Matthew's Journal

I had a formal meeting with my supervisor today. It didn't go too badly, despite my anxieties in that regard. I talked about what I'm doing, what reading I have and haven't done, and where I think I should be going. The plan is:

• Continue reading on graph theory, networks, social networks, disease dynamics and questionnaire-design issues; aim to produce a mini literature review by Christmas
  
• Turn the brain-storming on a survey of contacts within the department into a proper web-based survey with appropriate sofware to record (?+analyse) the results - I'm not sure whether to record in ASCII or SQL (the later might make analysis easier, perhaps?)
  
• To do later in the year (June is quiet in the farming calender) a survey of a small population (possibly an island) to try and completely characterise the contact network thereof.
  
• To approach livestock sales and the BCMS as possible sources of large quantities of data which could be used to try and characterise the UK farm network
  
• To attend courses on stats, being a PhD student, and teaching undergrads
  
• To add "the structure of the farming industry" to the reading list - I need to speak to someone else in the unit about this
  
• To approach the "Introduction to the Scientific Basis of Medicine" organiser re supervising it
  
• To book for the networks conference in Slovenia in April and the Social networks course in Essex in July
  

I think that's enough to be getting on with!

Oh, it occurs to me that at least some people who read this might not be very intersted in my academic work - do you folks think I should create a custom friends group for it?