Preface<br />The last eight months (May to December of 2011) have been very hectic for the UIC Research and Development Center since there were three research forums that we organized to facilitate the dissemination of 18 studies that appear in this issue (Volume 17 Number 2 October 2011) of our faculty research journal. The bulk of work that Ms. Emma V. Sagarino and I had to finish is hard to describe but we are thankful that despite of such challenge, we still finally get hold of this issue. Of course, the Research Committee and the Panel of Reviewers as well as all the writers are very significant to this effort. Without them, the release of this issue would have not been made possible. A million thanks to all of you!<br /><br />This particular issue is divided into six sections, namely Health, Engineering & Engineering Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Social Sciences, Science & Math Education, and Information Technology<br />Education.<br /><br />Three studies on Health led by Marlon B. Sepe, S. Ma. Remegia M. Cirujales and Emma V. Sagarino report about an innovative technology that can ensure a safe drinking water and alleviate poverty to the people in rural communities, the working conditions of Filipino nurses abroad, and the status of women’s health in selected banana plantations, respectively.<br /><br />The UIC Engineering Faculty has managed to complete three studies delving into the safety practices in engineering field and current instructional strategies directly affecting the engineering curricula. The researchers for Engineering and Engineering Education are Bryant S. Arante, Renan P. Limjuco collaborating with Fr. Francisco G. Glover and Isagani M. Mendez, and Neil C. Capricho with Michael M. Obenque and Fe Monique F. Musni. <br /><br />In the section Curriculum and Instruction, two studies concerning the intensification of instruction, curriculum, and research in UIC were authored by Alvin O. Cayogyog who worked with Reynaldo O. Cuizon, and Emma V. Sagarino with Deogracia B. Corpuz. The first study tackled constructs such as Capability, Culture, and Passion for research and their relationships to each other, while the second investigation analyzed the 5-year performance of the UIC BS in Accountancy graduates in CPA board examinations.<br /><br />Meanwhile, three research articles appear in Social Sciences section. One of them was done by Mona L. Laya and Jason N. Marquez, who described in their work the brand of leadership that is epitomized by Rodrigo<br />R. Duterte. Then, Bienvinido E. Infante and Maribeth Q. Galindo, leading the Social Science Faculty, documented the multi-faceted experiences of foreign students in UIC, and the team of Alvin O. Cayogyog and Ariel E. San Jose investigated the lived philosophies of LGU Officials in reference to their human core faculties.<br /><br />The section for Science and Math Education accommodates the scholarly works of Adorico M. Aya-ay, Orcheliza L. Paramo, and Renan P. Limjuco who shared the findings of their own investigations about the distribution and relative abundance of medium-sized arboreal mammals at Mt. Mahuson, Mount Apo, development and validation of teacher’s laboratory competence evaluation instrument, and creative learning enrichment for mathematics appreciation, respectively, to elevate the quality of science and mathematics education in the university.<br /><br />Three ICT researchers were highlighted in the section Information Technology Education. Shenna Rhea A. Maranguit, et. al., conducted a study entitled Developing a Server-Side Scripting Language Converter for Translating ColdFusion to PHP, while Eric John G. Emberda, et. al., completed their work Developing a Web Proxy Server Application to Minimize Cross-Site Scripting Attacks. Exander T. Barrios, et.al., contributed two different studies. They are entitled A Consolidated Web Browser Interface Using Multiple Browser Libraries for Testing Web Designs and Implementing Symmetric Cryptography on SMS Messaging for Generic Phone Using J2ME Platform. These four studies deal with software development which aims to offer new features to the existing applications available in the Internet. The designs were conceptualized involving several stages and upon consultation with software developers in the region as well as with the intended users of the proposed technologies.<br /><br />
Resource efficiency in social sciences education/ engineering education