Heading back to Toronto today

Yes, that's right. I'm just doing the last stuff for packing back to Toronto and then preparing for my PhD defense on Monday! I'm so ecstatic, so please pray for me to have a safe trip back to Toronto, and a successful defense for Monday!

PhD defense in 1 week!

It's 1 week left and counting until I go back to Toronto to do my PhD defense! Boy does time fly fast. I'm busy now doing the preparation for my defense. I've been waiting for this moment for 5 years and finally I'm at the final stage. Please pray for me that it will be a successful defense, I've gone through a lot the past 5 years (you can probably read from my blog). Thanks to my loving parents for supporting me in this journey and also my especially loving wife who has supported me in my PhD ever since we first met when I started my PhD, and continues to support me in our move to Beijing and my work at Nokia Research Center. She has been the rock upon which I have been able to lay upon through all the challenges and tribulations.

Even though my dad is not here with me (as he passed away in March), I know that he is proud of me as I'm following in his footsteps of getting a PhD. Dad, watch over me and provide me the strength in my defense.

I'll let you know the outcome of my PhD defense on November 3.

Survey of how scientists use computers

I'm forwarding this on behalf of a professor at the University of Toronto (Prof. Greg Wilson) who is doing research on how scientists use computers through a survey. See below and participate!

Computers are as important to modern scientists as test tubes,
but we know surprisingly little about how scientists develop
and use software in their research. To find out, the University
of Toronto, Simula Research Laboratory, and the National Research
Council of Canada have launched an online survey in conjunction
with "American Scientist" magazine. If you have 20 minutes to take
part, please go to:

http://softwareresearch.ca/seg/SCS/scientific-computing-survey.html

Thanks in advance for your help!

Jo Hannay (Simula Research Laboratory)
Hans Petter Langtangen (Simula Research Laboratory)
Dietmar Pfahl (Simula Research Laboratory)
Janice Singer (National Research Council of Canada)
Greg Wilson (University of Toronto)

My paper published in New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia and preparing for PhD defense

First of all, apologies for not writing to my blog for a while, I've been extremely busy finishing off the thesis, doing work for Nokia Research Center Beijing, and travelling. I just came back from a business trip last week to Helsinki, Finland talking about my research for Nokia about Web 2.0 and social networks.

Anyways, I have great news to say that my paper on Automatic detection of cohesive subgroups within social hypertext: A heuristic approach has been published in the New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, a top-tiered journal for hypertext. I'm so ecstatic!

I'm currently busy now preparing for my PhD defense which happens in about 2 weeks. I can't believe that I'm almost towards the end of the PhD after about 5 roller-coaster years. It is just a great feeling to know that all these 5 years were all worth it, for my career. Then, everyone of you call me Dr. GadgetMan!

PhD thesis has been sent!

My PhD thesis has finally been done and sent,whew! All those late nights for the past couple of weeks. Now, I just have to prepare for my defense which is on November 3. Meanwhile, it's Chinese national holiday for this week so I've been postponing this and my wife and I's one year wedding anniversary until I finished sending the thesis. I can now take a break and relax for the rest of this week!

To all those in China, have a happy, safe, and relaxing holidays! Guo xing jie kuai le (yes, I'm practicing my Mandarin, it's been actually much better since 2 months ago!)