1. From 陸儀斌;

Dear all,

Thanks for the information shared by Prof. Shieh.

Since me and my colleague Prof. Meng had pay a visit to CMU during 6/13-6/22,I also like to take this opportunity to give some suggestions to the iCAST members who would like to go to CMU this year.

During our visit, we found that, regardless the CMU faculty person each project likes to collaborate with, Donald J. McGillen, the executive director of CyLab, is the key person to handle most of the detail arrangement for us. He is a very responsible and nice person to work with. At that time he already told us about his idea to locate the working space for each iCAST project members. I think Don can solve most of our problem, but housing will be a big issue. According to my knowledge, student apartment of CMU is available only during the summer period, and most of them are not furnished. Off-campus housing is very expensive for short-term leasing. If you need any formal help, you can contact his assistant:

Linda Whipkey Administrative Associate Carnegie Mellon - CyLab CIC Building, Room 2113 4720 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 412 268-1870 ljwhipkey@ece.cmu.edu

Upon our request, Prof. Chen, another great people, also gave me some pointers that may help Taiwan visitors in settling down in Pittsburgh, for example to look for apartment sublet, furniture, car, etc.:

. cmu-taiwan.ece.cmu.edu web forum --- personal recommendation to this one, you an post your problem in Chinese! . CMU board on ptt3 BBS (telnet to ptt3.cc) . CMU news group (Use Pine on CMU Andrew Unix servers and subscribe to cmu.misc news group)

Most Taiwanese students here are already using the web forum. You can find a lot of information, and post your needs there too.

Finally, Our project members will visit CMU next week and stay there for two months (07/17-09/13), if iCAST members have any problem about visiting CMU, please feel free to contact my assist:

羅惠珍 Tel: 03-3071429 E-mail: hjlo@ccit.edu.tw

We will talk to羅惠珍through Skype everyday and respond your question ASAP.

Regards,

Yibin Co-PI CCIT, NDU

________________________________________ 2. From: Shiuhpyng Shieh [mailto:ssp@csie.nctu.edu.tw] Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 4:24 PM

Dear all,

Thanks for DT and Kao's efforts to regulate the visit stream to our US counterparts. As a member of iCAST, I also would like to contribute with my greatest efforts. In the past few months, I received many emails and phone calls from iCAST members asking for help. It seems to me that some members are still in confusion, and therefore I'd like to take this opportunity to give some suggestions.

The key to make iCAST different from other projects is its uniqueness in international collaboration. Doing research at home will be good for other projects, but for international collaboration we had better do much more. Since iCAST has paid UCB and CMU a substantial amount of money to build the bridge between Taiwan and US, it is a great opportunity for us to send as many students as possible to these two prestigious universities.

To make sure the success of students' visit, I would suggest two things. One is to evaluate a student's English fluency, and the second is to arrange an orientation to assist them. Since this may be their first-time visit to CMU and UCB, and their stay may not be long, it will be great if these students can adapt to the new environment in the shortest period of time. Normally students cannot adapt to the new environment as quick as their teachers. Therefore, it would be better if the students can stay a semester.

If iCAST members need an orientation, I will be very happy to give a thorough introduction to both universities including both CMU and UCB. It is highly recommended to arrange your trip in advance so that you can see the persons you want to see, especially in the summer when most of the hosts are out of town. It is also good to get our students well prepared before departure.

A more recent update at UCB is that Vijay Raghvan is about to leave his post at UCB at the end of July. A replacement search is underway. During the chaotic period, Mary Margaret will sit in as the contact for our collaboration. If you'd like to pay a visit to UCB, Mary Margaret Sprinkle will be able to help with the detail arrangement. She is a very responsible and nice person to work with.

Cheers,

Shiuhpyng