To Aspiring students looking into a PhD program

It is nice to hear about your aspirations for a PhD. I wish you all the best!

Since my background is in physics, do not be surprised if my information turns out to be different.

I recommend that you start with the following:
1. TOEFL, GRE, subject GRE requirements.
2. A short list of universities that you would like to go, and why?

Seniors and professors may be your resources for your way into these.
3. Learn about the required supporting documents such as letter of recommendation, copies of original transcripts, application fees etc to the office of graduate admission.

Once you have figured these requirements, you will know a lot on how to proceed.

Then the usual way is to send in the applications, and supporting documents. Do inquire to the admission office to learn about the appropriate procedure.

All the best! 

The following links might be useful:

http://www.nabinkm.com/2008/12/tips-for-nepali-students-applying-to.html

http://www.nabinkm.com/2012/05/student-j-1-visa-usa-international.html

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Questions You Wanted to Ask About Physics Graduate School (But Were Afraid to Ask!)

A nice webinar presented by Graduate students and post docs.
 Discusses important issues:

• Grad School application process (tests and how early should one plan)
• Financial support
• Required course work, and qualifying exams
• About research and advising etc

 

Forget about the Class, focus on learning

Rame failed in class 3, and had to repeat again.

Harke failed in class 6 twice, he had to go back to the same class while his friends were already in class 8.

Furke did so good in class 5 that he was promoted to class 7.

These are few examples of how we try to manage the student's ability to excel in course structures in school. Since the course structures are reformed once in a blue moon, a generation can suffer if it has not been well constructed.

Forget about the class system. My proposal is to make it in more flexible way.
It can be done in two ways:
1. Letter grade system: A student interested in Economics might not need to excel in another subject that he fails most of the time.
By making it mandatory that people hiring in Economics need students who got at least B in that subject, the competitive edge will evolve so that the students who favors particular subject will go in their desired direction. If you are a competitive company you would not hire an accountant who got E on account courses. (See second point on foucsed learning.)

2. Forget about the class system. As discussed on the opening line, students loose their precious years only because they had bad subject attitudes. We all have different degrees of affinity towards different subject lines. Modify the system it so that a student can take Algebra from class7, arithmetic from class 8 and geometry from class 6. However, in order for him/her to appear in the SLC, s/he must have the certification from all the basics upto "class" 10.  If s/he fails to do so, he can still choose to take CTEVT courses while enrolling part-time to the subject for the certificate of school. That way, the student need not study back in the same class for next year, and yet learn new subjects while refining the weak subject.

We all get ready to talk about the politics, and the next big things to do in #Naya Nepal... while, there are so many short-term things to do (and can be done) in Nepal. The short-term things are the stuffs that need to be done before we can achieve the big thing. Remember the whole is by part theorem?
Education sector is the one of them that needs some change. Your inputs are welcome.
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Common Student Mistakes in Lab Report

One of the TA duties of graduate students is to instruct in Lab and grade the lab reports. The report writing aspect of lab is very useful skill, which students can learn and also find it useful later in their career.

Here is a list of common mistakes the students make in the lab report (in no particular order):

• Use the wrong date (often use the date they do write-up rather than the date of the lab)
• Forget their lab partners last/name
• Wrong format for name, lab, etc
• Introduce the lab rather than simply state their objective
• Forget to define the equation variable in the theory
• Forget to relate theory to experiment
• Forget to put units (or wrong units)
• Not state general equations
• Error not 1 sig fig or rounded down
• Value corresponding to error has more decimal places than the decimal place of the error
• Forget to put title on the graph or have x vs y instead of y vs x
• max/min lines not encompass all of the points and their error
• Not labeling the y-intercepts and/or the slopes (or labeling incorrectly)
• Majority of the graph space left unused
• Use data points instead of graph points to find the slope
• Forget to compare equation of a line with theory equation
• Not restate results to prove statements in discussion and conclusion
• Use human error such as "I may have calculated wrong" or "human reaction time" in the sources of error.

Would you like to add that you have encountered?

Adopted from
http://www.unbc.ca/assets/physics/labs/phys_labs_common_mistakes.pdf

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Student/ J-1 Visa, USA: International students

INSTRUCTIONS FOR NEWLY ADMITTED INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
(Obtaining the U.S. visa and Entry to the United States)

Students who are applying for the *F-1 or the *j-1 visa in their home country;
(*Note: If you have the I-20 form, you will apply for the F-1 visa. If you have the DS-2019 form, you will apply for the J-1 visa.)
Documents needed:
- Valid passport from your home country
-Certificate of eligibility:*I-20 form[3 pages] or *DS-2019[2 pages]
-Letter of admission from the University and any other official letters that may have been sent to you by the University.
-Evidence of financial support (bank statements, letters of assistantship, sponsorship, and any other proof that you have sufficient funds for educational and living expenses)
-Any evidence that you might have to demonstrate that you have strong ties to your home country and that you plan to return to your home country at the conclusion of your study and any period of authorized employment.

After receiving your Certificate of Eligibility (Form I-20 for F-1 students, or Form DS-2019 for J-1 students or scholars) from the University Admissions Office, you must obtain (or already possess) a passport from your own government , and the United States (U.S.) visa from the U.S. Embassy or Consulate nearest your place of residence.

The earliest you can apply for the U.S. visa is 90 days prior to the starting date on the certificate of eligibility (I-20 or DS-2019).

If your dependents (spouse or/and children) travel to the U.S. with you, each dependent must have a separate I-20 or DS-2019. Students should budget for at least $4000 per dependent per year for living expenses. If you did not request an I-20 or DS-2019 for your dependents at the time of admission, please contact the appropriate (Graduate or Undergraduate) Admissions office:
How to obtain the U.S. visa:
1. Contact the United States Consulate or Embassy near your residence in your home country to learn the correct procedure and to make an appointment, if necessary.
2. Pay the SEVIS I-901 fee required of all new students and exchange visitors with a form I-20 or DS-2019 issued on or after September 1,2004. (For a general overview of the fee payment process, see http:/www.ice.gov/graphics/sevis/i901/faq4.htm#_Toc81222043.)
3. When you arrive at the consulate/embassy, make sure that you have all of the above documents (including a receipt for the fee) to present to the officer who is processing your visa request.
4. If you are granted the visa, it will be affixed to your passport. It will state the number of entries that you have been granted and an expiration date. If an “M” appears under the number of entries, it means “multiple” entry.

This was one of the document I received with my I-20. Please feel free to share with your friends.
Thanks to my wife for typesetting it.
The information provided here might not be complete. Please use the information with caution. Good Luck!

Happy g (9.8) day!

Sept 8th is written as (9.8.YYYY).
When I was trying to update my lab-book, I realized that today is 9.8.2011. The first two numbers represent the acceleration due to gravity (g). Since we started celebrating pi day, tau day and what not day... why not celebrate a g day!

In the context of "g", I remember one incident as told by my close friend (happened in Nepal).
He was teaching a lab and one of his strict instruction was to write down the title of the lab report in ALL CAPS!!!!
Then the next day the report came back which read...
A STUDY OF SIMPLE PENDULUM TO ESTIMATE THE VALUE OF G.

Hilarity ensues


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Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning @Stanford

Stanford is offering free online classes under computer sciences department.

There are three free online classes being offered this semester. The  online registration is free. With the help of high-speed internet, anyone who is enrolled can watch the lectures and participate in the   assignments, homework, and tests.

• Machine Learning taught by Professor Andrew Ng
• Introduction to Artifical Intelligence taught by Professor Sebastian Thrun and Dr. Peter Norvig
• Introduction to Databases taught by Professor Jennifer Widom

With thousands of students enrolled, this is one of the massive experiment too, which will serve as the stand post for the next generation of education system.

 http://robots.stanford.edu/cs221/



The text books used for the AI classes are:
a

What do Teachers Make?

They make the difference!

Two videos:


This one is very strong:

Google Global Science Fair 2011

In association with CERN, National geographic, Scientific American and LEGO; Google brings the first global science fair. http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/
The competition is aimed to the students enrolled in home, public or private school from around the world. The age group is 13 - 18 years. Students may enter as individuals or in teams of up to 3.
The winner will take away $50,000 scholarship award and other exciting prizes (http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/prizes.html).

How to enter:

Here is one of the sample project about use of AI and health care system.

http://sites.google.com/site/tescasgsfsample/home

Arduino The Documentary

Arduino is one of the success stories of hard work and the power of collaboration in open source projects.
For curious minds who have wanted to try something  Arduino makes the way. The best part being the accessible budget in the involved projects.

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Quoted from: http://www.arduino.cc/

 

Arduino The Documentary 2010

How to inspire your students?

It is said that it takes a whole village to raise kids...
The statement reflects the power a teacher has during the grooming of the kids in the classroom and beyond.

Some teachers took the parabolic flight, defying gravity and doing the experiments designed by their kids.

I think in the wake interest in increasing the number of students in STEM, one can devise NSF projects for such fun and inspiring projects.

How do you inspire your students?

Helmet Teachers and +2 Colleges in Nepal

In the recent edition of online Himalkhabar, there was a panel discussion on  "which kind of teachers are good". Of course, there was a recurring topic of "Helmet Teachers" as expressed by the participants.
"Helmet Teacher" (HT) in Kathmandu valley is the name given to the teachers who are the visiting teachers without full time commitment to the institution. Helmet teachers are basically invited to teach one or two classes. Since they usually have to cover many such campuses, they usually come in motor-bike (and thus with helmet in hand); teach and go.

Problems:
The bike Helmets can be lost in critical time, or traffic jam can prevent on-time arrival of such teachers.
Since HT are not fully responsible, the load shift from class to class can disrupt the learning environment. Even some of the time, the fulltime teachers may have to share the load for HT's absence.

Solutions:
10+2 should be obliged to hire certain number of full time committed faculties.
HSEB is now a very big institution. I wonder why it is still not going under hiring HSEB branded teachers. With proper training and HSEB affiliation, the quality of teacher can be assured (if there is any question on it).

The rest is out for discussion. One needs to note that planting the guilt into somebody does not solve the problem.
http://himalkhabar.com/news.php?id=3381

Bus Resistance of a Code or Program

Last year I was on a training for a operating computations on grid at Cornell. Our instructor from Texas threw a Joke: "Do you know the bus resistance of your code?"

Everyone was surprised to hear the question. The Joke is interesting because it indicates one thing and tells you something else. While some people were thinking of how the string of 1's and 0's that travel through the computer data bus might come across such bus resistance, he explained in a funny way.

Here we go:

Imagine one fine friday evening you are grabbing a beer and walking down the road, and you are hit by a bus. What happens to your code? The next day the project manager decides to give your code to your colleague to continue the project. If your code is not properly commented, he will be completely lost in there. 

So, the bus resistance is given by the amount of comments in a code and the readability of your code by someone else.

Let us wish that this happens to no one. However, for the continuity of the project in your lab, your code must have very high bus resistance value.

The moral is: comment your code as much as you can.

Cheers!

Are your codes bus resistant?

Congratulations to recent Nepali Physics PhD graduates

Wishing all the best to the recent Physics PhD graduates.


Dr. Hikmat BC
New Mexico State University 


Dr. Shyam Badu
University at Albany


Dr. Madhav Neupane
Boston College


Dr. Pashupati Dhakal 

Boston College

Dr. Mukti Aryal

UT Dallas 

Locating Nepali Physicists on Google map LINK here:


Please join us to congratulate Nepali Physicists graduating with PhD degree. The Google group of Nepal Physical Society LINK here.

Diffusive Nested Sampling: Brewer et. al.

Brendon et. al. has a newer version of nested sampling algorithm, they call it Diffusive Nested Sampling (DNS). As the name indicates, it principally differs from the "classic" nested sampling in presenting the hard constraint. It relaxes the hard evolving constraint and lets the samples to explore the mixture distribution of nested probability distributions, each successive distribution occupying e^-1 times the enclosed prior mass of the previously seen distributions. The mixture distribution is weighted at will (a hack :P) which is a clever trick of exploration. This reinforces the idea of "no peaks left behind" for multimodal problems.

On a test problem they claim that DNS "can achieve four times the accuracy of classic Nested Sampling, for the same computational effort; equivalent to a factor of 16 speedup".

I have not played with it yet. However, it seems worth trying. Just a note to myself.

PS:
What can grow out of side talks in a conference?
If you know the power of scrapping in the napkin paper, you would not be surprised.

The paper is available in arxiv:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.2380
The code is available at: http://lindor.physics.ucsb.edu/DNest/; comes with handy instructions.

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Thanks are due to Dr. Brewer for indicating typos in the draft and suggestions + allowing to use the figures.
 The original nested sampling code is available in the book by sivia and skilling: Data Analysis: A Bayesian Tutorial
 

Edit: Sep 5, 2013 An illustrative animation of Diffusive Nested Sampling (www.github.com/eggplantbren/DNest3) sampling a multimodal posterior distribution. The size of the yellow circle indicates the importance weight. The method can travel between the modes because the target distribution includes the (uniform) prior as a mixture component.

Great! you are selected for grad school, now what?

This is one of the post I am writing for the graduate students coming aboard.
First, my congratulations for being selected. Pursuing your dream in higher studies is going to be very important. It is important not only because you get into graduate school but also because it will define your career path for rest of your life.
Your question is regarding whether you wanna go the the university that offered you. If you had carefully selected and applied to the universities, you will have no problem in deciding once you get the offer letter But what if two very competent universities are calling you?
I have the following recommendations (and they apply equally to cases when one is preparing to apply for grad school):

• Visit the University website. Especially, the departmental website. 
• Visit Each faculty website, see the trends in the department research. Are the faculty actively involved in research?
• See if the research field particularly interests you.
• See if you can figure out the number of graduate student to faculty ratio. 
• If your support comes from doing the TA duties, see if you can figure out the number of undergraduate student to graduate student ratio.
• How about the weather? Location? Socialization?

These are the basic questions that you need before you start out your venture. They are important as it will guide your next five years (plus/minus 1) and ultimately your academic life.
Once you figure out such basic academic facts, you can then go for planning the (local) life style there. The best case scenario would be if you have any close friend living nearby. If you can contact the department secretary to learn about the housing, it will also make your life much better. Craiglist listing on apartments can also be equally illuminating.

Observatory Night@ SUNY Albany

For our first session of the semester two great planets and our moon as well as farther, wider objects will be in view.

Jupiter, one of the top two planets to see in any telescope, will be setting just as we arrive on the rooftop. At 5 pm it won't yet be dusk, so the sun's glare may prevent us from viewing Jupiter's four giant moons. We will need luck in order to catch the planet in the telescope.

Will anyone bring binoculars? In any case we can get acquainted with the planet using just our eyes.

Our Moon is the most fabulous object to view at night through the telescope. On Sunday it is a waxing gibbous, an excellent time to zero in on the landing sites of some of the Apollo missions! (Sorry, we can't see the flags.)

Next, as we peer at a cloudy white region known as the Great Nebula in Orion, we can imagine it is the birth of our own sun - probably similar stars are being born there now!

Mars will be on the rise as we prepare to exit the premises. While it may not be viewable in the scope, we can identify the planet for next week; its position won't change much in that time!

Remember to dress warmly as the observatory is outdoors! While waiting for your turn to view you may wish to wait in the warmer hallway.

If the weather isn't clear then we will cancel.
Follow the announcements at AlbanyStarGaze for updates.

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Phil Erner
PhD student, SUNY Albany.

Note: We will be bringing pictures of the event and updates.
Previously we had some nice moon pictures... here.