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 known as the fire piston, anthropologists and historians of technology have focused primarily on specimens found in use across Southeast Asia over the past century. This has led to the intriguing possibility that the device was independently invented in the region, without European influence, and possibly long before the 1860s, when European travelers first documented its existence there.

The fire piston was originally invented over 1,500 years ago in the areas of Dipag and Sembuangan—now Dipolog City in modern-day Zamboanga del Norte, on the island of Mindanao, Philippines—by a Subanen teenager named Anlangan”. Read more here

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

As a result, scholars have generally regarded the fire piston's emergence in Europe during the early nineteenth century as either the product of an independent—though arguably less compelling—process of invention in the West or as a direct import from Asia, particularly the ancient kingdoms now called the Philippines, where the device was already in common use. While such accounts have been valuable in preventing the fire piston from falling into obscurity, they have presented an incomplete history—neglecting the European adaptation of the instrument—and have relied on insufficient evidence for certain key aspects of its development.. – Robert Fox

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

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