About

Prologue

I’m a junior undergraduate student studying Information Resource Management at Sichuan University, expected to graduate in 2023 and aiming for a MS position for 2023 fall.

Year One: Choice

Back in the winter break of my freshman year, when I opened the book On Top of Tides by Jun Wu, I didn’t realize that my future would change drastically. I was not only deeply impressed by the IT companies mentioned in the book such as AT&T, IBM, Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Meta, but also had a strong expectation and desire towards Silicon Valley for the first time.

Meanwhile, I was also touched by the relaxed and free atmosphere of American universities. As the motto of Stanford, “Die Luft der Freiheit weht”(The wind of freedom blows). The combination of school and company provides ample job opportunities, and the excellent faculty and well-equipped labs leave plenty of possibilities for further study.

My major is a cross-discipline, hence various students had pretty divergent learning paths, and I was influenced to determinedly choose the technical field at that time. Since I didn’t know much about the areas and had no clear research interests, I decided to attempt as much as I could, which has benefited me a lot.

Year Two: Exploration

In my second year at SCU, I started my first research internship. I modelled the lexicon using SKOS and published it with VocBench which enables SPARQL semantic search, by transforming tabular data into RDF metadata. For sharing the research about linked data and semantic web in progress, I participated in the DCMI Virtual 2021 Student Forum.(Only postgraduate students are invited in principle)

Afterwards, I dived into establishing knowledge base of retrieval language terms, which is an extension of the previous exploration. No longer satisfied with a relational database like architecture, I used Ontolex to generate knowledge graphs, which is an ontology-based entity approach. Unfortunately, only RDF datasets were eventually formed and not integrated into The Linked Open Data Cloud because there are no proper RDF links to datasets those are already in the diagram.

Year Three: Immersion

During my third year in SCU, I perfected the basics through course projects. While studying Information Systems Analysis and Design, my group completed the development of a front-end and back-end management information system imitating WeChat Reading. I also discovered the joy of self-study in different areas, completing the open source courses such as CS 61A: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and Econ 159 Game Theory.

Scientific research is also what I have always been pursuing. I participated in the Tianyuan Mathematical Center in Southwest China and Huawei Intelligent Bases project, focusing on the Aasen’s algorithm for solving symmetric matrix functions. For optimizing LAPACK function based on Kunpeng processor to provide high performance version, my group inplemented separate optimization for single threading and multi threading processes. Besides, I led the project of West China Biomedical Big Data Center on system review, aiming to evaluate the effect of different immune checkpoint inhibitors in non-small cell lung cancer through network meta-analysis, and to conduct subgroup analysis to explore the adaptability of ici for different PD-L1 expression types.

During the summer break, I took my first internship in Tencent, mainly responsible for data analysis of human resources, talent modeling, and expecting to implement a job matching algorithm.

In addition, I enjoy the culture of open source community. I participated in the Datawhale group learning program, in which I broadened my horizons and won the outstanding learner of the course. Hope that in the near future, when I am capable enough, I can join open source communities like Jina AI and contribute to lowering the knowledge barriers.

Epilogue

After many twists and turns, it seems that I have finally found where my interest lies in. As Stephen Hawking said, “the ultimate triumph of human reason” is what we all pursue.

However, compared to pure theoretical research, I would rather focus on its application and grounding. My favorite scientist is John Forbes Nash Jr. while his game theory is full of intuitive and generalized beauty that can drive real-world productivity. Instead of forcing an underlying logic of exterior phenomenon, I prefer works wonders in reality, which often depends on exteral data.

“Rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person’s concept of his relation to the cosmos.” I will be training myself, slowly but persistently.