MSU-IIT ILIGAN, Siliman University Dumaguete :TOP Asian Universities QS List 2019

Iligan Institute of Technology of Mindanao State University (MSU-IIT) and Siliman University newly joined QS Asia's top Universities 2019 ranking

(CNN Philippines) — The Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT) joined the roster of Philippine schools in the annual list of top Asian universities by United Kingdom-based group Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).

MSU-IIT placed in the 451-500 bracket of the QS Asia University Rankings 2019, along with Dumaguete's Silliman University.

The University of the Philippines still led the country's universities in the rankings, rising three notches to 72nd place.

It was followed by the Ateneo de Manila University at 115th spot (down from 95th place), De La Salle University at 155th (down from 134th place), and University of Santo Tomas at 162nd (down from 145th).

University of San Carlos and Mapua University trailed, retaining their positions at 301-350 and 401-450, respectively.

The National University of Singapore regained the top spot in the region after falling to second place last year. It was followed by University of Hong Kong at second spot and Nanyang Technological University-Singapore and Tsinghua University both at third place.

Rounding up the top ten were Peking University, Fudan University, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Seoul National University.

The rankings are based on universities' academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-student ratio, international research network, citations per paper, papers per faculty, staff with doctorate degrees, international faculty, international students, inbound exchange, and outbound exchange.

In a statement, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) lauded the eight Philippine universities and said it will soon launch a project aimed at developing public and private institutions further.

"The Commission will soon launch a project through its International Affairs Service that will assist Philippine universities to showcase their excellence to the world, promote their internationalization initiatives and increase global reputation through international benchmarking assessment of institutions using internationalization metrics," CHED Chairman Prospero De Vera III was quoted as saying.

-CNN PHILIPPINES 

The Fire Piston and It's Origin in Europe

European Version of Fire Piston. image: 101waystosurvive.com

In previous accounts of the ingenious fire-making device usually known as the fire piston, anthropologists and historians of technology alike have paid special attention to those specimens of the instrument which have been found in use in the countries in Southeast Asia over the last hundred years. Intriguing possibility that the device was invented in that region quite independently of European influences and possible long before 8960’s when it appears to have been first observed there by European travelers.

Fire piston was invented in the areasof  "Dipag" and Sembuangan now Dipolog City in the modern Zamboanga del Norte, island of Mindanao, the Philippines over 1,500 years ago by a Subanen tribe teenager named “Anlangan”. Read more here

Primitive / Original Asian version of Fire Piston - image: oscarsbows.com

Consequently they have tended to regard the fire piston’s appearance in Europe in the early years of the nineteenth century as the result either of a separate, thought rather less interesting, process of invention in the West or alternatively, of direct importation from those parts of Asia particularly from the Philippines where the device was already commonly used. Although such accounts have been valuable, if only in preserving the fire piston from neglect, they have conveyed a view of the instrument’s history which is not only incomplete (by virtue of their scant treatment of the European version of the instrument) but which is also supported by inadequate evidence on certain important points. – Robert Fox

Dr. Robert Fox, lecturer in the history of Science at the university of Lancaster, is the authoer of forthcoming book on the caloric theory of gases.

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