4. 什么是研究(research)?
研究是 Re (repeat) + search 吗？
资料收集是研究吗？
事实的发现(fact discovery)是研究吗？
研究是创造新的知识
研究并没有一个简单的模式
― 做研究的方法会因人而异或因事而异
― 不同的人做研究的方法也可能不同
理论型研究：Theoretical Research
应用型研究：Applied Research
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5. Theoretical or Applied Research ？
网络通信领域与物理，数学等领域是不同的
― 理论物理，实验物理，计算物理
― 纯数学，应用数学，计算数学
网络通信领域是应用科学，也有理论问题，也需理论研究基础
什么是网络通信领域的理论研究？
― Algorithms, NP-complete, graph theory, game theory, information theory, coding
theory, queuing theory, etc.
― 研究结果不一定有直接应用价值
• 例如电子系王新兵老师：Network Capacity & Connectivity
网络通信领域基本上是应用型科学研究
― 研究的结果可能有实际的应用价值
― 需要的支撑技术成熟了吗？
― 解决的问题有意义吗？
― 解决问题的方法可行吗？
• 解决问题的方法常需要理论研究的基础（如：NP）
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6. 关于科学研究
John Day （参与ARPANET的设计）
计算机科学与其他科学领域的最大区别是：我们构建自己所测量的！
Mark Twain《Life on the Mississippi》
科学使人着迷：在其中我们可以通过对少量事实进行研究而获得大量的猜想！
金海老师
计算机学科没有科学问题，因为计算机领域的所有科学问题都是数学问题！
8. 要读多少有关文章？要读什么有关文章？
Top conferences or workshops first
― ACM Sigcomm, ACM/IEEE Mobicom, IEEE Infocom
― IEEE ICNP, ACM MobiHoc , IEEE ICDCS
Second tier conferences only for reference
― IEEE Globecom, ICC,WCNC
Avoid bad conferences
Look for some known researchers web sites
For me
― Dina Katabi @ MIT, Lili Qiu & Yin Zhang @UTCS, Peter Steenkiste@CMU;
― Sachin Katii@Stanford, Tian He@ Minnesota ;
― Qian Zhang@HKUST, Yunhao Liu@Tsing Hua;
Read journal papers only it has not been published else where, or
when it contains more detailed and complete treatment.
13. 研究的四个种类
New problem and new solution
― This comes rarely, perhaps something you could only wish, once a life-time
experience (such as Shannon theory)
Old problem and old solution
― Plenty of out there under the category of “Yet another paper on … ”
New problem and old solution/Old problem and new solution
― You may target the above two
― Examples: new routing algorithms, a new branch of sub-problems
Problem
Old New
Old
Method
New
15. New Problem
Disease / virus / opinion Spreading
A high-resolution human contact network for infectious disease transmission
(PNAS November 2010)
Understanding the spreading patterns of mobile phone viruses. (Science 2009)
18. 朱弘恣
Impact of Traffic Influxes: Revealing Exponential Inter-Contact Time
in urban VANETs. TPDS2010.
Recognizing Exponential Inter-Contact Time in VANETs. INFOCOM 2010
(Mini-conference). Citation 13.
IDEA Source:“Study of a Bus-based Disruption-Tolerant Network: Mobility Modeling and
Impact on Routing” ACM/IEEE MOBICOM, 2007.
19. 李智
Compressive Sensing Approach to Urban Traffic Sensing
IEEE ICDCS, 2011
IDEA Source: Yin Zhang@UTCS，Spatio-Temporal Compressive Sensing and Internet Traffic
Matrices (SIGCOMM 2009)
21. 如何去找一个好的研究题目？
Drink a beer, relax, and ideas will come to you
The ideas fall from the sky!
Understanding the existing work, build upon that
incrementally
― A thorough understanding of those is the basis
Ideas in most cases come from the deep understanding of a
subject, and possess of broad knowledge
― This is not a technical training, i.e., this is not about solving a
differential equations
― This is about relating them to real world problems
― This is about providing new insight beyond known
― This is about your creativity!
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23. 论文格式
A Generic Paper Outline
Courtesy of Dr. Steve Goddard at CSE-UNL: http://cse.unl.edu/‾goddard
1. Introduction
― What is the problem
― Why is it not already solved， or other solutions are inferior in one or more important
ways
― Why is our solution worth considering and why is it superior in some way
― How the rest of the paper is structured
2. Related Work
― What other efforts to solve this problem exist and why do they solve it less well than
we do
― What other efforts to solve related problems exist which are relevant to our effort,
and why are they less good than our solution for this problem
3. Our Design / Implementation
― What we (will do, did): Our Solution
― How our solution works ： A basic overview is good!
― The detailed logic of our work.
24. 论文格式
A Generic Paper Outline
4. Evaluation
― How we tested our solution
― How our solution performed and how this performance compared to that of other
solutions
― Why, how, and to what degree our solution is better than other solutions
― Why you should be impressed with our solution to the problem
5. Conclusion and Future Work
― What is the problem
― What is our solution to the problem
― Why our solution is better
― Why you should be impressed
― What we will do next to:
• improve our solution
• apply our solution to harder versions of this problem
• solve related problems with this solution or a realted solution
26. Conference Papers
Start earlier for a conference submission
Which conference to submit?
Deadline is the best drive for making progress
What make a good paper: content and writing!
Clear, convincing, simple and good English
― This is a never-ending optimization process, do this within the time and page limits
Review process 5/30 rule
― 5 minutes - Abstract, introduction, figure and conclusion
― 30 minutes – understand 90% of the paper
About Conference Review
― 3‾6 Reviewer
― 1‾5 Points
― Given independently, then those reviewer decide the paper to go:
• Accept (555,554,544,444 一定收；345，344，335，334不确定，看运气！)
• Discuss at TPC meeting (333，345，344，335，334，255，245，235，145等等)
• Reject (111, 123等)
27. Journal Papers
A good conference paper (10%-25% acceptance rate) can be
submitted to a journal, with 30% new results
Report more complete and focused results
Which journal to submit the paper?
Give yourself a deadline
Be patient with the long review and re-review
At the earlier stage of one’s career, don’t quit if asked for
major revision
― But don’t do seemingly impossible
28. Review Process
Low acceptance rate
― Typical in many CSE conferences
Reviewers are potential competitors
― Try to convince them and don’t give them excuses to kill the
paper
Reviewers are very busy
― Try to make their job easier
English is not our strength
Don’t try your luck, it won’t work!
29. What Does a Reviewer Look for?
New problem or new solution?
Are the main results significant?
Is the paper technically correct?
Does the paper provide a fair assessment of its
strength and limitation?
Is the paper clearly written, thus accessible to
general readers?
Are the references adequate?
Is the paper appropriate for conference/journal?
…
30. 关于审稿
The Evil Reviewer
How long do they take to reject your paper?
If (Abstract: Search for “In this paper…”=OK) then
{ If(Introduction: Search for “In this paper…”=OK) then{
(If(Theoretical/Experimental results: Search for key theorems or
key charts = OK) then{
If(Related Work: Search for key=OK) then
If(English = OK) then(accept pile)
Else reject
31. 论文撰写
A Reviewer’s Rejection Comments
This paper attempts to explain the success of Naive Bayes classifiers
by showing that…
Unfortunately, this paper was extremely difficult to follow.
― In fact, it took several readings before I even understood the paper's basic
claims.
― The paper should have stated, at the beginning, that it is focusing on the
representational (as opposed to learnability) issue: …
― It would also have been useful to connect this notation with something
practical--for example, …
The arguments and proofs were difficult to follow.
― They would probably have been easier if the paper had first outlined their
structure, before giving the details.
……
