Making Sense of Investment and Leadership

The following article is a little strange in the sense that the two personalities I am going to discuss are husband and wife. I have chosen to bracket them in for two sense - first, to show that Science should be married to Business and vice versa. Second, a good number of our previous topics are about Science and Technology and compared to that posts based on Business and Economics are far less. Let me first introduce Neri Oxman, at Mediated Matter Lab in MIT. The second personality is Bill Ackman, who loves to call himself an "Activist Investor."

I am just uploading two images - but later, I intend to upload a couple of video clips to enhance our understanding of what research and investment approaches are being tested in global platforms which is preparing us to the nest century and beyond.

It is now time to work on both Neri and Bill. Start with Neri Oxman's WIKI entry.

All the Feynman Physics lectures are kept in the following page, maintained by Caltech. Help yourself. In the beginning, these are written in a simple language but gradually builds up in complexity as you progress. Since I do not get much of the solutions, I did enjoy how he presents a case in terms of stories. And there is section titled STORIES where great Physicists tell how they were influenced by Feynman's lectures.

Feynman Physics Lectures

Further Observation/Comment on Research Training

Here is a further comment from Tahsin Khan after he checked in on the previous BLOG posts.

Sir, it looks good. Given the recent trend among applicants in the past few years have been towards engineering and "tech", it's great to see that you are imbuing the need of great story-telling in their writings. I strongly feel that without context of scenarios that are "outside of the box", students (postgrads and postdocs including) simply become cog wheels with a philosophical void of their work. Hence story telling is an imperative component of any research/technical writing. It is a tool that will allow students to play out the scenarios in the scenarios in their head before actually embarking on a journey. Also, Sir I have been recently contacted one of the professors in Nottingham regarding a potential PhD project based in Bangladesh which will model the spread of epidemic among the Rohingya population. The project is a joint venture between Nottingham, WHO, UNICEF, Johns Hopkins, Univ of Maryland, ICDDRB and BCSIR (I just recently learned that's the official abbreviation of Science Lab). This project is going to be a massive undertaking and have already commenced. However, I am only allowed to join in from April, during which time I might have to visit the sites. Sir, I want to take this opportunity to expand the scope to use data to address some of the socio-economic conditions of the marginalized/under-represented/oppressed population of the country. I have already hired one of my mentees from Nurture.Ai to work on these issues from Bangladesh. He also suggested this particular article, which we did TOGETHER during his Application time. Here is the LINK from Nature Magazine.

CLICK Here = Train PhD students to be Thinkers, Philosophers

Friday Meet - on Two Types of Reasearch Paper

On Wednesday (8th January), I met four students regarding the "Need" for writing TWO Research Papers. Most auspiciously, I also immediately received a request from Tahsin Khan, who has recently been accepted into EPSRC funded 4 year PhD at Nottingham, in a joint collaboration with Newcastle University, UK. Both universities are industry leaders in Machine Learning and AI related researches. EPSRC is the "elite" Funding body centrally controlled by British Government, where every year only a handful of students are accepted after TOUGH competition. Tahsin Khan holds a double Major in Electrical Engg. & Computer Engg. from University of Iowa (2016).

As you will see from the previous post, Tahsin Khan gives a huge emphasis on making a "research Proposal" and even "takes for granted" that ALL Logophiles Students will submit one such paper as part of their US Application.

Tomorrow Friday, there will be some big traffic because of "Iztema", as Taoseef has just informed me. Therefore, I will be expecting the following people tomorrow in spite of movement hazard. Let me know if you are unable to come, in that case I will hold a Video Conference over messenger.

1. Reefayat
2.  Zakirul
3.  Fatema
4.  Shadman
5.  Hadeid (may find it difficult to come)
6.  Raiyan
7.  Taoseef (may find it difficult to come)
8.  Afrida
9.  Aamal

There are many types of Research Designs and we shall primarily focus on Descriptive Research. Here is a definition of Descriptive Research Design: In a descriptive research design, a researcher is solely interested in describing the situation or case under his/her research study. It is a theory-based research design which is created by gather, analyze and presents collected data. By implementing an in-depth research design such as this, a researcher can provide insights into the why and how of research. "

Other types of researches can be found in this link HERE ð Research Types 

I hope see you all TOMORROW Friday (from 8.30-12.00) in good stead. 

Narrative Research Paper - Letter from Tahsin Khan, Nottingham Univ, UK

Today morning I was talking to four of them (Shomit, Afrida, Raiyan, & Taoseef) in the class about WHAT is a technical Research Paper for hte purpose of Undergraduate Admission. And after a 20 min rushed and hyped discussion, when I returned to my laptop and everyone "sadly" returned theor own, I received the following messages from Tahsin Khan, who is currently in Nottingham University, UK having just successfully "defended" his MSc Thesis in Machine Learning.

His entire message is for the benefit for the Application Students and I am quoting him verbatim below. Hello Sir, I hope this message finds you well. Thought I should share something with you: 

https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3809&context=etd

This is a copy of PhD dissertation by Dr. Koray Celik. One of the best pieces of storytelling in a technical paper that I have seen. Maybe you could share this with the college applicants this year. Might help them locate interesting topics in science and tech. The reason I am sharing this is because I used to know the author personally from my time at Iowa State University, where he set up the "Unmanned Aeriel Vehicle" (aka drone) research almost single handedly. However, in his PhD dissertation he talks about the inspiration he got from natural systems (like the sonar capabilities of bats) in great detail.
I think if the students read through only a few pages then they would get a preliminary, 10000m view of the concepts at play here. Maybe they can then elaborate on those topics they find interesting in their essays which might give depth to their writings. Anyways, I hope it helps. Please let me know if you would be free some time in February. It has been a while since we talked.