Tips For Nepali Students Applying to the United States/Aboard !!

Studying in US Universities have been passion for all students of this time.
There are many tips and associated "should know" factors.
I found this article, in particular, to be interesting.
http://www.rednepal.com/2008/12/for-nepali-students-applying-to-states.html (dead link at the moment)
At this stage, it looks like students can just do some googling (or yahoo search) and get enough information with in an hour.
However, where to start may still be good question holding one back.
I did write some tips in Time!
They are...
http://ajabgajab.blogspot.com/2008/05/cookbook-approach-to-applying-to-us.html
http://ajabgajab.blogspot.com/2007/08/applying-to-us-universities.html
http://ajabgajab.blogspot.com/2007/07/statement-of-purpose.html

Under:
http://ajabgajab.blogspot.com/search/label/apply
I will be writing...

Update:

One more link...
A very elaborated work on "how to ..." was found in here ...
http://himylinks.blogspot.com/2008/12/graduate-schools-in-physics-in-usa-some.html

ICFP 2009 information Archive

International Conference on Frontiers of Physics (ICFP 2009)

BACKGROUND
The aim of the conference is to provide an international forum to the scientists and academicians, especially to young researchers from developing countries, to exchange their new ideas, explore emerging directions both in basic physics as well as on the applied aspects of the various areas of physics. The event will bring theorists and experimentalists on a common forum to inspire exciting and current aspects of Condensed Matter Physics, Plasma Physics, Astro-particle Physics and Environmental Physics and to foster inter-disciplinary research in all areas.

Presentations will comprise of plenary, invited and contributed talks. Ample time will be allowed for poster session.

Nepal Physical Society (NPS) is organizing the conference to celebrate 25th anniversary of its establishment.
ABOUT NPS
NPS was established in 1983 to promote physics research and education. After its establishment, it has been conducting regular meeting of physicists in the nation providing on opportunity for the physicists to present and discuss their research work. The total number of general members of NPS is around 1000 of which about one third are carrying on their research work in developed countries. The society also promotes physics education, research and development work by awarding Prof. Phanindra Prasad Lohani award and Prof. Kedar Nath Khanal award. It also conducts short term programs like workshops and schools on various topics.

www: http://nps.org.np

OBJECTIVE
To provide an international forum to the theorists and experimentalists to exchange their new ideas.

To explore emerging directions both in basic physics as well as applied aspects of various areas of physics-Condensed Matter Physics, Plasma Physics, Astro-particle Physics and Environmental Physics.

To foster inter-disciplinary research.

To inspire young scientists towards exciting and frontiers of Condensed Matter Physics, Material Science including nano science, biophysics and computational physics, Plasma Physics, Astro-particle Physics and Environmental Physics.

MAJOR THEMES
condensed matter physics & material science (CP)
Plasma Physics(PP)
Asrtro-particle physics(AP)
Environmental physics(EP)
CALL FOR PAPERS
Intended participants are invited to submit abstracts not exceeding 200 words in the following format.

•    Paper: A4 size with 2.54 cm spacing on all sides
•    Title of the abstract: Times New Roman, Title case, Font size 14,
Centered.
•    Leave one space.
•    Author/s: Times New Roman, Font size 12, Italics, Centered.
•    Affiliation: Times New Roman, Font size 12, Centered.
•    Leave one space.
•    Abstract text: Times New Roman, Font size 12, Justified.

Please provide Address, Fax number and e-mail of the corresponding author at the end of the abstract in MS word or PDF format. All the abstracts will be peer reviewed under the supervision of scientific program committee. The refereed paper presented in the conference will be published in the NPS proceedings.
LOCAL HOSPITALITY
Accommodation in hotels or guest house can be arranged for the participants on request and on payment of the expenses.

INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD
•    Mesbahuddhin Ahmed (Bangladesh)
•    Gregory R. Carmichael (USA)
•    Tara P. Das (USA)
•    Peter M. Gehring (USA)
•    Gunter Gross (Germany)
•    Lok N.Jha (Nepal)
•    Toshihiro Kitada (Japan)
•    Klaus von Klitzing (Germany)
•    Vinod Krishan (India)
•    Siegbert kuhn (Austria)
•    Yuzuru Matsuoka (Japan)
•    Devendra R. Mishra (Nepal)
•    Abhijit Mookerjee (India)
•    Hamid Saleem (Pakistan)
•    Chandan K. Sarkar (India)
•    Walter Saurer (Austria)
•    Padma K. Shukla (Germany)
•    Hiromasa Ueda (Japan)

ADVISORY BOARD
•    Mukunda M. Aryal
•    Kedar Nath Baral
•    Shekhar Gurung
•    Narayan H. Joshi
•    Bishwa N. Kurmi
•    Arnico Panday
•    Bhadra Pokharel
•    Shankar P. Pradhan
•    Balkrishna Sapkota
•    Kedar L. Shrestha
•    Shesh Kant Aryal
•    Basanta K. Gautam
•    Lok Narayan Jha
•    Uday R. Khanal
•    Devendra R. Mishra
•    Devi Dutta Paudyal
•    Pradeep R. Pradhan
•    Ram S. Roy
•    Ramesh Shakya


ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

PRESIDENT: Ramesh Shakya

SECRETARIES:
•    Narayan Adhikari npadhikari@gmail.com
•    Binil Aryal binil.aryal@uibk.ac.at
•    Raju Khanal plasmanepal@hotmail.com
•    Ram P. Regmi regmi_rp@yahoo.com

MEMBERS:
•    Binod Bhattarai
•    Sitaram P. Byahut
•    Bimal Karki
•    Rajendra Koirala
•    Hari S. Malik
•    Amba D. Panta
•    Nabin Paudel
•    Rajendra Parajuli
•    Sanju Shrestha
•    Deepak Subedi
•    Manoj Thapa
•    Pradeep K. Bhattarai
•    Kul P. Dahal
•    Shankar S. Karki
•    Nanda B. Maharjan
•    Jeevan J. Nakarmi
•    Nurapati Pantha
•    Deependra Parajuli
•    Krishna B. Rai
•    Niraj M. Shrestha
•    Pramod K. Thakur

Subscribe to Physics | New venture of American Physical Society

As a member of the Americal Physical Society, I got the following message.
I hope posting it here does not violate any (c) law.

Thousands of physicists have now signed up for weekly email alerts from Physics , the new, free, online publication from the APS, and many more get timely notice of new features via RSS feeds. Your colleagues and fellow APS members have discovered the brief, clear, original commentary on exceptional papers from Physical Review Letters and the Physical Review series that you'll find in Physics. Expert-written commentaries, called Viewpoints, place selected PRL/PR papers in context and add explanatory detail; Trends provide a concise overview of an area of research which is of high, topical interest; Synopses summarize important papers that merit wider attention.
See for yourself whether Physics interests you:
Viewpoints

• The end of the world at the Large Hadron Collider? by Michael Peskin
• Pile on the metal by Dung-Hai Lee
• The inner life of mesoorganisms by Todd Squires
• Reconnecting to superfluid turbulence by Joseph J. Niemela

Trends

• High-temperature superconductivity in the iron pnictides by Michael R. Norman
• Ultracold neutral plasmas by Steven L. Rolston

Synopses

• A new partner for the top quark?
• Zooming out on complex networks
• A Riemann calculator?
• A little vaccine goes a long way

To sign up for email alerts or RSS feeds, click here: Physics Alerts
If you find Physics worthwhile, please forward this message to your interested colleagues. To provide feedback on Physics, contact us at physics@aps.org.

Albert Einstein: The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity

This evening I was wondering how our brain can comprehend this complex universe under the mathematical and philosophical way. These scientific methods involve people being able to speculate and hence learn on the basis of mistakes made by others. Thats why communication is so so important: you do not end up re-inventing the wheel!

I did some nice and extensive study of General Theory of Relativity (GTR) when I was Master's student in Tribhuvan University in Nepal. Today, after finding the Original Manuscript by Einstein on Relativity, I was equally amazed on its simplicity and compactness.
This is an awesome paper: No doubt!
In the paper, he starts from very basic formulation of the theory and justifies his theory with compelling examples. WOW!!!
Of course, you will need some background of mathematics but it is real fun.
The paper which revealed the fact that "matter tells space how to bend; space tells matter how to move" can be found here ...
http://www.alberteinstein.info/gallery/gtext3.html

If you are further interested, you can contact Prof. UdayRaj Khanal in Tribhuvan University. (He was my Thesis supervisor in M.Sc., Physics)

First Ever Impressive Scientific Dream

It is 544AM now, I was just Dreaming something strange.

I was reading a Physics News in Paper(that was not online!). The news was highlighted with light blue/green background and was presented in a table in the bottom-right part of the right sheet.

It read something like:
"A team of scientist studying Aurora has come across a strange effect....
One of the team member has gained a super natural effect ...
(I have now forgotten another line in here... may be you can read it sometimes in future: ha ha)
He can now see a kilometer depth inside the sea and is being employed for fishing industry"(heh, fishing industry???)

This is completely ridiculous. I mean, I don't know what triggered this dream. May be the trailor of Steven Spielberg's upcoming movie/series (?) which I was watching on TV or the advertisement of supernatural series or the Thriller that I was watching while having dinner...

This is my dream

Give me enough time, I will impress you!

While I am feeling that I have little bit of spare time, I do watch the TED presentations. They are great!!!

One of the video I recently watched has impressed me. It is about the creation of universe and the on-going experiment to reveal the secrets of Nature.
The take home point was: If Hydrogen is given 14 billion years, it can create such a magnificent Universe.
I turned into myself and asked, wow!

Give me some time, I am sure that I will impress you!!!
Enjoy the presentation.

Large Hardon Collider Rap

This is fun .
Besides being funny, it is peculiarly educative.


Try to follow the details. It is amazing.
I liked it!

Mind your concentration

This is amazing trick!



Does mind trick us?
Or do we trick ourselves?

In this video, viewers are asked to see how many times the ball was passed by the guys with white shirt.
If one goes for accuracy and forgets everythings else...

Watch the video.

Physics Students Departing from Nepal to USA for Fall 2008.

Name	University
Ajaya Mishra	Univ. of Missouri
Anil Ghimire	University of Utah
Arjun Dahal	University of Minessota, Duluth
Bibek Gautam	Idaho State University
Bidhan Lamichhane	Georgia State University
Bijay Manandhar	University of Maryland
Chetan Dhital	Boston College
Ghaneshwar Gautam	University of Minessota, Duluth
Hari Khanal	Florida International University
Hari Poudyal	Central Florida University
Kapil Adhikari	University of Texas at Arlington
Madhav Pokhrel	University of Southern Mississipi
nabraj Bhattarai	Central Michigan University
Narayan Adhikari	University of Nevada, Reno
Niraj Dhital
Nirmal G.B. Ghimire	University of Tennessee
Parsuram Aryal	University of Toledo
Pradip Basnet	University of Massachusets, Dortmouth
Pramila Shakya	University of Southern Mississipi
Pramod Lamichhane	Wayne State University
Pravat Bhattarai	University of Minessota, Duluth
Punam Laxmi Silwal	Tulane University
Rajendra Dulal	University of Massachusets, Boston
Ramesh Adhikari	University of Southern Mississipi
Rishi Ram Pandit	University of Nevada, Reno
Shree Krishna Bhattarai	University of Texas at Arlington

Thanks to Shree and Nabraj Jee for the list. The Farewell ceremony was held on Aug.1st 2008 at Subashree college, Kathmandu.

I would like to wish all the best for your academic endeavor.

UPDATE: Dambar Singh Air (University of Nevada, Reno)

Get Ubuntu in your system

One thing I like about my Ubuntu is its color selection.
Pretty warm and nice.
Get a copy of Ubuntu for free! from: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/GetUbuntu/download.

Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are'.

I am sure that you will also love it.

Heading for MaxEnt 2008, Brazil: Today!

I am visiting Brazil for one week to participate in a conference:
MAXENT2008.

http://www.brastex.info/maxent2008/

There, I will be presenting my works.
Last year, MAXENT2007 was held in Saratoga Springs, NY. I was also a part of it as a local organizer. The conference brings a lot of international scientist from different fields into a common place to discuss their works and progresses made during the year. This enables a one-to one interaction with the dignified scientists in the respective field.

I will be flying from JFK, NY, USA to Sao Paulo, Brazil : tonight at 10PM.
WISH ME ALL THE BEST!!!

Related:
http://www.supelec.fr/lss/MaxEnt2000/


    

Nepali Physics Students' Group in Facebook

Greetings!!!

Facebook has been proved to be a great place to hang out. I like it because I can find friends and friends of friends whom I had meet but had no clue on how to contact them (as we could not exchange the email address).

Recently, Pashupati Dhakal et. al. has created a group in facebook.
If you have facebook account and you are a nepali physics student, Please join the group.

Please visit the group by clicking the link below or Please copy and paste the following address in your browser:

http://www.facebook.com/n/?group.php&gid=5646424508


Now we have Three genuine groups:
Google Group of Nepal Physical Society
Yahoo Group of Nepali Physicists aboard
Facebook Group of Nepali Physics Students
(apologies, if I missed any)

Great!!!

A Robot Conductor in Stage!

I know, it is all about pre-programmed robot in the video below.
But we all go into training to get ourselves into some familiar sequence of nice notes. That is also a kind of programming. I found a video in which the robot Asimo directing people as a conductor in a nice stage program.

Many people may find trouble to work under robot.
Oh, actually you can find humans working as robots whenever you call to the 1-800 numbers which are usually equipped with real people trained to behave as robot.
The debate on whether robots are going to outsmart people will continue.
Enjoy the video.

Download Day 2008: Firefox 3

We need to stay tuned and get the World Record set for Firefox 3!!!


http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/getinvolved



















:)

Please vote for my Friend!!!

One of my friends, Arti Shinde, who is pursuing her PhD in cell and molecular biology from Albany Medical College, has been working on some special type of cells for quite some time. The photograph of these cells has been selected as one of the entries in the reputed T-Shirt contest of the ASCB (American Society for Cell Biology). If selected as winner, the picture would appear in the official T-shirt of ASCB for the year 2008-2009.

I would like to request you to vote for her entry (it's entry #13) on the following link.

https://www.ascb.org/ascbsec/tshirt_judge.cfm

"Human foreskin fibroblasts cultured on extracellular matrix protein mixture of plasma fibronectin and alternatively spliced segment of fibronectin"

VOTING DEADLINE: Friday, May 16th 2008.


Update:
Thank You To Everyone Who voted and showed moral support!!!

My Comments on EC Pricing system

EC system is good, because it makes you to explore.
At least, it made me to explore. By exploring, I have come across with too many "good" blogs. Now I can tell at least a dozen of nice sites/blogs, which I had never come across under other system of exploration. The other systems such as BlogRush and GoodBlogs simply lagged (?) because there was no such motivation for bloggers.

I should thank 'em for that.

Everything was alright , if not perfect , suddenly there came the "new law". Which is based upon 2^X law.

Well, there are good side and bad side. (see the links at the end)

I think the pricing should depend on factors such as: number of drops received/unique visitors, ads in que... and one more important factor may be PR or popularity index.

We should always be thinking of new blogs or new members of ec community. Because Blogging is also about community. There should be fair chances for them so that they can still receive enough attention.
Under the news system, since the price jumps up immediately.
No one will be willing to spending a lot of hard earned ec credits on some-where with only few visitor per day.

Simply put : 2^X is not a better idea!
Think of some idea by which new/hobby bloggers (like me) do not get crushed and yet the spam sites get punished!
Let's try to be more creative. Make up new formula which grows very slowly (like x^2) in the beginning, and becomes exponential at some point and then becomes linear.
I do love the no-cap feature.

Thanks for reading!

I liked these posts:
http://turnipofpower.com/2008/04/13/entrecard-advertising-value-strategy/
http://ageeksjourney.com/traffic/entrecard-a-new-start-or-end/
http://flimjo.com/wp-trackback.php?p=109
http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2008/04/entrecard-changes-pricing-algorithm-card-dropping-game-stops/trackback/

Nepali Physicists in 2008 APS (March Meeting)

A list of Nepali physicists participating in the 2008 APS March meeting held at Morial Convention Center, New Orleans,
Louisiana,
USA.

-------------------------------
(1) Dr. Bed Poudel - Boston, MA
(2) Mr. Trilochan Poudel - Boston College, MA
(3) Mr. Shankar Kunwar - Boston College, MA
(4) Mr. Sushil Joshi - Boston College, MA
(5) Mr. Rajendra Dahal - Kansas State University, KS
(6) Mr. Bed Nidhi Pantha - Kansas State University, KS
(7) Mr. Parashu Ram Kharel - Wayne State University
(8) Mr. Rajesh Regmi - Wayne State University, MI
(9) Mr. Arjun Pathak - Southern Illinois University,IL
(10) Mr. Rakesh Shah - Southern Illinois University, IL
(11) Mr. Krishna Sigdel - Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA
(12) Mr. Rudra Kafle - Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA
(13) Mr. Pashupati Dhakal - Boston College, MA
(14) Mr. Sanjaya Adhikari, Towson University, MD
(15) Mr. Khim Karki, Towson University, MD
(16) Mr. Pushkal Thapa - Wayne State University
(17) Mr. Ashok Sedhain - Kansas State University
(18) Dr. Prem Chapagain - Florida International University, FL
(19) Dr. Tara Dhakal - University of Southern Florida, FL
(20) Mr. Hari Dahal - Boston College, MA
(21) Dr. Lekh Nath Bhusal - NREL , Golden , CO
(22) Mr. Laxman Mainali - SUNY at Albany, NY
(23) Mr. Indra Dev Sahu - SUNY at Albany , NY
(24) Mr. Sanjay Prabhakar - SUNY at Albany, NY
(25) Mr. Amar Bahadur Karki - Louisiana State University, LA
(26) Mr. Krishna Neupane - University of Miami, FL
(27) Mr. Suman Khatiwada, Morgan State University, MD
(28) Mr. Krishna Neupane - Kent State University, OH
(29) Mr. Shyam Raj Badu - SUNY at Albany, NY
(30) Mr. Parashu Ram Gyawali - Kent State University, OH
(31) Mr. Madhab Neupane - Boston College, MA
(32) Mr. Pushkar Dahal - Kenyon College, OH
(33) Mr. Suman Khatiwada - Morgan State University, MD
(34) Dr. Bijaya Bahadur Karki - Louisiana State University, LA
(35) Mr. Tula Poudel - Case Western Reserve University, OH
(36) Mr. Prem Thapa - Oklahoma State University, OK
(37) Dr. Mukesh Dhamala - Georgia State University, GA
------------------------------------------
Updated by Rudra Kafle
At 7:47 A.M. Central Time
Friday, March 14 , 2008
Quoted from the Google Group of Nepal Physical Society

Gmail Captcha Broken by Spammers!

CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) challenge-response systems, which prevents automatic creation of accounts/ or automatic posting of messages. It involves a user (human) to correctly identify letters/digits in the form of an image. These are designed to ensure requests are made by a human rather than an automated program/software. The technique has been used to defeat automatic sign-ups to email accounts by services including Yahoo! Mail and Gmail, and has been the nail-biting challenges for hackers.

Recently, I got the news that Spammers have broken the system at Gmail. Recently the success of cracking the Windows Live captcha used by Hotmail was also reported. If they keep being successful at it, then we will be having a huge percentage rise in spam. The main worries are being the reason that nearly no spam blocker will identify and blacklist it as “spam”.

Internet security firm Websense reported bots have been created which are capable of signing up and creating random Gmail accounts for spamming purposes, defeating Captcha-based defences in the process.

Websense considers the latest Gmail Captcha hack to be the most sophisticated one it has seen to date. Live Mail Captcha breaking involved just one zombie host doing the entire job, the Gmail breaking process involves two hosts. One to try, and another to monitor the success. The two compromised hosts applies a slightly different technique to analyse Captcha.

They have reported that only one in every five Captcha-breaking attempts is successful. It seems to be low, but that's more if we consider millions of automated attacks.

Report:

http://www.websense.com/securitylabs/blog/blog.php?BlogID=174

CAPTCHA:

http://www.answers.com/captcha?cat=technology&gwp=13

Links:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001067.html

Bayesian Spam filtering

This is from the blog: Time!

http://ajabgajab.blogspot.com/2007/07/bayesian-spam-filtering.html



Imagine a situation: you are receiving more than hundred Emails. You have to read each of them and classify whether it is good or bad one, for your BOSS.

Stressed? It seems like a stupid question because , now a days, it is not the real situation , right?

You see that there are two folders: Inbox and Bulk(spam). And one more called trash.

Life is so easy!

Eventually there are some, which make the way through.

How is that possible?

If you are receiving less spam, it is the boon of Bayesian Spam Filtering.

It works by learning.

Exactly like we would do, If we face the first condition,

We would start classifying the mails according to its contents and some key words provided by the boss. If confused, with some new situation, feel free to ask the boss. Sub-consciously we will be attributing the spam coefficient to each mail, and finally, to decide whether the Email is Spam or not.

Therefore there will be some training data (lets say) to begin with. Each time we classify the Email, we will become expert so as to classify whether the mail is spam or not. After gaining enough expertise, there are no spams for your BOSS to read (sounds ambitious) . He is also happy that he has to train less and less to classify the incoming mails, as you are gaining the expertise on the environment.

In contrast, you are smart enough, not to mark it spam just by only seeing some key-words used to mark spam. It is the overall mail that will affect your decision. Am I right?

Suppose you change the office, say from management to health. The nature of mails are very different. For example, the term “Pills” may not be spam anymore! While a very good proposal “invitation to join business partnership from africa” is likely to be a spam. If you mark it with the training gained in previous office, you are in trouble!

It would be advantageous for your boss to read all the Emails (including spams) himself than to loose a single (but important) mail.

The advantage of Bayesian spam filtering is that it gets customized with user and the coefficient of spamness differs from user to user.

Well, watch the situation from the eyes of a spammer! You will clearly see the difficulties to spam the mail box. You would be forced to think!

HOW TO SPAM? Some people just can not sleep without spamming.

Because, even if you are able to get through, the way you found will work only once, there is no next chance through the same door. If marked spam (training), there will be no way to that trick for the next time .

Learning makes it possible.

Useful readings:

http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/Bayesian_filter.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_spam_filtering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_फिल्तेरिंग

 

I am highly inspired by:

http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html

and listening to Prof. Kevin Knuth, Prof. Carlos Rodriguez, Adom Giffin and Roger Pink.

Recommended texts:

 

Wikipedia: A reliable source of information?

Do you think that wikipedia is the reliable source of information?

Yes (74%)
No(23%)
Don't care(2%)

Total vote: 47.

This is the result of the poll conducted in my blog: Time! (http://ajabgajab.blogspot.com)

The key question over here is what kind of information do we need? And what is the meaning of the reliability ?
Wikipedia is, of course, not the source of reliable news. Even some of the history chapters may have been biased.
I was reading some news on wikipedia that there had been two cases where the death of the peoples had been posted before they were actually killed. Similarly, when I was seeking the news on indian Idol, people would work hard to keep changing the names of the participant who have been voted out, I think they amused themselves by doing that.
When Reliability is the key question, I would wait and see.
However, when we do search, there are wikipedia results. For me I do peek into the results implied by the wikipedia link.
Answers.com has been nice place for me when I try to see definitive answers. And, most of the time I have been looking for some definitive results. There are of course Wikipedia results.