All you need to know about Civil Engineering

Civil engineering is one of the main disciplines of professional engineering that mainly deals with design, building and maintenance of both natural and physical built environment that includes works like buildings, roads, canals, bridges and dams. After military engineering, the civil engineering is considered as the oldest engineering discipline. In the past it was mainly used to differentiate non military engineering services.

Traditionally the civil engineering is divided into various sub disciplines like environmental engineering, transportation engineering, construction engineering, survey, water resources engineering, coastal engineering, urban or municipal engineering, structural engineering and geotechnical engineering. It takes place at all levels from municipal to national governments both in public sector and private sector. Today different international companies are found offering various civil engineering services thus by effectively meeting the requirements at the highest level possible.

Engineering has become an important part of life since from the existence of human beings. The history of civil engineering dates back to 2000 BC at the time of ancient Egyptians where they started constructing shelters and roads for transportation. According to history reports, John Smeaton, the chief architect of Eddystone Lighthouse is the first self declared civil engineer.

Education and licenses

Any civil engineer will have a university degree with civil engineering as his major. The duration of this course is about three to five years depending on the university and is generally selected as Bachelor of Engineering. Some universities are also found designated it as Bachelor of Science. Project management, design, mathematics and physics are some of the common subjects you study in civil engineering. You can also undertake postgraduate programs related to civil engineering like Msc or MEng. Before being certified as civil engineer, the candidate needs to complete set of requirements and exams stated by the university.

Careers

There is no definite career course for civil engineers. Normally those who passed out as graduate civil engineers accept less responsibility and gradually increase it with the boost in experience. Within civil engineering career paths may vary depending on the specialization, consultation and management. These days coastal engineering, construction engineering, environmental engineering and geotechnical engineering are found to be in high demand and paid high salaries when compared to other disciplines of engineering. Experienced civil engineers are always in demand because they accept more complex design work and routine tasks. After all civil engineering helps to build the infrastructure of the world thus by contributing to its progression.

Eidul Adha and animal pollution

All Muslims of the world are celeberating  Eidul Adha (15/16 October 2013), a great Islamic day of thankfulness and obedience to ALLAH ALMIGHTY.

The background

Eidul Adha is an Islamic special day. All Muslims of the world observe this day every year to remember the sacrificial spirit of one of their holy prophets Hazrat Ibrahim Alaih Salam (AW) who thousands years ago offered his willingness to slaughter his own son and also a prophet himself Hazrat Ismail AW on the name of Almighty God. When he was about to slaughter his own son, God sent a sheep from the sky and replaced it with his son and he slaughtered it with the same spirit as if he is sacrificing his own son on the name of God.
He actually fulfilled an order of God given to him in his dream to sacrifice his dearest thing in the way of God. So this is the actual spirit of the sacrifice in Islam that if there is an order by God you have to sacrifice your dearest thing or being on His name without any ifs and buts.

The tradition

Following this sacrificial spirit Muslims have been sacrificing a Halal (allowed to be sacrificed) animal on the name of God every year. They slaughter a goat, cow, buffalo or camel and make three chunks of its meat; one for family, one for relatives and one for charity. Every year thousands and thousands of animals are sacrificed for this cause in the Muslim world or in the countries where Muslims live in large numbers. This religious ritual of Muslims has been coming on without any deviation in letter and spirit and all Muslims observe this great day on 10^th of Islamic month Dhu al-Hijjah every year. Only those Muslims can sacrifice an animal who can afford to buy the one; otherwise if one can’t afford it is not obligatory upon one to do so.

Environmental aspect of Eidul Adha

On a site devoted to raise the issues regarding environment and its degradation why I am telling you the significance of Eidul Adha. Yap there is an environmental aspect of this great day of Muslims. When Muslims sacrifice an animal and take its meat but its leftover or refuse like intestines and other uneatable stuff is to be disposed off to maintain the cleanliness. So the question is do all Muslims are properly disposing off the refuse of sacrificial animals.  Muslim community is very right that their job is to put such stuff at a designated place in their residential area and the rest of the responsibility of its collection and final disposal is of the concerned civic agency.

Collection of sacrificed animals' refuse

In relatively modern Muslim states like Malaysia and Indonesia their civic agencies are smart enough and collect the refuse and leftover of the slaughtered animals. But in most of the poor Muslim states in Asia and Africa there are no proper arrangements for their disposal. Most of such stuff lies uncollected in streets and on roadsides during this special day when there is holiday and after three days' observance of Eidul Adha such stuff is collected like normal solid waste. Meanwhile communities have to suffer from the smell oozing out from it. Besides, likelihood of the spread of diseases because of the generation of harmful bacteria in slaughtered animals waste also rises manifold and communities suffer from various bacterial diseases.

Final disposal of refuse

Final disposal of such leftover is also another big issue. Most of the less developed Muslim countries don’t have proper landfill sites - the safe area for final disposal of solid waste - and civic agencies of such countries take away such stuff far away from residential areas and burn it openly to get rid of it. However, open burning of all kinds of solid waste including this one is so harmful and creates air pollution that directly come in our breathing zones especially of those living in nearby areas.

Government responsibility

Collectively governments of the Muslim countries or of the countries where Muslims live in large number have to play a proactive role during the days of Eidul Adha and make special arrangements for the collection of such stuff and to carry it to safer places far away from residential areas for their final disposal.

What should Muslims do?

Being an individual every Muslim can play significant role to reduce the pollution generated by sacrificed animals.

• Firstly it is necessary to keep maximum possible eatable stuff of the slaughtered animals which is not harmful for the consumption.
• Secondly the necessary leftover should be thrown at designated places.
• Here also Muslims have to show their spirit of obedience to God Who ordered to maintain cleanliness both individually and collectively. Hence they have to show the world that Islam teaches cleanliness as well.

After this serious note, a very happy Eidul Adha to all Muslims of the world.

Drinking water can improve brain to work faster

ISLAMABAD: Quenching your thirst during the hot weather with a glass of water can help make your brain work faster, scientists have found.
According to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, the researchers discovered that people who drank a pint of water before conducing mental tasks had reaction times that were 14 percent faster than those who did not have drink.
And, with the current heat wave in mind, the effect was most pronounced among those who were thirsty before doing the task. The findings underlines how even mild dehydration can impact on a person's mental performance, the scientists say, Science Daily Reported.
Dr Caroline Edmonds, a psychologist at the University of East London who led study, said: "Reaction time seemed to be most affected by water, particularly if the people were thirsty.
"It might be because when you are thirsty, it diverts your attention away from the task at hand. This would be important for people at work or who need to concentrate.

Top 20 psychological effects of pollution that appear gradually

The common affects of pollution are many like environmental degradation, extinction of species, shrinkage of biodiversity, depletion of resources, weakening of ecosystem, rising global warming, steep climate change, decline in agriculture production, scarcity of water and several fatal diseases to human beings and animal. These are impacts that are often referred by environmentalists and you can read them anywhere on internet.

But there are several shocking effects of pollution that are actually its end results and we don’t trace its actual cause and simply try to remove their apparent causes. A few decades ago the custom of saying sorry or pardon to someone if you don’t properly listen to him was very rare. But now every one of us while speaking to someone very casually say pardon or sorry to get him repeat the sentence because we cannot properly listen in first utterance. So this is the ultimate effect of noise pollution that is gradually affecting our hearing ability.

So here are the top 20 psychological effects of pollution of all types that appear gradually.

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The rising level of environmental degradation in all forms has weakened our nerves. Now we don’t have as much stamina to wait for something and need quick results, prompt reply and rapid action. We know that it takes time to get the things happen but because of the weakness of our nerves we don’t have strength to wait and we make noise for everything to happen quickly.

1. Short temperament

On a slighter problem we burst up and shout on others. We face several types of pollution during our whole day more particularly noise and air pollution that almost crack our nerves. As a result we expect everything good from others. After tolerating the huge noise and inhaling polluted air we want to compensate it by watching everything as we want to see it. But in real life it does not happen. Many things happen against our wishes and we get hyper and shout in hysteria to get it as we want.

2. Impatience

The rising level of environmental degradation in all forms has weakened our nerves. Now we don’t have as much stamina to wait for something and need quick results, prompt reply and rapid action. We know that it takes time to get the things happen but because of the weakness of our nerves we don’t have strength to wait and we make noise for everything to happen quickly. 

3. Being irritated quickly

This also relates to our feeble nervous system made by polluted and noisy air apart from polluted water and contaminated food. Most of our body functioning is not perfect because of the impact of pollution and as a result we get irritated on a slighter failure, minor problem or a tiny hurdle and take it with undue seriousness. We are actually tired of various other social and economic issues apart from our weaker health and we don’t be cool on any adverse situation.

4. Asocial

There is a recently conducted study which revealed that persistent air pollution causes psychological disease autism in people more particular in children because their resistance system is not much strong. Autism means aloofness from the society and people become asocial by nature and do not remain active member of the society.

5. Boring

A person persistently affected by various types of pollution can never be lively and vivacious. His approach in life is to do whatever is necessary and leave the rest if nothing happens after leaving them. This approach is quite dangerous because many people become like this and its impact on society may lead to extremism and barbarism which we are seeing in most of the polluted countries of the world.

6. Remain passive

Nothing lies in this world for those who have passive approach of spending life. Here success is the prize for active people. Therefore, it is must to be active and take initiative in your every activity. But polluted environment impact people so much so that they don’t have much energies to take initiative and do the things which they must do otherwise they want to remain idle or take rest because of their precarious health due to pollution.

7. Self centered

If you have to face persistent problems of any type you would try to think about yourself and only worry about your interest and wellbeing. This way of living develops collective selfishness in a society and people quit ethics and social norms and may resort to violence for the protection of their interest. This is happening in whole of the third world countries.

8. Being Introvert

People fully disturbed by various pollution problems first think about themselves, about their health, their welfare. This habit makes them introvert who has nothing to think about others and remain engrossed in his own world.

9. Shyness

After suffering from the hazardous impacts of several effects of pollution your nerves weaken so much so you think about negative aspect of everything. As a result you scare to take a step in right direction and become shy and reluctant to take action.

10. Cowardice

Your falling health and weak resistance level makes you habitual of avoiding danger and risk. As a result you remain fearful of doing anything new. Nor you can face the reality and prefer to live like an ostrich that instead of combating the dander hides its head into the sand.

11. Lack of vision

Not only of your eyes’ but your mental vision also shrinks because of permanent load of pollution on your every limb that weakens the real strength of your every limb.

12. Dullness

You forget the words sharpness, agility, vivacity and alacrity. You just spend the life with most essential requirements. As a result you and your life become dull devoid of much pleasure and happiness.

13. Disgruntled

Those who can’t succeed always complain of due and undue hurdles. After imbibing various effects of pollution your stamina declines and you cannot succeed as much as you otherwise can. As a result you complain of everything and forget about the real cause of your failure or lesser success.

14. Evasiveness

You do whatever is most essential and this habit develops in you so much so that at a later stage even you don’t want to do your essential work. It brings joblessness, social crime and lot of other social malaise in your family and surrounding.

15. Laziness

Your overall passion for life gets affected by pollution. Consequently you become lazy and always think nothing will change either you are active or lazy. Hope completely disappears from your life. 

16. Callousness

You get disturb so much so because of your weaker immune system and other health problems that nobody can move you to do something good. You become simply a burden on society and devoid of any feeling for it.

17. Apathy

Obviously your lack of energy brings a lot of apathy in you and you become good for nothing in your family and community.

18. Lethargy

You try to get rid of any responsibility because you know even if you play your role effectively you will not be able to spend a happy life. Actually disappointment becomes part of your nature.

19. Slowness

Again your weaker health makes you slow to do any work. You take much time to do a small type of work.

20. Lack of confidence

While facing several problems related to your health, livelihood and way of living because of pollution how you can remain confident about anything.

Conclusion

These above 20 psychological effects of pollution do not fall on one person singularly. It depends upon which form of pollution is affecting you most and then some of the above impacts you have to face. So instead of getting disturbed after knowing such gloomy situation we should stand up and play our role for the mitigation of pollution. Smaller actions always lead to bigger change so we must start from today.

 

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