Semester one so far has seen new arrivals in the fish tank, great minds at the think tank, a thank you from MacMillan and a cake for Ada Lovelace Day (supplied by Ishbel Duncan).
News
Fun and Fireworks
Some stunning pictures of the North Haugh and recent Guy Fawkes Night fireworks at the East Sands. Images courtesy of MSc student Xu Zhu.
Lectureship in Computer Science
We seek applications for a lectureship in Computer Science. We welcome applications from excellent researchers who are keen to cooperate with others within the School and in other Schools of the University. While exceptional individuals in all areas will be considered, we are especially interested in the broad area of data-intensive research, with emphasis on data science, machine learning, data management, data mining, open science, and sensing and sensor interpretation. Specifically, we are interested in appointing someone who would actively contribute to and collaborate widely within, the recently launched Institute for Data Intensive Research, developing and applying cutting edge Computer Science techniques for applications in a wide range of research areas.
You should have a PhD, a period of postdoctoral experience and an outstanding research record as demonstrated by publications and research funding. You must be willing to cooperate with other researchers across the School and University and to teach in any area of Computer Science. Teaching is important to us and you should be a committed teacher, with appropriate experience.
Candidates interested in this post are welcome to informally contact the Head of School (Steve Linton hos-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk) to discuss possible options. For informal discussion on IDIR, please contact Professor Simon Dobson simon.dobson@st-andrews.ac.uk. We would welcome interaction with any established groups wishing to move to St Andrews.
Information on how to apply.
Closing Date: 5 December 2014
School Seminar: Complex Networks and Complex Processes
Simon Dobson, School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews
Abstract:
Complex networks provide a way of modelling systems with lots of
dependent elements, such as traffic networks or social networks. By
running processes over these networks we can explore how the topology of
the network affects the way the process evolves, and potentially
identify factors that accelerate or impede it. This opens-up
possibilities both for study (science) and control (engineering).
This talk will briefly introduce the mechanics of complex networks and
the processes that run on them, review some recent results we have
obtained, and look to future research programme where we will combine
simulation with sensing to give us new ways of looking at the world.
Event details
- When: 4th November 2014 14:00 - 15:00
- Where: Cole 1.33
- Series: School Seminar Series
- Format: Talk
Funded PhD Research Studentships
The School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews has funding for students to undertake PhD research in any of the general research areas in the school:
http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/research
We are looking for highly motivated research students with an interest in these exciting research areas Our only requirements are that the proposed research would be good, we have staff to supervise it, and that you would be good at doing it. We have up to 6 funded studentships, including industrial sponsored studentships, available for students interested in working towards a PhD. The studentships offer costs of fees and an annual tax-free maintenance stipend of about £13,863 per year for 3.5 years. Exceptionally well qualified and able students may be awarded an enhanced stipend of an additional £2,000 per year. Students should normally have or expect at least an upper-2nd class Honours degree or Masters degree in Computer Science or a related discipline.
For further information on how to apply, see our postgraduate web pages (http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/prospective-pg). The closing date for applications is December 15th 2014 and we will make decisions on studentship allocation by February 27th 2015. Informal enquiries can be directed to pg-admin-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk or to potential supervisors.
The Design and Implementation of Feldspar
By: Josef Svenningsson, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Feldspar is a domain specific language with the goal of raising the
level of abstraction for performance sensitive, low-level code.
Feldspar is a functional language embedded in Haskell, which offers a
high-level style of programming. The key to generating generating
efficient code from such descriptions is to use a high-level
optimisation technique called vector fusion. Feldspar achieves
vector fusion for free by employing a particular way of embedding the
language in Haskell by combining deep and shallow embeddings.
Bio: Josef Svenningsson is an Assistant Professor in the Functional
Programming group at Chalmers University of Technology. He has a broad
range of interest and has published papers on wide variety of topics,
including: program analysis, constraint solving, security, programming
language design, testing and high-performance computing.
Event details
- When: 21st October 2014 14:00 - 20th October 2014 15:00
- Where: Cole 1.33
- Series: School Seminar Series
- Format: Seminar
J.P. Morgan Code for Good 2014
J.P. Morgan Code for Good 2014: Applications Now Open
We are inviting talented technologists like you to join Code for Good 2014 in London, where you will compete in teams to code for a good cause over two days and one night. You will be challenged to use your vision, imagination and expertise as you creatively use technology to address a real challenge for a leading nonprofit organization.
At the J.P. Morgan Code for Good events, you will learn from the sharpest minds in the industry as you are joined by fellow technologists from across the U.K., as well as our own technology experts.
Event date: November 14-15, 2014
Application deadline: October 24, 2014
Prizes will be awarded to winning teams at the conclusion of the event. And remember, these competitions are the perfect opportunity for you to demonstrate your abilities to J.P. Morgan recruiters and technologists, who are actively involved with each event. Read more about previous winners and their work here.
Talk: Internship Experiences 2014
Many St Andrews CS students do internships in the summer, but we very rarely get the opportunity to learn about them.
If you are interested in what some outstanding fourth year students did this summer, including tips and hints on how to do this yourself, you cannot miss this!
Hear them talk at 2:00pm on Tuesday.
Details:
Andrew McCallum worked at Inclusiq on “E-learning games for diversity”
Emily Dick worked at Accenture as a “business and system analysis to help a large government client move from a paper to an online process”
Aleksejs Sazonovs worked at Microsoft Research Cambridge (Systems and Networking group) “using insights gathered from the data, to develop an effective storage and content retrieval policy for OneDrive”
Robert Dixon worked at McLaren Racing using neural networks on a tool to help the race strategy team.
The speaker interns at a subsequent meal with the Head of School. From left to right, Steve Linton (HOS), Aleksejs Sazonovs, Robert Dixon, and Andrew McCallum (Emily Dick could not attend the meal).
Event details
- When: 7th October 2014 14:00 - 15:00
- Where: Cole 1.33b
- Series: School Seminar Series
- Format: Seminar
Simone Conte: Lockheed Martin Software Engineer of 2014
Yesterday evening, in front of a crowd of about 750 people (as part of ScotSoft, the largest yearly Software and IT meeting in Scotland), one of our School graduates received the Lockheed Martin Software Engineering Award, for an outstanding project demonstrating excellent software engineering skills.
Simone Conte receiving award from Scotland IS chair of the Board – Robert Campbell
Simone was awarded this prestigious award for his Senior Honours project, which involved the design, construction and implementation of a haptic device for people with visual disabilities. The project was chosen among the final undergraduate projects of all Scottish Computer Science departments, and has been awarded for the last 25 years by Scotland IS. The selection panel includes senior software engineers and CEOs of top companies in Scotland and beyond, including Amazon, SmarterGrid, Microsoft, RBS, Chevron, Scottish Life, Skyscanner and, of course, Lockheed Martin.
An early version of the HaptiQ
The prize consists of a trophy and a check. Other awardees from the night include Blair Archibald from the University of Glasgow, Andrews White from Strathclyde and Heather Ellis from Dundee.
Accelerating Datacenter Services with Reconfigurable Logic
by Aaron Smith, Microsoft Research
Datacenter workloads demand high computational capabilities, flexibility, power efficiency, and low cost. It is challenging to improve all of these factors simultaneously. To advance datacenter capabilities beyond what commodity server designs can provide, we have designed and built a composable, reconfigurable fabric at Microsoft to accelerate portions of large-scale software services. In this talk I will describe a medium-scale deployment of this fabric on a bed of 1,632 servers, and discuss its efficacy in accelerating the Bing web search engine along with future plans to improve the programmability of the fabric.
Bio: Aaron Smith is a member of the Computer Architecture Group at Microsoft Research. He is broadly interested in optimizing compilers, computer architecture and reconfigurable computing. Over the past 15 years he has led multiple industrial and research compiler projects at Metrowerks/Freescale Semiconductor, The University of Texas at Austin and Microsoft. He received his PhD in Computer Science from UT-Austin in 2009 and is currently serving as co-General Chair of CGO 2015.
Event details
- When: 2nd October 2014 12:00 - 13:00
- Where: Cole 1.33b
- Series: School Seminar Series
- Format: Seminar