My First Two Projects

During the first two week as a student, my professor asked me to read several books and articles about fractional factorial and orthogonal array. It may become my research topic in the next few years.

I could understand well about the fundamental of fractional factorial design, and I have read some of them long before I started as student here. However, orthogonal array is new one. Even, I know this term just in last few days ago. The book of Hedayat, Sloane, and Stufken (1999) is not an easy book to read. So many mathematical jargons and formulas as well that I could not simply follow. Oh dear…

Peter and Eric, my professors, said that I must try to understand it well because it must be an advantage to do my research. Ya … ya … I have finished in making resume of the reading on fractional factorial, but not in orthogonal array. It’s so hard.

Last Tuesday, as usual, we met in Peter’s office to talk about the progress. At the end of discussion, Peter asked me to give a small presentation about fractional factorial in front of several new PhD students. I wonder whether I will be able to do that. The date of the presentation has been set, October 7th, the next three weeks. Wow.

That was the first one. There was a second project. Eric showed me a recent article from a journal about 68 orthogonal arrays of size 27 x 13 for 3 levels design. My task is to investigate the property of those arrays. He said that it may be a first chapter of my dissertation. It means that I should read all the books and articles and work hard to understand the creature named orthogonal array. Wish me luck…