Stepping forward - How to start a Research

As I said in my first blog on ScholarX, I will talk about how to start researching. Again I will remind you about my mentor Prof. Arosha Bandara. He is a Professor of Software Engineering at the Open University, UK. 

from Timeofindia.com

From the beginning, we discussed researching as this is a topic totally new to me. So in this second blog, I am going to continue what I am learning about how to approach research. So from the last blog, I told you there are things we should consider before starting research. Finding a suitable research topic is the hardest part. I will tell you about what my mentor and I discussed about finding a good research topic. 

from Weave Asia

First, we need to check what is our interest really lies on. Any area you are truly passionate about, then it will be a good choice for a potential research area. There are shortcomings in this too. There may be some areas you are really passionate about but finding data regarding those areas is very tough. So you need to carefully overcome this situation. 

For example, In research related to AI/ML, then it is better if you can choose a topic where you can find many datasets. 

Then after selecting an area, then look at what people have already done in that area. Read more research papers related to that area. Reading makes you understand how they have approached the problem and how the solution is developed. Now you may have a question "how to find a good research paper to read?". I will take you through that topic in my next blog post.

After doing these two steps you'll find a perfect question where there is a better chance it will be a good one to investigate as your research. Also, they may be an answer you'll going to implement to succeed in the research. 

Then you can meet a mentor who is already working in that research field and discuss with him/her your idea to understand whether it is possible or not.

I will take you through furthermore about researching in the next blog!!!

TIME MANAGEMENT- Pomodoro Technique

I will tell you another amazing technique I learned from the professor recently, It is a time management method called Pomodoro. 

from classicalguitarshed.com

In Pomodoro, you have to create a list of tasks of the day. Then you have to work for 25min then take a 5min break. then do it four times and get a 20min break. It is called one Pomodoro cycle. I tried this for two weeks now, I think it really helps to reduce time wastage and it helps to a very productive and focused learning for 25minutes time slots. Try it you'll use your time in a more productive way. This a quite an amazing technique where you can spend your time very productive way. 

Till the next blog stay safe and healthy!!!

New Valuable Connection

People will come and go through your life journey. But I am not going to talk about it in this blog. But I like to take you to a new connection I have got through the ScholarX program and How our first meeting happened. 

SEF- Sustainable Education Foundation

Path to ScholarX

I was lucky enough to get selected for ScholarX2021 by Sustainable Education Foundation. Last year also I applied but did not have the chance to get selected. And also a happy thing which happened last year was, two of my friends from different universities got selected for this program. So I learned a lot from them about this program and this year I again applied to this program. So if you were not got selected, apply next time with faith and put some commitment to fill the form. You will definitely succeed like me.

Mail sent by SEF

Then on April 26th, a mail came saying ScholarX 2021 - We Have A Match!. I was so happy and checked on my mentor. My mentor was Prof.Arosha Bandara who was working as a Professor in Software Engineering at the Open University of UK. 

A bit about Prof.Arosha

You can get more information on Prof.Arosha and other mentors of class 2021 ScholarX by SEF official website. SEF-ScholarX

Then we had our first meeting on 11th May. Prof.Arosha is genuine and a kind-hearted person First we introduced ourselves. He told his life story from childhood and how he settled down in the UK. Also his educational background and how he ended up being a Professor in Software Engineering. Then he identifies my interests and passions in the Software Engineering field. He guided me through researching. I'll include a few points we talked about researching on day 01 and I will get you too deep of it on my second ScholarX blog.

Summary of Researching

• Aspects we need to look at before we going to do a research
• Background check up (What people have previously done)
• Nature of Problem
• Validations/Evaluations

Happy Reading and Stay Safe!!!

Worth Smiling-Trip to NG

Here, I want to give nocives an idea about Angular. Favourite in my life blog is always focused in things that matters my life. Angular matters😀😀😀😀!!! 

Angular is a Typescript based  frontend framework design by Google. Now version 10 released and 11 is waiting to come. Previously it was named as AngularJS but now it is Angular along with its version. 

Initially it was released on 14th september 2016 and went viral. But these days the popularity has bit change because VueJs came to scene. Vue also good.😉

Now there is Stackblitz which is an online development environment for Angular. It very easy to find bug, share code with other developers. Try using it even for a once.

In an angular project, it consists of components, services and modules. So getting understand on those will help you to understand how an angular project will works.

Component-Every angular project consists at least one component. you can easily create a component by typing below code in cmd/git bash/powershell,

                            ng generate component NameOfTheComponent

For the navigation among web pages we use routing which is a concept in Angular.

Service can be create by 

                            ng genarate service NameOfTheService

Module can be created by

                            ng generate module NameOfTheModule

This is only a little facts about Angular. Learning by your own will be more and exciting. More falls will help you stand right straight. Gain Experiences by faults. 

Happy Coding!!!

Keep some knowledge about BRAIN

Brain is an amazing item which controls all the functions in your body.  Intelligence, creativity, memory  handled by the brain. When you are writing answers for an exam paper, the answers are sort out by your brain. Even your hands write because of brain. So it is good to have some knowledge on brain. 

Brain is also a part of central nervous system. 

Brain is composed with 3 parts,

1. cerebrum
2. cerebellum
3. brain stem

Cerebrum is the largest part of brain which consist of two hemispheres left and right. It performs higher functions like interpreting touch,vision and hearing as well as speech, reasoning,emotions,learning and control of movement.

Cerebellum coordinate muscle movement, posture and body balance.

Brainstem acts as a relay center connecting the cerebrum and cerebellum to the spinal cord. It performs many automatic functions such as breathing, heart rate, body temperature, wake and sleep cycles, digestion, sneezing, coughing, vomiting, and swallowing.

Left brain and Right brain

Left brain controls the right side of body while Right brain controls the left side of the body. If some stroke happens in left side of the brain, your right leg or hand can be weak or paralyzed. In general, the left hemisphere controls speech, comprehension, arithmetic, and writing. The right hemisphere controls creativity, spatial ability, artistic, and musical skills. 92% people are right-handed and their left brain is dominant.

Lobes in Brain

There 4 lobes in each hemisphere of brain as frontal lobe, Parietal lobe, Occipital lobe and Temporal lobe

Frontal lobe

• Personality,behavior,emotions
• Judgment,planning,problem solving
• Speech(speaking and writing)
• Body Movement
• Intelligence,concentration,self awareness

Parietal Lobe 

• Interprets language,words
• Sense of touch,pain,temperature
• Interprets signals from vision,hearing,sensory and memory
• Spatial and visual perception

Occipital lobe 

• Interprets vision(color,light,movement)

Temporal Lobe

• Understanding language
• Memory
• Hearing
• Sequencing and organization

Memory

This contains 3 phrases as encoding,storing and recalling. Transferring of information from short term memory to long term memory by pay attention and rehearse is called as Encoding. Types of memory are short-term,long-term and skill memory.

• Short-term memory, also called working memory, occurs in the prefrontal cortex. It stores information for about one minute and its capacity is limited to about 7 items. For example, it enables you to dial a phone number someone just told you. It also intervenes during reading, to memorize the sentence you have just read, so that the next one makes sense.
  
  
• Long-term memory is processed in the hippocampus of the temporal lobe and is activated when you want to memorize something for a longer time. This memory has unlimited content and duration capacity. It contains personal memories as well as facts and figures.
  
  
• Skill memory is processed in the cerebellum, which relays information to the basal ganglia. It stores automatic learned memories like tying a shoe, playing an instrument, or riding a bike.

For this blog I think this is enough. If you are too curious to learn about brain you can take the coursera course on Medical NeuroScience-by Duke University. 

Happy to see comments from you about this blog!!!

 

Are you STRESSED?

Assignments, quizzes, exams make you stressed. Mainly the deadlines kills you silently. This stresses can make you sick and a dull person. When working at office this comes from multitasking, physical discomfort, interpersonal and intergroup conflicts, Disorganization of work, lack of participation in decision making and so on. So people should get rid of stressed situations. They should learn to manage stress and live a happier life than earlier.

What are the Symptoms of Stress?

• Trouble in concentrating to the work.
• Grinding teeths when working
• Irritations in skin
• Feel fatigueness when working
• Sudden anger, headaches and anxiety
• Problems in your stomach

Let's get out of this STRESS

Make a timetable of the work you have to do. Then slowly go through it and work accordingly. It will make a time managing individual. Enjoy when working. Getting it as a work you should do will make you a robot with stress but if you work as a passion, you will succeed. Enjoying being with nature and your family. It will make you to feel comfort. Exchange your thoughts with them. Even cuddling pets will help you to feel happy. Meditate few minutes a day will reboot your brain and make you feel better and more energetic than earlier. Take everything easy. Be filled with positive thoughts will help your to succeed your goal easily. 

If you meet someone with stress, make them feel better. Today, Most of the people are stressed because of corona virus. Practise the precaution steps given by health personnels and always try to be at your home to keep social distancing. If you are stress being at home whole day these days, Use the above stress release ways to reduce it. You can even build something new. So get the use of this vacation as a positive point and work well. So remember to share your thoughts in COMMENT section. I love to read them and reply them. 

Always have a nice smile on your face which make others smile. 

Be happy and Stay Safe.

Covid-19 Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka was affected by Covid19 on March 2,2020. He was a tour guide from Mattegoda area. On that day onwards number of Covid19 patients were increased.
On 20th April, 34 Covid19 patients were found. There after number patients increased day by day. On 23rd April, found 60 Navy officers affected and camp at welisara was isolated completely. 

Upto 24th April,

414 Confirmed
46 New Cases

109 Recovered  

007 Deaths 

Sri Lankan president along with the health personals, tri-forces(Army,Navy,Air Force) and police immensly working towards to end this Virus situation. First they shutted down schools and universities in order to protect students from getting affected. Then brought the concept of "Working from home" and all the employees started doing their work from home. Social distancing reduces the contacts between people. Curfew was implemented. Need curfew passes to travel from one district to another. 

Health personals contribution is unforgettable. They work day and night with patients even without thinking of their own lives. Always they make people aware of the situation and  how they should wor during a quarantined period like this.

Triforces along with police also make aware people about how to behave in this period. They immenly built many hospital buildings to treat Covid19 affected and suspected people.They also make sure that all the people have meals and they provide food packets, clothes, etc, all the necessary items to poor people.
  
What you SHOULD do as a SRILANKAN???

Make sure you all are living according the policies given by health ministry.

1. Wash your hands with soap for 20S at least.
2. Go out with a mask on your face.
3. Don't touch your nose, eyes or mouth without washing your hands.
4. Keep social distancing among even neighbours.
5. Don't exchange anything with anyone.
6. If you have caught with any cough or cold ,please make sure to dial 1390 hotline before get into a hospital.

PRAY FOR SRI LANKA!!!

For Daily Updates,
https://hpb.health.gov.lk/covid19-dashboard/ 

2020-New Decade started with a WORSTJANUARY

Everyone was happy when 2020 started. We all celebrate it with full of joy and excitement. The starting days went as usual but in latter part of January, a virus was started spreading in China. Still it is spreading around the world.
Deadly WORSTJANUARY...

What is 2019-nCoV?

This is a newly spreaded Corona type Virus which is called as 2019-nCoV. Corona Viruses are a large group of family. Earlier, the SARS and MERS corona Viruses attacked the world. These viruses are commonly in animal's body. The newly found Corona was found in the body of Chinese Cobra. Usually viruses don't have a cure. So immunization must be in a good level to fight with them.

In 24th January, 2019-nCoV Corona virus was outbreak started in Wuhan, China. It killed and still killing thosands of innocent people. Doctors are saying, this is affecting our respiratory system and made us die. This is spreading around the world now. Due to the latest records, the number of deaths is 427 and Corona Virus cases are 20,685 of which 2,790 are in Critical Condition. Most of them are chinese. Recovered number of patients are 726.

 

The city Wuhan has been closes off by chinese government to stop spread of this virus. A hospital was made to treat Corona infected people by 8 days.
The countries which spread this are Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Malasiya, South Korea, UAE, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Germany, France, Italy, UK, Russia, Finland, Spain, Sweden, USA, Canada, Australia, Belgium and Macau.
The chinese patient found in Sri Lanka was successfully cured. The Sri Lankan People who were on Wuhan was rescued by Srilankan Airlines and brought to the Country. USA has banned people who are from China or visited China to enter the country.

Symptoms

• Fever
• Cough
• Shortness in Breath
• headache
• Running Nose
• Sore Throat

Centers for Disease control and Prevention(CDC) belives that at this time the symptoms of 2019-nCoV may appear in as few as 2 days or as long as 14 after exposure. This is based on what has been seen previously as the incubation period of MERS viruses.

Transmission of Virus

This is trasmitting through cough, sneeze or touching a body which has already infected by Corona Virus.

Prevention

• Use a mask when working with people is highly recommended by doctors as this virus can cause you death
• Drink water (Don't keep your throat dry)
• Wash hands in every 2 hours with soap for 20 seconds
• Avoid people who are sick
• Try best to stay at your houses
• Avoid touching nose, eyes with dirty hands

More information can be gained by,
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/index.html

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/