Category Archives: Economics

Posts exploring the economic impacts of science and engineering. The value of strong science and engineering practice has many benefits to the economy – directly and indirectly. Many countries are focusing their future economic plans on advancing their scientific, engineering and technology communities and creating environments that support scientists and engineers.

Robot Boats Hunt Pirates

Robot Boats Hunt High-Tech Pirates on the High-Speed Seas

The International Maritime Bureau is tracking a 14-percent increase in worldwide pirate attacks this year. And although modern-day pirates enjoy collecting their fare share of booty—they have a soft spot for communications gear—they’re just as likely to ransom an entire ship. In one particularly sobering case, hijackers killed one crew member of a Taiwan-owned vessel each month until their demands were met.

For years now, law enforcement agencies across the high seas have proposed robotic boats, or unmanned surface vessels (USVs), as a way to help deal with 21st-Century techno Black Beards. The Navy has tested at least two small, armed USV demonstrators designed to patrol harbors and defend vessels. And both the Navy and the Coast Guard have expressed interest in the Protector, a 30-ft.-long USV built by BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Israeli defense firm RAFAEL.

The Protector, which comes mounted with a 7.62mm machine gun, wasn’t originally intended for anti-piracy operations. But according to BAE Systems spokesperson Stephanie Moncada, the robot could easily fill that role.

Engineering Innovation in Manufacturing and the Economy

Editorial: Engineering Innovation, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

They are the invisible heroes in business, the men and women who make innovation possible. They are people like Mary Ann Wright at Johnson Controls in Milwaukee, the former chief engineer for the Ford Escape hybrid who is leading a team bent on establishing world leadership in hybrid battery systems.

Or Werner Zobel, a Modine Manufacturing engineer working in Germany who hatched the idea for a new cooling system that the Racine-based company believes could be revolutionary. The system uses ultra-thin layers of aluminum to dissipate heat, a breakthrough that has potential for car and truck radiators and air conditioning condensers.

Intellectual candlepower will fire the regional economy, the Milwaukee 7 regional economic development group believes. Its strategic plan relies on innovation-driven manufacturers that are heavy with engineers. But across the region, those companies say they can’t recruit enough engineers, and they worry that shortages will worsen as baby boomers retire. Complicating the picture is a shortage of visas for foreign-born engineers and increased competition from rapidly developing economies in China and India for those students even when they complete their studies in the United States.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University and the Milwaukee School of Engineering are racing to fill the pipeline. Marquette and UWM are promising expansive new buildings and increased enrollment of both undergraduate and graduate students.

The USA continues to be by far the largest manufacturing in the world. And one important reason is the contributions provided by science and engineering (fed by strong science and engineering schools). In addition to other smart economic policies (The World Bank’s annual report on the easiest countries to do business in ranks the USA 3rd – after Singapore and New Zealand).

The Importance of Science Education

The Science Education Myth by Vivek Wadhwa:

The authors of the report, the Urban Institute’s Hal Salzman and Georgetown University professor Lindsay Lowell, show that math, science, and reading test scores at the primary and secondary level have increased over the past two decades, and U.S. students are now close to the top of international rankings. Perhaps just as surprising, the report finds that our education system actually produces more science and engineering graduates than the market demands.

The study certainly sounds interesting. I can’t find it (update Vivek Wadhwa provided the link – which will work Monday, also see his comment below), but found an article (which wasn’t easy) by the authors of the report: The Real Technology Challenge. The main point of the article, The Real Technology Challenge, seems to be that the USA should focus on globalization (and focus on educating scientists and engineers to work in a global world).

As I have said before I disagree with those that believe the USA is producing more science and engineering graduates than the market demands. Smart leaders know the huge positive impacts of a large, well educated science and engineering workforce.

Countries that succeed in producing more quality graduates while creating the best economic environment to take advantage of technology innovation (follow this link – it is one of the most important posts about what makes silicon valley so powerful a force at doing just that) are going to benefit greatly. My guess is the USA will be one of those countries; not by reducing the focus on science and engineering education but by increasing it. If not, other countries will, and the USA will suffer economically. The USA also needs to continue to push the economic and entrepreneurship advantages – doing that well is very difficult to achieve and the USA maintains a stronger advantage in that realm – but I will be very surprised if other countries don’t continue to make gains in this area. Even so doing so is much more challenging than just improving education (which is difficult itself just not nearly as difficult) and the USA can continue to benefit from this combination with the right policies.

Plumpynut – Food Savior

A Life Saver Called “Plumpynut”

Every year, malnutrition kills five million children — that’s one child every six seconds. But now, the Nobel Prize-winning relief group “Doctors Without Borders” says it finally has something that can save millions of these children. It’s cheap, easy to make and even easier to use. What is this miraculous cure? As CNN’s Anderson Cooper reports, it’s a ready-to-eat, vitamin-enriched concoction called “Plumpynut,” an unusual name for a food that may just be the most important advance ever to cure and prevent malnutrition.

“It’s a revolution in nutritional affairs,” says Dr. Milton Tectonidis, the chief nutritionist for Doctors Without Borders. “Now we have something. It is like an essential medicine. In three weeks, we can cure a kid that is looked like they’re half dead. We can cure them just like an antibiotic. It’s just, boom! It’s a spectacular response,” Dr. Tectonidis says.
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Plumpynut is a remarkably simple concoction: it is basically made of peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar, and enriched with vitamins and minerals. It tastes like a peanut butter paste. It is very sweet, and because of that kids cannot get enough of it. The formula was developed by a nutritionist. It doesn’t need refrigeration, water, or cooking; mothers simply squeeze out the paste. Many children can even feed themselves. Each serving is the equivalent of a glass of milk and a multivitamin.

China Reaches for the Moon

China’s Long March to the Moon

The missions by China and Japan are part of a broader resurgence of interest in the moon by space agencies around the world. The U.S. and India also are planning unmanned lunar-exploration missions next year. It is the biggest burst of such work since the 1970s. The last humans to stand on the moon were American astronauts from the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
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For China, the aim is explicitly political, as well as scientific. “Lunar exploration reflects a country’s comprehensive national power,” said Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist for China’s moon program, in an interview with the official Communist Party newspaper, People’s Daily. It will “raise our international prestige and strengthen the cohesion of our people.”

China aims to have a unmanned mission to the moon in 2012 and a manned mission to the moon by 2020.

Proposal to Triple NSF GFRP Awards and the Size of the Awards by 33%

Hillary Clinton’s Innovation Agenda (press release from the campaign):

Triple the number of NSF fellowships and increase the size of each award by 33 percent. At present, the NSF offers approximately 1,000 fellowships per year. This number is not much changed from the 1960s, although the number of college students graduating with science and engineering degrees has grown three fold. The NSF fellowship is the key financial resource for science and engineering graduate students. Hillary will increase the number of fellowships to 3,000 per year. She will also increase each award from $30,000 to $40,000 per year (simultaneously, she will increase the NSF award to each recipient’s school from $10,500 per recipient to $14,000 per recipient to help cover educational costs).

That sounds great to me. I have talked about this before: Increasing American Fellowship Support for Scientists and Engineers. I work for ASEE on the IT systems in support of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Operation Center (the ASEE portion of the program) and other engineering fellowship programs). This blog is my own and is not affiliated with ASEE.

The proposed legislation on Graduate Scholar Awards in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math also has a similar aim and commitment. Here is a post from 2005 on similar proposals. As I mentioned in The Innovation Agenda, 2005 while I agree with this spending I also believe what I said then:

Currently the United States has over $8,000,000,000,000 (that is over $8 trillion – see current count) in debt (increasing by over $400 Billion a year). That brings every person’s share to over $27,000. Given that, it seems reckless to just add spending without either cutting something else or increasing taxes and I don’t see those details in the innovation agenda.

The debt now? Over $9,000,000,000,000 (increasing more than $1.4 billion a day for the last year). More on Washington taxing future generations to pay for what we spend today.

Virus Found to be One Likely Factor in Bee Colony Collapse Disorder

Photo of a bee bu Justin Hunter

Scientists say a virus appears to be a factor in honeybee colony collapse by Andrew C. Revkin:

Scientists sifting genetic material from thriving and ailing bee colonies say a virus appears to be a prime suspect – but is unlikely to be the only culprit – in the mass die-offs of honeybees reported last autumn and winter.

Very well stated. The virus while seeming to be a factor in the deaths appears to cause death in colonies that are stressed which seem to be highly correlated with colonies that are moved from place to place by commercial beekeepers to pollinate various crops. Bees that are kept by hobbiest, wild bees… don’t seem to be dying off. The impact of CCD is growing economically as prices for renting bees to pollinate crops increases and in some cases there are not enough bees available. Honey prices are increasing and prices for food pollinated by bees are too.

The Department of Agriculture states: The only pathogen found in almost all samples from honey bee colonies with CCD, but not in non-CCD colonies, was the Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV), a dicistrovirus that can be transmitted by the varroa mite. It was found in 96.1 percent of the CCD-bee samples. This does not identify IAPV as the cause of CCD,” said Pettis. “What we have found is strictly a strong correlation of the appearance of IAPV and CCD together. We have not proven a cause-and-effect connection.”

Related: Bee researchers close in on Colony Collapse Disorder, Penn State (Penn State broke the link so it was removed) – Bye Bye Bees – Bee Colony Collapse Disorder CCD – More on Disappearing Honeybees – Colony Collapse Disorder and Pollinator Decline

JMU Adds School of Engineering

JMU to create engineering program next fall by Kelly Conniff:

The research group focused on material from several areas that had shown that engineering is in great demand at JMU. The commonwealth of Virginia has also identified the top three labor shortages areas as nursing, education and engineering. JMU decided to respond to this need by creating a program that will produce close to 50 graduates per year, starting with the first graduating class in 2012.
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The school of engineering will also focus on incorporating business elements into the curriculum. The Steering Committee created two new business courses designed for engineering students. The courses, called Management of Technology I and II, will be specially constructed in order to allow students to pursue post-graduate studies in business or engineering upon graduation.

“The addition of business skills is really important to our program,” Prins said. “Having our graduates be able to speak both engineering and business is key to their success.”

First Year of Google WiFi

First year of Google WiFi

Our Mountain View WiFi network just celebrated its first anniversary, and we thought you’d appreciate a few data points. The network’s 400+ mesh routers cover about 12 square miles and 25,000 homes to serve approximately 15,000 unique users each week month. Since the beginning of 2007, traffic has grown almost 10 percent each month, and the network now handles over 300 gigabytes of data each day, sent to over 100 distinct types of WiFi devices. Virtually the entire city has been taking advantage of the network, with 95 percent of the mesh routers being used on any given day.

Around the globe and across the U. S., many people are still not able to access the online services that are increasingly helpful, if not essential, tools for our daily lives. This is why we’re committed to promoting alternative platforms for people to access the web, no matter where you are, what you’re doing or what device you’re using.

Financial Engineering

In addition to this blog I also run the Curious Cat Investing and Economics blog. Still I don’t really understand what financial engineering is. Here is an article from the author of an excellent economics blog – Reverse engineering financial engineering:

Call it the downside of complex financial engineering. That engineering took some risks off the banks balance sheet (literally in some cases), but it also means that no one quite knows where the subprime losses are. And there is a suspicion that some of those losses are hiding in funds that haven’t offered adequate compensation for the risk.

A few months ago a lot of subprime debt could be packaged into a security that was worth more than the sum of its parts (with a bit of help from the credit rating agencies. And this process was widely lauded. The IMF argued that the United States unique skill at creating innovative fixed income “product” was pulling in the capital needed to finance the US current account deficit. The Fed argued that financial innovation allowed the banks to sell risks that they previously might have held on their balance sheet — though it is also worth noting that the banks themselves were big buyers of MBS as well. Risks were divided and then sold to those best able to manage them.

I understand there has been a large move toward using highly complex math for financial strategies. I understand many derivatives and other investment vehicles have been created. I just don’t really get what makes some of it engineering. Creating new financial instruments, I can come close to understand the argument for calling that engineering but still… And I don’t understand why complex accounting often seems to be called engineering instead of accounting. And the portion that is mainly about changing legal classification then isn’t it more legal than engineering (it seems much financial engineering are gimmicks or tricks or… to gain favorable legal classification for tax… purposes).