牛年轉運貼貼樂

Some hyperlinks for online learning

Lectures:

http://www.bigthink.com/

Learn English:

http://www.youtube.com/user/podEnglish
http://tw.youtube.com/user/JenniferESL
http://tw.youtube.com/user/sloppycheng

Computer Science:

http://www.youtube.com/user/googletechtalks
http://tw.youtube.com/user/citrisuc

瑞典語發音規則

瑞典語文一共包含29個字母, 除了英語26個字母之外, 另外還有å、ä與ö三個字母。本文將先討論母音的部份, 之後再談論子音。

瑞典語的母音可以分為兩類, 分別為硬母音a、o、u、å與軟母音e、i、y、ä、ö。每個母音都有長發音和短發音兩種發音方式。每個長發音可以儘可能地長, 不會被嫌發得太長的。反而是長音拉得不夠長, 意思容易被誤解。

硬母音:

• 字母a, 長發音與英語father、hard的a相同, 相當於中文"阿"。短發音與英語not中的母音相同。
• 字母o, 長音發音與英語tool、troop的oo相同, 短發音與長發音音質一樣, 但是急促。
• 字母u, 沒有英語對應的音。長音與英語rude的u非常近似。短音的音質與長音不同, 短音的發音同於英語sugar中su部分急促的發音。
• 字母å, 長音發音與英語four、more的o相同。短音發音與英語song、long的o相同。

軟母音:

• 字母e, 長發音與英語cafe的e相同。短音發音與英語net、best、send的e相同。
• 字母i, 長音與英語keep的音/i/相同, 短音與英語pit的i相同。長短發音的音質是一樣的。
• 字母y, 發音與德語ü相當, 用發"歐"音的嘴唇型(或是要親吻的嘴型), 來唸出"依"這個音, 滿接近中文的"于"。長短音的音質一樣。
• 字母ä, 如果位於r之前, 發音相當於英語fair、bear、hair、care的母音發音。反之, 如果其後不是r, 發音就與英語well、bet、wet的母音發音相當。可以感覺看看, 位於r之前的發音嘴型會更開更寬。長短音的音質一樣。
• 字母ö, 如果位於r之前, 發音與英語her的er相同, 就是捲舌的"兒"音。如果緊接的字母不是r, 發音就與德語ö的發音一樣, 用親吻的嘴唇型來唸出/e/這個音。長短音的音質一樣。
  

子音:

除了些許例外, 子音大致與英語相同。瑞典語中, 一個跟在長母音後的子音, 多是短子音; 而跟在短母音之後的子音, 就傾向是長子音。瑞典文的書寫方式是將長子音的該字母連續寫兩次, 下面是一些例子:

• 短音: vägen (道路); 長音: väggen (牆),
• 短音: dagen (日子); 長音: daggen (露水),
• 短音: mata (餵); 長音: matta (小地毯)

由上面的例子可以體會, 如果長音不夠長, 就容易被誤解成別的單字。依序說明每個子音字母:

• 字母b, d, f, l, m, n, p, q, s, t, v發音與英語皆相同。字母q在近代瑞典文已經罕用。
• 字母c, 如果位於其他子音與硬母音之前(a, o, u, å), 發音語音與cafe的c相同, 也就是發/k/的音。但在軟母音(e, i, y, ä, ö)之前, 發音與英語city的c相同, 也就是/s/的音。
• 字母g, 如果位於其他子音與硬母音之前(a, o, u, å), 發音語音與英語go的g相同。但在軟母音(e, i, y, ä, ö)之前, 發音與英語shoot的sh相同。
• 字母h, 發音與英語ham的h相同。
• 字母j, 與英語yes的y同音。(有些法語的外來字, 字母j會發/sh/音, 例如: journalist, jargong, jourhavande)
• 字母k, 如果位於硬母音之前(a, o, u, å), 發音語音與英語keep的k相同。但在軟母音(e, i, y, ä, ö)之前, 發音與英語yes的y相同。
• 字母r, 就是捲舌的/r/, 並且顫舌。
• 字母z, 發音與英語sing的s相同。

特殊拼音:

• dj, gj, hj, lj的發音皆與英語yes的y相同。(複習一下, 字母g在軟母音之前, 還有單獨的字母j也都是這個發音。)

The research on noncherent receivers

Noncherent recerivers are the way for the communication systems which not only their transimtters but also receivers don't have channel state information (CSI). The approach has been discussed for single-input-single-output, multiple-anttenas, frequency-selective and frequency-flat channel models. I strong recommand several papers for people who are interesting in this topic. They are related to codes construction, error probability analysis and channel capacity for noncoherent receivers.

Code construction:
[1] M. Skoglund, J. Giese and S. Parkvall, "Code design for combined channel estimation and error protection", IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 48, pp. 1162-1171, May 2002.
[2] J. Giese and M. Skoglund, "Space-time code design for unknow frequency-selective channels", in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Acoust., Speech, Signal Process., Orlando, FL, USA, May 2002.
[3] J. Giese and M. Skoglund, "Single- and multiple-antenna constellations for communication over unknown frequency-selective fading channels", IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 53, pp. 1584-1594, April 2007.

Error probability analysis:

[4] M. Brehler and M. Varanasi, "Asymptotic error probability analysis of quadratic receivers in Rayleigh-fading channels with applications to a unified analysis of coherent and noncoherent space–time Receivers", IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 47, pp. 2383-2399, September 2001.

Channel capacity:

[5] L. Zheng, D. N. C. Tse, "Communication on the Grassmann Manifold: a geometric approach to the noncoherent multiple-antenna channel", IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 48, pp. 359-383, February 2002.
[6] T. L. Marzetta and B. M. Hochwald, "Capacity of a mobile multiple-antenna communication link in Rayleigh flat fading," IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 45, no 1, pp. 139-157, Jan. 1999.

I also have submitted a paper on this topic, you can read the content of my draft in the following hyperlink:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.2587

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Finland for taking part in European Union?

The motivation to discuss on the topic:
The essay will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Finland’s participation to European Union (EU). In Taiwan, there are economists claim that Taiwan should integrate markets of Taiwan and mainland China, but there are also many economists have oppose it. It is a very important issue for Taiwanese people. Maybe Finnish experience can provide some hints to Taiwan.

Background about the relationship between Finland and EU:
The better relationship between the two super powers USA and Soviet Union in 1985 change Finland's political position in Europe. The post-war division began to melt, and Finland could leave the control of Soviet Union. Actually, In 1961, Finland stopped the progress to became a full member of European Free Trade Association (EFTA) because of Soviet Union's suspicion. For the same reason, Finland also delayed to the Council of Europe (EC) membership. After the event in 1985, Finland can take part in the European organization although the two memberships have more symbolic meaning than practice one. Because of radical reformations from the Soviet leader Gobarchev, the Eastern Europe Bloc dissolved and Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. During the period Gobarchev leaded Soviet Union, Finland normalized the relationship with Soviet Union, and Gobarchev's administration stopped interfere in domestic decisions of Finland. Gobarchev also visited Helsinki in 1989 to confirm Finnish neutrality. Finnish foreign policy had begun to change from 1985. In 1986, Finland became a full member of EFTA and a member of EC, which started to form a tighter union then, in 1989.

By early 1990s, Finnish government gave up its neutrality policy in cold-war era and joined EU after a referendum with a majority supported the move. The decision makes Finland to be one of core members of EU. The definition of Finnish relation with its eastern and southern neighbors changes now. Right now, Finland's eastern border is not run along with the Cold War frontiers.

Advantages:
On advantages, Finland can have more close relationship with the main European countries, for example, France, Germany. Actually, Finland has prosperous times from the EU membership.
Before 1991, Russia is the most important Finland‘s trade partner. One over three Finnish export products sold to Russian. However, after Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Finland lost her most important market. The trade recession with Russia led a significant effect in Finnish risen unemployment and the depression of Finnish economics. Then, there were two significant structure changes made Finland pass away the difficulty. The first one was her success in information and communications technology (ICT) sector. The second one was that Finnish government made the decision to have closer relationship with west European countries. So, Finland started to apply to take part in European Union in 1995 and to be successful into EU in 1999. In the same year, the situation of Finnish economics waked up again and is better and better after 1995. Right now, the most trade partners of Finland are western European countries, Germany, France, UK. Russia is the fifth major trade partner of Finland. Now, in many worldwide surveys of competitiveness, Finland is in the top position.

Finnish people also can have noticeably cheaper products and foods, including pork, eggs and many daily products, which are brought by Finnish EU membership. An obvious example is the cost of cars. Traditionally, the price of cars is higher than other countries of EU. However, in 2002, the European Court said that Finland’s tax of cars imported from other EU members is too much. This event made Finnish government have to cut the tax rate of foreign cars, and Finnish people can buy imposed cars in much cheaper price. But it also makes some problems to Finland. Alcohol problem is one of them which will be mentioned in next section.

Disadvantage:
On the disadvantage, Finland’s agriculture is hurt because of cheaper agriculture product from eastern European countries. However, Finnish agriculture is hurt by the cheap products from eastern European countries. Although Finnish government has tried many approaches to support the Finnish farmers by direct payment from Finland’s budget, the average income of Finnish farmers is decreasing during those years. After Finland become an EU member, the number of Finnish farmer continue to decrease while the average number of farmer in EU is increasing constantly. EU Commission still said that the support for Finnish farmers should be decreasing and temporary.

In addition, Finland also has to open her labor market for other EU members although the unemployment remains high in Finland. Unlike Sweden, Finland open her labor market to people from the EU member countries until spring 2006. Many Estonians, for example, have gotten their jobs in Finland. Fortunately, the noticeable negative side effects seem not apparent until now. Although Finnish relatively high unemployment rate already decreases from the peak point 15% in 1995 to about 8.4% in 2005, the rate is still over the average of all EU members and continues to trouble Finnish people.

EU’s rules also make some negative effect to Finland. A typical example is the public policy of alcohol. Finland had to give up her original alcohol policy which limits the retail sale of alcohol beverage, in 2004. Because the price levels of alcohol beverage from Estonia, one of Finnish neighbor in EU, are only about 50%, Finnish consumption of alcohol beverage raised about 10% in the same year. It is so terrible that alcohol poisoning and related illness have been the major reason to makes Finnish adult men die.

Lessons that Taiwan’s people can learn from Finnish experience:
Like Finland, Taiwan has very limited natural resource. So, Taiwan depends on exports very much. Because the market in mainland China becomes more and more important for Taiwan, many economists suggest that Taiwan’s government should try to find a way to integrate markets of Taiwan and mainland China. However, the political issues make the problem more complicated. In my opinion, if we only consider economic reasons and factors, Taiwan definitely should have some cooperation or integration with the market of China based on Finnish experience. The reason is simple: if two economy body, one is small like Finland and another one is huge like EU, should integrate together. When they merge, the small one can have most advantages. However, if they don’t integrate, the small one will be hurt more than the big one.

In the case of Finland, we can see that Finland’s economy collapsed during 1991 to 1999 because of her major trade partner Soviet Union dissolved. After Finland joined EU in 1999, Finnish economy became better and better. Original, Finland wanted to have closer political and economic relationship with western European countries and applied for EFTA and EC in 1960s. But Soviet Union opposed her desire and Finland had to delay the progress. I thought that Finland can keep off the depression in 1990s if she could take part in EFTA or EC. It shows that participation of bigger economic market is very helpful for small economic in the case of Finland’s entry into EU in 1999. Actually, the members of EU didn’t have the economic problems which Finland met when Soviet Union split off. One reason is the political factor, Western European countries don’t depend on the trade with Soviet Union very much, even than didn’t have economic relationship with Soviet Union. Another reason is the members of EU integrated a big enough economic body. It makes EU can keep its members from the hurt of other economic bodies like Soviet Union or Finland.

Before integrating with bigger economic body, Taiwan should do many preparations. At least, agriculture and farmers should be pay special attention from Taiwan’s government.

Reference:
[1] Website: http://www.finnfacts.com/english

How could Finland be able to have very advance information and communications industry? Discuss on Finnish strategy.

The motivation to discuss this topic:
In this essay, I would like to discuss the way which Finnish people to develop their information and communications industries. Finland doesn’t have much natural resource, except forest. That is why the main export products of Finland were paper and woods originally. However, after taking many years to develop information and communication sector, the main export products of Finland became electronic products. In addition, Finland owns advanced technology, high skilled employees and famous mobile phone giant Nokia now. How could Finnish people make those facts come true in the country with limited natural and human resources? What do people in Taiwan learn from Finnish experience?

The story of Nokia:
Information and communication technology (ICT) sector is the most quickly growth industry in Finland. Finnish ICT includes hundreds of small and medium size companies, but Nokia is the core undoubtly. So, if we want to understand the Finnish ICT more, it should be to talk about Nokia first.

Nokia is founded in 1865 for forest industry originally. In addition, there was two related companies, Finnish Rubber Works Ltd and Finnish Cable Works Ltd, which are founded in 1898 and 1912 respectively. Finally, the three companies combined to form the present famous Nokia in 1966. Before 1970, the branch of electronic in Nokia was very small. The main products of Nokia were cables, rubber and paper. After merging some European electronic companies in 1980s, Nokia started to develop its business on electronic consumer. Right now, Nokia is totally become a purely ICT company, the Finnish biggest firm and a leader in wireless telecommunications world-wide. Nokia is a giant in Finland and provides significant contribution to Finnish economy. In addition to Nokia's direct contribution, there are over 300 first-tier small and medium-sized suppliers to Nokia, which people call them as Nokia network. We can sum up Nokia's direct contribution to Finnish economy: 4% GDP, 1.5% GDP growth, 35% business sector R&D, 25% exports, 1% total employment and 5% manufacturing employment in 2000 [1].

Finnish experience:
It is not easy to explain why Nokia and Finnish ICT industries are so successful. Rather, the main contribution of the success is from the cooperation among historical, technological and economic factors. Except for the significant position which the communications equipment manufacture plays in Finland's industry change, I can see that network relationship in Finland, like Nokia network, push Finnish ICT development. The major reasons make the success can be concluded two points in the view of history: (1) decentralized structure of the industry and, (2) the liberalization of telecommunications early.

Originally, the market of Finnish telecommunications is very fragmented because of political outcome. In the 1800s, when Finland is a duchy of Russia, Finland started to lay cables. In order to avoid Russia control her national telephony, Finnish congress granted many telecommunication operating licenses. Finnish first telecommunication companies were established in 1870 by Finnish equipment suppliers. During twentieth century, the private telecommunications operating companies increased. In order to interconnect between networks of different operators, Finnish telecommunications proposed to nationalize and harmonize their network. However, Finnish congress rejected the proposal. It makes Finnish telecommunications industry still remain de-centralized. Different telecom equipments and format of terminals made difficulties of interconnection among networks. During the 1930s, the number of operators maximum about 800. After the peak, the number decreased to about 50 by the mid 1990s. Because there are so many operators in Finland, every operator had strong competition with each other. In addition, unlike other countries, those operators also had to face the competition from foreign companies. The real huge and the strongest competition between the operators begin in mid-1980s due to the open of long distance operations. By 1994, the competition included local and long-distance call and international telecommunications. Nowadays, many of those operators are not so important because kind of them have merged together. And Nokia and many equipment suppliers have global competitiveness.

Industry, technology and educational policies have played a role too. Finnish government changes its decision in the early 1980s. She underlined the role of innovation policies with the need to decide the priorities for allocating R&D resource. Finally, market decided the winner, ICT sector, in product market. Now, ICT was the national stronghold of Finland. Because of the reasons above, information and telecommunication technology is in the first priority in Finnish economy. Finnish high education also pay special attention on ICT.

After many years for developing, Finland has ICT sector with global competitiveness. Except for Ireland, Finland is the EU country owns most surplus of high-tech foreign trade runs. In the 1990s, there were many International studies (IMD and WEF) reported that Finland is the country with best competitiveness in the world. The reasons include Finnish science and technology abilities, her high level education and her internationalization. In addition, Finland also is the most advanced producer and has users of communications and information application. In comparison studies, both social infrastructure and technology ability form the basic structure to make Finland has the competitiveness above average. Presently, High-tech investment and skilled labors are the resource which international competition change into competition for. In other words, countries and regions are looking for money and highly educated employees. Because of Finnish development of technology, it make Finland has advantage as a corporate location. In other way, there are also weaknesses of Finland’s competitiveness. The weaknesses include high tax rate and remote location. Besides, high unemployment is the result due to deficiencies of labor market. Only focusing on ICT sector is also too dangerous if the demand of electronic or communications products falls.

Based on the discussion, I could conclude that there are two points make Finland own successful ICT. The first one is the correct strategy of Finnish government. The second one is high quality of employees.

Except for the decentralization and nationalization of Finnish telecommunication operators by Finnish law, when Soviet Union, the most important trade partner of Finland then, was destroyed in 1991, Finnish government speeded up to encourage Finnish companies to develop information and communications industries. The decision is very correct. Right now, electronic products has replaced woods to be the main export product of Finland then.

As mentioned before, the successful Finnish education is another factor makes Finland could have very good ICT industry. Comparing to traditional industries, say woods or paper industries, ICT industry need very high-quality employee very much. The most famous software from Finland is the kernel of Linux operation system. People who study computer science all know that the kernel is from a Finne who was a college student when he proposed the kernel. The case is an example of Finland’s strong ability of employee in ICT industry.

The lessons Finland can teach people in Taiwan:
Taiwan is a small island with not so many people. In addition, Taiwan’s government also pays much attention on ICT sectors. However, there is no any Taiwan’s company like Nokia. In my opinion, any country which wants to develop ICT industry has to own her leader ICT companies. For example, USA owns IBM, AT&T and Microsoft; Japan owns SONY, NEC and Toshiba; Sweden owns Ericsson; Germany owns Siemens. Of course, Finland owns Nokia. But Taiwan only owns some manufacturers, like Acer, ASUS and BanQ. Those Taiwanese companies are not big enough and can’t invest too much money into R&D department. It makes Taiwanese universities and colleges have to cover all R&D works for corporations. The difficult is the researches in universities are usually very theoretical and kind of impractical. In other way, how to make Taiwan has a small but open economy like Finland is also a issue for people in Taiwan.

Reference:
[1] J. Ali-Yrkkö, L. Paija, C. Reilly and P. Ylä-Anttila, “Nokia: A Big Company in a Small Country,” ETLA Series B162, Taloustieto Ltd, Helsinki, 2000.

Under eastern European and Asian competitions owned large amount of low-salary employees, how can Finnes to keep Finnish companies stay at Finland?

The motivation to discuss on the topic:
Recently, Taiwan’s factories start to move to other counties for cheaper labors. Finland also meets the same problem. What are solutions of Finland? Is it possible to keep those manufacturers stay at their home countries and keep jobs of blue-collar workers.

A piece of news:
In 2006, there was a piece of economic news related to both Finland and Taiwan from a newspaper. Taiwan’s largest manufacturer of electronic components Foxconn decided to dismiss 295 labors in Finland. Originally, Foxconn’s Finnish division employed more than a total of 500 people in southern Finland. Foxconn had a layoff in 2005 to close a factory in Hollola and cut 600 labors. Now, Foxconn already stops the component product in Finland and focus on consumer service. After ending the production in Finland, Foxconn started to build a huge factory in Chennai of India, close to Nokia’s and Motorola’s factories. In other words, Foxconn is following policies of other mobile phone giants. Based on the newspaper, the main cause made the layoff is Finland doesn’t have big market for low and medium-priced handsets, and it is not efficient for Foxconn to continue its mobile phone production in Finland.

One thing in the newspaper made me impressive. It said that the layoff is a very bad news for the dismissed employees because the unemployment rate in the Lahti area, the factory located on, is very high.

Finnish Experience:
By the classical economics, there are two ways to keep the growth of economics in a country, the first one is to increase the number of labors under fixed worth of output per person. The second one is to increase the worth of output per person when population is not increasing. Obviously, the reason of present growth of Finnish economics is the second one. Although Finland has to face the competition from eastern European countries with cheaper labors, Finland still can keep high-tech companies by her high-quality employees. Before eastern European countries joined European Union in 2004, the major industrial structure of Finland is already based on high-tech information and communications industry.

Because quality of employees is most important factor for IT companies, most of Finnish companies still stay at Finnish due to this reason. However, many Finnish manufacturers also start to move to eastern European countries. For example, the most famous Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia will build factory to product its handset in Romania in the middle of 2008. Salcomp, one of the world’s leading Finnish manufacturers of mobile phone chargers and power supplies for mobile phones, also have moved its factories to China, Brazil and India. The heavy employment costs in Finland make manufacturers move to eastern European and Asia with cheap labors.

In addition, in the end of 2007, also because of high cost and in order to make sure long-term profitability, Stora Enso, a big Finnish pulp and paper manufacturer, said that the company will permanently close its three factories in Finland. There will be 1100 Finnish people lose their jobs.

Finnish reaction:
There are so many bad news for Finnish labors. Actually, the reminding companies which stay at Finland are the operation part of them or need high technologies. From 1995, Finland focus on developing her innovation economics based on selling high-tech products, professional know-how and high-value services, including biotechnical industry and information and communications technology (ICT) sector. Finland government pays much attention on Finnish biotechnical industry. Through the favors of Academy of Finland, National Technology Agency of Finland (TEKES),the Finnish Innovation Fund (SITRA), Finland government organizes biotechnical companies in Helsinki SciencePark, Biomedicum in Helsinki, Turku’s BioCity, Oulu’s Medipolis and Kuopio’s Technology Center Teknia [1]. Biotechnical industry needs high-quality and professional employees and researchers more than cheaper labors. Of course the industry is very suitable for Finland.

On ICT sector, in 2007, Nokia products 36% mobile phones in the world. And, there are many successful Finnish security software companies, say Stonesoft, F-Secure and SSH. Finnish users and companies always can adopt a technology very quickly. Finland has the highest mobile phone and Internet user density in the world. Finland’s ICT foreign trade is in surplus and R&D investment in relation to GNP is the top position in the world. Because of Finnish good research abilities, Finland already is the pioneer and a famous research center of high-tech products. IBM, Siemens, HP and Lotus all have their Finnish research division. Naturally, those international companies also would have cooperation with Finnish companies and improve the development of those Finnish firms. Finnish small and medium-sized companies organize special networks with international and domestic giants for research, training and corporate cooperation.

Finland also has become the export-driven place for the international companies because Finland’s location is close to one of the most potential markets, Russia. Comparing the law systems, social and political factors, many companies would like to product or assemble their goods in Finland. So, by the advantage of Finland’s location, Finnish people still can have huge amount of investments from other countries and keep many factories stay at Finland although the market of Finland is small.

For Finland, the challenge of its economic policy in the future is to continue enhance Finnish ability of innovation and technology knowledge for reminding at the top position in the world. For a country with small market, it is the best choice for Finnish people to survive under the global competition.

Lessons Taiwan can learn from Finland:
On labors market in Taiwan, there is similar situation in Taiwan. Because mainland China and Vietnam have cheaper employees, many Taiwan’s companies move their factories there. It makes many labors in Taiwan lose jobs. A difference between Finland and Taiwan is that the main industry of Taiwan is manufacture. Taiwan’s companies don’t pay much money on long term R&D. So, there are several lessons Taiwan can learn from Finland.

First, Both corporate and government should invest more money to R&D. Taiwan already doesn’t have good competitiveness on manufacture for low-cost products. Second, Taiwan should use the advantage of her location. Because of political dispute, Taiwan’s government bans any boats and airplanes to operate between Taiwan and mainland China. However, in economic opinion, the ban is very bad for Taiwan’s economy because many international companies have business in both Taiwan and China and the ban makes inconvenience for businessmen. Third, Taiwan should grow up a industry giant like Nokia in Finland. Right now, Taiwan only has small and medium-sized companies. Unlike Nokia, those companies can’t have ability to be an engine of Taiwan’s economy.

How to remain the global competitiveness is a very serious issue for people in Taiwan. Because of the historically political problem with PRC’s government, the issue is more difficult to deal with for Taiwan’s people. But if we only consider economic factors, it is clearer and very obvious what Taiwan’s people should do for their economic competetiveness.

Reference:
[1] W.-B. Zheng, “A strategic approach of building national technology strength - Finland as case study,” master thesis of National Sun Yat-sen University, 2001.

Taking part in a meeting

Yesterday, my colleague, Tom, invited me to take part in their meeting for planing a visit to China. The visit is a regular activity of their department, Electrical Engineering Department in Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) of Erlangen-Nuernberg, every year. Through this short and regular visit, the students between FAU and its twin schools in China could exchange their culture and make friends. Tom and another female student is the leaders this year. They will lead other 14 students in their department to finish this job. Tom told me that he is very exciting in this visit because it is the first time he could go to Asia.

The goal of yesterday meeting is funny, they want to design a slogan and logo for their group. The slogan have to be in Chinese. That 's why they invited me to the meeting. Except me, there is another female student from China. Both of us helped them to translate the slogan in German to Chinese. However, it is a tough job because the Chinese slogan is not so good if we translate from original German slogan directly. Finally, they make the decision. They slogan (in English, cuz I can't remember the German version) is: Widen your horizon. Could everyone read this article give me any good translation for his slogan? Both the girl from China and me can't have good idea for it then. We promise to Tom that we will think of it later.

After the meeting, I recall some memory about the friends who was in the groups I had joined. Those friends in the group of military service, of dorm mates and of oversea study enriched my life and made me not alone when we pursued our common goals. I miss them always. So, my dear friend, does everything go well right now? Do you have everything you want and achieve the ideal we wish for? I hope you do because all of you deserve it absolutely!

赴德國暑期研究(2006 DAAD/NSC Summer Institute Program Report)

本文將包括四個部分，第一部份是我在德國的生活，第二部分是我所遭遇與觀察到關於台灣與德國之間的一些文化差異，第三部份則是我與德國學術單位合作的研究，最後是心得與建議。

在德國的生活:

會申請這次的暑期實習主要是在偶然的機會看到相關的資訊，由於正巧要申請其他的獎學金，也就一並準備資料，沒想到很幸運能獲得錄取。其實從出發前的單位分發到到達德國的基本認識，DAAD的Knapp女士就已經幫我們坐了充分的準備，基本上我僅僅只需要將生活必需品備妥而已。到德國真正的挑戰是從波昂離開抵達我的實習單位: 杜易斯堡-艾森大學(Duisburg-Essen University)電信工程系才開始。由於實習單位離杜易斯堡火車站(Duisburg Hbf)不遠，我是事先被通知可以直接步行過去，然而到底人生地不熟，出了車站看著地圖真的感覺一陣盲然，這時候一位熱心的德國老太太主動詢問我是否需要幫助，不過因為他不懂英文，比手畫腳一會兒後，就表示要我跟著她走，就這樣我就順利的到達我實習的單位。到實習單位後，因為要安置我的行李，稍微了解隔天要做的準備工作後，我又自己拉著行李去找我的宿舍，也再次在路上迷路了，這時候一位熱心的研究生適時出現，主動地帶我到我宿舍附近的道路上，並且詳細的跟我描述方向。非常感謝那位熱心的老太太還有研究生，讓我在第一天就能順利的安頓下來。當天下午我又去附近的超級市場購買一些日常用品等等，並且在附近走走了解一下週遭環境，打通電話向Knapp女士報平安。那天晚上其實有點兒失眠，對未來將近三個月在陌生環境生活有些不安。但是，之後的日子證明，這項計劃真的是一項很棒的體驗，不僅僅讓我認識很多朋友，包括一起參加這個計劃的八位夥伴，還有德國系上的同學，熱情招待我們的中國大陸同學，一同合作研究的德國同事，還有在火車上、在旅途中無意間相遇的外國朋友們。也讓我對德國這個在世界經濟、政治與科技工業扮演重要角色的大國有更深的認識，確實有滿多地方值得台灣來借鏡。這將近三個月的生活中，除了週一到週五的實習之外，最重要的部分就是旅行。就我自己來說，足跡最東到達德勒斯登(Dresdem)，最南到德國第一高峰楚格峰，最西到荷蘭的鹿特丹，其他還去過鈕倫堡、柏林、波茲坦、阿姆斯特丹、露迪斯海姆、德勒斯登、科隆與波昂，以及魯爾區的波鴻，多特蒙。每次的旅行都充滿讓人驚喜的意外，例如去露迪斯海姆的火車上，就有熱情的德國旅客，拿出他們的法國葡萄酒與我們共飲；在楚格峰山腳下的小鎮參與他們啤酒節的慶祝活動; 在德勒斯登正巧遇到慶祝建城八百週年紀念，煙火、演唱會和市集讓整個城市成為不夜城。柏林的同性戀遊行，在阿姆斯特丹騎自行車，在多特蒙看德語發音的電影，第一次在河邊過夜，第一次在德國人家作客用餐，第一場的德國甲組職業球賽，第一次受邀參加德國朋友的生日派對，以及德國的食物，豬腳，麵包，香腸，雖然不習慣，但是都是道地的德國味。而去楚格峰的那星期，從出發到到達，含轉車一共坐了11個小時的火車，從星期五晚上出發，直到星期六清晨才到達，現在回想起來，那股拼勁還真是很不可思議。在旅行的過程中，最讓我欽佩的是德國交通的四通發達，特別是德國鐵路。這應該是在德國旅行之後，所有旅客都會同意的(但是誤點也滿常見的)。不僅中、大城市之間有鐵路連接，小城或是小鎮也有電車可以到達，一般有點規模的城市之內都會有輕軌電車。就算沒電車，也會有公共汽車可以到達。相較於台灣，除了台北交通網路比較具有規模之外，其他地區的大眾交通真的需要再多多加強了！因為減少汽機車的使用，不僅節約能源、減少污染，也舒緩塞車問題、提昇都市的生活品質。我在杜易斯堡就發現，即便它是德國第十一大城，沒見過上班時間塞車現象，空氣也依然清新。

我對德國的一些觀察:

一個有趣的例子，就可以看出東方與西方一些基本看法的不同。在杜易斯堡的街頭，有滿多讓女性照太陽光線的店。收費不便宜，三十分鐘要四歐元(太陽光是免費)。上門光顧的女性就是希望能將自己原本的白色膚色曬成褐色，聽說SKII化妝品在德國還有一種產品可以幫助女生皮膚變深。主要原因是德國男生覺得褐色皮膚的女生給人很健康的感覺，我辦公室的同事也說他是喜歡褐色皮膚的女生。東方國家對於女性美的感覺就很不相同，普遍都是覺得越白越美。此外，透過在學校的實習，我觀察到一些德國與台灣文化上的一些相異之處。首先，該系的研究生可以說是相當忙碌。我自然也不例外。我到達的第二天，我的同事Alex就分配給我很明確的任務。之後每星期我們會一同討論進度。並且構思該嘗試的方法。在實習單位我觀察到的是﹕每一位新手的研究，都是由一位系裡資深的成員來負責，這些資深的成員一般都是系裡的博士生或是擔任專門職務擁有博士學位的研究員。系上只有一位教授，但是我自己沒有機會跟教授直接作研究，而是由Alex來帶領我。系上工作的時間是早上八點到下午六點，工時長達十小時，這讓我滿意外的.一般來說，下午快六點就陸陸續續有人離開，但是還是有人會留到更晚。週末是不可能有人來工作，因為所有出路口都會上鎖。第二個我注意到的是系裡的研究題目多是與產業界合作的計劃，合作的公司不僅僅德國當地的公司，例如英飛凌、西門子，還有韓國與美國的公司，可以體會該系與產業界密切的合作。另外一點就是德國對博士研究生的觀念與台灣有明顯的不同。德國學制傳統上只有碩士與博士，高中畢業之後進入大學讀五年可以獲得碩士學位，如果申請就讀博士班通過，就等於成為系上的約聘員工之一，除了固定時間上下班，有固定的休假天數，當然還有一份薪水。在交出博士論文之後，即可畢業。所以博士班研究生已經不算是”學生”了。由於台灣的教育制度是仿自美國，博士班研究生其實並沒有這樣的差別。第四點我注意到的就是大學校園觀念是很模糊。在台灣，大學的校園是很明確的，甚至都有圍牆包圍起來方便管理。在北美，例如我去過的皇后大學，校園與周圍的社區是融合的，沒有特別的區隔，然而具體的校園範圍還是存在的。但是在杜易斯堡-艾森大學，可以說是完全沒有校園的概念，所有學校的建築物和設施散布在整個城市，我在該校三個月，偶爾漫步在街道，就會看到一些學校的建築物夾雜在周圍其他樓房之間。當地的學生離開學校建築，就是在附近的餐廳，小吃攤聊天或討論，可以說學生的生活完全是與該城市息息相關。在來的一點則是︰喝啤酒確實是交德國朋友的好方法之一。我與住在同宿舍的德國學生見面往往也只是打聲招呼，同個辦公室工作的德國同事在下班後也幾乎沒什麼交集。然而如果相約一起到酒吧喝點啤酒，或是在像生日派對之類的場合一起喝酒慶祝，是很容易將話題聊開的。感覺平常比較惜字如金的德國朋友，邊喝啤酒邊聊天，似乎變得健談多了。最後一點的觀察是德國人對交友態度的不同。在台灣，我們的生活圈決定了我們的朋友，可能工作，旅遊，進修的朋友都是那幾位熟識的人。但是在我的系上，我的觀察是德國人下班後不太會在另外約同事參與活動。上班的同事是上班的同事，下班後，他們有另一群朋友。上面的觀察或許有點以偏蓋全，還是可以大約感受到東西方文化上明顯的差異。

在德國的研究 :

我在德國研究的主題是:低密度同位檢查碼。這是在通道編碼領域很新的題目。低密度同位檢查碼早在五十年前就被提出，但是因為當時電腦運算能力的不足，一直無法驗證它真正的效能，導致相關的研究者早已遺忘了它。直到1999年一位英國學者重新驗證它的效能，發現它比現知所有的通道編碼方法都更接近薛農極限，引起該領域的震撼。目前，低密度同位檢查碼已經被相當多的通訊標準所使用，我所參考的標準是IEEE 802.16e，也就是簡稱WiMAX的新一代通信標準。在德國的三個月中，我完成了WlMAX使用的低密度同位檢查碼的編碼器與解碼器程式，並且為了實現在數位信號處理器(DSP)上，改以化簡過後的解碼量度來實現解碼演算法，並且解碼過程全部採用定點(fix-point)運算。模擬的結果確實達到Alex對我要求的效能衰減不能大於0.1dB的限制。其中最大的困難時間應該是剛開始的階段，原因是對我與對Alex來說，低密度同位檢查碼都是新的題目，我們之前都未有深入了解過。Alex幫我從圖書館借一些相關的書籍，我也利用網際網路和電子資料庫找尋能幫助我入門的論文，並且開始寫模擬程式。先從解碼器、編碼器開始，再修改資料結構使得解碼器、編碼器都可以以更快速度運算。之後加入interleaver與de-interleaver。再之後是加入更多調變方式，進而是新的通道模型。緩慢但是謹慎的打造各個模組，也在實習結束前完成所有預期的工作。我也將這段期間完成的工作，寫成一份科技報告。對我來說，我沒有預期我可以完成，但是在第一個解碼器完成之後，一切就步入軌道，甚至超出我預期。Alex每週固定的討論對我很有幫助，雖然他不是實質的直接幫我解決問題，但是往往可以給我一些我沒想到的方向去嘗試。此外，以往在台灣的研究我會太依賴老師，可是在德國我被逼著必須自己獨立解決，對我是很好的啟發和鼓舞，因為我發現我是有能力這麼做的，也確實做到了。在WiMAX的低密度同位檢查碼有個特性(或問題)就是碼長不很長，最長是2304位元，這跟學理討論的碼動輒兩三萬位元的碼長非常的不同，導致它的一些優異特點沒有被明顯的表現出來。也就有比較Turbo Codes跟低密度同位檢查碼的必要。原本我也要進一步比較使用Turbo Code和使用低密度同位檢查碼在效能上，實作複雜度，解碼運算複雜度的種種不同，供之後研究生在做Software define radio相關研究的參考。但是因為時間的不足，最後只好決定將這部分帶回台灣繼續進行，作為我與Alex合作的題目。

心得與建議 :

對於這次的實習，我獲益良多。一方便是有機會能與德國一樣從事相關題目的研究生交流，交換彼此在這項研究上的心得﹔另一方面，也實際體驗德國大學如何訓練研究生。德國大學對研究生的態度和訓練方法，確實是跟台灣很不一樣﹔此外，也親身體驗了德國的文化，很多對德國一些固有的想法也被打破，例如﹕台灣人會說德國火車從不誤點的，事實上火車誤點在德國不會不常見﹔以前也一直以為豬腳是全德國都有的在地食物，但是其實豬腳只是德國巴伐利亞地區的特產。但是也有些對德國人固有印象真實的呈現，很多德國人做事的認真和一絲不苟，真的讓人佩服。唯一對這項計劃的建議，可能是加強宣傳。這真是很棒的暑期交流計劃，但是聽說德國方面申請很熱烈，台灣方面申請人數卻是不多。或許是因為台灣博士班研究生對這項計劃不了解所以裹足不前所致，如果能有更多的文宣或是說明，也許能讓更多人認識這個計劃也申請這個計劃。


There are four parts in this report. In the first part, I begin by the life during my internship. The second part is on the differences of cultures between Chinese people and Germany people. The third part is about my research cooperating with German university. The final part is summary and my suggestion for this exchange program.

The life during my internship:

After I got the information of this program, I decided to apply for it in this year. Before leaving Taiwan, I didn’t prepare anything because Ms. Knapp helped us to arrange almost everything to go to Germany. I only have to prepare some necessaries. The real challenge was from the time we left Bonn to the university we had our internship there. Due to the school building I would work in is very closed to Duisburg Hbf, the member of the university told me that I can go to there by foot about 10 minutes. However, it was the first time I visit this city, so it was very difficult to find the correct way. I was luck that I met an old lady in street who can’t speak English want to lead me to the building and I arrived the building finally. After having some introduction to the department, I went to my dormitory with help of a strange graduate student who also studied in Duisburg-Essen University. I acknowledge the old lady and the graduate student who helped me in the first day in Duisburg. Actually, in the first day I stayed in Duisburg, I worried about how I can to be used to the life there. However, the following days shows that this program is so great and I shouldn’t worried. The greatest thing in this program is that I made so many friends in Germany. During the three months, I worked on the Monday to Friday and traveled on the weekends. I had been some cities of Germany, for example: Dresdem, Zugspitze, Nürnberg, Berlin, Potsdam, Bochum, Dortmund, Rudesheim, Köln and Bonn. And I also went to the cities of Netherland, including Amsterdam Delft, Utrecht and Rotterdam. Every travel gave me much surprise. For example: in the train which went to Rudesheim, we met some German traveler shared their wine with us; we took part in the beer festival of a small town beside Zugspitze.; we took part in the 800th anniversary of Dresdem. Firework, pop music concert and night market made the whole people in Dresdem didn’t sleep at that night. We took part in the march of gays and lesbians in Berlin; we took the bike in Amsterdam; we watched our first movie, “Superman” which speak German, in Germany. Besides, it is first time I sleep beside the riverside, the first time I have a dinner with a Germany family, the first time I go to the German soccer game. Of course we also taste Germany foods, including German breads, sausages and pettitoes. After so many travels in Germany, the most impressive thing to me is German railway. German cites connect by railway. Although small cities don’t have Deutschen Bahn, they have S-Bahn. In some big cities, they also have U-Bahn inside them. In Taiwan, only Taipei zone has enough transportation system and other cities and town don’t have good public transportation. I think Taiwan’s government should push the public transportation systems right now because of so many advantages. Public transportation systems can reduce the requests of petroleum, reduce the air pollution, and keep off traffic jam.

Some observation of mine in Germany:

First, let me give an interesting example. In Germany, cities have many “Sonne Studios”, ladies go to the shops to make their skin brown. I think it is not cheap because it need 4 euros per 30 minutes, and sunny is free. I also heard that a make-up company, SK-II, has a product in Germany that can make ladies’ skin brown easier. The reason why females in Germany wish their skin brown is because people there thinks that female is more beautiful if her skin is not too white. My coworkers in Germany also think so. I think the viewpoint about the beauty is very different to Chinese culture. Most Chinese people think that female is more beautiful if her skin more white. By this example, I think it can easy to see that there are some very big differences between Chinese culture and Germany culture.Besides, during the internship in university, I can easier to observe Germany life. I note that the graduate students in the department are very busy. And so did I there. In the second day I went to the department, the professor told me that it is better I can arrive at the office at 8:00am and leave the office at 6:00pm. The work hour is about 10 hours. Actually, many graduate students took more than 10 hours a day. Second, the viewpoint of Ph.D. student in Germany is very different to Taiwan. To German, Ph.D. student hold a position in their department. So, a Ph.D. student is actually not a “student” but a “employee”. Ph.D. students in Germany have salary every month and need do some work for the department. Besides, they also have regular vacations. However, Taiwan’s Ph.D. students surely are “student”, it is no problem.In Germany, many universities don’t have their campus. For example, the buildings of Duisburg-Essen University distributes over the whole city. But in Taiwan, campus of a university has a definite area, even most of university campuses are surrounded by walls. Because of the indefinite property of the campus, the life of students who studying in Duisburg-Essen University has very closed relationship with the cities, Duisburg and Essen. After leaving class, students go to the coffee shop or bar to chat or discuss with their classmates.I think to drink beer is a very good way to make friends with German people. Maybe the daily life is busy, I don’t have many chance to talk to my dormmates and coworkers. Usually, when I met them, we just said hello to each other, then we did our job respective. But, drinking beer with Germans in bar and restaurant can makes almost all Germans chat lively.The last point I note is that the German way of making friends. In Taiwan, the circle of our life decides which friends we make. Taiwanese usually work, travel and study with the same group of people. However, Germany people make friends in different ways. For example, based on my observation, my coworkers in the department don’t have activities after leaving office. They have activities with other friends. A German may go fishing with one group of his friends, but travel with another group of his friends.

My research in Germany:

My research topic in Germany is low-density parity-check (LDPC) block codes. It is a very new topic of coding theory. The publication of Claude Shannon's 1948 paper, “A mathematical theory of communication”, marked the beginning of coding theory. In his paper, Shannon established that every communication channel has associated with it a number called the channel capacity. While Shannon's noisy channel coding theorem establishes the existence of capacity approaching codes, it provides no explicit guidance as to how the codes should be chosen, nor how messages can be recovered from the noise-corrupted channel output. The challenges to modern communications are to design sets of suitably distinct codewords close to the Shannon limit, and to devise methods for extracting estimates of transmitted messages from the output of a noise-contaminated channel, and to do so without excessive decoder complexity. Low-density parity-check codes are capable of performance very close to the Shannon limit when appropriately decoded with soft iterative decoding algorithm. Soft iterative decoders for LDPC codes make essential use of graphs to represent codes, passing probabilistic messages along the edges of the graph. The use of graphs for iterative decoding can be traced to Gallager, although for over 30 years barely a handful of researchers pursued the consequences of Gallager's work. This situation changed dramatically with the independent rediscovery of LDPC codes by several researchers in the mid-1990s, and graph-based representations of codes are now an integral feature in the development of both the theoretical understanding and implementation of iterative decoders. During the three months internship, I finish the soft iteration decoder and implementation of fast encoding algorithm of LDPC codes in IEEE 802.16e standards. Besides, we want to execute our codec in digital signal processor, so we need to modify the original floating decoding to fix-point decoding. Indeed, our simulations show that the gap between the original version and modified version is under 0.1 dB.The most difficult time during my internship is the beginning time because both Alex, a German Ph.D. student who worked with me, and I don’t have any experience about LDPC codes implementation. Alex helped me to find some useful books from library and I searched some tutorial paper from Internet. After reading those reference data carefully and work hard on the program of sum-product algorithm, I finished the first version of the decoder. Based on this decoder, I can start to writer and verify the other part of simulation program I constructed. Although Alex didn’t help me to solve my problems directly, he discusses with me about me difficulty one time per week. The discussion is useful to me because Alex can give me some idea I never thought.

Summary and Suggestion:

During the three months internship, I study the knowledge of LDPC codes and related papers. Besides, I finish the encoder, interleaver, deinterleaver, SUI channel model and some different decoding methods of LDPC codes in IEEE 802.16e. I also compare the performances of those decoding algorithm by simulations. There are several works we can do in the future. 1. To integrate LDPC codes simulation with OFMD modulation under SUI fading channel models.2. To compare the complexity-reduction decoder to the sum-product decoding under SUI fading channels.3. To derivate the decoding metric of LDPC codes with imperfect channel state information (CSI) or without CSI. This summer program is so good to me. If there is anything I should suggestion for this program, I think it should be let everyone who fit the quality to apply for this program to know it. I know that there are many Germany students apply for it, but there are not many Taiwan Ph.D. student are interesting in it. The reason maybe is Taiwan’s students don’t understand this program enough and have too many questions on it. If NSC can provide more documents to describe the program, Taiwan’s students can know it more and maybe want to apply for this program.

My proposal for NSC-DAAD sandwich program

Abstract of my proposed project

Keywords: Time-varying multipath fading channel, Channel estimation, Channel equalization, Error correcting coding

In this research project, the principle and practice of non-linear error correcting codes, jointly considering channel estimation and equalization, for slowly and fast multi-path fading channels will be developed, along with their corresponding maximum-likelihood decoding algorithms. After two years of working on this subject, we have found a common mathematical property that all good (non-linear) codes have to satisfy for fading channels. Based on this property, we can construct codes by rules, not by computer searches, which have comparable performance to the computer-searched optimal code by Skoglund. Moreover, a maximum-likelihood recursive decoding metric formula for sequential decoding algorithms for our codes has been established. Our achievement made feasible the combining-estimation-and-equalization codes over the fading channels. As a result, reaching high transmission rate in a highly mobile environment may become an achievable goal by the introduction of our codes.

Introduce to myself

I come from a normal family in Tainan, with my father serving in a bank and mother. My family education told me to always try my best in accomplishing every task and grab every opportunity given. My family provided a suitable learning environment. It cared and expectations positively affected my behavior and way of life. On the other side, it also taught me several ethical teachings, one of which stated, “Life should be embraced by being thankful.” Its valuable lessons encouraged me to become a highly self-respected individual. My outdoor activities include: jogging, Tai-Chi and swimming.

I believe that, “Put yourself in other people's shoes”. There has been increasing disappointments regarding young people my age being less self-disciplined and more self-centered. I have been involved in many community service activities such as children career and orphanages work through school. By doing volunteer work, not only have I learned to appreciate every human being, in spite of their races, religions and cultural backgrounds, I learned to be more helpful and considerate.

I am not afraid to try new things. The field in which I am interested in is mainly working on research and development of communications, mathematics and statistics. I am determined to face possible new challenges ahead and I know I can make very positive contributions to our research society.

My professional capacity

I received my B.S. degree with the second best grade among all undergraduates in the department of information and computer engineering, Chung-Yuan Christian University, in 1994, and M.S. degrees in communications engineering from National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Taiwan, Republic of China, in 2000. I am currently studying toward my Ph.D. degree in the department of communications engineering, NCTU, Taiwan.

I performed well in my undergraduate study, and received the top-level grade in most of the major courses such as Operating System, System Programming, Computer Organization, and Digital Circuit Design. My master thesis was on the measurement and its analysis for voice over IP traffic. During July 2000 to October 2000, I worked at Telephone and Networking Communications Equipment Corporation, in which I was assigned the task of developing a CELP-based vocoder for Microsoft Windows ACM. As only a part-timer, I developed an approach that adds slight redundancy to the packets transmitted so that the codec can survive potentially bursty packet-loss in Internet. This approach was later patented in Taiwan. Later, I served in the Chinese Army, Taiwan for two years, during which I was a second lieutenant of the Communications Development Office, Ministry of National Defense. I was in charge of an E1 receiving system for satellite communications, which is used to parse the signals capturing from enemy's satellites. After fulfilling his military service, I was admitted to the Ph.D. program in the department of communications engineering, NCTU, Taiwan, and became the assistant lecturer of a network experimental course. The students who enrolled to this experimental course need to experiment on protocols including wireless LAN, CATV, SMNP, SDL and other state-of-the-art network architectures. From July 2005 to December 2005, I visited the department of mathematics and statistics, Queen's University, Canada, together with his advisor.

The graduate courses that I had taken include Digital Communications, Random Process, Digital Signal Process, Decision and Estimation, Real Analysis, Operation Research, Information Theory, and Queueing Theory. My Ph.D. research subject is mainly on how to design a code with channel estimation and equalization capability, which can be used to combat the highly time varying nature of channels without additional estimation and equalization circuitries.

My motivations to take part in this program

The motivations that I want to participate in the DAAD program are the most advance telecommunications industries and researches in Germany and my PhD research topic which is also from a German scientist’s publication. It is no doubt that German’s telecommunication companies have the up-to-day technologies of communications engineering, for example: Siemens, Becker…and so on. The research of communications in Germany is also the one of the leading countries in the world. Actually, my PhD dissertation is following a Germany scientist’s result.Channel estimation and equalization for highly time-varying channels are generally considered a difficult research subject. Up to the present, no effective techniques were shown to be able to survive very high-bit-rate transmission over a highly mobile environment. This is perhaps due to that the present wireless communication receiver separates the functional blocks of channel estimation and channel equalization, as well as channel coding, in system design. Such separate system design simplifies their development and implementation, but limits their capability against the time-varying nature of the channel. In 2002, Skoglund, Giese, a German scientist, and Parkvall showed by simulations that a proper joint design of channel estimation, equalization and coding can markedly outperform the a separate design system with genie-aided channel estimation and perfect equalization over a time-varying fading channel. Their results motivate us to research on the subject on how to design a code with channel estimation and equalization capability, which can be used to combat the highly time varying nature of channels without additional estimation and equalization functional blocks.

The non-linear code from Skoglund, Giese and Parkvall, which was used to demonstrate the potential of joint system design in performance, was obtained by computer search, and is irregular in code structure. Thus, there exists no efficient decoding scheme for their code. In addition, no systematic code construction rule was found. These make their finding of less use in practice. My dissertation therefore focuses on a systematic construction of possibly non-linear codes with channel estimation and equalization capability, following Skoglund, Giese and Parkvall's work, so that the codeword length can be adjustable according to the demand. At the same time, I shall design an efficient decoding algorithm, of maximum-likelihood (ML) whenever possible and feasible in implementation, for his codes.

After two years of hard working on the problem, my advisor and I proved analytically by re-formulating the ML metric for time-varying fading channels that on-the-fly maximum-likelihood sequential decoding even for Skoglund, Giese and Parkvall's non-linear code is attainable. We have also constructed several codes by rules, not by computer searches, which have comparable performance to Skoglund, Giese and Parkvall's code. My current work is focused on the generalization of our code construction rules so that codes with regular structures for any codeword length can be constructed. I wish I can have the opportunity to visit and discuss my research problems with the German scholars who also focus on the similar topics.

我對於加拿大大學國際化的一些觀察

民國九十四年七月到十二月，在教育部菁英留學計畫的補助下，我跟隨指導教授至加拿大皇后大學(Queen's University)數學暨統計學系訪問。皇后大學創校至今已有一百三十多年，其工程與科學領域在二○○五年是加國排名第二的學校，僅次於多倫多大學。在該系，我參與菲立教授(Prof. Fady Alajaji)所主持的「訊息與通訊理論團隊｣(Information and Communication Theory Group) ，並且選修「分析核心課程(一)｣(Core Course in Analysis I)和「通訊論文研討｣(Communications Seminar)兩門課。

漫步在皇后大學的校園中可以發現，學校有很大比例的學生是非白人學生，皇后大學的國際學生約佔全校一萬六千名學生的7%，比例相當的高。事實上，教育服務業是加拿大是全力發展的產業之一，該國大學(加拿大所有大學皆為公立)國際學生所佔的比例普遍都在5%以上，加拿大另一所名校麥克吉爾大學(McGill University)的國際學生比例甚至超過20%。其實招收外籍生最近也成為許多臺灣的學校急於推動的方向，最主要的原因是這幾年來臺灣的大學校院的數目已經突破160所。相對於人口數皆多於臺灣的日本99所、法國83所、加拿大80多所，臺灣的大學數目不斷增加，但國家給與的經費和資源卻未相對成長。此外，臺灣已經步入少子化的社會，二○○五年的嬰兒出生數降至20萬7千名，人口逼近零成長，可以預見未來的數年內大學生招生人數就將會多於全部申請人數，許多學校會因為招生不足面臨發展上的危機。
類似臺灣這種「國家補助減少，本國學生數降低」的情況，澳大利亞和加拿大等國近幾年來學費不斷調漲，日本則是讓國立大學法人化來減少政府的負擔，歐洲數個免收學費的國家，例如德國，也開始調整免學費政策。除了以上的措施，爭取學費是本地學生二至四倍的國際學生入學，自然也成為大學維持經費的重要方法之一。目前陸續已經有大學成立國際研究生院以全英文教學來打破語言的籓籬，教育部也推出「臺灣獎學金」並且派員到歐美各大學宣傳，但是成效都不如預期。
教育的傳統功能一直是在培育本國的人力素質，對於來自國際學生的收入一直被認為只是錦上添花，招收國際學生的目的也是著眼於外交或是文化交流。但是高等教育確實是個可觀收益的產業，以美國為例，根據美國國際教育研究所(Institute of International Education)的調查顯示，在二○○五年約有五十六萬五千名的外籍學生在美國求學，並且百分之七十二的外籍學生其經濟來源不是來自美國，為美國帶來約一百三十三億美金的經濟收益。美國商務部的統計資料就指出，提供外籍學生高等教育已經是美國第五大出口服務業。國際化是各國高等教育的共識，有幾項趨勢是值得臺灣注意：

第一、亞洲的潛在競爭對手都已經著手開始布局，臺灣與競爭對手的差距正在拉大之中。日本從一九八三年就擬定計畫要將留學生人數由當時1萬名擴增十倍，這個目標經過二十年的努力在二○○二年達成。此外，日本文部省在二○一○年推動的21st Century COE Program，其中一個目標是吸引頂尖的外國學生到日本就讀博士班，進一步提升日本研究的素質。韓國的「留學韓國計畫」預定於二○一○年將目前1.6萬名的國際學生增加至5萬名。目前新加坡約有5萬名國際學生，新加坡在二○○三年成立的「環球校園」計畫希望能於二○一二年將人數增加到20萬人，並且將教育服務業所佔的國內生產總值由3.6%提高到5%。臺灣現在的留學生人數約為1200名，二○○二年教育部推出「獎勵大學院校擴大招收外國學生補助」和「臺灣獎學金」並且派員到歐美各大學宣傳，希望能在在二○一一年將留學生人數提昇至12,000人。相較於韓國的野心，臺灣所設定的目標是保守許多，在爭取留學生的措施上是可以更為積極。

第二、教育服務業將成為一項重要的服務產業。美國是世界上招收最多外籍學生的國家，之前也談到美國在高等教育上的經濟效應相當可觀，其次則是英國，目前约有27萬名外籍學生在英國就學，每年為英國經濟做出了的30億英鎊的貢獻。如果外籍學生每年持續成長，到二○二○年，英國將有87萬名外籍學生，英國政府從外籍學生身上可得130億英鎊的收入。至於同樣是英語系國家的澳大利亞和加拿大，根據澳大利亞國際發展署的統計，在所有全職攻讀學位(full-time degree program)的學生中，二○○三年9月澳洲的外國留學生就達到174,732 人，比二○○二年同期增加12.5%，招收海外學生所得的收入從1998年的7億零100萬澳元上升到二○○二年的14億澳元。即然在過去十年澳洲政府投入教育方面的經費呈減少趨勢，各大學所收取的國際學生的學費正好可以彌補這個資金缺口；加拿大統計局的資料顯示二○○三-○四年有7萬名外國學生註册入大學，其中約有5萬名是進入大學以上學校，總人數比前一年增加了差不多17%，大约一半國際學生来自亞洲，外國學生在加拿大大學登記入學的人數比過去十年增加了一倍，溢注了約3億1千5百萬加元的學費收入。外國留學生人數第三名的德國則有22萬名外國留學生。此外，俄羅斯也有10萬名外國留學生，中國大陸約有9萬名。由上述的數據可以看出在，世界各國都在努力擴張高等教育規模以搶食留學市場這塊大餅。

第三、國際化的高等教育將會成為良性循環。透過吸引更多的國際學生申請入學，創造更加的學習環境和發展經費，近而又更能吸引外籍學生。普遍來說，招收國際學生的人數多能呈現持平或是穩定成長。以美國來說，雖然在911攻擊後顧慮國家安全的因素一度有外籍學生下跌，但是二○○三人數依舊是回升。對外籍學生而言，能吸引其前來就學的因素是包括兩項指標：留學地的政治、經濟和文化進步程度和學校創造的學習環境。前者有賴於全民的努力；後者則是政府和學校可以立即改善。國際化使得來自世界不同地方的優秀學子一起學習和成長，除了增加學校收入，本籍學生也可以經由外籍學生所引入的文化與課業的競爭，透過多元文化在校內交流， 增強本籍學生的國際視野。 很明顯的，高等教育的國際化是高附加價值、長期獲利並且是知識密集導向的產業。

第四、高教國際化擴大學生來源，更有機會招收到更優秀的學生。對學校來說，學術的競爭就是人才的競爭，也只有招收到素質優異的學生從事研究，大學才有機會在競爭劇烈的學術環境下取得領先。招收國際學生不僅可以進一步延攬他國優秀的學生參與本國的研究，也有機會讓優秀的外籍生留在本地服務。在經濟和環境的考量下，可以將優秀的留學生留下。此外，增加國際影響力，有外交上的額外收益。讓外籍人士更認識學校所在地的風土民情，是重要的附加價值，國際學生返回母國後，有機會成為該國精英，在將來牽涉到他原本留學地的決策時，因為出於熟悉或情感，而做出於有利於留學國的決定，可以將留學國影響力向外拓展。


加拿大經驗給臺灣的啟示

在加拿大訪問的半年期間，對於像皇后大學學生和校風如此多元的學校有更深的認識，加拿大大學國際化的程度能有現在的水準有其先天的優勢和後天的努力，許多政策是值得臺灣當局省思。加拿大是世界上土地第二大的國家，全國分為十省三領域， 其人口總數約三千兩百萬，是臺灣的一點四倍，大多是集中在英屬哥倫比亞省（British Columbia），安大略省（Ontario）和魁北克（Quebec）省。主要吸引留學生的地區也是以這三個省為主。由於北美本身的移民傳統，加拿大政府深深了解人才市立國的根本，特別強調多元文化主義（multiculturalism）政策，配合接收新移民為手段，主要的研究人力就是大量的引入來自中國大陸、印度和東歐等優秀的研究人員。目前在研究所(包括碩博士班)就讀的學生比例達到48%，也就是說每十名研究所學生，就有五名是國際學生，也為加拿大創造可觀的財富。以英語、法語為官方語言的加拿大雖在留學市場上占盡先天優勢，但是後天打造出的教育環境與品質，與資源整合的行銷策略，卻是臺灣目前面臨巨大挑戰的大學值得學習之處。由於加拿大緊鄰美國，必須有好的政策來因應美國的磁吸效應，情況與臺灣和中國大陸間的關係類似，加國政府採取的措施有：

第一 、語言優勢。由於加拿大包含英國裔和法國裔，英語是國際語言而法語也是國際上重要的語言之一。加拿大各大學普遍立用設有英語或法語的語文學校，廣收外籍學生到加拿大作短中期，三個月到一年，的語言進修（主要是英語）。其實中文也有一樣的優勢，除了英語之外最多人使用的就是中文了，加上包括中國大陸、香港、臺灣華人經濟影響力的崛起，因為經濟因素的考量，使得全球學習中文的需求迅速擴增，以美國為例，高中學中文已經列入專業選修，東南亞的泰國更要求全國中學校都需要有教授中文的教師。

第二 、留學市場的自我定位明確。加拿大大學卻不計代價維持高教育品質，除了提供內需市場外，在留學市場上，也以高品質卻相對美國和英國更低廉的學費，外籍研究生的學費每年約28萬新臺幣，成為留學市場上其他英語系國家強勁的競爭對手，使加拿大在世界留學市場繼續保持強勁的競爭力。臺灣在中華文化圈的各個地區中，消費水準高於中國大陸，但是低於香港和新加坡。臺灣在教學環境也是大幅領先中國大陸，但是與香港和新加坡相比還是不足。在留學市場的定位應該是放在價位適中，但是積極加強教育的品質，提供物超所值的教育服務。

第三、加拿大構造其優美與舒適的環境，吸引優秀研究人員移民到加國研究機構及大學從事教學及研究工作。加拿大強調的多元文化主義使得國民對外來人士非常包容和友善，在法規方面提供相當的便利，利用允許外籍學生校外打工貼補生活費，穫得學位後也可以伸請工作簽證工作一至兩年。其實臺灣也有相同的優勢，對法國頂尖學府巴黎國立政治學院(Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques/Sciences Po)的學生到兩岸三地學習中文後所做的調查發現是到臺灣的效果最好，其中最主要的原因就是臺灣人更為親切、友善、多元。新聞局在民國94年上半年對外籍人士所作的民調也指出，有七成以上的外籍人士認為臺灣各方面都優於中國大陸。然而在法規上有些地方是需要調整，現行法規對外籍學生有相當多的限制，外國人居留辦法就規定:外籍學生在語言中心就學，居留不得超過兩年。

四、特有的國際學校。加拿大的中小學一樣分為公私立，一般加拿大公民是就讀公立學校，私立學校又分為獨立學校、國際學校以及宗教學校。獨立學校也就是所謂貴族與菁英學校。 宗教學校與臺灣宗教辦學相同。 國際學校是加拿大新的教育型態，學生來源是來自海外。除了提供一般的中學教育課程之外，特別包括有語言和文化的課程及活動，幫助來自海外的學生在加拿大生活與學習。對於臺灣，專門為外國學生設立的學校或課程，除了語言中心和國際研究生院之外，藉由對華人經濟圈的掘起，開辦國際商管學程(IMBA)也是可行的方向，目前已有台大、政大和中山等學校開辦，這類的課程由於中國大陸還是在摸索階段，還不至於成為臺灣的競爭對手，但是其他地緣相近的學校也開始注意這方面的機會。以位於美國夏威夷的Japan-America Institute of Management Science所開辦的Fujitsu Scholarship programs為例，就是結合日本商業力量，美國管理知識，和中國大陸貿易市場的新型態管理課程。臺灣更應該急起直追，吸引對這類商管知識有興趣的學子來臺就讀。

Overseas Study Plan

This semester I apply for exchange to Netherlands or mainland China. If I could obtain the chance to be the exchange student, there are two things I would focus on: the operation mode of the foreign companies, and the policy which the external government and companies face the Post-WTO Era.

On the first topic, Netherlands and mainland China both are good examples. Because Netherlands is a traditional country on international trade and owns many international companies, for example: Philip and ABN AMRO, it is sure that there are many things we can learn from those international companies, including international marketing, strategy and management. On mainland China, it only opens itself only 25 years and become the most important country products and exports goods. Its achievement is great but it also has many problems. Besides, Netherlands and mainland China are two extra examples of the Post-WTO Era under the trade liberation which is the mainstream of international trade. International trading is the specialty of Netherlands, and it should be the vested interests from canceling custom duty. However, the Europe countries including Netherlands meet the competition of the low-price product from mainland China. By the other hand, mainland China has to face another issue in the Post-WTO Era, the pressure to open its market. Without local government protection, the companies of mainland China have to face huge challenge from other countries. We can image that the situation of international trade is very different in the Post-WTO Era. Those differences are what I am interesting in and want to understand.

Through the position of exchange student to either Netherlands or mainland China, I can observe the topics I care deeply. The materials I collect during the period also will be the content of my master thesis. I believe that the experience also will be a good training for my future work.
In summary, the period of exchange student position, I will focus on the course I take and the materials I care, external companies operations and government policy. Besides, I also would like to understand the cultures there and enhance my experience to cooperate with other people come from different area.