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。