, that I too had deep religious practices. "I never studied on Fridays." Mind you I sometimes awoke at the crack of noon the next morning but I spent many hours studying on Saturday and Sunday. My point was that I took the advice of that teacher, I looked forward to those Friday evenings and I think it broke the ice in stress release.

Another good piece of advice I received from a fellow, who was a few years ahead of me, was to hit the library as soon as school started. I once read that a habit takes 21 days to form and the idea of going to the library, from the onset of school, established a pattern that was a solid basis for a steady trend. I was never stressed at University as I was always ahead of the game, as far as cramming was concerned. I loved it when I could go to bed early the night before exams, having ensured I was ready.

The time leading up to exams was a big part of my organization program. I would divide subjects into several sections. For example I would review a topic and perhaps divide it into ten parts. The idea was to do 5 sections the first week, then the next five sections during the second week. The first night I would study section one, then the next night I would study section two with a review of section one. This continued for the five sections. At then end of the first week of study I would do a full review of all parts I had studied. The second week I would do the second half of the course and review it all at the end of the week. The following days, after week two, I would review all 10 parts of the course. This was done with all courses. None of these reviews were the first time I had seen any topic. In fact, it was an actual review of studied materials.

In summary, enjoy University; but, every night is not play night. In my case it was Fridays for sure, plus the occasional Saturday if an event was in the planning. Start at the beginning of the school year to spend time in the library or another place which is conducive to the concept of studying. As well avoid cramming by organizing your review time in advance and of course keep up as the year progresses. And most important, have fun. Looking back that was the best part of my school years.

Nothing is sadder than hearing of 'Christmas Graduates'. That is the term we used to describe students who failed out at Christmas of first year University. Of these very few were not capable of success in University. But, all seemed to have been lulled into a sense of lethargy by letting studies slide as there was no one to oversee their academic work and efforts. Many I know returned and obtained degrees. But, it is possible to avoid this through proper planning and execution.

Enhance Academic Performance With a Digital Voice Recorder


How many times have you had those "I wish I knew then what I know now" moments? For me, one of those moments really hit me when I started using dictation and transcription tools such as the Olympus DS-700 for work. Sure, it was a time saver, but it was actually most useful for accurate data gathering and preparing presentations.

It got me to thinking, "Man, I wish I had one of these back in college!" I'm a notoriously bad note taker. It's not that I don't understand the important stuff; it's that I'm such a slow writer that I was missing out on half of the lectures because I was writing down the other half. Does that sound familiar to you? If so, then pay close attention, because I'm going to share some very critical ways that dictation devices and transcription software can make you a better student, namely: note taking, group discussions and presentation practice. Let's take a closer look at each of these.

Recording and Transcribing Lectures.

Oh, the dreaded lecture hall! I much preferred smaller class sizes, but when you need to teach basic physiology to 200 people at once, what are you going to do, right? Let's just say that the sciences weren't my strong suit in college. I was a note taking machine, however, writing as quickly as a I could and doing my best to keep up. When I'd go to review my notes later, I'd have a bunch of random words and definitions without much continuity. In addition, my professor used to like to draw a lot of illustrations on the board, so I'd do my best to copy those illustrations, too. The end result was sort of a mess.

With a dictation device, however, I could have recorded the entire lecture and had that to go back to any time I found gaps in my notes. In fact, if I could have paired it with a transcription program, such a Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I could have printed out the entire lecture, word-for-word and gotten much more copious notes.

Group Discussions.

I was sort of a lone wolf in college. I much preferred to do assignments on my own rather than working in groups. Part of it was that, pass or fail, all responsibility fell on me. In group situations, however, it seemed that everybody had a different idea of how they wanted to do things... which leads me to the next thing I didn't like about group discussions. Have you ever tried taking notes in a situation where four different people are all trying to get a different point across? It ain't easy.

It can sometimes take hours for groups to reach a consensus. Over those hours, little pieces of information that led to consensus are revealed. When you can record the entire discussion, however, you have an accurate record of who said what and how the next steps should proceed. When you are relying on others to get a project done right, this kind of organization is very helpful.

Presentation Practice.

Sooner or later, you are going to have to stand in front of a group of people and deliver a presentation. And, of course, we've all see those presenters who are just terrible. Their speech is full of "um"s and "you know"s and they speak in monotones that just make you sleepy. Here's the funny thing: they don't know they are doing it! In fact, you could be one of those people and not even know it.

The best way to practice giving presentations is to record yourself and listen to the playback. You would be surprised how often you say "um". You'll also start to pick up on other little idiosyncrasies in your speech pattern. As they say, knowing is half the battle. Once you have identified the parts of your delivery that need work, you can correct them and give a great presentation.

In Conclusion.

The above mentioned situations are just some of the more common situations. Students with different majors will naturally have even more specialized situations in which having an absolutely accurate record of events will greatly improve overall academic performance.

The Study Skill You Never Thought Existed: Shed Hours From Your Day


It is the most fundamental area of college success, and most students have messed it up before lunch time. Many would call it a study skill, but, more accurately, it is a life skill. And many never gain this tool. For many of you, this is the first taste of freedom you've had. This has the potential for great gain, and large losses.

With great power comes great responsibility

Sorry, I just had to throw something corny into the first few sentences of this piece. But there is truth to Spiderman's famous saying. The routine of school from 8:00 to 3:00 is over, and if you don't set some good routines for yourself, then college will eat you alive.

Somewhere around 95% of our actions are auto-pilot responses - subconscious actions that lead us to what we do. Sorry if you think you're an amazingly unique creatures with significant control over our actions. The reality is that most of what we do is governed by the habits we build, and that measly 5% is our uniquely human feature that allows us the potential to change. Don't take my tone as pessimism - that 5% is something to be very optimistic about. But only if you can use it efficiently. Can you use it efficiently?

The Morning Routine

The best way to achieve success in college is to create a morning routine with some of your highest priorities of the day. By taking on high priority tasks early in your day, you create momentum toward constructive ends. I would suggest a morning routine spanning from 2-3 hours. If you have a morning class, then wake up earlier, or work your routine so that part is before and after that class. Here are some common elements you want to include in the routine:

An hour to an hour and a half of work toward your MOST important assignments for school.

Breakfast.

Exercise.

Shower, brush teeth... etc.

Take a multivitamin.

Drink a large glass of water.

Prepare smaller snacks for throughout the day.

Time directed toward some hobby or passion you have.
These are some of the key activities to create in your morning rhythm. In fact, I'd suggest doing ALL of them, if you can. Altogether, these activities can be done within a 3 hour window, as I've tested this routine myself, though not in this order.

Just think of how much you could get accomplished by 10 or 11:00am through this model. The area where most students fail in their study skills habits is now allowing time to re-energize their batteries. Instead, they stress themselves out by oscillating between stressful studying and Facebook, or other distractions. The result is you never truly focus in on studying, and spend three times as much time on school work as a result

Instead, work in at least an hour of focused study, without distractions in your morning routine, then re-energize afterwards with breakfast, water, vitamins... etc. Make time to re-energize throughout the day, and your effectiveness will grow exponentially. So start a morning routine for yourself, and stick with it for 30 days. After 30 days, you will feel weird NOT doing it. You will feel WEIRD not being excellent.