This week after receiving feedback from Xunfei on the second draft of my paper, I updated it with respect to her comments. I also followed up with Craig; he is going to purchase the equipment early next semester.

This week I received feedback on the second draft of my proposal from Xunfei. I spent time updating the proposal with respect to her feedback. I also met with Craig and decided on a set of RFID reader and tags. Craig is going to purchase them before the end of the semester.

This week I haven’t been able to work much because of some traveling. However, I was able to think more about my design decision including the RFID reader that I will buying. I have selected a device, and discussed with Xunfei. I am planning to meet with Craig and possibly purchase the equipment before the end of the semester.

This week I received feedback from Xunfei on my initial draft of proposal. I spent the last few days thinking more about design and trying to answer some questions that Xunfei raised. I tried referring back to my sources and it has been very helpful.

This week I worked more on my proposal after I received constructive feedback from Xunfei. I explored some of the papers further in depth to learn about how to design my project. I am also researching on what tools to buy.

This week, I met with Craig, and discussed what kind of tools I need to purchase for the project, such as RFID reader and Tags.  There are many options however, I need to make sure to purchase a reader that allows backend manipulation. I am scheduling a meeting with Ajit, to discuss this further with him.

I reviewed more papers over the week to get a better sense of what I would need to address in my proposal. I also met with Xunfei and discussed the structure of my project as well as how to work with some of the shortcomings of an RFID system

This week I finished writing the literature review and looking in depth into the literature available for my two topics: RFID in library and Sentiment analysis for stock prediction. I believe I will proceed with RFID technology and research more about the resources and different components of the system.

I spent the past week reading related papers to my three ideas. It helped me gain a better understanding of the scope and challenges associated with each potential project. I also met with Ajit and discussed the projects. I believe I am leaning more towards working on the RFID technology as it seems a distinct idea and has a fair scope.

• Improved Earlham Directory

I want to work on a system that manages courses, students and registration similar to Earlham directory but with better management and user-interface. The project will entail a large scale design and breakdown of the problem into smaller subproblems. I will need to learn to work on managing database, and perhaps writing a REST api to create the communication between the system and the database. It will involve easy to understand graphics, and a user friendly interface.

• Uber-like system for buses

I want to build a system similar to Uber- online tracking, separate accounts for users and online payment. The project will entail several moving pieces. I will need to use different tools in order to store the data, process payments, and have authorization in place. A great portion of the project will be designing and understanding how to make the different pieces work together.

• Stock price prediction using social media

The project will be on predicting the price movements and trends of stocks based on the sentiments expressed on social media or newspapers. This will involve parsing and sentiment analysis of the data and studying its comparison with the price trend of a group of stocks. The project will entail usage of different sources for managing and parsing the input sentiments. A great portion of it will also be on using machine learning to study the correlation between the price and polarity of sentiments.

I realize my ideas are a bit general at the moment, but I am trying to make them more specific and novel after discussing with Dave and Ajit.

• Predicting stock prices using sentiment analysis of social media resources such as Twitter
• Predicting S&P prices using indicators such as stock trends, news and Google trends
• Creating an e-commerce website