Nepalese Physicists departing from Nepal in Fall 2011

Thanks to Sanjiv G (Mahesh G and Yubraj G), we present a list of Nepalese physicists departing from Nepal for the Fall 2011.

The list is not yet complete, will be updated as more info comes in.

1.Udaya Raj Dahal- University of Connecticut

2.Niraj Raj Ghimire -University of Connecticut

3.Basant Kumar Dhital- City University of New York, Graduate Center

4.Subin Sahu- Oregon state University

5.Jeevan G.C.- Florida International University

6.Anup Pandey- Ohio University

7.Hem Moktan- Oklahoma state University

8.Yubaraj Malakar- Kansas state University

9.Sudeep Jung Pandey- University of Central Florida

10.Dhan Bahadur Rana- New Mexico State University

11.Diwakar Sigdel- Florida International University

12. Raju Timilsina- Central Michigan University

13.Ekraj Dahal-Boston college

14.Uttar Pudasaini-Old Dominion University

15.Gajadhar Joshi- University of Uttah

16. Rajesh Panthi- Oklahoma state University

17.Bhim Prasad Chaulagain- Wayne State University

18.Niraj Shrestha- University of Memphis

19.Namoona Pandey-Florida International University

20.Alina Karki-Ohio University

21.Sudiksha Khadka- Ohio University

22. Yuba Raj Dahal- Kansas State University

23. Pratap Timalsina- Kansas State University

24. Yuba Raj Poudel-University of Idaho

25. Ashish Sapkota - Iowa State University

26. Ganesh Pokhrel- University of Memphis, Tennessee

27. Jiba Nath Dahal- University of Memphis, Tennessee

28. Shreeram Acharya-University of Central Florida

29. Amrit Laudari- Missouri State University

30. Prakash Nepal- University of Wisconsin
31. Khagendra Adhikari-Univ of southern Mississippi
32. Ek Raj Adhikari-Univ of southern Mississippi 

I would recommend that the students should become life member of NPS before they depart.



Please let us know if someone is missing.

Please join Google group of NPS: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/nps_nepal


I had written about my experiences of departure here:
http://merotime.blogspot.com/2009/10/at-airport.html


And what to pack here... (the list needs revision as per your destination: hot/cold, but gives a general idea)
http://merotime.blogspot.com/2009/08/excitement-begins-here.html
http://merotime.blogspot.com/2009/09/items-to-bring-to-usa-on-your-luggage.html

What do Teachers Make?

They make the difference!

Two videos:


This one is very strong:

RoboSub 2011

Robosub (http://www.auvsifoundation.org/foundation/competitions/robosub/) is a competition involving Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV). The challenge is to overcome the obstacles and perform the tasks without human interventions.
The winners are:

1st Place: ETS Team SONIA (awarded $7,000)
2nd Place : Cornell University (awarded $4000)
3rd Place: University of Florida (awarded $3,000)
4th Place : Reykjavik University (awarded $2,000)
5th Place: University of Maryland (awarded $500)
6th Place: University of Rhode Island (awarded $500)
7th Place: United States Naval Academy
8th Place: North Carolina State University

Mayor's Cup for Community Outreach: Carl Hayden High School (awarded $1,000)
Second Chance Award: University of Central Florida (awarded $1,000)
Outstanding Technical Mentorship: University of Maryland ($500)
Hardware is Hard Award: Utah State University (awarded $500)
Innovation on a Budget Award: Mesa College (awarded $500)
Best Paper Award: Kyushu University (awarded $500)

http://www.auvsi.org/news/#RoboSub2011
The video:



The team describes the challenges and the experience during the competition:
http://sonia.etsmtl.ca/en/news/final-day-we-finished-in-1st-place

 A great collection of their papers etc:
http://www.auvsifoundation.org/foundation/competitions/journalpaperarchives/2011robosubjournalpapers/

Attending MaxEnt 2011 in Waterloo, Canada

I am attending MaxEnt 2011 in Waterloo Canada.

Travelling to Waterloo was slightly involved because of the few reasons. The first one was the visa issues. At least, I am thankful that it arrived a week before my departure. Few of my friends could not make it due to the delays. Another one was that the airfare to the nearby airport was  very very expensive.  So, I travelled via Toronto (about an hour drive).
However, the best part of the airport was that the the wifi was free. So, I quickly joined the network and started calling people while waiting for my shuttle to arrive.

Here, in MaxEnt 2011, I will be presenting my work on collaborative experimental design by two intelligent agents.  The abstract of the talk can be found here ...(PDF!)

The work is the result of the overall successful (past) developments (by the Giants) of the Bayesian method of inference, experimental design techniques and the order-theoretic approach to questions. 

We view the intelligent agents as the question asking machines and we want them to be able to design experiments in an automated fashion to achieve the given goal.  Here we illustrate how the joint entropy turns out to be the useful quantity when we want the intelligent agents to efficiently learn together.

The details are in paper, which will be put in arxiv soon.

On the side notes:

Google detected right away that I "moved" to canada. So they wanted to offer Google.ca

yahoo music does not seem to work!

Pandora does not work.

Interesting!

Time Calls, once again

Today's Nepal is what was supposed to be the "new nepal" as was envisioned by the people who took bullet(s) in their chest a few years ago.   Those who survived might have a better answer to whether they took the bullet(s) for this. This is econo-political issue, which I am not much educated about, as a physicist.  It turns out that there are a lot of matters which I am not well educated about. Life is a journey where we learn. Either by doing or imitating what others did in similar instances: by following examples.

I wanted to talk about an issue that has been pointed out in a recent presentation by a Journalist (Prem Baniya). Everyone knows how corrupt the elements of the society has been through during these volatile period. Definitely, it needs a huge clean-out operation. One can wonder whether it is possible or simply blame it to the "bad politics" over the cup of the tea.  However, this time, the fingers has been pointed to the professionals; Those who were used to be set as respected examples.

The claim is that the associated professors take the paid leave on benefits, go aboard. And, do not return.
It turns out that those who took the benefits enjoy about $20-25 thousands over the five year period. Coming overseas on the paid leave is some kind of commitment that they had when they left the country.

It is the time to set an example.  As always, it is a call for Physicists. They have been good at setting examples or inspiring  generations.
The time calls once again.
Can the group of Nepali Physicists, who enjoyed the benefits and who have now decided not to go back, pay back what they have been blamed for?

If no one dares to come clean, the examples will never be set the same way.


Ref:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcPVUGSwLMY
• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/nps_nepal/Pz9TOOp2o9E
• http://www.mysansar.com/archives/2011/06/id/19699 (Comment are much more interesting)