plan 4.29

I had some free time today and watched the soccer game. MU was really good and Arsenal did not make it today. I still insist Arsenal will win in the semifinals. Go Arsenal! Goal! Goal!

Here are about some interesting posts in kdnuggets. List several here.
One is about the performance comparison between the mapreduce and the parallel database. The paper indicated that parallel databases has a better performance than mapreduce. I have not look into that paper, but I guess mapreduce may achieve a better reliability and fault tolerance, and this is the main reason Google deployed it. I will go on to look at this topic.

The other is about a interesting application about the cloud computing. This is about Google again. I have to say I am not a fan of Google, but some of its applications are really interesting and worth trying. Google presented a platform called Google App Engine, where developers can build their own apps on this. If you need more resources (hard disks, cpu cycles...), you can pay Google and get things you need. Current two languages, java and Python are supported. Interesting.

Will cloud computing be the next hotspot in the data mining communities? It might be true when we are talking about the pegabytes of data, where large amount of computing resources are needed. Privacy preservation is an issue in cloud computing. Any way, this trends is worth tracing in the future.

plan 4.28

I took two classes this morning from 8:30-12:00.

1. Today review the 725 homework and solutions.

2. The global trees code writing.

3. Finish the annotation for 788, and read papers about the research project.

Do not be afraid to try new things

I always have a tendency to become narrow-minded. A possible solution is to try new things frequently, talk with friends, appriciate the diversity and learn from differnt people.

plan 4.26

1. finish the 725

2. Finish the annotation in 788 and read papers for the project. ( VLDB paper)

3. The code for GT.

4. Have a nice day! i am glad to meet a new student of our group.

plan 25, I am back

Finally I have my own time and space. Thanks, nice weather.

Today and tomorrow will continue to be busy.

The task for today
1. Finish the English composition. (5)

2. Read the 725 notes, and do half of the homework. (4)

3. The annotation in 788. (3)

4. Read the papers and coding the GT. (2)

5. English 104.5. Read and Write. (5)

I wonder why I leave so much work undone. I will not go home unless I finish the tasks!

plan 4.22

Nice day again. I feel very good.

Today I have finished reading several papers on the outliers detection. The KDD'08 paper seems deviant from what I am working on. The SSD staff can be postponed due to the lack of clear research plans. I have gone over the basic Latex and I still need more practice on that. The Openoffice is not easy to use to me. In the future I will use the latex more frequently.

I noticed some changes on myself which really made me happy. I am more willing to exchange research ideas with others, which is partly due to Srini's 788. When I met someone, I would try to talk about what he is currently working on and see if there are anything interesting to me. I wish to share the amazing ideas of my friends' research, and let them know why my research is interesting and challenging. In the past, I seldom did this.

Another story I read today was about the famous general in the ancient China. He was too proud of himself and thought himself superior to others. Finally, he got killed... Their are a lot of such Chinese stories which tells us to be humble and respect others. I should learn more from them. Be a humble researcher.

A bad thing is recently I had less time to work on my English and the 725 course study. A balance should be guaranteed between research and class. A better and flexible schedule must be made to reach this goal.

The left work today includes the materials for tomorrow's 104.5, 108 and 788... I have not finished any homework for tomorrow!! Tomorrow will be another busy day, but I am satisfied with my life and hope I can be what I can be.

Enjoying today!

Sports! I really enjoy it!
So tired now. I need to sleep.

plan 4.20

1. Write for tomorrow's report and annotation for 788.

2. English assignments for 104 and 108.

3. Have a nice sleep and restore the energy. I still need some rest today, but I feel much better today!

plan 4.19

The task today:
1. The critical review of 108 and the presentation of 104.5.

2. Dinner out with Zach and express the thanks for them.

3. Coding for the binary tree. I have to do it tonight...

4. The research proposal is delayed and further discussion is needed.

What is solid work?

Solid work = Good problem description & Wide applicability of the problem + Beautiful solutions (not some ad hoc and trivial results) + through evaluation

plan 4.18

I come back to the department at 6:15.

1. Today I will mainly work with the research proposal, find a relevant topic to work on, and select several papers for critical review.

2. Tomorrow summarize this week's activities. Conducting influential research is one objective in my Ph.D. study.

3.

plan 4.17

1. Homework 725, start doing it.

2. Read papers about the KDD'06. (C Wang)

3. English Composition.

useful suggestions

I’ll give you some advice about life：
给你生活的忠告：

1. Eat more roughage;
多吃些粗粮；

2. Do more than others expect you to do and do it pains;
给别人比他们期望的更多，并用心去做；

3. Remember what life tells you;
熟记生活告诉你的一切；

4. Don’t take to heart every thing you hear.
Don’t spend all that you have.
Don’t sleep as long as you want;
不要轻信你听到的每件事，不要花光你的所有，不要想睡多久就睡多久.

5. Whenever you say"I love you", please say it honestly;
无论何时说“我爱你”，请真心实意；

6. Whenever you say"I';m sorry", please look into the other person’s eyes;
无论何时说“对不起”，请看对方的眼睛；

7. Fall in love at first sight;
相信一见钟情；

8. Don’t neglect dreams;
请不要忽视梦想；

9. Love deeply and ardently, even if there is pain, but this is the way to make your life complete;
深情热烈地爱，也许会受伤，但这是使人生完整的唯一方法；

10. Find a way to settle, not to dispute;
用一种明确的方法解决争议，不要冒犯；

11. Never judge people by their appearance;
永远不要以貌取人；

12. Speak slowly, but think quickly;
慢慢地说，但要迅速地想；

13. When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, smile and say, “Why do you want to know?”
当别人问你不想回答的问题时，笑着说：“你为什么想知道？”

14. Remember that the man who can shoulder the most risk will gain the deepest love and the supreme accomplishment;
记住：那些敢于承担最大风险的人才能得到最深的爱和最大的成就；

15. Call you mother on the phone. If you can’t, you may think of her in your heart;
给妈妈打电话，如果不行，至少在心里想着她；

16. When someone sneezes say, “God bless you”;
当别人打喷嚏时，说一声“上帝保佑”；

17. If you fail, don’t forget to learn your lesson;
如果你失败了，千万别忘了汲取教训；

18. Remember the three “ respects” .Respect yourself, respect others, stand on dignity and pay attention to your behavior;
记住三个“尊”： 尊重你自己； 尊重别人； 保持尊严， 对自己的行为负责；

19. Don’t let a little dispute break up a great friendship;
不要让小小的争端损毁了一场伟大的友谊；

20. Whenever you find your wrongdoing, be quick with reparation!
无论何时你发现自己做错了，竭尽所能去弥补；动作要快！

dealing with anxiety

Let me trade today for a better tomorrow.

Moving into the lab makes me almost crazy. In fact, I found that i was not ready for it. It seems I have so much work to do, so many papers to read, but I do not know where to start and this state is torturing me.

Another thing is the lost of control. I cannot get up early this quarter; I quit classes and find excuses for what I did. I waste so much time on trivial matters...

I need to rearrange my life from now on, and no delay.

Control! Control!

Get things done one by one. Now I will first finish the English composition. Improve your English, assign your time wisely, and become a better man.

Let me gain the control. Let me think and think positively. Let me be a different person.

Regaining control, Ye!

Seems strange to write blog at this strange time, but it is time to summarize.

Today, my biggest achievement is getting up so early.

I sensed a tendency to generally lose control on myself:
I am getting up very late almost every day, and this makes my life such a mass. Starting from today, I will get up as early as I can.

plan 4.16

1. Meeting tomorrow. Read two more papers about the flash translation layer. I still can not find anything interesting here.

2. 725 textbooks reading.

3. Start writing the project proposal from today.

4. About the composition class, homework from that class.

5. Any time left here? I may want to read some materials about the parallel computing. Absorb them quickly.

plan 4.15

1. Read the papers on tree mining and write annotations. (5)

2. Read papers about the SSD buffer management/ FTL. (4)

3. Prepare for the English presentation, boring... (3)

plan 4.14

1. Finish the 725 homework is the main task today. (3.5 hours)

2. Prepare for the English presentation.

4.13 plan

Such a messy day!
I need to submit some homework for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

1. For 788, I need to submit a two page proposal concerning what I will do this quarter, and an annotation about one visualization paper. (5)

2. For 725, the homework due the day after tomorrow. I need to hurry up! (4)

3. For 108, do it with the first together. (3)

4. GT stuff. Read books and write codes. (3.5)

plan 4.11

It is a little messy today. I jut got some unexpected work to do.

1. Work on the overview graph. (4)

2. Homework of 725, 108. (4)

3. Toy program about the GT. ( I want to implement the binary tree insertion/deletion and search function for the GT) First I need to understand the meaning of gt_cnp_copy method. So this work is suspended until I get the updates about the gt_cnp_copy. (2)

4. Read the proposal and get a overall feeling about the framework. (5)

plan 4.10

I will come to school tomorrow early. Tomorrow I will need to

1. write a toy program on the gt... Seems difficult

2. More attention should be paid on the 725. the enumerator, the multitape turing machine, and the homework.

3. homework for 108

a new idea about SSDs

I am very glad today. It seems SSD could be used in a different way... This thought will appear on my research post.

1. Read the books about 725. Start working on the homework.

2. Write the homework in 108 and finish the annotation in 788.

3. Try the disksim today!

4. Use the Tex today and write something about the SSD part in the proposal.

That's all for today.

plan 4.7

1. Play some badminton today with friends. (before 6:30)

2. Write the English summary. Refine the annotation. Read the information retrieval paper. ( 2 hours)

3. Prepare for tomorrow's 725 course. Read the textbook. (45min)

4. Read one paper about the buffer management in SSD. (1.5h)

5. Write a toy program for the GT. (It will last several days or even more, today 1h)

These are all I need to do today.
Tomorrow:
install the necessary softwares for the Unbuntu.

The summary of this week and what to do next week

In the first week, I did the following things:

Migrate the FPGrowth code to the Unix platform.

Further effort needed on the migration to the GT. Meet tomorrow to see what to do in the next step.

Comments about JUnit

JUnit is a unit testing tool in Java.

First, we write a test class that extends the TestCase class. Then, we need to overwrite a protected setUp() method to prepare all the needed data in advance. Finally, we compare the expected result and the actual result using the static assertTrue or assertEquals method in Assert class. It can even test the type of exceptions that should be thrown.

We can also use the testSuite to test a set of cases.

The reading of the classic papers and books is progressing nicely.

Comments about the regular exp in Python

The regular exp is powerful, but the backslash should be addressed carefully. Use the raw string whenever possible.
The sub method..

Comments about the course study

1. The 725 is interesting. The instructor pays more attention to the application aspect, giving a lot of intuition about the course. My expection is, I could know what P/NP/NP complete is, and know how to design the probablistic algorithms for the hard problems.
2. The 788 seems a deep hole; you will never know how much effort you should put into it to gain something. This should take me most of my time, I guess. The fact I take less course means I will be even more busy.
3. 108 should be important, and it could work together with 788. Improve the wrting skills and let yourself understand by others.

Comments about the research

A good start. Paper reading is the presiquete for success. Without input => without output.
For more, refer to the research blog.
What need to be done in the following weeks?

Install softwares in the computers in the lab.

Try the tex.

Read the papers about SSDs

plan 4.4

1. 725 exercise

2. English composition

3. Read papers about the SSDs and find applications for them.

4. To be added

The summary after reading the how-to-research-and-writng articles

Writing seems to be really important. At least from the point we have to finish a thesis to graduate!

In the process of research, we may have generated many ideas. Some of them are important while others are of little meaning. How to arrange them is a real challenge. The solution is to keep notes about every important idea and summarize them every week.

My writing skills need improvement. One thing is to learn how other people write. How to extract the seminal parts from others?

Writing is not just writing. It is a way to rearrange the thoughts, to leave something you can refer to in the future and to let others know what your contribution is. Make beautiful writings. Absorb the nutrition from others.

plan 4.3

1. Read the textbooks in 725.

2. Read the book "select topics in computer science"

3. Finish the writing task of 108.

4. Listen to and Speak English every day.

5. Read the articles about how to do research.

6. I want to answer this question: what is my strength and weakness in the system research area? What do I need to learn, to read? What resource can I make use of? Can I be an exceptional researcher?

plan 4.1

1. Read the textbooks about the introduction to the theory of computation, the turing machine part. The textbooks about how to write.

2. continue reading papers about the SSDs. Be Quick!