Yesterday, I defended my thesis, and everything went well. So, finally, after 9 3/4 years, I have finished my Dr.Scient studies, and am now a dr. in scientific computing.
Well done, Mandus.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
The trial lecture and the defense
Maybe some of you wonder what is going on - I promised to report on the progress of the preparations for my trial lecture, and said a few words. After that complete silence...
First, I have worked very hard the last 2 weeks - and tomorrow is the big day. And I think I have the presentations ready by now, although I have to test them a few times to check that I can stick to the schedule.
Next, I have to say that I didn't came up with extremely much interesting content. I tried to investigate the "formal verification" field to see whether there was something there that could be of any use, and find quite some material to read. Unfortunately, most of what I found is still to preliminary to be of any real value for practical verification of scientific codes. So I ended up with the standard pile of tricks, method of manufactured solutions beeing the most prominent, or the most advanced.
The presentation of my thesis is the toughest one, though, as I have to present what I am been doing the last couple of years (I started in -96...) in about 30 minutes. Though call, but I'll manage.
Take care, and wish me good luck tomorrow!
First, I have worked very hard the last 2 weeks - and tomorrow is the big day. And I think I have the presentations ready by now, although I have to test them a few times to check that I can stick to the schedule.
Next, I have to say that I didn't came up with extremely much interesting content. I tried to investigate the "formal verification" field to see whether there was something there that could be of any use, and find quite some material to read. Unfortunately, most of what I found is still to preliminary to be of any real value for practical verification of scientific codes. So I ended up with the standard pile of tricks, method of manufactured solutions beeing the most prominent, or the most advanced.
The presentation of my thesis is the toughest one, though, as I have to present what I am been doing the last couple of years (I started in -96...) in about 30 minutes. Though call, but I'll manage.
Take care, and wish me good luck tomorrow!
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Preparation for the trial lecture
Maybe just for my own future reference... I will now briefly document the preparations for my trial lecture and defense of my Dr.Scient thesis.
So far I have worked on a "mindmap" using kdissert to organize the different aspects of the topic for the trial lecture that come to my mind. I have also search google and other places for relevant information. During thursday and friday I discovered at least 2 books and about 20 papers that seems to be relevant. I am now reading a paper by Salari and Knupp which are very relevant, as it discuss code verification by the method of manufactured solutions, which is a common approach in computational science and engineering.
As I move forward I also want to investigate to some extent the field of more formal code verification in computer science. From what I know from before, it is not possible to prove correctness of a scientific code (in the multi-million lines of code range) using such formal theories, as usually it is required that some special programming language is used, as well as the complexity can not be infinitely large. I am also not sure whether or not these to fields are talking about the same thing, as the interest in comp. sci & eng. is to verify that the output of the code is correct, and does not care that much about how it become correct (ok, I do simplify things here...), while traditional CS probably are more concerned about the correctness of the code itself.
Another topic is how we can relate verification of scientific codes to verification of experiments in other natural sciences, like physics or biology. I have to look further into this as well.
Now on to the reading to see what more I can discover!
So far I have worked on a "mindmap" using kdissert to organize the different aspects of the topic for the trial lecture that come to my mind. I have also search google and other places for relevant information. During thursday and friday I discovered at least 2 books and about 20 papers that seems to be relevant. I am now reading a paper by Salari and Knupp which are very relevant, as it discuss code verification by the method of manufactured solutions, which is a common approach in computational science and engineering.
As I move forward I also want to investigate to some extent the field of more formal code verification in computer science. From what I know from before, it is not possible to prove correctness of a scientific code (in the multi-million lines of code range) using such formal theories, as usually it is required that some special programming language is used, as well as the complexity can not be infinitely large. I am also not sure whether or not these to fields are talking about the same thing, as the interest in comp. sci & eng. is to verify that the output of the code is correct, and does not care that much about how it become correct (ok, I do simplify things here...), while traditional CS probably are more concerned about the correctness of the code itself.
Another topic is how we can relate verification of scientific codes to verification of experiments in other natural sciences, like physics or biology. I have to look further into this as well.
Now on to the reading to see what more I can discover!
Thursday, March 16, 2006
The topic for my trial lecture
Today, I have received the topic for my trial lecture. The title of the lecture is:
Verification of Scientific Codes
Verification of Scientific Codes
Not a bad topic at all. Alltough this is something we don't think about every day, it sure is an important part of what I do. If we can't say anything about the correctness of the programs that we write inorder to say something about scientific problems, how can we then use the program to draw any conclusions for the problem that we investigate.
Also, a few years back we discussed this topic within the group, and one of my coworkers even produced some software that target some of the issues within this field. So I have someone to ask, and do have some ideas my self as well.
A trial lecture is never a walk in the park, but at least this is something that I can relate to, so I think it is an ok topic.
Now, on to diggin' out references, reading material and start producing slides for the talk. You wan't see much of me the next two weeks...
Take care folks,
Also, a few years back we discussed this topic within the group, and one of my coworkers even produced some software that target some of the issues within this field. So I have someone to ask, and do have some ideas my self as well.
A trial lecture is never a walk in the park, but at least this is something that I can relate to, so I think it is an ok topic.
Now, on to diggin' out references, reading material and start producing slides for the talk. You wan't see much of me the next two weeks...
Take care folks,
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Samsung Q1 - infoSync World - origami
Samsung Q1 - infoSync World
Is it just me, or isen't this very much like the previous U50/70/71 models from Sony? I thought we should expect something new. Ok, you know that I'm not a big Microsoft fan, but for all the hype I at least expected something actually new...
By the way, why can't any pda or small laptop maker consider making something with a formfactor comparable with the Psion models - a decent keyboard, ok display, good batterylife, and software and communication hardware (bluetooth/umts/wifi) up to todays standards. That will be a killer piece of hardware.
In other news, I am at the winterschool at Geilo, on Navier stokes and automation of PDE/FEM software (http://www.fenics.org), this week. Cool stuff!
Is it just me, or isen't this very much like the previous U50/70/71 models from Sony? I thought we should expect something new. Ok, you know that I'm not a big Microsoft fan, but for all the hype I at least expected something actually new...
By the way, why can't any pda or small laptop maker consider making something with a formfactor comparable with the Psion models - a decent keyboard, ok display, good batterylife, and software and communication hardware (bluetooth/umts/wifi) up to todays standards. That will be a killer piece of hardware.
In other news, I am at the winterschool at Geilo, on Navier stokes and automation of PDE/FEM software (http://www.fenics.org), this week. Cool stuff!
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
My Ph.D thesis hot off the press
Not exactly true, but I have paid unipub a visit today, to hand over the press ready pdf-version of my thesis.
Now I only have to prepare a couple of presentation, and give them, as well as answering a few questions from the comitee, before I have earned the right to call my self a Dr. It's been a long and interesting journey, and I'm glad I can see the end.
The important date to remember is 30. March.
Take care folks!
Now I only have to prepare a couple of presentation, and give them, as well as answering a few questions from the comitee, before I have earned the right to call my self a Dr. It's been a long and interesting journey, and I'm glad I can see the end.
The important date to remember is 30. March.
Take care folks!
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