On the 14^th of August 2009, our promoter Ronald Rousseau turns 60 years old. For a long time he has been motivating us to devote ourselves to academic research, encouraging every little progress in our research. We know that he has always cherished the hope that we can work together as a real team. This is not obvious because of geographic distances. Moreover, as was shown by Jackson & Rogers (2007), the node with a higher degree tends to have a lower clustering coefficient, since the nodes in its neighbourhood prefer to link to it rather than each other. Indeed, although Ronald has always encouraged us to communicate with each other, we tend to ask him to act as a bridge. For the occasion of his 60^th birthday, we have tried to overcome the fact that we are living and working in different continents, different time zones and different conditions. As president of the ISSI and a major facilitator of international collaboration himself, Ronald is – we think – certainly interested in how the researchers from different countries in our field are connected and bridging between different groups. Therefore, we have chosen the topic to do further investigation.

 

      从六月十八日我们开始谋划这件事情，到选题，相关文献阅读，研究方向确定，收集数据，数据补充，再到数据分析，是一次真正的合作，通常一个人提出一个主意，另外的人就想办法补充完整，然后就论证。我们三个人也还有各自的工作和事务，师妹要到另外一个大学当馆长，孟加拉电力供应也不是很稳定，师弟这期间要参加ISSI会议，我要进行房产交割和装修搬迁......无论如何，我们还是克服一切阻碍，想法设法按时完成这份礼物，到后来，我们利用时差，几乎连轴转，我晚上一点做好，发给师弟，师弟再润色修改，他睡觉前发给我们，恰好是我们就天亮了，我就接着做。其间最大的困难是SCI的作者和国家名字没有对应起来，我们第一次收集的数据没有国家的名字，第二次又开始收集，收集好后，要处理数据了，才发现并不能把作者和国家名字对应起来，不得不用手工来完成，而那么大量的作者，我们不得不找作者的个人网页、另外发表的文章等等资料来确认他们的国家！面临这样的挑战，我们几个什么也没有说，我找了个便利方法后，几个人就分头做起来。到8月13日，师弟花费了一整天时间把我们各自所做的结果updating成一片文章。我开始设计卡片雏形，晚上的时候发给他们两个， 师弟到黎明的时候，把他修改的文章和他修改的卡片发过来。第二天，师妹一直没有消息，我很担心是因为电力供应的问题，使我们联系不上，致使我们不能按时递交礼物。好在她10点钟发来邮件说她在想办法把孟加拉的B打上去，让我等等。

 

到最后几天，老师交给我的其他任务，包括给一家顶级刊物提交我们所完成的稿件，我都假装在搬家，不在电脑跟前。在递交了我们的生日礼物后，等待老师回复的这一段时间，心里空空的。不知道他到底喜欢不喜欢我们的生日礼物。

Dear Raf, Yuxian and Ruba,

This is quite a surprise! I very much appreciate your collaborative presents (plural). More later about the article (when I have  'digested' it).

Friendly greetings,

Ronald

当读到这封信的时候，泪水潸然而下。在比利时的时候，老师说他这辈子只有三个真正的博士生，他也不准备再带别的人了。师姐是他带的第一个博士生，但那时候师姐自己都是教授了，所以，老师更多地把师姐看做是自己的同事，而不是学生。尽管在师姐读博士其间，他只带师姐一个学生。师姐的博士论文获得Emerald最佳论文，他很为此感到骄傲，嘱咐我们给师姐表示一下祝福。我给师姐说：真羡慕你所取得的成绩。可能我永远也达不到你的高度，但衷心祝福你。师姐给我回信说，鲁索是很伟大的科学家，也是很伟大的导师，我们都很幸运能碰上这么一个好老师，相信你的论文在他的指导下会更出彩。这些年在导师的悉心指导下走上科学研究的道路，艰难然而实实在在地成长着，老师手把手地传道授业解惑，告诉我们科学道路上，孤独和各种挫折必然伴生其左右，然而我们不能因此而弄虚作假，踏踏实实和实事求是地做人做研究是我们最基本的行为规则；说即使所有的中国人都不遵守规则，我也必须遵守。连他曾经的失败都悉心告诉我们，包括他读第一个博士时所面临的挫折和困惑，以防我们再犯类似的错误并鼓励我们勇敢地去攀登......这一切，使我从一个持有功利主义科研观的图书馆员，转变为真心喜欢科研，醉心于科学研究、探索科学发展过程中的规律的科研工作者，并立志为之奋斗终身。

 

老师的生日聚会挪到第二天休息日，因而他在生日那天读了我们的文章并给出第一个评论：

Dear Students,

Excellent work: I like it very much; with some really new results. I  am proud of you!  What are your plans concerning this article?......

 

那天我把我们师姐弟合作期间来往信件整理了一下，不包括附件，从Word中的文件有50多页！

 Dear Raf and Ruba:

 As my box is full, I have to delete some emails. And I treasure our  experience so much that I can not delete it, so I made an archive.

 Anyway, we made it! As Ronald are proud of us, we can be also proud of  our works: discussing a topic, exploring the unknown, overcome difficulties, correct our own mistake, try our best to find the rules, complement each other, understanding each other! Moreover, we also deal with many other things, Raf had taken part in the ISSI conference, Ruba changed her work, I also had to transfer ownership of an apartment from older owner to my own. In such short time, we overcome all difficulties and succeed in last minute! we got so much support from each other!

 As Raf had said that: let's see this small research project for Ronald's birthday as a starting point rather than an end.we really have reasons  to collaborate more!

I would like join Raf and say: thank for your support and your work. Thank for raf the whole days work in the 13^th of August, thank for Ruba's great effort to type Bangla font in the card,thank for your tolerance on my poor English¡­¡­

Friendly greetings
Yuxian

 Dear Yuxian and Ruba,

I can only agree with everything Yuxian has written. Although we were also occupied by many other things, we have managed to create a nice birthday present. And it really was teamwork, so thank you both!
 
Ronald raises some interesting questions. I cannot answer them all right  awxay, but I will certainly come back to them. ......

 
Friendly greetings,
Raf

Dear Raf and Yuxian:

I agree with Yuxian and Raf. We become more closer than before with this work. I learn a lot from both of you to mange all difficults. My best wishes to both of you and our beloved Professor.

Friendly greetings,
Ruba 

是啊，美好的祝福送给我们衷心爱戴着的导师。他把促进国际合作当作他做为ISSI主席的主要职责，希望我们的礼物作为他精心培育的成果，能给他带来内在的快乐，也能帮助他更好的实现他的梦想。