http://www.buycostumes.com/Lady-Bug-Adult-Costume/60488/ProductDetail.aspx

It reminds me of the Halloween last year; it was interesting that unidentified objects would ask each other “What are you?” instead of “Who are you?” These pictures were taken last year in downtown State College. I thought that “Free Hugs” is a good idea!

Let’s plan a happy Halloween!

Seoul

Pittsburgh

I thought that Pittsburgh is a pretty good city to live in, but a recent survey says that is one of the most polluted cities in the U.S. Is it also a common thing between two cities??

Most Polluted Cities in the U.S. (May 2009)

I occasionally use Windows Live Messenger these days. I was asked to upgrade it as well as other Windows Live products right after I signed in. “Hmm… okay!” It took a few minutes to install, but it didn’t take much time to make me in mute amazement. “What? You want to set Live Search as the default search provider??????? and MSN as my browser home page???? How BRAVE you are!”

"IST to contribute to 2009 i-Conference"

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

By Kim Nguyen
Communications Intern, College of IST

College of IST faculty members and graduate students will take part in the 2009 i-Conference to be held Feb. 8-11 in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Several IST faculty members will participate in a session on “Extreme events and i-Schools,” chaired by John Yen, associate dean for research and graduate programs. Included in the panel are Dean Hank Foley; Lee Giles, David Reese professor; John Carroll, Edward Frymoyer professor; Michael McNeese, professor-in-charge; and Carleen Maitland, assistant professor.

Eileen Trauth, associate dean for diversity outreach and international engagement, will co-chair a junior faculty mentoring session and participate in the iSchools diversity round table at the conference. Andrea Tapia, assistant professor, will take part in a session on “Teaching Research Methods in i-Schools.”

Madhu Reddy, assistant professor, will participate in a roundtable session of “i-School Health & Medical Research Initiatives and Opportunities.” Reddy also will contribute to a workshop, “The Science of Socio-Technical Systems in i-Schools.”

Several graduate students are expected to take part in the conference. Paula Bach, Joey Lee, Michael Tyworth, Andrey Soares, Arvind Karunakaran, Hyun-Woo Kim and Madian Khabsa will present paper and poster sessions on their research interests.

Going into its fourth year, i-Conference will include international guests from Australia, Canada, Ghana, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. Leading information schools, or i-Schools, across the United States also are expected to participate.

Themed “i-Society: Research, Education, Engagement,” the event will be held at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill campus.

For more information, visit: http://www.ischools.org/oc/conference09.

Before coming to Penn State, I just wanted to have expertise in artificial intelligence. I didn't have much idea on what specific research area might be a good choice for me, because I was interested in too many disciplines. Now, it has been more than three months since I came here and began my Ph.D. studies. I have spent a lot of my time participating in social network analysis study group as my advisor encouraged me to do so. Now, it is obvious that I am interested in finding a way to associate the social network analysis with traditional A.I. concepts, which my advisor is also interested in. In this sense, following figure makes sense.

 
Jorge Cham ©2008, Source: PHD Comics (Jan. 21, 2008)

2) Life Ambition

I am not interested in winning Nobel Prize, though I will happily take it if given to me. Revolutionizing my field seems to be an interesting thing, though I don't think it is one of my goals. What I hope is to be a faculty member at a university. Ironically, I need to revolutionize my field and have a dream to win Nobel Prize to work at a prestigious institution. Will my ambition change into working at a community college at the end? Actually, it does not matter because my focus is giving basic knowledge to as many people as possible. So I am still eligible to say "World, here I come!"

 
Jorge Cham ©2008, Source: PHD Comics (May 5, 2008)

We are now experiencing the worst economic crisis ever since the Great Depression. Following is a brief summary on what is going on in big companies.

First, DHL, a German logistics conglomerate, gives up on its American dream. On November 10, DHL announced that it would shut down its express-delivery service within the United States, with the loss of 9,500 jobs [1]. The loss of 7,000 jobs from Wilmington, OH, a town of just 12,000 people, has scared a lot of people to death [2].

Second, Big Three Detroit automakers (Ford, General Motors and Chrysler) are seeking big bailout. U.S. Congress is currently debating whether to pass a $25 billion loan package aimed at keeping the struggling Big Three afloat [3]. As Senator Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, said on FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace of Nov. 16, 2008: "This is not just about an industry of three companies. This is about jobs — 350,000 direct, probably as much as 3 to 5 million jobs in total reflecting that industry. [4]"

Last but not least, these kinds of hardships are also happening in the IT industry. On Nov. 14, 2008, Sun Microsystems announced that it would lay off as many as 6,000 employees, or 18 percent of its work force, for a broad restructuring to survive [5]. Hewlett Packard plans to cut 24,600 employees, or 7 percent of its work force over the next three years for decreasing costs in light of the recent acquisition of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) [6]. Dell layoffs planned this year are estimated at 8,900 [6]. eBay is readying layoffs that could affect about 1,500 employees, or 10 percent of its whole employees [6]. There's no exception at Yahoo and Amazon either though there's no exact numbers of layoffs announced yet; they already announced layoffs at the beginning of 2008. A relatively happy feature of the misfortune is that there will be no such mass layoffs at Intel, Microsoft and nVidia, at least in the near future.

One Sentence Conclusion:

Current job market is like Iceland.

References

[1] "Failure to deliver: DHL gives up on its American dream", The Economist (Nov. 13, 2008), http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12607051

[2] "Ohio town devastated by layoffs by German firm DHL", Reuters (Nov. 11, 2008),

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4AA85Y20081111

[3] "Congress debates auto industry bailout", San Francisco Chronicle (Nov. 16, 2008)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/16/MNAE145HUQ.DTL&tsp=1

[4] "Transcript: Sens. Dorgan, Kyl on FOX News Sunday", FOX News (Nov. 16, 2008),

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,452812,00.html

[5] "Tech Companies, Long Insulated, Now Feel Slump", The New York Times (Nov. 15, 2008),

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/technology/15tech.html

[6] "California IT Layoffs Inspire California Overtime Pay Lawsuits", Press Release Newswire

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/11/prweb1620594.htm

The Seven Dwarfs

Though I have been acclimating myself to a new academic environment well so far, I know I will have to get over a lot of hardships before getting my Ph.D. It is often said that pursuing doctoral studies requires a rock-solid reason for doing so. It may be very difficult to stay in graduate school for many years; most graduate students lean on a small amount of stipend for living. I decided to be a Ph.D. student as one of the goals of my life is to settle down in academia, which requires me to have a Ph.D. degree. To make such a dream come true, it is important to understand the ecosystem of graduate schools.

Academia is a very peculiar type of business. It seems to make sense. My research assistantship is from my advisor's research funds granted by external organizations. This means that I need to treat my research assistantship like a professional job; I should work on research projects, and show them that I am capable of getting work done clearly for the continual support from them. Being a highly desired research assistant is a key to success in graduate school.

Then, what is the best success in graduate school? I think receiving a Ph.D. and getting out of graduate school early is the best success. I love to be in academia, but I do not want to remain as a graduate student for a long time. I would like to take professor's roles to achieve my academic goals as soon as possible. To do so, I need to learn how to finish my dissertation quickly. It seems to be a very useful advice that doing something everyday gets it closer to being done. Writing a dissertation only when "in the mood" is not that productive in the long run. Doing part of research everyday, and writing part of my dissertation everyday will keep me going through the good times and the bad. I am sure that it is a very good way to ensure that I finish my dissertation in time or earlier.

However, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. An unexpected advice from those references below is about not being Jack. Finding a balance between work and play is not easy [2], but it is extremely important for not only studying smart (not hard), but keeping  the good relationship with those whom I love. A good balance may also improve my work productivity, and keep good mental and physical healthiness. Ph.D. degree is really important to me, but it is not worth risking such precious things. Sometime later, I will talk about time management skills making Jack a successful Ph.D. student; it is our privilege to enjoy ourselves in graduate school, but not to laze around [3].

Summary

• Ph.D. students must have rock-solid reasons for their Ph.D. degrees.
• Beware the ecosystem; academia is a business.
• Write your dissertation everyday.
• Work smart, and play!

References

[1] Ronald T. Azuma, "So long, and thanks for the Ph.D.! : Everything I wanted to know about Computer Science graduate school at the beginning but didn't learn until later.", Jan. 2003, http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/hitch4.html

[2] Alice Domurat Dreger, "Grad School Survival", http://www.alicedreger.com/grad_school_survival.html

[3] Marie desJardins, "How to be a good graduate student", Mar. 1994, http://www.cs.indiana.edu/HTMLit/how.2b/how.2b.html

The second important thing of my life here is to have a faith. I am basically a sociable person, so I love to get to know warm people and have good relations with them. Though I did not have any religious belief before coming to Penn State, I am trying to be a Christian and attending a Sunday service at Youngkwang Korean Presbyterian Church these days where I take a rest from the chaos of my daily life. (I call it my mental relaxation.) This is my one and only social activity outside of schoolwork now.

Virtuous People of Youngkwang Korean Presbyterian Church

Honestly, my devotion to the faith is still minimal; I cannot help giving my schoolwork precedence to have my real dreams come true. Nonetheless, I like their willingness to be right, thankful and considerate, and I would love to be part of them. It is interesting that more than half of the members are Penn State students. For this reason, it is easier to share the common hardships we often face with as international students living apart from our families. For example, we have a cell meeting once a week where we cook and have dinner together at home, carefully listen to others' anguish, and pray for their goodness with all our whole hearts. Being a graduate student is very stressful by nature, and I personally believe that having such virtuous people is one of the most advisable things to pursue not only successful graduate studies but a wonderful human life. It is all thanks to them that my life in Happy Valley is really happy.

One more social activity that I hope to join in the near future is International Coffee Hour, which is hosted by International Student Services at Penn State, and is held every Thursday, from 15:30 to 17:00, in 410 Boucke Building. It is a place for students to get together and have various coffees, teas and cookies, and take a little break from busy schoolwork. The main reason for my plan to join this is to make friends from all around the world; people I meet in my church-related activities are limited to those from South Korea. If you would like to join the Coffee Hour with me, or if you have been already participating, please let me know, and I will be more than happy to be with you. 

International Coffee Hour at Penn State

Below is a summary for the conference. I would like to introduce you some distinguishable features of Microsoft Windows 7.

Fact 1: Release Dates

Microsoft plans to release Windows 7 beta at the beginning of next year, and commercial versions in January 2010.

Fact 2: Windows 7 works on netbooks

Microsoft officially stopped selling Windows XP at the end of June this year, while they are still selling Windows XP for netbooks, low-cost laptops generally optimized for web browsing and e-mailing. One possible reason for this may be the competition with Linux for netbook market in which Microsoft seems to be interested. They said Windows 7 will work on netbooks of 1GHz processor and 1GB RAM.

Fact 3: Windows 7 supports multi-touch devices

(Picture from Wikipedia)

Touch-pads of laptops are likely to be replaced to multi-touch displays as Windows 7 supports them.

Fact 4: When you move with Windows 7, the default printer changes.

When you move with your portable device that Windows 7 is working on, your default printer could change as Windows 7 detects a new network.

Fact 5: Windows 7 runs better gadgets

On Windows 7, you can place gadgets anywhere on your workspace.

Fact 6: Windows 7 provides better task-bar

When you point at an icon in task-bar, you will see thumbnails associated with it.

References

[1] Microsoft PressPass: Microsoft delivers pre-beta release of Windows 7 ...
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-28PDCDay2PR.mspx

[2] Professional Developers Conference 2008 Videos, YouTube

      Part 1 and  Part 2

[3] Netbook, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook

[4] Multi-touch, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch

His research focuses on mining and modeling large social and information networks, their evolution, and spread of information, influence and viruses over them. Problems he investigate are motivated by large scale data, the Web and other on-line media. 

It was last month that I saw his presentation video through videolectures.net, which was recorded at ACM KDD-08, the 14th International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, in August 2008. He talked about the microscopic evolution of social networks. Click on the image below to hear his very special English speaking.

His Presentation on Microscopic Evolution of Social Networks
at ACM SIGKDD 2008, Las Vegas.

He is a very young scholar. He got his Ph.D. from Machine Learning Department, School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in September 2008.  (Just a month ago!) He is currently working with Dr. Jon Kleinberg as a post-doc at Cornell University. More surprisingly, he will be joining the Computer Science Department at Stanford University as an assistant professor in Fall 2009! (Wow!) Research institutions he has interned so far include Yahoo! Research, Microsoft Research, and HP Labs. I think he could get invaluable data for his research from these institutions.

There's a lot I need to learn from him. A few weeks ago, I presented his work to my social network study group. I will continue reading his papers and find room for improvement. I think this is a good way to publish a paper for those in Research 101. He is one of the best models I need to follow; he got Best Paper Award from KDD-07. I hope I can collaborate with him in the future. :)

For more information about him, stop by his homepage at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jure/

1)  International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM)

ICWSM is an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). ICWSM brings together researchers and industry leaders interested in creating and analyzing social media. Past conferences have included technical papers from areas such as computer science, linguistics, psychology, statistics, sociology, multimedia and semantic web technologies.

The 3rd ICWSM will be held May 17-20, 2009 in San Jose, California.

Though ICWSM is a relatively brand-new conference, it has strong committee members from Google, Microsoft, NIST, Facebook and so on. I personally believe that this conference will be a golden chance especially for those who seek internship opportunities at such institutions. As far as I know, past acceptance rates were higher than 20%.  People interested in participating should submit through the ICWSM-09 website a technical paper (up to 8 pages), poster or demo description (up to 2 pages) by January 21, 2009 (Midnight PST). Papers must be must be formatted in AAAI two-column, camera-ready style.

There are NOT many conferences that contains "A.I." in their names. ICWSM has very good reputation, and I expect it to be a place where I can socialize with the great people in A.I field.

2) iConference organized by iCaucus member schools

The 4th iConference will be held Feb 8-11, 2009 at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Contributed papers presenting original research, design products, theoretical developments, educational applications and engagement implications related to one or more of the conference themes will be considered. Papers should be 5-8 pages in length and suitable for publication in scholarly or professional journals. This conference also requires to use the official ACM Proceedings Format for all submissions.

The deadline for submission of complete papers, abstracts for posters, roundtable discussions, and wildcard sessions is Sunday, November 30, 2008. Authors will be notified of review decisions by Monday, December 22, 2008.

This is a "must-attend" conference to me. It doesn't seem to be very competitive yet, but it is one and only one conference that I can meet people from other iSchools and see what they are working on. Perhaps I can find a good partner for interdisciplinary research, if I am lucky. Hope it be a place where I feel proud that I am an iSchool student and I am part of iSociety... haha.

3) ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining,

The annual ACM SIGKDD conference is the premier international forum for data mining researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, and government to share their ideas, research results and experiences. KDD-09 will feature keynote presentations, oral paper presentations, poster sessions, workshops, tutorials, panels, exhibits, demonstrations, and the KDD Cup competition.

The 15th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining will take place in Paris, France on June 28 - July 1, 2009. Important dates are

• Abstract Submission: February 2, 2009
• Electronic Paper Submission: February 6, 2009
• Notification: April 10, 2009
• Conference Dates: June 28 - July 1, 2009

This is one of the most prestigious and rigorous conferences in my research area. I would love to attend this conference not just because of the fame but the romantic place that I haven't ever been in yet! I have to work hard and make a great output though.

So far, I have talked about conferences. I will try to turn conference presentations and papers written for courses into journal articles in order to get one step closer to my goal. Obviously, publishing many papers in first-tier venues is a crucial condition to obtain a faculty position.

"By the end of this year, all of 1,500 Internet cafés in Beijing will be equipped with a camera and an ID card scanner. The cafes will be required to take photos and swipe the IDs of first-time visitors before they are allowed to surf the Internet. Once acquired, the information will be passed to Municipal Law Enforcement Agency of Beijing, which is in charge of the monitoring work. Repeat visitors would get a net café user number which they can input to log in the computer." [1]

An Internet Cafe in Beijing (Photo by AP/WWP)

It's been already a long time since people in China began to show their IDs to use computers in Internet Cafes in many cities of China. I agree that it helps prevent cybercrimes arising from anonymousness on the Internet. However, the policy of storing scanned images of IDs and photos taken[2] will probably cause more serious problems. How can we ensure that there won't be the leaking of personal information? We already have such experience too many times. More seriously, it is also possible that the information is obtained by criminals. What will you feel like if some criminals recognize you and know your home address? I don't even want to imagine.

Do you have any good idea for the identifying system? I would like hear your opinion. Thanks!

References

[1] "Cameras Draw Closer to Beijing's Internet Cafes", China Journal, The Wall Street Journal

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/17/cameras-draw-closer-to-beijings-internet-cafes/

[2] Xinhua News Agency, "Photo IDs Required in Beijing Internet Cafes", The China Internet Information Center (china.org.cn)

http://www.china.org.cn/living_in_china/news/2008-10/17/content_16625644.htm

For Ph.D. students, it is most important to publish research papers in academic communities such as professional associations, conference-based communities, and journal-based communities. Believe it or not, it is often said that GPA is not even looked at by employers when considering a doctor for a job position. As it may be the first step to find where to publish for a new Ph.D. student, I am going to talk about the academic communities that I believe I might be part of in the near future.

A subsection of professional association usually holds a conference once a year or every other year. Authors whose papers were chosen to be published are to gather and present their work at a specific location, usually in a university campus. After submission of a conference paper, it takes about two or three months for it to be reviewed and chosen for publication. After the decision, authors often refine their papers and submit them again. It is very attractive that the first authors usually get travel grants to the conference they are accepted by mostly their advisors.

A journal, on the other hand, is just to be published in the form of a book without any presentation. Journal papers are usually longer than conference papers in length. It also takes much longer time, about 2-3 years at worst, for a journal paper to be published. For this reason, people in an area where things change rapidly prefer to publish and read conference papers; journal papers in those areas are often out-of-date while they are still invaluable in the areas of traditional studies.

At this time, my interim goal has been set to publish papers at several conferences including IST Graduate Workshop, and i-Conference 2009. Following conferences will be considered afterward. (they are so called top conferences)

• ACM SIGKDD (Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining)

The primary focus of ACM SIGKDD is to provide the premier forum for advancement and adoption of the "science" of knowledge discovery and data mining by adoption of "standards" in the market in terms of terminology, evaluation and methodology, and by interdisciplinary education among KDD researchers, practitioners and users. 

• WWW (World Wide Web) Conference

The International World Wide Web Conferences constitute a series of conferences, usually taking place in May of every year. The location varies year to year, covering Asia, Europe, or North America. The conference is a mixture of academic and industrial content. Beyond the core conference there are also tutorials, workshops, and a separate Developers' Day. The event usually spreads over 5 days.

• IJCAI (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence)

IJCAI is the premier international gathering of AI researchers and practitioners. Held biennially in odd-numbered years since 1969, IJCAI is sponsored jointly by International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) , and the national AI societies of the host nations.

As I am working on social network analysis with emphasis on expertise in artificial intelligence, I believe publishing in those three prestigious conferences will be really honorable for my fantastic Ph.D. life and my future career as well.

References

[1] ACM SIGKDD, http://www.sigkdd.org/

[2] WWW Conference, http://www.iw3c2.org/Conferences/index.html

[3] IJCAI, http://www.ijcai.org/

1. Introduction

It has been more than one month since I began to use Google Chrome, a new web browser Google released to the public on Sep. 2, 2008. As Google says: "Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier."[1] I have seen many students already using it; most of you might have heard of the name at least. Surprisingly, on the first day of its release, almost 2% of all Internet traffic to the 45,000 websites that GetClicky, a web analytics startup, monitors was coming from Google Chrome[2] Moreover, for the first week of its release, about 1.93 million people in the United States, nearly 1.4% of its Internet users, have visited the "Thank You" page associated with the download process of Google Chrome.[3] I do not know whether it is because of people's weariness of using Microsoft Internet Explorer or not, but it becomes evident that there have been demands for a better web browser.

2. Advantages

First, in Google Chrome, there is no "status bar"  which is located at the bottom of other web browsers. Of course, you can hide it if you use Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. If you do so, however, your browser will not show you where the object you are pointing at is linked to and what is being loaded. This might cause you to leave it enabled, though it is a waste of your workspace. Google Chrome solves this problem by showing information when necessary at the bottom as a tool tip is shown. (See below.)

Second, you can drag and drop a tab in order to make it an independent process, or put it into another Chrome process.

Third, a popup alarm is shown at the bottom, not at the top; this prevents shoving down the whole content.

Beside these things, there are still many advantages:

• Faster JavaScript Interpretation
• Site Sandboxing
• Simple User Interface

3. Disadvantages

The first time I used Google Chrome, I had a little difficulty in locating its menu bar; there is a button that shows menu items. I usually press an ALT key to see menu items, but it doesn't work on Chrome.

Second, there are no mouse gestures; it does not support page scrolling by the center button of a mouse, which is a very convenient feature to me, while Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox do.

  
        Microsoft Internet Explorer                            Mozilla Firefox

Last but not least, obviously, Google Chrome does not support Microsoft ActiveX. It is a big problem when using Korean websites as they are making use of ActiveX too much especially in Internet banking systems. I know this is not a problem of Google Chrome. I am just complaining about this dependency which is definitely not advisable.

4. Conclusion

I personally believe that Google Chrome is a well-written and attractive program though there are still some minor problems; the major advantages keep me using it. Since Google Chrome is open-source, there will be tons of plug-ins for it sooner or later to meet users' full satisfaction; it is just a matter of time.

5. References

[1] The Official Download Page of Google Chrome

http://www.google.com/chrome

[2] Michael Arritington, "GetClicky Analytics Service Tracking 2% Google Chrome Usage", TechCrunch

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/02/getclicky-analytics-service-tracking-2-google-chrome-usage/

[3] Stephen Shankland, "Study: Chrome reached nearly 2 million in U.S.", CNET News

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10044530-92.html

Shizhuo Zhu

• AIME (Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine) 2007, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• NESCAI (North East Student Colloquium on Artificial Intelligence) 2006, Ithaca, NY
• HCI (International Human-Computer Interaction Conference) 2003, Crete, Greece