Zhihua, Sheffield Mandarin tutor, Sheffield Computer Studies / I.T. tutor

Mandarin
Primary - £20.00 p.h.
Secondary - £20.00 p.h.
GCSE - £20.00 p.h.
A-Level - £20.00 p.h.
University - £20.00 p.h.
Casual Learner - £20.00 p.h.

Computer Studies / I.T.
Primary - £25.00 p.h.
Secondary - £25.00 p.h.
GCSE - £25.00 p.h.
A-Level - £25.00 p.h.
University - £25.00 p.h.
Casual Learner - £25.00 p.h.

Personal Description: Dr Zhihua L.A.I obtained his PhD on Wireless Propagation Modelling at University of Bedfordshire in June, 2010 (aged 25). He obtained his first computer when he was aged 13. At that time, he was addicted to DOS, Logo, and Foxbase 2.1 but, after he was given a book on 'Pascal', he fell in love with programming.

In high school, he participated in Information Olympic competitions and won the national third prize twice.

In 2002, Zhihua spent a happy year at the International College in Beijing. This year of study boosted his computing knowledge.

For his second and third years of bachelor studies he relocated to the UK, and completed his BSc with First Class (GPA 15.51 out of 16, the highest grade of the year) in Computer Science (September 2006) at the University of Bedfordshire.

When he was aged 22, Zhihua was offered the opportunity to start a PhD with a fee-waiver studentship. For the first 7 months, his research project title was "Grid-enabled Optimisation Algorithms for Network Planning". However, he turned his research interests into wireless propagation algorithms. Thanks to various studentships, he has been given more time to concentrate on research. In 2009, he continued research in Fribourg, Switzerland, where he developed parallel propagation algorithms in a distributed grid environment. In 2010, he undertook a project with T-mobile UK while he continued the research and improvement of the radiowave propagation model for indoor to outdoor scenarios. During the three years of research, Zhihua also taken a programming role in many European projects. From January to April 2007, he was involved in a medical project (LHDL) when he developed and implemented webservice-based 3D visualisation for medical purposes. Later 2008, he was involved in developing an enhanced knowledge searching engine. From March 2006 to December 2007, he was working part-time in Refriendz Ltd as a software engineer. He was responsible for technical operations, which involves managing web server, maintaining database, optimising SQL queries, developing new functions, and ensuring overall system efficiency. Skills involved are PHP, MySql, Smarty, Fusebox, Javascript, Css, DHTML, and Memcached. In December 2010, he was employed as a development manager for a university (University of Bedfordshire) project (**E-mail Address Removed**), which aims developing an online web application for new research students for the oncoming year. The collaboration between he and the development team had been an amazing experience that they accomplished the target within less than two weeks. The knowledge and experience he obtained from university has been so wonderful that during his PhD research, he successfully undertook several other projects such as creation of websites for Ranplan Component Ltd. and Chingland Travel Ltd in 2007.

His propagation model 'IRLA' has been cited in the book "Femtocells - Technologies and Deployment", Wiley, January 2010 by Professor Jie Zhang and Dr Guillaume de la Roche.

Zhihua loves programming. He thinks every good program should be a piece of art. He has been an active Pascal programmer for more than 10 years. He is also a Linux C++ and Assembly programmer. Programming has greatly changed his life, e.g. he usually decomposes things into binary codes. He says: "Programming is the fundamental skill to do research, especially for subjects on computer science or engineering." However, he is usually considered a programmer rather than a researcher.

Currently, Dr continues the research in fast and accurate propagation models for wireless network planning and optimisation. Till now, he has managed to develop more than 250 thousands lines of code and 1000 APIs (excluding comment and empty lines, which consists of mixed Pascal, C++, Assembly and VB/JScript) for the state-of-the-art wireless propagation tools/engines. He is now dedicated to developing the 64-bit simulation engine and maintaining the tools.

From September, 2010, he joined Ranplan Wireless Network Design Ltd… Luton Office, as a senior research fellow, where he is the main developer/manager of wireless propagation modelling. From October, 2011, he was relocated to Sheffield office.

Dr L.A.I has a very high rank in search engines.

Tutoring Experience: I have teaching experience in University of Bedfordshire for many years on different subjects of computing. I have been privately previously/currently tutoring a few students.

Tutoring Approach: exercises, examples and programming.
Identifying weaknesses and strengths of my students. Working on key areas of understanding, going back as much as necessary to catch up with materials.

Qualifications:

• 2010: PhD on Wireless Propagation Modelling - University of Bedfordshire (Doctorate)
• 2006: BSc First Class in Computer Science - University of Bedfordshire (Bachelors)

Native Language: Chinese
Availability: Weekends / Weekdays (evenings)
References Available: Yes
CRB Check: Yes