Four Pillars of our Work Culture

Majority of us spend a major portion of our life in work places. Be it a casual laborer, a clerk, a banker or an officer, each of them have to do their part to earn a living. But what makes work more enjoyable is due to the associated work culture. This dimension of seeing work would bring life to our activities. An old saying goes 'Work is Worship'. How do we put this in practice?

Our ancient scriptures talks about work in so much detail. The system of work was very much related to the culture of yoga ('linking up' or union) - in particular it is known as "Karma Yoga" (BG Chapter 3). The essence of this process is to view work without expecting any personal rewards out of it. In other words 'To work for works sake'. This method of approaching work would make one free from the bondage of ones work. It is our duty to work, but one should not long for the fruits of that work (BG 2.47).  Here I wish to summarize the four pillars that will help one to do her/his work in accordance to this principle. (This post has been inspired from one of the speeches delivered by Dr. E. Sreedharan - 'Metro Man' to engineers)

1] Punctuality : Being punctual is a very important aspect in building a work culture. Most of today's jobs do not emphasize on an office time. However it is important for us to follow a daily routine where one comes to office in time and leaves the office in time. This virtue helps us to respect the time of  others. Be it a lecture one has to attend, be it a meeting or a finishing an assigned task - punctuality is significant.

2] Ethics and Integrity : Every job has its associated ethics. It is important to inform ones boss, if she/he goes on leave. One has to exercise integrity in each and every aspect. It is not an excuse that you were not aware of a certain rule. Integrity goes beyond honest and corruption free. It has to percolate through your entire persona, in each aspect of your personal life as well.

3] Professional Competence :  This aspect of the work culture brings out the cutting edge in a person. One should always update ones knowledge by exercising her/his scientific temper. Be it science, technology, culture, sports - one should always be up-to-date.

4] Social Commitment :  The fourth pillar of a good work culture is to ensure that your work reaches out to the society. Unfortunately, many of the present day corporate jobs forgets this giving back aspect. It is not at all impossible to include this aspect in ones priority. Ultimate satisfaction is derived  through giving (or contributing).

Our ancient texts also subscribe to what is known as regulated work. This means one should not be toiling in the workplace needlessly. There has to be a fine balance between work and life. This is also an indicator of ones efficiency in work. 

Tracking progress

Life is a journey. In the past one year I have been in the habit of tracking my journey. I got this inspiration from a friend who kept a simple google form to monitor his working, reading, recreational and sleeping activities. I also started doing the same and filled the google page on every single day. The outcome was amazing!

Especially filling the form helped me know how much of my 24 hour quota I was spending in different activities. It helped me go to bed on time and rise up on time.  I started becoming conscious of the exact duties I was supposed to do in a given day. Moreover, it helped me correct my mistakes committed previously. It is said that the highest perfection of life is attained  when one knows that she/he has a finite time to spend in her/his life. This is exactly what my progress tracker was doing

What questions I asked?

1. Wake up Time
2. Time to Bed
3. Sleep duration (including afternoon nap)
4. Reading (this included a set of journals related to my research)
5. Experimentation time (this included the amount of time spend in simulation/ hardware experiments)
6. Play/Recreation time
7. Self-Reflection and meditation time

We cannot plan everything in life. But certainly we can keep track of it or organize it. Recommend everyone to track your progress.

Practices for a Mindful Living

As usual I am reminded of a well known quote, which I have stuck on my laptop. "Early to bed and early to rise, keeps man healthy, wealthy and wise."

The quote always reminds me to improve on my sleep quality and maintain a sound mind in the morning. As a practitioner of yoga and meditation, I have experienced the benefits of sleeping early and rising early. As with the popular debate on whether it is good to sleep for 6 hrs or 7 hrs or more, I have a simple answer. What determines your daily performance is ultimately the sleep quality - how relaxed your body and mind becomes as you take rest. Although not a medical student, I realize that there is a inherent body clock which synchronizes with the circadian clock (Sun's timings). All bodily enzyme secretions are initiated when it is best rested. Another fact is the 'Blue-screen syndrome'. In the present times, people are so obsessed with their gadgets that the effect of these perpetrates into their sleep and hence increases the time to reach the deep sleep state. This factor significantly increases the REM (stands for Rapid Eye Movement) sleep and hence disturbs your night sleep.

What factor affect your sleep?

Although an exhaustive list is not possible, here are a few important causes that impact the sleep. The first important factor is your diet. Avoiding a heavy meal in the night has proven  to produce a nice sleep at night. Keeping away from hot beverages (tea/coffee) approximately 8-10 hrs before bed will  improve the sleep quality. 

Systematization of Knowledge

In research we always encounter three classes of works - previous works, recent works and upcoming works. Many of us take plenty of time to understand what others have done, without any solid idea of what we want to do. To avoid such a wasted effort the process of literature survey  is recommended. But there is more than that we should do, that is what I try to convey here.

It is said that to master a field an average human being requires 10,000 hrs ~ 417 days to be spend on that subject. And research is kind of mastery of a small subfield in the vast discipline of your interest. The journey in research mostly starts with a literature review - familiarization with the history of the work done in that field. This often deals with reading, sometime doing experiments, and some other times just skimming. In my experience, literature survey also happens to act as a filter (-I am from a DSP background) for choosing the right problem statement. It also helps in identifying opportunities and finding gaps in existing tree of knowledge. I would like to call this procedure more as a systematization of knowledge (or SoK, I heard this phrase in a talk few days back).  The reason being that, it give much more meaning to the purpose of the activity. In my opinion research work should also balance between theory and practice. I would like to share an analogy to make it clear. Imagine how a one winged bird will fly. The one winged bird cannot fly too long as it will always be changing direction because of the imbalance. Similar is the case with doing research with only theories. Unless the theory is brought into practice, the piece of work flies like a one winged bird.

Happy SoKing

Power of Choice

"You have control over your choices, but not on the consequences of those choices"

In this culture of apps, a plethora of doors opens you to a collection of choices. For instance, if one wants to learn music, he can get access to a large family of application in different musical genres - classical, western, fusion and others. And if you are particular in fitness, there is a whole range of apps to suit your requirement. The good thing about these tiny pieces of code in your device is that it puts you in schedule. In my case scheduling my day in the device calender allows me to be aware of my time. On the other side of the app spectra we have social media which helps us to stay connected. I am literally amazed on how fast the people independent of their generation are accustomed to the online culture. As with many other things, these advancements also brings forth a lot of setbacks. Most of us tend to be more and more tech addicted and driven by its virtual environment. I believe that education of the right kind can will enable them to be better aware of the choices that they take. The process involves a lot of unlearning and establishing an attitude of detachment towards the unreal things.

Thoughts from food : Lessons towards conscious living

" What we eat is what we are " 

Food is what keeps the life going in this planet. Every action we take has a relation to the food that we consume. In fact the food we consume has a direct relation to the very thought process in us. Many of us have forgotten this truth and often come under the grasp of  the culture of fast food and over-consumption.  The indent of this post is to encourage the readers to be consciously aware of  the  food that is part of our everyday life. We peep into a short history of human civilization. In the beginning of civilized living, humans were mainly an agrarian society and were totally dependent on nature. During this early period, the approach was primarily revolving under the cultivating and harvesting to achieve self-sufficiency. Our thoughts and activities were mostly focused on the food culture. With the iron age and the more recent industrial and information oriented societies, there has been a decline of proper food culture and its intake. Most of the present day food culture revolves around the need to satisfy the taste buds rather than the need to develop a healthy body and a healthy spirit.

The earlier generations considered food as the primary source of energy and often worshiped  as a part of their religious process. Many of the festivals that we celebrate even today were associated with the harvest seasons and the solar positional shifts. The kitchen was maintained with utmost cleanliness, and housekeepers were to enter the kitchen only after the morning ablutions.  Our ancestors did not have to purchase any of the household requirements from outside, everything was cultivated in their backyards and the agricultural fields. A natural soil ecosystem existed where the earthworms and other soil creatures helped in replenishing the nutrients and nitrogen fixation. We have hardly heard of any crop damage or use of inorganic pesticides back then. Most of the fertilizers came from cattle dung and other organic sources.

Last week while listening to the TED talk "Poison on our Plate", I was taken aback by the various cases of degradation that our food has gone through in the guise of the modernization of agriculture. The realistic nature of the situation, blows a major threat to the future citizens of this planet. The modern society has lost consciousness on the nutritional requirement of the food, and merely pretending to be on the road towards advancement. The daily consumables like fruits and vegetables heavily comes under the influence of pesticide. The present situation is bleak. Just imagine your responsibility on handing over the goodness of this planet to your children. Wouldn't you be held responsible if this planet is  left in the vicious hands of mans unending plunder of nature? Only a social movement can change our declining food culture.

Biotechnologists and agricultural scientists are sending across the message of replacing chemical fertilizers with organic fertilizers. Crop rotation has been recommended for natural soil nourishing and nitrogen fixation. There has been efforts to set up backyard vegetable gardens, terrace cultivation and other home based agricultural methods. Bio-waste based methods are popularly taken by NGO's. The argument still goes are we doing enough. In our cityscape we might encounter large and small pieces of un-utilized land that can be brought in for one or the other cultivation. Ornamental gardening can be replaced by value bearing cultivation of fruits and vegetables. Variations in food habits to an extend might be helpful, for instance if we turn to other natural abundant food (like jackfruit) our dependence on other products would decline.

Resolve to be New

Novelty is the aspect of human beings that differentiates him from any other creation. So what is actually, so peculiar to the humans in generating the feeling of newness. The aspect of newness is a "feeling". If one can reason out, there are only relative newness and oldness. In fact everything is as old as the universe. The notion of age is limited and restricted to the subjective observer, and for the all pervading Supreme One there is nothing which is new or old. The nature of our reality is essentially ageless. This post was intended for the "New" Year, but it has got delayed for a good. This post is also inspired  by  the world outside which always enquires on "Isn't there anything new?". The question is heard from all corners  starting from when one is a child to even the elderly class. The intension of the article is to enlighten a fire of inquisitive thought process that can drive you to identify the novelty in you.

Novelty is an energy which emanates to evaluate yourself, and measure your own improvement against the past in you. It is a positive change which gives you a push to perform and act differently by overcoming the faults of yesterday. In a way it accelerates growth and helps to bring the best talents in you. In the language of science it is an adaptive exercise, that bring the perfection out of you. As, is oft said novel nature should arise from the inner side of your self, and not from any external factor. Such a innovative idea shall belong to the world forever. So wish you all to a year of newness.

Qualifying vs Quantifying

In this article we look into the duality of the two words, quality and quantity. The nature around us provides a good witness to make this duality precise. All the objects in the eyes of an observer are the same in the elements of composition while they are different in their nature, form and properties. The quality of an 'Engineering' product sets a standard whereas its quantity is only and (measuring) analysis tool.

Courtesy : http://thoughtprocess101.wordpress.com

It is often retold that Quality matters more than the Quantity. The reason for such a statement is recognized to be the connection and the duality of the two terms. The process of measurement comes into play, while one quantifies, whereas qualifying would require certain inferences or analysis from the measure. Look at the question "How old are you?". When this question is asked many of us has certain inherent doubts. But one knows that age is just another number. Look at this perspective into the matter. Can you think about it from the "half filled" angle of the age being a quantity that describes your physical strength, attitude, responsibility, or the like. The point being emphasized here is that quantification only leads to a sense of comparison, while qualifying brings around a sense of positive security(which in fact is the truth).

How do you measure your food habits? Is it dependent on the quality, quantity or both? Unless a desirable quality is derived from the measure being performed the exercise of measurement seems to be fruitless. In Engineering and Scientific study this stands out to a great extent. A sense of scientific enquiry, begins from the limited nature of our measuring tools, while the ability to draw useful interpretations (if not conclusions) would extend the possibility to expand our domain of knowledge.

On Decisions and Learning (Part II)

In the previous post, we have seen how the space and time constraints can affect the decision  making.  In this part, we extend the model to one of practical interest. Such a model should be robust across space and time variations. In effect we cover up the space and time and replace them by agents/players who affect our decision process. To illustrate with an example we take the case of a boy in say, Brazil and a similar aged boy in India. It is more probable that the Brazilian boy latches himself to football and the Indian boy would choose cricket with higher probability.

                     

The agents here is a representation of the culture and tradition - hence depends on the space. There can be agents representing time as well. For instance the decision on taking an umbrella before leaving the home depends on whether it is the rainy season or not. Rain is the agent here and hence represents time. Thus agents are the physical representation of the time-space (real) parameters. Another aspect of agents is that, there are certain agents that aid to the decision with more weight than certain other. Now there are decisions taken in accordance with logic, past experience, and predictions. Each of them has a correspondence with time - present, past and the future.

The process of making the decision can be summed up as \( f : (A_1,A_2, \cdots, A_k) \rightarrow  \mathcal{D} \). Here \(A|_1^k\) are the agents to be considered while taking the decision and the set \(\mathcal{D}  = d_1,d_2, \cdots, d_n\) are the decision choices. This model lacks the past learning that has been accumulated over time. To explain the learning in decision making, we can take the example of the man going out while it is raining (Agent = Rain). The man does not take the umbrella, and gets wet (Decision : No Umbrella). The next time he goes out in the rain he is reminded by the fact that he has got wet (which assumes a cost). Now it is possible to assign a cost of for the decision taken over a action set. Assume that the decision maker has learnt the decision taken over a set of agents till time \(T\). Now the system is opened and the learned costs are considered while taking the decision.

On Decisions and Learning (Part I)

An inquisitive mind always seeks the answer to this question, is the thing that I decide right? Has the trained mind in me educated enough to reach the "right" decision.

Decision making is a ever happening process in the world around us. Decisions may be taken for important as well as less important topics. The rightness of a decision is always debatable and often has a subjective element. So how does one take a decision, what elements are included in the process, and how the decision affects others. The three questions here has a strong theory in statistics. Let us parse each of them and look it in detail.

How does one take a decision?

Decision is a selection of a particular choice, from the given set of available choices. A decision may be prompted by a situation, which is both depending on space and time. So, deriving cues from the situation, any decision should particularly abide by time and space. Let us see a little example. Identically aged people live in a city and a village. Both fell ill (almost in the same time), and was taken to a doctor. The doctor in the city gave medicines in the form of tablets, while the doctor in the village asked the man to collect some herbs from the garden and have them. One can tell that space is the prominent factor in this example. The doctors decision complies with the locally available medicines. One may also expect in a closer analysis, that the domain of the doctor also plays a significant role in decision making. For this discussion we can avoid this possibility.

Now consider another example where time is the decision driver. A boy injured his knee while playing in the evening . Seeing the bleeding his parents took him to the local clinic for first aid. Imagine the same situation happening in the night. At this time, the parents have no access to the clinic, so they prefer to give whatever first aid is at home and later take up to the doctor if required. Time (and to an extend space) played the crucial role in this example.

We try to introduce some modelling. Consider a situation and \(n\) possible choices. A particular choice has to be picked. If one were to derive ideas from the examples presented, the decision \(D(S,t)\) is a function of the location and the time. Generally, space and time functions are difficult to generalize. So we somehow, avoid these by introducing a probability matrix over the choice. The simplification seems good, but did we handle the reality efficiently? Not really isn't it! What we did was to look into the decisions taken by us in the past and presented a distribution over those choices. From the point of view of an analyzer, this seems to be good. While the model seems to blind the decision makers view? One way to handle this is to bring in some dependence of space-time. The model should be robust to analyze and useful for the decision maker.

I leave this at a point for the reader to ponder a little :

Image Courtesy : olivergearing.com

Most of us act more or less according to this Importance vs Urgency model (logical planner!). We have a set of priority and the decision scheduling is performed by the urgency or the time requirement. Seems to convince why certain events require, us to wait in patience.