Wednesday, November 18, 2009
He was the learner, but now he is the master.
My first master's student just successfully defended his thesis. Congratulations, Nariman!
Running with memes
Let's go with this.
The answers are: yes, more than lawyers but less than doctors, sometimes, no, depends on when you ask, better than baristas but worse than doctors and lawyers, mostly, I sure am, I sure am, and I hope I'm not.
In a computer science and engineering department, this is the kind of question that can start riots.
Are they indeed? (Sadly, if you follow this search it takes you to pages of lame "computers are like women/men" jokes).
The answers are: yes, more than lawyers but less than doctors, sometimes, no, depends on when you ask, better than baristas but worse than doctors and lawyers, mostly, I sure am, I sure am, and I hope I'm not.
In a computer science and engineering department, this is the kind of question that can start riots.
Are they indeed? (Sadly, if you follow this search it takes you to pages of lame "computers are like women/men" jokes).
Friday, November 6, 2009
Time-travelling censorship
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The future of tenure
Picking up where Anand left off a couple of weeks ago, the current issue of Academic Matters features a three-way debate on the future of tenure: Michiel Horn argues in favor of tenure, while Michael Bliss and Mark Kingwell argue against. Kingwell's article is, verbatim, the one from Inside Higher Ed.
Bliss's article comes across as a rant, while Kingwell continues his tendency of writing articles that are more attention-grabbing than well-thought-out.
However, I'm struck by Horn's argument: abolition of tenure could lead to the worst of both worlds (worst, at least from the tenure critics' point of view): hard-to-fire professors who are never required to demonstrate their productivity. Horn puts tenure in historical context, showing that it emerged in the 1960s as a financial perk, and a codification of the long-established practice of respecting the academic freedom of professors. Without tenure, the system could well revert to the historical norm of automatic contract renewals -- but this time without the need for pre-tenured faculty members to demonstrate high achievement.
A university without tenure might resemble the public school system, where it is rare for teachers to be dismissed for poor performance. I suspect this is not what Bliss and Kingwell have in mind.
Bliss's article comes across as a rant, while Kingwell continues his tendency of writing articles that are more attention-grabbing than well-thought-out.
However, I'm struck by Horn's argument: abolition of tenure could lead to the worst of both worlds (worst, at least from the tenure critics' point of view): hard-to-fire professors who are never required to demonstrate their productivity. Horn puts tenure in historical context, showing that it emerged in the 1960s as a financial perk, and a codification of the long-established practice of respecting the academic freedom of professors. Without tenure, the system could well revert to the historical norm of automatic contract renewals -- but this time without the need for pre-tenured faculty members to demonstrate high achievement.
A university without tenure might resemble the public school system, where it is rare for teachers to be dismissed for poor performance. I suspect this is not what Bliss and Kingwell have in mind.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Nanonet 2009: Video
I presented a paper at Nanonet 2009 in lovely Luzern. I wrote about the paper earlier.
Here's a video of my conference presentation (playlist):
Here's a video of my conference presentation (playlist):
Paper at Nanonet 2009
My paper at Nanonet 2009:
A. W. Eckford, “Timing information rates for active transport molecular communication,” in Proc. 4th International ICST Conference on Nano-Networks, Luzern, Switzerland, pp. 24-28, 2009.
PDF of the paper is here.
The paper is a first stab at molecular communication in a microfluidic system, like a lab-on-chip. This is one environment in which molecular communication would be commercially feasible: it turns out to be very hard to integrate electronics on these devices, so as much as possible needs to be done in liquid and chemistry. In the paper, I only look at timing information, and compute some achievable information rates. Plenty more work to follow.
A. W. Eckford, “Timing information rates for active transport molecular communication,” in Proc. 4th International ICST Conference on Nano-Networks, Luzern, Switzerland, pp. 24-28, 2009.
PDF of the paper is here.
The paper is a first stab at molecular communication in a microfluidic system, like a lab-on-chip. This is one environment in which molecular communication would be commercially feasible: it turns out to be very hard to integrate electronics on these devices, so as much as possible needs to be done in liquid and chemistry. In the paper, I only look at timing information, and compute some achievable information rates. Plenty more work to follow.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Who can stop old RMC? (again)
My glorious alma mater strikes again. Former Royal Military College physics professor Willard S. Boyle wins a share of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics, for his work on charge-coupled devices. (He did his Nobel work at Bell Labs.)
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