Guests at QuEST January Group Meeting

I used to advertise my blog posts at private FB group for my students and staff. I will no longer do this, beginning with this one. The FB social media has become a circus playground of attention-seekers, propaganda and rumour-mongerers. If not for some informative and useful posts (which have become more rare these days), keeping ties with friends and relatives, I would have probably closed my FB account. I have no desire to be a 'public intellectual' (as some would like to be) in the social media and would prefer to avoid any form of herd mentality.

One of my main concern over the years has been building a local scientific tradition particularly for theoretical physics and quantum sciences. Over in Facebook, we have started a private group known as QuEST (acronym for Quantum Explorations of Science and Technology) and we often get requests from people to join this group. So we started another FB group called of Friends of QuEST for the public who is interested in our activities and restrict QuEST for our students and colleagues at UPM. We have been holding regular group meetings on Thursdays (used to have Tuesdays but it became too taxing for us). The meeting takes place just before lunch time simply because of my administrative duties that tend have to have many meetings during normal hours. At each meeting, we will have a presentation by one of the group members. Last Thursday, was a special one because we have a double presentation, one of which is by our visiting researcher Prof. Kurunathan Ratnavelu. We also had Dr. Clarissa Ai Ling Lee joining us for the meeting.

Prof. Kuru joined us last December after his retirement at Universiti Malaya. I first met Prof. Kuru probably in an IFM conference and more closely when I joined the IFM Council. His earlier work is in atomic physics but later moved to other areas including complex networks, an area that I am too exploring (mainly due to related topological and geometrical ideas). He gave a talk on "Guilt by association: A network approach to drug repositioning". I did not know about this application of complex networks before and was intrigued. The talk was based on the paper with his students "Predicting new drug indications from network analysis". Hope we get to explore other applications while he is here in the institute. We are indeed planning a workshop on data science at the institute sometime in March.

Dr. Clarissa, a staff at the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development at Sunway University, was also there that day since we had a meeting earlier to discuss possible projects. One of it is on the history of quantum physics in Malaysia and Singapore, which I thought would be interesting to participate. Another was art interfacing with science and I was told that there are some initiatives on this at the national level. This would be a new exploration for me (if decided to do so) and is unsure where this would lead to. Told her that we participated in Quantum Shorts and we hope to be shortlisted. Well now, I have to update her that we did not get to be shortlisted as mentioned in the previous post.

Due to the presence of our guests, we had extra food that day. Below are some pics (credit to Zahratun and Shela):

Quantum Short-Lived Attempt

After a few gloomy posts, I thought I would be able to share a good news today. Not so, unfortunately, given the results of Quantum Shorts out today. Our short film was not shortlisted (we know that it was a long-shot).

On November 16,2018, I wrote in our private FB group page, whether we should try out for Quantum Shorts. It is a sort of out-of -the-blue kind of suggestion, thinking of a group activity which is out of our normal routine. We had only a few weeks to think about it since the closing date is December 1, 2018. After some discussions, the group OK-ed it and thought of some plots to do. My student's version of how it went can be found here. I remembered at the same time I was listening to James Arthur- Anne Marie "Rewrite the Stars" (see below)



So the idea is partly inspired by the lyrics, "It Feels Impossible, It's Not Impossible, Is It Impossible, Say That It's Possible" - something that connects with the ideas of what questions are to be asked (measured) and the post-measurement states. Several themes crossed my mind: contextuality, free will theorem and Wigner's friend. The other source of inspiration was the film "Inception" which involves several levels of dreams (realities). We thought that we could apply the plot twist in the film to the one that we want to produce. Had asked my student to volunteer write a script based on some of the ideas thrown. Finally, we settled down to simply use one concept namely Wigner's Friend so that the film is simpler in ideas (easily recognisable). There are different plots being written and they evolved to the one being filmed. Much thanks to the group who was sporting enough to realise this. The final product "Rewriting Wigner's Friend" can be found below (in lower resolution for YouTube posting).



The Frauchiger-Renner paper mentioned in the film is a real paper and can be found here. The film actually has three levels of 'realities'. The first when they are acting with the coin flip (stopped abruptly before the coin flip result). The second is when they were supposedly finished acting and were discussing whether the shooting is OK. Finally, the third is the level of the viewer when the question of the scripwriter is answered. Had wanted it a bit more twisted and surprising but since this is our first attempt, we left it as that.

It is a pity that our film was not shortlisted for otherwise, we may get to be known by others. Particularly I was hoping that our 'creative work' gets to be noticed by the university. However with 176 entries from 40 countries, we knew it was a long shot (but nevertheless was still hoping). It's time to move on now.

Finally for Chinese readers of the blog, I wish you a Happy Chinese New Year.

Lend Me An Ear

This week is probably the most trying week for me. Had I not changed the blood pressure medication earlier this year, my blood pressure would probably have reached a new high.

First, there was this emotional outburst complaint made against the proposed restructuring of the institute (which did not originate from us). Second, the need to resolve an issue that was left open, coupled to the criticism that probably has led to the restructuring. Both of these seems to rekindle the faculty-institute friction despite years of coexistence and probably have upset my superiors. My emotions went to a new low and I entertained the idea of early retirement. I can't stomach all the office politics. The fact that I don't rub shoulders with top people and am controversy-shy, probably puts me in a terrible disadvantage. It was also made known to me much earlier that some think that the institute will grow unstable under my watch. I almost succumbed to make this as a self-realising prophesy.

However knowing I have supportive management colleagues and finally getting our views heard by someone, have helped comfort me a little. I still fear of what will happen next. But I guess I have to take this one step at a time. Sometimes I simply wish that we be left alone to do our usual work.

Moving On

At present, we have settled with one proposal of restructuring of the institutes and hope that we will no longer need to look again too much on the matter. We need to move beyond these uncertainties and do the real work on the ground, the research activities. Our past experience has told us that one can have the most beautiful thing on paper but pragmatically on the ground, all these plans have to be worked out and these are usually much harder. So it is a relief (again) to have this proposal out. To my own staff, they probably know me that I love to do scientific work more than all these managerial and administrative tasks. On the other hand, I do feel compelled to be part of decision-making process to ensure that our past efforts on building our research ecosystems will not go to waste and that whatever changes there will be, these should make us progress better and not the reverse. In a way, all these years in the management make me realise that complaining is easy but to help find (optimal) solutions is the one that is hard and the one that matters.

For now an immediate matter that should be of concern is the new call for proposals for FRGS, TRGS and LRGS research grants by the ministry. I hope our institute members will start writing proposals. I wish to write one too but past experiences have made me to be more cautious about doing one. Certainly some rules of the game have changed and there are now more demands tied up with one's research grant. Having only about four years of service left has also made me to be more careful on what research to be considered for the proposal. Given that I have started several different directions, all of which have open problems that I wish to tackle, I am still uncertain on what to do. Whatever it is, I hope it will be something really good that I can end my university career on. Perhaps even a ground breaking one (I can dream, can I?)

I also entertained an idea of applying for LRGS or TRGS (L stands for long term and T stands for transdisciplinary). The former will need a few other institutions outside one's own, while the latter involves several faculties or institutes within one's institution). Have tried one before but it was shot down at the ministerial committee for being too ambitious (had this comment quite a few times for my other proposals). Well, perhaps now one can entertain it to be one which is less technical. Partly because the themes to be considered are now leaning more towards social issues. They are:

• developing affordable and clean energy system
• health and wellbeing of B40
• health and weelbeing of ageing society
• future education
• quality education provision for vulnerable communities
• sustainable and smart manufacturing in agricultural sector
• migrants and refugees in Malaysian society
• drug abuse
• ethnic harmony

The one area that I'm toying with and considering is future education. While most future education issues tend to centre around how technology has changed the environment for education, I do not think that is the critical issue to focus. Technologies change and they change very frequently; it is the part of human in adapting to these changes that often becomes an issue. As Simon Sinek puts it, if one focuses on what and how of such issue, often the why gets forgotten. In particular my interest is in the spectrum of thinking of a human or an organisation organism with their product in the form of technologies. The finiteness of the human or organisation seem to set some form of inherent limitations in the way thinking is done (this theme is also alluded here in this post) and how to overcome this. Understanding this complex issue may help liberate us into better thinking (and hence better future education). This is also related to some things I have said to my own students: as science progress with exponentially growing body of knowledge, how can the future science student cope as they need to solve more difficult and complex problems. Partial solutions are known but they tend to refer to finite properties of the individual/organisation and prioritisation or contextualisation. 

Honing closer to home are our own cultural inhibitions to technical subjects like mathematics and related subjects like quantum theory. There are many studies (e.g. here) showing that the country's performance in TIMSS has dropped considerably the last few years and my gut feeling is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. So whatever future education issues that one wants to tackle for the country, answering why this is happening will be great.

One may ask why I am getting myself involved with these educational issues, far from my own research interest. Well, it actually began with the idea of getting the country ready for quantum technologies of the future. Letting my imagination runs wild has led me to write the above. Perhaps it is just me entertaining my personal frustration of driving quantum research here. Have been told many times that what I do is typified as 'syok sendiri'. At other times, plenty of discouragement and what bothers me the most is discouraging others as well. Just let them decide for themselves. In the end, one can't be bothered with what people say and just focus on what we can do.

Having mentioned Simon Sinek above, I knew about him much earlier and but recently his newer videos got to be recommended on my YouTube listing. Do listen to these when you have time.

A Different Turn

Two days ago, I was at a university up north attending a viva examination as an external examiner. It was for an area that only a handful of us know in the country, an area for which essentially my PhD supervisor Richard Ward is in (my PhD was on a different topic than this). The examination turned out to be good and one has the elated feeling of duty fulfillment, overseeing progress made in such area locally. However this 'joy' was cut short. As I was waiting for the plane to return home, received a whatsapp message regarding the restructuring of the institute. A new change.

The restructuring of the institute has occupied our minds ever since middle of last year. Plenty of discussions were made to see what is best for the institute and finally agreed upon some niche areas that could have given the institute a unique identity (see here). We even come up with a clever name for the institute to highlight our niche area, namely on disruptive science & technology. Initially we would like to keep this name a secret until we are sure that it is properly endorsed by the university. It was Mathematical Institute for Natural and Disruptive Sciences (MINDS). Unfortunately, this name will not see the light of the day. The meeting yesterday informed us that the restructuring will now take a different turn, which I will not reveal here as yet.

My immediate feeling after the meeting is betrayal; both betrayed and betraying. Our efforts thus far have gone back to naught and sincerely wished that we knew this much earlier. But much more damaging for me is that this happens under my watch. In a way, I felt that I have betrayed the original cause of our institute. Something that I have to bear for the rest of my life. In a way, I have been here before; plenty of disappointments in life. At this stage, I do not know what will happen next. For now, I try to comfort myself by saying that come what may, we (as in theoretical physics group) will continue to do the things we do; things that not many may have the courage to take up. I will just leave it at that.

Nuff Said

I think I have said too much yesterday at the risk of possibly affecting whatever cohesion we have. Do note that I value very much our existing cohesion and the trust that we have built. This is particularly critical when we are at the verge of restructuring the institute. But matters arising compelled me to say what I think is right and the opinions that I have held long dearly (science over other secondary matters). Having said that, I do entertain the possibility of oneself is wrong, which I expect the same of any other scientists. More so in matters of human affairs; more often than not, one does not have a single unique solution but probably multiple solutions with different strength and weaknesses (see here). Ultimately, one particular solution has to be picked out and this is normally done by the 'leader'. As such, being in the deputy position for quite some time (and being in the institute for so long), I worry that I am developing blindspots. It is usually wise to make sure that one is not in the position of power too long. For the record, I am not power crazy and will be willing to leave to make place for those who are more capable.

For now, I hope everyone refrain from aggravating whatever problems we are facing, and work more towards finding solutions. Finding faults is easy (because everyone has a weakness) but finding solutions needs more grey matter and creativity. Let us focus on rebuilding the institute according to what the university plans to have.

Pre-Restructuring Thoughts

This is my first post in 2019 and I will write about the institute's future and niche area.

It is perhaps an open secret that the institute will be undergoing restructuring process along with the rest of the university. One of the task given to us is to carve out niche areas perhaps unique to the institute itself, avoiding redundancies with say the Mathematics Department in the Faculty. Redundancy in itself is not necessarily bad and in fact is key to many technologies with critical components. Whether this is the case for our mathematical research perhaps is not clear. I certainly want to think that the institute has helped in many ways mathematical research in the university. Perhaps finding a unique identity to the institute is something that one should aim for after many years.

Each of us has one's own research passion and it is quite easy to be blinded into thinking that one's own research is more important or more fundamental or more difficult than another. To be able to objectively compare between fields, it is necessary to be actively involved in the research areas that one wants to compare. To master one particular research area already requires incredible feat; to be able to do more would probably take a few lifetimes. Comparing different fields is not our goal; more importantly is to ensure that such different fields synergize with each other. One hopes to have different groups working together for some common goals, which I hope will be realised in the future version of the institute. Another desirable thing to have is to get the right mix of birds and frogs (alluding to Dyson's categorization of researchers in his article in Notices of the AMS). Birds bring diverse ideas together and frogs do intricate details within one area. I would like to imagine myself as a bird, not a high-flying one but one that is close to the ground. I get very fascinated by mathematical topics that find their ways to physics in rather surprising ways. Each weekend I will normally scan the arXiv to see what new ideas are brewing; those that caught my eye are link-dumped at Equatorial Frequencies. Most of these will be left unread of course. Such scanning has helped me get some form of bird-eye's view of progress made in mathematical sciences. I hope this will be of use in looking for possible new directions for the institute.

One of the directions that could have been taken is to move to interdisciplinary research as I have raised many times (I'm also including areas within mathematics themselves). But what areas would be most natural for mathematicians to work with? The best way to answer is to see what available data there are on mathematical research publications. Some researchers have taken the time to look at this by constructing a map of mathematics. One map would be based on the paper submissions on the arXiv (see figure below):

The blue ones are those considered to be traditionally in mathematics. The purple ones are coming from physics. The red ones are computer science and also engineering. The green ones are statistics (but we will not consider this as distinct from mathematics for simplification). Physics has always been closed to mathematics and should have interacted more with mathematics. Reality on the ground is that most of our physics staff do very little theoretical work. Hence we should source more interactions from the other closely associated areas of computer science and engineering. In fact, I would have loved to see more computer scientists (particularly theoretical ones) to be more active in our institute. Engineering would be another but they are not quite well represented in the above map since arXiv is much biased on those areas that have established preprint culture and perhaps engineering has yet to be one. Another map that will show the engineering representation better is perhaps the map constructed from Zentralblatt data (see figure below).

The mathematical areas that are close to engineering are those in partial differential equations and numerical analysis. Note the heavy weighted lines from PDE and numerical analysis to fluid mechanics, thermodynamics and heat transfer, systems theory and control. Thus, engineering would be another source of interaction that the institute could place hope for. Having said that readiness and willingness of researchers (mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers) is a complex matter to deal with and we hope that we can overcome this challenge.

Back to carving niche areas, cryptography was one of the identified niche areas of the institute even before the current restructuring process takes place. This would however be too restrictive for the institute to base on and will exclude many other important established areas of the institute. To generalize this, one of us suggested disruptive technologies (see here and here) which will include further things like internet of things, data science and others often quoted for IR 4.0 (see for instance these examples). This would make the institute heavily based on (available) technologies (note most technologies are disruptive in nature). To be more far-sighted, one should also include the sciences that drive them. One particular area whose technology is expected to change the IT landscape is quantum sciences, an area which I dream of establishing firmly in UPM (time is running out since I will be retiring in a few years time). In fact, the idea was there when I joined ITMA last time and we suggested the field of study on Quantum Science and Technology (way back in 2002 - see figure below).

This initiative (experimental side) stopped just after I left ITMA. Today, the term Quantum Science and Technology is already a common term. IOP for instance has created a journal with such name. Here is a relatively recent interview on Japan initiatives in quantum science and technology.

Now, quantum information science fits well in the niche area of science that drives near-future disruptive technology. It actually took about 70-80 years from the beginning of quantum science to reach the point of precise manipulation of single quantum particles. Today there are many available technologies of doing so. However technologically we are far away from doing this in our labs (though there is a possibility of accessing such technology with external help, which we are considering). The best option for us is to take the theoretical (or mathematical) options for quantum information science research which I think we are able to do (provided support and enough manpower).

Having said this, it is not about serving my own interests in doing the institute's restructuring exercise. We have to take into account for what is natural and what serves the institute better. For instance, mathematical physics which is an important area that connects physics and mathematics (see map of mathematics in the figures above) will now take a back seat in favour of mathematical engineering. This is to attract more engineers to the institute (which I do hope will happen). An area that seems to fall out of favour in this action will be our work on hyperbolic spaces and cusp forms. Unless of course if we can still relocate such research by making it into something applicable like quantum money.

Another area that I hope the institute can pursue is the area of data science, which the institute had already eyed on before this. Now while most people are imagining the data explosion, my concern is actually more on some inherent (human or otherwise) limitations of obtaining useful finite information and that contextualization is probably needed (see here). On the other hand, we need new inventive ways to produce useful information. One such tool is the idea of complex networks (an area that I hope the institute pursue), which has already show many applications and some may even be counter-intuitive (see e.g. here).

All these ideas are ambitious of course. Ideas will remain ideas unless they are worked on by our researchers. It is here that we wish that we get all the support that we can to make our institute stronger and sustainable.

End of Year Events

It has been a while since I last posted on the blog. Much due to many unfinished work and many of my posts in the past require some thoughts (took time to collect my thoughts). Thus, this time round, I will keep my post short.

Many things have happened since. On 10 December, the Institute's Director retired and I am currently made as Acting Director (like the Malay direct translation: Berlakon Pengarah) until the university appoints a new one. My guess this appointment will be so when the dust of restructuring settles down. My own appointment as the Deputy actually ends on 31st May 2019 and am looking forward to it.

Last few weeks, I finally got the official letter that my research grant proposal was unsuccessful. So it has been more than two years, I am without a grant. Given my near retirement, personally I thought perhaps I should stop trying to get one - much of my research expenses have been from my own pocket and am still surviving. However getting a grant is a KPI, which more or less forces me to keep trying, perhaps to the benefit of my students.

Third, my scheduled trip to APCWQIS 2018 in Kolkata was cancelled much due to my personal mistake of not finding out more about visas. I had thought that being part of Commonwealth, I could get a visa-on-arrival like in many other countries. But I was wrong; I was stopped from checking-in into the flight and went back home disappointed. Quickly I wrote an email to the conference chairman, saying that I can't come (otherwise, I would need  to apply for a visa and buy another set of tickets). Essentially I lost the ticket (purchased from my own pocket as I have no grant) and added to this is my international roaming package, which the service provider told me is not refundable.

In a way, it is a blessing in disguise, since almost immediately I fell sick with flu and cough. Perhaps due to this, my back pain worsened. So last Saturday, spent my birthday mostly in bed. My other half, thinking I would be in India, had earlier arranged a trip to Rompin and was left with my youngest and the eldest who is working during weekends. Did celebrate the night before with my family.

Oh yes, just after my India trip failure, my other half decided to get another furry family member, which is a munchkin. The cat has since grown attached to my youngest since he was always around playing with the cat. Here are some pics:

Today is Christmas public holiday and I'm still struggling with all the marking I need to do.  I did not get to do much of my work after all during the period. Tomorrow will be back at work and my calendar is already full for the rest of the year, it seems. Despite this seemingly gloomy post, I'll make a cheery end with Seasons Greetings to my blog readers and have a happy holiday.

Uncertain Times

By writing this post, I would like to clear the air in times where things are growing uncertain. In fact yesterday, I was reminded that I should speak my mind out, so that people know where I stand. In a way, I have been down this road a few times, whatever uncertainties there are, I have less anxiety now compared to the past.

First, the current director will be retiring soon and I am expected to take up her role until the university appoints a new director. For me, this has always been an uncomfortable situation. If I push myself to the forefront too much, some may interpret such moves that I am looking forward to the director's position. If I don't, some may say I'm not performing my duties. So yesterday when I started giving ideas in a meeting (talking more than usual), it is simply because I thought these ideas could actually help the institute. I have always believe that institutes are good ideas to help propel research and be symbols of prestige. All of the rest of the world seem to think so even if some of us do not. So whether I have a position or not, I will support the institute. So whether the community of mathematicians wants me or not, I do support institute for mathematics even if some will claim duplication of roles. I have said these in the past, even to the previous director, that the institute should provide new opportunities for researchers to go beyond the status quo. An easy option is to go interdisciplinary and by this, I do not mean simply just how mathematics are applied to other sciences but even within the scope of mathematics, we can find subdisciplines interacting with each other and often lead to revolutionary mathematical ideas. While I am on this note, let me just say this: despite I belong to the physics department, all my degrees are from the mathematical sciences department. In the past, I have misplaced my degree certificates but now I have found them and get them scanned. Here they are:

My PhD thesis can be found here: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/6053/ , The pdf copy will show that my PhD was from the Department of Mathematical Sciences. It is embarrassing for me to show this but I just want to have the certs stored somewhere in my personal blog. But I guess these do not really matter for those who don't want me to be there. When I first heard that why should I be appointed as MJMS Chief Editor and not someone from the Maths Department, I can gauge how acceptable I am to the community there. My personal wish when my Chief Editor term ends in December this year, I would prefer not to be reappointed. Present moves of establishing another mathematical journal is not necessary and MJMS be best given to a "recognised mathematician". In the case of directorship, I guess the same feeling must be there. That's why I have mentioned to both past and present directors, I have reservation whether I will have the support if appointed. But this is secondary to me, I prefer to be known more as a scientist than an administrator.

Second, some restructuring is expected of the institute. I can't reveal much here but there will be changes. Such changes invite uncertainties. It is funny to see the coincidence between these two uncertainties. During the first change of director, it coincides with the point that we are about to announce MICEMS. Now, we have the restructuring exercise (note: we have restructured the institutes a few times in the past, but this time I think it is a big change). I also get to know that remarks are made by some others that the institute may grow "unstable" when the present director steps down. It is certainly discomforting to see such confidence they have in me. To me, I will put in efforts to see the institute to progress (and not destabilize as some would like to say) even if I am not in any particular administrative position. As I said before, the institute is too important for our science to grow, more important than any wishes of any individual.

Growing Sour With KPIs: Case of Mathematical Sciences

I'm very much well aware that I am not a prolific researcher (producing large quantities of papers is totally unheard of in my area) and certainly administrative matters is not really my cup of tea. But I do care about the development of science particularly theoretical sciences in our university and the country. However it seems that I have been classed unconditionally as a non-performing academic, which is pretty depressing.

As far as I know, I have never stayed idle with respect to research. I believe I have contributed in putting a theoretical physics group in place from being virtually nonexistent in the university. I have ventured into areas that many fear of doing so and tried to open opportunities in such areas. Some of these are quantization, quantum theory on punctured surfaces, hyperbolic geometry, quantum foundations, mathematical aspects of cosmology, complex networks, symplectic geometry in quantum information. Many times I have been asked to examine thesis and review papers on difficult  theoretical subjects. With potential oversea partners, I have tried my best to make things work and show others that we are doing some form of respectable theoretical sciences. I have also contributed in the progress made in Malaysian Journal of Mathematical Sciences by adopting LaTeX platform, an online submission system and a better international outlook. But I guess all these did not matter much. I don't like to make excuses and I know there is a need to improve. I try to stay above politics and have avoided rubbing shoulders with those highly ranked so that things are more favourable to us. Being classed as a non-performer and believing in leadership by example, it is perhaps better to consider that I be relieved of my current position as deputy director and chief editor of a journal and leave these to more deserving persons.

Being in administration for some time, I understand the tendency to follow KPIs by numbers as an easy way to monitor progress. Wisdom would however will tell us to be cautious about this and consider the details of research culture in different sciences. Even within mathematical sciences itself, there are variations. Mathematicians worldwide have been concerned with the blanket use of metrics to assess research and there have already been a few statements issued about this:

• From American Mathematical Society, https://www.ams.org/profession/leaders/culture/CultureStatement09.pdf 
• From International Mathematical Union, https://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/CEIC/ICM_2014_panels/Evaluation_of_individuals__FINAL.pdf 

On citation statistics, there are a few publications on the variations in different sciences:

• Robert Adler, John Ewing & Peter Taylor, Citation Statistics,  https://arxiv.org/abs/0910.3529
• Gregory Patience, Christian Patience, Bruno Blais & Francois Bertrand, Citation Analysis of Scientific Categories, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844016322800 

On making publication measures as a target, we have to remember Goodhart's Law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Recently there is a study that shows that Goodhart's Law are already in action for academic publishing metrics:

• Michael Fire & Carlos Guestrin, Over-Optimization of Academic Publishing Metrics: Observing Goodhart's Law in Action

I believe the management and decision makers are perhaps aware of the issues I have mentioned above, and my wishes for them to be highly wise in their decision and policy making.

For me, I hope the current incident will not kill my passion for science and my wish to continue to contribute in wherever I can (in a natural way).

Goodbye Puteh

Today, our cat Puteh died sometime early in the morning. My other half being more attached to the cat was really sad about it. For me, I had a mixture of sadness and sense of relief given that she had suffered a lot. Puteh was diagnosed with kidney failure about two weeks ago after which we bought her an imported medication (which we need to get from Bandar Enstek and if we need more, we need to get it from Singapore).

Before that, we saw her eating less and less with some weight loss but we soon realise that she began to be less active and brought her to the clinic. She became weaker sometime early last week and almost unable to walk. It was only two days ago, she became almost immobile and began to ooze out blood when sleeping. My other half did all the nursing and cleaning her up until last night.

We actually got Puteh sometime end of 2008 from someone else. So she was with us for almost ten years and probably she was three to four years with the original owner. Thus they say if Puteh was human, she would be about 98 years old (multiply by seven, what I was told). So she was pretty old and had lost some teeth beforehand.

Here are some pics when we got her.

Puteh unlike others, is very timid and is not too active. She will often sleep with us in our room and around 6.30 pm would actually go down and wait for my other half to come back from work. Here are more pics when she was healthy.

A more recent picture with the other cats is the following (probably about one or two months back):

These pics are when she began to fall sick:

These are some pics from last night when my other half nursed and cleaned her up:

This video was taken a few nights ago:

It was a coincidence that all my children were back during last weekend, in time to see Puteh before she goes. This is a pic during Saturday's lunch.

This morning, we buried her in our backyard. She will certainly be missed.

Growing (Old) Pains

Apart from a series of long weekends last few weeks or so, I have been taking extra leaves due to my physical ageing conditions. Probably much due to highly stressed situations (which I will blog in future posts), my blood pressure has been high for the last several weeks, particularly diastolic pressure is typically 90 and easily gets into the 100+ range. Usually, such rise in pressure is accompanied by headaches and even chest pains (which is worrying for me due to diseased heart). In a bad spell, I would just need to lie down and occasionally my body simply shuts down in the form of drowsiness or unattentiveness. In such situations, I prefer not to come to work at all and prefer to rest or work at home at my own pace. I don't put up these stories for pride or need of sympathy but more for my own cautionary awareness of my state of health and others to understand if needed.

So last Monday, I decided to go to a private hospital to check-up on my health conditions. The weekend before I had abdominal pains and occasionally some chest pains. I could not do any work simply because I was too tired trying to bear the pain. My other half had suggested to me to go to the hospital a few times then but I knew then that I would simply be warded on Sunday only to receive doctor's advice on the next day. So we decided to go on the Monday instead. By then, the pain had subsided but we still decided to go for the check-up. The specialist we saw is my senior during school and university days and he specialised in gastroenterology, He advised me to go for endoscopy but since I had some chest pains and have history of diseased heart, he had to consult his colleague cardiologist before doing the procedure. I was then warded and did immediately some tests; the MRI scan was done during the night - I guess it was too busy during the day. The next day, I met the cardiologist and he explained that there were some minor blockage in three veins on the left part of my heart but it was only 30-50%. I knew this before from my last check-up and there was nothing new. He advised me to simply continue with medication and there is no need for invasive procedures. The other test I was waiting for was endoscopy. However since the abdominal pain has gone, my specialist friend gave me two options, to simply continue some prescribed medication and be discharged or wait for another day to do the scope. Worried that the hospital charges are already high, I opted for the former. Indeed when discharged, the bill had already gone beyond RM6500. This was more than I expected and had to use partially the credit card. Why I did not use insurance? I have given up on medical coverage when an insurance company decided not to cover my back pain hospital admission years ago and gave excuses on me not declaring the problems I had. So whatever policies I have now are for other purposes. Why not use public hospital? Well the private hospital was the closest to my house and they had already medical records of mine. In addition, I was prepared to pay to a certain extent but was surprised to get the amount stated above. Regrets? Maybe. The supposedly endoscopy that I wish I have did not happen and the cardiac tests simply gave reports that I have already known before.

With the above now made known, I hope to dispel any ideas of me trying to take more long weekends off. If last week's leave was indeed my attempt for a longer weekend, then it is certainly very expensive one for me. When I take leaves, normally either I'm really not well or I have something personal to do urgently, and this can be near the weekend or even in the middle of the week (my record of leaves should show). As much as I like to stay at home, I do love to do (academic) work in a stimulating and harmonious environment (unfortunately, not readily available sometimes at office). By the way I was anxious to come to work today (Monday) to discuss directions of the institute with respect to possible restructuring.

Am I making up all the pains for my convenience? I wish I can easily say no (or even yes) but there may be subtle psychological influences that make the situation as such. All this while I am trying to understand my bodily functions. The chest pains that I am feeling could be attributable to two different ailments: diseased heart and my gerd (gastroesophageal reflux disease). Essentially I can't tell which is which. Some people tell me that pain of a heart attack are pressuring or squeezing pain and not of sharp pain. I have experienced both, most of which are sharp pains but occasionally pressurizing pain. Whether I have suffered a heart attack, blood tests have not shown this. So I do not really know what it is. Are they all symptoms of my abdominal problem? Statistically, it seems strange to have more than 95% of the sharp pains coming from the left side of the chest. I would have expected naively, they are a bit less biased to which side of the chest. So I don't know what is really happening and whether I should be worried.

What I do know for sure is these pains I'm having are getting more frequent and I'm a bit concerned. I don't wish for me to depart so soon or unexpectedly. I wish I could live till the age of 90+ (like our prime minister) and still considered be useful. I have many dreams that I wish to pursue but old age has made me realise that some of these are statistically impossible.

Should I attribute these pains to work stress? Again, I have no clear answer yes or no. Certainly over the years, work has become more stressful and less enjoyable. Note that I don't long for those years back in the 80s and 90s where things are more laidback, nor do I want the current situation of chasing KPIs regardless of what is considered natural or not. I do know that I prefer to work within an environment where we are allowed to be creative on what we are passionate about. I hope whatever future we design allows for these things to happen. Otherwise, we may just be misleading ourselves in conforming to numbers (KPIs).

That brings me to a nice paper I saw yesterday about Goodhart's Law. I think admin  should read them.

From XPS to Vostro

Two days ago, I received my new laptop from Dell after almost a two-week wait. The model bought this time is Dell Vostro. The decision was made after seeing a promotion deal in conjunction with our independence day today. My previous laptop was an XPS 2-in-1 Ultrabook, bought about four years ago. Before that it was also a Dell XPS without the tablet and touch-screen ability (and it served me for about seven years) and the one before was a Dell Lattitude (a desktop replacement). While XPS is still the top-of-the-line among Dell models, I thought I should settle for less this time, essentially just to cut cost.

The purchase was necessary as my old laptop had screen problems, beginning with the appearance of stripes, then a cycle of bright and dark screen states and finally before the new laptop arrives, instances (and later prolonged periods) of the screen turning completely dark. Had to purchase an appended LCD monitor while waiting for the new laptop to arrive for me to continue to do work.

Finally my Vostro laptop arrived and I started to install needed softwares and restore needed files, just in time for important meetings the next day (note: our meetings have gone paperless and the need of use of laptops).

Installing LaTeX took me the whole night; found out that I could not install MikTeX and thus instead I installed TeXLive (yet to try this out). Fork out my own money to purchase MathType for Microsoft Office (now on subscription), an equation editor with LaTeX capabilities, since most of my old and admin documents are in Microsoft Word. Despite what people think of MS Word, the software expanded with the equation editor MathType, can actually produced LaTeX-like documents (just use Euclid type fonts instead for the normal tTimes Roman fonts). Finally, got myself the software Mathematica with a personal license (without subscription). This is quite an investment but there was an offer that goes along with Wolfram's 30th anniversary. While I'm not a heavy Mathematica programmer (though my students are), I have been using this scientific software ever since I came back from my PhD. At some point I tried to campaign for the university to take up campus-wide license for Mathematica, but unfortunately it was unsuccessful (engineer-related community tend to use Matlab and those in maths tend to use Maple). Today, the Malaysian universities that have campus-wide license for Mathematica are Universiti Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Petronas and Monash University Malaysia Campus (lucky them).

Some may ask why not buy these under research grant. Well, first and foremost, I have been without research grant for almost two years now. Secondly, during those early research years (1990s) when I had research grants, I did acquire laptops using my research grant but then someone cynically commented that the laptop usage is not just for research but has been used for personal matters. Thereafter, I have always bought laptops using my own savings, to keep a clear conscience, apart from a few years back when I bought a laptop for the students (group usage). I do not really agree with what the person said since it is essentially impractical to divide work-personal computer usage since most of the time we tend to do things seamlessly. In any case, the computer use has always been mainly for work more than anything else. Anyway, now, after spending so much for the laptop and the softwares, I will be in the saving mode for at least a few months.

Ten Books

Many of my colleagues or family members will not see me without a book or a paper with me most of the time. Even when I go out to eat with my family, I will always bring something to read. I can't stand the idea of doing nothing or lepak (apparently now an English word) or spend more than ten minutes conversing without purpose. Will try my best to read wherever and whenever I can even before dozing off to sleep. So when the Education Minister tweeted about listing ten favourite books, I thought it's a nice idea and will play along.

It is difficult for me to select any favorites because I tend to read a lot in diverse topics and one can't really compare when it come to different topics. Also most of time, I buy books for references rather than reading them cover to cover and besides that, I tend to read papers more these days. Hence, I will just simply list what I have read for about 70% of the book and keep returning to them when needed. Some of these will be pretty dated because I use them while I was a student. In no particular order, they are:

1. Relativity, Groups and Topology II, edited by Bryce DeWitt and Raymond Stora. This book contains lecture notes on theoretical physics from the well-known Les Houches school. It is about 1000 pages long and I would be kidding to say I have really read even half of it despite being interested in almost all the contents. I include this here is because this is where Chris Isham expounds on his canonical group quantization programme. Even though the notes are more than twenty years old, I still ask my research students to read it.
2. Chris Isham's "Lectures on Quantum Theory". I didn't quite use this book while I was a student but I find it extremely clear and contain technical gems in it. Again I always recommend this to my students who are studying foundations of quantum theory.
3. David Bohm's "Quantum Theory". I find this useful in explaining wave mechanics of quantum theory. Note that this book is on conventional quantum theory and not Bohmian mechanics. The book I have is handed down to me by my late second eldest brother and was published in Japan by Maruzen.
4. "Quarks and Leptons" by Halzen & Martin. This is a book that I had as a present from my eldest brother even before I really learn particle physics during my undergraduate. The book is pretty dated by now but it is the one I used to learn particle physics and even quantum field theory very quickly. Note: Alan Martin was one of my lecturers in University of Durham.
5. Felsager's "Geometry, Particles and Fields". I bought this book while I was in Cambridge and found it useful to help me build concrete ideas on differential geometry in relation to field theories and particle physics. At the time, it was published by Odense University Press but presently is published under Springer.
6. Geroch's "Mathematical Physics". Another book bought in Cambridge (Heffers Store). I didn't quite use it while I was a student but I found it unique, giving a bird's eye view how mathematics is used in physics. It gives my first contact with Category Theory.
7. d'Inverno's "Introducing Einstein's Relativity". When I first learn general relativity during undergraduate, we had to use difficult books like Misner, Thorne & Wheeler or Stephani & Stewart. We even refer to Spivak's 5-volume set for differential geometry. I do not recommend these for the beginners. When I started teaching, I found the book by d'Inverno to be more friendly for students.
   
   Now the above are really technical books but I do read popular materials, self-help books and religious books. Among them are:
8. Casti's "Paradigms Lost". This is a great popular science reading that deals on the big questions of science and the open questions of disparate nature. 
9. Covey's "The Speed of Trust". I could have listed his father's more well known book of 7 Habits. I prefer to highlight this book instead due to the problem of trust in our society and in our organization. We spend too much time and energy to neutralize distrust, which could have been used in much more fruitful way.
10. Al-Attas' "Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam". S.M.N. Al-Attas is a well-known local scholar on Islamic philosophy, education and Malay culture & history. Have read most of his smaller booklets but this one seems to be written more comprehensively and coherent.

Note, the above just give you a glimpse of books that I'm reading. Would not really call them favorites but more accurately the books that have influenced in my early learning days. There are many,many more books that I wished I could have read as extensively as the above and I hope I will get the time to do it. 

Aside: Sometime back, we used to joke about if we are allowed to bring a single (technical) book (or two) to a desert island, what would it be. My choice would be Analysis, Manifolds and Physics which cover most of the maths you need in physics. It has now a companion volume.

Finally, here is a pic of me with a small part of my book collection.

#MALAYSIAMEMBACA

The Friday That Was

Last Friday, we had a meeting at Securities Commission for some research project we have agreed to take up. The idea of this project was mooted during the time when Prof. Maman Djauhari was our research fellow at the institute. It so happened to get the MoA done took us almost two years and when it was signed (December last year), Prof. Maman has already left. Nevertheless, we still take up the project given that too much effort has gone into it, partly feeling responsible and there is national interest in it, but also partly we wanted to get the experience working with industries. We presented what we had and discussed what is probably missing, noting that real-life problems are much more complicated. What we thought to be a short meeting, went up until after 12 afternoon (noting it was Friday and we had to go for Friday prayers). Also explained to SC, apart from Sarah, we have many other intervening duties besides the project (this juggling of duties, often goes unappreciated; each new project taken up will often take many hours away from us). This is the pic of us at the lobby (courtesy of Dr. Chan) - from left to right: Azam (SC), Daniel (SC), me (UPM), Dr. Chan (UPM), Sarah (UPM), Wong (SC); another member not present (due to IQRAC preparations) is Zurita.

On the rush back to UPM, we saw an accident involving a schoolkid who was sitting at the divider of the highway while her parent/ brother (unsure), the motorcyclist, was lying a few meters away from her. It was horrible.

Somehow all that afternoon, I felt uncomfortable. I was supposed to chair another meeting later after the Friday prayers. Soon after the Friday prayers, my eldest send me this pic of swollen feet of Izzuddin (my youngest):

He told me that Izzuddin fell down the drain. My wish then was to go back almost immediately. Instead, I asked my eldest to call up my other half who is a doctor and will know what best to do. Me, I stayed on for the meeting since there were some decisions need to be made in order for some students to prepare for their thesis submission in time.

After the meeting, I went straight to Columbia Hospital where my other half already took Izzuddin to. Was informed then that Izzuddin had broken his leg and there is a piece of bone disconnected from the main. If we had insurance for him, they would probably recommend surgery. As I arrived, they already had him plastered and was bout to go home.

The pic might not show much but there is a risk; if the bone is not joined back within two weeks, he may have to go for surgery.

This leg is the same right leg he broke a couple of years back but at a different part. I was in tears during the last time, when a ping pong table fell on his leg. Can't imagine the pain! I really blame the school for not properly supervising the task (kids moving a ping-pong table). We claimed for the school insurance but in the end the claim was unsuccessful. It is not the money that matters but I felt that the school must own up some responsibility. In the present case, I guess my son is to blame for not being careful and fell into a drain. However, I was disappointed to know that it was only his friend that had helped him and they together walked all the way back home (several hundred meters) with my son limping with his friend's support! Again, I can't imagine the pain he had gone through. My son (or his friend) should have informed the school but him having a reserved personality, not wishing to trouble others did not. All the walk might have caused the displacement of the broken bone. Again I wished that the school be a bit more aware of the situation to help. However to be fair to the school (to which I'm humbly grateful) my son had his trial PT3 exam (which is supposed to start today) postponed until next week so that his condition will be slightly better.

My prayers that he will not go through any further pain and difficulties. He has suffered enough. He has already broken his leg twice, broke his arm once, had deep cut in his head after being pushed and his collar bone broke once while he is still learning how to walk.

We (three of us) were scheduled to go to Kuching, Sarawak for IQRAC 2018 last Sunday. But, we decided to forego our tickets just to be with our youngest.