July 17, 2016

Tips for Creating and Presenting a topshot Engineering Presenting


A. First, organize your talk: 


  1. Read the entire paper at least 3 times-You need to be able to explain the details in the paper (even the ugly tricky notation) 
    You need to be able to provide a critical analysis of the paper 
    Check out references in the related work section of the paper. (this will help you put the paper in context of a larger body of work and will help you critique the paper's results/contributions)
  2. Find the important ideas- A paper has many details but only one or two main ideas; structure your talk around these main ideas.
  3. Create a Talk Outline- Your talk should be organized in a top-down manner. 
    You should have the following main sections in your talk:
    • Introduction, The Big Picture: what, why, how, and why we should care (motivation). Be sure to include:
      • a statement of the problem being solved (what)
      • motivation and putting the work in context (why and why should we care)
      • a high-level view of the author's solution (how)

    • Details of solution
    • Results demonstrating/proving their solution
    • Critic of Work (possibly compare to related work)
    • Conclusions & Future Directions for this work


    The talk should be organized as the important ideas first, the details second, conclusions last. Each section of your talk should be organized in a similar manor: high-level important points first, details second, summarize high-level points last. If the paper is well written, you can use the paper's organization as a guide.


B. Design your slides


  1. Slide Organization- Your slides should be organized like an outline--a few main points, with sub points under each one. 
    Your slides are a guide for your talk not a word-for-word copy of your talk. List specific points that you want to talk about as sub-topics of each main topic. If there are particular details that you want to discuss, outline them on the slide and keep written notes for you to refer to in your talk rather than writing all the details on the slide.
  2. Summarize Main Points- You should have a summary slide of the main ideas at the end. 
    If applicable, Include a list of open questions from the paper
  3. It is okay to waste space- Add just enough prose prose to present the main points and highlight the main parts of each point. Use phrases rather than complete sentences and use large fonts. You can use acronyms and abbreviations sparingly, however you should say the complete name when you talk about about them. For example, if you abbreviate processes to procs on a slide, say "processes" when you talk about the point not "procs". Similarly, if your create an acronym for your super fast multi-cast implementation SFMC and refer to the old slow multi-cast implementation as OSMC, then say "our super fast multi-cast" and "the old slow multi-cast" rather than "SFMC" and "OSMC". The exception is for well-known acronyms such as PVM, MPI, API, JVM, etc.
  4. A picture is worth a thousand words- Use figures and graphs to explain implementation and results. It is very hard to describe a system implementation without having a picture of the components of the system. I once attended a talk about Intel's I64 architecture where the speaker tried to discuss the details of the layout of the chip and the interactions between the components without having any figures. It made for a very bad talk and a very hostile audience.
  5. Number of Slides- As a general rule, it should take 2-3 minutes to talk through the material on one slide, so for a 45 minute talk you should have about 20 slides. If there is too much material in a paper to present completely in 45 minutes, then pick one part (the most interesting/important part) that you will discuss in detail, and present the other parts at a higher level. You can create back-up slides for specific details that you don't plan to talk about, but may get questions about.


C. Preparing your presentation


  1. Provide a talk road-map- Tell audience where you are going with your talk.
    • Give audience a road-map of your talk at the beginning by using outline slides 
      Immediately after the title slide, put up an outline slide and tell the audience the main organization of your talk. Another alternative is to first have a few slides motivating the paper's general topic, then put up an outline slide giving the audience a road-map of your talk.
    • It should be clear when you start a new high-level part of your talk 
      Use good transitions from one slide to the next, and from one main topic to the next..."We just talked about the implementation of foo now we will look at how well foo performs for synthetic and real workloads. 
      You may want to use the outline slide at other points in your talk to provide a visual transition between parts.

  2. Repeat Your Point- There is a rule that says you have to tell your audience something three times before the really hear it:
    1. Tell them what you are going to say.
    2. Say it.
    3. Summarize what you said.

    This is particularly important for figures and graphs. For example: 


    1. This graph show how the A algorithm performs better than the B and C algorithms as the number of nodes increase
    2. The X axis is number of nodes, the Y axis is execution time in seconds The red curve shows the execution time of A as the number of nodes increases The blue curve shows ...
    3. Thus you can see that as the number of nodes increases above N, the A algorithm performs better. This is because of increased message traffic in algorithms B and C as shown on the next slide...
    4. Explain concepts in your own words It is certainly okay to lift key phrases from the paper to use in your talk. However, you should also try to summarize the main ideas of the paper in your own words.
    5. Talk to the Audience Don't read your slide off the screen, nor directly off the projector. It is okay to stop for a second and refer to your notes if you need to.
    6. Practice Give a practice run-through of your talk. Stand in a room for 1 hour and talk through all your slides (out loud). This should be a timed dress rehearsal (don't stop and fix slides as you go). Members of your reading group should provide a practice audience for you.
    7. Nervousness: How to fight back 
      • A well organized, practiced talk will almost always go well. If you draw a blank, then looking at your slides will help you get back on track.
      • Taking a deep breath will clam you down. One trick is to try to remember to take a deep breath between each slide.
      • Slow down. Take a few seconds to think about a question that is being asked before you answer it. It is okay to pause for a few seconds between points and between slides; a second or two of silence between points is noticeable only to you, but if you are talking a mile a minute everyone will notice.
      • Bring notes. if you are afraid that you will forget a point or will forget your elegant transition between slides 11 and 12, write these down on a piece of paper and bring it with you. However, you don't want to have a verbatim copy of your talk, instead write down key phrases that you want to remember to say.
      • Give at least one practice talk to an audience.
      • Be prepared to answer questions. You don't have to know the answer to every question, however you should be prepared to answer questions and able to answer most questions about the paper. Before you give the talk, think about what questions you are likely to get, and how you would answer them. You may want to have back-up slides ready for answering certain questions.
      • It is okay to say "I don't know" or better yet "gee, I hadn't thought about that, but one possible approach would be to..." or to refer to your notes to answer questions.

July 15, 2016

BEST QUOTE ABOUT LIFE

  • Achievements are yardstick for leading meaningful life.
  • Life is full of surprises, and sometimes it seems very complex, discomfort and unfair with its unexpected twists and turns.
  • To find your purpose of life, you have to give purpose to your life.
  • Life is a journey from one goal post to another. As long as there is life, there is a goal in front of you.
  • Life is based on choices.
  • The opportunity to improve your life is available with you all the time.
  • Life is a mirror image of dominant thoughts.
  • Life is an adventurous journey.
  • Life is neither good nor evil in itself. It appears according to the state of our heart, which is our subconscious mind.
  • Life is a process of creation. It is here right now, in the present moment.
  • Life is uncertain; no one can exactly predict what is going to happen in the future. Any time it can come to an end.
  • The drawback of attachment is that it does not allow us to enjoy the life in totality.
  • Life is a reflection of action. To run around here and there without any concrete output leads to a meaningless life.
  • The secret of leading a meaningful life lies in setting yourself a goal.
  • The choice we make during the course of our life writes our life story.
  • The wonderful law of life: focus on problems and they will multiply; count your blessings and your life happiness will increase manifold.
  • Counting your blessings will lead you to have the positive approach in difficult times and that in turn help you to sort out problems earlier and smoothly.

June 10, 2016

Fluid and Thermal Sciences

Besides the traditional research areas in thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, heat transfer, multiphase flows, turbulence and combustion, this group is engaged in a broad range of research activities in experimental fluid dynamics, computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer, flow in porous media, turbomachinery, electrochemical energy conversion, IC engines, alternate fuels, laser diagnostic techniques, micro-fluidics and heat transfer, boiling heat transfer, condensation, heat pipes, thermal management, sprays, turbulent combustion, hydrodynamic instabilities, vortex dynamics, gravity currents, energy storage materials, atomic scale computation, etc.





Research Facilities:

CFD Laboratory High performance computing clusters

Computational Turbo machinery Laboratory High performance computing Clusters:
  • 48 Node Cluster with Intel Xeon Quad core @2.96 GHz, Total 192 cores, 16 GB RAM, 40 Gbps Infiniband Network with 12 TB Storage.
  • 24 Node Cluster with Intel Xeon Hexacore @2.96 GHz, Total 288 cores, 16 GB RAM, 40 Gbps Infiniband Network with 12 TB Storage.
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  • 12 Node Cluster with Intel Xeon Quadcore @2.96 GHz, Total 96 cores, 16 GB RAM, 40 Gbps Infiniband Network with 12 TB Storage.
  • 3 Intel Xeon WorkStations.
  • 20 Personal Computers.

Energy Conversion and Storage Laboratory Electrochemical test station (in-house development), Stereoscopic shadowgraphy, Two-phase particle image velocimetry

Engine Research Laboratory
  • Single Cylinder Optical Research Engine
  • Gasoline Direct Injection Engine
  • Multi-Cylinder Engine Test Cell
  • Regulated And Unregulated Emission Measurement Facilities
  • Particulate Characterization Facility
  • Engine Endoscopy
  • Fuel And Lubricating Oil Test Facilities
  • Engine Noise and Vibration
  • Laser Ignition
  • Combustion Visualization and Optical Diagnostics
  • Particle Image Velocimetryfor In-cylinder Flow Visualization
  • Phase Doppler Interferrometry for Spray Characterization

Experimental Turbomachinery Laboratory Hot Wire Anemometer, PIV, LDA and Electronically scanned pressure sensor.

Fluid mechanics Lab
  • Low speed wind tunnel
  • Smoke tunnel
  • Mach-Zehnder interferometer
  • Ar-ion laser
  • Anton Paar refractometer
  • Schlieren and shadowgraph systems
  • Stereoscopic PIV
  • High resolution, color and grey-scale, and high speed CCD cameras
  • Several clusters and work stations
  • Cardio-flow pump
  • Storage-scopes, oscilloscopes, high precision multimeters,
  • Spectrum analyzers
  • Constant temperature baths
  • Temperature controllers
  • Undergraduate laboratory set-ups

Gas Turbine Heat Transfer Laboratory
Thermocouples, IR Camera, High Speed Blower, High Speed Camera, Shadowgraph Setup (Multiple Cameras, Laser as light-source, Optical quality mirror)

Micro-scale transport laboratory
Micro-PIV with Nd:YAG laser, Micro-holographic measurement system, Micro-LIF, Syringe pump; Gear pump, Ultra-Sonicator, Differential Pressure Transducer, Mechanical Stirrer, Centrifuge, Magnetic Particle Separator

Phase-change Thermal Systems Laboratory
High Speed Camera ,CCD camera, Infrared camera Vacuum pumps (diffusion and turbo molecular), Thermal baths Leak detectors


Water Tunnel Facility
Water Tunnel Set-up, Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV), Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF), Hotwire Anemometry, Load-Cell.