TRB Annual Meeting - Social Media and an App, done Right

The Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board is the first conference I attended that really created a buzz online.

Attendees shared technical information, thoughts and discussion from the sessions, used Twitter to get into a dialogue, and to create a community (connecting, sharing tips of where to eat, and how to get around).

The result: a mass of tweets:

3,968 tweets using #TRBAM Sun. Jan. 13-Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013. In 2012, we had 2,830 during the same #TRBAM timeframe cc: @my1sttrb
— TRB (@TRBofNA) January 23, 2013

I'll leave the analysis of why TRB managed to get this discussion going to the experts, but here are a few thoughts from my side:

• In every mail, on every opening screen, the @TRBofNA handle and the #TRBAM hashtag showed up.
• First time attendees were sent for help to the glorious @My1stTRB
• With over 10000 attendees, there must be a decent number of people that are into using Twitter for professional purposes. Percentage-wise this group might be the same as in other conferences that I attended, but the net number will be larger, which gets the discussion going.
• TRB is particularly welcoming to young members (up to 35 years). Being oriented towards younger people includes reaching out their means of communication too.
• @TRBofNA consistently tweets high-quality content, and has a large following.

Besides the great use of social media (especially Twitter), TRB also provided an app for its attendees. In my opinion, every conference should take this step. Here's what I liked so much about the app:

• you have your schedule in your pocket at all times
• you can read the abstract of the presentation, without having to carry the conference proceedings along
• you can quickly see where the room of the meeting or session will be
• you can type notes into the app

The TRB app is developed by Conference Compass, which turns out to be a company from Delft (a nice surprise, that is).

Five Ways to Control your Budget in Graduate School

During your PhD, you certainly aren't bathing in luxury. Even if you have funding for your research, and are paid a salary that keeps you alive, most likely, you just get by.

Buying kitchen appliances, unexpected health bills, car repair costs - these larger bills could put your account below zero in an instant.

With a husband across the Atlantic, I had an extra challenge when it came to keeping my finances stable. I spent a small fortune in airfares, but I always had my emergency savings for a rainy day.

In this post, I will explain you five essential steps that can take you from living from paycheck to paycheck, to having a more stable grip on your expenses.

1. Log and analyze all your expenses

If you aren't doing this yet, then start doing this today. Open a spreadsheet and make a few columns (groceries, bills, going out, sports, ...) and log every single expense you have.
That 1,20 euro parking ticket? Log it!
That 5 euro blouse you scored in the sales? Log it!
Everything needs to go in there.

At the end of the month, have a closer look at your expenses.
How much do you have monthly in bills?
How much do you need for food?
How much could you have saved by not buying lattes, lunches,...?

2. Know your annual expenses

If you work with monthly budget spreadsheets, you might forget that you have large expenses on a yearly basis as well. These expenses could be your tuition fees, your car maintenance or your city and water taxes.

Identify these expenses, and know exactly in which month you can expect them. Then, consider how much you should put aside in the months prior to that, in order not to get too tight in the month with the big expense.

3. Budget

Now that you have an idea of how much you actually spend, start to make budgets.
You can tell yourself for example a maximum amount to spend on eating out. Likewise, try to shop in the grocery store for a given amount each week, and keep track of what you put into our cart while you're browsing around.

4. Save something every month

Try to save a small amount of money, every single month. It's plain simple: if you want to have a cushion for a rainy day, you should spend less than you earn, always.

5. Drastically cut out the small expenses, reward yourself with a larger one

You can go really far in cutting out the small expenses - and I'll go into that in a next post. Then, identify something large (maybe a kitchen appliance, or a fancy book) that you really want. Start putting half of the money you save from the small expenses aside for your dream project, and the other half for a rainy day.
By rewarding yourself for saving money, you will feel motivated to keep up this lifestyle and not revert to old habits of overspending and living from paycheck to paycheck.

Do you keep track of your expenses? Do you use budgets? Share you experience in the comments section!

Silver Linings: Kickstart your health

Mens sana in corpore sano. A healthy mind in a healthy body - we all know that to be at our very best, our bodies need to be healthy.

Kim Lyons makes it sound all so logical and easy in this presentation. It's long, but watch it.

Remember: you have full control over what you put into your body and how much you move your body.

So get away from your computer screen and do some exercise. Have some energizing healthy snacks in your office. Bring a warm meal for lunch, leave the salad for dinner.

Paper published in the ACI Structural Journal

Our paper "Shear in One-Way Slabs under Concentrated Load Close to Support" is now available online at the website of the American Concrete Institute and will be published in the March/April 2013 version of the ACI Structural Journal.

Getting this paper in there was a long process. From the first drafts in December 2010, via the first submission in May 2011 and then revised submission and finally acceptance and receiving the print proofs - it's been an adventure. First babysteps into the real academic life?

The abstract of the paper is the following:
One-way slabs under concentrated loads are generally designed for shear by checking the beam shear resistance and the punching shear resistance over an effective width. Only a small number of test data regarding the shear resistance of one-way slabs subjected to concentrated loads is currently available. To be able to better evaluate the shear resistance of one-way slabs, a series of experiments was carried out on continuous one-way slabs (5 m x 2.5 m x 0.3 m [16.4 ft x 8.2 ft x 11.8 in.]) subjected to concentrated loads close to the supports, in which the load position, transverse reinforcement ratio, and concrete strength were varied. The test results are compared with code provisions and a method developed by Regan. The results show a different behavior in shear for slabs under concentrated loads than for beams.

Writer's Lab: Seven Lessons from Academic Writing

Before I started graduate school, and got acquainted with academic writing, I enjoyed writing poetry and short stories. Over the course of graduate school, I’ve documented my journey in this blog.

These different styles of writing have merged into my head, and have influenced each other. Today, I want to share with you how academic writing has improved my writing in general.
 
1. Brevity and clarity

Communicating research and writing non-fiction require a style that is cleared from all hyperboles and metaphors. For poets, metaphors and images are their daily bread.

Practicing the complete opposite, and describing a process in a succinct manner, is an enriching experience.

You can try out the following exercise: write a short story, in your personal writing style. Then, write a revised version, in which you replace all metaphors by factual descriptions. Next, write a version in which you replace all descriptions, movements and objects in a creative new way.

2. All practice is good

The key to successful writing, regardless of your style of choice, is practice, practice and more practice. All writing practice, whether it is blogging, journaling, writing poems or writing academic publications, helps you developing writing as a skill.

3. Structure

Scientific publications are held together by their structure, which functions as the skeleton of the piece of writing. When the structure is not clear, it becomes impossible to communicate the findings of the research to the readers.

Learning how to precisely distinguish if an idea belongs to the introduction, survey of the literature, methods, results or discussion section teaches the author to think deeper about how text structure helps to convey a message – a skill very useful for blogging.

4. Summarizing

For most publications, the abstract is written before the actual paper. Upon acceptance of the abstract, the paper is written. Many authors finish the writing process of their publication by improving their abstract once more.

This circle of going from summary to full text to a summary, is interesting for fiction writers as well as bloggers. This exercise helps you to analyze if you can stay on track with your idea, or if during writing your main ideas start to wander.

5. Taking the reader by the hand

As new scientific ideas are communicated mostly by publishing research papers, it is absolutely necessary to take the reader by the hand and guide him/her through the development of a new idea. If the author fails to keep the red tread very clear, or does not explain parts of the reasoning behind the idea, the initial goal of the publication –to convey a novel idea- goes lost.

6. Review process

Submitting a paper for review is a process that feels similar to sending in poems to a contest, or pitching online editors with a blog post idea.

Sometimes you are met with complete incomprehension, sometimes your work is ripped into pieces and you feel worthless after reading the comments. Other times you receive feedback that helps you grow as a writer.

7. Co-authors

A final, interesting aspect of publishing research, is that almost all papers are the joint effort of several authors. Writing a piece together with others, discussing your ideas, merging writing styles and working towards a great result all contribute to continuous learning as a writer.

If you usually write from the beginning to the end all by yourself, I’d strongly encourage to try out writing a piece together with other authors – you will not only learn from them, but also about yourself.

Have you gone back and forth between different styles of writing? Did you experience how this influenced your writing? Share your thoughts in the comments section!

Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting: Presentation and Paper

At the 92nd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, I've presented in the session of "Topics in Concrete Bridges".

You can find the slides of my presentation here:

Assessment of the Shear Capacity of Existing Reinforced Concrete Solid Slab Bridges from elantsoght

The paper, published in the Annual Compendium of Papers, can be accessed online.

As always, if this topic is of your interest, give me a shout-out and let's exchange ideas!

On the road to the defense, part I

Ladies and gentleman, this is the beginning of the end! I am scheduled to defend my PhD thesis on

June 14th 2013 at 12:30 pm

at the Senaatszaal in the TU Delft Aula.

During a defense at Delft University of Technology, the PhD Candidate gives a presentation for friends and family (and not the committee), after which the real defense starts and this lasts exactly for an hour. The Beadle (lady at the right in the photograph) marks the beginning and the end of this hour. Then, the committee retreats, and then the commencement ceremony starts. So, you could say that it's a bit of an all-in-one experience.

Since a Dutch defense is super formal, it takes quite some steps before actually getting to the point of the defense. I'll blog about this process (you could have seen that coming), and today I'm giving you an update of the steps I have gone through so far. 

My goal for writing these steps out is to give PhD candidates at Delft University of Technology a heads-up on what they can except at the end, and to explain the rest of the world why it takes so long from finishing the draft thesis to defending.

1. Finish draft thesis

I finished and delivered my first full draft on November 14th of 2012. This first draft was a compilation of all the chapters I had written previously. As my promotor and copromotor worked their way through the document, I started adding the list of notations, summary, acknowledgements and curriculum vitae - as well as try to make my drawings look a little better (still something I struggle with).

2. Improve draft thesis with promotor and copromotor

During the months of December and January, I went through 4 rounds of sitting with my promotor and copromotor. The first three rounds were all aimed at getting their feedback on my chapters, and the final round was for me to show them how I implemented their comments and how I extended my theoretical work.

 

3. Acceptance of draft by promotor (PROM3)

That was The Big Day. We call it "getting the signature". It means that your promotor signs the form PROM3 - which actually clears your road to the defense. For me, this happened on January 29th - and I won't forget that day easily. I had caught the flu, was roaming around with a high fever, sweat dripping down my back and abdomen, nervous as hell as I knew I'd get my Yes or No... and I felt such joy and relief when I had the form signed and well in my hands.

 

4. Compilation of committee

There are strict rules in the doctoral regulations with regard to the thesis committee. The committee consists of the rector magnificus, promotor, copromotor, 5 more people and a spare member. A given number of these need to be full professors, a given number should not have been involved in the research and a certain number needs to be from outside of Delft University of Technology. It's a bit like counting little dolls - check if you have enough of each set in your collection.

 

5. Get a defense date from the Beadle

The minimal amount of time between getting the signature on the defense is 11 weeks. I rushed out right on the 30th of January to get a possible defense date, and the earliest option that suited the Beadle, my promotor, copromotor and myself was -gasp- June 14th at 12:30. That's 4,5 months to prepare...

 

6. Ask the committee if the date suits them

Here's the tricky part: you simply need a number of (full) professors that are available on your given defense date. As finding the date with the beadle is so much of a hassle, we ended up replacing one committee member and keeping the date.

 

7. Final committee and send drafts

When all that's set and done, and the final committee is compiled, it is time to send out good old fashioned hard copies of the draft thesis. I sent my last copy on February 4th. The compilation of the committee is then finalized on documents PROM4 and PROM5. As my committee changed, I need a new signature from my promotor, who unfortunately will only be back on February 18th.

8. Pause

Sit back and relax? I'm still working on improving my draft. I keep finding typos, and sentences that don't flow as I would like them to. And my figures still look as if they've been drawn by someone who only learned how to draw in Illustrator about a year ago...

To be continued...

Writers' Lab: Writing Academic English for Non-Native Speakers

Your first abstract has been accepted, and you are feeling overwhelmed with joy as you’ll be able to present your work for the very first time to an interested audience.

But then you stop for a moment and realize that you’ll have to write in English

You’ll have to write in good, academic English

Academic writing is a skill all PhD students need to learn during their program, and writing in English as well as in your institution’s language both are part of learning how to write like a fully-fledged researcher.

1. Take a course

Most universities offer courses to brush up the English skills of their graduate students, as they are quickly realizing that the majority of the high-impact journals require English publications. If your university provides you with this opportunity: don’t doubt for a moment and enroll. You’ll benefit from such a course in many different ways. You’ll thank yourself when your paper deadline is quickly approaching.

If your institution does not offer English writing courses, don’t panic. Your library might have some valuable books on academic writing. If you pick up a book, don’t sit back and relax. You’ll need to actively implement the insights of the book, and learn while you work your way through it. Consider the insights from such a book like a course – and spend time and effort on improving your writing.

2. Master the technical vocabulary

Make sure you are using the correct English terms for all technical concepts you are describing. You might have all your lecture notes in your native language, and not be fully aware of the English subtleties in technical terms in your field. When in doubt, pick up an English textbook from the library and review the technical terms from your field.

3. Know the pitfalls

Avoid the typical grammar mistakes that are used in English – it’s just not acceptable to make these beginner mistakes in academic publications. And while we’re at it, you might consider subscribing to the Grammar Girl to improve your writing.

By the same token, get an understanding of the false friends between your native language and English.

4. Learn from examples

Select some papers from your literature review that you consider good examples of technical writing. Look for examples in which the narrative flows, the sentences are clear and the general concept of the paper becomes clear as it is explained very well.

Study the structure of the sentences, the paragraph transitions, the use of past and present tense, and the use of active and passive voice.

5. Practice makes perfect

Practice your writing in English from the first day of your PhD. Even though these pieces of text most certainly won’t make it into your dissertation, it is important to find your own voice by writing very often.

Here are a few examples of writing in English you can start very early on:
- a summary of a paper you read
- a critique of a paper you read
- a preparation report for your experiments
- an overview of your goals and planning for your PhD studies
- keep a research blog

6. Surround yourself with English

Besides writing, your general language skills will take a wing and soar once you familiarize yourself more and more with the language.

Reach out to the international students for conversations in English. Read papers, online news, blogs, fiction,… – everything you can lay your eyes on. For spoken English, watch the news on an English channel, or watch TED-talks.

7. Ask for advice

When you are writing your first publication, don’t be afraid to ask senior researchers for advice. Inform if your university has a service to support your writing by providing feedback. Sit together with the senior PhD students for coffee and listen to their advice on writing.

We all come in at the beginning of the PhD process with the task of learning how to become an independent researcher – a task that comprises many non-technical skills. Senior researchers are aware of the doubts of their starting colleagues, and will want to give you a helping hand and some advice every now and then.

How are you improving your English writing as a non-native speaker? Share your experiences in the comments section!

This post first appeared on The PhD Lounge

Silver Linings: 10 minutes of Standing Yoga

Flickr image under CC license by Go Interactive Wellness

If you need a little pick-me-up, or you want to be nice to your body after sitting behind your computer for more than an entire day and get some stretching, this post is for you!

You can brighten up your afternoon dip, evening lull or morning/bedtime ritual with some simple standing yoga routines. 

As much as I like squeezing in a short yoga routine on the days when I don't work out, it is the standing yoga that I find the most powerful tool in my kit.

Ten minutes is almost nothing. It's the time you can spend on the internet, watching kitten pictures, or the time hanging around by the coffee machine and catching up with a colleague.

You can, for example, use these 10 minutes in between Pomodoro sessions.

Why precisely standing yoga?

Standing yoga has the following advantages:
- you don't need a yoga mat
- you don't need a clean floor (my alternative because I don't have a mat)
- you don't need much space
- you can do this in your regular clothes (heels not recommended)
- you can do this pretty much everywhere: in your office, in your room, outside...
- 10 minutes is enough to bring your awareness to your body
- 10 minutes is enough to refresh and reframe
- it's super easy
- you can simply watch YouTube tutorials on your computer or phone
- you need to focus on your breathing
- for the balancing poses: you need to concentrate very well not to fall over

Do you feel like trying it out?

Here's a few tutorials you can follow to get started:

Paper nominated for paper of the year!

Our paper "Spreiding puntlasten plaatviaducten"  in the Dutch magazine "Cement" has been nominated as 1 of the 6 papers that might make it as paper of the year.

You can find the announcement here.

Voting goes on this page. It'd be super awesome if you spend 1 minute on clicking there.

Thanks!

Writers' Lab: Make Your First Draft Fun

For the Writers' Lab, I invited the multi-talented writer Shawndra Russell to share her advice on writing, and on being a productive writer.

Shawndra is a former high school English teacher turned author, releasing Couple Friends in August 2012. She is finishing several eguides about freelance writing, social media and using Kickstarter to publish your first novel that will all be published in 2013 as well as her second novel, Keepsakes. She’s also a frequent Twitter poster at @ShawndraRussell. Learn more about her writing and social media services at www.shawndrarussell.com.  

 

I am a freelance magazine and newspaper writer, published novelist, and I write social media and marketing content for small businesses. I’ll share a little bit about how I approach each type of writing and how I churn out at least 15,000 words a week for these different mediums.

My favorite kind of writing is novel writing, and my favorite part of that format is the first draft. I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2011 and cranked out 72,145 words in 17 days. It was thrilling, I didn’t forget what I’d already written because I was never too far away from it, and I had a full (yet nowhere near finished) manuscript at the end. I write pretty much everything I do now in this whirlwind first draft style, then just go back and edit until it’s polished.

I start my novel writing with a scene by scene outline, and I tackle each one and then plow on to the next with no rereading, no self-doubt (well, not much). My first novel, Couple Friends, didn’t require much research because it was set in Savannah, Georgia where I live, and the characters were easy to write because they were realistic and felt familiar. The downside of this style of writing is the seemingly endless rounds of editing, so for my next novel, I am going to hire a line editor instead of a developmental editor like I did for Couple Friends.

For magazine/newspaper writing, I like to gather as many details as I can, copy and pasted straight from websites and reviews. I also reach out to several people that relate to the story and email them a series of questions. I always ask more than I need to and always ask more people than I should because that way I can select the best answers plus I can utilize the unused information for another article or blog post to tease the bigger article. These answers are also copy and pasted into my document so I can read through everything and see what I’m working with and try to find the interesting threads and patterns. Some people naysay the email interview, but I love it because no one gets angry at how they are portrayed and I think people give better, more thoughtful and more thorough answers when they aren’t put on the spot. If I was an investigative journalist, this tactic of course would change, but since I write about entertainment mostly, I don’t need to grill anyone.

Lastly, for social media, I try to schedule a chunk of time to post for each client for the upcoming week. Some people hate to schedule and like the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants method, but I think blocking off time and space allows you to be much more creative and make sure that you are properly tagging (and spelling!) everything correctly. I’m always on the lookout for post-worthy content, like goofy calendars that have fun “holidays,” global entertainment or other pertinent news, and keep an eye on local events (even if the product or business is global) to build up local loyalty. I also try to get to know the owners and capture their personalities as well as the company culture, so I am essentially constantly researching and then translating my findings into posts that are hopefully engaging and relevant. 

The last bit of advice I’d like to share is the 90-minute method. I have started working in 90 minute bursts, then taking a break that makes me “happy” (workout, watch The Daily Show, read, walk the dog—whatever!). This routine came about from reading The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor and Tony Schwartz’s “For Real Productivity, Less is Truly More” on the Harvard Business Review website. Previously, I would just work myself ragged, pushing through my day with very few breaks. Now, I shock myself at what I can get done in this concentrated chunk of time, feel less exhausted, and I am an all-around happier person.

Silver Linings: Meditation and Your Brain

While randomly browsing across interesting courses on iTunes university, which I enjoy listening to while cooking or doing random housework, I discovered Stanford's 'How to Think Like a Psychologist".

The third lecture of this series is titled "Meditation, Anxiety and the Brain", by Dr. Phillipe Goldin who masterfully blends neuroscience, psychology and Eastern meditation practice.

Not only is it very interesting to see how meditation actually influences the patterns that can be seen in the brain, it also can work as a motivation for you to get started on meditation.

Consider meditation the necessary mental training your body needs, just like it needs exercise. I previously discussed how you can make it a habit, and a recommend all (PhD) students to use meditation to bring more clarity and focus to their minds.