Fabio Ruini’s blog

E’ iniziata la mia avventura con il famigerato logbook. Lo strumento che dovrebbe tener traccia dei miei progressi (o presunti tali) dal momento in cui ho iniziato il PhD fino a quando l’avrò finito. Sì, tenere questo logbook è una cosa pallosa. Specialmente quando bisogna compilarlo per la prima volta, con una “self-audit” su quelle che sono le proprie skills. Ebbene, ci ho passato un po’ di ore (anche perchè domani devo consegnarlo e dunque non posso rimandare ulteriormente), ma sono riuscito a finire tutto. Curiosi di leggere cos’ho scritto in questa specie di diario che domani dovrò consegnare alla maestra/amministrazione? Come? Non vedete l’ora?!? Ma guardate che è palloso. Ah, va beh. Se insistete, allora eccolo. E’ tutto vostro!

Academic skills

Research methodology. During the last year, I participated to two research projects carried out within academic environments. I am generally able to spot and critically analyze the scientific literature relevant for my work, as far as I can count on a good understanding of the field.

Data analysis and synthesis. I have a good understanding of the main statistics methods for collecting, analyzing and plotting data. I also have some experiences on more sophisticated techniques, as data clustering and time-series forecasting through the employment of evolutionary algorithms and neural networks.

Record keeping. I have the habit of keeping logs of everything I do while carrying on a research project. I probably need to be more brief doing this kind of work, excluding from these records all the non-essentials information.

Technical and discipline related skills. I am able to develop from the scratch a well written simulator software that allows me to carry on specific artifical life experiments. Furthermore, I know how to extract the relevant data generated by the simulations and then statistically analyze them. I feel confident to be able to reproduce the most of the state-of-the-art works made on my field.

Presentation of research. I already presented during a scientific conference the work made as part of my degree thesis. During the years spent at the university as undergraduate, I held many presentations as well but I must improve again, in order to provide more focused and brief speeches.

Teaching/learning skills. I have worked as teaching assistant, giving lessons both live and off-line, in two different classes: Methods for Data Management (databases) and Laboratory of Informatics I (C programming). I am still entitled to this second class and to two other classes as well: Economics History and History of Communication.

Research management. I have no experience in this field at all.

Academic communication. I have wrote some reports about my works, both for personal/group and public using. I am typically used to write for a non-expert audience. I have to improve my academic writing skills, in order to produce papers that will not result annoying for expert people.

Key skills

Time management. I have got a lot of works to do in this field. Typically I perform well when under the pressure of some external-imposed deadlines. I experience more troubles when the deadlines of my work have to be imposed by myself.

Foreign language. English is not my first language, but I am able to write/read and speak/listen quite well when the subject is someway related to my work. I can quietly manage regular working relationships with English coworkers.

IT and computer skills. I am more than average skilled in IT. I currently use three different operating systems (MacOS X, Windows XP, Debian Linux) with different kinds of software (office applications, data analysis tools, etc.). I know few different programming languages (C, C++, VB6, PHP) and I have built or worked on many websites (including a personal one, which includes a weblog), writing/modifying HTML/CSS by hand or using web authoring software as Dreamweaver. Again, I have a relevant experience on projecting and using database. I must improve in using software for scientific writing and bibliography management.

Personal communication. I believe to have good communications skills. I am typically very “direct”: I always like to say what I think and I expect the other people acting the same. I have to improve in the ability of effectively modify my point of view basing on the feedback received by other people (by peers particularly). In fact I tend to accept only the ideas that agree with my viewpoint or that are coming from a person much more experienced than me, ignoring the others.

Team work. I think to be good in working under the supervision of people whose experience, skills and abilities are greater than mine (as far as I can effectively perceive this difference). I love to receive feedbacks, even negative, from skilled people. Within a group of peers, in absence of any established hierarchy, I typically tend to assume the leadership of the group.

Problem solving. Generally speaking I am very confident about my skills and so it is difficult that a problem could really scary me. Keeping this approach in mind, I frequently find myself tackling and then solving problems that might certainly appear very hard at a first glance, but that are in fact solvable.

Critical thinking. I don’t feel so confident in creating absolutely new theoretical concepts or frameworks. I think that one of my strength is instead the ability to apply already known methodologies and ideas to innovative domains.

Career planning, CV development. I have the (bad) tendency of impose to myself very ambitious goals that I feel as reachable even if the time-scale is not appropriate to completely reach them. As far as I have seen until now, the bigger part of the things that I’ve learnt in the past are becamed useful now. Since a relevant part of this knowledge is in computing, I feel confident that they will be easily transferable.

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