Monday, July 16, 2007

My Honours Project

For Computer Science honours at UCT we all have to do a big project. The project aims to be the first step towards doing our own research.

I ended up selecting a project on genetic algorithms applied to colour image segmentation. I've since adapted the problem a bit by wanting to study parallel genetic algorithms and more specifically attempting to develop a model that can run on a Grid. My supervisor is Audrey Mbogho and my partner Keri Woods.

Last week I was working on the literature review. It's quite a long and drawn out task to do as you have to hunt down relevant papers. There's plenty literature on image segmentation, to the point where the tricky part was trimming down on the length. There's also a fair amount of literature on parallel genetic algorithms. Grid-based PGAs however - now that's an area that has received very little attention. And the papers I desperately needed I couldn't access. :(

I've just started putting together a page where I've uploaded the documents I've completed so far. Currently it's pretty bare with just my proposal and literature review, although more will be added over time. You can access the page here.

10 comments:

  1. HellO! Im a still a gr12 student but it sounds like university is FUN! The project sounds huge though, but much better and challenging than those at school (obviously) How is university life anyway? I would also like to go study Computer science next year, but not totally sure what it is all about. Anyway g'luck with the project :D hope it goes as you plan

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  2. Very difficult to provide a brief answer. Some people enjoy it, while many hate it. If you're interested in studying Computer Science at UCT I would advise you to arrange a meeting with one of the CS student advisors - Donald Cook or Michelle Kuttel.

    As for the project being challenging, this is an honours project (4th year). You build up to it over time. Think of it as a mini masters thesis.

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  3. Thanks! Il try that. Honours sound pretty impresive. You must be excited to be almost done with university. So hope you n'joy the last bit of UCT

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  4. Hello Marco.
    You seem to be enjoying your research project. Good luck.

    Er, please excuse me for asking here (I don't know if it is appropriate), but you mentioned about Keri Woods as your research partner. Is she from East London (Eastern Cape, SA)? I think I knew her from before. We used to be penpals. Could you please tell her? Thanks. I'll appreciate it very much.

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  5. @Zynique: Honours is only the beginning of the exciting part of studying. Masters/doctorate still to follow. You have to really enjoy the subject to do research though.

    @ZJ: I showed Keri your comment and she seemed to recognise you. Hope you two get back in touch. Please, don't feel bad about asking.

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  6. Hello again, :D Yes i do enjoy the subject very much and hope to actually get somewhere in it. Are you going to study for Masters and doc. too? How do you arrange a meeting with the student advisors? guess you just go to the student admin place at UCT. Thanx for the info you have given me so far :D appreciate it.

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  7. Yes, right now I'm aiming for PhD. If you know where the computer science building is, go there and ask for Donald or Michelle.

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  8. Marco,

    How would you describe your supervisor Audrey Mbogho? I am thinking of profiling foreign UCT lecturers for a series of feature articles I am researching for a local paper.

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  9. Hey :)
    So I did finally end up at UCT... Studying computer science. Its pretty fun so far. Are you still studying there? Thanx for the help :)

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  10. Excellent, glad to see you are enjoying it! Yes I am still around at UCT, although I spend most of my time in the robotics lab in engineering now.

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