The Subhonours Lab was in full swing yesterday afternoon, with staff and students enjoying the challenge of the 2014 St Andrews Programming Competition.
Participants and winners are pictured below along with some of the prizes and merchandise. Winners, prizes and teams to be announced once confirmed. We believe the Head of School, Steve Linton, did rather well.
The event, prizes and refreshments sponsored by:
Follow on Twitter @aetherstore
In recognition of academic excellence for his outstanding research work and entrepreneurialism Dr. Per Ola Kristensson is amongst the most outstanding academic talent documented by The Royal Society in their Royal Prizewinners list for 2014, announced today. The Prize was founded in 1855 by Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, for particular distinction in the promotion of scientific research.
In 2013 Per Ola Kristensson was named as one of the people most likely to change the world by the prestigious MIT Technology Review’s list of Innovators under 35. Described as visionary he appears at number 11 in IMPACT 100.
IMPACT 100 PANEL VIEW:
People like Per Ola Kristensson are the shapers of the future where social interaction and new technology are concerned.
His research interconnects human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence and machine learning allowing intelligent interactive systems to be developed, that enable people to be more creative, expressive and satisfied in their daily lives. Dr. Kristensson also works in the areas of multi-display systems, eye-tracking systems, and crowdsourcing and human computation.
He is a Lecturer in the School of Computer Science, a member of the SACHI research group and is also a Member of the RSE Young Academy of Scotland.
Professor Aaron Quigley, Chair of HCI in the School of Computer Science responded:
We are all delighted at the rightful recognition of Per Ola and his world-leading achievements. Last year he was the only UK member of the TR35, the most prestigious annual list published by MIT Technology Review. And now the Royal Society of Edinburgh has recognised his research. Per Ola is an excellent colleague who brings real enthusiasm, insight and dedication to whatever he does. Be it supervising an honours student, teaching, leadership in SICSA or working with industry. His work in intelligent interactive systems is laying the ground work for how the world will interact with computation in the future.
Students undertaking CS5042 User Centred Interaction Design are pictured prototyping their design ideas during creative thinking, and hands-on sessions in the Morrison Suite.
The module delivered by Miguel Nacenta is a compulsory element for students studying on our new MSc in Human Computer Interaction, a popular addition to our MSc Portfolio.
Images courtesy of Miguel Nacenta
In September 2013 the Scottish Resource Centre for Women in SET, funded by Scottish Government, launched a ground breaking new initiative called Careerwise, with the aim of encouraging more women to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers through work placements aimed at female undergraduates in Scotland.
Twenty organisations have signed up to Careerwise between them offering 43 paid work placements, presenting a unique opportunity for women to gain valuable work experience in industries where they are significantly underrepresented.
Placements take place between June and August 2014 and are paid at a salary of at least £16K pro rata. Applications are welcome from women currently studying STEM subjects at any Scottish University. The closing date for all applications is 31st March 2014.
Organisations providing placements include Ace Winches, Technip, National Oilwell Varco, Atkins, Leiths, Nova Biotics, Nallatech, Cairndene, Selex ES, KP Technology, Insight Arcade, URS, Toshiba Medical Visualization Systems, Edinburgh Napier University, Heriot-Watt University, Royal Botanic Gardens, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the University of Edinburgh.
They have 17 computer science opportunities available for female undergraduates.
Students can View the placements here and download the Interest Application Form
Any enquiries regarding the Careerwise initiative should be directed to careerwise@napier.ac.uk or 0131 455 2267.
Palantir Technologies are looking for a software engineer
Emeritus Professor and former Head of School Ron Morrison visited us earlier this week to officially open The Morrison Suite.
On Thursday 6 February 2014 the Minister for Universities and Science, David Willtts MP, announced funding of £4.6 million for 21 Digital Transformations in the Arts and Humanities projects as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) investment in Big Data.
Along with colleagues in the School of Informatics and the Department of English & Scottish Literature in the University of Edinburgh Aaron Quigley and Uta Hinrichs have been awarded one of these grants for the project Palimpsest: an Edinburgh Literary Cityscape. In this project they aim to create a new, visualised literary cityscape, based on an extensive dataset of literary texts. This project has a focus on Edinburgh but the plan is for the techniques, methods and tools to apply to other UNESCO World Cities of Literature or indeed any literary city.
Universities and Science Minister David Willetts said: “Getting quality data out of the hands of a few and into the public domain is an important goal for this Government. This funding will help to overcome the challenge of making vast amounts of rich data more accessible and easier to interpret by the public. These 21 projects promise to come up with innovative long-lasting solutions.” [1]
Palimpsest will be available to an online community of remote visitors, those with an interest in the literature of Scotland and its constituent places who explore the city and its culture from a distance. Palimpsest arises out of the idea of creating an innovative way of engaging people with literature, and drawing on literature’s own dependence on, and engagement with, place and space. Exploration of the relation between urban places and literature first arose in sociology in the mid 19th century.
Professor James Loxley from the University of Edinburgh said “We are looking forward to working with expert colleagues at St Andrews on this project. Palimpsest is all about learning to look at the literary writing of Edinburgh in ways that reveal collective imaginative investments in place and patterns within the work of individual authors. Visualisation is key to this – we want to be able to see the literary city, and the city in literature, in new and exciting ways that are also intuitively comprehensible to users coming to the resource for the first time.”
Professor Andrew Prescott the Digital Transformation theme Leadership Fellow commented; “The exciting projects announced by the Arts and Humanities Research Council illustrate how the arts and humanities can help exploit the opportunities offered by these vast data resources. They cover an amazing range of subject areas, from classical history and more efficient retrieval of information about music to the use of online gambling data for more accurate political analysis. By developing better tools for the visualisation and analysis of data, these projects will have significant impact beyond the arts and humanities and will assist the UK in grasping the economic and social opportunities offered by big data.” [1]
1. AHRC announcement 06/02/2014.
The School of Computer Science is delivering a Code First Girls programme. Code First: Girls is the coding education arm of Entrepreneur First, a not-for-profit organisation supporting graduates to build their own tech startups. Within this industry there is a recognition that women are at a disadvantage due to their lack of technical knowledge and this is something that they are keen to correct. Entrepreneur First is supported by Microsoft, McKinsey & Co., Experian, The City of London, BSkyB and Silicon Valley Bank and endorsed by the government.
The programme is a 7 week course, 2 hours a week, teaching basic programming techniques. At the end of the programme, the participants will be able to build a simple website, be confident in conversing with technical peers and have the stepping stones to start further exploring this area.
The course team consists of 3 of our PhD Students (Anne-Marie Mann, Lakshitha De Silva and Oche Ejembi) and one of our honours students Melissa Mozifan. The programme is supported by the Malcolm MacLeod Vice Principal (Enterprise and Engagement) and Bonnie Hacking in careers. There are 54 women, from across all schools and years of study, signed up for the programme
Experiments involving humans are an important part of Computer Science research. A database of participants has been created to avoid spamming everyone in the general lists, and so that anyone interested can sign up for future experiments.
These experiments are often paid, fun, and often provide an insight into new technologies and devices. Staff within the School of Computer Science, will use the information to help identify potential research participants.
Anyone can sign up at the following address: https://participants.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk
Are you interested in using the database for your own experiments? Use the following address:
https://participants.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/requestaccess
For more general information, please read the wiki entry: https://research.wiki.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php?title=Participant_database
Or send an e-mail to Participant Database: pdb@cs.st-andrews.ac.uk
Blesson Varghese won a Windows Azure for research award. Details of the award can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msr_er/archive/2014/01/16/latest-recipients-of-windows-azure-for-research-awards-announced.aspx#recipients
