SCOR is compulsory!

We have been summoned by our dean to register for Student Conference in OR (SCOR) and guess what, we have to submit our abstracts too, meaning we have to present during the conference. I thought I could escape as I have presented at conference before :-)

The deadline for the submission is on Feb 13, 2009 and they want it in Latex. I have never used Latex before and at this point of time I'm installing one. It's a good opportunity to practise using Latex; luckily the abstract is only 250 words. Otherwise, it's going to take ages!

Enjoying the snow?

The peak of snowing so far, is today, forcing the kids' school to close. The kids were so excited this morning playing with snow, built lots of snowman, took pictures, snowball fights...Well, here I'm, in the office, struggling to submit an abstract to a conference. It is almost ready and hopefully it will get accepted.

Following revisions after revisions, my supervisor thought that I should start writing my LR. I'm now holding tightly the book on How to write a thesis by Rowena Murray. Chapter 8 reads, it is never too late to start. So here I am, on step 1 of the chapter - take stock. I actually have written a few pages of the thesis but they are all jumpy. As a start, I'm going to list whatever I already have and proceed from there. My supervisor is a perfectionist; I'm sure once I start submitting the draft, there will be series of corrections as he reads everything as fresh; even if we have corrected the sentence earlier, he will change it to perfection. Is it good? Yes it sure is, but it's a hell of a tedious job!

So now, I would have to carefully plan and divide my time to handle programming, write papers, and start writing my LR. No more course for me except NATCOR...

Invigilating Exam

This week and next week are exam weeks for the undergraduates; I'm taking the opportunity to invigilate exams as I certainly need the money to pay for the increased utility bills during winter. I don't know whether I'd receive the allowance in GBP for the next three months. I hope I would. If not, I might pack my bags and leave when the kids are done with their school this summer. With the kids' treatment being put off because of the recession (I guess), there is no reason to stay. Besides, Aina is in Malaysia preparing for her SPM.

As at now, I'm quite busy to meet the deadlines of the conferences; there are papers to write, as well as experiments to perform. Well, I guess I need to take it one at a time yea...

Celebrating 2009 in Eskisehir

Since the guest house was closed during new year, I stayed with Mujgan & her parents for two days. Initially, we were not planning to go out as it was really cold but when the clock turned midnight which was the beginning of 2009, we decided to go out to look around. The intention was to just drive around and stay in the car, but we managed to go out and snap some pictures. Here are some of the photos during night time in Eskisehir. Pictures below were taken during the day. We went out by tram to the city center and managed to get some souvenirs from Eskisehir. It was really cold; this morning the temperature went down to minus 10 C! I've never experience this cold condition before; the nose became red, the fingers almost numb. I managed to get a pair of leather socks (khuf) which is really comfortable.
At the point of writing, it's snowing outside. It was blacked out a while ago; luckily the notebook is on! The road lights also went off for a while. Just to keep safe, I'd let the notebook on tonight in case it blacks out again...

Have been here for one week already...

I have been here for one week already and the outcome? Well, one paper is out and sent to my supervisor for comment, presentation at seminar is also done, and it's time to concentrate on the model for MISTA.



We would still try to solve it using mathematical software although there is no possibility that we can get the result. I'm now looking into Hamiez and Hao paper which is very much relevant to what I'm doing at this moment. I need to understand further of how the problem is formulated and then start to program it using JAVA. Hopefully we could at least produce an extended abstract from it with full paper on the way...


Well, few more days to go. I'm hoping that the weather will be fine on Sunday so that the flights won't get delayed. I miss my family...

The sun is shining...

The sun is out and will surely melt the snow but with the current temperature of -6 C, it surely will take some time. It's a nice scenery still, but everywhere people are shovelling the snow and this is the dreading time as it's wet and murky.

The one good thing that I can educate people about my coming here is that Turkey really has snow. Most of them thought that Turkey is a mediterranean country and the weather should be mild and around teen degree celcius. But it's not. Over here in Eskisehir, the forecast minimum temperature is -13C! The lowest that I have been into was -8 C in McMinnville, Oregon.

When it's snowing, it certainly portrays a nice feeling but the side effect of it, is not that pleasing. Mujgan's car broke down yesterday while travelling to the meeting place and today, Tuba is supposed to pick me up for the office. The road condition is slippery during this time and drivers would really need to be very careful as the car can easily get skidded.

About work, something struck into my mind when I woke up this morning and I now have an idea on how to use the tuple for my heuristics attempt! Thank God for this...

It's snowing here...

It's snowing from the morning and if it goes on and on, it might reach one foot! I managed to go out and snap some pictures on the way to the cafetaria. It really feels nice to do my work while it is snowing outside. This will be the paper to remember as I write it while it's snowing.

A friend commented that I should stick to heuristics as it's what our ASAP group is concentrating on. Should I waste my time doing something mathematical? Well, my view is that my research is about problem solving. I presume, problems can be solved using whatever methods available. It is a research anyway, and I think it's good to explore whatever methods there are. I may get solution or I may not get solution using mathematical software. Whether I get the solution or not, I may try heuristics too and I can make comparisons on both methods. As long as it adds to the body of knowledge, I certainly make a contribution and this is all PhD is all about - contribution to the body of knowledge. Well, I might get views from Mujgan and my supervisor too... In the meantime, let's enjoy the opportunity that I have at this moment, and hopefully the outcome in terms of papers that I produce from this visit will be accepted. Who knows I might write from Dublin and Netherland soon...