logweek8

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Learning Log
A Research Project On
Towards An Autonomous Bibliography Building Agent
By Indrashah Isa

Week Eight
(24th August 1998 - 30th August 1998)
(Project Week)

Daily Task / Assignment

*Day*	*Date*	*Task / Assignment*
Monday	24/8/98	Validate the book-marked RoboCup papers and zip up the downloaded post-scripts. Store the files in the 'new.zip' folder in the local 'robobib' directory. Update the 'RoboCup bibliography' webpage. Spent three hours searching for information on competing teams participating in RoboCup '98. Concentrated specifically on the teams from institutions in Portugal and U.S.A. Read the publicly available mailing list on Visual Basic FAQ, specifically on string manipulation techniques.
Tuesday	25/8/98	Search for information on the teams participating in RoboCup '98. Found some team information in the 'Amsterdam Intelligent Agents for Challenging Soccer' website. Spent 4 hours searching and updating the list carrying the information on the teams. Validate the missing information in the information previously added to the list. Create 11 individual webpages to house the acquired information on the participating teams in RoboCup '98. Each page provides the information on only one team of RoboCup '98. Create an index page to organized the multiple webpages that carries the team information. Start creating the interface of the 'WebValidator 2.0', create simple functions like command buttons for click-execution, rich-text box and list box for information display and labels to the whole interface, labelling each box.
Wednesday	26/8/98	Spent four hours searching for the information on the RoboCup '98 competitors, upon acquiring the information, update the list of competitors in Ms-Word with the information. Concentrate on the competitors in the 'Small-Size Robot League', specifically in organizations and institutions in Australia, Belgium and Japan. Create 11 individual webpages to house the searched information on the participating teams in RoboCup '98. Attend an hour long briefing on the reallocation of KRDL to another building, specifically in an ISS building. Take note on what to do when the actual day of the reallocation comes. Back-up all important data from hard-drive. Send emails to one of the team members of some of the team participants in RoboCup '98. Posing questions regarding their teams. Especially to those teams without having their RoboCup website on the Internet.
Thursday	27/8/98	Create 2 webpages for another two teams in RoboCup 98, specifically the team from France and Netherlands. Update the list of competitors in Ms-Word and do some adjustment to the information (e.g. fill up empty email slot of the team members of some teams in Japan and Germany) after acquiring some information via email from some competitors in RoboCup '98. Update the 'RoboCup '98 Competitors' webpage with the new team information. Create a webpage entitled 'Project Research Area' to house the research information done in KRDL throughout the entire 15 weeks of the attachment period. Create a webpage entitled 'Issues Affecting Autonomous Agents' to house the research information on the issues affecting autonomous agents. Use the website known as 'WhoWhere.Com' to find email addresses of the team members in the teams in RoboCup '98. Search and book-mark some websites containing RoboCup papers. Validate them with the local RoboCup bibliography, download and zip up the new file, and delete the redundant file. Spent 4 hours doing the process.
Friday	28/8/98	Create a web page for the RoboCup competitor from the Netherlands known as AIACS Team, and update the 'RoboCup '98 Competitors' webpage with the new team information. Touch-up the WebValidator 2.0 interface and change some of its programming codes to try to enhance its functions (e.g. adding the programming line 'On Error Resume Next', so that the program will not stop in the middle of the validating process if it come across an error). Keep-in-view of the error and try to debug it. Validate some new RoboCup papers and zip the downloaded postscripts to the local 'robobib' directory. Check some RoboCup teams found in 'Amsterdam Intelligent Agents for Challenging Soccer' website, ignore the teams that participated in the year 1997 and use the information on the teams that participated in RoboCup '98.
Saturday	29/8/98	Company off
Sunday	30/8/98	Company off

Weekly Summary of Task / Assignment

The eighth week of my student attachment program deals with validating RoboCup papers. Most of the papers are obtained from official RoboCup websites of the participating teams in RoboCup ’98 in Paris. I also touch-up on my new WebValidator program (WebValidator 2.0) by eliminating some bugs in it, after reading some Visual Basic text-books borrowed from my friends in Singapore Polytechnic and some public libraries. Besides doing those things mentioned above, I also performed these things below.

Validation of RoboCup papers.
I validate the book-marked RoboCup papers, zip up the respective downloaded post-scripts and store the files in the 'new.zip' folder in the local 'robobib' directory. I also update the 'RoboCup bibliography' webpage known as ‘index.html’ in the local ‘robobib’ directory. I have added the citation of the new papers and appended a ‘NEW’ logo at the end of each citation. Altogether I have found and zip up four new RoboCup papers.

Searching for information on the Competitors of RoboCup 98 in Paris.
So far I have acquired quite a lot of information on the teams participating in RoboCup ’98. The method I used for searching the information varies. I search for the email address of the team member (some are given by Tralvex and most are from the RoboCup ’98 websites) by going to the website known as ‘WhoWhere’, and upon acquiring the email address of the member, I sent emails to them, posing minor question pertaining to their team. I also use manual search techniques by using ‘WebFerret’. This technique is very time consuming and the level of false drop are relatively high, thus I did not utilise this technique fully. Throughout week seven and this week, I have managed to find information of these 16 teams:

Australia - CIIPS Glory.

Belgium - Vub AI-Labs.

France - MINE-IA.

Germany – Agents, At-Humboldt98, Brainstormers Karlsruhe, CS Frieburg, and Mainz Rolling Brains.

Japan - Kasugabito II, Miya 2, UTTORI United, and Orient.

U.S.A - CMUnited, Darbotics, and ISI Synthetic.

Sweden - Linkoeping Lizard

My colleague, Daniel, found the other 8 teams. I am still searching for other teams’ information. Some websites are in Japanese and other foreign, which I do not understand, and I was hoping that they reply the emails regarding their teams I sent to them.

Creation of webpages to house the team competitors from RoboCup ’98.
After acquiring the information on the team participants of RoboCup ’98, I created individual web pages for each of the teams. These webpages carry the information on the teams and means of contacting the members via email. Altogether right now, I have created 24 webpages for the team in RoboCup ’98.

I really enjoy the challenge of acquiring information on the teams during this entire week. I am looking forward for more interesting research work like these. I gained a lot of information on RoboCup and other intellectual stuff (foreign educational institutions) by just looking for these types of information. I also have the opportunity to communicate with intellects and innovators via emails.

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