I got to know Lawrence Lessig was from his book: Free Culture, when I was in Amsterdam doing my MSc. I really enjoyed reading that book as it gave a in-depth view of how shall we look at piracy in this Internet age, and what shall we do to shape a culture that benefit all greatly. I learned how does the intellectual property laws came into being, what are the purposes and what are consequences of them. I felt excited about the future that Lessig painted for us: a future that all people’s creativity are greatly encouraged and shared among the people, via the digital technologies.

So I became a frequent visitor of Lessig’s blog, and some time ago, I discovered this article: Disclosure Statement v2.0. Again, it is a very enjoyable piece of work to read. The main part is the “Independence Principle”. Here is the quote:

So, the Independence Principle:

The simple version is just this: I don’t shill for anyone.

The more precise version is this: I never promote as policy a position that I have been paid to advise about, consult upon, or write about. If payment is made to an institution that might reasonably be said to benefit me indirectly, then I will either follow the same rule, or disclose the payment.

This principle looks simple, but it is not easy to follow, in this corrupted world. I think you could enjoy great happiness if you would be able to follow this principle, because from the deep of your heart, you will feel that you are a pure person.

I want to understand better of this principle and follow it.

Ji
20080219

This is a joint work with H. P. VAN DITMARSCH and R. VERBRUGGE.

PDF Download: Sum and Product in Dynamic Epistemic Logic

Abstract:

The Sum-and-Product riddle was first published in the reference H. Freudenthal (1969, Nieuw Archief voor Wiskunde 3, 152) [6].We provide an overview on the history of the dissemination of this riddle through the academic and puzzle-math community. This includes some references to precursors of the riddle, that were previously (as far as we know) unknown.

We then model the Sum-and-Product riddle in a modal logic called public announcement logic. This logic contains operators for knowledge, but also operators for the informational consequences of public announcements. The logic is interpreted on multi-agent Kripke models. The information in the riddle can be represented in the traditional way by number pairs, so that Sum knows their sum and Product their product, but also as an interpreted system, so that Sum and Product at least know their local state. We show that the different representations are isomorphic. We also provide characteristic formulas of the initial epistemic state of the riddle. We analyse one of the announcements towards the solution of the riddle as a so-called unsuccessful update: a formula that becomes false because it is announced.

The riddle is then implemented and its solution verified in the epistemic model checker DEMO. This can be done, we think, surprisingly elegantly. The results are compared with other work in epistemic model checking and the complexity is experimentally investigated for several representations and parameter settings.

Keywords: Modal logic, puzzle math, dynamic epistemic logic, characteristic formula, model checking.

Published at Journal of Logic and Computation 2008 18(4):563-588; doi:10.1093/logcom/exm081

We gave a joint talk in the University of Groningen:

Usually, I work harder when the deadline of the paper is approaching. I imagine that I could have done better if there would be more time. But when there is more time, I would still feel the same. I think the problem might lie in two main reasons:

• The research typically has an open end. There can always be more to explore.
• I am lacking a sense of “enoughness”.

I can not really do much to the first one, as that is the nature of research. What I can change is only myself. So how? I think I have to access my work more constantly, and compare it to my past work and the work of others for the similar period. As for the “enoughness” in general, I find this quote is worthwhile to read (ref: How much is enough? ):

I pledge to discover how much is enough for me

to be truly fulfilled, and to consume only that.

I also pledge to be part of the discovery

of how much would be enough for everyone

not only to survive but to thrive, and

to find ways for them to have access to that.

Through this commitment to restraint

and justice, I am healing my life

and am part of the healing of the world.

I had a post earlier called: Science to 2.0. It is about the web2.0 tools’ impact on scientific research from a journalist in Scientific America. Now I have some thoughts on my own.

Question 1: why should we publish?
Typically in science, you do your research and you need to communicate your results with audience. The best way is to write down your discovery and thoughts so that other people could read and comment. It is a way to make your work te be meaningful to other people.

Question 2: how do we publish now?
Currently, we have a number of ways to publish our papers:

• Through a book
• Through a journal
• Through a conference or workshop
• Through a website

Normally the importance of your publication is decreasing following the above order. If you could wrote a book, it usually means you have done pretty much important work in the area. A journal is usually chaired by the leading experts in the area, so if you could publish a paper there, it means your work has some significance. The conferences and workshops are the forums for the up-to-date research, so they might not have as much high standard as the journal. The website is the least recognized one, since everybody can publish through a website.

Question 3: Is there any problems with the current publishing model?
There are surely problems. The books are hard to write, so it might take very long before it can be published. By the time you publish, it might be already outdated. The journals also take typically 6 months to a year to review your paper and get it finally published. In both cases, you have to go through professional publishers, and your work can not be freely available to other people. The conferences and workshops are faster to get your work known, but sometimes, your paper is not appreciated by some reviewers, so that it is rejected without a very good reason. The website is an easy way to publish, but how could the reader know that your paper has certain quality and is worthwhile to read?

Question 4: how could we solve these problems?
We certainly have better ways than before. The key lies to the Internet, I believe. Take an example from 2006, Grigori Perelman, a famous Russian mathematician, solved a very difficult open problem that had been solved for more than 100 years. But he did not publish his result on a journal, instead, he put his papers on http://arxiv.org , a recognized online free publishing website. His work is freely accessible by everybody, and because of his reputation in the past, people took his papers seriously.

Internet gives a much more efficient way of  publishing your work. Also due to its openness, your work will be easier to be accessed by the people around the world. You will certainly care about what you write, as it might ruin your reputation if you are careless. We could also get our work reviewed by simply adding commenting functionality, which is now a standard feature of the web2.0.

To be continued.

References: (I haven’t read them all)
Can Peer Review be better Focused?
What We Can Do About Science Journals

Feel free to comment.

February 04, 2008 Source: http://www.ddj.com/206103622

2007 Turing Award Winners Announced

For their groundbreaking work on Model Checking

Edmund M. Clarke, E. Allen Emerson, and Joseph Sifakis are the recipients of the 2007 A.M. Turing Award for their work on an automated method for finding design errors in computer hardware and software.

The method, called Model Checking, is the most widely used technique for detecting and diagnosing errors in complex hardware and software design. It has helped to improve the reliability of complex computer chips, systems and networks.

Clarke, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Emerson, of the University of Texas, Austin, and Joseph Sifakis of the University of Grenoble, will share $250,000. The Turing Award, presented annually by the Association for Computing Machinery, is considered to be the most prestigious award in computing. Often referred to as “the Nobel Prize of computing,” it is named for British mathematician Alan M. Turing

Model Checking is a type of “formal verification” that analyzes the logic underlying a design, much as a mathematician uses a proof to determine that a theorem is correct. Far from hit or miss, Model Checking considers every possible state of a hardware or software design and determines if it is consistent with the designer’s specifications. Clarke and Emerson originated the idea of Model Checking at Harvard in 1981. They developed a theoretical technique for determining whether an abstract model of a hardware or software design satisfies a formal specification, given as a formula in Temporal Logic, a notation for describing possible sequences of events. Moreover, when the system fails the specification, it could identify a counterexample to show the source of the problem. Numerous model checking systems have been implemented, such as Spin at Bell Labs.

Clarke implemented the first Model Checker in 1982. It could analyze all the possible states of a given circuit, but was limited to relatively small designs — much smaller than the systems being built by computer manufacturers. In 1987, Clarke’s graduate student, Kenneth McMillan, realized that he could implement Model Checking by a series of operations on binary decision diagrams (BDDs), a method of representing symbolic information that had recently been developed by another Carnegie Mellon computer science professor, Randal E. Bryant. This new system, called “Symbolic Model Checking,” was able to analyze billions of billions of states, making it relevant to commercial computer design problems and leading to its widespread adoption by the industry. For this invention, Bryant, Clarke, Emerson and McMillan won the 1998 Paris Kanellakis Award for Theory and Practice from the ACM. In 1999, they also received the Allen Newell Award for Research Excellence from CMU.

Source: http://www.yutopian.com/names/06/6Ruan179.html

I will do some research on this.

Ji