Last lectures and finishing degrees
I've taken the last couple of days off work to finish uni assignments. I had my last uni lecture yesterday. I have to say I have mixed emotions about possibly attending my last lecture for my undergraduate degree. I've been working on getting this thing on and off since 1996 - astronomy and physics full-time for three years and now four years part-time to study computer science. The prospect of it being over is just starting to hit me I guess.
So the last assignment I've been working on is for a database subject. I've found much of the course fairly uninteresting but this assignment is looking pretty darn cool. The application is interesting.
We were given a paper titled "HOT SAX: Finding the Most Unusual Time Series Subsequence: Algorithms and Applications" by Eamonn Keogh, Jessica Lin and Ada Fu (no that's not a typo, and I've already bored everyone to death with banal jokes :)), and we were asked to implement the algorithm outlined there using postgresql and Java/JDBC. The theory behind this thing is to find time series discords amongst time series data. What's a time series discord? Think anomalies in data over time. Some good examples of where this might be applicable could be finding the exact moment that a ventricle in a heart acts abnormally (the time series data here would be an ECG), or perhaps putting your finger on the exact moment that a valve malfunctions in a space shuttle. The efficacy of the algorithm has been tested in just such situations.
I would have liked to link to a copy of the pdf, but the one hosted by the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW is password protected, and I'm too lazy to upload it somewhere else.
I have the brute force algorithm working (after only a few hours work), and am working on the heuristic approach now. It's a lot of fun to watch it working. It's funny though, I'm not sure I want to finish it. That'd signal the last of my uni assessment for as long as it takes me to go back and do honours/a PhD or study something else :)
Enough ruminating for now. I just wanted to record how I feel about this whole thing.
3 comments:
I think you should be very proud of yourself! :D
Working full time, going to uni and then leaving crappy job to pursue a lucritive IT contracting career, while still been able to do well and finish uni, it's a lot of hard work and you've definitely put in the effort! :D
I wish I had you determination; I know it has more power than fear. :P
Thanks mayte!
It has definitely been a hard slog. I guess I am proud - it's more about the personal achievement. I've learned so much about computer science and all that good stuff, but I've learned waay more about myself. That's been the biggest thing for me. So corny I know, but I'm dead serious.
Can't wait for the next challenge! (I guess I'd better finish this one first. Exams ahoy!).
As for time series and statistical data etc.: I have just added an Statistical Reference Inventory (http://crisismaven.wordpress.com/references/) to my economics blog with economic and statistical data series, history, bibliographies etc. for students & researchers, probably the most comprehensive on the Internet. Currently over 200 meta sources, it will soon grow to over a thousand. Check it out and if you miss something, feel free to leave a comment.
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