Playing with the f-numbers (Av)

The aperture stop of a photographic lens can be adjusted to control the amount of light reaching the film or image sensor. In combination with variation of shutter speed, the aperture size will regulate the film's degree of exposure to light. - wikipedia.

In most canon DSLR, you can get the aperture priority by setting the dial to (Av). The smaller the number means the bigger the opening and allow more light to pass thru. In Av, the shutter speed will be shorter to compensate the big aperture opening.

Since I'm just using a kit lens, there is no way I can reduce the aperture below 3.5 and the f-number will become bigger when the lens is further zoom in. The effect I get when using a small f-numbers is the small depth-of-field and in other word is the object close-up will be in focus and the background become blur. This are some of the images I took today at Youth Park.

The setting are:
f = 4.5 - 5.0
ISO = 400
Mode = Av

New pictures with my DSLR

These are some of my photos from the Canon 1000D DSLR purchase last Thursday (Dec 25). I'm just a beginner to SLR camera so still a long way to go. I will also upload more picture thur Flickr.com and Windows Live, seeya there. The little model girl is my daughter (3 years), taken at Jusco Bandar Perda in Bukit Mertajam.

Descriptive and Inductive statistics

Descriptive Statistics.

Descriptive statistics include a large variety of methods for summarizing or describing a set of numbers. These methods may involve computational or graphical analysis.

For example, price index numbers are one example of a descriptive statistic. The measures of central tendency and dispersion are also descriptive statistics, because they describe the nature of the data collected.


Inductive Statistics.

Inductive statistics are methods of using a sample data taken from a statistical population to make actual decisions, predictions, and generalizations related to a problem of interest.

For example, in contract pricing, we can use stratified sampling of a proposed bill of materials to infer the degree it is overpriced or under-priced.

Leadership

Define leadership
Leadership is a process by which a person exerts influence over others, inspire, motivates and directs their activities to help achieve group or organizational goals.


Three leadership theories (trait, behavioral and contingency theories):

1] Trait theory argues that leaders have certain personality, social and physical characteristic known as traits that influence whether the person acts as a leader.

2] Behavioral has three well known theories:
• Ohio University studies
Leaders who demonstrates high consideration, sensitive to people’s feeling and places priority on an environment.
• University of Michigan
2-dimentional, employee orientated (personal relationship, production orientated (task and technical aspect of work).
• Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid
2-dimentional, 9-9 (Team mangt), 1-1 (Impoverished mangt), 1-9 (Country club) and 9,1 (Authority obedience)

3] Contingency has two well known theories:
• Fiedler’s leadership contingency theories
Uses the least-preferred co-worker (LPC) questionnaire to determine employee interest towards relationship with co-workers (relationship-orientated) or productivity (task-orientated).
• Hersey and Blanchard’s situational theories
Telling style, Selling style, Participating style and Delegating style


Distinguish characters between transactional vs transformational leadership:

1] Transactional has four dimensional
• Contingent rewards for exchange in mutually agreed upon completion
• Active management by exception corrective action for any deviation
• Passive management by exception intervene only when std not meet
• Laissez faire abdicates responsibilities and avoid decisions.

2] Transformational has four dimensional
• Charisma – provides a clear vision and an articulate mission
• Communication – High expectations, express important purpose in simple ways
• Intellectual stimulation – intelligence, rationality and careful problem solving
• Individual consideration – coaches and adviser and advice each employee base on individual needs.


Cultural issue, leadership behavior and issue:

Leaders must have enough knowledge and basic intelligence to perform their duties. Recent studies indicates that emotional intelligent is more important than any single factor and is best predictor that who will become a leader.
• Awareness: This is exhibited by self-confidence, realistic self-assessment and self-deprecating sense of humor.
• Management: The abilities to manage one’s emotions and impulses.
• Self-motivation: The ability to persists through setbacks and barriers.
• Empathy: The ability to sense how others are feeling.
• Social skills: The ability to handle the emotions of others.

My new DSLR Canon 1000D

I just went to Gurney Plaza today and there was an ongoing camera fair, wanted to get a DSLR for quite sometime already so this is an opportunity. I have 2 models in my mind, the Canon 1000D and Nikon D60 both entry level DSLR. Finally I choose Canon 1000D because of the following reason:

Price RM1899.
Free 4GB SD, EOS Bag and triport.

Nikon is price at RM1999 which is more expensive, the free gift is the same. I also get additional 1 year warranty (total 2 years). This is a good deal I guess.

This is the starting point for me to learn photography, hope I can share some pictures with you all.

Send mail in UNIX

This is a command line on how you can send email messaging on UNIX. Normally, this statement is asways put at the last and run together with a cron job.

mailx -s "Email Subject Here" youremail < message.txt

Extract data from ascii file to csv format

This is a simple example to demo how to pick-up certain data on many fixed files and put them into csv format. The basic example you can use to do your daily fixed format reports, raw files and log files.


#! /bin/csh

ls grep "_Final" > file.txt
echo "" > outname.csv

foreach file (`cat file.txt`)

set tp = `grep "Test Program" $file head -1 awk '{print $3}'`
set lot = `grep "Lot Id" $file tail -1 awk '{print $3}' tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]'`
set fail = `grep "Total Fail" $file tail -1 awk '{print $3}'`
set cont = `grep "continuity" $file tail -1 awk '{print $4}'`
set Vcore = `grep "Vcore" $file tail -1 awk '{print $4}'`
set Vddr = `grep "Vddr" $file tail -1 awk '{print $4}'`
set Vsmb = `grep "Vsmb" $file tail -1 awk '{print $4}'`
set date1 = `grep "Lot Started at" $file head -1 awk '{print $4}'`
echo "$date1,$lot,$tp,$fail,$cont,$Vcore,$Vddr,$Vsmb" >> outname.csv

end

Shell script to perl script

OK, this is how I normally do when there is is 2 types of script involved, the shell script to list out each file to be process by the perl script.

1. Let say you want to process files which contains name like "_Final"
2. Append the list of matched filename into a temporary file
3. Use a foreach looping to call the perl script to process each files in the list.
4. After the process is completed, you may want to add "rm -f file.txt" to removed the temporary file.

Sample of the script looks something like this.

#! /bin/csh

ls grep "_Final" > file.txt
echo "" > outname.csv

foreach file (`cat file.txt`)
./AMB_rev.pl $file
end

Example of windows batch file

@ECHO OFF
REM - LABEL INDICATING THE BEGINNING OF THE DOCUMENT.
REM - Filename compile.bat
:BEGIN
REM CLS
REM - THIS SCRIPT IS DESIGN TO DO MASS COMPILE OF PASCAL USING CPM
REM - THE BELOW LINE COMPILE AND LINK *.PAS TO *.CMD FROM LIST C:\compile\PAS.log
REM - WRITTEN BY KH WONG (DATE 4/20/05)
REM - Latest modified BY KH WONG (DATE 1/8/07)

REM - To delete off all files inside the directory of after_compile and log
cd C:\compile\after_compile
del /Q *.*
cd C:\compile\log
del /Q *.*

REM - To copy the pas and fcn file out from the source directory to C:\compile base on pas.log and vector.log
cd C:\compile\source
for /F %%X in (C:\compile\pas.log) do copy %%X.pas C:\compile
for /F %%X in (C:\compile\vector.log) do copy %%X.fcn C:\compile

REM - Begin to compile the pas to cmd and copy the cmd to after_compile directory
REM - Do EPAS
cd C:\compile
echo "Compile Log File" >> Log\compile.log
for /F %%X in (pas.log) do cpm epas %%X >> Log\compile.log
echo "Link Log File" >> Log\link.log
for /F %%X in (pas.log) do cpm elink %%X,noressum,qspiralx >> Log\link.log
for /F %%X in (pas.log) do copy %%X.cmd after_compile
for /F %%X in (pas.log) do del /Q %%X.cmd
for /F %%X in (pas.log) do del /Q %%X.MAI
ECHO 

REM - Begin to compile the fcn to lff and copy the cmd to after_compile directory
REM - Do FUNCASM
echo "Link Log File" >> Log\funcasm.log
for /F %%Y in (vector.log) do cpm funcasm %%Y >> Log\funcasm.log
for /F %%Y in (vector.log) do copy %%Y.lff after_compile
for /F %%Y in (vector.log) do del /Q %%Y.lff

REM - To delete the pas and fcn file out from the source directory to C:\compile base on pas.log and vector.log
for /F %%X in (pas.log) do del %%X.pas
for /F %%X in (vector.log) do del %%X.fcn

copy tolower.exe after_compile
cd C:\compile\after_compile
tolower
del tolower.exe

My little princess

This photo were taken during my sister's wedding in Equatorial Hotal Penang last month. A couple more photos to share below.

More photos were taken the following day at my house.

Photo is taken by TY

http://penangart.com/blog/about/

Motivation theories

Motivation is defined as the force within a person that establishes the level, direction and persistence of effort at work. From a conceptual perspective, motivation is typically divided into content theories and process theories.

Content theories – are needs theories that identify a variety of needs that motivate individuals.
Process theories – examine the thought process that determines behaviour.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory
Concluded that individual needs can be arranged in a hierarchy which made up of five distint levels:
· Physiological needs – needs that individual need to survive
· Safety needs – serve to protect individuals from outside threads
· Belongingness – affection, love and friendship
· Self-esteem – focus on need for recognition and respect from others
· Self-actualization needs – relate to developing one’s full potential.
Maslow argued that as soon as one level of needs is met, those needs will no longer motivate behavior.

Alderfer’s ERG theory
Argued that more than one need may be activated at the same time. ERG theory suggest that needs are categorized into three classes:
· Existence needs – satisfy by material condition and make up the first two level in Maslow’s hierarchy.
· Relatedness needs – dependent on social interaction through communication and exchange of ideas with other members within the organization. Similar to Maslow’s belonging and self-esteem needs.
· Growth needs – are intrinsic and are focused on personal development, much like Maslow’s self-actualization
ERG urges that should one feel a higher order need fulfilled, then he/she will have an increased desire to satisfy a lower-level need.

McClelland’s trichotomy of needs or acquired need theory
· Need for achievement (nAch) – when individual place priority on the quality of their work and have a preference for situations that enable them to shape the outcome.
· Need for affiliation (nAff) – focus on establishing and maintaining relationships with others. Tend not to be competitive, preferring, co-operation and conformity.
· Need for power (nPower) – id often evident among middle and upper levels of management because these individuals by definition must influence other members of the organization.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory
Two sets of factor called “motivators” and “hygienes” that somewhat unrelated in terms of satisfaction.
Motivators – are job content factors and are associated with feelings of meaningful work, accomplishment, achievement, responsibility, growth and advancement opportunities and the job itself.
Hygienes – are job context or extrinsic factors, representing sources of job dissatisfaction that are associated with physical arrangements in the workplace, supervisor and interpersonal relations.
Motivators are factors lead to worker satisfaction, while hygienes are factor which prevent dissatisfaction.

Process theory
Examine how and why people are motivated:
· Equity theory – suggest that people perceive a level of inequity or unfairness when they compare their work situation to that of others, they will be motivated to do something about it in order to create a better or more accurate sense of fairness.
· Expectancy theory – motivation is determine by individual beliefs regarding effort-performance relationship and work outcomes.
M = E x I x V where M=motivation, E=Expectancy, I=Instrumentality and V=valence

Diversity
It examine different with respect to age, gender, race, education, background, ethnicity and disabilities of workers.

Working in groups

Working in groups –due to rapid change in environment, competitive force moved to teamwork.

Groups define as two or more people working together to achieve common goals.

Groups benefits
1. Security – people part of the group feel more secure about their behaviour.
2. Status – provides recognition and status for its members
3. Self-esteem – feel more confident in group
4. Affiliation – enjoy interaction
5. Power – finding that group can achieve more
6. Goal achievement – various talent are pool together

Stages of group development (five stages)

Forming – understanding of group purpose, expectation and behavior

Storming – clarify expectation and roles as well as develop some understanding

Norming – initial integration stage

Performing – total integration stage

Adjourning – prepare for disbandment

Groupthink

Groupthink – is a phenomenon which can lead to faulty group decision. Symptoms are:

1. Illusion of invulnerability – become overconfident

2. Assumption of morality – believe highly in the moral rightness

3. Rationalized resistance – resistance to the assumption they have made

4. Peer pressure – apply pressure to these who momentarily express doubts

5. Minimized doubts – seek to avoid deviating from what appears to be group consensus by keeping silent

6. Illusion of unanimity – does not speak, abstention become view as a “yes” vote.

Decision making models

There are 3 models:

Rational decision making – preferred way, we should always make decision that are rational. The 7-steps towards rational decision making (Identify problem, Establish decision criteria, relevant information, alternative solution, evaluate solutions, choose best solution then implement and monitor chosen solution).

Bounded rationality – decision with restricted information and therefore the decision tend to be less than ideal. Four primary assumptions (satisfactory, adequate information, comprehensive evaluation, judgments shortcuts).

Garbage can model decision making – problem, solution, participant and choice or opportunities all mixed together in the garbage can make process is rather chaotic because to satisfy temporary. It depends largely on luck.

Power and politics

Distinguish between various sources of power. Five primary sources of bases of headcount:

· Reward – allow managers to exert influence by providing positive outcomes that affect the behavior of others (salary increase, promotions, interesting work and intrinsic rewards).

· Coercive – enable managers to deny employees specific rewards when they are not displaying desired behavior (punish with reduction in pay, demotion etc).

· Legitimate – power is a function of one’s position within the structure of the organization.

· Expert – power emerges from specific expertise, skills, information or knowledge the one process within the organization.

· Referent – is a function of being respected and admired by others.

Teams vs groups – What’s the different?

Shared leadership – teams have shared leadership role whereas groups usually have a strong, focused leader.

Accountability – teams have individual and mutual accountability whereas groups mostly on individual accountability

Purpose – teams towards a specific purpose whereas groups identical to the organization mission.

Work products – teams deliver collective work product whereas groups have individual work products.

Communication – teams encourage open-ended discussion and active problem-solving whereas groups attempt to run meetings that are efficient

Effectiveness – teams measure performance by direct assessment of their collective work products whereas groups measure effectiveness indirectly by their influence on others.

Work style – teams decide, discuss and delegate but do the work together whereas groups discuss, decide and delegate and do the work individually.

Information system vs information technology

Information system (IS) can be defined as a set of procedures that collectes or retrives, process, stores and disseminates information to support organizational decision making and control. IS developments are usually based on business models as perceived by the system analysis and major users.

MIS means the whole network of systems which supports the organization to manage their business affairs.

Information Technology (IT) refers to a powerful collection of elements which include computer hardware, software, telecommunication networks, workstations etc.

IS are “applications” having functionalities which can be exploited by the business and IT provides capabilities which enable these applications.

IS strategy is concerned primarily with aligning IS development with business needs and with seeking strategic advantage form. IT strategy is concerned primary with technology policies it tackles questions of architecture, including risk attitudes, vendor policies and technical standard.

Steps in Hypothesis Testing

1. The first step in hypothesis testing is to specify the null hypothesis (H0) and the alternative hypothesis (H1).

2. The next step is to select a significance level. Typically the 0.05 or the 0.01 level is used.

3. The third step is to calculate a statistic analogous to the parameter specified by the null hypothesis.

4. The fourth step is to calculate the probability value (often called the p value).

5. The probability value computed in Step 4 is compared with the significance level chosen in Step 2.

6. If the outcome is statistically significant, then the null hypothesis is rejected in favor of the alternative hypothesis.

7. The final step is to describe the result and the statistical conclusion in an understandable way.

Source: http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/B35642.html

Curve Tracer

The curve tracer is one of the best pieces of test equipment in your laboratory if you are working with anything that contains semiconductors. You can use it to characterize data that you won't get on most manufacturers' data sheets, to troubleshoot devices that might be damaged or disconnected, or even as a very precise dual power supply.

What are I-V curves?
A resistive element has an I-V curve that is described by Ohm's law to be a straight line. Semiconductors have I-V responses that bend, and a a whole lot more interesting. This is analog electronics at its best!

Before we go any further, you need to remember the two extremes of I-V measurements: A vertical I-V measurement means you are looking at a short circuit, and a horizontal I-V curve means you are looking at an open circuit. Every other resistor value is somewhere in between.

Two-terminal I-V curves show semiconductor diode characteristics such as forward conduction and reverse breakdown. Three-terminal I-V curves show "families of curves", which is really a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional surface. I-V curves are used every day for large signal modeling, and bias network design.

Block diagram of a typical curve tracer (taken from tektronix)

Curve traver rule of thumb:Use the lowest power setting (highest series resitance) that is practical for the device you are characterizing.

The variable collector supply is located near the output terminals. This is the knob that wither takes data successfully or does irreparable damage to your hardware. This is the last knob you set when taking I-V curves, and the first one you turn down after you capture the data. Turn it slowly, make sure your data makes sense before you turn it up all the way.

Source: http://www.microwaves101.com/encyclopedia/curvetracer.cfm

About myself

Hi,

I'm an engineer currently working in MNC located in Penang, Malaysia. My field is in semiconductor testing and this is one of my favored subject. Other than that, I also do programming in UNIX platform particular Shell and Perl Script. I graduated in 1999 with BEng(Hons) in Electronic Systems Engineering (UK) and currently pursuing Masters Business Administration at a local university.

This blog is created to share all my lifelong knowledge in the field of:
1. Engineering (Semiconductor).
2. UNIX Programming and System administrations.
3. Management experience.

Do browse my blog and feel free to comment if you do have any.

Best Regards,
KH