Scientific Computing [2/2]

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته

Well, that was supposed to be posted a little bit earlier...

Here we are, SC Part 2 :)
[This was part 1: Scientific Computing [1/2]]

The subjects for the 2nd term were in the alphabetic order:

• Computational Geometry
• Distributed Computing
• Environmental
• Theory of Computations
• Selected Topic

Computational Geometry was one of the good classes...we learned many algorithms & we brainstormed for solutions together. At the end of the year we made a package that could (test for line intersections, construct convex hull, test for point location & test for star shaped polygons and gets their kernel)

[some snapshots]

Distributed Computing...In this subject we studied the structure of parallel platforms...the control, communication and networks...The goal was to run an algorithm on more than one machine in parallel.

We studied many algorithms. For every algorithm, we studied how it works in series, in parallel and analyzed it.

It was an interesting subject and I enjoyed it's study...

Environmental...I can not stop remembering Dr.M.Hashim entering our exam and saying: "Any Questions?"...we replied that we're SC so we don't take security (lucky us :D) so he said: "3andoko emta7an bee2a!" (the translation for environmental) :D 

So what's about this subject?..It's name is Environmental and Global Change.

Statistical: is the set of mathematical equations that describe the behavior of an object in terms of random variables and their distributions (studied first term in Simulation)

Deterministic: outcomes are precisely determined through the relationships between the states and events in the system without using random variables (we are interested in this)

We studied the ODEs (Ordinary Differential Equations) & the PDEs (Partial Differential Equations)...how to solve them using a number of methods & how to evaluate them.

At the end we made a package that could solve differential equations in a generic way with most of the techniques.

Theory of Computations...This subject has lots of similarities with Automata (studied in our 3rd year). First we decide if a given problem is computable or not...then we study those computable problems...we find the order (P, NP),  construct a machine that would represent this problem or write a program (sometimes we're only allowed 4 basic instructions in writing our program)

Selected Topic...This is a course that you get to choose regardless to your department.

I chose to study Java with IBM corporation. I don't know whether it was the best choice or not...As a whole package (system, organizing, syllabus) I wouldn't take it again. At the beginning there was lots of problems about the groups. I lost some of the lectures..then I ended up in a group that hated their instructor! He was changed, but what do you expect from the new instructor who knows she came to substitute the one we didn't like?

Anywayz the time was also not enough for her to give us the whole syllabus...I knew the basics of Java (applications/web) and I tried to get the most benefit out of what was left

This was the 2nd term. I enjoyed being an SCian for this year.

I hope you find this post useful. May you choose the best department that would suit you. May you be compatible with it & enjoy your last year ever as an undergraduate student.

[You might be interested to look at this topic too: Starting your GP?]

بريد كل اسبوع 4

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَائِقَةُ الْمَوْتِ وَنَبْلُوكُم بِالشَّرِّ وَالْخَيْرِ فِتْنَةً وَإِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ ﴿الأنبياء: ٣٥﴾

سبحان الله ،، الأية دي ملخص الحياه كلها ....

أولا... الله عز و جل بيفكرنا إن إحنا كلنا هنموت و إن الدنيا دي كلها إبتلاء 

بس هو نوعين : في إبتلاء بالنعم و في إبتلاء بالمرض أو الموت و الحاجات اللي شبه كدة ..

 فسبحان الله ،، فعلا عجبا لأمر المؤمن !!! أمره كله خير :)

لما يبتلى بحاجة صعبة و يصبر له ثواب كبير و لما يبتلى بنعمة و يشكر له ثواب كبير...

الفكرة كلها بقى ،، إحنا بنشكر ربنا على النعمة و نصبر على الصعب ؟؟؟

حاسبوا أنفسكم 

هل أنا مركز أوي إن كل حاجة بتحصل دي من عند الله و إنها إبتلاء و بتصرف على الأساس ده  ؟؟؟؟

ولا لما يحصلي حاجة مش كويسة من وجهة نظري أقول ليه كدة بس يا رب .. حتى لو قلتها بقلبي مش بلساني ؟؟؟

و لما ربنا ينعم علي هل بشكر ربنا فعلا ؟؟؟؟

سبحان الله و الله ،، يومك ده كله إبتلاء عشان الدنيا دي كلها إبتلاء فحتى الوقت الممكن يبقى فاضي عندك شوية ده إبتلاء ، هاتستغلو إزاي و وقت لما تبقى مشغول قوي ده برضو إبتلاء ...

ربنا يرضى عنا جميعا و يوفقنا إن إحنا نشكر و نصبر ..

اللهم إنا نشكو إليك ضعف قوتنا و قلة حيلتنا و هواننا على الناس ... إن لم يكن بك علينا غضب فلا نبالي .... 

---

منقول

An Endless Stream of Thoughts!

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته

Monday 5th of July was my final seminar...

There are lots of thoughts about it...it ends at Prof. Dr. Saeed Abdel Wahab lecture hall, where we had our discussion.

When I think about it...the stream of thoughts keeps on going!

All the happiness, the laughs, the anger, the sadness, the craziness...everything!

It all keeps on going and I can't have enough.

One of the best moments we had was when my friends spent the night @ our house. We prayed Al-Fajr together...this was unforgettable :)

later, Mona wrote on her status: 

"‎[status should be written from two days ago :D]

Having my first Fajr prayer with my friends ♥♥♥"

Reading it made me sigh :) Thank you Garfield :)

Printing the documentation was also very interesting...we were all very keen to see the output.
We kept on revising the whole thing several times before we print the final version and every time we found major errors...that made us a little bit worried.

Finally we printed a sample and were pleased with it (hoping not to find more errors). We went back home and the next day two of us went to get it and the rest were doing other tasks...

You can't imagine how keen we were to see it :) and what we did when the bell rang :D

Thaanks to Allah it was more than fine :) for us it was just perfect :)

This is how our package looked like

[Documentation - CD - Brochure - Setup Manual]

All in a zip-bag with a name-tag :)

Many of our friends (college/school) came and attended the discussion. I received looooots of congratulations wishes/cards/posts that made me really happyyy :)) 

Thank you girls 

My friend ACMaa came too  she really did an effort to be able to attend; it's a working day! You know ACMaa how much i appreciate it :))

The best thing EVER was having my whole family supporting me :)

Dad, mum, misho, mero & lolla... :)

Misho was in Kuwait at the seminar's time. They brought a laptop and opened a skype video call and she saw me presenting my final seminaaaaar =)
This was amazing.....They never fail to impress me!

I loveeeee you gals! :) <3

After finishing we went out (my team) to have lunch.

I went home really tired that I can't remember any details about the rest of the day!

Finally...to my team :) (ALMNS♥♥)

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّـهِ الَّذِي هَدَانَا لِهَـٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لِنَهْتَدِيَ لَوْلَا أَنْ هَدَانَا اللَّـهُ

Scientific Computing [1/2]

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته

I never thought I’d be writing this post. Actually I still have my doubts :D. I just know now, It wasn’t CSys. I love coding more than this & debugging hardware wasn’t very fun (sorry simoz :D). Definitely not IS :D (no offense :D). May be CS was a choice, but guess what?

I enjoyed my year in SC J with all the ups & downs…I took the whole package & I’d take it once more if I had the choice J

So how did it go?

1^st you need to know that whatever you choose…whether it is CS, IS, CSys or SC…you’ll still be an FCISian & you’ll work wherever you want. The department does NOT define you. It’s you who define your own self. You learn, understand, solve, win, achieve, think or do whatever…not the department!

You can get the BEST of what you have just by keeping your positive attitude.

Back to SC, my dear department (a)

Visualization

Simulation

Finite Elements

High Performance Computing

Mathematical Programming

Those are the subjects for the 1^st term.

Let’s start with Visualization…It’s my favorite J

1^st I need to make a confession…This was one of the main subjects that attracted me to SC. During the 1^st couple of lectures I totally HATED it & I thought it was gonna be the worst subject ever! Then things turned out to be VERY different. Again it became my favorite J

Dr. Ashraf Saad is really different. I was told by a friend from the previous batch that he really loved us (my class) and that he treated us differently. I learned from him how to think outside the triangle I was fitting myself in. He always had some time for free discussion…things related to the subject, but not the exam ;).

When we studied his subject (I’ll tell you later about the “we” J) we always needed to be online. Youtube & Wikipedia were our best friends, along wiz some googling of course.

The exam was way different than all the previous exams…what do you expect? He loved our class :D :D

The subject itself wasn’t complicated; we just needed to read more in order to understand. Most of the study was reflected in real life. I guess that’s why it seemed attractive to me.

Those were some related posts:

• Color map editor
• Contouring
• My Visualization Package

Next comes the Simulation. This was common with CS.

The core of the subject was to simulate some real system. Example: Some customers in a supermarket, they come with a certain rate that is governed by a distribution, they are serviced in a certain time & we need to find out whether the system is efficient or not.

It was nice to know that almost any real system can be simulated & studied with computers.

The thing I hated about it was the amount of rules we had to memorize. I generally don't like to memorize rules & I don't study from the beginning of the year, so I don't practice a lot. Totally my fault J.

The third subject was HPC which stands for High Performance Computing. The very special thing about this subject was the exam. It was an open everything exam...yes EVERYTHING :D

Bring all what you can bring (notes, books, summaries, exams wiz solutions, laptops & even USB modems!)

It's one of the exams where you actually use your brain and think :D

Dr.Hossam may sometimes seem to be offensive, but he really wanted our own good. He wanted us to learn right & to get the most benefit out of the subject. 

This is one of the subjects that you'll enjoy...and never forget our BEST friend...Google ;)

Next will be the Finite Elements...well I got its goal very late...and this was the main reason why I didn't like it much. We studied the materials and how the bodies are affected by tension, pressure & heat.

It wasn't very much related to our field, but you can always try to find an application that you'd relate to all the year J. After all, we're having a +ve attitude :D, aren't we?

Like simulation we needed to know many rules...so u do the math.

Finally comes the Mathematical...It was one of the nice & light subjects.

Our midterm was a take-home exam & we delivered it via mail. (Interesting, huh :D?)

It's mostly about algorithms & problem solving.

Network Flow, Graph Coloring, Assignment Problem, Queuing System, Scheduling...Along with some old algorithms like Kruskal, Prim...

I totally enjoyed the Visualization, HPC & Mathematical. I liked the Simulation & I went over the Finite Elements.

The "we" I said about earlier was SC gals. We always studied together. We used to divide each subject upon us & met to study together. Sometimes we met offline at college while others were skype conference calls. We enjoyed it a lot & it was surely beneficial.

And this was my first term in SC J
I hope it will be somehow useful J


Scientific Computing [2/2]