Students (current & prospective)

How to join KRG?

Graduate Students

• Prospective graduate students
  • Unlike the American system, professors have little say in admitting students. Instead, you must go through the NTU Graduate School Admissions process.
  • you may contact me for scholarship opportunities after you have submitted your NTU application, so that I may look at your application material while considering you for a scholarship.
• Student Spammers

  Unless you mention the code "KRG" in your email header/subject/title, you may not get a reply from me; since it means that

  1. You did not bother to visit our research group website
  2. You are likely of mediocre calibre
  3. You are not goal-oriented, simply employing a machine-gun approach
• Matriculated/enrolled graduate students seeking supervisor

  Once you have been accepted by NTU Graduate school, and if you are interested in our research areas, please email the following items to me :

  1. Brief 1-page statement of research interest
  2. Resume
  3. Published paper(s)

  and I will get back to you.

Undergraduate Students (FYP, URECA, UROP, etc.)

I don't have much control over the selection of FYP students, but you are welcomed to drop by my office for a chat. If you wish to pursue a project under my supervision, one general rule of thumb is that if you don't work hard, you will not pass the project. Passing is a privilege, not an entitlement. Yes, I have failed students in the past.

Summer Internships Unavailable.

No. Unfortunately I do not have time to supervise short term projects, and will have to turn down many world-class applicants such as those from IIT, India.

All emails containing the word "intern", "internship" will be routed straight into my trash, because it clearly means that you have not read this message, and are simply spamming me.

What is plagarism?

• All students (to whom I serve as supervisor/examiner/reviewer) are expected to strictly follow rules against plagarism, or risk total failure at the subject and/or termination from University.
• You must sign a declaration of originality form and submit it to me before I can review your work.
• The following, unless stated and properly credited, in any work must be the original creation of students beyond a reasonable doubt:

1. All sentences or paragraphs
2. Line of thought. Yes, if it is obvious that you are paraphrasing (rewriting the same material in another style) whole paragraphs, sections, pages, it is considered plagarism. Read the examples posted outside my office.
3. All figures
4. All tables
5. All equations
6. All experimental results

• If you copy from another source (copyrighted or not) one or more sentences, you must quote the copied portion in its entirety, plus add a reference at the end, for example:

    This is my own sentence. According to [reference at the beginning or],
    "This is a copied sentence. This is the second
    copied sentence. This is the third copied sentence."
    [reference at the end]
  

• Some lazy students simply quote verbatim whole chapters or sections, e.g.:

    Chapter 2 Related work [5]
  
    1 Data mining
    "Data mining refers to the ....
  
    {after 10 pages of copied and quoted material}
  
    ... Support vector machines performed the best." [5]
  

Well, this is not plagarism and you won't be penalized for that. However, this simply shows that your IQ is no higher than a photocopy/xerox machine. Do you think NTU should grant a Bachelor of Engineering degree to a xerox machine? Not that churning out xerox machines graduates is news, but there is currently an oversupply of walking xerox machines (many with foreign degrees earning superscale salaries like >S$100K per month) in Singapore, so NTU has no choice but to produce graduates better than xerox machines for their own good; so that NTU graduates can survive in a market inundated with foreign-trained walking xerox machines.

• The original source of all copied (cut&pasted) figures/tables/equations/results must be properly credited in the caption, for example:

    Figure 1. A neural network [source here or...].
    (reproduced with permission from John Doe[source here]).
  
    Table 1. Results for SVM [source here or ...].
    (reproduced with permission from John Doe[source here]).
  

• Additional steps are needed if you wish to reproduce copyrighted works. You must sought the original author's permission to re-use their copyrighted material and acknowledge their granted permission either in the figure caption, footnote, or acknowledgement section. If the copied material has a creative commons style of licence, you must also state so.
• As long as there is a copyright statement such as '© 2005 Kuiyu CHANG' anywhere in the piece of work, everything contained therein is protected by international copyright laws. This means that if you copy a copyrighted work, you can get sued in additional to getting expelled from University.
• To save the trouble, you are strongly encouraged to create your own drawings and write your own sentences.
  • Look at a number of different reference material, understand and fully digest it
  • Keep your own notes about the material, than start writing based on your own notes without looking at the original source.
  • It is better to write short concise sentences than to copy pages of text from elsewhere.
  • Use your brain more often to create. Your brain is like a muscle, it will shrink if you don't use it.
• Read up China Digital Times to appreciate how plagarism can basically end your career.
• Also refer to IEEE stance on plagarism, and the different categories

Learn a Scripting Language - Python

If you do not already know a scripting language, I strongly recommend that you learn Python, which is easier to maintain as it is designed from the ground up to be object-oriented (feels like C++/Java). PERL used to be the de facto all-purpose scripting language, not any more. See the following links for the reasons:

1. Python is Cool (and Perl is not), Especially for C/C++ Programmers
2. Python versus PERL
3. Python and Ruby, both good!
4. Eric S. Raymond's take on Python

A good Python reference book to own is O'Reilly Python Pocket Reference , for only S$13 from Clementi Book Store.

The Bookstore in Singapore - Clementi Book Store

Information for foreign students: Clementi Book Store (CBS) is the best and cheapest place in Singapore to order your widest selection of technical books, just ask any NUS/NTU /JC/polytechnic student. I know, as I have been buying technical books from CBS since 1984, when I purchased my first copy of Beagle Bros Programming Guide for Apple ][. Even during my studies/work in the States, I have been a regular patron of CBS whenever I come back to Singapore for Holidays. CBS is run by the same owners of NIE, NUS bookstores, Nanyang Super Market, etc.

Clementi Book Store (Near Clementi MRT Station):

  450 Clementi Ave 3 #01-297
  Tel: 6776-2146  Fax: 6774-2362
  clementibook@pacific.net.sg
  Mon - Fri   0930 - 1900
  Sat         0930 - 1800
  Sun/Holiday Closed

They have whole shelves of out-of-date technical/non-technical books displayed out in front. This is a good opportunity for you to pick up a cheap (around S$10) copy of the once-hot technology that you have always wanted to learn but for which you were not willing to fork out the initial premium (S$50-S$100).

Disclaimer: I do not own shares or interest in CBS, although I know the proprietors personally.

Get a (writing) Notebook!

As a dilligent student, you should get a no-frills notebook/notepad (and pen) to keep with you all the time.

This notebook is incredibily useful, you can jot down your ideas anytime and anywhere. YOu can draw anything and write equations easily. You can also record down your research findings, experiment results, etc.

All the successful people I know carry with them a notebook.

• My supervisor at UT Austin, Prof Joydeep Ghosh
• The multi-millionair founders of Neonyoyo, Inc.
• The great Indian Mathematician, "Srinivasa Ramanujun":http://www.vidyapatha.com/scientists/ramanujun.php

Even failures like yours truly keep a notebook http://research.mosuma.com/Members/zhangguiyu/media/blog/notes_kuiyu/, so I really don't see how you can survive your career/studies without using a notebook.

Don't kid yourself by saying that you will keep notes using your mobile phone, PDA, computer, etc. It simply doesn't work. I have tried doing that before, it does not work. By the time you get your machine out, your ideas already gone. Also, try writing an equation, and drawing something, it takes you ages.

A notebook is the simplest apparatus, it tracks your ideas sequentially. Which means you can also look them up sequentially.

Nothing beats the good old pen and paper.

I hope you will seriously consider my suggestion.

Backup, backup, backup!

How to ensure your data is safe? How to ensure that you graduate on time? The modern day equivalent of "My dog ate my report" is "My hard disk crashed"

Answer: Backup, backup, backup

Simplest solution: backup to a portable USB hard drive. Make sure the USB drive is as big as your main data drive, if it is any smaller, you will be too lazy to figure out what to backup. An external USB 2.0 drive cost around S$100 for 200GB (circa 2007). Buy this as an insurance, if nothing else.

All files checked in to our svn.mosuma.com repository enjoys 3 levels of backup:

1. The svn repository sits on a RAID1 (mirroring using two drives) hard drive partition. If one drive fails, the mirrored drive will kick in automatically.
2. The mirrored partition is incrementally backed up to a 3rd physical drive (of the same server) every day/week/month, maintaining incremental backups for up to 6 months.
3. The svn repository is periodically backed up to a different server located geographically away from the main svn server.

Do check in important documentation and source code to svn.mosuma.com. Don't check in everything to it, however, as it is not a black hole.

The NTU server liubei.mosuma.com (accessible by KRG students onlyl) also enjoys the first two levels of protection.

On your personal machine, you can consider installing software RAID1 if you have two hard drives (need not be identical). Richard Stallman uses a RAID1 mirroring (dual hard drives) on his notebook. Windows XP has a hidden RAID1 configuration software, google for it. Linux 2.6 and above has software RAID built in, make use of it. Software RAID is more flexible (writes are slower because every write goes to 2 physical drives, reads are faster as different portions of large files can be read in parallel from the 2 drives) than hardware RAID because it is not tied into a particular hardware.

Some tools to use:

1. TreeComp Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras (for windows)
2. rsync. An award-winning delta backup tool originally written by Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras. I use rsync to synchronize between windows/linux across different countries! You just need one command line to synchronize! Install cygwin to use rsync on windows.
3. rsnapshot. A backup tool based on rsync. I used it to automatically backup multiple geographically separated servers.

Back in 1993, a student complained to me that his hard drive crashed and requested special consideration for handing in his report late. I told him he might as well have told me that his dog ate his report.

I personally have seen 5-6 hard drives died over the course of my life. Nowadays, I rsync my important directories everyday! For ultra urgent documents such as last minute presentations and papers, I make sure I save an extra copy in a flash memory after every few minutes of editing.

All my recent Linux installations (e.g. CSC207, CSC279 CID) have used a RAID1 Mirror plus 3rd drive backup where feasible. In fact, one of the mirror drive in the CSC279 CID server died halfway through the 2-week project duration, luckily the mirrored drive kicked in automatically.

I have once heard the story about a pre-historic speaker, who would prepare the following for every talk:

1. an extra set of transparencies of his talk/presentation
2. a set of printed slides on paper
3. a videotape recording of his talk to be pre-delivered to the destination

The videotape is intended to be played if he cannot make it to the venue. This shows how careful or paranoid the speaker is, depending on how you view it.

Backing up your data is your personal responsibility. If you don't backup, you take full responsibility for all the consequences.

Lastly, don't tell me your computer ate your code/report.

Turn Around Time

Please keep in mind that I have more than 10 students to supervise at any time, so I am unable to response to your myriad requests immediately. Typical turn around time are shown below:

Report (more than 30 pages) for me to review/edit

1 month

Journal/chapter for me to review/edit

1 month

Conference Paper for me to review/edit

2 weeks

Software/ideas/collector updates for me to review

1 week

Email

3 business days

If I take more than twice the typical response time, please email me a reminder.

Why should I join KRG?

We offer the following:

1. Culture of excellence, as shown by the awards won by our group members:
   • SIGIR student travel grant, Netherlands, 2007
   • SIAM Data Mining Conference student travel grant, Minnesota, U.S.A., 2007
   • Microsoft Research Asia Fellowship, Beijing, 2006 (only 2 awarded to Singapore in 2006)
   • ISI Intelligence and Security Best Paper Award, U.S.A., 2005
     • See write-up in The Straits Times, 2007.07.07
   • "Motorola Best Paper Award, U.S.A., 1996":
2. Strong focus on developing practical solutions/technologies that can change the world. Solutions developed by us are immediately deployed into the commercial markets in China to test the water.
3. Close ties to industries in Singapore, China, and Silicon Valley, collaborators include:
   • Lingba Technology, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China
   • ZingMobile Singapore, China, Indonesia
   • Google
4. Close ties to academia in China, Japan, and U.S.A., collaborators include
   • Chong Qing University of Postal and Telecommunications
     • See Zaobao write-up, 2006.04.09 (in Chinese)
   • Chinese University of Hong Kong, China
   • University of Hong Kong, China
   • Tokyo University, Japan
   • Osaka University, Japan
   • University of Texas, U.S.A.
5. Entreprenaural Spirit Strongly encouraged
   • Our vast networks include direct access to angel investors and VCs in Singapore, China, and U.S.A.
   • If you have a strong conviction or idea, I strongly encourage you to go ahead and implement it, and put aside your degree pursuits for the time being. In fact, I would be happy to see you become the next Sergey Brin (Google), Larry Page (Google), Jerry Yang (Yahoo), or David Filo (Yahoo).
6. Open and academically challenging atmosphere
   • We encourage bold and forward thinking students to join us
   • In our group, students are encouraged to question anything or any authority, it is only through this freedom will we all grow
7. Systematic Management of all Research Projects
   • For large projects, we have a professionally organized weekly group meetings, with state-of-the-art online wiki management and issue tracking system.
   • For geeks, we have an open LDAP based secured system complete with subversion SVN control of all documents (papers, reports) and source code. So it will feel exactly like working in the industry.
8. Last but not least, I will personally supervise you, and meet you at least once a week to check on your progress

If you find any or all of the above appealing, we welcome you to become one of us!

Kuiyu

Who should not join KRG?

You should not join KRG if you satisfy any one of the following:

For Graduate Students

You don't know why you are pursuing a Ph.D./M.S. degree, e.g., if you are pursuing a Ph.D./M.S. because of any of the following reasons, we don't want you:

• Your parents want you to do a Ph.D./M.S.
• Your significant other is doing a Ph.D./M.S., you need to keep up
• Every one in your family has a Ph.D./M.S., so you figured "why not?"
• You want to find a job in Singapore
  • There is an extremely small (or zero) job market for home-grown Ph.D.s in Singapore, by the way.
• You eventually want to go to another more reputable University for your Ph.D.
  • OK if you wish to do a Master's with our group
  • Not OK if you want to do a Ph.D. while waiting for admission to another University
    • If you have such high aspirations, you should at least stick to your guns by waiting patiently for admission to the graduate school of your dreams
    • If you do not even have the courage to wait, you do not deserve a Ph.D.

For All Students (graduate and undergraduate)

• You don't know your goal in life, e.g.,
  • What do you see yourself doing in 5 years, 10 years?
• You don't know your interest
• You don't know why you are studying for a B.Eng
• You don't know why you are alive, e.g.,
  • You don't know what to do every day after waking up, other than playing games, surfing online aimlessly, matchmaking, etc.
• You don't understand the following mathematical statements
  • two events are probabilistically independent
  • two vectors are orthorgonal
• You cannot devote at least
  • 10 hours a week on your project (FYP, URECA)
  • 50 hours a week on your research (Ph.D., Masters, UROP)
• You are lazy
  • Go buy a lottery ticket instead, KRG is no place for the uninitiated
• You are not self-motivated
  • If you cannot solve problems by yourself but instead requires constant babysitting, then KRG is not for you. You should go to a daycare centre or hire a babysitter instead