今天翻阅一些博士论文，发现了一个致谢比较长的。应该是我见过的最长的了，足足四页。内容之真挚，感情之丰沛，赞一个。一改我们觉得西方人不喜欢“动容”的印象，也能罗嗦(啥事都说，哈哈朴实到朴实)。人家也是能够惹出眼泪的嘛。
首先说明，这位哥们是瑞典林雪平大学(自动控制)。林雪平大学在我做的粒子滤波和信号处理领域很强，跟剑桥（先前很强，近年一般）有得一拼，属于第一集团。美国纽约的石溪大学和加拿大的mac也不错，其他的全世界基本上散兵游将似的了。
这位哥们(Karl Granström)的论文成果很是丰硕（有质有量），东西做的也很不错，所谓，博文论文够长度也够深度。
转载如下：（就不做分行整理了，直接贴过来的）
Acknowledgments
Whenever I get my hands on a thesis, there are two things that I always read: the
dedication and the acknowledgments. There, in the middle of the objective, and
often dry, academic writing lies the only chance to get a glimpse of the authors
personality, a glimpse of the living and breathing human being behind the theories
and the hypotheses, behind the theorems and the proofs. I shall therefore
try to seize this opportunity, and make an attempt to show you my personality –
especially my sense of humor – as I give my thanks to the persons to whom my
thanks are due. However, please do not make yourself the illusion that I do not
take this seriously. What is written below, is written with the utmost respect for
all those that are mentioned.
With that said, in the interest of letting first things be first, I will start at the
beginning. This thesis, and the research that it contains, is a product of my time
at the Automatic Control group at Linköping University. If you should ever find
yourself in Linköping, you may wish to visit the central library. Built in 2000,
after a fire ravaged the old library in 1996, it features large glass windows that
offer great views of Linköping Cathedral, and it boast in excess of 359604 booktitles.
On one of the many shelves you can find Jack Kerouac’s On the road, a
story in which the main character claims to have
nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
While I would like to hope that I had something more than just my confusion to
offer during those first months as a member of Automatic Control, I will gladly
admit that starting a voyage towards a PhD-thesis indeed can be confusing.
In ironing out the worst kinks in my sheet of confusion, I received tremendous
help from my supervisor Dr Thomas Schön. Thomas made sure that I understood
the importance of structure, be it for a paper, a presentation, undergraduate
teaching, or just for planning which graduate courses to take, and when to
take them. He always served as a great source of enthusiasm and encouragement,
and during the last parts of my PhD studies he was gracious enough to let me
venture off in my own research direction.
Fortunately, on my continued path I found myself not alone, but under the guidance
and patient support of Dr Umut Orguner. Had he not been there to straighten
my steps, I probably would have
looked like a crab scurrying across the sand looking for bacon.
Our collaboration has been most fruitful, and it has been very inspiring for me to
be part of it. I am forever indebted to Umut for all the knowledge and wisdom he
has bestowed upon me. I have enjoyed all our discussions, and I truly hope that
we will continue to write papers together.
If Thomas andUmut are to thank for helping me survive these four years, Dr Fabio
Ramos and Dr Juan Nieto are to thank for making me believe that I could pull
it all together. I may have left Sweden thinking that I was just going to write a
Master’s thesis, but thanks to them I came back from Australia with my mind set
on writing a PhD thesis. It has been a while since we last saw each other, but I
hope our paths will cross again soon, so that we once again can enjoy the finer
pleasures of academic life: the exquisite wines, the delicious barbeques, and the
late night karaoke.
My days with Automatic Control would not have been, had it not been for the job
offer I received from Prof Lennart Ljung and Prof Fredrik Gustafsson. I may have
hesitated for a moment before accepting it, but once I joined the group I never
looked back. Fredrik is the epicenter of the vibrant a bustling Sensor Fusion
group, which I am proud to be part of. Lennart stood at the helm of Automatic
Control for some thirty years, and managed to create a very impressive research
environment before handing over the ship to Prof Svante Gunnarsson. Svante
may have had big shoes to fill, but he filled them with an ease and elegance that
is second to none. The only thing I could never quite understand is why he,
towards the end of Mjärdevistafetten 2011, took that
fateful, pear shaped, left turn.
But then again, I am hardly in the position to question the judgment of a winner
of the teaching award Gyllene Moroten. However, I am in the position to extend
my sincere gratitude to Automatic Control’s secretaries Ulla Salaneck, Åsa
Karmelind and Ninna Stensgård, who have made sure that the administrative
machinery has run without interruption.
This thesis was written using the thesis template constructed by TEX-gurus-atlarge,
Dr Gustaf Hendeby and Dr Henrik Tidefelt. Thanks to their meticulous
attention to detail, the process of writing became smooth as silk. The thesis
was proofread by Thomas, Umut, Fredrik, Dr Christian Lundquist and Lic Jonas
Callmer, who all contributed with invaluable comments. Any and all remaining
errors are – naturally – mine.
Jeffrey Bernard, a British causeur famous for the exhortation
aim low – and miss,
ended his days on earth by ingesting a toxic amount of bananas, an event he referred
to as a banana split. In his obituary – written by none other than himself –
he professed to having developed a fantasy that, starting tomorrow, things would
finally take a turn for the better. Thinking that a geographical relocation would
solve his problems, he longed for various dream cottages on the countryside. The
experience was always ruined when he found himself living at the same location.
Personally, I have never longed for dream cottages – my grandmother already
owns one on the Swedish west coast – but I have longed for dream colleagues. At
Automatic Control in Linköping I found them, and I have enjoyed every day I
have spent with them. I can only hope that their experience was not ruined when
they found myself working at the same location.
Dr Christian Lundquist was kind enough to let me tag along as his phd-train left
the station, a journey I have never regretted being part of. Our collaboration has
always be inspiring to me, and I have always appreciated his constructive and
invigorating critique of my work. It seems that lately the writing of two certain
PhD theses has halted our forward motion. However, I am confident that we will
pick up speed soon enough, provided that I do not stop completely to barrage
him with another assortment of sill-related jokes.
One of my closest friends, Lic Jonas Callmer, has been along for the ride ever
since we, in between spending time on Sydney’s beaches and drinking free beer
at The Gaff, managed to write a Master’s thesis. I always enjoy our discussions, regardless
of whether they are about serious politics, or about office related gossip.
Alas, I never did understand his interest in getting fit by kicking other men in the
balls, but then again, a great friendship is only strengthened by differences.
Lic Morgan Skoglund, First Lord Protector of the Order of the Rävhjälm, has always
been there to remind me that it is time for coffee, or time for cross-country skiing,
or time for our lunchtime 5K run, or simply time to head to the lab so that all
the microphones can be hung – not like horses – but from the ceiling. No matter
what we do, with Martin it always is, and always has been, a good time.
When I first started working at Automatic Control, there was this tall guy talking
loudly in the fika-room. Often, as I walked back to my office after finishing my
coffee, I could not help but wonder,
Wha’ happen’!?!
To tell you the truth, I still do not know, but I do know this: Lic Zoran Sjanic is
not only tall and loud, he is also super-hilarious and fun, and above all he is a
great friend. I can always trust Zoran when I want to have a bit of fun, regardless
of whether we are in Linköping, on the Balkans, or in some godforsaken corner
of the globe.
The travelling-banana-salesman-and-monkey-dompteur, Lic André Carvalho Bittencourt,
was an awesome travel companion for two weeks in Taiwan. I feel very
fortunate that I had the chance to get to know him, and I hope he is not too sad
about the fact that I turned out to be the most handsome one of us.
If there is anyone you can trust when it is time to round up the troops for a pub
crawl, it is Automatic Control’s resident BBQ-connoisseur, Lic Sina Khoshfetrat
Pakazad. He has a most infectious laughter, he always serves copious amounts of
delicious meat, and he has absolutely despicable taste in movies.
As one goes through life, one meets an innumerable number of persons. Sometimes
these encounters are like two ships, steaming past each other on a stormy
ocean, to the sound of thunder and lightning. Other times the encounters are
more like
två gistna ekor, guppandes förbi varandra på en försurad
sjö i Småland, till ljudet av storlommens lockrop.
The siren call of a black-throated loon?! What is it? Well, it’s a chirp signal with
logarithmically increasing frequency, but that’s not important right now.
What is important, are all the friends that I have met on my path through life.
This path has stretched over my childhood in Enebyberg, via a year as a foreign
exchange student in Cottage Grove, to what has become a decade in Linköping,
with a brief caesura for a years worth of surfing in New Zealand. You are far too
many to mention, and far too important to forget. I hold the memories of the fun
times we have had very dear, and I smile at the thought of all the fun that is yet
to come.
Of all the gifts I received as a child, the finest onemust be to have the best possible
siblings I could have ever wanted. Together, Emma, Erik and I have made kajsor
av godisnappar, fished for crab at the campingbryggan, snorklat in the poolen, and
helped each other avoid temptation to
the greatest of the cardinal sins: landkrabberi.
By all means, measures, metrics and standards, it has been very fun, and I’m
certain it will continue to be so.
In a letter to Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton expressed that “If I have seen further
it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants.” Blessed with my grandfathers height,
one might think that I do not need shoulders, or anything at all for that matter,
to stand on. Nevertheless, my parents have provided me with all the shoulders I
have ever needed to see far. With love and care they have instilled in me a feeling
of being capable of anything that I set my mind to. They have supported me in
wet and dry, they have celebrated my accomplishments, and they have accepted
my mistakes. För allt ni har gjort, och allt ni har betytt – tack!
Last but not least, I wish to acknowledge the financial support that I have received
from the Linnaeus research environment cadics and the frame project
grant Extended Target Tracking (621-2010-4301), both funded by the Swedish
Research Council, and from the project Collaborative Unmanned Aircraft Systems
(cuas), funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (ssf).
Linköping, October 2012
Karl Granström
Ladies and gentlemen!
The tall man with the glasses,
has now left the patio!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
再仔细看，有个有趣的发现，这哥们绝大多数的论文发表都不是跟他的导师（Thomas Schon），而是跟另一个研究人员（U. Orguner.）.仅仅在开始的两年跟导师发了几篇会议，而后来绝大多数的文章都没有跟导师合作发表。在感谢中，他也说了：
他的导师 always served as a great source of enthusiasm and encouragement,
and during the last parts of my PhD studies he was gracious enough to let me
venture off in my own research direction.
Fortunately, on my continued path I found myself not alone, but under the guidance and patient support of Dr Umut Orguner. Had he not been there to straighten my steps, I probably would have looked like a crab scurrying across the sand looking for bacon.
Our collaboration has been most fruitful, and..............
Publications
The following papers, listed in reverse chronological order, have been published:
K. Granström, C. Lundquist, and U. Orguner. Extended Target Tracking
using a Gaussian Mixture PHD filter. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace
and Electronic Systems, 2012.
K. Granström and U. Orguner. A PHD filter for tracking multiple
extended targets using random matrices. IEEE Transactions on Signal
Processing, 2012a. doi: 10.1109/TSP.2012.2212888.
K. Granström and U. Orguner. On the Reduction of Gaussian inverse
Wishart mixtures. In Proceedings of the International Conference
on Information Fusion (FUSION), pages 2162–2169, Singapore, July
2012d.
K. Granström and U. Orguner. Estimation and Maintenance of Measurement
Rates for Multiple Extended Target Tracking. In Proceedings
of the International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION),
pages 2170–2176, Singapore, July 2012c.
K. Granström, C. Lundquist, F. Gustafsson, and U. Orguner. On extended
target tracking using PHD filters. In Workshop on Stochastic
Geometry in SLAM at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation (ICRA), St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, May 2012.
K. Granström, T. B. Schön, J. I. Nieto, and F. T. Ramos. Learning to
close loops from range data. The International Journal of Robotics
Research, 30(14):1728–1754, December 2011.
U. Orguner, C. Lundquist, and K. Granström. Extended Target Tracking
with a Cardinalized Probability Hypothesis Density Filter. In Proceedings
of the International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION),
pages 65–72, Chicago, IL, USA, July 2011.
C. Lundquist, K. Granström, and U. Orguner. Estimating the shape
of targets with a PHD filter. In Proceedings of the International Conference
on Information Fusion (FUSION), pages 49–56, Chicago, IL,
USA, July 2011a.
K. Granström, C. Lundquist, and U. Orguner. Tracking Rectangular
and Elliptical Extended Targets Using Laser Measurements. In Proceedings
of the International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION),
pages 592–599, Chicago, IL, USA, July 2011.
K. Granström and T. B. Schön. Learning to Close the Loop from 3D
Point Clouds. In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference
on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages 2089–2095,
Taipei, Taiwan, October 2010.
K. Granström, C. Lundquist, and U. Orguner. A Gaussian Mixture
PHD filter for Extended Target Tracking. In Proceedings of the International
Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION), Edinburgh,
UK, July 2010.
K. Granström, J. Callmer, F. T. Ramos, and J. I. Nieto. Learning to
Detect Loop Closure from Range Data. In Proceedings of the IEEE
International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages
15–22, Kobe, Japan, May 2009.
J. Callmer, K. Granström, J. I. Nieto, and F. T. Ramos. Tree ofWords for
Visual Loop Closure Detection in Urban SLAM. In Proceedings of the
Australian Conference on Robotics & Automation (ACRA), Canberra,
Australia, December 2008.
C. Lundquist, K. Granström, and U. Orguner. An extended target
CPHD filter and a gamma Gaussian inverse Wishart implementation.
Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, 2012a.
K. Granström and U. Orguner. On Spawning and Combination of Extended/
Group Targets Modeled with Random Matrices. IEEE Transactions
on Signal Processing, 2012e.
