Some friends I met at the University of Manchester

BMVA summer school 2012 was a great platform meeting other genius students

Here is a picture of us in the group (Some of them were not here). All of them come from different universities and some from outside of the UK. We had about an hour photography session before we were off for a dinner at an Indian restaurant not far from the university. From right Nicolas, Mikel, Hussien, Juanma, Akis, Ez and me (most left). I miss this moment especially when we went out to the pub and talked about many different things.

I think my department is quite boring at the moment...so I hope the department or the VGV group has some interesting plans soon.....

P/s: I'm currently in Scotland

BMVA 2012 University of Manchester

BMVA 2012 summer School University of Manchester 

Last month was great being able to meet many PhD students from different universities and countries. All of them were genius. BMVA gave me the chance to make friends and exchange ideas about many different things. The best side of it is we had lots of fun after the classes finished. Although it was only five days but I had one of the best memories ever. After the class we went out to the city and had lots of fun until 12AM or 1AM. We knew we had to get up early in the morning but we didn't think about it at all. Above is the picture taken at an Indian restaurant the night before the school finished.

About the program/school, some of them are very interesting especially when the topic is about your research but could be quite boring especially when the presenter is just mumbling and you couldn't understand what he's saying. But overall, it's a great platform or starting point for PhD students to know more about different methods or techniques that you could apply in your research.

At last I put..by the time you reading this post I'm on my way going to Scotland for my first mountain race in the UK :-D I know I don't have enough training but I thought I give it a try to experience it...

My PhD research and Me

Taddaaaaa!!!!! This poster is not actually the finalised one. In fact I have the latest version but I didn't take a photo of it. So this is the best what I can show at the moment. Basically my PhD research is about detecting prostate cancer using image processing techniques based on diffusion MRI. The best part of my research is, it doesn't cover the detection part only but it will cover the localization and staging identification. Up to know I got some ideas on how to do the first two parts (detection and localization) but still a bit blur with the staging identification. To be quite honest, I haven't read anything related to the last part of my research yet but I will do soon.

Some keywords related to my research are texture segmentation, features extraction, texture analysis, diffusion MRI, etc. These are very common keywords in image processing and those who were/are in this filed they know the keywords very well. Been reading almost 50 journal, I found so many techniques, methods and approaches created by different researchers makes me think what is actually the best method to be used or applied in my research. The fact is, there are many different types of images which contain many different textures. This situation makes one particular method is suitable for only one type of texture. It's quite difficult to create a generic method which is able to do segmentation for many different images.

When I look at my first objective is to develop a generic texture based methodology which is one of the main challenges in my research. It doesn't sound difficult but out of almost 50 journals that I've read so far, only two of them have developed a generic texture based segmentation methodology. According to my Supervisor, the method should be flexible in doing segmentation. Not just for MR images but for other images such as landscape, portrait, objects, etc. That is actually very difficult because I need to develop a segmentation methodology which is able to deal with colours and grey-level (black and white images especially in medical imaging). Since coloured images and black and white images are quite different especially their boundaries, the segmentation methodology should be able to deal with noise on the image.

Although they have several methods/techniques that I can apply in my research but I need to do a lot of testing combining two different techniques (a technique deals with textures with colours and a technique deals with textures with black and white images). The best method should be a combination of those techniques which are compatible enough to deal with colours and grey-level.

Ha..I'm off now and see you in my next post!

I'm back to my blog again

Hello all, Yeah I am back after a few months! I was disappeared and didn't have time to update my blog. I was so busy with lots of stuffs and projects went on but I completed all of them just a few days ago. I must say last month was my busiest month ever. I started my PhD just about five weeks ago and lots of projects from Malaysia came to me and it was like one after another. Believe it or not I completed more than 20 projects last month and I thought I was dying switching my brain from my PhD research to the other projects. Everyday I went to bed about 1AM or 2AM and got up at 9AM went to the office doing the same old stuff reading more journals. Some of the journals were quite heavy and difficult to understand. Up to now I've read almost 50 journals. I mean it's not too bad as it gives a clearer picture of what my research is all about.

Since my last post, I managed to get my Visa at last after so many hustles from the British Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. They were bloody fussy and changing the rules every six months and the worst thing is they didn't mention or explain their new rules and regulations on their website properly. So basically when you come to their office, they will try to find a single mistake on your application and try to refuse it unless your application is perfect. Another problem was, all visa applications were sent to Manila (this is their new rule) and this took days before my visa was granted. I never understood why all applications have to go to Manila in Philippines and why they can't do how they use to do my Master's Visa. I almost gave up but thanks God for the strength you gave me!

Now I am settled in Wales and this week my mind is really into my research. I was in Manchester for about a week before attending summer School and it was a great experience. I met many people and made some friends. They were really nice people and I never expected to meet those people. Anyway, that's it so far and my new life here in Wales is going so well at the moment although the weather is terrible and it doesn't feel like summer at all. It's sad because I miss the hot weather!!!!!!!!

All tasks related to my visa is done

Before I flew to KL I made a list of tasks that I needed to complete. I was afraid I might forgot or missed some of them. So making a list of tasks is probably the best way to ensure I have done all tasks. Basically the day I submitted my visa application in person, I had about 12 tasks all together and I must complete all of them before 12pm. Luckily, I've already done some of them in KK and two tasks left in KL. The first one it was to get a banker's confirmation letter from maybank which was so difficult and they were very fussy about this thing and the second thing that i needed to do was to submit my visa application in person which could be fairly easy. But all what I thought was never easy. Firstly I had to wait for about 2 hours to get my banker's confirmation letter. Initially they didn't want to issue it for me with the reason I didn't have my passbook for final signature verification. But it seems like the manager recognised my face although it has been two years since our last met in his office. At last about 11.15am I got the letter and my appointment was 12pm. Wow..i was really running out of time and my nephew left the car just outside maybank tower. We took a taxi to wisma MCA and managed to arrive there about 15 minutes before my appointment.

I went up to floor 19 and went through the security check. I left all my bags and my nephew outside the appointment room. There was a beautiful malay girl but she actually looked like a sabahan girl. She probably is a sabahan girl but because we were speaking in english it was hard to recognise whether she is a malay girl or sabahan girl (or maybe from sarawak). But one thing for sure she doesn't have the look of malay. Okay..okay...it doesn't matter. She checked all my documents and I missed two very important things. The documents didn't mentioned on teh VAF website but when I came there they ask me to provide them. First the form self assessment and second one was a bank draft (i paid cash before but they don't accept it anymore and didn't mention on their website). Anyway, I rush out to maybank to make a bank draft about rm1500 for the processing fee (bloody expensive). I took the self assessment form and filled it in while waiting for my queue. Oh the form has about 10 pages and it took me ages to complete it. After all was okay, the girl filed it in and put them in the envelope ready to be assessed by the British High commission. At last they took my biometrics data and I was done!!!! Thanks God for answering my pray that morning. It took me about 2 hours and 30 minutes to do all those things. It never easy as I thought.

Maybank banker's confirmation letter

First, I would like to say it's not easy!! (I'm in maybank tower in KL waiting for my letter and it takes ages) I must say Maybank is so fussy about this thing but their fault because what's the purpose of internet and computers technology if they still need my bankbook or my passbook for verification. I find this method to verify my identity as their customer is ridiculous and very naive. I believe they can just take the photocopy of my passport and IC if they afraid I was cheating. They can simply chase me easily using those two documents.

About two weeks ago I went to Maybank in Kota Kinabalu requested a banker's confirmation letter for my visa application. After about an hour waiting they said they can't issue it as I need to go to the branch where I opened my bank account. I was like shit!!! come on...is that mean I have to fly up to Penang which about 3 hours journey by plane from Kota Kinabalu? Alternatively, I can go to maybank HQ to get it. That must be very annoying because I need to fly thousand kilometers just a get a piece of paper. I was so upset and rang the British High Commission in KL. I was wondering whether I need to go to KL to submit my visa application or not. They said yes I do need to go to KL as they would need to take my biometrics data. Whatever..so it was okay because the British High commission and Maybank are quite close.

I flew to KL yesterday together with my niece and nephew. I got up about 6am in the morning to avoid the traffic jammed. From Serdang we drove up to KL about 7am and just managed to escape from the congested road. We arrived at maybank about 9.05am about 10 minutes before they opened. Sharp 9.15am the doors opened and I came in with a big dream hoping all goes well. Well, I had to go to three counters before I reached the correct person who can issue me the letter. I came into Nilam room and the clerk greets me "Good morning. May I help you?". Then I started the conversation. She asked me to write a simple letter requesting the manager to sign the banker's confirmation letter. I did it in about 10 minutes. Well, I gave her the photocopy of my passport and IC. So strange because they never did this before. In 2009 I did it so smoothly and they weren't so fussy.

After I wrote the letter and gave all my details the clerk asked me to wait outside and she will call me when it's ready. Phewww...I said almost done! A few minutes later she came to me and said they need my passbook or bankbook for final verification. I said I don't have the book because when I opened it last time in Penang they didn't give me the book. Phew!!! guess what she said..."we can't issue the letter and I have to go to Penang where I opened my bank account. Only the manager at there can issue the letter." OMG!!!! what the hell and shit!!!! come one maybank...you can verify me just by looking at your computer. It was so annoying. Then I was begging to the manager and at last he said they need to fax them my passbook sample to get my signature which maybe a bit late...well I have no choice but hope queensbay maybank can fax my passbook sample as soon as possible. I'm running out of time...my appointment with the british high commission is at 12pm. God I need to your help.

Update: I'm done after 2 hours at maybank and 2 hours 30 minutes with the british embassy appointment. Follow up the journey here