Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
Friday Update - 10/14/05
UPCOMING EVENTS:
• October 18, 2005 –
ISPE Southwest Chapter Noon Luncheon – 12:00
Noon - Washington Group International Training Room – Larry Bennett, PE –
“Volunteering in 3rd World Countries”
• October 28, 2005 - PE and PLS
Examinations - Boise, Idaho
• October 29, 2005 FE (aka EIT)
Examinations - Boise, Idaho, Pocatello, Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
• November 5, 2005 - Western &
Pacific Region Annual Meeting - Helena, MT
• January 20 - 23, 2006 - NSPE
Winter Meeting - Washington DC
• March 16 - 17, 2006 - ISPE
Annual Meeting - Boise, ID
• July 6 - 11, 2006 - NSPE Summer
Meeting - Boston, MA
HELP WANTED…….
Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) is seeking an
experienced leader and manager to serve as Assistant Director – Food Safety &
Consumer Services Division. The Assistant Director provides leadership and
oversight for programs which support agriculture, protect the consumer and work
in partnership with agricultural and consumer groups, state, local and federal
officials to ensure public safety in areas such as: food safety, dairy
inspection, consumer protection, organic food certification, microbiological
laboratory testing and management of animal wastes for environmental protection.
The Division plays an integral role in supporting key agricultural production,
health, safety and efficient and safe availability of agricultural products to
benefit the consumers in Washington as well as nationally. The Division employs
78 staff statewide. The Assistant Director works in close partnership with the
Director and the members of the executive management team in formulating and
executing the strategic goals of the agency. This position is exempt from civil
service and is located in Olympia.
For more information on WA State Agriculture, interested applicants are
encouraged to visit the Department’s website
http://agr.wa.gov.
For further information please contact Stein Stenseng, Executive Search
Services - ESS293
Voice/Message: (360) 664-1953, E-mail:
ESSResumes@dop.wa.gov
NSPE Fall 2005 Ethics Forum
You Be the Judge
November 2, 2005, and December 7, 2005
The NSPE Ethics Forum series returns this fall in a bigger and better
interactive format! This very popular lunch-hour web seminar series addresses
important engineering ethics topics and gives participants an opportunity to
interact with the facilitators to get answers to their questions.
The Fall 2005 series will highlight:
Professional Competency: What recourse does an engineer have if he/she is
asked to perform work beyond his/her area(s) of competence? Is an engineer
obligated to action if he/she observes other professionals acting beyond their
area(s) of competence?
Conflict of Interest: How does an engineer decide if a conflict exists?
When faced with a conflict, what steps should an engineer take to address the
conflict?
Public Health and Safety: What does the engineer’s obligation to protect
the public health and safety mean? What resources are available to practicing
engineers when faced with ethical dilemmas?
Registration: NSPE & SAME members: $149 each session or $399 for the
series. Non-members: $189 each session or $475 for the series.
Enrollment in each online seminar is per site connection. Invite as many
colleagues to view the program as you can accommodate for this low price! Each
site will receive supporting materials and a copy of the PowerPoint presentation
slides. Participants will have an opportunity to submit questions to the
presenters via seminar messaging. All participants will receive documentation of
PDH credit for submission to state licensure boards. Each 1-hour seminar earns 1
PDH. (C2Ed is a pre-approved provider for NY State through the AIA Continuing
Education Program).
To enroll, please go to the C2ED Web site at
www.C2Ed.com and click on the link to register for the "NSPE 2005 Ethics
Forum."
Licensed PEs can now register secure, personalized .pro and .eng.pro
domain names.
NSPE members will receive a substantial discount by signing up through
the NSPE Web site.
Register today!
Members * Non-members
Learn more about .pro
by watching this Flash presentation.
MATHCOUNTS PROBLEM OF THE WEEK
Can you solve this MATHCOUNTS problem? The answer will appear in next week's
edition of the Friday Update!
Playing With 10s
Monday’s date of October 10, 2005 can be written 10/10/05. Notice that each
of the three entries of this numeric date (10, 10 and 5) shares a common factor.
There are not too many dates in 2005 where this occurs. What percent of the
dates in 2005 have the property that all three entries of the numeric date share
a common factor? Express your answer to the nearest whole percent.
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In honor of the date 10/10 that occurs this week, let’s take a look at some
other problems with 10s. Our whole counting and place-value system is based on
10s. The number 1043 really means (3 ´ 100) + (4 ´ 101) + (0 ´ 102) + (1 ´ 103)
= 3 + 40 + 0 + 1000 = 1043. (Notice that we worked backward starting with the
units digit and we started with 100 and then kept increasing the power of 10 by
1). There was nothing telling us to use 10s because it’s just assumed.
(Otherwise we would have to write every number with a little 10 next to it:
104310.) If we consider the same set of digits, but in base 5, they will have a
whole different value in our system. Notice that 10435 = (3 ´ 50) + (4 ´ 51) +
(0 ´ 52) + (1 ´ 53) = 3 + 20 + 0 + 125 = 148 in base 10. Can you try to
duplicate this process and determine the value of 104312 in base 10? (*Something
to think about: In our usual system – base 10 – we have 10 digits, which are 0
through 9. How many digits do you think base 12 uses? What would they be?)
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We also like to multiply by 10s, because it’s pretty easy to determine the
product. If we multiply an integer by 10, we just add a zero to it. If we
multiply an integer by 100, we just add two zeros to it, etc. Keeping this
information in mind, can you determine how many zeros will be in the simplified
value of the expression 32 ´ 27 ´ 56?
Answer to last week’s MATHCOUNTS problem:
According to the definition, Cleveland’s Elimination Number can be
determined by adding its number of losses (66) to Chicago’s number of wins (95)
and then subtracting that sum from 163. This results in 163 – (66 + 95) = 2. At
that point in time, if Cleveland lost two more games or if Chicago won two more
games, Cleveland would lose the possibility of finishing ahead of Chicago.
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If Cleveland were to have lost exactly of its last four games, they would have
won three of their last four games and finished with a record of 95-67. Their
winning percentage would then be 95 ¸ (95 + 67) = 95 ¸ 162 = 58.6%, to the
nearest tenth.
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We know that they lost exactly one of the four games. This could be the result
of four different scenarios: LWWW, WLWW, WWLW or WWWL. We were also told that
the likelihood of winning each game was the same, so the probability of each of
these four scenarios is 1/4. Each of the last three scenarios satisfy our
condition, so the probability of not losing the first game is 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 =
3/4.
If you want to see last week's problem again, click
http://www.mathcounts.org/webarticles/anmviewer.asp?a=733&z=104
Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
PO Box 170239
Boise, ID 83717-0239
208-426-0636
Fax: 208-426-0639
E-Mail: ispe@rmci.net
Web Site: www.Idahospe.org