Monday, April 28, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Matlab figure tips
http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/index.html?/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/creating_plots/bqrw9tj.html&http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/helptoc.html
http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/index.html?/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/creating_plots/f10-19972.html&http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/ref/bar.html
http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/index.html?/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/ref/bar.html&http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/creating_plots/f9-53405.html
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/files/3486/xticklabel_rotate.m
http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/index.html?/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/creating_plots/f10-19972.html&http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/ref/bar.html
http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/index.html?/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/ref/bar.html&http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/creating_plots/f9-53405.html
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/files/3486/xticklabel_rotate.m
Monday, April 21, 2008
The increasing velocity of the paper number
“The increasing velocity of the paper number is higher than the speed of light, but there is nothing to worry about for there is no violation of any physical law, because these papers carry no information.”
by Chandrasekhar
by Chandrasekhar
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Good articles (I): 我是职业人
结果证明价值
责任造就人品
能力解决问题
重视日常细节
耐心对待客户
遵守公司规范
团队利益为重
精确时间观念
沟通解决一切
行为始终如一
http://www.zhiyeren.cn/book/index_2.asp
第一章 永远以结果证明自己的价值， 职场没有苦劳，只有功劳
http://www.zhiyeren.cn/discussGroup/DG_TopicView.asp?tid=666
第二章 永远以责任心证明自己的人品，忠诚于事业，坚守承诺
http://www.zhiyeren.cn/discussGroup/DG_TopicView.asp?tid=667
第 3 章 永远把解决问题的技能作为核心能力，而不是把知识丰富作为核心能力
责任造就人品
能力解决问题
重视日常细节
耐心对待客户
遵守公司规范
团队利益为重
精确时间观念
沟通解决一切
行为始终如一
http://www.zhiyeren.cn/book/index_2.asp
第一章 永远以结果证明自己的价值， 职场没有苦劳，只有功劳
http://www.zhiyeren.cn/discussGroup/DG_TopicView.asp?tid=666
第二章 永远以责任心证明自己的人品，忠诚于事业，坚守承诺
http://www.zhiyeren.cn/discussGroup/DG_TopicView.asp?tid=667
第 3 章 永远把解决问题的技能作为核心能力，而不是把知识丰富作为核心能力
Thursday, April 17, 2008
PracTex Journal
Avoid eqnarray: http://www.tug.org/pracjourn/2006-4/madsen/
The PracTexJournal: http://www.tug.org/pracjourn/archive.html
The PracTexJournal: http://www.tug.org/pracjourn/archive.html
Authorship Practice Guideline
I thought every researcher and student ought to know what the right authorship practice is, but from my observations and conversations with people in MSRA, this does not seem to be the case. Since some of you asked me to write down a guideline, here it is.
To decide if it is worth your time to read this, try to see if you fit any one of these symptoms:
You ever put someone on your paper or patent even though that someone has very little or no technical contribution.
Your name ever appeared on a paper or patent even though you have very little or no technical contribution.
All your published papers so far have more than 2 authors.
If so, you might be hurting yourself. Reasons and remedies are provided below.
The Rules
1. authors contain only people with sufficient technical contributions.
By technical contribution, I mean efforts directly attributed to the paper, including idea, algorithm, coding, demo, experiments, and paper writing. A university professor who merely sent his/her student(s) to work on a project does not qualify for authorship. Anyone (e.g. a manager or a colleague) who does nothing or merely comments on a paper (or patent) draft does not quality for authorship.
2. authors should be ordered according to their relative contributions.
It is not always easy to judge the relative contribution of the collaborators, but my rule of thumb is idea > algorithm/writing > coding/demo > labor (e.g. data collection and experiments). If you have difficulty figuring this out, a good mental exercise is to ask how replaceable that particular author is; the more replaceable, the less value. (This is how supply & demand work in a market economy.)
FAQ
Why is it bad to put a student programmer the first author?
(1) It is not fair, as I stated above. (2) It is harmful to the student's growth. If the student can be a first author by merely coding, what would motivate him/her to go further? (3) It is bad for you (researchers), as in the end you will have a bunch of students or junior employees who know nothing beyond coding, and you will have to do all the other stuff yourself. It is usually not fun.
Why is it bad to put a "guest" professor (i.e. a professor that does nothing to a paper beyond sending students) as an author?
(1) It is not fair, as I stated above. (2) It is harmful to that professor, as he/she would be less motivated to do real research. Plus, putting your name on a paper you know little can be very dangerous to your reputation; remember the American professor who put his name on one of the papers fabricated by the infamous Korean stem cell researcher? (3) We, MSRA, are not doing our job to promote the research capability of China and Asia. Quote from Harry Shum: "it is better to teach someone how to fish rather than giving him free fish".
But that professor will no longer send students if I don't put his/her name on the paper.
I understand this is the Achilles' Heel of MSRA. Ultimately, I don't see this as a major issue as many of you will eventually become (at least) an adjunct professor and will be able to have your own students. In the meanwhile, if you need to bend the rules, go ahead. (I have been and I am still bending the rules myself even at the time of writing this article. We all need to compromise with the reality.) But just keep in mind that this is NOT right and you should strive to fix it eventually.
Why is it bad to put a manager or a colleague (who does not do enough work) as an author?
(1) It is not fair, as I stated above. (2) It can be harmful for the manager's reputation if he/she doesn't know enough about the paper (e.g. a paper containing fabricated results). It can also harm the manager's reputation in another way, as people will know he/she is "rubber-stamping". In the end, people will respect that manager as a powerful political figure, but not an intellectual researcher. (3) It is harmful to you. If you put managers on all your papers, people will not recognize it as your contribution (unless you are already famous to begin with).
On a related note: managers are paid for their "management" work via salary and compensation, not through (your) gratuitous authorship.
But I need other people's help to publish a paper
This implies that your research skill set is not yet complete. Fortunately, most of these skills are learnable. Even for paper writing, you don't have to travel abroad to learn it; I know at least one guy who picked up writing entirely by repeated practice while busting his ass inside Sigma building.
Related Issues
patent invalidation
Abusing authorship for a research paper is never good, but at least it won't be lethal. But doing that for a patent is. I have some recent conversations with several patent lawyers, and my understanding is that patent authors need to be exactly those who have actually made technical contributions (as itemized in the claims); otherwise, the patent can be invalidated in a court. A guy in MSR Redmond even told me that he believed many MSRA patents are subject to invalidation due to the authorship malpractice by managers.
too many authors on a paper
Try to answer this quiz: 10 authors on 10 papers; which option is better for their reputation? (1) 10 authors appear on each one of the 10 papers, (2) each person single-authors one paper. Mathematically they seem to be the same but they have drastically different effects on your reputation. I am not saying that massive collaboration is not good, but research is a very personal endeavor. If you want to get recognition, you will need papers that are associated with you, not your colleagues, manager(s) or institution. Whenever I hear people mention "a paper coming from a bunch of Chinese guys in MSRA", I know it is bad news for *each one* of these guys.
Implementation
Students and junior researchers should start as 2nd or 3rd authors, and they can become a first author only until the day they can finish the paper all alone, with only high level guidance from the adviser. (Sounds harsh? By definition, this is how a Ph.D. thesis requires.)
Senior researchers should start to embark on more personal projects and try not to have everybody collaborate on every project (or worse, gratuitous authorship). I believe the best practice is "one mentor, one student". My experience is that even for projects that have more than 2 people, usually one student and I have done most of the work.
For "guest" professors and managers, it is an art to get things right. A "stop-loss" strategy is to restrict the abuse to a small and fixed number of people that you know well, and cultivate those who are willing to make changes (if needed, feel free to share my article with them). The best strategy, in my opinion, is to become a professor yourself and have your own students.
Finale
In trying to make this article as concise as possible, I might have omitted important information (that I took for granted). Please let me know if you have any questions. I will be happy to give an informal talk if enough of you express interests.
To put my money where my mouth is, let's play a game. For the first MSRA student or assistant/associate researcher who single-authors a SIGGRAPH paper, your travel expense to the conference is on me. (Sorry, only SIGGRAPH can make my eyes blink. Volunteers are needed for other conferences.) The offer is valid throughout my lifetime even after I leave MSRA. Up to the challenge?
To decide if it is worth your time to read this, try to see if you fit any one of these symptoms:
You ever put someone on your paper or patent even though that someone has very little or no technical contribution.
Your name ever appeared on a paper or patent even though you have very little or no technical contribution.
All your published papers so far have more than 2 authors.
If so, you might be hurting yourself. Reasons and remedies are provided below.
The Rules
1. authors contain only people with sufficient technical contributions.
By technical contribution, I mean efforts directly attributed to the paper, including idea, algorithm, coding, demo, experiments, and paper writing. A university professor who merely sent his/her student(s) to work on a project does not qualify for authorship. Anyone (e.g. a manager or a colleague) who does nothing or merely comments on a paper (or patent) draft does not quality for authorship.
2. authors should be ordered according to their relative contributions.
It is not always easy to judge the relative contribution of the collaborators, but my rule of thumb is idea > algorithm/writing > coding/demo > labor (e.g. data collection and experiments). If you have difficulty figuring this out, a good mental exercise is to ask how replaceable that particular author is; the more replaceable, the less value. (This is how supply & demand work in a market economy.)
FAQ
Why is it bad to put a student programmer the first author?
(1) It is not fair, as I stated above. (2) It is harmful to the student's growth. If the student can be a first author by merely coding, what would motivate him/her to go further? (3) It is bad for you (researchers), as in the end you will have a bunch of students or junior employees who know nothing beyond coding, and you will have to do all the other stuff yourself. It is usually not fun.
Why is it bad to put a "guest" professor (i.e. a professor that does nothing to a paper beyond sending students) as an author?
(1) It is not fair, as I stated above. (2) It is harmful to that professor, as he/she would be less motivated to do real research. Plus, putting your name on a paper you know little can be very dangerous to your reputation; remember the American professor who put his name on one of the papers fabricated by the infamous Korean stem cell researcher? (3) We, MSRA, are not doing our job to promote the research capability of China and Asia. Quote from Harry Shum: "it is better to teach someone how to fish rather than giving him free fish".
But that professor will no longer send students if I don't put his/her name on the paper.
I understand this is the Achilles' Heel of MSRA. Ultimately, I don't see this as a major issue as many of you will eventually become (at least) an adjunct professor and will be able to have your own students. In the meanwhile, if you need to bend the rules, go ahead. (I have been and I am still bending the rules myself even at the time of writing this article. We all need to compromise with the reality.) But just keep in mind that this is NOT right and you should strive to fix it eventually.
Why is it bad to put a manager or a colleague (who does not do enough work) as an author?
(1) It is not fair, as I stated above. (2) It can be harmful for the manager's reputation if he/she doesn't know enough about the paper (e.g. a paper containing fabricated results). It can also harm the manager's reputation in another way, as people will know he/she is "rubber-stamping". In the end, people will respect that manager as a powerful political figure, but not an intellectual researcher. (3) It is harmful to you. If you put managers on all your papers, people will not recognize it as your contribution (unless you are already famous to begin with).
On a related note: managers are paid for their "management" work via salary and compensation, not through (your) gratuitous authorship.
But I need other people's help to publish a paper
This implies that your research skill set is not yet complete. Fortunately, most of these skills are learnable. Even for paper writing, you don't have to travel abroad to learn it; I know at least one guy who picked up writing entirely by repeated practice while busting his ass inside Sigma building.
Related Issues
patent invalidation
Abusing authorship for a research paper is never good, but at least it won't be lethal. But doing that for a patent is. I have some recent conversations with several patent lawyers, and my understanding is that patent authors need to be exactly those who have actually made technical contributions (as itemized in the claims); otherwise, the patent can be invalidated in a court. A guy in MSR Redmond even told me that he believed many MSRA patents are subject to invalidation due to the authorship malpractice by managers.
too many authors on a paper
Try to answer this quiz: 10 authors on 10 papers; which option is better for their reputation? (1) 10 authors appear on each one of the 10 papers, (2) each person single-authors one paper. Mathematically they seem to be the same but they have drastically different effects on your reputation. I am not saying that massive collaboration is not good, but research is a very personal endeavor. If you want to get recognition, you will need papers that are associated with you, not your colleagues, manager(s) or institution. Whenever I hear people mention "a paper coming from a bunch of Chinese guys in MSRA", I know it is bad news for *each one* of these guys.
Implementation
Students and junior researchers should start as 2nd or 3rd authors, and they can become a first author only until the day they can finish the paper all alone, with only high level guidance from the adviser. (Sounds harsh? By definition, this is how a Ph.D. thesis requires.)
Senior researchers should start to embark on more personal projects and try not to have everybody collaborate on every project (or worse, gratuitous authorship). I believe the best practice is "one mentor, one student". My experience is that even for projects that have more than 2 people, usually one student and I have done most of the work.
For "guest" professors and managers, it is an art to get things right. A "stop-loss" strategy is to restrict the abuse to a small and fixed number of people that you know well, and cultivate those who are willing to make changes (if needed, feel free to share my article with them). The best strategy, in my opinion, is to become a professor yourself and have your own students.
Finale
In trying to make this article as concise as possible, I might have omitted important information (that I took for granted). Please let me know if you have any questions. I will be happy to give an informal talk if enough of you express interests.
To put my money where my mouth is, let's play a game. For the first MSRA student or assistant/associate researcher who single-authors a SIGGRAPH paper, your travel expense to the conference is on me. (Sorry, only SIGGRAPH can make my eyes blink. Volunteers are needed for other conferences.) The offer is valid throughout my lifetime even after I leave MSRA. Up to the challenge?
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Search Links
1. AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com/
2. Retrievr
http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/
3. Riya
http://www.riya.com/
4. Blinkx
http://www.blinkx.com/
5. citeseerx
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu
http://www.altavista.com/
2. Retrievr
http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/
3. Riya
http://www.riya.com/
4. Blinkx
http://www.blinkx.com/
5. citeseerx
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
ACM MM08: deadline extended
As a tradition, the ACM MM08 deadline is extended.
Good luck to all ACM MM08 guys.
Good luck to all ACM MM08 guys.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Yahoo's photo-sharing site, Flickr, expands into video with new service
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Yahoo's photo-sharing site, Flickr, expands into video with new service
By Associated Press
http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/20544/?nlid=997
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Yahoo Inc. will begin showing homemade videos on its online photo-sharing site, Flickr, in a long-anticipated move that may be too late to lure most people away from the Internet's dominant video channel, Google Inc.'s YouTube.
Flickr's video technology, to debut late Tuesday, represents the latest example of Yahoo trying to catch up to Google in a crucial battleground.
Yahoo's inability to keep pace with Google in the lucrative online search market caused its profits and stock price to sag during the past two years, which in turn triggered an unsolicited takeover attempt by Microsoft Corp. for more than $40 billion (euro25.5 billion).
While trying to fend off Microsoft, Yahoo has continued to develop and introduce services that the Sunnyvale-based company hopes will help revive its earnings growth.
Unlike Internet search, online video has not blossomed into a big moneymaker yet. But it is expected to turn into a marketing magnet as advertisers shift more of their spending from television in pursuit of consumers who are watching more entertainment and news online.
Yahoo already operates one of the Web's largest video platforms, but most of its content is provided by media outlets and other outside professionals.
Flickr's new technology is aimed at amateurs and hobbyists looking for a better way to share short video clips with family and friends.
Only Flickr's ''pro'' members -- those who pay for a $24.95 annual subscription -- will be allowed to transfer video clips of up to 90 seconds to the site, but anyone will be able to watch them. A privacy setting will allow videographers to limit access to the clips on Flickr if they want.
The video service will be offered in English and seven other languages: French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and traditional Chinese.
Flickr believes its service will offer a more personal touch than the many other Web sites that feature video, and that will help distinguish it. Flickr managers also expect to appeal to people looking to keep their video and pictures on the same site.
''What we are doing is going to meet a huge unmet need in the market,'' predicted Kakul Srivastava, Flickr's general manager. ''Most people aren't showing their personal videos at all right now.''
A trio of friends -- Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim -- created YouTube partly because they couldn't find a spot on the Internet to share their personal videos. Shortly before YouTube played its first clip in the spring of 2005, the husband-and-wife team of Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield sold Flickr to Yahoo for a reported $35 million (euro22.3 million).
While Flickr continued to focus on photos, YouTube's eclectic mix of professional clips -- often illegally posted -- and videos of kids goofing off turned the site into a cultural phenomenon.
Since Google bought YouTube for $1.76 billion in late 2006, the video-sharing site has become even more popular despite increased competition from major media companies like NBC Universal and News Corp.
In February, 70 million people in the United States watched 2.9 billion video clips on YouTube, according to the research firm Nielsen Online. News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Video showed about 406 million clips to 21 million people in the United States to rank a distant second. Yahoo was in third place with 245 million clips shown to 21 million people in the United States.
Flickr has built a fiercely loyal following in its own right, a factor that should bolster its expansion into video.
The site attracted a worldwide audience of 42 million in February, up 53 percent from the same time last year, according to comScore Media Metrix. Facebook.com, an online hangout popular among younger Web surfers, had the only larger photo-sharing service with a worldwide audience of 65 million, comScore said.
Yahoo's photo-sharing site, Flickr, expands into video with new service
By Associated Press
http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/20544/?nlid=997
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Yahoo Inc. will begin showing homemade videos on its online photo-sharing site, Flickr, in a long-anticipated move that may be too late to lure most people away from the Internet's dominant video channel, Google Inc.'s YouTube.
Flickr's video technology, to debut late Tuesday, represents the latest example of Yahoo trying to catch up to Google in a crucial battleground.
Yahoo's inability to keep pace with Google in the lucrative online search market caused its profits and stock price to sag during the past two years, which in turn triggered an unsolicited takeover attempt by Microsoft Corp. for more than $40 billion (euro25.5 billion).
While trying to fend off Microsoft, Yahoo has continued to develop and introduce services that the Sunnyvale-based company hopes will help revive its earnings growth.
Unlike Internet search, online video has not blossomed into a big moneymaker yet. But it is expected to turn into a marketing magnet as advertisers shift more of their spending from television in pursuit of consumers who are watching more entertainment and news online.
Yahoo already operates one of the Web's largest video platforms, but most of its content is provided by media outlets and other outside professionals.
Flickr's new technology is aimed at amateurs and hobbyists looking for a better way to share short video clips with family and friends.
Only Flickr's ''pro'' members -- those who pay for a $24.95 annual subscription -- will be allowed to transfer video clips of up to 90 seconds to the site, but anyone will be able to watch them. A privacy setting will allow videographers to limit access to the clips on Flickr if they want.
The video service will be offered in English and seven other languages: French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and traditional Chinese.
Flickr believes its service will offer a more personal touch than the many other Web sites that feature video, and that will help distinguish it. Flickr managers also expect to appeal to people looking to keep their video and pictures on the same site.
''What we are doing is going to meet a huge unmet need in the market,'' predicted Kakul Srivastava, Flickr's general manager. ''Most people aren't showing their personal videos at all right now.''
A trio of friends -- Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim -- created YouTube partly because they couldn't find a spot on the Internet to share their personal videos. Shortly before YouTube played its first clip in the spring of 2005, the husband-and-wife team of Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield sold Flickr to Yahoo for a reported $35 million (euro22.3 million).
While Flickr continued to focus on photos, YouTube's eclectic mix of professional clips -- often illegally posted -- and videos of kids goofing off turned the site into a cultural phenomenon.
Since Google bought YouTube for $1.76 billion in late 2006, the video-sharing site has become even more popular despite increased competition from major media companies like NBC Universal and News Corp.
In February, 70 million people in the United States watched 2.9 billion video clips on YouTube, according to the research firm Nielsen Online. News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Video showed about 406 million clips to 21 million people in the United States to rank a distant second. Yahoo was in third place with 245 million clips shown to 21 million people in the United States.
Flickr has built a fiercely loyal following in its own right, a factor that should bolster its expansion into video.
The site attracted a worldwide audience of 42 million in February, up 53 percent from the same time last year, according to comScore Media Metrix. Facebook.com, an online hangout popular among younger Web surfers, had the only larger photo-sharing service with a worldwide audience of 65 million, comScore said.
An interesting string pattern analysis problem
Given a binary string S 01...010 with N bits, and a string comparison operator Op(s1, s2) with outputing only 1 bit value. Suppose the binary string S have K "1".
Please give an algorithm to decide the positions of all the bits valued 1 and analyze its time compleixty in terms of operation. Can we even analyze the overall time complexity with the time complexity of operation.
Please give an algorithm to decide the positions of all the bits valued 1 and analyze its time compleixty in terms of operation. Can we even analyze the overall time complexity with the time complexity of operation.
Two passes in siggraph08 camera-ready paper
Just now, I heard a message about preparing siggraph08 camera-ready paper.
Interestingly, there are two passes:
Interestingly, there are two passes:
- Before April 21st, the author should submit a "draft" version for a camera-ready paper. Then some feedbacks are presented to the authors.
- Before April 30th, the author should submit the "final" version as the camera-ready paper.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Welcome to my academic blog
In my blog, I will collect a set of resources about my interseted research areas, including machine learning, computer vision and graphics, and multimedia.
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