Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
Friday Update - 10/07/05
UPCOMING EVENTS:
• October 10, 2005 –
Put the Brakes on Fatalities Day
• 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
2005 NSPE Western and
Pacific Region Annual Meeting
The 2005 NSPE Western and Pacific Region Annual Meeting will be held in
conjunction with the Montana Joint Engineers Conference. The meeting will take
place from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 5, 2005 at the Red Lion
Colonial Hotel, 2301 Colonial Drive, Helena, Montana. Sign up for the WPR Annual
meeting on the Montana Society of Engineers website. Information about the JEC
can be found at http://mtengineers.org/and
registration for the JEC and WPR meeting can be found at
http://mtengineers.org/jec/registration.php.
The Montana Joint Engineers Conference offers over 30 continuing education
sessions covering all aspects of engineering. The JEC offers an opportunity to
network with over 300 regional engineers. Mark your calendars and register
early!
Stevens WebCampus Offers Courses, NSPE Offers Discount
NSPE has announced a partnership with Stevens Institute of Technology’s
WebCampus to provide members with discounts on leading-edge graduate degree
programs and training opportunities.
Recognized as the "best online university" by the Sloan Foundation, WebCampus
currently offers over 160 courses allowing individuals to complete 33 different
master’s degree and graduate certificate programs. With NSPE already offering a
wide range of continuing education opportunities to those needing to fulfill
licensure requirements, the accessibility to WebCampus will provide yet another
education vehicle for members.
"Our partnership with Stevens will help address the needs of our members who
want to earn additional degrees or certificates in specialty areas," says NSPE
Director of Education, Mary Maul. "For busy engineers with little spare time,
Stevens WebCampus is the perfect alternative for NSPE members who don't have the
time to sit in a classroom."
To encourage its members to explore Stevens Institute’s graduate programs, NSPE
is offering a 10% rebate off the regular graduate tuition rate, which could
equal thousands of dollars over the course of completing a master’s degree
program.
Established in 1870, Stevens offers baccalaureate, masters, and doctoral degrees
in engineering, science, computer science, management and technology management,
as well as a baccalaureate in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business
and technology. The university has enrollments of approximately 1,800
undergraduates and 2,700 graduate students.
For more information, please contact
Patrick A. Berzinksi at 201-216-5687 or visit
Stevens Institute of Technology’s
Web site. Interested members may also contact NSPE’s Director of Education
Mary Maul at 703-684-2833.
The Infrastructure Security
for the Built Environment (ISBE) 2005 Conference is being held October
18-20, in St. Augustine, FL. The conference will focus on the security of
critical physical infrastructure and will involve high-level military and
civilian government officials, as well as representatives from prominent
private-sector firms that are setting the standards for critical infrastructure
security around the nation. There is the opportunity to earn over 9 PDH's. Visit
http://www.samejax.com/regional/
for the agenda and registration forms. (NSPE is a TISP member… you receive a
discounted rate).
MATHCOUNTS PROBLEM OF THE WEEK
Can you solve this MATHCOUNTS problem? The answer will appear in next week's
edition of the Friday Update!
Heading To the Playoffs
The regular season of Major League Baseball was to have ended on October 2,
2005, assuming no playoff games were required. Though each team plays 162 games
throughout the season, the race for the playoffs was extremely close with only
four games left. At one point last week, the Chicago White Sox lead their
division with a record of 95 wins and 63 losses while the Cleveland Indians were
in second place with a record of 92-66. At that time, Cleveland fans were trying
to figure out how close they were to losing the opportunity to win the division.
This statistic is called the "Elimination Number" for the second place team and
the "Magic Number" for the first place team. The Elimination Number for a
particular team is determined by adding its number of losses to the number of
wins for the team leading the division, and subtracting that total from 163.
With four games left, what was the Elimination Number for Cleveland?
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Let’s assume that from this point in time (which is last Thursday 9/29)
Cleveland proceeded to lose exactly one of its last four games. What would their
winning percentage for the season then be? Express your answer to the nearest
tenth.
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Continuing with the assumption that Cleveland lost exactly one of its last four
games and the likelihood of winning each game was the same, what is the
probability that they did not lose the first of the four games? Express your
answer as a common fraction.
Answer to last week’s MATHCOUNTS problem:
We should expect something pretty close to 75%, but since the months vary
slightly in length, it shouldn’t surprise us that the answer is not exactly 75%.
Instead of counting the number of days that have passed, we know that October
(31 days), November (30 days) and December (31 days) have not passed. This is a
total of 92 of the 365 days, so 365 – 92 = 273 of the 365 days have passed, and
this is 273 ¸ 365 = 74.8% of 2005, to the nearest tenth, when considering the
days and not the calendar months.
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Since September has nine letters, Jacob is choosing from a pile of nine pieces
of paper. The R, B, T and three Es would all be good choices since any one of
them could be used when spelling out October. Therefore, there are six good
choices out of nine, which is 6/9 = 2/3.
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The board is 5 feet wide, which is a total of 5 ´ 12 = 60 inches. There are
seven letters in the word October, and each one is five inches wide. This
results in 7 ´ 5 = 35 inches of letters. Since there are seven letters, there
are six blank spaces between letters, each of which is 1.5 inches, so this is 6
´ 1.5 = 9 inches. With the letters and spaces, we now know that the word OCTOBER
will take up 35 + 9 = 44 inches of the width of the bulletin board, leaving 60 –
44 = 16 inches of space. Therefore, we should place the left-most side of the
first "O" 8 inches from the left of the board. (Then the word will take up 44
inches, and there will be 8 inches of blank space to the right of the word.)
If you want to see last week's problem again, click
http://www.mathcounts.org/webarticles/anmviewer.asp?a=729&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
Idaho
Society of Professional Engineers
