Matt N
TS Member
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Hi guys. As many of us here are adults, I’m assuming that quite a few of us might have attended university at some stage or another. One key component of many university degrees is a dissertation, or a final independent project of some description. This typically comes in your last year at university, and it allows you to pick a topic to focus on and research it independently, with some supervision, or otherwise produce some form of independent work (I imagine it varies by degree subject). With this in mind, I’d be really interested to know; if you went to university, what was your dissertation or final independent project based around? Having completed mine this academic year, it’s quite fresh in my mind, and I’d be really interested to know what others did their dissertation or final independent project on at university. For a bit of context, I’d also be interested to know what your degree subject was, as I’m aware that this will influence the subject matter of your project.
I’ll get the ball rolling by talking about mine.
My degree subject was BSc Computer Science, and for my dissertation, I decided to pursue a data science/analytics focused project looking into different machine learning models. The exact focus of my dissertation was vertical handover prediction modelling for mobile networks, and the title of my dissertation was Throughput-Based Vertical Handover Prediction based on User Mobility (not very snazzy, I know, but as many of you are aware, brevity has never been my strong point…).
For those not aware, handover in mobile networks is the process of changing mobile network technology (e.g. 4G, 5G) or changing base station (mobile network tower, in layman’s terms). My dissertation focused on vertical handover, which is a change in network technology. You also have horizontal handover, which is a change in base station within the same technology. Handovers can occur due to movement (hence the “based on user mobility” in my dissertation title), and they can also occur due to declining network KPIs. Handovers are used to provide the best quality of experience to a mobile user.
To get technical for a second, my study tested two different research objectives. It firstly looked into three different machine learning models, one commonly used model in a Neural Network and two previously unused models with lower complexity in a Random Forest and a Naive-Bayes Classifier, for the purpose of vertical handover prediction and assessed which was the most accurate. The most accurate of these was then taken on and used to test a second research objective in testing whether network throughput variables, an unused variable combination, could predict vertical handover accurately, as well as whether it could improve on the commonly used signal strength variables. Complexity reduction of the model was then pursued.
I picked the topic I did because I knew I wanted to do a data science/analytics based dissertation, and the best supervisor for that specialism was highly interested in the area of mobile networks. I was also able to access some brilliant mobile network datasets for model training and testing, which helped! I was unsure on the topic at first, but it worked out well in the end, and my eventual grade was 85/100, so the academics evidently liked it!
But I’d be interested to know; if you went to university, what did your dissertation or final independent project focus on? And for context, what degree subject did you do?
I’ll get the ball rolling by talking about mine.
My degree subject was BSc Computer Science, and for my dissertation, I decided to pursue a data science/analytics focused project looking into different machine learning models. The exact focus of my dissertation was vertical handover prediction modelling for mobile networks, and the title of my dissertation was Throughput-Based Vertical Handover Prediction based on User Mobility (not very snazzy, I know, but as many of you are aware, brevity has never been my strong point…).
For those not aware, handover in mobile networks is the process of changing mobile network technology (e.g. 4G, 5G) or changing base station (mobile network tower, in layman’s terms). My dissertation focused on vertical handover, which is a change in network technology. You also have horizontal handover, which is a change in base station within the same technology. Handovers can occur due to movement (hence the “based on user mobility” in my dissertation title), and they can also occur due to declining network KPIs. Handovers are used to provide the best quality of experience to a mobile user.
To get technical for a second, my study tested two different research objectives. It firstly looked into three different machine learning models, one commonly used model in a Neural Network and two previously unused models with lower complexity in a Random Forest and a Naive-Bayes Classifier, for the purpose of vertical handover prediction and assessed which was the most accurate. The most accurate of these was then taken on and used to test a second research objective in testing whether network throughput variables, an unused variable combination, could predict vertical handover accurately, as well as whether it could improve on the commonly used signal strength variables. Complexity reduction of the model was then pursued.
I picked the topic I did because I knew I wanted to do a data science/analytics based dissertation, and the best supervisor for that specialism was highly interested in the area of mobile networks. I was also able to access some brilliant mobile network datasets for model training and testing, which helped! I was unsure on the topic at first, but it worked out well in the end, and my eventual grade was 85/100, so the academics evidently liked it!
But I’d be interested to know; if you went to university, what did your dissertation or final independent project focus on? And for context, what degree subject did you do?
