Velasco voted president of international ergonomics society

Dr. Aida Licaros-Velasco, Industrial Engineering faculty, was elected president of the South East Asian Ergonomics Society last November 28 during the triennial meeting of the association in Singapore. Her term of office will be until 2003.

The society, which aims to promote ergonomics in Asia, is a council member of the International Ergonomics Association, a federation of all ergonomics societies around the world.

Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of the interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theoretical principles, data, and methods to design.

Practitioners of ergonomics contribute to the planning, design and evaluation of tasks, jobs, products, organizations, environments, and systems in order to make them compatible with the needs, abilities, and limitations of people. The three domains of ergonomics are physical, cognitive, and organizational.

During the conference, Velasco alsotalked on the Filipino female workers’ anthropometry. Co-faculty Rosemarie Seva also presented her study, “ Computer Task Fatigue Analysis.”

Industrial Engineers win SIBOL Award

Three recent Industrial Engineer (IE) graduates, Marie Sheila Tan, Paul Michael Tagle, and Michael Jimeno Tuason, won second place in the National Inventors’ Week 2000-Sibol Awards Category.

The contest was sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology and the Technology Application and Promotion Institute.

BOOK DONATION. The Sentro ng Wikang Filipino, in cooperation with the Sanggunian ng Filipino, donated to DLSU-Manila an initial installment of 60 books (out of 100) covering various disciplines and translated into Filipino. The reference materials are meant for college students enrolled in various degree programs who are taking up Filipino as part of their course requirements. Dr. Isagani Cruz, Chair of the Departamento ng Literatura at Wikang Filipino, receives the books for La Salle.

Titled “An Ergonomic Design of a Hollow Block Machine,” the team’s thesis was on exhibit at the Philippine Trade Center from November 11 to 15. The thesis covers the redesigning of the hollow block machine, which pertaines to the reduction and elimination of noise, vibration, and wrong postures, along with the stress and “on-work/after-work” pains.

Presently, Tan and Tuason are part-time faculty of the IE Department.

La Salle hosts ME students conference

The 2nd Mechanical Engineering Students Conference (NCR) was held on November 17-18 at De La Salle University-Manila. With the theme, “Today’s Empowered ME Students, Tomorrow’s Responsible Engineers,” the conference was attended by 150 students from 14 universities and colleges in the National Capital Region.

Various activities were done such as talks by outstanding Filipino mechanical engineers, student paper presentations, curriculum workshops, board examinations and course opportunities, an “egg-glider” design contest, socials, and a tour of the College of Engineering laboratories.

The conference was organized by the ME Department, headed by Dr. Manuel Belino, chair and faculty adviser, and the Mechanical Engineering Society, chaired and co-chaired by Mark Erickson Sy and Ahmad Manala-o, respectively, in cooperation with ME student organizations of the Mapua Institute of Technology and Don Bosco Technical College.