General Engineering & Science Review – Flashcards

A vocabulary-style set of flashcards spanning major ideas and facts from the 100-question review notes, covering engineering, science, management, and Philippine regulatory topics.

Carbon in human body

Approximately 18 % of the mass of a human body is carbon.

Simplex communication

A one-way only transmission mode; the receiver cannot reply while the sender is transmitting.

FORTRAN FORMAT statement

A non-executable statement that is never actually ‘run’ by the program, only referenced by I/O statements.

Lead in copper

Lead is practically insoluble in solid copper and forms almost no solid solution with it.

Entropy

A thermodynamic measure of randomness or disorder within a system.

Sodium chloride appearance

A white, crystalline solid commonly known as table salt.

Vulcanization

The sulfur-cross-linking process that strengthens and stabilizes natural rubber.

Appointment of the Philippine Board of Electrical Engineering

The President of the Philippines appoints the chairman and members of the Board.

Reading (memory)

The operation that retrieves data from a memory location.

Specific heat

The ratio of heat required to raise the temperature of a unit mass of a substance by 1 °C to the heat required to raise the same mass of water by 1 °C.

Yellow alert (NGCP)

A grid status warning issued when the power reserve margin falls below the required level within 24 h of a forecast disturbance.

Submersible pump

A close-coupled vertical turbine pump designed for underground or deep-well installation, with motor and pump submerged.

Functional manager

In a functional organization, the person who has the formal authority to direct project team members.

Phishing

Fraudulent e-mail or web activity designed to capture personal login, credit card, or online-bank credentials.

Viscosity

A fluid property that represents resistance to shear or internal friction.

First law of thermodynamics

The principle of conservation of energy: energy can be converted but not created or destroyed.

Poisson’s ratio of rubber

Rubber has the highest Poisson’s ratio (~0.5) among common engineering materials.

Truss force methods—exception

The Maxwell diagram is generally not used for direct numerical determination of individual bar forces.

Coke (fuel)

A carbon-rich solid made by heating coal in an oxygen-poor environment.

Murang Kuryente Act

Republic Act 11371, a Philippine law reducing electricity rates by using Malampaya funds.

Energizing a resistor

An example of a non-equilibrium (irreversible) work mode, because electrical energy is dissipated as heat.

Lithium

The lightest metal element, atomic number 3.

Full-duplex communication

Mode in which both parties can transmit and receive simultaneously and interrupt each other at any time.

Maximum shear stress in a triangle

For a triangular section, τ_max = 3S ⁄ bh, where S is shear force.

Abacus

The earliest known calculating device, consisting of beads on rods or wires.

Bernoulli’s equation

States that the total mechanical energy of a frictionless, incompressible fluid in steady flow is constant along a streamline.

Fetch phase

Portion of the instruction cycle that transfers the instruction from memory to the instruction register.

Planning (management)

The function that anticipates future trends and determines strategies and tactics to achieve objectives.

Continuity equation

An expression of conservation of mass for fluid flow.

Pentium microprocessor

A 32-bit CPU introduced by Intel on 22 March 1993; first in the Pentium line.

Minimum age for PRC Board of EE member

Thirty-five (35) years old.

RMS speed vs molecular mass

Root-mean-square molecular speed is inversely proportional to the square root of molecular mass.

Dislocation stress (G b ⁄ r)

The shear stress around a dislocation line is approximately τ = G b ⁄ (2π r); simplified here as G b ⁄ r.

Captive market (RA 9136)

Electric-power consumers who have no choice of supplier under the Philippine EPIRA law.

MATLAB symbol declaration

The command syms x y z creates symbolic variables x, y and z.

Virtual memory

Use of hard-disk space to simulate additional RAM for active programs.

Critical flow

A region where laminar and turbulent characteristics combine; occurs near the transition Reynolds number.

Accounting equation

Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity.

continue (MATLAB)

Keyword that skips the rest of the current loop iteration and starts the next one.

Celsius-to-Fahrenheit conversion

Tf = (9⁄5) Tc + 32.

Energy of a wound clock spring

Stores potential energy but possesses essentially no kinetic energy while wound and at rest.

Filling a tire—control volume

Classical control-volume example where mass crosses the boundary into the system.

A/F (i%, n) factor

Sinking Fund Factor: finds a uniform series A that will accumulate to F in n periods at interest rate i.

PERT application—exception

PERT is generally not used for queuing problems.

Executive officer of PRBEE

The PRC Commissioner acts as executive officer for the Board of Electrical Engineering.

Aquifer

An underground formation containing saturated, permeable material that yields significant water.

ENIAC

The first general-purpose electronic computer, designed for U.S. Army artillery firing tables.

Section 31, RA 7920

The ‘Personnel Required’ provision in the Philippine Electrical Engineering Law.

Twist (fluid motion)

Not recognized as one of the three basic components (translation, rotation, angular deformation) of fluid element motion.

Using right tools

Considered a safe practice; therefore NOT a hazardous practice.

Butterfly valve

Primarily a throttling or flow-control valve; less suited to tight shut-off than plug, ball, or gate valves.

Ctrl + End

Keyboard shortcut that moves the cursor to the end of a document.

Equity capital

Funds provided by owners of an enterprise in expectation of profit.

Archimedes’ principle

Basis of hydrometer operation: an object displaces a fluid weight equal to its own weight.

Repeated loading

Type of stress that leads to fatigue failure.

Green conductor

Color identification for the equipment grounding conductor of a branch circuit.

Organizational Project Management (OPM)

A framework that keeps an organization aligned with and focused on its overall strategy.

Lifeline rate

Subsidized electricity rate for low-income captive customers in the Philippines.

Initiating process group

Project-management group in which the project charter is created.

Sound—true statements

All sounds arise from vibration; sound cannot travel in a vacuum; sound transmits through matter.

ECL logic family

Emitter-Coupled Logic is the fastest logic family.

FCC unit cell atoms

A face-centered cubic crystal structure contains four atoms per unit cell.

Grounded conductor

A circuit conductor that is intentionally connected to ground (earth).

Dimensions of potential energy (F, V, T system)

F V T (force × velocity × time) gives the correct dimensional representation.

Volume—extensive property

Volume depends on system size, so it is NOT an intensive property.

Strategic alignment of a project

Best achieved by correlating project needs with the organization’s strategic plan.

Divisibility assumption

Integer-restricted variables in linear programming violate the divisibility assumption.

Maximum potential energy of a golf ball

At the highest point of its trajectory.

First CPD Council member (EE)

A representative of the Accredited Professional Organization (APO).

Approval date of RA 7920

24 February 1995.

Type THHN cable

A conductor suitable for dry or damp but NOT wet locations.

Index of refraction vs density

Denser materials usually have a higher index of refraction.

Project characteristic—non-repetitive

A project does not repeat the same set of activities every month.

Likely to become energized

Refers to equipment located near energized electrical sources that could become live.

Leading (management)

Function of influencing people to work toward organizational goals.

Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO)

The master control center of a cellular telephone system.

Speed of light, n = 2

Light travels at c⁄2 in a medium with refractive index 2.

White conductor

Standard color for the neutral (grounded) conductor in wiring.

RA 9513

The Renewable Energy Act of 2008 in the Philippines.

Closed piston-cylinder device

A system with no mass flow; the open-system first-law form is unnecessary.

Planning process group

The group in which a detailed project budget is developed.

PRC Chairperson

Charito A. Zamora (current Chair of the Philippine Regulation Commission).

Section 35, RA 7920

Covers prohibitions and sundry provisions relative to the practice of electrical engineering.

MATLAB Profiler

Tool that measures execution time of functions and scripts.

Cellular transmitter power limit

Maximum allowable output power is 3 W.

Higher reaction rate at high T

Caused by more frequent and more energetic molecular collisions (higher collision frequency and lower effective activation energy).

Windows 98 as RTOS

Statement is false; Windows 98 is not a real-time operating system.

Composite material

Made from two or more materials to obtain properties the constituents do not have alone.

STORE instruction

Moves data from the accumulator to memory or an I/O register.

Philippine Electrical Code purpose

The practical safeguarding of persons and property from electrical hazards.

RA 10912

The Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Act of 2016.

Half-duplex communication

Only one party transmits at a time, but either can originate transmission.

Potassium

An example of a light metal among common elements listed.

LOAD instruction

Brings data from memory into an accumulator register.

Board of EE membership

Composed of one chairman and two members (total 3).

Poisson’s ratio definition

The ratio of unit lateral strain to unit longitudinal strain in a material under axial loading.

Cache memory addition

Speeds up processor-limited systems when sorting small tables in memory.

Organizing (management)

Establishing relationships and allocating resources to achieve objectives.

Polarized light

Light scattered at 90° to an incident beam is partially polarized.

Incident investigation

Conducted primarily to prevent or control recurrence of similar incidents.