I read the news from New York Times about the Americans’ mobility. Initially, this news was meant to talk about differentiation of mobility in America, especially for upper rich families and lower poor families. Simply put, the mobility for those two socioeconomic conditions basically state that rich parents have rich kids and poor parents have poor kids. What is intriguing is that the news report compared American with several European countries. America represents a relatively low mobility whereas Denmark and Finland have higher mobility. It reminds me a famous jargon “American dream” which says that hard-working people may reach wealth someday in America. It is a pity is that they did not have immigrant data to examine mobility changes. But the evidence is sufficient to reconsider our belief: “America has highest mobility on the world.”

Same discussion can be seen here: https://sites.google.com/site/peichunkoofficialwebsite/discussion/mobilitycomparisonusaandotherwesterncountries

http://students.engr.scu.edu/~sschaeck/latexforpublications/

http://sites.google.com/site/mattmastin/teaching/grsc-7700/latex-templates

Short news about neural networks captured my eyes. I looked at the figure of neural networks which are extracted from neural communication. I am amazed by the visualization. Drawing the pictures of networks is such an amazing process which hardly sociologists know to appreciate. In neuroscience, it is always a major issue to show the structures of neural network.

1. uncover (decide text showing up on one slide): http://www.math-linux.com/spip.php?article77; http://happymutant.com/latex/misce/beamer.php
2. color (change color): http://www.math.umbc.edu/~rouben/beamer/quickstart-Z-H-25.html#node_sec_25
3. box (create boxes to divide text): http://www.r-bloggers.com/creating-a-presentation-with-latex-beamer-%E2%80%93-boxes/; http://www.math.umbc.edu/~rouben/beamer/quickstart-Z-H-26.html#node_sec_26; http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/6370/how-to-center-a-beamercolorbox

I also found a free Beamer guide: ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/tex/CTAN/macros/latex/contrib/beamer/doc/beameruserguide.pdf

Some tasks about the research have been in a progress. Realizing that I only have three years, I become more conscious about my time distribution. That is, how much time I shall spend on a presentation or on watching TV. I know that discipline is an important key to catch on the latest research. So, I am working on that!

I created a website about my research. I hope that my work could be accumulated in three years.

https://sites.google.com/site/peichunkoofficialwebsite/

Aging:

http://wissen.dradio.de/100-jaehrige-das-methusalem-gen.33.de.html?dram:article_id=12249

There are lots of things going on. Sometimes I do not know how to choose. Many cultural events are distracting and tempting. They remind my old passion on classical music and art. In the meantime, course instructions and administration tasks also pop out. I have to spare most of time on them.

Right, it is clear that my focus is only to have a good warm-up for my PhD study. I created a workstation for my PhD-related information.

I am visiting my family in Taiwan.

I make good use of my stay to take a break. That includes enjoying food, seeing my friends, joining the cultural events and sleeping.

A lot of conversations have focused on why I want to study for a PhD in Germany.  I simply answered “I proposed a project that I like and they accept my ideas.”

So, I am going to pursue and realize my dream in Germany. I think of course I need to be more practical once I start it. Evaluations will depend on the extent of the environment support.

Let me list some papers that includes the sociological insights.

1. Extracting Social Networks to Understand Interaction.
2. Dyadic Patterns in Multiple Networks.
3. The Statistical Models for the Analysis of Social Networks.

My presentation received two comments regarding the competing hypotheses and the community bias in the sampling.

I really think  sociology shall give more attention on this field. That is, more social theories are required. But, I also have a question for those information scientists. To what extent does online data influence people’s job, interpersonal relations and education?

This one on TED is quite interesting. It argues that making mistakes is a way more valuable than holding beliefs which are given by the common opinions. It is courageous to not believe in any authority, especially the ones with scientific evidence. We need people who have such a thoughtful mind to cast myths and routines. The ending concludes that making good mistakes shall be appreciated by us.

http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford.html