For Current Students and Collaborators

Research Resource

  • Software for writing a聽paper or a proposal
    • To write a paper or a proposal, use聽Lyx
      • Learn a little bit Latex basics.聽A good reference is "A guide to Latex2e" by聽Kopka聽and Daly.
      • Learn a little bit how to use Latex to write formula
      • 鲍蝉别听聽to write papers.
        • 尝测虫听笔谤辞蝉:
          • You can see the formula that you write and you can write the formula as easy as in Latex
          • As easy as Latex for reference and graphics inclusion
          • You can export *.lyx聽file to a *.tex
      • Wirte聽paper use the right environments
        • For a template of a IEEE Journal or Conference paper, in lyx, click File-New from Templates聽and choose IEEEtran-Journal.lyx or聽IEEEtran-Conference.lyx.
        • For a template of a NSF proposal, click .
      • Insert Pictures (*.eps)
      • Insert citations
      • export聽the file to *.pdf
      • The PDF viewer should be set to聽Sumatra PDF for convenience. Goto聽 and search "Sumatra" for set up instructions.
    • To prepare bib files for references
      • Bib files contains text database entry for your reference
      • Use 聽to automatically download reference and generate bib files.
    • To generate vector/EPS聽figures
      • 鲍蝉别听Powerpoint聽to draw a diagram.
        • You may copy from a ppt and paste it in lyx. An emf file will be automatically generated.
        • Install 鈥淢etafile to EPS Converter鈥 app/printer from
        • Method 1
          • Open the app
          • Select the diagram in power point and copy it
          • In Metafile to EPS Converter app, click Paste button
          • Click the Export EPS button.
        • Method 2
          • Select the diagram in power point and聽right click mouse when you see "+" sign, select "Save as Picture...", choose the .emf file format to save.
          • Open the app聽Metafile to EPS Converter and open the emf file created above
          • Click Export EPS button.
      • Use Onenote to draw a diagram
        • To save the drawing in vector graphics, do the following.
          • In Onenote 2016, not Onenote for Windows (which will copy anything as a bitmap), open the notebook, select and copy the drawing
          • Paste it to "Metafile to EPS Converter" or "InkScape,"聽from which you can save as eps or other vector graphic formats.
      • 鲍蝉别听Matlab聽to draw figures
        • Save .fig file for future manipulation.
        • In a Figure window, select file-export-save as type-EPS color file.
  • Latex tips
    • To make wrapfigure work with itemized environment, put the wrapfigure before the environment, followed by聽\paragraph{} \vspace*{-2\baselineskip}. Inside wrapfigure, use \vspace*{-3\baselineskip} at the bottom to get rid of extra space at the bottom of the figure when wrapping. This is the most elegant solution found online.
    • To use latex equations, etc.,聽in ppt, use to include latex code. The code can be edited anytime. You may also ungroup the object and use animation to make the text appear letter by letter.
  • Use 聽to do version control in order to collaborate on papers or proposals.
  • 鲍蝉别听Powerpoint聽to write slides. If you feel the equation editor in聽Powerpoint聽is not good enough for you, you are writing too many equations for the audience to digest.
  • Writing webpages: use Google Doc or MS Word and save as html.
  • Instantly backup all your files to your identikey Google account using a Google drive client on your computer. The Google drive storage is unlimited.
  • How to avoid loops in Matlab or聽Python
    • We often sum multiplicative terms over indexes.
      • Different terms with common indexes should be implemented by the component-wise array multiplication.
      • Different terms with different indexes should be implemented by the Kronecker product or by聽the broadcasting rule in the component-wise array multiplication.
      • Then, use sum() over the desired demensions.
      • Perform sum() as soon as the indexes do not appear later.
    • In Python, calling methods takes 50% less time than calling the聽equivalent functions, based on a limited test.

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