Tuesday, 29 November 2011

Placing figures/tables side-by-side (\minipage)

Including images in a report is very common in Latex. Structuring your work nicely is probably the most obvious reason why you want to put two figures/tables side-by-side. Another reason might be to save space, wherever a smaller size of an image is sufficient. The following code can be used to place two figures side-by-side by creating a minipage…
\begin{figure}[ht]
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.5\linewidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{filename1}
\caption{default}
\label{fig:figure1}
\end{minipage}
\hspace{0.5cm}
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.5\linewidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=1]{filename2}
\caption{default}
\label{fig:figure2}
\end{minipage}
\end{figure}

Note that for JPEG images the graphics package is required:
\usepackage{graphics}
The same “local column” – effect can be achieved for tables. The following code shows you how:
\begin{table}[ht]
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.5\linewidth}\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
\hline
1&1&1\\
\hline
2&2&2\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
\hspace{0.5cm}
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.5\linewidth}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
\hline
1&1&1\\
\hline
2&2&2\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
\end{table}

You can also have more than two column simply by adding another \minipage in between the table-command and reduce the width of each \minipage (0.33\linewidth for three columns) in addition to the \hspace. LaTex will automaticaly place objects onto the next line, if space is not sufficient.
Remark: Using the subfigure-package is another way to place figures or tables side-by-side. You might want to have a look at this post on subfigures.

Monday, 31 October 2011

Supervision meeting update 31-10-11

Supervision meeting

next meeting in two weeks time.

Works should be submitted before next meeting:
1. Abstract for the 3D Materials Conference
2. Report of the tomography work

Problems encountered during the meeting:

1. the effects of shrinkage porosity. The amount of shrinkage porosity in Al-Si alloy.
2. John Campbell's theory, is that trustable or not?
3. modelling oxide film defects, but affected by the shrinkage porosity. If I use chill plate to change the thermal field distribution and hence change the distribution of shrinkage porosity, will that affect the reliability of the modelling work?
4. Since what I'm doing is to model the oxide film defects rather than shrinkage porosity, but the experimental result only shows the effects of shrinkage porosity (and/or hydrogen porosity), can these experimental work be used to validate the model.


5. How to explain the behaviour of oxide film defects found in the tomography work?
 5.1 The morphology changes (spherical shape to complex shape, small round bubble to larger round bubble, network defects keep the same shape).
 5.2 The volume change of defects ( three kinds of shape)
 5.3 The importance of hydrogen bubbles( porosity)
 




Something useful mentioned during the meeting:
1. Chill plate only change the distribution of shrinkage porosity, not eliminated that.
2. Bill works on the composition change of the oxide film defects. Nick works on the the morphology change of the oxide film defects.

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

7 Steps to increase your productivities

This note is quoted from " Eat that Frog!" by Brian Tracy.


Step No. one: Decide exactly what you want.

Rule: "One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all."

Step No. two: Write it down.

Rule: "Think on paper"

Step No. three: Set a deadline on your goal.

" A goal or decision without a deadline has no urgency. It has no real beginning or end. Without a definite deadline accompanied by the assignment or acceptance of specific responsibilities for completion, you will naturally procrastinate and get very little done."

Step No. four: Make a list of everything that you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal. 

"As you think of new activities, add them to your list. Keep building your list until it is complete"

Step No. five: Organize the list into a plan.

"Organize your list by priority and sequence."

Step No. six: Take action on your plan immediately.

" Do something. Do anything. For you to achieve any kind of success, execution is everything."

Step No. seven: Resolve to do something every single day that moves you toward your major goal. 

"Build this activity into your daily schedule. Never miss a day."

"Keep pushing forward. Once your start moving, keep moving. Don't stop. This decision, this discipline alone, can make you one of the most productive and successful people of your generation."

Thursday, 10 February 2011

今日中午聊天小记

昨天没做饭,今天中午没有饭吃。于是与汪、黄两位医生聚餐于学校之小酒吧。谈话共进行2小时,谈及诸多事情,总结起来大概有三:其一,伯大之材料系发展现状与未来;其二,中国留学生就业之选项;其三,yang医生项目之科学意义及发展方向。

开始像正常人一样说话。

1.伯大材料系的发展情况以及未来走向

Birmingham University是英国冶金及材料科研的起源地,曾经是英国材料界科研的中心,现如今已经逐渐下滑,实力远不如从前。原因说起来也简单,伯明翰大学在名气及声望上不及牛剑,对人才的吸引力本来就不大。后来的院长眼光不长远,以至于发展后劲不足。尤其是现在的院长,因为做工程来钱快,和工业界合作搞研究更容易拿到funding,如此一来忽视了对科学本质以及对论文质量和数量上的追求,导致学院的国际声望逐渐下跌,其直接结果就是没有优秀的人才加入到这个科研团体之中。另一方面,学院领导层思想僵化,研究方向不能与国际接轨,导致学院内部暮气沉沉,学生缺少积极进取的精神。其最终结果就是学院的排名逐年下降,而截至目前, 没有停止的趋势。

学院的大牛们逐渐退休,新一代的教授们又没有足够的能力和实力去肩负重任,真正的牛人看起来也不会长久的呆在这里。学院刚刚有一位教授去了澳大利亚,而汪医生和黄医生的导师作为高温合金界的大牛,未来学院五年之内唯一一位有实力晋升FREng的教授,估计也会在未来5年之内离开伯明翰重回他最初所在的地方,Cambridge。

当下继续留在学院里的教授们,看不出谁在其所在的领域有什么杰出的贡献或者很高的国际声望。想来下一次RAE的排名中,Birmingham第四的位置难保。

所以,两位医生一致认为,早点毕业, 早点离开。

2. 中国留学生毕业之后的选项

中国留学生其实和各国学生没有什么太大的区别,毕业之后不外乎工业界和学术界。但是随着英国移民政策的收紧,因为工作签证方面的限制,中国学生能做的更多是留在学术界。即便是离开学术界,因为语言以及交流技能方面的缺失,中国留学生在与其他尤其是英美学生相比,也没有足够强大的竞争力。加之通常中国学生长期呆在学术圈里,缺乏工作经验,所以能进入企业界的中国学生少之又少。

但未必留在学术界就不好,尤其是回到中国。因为,中国的学术界并不是那么“学术”,因此其收入也并不能以国外学术界中教职员工的生存状况来类比。

3. yang医生项目的科学意义及发展

简单的说,他的项目很有科学方面的意义,在工程上也有很多的应用。可以做的事情很多很多,需要做的也很多很多。他需要做的就是专心做这个,努力的往下做。

当然,现在的问题主要是他的实验起步的有些太迟了。

今天说的就这么多。

Friday, 10 December 2010

What they have done and what I can do

Last two years, I spent quite a lot of time on reading about what people have done on the research about oxide film on light alloy.  In the early study on my final year research project, my literature review mainly focus on how oxide film affects the mechanical properties of the casting component, and how modelling work has been done to track the films, both during the filling process and solidification.  After I submitted my research report last year, my co-supervisor C R sent me several copies of the work had been done in Japan. The study in Prof. Ohnaka's group using the theory established by Prof. Campbell in Birmingham to model the porosity formation in castings. Then they developed a software to model the filling and solidification in casting. The application is modelling of high pressure die casting  produced in China and Japan. They published loads on this topic, but personally, I feel their prediction is not that accurate. There are two possible reasons for this: a)the fundamental theory is not correct or only correct in some circumstances; b) their models have some limitation.

When I started my PhD, I felt what I should do was the work they did as viewed in the first part of the literature, i.e. modelling the formation of oxide film in light alloy, but developed their work. However, later NRG said we should try to model the porosity inside the casting, since this is more damaging than oxide film. According to Prof. Campbell's theory, oxide films can be a nuclei of porosity, so modelling oxide film formation and distribution can help the understanding of porosity distribution in castings. And this is the basic theory of Ohnaka's work.

Then what I can do?

I feel I can develop the model built by CR to a more accurate way and validate it.

I could develop two kinds of approaches, one on the double oxide film formation, the other on the bubble entrainment. Both two models  could use particle module to track. But to achieve this, I need to talk with Flow Science developers.

After accurate modelling of the distribution of double oxide films and micro-bubbles, I think I can use the package developed by PDL's group to model the growth and morphology of those porosity.

This sounds fantastic, doesn't it?

Tuesday, 30 November 2010

How to get published in Science

Yesterday, I joined a lecture titled "How to get published in Science", by Anthony Newman who's a chief editor (probably) in Elsevier Amsterdam. He gave us a very clear presentation about the whole procedure of publishing scientific paper. But he spoke really first, I can only wrote down the key points of his speech. Let's start.

What to Publish?
   New & original results or methods!

Before you start
  •    Is your research new and interesting?
  •    Is your research on a hot topic?
  •    Is your work providing solutions to some difficult problems?
  •    Are you ready to publish? ( I didn't write down what you should prepare before to publish)
What type of manuscript?
  • Full letters: completed pieces of research
  • Letters:  quick and early
  • Review paper:  usually invited 
Identify the audience

Select the best journal for submission    review recent publications to find out the hot topic
  • look at your references. (find out which journal they published)
  • Is the journal peer-viewed?
  • Who are the audience of the journal? Do they match to the your audience?
  • Average time to print (too slow you may lose to your competitor)
  • Impact Factor (IF): measurement of quality 
Problems frequently faced by publishers
  • out of scope
  • Do not follow "guide of authors"
  • Wrong (or No) suggested reviewers
  • ...
What's a good manuscript?
  • Clear, useful, exciting scientific message: your words should not be creative, but concise and clear.
General Structure of a full article
  • Title
  • Author
  • Abstract
  • Keywords
  • Main text
The writing sequence: write backwards
  • 1.figures and tables
  • 2.methods, results & discussion 
  • 3.introduction
  • 4.abstract
           where is conclusion?

Details on structure

  • Title : informative and concise, avoid jargon and abbreviations
  • Abstract: 1.should stand alone, 2.what you did? key finding! and 3. accurate and specific
  • keywords: label, should be critical
The introduction:
  •  describe the problem
  •  provide a perspective consistant with the natural of the journal
  •  based publications


Pitfalls of the introduction:
  • too wordy
  • a mixed bag of introduction with results, discussion, etc.
  • no words like "novel", "first time",etc.
The method: give the details, but don't give all details about standard methods: use references and supplementary materials


Results:
  • Only representative results, essential for the discussion
  • Do not "hide" data
  • Use sub-headings
  • clear & easy to understand
  • Appearance counts: un-crowded, scale marker for picture

DISCUSSION: THE MOST IMPORTANT, what you think about your work


Pitfall: 
  • go beyond the results
  • unspecific expression
  • sudden introduction of new terms or idea
Conclusion:
  • how your work advances the field from the present state of knowledge
  • DO NOT repeat the abstract
Acknowledgements: advisor, financial supporters, proof readers,typists


Reference:
  • cite the main scientific publications
  • not too many references
  • avoid excessive self-citations
  • avoid excessive citations of publications from the same region


COVER letter:
  • why did you submit the manuscripts to this journal?
  • mention special requirements
  • accelerate the editorial process of your paper