Mr. Kazuaki Takahashi, a third year student of the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UoA has finished his one-month and a half research (from August 16 - September 27) at University of Porto, Portugal on UoA's Overseas Study Program "Medium Term Overseas Study Program" for Academic Year 2009.
Here are reports on his research and daily life in Portugal.
After finishing his one-month and a half research at University of Porto
Mr. Kazuaki Takahashi
I completed my research at University of Porto, and two weeks have already passed. It was enjoyable and I didn't want to come back to Japan. Portugal isn't an English-speaking country. In fact, almost everyone doesn't speak English, so, I had to study Portuguese. However I didn't have enough time to study before leaving Japan and. I went to Portugal without enough preparation for Portuguese language. For the first few weeks after I arrived in Portugal, I had to order foods with only gesture because I didn't know how to say it in Portuguese.
In the university, most students speak English, and it helped me. When we couldn't speak each other's native language, English was very useful to communicate. If I had remained in Japan, I might not have felt this way. The English the Portuguese speak is clear and not fast, so, it was easily understandable.
The University of Porto has 13 faculties. They are spread across the Porto city. "Faculty of Sciences" I belonged is located in west Porto. There is a cafeteria in the university, and I often had lunch there. I researched "Heuristics and Exact Methods for Number Partitioning" of parallelization. About how to advance my research, at first, my professor gives me an image of an approach. Secondly, I implement and validate it and I consider an approach to get a good result. Finally, I make an appointment with my professor and I explain it to him. I repeated this flow every 3 or 4 days. My professor, Joao Pedro Pedroso, quickly replied to my e-mails and he made time to meet me as much as possible. It was great chance to explain my approach in English. In conclusive result, we can't get good result only by parallelize existing algorithm. We should produce new algorithm for parallel. So, I'll do it and I'll have to get better result than the result of running by single thread in the future.
I also joined a seminar Prof. Pedroso held. In the seminar, it was difficult for me to understand an algorithm and unit of math. But other students helped me and I could understand. I thought the seminar was interactive because the professor and some students discuss very passionately during the seminar.
At dinner on regular days and meals on holidays, I tried to go to many different restaurants I had never been to. Because of this, I could have many kinds of foods and I could feel atmosphere in local sides of Porto city. In this experience, I also practiced table manners, tasting of wine and how to squire. Since there are few chances to have these experiences in Aizu, it was very beneficial for me.
On holidays, I walked around Porto city. I went to landmarks and attended a home party Prof. Pedroso held. Even though it was very short term, my overseas study program was productive in research, English and personal life. I appreciate all peopel who assisted this program.