Assisting assignments

During the 4th quarter of the year, an important course of our research group is taught. Part of the course is a case study which the students have to carry out. The task of us PhD students is to assist students with their cases.

Since I am very busy starting a new series of tests and delivering all the reports from my first large series of tests (127 in total), I've been forced to streamline my procedures as much as possible with regard to assisting students.

I benefit from the fact that I have been assisting this course last year as well, and I had more time available to dedicate to my teaching duties. However, I still want to deliver the same results to the students and make sure they learn from the exercise.

Here's how I've been trying to streamline this task:

1. Have a clear workflow scheme

For all teams which I am assisting, I've made it clear how I prefer to work. I let them know that I prefer to:
- schedule appointments beforehand and if possible, I try to batch them together in one afternoon to keep my mind focused on the subject),
- to receive written material at least one workday before the meeting so that I can have a first impression of what needs to be improved
- have students neatly prepared for the meeting, and prepare myself as well for the meeting (fair enough, I'd say).

2. Know the common errors

From talking to senior PhD students and lecturers, I've been able to identify a few typical mistakes. I start by checking if the plots and graphs in the report "make sense", and then I check if the common errors have been made. If all this looks good, I can proceed and look at the report into further detail. If I can spot weaknesses early on, I know that I can point these out for the students but I don't need to go over the details of the report.

3. Schedule undisturbed chunks of time to correct

I've tried to grade reports in the middle of the day, while people are walking in and out of my office and I need to run up and down the stairs to the lab a few times. The result is that spend too much time trying to find my train of thought again. I've now made it a habit to read the reports either before 9am, after 4pm or from home.

4. Keep the pace of the students

I'm preparing the material at the same pace as the fastest group of students. I haven't prepared the entire case before it was even handed out (at least, not in detail, I did read through the assignment and an example solution before starting to get the general idea). While I'm checking the report of the fastest group of students, I spend some more time on the topic to be fully prepared to explain it again.

I'm planning to write about my method of approaching this matter again around this time next year to see if I've changed much of my ways...

The alliteration in the title is to keep the spirit of my previous post alive

In defense of Latin in secondary schools

After reading some thoughts on the upcoming reforms in the Belgian/Flemish secondary school system, I was particularly upset by reading that Latin has to be replaced by technical courses. And more technical courses are required because our society requires more engineers.

I'm an engineer but I studied Latin - Mathematics in secondary school. I'm as much interested in history, philosophy and poetry as I'm interested in concrete and bridges. Every now and then I need to rant about how we are more and more pushed towards narrow-mindedness by society.

I won't go into rant-mode today, but I will sum up a few benefits I enjoyed from studying Latin, despite my choice for technical studies later on.

1. Develop analytical skills

To understand a Latin text, it is necessary to analyze the sentence in detail before its meaning is clear. Most sentences need to be broken down, and then analyzed from its core to all extra parts. In fact, studying Latin seems to me a great way to develop general analytical skills, which are necessary also in technical studies.

2. Learn to pay attention to details

When reading Latin poetry, the metric in which it is written (eg. the dactylic hexameter for the Aeneid) determines the poetry. The consequence of long and short syllables is fixed when the metric scheme is chosen. I've spent hours marking the short and long syllables in Virgil's Aeneid, and it helped me to focus and pay close attention to details.

3. Personal growth

Secondary school is the time when your personality is developed. I think that general courses, which allow time for discussion, such as history, Latin and other language courses are key to developing your own ideas. I clearly remember how I learned to form a point of view and then argument it in class discussions in these "cultural" courses.

4. Develop writing skills

Latin brings your awareness to every single word, every single syllable. In Latin courses, elements of style are also often discusses. Having a background in this material surely helps developing general writing skills.

5. Learn other languages faster

This is the most commonly cited benefit of studying Latin. I also experience that Latin helps me to understand other languages. It helped me to develop a very basic level of Spanish.

Software review: Codeform and Codeproof

Over the past week, I’ve been trying out a software package for structural engineering which combines a traditional calculation program (Codeform) with preprogrammed spreadsheets for all Eurocodes (Codeproof). Over a 1000 prefabricated formulas are available in the Eurocode library.

When I learned about this software, I became very curious to test it out. I download the 5-days trial version and, as an example, used the predefined Codeproof sheet to calculate the shear capacity of a concrete slab under a concentrated load (as shown here).
I used the trial version which can be found at Technosoft’s website for Codeform en Codeproof.

Here are my first impressions of the software package:

Advantages

Very easy to learn

It took me only 20 minutes to turn the existing Codeproof sheet into a sheet which can be used for calculating the expected values of my experiments according to Eurocode 2. I had never used Codeform before, but it is very easy to operate.

Presentation format

The sheets are preprogrammed and look very professional with respect to their layout. In the two printscreens I took, you can see how it looks. The sheets are ready to be printed out and implemented in a report. The calculation is made clear by displaying the formulas at full, in contrast to the ‘hidden formulas’ which result from printing out Excel output.

Flexible format

Since Codeform is a very user-friendly engine, it is very easy to make changes to the existing Codeproof sheets and develop them into your own spreadsheet.

Suitable for design offices

Since this software package contains standard sheets for all Eurocodes, it is the perfect tool for design offices. No more need to spend hours on developing in-house standard spreadsheets for frequently used calculations. The interpretation of the Eurocodes has also been done and the right links to previous chapters or paragraphs were made.

Learn to use the Eurocodes

For designers abroad who are not familiar with the Eurocodes, this tool could be a great way to get acquainted with the Eurocodes. It shows you how to use the code, how to calculate with it, and how to interpret it.

Disadvantage

Dimensionless calculations

Unlike some other packages, CodeForm does not use dimenions. If you would need to switch between English and SI units, then you’ll have to add the right conversion factors yourself.


Are you curious to test out this software too? You can head to the website and use the 5-day trial of the software.

Reviewers' comments

The past 5 days, I've been completely immersed into replying reviewers' comments to a paper which will be published as a special publication after a conference in October.

Previously, I did receive some comments from reviewers for other conference papers, but the effort they required to reply was typically negligible.

Wednesday evening, however, I received 3 pages of commentary on my paper, 19 sections with comments in total. I was both terrified (it looked like a lot of work) and enthusiastic (the reviewers really analyzed my paper and provided valuable input) at the same time.

I was googling around a bit for some advice on how to reply to reviewers' comments, since I had never done this before, but I couldn't find anything. Please point me to interesting posts online if you come across them, I'll be more than glad to read them and implement their advice in the future. And I'm sure I'll have to reply reviewers' comments many more time in the years to come.

Now that I've sent out the revised version and my 13-page reply to the reviewers, I've spent some time reflecting on this process, and here are some points which were to me the most striking ones.

1. Don't panic

I felt a slight sense of panic when I received the email with all the comments. It appeared to be a lot of work to me, and it was requested to be done as soon as possible. However, I took a deep breath, and decided to print out the comments, and finish the task I was carrying out before jumping to the comments.

2. One remark at a time

Rome wasn't build in a day. I've taken several slots of time over 4 days in total to reply the comments one by one. When necessary, I went to look up some additional references to give a solid basis to the reply I was working on.

I wasn't sure about my writing style though. I'm not sure in which voice to write, and how much information to include in the replies. Hopefully I can learn this in the (near) future.

3. Take it serious

The reviewers has obviously taken time and effort to work through my paper and point out paragraphs which were not clear, graphs which looked confusing and to offer some fresh ideas on my research.

It is at least polite to take it serious, and spend enough time to chew on this to provide them with a solid and founded answer to their comments, and, where needed, add the requested revisions to the paper.

4. Remember you are not alone

Even though I took quite some time to reflect on certain questions, I did feel that for some of these I needed some affirmation and good ideas from my co-authors.
After I drafted up the first version of the revised paper and the reply to the reviewers, I sent it to my co-authors with some extra comments and points for them to look at.

Today, I got all the necessary input and thoughts to finish up the revised version of the paper. I'm quite curious to see what will be next.

To conclude this post, I would like to point to Hidde Ploegh's post "End the wasteful tyranny of reviewer experiments" and Eva Teuling's discussion (in Dutch) "Peer review versus de idealistische wetenschapper." There's a lot of food for thought related to the review process in there, and the merely ethical discussion on the impact of recommending additional experiments. Highly recommended, now that we're at the topic.

How to make your autobiographical essay stand out

When applying for a scholarship, you typically will have to add an autobiographical essay. If you want to stand out as an applicant, it is important to show more than good grades. Here is some advice on how to use one sheet of paper to make a lasting impression and be invited for an interview.

1. Polish your writing style

If you are at the point of applying for a scholarship to study abroad after your first cycle of higher education, chances are small that you've been going through application or interviewing processes before.
Likewise, chances are small that you have experience in writing, other than homeworks and essays related to your study course.

Writing an autobiographical essay takes more than just summing up what you've been spending your past years on. It requires a style of writing you might need to get used to. Even though I've always enjoyed writing, composing my autobiographical essay took me a lot of frowning, rewriting and rephrasing.

Make sure you allow enough time to go through this process, don't write it out the night before the deadline.
To give you an idea: I spent two months between my first trials and the final version in my application.

2. Ask a senior academic for advice

Look for a professor or senior academic with a clear writing style to whom you can turn to for advice. I was lucky enough to receive great ideas from one of my professors, which took my essay five levels up.

3. Show the link between your extracurricular activities and your studies

You might think that fellowship institutions are not interested in your talent for sports or music. However, you can use your extracurricular activities to show how it reinforces some of your talents in your studies.

In my essay, I linked composition courses to math. Following the classical rules of composition requires indeed a lot of "calculating" and counting distances between notes to come up with allowable chords.

4. Let your personality shine through

If you're applying for a prestigious fellowship, you are most likely already a very good student. To show that you are ready to take most advantage of the opportunity which might be offered to you and to become an ambassador of a sponsoring institution, it is important to show that you are a fully grown individual with a personal range of talents and interests.

5. Point out the skills you've learned from your extracurricular activities

Depending on the extracurricular activities you've chosen to spend your time on, you will have developed certain skills. Use the description of your activities to point out which skills you've learned.

Playing team-sports or playing in an orchestra teaches you how to work in a team, for example. Combining several activities with demanding studies teaches you time management skills.

fib Symposium 2011 - paper and presentation

Last week, I attended the fib Symposium 2011 in Prague, and presented some of my experimental results in the Friday morning session on Construction Technology.

The full paper is published on the CD proceedings, and the short version of 4 pages is published in the printed version of the proceedings. The abstract is the following:

Reinforced concrete one-way slabs subjected to concentrated loads are designed for shear by checking beam shear over an effective width and punching shear. Only a limited number of test data regarding the shear capacity of one-way slabs subjected to concentrated loads is available. To better evaluate the shear capacity of reinforced concrete one-way slabs, a series of experiments has been carried out on continuous one-way slabs (5m x 2,5m x 0,3m) loaded close to the support. The influence of the shear span to depth ratio is discussed. Conclusions about the influence of this parameter on the one-way shear capacity of reinforced concrete slabs and possible explanations for the difference with beams are provided. Test results are compared to the Eurocode provisions and a method to calculate shear capacity from the literature. A higher shear strength is found as compared to the Eurocode. As a result of these experiments expressions resulting in a higher theoretical shear strength for the design of one-way slabs under concentrated loads are recommended.

The keywords were: Shear, One-Way Slabs, Effective Width

Here are the slides I used for my 12 minute presentation:

Experimental study of shear in reinforced concrete one way slabs subjected to concentrated loads

View more presentations from elantsoght.

As you can see, I added the tables with the experimental results which I used in the paper as a few extra slides at the end of my presentation. I didn't want to go over all the numbers during my talk, but I wanted to be prepared for more detailed questions. And in fact, I had a question about the flexural capacity of the tested slabs, so I could simply show the table with the reinforcement ratios and explain how we designed the reinforcement.

The Julie Project

I read about the Julie project on kottke.org a long time ago, and bookmarked the website for later reading. Only recently I went back to the website and read the story.

If this dreary Sunday afternoon has you glued in front of your laptop, please take some time to read this project through.