How do I study? Personal Intermediate Speculations (PIS's)

Hi all,

Welcome to the second episode in my draft series of “How do I study?”

Here I am telling you about an idea which is at a higher level of complexity than the “realise then generalise” one introduced in the previous episode. My today’s idea is based on what I call:

Personal Intermediate Speculations (PIS’s)

This is simply that whilst I am reading a text, I automatically and spontaneously generate branched hypotheses within my mind about what I expect that text can lead to. Then I start to test these hypotheses against the sentences that follow to get them proved, abandoned, or modified. I keep doing this automatically all the time while reading any text, simple text or complex text. This actually shapes the network of ideas in my intellect gradually to result in deep and firm understanding, not only for the subject under consideration, but also for many secondary old and novel ideas that are related to that subject, and even for many of the “why not’s” that can be raised around it.

Let me repeat this idea in other words here:

I am reading a text about something for example. As I read the first sentence, many ideas come to my mind spontaneously and without paying much effort about what this sentence means and what the consequences of it are. I allow myself to speculate fairly well at this point. That is that I let my thoughts go far in conclusions and draw stories that might prove to be correct or wrong. I elevate some of the speculations that I have synthesised to the level of hypotheses or even accepted theories for my intermediate understanding of the subject which I am reading. I don’t stop reading to do so; these are things that go on in the mind at the same time of reading. Of course, I might stop sometimes and reread a sentence, and that’s absolutely fine.

This way of reading applies to anything that I read, in science, history, geography, economy, politics, linguistics, or even while reading a novel or a list of university regulations for PhD students.

I have tried hard to find the best example to tell you about. I wrote many long examples but I deleted them afterwards because they haven’t really ‘appealed’ to me as I wished. Anyway, my thoughts have reached a conclusion that a scientific article’s abstract might represent a good example to deliver to you that which I mean. To be as realistic as possible, I am looking for an article which I have never read before and I don’t know its contents. I like to write to you all of my personal direct thoughts and speculations on this abstract that I will read and how I am perceiving and analysing it. I will try not to read the article or check out the soundness of my speculations before I publish this blog article.

Now I am leaving you with this introduction, and I will come back soon to complete. Next part will be an article’s abstract and how I tend to read it, which is how I suggest that it can be read according to my style of learning. I will publish this next part before reading the article itself. I will then come back with a following part in which I read the article itself and show you how I twist my abstract-based speculations in accordance to the content of the article’s full text. I think finally I will write a conclusion which summarises how can this way of “Personal Intermediate Speculations” (PIS’s) be extremely useful in understanding simple and complex texts in a very deep and comprehensive manner.

Next time: Abstract analysis

Next to next time: Article analysis

Later on: Summary and conclusions

See you soon, insha’allah!

How do I study? I realise then generalise!

I will start by the conclusion!

If you use the "realise then generalise"  concept correctly, you might not need to study more than 20% of most of your textbooks/lectures to get almost a complete understanding

The number 20% is just any number; it's just to say that most of any scientific material is usually nothing more than extra explanations, special cases and examples of a general idea or concept. Get that concept right, then you feel that everything else in the material is repeating itself. In other words, you start reading in the book or listening to your professor speaking and you are simultaneously realising and generalising what you are reading or hearing. After a while, you start feeling that you are not reading anything new, the professor is not saying anything new!! You feel you are reading a paragraph which you have never read before, but you already know its content very well!! When this happens, you start reading faster, i.e. skimming the sentences  looking for any new piece of information which might add to your knowledge.

If you understand what I've just said, you would guess that the stuff written in books can be divided into essential information and redundant information. If you finish reading/studying a chapter, and you have got the essential part correctly, you have really got EVERYTHING.

EXAMPLE 1

I really want to go in more philosophical thoughts but let me give you some simple examples to build these thoughts on. Consider this short simple paragraph from wikipedia about the (Square root):

"In mathematics, a square root of a number "a" is a number "y" such that y² = a, or, in other words, a number "y" whose square (the result of multiplying the number by itself, or y × y) is "a". For example, 4 is a square root of 16 because 4² = 16."

The red part is the essential information in this paragraph. If you realise the meaning of this red sentence correctly, then you would consider it a general rule from which you can understand the rest of the paragraph. The green part is a repetition or a clarification for the red part, the yellow part is just a clarification of the word "square" in case you didn't know it, and the blue part is nothing more than an example. When someone reads such a short paragraph, the chances are:

1. Guy 1 reads the red part, understands it well, then goes on. When he reads the other parts he keeps saying: "okay okay, yea yea of course, sure! nothing is new!". This guy is great, he realises that the reality of this paragraph doesn't exceed the general statement in the red part. He knows that the information contained in the other parts is redundant; it is adding nothing real.
2. Guy 2 reads the red part, gets some unclear understanding of it, then goes on. When he reads the green part he might say: "Ohh!!! yea!! I seeee, that's what they mean by that red part! got it!! ;)". Then he finds nothing new in the blue part. OR he might have better understanding after the red and green parts but still not complete until reading the blue part. This guy is great as well because at the end of the paragraph, maybe even after reading it more than one time, he realises that the whole paragraph is nothing more than the red part which is a general statement.
3. Guy 3 reads the red part, the green part, the yellow part and the blue part. He considers these as essential parts carrying different pieces of information. He finishes reading while carrying the whole paragraph over his head. MAYBE glad for being able to understand these three different pieces of information! He stores these in his memory as three different things!! This guy ... well ... hmmm, NO comment!! This guy has actually added three raw strings of an un-understood text to his memory. He understands non of them! If he really understood the red one and the green one, he should've realised that they are the same.

Essential Parts are not Mere Texts

You should store the realised meaning NOT the raw text in your memory. That is, don't store in your memory the text in the red sentence; store its realised meaning. I say realised meaning to differentiate it from the linguistic meaning and I will come to that later on in more details and examples. You can still store the sentence as it is, but while having some kind of imagination of its actual real meaning. Some people might have an image stored in their memories instead of texts, maybe a graph or something else, maybe some discrete words are stored in your memory like (root and square) while having in your memory some kind of an arrow linking between them. You might store in your memory an image which looks like (root² = square) and you really have a feeling of what this image means in your insides.

If you do this correctly, you end-up storing a small essential clear nice understood pure informative not redundant piece of realised information in your memory while throwing out all redundant texts out. This is the clean pure and clear understanding which you really need. By generalising this pure essential piece of information you might get the answers of many many questions and generate paragraphs and paragraphs of statements and examples. DON'T STORE THE REDUNDANT PARTS IN YOUR MEMORY!!!!

If these non-red parts are not essentials and should not be stored in memory, what are they there filling most of those text books? Why do teachers/professors say these redundant things?

Well, the answer is that the majority of the great guys who realise the actual meaning are of the type (Guy 2). These redundant parts which repeat the same piece of information in many words or give examples are important in many cases to make the essential part clearly understood; they should be seen in that way. They should not be seen as new things. So after reading them and getting the main idea understood clearly, one can throw them from his memory safely.

Implicit Essential Part

Sometimes, you can't point out a sentence or many sentences in a text and say that "this is the essential part". Though, the actual long text can be printed in your memory in some kind of an image, a figure, a shape, a something!! or a whatever!! which is pure, clear and essential; in other words, it includes essential not redundant information. See this example:

"How about a novel way of clapping? Stand up with a space of about a hand-span between your feet then bow down until the tips of your fingers touch the tips of your toes. Keep your eyes down staring at your feet. Your elbows are now stretched so your fingers can reach your toes. Bring your palms together while they are extended downwards. Your fingers are opened as much as you can and the hands are tightly brought together such that each finger from one hand is tightly joined with its corresponding finger from the other hand. Fix your back, legs, head and eyes. While keeping your palms tightly joint with stretched fingers, bend your elbows  to raise your joint hands up next to your face. Let the tips of your joint thumbs touch your nose. keep the tips of your thumbs attached and touching your nose while moving the rest of your hands away from each other in a way similar to an opening compass (that thing which is used to draw circles!). Now re-bring both hands together in a strong slapping way. Repeat this opening and closing as many times as you like! Make sure that you always close them in a quick strong way to make the sound of clapping. Congratulations!! You are now clapping in a novel way!! Let's call it Bowed Nose Clapping (BNC)."

Well, apart from concluding that you should never try this BNC clapping in front of others because otherwise you might be taken to a mental asylum, if you understand English then you should be able to have some image stored in your memory for this BNC. The red essential piece of information is not a specific sentence or sentences in this long paragraph; it's rather some realisation of the meaning. If you have the right image in your memory now, you don't need to go back to the text to answer questions like: "At what does the BNC clapper stare?", "Which of these can perform BNC clapping? a blind, a deaf, a lame, a dumb, a guy with a lost thumb, and a guy with a lost pinkie (the smallest finger)." If you have the correct realisation of the given text, which is a small simple pure clear imagination, you should answer these questions correctly!

I will discuss those two cases: "a guy with a lost thumb" and "a gut with a lost pinkie". Correct realisation should through out unnecessary extras and flavours which are not the real actual issue behind what you are trying to understand. In other words, it's essential in order to clap in the BNC way to bow, to stare at your toes, and to have your thumbs joint and touching your nose. Nothing in the text is forcing any constraints on having the rest of the fingers; maybe someone has six or four fingers! As long as the essential core image is met, then he is BNC clapping. It's most likely that you have realised this text by an animated image of a person bowing and clapping in that way. The more accurate realisation should have the positions of the thumbs, back, feet, nose and eyes clear while keeping the rest of the details vague, i.e. keep the rest as optional. Nothing says that you can't do that while wearing a Karate kit or a formal suite for example!! So correct realisation allows you to have correct generalisation.

To give a reasonable example (instead of talking about that funny BNC clapping!!!) which shows you how we sometimes put unnecessary constraints on things while we can think in them in a much more general way, look below at this refined version of (EXAMPLE 1) about square roots.

Refining EXAMPLE 1 - Refining the Essential Part

In the same article (Square root) in wikipedia but after some paragraphs of mostly redundant sentences, they say:

"More generally, square roots can be considered in any context in which a notion of "squaring" of some mathematical objects is defined."

Can you understand what they mean in this? I will give you an imaginary example first to understand this sentence in case you haven't. Assume that someone came and told you "the square of the student is the professor". Based on this definition, even if the "student" and the "professor" are not numbers, we can still find the square root of the professor which is equal to the student. This is because that quoted red statement from wikipedia redefines the square root to be "considered in any context in which a notion of "squaring" of some mathematical objects is defined". This kind of general understanding of this mathematical concept "square root" overwrites the more closed understanding which imposes that square roots are only for numbers.

Now once we read this statement and we realise it correctly, we can go back to EXAMPLE 1 above and refine what we understood from it. First, I will "copy-paste" the red essential part from EXAMPLE 1; here it is:

"A square root of a number "a" is a number "y" such that y² = a."

Our new refined better understanding makes the essential part to be:

"A square root of "a" is"y" such that y² = a."

Can you notice that dropping the two instances of the word "number" from this essential part does not lose information? It rather makes the information less redundant and more general. The extra bit in the longer one can be understood implicitly and doesn't need to be included in the definition itself.

A common example that fits to this redefined general square root but does not fit in the older definition is the square root of matrices. If you don't know this don't worry. It's just that some types of matrices can be (squared) and thus some matrices have (square roots). The matrix is not a number but still has a square root.

As we discussed before, it is still beneficial to write up these details for the reader. This is because in most of the cases the reader is not expected to have this deep understanding just by giving him only that short essential part. Though, you as a reader should always let all of such pieces of text (definitions, explanations, rewordings, examples ... etc) to contribute in providing you with a very clear and clean essential piece of information.

Realising the Real Reasons Leading to the Results

The best understanding of a passage of information happens when you realise what is the real reason behind each result. For example when we say:

"If you through a cup of glass from the tenth floor from the window to the street then it will be crashed."

The result of (crashing) happened because (1) the material of that cup is crash-able, and (2) the force of hitting was enough to crash it! Being from glass satisfies the first reason and being thrown from the window of the tenth floor to the street satisfies the second. The point is that being a "cup" or not a "cup" is not the issue, being from "glass" or not is not the issue, being thrown from the tenth floor, from the window ... etc is not the issue. If you crash a table of plastic with a strong hammer, it will be crashed!! So if you understand the real reasons for the results of crashing from that statement, you will not fall into the trap of misunderstanding.

You may think of these examples: "English speakers find Chinese hard to learn", what's the reason? just being an "English speaker" is an empty meaning!! Is it because English is written from left to right? Is it because of the way the grammar of English is structured? Is it because of the differences in the systems of alphabet? If you understand the reasons, you can analyse the cases of Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese or Arabic speakers when they want to learn Chinese.

An example from my field of research which you don't need to understand but you will get the idea from is the importance of "the normalisation of microarray datasets" before analysing them. You don't need to understand what these microarray datasets are. I just want to say that if you give me some other type of datasets, then I need to look at its properties. If the properties of the microarray datasets which makes normalisation important also exist in these different datasets, then I should normalise them as well. In other words, I should understand the real reason for the "importance of normalisation" and then consider it in any other application.

Levels of Inference from Essential Information

Consider this paragraph about prime numbers; it's the first paragraph in the article (Prime number) in wikipedia:

"A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2 and 3 in addition to 1 and 6. The fundamental theorem of arithmetic establishes the central role of primes in number theory: any integer greater than 1 can be expressed as a product of primes that is unique up to ordering."

The red part is the essential part, and it has two sentences which define two things - the prime number and the composite number. The blue part is totally redundant as it has nothing more than examples. The green part is in reality redundant, but it might need a deeper level of understanding of the red essential part in addition to the ability to build on it to be able to understand why the green part is not adding anything new.

From my understanding of the red part, I can see that the green part is nothing by a mere rewording of the red part, or a description of an intuitive inferred meaning of the red part. I will try to let you get my point, but if you don't, just never mind! Just skip the next paragraph if you like!

Any composite number (X) can divide a natural number (a) which is neither itself nor one. This division means that there is another natural number (b) (greater than one) which divides this composite number! Because the result of dividing X by a should be some number which must be natural and greater than one!! It must be!! If (a) is the square root of (X) then (b=a). On either case, this means that we can say (X = a x b). The numbers a and b are natural numbers that are greater than one, so they are either composite or prime. If any of them is prime then that's it from its side, if any of the is composite then it can be divided as done with X itself. These divisions will never result in any number which is not a natural number greater than one!! We will end up with a set of prime numbers if multiplied then we get the original number (X) again! As (X) is finite then this division is finite. This is all IMPOSED by the definitions of the prime and composite numbers in red!

Even if this is right, in many cases, some theoretically non-essential parts need non-trivial inference levels to be understood only from the clean essential part. This makes it more efficient to store this part in memory as if it is an essential part. This depends on the person himself and the complexity of the inferred part. Though, being able to see the link between these parts helps in having a clearer understanding and a better ability to use them.

Last Word

I like to finish up this article by reminding you that I am drafting my own experience, but I am not an educational sciences expert. I have been a student for a long time and I have always taken care of these bits that I have written in this article. These are not ideas that I have just come up with; they are things that have always been rotating in my mind, wondering about my brain cells, and being felt in my consciousness whenever I read any scientific material. This started long time ago in school time, and I can't give any exact time for them. I am sure they were pretty mature in my BSc time.

Having said that, this article might be found useful for some of you and might be seen as mere philosophy by some others. It's just personal opinion!

واصفةُ نفسها

واصفةُ نَفسِها

مُقدِّمة

أبتـــَدئُ المــَـــــقـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــالَ ذا فلتـنـتَـبِـه            فقَــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــد يُقالُ مثلُ ما أقولُ به

عن معنى ما أقولُ ما إنْ تسألَه           إنّ الكلام التالي ذا لا مغزى له

فاقــــــــــــــــرأ، تكلَّــــــم، لَـحِّـنَنْ، وغَــــــــــنِّ           ولا تَسَـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــلْ ألفاظُكُمْ ما تعني

تِعدادُ الأبيات

مَنظومَتي لم يَــــــــــــــأتِ في مبـــــــــدَئها           مِـــــــــــنْ أسطُرِ الشِعرِ التي أُنشِؤُها

غيرَ الذي قدْ جـــــــــــــــــــاءَ فيها أوَّلًا           وليــــــــــــــسَ غيـــــــرُ ذاكَ جا فَلتَعقِلَنْ

والثاني بَعــــــدَ الأوَّلِ نَظَـــــــــــــــــــــــــمْتُــــــــــهُ           في دَورِهِ كَتَـبـتُـــــــــــــــــــــــــهُ رَتَّـــــــــــــــــــــــبْــــــــــــــتُـــــــــــــــهُ

وبَعــــــــــــــــــــــدَ أنْ ثلاثةً أَوصَـــــــــــــــــــــــلتُهُمْ           أَتبَـعـتُــــــــــــــــــــهُــــــــــــــــــــــــــــمْ بمِثـلِـهِـــــــمْ وَزِدتُهُــم

فسابعُ السُطـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــورِ كـــــــانَ دَورُهُ           مِنْ قَبلِ هذا البَيْتِ كانَ سَطَرُهُ

وهاكَ بَيتٌ تاســـــــــــــــــــعٌ أقــــــــــــــــــــولُ بِهْ           أعــــــــــــــــــــــــدادُ أبيــــــــــــــــــاتي أنا لا تَشتَبِه

خلالَ كوني هذا البيـــــــــتَ أَنظُمُ           تِعــــــــــــــــــــــــــدادُ أبيـــــــــــــــــاتي أنا لا أعلَــــــــمُ

فعِندَما أُحيلُ شِعـــــــــــــــــــــــــــري ءاخرَه          أعُدُّ أسْـــــــــــــــــــــــطُرَ القصـــــيـــــــــــــــدِ الوافِــرَةْ

حينَـئــــــــــــــــــــــــــذٍ أزيـــــــدُهــــــــــــــــــا أُؤَلِّـــــــــــــــــــــــــفُ          بـيـتًــا يكـــــــــــــــــونُ طَـــــيُّـــــــــــــــــهُ مــــا يَصِفُ

كمْ بيتَ شِعرٍ تحتوي قصيـــــــــدتي          إنْ شئـــتَ قُمْ وَضَعْها في الجريدةِ

ولو نَظَمْتُ ذاكَ البيـــــــــــتَ ءاخِرًا          أكتبُـــــهُ مِــــــــنْ بَعــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــدِ ذا فلتنظُرَنْ

لو زِدتُ أسطُري بتِسعَــةٍ فقـــــــــطْ          تُصبِــــــــــــــــــــــحُ أربعــينَ بيتًـا مُنْضَبَــــــــــــــــطْ

أحرف القصيدة

أوَّلُ أحـــــــــرُفِ القصيــــــــــدةِ الألِفْ          فلا تَقُـــــــلْ لي غَيـــــــــرَ ذا ولا تَصِفْ

وقد يقولُ قائــــلٌ إذا أجــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــاب          مَبــــــــــــــــــــدَؤُها بهَمـــــــــــــــــــزةٍ فقــــــد أصــــابْ

وثــــــــــــاني حَرفٍ جــــــاءَ فيهـا بـــــــــــــــاءُ          وثالــــــــــــــــــــثٌ قَـــد كـــــــــــــانَ فيها تــــــــــــــــــاءُ

فصُدفَةٌ مَطلَـــــعُ شِعري قَدْ جُعِـلْ          ترتيــــــــــــــــــــــبَ أحـــــــــــرُفِ الهِجــــــاءِ يَمتَثِل

بألِـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــفٍ فالبـــــــــــــــاءِ ثُمَّ التــــــــــــــــــــــاءِ          ترتـــــــــــــــــــــــيـــــبُـها قــــــــــد جــــــــــاءَ كالهِجـــــــــاءِ

خلاصة

فهـــــــــــــــذه قصيـــــــــــــــــــــــدةٌ إنْ تُمعِـــنَــــــــــــــنْ          لنفسِـهــــــــــــــا واصفـــــــــــــــةٌ لَمْ تَكشِفَـــــــــــــــنْ

أســــــــــــــــرارَ صـــــــاروخٍ وعِـلـــــــــــــــــــــمَ ذَرَّةٍ          لا تبتَـــئـــــــــس لا تَبـكِيَنْ مِنْ حَســــرَةٍ

فما الجديدُ إنْ أقُلْ قَدْ بَــدأَتْ؟          قصيــــــــــــــــــــدتي بألِـــــــــــــــــــفٍ أوِ انتَهتْ؟

باللام أو بالنــــــــونِ أو بالهــــــــــــــــــــاءِ؟         كالمـــــــــــــــاءِ قد فَسَّــــــرتُـــــــــــــــــــــــــهُ بالمــــــــــــــــــــــاءِ

فلَمْ أُضِفْ لعِلمِكُمْ بِما انطَــوَى          شِعـــــــــــــري عليـــــــــــــــــــهِ ظاهِــــــــــرًا ومُحتَوى

خاتمة

أختِمُها أُرجُــــــــــــــــوزَتي بذِكْــــــــــــــــــرِ مَنْ          أبياتَها قــــــدْ خَــــــــــطَّ في هــــذا الزَّمَنْ

فباسِــــلُ بْـنُ وائــــــــــــــــــــــلٍ هُـــــــــــــــوَ وإنْ          عَنْ جــــــــــــــــدِّهِ تَسَـــــــــــلْ كذا لتَستَبِنْ

بِالِاْسمِ عارِفٌ كذا بالتكنِيَـــــــــــةْ           بو هاشمٍ فهَلْ عَرَفْتَ التسمية؟

فأحمـــــــــــــــــــــــدُ الذي يكــــــــــــونُ والِدَه          مُخيَــــمَـــــــــرٌ فهَلْ تَـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــرى مَحامِــــــــــــدَهْ

وتَرجِــــــــــعُ الأنســــــــــــابُ بالنُّفـــــــــوسِ          لجَـــــــــــــــــــدِّنا مُـــــــــــــــــــدَرِّجِ الجــــامـــــــــــــــــــــــــوسِ

فهــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــذهِ قصيـــــــــدَتي أنهَــيـــتُــــهــــــــــا          أسمَيتُـهــــــــــــا واصِفَــــــــــــــــــــــــةً لنفسِـــــــــهــــــــــا

في ظلال خطاب سموّ الأمير، من التنظير والتفسير ... إلى التطبيق والتطوير

حتى لا يبقى الكلام كلامًا وحتى تكون الحُرقة في القلب حافزًا للعمل المِعطاء، أكتبُ هذا المقالَ لأضع لنفسي ولمن يرغب خططا للعمل الفعلي قبل أن تـفـترَ الهِمم ويصير خطاب سموّ الأمير تاريخًا لا ينفع. لقد أيقظ سموّ الأمير الحسن بن طلال في مساء يوم الثلاثاء 4\10\2011 حوافزنا نحو تطوير الأردن وبنائه وأثرى عقولنا بالأفكار النيرة المنبثقة من خبرته الطويلة في المجال الرسمي وغير الرسمي، وذلك ضمن فعالية ثلاثاء عمان التقني AmmanTT الذي حضره المئات من فئة الشباب.

من فاته حضور اللقاء يمكنه مشاهدته على الرابط: اضغط هنا لمشاهدة الندوة. وقد لخص البعض معظم ما قاله سموّه ولست بصدد التطرق له، من شاء فليقرأ ما لخصه الأخ عبد الرحمن الصيفي في مدونته.

ماذا أريد؟؟

قرأتُ كلام سموّ الأمير من موقعي وتخصصي ورسمتُ في ذهني مسودّة خطة عملية تحتاج إلى تعاون المخلصين وإلى الإرادة الحقيقية لنقل خطاب سموّه من التنظير والتفسير إلى التطبيق والتطوير. أريد أن أشارككم بها وأن أبديَ جدّيتي في العمل الحقيقي وأحب مشاركة كل من كانت عنده الجديّة في ذلك. فهلا تفضلتم بقراءة كلامي هنا وإتحافي بمشاركاتكم؟

أكرر: أنا أريد لما أقوله هنا أن أراه بأمّ عيني حقيقة واقعية إن شاء الله تعالى، فمن معي؟؟؟

كلام سموّه كثير، فأيّ جزئية أعني؟؟

ذكر سموّه أننا لا نريد المشاريع الريعية قصيرة المدى التي تهتم بإنتاج منتج معيّن وبيعه وتحقيق الأرباح المادية لصاحب الفكرة، بل نحتاج إلى المشاريع الوطنية أو القومية التي تـُـرى نتائجها بعد 5 أو 10 أو 20 سنة. وتلك التنمية المنشودة لا تكون إلا ببناء قاعدة بيانات محلية واسعة تخزّن بيانات سكانية وديموغرافية وجيولوجية وجغرافية وجيوفيزيائية واقتصادية وزراعية وغير ذلك وتتيح للمواطنين ورجال الأعمال في الداخل والخارج الاطلاع عليها عبر شبكة الإنترنت أو الإنترانت. ثم الانتقال من تخزين البيانات Data إلى المعلوماتية Informatics إلى المعرفة Knowledge.

تكلم سموّه كثيرًا عن الأولويات وأنْ نعلم ماذا نريد حتى نستطيع تحقيق التنمية.

أي نحن الآن؟ في نقطة انعدام الأوليات وفي مرحلة ما قبل البدء بالتفكير ببناء قاعدة بيانات وطنية!

الدول المتقدمة، كيف تصنع؟؟ وكيف نحن نصنع؟؟ رأيتُ بعيني لم يخبرني أحد!!

رجعتُ منذ أسبوع إلى أرض الوطن الذي أحبّ بعد إنجاز مرحلة الماجستير في هندسة المعلومات والذكاء الاصطناعي من جامعة ليفربول. لأجل المقارنة، أنا تخرجتُ بشهادة هندسة الحاسوب من الجامعة الأردنية قبل سنة ورأيتُ أنّ الجامعة الأردنية تعطي علمًا بلا عمل ووجدتُ جامعة ليفربول تعمل بلا علم! فغالب باحثيهم أنجزوا مرحلة البكالوريوس في الوطن العربي أو الهند أو الصين أو بعض دول أوروبا كاليونان. تأسيس مدارس بريطانيا لا يؤهل لجامعاتهم، ومراحل البكالوريوس عندهم لا تؤهل للدراسات العليا، في الغالب، وغالب علمائهم مستوردون. لهذا ينبغي أن يضع القطاع العام والخاص ثقته بأبناء الأردن الذين وثقت بهم أوروبا وأمريكا ودفعت لهم دول الخليج الغنية. وقبل ذلك، ينبغي أن نضع نحن المهندسون والباحثون ثقتنا بأنفسنا وأن يضع الشعب ثقته بنا، وإلا فلن نفعل شيئا!!

لستُ مُخولا بإفشاء أسرار البحث الذي لا زلت ضمن الفريق العلمي العامل فيه، لكنني سوف أذكر المهمّ منه والذي يكفي لمعرفة كيف تسير الأمور في بلاد الفرنجة تلك! يقوم بهذا البحث فريق علمي مشترك بين عدة جامعات كبيرة ويضم عشرات الباحثين من مجالات هندسة المعلومات (أمثالي!) والطب والأحياء والكيمياء والكيمياء الحيوية، مدة تمويل البحث هي 5 سنوات ومنذ السنة الأولى والباحثون الكبار يخططون لكيفية تجديد التمويل في نهاية هذه المدة لخمس سنوات جديدة. موضوع البحث هو موضوع ضيق جدًا ويهدف إلى إنجاز اكتشافات طبية وأحيائية مهمة.

بداية البحث هي عبر استخراج أهل الطب والأحياء لمصفوفات (جداول) ضخمة تضم مئات الآلاف من الأرقام (بيانات - data) التي لا يعرف هؤلاء العلماء ماذا يصنعون بها من جهة تخصصهم، نقوم نحن مهندسو المعلومات الذين لا نفقه شيئا في علوم الطب والأحياء بدراسة هذه الأرقام وتحليلها للوصول إلى نتائج نظن أنها مفيدة (معلومات information)، نعيد هذه النتائج إلى أهل الطب والأحياء للنظر في محتواها الطبي، بعد أخذ وردٍ ونقاش بيننا وبينهم نصل إلى نتائج تضيف إلى معرفة الإنسان الطبية (knowledge) ويُستفاد منها في علاج بعض الأمراض المستعصية.

انظروا البحثَ المُمَنهج!! البروفيسورات العاملون على هذا البحث يعمل تحتهم عددٌ من الدكاترة وطلاب الدكتوراة والماجستير والبكالوريوس. طالب الماجستير (كما كان حالي قبل بضعة أشهر) يُطلبُ منه بحث لمدة 3 أشهر لنيل شهادته، فيقوم الدكتور المشرف عليه بضمه إلى فريق البحث العلمي ضمن المشروع الكبير ليقوم هذا الطالب في مدة بحثه القصيرة بوضع لبنة (طوبة) ضمن هذا البناء الكبير. طالب الدكتوراة يقوم ببحثٍ مدته 3 سنوات يُنجزُ خلالها جزءًا مهمًا من هذا البحث الضخم!! الباحثون يتجددون والبحث ثابتٌ يمضي إلى الأمام. أرقامٌ وبيانات تصير معلوماتٍ تؤدي إلى المعرفة.

في جامعاتنا، في الغالب ولا أعمم، تكون مشاريع الطلاب هي مشاريع فردية تبدأ وتنتهي مع نفس الطالب وتصير تاريخا. غالب الأوراق البحثية المنشورة لباحثينا هي متفرقات في مواضيع غير مستمرة ولا تنتمي إلى قوائم أولويات وخطط طويلة الأمد. المستفيد من أوراقنا البحثية قد يكون باحث غربي يرى فيها ملائمة لبحثه طويل الأمد، إضافة إلى استفادة باحثينا في إطالة سيرهم الذاتية وحصولهم على الترقيات العلمية. مشروع التخرج الذي قمتُ به في الجامعة الأردنية هو روبوت يلعب الشطرنج، أفخر بمحتواه الهندسي الغزير وما كان فيه من تحديات هندسية قمتُ وزملائي بفكها تحت إشراف الدكتور القدير علي الموسى، وفزنا به بجائزة على مستوى المملكة و(قبضنا) مردوده بالعلامة العالية والجائزة المالية. لكني إلى الآن أحاول "فبركة" قصة تقنعني قبل غيري بأنّ هذا المشروع كانت له فائدة للوطن أو البشرية! تمتعوا بمشاهدة هذا الروبوت يلعب الشطرنج من هذا الرابط!!! ما شاء الله انتهينا من الأوليات كلها لنتفرغ للمشاريع الترفيهية!!

الأولويات!! حتى نرى كيف يرسم الغرب الأولويات، انظروا كيف قامت الأكاديمية الوطنية للهندسة في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية برسم خطة الطريق للباحثين بالاستعانة بخبراء دوليين في مجالات الهندسة المختلفة لوضع قائمة (التحديات الهندسية في القرن الواحد والعشرين)، وفي ظل هذه القائمة المكونة من 14 تحديا هندسيا تعمل كبرى الجامعات الأمريكية والدولية على البحث والتطوير ضمن أولويات معروفة ومحددة وليس بعشوائية غير مدروسة. للتعرف على هذه الأوليات الهندسية اتبعوا هذا الرابط.

الأفكار التشاؤمية والحوافز، أرجو ترك الدلع!

لن أنتظر سماع الأفكار التشاؤمية، سأقوم أنا بطرحها! ما سأذكره هنا قد لا يكون صحيحا وهو ليس رأيي الشخصي بناءً على دراستي للواقع، ولكن هي أفكار تشاؤمية شديدة قد تـُـطرَح وهي ليست حُججًا كافية لترك العمل. لكني أستبق تعليقات المتشائمين بطرحها ولا أدعي أنها أفكارٌ دقيقة أو حقيقية.

الجهات المعنية أصلا بوضع الخطط والأوليات وعمل الإحصاءات وبناء قواعد البيانات كنقابة المهندسين وغيرها هي غير مكترثة لا بالهندسة ولا التطوير ولا البناء. المسؤولون عن هذه الجهات غالبهم من كبار السن الذين يريدون الربح السريع أو الصيت أو السمعة وليس من قائمة أولوياتهم أن يصير الأردن رائدًا في التنمية وهم في قبورهم بعد 20 سنة من الآن. الإجراءات الرسمية معقدة جدًا ولا يوجد تمويل ولا راعٍ رسمي ولا غير رسمي ولا يوجد حوافز مالية ولا معنوية والفساد منتشر.

أختصر الجواب على هذا كله بأن الشباب المهتم الذي حضر ندوة سموّ الأمير حسن وما فيه من طاقة وعلم ووعي وشبكات معارف وأفكار قادر على بناء مستقبله، هذا مستقبلنا ولا نريد الاعتماد على "الختيارية" ببناء هذا الوطن. أنا (باسل) أريد أن أرى الأردن بعد 20 سنة بعيني كما أحلم! فمن معي؟

مسودّة خطتي العملية:

بعد استعراض المشاكل والحلول ضمن التجربة الغربية وفي ظل كلام سموّ الأمير الحسن، أضع هنا خطة لنقل الكلام إلى عمل بإذن الله، والخطة قابلة للتعديل الإيجابي.

1) تشكيل لجنة شبابية مستقلة لقيادة التنمية العلمية:

لجنة من الشباب المهتمين بمأسسة التنمية الوطنية، ولتكن من المنظمين ل AmmanTT أو من غيرهم، تجتمع اللجنة لوضع النقاط على الحروف. كل من أحبّ الانضمام إلى اللجنة فهو مُرَحّبٌ به، وعند زيادة العدد يتم انتخاب لجنة إدارية لتنظيم الأمور.

2) التعاون مع المؤسسات الحكومية والمدنية:

هذه خطوة اختيارية!! يتم التواصل مع المؤسسات المعنية مثل نقابة المهندسين والمعلمين وجمعية البحث العلمي والجمعية العلمية الملكية وإنجاز وغيرها من الجهات، من أبدى دعمًا وتعاونًا فنحن معا في خدمة الأردن، وإن لم يتعاون معنا أحد فنحن في غنى، سنقوم بما نستطيع وحدنا، فنحن نعمل لأجلنا لا لأجلهم.

3) رسم الأولويات الوطنية التنموية:

بالاستعانة بآراء الخبراء والمختصين، وبقراءة تجارب الدول الرائدة، وبالتفكير بالواقع المحلي، يتم رسم مُسودّة للأولويات الوطنية. قد تكون الأولويات مثلا: زيادة الانتاج الزراعي، تنمية المحافظات، تقوية التعليم المدرسي، تعزيز السياحة، زيادة انتاج المصانع بتقنيات محلية وتنمية البحث الطبي.

هذه الأولويات تبقى قابلة للنظر والتجديد مع الوقت.

4) وضع الخطط والمشاريع وتنفيذها:

بحسب المتحمسين المشتركين وعددهم والغطاء المادي، يتم وضع الخطط والمشاريع في ضوء الأولويات المرسومة. بنظرة واقعية، كل طالب هندسة أو تكنولوجيا أو غيرها من التخصصات في مراحل البكالوريوس والماجستير والدكتوراة في الأردن يُطلب منه عمل بحث أو مشروع تخرج. إذا كان هذا الطالب يعمل ضمن رؤية هذه اللجنة الشبابية، يتم توجيهه لعمل مشروع التخرج الأنسب الذي يخدم الأردن ويكون لبنة ضمن المشاريع طويلة الأمد (بما إنو عامل عامل مشروع، خليه يعمله شي مفيد).

المشروع الرئيسي الأوحد هو بناء قاعدة بيانات وطنية نوفرها للجميع عبر شبكة الإنترنت. لا أظن أنه من الصعب على طلاب الهندسة المدنية عمل مشاريع تخرج تقوم بمسح مناطق معينة من المملكة وتوفير البيانات للجنة الشبابية التنموية لضمها لقاعدة البيانات الوطنية. طلاب الجيولوجيا والأحياء والفيزياء والزراعة والسياحة والتاريخ والجغرافيا والسياسة واللغات وعلم النفس وعلم الاجتماع ... الخ. كلٌ منهم يعمل ضمن مشروع التخرج الخاص به لتزويد قاعدة البيانات الوطنية بما يقوم به من تجميع للبيانات المطلوبة وربما تحليلها. وهذا يكون تابعًا للأولويات الوطنية الموضوعة. بهذه الطريقة يكون جيش الباحثين الطلاب الأردنيين يعملون لخدمة مشروع وطني كبير واحد.

بعد تكوين كمٍ لا بأس به من البيانات الزراعية مثلا، يستطيع طلاب الزراعة في السنوات القادمة بالتعاون مع طلاب تكنولوجيا المعلومات تحليل هذه البيانات باستخدام الحواسيب والاستفادة منها في مشاريع توجهها اللجنة الشبابية أيضا. يكون الشباب قد بنوا قواعد بيانات هي مراجع لللاحقين من الشباب وهكذا يكون التقدم.

كلمة أخيرة

نحن نعلم ونعرف ونستطيع. الأمر يحتاج إلى إرادة وتعاون جادّ. كفانا انتظارا وتنظيرًا، كفانا استماعًا لكلام الخبراء كسموّ الأمير حسن وتلخيصه وإعادة الاستماع إليه واقتباس عباراته دون عمل. عندما نقتبس وننشر عبارة سموّه "30% من أبناء جامعاتنا فقط يدخلون بحسب الكفاءة" ماذا نستفيد؟ هل أصحاب الرأي في هذا الموضوع هم من يسمعونا؟ هل يسعنا الآن قلب هذه النسبة؟ هل نريد أن ننشر الشكاوى ونتحسّر؟ هل وزارة التعليم العالي ستتعظ وتغيّر هذا عندما تقرأ هذه العبارة بعد أن يقوم أحدنا بنشرها؟؟ ليست هذه العبارة هي الغرض، وإنما هو مثال على ردود أفعالنا التنظيرية والتفسيرية والتحليلية لكلام سموّه. نحن كشباب (في مهب الريح لا يأبه بنا أحد إن لم نأبه لأنفسنا)، مطلوب منا ترك التنظير والتفسير إلى العمل والتطوير.

أنتظر ممن أعرفه شخصيا وممن لا أعرف أن يراسلني بأي وسيلة اتصال اكتشفها العلم لتقديم الاقتراحات ولتشكيل نواة اللجنة المنشودة ومن ثم الاجتماع والبحث في مصيرنا بشكل جدي إلى أن تصير لجنة وطنية فاعلة تنموية علمية جادّة تبني الأردن بغض النظر عمّن ساعد أو لم يساعد وعمّن أحبط أو لم يُحبِط.

فلنجتمع كمجموعة من المهتمين، لنتناقش ولنضع الخطط. سهلة!! منقعد ومنحكي وبنفكر وبعدين منشتغل!! إن شاء الله تعالى.

أنتظر المشاركات الهادفة!!

baselabujamous@ieee.org

baselabujamous@gmail.com

http://twitter.com/BaselAbuJamous

http://www.facebook.com/baselabujamous

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/baselabujamous

21st Century GRAND CHALLENGES FOR ENGINEERS - National Academy of Engineering USA

The U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) provides the international engineering sector with the top 14 engineering challenges for the 21st century as proposed by a committee of experts from all over the world, some of the most accomplished engineers and scientists of their generation (2008). A huge effort was put to come up with this conclusion which has its weight to be considered by the leading research institutions from all over the world.

I have passed on many recent works (research papers) that consider these challenges and cite the reports of the NAE in there publications. I mean works from professors in the MIT, Stanford University (USA), USA Coast Guard Academy, the University of Cambridge (UK), the University of Catania (Italy), and others.

The list of the challenges is:

1. Make solar energy economical

2. Provide energy from fusion

3. Develop carbon sequestration methods

4. Manage the nitrogen cycle

5. Provide access to clean water

6. Restore and improve urban infrastructure

7. Advance health informatics

8. Engineer better medicine

9. Reverse-engineer the brain

10. Prevent nuclear terror

11. Secure cyberspace

12. Enhance virtual reality

13. Advanced personalized learning

14. Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

For more details: The Grand Challenged PDF

Does the Faculty of Engineering and Technology at the University of Jordan have plans for research? A list of the "research challenges" ordered based on the national needs. This list should be constructed in the light of the global engineering priorities listed above.

The research should serve the community not only the researcher. This means that the purpose of the research is not only for the personal academic ranks, but it should be guided by national plans that carries the research in some happy endings.

If the excuse was (money). I would say that we see many research papers published by professors from the JU, but, most of the times, they are in a random way. What if this small amount of money and large amount of efforts with the great brains that we have were guided toward one "narrow" field of research? This will - with no doubts - carry the University of Jordan (say the CPE department) into a regional or even global leadership in this narrow field if chosen carefully.

The University of Jordan - a Leader in Bioinformatics!!

Medicine in Jordan is recognized in the middle east as a great leader. Why don't the smart engineers (doctors and students) from the Computer Engineering Department and the Computer Science Department get themselves involved in building smart technology to analyze and study the biological information that can be provided by the medicine labs?

According to my research in the fields of interest of most of the leading universities from all over the world, bioinformatics is a leading topic which tackles two of the 14 engineering challenges. The "special topics" module of the CPE department should be used to scratch the surface of bioinformatics and to open the scope of research-based graduation projects based on this topic.

Finally, I trust our professors' abilities in the CPE department as well as the CS department. I have no doubts in having some of the most intelligent students brains (as I can confirm while being in the UK now!!). The only problem is: we have a lot of messy issues that need to be organized. Whenever these brains find the path guided by plans, we will welcome the golden age of our scientists very soon.

For interested readers:

Engineering Challenges Website

U.S. National Academy of Engineering

Basel Abu Jamous,

PhD Research Student in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology

Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics

University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

Member of: IEEE Computational Intelligence society, IEEE and Jordan Engineers Association

+44 (0) 7551889509

B.Abu-Jamous@liverpool.ac.uk

baselabujamous@ieee.org

http://liverpool.academia.edu/BaselAbuJamous

We will build electronics "MADE IN JORDAN"

We have brains, we have knowledge, what else do we need to build our own electronic systems? The will!

Please Jordanian engineers read carefully to design and implement, please Jordanian business men read carefully to finance, please Jordanian teachers and instructors in schools and universities read carefully to encourage, please Jordanian government men read carefully to legislate ... PLEASE, say: possible, say: we can, because it's possible and we definitely can.

FOR ANYONE WHO DOESN'T KNOW ME, I AM A FRESH GRADUATE COMPUTER ENGINEER, SO I KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT HERE.

We want to build a system that controls a house. There are one million ideas that come on mind, I will try to mention some. If the house is empty turn off all lights to save energy. You are free to think in an extra security option here: when the house is empty, randomly turn on one or two lights, after a while, turn them off and turn on some other lights. You may think more than that ... when you light these light, choose the lights that consume less energy!! When someone enters the house, the lights turn on, the coffee machine works, the ACs work, windows open, and anything that may come to your mind.

JORDAN IS SUNNY... When the sensor says that there is enough sun light, turn you light on using this energy and stop wasting electricity. Auto-switch to the solar heater, if your partner is a chemical engineer, ask him to design some large batteries to store this electricity in.

If your customers are rich, make everything automated, and sell them your product. Doors open automatically, food is cooked automatically when needed, every thing in your home may send you an sms to tell you something. Imagine you are at work and your son has just eaten the last cheese piece in the refrigerator. The refrigerator sends you an sms "Dear owner, I am the refrigerator 1, cheese has just been finished, :)". So you buy cheese when you are going home afternoon. Or this message reaches the supermarket that sends cheese to your home immediately.

FORGET ABOUT HOUSE SYSTEMS

Why don't mechanical engineers build cars MADE IN JORDAN??? Forget that, why don't we build the large control systems that control our factories in Jordan??

Why don't we build a machine that takes some empty cups and some sugar and coffee and tea and nescafe and it has a console that takes whatever the person wants and fills the cups ... etc. It's a COFFEE MACHINE!! just think, and add some extra features (falsafaat) to make it different that these Chinese ones!! Make a machine that chops meat and chicken and mloo5iyye and onion.

I am sorry people, but we have brains and enough knowledge. We need the right MENTALITY that makes people look at there nation's interest. I don't care if America or the UK gave me more money to build great electronic systems for them, I HATE IT when I hear people say (this country no one can live in) or (We cannot do it) or (who cares) or any of these SELFISH and FRUSTRATING phrases.

So, tell me people, positively, what do you think?? each from his position.

Computer Science Degree (VS) Programmer

While browsing stackoverflow.com I passed by a computer science fresh graduate complaint. "Basically I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I don't feel like I've learned how to program", he said. I was not surprised because this is the case with most computer science graduates! As a consequence, he cannot find a job, "I'm struggling to find work and am starting to get really frustrated". Then he shows more of his problem when saying: "I've worked hard but don't have the confidence to go out on my own and write my own app". This summarizes his long question. I will discuss his complaint and will light some of the useful comments submitted there. The question and the answers can be found here.

What are the reasons behind that? One of the posts summarizes the fact, it says: "The trouble with school [university] is that the most complicated thing you did there was a project that took 15 weeks to a year and involved a couple other people. The problem domain was well-understood (your professor didn't give you any tasks that didn't fit neatly into your semester). This is not a luxury the real world affords". I believe that I agree with him, I will say it another way: Universities don't throw students between unfamiliar problems leaving them alone to deal with them. Homeworks are always from the last couple of lessons and are similar to something explained inside the lecture. Course projects are not too involved in new things, most of them are within the specific narrow field that the course talks about. Many simple graduation projects pass, and teachers are usually available to solve problems that face students. This is really: "not a luxury the real world affords".

The best solution is what most of the experienced developers suggested to this questioner. It involves two parts: (1) Build your own project and (2) keep learning all the time. Let me light on these two spots now.

(1) Build your own project

Build your own project in your free time. Build it alone because this project aims at developing YOUR own programming skills. When I say "alone" I don't mean that you shouldn't ask, but even when you ask, try to ask non-human resources more, go to the documentations, books, datasheets, the internet ... etc at first, then ask humans.

An important question arises here, what is the best project that I can do? It depends on your current position. If you are a student then most probably you will be asked to build some projects in your courses. These projects are very very very good fields to develop your programming skills. Choose at least one project per semester and do it much more bigger than your teacher wants. Think of any possible extra features and implement them in your project. When you want to add something to your project think of something that you don't feel you know, something new and somehow hard. DON'T forget to make a backup of the well-done project before adding these features so if this extra feature doesn't work, you simply have something to give the teacher.

If you have already graduated then you can either build on one of the projects that you have already done at university time, or start a new challenging project in which you might not know where to start.

(2) Keep learning all the time

I may talk about this in another post later, now this one is long enough :)

To conclude, the university doesn't FORCE you to be a programmer, but it NEVER PREVENTS you from that! Your time is your property and you can develop yourself at home with the help of the internet. Many teachers will encourage you when you boost your course projects. Some teachers are frustrating but you never work for their interest, you work for yourself, so don't be frustrated! If don't work hard to be a programmer, your computer science (or engineering) degree will not hire you as a programmer.