GNU Octave – Open Source Matlab Alternative

In some research I am working on with a friend at IBM Research, we’ve needed to use numerical approaches to solve quite a complex Markov chain model.  We are modeling human resource allocation for service-based organizations (e.g. consulting companies, construction companies, etc.) as a stochastic process and the model state space becomes enormous very quickly.  Looking to solve a linear system of equations to determine the steady state probabilities, we started looking into Matlab’s “\” backslash matrix division operator.  This post on Google answers actually gives a good run down on how to solve a Markov chain using this operator.  Instead of purchasing Matlab, I decided to try GNU Octave for running these calculations and have been delighted with the results.  Like the open source econometrics packages I reviewed earlier, Octave is an excellent alternative to the commercial software.   It supports most of the Matlab commands, however users should be aware of the differences.  The performance is top notch, solved a system of linear equations with a ~2000×2000 state matrix in about 20 seconds.   And it includes either GNUPlot or an alternative Java based graphics package for creating plots.  I give Octave a big thumbs up and definitely recommend it as a great open source alternative to Matlab.

Odlyzko on GigaOm

I was happy to see one of my dissertation committee members on the front page of GigaOm this afternoon.  Professor Odlyzko is on the faculty of the Mathematics department at the University of Minnesota and is the former director of the U’s Digital Technology Center.  The GigaOm article discusses his recent research on net neutrality, in particular the impact of streaming video on the Internet and consumers willingness to pay for connectivity over content.  Andrew is an innovative thinker on Internet economics and you can find more of his recent work here.  He is the lead of the Minnesota Interent Traffic Studies project (MINTS) and also has an interesting book coming out soon relating the dot-com bubble to the British rail road bubble of the mid 1800s.

Herr Doctor Professor Bockstedt

I successfully defended my dissertation this past Monday.  So now I guess I’m officially Dr. Bockstedt.  I’m heading out to look for places to live in the DC area soon and getting excited to start my job at GMU in August.  I have to say, though, the completion of the Ph.D. was a bit anticlimactic.  I’m happy to be done and am proud of the accomplishment, but when you work towards something for several years you tend to ignore the process and focus on the endpoint.  Well, I’ve reached the endpoint and I think I will greatly miss the process of being a graduate student.  Luckily I get to start a job that is, in essence, the same – research and teaching – but in a more intense capacity and with slightly better pay!

Dissertation Defense Scheduled

I have scheduled my dissertation final defense for late June with my committee.  I now just need to file the paper work with the Graduate School and get a formatted dissertation document to the assigned readers on my committee.  If all goes well, I will be able to graduate at the end of June (doctorate graduation happens at the end of the month in which you defend) and be unemployed until I start at GMU in August.

Quote of the Week

“There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery.” – Enrico Fermi

That’s what I call an optimistic view on scientific research!

Assistant Professor Bockstedt

Just a quick announcement : I accepted a job as an assistant professor in the information systems and operations management (ISOM) area of the School of Management at George Mason University. I’ll be starting this August, so anyone want to help me move to Northern Virginia this summer? I hope to teach in the undergrad and MBA programs as well as the MS in technology management program.

I want my digital information goods

It’s been a while since I wrote a post, so today I’m going to bombard you with three posts (look out!).

A few stories I saw on the interwebs this week have compelled me to write about developments in the use of digital information goods by consumers. First, iTunes has just passed Wal-mart to become the #1 music retailer (via Ars Technica) in the US. Just a few months ago, iTunes passed Best Buy to become #2, and the continued growth of their sales (combined with the decline of CD sales across all retailers) has pushed them to #1 fairly quickly. More and more people are purchasing (not just stealing) their music in purely digital form. This bodes well for the continued slow death of the CD and maybe, just maybe, the increased profits from lower manufacturing, inventory, and transportation costs (see digital info goods are helping the environment!) with the decrease in physical CD production will mollify the RIAA. Also, Amazon’s strategy of selling both CDs and DRM-free mp3s will likely payoff in the long-run since they can hedge their bets until the transition to digital is complete.

Almaden Research Center

This month I started my internship at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA. The lab is an amazing place to work, set on top of a hill in a wildlife preserve and next to a state park. The center houses researchers from multiple disciplines including physical/natural sciences (physics and chemistry), computer sciences, and behavioral/social sciences. The lab is very similar to an academic setting with an open work culture and daily research seminars and discussions. I am working in the services research group, in which it seems a large portion of the interns work. I’ll be here until the end of September and expect this to be an extremely rewarding experience.

Big 10 IS Research Symposium

This weekend I attended the Big 10 IS research symposium at Purdue University. There were representatives from Purdue, Ohio State, University of Wisconsin – Madison, UW-Milwaukee, Notre Dame, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Illinois, Illinois-Chicago, and of course Minnesota. We had some interesting panel discussions on the state of IS research, some of the junior faculty presented their research, and I got some good feedback in a doctoral research breakout session, especially from Professors De (Purdue), and Devaraj (Notre Dame). I think the most rewarding aspect of the symposium was meeting all the faculty and students in the Big 10 (and some closely related) schools. I was impressed with the support and constructive discussion among faculty and students, the symposium really made me feel like I was part of research cohort in the Midwest region. There is a wide array of interesting research projects taking place in the region and I’m glad to become a colleague of all the interesting people I met. Hopefully I will be able to attend again next year.

DDMC Poster Session

On Friday evening, I presented some of my dissertation research at a poster session hosted by the Digital Technology Center Data Mining Consortium (DDMC) at the University of Minnesota. The session was showcasing data mining research projects at the U of M for the participants of this year’s Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) data mining conference. I got some good feedback on C-TREND, my temporal clustering visualization tool, and got to talk to a lot of interesting people in the data mining community. There were a lot of interesting posters demonstrating a lot of DM applications including social network mining, medical doctor modeling, multi-criteria review based recommendations, and ecological trend modeling.