Event

Evaluation of Network Resilience and Survivability: Analysis, Simulation, Tools, and Experimentation by James P. G. Sterbenz, ITTC, University of Kansas

As the Internet becomes increasingly important to all aspects of society, the consequences of disruption are increasingly severe. Thus it is critical to increase the resilience and survivability of the future networks in general, and the Internet in particular. We define resilience as the ability of the network to provide desired service even when the network is challenged by attacks, large-scale disasters, and other failures. Resilience subsumes the disciplines of survivability, fault-tolerance, disruption-tolerance, traffic-tolerance, dependability, performability, and security. After an introduction to the disciplines and challenges to network resilience, this presentation will discuss analytical, simulation, and experimental emulation techniques for understanding, evaluating, and improving the resilience of the Future Internet. This includes a multilevel state-space based approach that plots network service delivery against operational state that is the basis for both mathematical- and simulation-based analysis, and graph-theoretic complex-system approaches that embed fundamental properties such as redundancy and diversity into all aspects of network structure, mechanism, and protocols. A set of tools to help in this analysis has been developed: KU-LoCGen (Location and Cost-Constrained Topology Generation), KU-TopView (Topology Viewer), and KU-CSM (Challenge Simulation Module). Plans to experimentally evaluate resilience include using the international programmable testbed GpENI: Great Plains Environment for Network Innovation. A new composable, cross-layered resilient transport protocol (ResTP) and geodiverse multipath routing protocol (GeoDivRP) are being developed.

Event details

  • When: 28th January 2014 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Maths Theatre B
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar

Techniques for Scalable Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage

Three-Hour Research Tutorial by Peter Christen, Australian National University

Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage (PPRL) is an increasingly important topic in data management, data engineering, and data mining, as organizations in both the private and public sectors are under pressure to share, integrate, and link their data in order to allow analysis that is not possible on individual databases. At the same time, sensitive information such as personal identifying details or confidential business data need to be protected. PPRL can for example be applied to match health databases without revealing any sensitive personal details of patients, or to detect individuals that have been involved in fraudulent activities across organizations without the need to share the full, potentially confidential, databases. Research in PPRL over the past decade has developed a variety of algorithms, however the challenge of linking very large databases in privacy-preserving, scalable, accurate, and automatic ways is still an open problem. In this half-day tutorial I will illustrate the significance of PPRL through several real-world scenarios, and introduce the concepts, techniques, algorithms, and research directions of PPRL.

This tutorial was previously held at CIKM 2013. Further details at: http://cs.anu.edu.au/people/Peter.Christen/cikm2013pprl-tutorial/.

There will be a limit on numbers due to the size of the venue. Attendance is free but prior registration is required. Please contact Graham Kirby <graham.kirby@st-andrews.ac.uk> if you wish to attend.

Event details

  • When: 11th February 2014 14:00 - 17:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Format: Seminar

An Experience of Peer Instruction

Talk by Quintin Cutts, University of Glasgow

Fed up with talking at students in one-hour chunks? Fed up with them not turning up, or falling asleep, or not remembering anything you said? Alternatively, are you fed up going to seminars where you get talked at for 55 minutes with only 5 minutes to ask questions?

Come along on Tuesday for a taste of something different. Peer Instruction (PI) is a pedagogy from the “flipped classroom” stable, where students do preparatory work before coming to lecture, and the lecture itself is more of a tutorial with lots of small-group and class-wide discussion. PI has been documented to give “times two” learning gains on standardised tests over traditional methods. Students work hard in these lectures, making your and their time worthwhile – one student said this term “I felt mentally tired after these lectures, which felt really good actually!”

I’ll run the first part of the session (at least) as if we were in a PI classroom. This will only really work if you have already at least skim-read the short three page article linked below which introduces some of the aspects of PI – saving me having to go over it again in the seminar, and allowing you to process it and be ready to grill me in the session itself!

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2076450.2076459

Event details

  • When: 17th December 2013 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Format: Talk

Enterprise First: How to Start a Tech Startup

Enterprise First is the UK’s top graduate startup accelerator, sponsored by government as well as global companies such as McKinsey, KPMG and Microsoft.
 Please see the event description below and check out the facebook event at https://www.facebook.com/events/451961804910008

 

How to Start a Tech Startup

Entrepreneur First is coming to St Andrews to deliver an intensive, practical workshop on how to actually start a startup as a computer scientist.
 
When: Friday 22nd November, 4-5pm.
Where: Physics Theatre C
Why: Maybe you’ve already thought of founding a startup after graduation. But, maybe you’re going into a tech company to gain experience or staying in academia to research your idea. Entrepreneur First thinks best way to build something amazing is to actually do it from Day 1. Why should you compromise? Last year 32 graduates joined Entrepreneur First and built 11 companies now worth over $35million, two of which went on to Y Combinator. Come and find out how.
 
This is the hardest, most challenging career path available, and is almost exclusively open to technical graduates. The Founders of Entrepreneur First will show you what it takes, and highlight previous St Andrews students who have gone on to create successful startups on the programme.
 
If you’re the sort of person who wants to build big, world-changing products, Entrepreneur First was designed for you. Almost everyone has strong technical backgrounds. Entrepreneur First is the only programme in the world to select individuals purely on the basis of talent, often pre idea and pre team, and give them the opportunity to build their ideas with other exceptional people.
 
Entrepreneur First is a not-for-profit backed by the City of London, McKinsey & Company, KPMG, Microsoft, Nokia, Experian, Osborne Clarke, Rackspace, Sky, SVB, and Workspace. You can read about them in the BBC, The Daily Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Tech City News, and the Financial Times. Find out more:

Event details

  • When: 22nd November 2013 16:00 - 17:00
  • Where: Phys Theatre C
  • Format: Talk

Evolution of our existing institutional research information infrastructure : a facilitator for Open Science?

Anna Clements, Head of Research Data and Information Services, University of St Andrews.

Open Science’ seems to be one of the hottest topics around with organisations and funders from the G8 downwards stressing the importance of open data in driving everything from global innovation through to more accountable governance; not to mention the more direct possibility that non-compliance could result in research grant income drying up.
Here at St Andrews we have had an institutional research information system (CRIS) since 2006 which has evolved in tandem with the rapidly changing research policies and slower cultural shifts towards more and more open access to research outputs, outcomes and impact. But, we now face, perhaps, the biggest challenge so far in determining the extent to which Institutional infrastructure and services can support this transition to an ‘open by default’ culture. I will argue that this challenge cannot be met without researchers engaging with the debate and driving the agenda forward with the support services here at St Andrews – there is a joint responsibility very clearly articulated in the EPSRC policy framework on research data. So there will be some suggestions on what we could do by building on our existing infrastructure, including examples of best practice from elsewhere, but also an invitation to the audience for suggestions on how to respond to this incessant and increasing clamour for access to research outputs and, in particular, research data.

Event details

  • When: 19th November 2013 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Purdie Theatre C
  • Series: School Seminar Series

StACS Hackathon hosted by Witlr

StACS will be holding its first big event of the year! It will take place in the MSc Lab in the John Honey building between 7pm and 2am on November 14th. The topic will be data visualization and will be sponsored by Witlr (http://witlr.com/).

There will be free pizza, free hard and soft refreshments, a game room, and snacks available for everybody who participates. This event is open to PAID StACS members only and the challenge will be suitable for all skill levels. Membership may be paid for at the door and costs 3 pounds.

Event details

  • When: 14th November 2013 19:00 - 15th November 2013 02:00
  • Where: Honey 110 - MSc Lab

Intellectual Property – What, why, and how?

Dr Alan Boyd and Dr Nicholas Malden, D Young & Co LLP (Patent Attorneys)
Intellectual Property – What, why, and how?
In many technological fields, especially computer science, output isn’t a physical object that can be sold, but is an idea or an expression of an idea that comes from your mind. But how can industry take advantage of such ideas or expressions, and what’s to stop a competitor from simply copying your hard work and benefiting from it at your expense? In this talk, we’ll take you through the basics of Intellectual Property (IP) and look at how it can be used by a computer scientist, its importance to new start-ups and large multinationals alike, and also introduce you to the patent attorney profession. We’ll give you a chance to try your hand at writing a patent claim, and we’ll give a prize to the best one!

Event details

  • When: 5th November 2013 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Purdie Theatre C
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar

The Interaction of Representation and Reasoning by Professor Alan Bundy, University of Edinburgh

These lectures will take place in Lower College Hall, North Street. The lectures will discuss the close relationship between how knowledge and problems may be represented and how people and computers use these representations to guide their reasoning about the problems.

Prof Steve Linton, Prof Alan Bundy and Prof Ian Sommerville

Prof Steve Linton, Prof Alan Bundy and Prof Ian Sommerville
Distinguished lectures, 27th November 2013

10.00 1. Title: The Interaction of Representation and Reasoning

Abstract: Successful reasoning is dependent on appropriate representation of both knowledge and of successful methods of reasoning. A change of representation can change an intractable problem into an easy one. Failures of reasoning can suggest changes of representation. Reasoning failures can, for instance, take the form of proofs of false conjectures, failures to prove true conjectures or inefficient inference. I will illustrate these interactions by drawing on work in my research group.

11.30 2. Title: Theory Evolution in Physics

Abstract: We investigate the problem of automatically repairing a faulty Physics theory when it conflicts with experimental evidence. We introduce novel strategies for fault diagnosis and for representation repair. Diagnosis and repair are composed into general-purpose repair plans. We will illustrate this with two such plans, where theory and experiment conflict over (a) the value and (b) the dependence of a function, respectively. We represent both physical concepts and the repair plans using higher-order logic. This is because many physical concepts are most naturally represented as higher-order functions and because polymorphic higher-order functions are required to enable the repair plans to be applied to diverse situations.

14.00 3. Title: Reformation: A Domain-Independent Algorithm for Theory Repair

Abstract: We describe and invite discussion on work in progress on reformation, a new algorithm for the automated repair of faulty logical theories. A fault is revealed by a reasoning failure: either the proof of a false theorem or the failure to prove a true conjecture. Repair suggestions are systematically extracted via analysis of the attempted unification of two formulae. These suggestions will either block an unwanted but successful unification or unblock a wanted but failed unification attempt. In contrast to traditional belief revision and abduction mechanisms, the repairs are to the language of the theory as well as to the deletion or addition of axioms.

Professor Alan Bundy

Professor Alan Bundy is Professor of Automated Reasoning in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Professor Bundy is a world-leader in the area of artificial intelligence called Mathematical Reasoning and has held more than 50 research grants in this area since the 1970s , has published more than 200 research papers and has been awarded the 2007 IJCAI Award for Research Excellence and Herbrand Award for Distinguished Contributions to Automated Deduction. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, A Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineers and, in 2012, was awarded a CBE for services to computing science. As well as his research work, Professor Bundy has played an active role in the British Computer Society and has been instrumental in supporting changes to the computer science curriculum in schools.

Slides:

Event details

  • When: 27th November 2013 10:00 - 16:00
  • Where: Lower College Hall
  • Series: Distinguished Lectures Series

Some Limits of Language: A Perspective from Formal Grammars and Languages by Prof Arvind Joshi, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Limits of language can be studied from various perspectives such as morphology, syntax, and semantics, among others. At the syntactic level, one direction that has been pursued very actively is via the theory of formal languages, beginning with the so-called Chomsky hierarchy. In this hierarchy, the finite state languages (regular languages) and the context free languages (CFL) have been studied very extensively, leading to many important results relevant to syntax as well as parsing. At the same time, inadequacy of these two classes of grammars (languages) for capturing natural languages has been well documented by now.
A careful look at the pumping lemma for context free languages led to the discovery of the so-called tree adjoining grammars (TAG) and to the notion of mildly context sensitive languages (MCSL), which has served as a framework for showing equivalences among other systems (such as Combinatory Categorial Grammars, CCG and Head Grammars (HG), for example). This has led to a deeper understanding of the limits of language, more specifically, by trying to provide an answer to the question: how far do we need to be beyond CFL to achieve syntactic adequacy.
I will try to describe some of this recent work by a number of researchers in the past few years.

Aravind Joshi did his undergraduate work in India and his graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania in Electrical Engineering, while simultaneously attending some courses in Linguistics at the same University. Since 1961 he has been a faculty member in the Department of Computer and Information Science and the Department of Linguistics. At present, he is a Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science and a Member of the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science.
Besides working on some problems in the mathematics of language, at present, he is involved in a project on discourse annotation, jointly with Bonnie Webber (Edinburgh U.) and Rashmi Prasad (U. Wisconsin), for creating the Penn Discourse Treebank (PDTB).

Event details

  • When: 15th October 2013 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Purdie Theatre C
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar