Dr Leong Hon Wai, Dept of Computer Science, National University of Singapore


My Research Projects Page
(Leong Hon Wai)

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| About The Projects |

| Emphasis on Quality | Team-based Project | Join RAS-Group | Benefits |

| UROP Projects | Final Year Projects | Honours Projects | MSc/PhD Research Projects |

| Past Students and Projects

About the Projects

My research projects focus on research and development of software solutions to practical resource allocation and scheduling (RAS) problems that arise in e-logistics and e-business supply chain. These problems require diverse software components to be built and integrated to get a good quality software system solution. Our group research research these problems and build software systems for solving these problems.

Some examples of these problems include route advisory system for land transportation, various operations and planning problems from the container port, newspaper advertisement layout optimization, and vehicle routing and inventory routing problems. I also do research in RAS problems from the area of computer-aided design (CAD) of VLSI circuits.

Therefore, my student projects typically involves research a problem and then designing and implementing software component(s) necessary to build a system to solve the problem. The size, complexity, and emphasis varies widely depending on (1) the type of projects (UROP, FYP, Honours, MSc) and (2) the interest-and-orientations of the students.

In general, one can assume that my projects typically combine

Both skills are important. However, depending on the student and his/her background, the content and emphasis of the projects will be adjusted to take advantage of the strengths of the students.

Emphasis on Quality

My personal belief (which also applies to student projects) is that
"Anything worth doing is worth doing well".

To develop good software solutions is not easy because

  • You have to know the domain problem well (very well),
  • You have to understand the workflow in going from input data to the output solution,
  • You also have to know what constitute good solutions,
  • You have to have a well-designed and scalable software,
  • You have to design good interface for the user,
  • You have to know algorithmic techniques to solve the problem,
  • Your solution technique must be thoroughly evaluated,
  • I do not and cannot ask that all my project students are geniuses or top students. However, I will ask that the students who work with me must give their best shot to their assigned projects.

    Teamwork in the RAS-Group

    An important culture in the our research group is good teamwork, cooperation, and coordination. My research group, the RAS-Group, works on the principle of good teamwork, cooperation, and coordination. Senior members lead by example and often teach new comers while junior members learn and contribute later to the group. Common work for our group activities such as giving talks at the RAS-Group Weekly Seminar, looking after HW/SW, contributing to RAS-Group web-sites, social events, and so on) are shared out to everyone. (See our RAS Duties Page for example.)

    The people in the RAS-Group consist of some past graduates, current research students and many undergraduates (Year 1, 2, 3, and 4) and we all work together and share our knowledge and experiences and we teach each other along the way. We also run a compulsory weekly group meeting and seminars. We use the group meeting to update each other and to keep tabs on progress. All RAS-Group members take turns to give informal talks/seminar on things that they are doing in their projects. Members of the group can freely discuss their projects with each other and share experiences and expertise. Past experiences have shown that this is the best source of help for new project students.

    The students in the RAS-Group often do their work in the RAS-Garage (S15, 03-15A). There is also some posters in the lab describing some of our recent works. Demo of our software systems can also be found there.

    Joining RAS-Group

    In the RAS-Group, we adopt a team-based approach to student projects. By team, we actually mean team that goes beyond a "team of three project students". This applies to all members of the group.

    Therefore, students who do projects with me (Dr. Leong) will have to agree to the following requirements:

  • they must join my research group -- the RAS-Group,
  • they will participate in and contribute to the group activities (especially, the weekly seminar)
  • they will share out duties with others
  • Benefits to Students

    I think that the student will gain valuable experience; both, in research and in software development. And these can be gained directly through close supervision and, more importantly, indirectly through interaction with other team members of the RAS-Group. I like to highlight some of these:
  • research -- the project experience will help students develop independent analytical, abstraction and other problem-solving skills. These skills are transferrable to various job functions in their future career, be it technical or managerial.
  • software development -- the project experience will help students gain first-hand experience on modern methodologies (OO-rapid-prototyping, project tracking, etc) and other soft skills such as teamwork and contribution to team projects, communications and presentation skills, writing skills and so on. These skills are extremely useful in their future career in the IT industry of today.
  • inter-personal (soft) skills -- the group experience also help students gain good communication skills, in both written comm and oral presentation. These activities also help develop better inter-personal skills including teamwork, working with others, contributing ideas to others and seeking ideas from others.
  • UROP Projects

    UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunity Programme) projects are meant to be more research-oriented and for a single student. For these projects, I tend to give out projects that are related to existing (past or ongoing) projects with other senior student(s) involved.

    I use the following guidelines in my UROP projects:

    Third Year Projects

    Honours Year Projects

    MSc/PhD Research Projects

    Past Students and Projects

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    Leong Hon Wai's Homepage

    (Added: Feb-1999; Revised 21-Apr-1999)