Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Cognitive Sciences

I dont know what that means.. but some of the things sound interesting..
and maybe complex..

will just make a note of few things that I come across..

Please correct me if I am wrong..
Wordnet is a collection of synsets.. collection of groups of words which relate to a similar concept

Some resources:
A course at MIT OCW [mentioned in my previous post]

Some Papers:
http://www-tsujii.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~yusuke/paper/eacl2003.pdf
http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse/wnsim-bib/

Monday, April 09, 2007

MIT OCW. Real Cool Studd here

I feel that I need to constantly keep learning..

understanding new things has always facinated me..
So has looking at the same thing from a different point of view.


Now and then, I take up a topic which it vaguely related to what I know or what I can comprehend easily and try to understand it.. But such efforts have not led to something concrete till now..
The good this is that I learn.. what next? What do I do with the things I learn?

cut the crap..
Here are a few courses that I'd like to look at in the coming months: [Apart from occasional Google Videos]

Will keep on adding to this list over time

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Google Tech Talks I'd like to see

Update [ Aug 5, 2007]: These are the ones that I would like to add - From the Google Scalability conference - from glinden
The Google tech talks are quite informative. Ranging from mysql query optimisation to psycology and economics.

Here is the list of videos that I'd Like to watch over the next few months...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=236331448076587879




Building GUI applications with Python, GTK and Glade
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5838951374743244232

Haiku: The Operating System
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=236331448076587879

Joomla!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7035976321528074794

7 Ways To Ruin A Technological Revolution
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8538240380002213699

Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap, nuclear power (no, really)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606



Comparing American and Chinese Negotiation Styles
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4634363396909200237

GeoServer and Architectures of Participation for Geospatial Information
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3923618086187138447



Search Engine Strategies - Eric Schmidt interview
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5651532968895500419

Spatial Query Processing Utilizing Voronoi Diagrams
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2755539754474649930



A Live Motion Portable 3D Video Camera
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3656494784112768834



Toward the First Revolution in the Mind Sciences
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=983112177262602885

You Are What You Say: Privacy Risks of Public Mentions
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6474169875352273382



Code Generation With Ruby
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1541014406319673545

Peer to Peer Web Search with Minerva
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8710122769175704670

Journey Towards The Center Of The Earth
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5797001505961854840



Near-optimal Monitoring of Online Data Sources
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2567976561168591576



The New Digital Sky
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4364162621957872851



Python 3000
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6459339159268485356

How can we better understand customers?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1932851428624192110

Some Python Integrated Development Environments
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8158216898634409900

15 Views of a Node Link Graph: An Information Visualization Portfolio
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6229232330597040086



Competing and Collaborating in China with Bi-Cultural Competence
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6672770494265798071

People to People Lending with Prosper
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8082730452536323779



Becoming a Software Testing Expert
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6852841264192883219



Impact of Technology on Reducing Poverty and Alleviating Social Issues in India
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6671271293722797569



Introduction to Perl: The friendly programming language
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-876009974056913377



Building Large Systems at Google
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5699448884004201579



Leveraging India As India Stands Up
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2089147957292061314

Strike Up The Brand: How to Design for Branding
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5654878583447435228




Team Server / Ajax Development with IntelliJ IDEA
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5548138713037707664

The Next Fifty Years of Science
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6119231548215342323



Our Lives, Our Facebooks

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3910777240176719644



django: Web Development for Perfectionists with Deadlines
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-70449010942275062



Biofuels: Think Outside The Barrel
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-570288889128950913



Urban Sensing, Social Networking, And The Third Thing
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7829327427683569548



Predicting bugs in code changes using SCM information
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7802818288058377867

General Purpose, Low Power Supercomputing Using Reconfiguration
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4969729965240981475

The Reiser4 Filesystem
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6866770590245111825

Stanford Experts on Climate Change and Carbon Trading
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2226061573523196174



Monday, March 12, 2007

Food for the soul

Nowadays I feel that I am being overly disappointed with myself and with the things around me..
I told my friend about this and he told me that I tend poke my nose into other affairs..[ The things that are not in my "Department"!].. and that I tend to judge others..

I guess thats true..

I feel that one way to get rid of this disappointment and "blue" feeling is to look at some practical spiritual quotes.. I chose tao te ching.. and buddhism

Here are some quotes applicable to me that I collated

--

Therefore, stubborn people are disciples of death, but

Flexible people are disciples of life.

-Be impeccable with your word.

Speak little

Bold action against others leads to death

Bold action in harmony with Tao leads to life

-Don't take anything personally.

Be wary of both honor and disgrace

Honor is founded on disgrace

and disgrace is rooted in honor

Both should be avoided

Both bind a person to this world

Words born of the mind are not true

True words are not born of the mind

Those who have virtue do not look for faults

Those who look for faults have no virtue

-Don't make assumptions.

Through the course of nature

Muddy water becomes clear

Through the unfolding of life

Man reaches perfection

Stillness benefits more than action

Silence benefits more than words

Rare indeed are those who are still

Rare indeed are those who are silent

Rare indeed are those who obtain the bounty of this world

-Always do your best.

She who gives herself to this path

is like a block of wood

That gives itself to the chisel

Cut by cut it is honed to perfection

Only a student who gives herself

Can receive the master's gift

Buddhist Values

  1. Right Viewpoint - Realizing the Four Noble Truths
  2. Right Values - Commitment to mental and ethical growth in moderation
  3. Right Speech - One speaks in a non hurtful, not exaggerated, truthful way
  4. Right Actions - Wholesome action, avoiding action that would do harm
  5. Right Livelihood - One's job does not harm in any way oneself or others; directly or indirectly
  6. Right Effort - One makes an effort to improve
  7. Right Mindfulness - Mental ability to see things for what they are with clear consciousness.
  8. Right Meditation - State where one reaches enlightenment and the ego has disappeared.

Buddha Noble Truths

1. Suffering

There is suffering, dukkha.

Dukkha should be understood.

Dukkha has been understood

2. Desire

There is the origin of suffering, which is attachment to desire.

Desire should be let go of.

Desire has been let go of.

3. cessation of suffering

There is the cessation of suffering, of dukkha.

The cessation of dukkha should be realised.

The cessation of dukkha has been realised.

4. The eight fold path

--

I am gonna take the printout and keep it in my drawer and have a look at it now and then..

How good it would be if we had some "reminder" system that would just pop out an applicable wise saying based upon a situation..

dream along

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

list

1. ST wildfire - Market, competitor survey
2. Portal for farmers - move it ahead
3. test humaa, be in touch with v Fernando
4. Improve intonation
Download, test adn choose onr speech analyzer.
5. get GRE podcasts/wordlists for the mobile
6. e-bike
7. webhosting and deploying my web-harvest application
8. goals, points for ems discussion, fix the tcp

Improving intonation, accent reduction

I need to improve the "impact" of my delivery. This was one of the development needs that my manager has in mind for me.

Thats true, even if you have stuff, and you are not able to convey it in a manner people are impressed, most of the hardwork goes waste..

My voice is monotonous - no up's and down's in the frequency.. It is a drone.. When you listen to me, you would feel that you are listening to a truck that speaks :)..

I also need to improve my accent [So that my US counterparts get me properly]

I need speech processing software to analyse, improve and monitor my voice.
http://linguistlist.org/sp/SearchWRListing-action.cfm
Free Speech analysis softwares: http://www.personal.rdg.ac.uk/~llsroach/phon2/freespeech.htm
It is known by: [Google search keywords]

voice training - this applies more to singers
speech therapy
improve intonation
speech training
speech analyzer
...

I will keep this post updated with my progress.

I should be done by end of March [Thought it is a continuous improvement process :)]

btw.. Clipmarks is a good mozilla addon to mark the pages that you would like to store..


Improving intonation, accent reduction

I need to improve the "impact" of my delivery. This was one of the development needs that my manager has in mind for me.

Thats true, even if you have stuff, and you are not able to convey it in a manner people are impressed, most of the hardwork goes waste..

My voice is monotonous - no up's and down's in the frequency.. It is a drone.. When you listen to me, you would feel that you are listening to a truck that speaks :)..

I also need to improve my accent [So that my US counterparts get me properly]

I need speech processing software to analyse, improve and monitor my voice.
http://linguistlist.org/sp/SearchWRListing-action.cfm

It is known by: [Google search keywords]

voice training - this applies more to singers
speech therapy
improve intonation
speech training
...

I will keep this post updated with my progress.

I should be done by end of March [Thought it is a continuous improvement process :)]

btw.. Clipmarks is a good mozilla addon to mark the pages that you would like to store..

The best way to improve upon your speech is to be conscious of your speech.

Listen to good speakers[auditory training].
-> Knowledge@Wharton [Management podcasts], BBC and a whole lot of other podcast sites are good sources for materila to listen.

Record your speech [Impromptu speech, reading from a textbook, etc]
Anf then listen to it.. where are the places where you do not sound good, the places where you may be misunderstood, places where you stumble, etc

Note down the areas of improvement.

Practicing in from of the mirrir also helps. Pay special attention to lip movements [In my case, I do not flex my lips to the extent that is needed..]

And.. you need patience.. one cannot perfect it with a day/week etc.. it is a continuous process..

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Gene Expression data analysis

Paper: Graph-based iterative Group Analysis enhances microarray interpretation
Rainer Breitling,Anna Amtmann,Pawel Herzy
src: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/5/100

Gene Expression data analysis :
[from micro array data of a partcular cell state (during a particular phase in the cell cycle/diseased (brain tumor)/healthy) which we want to analyse]
microarray data only gives the magnitude of cDNA's of different genes

One needs to derive the relationships [cause -effect relationships]
  • metabolic pathways
  • signallin pathways
  • protein interaction maps

Identifying subgraphs (that form a community? [PNAS art]subgraphs having high clustering coefficient )

bigraph - Graph with two types of nodes

Good information on the existing methods of Gene Expression Analysis [And gene expression data too]
http://smd.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/search/QuerySetup.pl

good presentation : http://genome-www5.stanford.edu/help/TUTORIALS/SMD_Analysis.ppt

Slide 6 : Factors for Measurement/Process errors
Data smoothened out using normalization : doping controls

Imp: Clustering algorithms
good example begins: slide 21

Heirarchical clustering/Self organising maps

gene Expression microarray data converted into n dimensional vector

x[i] = log(ratio)[i] i=1 to n

How close the two genes are is defined by the distance between those vectors
Metrics:
  1. Euclidiean - the distance between the two vectors in space v-u v and u are ntruple vectors
  2. Manhattan - http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TaxicabMetric.html
  3. Pearson correlation coefficient : It measures the tendancy of both the variables to increase and decrease together.<-- This is also a part of datamining
  • This can imply that the change in them is the effect of some other vector
  • or both the vectors influence each other [infinite loop till saturation?]
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson_product-moment_correlation_coefficient
4. Cosine Similarity? [this is used in document similarity] : It is the cosine of the angle between two vectors.

Cluster the expression data [patterns] based upon the similarity[ metrics given above]
Similar to Kruskal's Minimum spanning tree algorithm.

this can lead to erroneous results (why?)

SOM's (self organising maps)
<-- This is also a part of datamining
This is a single layer feed forward network connected to a grid of 2D/3D vectors.

Why dont I use edge betweenness based algorithm? [PNAS: community structure in social and biological networks]

Tools:
PAJEK
SMD - Stanford dataset

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Good links -

I would like to have a collection of links..
The links which I would like to read at a later point of time..
Bookmarking is one way..
It is a bit difficult to sift thru them.. especially if you have a lots of them..

This is my bundle of good links:

Inspirational posters:
http://www.businessballs.com/free_funny_inspirational_motivational_posters.htm

[Mar 27 Update]
http://admissionsourcehelp.blogspot.com/2007/03/computer-science-admission-requirements.html
http://www.slideshare.net/DERIGalway/conor-hayes-topics-tags-and-trends-in-the-blogosphere
http://webcamp.org/SocialNetworks/
http://csclub.cs.sjsu.edu/wordpress/?p=64
http://pimm.wordpress.com/tag/diy/
http://www.hung-truong.com/gradschool/2007/03/

[An informative paper on C++.. from the author of C++ itself!]
http://www.research.att.com/~bs/oopsla.pdf

[Apr 14 Update]
http://edcorner.stanford.edu/index.html

[Apr 16 Update]
Graph Algorithms
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=w.dgmrhftr_0ctq6mw

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

e-bike?

My Office is around 15 kilometres from my residence.
And I am fed up with the traffic jams here in Bangalore, the periodicity of buses.

So I said, lemme try going to the office on a bicycle.
I tried it on the weekend.. and guess what it just took me 10 more mins than what the bus takes! [8:25 AM to 9:25 AM]..
But I was too tired and coming back from the office at night [10 PM] was miserable..

Bicycle is good.. but I need a power assist added.. Pedal whenever you can.. and if you dont feel like it, just turn on the motor and there you go!

It is not difficult to add a motor to the bicycle.. just a few hand calculations, few trips to the workshop and a few instructions to the workman.

Google is my friend:
This is a read good website:
http://www.peltzer.net/ebike/
www.estelle.de

The commercial e-bikes
http://www.electric-bikes.com/

I had seen a person use a 0.5 HP DC motor, 24V batteries.. the guy above uses a 1HP [746 Watt],3000 rpm motor.
btw, TXU Turbines are 1000000000 Watt [:)].. A thousand Megawatt

Say I want to go at a speed of 20 kmph and the wheel diameter is..
I need to do the calc and come out with the spec for the

motor,
batteries,
charger,
the speed reducer,
the motor speed controller,
dimensions of the supporting structure,
etc

Motor would be a major cost here I believe, Need to ask is some shop here or look for some flea market in case a new motor is too costly [A motor from a washing machine would do]

btw a new e-bike costs 16000 INR (The pamphlet said that it costs only 80? paise per km)
Will do some more research and come up with the design..

I want to be at the office tomorrow morning at 6:00 am.

Hope that such wishes get fulfilled in the near future :)

Update 1:
I bought a second hand DC motor[1200 INR], 0.5 inch [thickness] 18 and 38 teeth sprockets, a chain [all three costed me 768 INR] and two small metal sheets for housing the motor.. Will upload the photos of my endeavour later.
I need to go to the workshop to bore the sprockets and to drill them metal sheets and assemble all of them and get my bike ready [:)]
getting work done at the workshop is tiring.. so I would do this manufacturing/assembly thing the week after next..

My friends are excited about the effort!..
Will keep you updated

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Network Analysis ...

Need to Carry my thesis work forward..
My thesis was on Study of hub neighborhoods in some networks

In the thesis, I had come up with a few metrics to find the interconnectednedd between two hubs in a network.

http://www.genetics.ucla.edu/labs/horvath/CoexpressionNetwork/

I am not able to figure out what should I work on..
Will have to decide it by tomorrow..
so much to do. so little time!

Monday, January 15, 2007

More choices is good.... and bad too!

A Paradox? probably yes.
Just had a look at the Google video by
The Paradox of Choice
by Barry Schwartz

Where he talks about the dark side of having more choices..

Paralysis: The choice make becomes overwhelmed by the deluge of choices in front of him. Thus, he either postpones his decision or does not make any decision!

Different types of choice making strategies:

Maximiser: These people look at all the options and make the decisions.. but these people are more unhappy [According to the speaker].. I feel that this is true in practice too!
Satisfisor: These people keep on trying the alternatives till they get the alternative by which they are satisfied. Their choice may not be optimal... {because they have not looked at all the options].. But in practice they are more happy than Maximisers!

Principal-Agent Problem:
In this case, the agent does all the work of choosing.. thus insulating the stake holder from the pain of making decisions.. The agent does not need to be a guru... if he has some knowledge of the products, he can come up with good choice for the stake holder. Both are profited.. both are happy..

The Speaker also said that Google was the part of the solution of this "choices" problem.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Where are our Energy needs taking us: A summary of Newsweek 2007 contents

I started going through the articles and realised that I would be able to appreciate the implications of Energy supply/demand on various sections better if I had some background of Macroeconomics. I googled and got a fairly good introduction to Macroeconomics.
Here's the presentation on Macroeconomics. If you already have an idea of what/how/why of GDP, Inflation, bank interest rates, oil prices, etc.. then u can skip the macroeconomics presentation.
web.syr.edu/~bjdempse/Introduction%20to%20Macroeconomics.pdf

Create > New > Playlist

It has been long since I have learnt any new songs on my guitar..
I need to learn new songs to play on the guitar..

Here's the list of the songs that I would be learning:
These are the the songs that are

1. Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai - Woh Lamhe


2. Woh Lamhe - Woh Lamhe


3. Show (Hey Oh) - Californication


4. Allah Ke Bande - Kailas Kher


5. Dil Kya Kare Jab kisiko.. kisise pyar ho jaye


6. Neele neele ambar pe

7. Listen to your heart - Avril Lavigne


8. One Tamil Song


9. One Telugu song


The Songs that I already know are:

I need to improve upon retention of lyrics,
Areas of Improvement
1. Knocking on heavens door - Bob Dylan - Lyrics
2. Californication - RHCP - Lyrics
3. Dum Maro Dum
4. Papa Kehte Hain - Lyrics
5. Hotel California - Lyrics, Lead
6. Yahan Kyun jee rahen hain [my composition]
7. over the mountains of the seas - Lyrics
8. Open the eyes of my heart - Lyrics
9. This one for the people - Lyrics

Will try to buy the Sony Ericsson Protable speakers. So that I can have the percussion and background music.. the portable ones (These run on the phone battery only)
or the ones that need the power supply.. I need to see how heavy they would be on my wallet [:)]

Saturday, January 13, 2007

TRIZ - Become an Edison!

"Make significant contributions to IP" was one of my long term goals that I put in my ems [ an internal resume where we list out our contributions to the business, strengths, development needs and our future plans]..

No the question is.. How do I make a "significant" contribution to IP [Intellectual property].. I am a bit creative.. and creativity coupled with science and technology leads to new ideas, new inventions and new technology breakthroughs. One way to generate a new idea to improve something (say coming up with a disruptive technology) is to learn more about the technology, and keep on brainstorming (with yourself) until u get an idea. And what do I do about a technology that I am not expert at.. I would have to become an expert in that field first.. and then think about the "creative" idea..

I dont have the luxury of that time.. Though I have the luxury of resources to become an expert in the technology I want to genetate intellectual property [Steam Turbines.. I dont want to be more specific]

I searched for something on innovation in our library .. and came across TRIZ.. it sounded cool :)
just googled for TRIZ (note that google is a word in the english dictionary. GOOGLE has become analogous to search)
TRIZ I learnt... was a method for inventors to come up with new ideas to solve their problems.

Genrich S. Altshuller, the father if TRIZ, used to work in the patent team of the Russian Navy.

He
Today I had a chance to look into the details of TRIZ.
Basic philosophy is to convert your problem into an abstract one.
find the abstract solution for the abstract problem [from a similar problem which has already been solved ]
convert the abstract solution to the solution of your problem..

This document gives a good idea of triz [Along with a good example of a beverage can desin optimisation]
http://www.mazur.net/triz/

An algorithm to solve your problem [i.e. move your system towards ideality] would be.
1. Identify the technical conflicts in your problem [Abstract]
2. Look at the TRIZ matrix and find the possible solutions [Abstract]

Convert the abstract solutions of step 2 into the solutions specific to your problem..

More when I file my first patent disclosure :)

Friends now : Friends hereafter ..

Just wanted to record where the people whom I know are right now and how do they choose the road on the crossroads.. and where would those Roads take them.. just a small study..

Name: Education :
Current state : Possible next state..
Changes of state

1. Durgaprasad: BE Mech/ MSc Infosys [BITS Pilani] 2005
Microsoft Hyderabad, development[Mobile operating systems]

2. Srinivas : BE Mech/ MSc Infosys [BITS Pilani] 2005
MS Mech, Stanford. [1st sem CFD work. switching field to design. As CFD jobs require only PhD's]
MS->job->MBA

3. Gautam. BE Mech, BITS Pilani 2004
MS Materials Science. Among Class toppers. Applied for a Ph.D. (more inclined towards biology/ humanities).. Likes to influence people around him

4. Bharath BE Mech, BITS Pilani 2004
MS Mech. Looking for a job rite now

5. Chandana BE Mech, BITS Pilani 2004
MS Mech, Purdue

6. Divya (violinist) BE Chemical, BITS Pilani 2004
Did internship at JFWTC in summer hols. Completed MS in 3 sems [no final yr project]
currently doing a job in an Environmental Science company?

7. Dinakar BE Mech, BITS Pilani 2004
MS - No contact

8. Narayana Mech 2004
MS - No contact

9. Adi..

Address book is a better way to maintain this info I guess..

Sunday, January 07, 2007

GRE Resources

I this post I would be adding resources that would aid in the preparation of GRE..

http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~sdixit/gre.htm

The coming year

There are three segments which I would be targetting
1. MS
2. EEDP
3. GE

Main focus would be:


1st half:
GRE, EEDP, POM, DREAMS

2nd half:
Knowledge acquisition, career shift (maybe)->depends on 1st half

The action items would be:

Jan -
1. Read about GA, ANN, and how it has been applied to optimisation problems. [//]
2. Apply GA to the design optimisation problem [FW 4]
3. Talk to IISc prof about the problem - Possibility of a paper. [FW 3]
4. GRE - wl [1 to30]

Feb -
1. Look at how you can improve the optimisation algo. Apply various optimisation algos to your design problem and benchmark performances. [ FW 7]
2. GRE - wl [ upto 60]
3. DMAIC ss [FW 8]

Mar -

1. GRE - wl [ pass 1 finish]]
2. Present in DREAMS

Apr -
1. GRE/EEDP - start trying for paper publication
2. GRE - pass 2, analytical writing, essays, etc

May-

1. EEDP [Revise CDC's]
2. GRE final pass

Jun-

1. GRE
2. EEDP

Second half:
DP's, Datamining

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Research topic for Data Mining+Collaborative Filtering+NLP

I am thinking of MS as a safety boat in case the ship that I am sailing in sinks :)
Moreover the pattern of MS is also gonna change.. So I feel that it is always better to have the score in hand.

I am planning to do an MS in computer science

I havent done any major projects in computer science..
To get into the top colleges [with aid] I feel that they would be looking at my inclination towards research..
I am planning of doing some project this year [and publish a paper.. maybe]

I am thinking of doing a project in collaborative filtering (involving NLP, Datamining)

Looking for some research topics..
Literature survey documented below

Searching in
ACM library, Google, Google Scholar, and a collection of search tools by Todd Veldhuizen.

Need an ACM account.. will finish the topic selection by sunday
[update - 5th Jan]
hmm.. friends say that I am becoming unstable day by day.. some even coined a noun for me - lahari baba.. the fickle one.. and here is another case of this behaviour..
I am thinking of a topic that involves [Artificial Intelligence - > [ANN or Genetic Algorithms] and design optimisation]..
One topic that I thought of is "Multi objective design optimisation of Steam turbine bucket and wheel using genetic algorithms" (This topic is research oriented, aligned with my work at office and also requires less effort)..
Now I need to look up what genetic algorithms are in detail.. I have a fair idea about them.. They operate on the principle of natural selection.. picking up the best qualities of the previous generation, generating new offspring with these qualities and then replacing the least fittest of the current population with the newly generated offspring...
I need to look at how I need to plug in the GA into the already existing program structure..

Books to read this year..

I am looking forward for a great year ahead..
A year that would catapult me to great heights..
I am in the process of making a roadmap [both personal and professional] for the coming year.

Reading books (I am targeting 6-8 books this year) is a major item in the list.
The topics I am lookin at are
1] Innovation
2] *[Data Mining/Knowledge discovery/Collobarative filtering] **NLP& Aboutness
I feel that * and ** would be a good combination so that the text information can be represented in a structure understandable by the * algorithms

text --NLP*--> [ structured and representation] --User Data, CF,DM algos**----> good recommendations


3] Program Design : Algorithms , Design Patterns
4] Entrepreneurship [web based]


Here are some of the books that I came across in our library:
I am looking at amazon.com for the book reviews. I would writing my notes after each book.
Hope I come up with the final list by saturday..

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INNOVATION:
Innovation on Demand: new product development using TRIZ Fey, Victor.
Rivin, Eugene I. [I feel that this book would be better. as it is written by mech engg profs maybe I can relate to the concepts better]
658.57522 FEY P05
2005

40 Principles : triz keys to technical innovation Altshuller, Genrich [This is book by the formulator of TRIZ]
620.0028
2001

Notes:
TRIZ looks like a good concept.
>> TRIZ (some russian word):
TRIZ also evolved by transferring strong principles from one field to another.
TRIZ is also used in DFSS (for solving new problems using 6 sigma methodology)

This image compares TRIZ with other problem solving techniques

Biomimicry : innovation inspired by nature Benyus, Janine M.
600 BEN N97 [Looks like some stuff that they show in natgeo/discovery]
1997

--------------------------------
DATA MINING

The elements of statistical learning : data mining, inference, and prediction Hastie, T.
Tibshirani, Robert.
Friedman, Jerome.
006.31 Hastie, 2001
2001


Data mining : practical machine learning tools and techniques with Java implementations Witten, I. H.
Frank, Eibe. [This is a must for any one planning to learn/apply data mining. Associated with WEKA]
http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ml/weka/book.html
006.3 Witten, 2000
2000


Advances in knowledge discovery and data mining Fayyad, Usama M.
006.33 Advanc, 1996
1996 [This one looks like a good book]
Came across this nice pdf by usma fayyad and co
http://www.idi.ntnu.no/emner/it3704/lectures/papers/aimag-kdd-overview-1996-Fayyad.pdf

------------------------------------
ALGORITHMS
Learning to classify text using support vector machines: methods, theory and algorithms Joachims, Thorsten
005
2002
Algorithms in c,part1-4 : fundamentals data structures sorting searching Robert Sedgewick
005.133
2001
Multi-objective optimization using evolutionary algorithms Deb, Kalyanmoy.
519.3 Deb, 2001
2001

Machine learning Mitchell, Tom M.
006.31
1997
---------------------------------
NATURAL LAnguage processing

Foundation of Statistical Natural Language Processing Christopher D. Manning and Hinrich Schutze
410.285
2002 [This one looks like a good one]
The companion site for this book : http://nlp.stanford.edu/fsnlp/

Moreover this book is being used in the following Universities:

UPenn CIS530, UPenn CIS639, Berkeley SIMS 296a-4, Johns Hopkins: current (Eisner) and previous [lots of great slides by Jan Hajic!], Brown CS241, CMU 11-682, CMU 11-761, Stanford CS224N, Oregon Graduate Institute CSE580, Ohio State, U Chicago, Purdue [lots of slides], Tufts, Minnesota 1, Minnesota 2, SUNY Albany, San Diego SU, Mississippi State, UCLA.

Speech and Language Processing: An Introduction to Natural Language Processing,Computational linguistics, and Speech Recognition Daniel Jurafsky and James H. Martin
410.28 DAN
2000
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Books That I zeroed in on:
First Half:
4. Artificial Intelligence [Genetic Algorithms, ANN and optimisation methods]

Second Half:
1. Innovation on Demand: new product development using TRIZ Fey, Victor.Rivin, Eugene I.
2. Data mining : practical machine learning tools and techniques with Java implementations Witten, I. H.Frank, Eibe.
3.
Foundation of Statistical Natural Language Processing Christopher D. Manning and Hinrich Schutze
5.
[Design Patterns]
6.
[Web entrepreneurship]

[update Jan 7]
I would be quite busy for the first half of this year.. GRE/EEDP.. hence, I would be stressing more on knowledge acquisition in the second half.