November 15th, 2009
It somehow take ages to receive letters in the UAE and I especially do not like to receive personal mail through my company’s post box. For instance I applied for voting by post for the election of the European parliament in June and I received the forms several weeks after the election date and was therefore not able to participate.
I registered for a post box online at emiratespost, but the credit card payment didn’t work and the registration is only valid for 2 days to go there in person and pay it cash. Because I was in Abu Dhabi the whole week I had to repeat the whole registration process before returning to Dubai. They ask for so many personal data, like education level etc. For what? I am just renting a post box! Anyway, I just filled in the required fields (still they want passport number and so on).
I arrived saturday evening 8:30 pm, just before they close. Though I brought the registration form printed out, they still asked me to fill everything AGAIN in a paper form. Then as usual a problem with the computer system… to make a long story short… it took 20 minutes to pay and get my keys. Finding the PO box took also 10 minutes, because the order & numbering does not follow a straight forward system and my box was still filled with bills and personal mail of the previous owner. I returned it to the counter as these items could contain quite some confidential information.
My lovely mom sent me a postcard for my birthday and it arrived within 5 days. That’s great and I am now awaiting my certificates from my University in Germany and hope the originals don’t get lost on the way!
Posted in Formalities | No Comments »
October 24th, 2009
On 24 October, people in 181 countries came together for the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history. At over 5200 events around the world, people gathered to call for action on the climate crisis.
350.org was founded by U.S. author Bill McKibben, who wrote one of the first books on global warming for the general public, and a team of university friends.
Together, they ran a campaign in 2007 called Step It Up that organized over 2,000 rallies at iconic places in all 50 states. These creative actions – from skiers descending a melting glacier to divers hosting an underwater action – helped convince many political leaders, including then Senator Barack Obama, to adopt our common call to action: cutting carbon 80% by 2050.
350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide—measured in “Parts Per Million” in our atmosphere. 350 PPM—it’s the number humanity needs to get back to as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.
At Masdar two events were planned to show our commitment and support of the 350 target. First we took a photo with Masdar employers and associated consultants at the new 10MW solar power plant in Masdar City (the biggest solar power plant in the Middle East).
On Saturday Laura, one of the MIST students in collaboboration with EWS-WWF, organised a community linking picnic in the Old Airport Garden. Many small groups joined and we exchanged ideas and business cards to work together and increase public awareness in the UAE about environmental issues and how to conserve energy.
To see more pictures about amazing climate actions worldwide, please visit Flickr (unfortunately blocked from within the UAE, but I guess you know how to get around it).
Posted in Abu Dhabi, Masdar | No Comments »
October 21st, 2009
I am acquainted with the human rights as my mom works for UNICEF and campaigns for the rights of children. A video on youtube made me realise, that not many people actually know the human rights and can hardly name a few basic ones. There is a great website at http://www.humanrights.com/ that explains all 30 human rights in videos. I think it is very important to be aware of these rights, because it is up to each and everyone of us to apply them in our daily life and interaction with others as well as standing up against human right violations in our country and elsewhere in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt served as the first chairperson of the UN Human Rights Commission
Posted in Culture | No Comments »
October 1st, 2009
“Simulation-based Analysis of Masdar City’s Personal Rapid Transit System”
Katharina Müller war erste Absolventin des Bachelorstudiengang Wirtschaftsingenieurwesen mit Schwerpunkt Logistik an der Hochschule Ulm. Ihr Praxissemester verbrachte sie bei einer Speditionsfirma in Dubai und ihre Bachelorarbeit schrieb sie für Siemens Airport Logistics in Singapur. Für ihre Studienleistungen wurde sie mit dem Hochschulpreis der schwäbischen Wirtschaft 2008 ausgezeichnet. Sie entschloss sich dann den Masterstudiengang Systems Engineering and Industrial Management anzuschließen und arbeitete in Teilzeit für das Institut für Betriebsorganisation und Logistik.
Für ihre Masterarbeit zog es sie zurück in die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate, diesmal in die Hauptstadt Abu Dhabi, welche gerade 15 Milliarden Euro in die Errichtung der ersten CO2-freien Ökostadt der Welt investiert. In Masdar City sollen in wenigen Jahren 50.000 Einwohner und 50.000 Pendler leben und arbeiten. Die gesamte Stadt wird ausschließlich von Strom aus regenerativen Energienquellen versorgt und der Müll soll komplett wiederverwertet werden. Konventionelle Autos wird es in der Stadt nicht geben, sondern ein ganz neuartiges Verkehrssystem, welches so weltweit noch nicht realisiert wurde. Ein Personal Rapid Transit System befördert Passagiere und Fracht voll-automatisiert, nachfrage-gesteuert und ohne umzusteigen zu jeder beliebigen Station des Netzwerkes in kleinen Elektrofahrzeugen. Diese Form des öffentlichen Nahverkehrs bietet den Komfort eines Taxis und kann gleichzeitig durch intelligente Steuerung der Fahrzeuge wesentlich effizienter und energiesparender sein. Bevor eine komplette Modellstadt mit Sitz der UN-Behörde für regenerative Energien (IRENA) auf dieses neue Verkehrssystem angewiesen ist, musste ein Simulationsmodell erstellt werden, um verschiedene Design-Parameter zu testen.
Das neu gegründete Masdar Institute of Science and Technology arbeitet eng mit dem MIT in den USA zusammen und setzt die gleichen wissenschaftlichen Ansprüche an Dozenten und Studenten. Über die Herausforderung der technischen Realisierung, ihre vielfältigen beruflichen und kulturellen Erfahrungen wird Katharina Müller berichten und kann Fragen beantworten zur Vorbereitung von Auslandsaufenthalten, Stipendien und zur derzeitigen wirtschaftlichen Lage in den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten nach der Weltfinanzkrise.
 |
|
Donnerstag, 8. Oktober 09, 18 Uhr,
Aula der HSU, Prittwitzstr.10, Ulm
|
Posted in Masters | No Comments »
September 22nd, 2009
After all these stressful weeks in Abu Dhabi completing my thesis, it was time for me to fly back to Germany for graduation and to visit my family. In the end of September I first went to Cottbus to stay a week with my mom. I also took the opportunity to attend the ASIM 2009 – the 20th symposium for simulation techniques hosted this year by the Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus. It was interesting, but I did not attend most of the social events as I preferred to spend time with my family and old friends from school.
When Nayan arrived in Berlin a few days later, we visited our friends Jan and Ailton to dance some Zouk. Later we met with my dear friend Tim Pritlove from the Chaos Computer Club sipping some cocktails at the solarbar overlooking Berlin at night. Then we relaxed one more day with my family in Cottbus celebrating Silva’s birthday in the garden eating delicious self-made cake and grilling PORK sausages 
At the beginning of October we stopped by in Dresden for two days visiting my childhood friend Maja, who is studying there. Nayan and me did some sight seeing in the historic city center of Dresden, which was badly bombed during the 2nd world war and is now almost completely reconstructed. Saxony has a rich cultural tradition, beautiful churches (Frauenkirche), castles (Residenzschloss) and exhibitions display the finest arts and jewellery collected by the kings.
Then we took the train to Meiningen and visited my grandma for 2 days and Nayan went flying in a small aircraft again.
Next stop on our tour through Germany was Ulm, where Felix my former flat mate was so kind to give us shelter. On the same day in the evening I had to present my master’s thesis at the university. We had arranged the Aula and about 50-60 people came: students, professors and people from the industry. Unfortunately we had some difficulties with the sound for the videos first, but it could be fixed. Overall it was a success, but I was so busy answering questions, that I could not even say hi to all my friends that attended. Some of us took the chance for a gettogether in Ulm’s nice bars and went out drinking beer and discussing how everyone made it through the past 6 months.
The last few days we enjoyed quietly, went for walks, did some shopping and danced Salsa. Before flying back to Dubai, we met my daddy in Augsburg. I had a great time and these three weeks passed by too quickly…
Posted in Germany, Personal | No Comments »
September 20th, 2009
I needed a translation of Nayan’s birth certificate from English into German, so I looked up the list of accredited translators from the German embassy. I contacted Sylvia Korb Translations, she promised me to translate it within two days during the Eid festivities and charges 150 Dhs per page. So I’ve send it to her by email and she suggested to meet her daughter at the shopping mall to handover the translation to me. When I met her, I checked through the papers that it has the letterhead, the stamp and both pages translated and paid her as agreed. When I came home and had a closer look, I could not believe what she has written, that I could have done much better myself! Honestly, on two pages birth certificate I found more than 10 serious mistakes, besides so much of wrong capitalization and formatting. Here some examples:
- verheirated instead verheiratet
- Pukt instead of Punkt
- Bezirks Ober Standesbeamten instead Bezirksoberstandesbeamten
- Gesetztes instead Gesetzes
- zurchzuführen instead durchzuführen
- Allegioly instead Illegibly
- …and she even got mistaken in the line writing his family name as the hospital name
I sent her an email telling her how disappointed I am with her service and that the translation is not worth the money I’ve paid her. All she did is replying “Thank you” and attached the word document to the email, though it says in the bottom that it is illegal to change this copy. She was even so unprofessional to not stamp the backside of the copies, where the pages are stapeled together, so there was anyway no proof that the attached pages were the original ones. I suspect that maybe her daughter translated it or this lady is really careless and very unlike Germans who are usually very particular about such things. Anyway, I complained to the embassy how she made it on their list, but I knew they will not remove her. So I am writing now about my bad experience here in my blog and hope to prevent others from making the same mistake. Though it is already so many weeks ago, I am still angry about the 60 EUR I’ve spent for that trash!
Posted in Dubai, Formalities | No Comments »
September 17th, 2009
I finished the last chapter about the conclusion and outlook a week before the final submission date. Though I knew there is still plenty of work left to polish it up, I already felt relieved and happy. As my supervisor now moved to Dubai as well, we met in a hotel nearby to discuss his comments. The chapter about the experiments and results needed major restructuring and clearer table formatting to compare the simulation runs. A few statements were left that need further references. Because we cannot celebrate on the day of submission, I took one day off to have a barbecue and Salsa party with my friends. The last night I read through the whole thesis at once to correct all the small grammar and formatting errors, but it took till 7 am in the morning. I postponed a meeting with my supervisor by 2 hours to get a bit of sleep before driving all the way to Abu Dhabi. We added the final touches to my thesis and discussed my contract extension. Then I submitted my thesis by email to my university in Germany. The secretary confirmed that they’ve received it and the printed version I can submit in a few days when I am back in Germany. I guess everyone who wrote a thesis can imagine how relieved and happy I was that day. It was so much hard work and I really felt burned-out sometimes, so that I am really looking forward to my holidays now. Though my supervisor here is not grading my thesis, he told me that I did an excellent job. As he is from MIT and demands the same standards at MIST, I felt proud about my achievements, the efforts were worth it.
Posted in Masters | No Comments »
September 4th, 2009
A meeting was scheduled to present our simulation model to the involved parties at Masdar (transportation managers and project engineers from Masdar, Siemens and other consultants). In the presentation we gave an overview about the scope and features of our simulation details, as well as details about the implementation, methodology and the simulation tool used. We presented some aggregated results, but as we cannot use the academic software version for commercial purposes, we did not go into detail here. We advised them to purchase the professional version and cooperate with our institute to further develop and extend the model.
 |
 |
Though the consultants were working on their own model, they did not present it on that day, because it is a model to simulate PRT systems in general, but is not as specific as ours regarding the PRT implementation at Masdar. Our strengths are the microsimulation of freight, the flexible berth design at stations and the battery mangement system. The consultancy says its model has the advantage of asynchronous control, but all stations have serial berths, which is a less efficient design. I was asked many questions and we had a very productive discussion. I would have loved to see the other model, but they might have their reasons not to show it. I am looking forward to a closer collaboration and also Siemens showed some interest and asked me to present my model, when their engineering team from Europe is coming toAbu Dhabi next time.
Posted in Masdar, Masters | No Comments »
September 2nd, 2009
With the simulation model verified and calibrated, experiments were designed to test the anticipated system performance and optimize its design. The most important performance parameters and their metrics were picked and seven scenarios chosen to represent a repertoire of testing options and to test a wide range of system parameters and their impact. We tested:
- Level of service for different PRT fleet sizes to determine the optimal number of PRT vehicles in the network.
- Vehicle allocation algorithms, which offer the overall best performance energy and service level wise.
- Different battery charging strategies, such as the recharging in depots only, charging facilities at station berths and additionally with supercapacitors aboard.
- Change in occupancy rates to measure service level improvements and energy conservation.
- The impact of 2000 additional passengers in case of a conference or trade fair at the Convention Center as well as increasing the freight demand locally if the hotel is outsourcing its laundry cleaning to a service provider outside of Masdar.
- General system capacity stress-testing by incrementally increasing overall passenger numbers of the basic demand model.
- The temporary closure of tracks due to emergency or maintenance and to observe the traffic flow when vehicles need to take alternative routes in such a limited network.
 |
 |
Running the experiments is time consuming, one run takes about 20 minutes and every scenario is repeated several times with different parameters. Furthermore I used a screenshot tool to record a video of the running simulation and various views of the stations and the network. With Adobe Premiere Pro I did the cutting, blending as well as adding of titles and background music (by 5tarbuck). The result is a two minutes video about the simulation model.
Posted in Masters | No Comments »
September 1st, 2009
The new students arrived at the Masdar Institute, they will form together with the current research assistants the first batch of the Masters Program. The Masdar Institute offers 5 courses:
The first week was the orientation week, where the faculty staff gave presentations about their research portfolio, the students got introduced to the library and IT systems and the research assistants organized some leisure activities. The busses picked up the students around 6 pm at the villas at every day they went to a different restaurant to break the fast (Iftar) and the Institute sponsored the buffet. I only went two nights with them, the first time we went to a Lebanese restaurant inside Abu Dhabi. I truly enjoyed to chat with the new students. They come from Egypt, Turkey, UK, Germany, Island, Mexico, USA, Pakistan, Jordania, Lebanon, India, Korea, Malaysia and Africa. There are quiet a few Emirati girls as well, which is very nice as their familes allowed them to study together with male students and to live in the girls compound away from home, which is a big achievement. Though they are still little shy, it is a great opportunity to get in touch with Emirati girls.
 |
 |
On Wednesday we all dressed up formally to go to the Shangri-La Hotel for a Masdar Institute Iftar dinner together with all staff, students and faculty. Masdar’s CEO Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber came as well and all students could introduce themselves and where they come from. He has an exceptional personality, he was very friendly and interested, it was a great honor to speak to him personally. Our provost Dr. John Perkins was there as well and I like to read his wife’s blog articles frequently.
The location and buffet were great and later about 15 of us went to a beautiful bar (pearls & caviar) with a terrace at the waterside and the illuminated Great Mosque in the background. We enjoyed the great view, the calm wind, our drinks and were chatting to get to know each other.
On Wednesday the 16th of September, when I have to submit my Master’s thesis, there will be the Masdar Family Iftar Dinner at the Emirates Palace, the most expensive hotel built in the world. All Masdar employees with their families as well as MIST students will be invited.
Posted in Abu Dhabi, Culture, Masdar | No Comments »
