Actual Progress

Well, this has been a long time coming.

I know some of you have probably written me off, but I've still been plugging away at this thing.

It may not seem like much, but the image to the left is the culmination of almost two years of work - in the evenings, after working more than 40 hours a week at a job that will not lead to a career.

It finally meshed with no bad elements.

Now for a drink.

(It's a finite element model of a Porcine Anterior Cruciate Ligament)

Final Experiments

Well, since it's been awhile, I felt like I should drop in a little update.

As some of you may know, I have two last (relatively minor) experiments to complete. The first involves tracking points on a knee as it is flexed, and the second involves slicing an insertion through the middle to determine the orientation of the fibers at the bone. I had been working on the knee-flexion experiment when I ran into a little problem: freezing makes sharpie marks go away.

I used a sharpie marker to mark the points that I was tracking. In-between two phases of the experiment, I froze the tissue so that I could do some analysis and continue working at a later date. Since the marks ran when I thawed the tissue, I now have to restart the experiment. Fortunately, I was able to get enough info so that I could complete the analysis portion, and that is what I am finishing up now.

Curve Fitting

The way I present a lot of my data is as a 'surface' of values (stiffness, in my case) with respect to two independent variables (angular displacement). It's really the only way you can show the data to someone and have them understand it quickly (tables of the data would be too large and intractable).

One aspect of my dissertation is that I use collected stiffness data to predict what the stiffness would be at an unmeasured set of angles, so I have to come up with some way to do that. One way would be to interpolate from the measured data, but that would make any software I write pretty ugly, since it would have to include the big, intractable tables in the code. A better way is to use a statistical method called regression to find the best equation that fits my data, and then use that equation to do any prediction. Unfortunately, most regression software packages (and descriptions in textbooks and on the web) only deal with scenarios where you have one independent variable. Since I am using two, it was beginning to look like I would have to go the ugly route.

The update for tonight is that I found an easy way to do it, in Excel nonetheless. I'm very pleased about that.

Data Presentation

For the last little bit now, I've been trying to organize the way I'll present some of the data in my dissertation.

As part of my outline, I've been inserting the name of the type of graph and/or table at the appropriate place, to help with organization and consistency. I got to a point in the results section where I did not know the best way to present the data, and I've been playing with different tables and graphs so as to best show what I measured.

Hopefully, this initial layout work will make the writing a little easier.

Still Outlining

After almost a week away (at my hot wife's birthday bash {that's for you babe}), I am back to the grindstone, still working on the outline. It's at 8 pages now, and I'm still outlining the Results section. Like I said, this is detailed.

Working on the Outline

Today and tonight, I worked on the outline of my dissertation.

This is an exceptionally detailed outline of everything that will go into the dissertation. It is currently at about 4 full pages, and I am not finished with the methods yet. I expect the complete outline will weigh in at about 7 pages.

You may not think that this is that important a step, but without an outline, I tend to wander about as I write, getting nothing concrete done.

I started into this outline at the request of my advisor. He prefers that dissertations be written as one complete document, 'book style', that can (and must) be read start to finish. Other advisors prefer the 'paper collection' style, where each chapter in the document is almost a stand-alone piece that can, ideally, be published without much additional effort. I originally started with the paper collection style, which is why I needed to redo the outline.

While strictly a stylistic preference, the book style allows the author to include everything done while working toward the degree. In my case, the book style makes more sense, since there are large portions of the work that I have done that led to the final product. That work would be more or less left out if I went with the paper collection style.

All Right Already

OK.

I give.

You want to know how goes the dissertation writing? Fine, I'll tell you.

In serial form.

Check back, as frequently as you like, and I'll let you know how things are going.

Just stop asking about it.