Abstract
Traditionally, engineering has been regarded as a profession which acquires and applies scientific knowledge and technical know-how to the designing and developing of machineries, materials, devices or structures to improve the daily lives of people. In particular, the principles of engineering have been applied extensively in many sectors of the industry and society. Global recognition of engineering contributions is evident with the establishment and growth of many prominent multinational corporations like the General Electric Company and the Siemens AG that focus on engineering-related businesses. It is believed that these multinational corporations are investing most of their resources on research and development efforts to further enhance their scientific and technical capabilities. Similarly, many developed countries such as Singapore are also setting aside a substantial portion of their gross domestic product in technological research and development (The Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council 2010). While the advancement of technology has brought about many improvements and conveniences to the lives of people, it can also inflate the damages to human lives when mishaps involving technology occur. This may have to do with the general view that all necessary precautions are taken before any work is carried as illustrated in Fig. 1.1.
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Foo, J.Y.A. (2013). Ethical Practices and Engineering. In: Ethics for Biomedical Engineers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6913-1_1
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