auld lang syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup!
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne,
my dear,for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
sin’ auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin’ auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !
And gies a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie-waught,
for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Yuletide in PJ

Gigantic tin soldier of 1 Utama

Yuletide @ Kuala Lumpur

Shopping malls at this vibrant city are going all-out to grab the attention of shoppers from around the world at this Christmas season. Let's take a glimpse of what the city is offering.

D'Place To Watch Every Year -- Midvalley



Newcomer To The Turf -- Pavilion





Old-Timer Struggling to Keep Up -- KLCC

Hooray! UM on top again .....

On the recent released QS-THES World University Rankings 2007, University of Malaya slipped further into the oblivion, clutching the 246th spot, however, they are reasons for the UM's folks to celebrate (yeh, UM lived on celebrations & feasts) coz' UM retain the TOP spot again, in Malaysia-lah of course, beating UKM and USM. UM's folks must be feeling vindicated this time around, as memories of the humiliating defeat by UKM last year still haunted them until now. And the recently announced survey results by MQA of MOHE, putting USM ahead of UM, also bored un-easiness among the UM's folks. Quoting a BERNAMA report, "In the latest ranking, Universiti Malaya was relegated to 246 from 192 last year, USM to 307 from 277, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia to 309 from 182, and Universiti Pertanian Malaysia to 364 from 292. However, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) for the first time made its way into the top 500 at 415."

Don't bother that Malaysian's rankings actually drop, as Rafiah put it, they change every year, it is hard to make comparison, the thing is UM beat UKM & USM!

Yeh, Let's CELEBRATE, UM is the JAGUH KAMPUNG! Hooray!

On a more serious note, Let see how some media reports in Malaysia tackle this issue.

Whither rankings? by the The Star on 10 November, 2007
The Difficult Path To Education Excellence by Bernama on 12 November, 2007

World Universitys Rankings 2007

In an article dated 1^st November, 2007 by QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd. on THES – QS World University Rankings 2007, Ben Sowter, its Head of Research, gave a basic explanation of key enhancements in methodology for 2007 world universitys rankings.

The rankings have been given heavy emphasis on this part of the world, especially Malaysia, because the euphoria it had stirred by ranking University of Malaya on its top 100 in year 2004 (ranked 89^th), of which UM had made a big deal out of this so called ‘achievement’, only to realized it had committed some factual errors on the ethnicity of the indigenous Chinese and Indian Malaysian faculty members and classified them as foreigner. Refining its methodology the following years, saw UM lost position heavily (ranked 169^th)and even placed behind UKM in year 2006, lingering on the verge of dropping out of the top 200 (ranked 192^nd).

Will UM to continue held to its position this year? Or perhaps it could be slipping further into the oblivion? Will the latest enhanced methodologies give University of Malaya a breath of new life? Let’s keep our fingers cross and wait for the release of the 2007 rankings on 9^th November, 2007.

While we pray for UM, let’s have a quick look on some the refinements mentioned by Sowter, taking excerpts from his article publisehed:

DEVELOPMENT: Peer reviewers prevented from promoting their own university.

EFFECT: An academic from the University of Arkansas is perhaps less likely to select their own institution (one of over 60 in the US) than an academic from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (one of just two in Singapore).

DEVELOPMENT: Switch to Scopus from ESI (Thomson) for citation data

EFFECT: Scopus covers a larger number of papers and journals overall leading to greater representation from lesser known universities and institutions from academic systems with less emphasis on publication

DEVELOPMENT: Consistent usage of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) data for all personnel related data

EFFECT: This will have its most profound effect on institutions with large numbers of part-time faculty or students that may have been either over or under represented in key indicators in previous years.

DEVELOPMENT: Z-score aggregation of indicators to generate overall scores

EFFECT: Institutions demonstrating excellence in indicators with a low weighting will have less advantage (e.g. London School of Economics for International Students)

Sowter concluded by saying that, “Significant changes to an institution’s performance in any one indicator will now only have a proportionate and predictable influence on their overall position, thus… THE RANKINGS WILL BECOME MORE STABLE year on year.”

Something about Nobel Physics

9 October 2007

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2007 jointly to

Albert Fert

Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/THALES, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France,

and

Peter Grünberg

Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany,

"for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance".

Do you know which name occurred most often in the history of the Nobel Prize in Physics? They are John and Robert. There are all together 6 Johns (plus 2 Johannes) and 6 Roberts had received the prize throughout these years since 1901. Then we have 4 Williams together with 2 Wilhelms, 4 Georges and 4 James. Names that has 3 receipient are Albert, Charles, David, Hans, Max, Wolfgang.

What U.M. is thinking about?!

This is an entry to a floral decoration competition at the Putrajaya Floria 2007 held in conjuction of Merdeka celebration. And the participant is none other that the prestigous University of Malaya Medical Centre.

Are these guys had nothing better to do than taking parts in a floral competetion? Well, these guys should spend more time, thinking how to improve the University's performance academically, do more research, attend more conference, announce more medical brakthrough, and certainly not displaying such funny things.

THES ranking for 2007 is just around the corner, let's see how UM will fare(or fail)?

Let's Celebrate ..... MERDEKA

Well, as we are entering the month of August, the Merdeka month, let me share two pictures taken by me sometime ago, one showing the iconic KLCC whilst another, even more iconic, our Bunga Raya -- Hibiscus Rosa-sinensis.

Looking forward, hopefully we will have another iconic structure to show off on 2010, the 2nd Penang Bridge and the rest of the landmark structures of NCER.

Who is this guy?

Is this a modern day tai-pau seller? No, he is Ah-Yang, instead of holding a traditional dim-sum tray, this guy is holding a modern Canon i6500 colour inkjet printer. Picture taken at IPS, UM.

Georgetown was/is a City of Penang?

Well, according to Queen Elizabeth II it is a city. Her Majesty has had accorded the Georgetown its Royal Charter on 1st of January, 1957 making it one city of the British Empire. But if your look elsewhere, the Yang DiPerTuan Agung of Malaysia, where Penang is now part of it, think otherwise.