Global Village
A celebration of cultures at ISD

AIESEC, the world's largest student organization driven by university students, organized the Asia Pacific Exchange Leadership Development Seminar 2005 on the premises of ISD last Friday. AIESEC delegates from all over the world, especially the Asia Pacific region, attended the conference.

Part of the event was a 'carnival of cultures' named the Global Village (which certainly lived up to its name) where each participating country had its very own stall, showcasing its unique cultural heritage. Everyone was in a festive mood as the fair progressed.

Traditional handicrafts and scrumptious delicacies filled almost every stall, which the audience enjoyed every bit of. Students from various schools around Dhaka who visited the Global Village discovered a unique opportunity to learn about different cultures and found out about AEISEC and its activities.

In the later part of the evening there was a cultural show composed of entertaining performances by the visiting delegates. The Aussies began the show with a song, to be followed by delegates from China, Germany, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand who all sang traditional songs.

The members from UAE demonstrated traditional greetings, the Danish read out "The Princess and the Pea" by Hans Christian Anderson while the delegates from Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong had the audience on their feet with their dance sequences. Coming onstage last of all, the team from Bangladesh staged what appeared to be a fashion show and later a dance number. The Global Village was sponsored by Aarong. The cultural show, no doubt, was the better part of the evening but all in all, the Global Village was everything that deserves to be called a success.

By Shoaib Alam

The sun
at its extreme

My last issue was about discovering the moon, so have you yet observed the moon? If you had and have faced any problem, mail me ([email protected]). So what's about now exploring the sun, a nice star in the world of astronomy?

Facts and Figures about the sun
Age: 4.5 billion years
Expected addition lifespan: 5 billion years
Diameter: 1390000 Km (864 000miles), 109 times diameter of the earth or 4 times the earth-moon distance.
Volume: 1300 000 that of the Earth.
Distance from the Earth: 149 597 870 Km (93000 000 miles), 8min 18 sec light to travel. This is equal to 1AU (astronomical unit)
The sun, only star of the day above our rooftop, is really amazing. The sun's primary activity is to convert hydrogen atoms to helium and eventually to more complex elements (carbon, oxygen and various metals).In this THERMONUCLEUR process, the sun approximately convert's over 4 million ton of hydrogen to helium per second. These activity exploit a huge amount of energy, so much that this energy have had run billion's of billion's power stations! This energy takes a form of visible light, damaging radiation as ultra violet, X-rays and gamma rays. At the other end of the electromagnetic spectrum, the sun emits infra-red radiation (heat) and radio waves.

What can we see with different types of instrument?
Binoculars (7x5010x50): Not really suitable for solar viewing.
Small reflector (50-60 mm at 20x to50x): sunspot and their daily motion across solar disk.
70-80mm Refractor at (100x-120x): sunspot details, umbra, penumbra, faculae.
100-120mm telescope (4-5") at 150x to 200x: daily change in support detail and filaments.

Caution: While observing the sun, don't look at it directly with bare eyes. Use only front special solar filtered optical aided instrument for viewing, or else using unaided optical instrument can result permanent eye damage and/or blindness.

What are those sunspots?
Sunspots are surface features that are slightly cooler that the rest of the photosphere and therefore appear relatively darker. They are centres of powerful magnetic storms.

Under high magnification, sunspots can be set on into two distinct zones, a darker central "umbra" and an outer, more irregular "penumbra". They often appear in groups of two or five individual spot and progressively change in shape, size and appearance from day to day. They generally last a few weeks and then disappear. Sunspots are "slightly" cooler (between 4000 and 4500c) that the rest of the photosphere, whose temperature is close to 6000C in spite of their shadowy exterior, sunspot are brighter than an electric arc, and looks black due to relative much brighter background.

In addition to sunspots, you can usually see bright streaks, which are extremely bright, particularly when viewed against the relatively darker part of the sun. Solar eclipses, among nature's most extravagant sights Chromosphere, the maximum segment of the Sun's atmosphere, is noticeable only during a total eclipse, when the Moon passes directly in face of the solar disk and temporarily blocks of the photosphere. The chromosphere is more translucent and less gleaming that the photosphere and so is normally not visible. During a total eclipse, it appears as the rose coloured ring, with immense gas extensions called prominences. Away from the chromosphere, we observe the corona, a crown like gaseous envelope reaching temperatures of 100 000c. This superb sight is unfortunately not visible except during an eclipse or with the aid of special instrumentation not generally available to amateurs.

The information was gathered from Dhaka NOVO theatre management committee, space encyclopaedias and books.

The fifth North South Carnival and Club fair was held on the 18th of March in the street just outside the main North South Campus in Banani. It was a gala affair which took monumental preparations and which was ably carried out by the parties involved in the organizing committee. The main aim of this event was to showcase the different activities of the fourteen clubs involved in NSU. And of course in the process everyone involved had great fun. Tickets to the carnival were limited only to students of North South University.

Throughout the 17th of March, students and teachers alike, worked late into the night preparing the street for what they hoped would be a great event. The setup was simple- each of the fourteen clubs would be assigned separate stalls along the road with a pavilion in the middle complete with chairs to seat the venerated guests.

Workers broke their back late into the night and by the next morning the street looked completely different adorned with colorful 'pandels.' The inside looked even better with each stall setting up their individual decorations each looking more colorful than the rest. Also and add on experience was that most stalls had decided to bring in their own entertainment facilities in what little way they could.

Some had PS2's, which were hogged throughout the day. Other bought in the ever popular 'shoot the balloons' and one club even had a dartboard that bore the picture of a well-loved faculty member. Anyone who could hit him would earn a special gift!

The program got underway when the honorable Vice Chancellor, Dr. Hafiz GA Siddiquie made his appearance. He visited each stall in his time and looked over their decorations and complemented all the club members on the hard work they had put in. The carnival was anchored proficiently, by Elita Karim and it inaugurated officially when she invited the VC for his customary speech.

After all the formalities had been tended to, the event got underway with the Earth Club showcasing a video on dolphins. They made the whole thing interesting by offering gifts to anyone who could answer questions on the media clip. The program continued in the same vein with each club showcasing its talents on stage.

Notable performers included YEF (Young Economists Forum), who presented a hilarious documentary that was roundly cheered by faculty and students alike. The English Club had a quiz show in which the public answered more questions than the contestants! The NSUSS (Social Service Club) also turned in a special performance- a fashion show first by children from orphanages, then by NSU students and finally by the faculty themselves. Entitled 'Fashion Idol' the winner was then voted for by an 'expert' panel of judges and the audience.

The event rounded off in spectacular style. Popular bands "Artcell" and "Warfaze" went of stage and sang popular numbers which were applauded by the crowd. However the best performance of the night was by one former NSU student who was involuntarily called on stage to keep the crowd at bay- restless at the late arrival of Artcell. 'Yafi bhai' produced a stand up comedy show to rival the best in the business and within minutes the crowd were listening to him with rapt attention and cheering his every wisecrack.

All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable affair and one that was also an experience in learning.

The motto of the carnival ' Live the NSU spirit' was evident everywhere as people hung around even after the show mocking, teasing, having the innocent banter with each other but in the end going home contended with a day of fun and frolic.

By Quazi Zulquarnain Islam

Application sent off? Wahey! Congrats, you have just completed your part of the application process, and now all you have to do is wait for the universities or UCAS to contact you! Okay here's the deal: remember the UCAS recipient card that you sent with your application with (the one you paid 1 Pound postage for)? Well, the first thing that'll happen is that UCAS will send it back to you. This isn't really much significant; this just lets you know that your application has reached UCAS safely, and will soon be processed. So, you don't need to worry about the postal service's inadequacy/ adequacy (whichever way you want to look at it).

The next thing that UCAS does, is to send you the Application Packet. This comprises of another smaller booklet called Advice for Applicants, and illustrates all the necessary information that you'll be requiring to know. The Packet will also include an official letter from them, which will contain your UCAS Application Number and Password. With this Number and Password, you can easily check the statues of your application almost everyday 24/7.

Simply go to www.ucas.com, click on 'Track', and then type in your number and password and press Enter. Voila: the universities' decisions are with you the moment UCAS receives them. You don't need to spend day agonizing about decisions and worrying about the efficiency (ahem, or should I say 'inefficiency'?) of the postal service.

Since this'll take some time, I recommend that you keep checking on it and wait patiently for all the universities to reply. Another thing: see if you can collect the 'Students Handbook of Colleges and Universities' from the British Council. Go through it, find the universities you have applied to, and note down their email addresses. You can also do this by going to their websites. Whenever you have any confusion about any of the universities' decisions, contact them DIRECTLY. Remember to ALWAYS quote your UCAS Application Number.

Universities may become biased if they get to know your other choices. UCAS advises you to thus never let university know, even if they ask you about it. You are under no legal obligation to do so. Go to the UCAS website, and watch as your universities reply! I'll let you know next week what to do once ALL your choices have sent their decisions to UCAS. Ciao!

By Jennifer Ashraf