Management Law

For a management to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it helps the managed subjects reach their goals by providing them with greater and greater access to satisfy their needs.

This law is to place progression of management (of humans and of other animate subjects) on the basis of natural law of life. According to this theory, biological nature is the selection power for the progression of management.

Goals are desired results the managed subjects want to achieve. Two fundamental goals of any life are survival and reproduction. Biological needs such as satisfying hunger, thirsty, sleepiness, sexual desire; pursuing pleasure; approaching attractions; avoiding pain and repulsions are inborn needs to help an organism achieve the goals of survival and reproduction. Social needs of humans such as acceptance, prestige, and self-fulfillment are derivative needs (or extension) of biological needs.

Striving to survive, reproduce, and satisfy needs is a nature (trait) common to all lives. In a sense, biological nature can be defined as an innate force that drives life to achieve its goals and satisfy its needs. This nature is determined by biological program (genes) of life. There is no way to change biological nature of a life. Recognizing and cooperating with biological nature of a life when managing it is the only way for the management to persist in time. And biological nature is the force that constantly works on management and selects fitter management that better serve the goals and needs of the managed subjects.

Similarities and dissimilarities between the boy who cried wolf and people who advocate Peak Oil

Similarity: Wolf did not come as the boy cried for several times; World oil production did not peak as some “peak oil advocators” predicted for several decades. 

Dissimilarity: The boy intentionally wanted to trick the villagers; Peak Oil advocators did not intentionally want to trick people. Some of them just failed to understand and predict how development of technology would impact on discovery and exploitation of new oil resources.

Similarity: There were wolves; There are limitations of oil resources. The nature of wolves that they eat sheep did not change; The nature of fossil oil resources that they are non-renewable and limited does not change. 

Similarity: Wolf came suddenly; Peak Oil will come, possibly in a sudden way.

Similarity: The boy and the villagers should not have dropped off their guard for wolves; Peak Oil advocators,  policy makers and people should not drop off their guard for future oil crisis. 

Cellulose, Maginot Line of Plants. Shoud it be Tackled or Avoided for Biofuels Production?

--A Thought about Biofuels Production

It is almost always a better strategy to cooperate with biological natures of a life than to fight against them if we want to get the most of the life. Cooperating with biological natures of a life means helping it achieve its goals, and thus would avoid resistance from the life. Two fundamental natures or goals of any life are survival and reproduction. For example, bread and rice we eat are made from seeds of wheat and rice respectively. It is a nature of wheat and rice to produce seeds, and they have a natural tendency to produce as many seeds as they can because that is in favor of their reproductions. In past thousands of years, humans have successfully “catered for” this nature and “helped” wheat and rice produce much more seeds than they originally did for human benefits.

How is this principle related to biofuels production?

Cellulosic biofuels made from wood, grasses, and inedible parts of crops, are widely considered to be promising as alternative transportation fuels with great economic and environmental benefits. Cellulose is a polymer of sugar. It is produced by all plants, from single-celled algae to giant trees. Abundance of cellulose led to a logic or a natural expectation of producing fuels from cellulose. Actually, producing fuels from cellulose is not a new idea: ethanol production from cellulose began in Germany as early as in 1898. However, for plants survival, cellulose is naturally made tough for breaking down. Breaking down cellulose is like attacking the strongest point plants defend. In the past century, scientists and engineers have invented numerous physical, chemical and biological methods for breaking down cellulose. But breaking down cellulose into sugar remains difficult and the most expensive step in production of cellulosic biofuels. Besides, for survival plants spend energy transforming sugar into cellulose; and for producing cellulosic biofuels, people have to spend energy transforming cellulose back into sugar. This does not seem optimal.

It is not implied that cellulosic biofuels will not be able to make a significant impact in production of alternative transportation fuels, but more attention might be needed to give on new strategies that would cut out or avoid cellulose for producing biofuels.

(To be continued)

Energy for Transportation

Transportation is the movement of people and goods from one location to another. It is an inseparable part of any society. The way of transportation has a close relationship with the way of people’s life.

The main transportation tools in modern society are cars, ships and airplanes, which are vehicles for land, water and air transportation respectively. Needless to say, it takes energy to run these vehicles.

The first energy carrier for transportation is petroleum or oil, which provided about 95% of all the energy consumed in transportation in the world and 90% in the USA in 2011. Oil is a liquid fuel, which has high energy capacity, easy to transport, and easy to handle. But oil is a fossil fuel. It was formed from plants and animals that lived on the earth millions of years ago. The resources of oil are limited and non-renewable. As global demand for oil is increasing and worldly oil production will peak in the near future and then decline, the world simply cannot produce enough oil to meet the demands of oil for transportation.

The second energy carrier for transportation is natural gas. Natural gas as a transportation fuel can be either compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG). There were about 14 million natural gas vehicles in the world in 2011, which accounted for about 1.4% of all vehicles running on the road. Natural gas vehicles are more expensive than gasoline-powered vehicles. But natural gas has a price advantage over oil and emits fewer greenhouse gases when burned. Because huge supply is available domestically in the USA and around the world, current and predicted future price of natural gas is much lower than that of gasoline on an energy equivalent basis. With such a price advantage as a fuel, natural gas vehicles, especially those of heavy-duty trucks and high-mileage vehicles like transit-buses and taxis, will continue to grow in the coming years.

The third energy carrier for transportation is electricity. Electricity is clean, which doesn’t cause air pollution to the driving area. Some trains and a few of cars are running on electricity. There seem no big problems to produce enough electricity for present and future use because electricity can be generated from nuclear power, solar energy, wind, tidy, water force etc., as well as from coal, natural gas and oil. But there are several barriers for widely using electricity cars. First, the energy capacity of batteries is low. Generally an electricity car can only run about 100 miles. Second, it takes hours to recharge the batteries. It can be argued that the first problem could be solved with development of more effective batteries in the future; and the second problem could be solved with building up national net of battery stations: people change their batteries at the battery stations rather than wait for the batteries to be recharged. However, key materials for making rechargeable batteries are expensive and non-renewable.

The fourth energy carrier for transportation is hydrogen. Hydrogen is widely used in space transportation, for example, sending satellites and people into space by rockets. There are also a few cars running on hydrogen. The advantage of hydrogen is clean with water as the only waste. But hydrogen is not easy to handle. The tank of a car that can store hydrogen must be able to contain high pressure, which is a technological challenge. And since hydrogen is highly flammable, cars running on hydrogen have special safety issues. It seems that in the near future, hydrogen would not be able to become a popular transportation fuel.

The fifth energy carrier for transportation is liquid biofuels. Biofuels, such as ethanol, butanol and biodiesel, are fuels produced from living organisms or biomass. Since energy in biofuels originates from solar energy through photosynthesis, biofuels are renewable. Liquid biofuels can be conveniently used in current petroleum used vehicles. The problem facing biofuels is how to produce large quantity of biofuels with low and competitive price. Current ways of producing biofuels from corn, soybean, and other crops are not the solution for the future, because their production costs are high and potentials limited. It seems the future lies in genetically modified or created bacteria or algae, which will be able to directly produce biofuels by using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.

As renewable fuels, biofuels will play more and more important roles in transportation.

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The above is one of my 8 to 10 minute Toastmasters speeches.

A Song of War Chariots

“A song of war chariots” is a poem written by Du Fu, one of the greatest Chinese poets. Du Fu lived in the 8th century, which is about one thousand and three hundred years ago. At that time, China was engaged in several wars. Du Fu witnessed sorrow, suffering and tragedies the wars had inflicted upon people and soldiers. He was concerned about fate of the country and held great compassion for common people. This poem described sad and horrific scenes of the wars, and it also reflected Du Fu's anti-war attitude and his humanitarian value.

The second slide shows a Chinese version of the poem.

The third slide is a painting based on the poem.

The forth slide is another paining. I personally think the latter reflects more closely to what the poem described.

What I am going to read is an English translation of the poem. It was translated by Witter Bynner, an American poet. Here is the poem,

A Song of War-Chariots

The war-chariots rattle,
The war-horses whinny.
Each man of you has a bow and a quiver at his belt.
Father, mother, son, wife, stare at you going,
Till dust shall have buried the bridge beyond Changan.
They run with you, crying, they tug at your sleeves,
And the sound of their sorrow goes up to the clouds;
And every time a bystander asks you a question,
You can only say to him that you have to go.

...We remember others at fifteen sent north to guard the river
And at forty sent west to cultivate the campfarms.
The mayor wound their turbans for them when they started out.
With their turbaned hair white now, they are still at the border,
At the border where the blood of men spills like the sea --
And still the heart of Emperor Wu is beating for war.

...Do you know that, east of China's mountains, in two hundred districts
And in thousands of villages, nothing grows but weeds,
And though strong women have bent to the ploughing,
East and west the furrows all are broken down?

...Men of China are able to face the stiffest battle,
But their officers drive them like chickens and dogs.
Whatever is asked of them,
Dare they complain?
For example, this winter
Held west of the gate,
Challenged for taxes,
How could they pay?

...We have learned that to have a son is bad luck-
It is very much better to have a daughter
Who can marry and live in the house of a neighbor,
While under the sod we bury our boys.

...Go to the Blue Sea, look along the shore
At all the old white bones forsaken --
New ghosts are wailing there now with the old,
Loudest in the dark sky of a stormy day.




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Above is one of my Toastmasters speeches.

Two-minute speech at Toastmasters District 83 Executive Committee Meeting on May 7th, 2011

District Leaders and Fellow Toastmasters,

According to the World Health Organization, there are three aspects of health. They are physical health, mental health and social health. A person’s social health can only be achieved by connecting and interacting with others.

I love Toastmasters not only because it provides a wonderful environment for me to improve my English and develop my public speaking skills but also because Toastmasters is actually a bridge for me to connect myself with others and with the society.

The feeling of being a part of a community or a part of the society is important for a person’s health. In Toastmasters, every member has the opportunity to maintain and promote his social health by interacting with his fellow members and by his personal growth. And improving the social health of individuals actually also improve the social health of societies. In this respect, I believe, Toastmasters benefits not only its members, but also the society.

Microscope

In history of the earth, there have lived at least two million different species of life. But no other species like human beings have so much impact on the earth, on the environments, and on other lives. It is because of making and using of tools that make us so powerful and distinguish us from animals.

Tools extend our biological capabilities. For example, cars extend our capability of walking, telephones enable us to hear people from thousands of miles away, and telescopes make it possible for us to see far away in the space.

A microscope is a tool or an instrument that helps us to see objects that are too small to be seen with the naked eyes. Here shows a picture of a microscope. The main parts of a microscope are eyepiece lens and objective lens. And both eyepiece and objective lens are magnifying glasses.

It is recorded that as early as 2000 years ago, people already knew that some glasses or crystals with thicker in the center and thinner at the edge could make things look larger. And that was why they were called magnifying glasses. But magnifying glasses were not used much until invention of spectacles in the end of the 13th century.

In about 1590, two Dutch spectacle makers, while experimenting with several lenses in a tube, discovered that objects appeared greatly enlarged. That tube containing several lenses in it was the forerunner of both microscopes and telescopes.

Two remarkable contributions were made with microscopes in science: discovery of cells and discovery of microorganisms such as bacteria and virus. Discoveries of cells and microorganisms were milestones in development of science and had great influence in development of biology and medicine.

There are many different kinds of microscopes. But basically they belong to two kinds: optical microscopes and electron microscopes. Optical microscopes use visible light to image objects, and electron microscopes use electron beams to image objects. The magnification of an optical microscope is usually 500 to 1000 times. The maximum is 2000 times. An electron microscope can reach magnification of 2,000,000 times, under which virus and large molecules can be seen.

Here are images of pollens under microscopes. Pollens are male cells of plants. They are reason or culprits for allergy many people suffer in the spring. The left is an image of pollens under a optical microscope and the right is an image of pollens under an electronic microscope.

Microscopes are indispensable tools in fields like cell biology, microbiology, pathology including plant pathology, animal pathology and human pathology, nanoscience that deals with materials at micro level and forensic science that deals with criminal investigation etc.

Human beings have actually found another world with microscopes.

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The above is one of my Toastmasters speeches. The speech is based on a project titled "Technical Briefing".