how to start research-talk

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HOW TO START RESEARCH: A

Computational Thinking - Case

November 2006


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2 Ashok Subramanian

What is Education?

Education by which character isformed, strength of m ind is increased,

the intellect is expanded, and bywhich one can stand on ones ownfeet.

Education is the manifestation ofperfection already in human

What makes the difference betweenone human being and another is thedifference in Shraddha.


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3 Ashok Subramanian

What is Research?

Steady effort and systematic inquiry orinvestigation into a subject in order to: Open up a new area

Provide a unifying framework Resolve a long-standing question

Thoroughly explore an area

Contradict an existing know ledge

Experimentally validate a theory

Produce an ambitious system

Prov ide an empirical data

Derive a superior algorithms Develop a new methodology

Develop a new tool

Produce a negative result


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4 Ashok Subramanian

Why do research? - Personal benefits Growing as a critical, analytical, and

independent thinker.

Meeting challenges and demonstrating the

ability to articulate a subject .

Developing internal standards of improvedskills in life-building, character makingand assimilation of ideas.


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5 Ashok Subramanian

TO START RESEARCH

Pick a direction or area of interest based onyour background (e.g., courses you havetaken, readings, conferences, talks toProfessors, etc.).

Try to be as specific as possible.

Visit http://esi-topics.com/ Web site which is

providing citation analyses and commentaryfor selected scientific research areas thathave experienced notable recent advances orare of special current interest.


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Each topic is prefaced with a description of itsrelation to the main Essential Science Indicatorsrankings and the methodology used to assemblethe data from the Essential Science Indicatorsdatabase.

A new topic is added month ly.

Also spotlights New Hot Papers, Fast Breaking Papers(both have some comments/mini-interviews and areupdated bi-monthly), Emerging Research Fronts, FastMoving Fronts, and Top Topics, all of which deal withcurrent and emerging trends in specialized areas ofresearch.


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TO START RESEARCH

It also provide Methodologies for the variousentities and commentary on data interpretation.

There could be a list of topics that interest you(related or unrelated).

I do not recommend a list of more than threetopics.

Compile a set of 'keywords' to start searching forhigh quality readings for each of the previouslyselected topics.


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8 Ashok Subramanian

Subjects

1. Agricultural Sciences

2. Biology & Biochemistry

3. Chemistry

4. Clinical Medicine

5. Computer Science

6. Economics & Business

7. Engineering8. Environment/ Ecology

9. Geosciences

10.Immunology

1. Materia ls Science2. Mathemat ics3. Microbiology

4. Molecular Biology &Genetics

5. Multidiscipl inary6. Neuroscience &

Behavior7. Pharmacology &

Toxicology8. Physics9. Plant & Animal Science10.Psychiatry/Psychology

11.Social Sciences,

12.Space Science


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9 Ashok Subramanian

TO START RESEARCH

Good places to start your search are on-linedigital library (subscribed).

Pick one research topic at a time.

You can also search on the w eb engines (e.g.,like Google) but please double check thepublication details for quality.

Out of the search hits, select around 15-20papers that you think are most related towhat you had in mind and are of the highest

quality.


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TO START RESEARCH

Do NOT read all these papers yet! Check the title,abstract, names of authors, their affiliations, andmost important ly the conference or journal.

Many conferences/Journals are of high quality.Some, however, are more selective and competitivethan others.

Usually the most cited work by high quality papers isalso of high quality.

If you like a specific paper look at the list ofreferences, this will give you a good direction to

follow.


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TO START RESEARCH

For the selected 15-20 papers read only the abstract,introduction and conclusion in detail (you may sk im therest of the paper for a general idea).

Identify the emphasis of each paper and tabulate thefollowing: (i) which problem it addresses,

(ii) what solution it proposes, (ii i) how the solution differs from previous solutions, and

(iv) what are the main contributions and conclusions?

Out of these 15-20 papers, and based on your readingand understanding, pick a list of 4-6 papers that youthink are the highest quality and that address yourresearch interests and the challenges in the field most

appropriately.


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TO START RESEARCH

Read those 4-6 papers from beginning to end,identifying in detail and again tabulate: (I) the main approaches,

(II ) methods of analysis: (a) metrics,

(b) evaluation tools, and

(c) analysis and interpretation of resulting simulation or

measured data, and (II I) conclusions

At the same time, try to keep a list of what you think the

authors may have missed in the paper/study, gaps orlimitations that could be improved upon and any ideason how to accomplish these improvements.


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TO START RESEARCH

Some questions to ask include: Did all/ some papers use similar approaches?

Have they used the same evaluation criteria, or

method of analysis? If not, then what are the strengths/weaknesses of

each method?

Also, keep a list of ideas that you want toexplore further, or background material youwant to brush upon.

This w ill create another list of readings for youin later stages.


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TO START RESEARCH

Write a two page proposal defining, as clearly aspossible, the follow ing items: Motivation Research challenges

Overview of existing work Limitations of existing work Potential directions and ideas for improvement

Expected results and impact on the field.

Have some knowledgeable (trustworthy) friendsreview the proposal for you and give feedback(mainly on presentation and clarity, leave technical

remarks for the research advisor).

For example, have them read the 2 pages and tell you(in their own words) what they think you are

proposing.


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If/when you think it is clear, and then discuss theproposal w ith your research advisor.

I f you do not think it is clear, go back and re-write.

I f you think you have missed some other work, then go

back to the 15-20 list and pick another 3-5 good papersto read in detail, and re-w rite parts of your proposal.

Try to focus... it is hard, and there are a lot of good

ideas, and the more your read, the more you want toread (which is good), but you have to focus and writethose 2 pages.


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TO START RESEARCH

Remember that having a strategy is sometimesmore important than scattered ideas. Morereadings w ill come at a later phase.

I t is more important to focus at this point and notget confused, so be very selective in your readings.

Elements that must be included in the 2 or 3-pageproject proposal draft: Title Motivation:

Why you think this topic is important? Why is this significant area of research? What are the main problems in this area? and why

do you think your proposal is important for the

topic?


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Related Work: What other researchers have proposed earlier to address

the above problems?

What were their results and conclusions?

Why you think you stil l need to do work in this area (i.e.,what are the shortcomings/ pitfalls of earlier work?)

What do you propose that is different from related work?

and what do you propose that is similar?

Clarify how your ideas address the shortcomings ofearlier work.

Provide adequate and proper citations of related work.


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Proposal Body:

Problem statement: State very clearly and very specifically the

question(s) that you attempt to answer (Be as clearand as specific as you can).

You can list the questions but add an introductionsentence to link the questions and tell the wholestory.

Evaluation metrics: Mention very clearly and as specific as possible the

evaluation criteria and metrics you intend to use toevaluate your approach and ideas.


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TO START RESEARCH

Investigated Parameter Space:

Mention the design space investigated in the study.

Methodology:

Like Graph theory, finite state machines, queueingtheory, network simulation, mathematical modelingor experimentation are some examples of themethodology.

Mention which of the methodologies w ill be used andwhy.

Elaborate on the tool used, if any.


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TO START RESEARCH

Scenarios: Include like topologies (network size, connectivity, etc.),

traffic and multicast membership patterns (if any),network failures, packet loss patterns, mobilitymodels/ degrees that w il l be used to evaluate the protocol.

Explain your choice of the above parameters.

Expected results: Show what change in performance/evaluation you would

gain by using your approach (as opposed to previouswork).

At this stage, show only expected/anticipated results ortrends and justify your prediction. (It would also help toprovide graphs w ith explanation of the x and y (and other!)axes).


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TO START RESEARCH

References:

Around 6 references of high quality per project.

If you have done a good job at the above, I think youare at a good 'starting' point to pursue research!

Good luck w ith the rest...

The next step is to write a 10 page proposal elaborating

on the 2 pages above, adding your own twist on theproblem, outlining your initial thoughts, results andfindings, and outlining a clear plan to continue the work.


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In addition to elaborating the elements of 2 pagesproposal the following elements must also be includedin the 10 page proposal:

Abstract:

Around half page (or less) outlining the work, its scope,what is the problem statement in brief, how is theapproach different than main previous approaches to thisproblem and what are the main observations/ results?

Results and Analysis: (*probably the most importantsection*)

Describe the specific settings of the evaluatoin scenariosand outline the experiment(s).


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TO START RESEARCH

Show the result graphs and explain them very clearly(using self-explanatory graph labeling, graphcaptions and explanation in the text).

Focus on the main points of the results and startextracting useful observation that may help indraw ing conclusions.

Important : Analyze these main points, explainingwhy they occured?

Was this result expected? (If yes, was it the samereason initially thought or a different one? if no, whynot? was the flaw in the initial thinking?)


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Thank You


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Emphasis of each paper (alternative tabulationframework)

Select one research paper.

This research paper should be read carefully,and a brief answers to the following sevenquestions w ith insightful comments about thematerial must be tabulated.

What is the problem the authors are trying to solve? What other approaches or solutions existed at the time

that this work was done?

What was wrong w ith the other approaches or solutions?

What is the authors' approach or solution? Why is it better than the other approaches or solutions?

How does it perform?

Why is this work important?

3+ comments/ questions


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Sample Emphasis of a paper

RESEARCH PAPER: Sage A. Weil, Scott A. Brandt, Ethan L.

Miller, Darrell D. E. Long, and CarlosMaltzahn, ``Ceph: A Scalable, High-Performance, Distributed Object-based

Storage System,'' Symposium on OperatingSystems Design and Implementation (OSDI'06), Seattle, Washington, November 6-8,

2006.


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Sample Emphasis of a paper

1. What is the problem the authors are tryingto solve? Existing storage systems do not scale well to petabytes of

data and terabytes/ second throughput.

2. What other approaches or solutions existedat the time that this work was done? Lots of other file systems existed. NFS is a standard for

distributed file systems. Lustre is a distributed object-

based file system, as is the Panasas file system. 3. What was wrong w ith the other approaches

or solutions? All have limitations that prevent them from scaling to the

desired level. Block-based file systems have problemsdealing w ith the large number of blocks in such a system.Other object-based file systems fail to take full advantageof the object-based paradigm and stil l maintain objectlists.


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Sample Emphasis of a paper (contd)

4. What is the authors' approach or solution? The authors solution includes:

Object-based storage devices

A globally know n mapping function for locating file data(instead of object lists)

A scalable metadata manager that dynamicallyredelegates authority for directory subtrees based on

load A distributed autonomous system for managing theobject stores

5. Why is it better than the other approaches

or solutions? It scales to petabytes, provides nearly linear

performance improvements as storage devices areadded, degrades gracefully as storage devices are

removed, and provides very high performance.


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6. How did they test their solution? They ran parts of the storage system and observed

their performance under various workloads.

Data performance w as tested on a single object storeand on several object stores.

Metadata performance was tested on a large cluster.

7. How does it perform?

Performance is very good. The system appears to achieve its goals, although

scalability could be improved in certain scenarioswhere a lot of sharing occurs.

8. Why is this work important?

This work is important because storage systemscontinue to grow in size and data is becoming

increasingly important.


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3+ comments/ questions

* Why didn't they directly compare theperformance of their system against that ofany other storage systems?

* What happens if you scale to exabytes?

Will the system stil l work?

What factors will l imit its abil ity to scalefurther?

* How much of the improvement is due to

CRUSH, and how much to the design of theother parts of the system?

Why didn't they do any tests to isolate thebenefits of the indiv idual design decisions?

how to start research-talk

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