p' 1

1
Research and PublicationsA Personal Perspective

• Adapted from
• Bo Li
• Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
• Microsoft Research Asia

2
Outline

• What about research?
• How much does one have to learn?
• What is procedure of publications?
• PhD research
• How to write technical papers?

3
Research is easy!

• You have done this many times in course projects
• Take a known problem, and apply a known technique
• Obtain results, and write a report

4
Research is difficult!

• Is it technically correct?
• Does it make intuitively sense?
• Is it publishable, where and why?
• Does it offer some insights beyond what we have
  known?
• Does it have any impact?

5
Research

• There are basically four types of research works
• New problem and new solution
• New problem and old solution
• Old problem and new solution
• Old problem and old solution

6
Research

• Case I comes rarely, perhaps something you could
  only wish, once a life-time experience
• Shannon theory (????????)
• Cases II and III are the ones that you should
  target for
• ???????? (???)
• ???????
• Case IV is where you can start
• Plenty of out there under the category of Yet
  another paper on

7
Where do ideas come from?

• Drink a beer, relax, ideas will come to you
• The ideas fall from the sky!

• Understanding the existing works, build upon that
  incrementally
• ?????

8
Where do ideas come from?

• Ideas in most cases come from the deep
  understanding of a subject, and possess of broad
  knowledge
• This is not a technical training, i.e., this is
  not about solving a linear programming, or queue
  problem
• This is about relating them to real world
  problems
• This is about providing new insight beyond known
• This is about your creativity!

9
Research What is it?

• Research Re (repeat) search
• Much of the research has been built upon existing
  works, therefore a thorough understanding of
  those is the basis
• Too many smart people in each area, so if an idea
  seems to be too good to be true, it likely is -gt
  rethink that again
• Each idea needs iterations what is it? why has
  it not been done? what is the logical connection
  with the existing approaches?

10
Research Management Problem

• Management problem is too complex. Each solution
  to a management problem is only a trade-off, a
  part it is not a cure for all, it definitely has
  side-effect. Fortunately, that only a small part
  of a management problem is solved can bring about
  enormous revenue.
• EOQ
• Is it really? Is there any alternative? What is
  the penalty for doing so?
• Lots of inventory software use such model

11
case

• Newsboy
• ???(??????)
• ???(???????)
• ??????
• ????????
• ???????
• ???????(?????)
• ????????

12
Summary

• Identify a general category of problems
• The idea should be intuitively simple
• Publications can be easier

13
Outline

• What about research?
• How much does one have to learn?
• PhD research
• What is procedure of publications?
• How to write technical papers?

14
How much does one have to learn?

• ??????????????????
• No? Hau Lee ???,Case study
• ????,????????????????????(Management Science)
• ??????????,???????????topic
• Where in the world is research topic?

15
How much does one have to learn?

• I have read all papers out there from journals
  and conferences
• Can I do research now?
• There is no way you can cope with all of them
• Majority of the published works are junks, and
  can cause brain damage and can be misleading

16
The minimum needed for research

• Logical thinking, after all we are in management
  world
• Basic skills
• ???,???,??
• the ability to learn
• Life long learning process, esp. in MS

17
The minimum needed for research

• Abstraction. Take a problem, you have to know
• What is/are the fundamental problem(s)
• You have to see both forest and trees
• What have been done, why?
• What are seemingly undoable?
• Understand your strength and weakness

18
The minimum needed for research

• Open mind
• We are not dealing with math problem in that
  there exists perfect solutions
• Management solutions are subject to argument and
  debate, i.e., each solution is a trade-off, and
  it is optimal in a constrained context
• Critical mind
• When you read others, it is equally important to
  understand what circumstance that it does not
  work as in which it works
• If you can not identify such scenario, you are
  not understanding the problem

19
Case Location Problem

• How to model such problem
• Linear Programming
• Integer programming(????)
• K-median
• K-cover
• ????

20
Summary

• Finding a problem is more important, and
  difficult than solving a problem
• You need out-of-box thinking

21
Outline

• What about research?
• How much does one have to learn?
• PhD research
• What is procedure of publications?
• How to write technical papers?

22
PhD Research

• Make a plan earlier, for 3-4 years
• The research topics must be of current interest,
  and state-of-the-art
• It has to be something that within your
  capability
• You need to understand your strength and
  weakness, and be realistic (dont shoot stars)
• You should know your interest, self-motivation is
  one of the single most important factors

23
PhD Research

• Read top 10 or 20 papers in the area
• Understand the basics, fundamental problems, and
  open issues
• Think and read
• Put all papers into perspective
• Start from a small yet concrete problem
• Build you skill and confidence
• Discussions generates ideas

24
Reading

• Top conference or workshop first
• INFORMS
• Top journal
• Management Science, Operation Research, POM,
  MSOM, IIE, EJOR, IJPE
• ???????

25
PhD Research

• Focus!
• Dont over-estimate your ability
• Dont diversify too much
• Start with small idea(s), publish in several
  papers in top national journals (?????????,??????
  etc.)

26
Research Topics

• Theoretical vs. practical
• Can this be related to a real world problem
• Management problem
• It should have a clear boundary
• Focus on what can or/and can not be done
• Dont lose the bigger picture
• Tree and the forest
• How does it help to solve one or more pieces in
  the bigger problem

27
Collaborations leads to Productivity

• Working with the right people
• Skill complementary
• Same interests
• Working with smart people

28
Summary

• Working on hard and open problems
• Persistence pays off

29
Outline

• What about research?
• How much does one have to learn?
• PhD research
• What is procedure of publications?
• How to write technical papers?

30
Conference Paper

• Start earlier for a conference submission
• Deadline is the best drive for making progress
• What make a good paper content and writing!
• Clear, convincing, simple and good English
• This is a never-ending optimization process, do
  this within the time and page limits
• Review process 5/30 rule
• 5 minutes - Abstract, introduction, figure and
  conclusion
• 30 minutes understand 90 of the paper

31
Journal Paper

• A good conference paper (10-25 acceptance rate)
  can be submitted to a journal, with 30 new
  results
• Report more complete and focused results
• Give yourself a deadline
• Be patient with the long review and re-review
• At the earlier stage of ones career, dont quit
  if asked for major revision
• But dont do seemingly impossible

32
What does a reviewer look for

• New problem or new solution?
• Are the main results significant?
• Is the paper technically correct?
• Does the paper provide a fair assessment of its
  strength and limitation?
• Is the paper clearly written, thus accessible to
  general readers?
• Are the references adequate?
• Is the paper appropriate for conference/journal?

33
Outline

• What about research?
• How much does one have to learn?
• PhD research
• What is procedure of publications?
• How to write technical papers?

34
Writing

• Writing is a process of self-clarification
• Habit of writing, notes, random thoughts
• There are plenty of books teaching you how to
  write
• Imitation might be the best way to start
• Writing is part of the work
• Writing can be difficult and painful for all of
  us, there is no short cut, it improves along the
  process

35
Writing

• Iterative refinement, outlines 3-5 times
• Start with existing work, introduction, your own
  work, experiment
• Abstract and summary (many hours work)
• Revise many times, ask others to read
• Lots of efforts for small improvement
• Is there a better way to say, a better word to
  use?
• Is the paper logically connected?
• What are the questions reviewers might have?
• Never ending optimization subject to time and
  page limit

36
Review Process

• Low acceptance rate
• Reviewers are potential competitors
• Convincing but less critical
• Reviewers are very busy
• Try to make their job easier
• English is not our strength
• Dont try your luck, it wont work!

37
Problem I

• Reviewers have to understand me
• Only you know your work well, not reviewers
• Make it easier to understand
• Motivation and rationales
• Control the level of details
• Make connection throughout the paper
• Use examples, graph, flow chat whenever needed
• Pose questions, and answer them

38
Problem II

• Formality leads to elegance
• I am good at math, formal is high class, I have
  20 definitions and 15 theorems
• Keep it simple, perhaps stupid
• Start with motivations and rationales
• Avoid unnecessary formality

39
Problem III

• I have 10 contributions
• Reviewers should see this is a masterpiece
• Focus in the key
• One problem, one solution in a conference paper
• One problem, more complete solutions in a journal
  paper
• Thorough and deep
• Emphasize but not exaggerate your contributions
• Say it is significant only if it is, and
  justify it
• If it is the first time, say This is, to the
  best of our knowledge, the first time

40
Problem IV

• It is ok to be informal as long as understandable
• Technical writing is formal
• Avoid casual writing
• believe me, this is really a good work
• Dont use long sentences, break them
• Flow and logic is much more important, proof
  reading does not help you with that
• Top-down organization and outlining
• Use good papers as sample imitate!
• Write down your mistakes and eliminate them

41
Problem V

• Reviewers are evil
• They reject paper so their papers can be accepted
• They reject my paper, so to steal my ideas
• Reviewers are critical
• You have to be a good salesman to convince them

42
Closing Thoughts

• Research needs creativity, patience, hard
  working, persistence
• Writing is a self-improving process
• Understanding the process of publication, in
  particular review process helps
• KEYS
• Balance the search and re-development and
  out-of-box thinking
• Working with smart people

43
Closing Thoughts

• Dont believe anything you read, esp., those
  obviously correct ones!
• Challenge the fundamental!

44

• ?????
• ??????????
• ??????????
• Thanks Question