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...

Update from Eskisehir, Turkey

Surprisingly, I can get internet connection from the guest house this morning and this will certainly save the trouble of going to the office at the Industrial Engineering. They have just moved to a new building which is at the other end of the University. With the minus 4 celcuis temperature outside, I'd rather stay here as it's close to where I can get my food supplies. I don't intend to go out yet as I still have cornflakes and bread for my breakfast. I miss my morning coffee though as the kitchen here is not that equipped with kettle and so on.

We are making some progress; we already have the weights for the criterias needed to determine the level of importance. I still need to send out questionaires to get more judgements on the weights. I will email to my fellow NMCs hopefully they could spare some time to respond to our questionaire.

The plan is to produce two abstracts for MISTA and IMASPORTS and to work on the full paper for journal. It really is tough to develop the model, even Mujgan agreed on it too. The problem is NP-hard and it's not possible to get optimal solution. I might have to struggle on my heuristics to get the solution.

I have lots of things to work on; this coming Tuesday, I have to present at the seminar for the post-graduate and I need to prepare the slides too. I don't know how much they can get from me; lectures are delivered in Turkish. According to them, they tried to include like 30% in English but it didn't work. I wonder if they could understand what I'll be talking about...even if I speak in Malay, they would not be able to distinguish it :-)

Apart from a little hiccups while travelling here, I'm glad that I came as I met lots of good people here especially Mujgan...

Top 10 university...

The RAE 2008 report is out and confirmed that our University is ranked seven in terms of research. A really world-class university don't you think? And how proud I am to be in one!

We had an email from our new Head of school congratulating everyone for the success. An excerpt of the email :

Our overall profile, across a combination of outputs, environment and esteem is:
30% of our activity graded 4* (world class) 50% of our activity graded 3* (internationally leading) 20% of our activity graded 2* (internationally recognised) 0% of our activity graded 1* (nationally recognised) 0% of our activity graded 0* (unclassified). This profile ranks us 8th among all UK Computer Science schools (both if you compute a grade point average and also if you rank profiles using pic medal table style). This is a fantastic achievement for the School and places us in the top 10% of UK CS schools.

Come to think of it, I wonder when this success will happen to our faculty or our university back home. They want to be world class but they don't want to me to study in a world class university. Part of their remarks when I try to apply for conversion from split to fulltime, if I have problem with my kids' medical, might as well I study in my home country...Can you believe that! They certainly don't know how to maximise opportunities...

On my way to Eskisehir, Turkey...

Turkey, here I come...tentatively 15 - 31 December, 2008. I'm not going there for fun, but to do a lot of work. My supervisor is expecting two full papers for MISTA! If not, abstracts that will surely be turned into full paper. Tough job eh...

On another note, I checked on KPT's website just now and found that they have already paid the school fees in a mission to take advantage of the declining GPB. Guess what, we save around RM10K. I don't see any reason why they would not convert my scholarship to fulltime. The reason being, the same amount (RM) that KPT used to pay last time, is more than enough to pay for the fulltime fees now as for split program, the fee is 87% from fulltime amount.

It's already December!

Time flies and it's already December! It's time to put on the turbo engine. No choice, I'd have to force myself and concentrate on my research. My other half has come back here and I wouldn't have to worry about managing the kids anymore. Even if it's cold and dark, I need to stay in the office at least till 5.00 pm.

The research writing course that I attended is almost complete with another session tomorrow. My mission to write a page a day is not accomplished :-) Oh well, I guess I would have to start writing bit by bit starting from now.

Call for paper for MISTA is already out and I would have to think of what I would submit to the conference. Probably we would properly assign weights using ANP/AHP to the current project that I'm working on. And to do that, I would have to make a trip to Eskisehir, Turkey to see Mujgan. Hopefully my supervisor will approve on the idea...