Warung Bebas

Rabu, 29 Desember 2010

Publication Venues in Computer Science

In academic Computer Science, there are basically three publication venues that "count": peer-reviewed conferences, peer-reviewed journals, and peer-reviewed workshops/symposia. There are of course many other perfectly credible ways to publish one's work (e.g., technical reports, books), but these are the top three.

Unlike in most scientific fields, including our closest cousins Engineering and Mathematics, journals are not the de facto place to publish papers. I can't speak for all subfields of CS, but basically everyone I know only publishes in journals because they feel they have to (e.g., multi-disciplinary tenure and promotion committees that expect journal publications, research rankings organizations that still don't seem to 'get' conferences, etc.). Some subfields this is not the case, such as in interdisciplinary fields like Bioinformatics and CS Education, but for most major areas of CS, conferences are where the action is.

For these fields, the top conferences have extremely low acceptance rates, many less than 17%. The program committees are comprised of the top scholars in the field. And in some fields, anyone who is anyone attends these conferences, so managing to get a paper accepted is a pretty big deal that gets a researcher much visibility.

Some journals have similarly rigorous standards of review and are known for their quality, for example the IEEE Transactions and ACM Transactions family of journals are highly regarded. There are occasionally other journals that are good, but the vast majority are either decidedly mediocre or utter rubbish. We don't really have any comparable C/N/S type journals.

Workshops and symposia generally have a much higher acceptance rate than conferences and journals, but they are still peer-reviewed and are often archival (e.g., ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore). They have quite a few advantages. First, they are usually co-located with a conference, which means you can often go to both on your University's dime. Second, they present a fantastic opportunity to float half-baked ideas and get one-on-one feedback from your peers. And third, oftentimes workshops are the only place you can meet other scientists interested in the same area of specialized research as you, which nearly always leads to good things.

But the most useful thing about conferences and workshops over journals is that you have the opportunity to tell potentially hundreds of people about your work. These are all people who learn your name and face and start to match it to a research area. This is invaluable, because it leads to professional relationships that will see you through your career - jobs, funding, tenure/promotion letters, etc.

Journals don't really get your name and face out there as well, unless some news outlet picks up on your article. People do read journals, but I suspect most readers associate papers more strongly with an institution than a name, particularly if it's a new name on the research scene.

So I think it's nice to have a diverse portfolio when it comes to publishing. It's good to have a mixture of papers in the top conferences with low acceptance rates, in journals that are well-respected, and in workshops that are useful to the researcher.

Senin, 27 Desember 2010



2010 was a very interesting year...
we uprooted our life in charleston and moved to beaufort, we found out we were having a baby boy, i ate my first fried pickle (and loved every minute of it), i spent 13 wks on bed rest, my daughter turned 3, a best friend survived a near fatal car accident, i had the honor of being published, i turned 31, we made new friends, i gave birth to a healthy baby boy, i joined jazzercise (and i might have dropped out), my husband and i started running again (and then maybe stopped), i expanded my company, we cooked a lot, i grocery shopped at walmart, i accomplished potty training (but not w/out a good, hard fight and maybe some tears), we drove 3,000 miles in a wk w/out the kiddos....but the best part was the time spent w/ my hubbie and two kids that i will never be able to replace.
so what does 2011 have going on???  well, my hubbie has a new job and we are moving to columbia, sc and that's about all i know for sure....but i am excited to see how it all unfolds!!
**to beaufort, our friends, and my parents- thank you from the bottom of my heart for a beautiful town and a very memorable year ;)

Kamis, 23 Desember 2010

wishing you and your loved ones a very merry christmas....
xoxo, pink wallpaper

Rabu, 22 Desember 2010

Comic strip: Nerd's confession

I continue sharing my Prague comic strips, since I have not been posting for a while. In fact, I was busy writing a paper, so this one may seem somehow connected. Disclaimer: There's nothing personal in the strip. Kids under 18 are not allowed. :)

The next post is going to be about multimedia technologies for art. Stay tuned!

A Gluten-free January

Are You Gluten Sensitive?

Many people are totally unaware of the fact that they react poorly to gluten. Because they've been eating wheat, barley and/or rye products every day for virtually their entire lives, they don't know what their bodies feel like without gluten. In susceptible people, eating gluten is linked to a dizzying array of health problems that stem from an immune reaction to gliadins and other proteins in gluten (1). Are you a susceptible person? How do you know?

The gold standard way to detect a gluten sensitivity is to do a gluten "challenge" after a period of avoidance and see how you feel. People who react poorly to gluten may feel better after a period of avoidance. After a gluten challenge, symptoms can range from digestive upset, to skin symptoms, to fatigue or irritability within minutes to days of the gluten challenge.

With 2011 approaching, why not make your new year's resolution to go gluten-free for a month? A man named Matt Lentzner e-mailed me this week to ask if I would help with his (non-commercial) project, "A Gluten-free January". I said I'd be delighted. Although I don't typically eat much gluten, this January I'm going 100% gluten-free. Are you on board? Read on.

A Message from Matt Lentzner


Hi There.

My name is Matt Lentzner. I'm just some guy who lifts weights on his patio and tries to eat healthy. That's not important, but I have an idea that just might be.

I am trying to get as many people as possible to go gluten-free for one month - this January 2011.

I've considered this whole ancestral diet thing and I've come to a conclusion. If you could only do just one thing to improve your health then not eating gluten would be it. This is not to say that avoiding other nasty things like fructose or industrial vegetable oil is not important. They are, but you'd get the most bang for your buck from not eating gluten.

"Eat No Gluten" is simple and easy to remember. I think that sometimes the rules get so complicated and overwhelming and people just give up on it. We're keeping it simple here. Even at this simplified level I see that it's difficult for a lot of folks. I think people, Americans especially, tend not to pay much attention to what they're eating - what it is, where it came from, etc.

Getting people to get out of their eating ruts and think a little about what goes into their mouths is a valuable exercise. It sets the stage for better choices in the future. I hope that some success with the simple step will encourage people to further improve their diets.

I have a website at www.glutenfreejan.com. If you want to sign up just send an email with your first name, last initial, and town of residence to glutenfreejan@gmail.com. If you are on Facebook there's a community you can 'Like' called: Gluten Free January. So far I have over 120 people all over the world signed up. If you are already gluten-free then I still want you to sign up - the more the merrier. You can also use this opportunity to spread the word and sign up your family and friends.

Merry Christmas - Looking forward to a gluten-free New Year.

Matt
 

ZOOM UNIK::UNIK DAN UNIK Copyright © 2012 Fast Loading -- Powered by Blogger