Honorary degree for Professor Dana Scott

We’re delighted that the University will be awarding the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, to Professor Dana Scott at the graduation ceremony on Wednesday 25th June.

What does it mean to describe a computation? For Turing, it meant designing an ideal machine whose small set of simple operations could perform calculations: the operational view of computing that allows machines to perform tasks previously thought to require humans. Set against this is a view that is independent of mechanisation, where the calculations, rather than the machines that perform them, take centre stage. When we take this view, we are making use of ideas that owe their modern existence to the work of Dana Scott.

Working at Oxford in the 1970s, Scott developed the mathematical structures now known as Scott domains that provide a way of precisely describing how recursive functions make progress towards their final result. This led directly to an approach for describing the meanings of programs and programming languages — the Scott-Strachey approach to denotational semantics — and indirectly both to approaches to proving programs correct, and to the development of the lazy functional programming languages that today form a major strand of computer science research.

Dana Scott is a Turing Award recipient (jointly with Michael Rabin), a winner of the International Bolzano Prize, and a supervisor of over 50 PhD students. His contributions to the foundations of computer science have been immense, and we’re very excited to be having his company alongside our graduating class.

Hot off the press: Foundations for Designing User Centered Systems

A new book, Foundations for Designing User-Centered Systems has just been published by Springer. Written by Frank Ritter (Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State), Gordon Baxter (Systems Engineering Group, Computer Science, University of St Andrews) and Elizabeth Churchill (Director of HCI at eBay Research Labs), Foundations for DUCS was developed for people studying and practising human factors/HCI and software engineering.

Foundations for DUCS encapsulates the extensive experience of its co-authors in designing, developing and conducting research into interactive systems in domains as diverse as aviation, consumer Internet, health care, eCommerce, industrial process control, and enterprise systems. The book covers the fundamental information that system designers need in order to understand their users’ capabilities and limitations, the tasks those users will perform, and the context in which they perform them. It also considers the practical implications of this information for system design. Applying the lessons from Foundations for DUCS will help readers to design interactive systems that are more usable, more useful, and more effective.

Springer launched Foundations for DUCS at the end of April 2014 in Toronto at CHI, the pre-eminent conference in Human-Computer Interaction.

Dr Baxter said:

“It was a real challenge to produce a practical resource that would be useful to students of human factors/HCI and software engineering, as well as appealing to both academics and practitioners. The testimonials we’ve received from leading lights in all areas of our target audience suggest that we’ve met that challenge, with Ian Sommerville (author of Software Engineering) recommending it ‘to all engineers’, highly respected Human Factors expert Peter Hancock saying that ‘Even if only a proportion of designers and users read this book we will be so much better off.’ and IBM Distinguished Fellow and Chief Architect, Richard Hopkins noting that the book ‘has given me access to a variety of new techniques and an extended vocabulary that I look forward to introducing my design teams to.’”

The book is currently available via SpringerLink: http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-1-4471-5134-0 and from book stores.

ACM CHI 2014 Best Paper and Honourable Mention and AVI 2014 Best Paper award

The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems is the premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction. This year, two papers from SACHI received a best paper and an honourable mention award. Across the program, members of SACHI had 9 papers and other works at this years CHI 2014 conference.

Michael Mauder (a PhD student in Computer Science), Simone Conte (an undergraduate student in CS), Miguel Nacenta (an academic in CS) and Dhanraj Vishwanath (an academic in Psychology here in St Andrews) were awarded an honourable mention for their full paper on Depth Perception with Gaze-contingent Depth of Field.

Jakub Dostal (a PhD student in Computer Science) along with many colleagues from Microsoft Research in Cambridge were awarded a best paper for their full paper on RetroDepth: 3D Silhouette Sensing for High-Precision Input On and Above Physical Surfaces. This work stems from a SICSA industrial internship award Jakub held to work with MSR during the summer of 2013.

AVI 2014 is the International Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces and through more than two decades, the Conference has contributed to the progress of Human-Computer Interaction, offering a forum to present and disseminate new technological results, new paradigms and new visions for interaction and interfaces.

Per Ola Kristensson and Aaron Quigley (academics in Computer Science) along with colleagues from the University of Castilla-La Mancha Albacete, Spain have been awarded a best paper award for their full paper on AwToolkit: Attention-Aware User Interface Widgets. This work stems from a collaboration formed from the research visit of Juan to SACHI during the summer of 2013 and subsequent joint research.

Members of SACHI are presenting 3 papers and a poster at this years AVI 2014 conference.

Senior Honours BBQ 2014

Four years of hard work, and a sunny day in May sound like prerequisites for our SH BBQ. Some laughter, lots to eat, photographic evidence and the odd game of Chess provide a well deserved opportunity to unwind before the focus shifts to exams, thoughts of graduation, or the next step. We wish them well in their exams.

Some will remain with us for another year and continue their studies on our MSci (hons) Computer Science or MSc Portfolio. We congratulate them on their exceptional choice and look forward to seeing them again in September.

Senior Honours Class of 2014

Senior Honours Poster and Demo Sessions

Our talented final year Computer Science students presented their projects last week. A demonstration and poster session allowed them to discuss the output from a semester of hard work with their peer group and staff.

We wish them every success as they approach graduation, and look forward to celebrating their successful CS journey, next Thursday at the SH BBQ.

Images courtesy of Conrad de Kerckhove.

CS1006 Backgammon AI

The annual CS1006 challenge took place this morning in the subhonours lab. Students had been designing AIs to play Backgammon, this year. The first year module was delivered by John Thomson. Previous years have focused on Hex, Othello and Connect 4.

Congratulations to David Mulkerrin, winner of the CS1006 competition, winning a £50 Amazon voucher.

Also congratulations to:
2nd- Neofytos Dimitriou and Nick Tikhonov
3rd- Callum Fare and Conor Barr

It’s always a fun session to end Semester 2, and a great opportunity to showcase the ingenuity and creativity of our first year students.

St Andrews Programming Competition 2014

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:

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Dr. Per Ola Kristensson awarded RSE/Makdougall Brisbane Medal

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.

MSc in Human Computer Interaction

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

Student Placements for Female Undergraduates

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.

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