Hi, everyone,
I think I am still working and will work on BLAST as long as my boss
doesn't kick me off his group. Just as Jason and Ben, I am also involved in
developing hardware that is not installed right now. Besides, I need to take
some courses and prepare for my oral exam.
I think the shift schedule proposal is constructive, but need some modification.
For example, I cannot take seven consecutive shifts one
week, but I can take the weekend shifts.
Thanks,
Yuan Xiao
Quoting Aaron Joseph Maschinot <ajmasch@MIT.EDU>:
>
> I think that we need something a little more organized to help in the
> shift determining process during commissionning. I also think that it is
> in all the grad students' best interest to have that "little more
> organization" come from the grad student group, that is to say, one or
> more of the grad students should work out such a schedule for the shifts
> (as opposed to a professor doing it). Since we do the shifts, we know
> what the problems and practicalities of shift-taking are.
>
> As such, I shall propose one possible shift-taking plan. It is not
> necessarily the best; however, it is fair. Others should propose
> different plans, if this one is not satisfactory. (Please do this, as if
> you don't, this schedule MIGHT get chosen and you MIGHT not like it and,
> since I proposed it, you MIGHT harbor grudges against me, and I do not
> want that...)
>
> First off, there are NOT as many grad students working fully on BLAST as
> John's e-mail last week stated. The following students are all getting a
> thesis off of the first set of runs next year:
>
> Ziskin
> Sindile
> Filoti
> Degrush
> Maschinot
> Crawford
> C. Zhang
> Meitanis
>
> The following students are getting a thesis off of BLAST somewhere in the
> further future:
>
> Seely - currently studying for his part 3 qualifier
> Clasie - currently studying for his part 3 qualifier
> Karpius - currently taking a full load of coursework
>
> As for the rest, J. Burton quit MIT 9 months ago; I don't think we can
> count on him for any shifts. S. Stave does NOT work on BLAST; he is
> getting his thesis from Mainz data!!! As for Xiao and Y. Zhang, I do not
> know if either of them still works on BLAST.
>
> As such, there are 8 grad students (who should be) giving full time to
> BLAST and three more giving part-time to the project.
>
> Additionally, throughout any particular week, there are a total of 3*2*7 =
> 42 shifts that need to be taken. If we count all 8 full-time grad
> students as 8 full-time shift takers and if we count two part-time
> students together as 1 full-time shift taker (the remaining one shall be
> lumped together with the "professor" group to equal 1 full-time shift
> taker), then we have a total of 10 full-time shift takers. Now 42/10 =
> 4.2 shifts / per person / week on average.
>
> Now the proposed shift schedule (I know it's not the best, but no one
> else seems to be talking... ):
>
> 1. First off, the following proposed schedule is only for commissioning.
> For the actual experiments, a different schedule would probably make
> more sense.
>
> 2. We place two grad students on shift for morning and evening
> shift, seven days a week.
>
> 3. Only 1 grad student is placed on shift during the weekday
> afternoon shift, as there are always people who can cover if that
> student needs to go to the South Hall or whatever.
>
> 4. One grad student and one non-grad student are placed on the weekend
> afternoon shift.
>
> 5. Each grad student taking shifts does so for seven consecutive days at
> the same-time shift (e.g. Aaron takes 7 consecutive morning shifts).
> This way, each student will have every other week off of shift-taking
> so that he can pursue other tasks. Plus, we'll all become "experts"
> at the same rate. Plus, by taking the same shift for seven days in a
> row, your sleep schedule doesn't become too screwed up.
>
> 6. Week by week the shifts shuffle upwards. That is to say, if Aaron has
> the morning shift for week 1, then he is off week 2, and has the
> afternoon shift for week 3.
>
> An example of this grad student schedule might look like that below (using
> grad students A, B, C, ... J):
>
> Week1
> MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
> Morning A A A A A A A
> B B B B B B B
> Afternoon C C C C C C C
>
> Evening D D D D D D D
> E E E E E E E
>
> Week2
> MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
> Morning F F F F F F F
> G G G G G G G
> Afternoon H H H H H H H
>
> Evening I I I I I I I
> J J J J J J J
>
> Week3
> MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
> Morning C C C C C C C
> D D D D D D D
> Afternoon E E E E E E E
>
> Evening A A A A A A A
> B B B B B B B
>
> Week4
> MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
> Morning H H H H H H H
> I I I I I I I
> Afternoon J J J J J J J
>
> Evening F F F F F F F
> G G G G G G G
>
> .
> .
> .
>
> Once again, this plan is probably not the ideal one. Someone else should
> speak up, too. Once we get realistic about who is actually doing the
> commissioning, things will go a lot smoother.
>
> And if, in some way, this e-mail offended someone, then I am truly sorrow;
> it was not my intention. However, we need to stop side-stepping this
> issue and settle it once and for all.
>
> Aaron
>
>
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