Aquaponics Research through FURAP
Panorama
Why Does Arabic Have Two Word Orders?
Mind Over Matter
Scientists Stress on Artificial Recharge of Groundwater
News Update
The Pervasive
and Increasing
Plastic Threat
Department of Public
Relations and Information
Sultan Qaboos University
Issue 320
View Point
Who is in Control?
Mohamed Salem Al Ghailani
Editorial Supervision
Santhosh Muthalath
Senior Editor
Sara Al Gheilani
Nasebah Al Muharrami
Translation
Ahlam Al Wahaibi
Design & Layout
Photography Dept., CET
Photography
Salim Al Sudairi
Another study conducted in the Department of Information Studies at SQU,
which investigated smartphone addiction among SQU undergraduates reveals a casual level of addiction as the most common addiction among the students. The study recommends that in order to reduce smartphone addiction,
the university increase recreational entertainment programs and encourage
face-to-face interaction between students; and provide counseling and treating programs for Smartphone addiction.
According to a recent report that appeared in a major English daily in Oman,
school, college and university teachers in Oman have supported the idea of
banning the message ‘Whatsapp’ in classrooms. They voiced the opinion
through their responses during a study conducted by an Omani researcher on
the effect of this mobile application on college and university students which
revealed a high level of usage of the social networking app by students. The
study found that many students used it in classrooms while lectures were on.
Experts observe that the level of concentration and retention of information by
students is poor and would get much worse if they are allowed to use smartphones in class.
Are we no longer in control? Do we have an addiction that puts smartphones
in control of us? If yes, it’s time to change; we need to be the masters of our
smartphones, and not depend on it so much to make sense of this world.
Circulation
SQU-info
Smartphones can serve up valuable information in mere seconds. Many students use them as learning tools to aid with academic work such as performing mathematical calculations or reviewing the course syllabus. However, a
new research suggests that these ubiquitous mobile devices come with a big
downside. A survey of students who were using smartphones suggests that
the devices are so distracting that they prevent otherwise successful learning
process. The study, conducted in the psychology department of Rice University in Texas, was published online in the British Journal of Educational Technology. The researchers indicate that now smartphone use filled student’s idle
time, and that before they had their smartphones, that idle time was used for
contemplation, or reading or reviewing of notes. The researchers state that
making technology available to students doesn’t necessarily enhance learning
outcomes.
@SQU-info
Horizon invites contributions from SQU members of staff and faculty. Contributions in the form of
articles, news, travelogues, stories of unique and interesting experiences, encounters, etc., are welcome. Contributions may be edited for the sake of clarity and length. Please send your contributions
to horizon@squ.edu.om preferably, as MSWord attachments. Authors will be suitably credited.
The views and opinions expressed in the articles published in this newsletter are those of the authors
and are not to be construed as the official views of the publication. Horizon is published three times a
month by the Department of Public Relations and Information, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 50,
P.C. 123, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman.
Phone: +968 24141045
E-mail: horizon@squ.edu.om
10 October 2015
P2
Fax: +968 24413 391
Website: www.squ.edu.om
News Update
Scientists Stress on
Artificial Recharge of
Groundwater
The fast increasing population and the development of industry
has now raised the water consumption in an extreme way that
deteriorates the already dramatic situation of water scarcity in
the arid and semi-arid countries, said Prof. Heinz Hotzl, Professor Emeritus in Hydrology at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,
Germany, while delivering keynote address on the topic “Options and Problems of Managed Aquifer Recharge under Semiarid conditions” at the opening ceremony of the Seventh Environmental Symposium of German Arab Scientific Forum for Environmental Studies at SQU.
“Groundwater is the major drinking water resource in most of
the semi-arid regions in the world. Under the present climatic
conditions, annual precipitation is generally low and poorly distributed over the year. When rain does fall, it is commonly in intense storms with subsequent strong but short flash floods. In the
past, the natural underground water resources satisfied the demand of villages and small cities enabling even a limited productive agriculture. Now, climatic changes also make matters worse.
Water scarcity in many countries is approaching critical levels.
Improved technologies are necessary to optimize the reclamation
of the rare water resources for human utilization”, Prof. Heinz
Hotzl said.
The Seventh Environmental Symposium of the German Arab Scientific Forum for Environmental Studies titled “Environmental
Protection and Water Resources in the Middles East and North
Africa-Water Resources, Air and Soils” is hosted by Sultan Qaboos University. The opening ceremony was held under the patronage of HE Dr. Ali bin Saud Al Bimani, the Vice Chancellor of
SQU in the presence of HE Hans-Christian von Reibnitz, Ambassador of Germany to the Sultanate of Oman, and other dignitaries.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Prof. Dr. Fathi Zereini, Chairman of the German Arab Scientific Forum for Environmental
Studies, said that environmental protection is not the privilege
of the rich countries. “It is our common duty. The climate change
does not stop at the borders. It threatens to exacerbate current
problems regarding water availability. Water scarcity combined
with high rates of population growth in this region is already a
political issue. Conflicts regarding ownership of entitlement to
available water resources has led to strain relationships between
various populations of this region. If water resources become
even more limited, this could of course destabilize the region and
obstruct attempts to establish peace”, Dr. Fathi Zereini noted.
As many as 130 scientists and experts from various institutions
in Oman and abroad attended the two day symposium held at
Sultan Qaboos University. The symposium sessions addressed
topics such as water resources: protection and management,
wastewater treatment and reuse, climate change, and, air and soil
pollution and protection.
SQU-Ministry Committee
Reviews Joint Projects
The Joint Committee between the Ministry of Commerce & Industry
and Sultan Qaboos University held its sixth meeting at the University Council Hall, with the presence of HE Eng. Ahmed bin Hassan
Al Deeb, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Commerce & Industry,
HE Dr. Ali bin Saud Al Bimani, Vice Chancellor of Sultan Qaboos
University, and members of the Committee from both sides.
The meeting reviewed the implementation of recommendations of
the previous meetings of the committee, including the establishment
of technical cooperation program between the Directorate General
for Standards & Metrology and the University in the field of standards, matching, metrology and tests. The meeting reviewed the follow-up of topics related to the metals sector including research on
the laterites rocks in order to know the extent of the reserves and
to find out what metals the rocks contain and exploration for rare
earth elements and the places of their presence in the Sultanate. The
Committee also discussed the importance of cooperation in research
in the trade and industry sectors, as well as about taking advantage
of the existing expertise on both sides to support the scientific and
research aspects, and to suggest joint research projects. Further, a
technical team between the two sides has been formed to activate
what is agreed upon in the meetings.
SQU Participates in
EAIE Conference
Sultan Qaboos University participated in the 27th in the European
Association for International Education (EAIE) Conference that was
held in Glasgow, Scotland in the UK from 15 to18 September 2015.
The conference included 21 workshops and 151 panel discussion
on higher education and the challenges facing it. The participation
at this conference was aimed at exploring new partnerships, training opportunities and promoting student exchange programs. SQU
delegation took part at some of the workshops and discussions on
developing the performance of the education institutions and enhancing student exchange and international cooperation The SQU
delegation was headed by Dr. Maha Al Balushi, Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Economics& Political Science at
SQU, and included Mr. Dhiyab Al Waail, International Cooperation
Specialist and Mr. Hamoud Al Qasmi, Students Exchange Programs
Specialist, both from the International Cooperation Office.
P3
10 October 2015
Insight
The Pervasive and
Increasing Plastic Threat
There’s so much plastic floating in some parts of the
ocean, especially in five large swirls known as “garbage patches,” that each square kilometer of surface
water there holds almost 600,000 pieces of debris. The
often bite-sized trash can harm birds and other marine
life—even those that don’t go anywhere near “garbage
patches,” according to a new study. Because of the proliferation of floating trash by 2050, birds of almost every
ocean-foraging species may be eating plastic, says a report appeared in Science magazine.
The global production of plastic has doubled every 11
years or so since the 1950s. Only a small percentage ends
up in the ocean, but that still adds up to about 300,000
tons per year at current production rates. Once floating
at sea, the debris breaks up into ever smaller bits. More
than 80 seabird species consume the often brightly
colored bits, and as time goes on, more birds are eating
more plastic. Wilcox and his colleagues estimate that in
2014, about 90% of individuals within these 80 species
were consuming plastic.
Commenting on this report, Dr. Hameed Sulaiman, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the
College of Science at SQU, said that though humans
love plastic, it becomes a problem when thrown away
and reach the environment. “Plastic is in every part of
our daily life; but most of us do not realize that plastic has another face which humans seldom see. Plastic
becomes a problem when they are thrown away and
reach the environment. On the other hand, plastics are
fantastic at the stage in the consumer’s hand but when
discarded, it becomes our enemy. So they are friends at
the use stage but foes after-use and disposed to the environment”, he said.
The report that plastic debris can be found in the majority of all species of seabirds highlights the threat that
plastic poses to the birds. “We need to understand the
misconception here; the bigger plastics (called Macro
plastics) which we dump into the environment are not
directly consumed by the birds because they are very
large to be consumed. The life span of plastic polymers
can range from a few months to even centuries; a critical
process which happens after we discard is “fragmentation”. Fragmentation is where large macro plastics are
broken down to small micro plastics, which occurs under different environmental conditions (photo-catalysis
under UV rays, radiation, and abrasion). Micro plastics
are defined as plastic pieces smaller than 5mm in size.
Direct effects to seabirds can happen when they eat
foods that are contaminated with these micro plastics”,
Dr. Sulaiman, a faculty in environmental science and
10 October 2015
P4
management, said. According to Dr. Sulaiman, often
the indirect effects cause serious threat to these birds,
besides the direct effect micro plastics can act as a vector/carrier of other toxic chemical pollutants. “When
these chemicals are taken along with micro plastics
not only by birds but by any organisms will result in a
bigger disaster, the toxic chemicals will be transferred
through the food chain. There are some studies regarding the possibility of transfer of micro plastics-associated chemicals to fish. If this is going to happen, the
whole marine and freshwater life forms will suffer including the humans who also consume fish as a source
of protein”, he added.
Dr. B.S. Choudri, Senior Research Scientist at the Centre for Environmental Studies & Research (CESAR) at
SQU, said plastic which is commonly used by humans
and an important part of our lives, is a pollutant nobody
cares for it. “Often, we go to the beaches, hypermarkets,
keep crossing along our way in to pieces of plastic bags,
cups and other discarded plastic materials that we see
them like important part of our natural environment
and tend to leave more along behind our daily walk.
Nobody thinks about it at all being the most intelligent
animal on this earth!”, he said.
“In the case of Oman, plastic bags are used at all retail
outlets and often unnecessarily. Being customers to
these retailers, we rarely say no to the bags and retail
staff working behind the counters, unaware and do
not have any clues of the environmental concerns, these
bags are even being used when someone is just buying
a bar of chocolate !”, Dr. Choudri said.
“It is important to know that plastic bags use valuable
energy resources and are responsible for emissions in
their manufacture. More importantly, as per estimates,
different kinds of plastic can degrade at different times,
but the average time for a plastic bottle to completely
degrade is at least 450 years. It can even take some bottles 1000 years to biodegrade! That’s a long time for
even the smallest bottle!”, Dr. Choudri pointed out.
“It reminds me a recent study that is conducted on debris abundance and weight estimated from surveys
on 11 beaches of the Gulf of Oman along the Omani
coast. Debris were collected on two occasions from 100
m transects, sorted and categorized by origin and type.
It is interesting to note the results that in terms of numbers of items, plastic debris ranked first on all beaches
followed by either wood items or other organic materials such as cigarette butts”, he concluded.
Mind Over Matter
Why Does Arabic Have
Two Word Orders?
Dr. Rashid Al-Balushi
Assistant Professor of Linguistics
Department of English
College of Arts & Social Sciences
The Arab learners of English, a language which displays one word order, namely Subject-Verb-Object (SVO), sometimes wonder why their mother tongue,
Arabic, has two word orders, namely SVO and VSO. The ‘classical’ answer
goes as follows: We use the VSO order, the so-called ‘jumlah fiʕliyyah’ (verbal sentence), when we want to emphasize the verb ‘fiʕl’, as in (1), and use
the SVO order, the so-called ‘jumlah ʔismiyyah’ (nominal sentence), when we
want to emphasize the noun ‘ʔism’, regardless of whether this noun is the subject or the object, as (2-3) show.
(1) qaraʔa
l-waladu
l-kitāba
past.read
the-boy
the-book
‘The boy read the book.’
(2) ʔal-waladu
qaraʔa
l-kitāba
the-boy
past.read the-book
‘The boy, he read the book.’
(3) ʔal-kitābu
qaraʔa-hu
l-waladu
the-book
past.read-it
the-boy
‘The book, the boy read it.’
While this ‘classical’ story is generally speaking not incorrect, we may modify
it by proposing that the ‘jumlah fiʕliyyah’ starts with a verb because it conveys what we call a ‘thetic’ interpretation, which is a neutral statement of the
event denoted by the verb; basically, a ‘verbal sentence’ introduces an event.
By contrast, the ‘jumlah ʔismiyyah’ starts with a noun because it conveys what
is called a ‘categorical’ interpretation, which singles out a particular individual
and then makes a statement about it; basically, a ‘nominal sentence’ introduces
an individual.
Despite this, the question in the title of this article remains largely unanswered,
since Arab learners of English can still convey the two interpretations, thetic
and categorical, with the same word order in English, namely SVO, but usually
with a pause after the initial noun to mark the categorical interpretation.
Therefore, we will attempt to answer this question by appealing to another
property of natural language, namely ‘tense’. Basically, it appears that Arabic
has the two word orders because present tense seems to prefer the noun-initial
order (SVO) whereas past tense seems to prefer the verb-initial order (VSO);
this preference for the VSO order also applies to sentences in the future time.
In what follows, we will provide four arguments for this proposal.
First, idioms with verbs in the present tense come in the SVO order, as (4-5)
show, while idioms with past tense verbs come in the VSO order, as (6-7) show.
An Arabic idiom in the future also prefers the VSO order, as (8) shows.
4. ʔas-samāʔu lā
tumṭiru
ðahaban wa lā fiḍḍatan
the-sky
not present.rain gold
and not silver
Literal: ‘It does not rain gold nor silver.’
Idiomatic: ‘One should not expect to gain money without working for it.’
5. ʔal-furaṣu
tamurru
marra
s-saħābi
the-chances present.pass passing the-clouds
Literal: ‘Chances in life move as fast as clouds.’
Idiomatic: ‘Chances should be seized once available.’
6. sabaqa
s-sayfu
l-ʕaðla
past.precede the-sword the-censure
Literal: ‘The sword preceded the censure.’
Idiomatic: ‘It is too late to do anything.’
7. fāḍa
l-kaylu
past.overflow the-holding.capacity
Literal: ‘This exceeded the holding capacity.’
Idiomatic: ‘I am fed up.’
8. sa-tubdī
la-ka
l-ʔayyāmu mā
kun-ta
jāhilan
future-reveal to-you the-days
what past.be-you ignorant
Literal: ‘The days will show you what you now ignore.’
Idiomatic: ‘Life shall reveal to you what you are unaware of.’
Second, the so-called God-wishes, which are very common in the modern dialects, display the same pattern of interaction between tense and word order,
as (9-12) show. A God-wish in the future also prefers the VSO order, as the
Qurʔānic verse in (13) shows.
9. Allāh ybārek
fī-k
God
present.bless in-you
‘May Allāh bless you’
10. Allāh yʕāfī-k
God
present.cure-you
‘May Allāh give you good health.’
11. bāraka
Allāh fī-k
past.bless God
in-you
‘May Allāh bless you’
12. ʕāfā-k
Allāh
past.cure-you
God
‘May Allāh give you good health.’
13. “sa-yajʕalu
Allāhu baʕda ʕusrin
yusrā”
future-make God
after
hardship ease
‘Allāh will bring about ease after hardship.’
Third, a search in the Holy Qurʔān reveals that the present tense verb ‘yuħibbu’
occurs after the word ‘Allāh’ (SVO order) in 16 verses, whereas it occurs before it (VSO order) in 1 verse only. Also, the past tense verb ‘qāla’ occurs before the word ‘Allāh’ (VSO order) in 8 verses, and never occurs in the position
following it (SVO order).
Fourth, a contrast between the present tense verb in the two orders in basic Arabic sentences reveals that while the SVO order conveys a ‘deictic’ interpretation (meaning now/currently), the VSO order conveys a ‘generic’ interpretation
(meaning habitual/usually). While the noun-initial order in (14) speaks of an
event that is connected to the moment of speech/true right now, the verb-initial
order in (15) speaks of a generic or habitual event that is not connected to the
moment of speech, much like the statement in (16).
14. ʔal-ʔaṭfālu
yušāhidūna
t-tilfāza
the-children present.watch the-TV
‘The children are watching TV (now).’
15. yušāhidu
l-ʔaṭfālu
t-tilfāza
present.watch the-children the-TV
‘The children watch TV (usually).’
16. yakūnu
l-jawwu
ħārran fī
ṣ-ṣayfi
present.be the-weather hot
in the-summer
‘It is hot in the summer/ The weather is usually hot in the summer.’
Likewise, native speakers of Arabic find the past tense and future time sentences in (17-18), respectively, more natural in the VSO order, compared to
the SVO order in (19-20), respectively, which they feel odd and more unusual.
17. šāhada
l-ʔaṭfālu
t-tilfāza
past.watch the-children the-TV
‘The children watched TV.’
18. sa-yušāhidu
l-ʔaṭfālu
t-tilfāza
future-watch the-children the-TV
‘The children will watch TV.’
19. ʔal-ʔaṭfālu
šāhadū
t-tilfāza
the-children
past.watch the-TV
‘The children watched TV.’
20. ʔal-ʔaṭfālu
sa-yušāhidūna
t-tilfāza
the-children
future-watch
the-TV
‘The children will watch TV.’
So far we have shown that Arabic has two word orders because while past tense
and future time prefer the verb-initial order, present tense prefers the nouninitial order. After providing evidence for this view, the next question is why
do the different tenses prefer different word orders? We leave this question for
another occasion.
P5
10 October 2015
News Round Up
Workshop Sheds Light
on Elsevier’s SciVal
The Main Library at Sultan Qaboos University in collaboration with
publisher ‘Elsevier’ organized a workshop on SciVal tool in the presence of H.E Dr.Ali bin Saud Al Bimani, the Vice Chancellor of SQU,
H.H. Dr. Mona bint Fahad Al-Said, Assistant V.C. for International
Cooperation, Deputes VCs, Advisors, Deans of the Colleges, Directors
of Research Centers and the General Director of the SQU Hospital.
Dr.Khalfan Al Haji, the Director of the Main Library expressed his
thanks and appreciation to the Vice Chancellor for his direct support
for the library. He gave a brief overview about the library and its information services to the community in printed and electronic formats. He praised the efforts of staff in providing the best services to
the beneficiaries. Also, he shed light on the important role of Deans
and faculty members in directing their students to use the information sources and available facilities at the library in order to support
their study and research.
The trainer from Elsevier gave a presentation about the provided
services by SciVal tool through discussing three models (overview,
benchmarking and collaboration). The tool offers data and indicators
of research output published in the information sources of the universities and research centers. The participants benefitted from the workshop in gaining the essential skills in order to use the tool, comparing
the published research at Sultan Qaboos University with the publications of international universities and research centers in developing
research output and graduate and postgraduate studies at university.
Focus on Services to
the Visually Impaired
The College of Arts and Social Sciences at SQU, recently showcased its
experience in supporting visually impaired students. A presentation
in this regard shed light on the experience of the college in serving
the visually impaired students in academic and social spheres. The
presentation featured some of the programs and projects designed
to serve visually impaired students such as provision of textbooks
through electronic system, management of exams, academic reinforcement programs as well as programs to improve communication
skills and other training programs (Braille, screen readers).
Shaima Al Abri gave a brief introduction on the program “reading
by my hand” which shed light on provision of scientific material for
blind students. The program is supported by 250 volunteers who rewrite scientific material and make them available through a special
website in order to facilitate access for blind students and benefit from
the information. The students were able to print 7000 pages during
the academic year 2014-2015. The project “reading by my hand” aims
to provide scientific materials for the blind students by converting
textbooks into digital format and thereby creating an archive electronically and managed with the involvement of faculty members
and volunteers.
As many as 30 visually impaired students are enrolled in different
programs at SQU. The university provides all services including
transportation and special electronic devices to those students.
Students Showcase Industrial Training Experience
was to choose the best trainees from each department. Moreover,
the exhibition was an opportunity for new students to gather information about training opportunities, preparation of training
reports, and various projects carried out by the students during the training. He thanked the institutions and companies for
providing training opportunities for students as well as the university’s administration for supporting these training programs.
The college of Engineering recently organized Engineering Training Exhibition 2015 that presented the training experience of as
many as 358 who completed their training courses within and
outside the country. The exhibition included 48 posters about
various projects handled by the students as part of their training. Around 62 students did their training abroad in 15 countries
around the world.
Moad Al Zadjali said the purpose of organizing this exhibition
10 October 2015
P6
Timorh Faisal Al-Said, a student from the Civil Engineering Department, who did her training in Germany said that she benefited a lot from the program. “It helped me to have hands own
training opportunities abroad and I learned new things, techniques and programs”, she said. Tamer Al Siyabi, a student from
the Mechanical & Industrial Engineering Department, who did
his training in PDO said that the training environment was different from the academic life in college. “ I learned new things
and it was very useful to enhance my practical knowledge in my
discipline. My project was to find a solution for a problem of digging oil wells. Analyzing data of the company’s oil wells was a
new experience for me,” he said.
Panorama
Aquaponics Research
through FURAP
By: Wenresti G. Gallardo, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Marine Science and Fisheries
College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences
A group of undergraduate students at the Department of
Marine Science and Fisheries, College of Agricultural and
Marine Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) was recently awarded a research grant by The Research Council
of Oman (TRC) to conduct aquaponics research through the
Faculty Mentored Undergraduate Research Award Program
(FURAP). FURAP is designed for undergraduate students
studying at local colleges and universities who wish to conduct research either on campus or at other research sites
within the Sultanate of Oman during their undergraduate
education. According to TRC, the FURAP experience is expected to enable students to 1) explore in-depth into their
topics of interest and relevance, 2) prepare for advanced
work in their field of research, and 3) develop links within
the local and international research community through a
close academic and professional affiliation with their faculty
mentor. Al Siyabi and Ahmed Al Jassasi who did a special problem
research in Fall 2014 semester. Using the start-up grant from
the college provided to Dr. Gallardo, the research team set
up three culture systems: 1) non-recirculating system without plants, 2) non-recirculating system with plants grown on
top, and 3) recirculating system with fish grown in separate
tanks connected to another set of tanks for growing plants.
The separate tanks has gravel on the bottom and a vertical
layer of gravel in net bags (for biological and mechanical filter), creating a compartment on one end of the tank having
a pump that brings back filtered water to the fish tanks. Fish
tanks are provided with aeration and fish are fed artificial
diets at an initial feeding rate of 5% body weight. Plants are
grown on floating Styrofoam with holes for the plant stem
base and roots to go down to the nutrient-rich water.
The one-year research project is aimed to further develop
a simple and effective aquaponics system. Aquaponics is
a combination of ‘aquaculture’ (farming of aquatic organisms) and ‘hydroponics’ (growing of plants in sand, gravel, or liquid, with added nutrients but without soil). It is a
culture system in which the ‘wastes’ produced by farmed
fish or other aquatic animals serve as nutrients for growing plants without soil. It is an environment-friendly way of
growing fish and plants as the wastewater is not discharged
to the environment but rather used for the growth of plants.
The wastewater is actually not a waste because it contains
nutrients that can be utilized by plants.
To determine the best culture system, the research team
investigated the growth and survival of fish (tilapia) and
plants (lettuce) and water quality in the three systems in
six weeks. Fish densities of 10, 15 and 20 per 100-liter tanks
were tested to determine the suitable number of fish that
can result in the best growth and survival not just of the fish
but also of the plants. The experiment showed that fish density of 20 per 100-liter tank in a recirculating system resulted
in the best growth of fish indicating that fish density may
still be increased. On the other hand, fish growth did not
increase with higher densities in the other culture systems.
Lettuce grew best in recirculating aquaculture system with
10 fish per 100-liter tank.
A typical aquaponic system consists of a fish rearing tanks,
sump, clarifier, filter tanks, degassing tanks and hydroponic
or plant growing tanks. However, this system is expensive,
complicated and space-consuming. With the aim of developing a simple but effective aquaponic system, Dr. Wenresti
Gallardo, an Associate Professor at the Department of Marine Science and Fisheries initially worked with three undergraduate students Mohammed Al Mahfudhi, Mohammed
Using the simple but effective aquaponic system, a new
group of undergraduate students composed of Yahya Al
Yahyaei, Mohammed Al Khamzari, Saad Al Amri and others will be conducting the FURAP-funded research to determine the optimum fish density and suitable plant type in an
aquaponics system. Further experiments will be carried out
to fully develop a simple and effective aquaponic system.
P7
10 October 2015
Straight Talk
Solar Energy is Infinite
Dr. Yijia Chen
Dr. Yijia Chen, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Materials Science and Engineering at National Dong Hwa University,
Hualien, Taiwan, has been working on solar cells since 2003. His
expertise is in the synthesis of nanomaterials including oxides and
compound semiconductors. Through the nanomaterial synthesis
experience, he developed skills that are suitable for the production
of dye-sensitized solar cells. Dr. Chen recently led a workshop on
solar energy technologies at SQU that was organized by the Independent Learning Centre.
of the rest of the world, so it is expected to be much sooner to reach the grid parity there. The major reason that the
Asian countries engaging in photovoltaic deployment is simply because the huge electricity demand for supporting the
huge population and the shift of photovoltaic productions
to Asian countries recently where the cost structure prevails.
According to Renewables International, 2014-01-14, Overview of installed Photovoltaics (PV) in 2013, photovoltaics
installation grows at 40% annually worldwide since 2000
and total installed capacity reached 139 GW at the end of
2013. Germany has the highest cumulative installations (35.7
GW) while Italy has the highest percentage of electricity generated by solar PV (7.0%). Currently, the averaged worldwide solar energy contribution to electricity is only 0.79%,
according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy published in June 2015.
Horizon: Is solar energy more cost effective than conventional sources of energy?
Dr. Chen: Cost effectiveness depends on how you define
the cost. If you compare the price with grid parity (the electricity price in current market), than solar system is still less
competitive, at least for now. However, if you understand
fact of the limited nature reserves and think for the benefit
for the generations to come, than you will regard the fossil fuel is priceless. Once it ran out, there will be no substitutes. However, the electricity price is largely determined by
government policy, and does not necessarily reveal the true
value of the nature resources. For example, since fossil fuel is
still the major source for electricity production, the oil price
affects the solar cell deployment significantly. The lower the
oil price, the less pressure of facing possible energy crisis is
exerted on the consumers, and thus the more difficult for the
government to deploy the system. This is the perspective
from those countries which do not produce oil. The countries
that produce oil, should have the responsibility to deploy the
solar system, since they are determining the oil price. The deployment is not only for their own good, but also for nature
resource conservation, which may guarantee the oil supply
for generations.
Horizon: Do you think that all petrol and diesel vehicles
used at present across the world will be replaced by solar
powered vehicles in near future?
Dr. Chen: I think the replacement will not occur immediately. There will be a gradual change. The solar energy will
mostly be used to provide electricity and thermal application, and may not be widely used in vehicle applications for
now. The solar vehicle deployment will need to consider the
electricity storage problem to power the car when there is no
solar irradiation. Thus, the solar vehicle will not have a successful deployment until the electricity storage find its costeffective solution.
Horizon: Alternative energy such as solar and wind energies
become popular across the world replacing conventional energy
sources such as fossil fuel, nuclear energy. Could you give an
overview of the status of solar energy globally?
Dr. Chen: Generally speaking, European countries are more serious about the deployment of the solar energy. However, Asian
countries are gradually taking up the role nowadays. The major
reason for European countries interested in photovoltaics is that
electricity in Europe is much more expensive compared with that
10 October 2015
Horizon: What are the advantages of solar energy in relation
to conventional sources of energy?
Dr. Chen: First, it is apparent that the solar energy is infinite
compared with the conventional fossil fuel. The solar energy
will last for generations and will always be available for thehuman civilization. Secondary, solar power is huge, which is
10000 times the current human consumption rate, so it will
allow our civilization to flourish. Thus, the solar energy is an
easy answer to energy demand. Furthermore, other than the
energy perspective consideration, the implementation will
also promote national energy independence, creating high
tech job opportunities, and reduce CO2 emissions. Thus, the
solar energy is worth pursuing.