ENGINEERING BULLETIN

The miniature green robot, standing a full 17 centimeters (6.7-inch) tall, is pulling his cart along a 500-kilometer (300-mile) route connecting Tokyo to Kyoto. Evolta-kun’s epic journey on the Tokaido, one of Japan’s ancient thoroughfares, is part of a marketing campaign by Panasonic Corp. to promote its Evolta rechargeable batteries. At each of the route’s 53 stages where a weary traveler would once stop for food and lodging, Evolta-kun recharges its batteries (literally). The robot travels with an entourage of five staff. One ‘Evolta Sister’ pushes a cart that emits an infra-red signal to control the robot’s direction; two members are in charge of checking for safety and two cameramen chronicle every robotic step of his journey.

Ontario took a major step to help the one million people in the province with neurological disorders and the 2.6 million Ontarians who will be affected by a neurological condition in their lifetime.A new brain institute is being established in Ontario. The Ontario Brain Institute will bring the province's top brain researchers together with people who know how to commercialize good ideas. Together, they will turn health care discoveries made in the lab into products and services to help people who are affected by brain diseases and disorders.

Of those MBA students who graduated in the summer of 2010, 88 per cent already had job offers in the bag, according o the latest survey data from GMAC, administrators of the GMAT test. Although 12 per cent of graduates were still looking for jobs, the statistics are a four percentage point improvement on 2009, when only 84 per cent had jobs offers as they graduated.

Free higher education in Scotland is under threat after a report published by Universities Scotland confirmed that tuition fees must be reviewed, writes Kathryn Richardson for The Journal. Universities Scotland, an organisation that represents university principals, released its Towards a Scottish Solution report last week in the wake of the Browne Review's proposals to lift the cap on tuition fees in England and Wales.

As the founder of KIIT University, a top private institution here, Achuyta Samanta has built an institution that occupies dozens of buildings across 350 acres of plush land. Yet he has no office. He prefers to do his work at a desk under a fragrant Kadamba tree, in a garden outside a university building where he meets foreign diplomats, Indian movie stars, journalists, and other visitors.

Founded by one of the country's wealthiest men, Putera Sampoerna, it is part of a bold plan to introduce the American land-grant-university model to Indonesia through partnerships with foreign universities. Mr. Sampoerna, working through his foundation, aims to create a first-class university with a curriculum that corresponds to the country's economic needs and a high-achieving student body recruited from the country's lowest socioeconomic classes. Every one of the 190 undergraduates enrolled in the School of Education, the first of the university's colleges to open, is on financial aid.In drawing disadvantaged students from the country's many islands and in focusing on fields critical to this developing nation, such as teacher training and entrepreneurship, Mr. Sampoerna hopes his institution can help build Indonesia's educational capacity and improve its economy.

November 2, 2010. This coming weekend more than 4.5 million Brazilian students will take their university entrance exam. It is a rite of passage that is changing thanks to government efforts to streamline and standardize a once-disparate process.The government's goal is to reduce costs for universities and students and expand access to the country's publicly financed, and best, universities.

Dozens of freshmen at Singapore Management University spent one evening last week learning how to "wiki," or use the software that lets large numbers of people write and edit class projects online. Though many said experiencing a public editing process similar to that of Wikipedia could prove valuable, some were wary of the collaborative tool, with its public nature and the ability to toss out or revise the work of their classmates.

Tuition at some British universities could soon increase to as much as £9,000, or $14,430, nearly tripling the rate at some institutions, under plans announced by the British government Wednesday. In a statement to Parliament, Britain's universities minister, David Willetts, proposed removing the current cap on undergraduate tuition of £3,290, or $5,275, which is charged by most universities in England, and setting the new limit at £6,000, or $9,620, for the majority of institutions.

As online education goes mainstream, it's no longer just about access for distant learners who never set foot in the student union. Web courses are rewiring what it means to be a "traditional" student at places like Central Florida, one of the country's largest public universities. And UCF's story raises a question for other colleges: Will this mash-up of online and offline learning become the new normal elsewhere, too? Signs suggest yes. The University System of Maryland now requires undergraduates to take 12 credits in alternative learning modes, including online. Texas has proposed a similar rule.

Nobel Prize laureate Akira Suzuki urged Japanese youngsters Monday to study abroad and broaden their views, just as more are growing hesitant to do so. The chemist also called on senior academics to make greater efforts to instill in younger generations a sense that science and technology are interesting, as science is crucial to the country's survival. "(While I was abroad) I made many foreign friends. (I also got to know that) there is a world out there that we do not know," Suzuki said at a luncheon at Japan National Press Club in Tokyo. He spent two years from 1963 as a doctoral research fellow at Purdue University.

Ethiopia's Federal Ministry of Education has lifted its ban on distance education, after a one-and-a-half month long negotiation with private institutions ended last week in agreement, reports Daily Ethiopia.

India's Manipal Education will invest about RM650 million (US$209 million) over the next five years to establish the Manipal International University (MIU) in Kuala Lumpur, reports Malaysia's official news agency Bernama.

Biomedical researchers working in the fields of drug discovery, protein production and gene function can now buy research kits online from French specialist in genome customisation Cellectis Bioresearch - wherever in the world they are based.

Seven European research centres have formed a consortium to launch nanobiotechnology on a European scale, backed by funding from the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme on research. The grouping, EuroNanoBio, claims it is defining the key features of a potential European future nanobiotechnology industry, which uses tiny microbiological particles to make products and components.

Harvard Business School has received its largest gift ever from a non-US donor - from the Indian Tata Group. The $50m donation will be a personal triumph for Indian-born dean Nitin Nohria, who took up the job early this year.

The 25th October 2010 will see the release of the tenth Financial Times annual ranking of Executive MBA programmes. A comparison between the original top ten, released in October of 2001, with the 2009 edition highlights some significant changes in the landscape of the EMBA market over the proceeding nine year period.

Foreign students should be given a special visa and taken out of the immigration statistics.  This would quarantine education from the overheated politics of population, according to University of NSW chief Fred Hilmer. The visa would allow a student to stay for a qualification plus two to three years' work experience in a related field.

A surge in the number of applications for undergraduate science and maths courses has been attributed in part to a federal government scheme.  The scheme is aimed to reduce student fee contributions in priority areas.

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Chief Executive Donald Tsang said last week the city was likely to raise the higher education participation rate among young people to about 65%, from around 30% in 2000, reports The People's Daily.