Instruments and Engineers

Bringing System Engineers and Software Engineers Together

For system development projects, the proportion of the budget allocated to software development has been continually increasing in response to demand for system flexibility and maintainability. As a result, many technical organizations started by mechanical and electrical engineers now find themselves awash with software engineers. As system engineers see it, software people have different ways...

Are software engineers true engineers?

Are software engineers engineers? Or more exactly: Can software engineers legitimately be called engineers? This is an ambiguous question. Its interpretation depends on the situation in which it is asked. It might be asked in a situation in which practice-oriented engineering disciplines have more chances to be sponsored publicly: In this case it would be the question if software engineering sh...

Scientists and Engineers

Chemical Engineers and Energy

In 1859, Edwin Drake drilled one of the world’s first commercial oil wells south of Titusville, PA, which produced 25 barrels of petroleum (then called rock oil) on its first day from a geological reservoir located 69 ft below the surface. At the time, people were beginning to recognize the value of petroleum, mostly for its ability to lubricate and illuminate. So, in a sense Drake’s gusher hel...

Python for Scientists and Engineers

D uring the past decade, Python (an interpreted, high-level programming language) has arguably become the de facto standard for exploratory, interactive, and computation-driven scientific research. This issue discusses Python’s advantages for scientific research and presents several of the core Python libraries and tools used in this domain. Although the issue’s articles are selfcontained, they...