Saw this note at IBM Research lab blog on cognitive computing.
Von Neumann So yesterday....
His blog here:
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Protein Folding
From
Challenges in Theoretical Chemistry. Science Magazine. 321 : 784--786 (2008).
Ken Dill Group Website
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
On Awards: the truth
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Spite and Development
An interesting review of a World Bank Policy Research Paper by Fehr, Hoff and Kshetramade(1) which argues that "given the lack of effective institutions in a developing country, the key ingredients in a success story are endogenous contract enforcement and the ability of ordinary citizens to resolve coordination and cooperation problems."(2).
There is an old joke that a container filled with indian crabs can be carried without the lid, since all the other crabs will pull back any one which manages to reach to the top to escape. In this paper they define 'Spiteful preferences' are defined as 'the desire to reduce another's material payoff for the mere purpose of increasing one's relative payoff.' It seems that the World Bank would now want to make Indians more cooperative for economic development.
An interesting part of their results is that this spiteful behavior is allegedly prevalent more amongst the higher caste than the lower and especially in the north of India.
The author concludes by saying that these findings are perhaps common knowledge to the native which I agree and also asks the question of what next. I have no idea but if I had I will definitely tell and won't be spiteful :)
(1)Fehr, Ernst & Hoff, Karla & Kshetramade, Mayuresh, 2008. "Spite and development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4619, The World Bank.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Research like you don't need the money
The nobel prize in Chemistry announced this week was given to three researchers "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP" However there is a fourth person who had a good contribution in the work and would have been one of the winners if his research grant would not have run out.
Douglas Prasher "isolated and copied the gene that makes the mysterious Aequoria Victoria jellyfish glow."
An interesting snippet from the story-
With the bills mounting at home, he took the job driving the courtesy van for the Huntsville dealership. He said he thought driving the van would be a good way to meet people and potentially make business contacts.
"He's very overqualified for the job," Bill Penney's service director, Bob Pruitt, said Thursday. "You don't get too many biochemical engineers wanting to be your porter, but he wanted to keep himself busy doing something."
On the other hand, Neel Kashkari a 35 year old engineer turned VP at Goldman Sachs turned distributor of $700 billion bailout plan had made the wise choice.
His first and only job in engineering was working on satellite technology at TRW, a Cleveland company later bought by Northrop Grumman. But when he looked into his future, he didn't like what he saw: several more years of grad school for a PhD, then a lifetime in research and development. He decided to go into business and focus on technology, earning his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvaniaand landing a coveted investment banking job with Goldman Sachs.
Wishing Neel good luck in his bailout effort and hope Doug Prasher gets a more satisfying job soon.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Research on reservation in India
Researchers from Princeton University and the Indian Institute for Dalit Studies have published findings which show that caste-based discrimination exists in job opportunities in private sector in India. More of the story here.
An interesting part of the news article was-
The studies, however, cast some doubt on whether, without government intervention, the self-interest of theoretically economically "rational" recruiters, who would want to minimise wage bills by recruiting from the widest possible pool of qualified talent, would be sufficient to correct the problem.
This argument has been given even for the affirmative action against women and minorities. It basically says that if having diversity in work place helps an organization, then organization doing that will become fitter and over time will become more successful and this trend will come in automatically without legistlation.
While this argument is appealing from a darwinian point of view, there is some amount of subtelity involved. Maybe this might be better explained by someone with more experience in genetics but I would still try to give my understanding.
While I think that there is some benefit which comes out of diversity in workplace, but I think ultimately success is much more strongly dependent on people (irrespective of their background). So diversity will not per-se give organization fitness advantage. But what it will do, is that it will give chance to someone extremely gifted from that background to work in a conducive environment. So I think that affirmative action or reservation gives the society an opportunity to sample its population more uniformly so as to throw up one talented individual.
These arguments are making me more convinced of the need for affirmative action or reservations for long term benefits of the organization. And they might have to be legistlated in.
An interesting part of the news article was-
The studies, however, cast some doubt on whether, without government intervention, the self-interest of theoretically economically "rational" recruiters, who would want to minimise wage bills by recruiting from the widest possible pool of qualified talent, would be sufficient to correct the problem.
This argument has been given even for the affirmative action against women and minorities. It basically says that if having diversity in work place helps an organization, then organization doing that will become fitter and over time will become more successful and this trend will come in automatically without legistlation.
While this argument is appealing from a darwinian point of view, there is some amount of subtelity involved. Maybe this might be better explained by someone with more experience in genetics but I would still try to give my understanding.
While I think that there is some benefit which comes out of diversity in workplace, but I think ultimately success is much more strongly dependent on people (irrespective of their background). So diversity will not per-se give organization fitness advantage. But what it will do, is that it will give chance to someone extremely gifted from that background to work in a conducive environment. So I think that affirmative action or reservation gives the society an opportunity to sample its population more uniformly so as to throw up one talented individual.
These arguments are making me more convinced of the need for affirmative action or reservations for long term benefits of the organization. And they might have to be legistlated in.
Friday, March 02, 2007
perils of being a researcher
The last year of having been a member of the research community has taught me a lot about the attitude of being a researcher. It has been a great change from the causal going undergrad life where the law of diminishing returns was well understood. If you can spend 1 hour to get 8 out of 10 in an assignment and need to give 2 hours to get 10/10, then there is no contest. Take the first option anytime.
But things work differently in research. You have to be very accurate with what you present as your result, for people are literally hovering around as vultures to find any dead meat. But then this also, keeps you competitive and on your toes.
Another aspect, is that you take infinite trouble to go through each step of your reasoning. For you now know, sometimes by experience, that even a small logical error can have big big repurcussions.
While this attitude is commendable, I sometimes worry if it is practical. For in real life, you do not usually have the luxury of lots of time to go through each step carefully. You have to make decisions on less than sufficient knowledge. And take risks. Perhaps, I am concerned, that I am losing this ability while I am gaining the researcher's patience and stick-to-itivness.
The only solution that I can think of, is to take some side project in another topic where apply your old undergrad fundaes. But then that is easier said than done!
Addendum: A few hours after writing, I feel a bit stupid, because I dont think that my research skills are so developed that I can actually critique this mindset. But still, I am leaving this post as it is because this is a flaw that I believe exists and I suspected about this even in my undergrad days and mys suspicions are only getting stronger.
Overall, I guess it would be better to have the researcher mindset because there are tons of problems in life where you do have lots of time to analyze most of the decisions and then act. But in some activities, like in volatile business trading, socializing etc, the time available is pretty less.
But things work differently in research. You have to be very accurate with what you present as your result, for people are literally hovering around as vultures to find any dead meat. But then this also, keeps you competitive and on your toes.
Another aspect, is that you take infinite trouble to go through each step of your reasoning. For you now know, sometimes by experience, that even a small logical error can have big big repurcussions.
While this attitude is commendable, I sometimes worry if it is practical. For in real life, you do not usually have the luxury of lots of time to go through each step carefully. You have to make decisions on less than sufficient knowledge. And take risks. Perhaps, I am concerned, that I am losing this ability while I am gaining the researcher's patience and stick-to-itivness.
The only solution that I can think of, is to take some side project in another topic where apply your old undergrad fundaes. But then that is easier said than done!
Addendum: A few hours after writing, I feel a bit stupid, because I dont think that my research skills are so developed that I can actually critique this mindset. But still, I am leaving this post as it is because this is a flaw that I believe exists and I suspected about this even in my undergrad days and mys suspicions are only getting stronger.
Overall, I guess it would be better to have the researcher mindset because there are tons of problems in life where you do have lots of time to analyze most of the decisions and then act. But in some activities, like in volatile business trading, socializing etc, the time available is pretty less.
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