a journal of a researcher

My Christmas Reading List

2012-01-10T19:19:00.000-08:00

I normally spend Christmas and New Year vacation to travel around the world. But this year, I spent my time lying in my sick bed and reading some books which I do not have time to read in my usual days. I enjoyed the solitude days and deep thinking (or sleepy think?).Steve Jobs (by Walter Isaacson): a good book to know all the characters of Jobs. Especially impressed by the persistence of

An IT era without hardware and software

2011-07-25T09:49:00.001-07:00

Do you see the cloud is coming? Soon, you will not buy hardware and software. Well, you still need a basic computer to type and connect the Internet. But your company will have no more a data center with all the wired servers. They are over the cloud. And the software to run your company, like the ERP system, the email system, the database, and the computation software, are all running on the

What Google Nexus is not good

2011-07-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

I am using Google Nexus phone for about one month. I should say it is not a phone with high quality. It more like a prototype with good ideas. But the phone is not very solid as iPhone or Blackberry. I just compare it with iPhone3.1. The battery life is shorter than iPhone.2. The GPS is way too slow. You cannot use it effectively, because it could not locate your location fast and precise enough.

RIM and Playbook

2011-06-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

We received two more Blackberry Torch and six more Playbook from RIM this week. Our NSERC Engage project goes well. I consider the extra hardware is a support from RIM. iPhone changed the smartphone market. RIM still did OK, if compared to companies like Motorola. Its Blackberry Torch is compared with iPhone 4. And its OS is considered less error compared to Android. However, Blackberry is not on

Playbook, iphone, and google android phone

2011-06-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

I am busy in the summer to work for the nserc engage project. We are using RIM’s playbook for a hospital application. At the same time, I am a three years user of iPhone 3 and a new user to Google’s Nexus S.Playbook: the Hospital has an iphone solution already. But for some reasons, they want the playbook solution. Why? Do not think that once you use iPhone, you cannot live without it. Playbook

The Matrix

2011-03-10T20:02:00.000-08:00

The Matrix is a 1999 movie and the two sequels appeared in 2003. I came back to the three movies after I saw some of new movies of Keanu Reeves. I like Keanu plays super heroes than he plays romantic dramas. Especially, he presented a perfect Neo in the Matrix. The three Matrix are complex enough. This time, I even downloaded the scripts to really understand the story. No need to say the Matrix

programming model in industry

2011-02-14T20:59:00.000-08:00

I touched a little bit android programming. Actually it is not really android, it is just java. I really like this strategy. I think google is really a better strategic player. Android soon gained 24% market share, surpassing many long time players. And the ecosystem around android could be even healthier. Think how many developers could work on android directly.Recently I contacted several

Season of going home

2010-08-23T05:22:00.000-07:00

Year after year, I just returned to China a week or two in the summer. In my eyes, it is like a Chinese saying: “although the garden is still there, it is no more my home.”Needless to say that China is getting better and better. Now, it is the No. 2 economics in the world, surpassing Japan in this year. Things are all produced in China, cheap and abundant. The cities are built modern and big.

Service Cup 2010 Results

2010-07-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

I just went back from ICWS2010. I chaired this year’s service cup. And the results are posted on the Web site. It is always an exciting event. In the SOA and Clouds domain, the students are the major force to bring the new application and new ways to do things into the domain. This year we are on clouds – applications and algorithms on clouds.My plan to the next year is: 1) two tracks: clouds and

Google I/O 2010

2010-05-26T02:50:00.001-07:00

Google I/O 2010 finished on May 20. Very interesting to see what google is doing.1. Android: the message pushing is innovative. You can push content from Web browser to the Android device. Other things you can imagine from google search and from iPhone.2. HTML5: I am just teaching XHTML. It seems xml is not so integrated into HTML. People are using HTML5 for video and animation content. However,

Some truths a student may not know

2010-05-19T08:08:00.000-07:00

Students come and go in a university. However, many students do not know how the university works beyond their classroom and courses. The undergraduate students do not know that my teaching counts only 40% of my work load. They probably surprised that I have projects worth a million dollars to run. And I have another group of graduate students to supervise.The graduate students may not know that

My Linux box finally set up

2010-04-18T14:34:00.000-07:00

It was prepared by Eric Zhao almost one year ago. Now, I just injected some content into it. Here is my sand box at home. I plan to put demos on it.

Eric Zhao defenced his thesis

2010-04-18T14:33:00.000-07:00

Eric Zhao succeeded his thesis defence this week. His thesis titled “Repairing Web Service Compositions Based on Planning Graph” is evaluated “very good” by the committee, the highest grade which represents within top 10%. To have a successful defence, a student really needs to know his/her staff – with a well prepared presentation and answer the questions with good knowledge (if not all the

What should we teach new software Developers?

2010-01-31T08:38:00.000-08:00

Bjarne Stroustrup, the inventor of C++, wrote an article in ACM Communication to discuss what should we teach new software developers. He discussed the separation of computer science teaching to the practice of industry. It is what I also observed. The students do not know how to use what they learn about algorithms and data structures when they hack the code. In addition, the students never

I am in Paris

2009-12-23T16:56:00.001-08:00

Launch Service Cup 2010

2009-12-16T08:28:00.000-08:00

It is my third year to chair Service Cup. In 2010, the theme is “Applications and Algorithms on Clouds”. We want to see business applications as well as algorithms run on commercial or private clouds. As clouds software and hardware are available now in many ways, it is possible for universities and companies to launch clouds project. I should say, it is also a learning process for me to this new

Reborn of Computer Labs

2009-12-09T08:45:00.000-08:00

A chronicle article proves my idea – the computer labs used for teaching need to reconfigure themselves in order to be better used. Most students, over 85% as the article says, have their own laptops. The pattern of the usage of the lab is changing. Students can work on their own laptop at a more comfortable places like in their own bedroom or even in their own bed. The lab becomes a gathering

THE University Ranking and University Qualities

2009-10-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

Times posted its 6rh edition the THE – QS World University Ranking recently and received wide responses. By the way, I got my Ph.D. from the No. 49 and am also an alumina from the No. 29. But this does mean too much. What I am interested is the criteria: Academic Peer Review (40%), Employer Review (10%), Faculty Student Ratio (20%), Citations per faculty (20%), International Faculty (5%) and

The Iceland Strategy on Data Center

2009-10-13T21:32:00.000-07:00

Probably no country was hit by the economic crisis than the Iceland. Pulled back from banking industry, Iceland turns back to its rich nature resources again. The following is based on a yesterday BBC report.This time, it is about data center. It is said that the data centers produce CO2 as much as the aviation flights. Iceland’s cheap and renewable energy, cool climate and water make it an ideal

A Concordia Alunima

2009-10-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

Today I found that the CIO of the federal government is a woman and a bachelor of science from Concordia University. See a recent report about her , and her appointment.

The European School vs. the North American School of Research

2009-10-03T10:25:00.000-07:00

I like the European school of research. Here people are trained well. The atmosphere of research is strong. The struggling and surviving atmosphere is less. I feel that research can be a part of your life, a part of your life style. We do not link research to the pure interests gain in our lives. In North America, research is a tough career. The successful rate is so low that only the most

On my jogging route today

2009-09-15T13:55:00.001-07:00

Sitting in the garden of Daniel Lemire, we were talking about research and computer science. Below is from our conservation. I should say I am thinking about this topic for a whole, as I am one of the new recruitments in SE. Computer Science is dying. The CS departments now only recruit in software engineering.

“Problem with Audio Playback” for Skype in Linux

2008-06-22T23:58:00.000-07:00

It is because Skype does not support ALSA Audio yet. You need to simulate it in oss. Login as root. List all the packages using “lsmod”. Make sure snd_pcm_oss and snd_mixer_oss are installed. And then run the following command: modeprobe snd_pcm_ossmodeprobe snd_mixer_oss You can find similar suggestions on Skype help page. I forgot to record its link. I am new to Linux. I do not know why this

2008-06-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

SOA Case Study Competition The SOA Consortium and CIO magazine are sponsoring a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Case Study Competition. The competition is open to organizations of all sizes, including government agencies, which have successfully delivered business or mission value using a SOA approach. The goal of the SOA Case Study Competition is to highlight business success stories and

My New Web Site at Concordia

2008-06-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

Today is my first day at Concordia. I uploaded my new Web site to the faculty site. It may not be linked to the faculty list yet. I am hurry to do this is because nowadays the Web site is the way to communicate to the world. You need to let people know what you are doing and what you want. What I want now is students. I have two funded projects and a start-up fund. I need two Post-doc and master’

Take a break

2008-05-22T06:40:00.000-07:00

I will start my position in Concordia on June 2. I will be in vacation from May 22 to May 30. I may not check my email during my vacation time due to technical difficulties. For people who query about the post-doc positions, the decision will be made in June. My address in Concordia University is:Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, Montreal,

Boundaries

2008-05-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

I am packing my staffs to move to Montreal. This is another move after I crossed many countries. I have spent a complete 10 years out of China -- Germany, Canada, US, France and then Canada again – for studying and working. This time is a rare case that I move out of a job by myself. It is my original dream of pursuing freedom and truth that drives me to move from one country to another

China’s 2008

2008-05-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

It is an Olympic year in Beijing. China has prepared more than four years for this. The conflicts along with the Olympic flam relay reflect some non-harmonious sound around emerging China. Shortly before the Olympic Game, another test just came for China to prove what kind of a country it wants to be – the earth quake. It was Monday afternoon around 14:30PM. An earth quake attacked Sichuan

Leaving NRC

2008-05-07T20:49:00.001-07:00

After I announced my leaving NRC, I have received many congratulation emails. I am happy that I am received emails from some of the researchers that are highly respected among us as the best researchers. I am happy that my leaving attracted their attentions. It seems they recognized my status in the research community. For a research organization, no matter an institute or a university, the most

Montreal!

2008-04-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

I am moving to a faculty position in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering in Concordia University in June 2008, after five years as a Researcher Officer in the Institute for Information Technology (IIT) in the National Research Council's (NRC), I am still an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science in University of New Brunswick. Now, I am looking for

A Note for SCContest2008

2008-04-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

I am chairing the IEEE Service Computing Contest 2008. The finalists were announced on April 16. I would like to write down how this contest is organized. This post can be interesting to the contest participants and the reviewers. Organization This is the third episode of this contest. As service computing and Web services courses are taught in more and more universities, the submissions

Managed research

2008-04-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

Can research be managed? Can your papers be ordered before you work on it? Can you produce the exact results your boss asks you to do? Can you convince your boss what you want to do? When your research is asked to mix with issues other than your own scientific interests, for example the priorities from federal or provincial government, your research is managed. You need to consider the

Computing cloud

2008-03-06T16:41:00.000-08:00

Moving computing and data away from the desktop and the portable PC and simpy displaying the results of computing that takes place in a centralized location and is then transmitted via the internet on the user’s screen. It is also called software-as-service in service computing community. Google and Amazon have their computing cloud strategies, Microsoft is joining them (http://www.news.com/

Green IT

2008-03-06T16:13:00.000-08:00

You think you save papers by using computer to process and store your data. You can even do more by blacking your screens and choosing proper color for your Web site. Here are more hints about green apps, hosts, etc.

Amazon Web Services Start-Up Challenge is over

2007-12-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

Obviously we are not on the final list.While, this competition is more for using their EC2 and S3 Web services, not for novel ideas about Web services. They are looking for applications using a lot of disk space and network traffic. No doubt that they have two video applications (Ooyala and Justin.tv) and image applications (Brainscape and WeoGeo). Justin.tv is pretty cool that you can broadcast

The Submission of the CRTI Proposal

2007-12-16T12:56:00.000-08:00

I have worked for three weeks to prepare the CRTI Proposal on emergency response. A lot of dramas when dealing with the administration issues. I have learned my lessons. In general, I need to be more patient, more positive, more professional when dealing with people. Very different from research work. At the end, I was still able to move this project forward with some flaws. After all these past,

Me in EventSeer

2007-12-16T12:53:00.000-08:00

Daniel sent me this link about me: http://eventseer.net/person/39120/. I am associated with 3 events and shares similar interests with Han Liang, Jia Zhang and Liang-Jie Zhang. Yuhong's main research interests are web services, web service and decision trees. Very interesting. 2007 Nov 2008 IEEE international services computing contest (SCCONTEST 2008) 2007 Feb

Globus Tools Updates

2007-11-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

Some facts about Globus toolkits. You can see I am working on some real world projects now.The role of the Globus Toolkit, as in its own document, is to produce general solutions to problems (design patterns) that could be reused from application to application. The components in the toolkit are standard building blocks and tools for application developers and system integrators. The Globus

A Mini Report on Amazon EC2 and S3 Web Services

2007-11-06T05:21:00.001-08:00

What: You can run a virtual image of your OS in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) You can storage any amount of data using Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)Operation: EC2 and S3 have Web service interface (SOAP and REST) and they are called Web services by Amazon. Be careful, EC2 assigns dynamic IP. You can also use command line to operate EC2, but not for S3 (seems). S3 is

2008 IEEE Services Computing Contest is announced today

2007-11-05T05:49:00.000-08:00

I am chairing 2008 IEEE Services Computing Contest. After several months of consulting and preparation, the Contest is officially launched. The objective of Services Computing Contest is to promote research and teaching services computing techniques in universities and colleges worldwide. This contest brings together talented students to solve challenges in using Service Computing techniques

A seminar

2007-10-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

Today I went to attend CS seminar. Evaluating the quality of blogs is an interesting topic.

DUT course

2007-10-24T18:52:00.000-07:00

I am taking the Diploma of University Teaching (DUT) in UNB. DUT opens my eyes about learning and teaching. I have found from my observation that Western style of teaching is very different from Eastern style of teaching. Eastern teaching style emphases on transferring knowledge from the professors to the students and presumes that learning is a hard processing that requires the full devotion of

Web service enabled online experiment

2007-09-30T12:29:00.001-07:00

We finished a demo system for Web service enabled online experiment. This system uses Web services for interoperability between instruments and uses Web 2.0 for dynamic Web interface.

Me on Web sites

2007-09-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

I am one of the 41 Tsinghua Alumni who work in research universities and institutes in Canada. I got my Ph.D. in 1999 from Tsinghua. This is the 1999 graduated Ph.D. list. I visited my high school in Xi’an this summer and spoke at the school opening ceremony.

Amazon Web Services

2007-09-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

Amazon has launched its first batch of paid Web services. The first type of Web services is the information providing services which provides query results about the products Amazon sells. The second type of Web services is for network computing. The notion behind it is to put applications and data online. Then you need just to send your computational tasks to the site. Amazon also put the

China Fever

2007-09-26T13:11:00.000-07:00

I have been back from China for 10 days after not seeing it for 5 years. I keep on dreaming of old friends, teachers and late family members for these days. My heart is still un-rested. Chinese are rich When you see so many Chinese goods full of the stores, you should know where money is flowing. But still, when I see my classmates and friends’ living, I was impressed by how rich they are.

Modeling for Ubiquitous Computing

2007-04-27T05:51:00.000-07:00

Robin Milner is the inventor of Pi-Calculus, his recent seminar was about modeling for ubiquitous computing. He presented the idea to combine all kinds of models to solve all kinds of problems in this application: mostly connections, mobility and communication. I found people at his level really mastered the technical skills. Now what he talks is about the grant challenges and only at this stage,

What I am working on

2007-03-28T16:46:00.001-07:00

I found I did not record my work for a while. I am working on my first AIJ paper. Maybe I am coming slowly, but I am really good now.

I got my NSERC

2007-03-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

I was informed today that I got NSERC this year up to the coming 5 years. It is always like this that if you deserve this, it is not very excited, at least, not as shock as if you lose the competition. I found the result comes a little bit late for me, compared to my peers. They got it faster than me, and they got adjunct title faster than me too. Faster means with the same publication records,

Concurrency

2007-02-19T11:48:00.002-08:00

Classic automaton, which is the theoretical foundation of CS, does not have semantics for concurrency. Other formal models, such as Petri net and Process Algebra, do. Concurrency brings state explosion problem is we want to enumerate all the reachable states of a system. The number of the states may be exponential to the size of the nodes. I am thinking how many formal models I know that can

Machine aided computation for system validation and verification

2007-02-19T11:48:00.001-08:00

Validation: by simulation and testing (only partially explore the possible states) Verification: by theorem proof, formula rewriting, prove checker, model checking. The common feature is that these techniques consider all the behavior of a system. Model checking is a little bit similar to validation as it explores all the possible trajectories of a system, but with symbolic algorithms.

Celebrate Chinese New Year

2007-02-17T12:53:00.000-08:00

Today is New Year’s eve for Chinese New Year (a pig year). I phoned my mother in China. After leaving China for almost 10 years, this is the first time I felt lonely. For all the past, I was so attracted by my new life and my freedom. I was curious on many things. Now I feel the older generation is getting old and more responsibilities are on my shoulder. But I am still very far away and cannot

Mesh Google Map

2006-12-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

I found google map API. I am curious to try it. So I added my photo albums to it. Now you can see some of my trips at http://www.flydragontech.com/blackzone/ (try Brazil). Are there any research interests? I do not know.

Abstract State Machine and Web Services

2006-12-16T14:02:00.000-08:00

Farahbod, Glasser, Vajihollahi (Simon Fraser University) and Fahland (Humboldt University in Berlin) have used ASM to represent BPEL for Web Services. One process is represented by the distributed behaviors among several agents. ASM is used for modeling the distributed behaviors. The representation is too complex to use.

Abstract State Machine

2006-12-16T14:01:00.000-08:00

I spent several days to study Abstract State Machine (ASM) in depth. ASM is used to model BPEL as I mentioned in my survey paper on modeling Web service processes (not available online) and it is used for choreography with WSMO .A state in an ASM is not just a label as in Finite State Machine (FSM), but contains arbitrary data structures. The rules are associated with transition rules (guards).

Amazon Jungle

2006-11-29T10:30:00.000-08:00

I booked a 5 days/4 nights package from Amazonat Jungle Lodge. This lodge is at 130 KM east to Manaus. Manaus now has three million residents which is the biggest city in Amazon area. I do not see the purpose to have a giant city in the middle of the tropical jungle. To be able to assemble cars or cellular phones at Manaus is not a big advance for human beings. To be able to agriculture at

I am in Brazil

2006-11-29T10:27:00.000-08:00

I was invited to give a talk about Web services for online experiments in Brazilian Workshop on Information Technology in the Development of Advanced Internet (TIDIA). Sao Paulo Research Foundation supports the research program of the same name since 2001 to support the scientific and technological research in cooperative projects, through an experimental high speed net. The program involves more

Perelman symptom

2006-08-31T13:54:00.000-07:00

The story of Perelman is so dramatic that even non-researchers can enjoy. Researchers can find their favorite part for it, then say that Perelman is so and so. For example, I like to see his complain about the ethical problems (cf. the poster below), Stephen Downes says you do not need to go through peer-reviewed publishing process, and Daniel Lemire says journals are really old shits. Well

Fields 2006

2006-08-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

For a while, people were discussing that the International Congress of Mathematicians will give the Field medals to the contributors of proving Poincare conjecture (c.f. my blog on August 1. On August 16, in Spain, the congress announced that the Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman who is believed to prove Poincare conjecture was awarded a Fields medal. Though the congress is careful not to

Mathematician May Have Solved 100-Year-Old Problem

2006-08-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

NPR (National Public Radio) ProgrammScott Simon:The international congress of mathematicians on August will announce that a famous high complicated math problem has been solved. It’s called Poincare conjecture, but there is much to debate about how and whether it was ever solved. Keith Devlin, a math guy from Stanford university. Thank you for being with us. Keith Devlin:The biggest unsolved

Service Science in ACM Comms

2006-07-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

The July issue of ACM Communications has a series of articles about service science. For computer science people, “service” is associated with Web Services (WS) and Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA). However, the driven force of WS and SOA come from the remarkable growth of the service sector.Service, service-based economyService is a kind of economic activity. Service is different than

Quaero

2006-05-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

Quaero is one of the six innovation projects announced by French government. The other five are environment protection for chemistry industry, mobile TV, automatic subway, energy saving resident building and hybrid automobile.Quaero is a Web search engine to be released at the end of this year. Here is information from Wikipedia.Quaero (I seek in Latin) is the name given to the project of a

Scientific excellence and impact

2006-03-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

I was asked to have impact from my research. The managers evaluate our research work with impact. I do not know how to define the impact. For them, it is collaboration with companies, technique transfer to companies, create employment and patents. But what I want is scientific excellence, which is evaluated by significant publications, recognition in the research community and international

The usage of DBLP

2006-03-30T13:14:00.000-08:00

I saw people use DBLP to verify my publication. People have to pay attention that it does not index all the journals in its list and it isn’t very selective for conferences. You can send your conferences for being indexed. I do not know if they really select conferences. One thing is good is that they pay attention to make the record right. I sent a notice to them to point out that they merged

Our paper accepted by 2006 Canadian AI Conference

2006-03-05T12:48:00.000-08:00

Our paper “Learning Naïve Bayes Tree for Conditional Probability Estimation” by Han Liang and me is accepted by 2006 Canadian AI Conference. The accept rate is 22% with 220 submissions and 48 accepted papers. This is my first paper on Bayesian learning. Knowing a lot about symbolic modeling and reasoning, I am very interested by statistic models. Later, I want to integrate the two domains. Han is

Promote My Workshop

2006-02-28T12:25:00.000-08:00

I am organizing a Workshop on Service Oriented Techniques at ICEC06 with Dr. Liangjie Zhang from IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. Below is CFP:Call for Papers Service oriented techniques are used for building software applications that use services available in a network such as the Web. The driving forces come from both the software engineering community and the e-business

How to get more citations?

2006-02-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

Daniel coments that citation is more important than the number of paper. I am thinking how to get more citations: 1. you need to chase the trends, because people pay more attention to the trendy topics.2. you need to be accepted by the major circles, ie. appear at the major places so that related people could see your papers.3. Well written so that people can understand and repeat. 4. Simple. A

Who has over 100 papers in DBLP

2006-02-10T07:12:00.000-08:00

I need to organize a workshop. Through searching my PC member, I found many researchers have numerous papers indexed by DBLP. Here is some of them: Serge Abiteboul (INRIA-Paris, France) (182)http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/a/Abiteboul:Serge.htmlLing Liu, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA (150) http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/l/Liu:

Web 2.0

2006-02-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

Web 2.0 is a bunch of emerging Web techniques that are believed at the evolution path of Web. See the O’Reilly article on Web 2.0. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.htmlThe comparison of Web 1.0 (left) and Web 2.0 (right):DoubleClick --> Google AdSense Ofoto --> FlickrAkamai --> BitTorrentmp3.com --> NapsterBritannica Online -->

My AI

2006-02-07T08:27:00.000-08:00

Modeling intelligenceWhat we did with monotonicity analysis, for me, is knowledge abstraction. Different from learning, which is hard to link to existing knowledge, model abstraction has to link to domain knowledge and more important, it has to show its correctness in problem solving. Different from learning, it is to build model from numerical data. Different from parameter recognition, it has

25 years AAAI

2006-02-07T08:25:00.000-08:00

In the spring of 1980, AAAI was formed by Raj Reddy. Ever since, AI becomes a formal scientific community, despite the arguments on the name of AI. The ultimate goal of AI is to build habile system that can replace human being’s intelligence. At beginning era of AI, it is related to physics, physiology and psychology. Now, people are more coming from computer science. Many people’s goal is not to

Researchers vs. Ballet Dancers

2006-01-13T12:02:00.000-08:00

I watched a documentation program for the solo dancer, Vladimire Malakhov, in the Berlin City Ballet Company. He is said to be the second male ballet dancer in the world, if not the number one. He said for a dancer, you need two days to come back to your state if you stop dancing one day. That is why a dancer would never stop dancing.I feel the same. I can’t come back to my state of research

My Cuba Trip

2006-01-08T18:43:00.000-08:00

It is my idea to visit Cuba for the Christmas vacation. I want to see a socialism society again. Maybe it can remind me the past time in China. It is my fourth Caribbean vacation, after Guadeloupe, Martinique (both are French Islands), Dominica, and Dominican Republic.China and CubaWe departed from Paris on Dec. 19. I saw a group of Chinese people. Obviously they were from China and transferred

Use Latex in PowerPoint

2006-01-07T07:35:00.000-08:00

PowerPoint is good to generate animation. And Latex is good for presenting formulas. Currently there are two add-ins for PowerPoint to enable embedding Latex in Powerpoint: Tex4PPT (, for PowerPoint 2002) and TexPointM , for PowerPoint 2000). I used the first one. It is very easy to install and use. Just install the add-in. Latex is input within text box. Right click the text box and a menu

Spam in blog

2005-10-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

Recently my blog has many spam comments. I assume these comments are added by software agent. Now I set my comment edit level to registered user only.

Academic Authorship

2005-10-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

Some people want to be sharks, not only scholars. They think their names should be on the author list, if their students work on a project, though themselves do not; or if their resources are used in research, though themselves have no contribution. They care so much what they can get from what they own, the students, the lab, the fame, the power, more than the excellence of research. By playing

Exit Microsoft

2005-10-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

Once the dream workplace of tech’s highest achievers, Microsoft suffers key defections to Google and elsewhere. The recent BusinessWeek has two articles about Microsoft’s losing key talents. One case brought to court is the one about Kai-Fu Lee who left Microsoft to Google. I met Kai-Fu Lee in a recruitment meeting for Microsoft’s research lab in Beijing in 1999. It was one of my choices after my

What is research

2005-09-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

All the summer, I was reading Bertrand Russell’s two books “the principles of mathematics” and “the history of Western Philosophy”. He is a man who really devoted himself to explore the new frontier of several domains. Recent days, I am thinking where my research goes. The driving force of my research is to know what I do not know, especially to solve my confusion about life. That is why my

My student teaches me

2005-09-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

I’ve heard many times from professors to thank their students in various occasions. Many consider their work can’t be done without students. When I was a student, I thought the professors are just too humble. Well, my students teach me now. Here is what I received about my role in supervising students:“it is not your job to be the babysitter of immature students. Especially master students should

Students

2005-08-25T05:54:00.000-07:00

Now I am more relaxed with my students. I was very serious to my role as a thesis supervisor. I was keen to see the students perform well. I was disappointed when I was the students do not behave as my expectation. But now I do not think in the same way.I had some discussions with the students in IJCAI who are supposed to be the best and the potential faculties in AI. I found that all the