Nabin K. Malakar, Ph.D.

NASA JPL
I am a computational physicist working on societal applications of machine-learning techniques.

Research Links

My research interests span multi-disciplinary fields involving Societal applications of Machine Learning, Decision-theoretic approach to automated Experimental Design, Bayesian statistical data analysis and signal processing.

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Interested about the picture? Autonomous experimental design allows us to answer the question of where to take the measurements. More about it is here...

Hobbies

I addition to the research, I also like to hike, bike, read and play with water color.

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Saturday, June 30, 2012

Cracking the World's hardest Sudoku

I heard about the claim that this one is the hardest sudoku puzzle made to date. Obviously I wanted to solve it. But since I am pressed with time this moment, I solved it using Google's Goggles. :)




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Thursday, June 28, 2012

Rock paper scissors, wait there is more...

You can win the game (or battle) with few methods: with intelligence/tactics, and/or with speed (assuming equally powerful players).
The field of Machine learning can use both! :)
So, fasten your seatbelt and think!
Recently I saw a video showing robot system with 100% winning rate "as one example of human-machine cooperation systems". The key was the speed. http://www.k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/fusion/Janken/index-e.html

On the lighter note to the post, because of limited outcomes of the Rock-paper-scissors, there might be draws. So there is more to the game, if you are willing to add the options. As BBT suggests: "Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock".

Monday, June 25, 2012

Forget about the Class, focus on learning

Rame failed in class 3, and had to repeat again.

Harke failed in class 6 twice, he had to go back to the same class while his friends were already in class 8.

Furke did so good in class 5 that he was promoted to class 7.

These are few examples of how we try to manage the student's ability to excel in course structures in school. Since the course structures are reformed once in a blue moon, a generation can suffer if it has not been well constructed.

Forget about the class system. My proposal is to make it in more flexible way.
It can be done in two ways:
1. Letter grade system: A student interested in Economics might not need to excel in another subject that he fails most of the time.
By making it mandatory that people hiring in Economics need students who got at least B in that subject, the competitive edge will evolve so that the students who favors particular subject will go in their desired direction. If you are a competitive company you would not hire an accountant who got E on account courses. (See second point on foucsed learning.)

2. Forget about the class system. As discussed on the opening line, students loose their precious years only because they had bad subject attitudes. We all have different degrees of affinity towards different subject lines. Modify the system it so that a student can take Algebra from class7, arithmetic from class 8 and geometry from class 6. However, in order for him/her to appear in the SLC, s/he must have the certification from all the basics upto "class" 10.  If s/he fails to do so, he can still choose to take CTEVT courses while enrolling part-time to the subject for the certificate of school. That way, the student need not study back in the same class for next year, and yet learn new subjects while refining the weak subject.

We all get ready to talk about the politics, and the next big things to do in #Naya Nepal... while, there are so many short-term things to do (and can be done) in Nepal. The short-term things are the stuffs that need to be done before we can achieve the big thing. Remember the whole is by part theorem?
Education sector is the one of them that needs some change. Your inputs are welcome.
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Sunday, June 24, 2012

Embryonic development of Fruitfly, cell by cell

Embryonic development of fruit flies has been tracked in realtime by using multidirectional imaging technique.

While watching it, ask yourself when does the life enter into the clusters of cell...


More...
Fruitfly development, cell by cell : Nature News & Comment:

"References
Tomer, R., Khairy, K., Amat, F. & Keller, P. Nature Methods http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2062 (2012).
Show context
Krzic, U., Gunthur, S., Saunders, T. E., Streichan, S. J. & Hufnagel, L. Nature Methods http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2064 (2012)."

Thursday, June 7, 2012

FBI records of Feynman released to public

Richard Feynman, born on May 11, 1918 @ Far Rockaway, Queens, New York, U.S. was an American physicist.
He is a very well known figure for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...  [read more here].

At the height of cold war, he was investigated by FBI. Now the FBI records have been released to the public.
Follow the detailed story at:
http://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2012/jun/06/feynman-files-professors-invitation-past-iron-curt/
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