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Stupid me, I wrote this one yesterday, wanted to modify a typo today, but clicked the "delete" button instead of "edit" :oops:

Wednesday, I had my exam Information Security. It was a bit harder to study than expected. The first part, wich deals about the mathematic aspects of encryption, calculation with prime numbers, was the boring and most difficult part. First I thought it was an oral closed book exam, but Tuesday someone told me it was open book, wich was also explained on one of the first slides, wich I skiped :oops: So, open book means you don't have to learn that stuff by heart, wich was very welcome news and gave me lots of extra hope :-D

The examn wasn't that hard, more about the applications instead of the maths. I expect it to be very good.

Next one is one of the most boring ones: Information Theory on monday the 27th. So lots of time, but no time to party. :-/ I'll work a few days on Speech Processing to make sure three days will be enough for that one.

Tomorrow, I've also an appointment with someone at Siemens Herentals about an internship. Very nice, I hope it'll be OK. The big problem however is: how to get there in a reasonable time. When you check websites like Antwerken, you see the Antwerp Ring is a complete mobily chaos, especially when you have to go to the E313. Another possibility is by the Brussels Ring, but then you also have the big traffic jams and all that stuff. I'll drive the direct way :-D From Ghent to Dendermonde and by Mechelen and Lier to Herentals. I'll start here at 7.30 am to arrive there at 10 am. Damn, too early to get out of my bed XX(

I'm almost finished with my project work. Today I wrote the report of my project in information security. We had to develop a system to make online train ticket purchasement possible with the necessary fraud protection. The train speculator has to be able to verify the ticket in very less time without consulting a database containing the online transactions. We developed a system based on encrypted information printed on the ticket as barcode.

For the last project we just have to work a little bit on the report. It was about testing an algoritm for on the fly pitch extraction of recorded speech. This information is needed to compress digital speech as good as possible.

I also have some news about my internship. As I told you before, I've chosen a thesis where I have to work on development and testing of a fast handover system for wireless connections on trains. I also told you I had a meeting to arrange an internship with Siemens on the same subject. Now, the prof has sent me a e-mail with the good news he has contact with Siemens and they're interested in such kind of internship. If everything goes well, I can do some work on their Chantry technology. It should cover a few days/weeks working in Herentals and do some tests with the equipment in Ghent. Normally there'll be a meeting around the 17th of July or afther the examinations. Let's hope everything goes well :-D

Final Year Thesis and Internship

I've made my decision about my final year thesis. Next year, I hope to do something about wireless network access on trains. There'll be a WLAN on the train, with a base station on the train, and the train itself will communicate with antennas next to the railway. Because of the high speed of the train, there will be a handover to the next antenna every two seconds. In my thesis, I'll have to study and test those handovers. This is my first choice, I also had to give a second one. That one is about using the eID (elektronic identity card) for authentication in MHP (Multimedia Home Platform), the digitaly television platform that will be used soon in Flanders. You can find more information about both subjects on the INTEC website. The first one is at the research group IBCN (INTEC Broadband Communication Networks) while the second one is at WICA wich stands for Wireless and Cable. Both topics are part of the research in the newly constructed IBBT, Interdisciplinary institute for BroadBand Technology, founded by the Flemish Government.

I also had a meeting with a few people of the IBCN group for an internship related to that thesis. He'll try to arrange one at Siemens or at Televic. If he can't get an internship there, I'll accept the proposal of Barco to study the development of a L2/L3 multicast gigabit switch.

VTK

It was kind of an active week for VTK. At wednesday, we had ParkingPoP, a rock contest for local groups, wich was a big success. At wednesday and thursday, there were elections for the new board of VTK. Our followers are Bram and Pierre and I'm sure they'll do a great job. We had a meeting where we explained what we did this year and our vision about the next year. It seems they want to do great things, let's hope they've enough time for it. Before that meeting, I also had a lunch-meeting in a nice restaurant with the head of The Computer Store, the shop with the most ugly site in Ghent where we had a deal to sell computers. He claims our deal with Dell also has some disadvantages where he can be better, building on the very good results of the previous years. I've discussed it at the meeting with our followers and it seems they see more disadvantages than andvantages with them as partner, next to Dell.

Ah, before I forget, Lennert (who had a blog here before) is elected for treasurer with 16 votes more (on a total of 564) than his opponents. Congratulations and lots of succes!

Student representation

I didn't sign in for the VTK elections, because I've some other things in mind. I decided to run for the election of vice-president of the Ghent Student Council. The election is in oktober, but it isn't possible to combine this with another year in the VTK praesidium. If I don't make it, no problem, I'll be busy enough with my other work for the student representation, my final year thesis and of course my girlfriend who feels a little bit neglected sometimes ;-)

Also in student representation it was quite busy this week. Monday there was the facultairy computer commission with a very interesting point on the shedule: division of some money for new infrastructure. We also talked about the use of our pc-rooms and the troubles with the shortage of capacity. About that last one, we'll prepare a text from the student representation with a call for more available computers. I'll start to prepare that one after this post is finished ;-)

At the meeting with the student representation of our faculty of engineering, we decided to use a new name for our organisation. Now, it was "didactische cel", a term where nobody exactly knows the meaning of, especialy new students don't know who we are. We've chosen the name "FRiS", which stands for "faculty council of engineering students" or "Facultaire Raad voor IngenieursStudenten" in Dutch. It's a new name, invented by our responsible Peter Huyghebaert, to be better known by new students. This week, we also had the monthly faculty council and the deliberation before with the head of our faculty, who was very interested in the situation of the new students of the first year.

Peter Huygebaert

Friday I also went to the general meeting of vzw StudentENmobiliteit (student mobility) for the first time. From now on, I represent the students of our university there, together with two other students. It was a very interesting meeting. I also asked for more posibilities to pump up the tires of our bicycles in Ghent, especially at the campus in Zwijnaarde. The responsibles of our university agreed, so soon it'll be OK there in Zwijnaarde.

Next week, we'll have the election of the vice-rector of our university. There are two candidates: Luc Moens, from the faculty of sciences, and Paul Kiekens, from our faculty. Again, it'll be a very interesting time :-)

Politics

This week, I recieved an invitation to visit the Flemish Parliament and the new headquarter of the Flemish political party N-VA. Seems also very interesting, so wednesday I'll do the trip to Brussels.

The Flemish Parliament

My lovely girlfriend...

is so curious now :-D Because her cellular is malfunctioning, I bought her a new one. At the 6th of May, it's her birthday. So now, I've put the box in a cabinet and she doesn't may look inside of it. It's so tempting, it's so close, but I trust her not to look in it :-D She doesn't know wich one allready.

Before I forget

Don't create a banana republic here please ;-)