Week 8: Introduction to Bioelectronics!

Reflection 4......

Assalamualaikum and Salam Sejahtera.

Alhamdulillah... This is the 8th week of Introduction to Electronic System Engineering class, but it is not a workshop anymore guys. Wake up!! hahaha. Actually in this 8th week, we quite surprise as we already familiar that when it comes to SMJE1032, it is always about workshop. But, we must know that, according to schedule that have been set by Dr. Kamal, it is clearly stated that for this 8th week we will have a new things to learn, that is Bioelectronics. 

The schedule for SMJE 1032 courses.

Thanks god, I didn't go to workshop and go straight to lab in level 4. We cant wait to meet Dr Azran as we never met him yet, an expert in bioelectronic field i heard. hehehe. So this week, there will be 2 sessions with different lecturers that are Dr. Azran and Dr. Kamal, and Mr. Redzuan just sit at the back with us and become observer of the class. First half will be Dr. Azran giving us a lecture or more to a talk i think, about bioelectronics. In the 2nd half, Dr. Kamal will take over the class and he will brief us with a new assignment.

Before we go to main subject of this reflective journal, let me tell a bit about Dr. Azran background. As we all know, he is an expert in this bioelectronic engineering field. He already live at japan for 15 years. He go to Japan to further study in diploma course, then continue his bachelor, master, and phD degree in Japan. Then he works at Japan about 5 years before he come back to Malaysia this year and become senior lecturer at Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology(MJIIT). After hearing his academic background, i really admire him and i wanna make him as role model to be successful in the future.

Dr. Azran Azhim

Okay, lets start reflecting about the 1st half of the class session, that is bioelectronics. First of all i will again divide this into 2 parts that are Introduction to Bioelectronics and The Use of Sonication Treatment to Completely Decellularize Blood Artery. 

First of all, what is bioelectronics?? 
Bioelectronics is a recently coined term for a field of research that works to establish a synergy between electronics and biology. 

So, from here, we know very well that this course or subject generally relate both engineering and biology or medical science. So there is a bonding between this 2 subjects as world becoming more complex and advanced. We need to move forward and explore this field in a serious manner. Furthermore, there are already a lot of job opportunities in this field of bioelectronics such as medical engineer, job in forensics field , job in health department and etc. 

Sorry for mumbling to much, lets get straight to the point. In this lecture, there is several objectives that i wanna highlight here that are :

1. Understand the concept of bioelectronics.
2. Understand and know the basic things in Electronic system.
3. Understand some topic about Fundamental of electric circuit such as, parallel and series circuit, impedance, and etc.
4. Learn the estimation method to calculate the blood velocity
5. Molecular Biology
6. The Use of Sonication Treatment to Completely Decellularize Blood Artery 

Now, i will reflect what i understand in this lecture. When we getting start, first thing was we learned the concept of bioelectronics, then we move to understand some of basic electronic components, resistor color code, series and parallel circuit, voltage divider and so on. This are what i know already, and i think Dr. Azran just want us to recall back this basics and do some revision before we move into the main point. Then we move to impedance, something that i left for quite a long time already. I study impedance during my time in matricultion. Here are some pictures that i screen snap from the soft copy.

This is the electric components and i think all of us know these components very well already.

Series and parallel circuit and the formula.

This is slide about impedance.

We also learn something new like RC circuit(low pass), CR circuit(high pass), active electronic realization, and estimation method. At first, it seems like quite complicated, but after hearing the explanation involving how to calculate, what we actually want to find using a new formula and so on, then we can understand. 

After the explanation finish, Dr. Azran asked us to answer some quiz to see whether we fully understand what he teach us. We also learn something about active electronic realization  and how to calculate it.

Then Dr. Azran move to something i think one of the most important thing in this lecture, that is how circuit calculate blood velocity using estimation method. We spent almost twenty minutes to understand the concept and how to calculate it. 

The path that taken in the circuit to measure the blood velocity.

The probe design & Doppler effects.

The software that monitor the blood velocity spectra.

What i think and understand about this bioelectronic is, it involve in medical engineering. It relate the traditional medicine with newest technology that create by engineering. That is why bioelectronic engineering are more into creating or designing something that is related with the medical field. I mean how to improve the medical instruments like imaging, monitoring, surgery and even therapy for certain disease. That is why nowadays, it is mandatory for engineer to produce a better technology in this medical field so that health of human being will improve. That is the major purpose of this bioelectronics engineering.

I also think about some question relating to this bioelectronic :

1. Why are we in electronic engineering need to learn about this bio + electronic??
2. What will this bioelectronic engineering benefits human being that is us?

Answer(based on what i think):

1. First of all, inside all technology apparatus that is used by doctor to treat their patients, its contents a lot of electronic circuit or electronic components, so most of the gadgets are based on electronic. So we really need this engineering expertise to construct or produce all this gadgets and only engineer that are born both from biology and engineering background can do this kind of projects.That is why this course: Bioelectronic engineering is created.
2. This high-tech gadgets based on engineering expertise will enhance the knowledge of biological and medical science and of course this will benefits human being right. The other opinion is this field of study will create a lot of job opportunities in our country. We know that our country are moving forward in becoming the develop country, and as we know also, only develop country like Japan and USA conquering this field of engineering. So its a good start for us to use this field to enhance and catalyst our aim becoming develop country by 2020.

After that we move to another topic in the presentation, that is molecular biology. The purpose of this is to relate and close the gap of engineering and medicine in specific. So, we learn about BIOLOGY in this introduction to electronic system class. hahaha... Impressive right? But nevermind, its quite interesting really, as me myself come from biology background in matriculation. Lets see some picture that i snap screen from the presentation:

An eukaryotic cell.

DNA double-strand that in eukaryotic cell.

This section it is quite easy as we only need to learn about fact, so we finish it really quickly and we answer some quiz that has been prepared.

The 2nd part of the lecture is Dr. Azran research and he explain about The Use of Sonication Treatment to Complete Decellularize Blood Artery. It quite complex explanation involving and not all of us able to understand immediately what are the major key point in the research. Maybe it is because of the term that we never heard before plus it is about a research of our people that is expert in this bioelectronic field( a field that we as undergraduate student not yet go through). So we will read and go through the slide show again so that we get the main idea of the research. Here some pic about about the research:

Sonication Decellularization System.

Okay, we arrive at the last part of this session that is Dr, Kamal's session. After Dr. Azran finish, Dr. Kamal take over the class and he brief us about our new assignment. We need to do research on certain topic based on electronic engineering field of study. All the topic and group has been decided by Dr. Kamal. 

My team and my topic that has been chose by Dr. Kamal.

It is not that this group is divided randomly, but it is based on our matrix number and the topic given is based on our academic advisor(PA) expertise on the topic. For you guys information, according to Dr. Kamal, during previous year, the students were asked to present their research using power point but this year, we will do a poster to present our topic task. Dr. Kamal also give us the regulations and guidelines that we must follow to complete the assignment.And we need to pass up or hand in the assignment on 27 Nov 2012. I hope my team can finish this assignment quickly with highest quality and score with flying colors.

Rubric for the assignment.

I think that is all from this reflective journal 4 and arigato gozaimasu.

to be continued.........