Honourable mentions for two ACM research papers

Per Ola Kristensson has two recent papers published in top ACM conferences that have received honourable mentions:

Best student poster award at IWSOS

Congratulations to Lei Fang, one of our SICSA postgrads, on winning the best student poster award at the recent International Workshop on Self-Organising Systems (IWSOS) in Delft NL.

The poster (PDF), entitled “Towards self-management in WSNs by exploiting a spatio-temporal model”, presents early work on using statistical methods to find and exploit correlations between the observations made by nodes in a wireless sensor network. The aim is to use these correlations to detect errors, improve calibration and reduce data traffic.

The Results Delusion – Systems Seminar by John Thomson

Systems Seminar – by John Thomson

All wecome.

The Results Delusion

Abstract:

It is often said that any subject which requires the word ‘science’ to be placed somewhere in its name, is unlikely to be very scientific. This is unfortunately far too true for systems research in general. Every systems conference, papers are presented which show significant speedups over previous approaches to problem X, but these improvements are rarely replicated in output from industry. Why? The unpalatable answer is that a significant amount of systems research is the result of self-delusion, bad science and, I suspect occasionally, fraud.

Standards of scientific rigour in CS often fall well below what would be taken for granted in other sciences – particularly with regard to measurement of results, statistical analysis and replicability of results. I would like to do something about this, and will be presenting the idea for a new CS journal, which focuses on this exact problem. Oh, and peer review is gone too! Pitfalls abound. Would love to hear your comments, objections and advice.

Event details

  • When: 27th March 2012 13:00 - 13:45
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Format: Seminar

One from the archives: The Jack Cole Building

The Jack Cole building was officially opened by the then First Minister Jack McConnell on the 18th March 2005. The building was named after the founder of Computer Science at St Andrews. Read more about the opening in the university news archives.

Read more about Jack Cole and view pictures of the reception held after the opening.

Unveiling the Plaque

Virtual Worlds at Sensation

Weekend at Sensation

It’s been a busy weekend for the virtual worlds group. The reconstructed St Andrews Cathedral and other ongoing projects, were on display at Sensation in Dundee as part of the “Create and Inspire” initiative.

Friday involved organised school visits and Saturday and Sunday proved busy with members of the public entering the reconstruction to speak to Robert the Bruce and take a guided tour.

The visitors book recorded some great comments, extracts from this will be posted shortly, on the Virtual Worlds Blog.

New MSci (Hons) in Computer Science (5 years)

MSci (Hons) in Computer Science (5 years)

The MSci (Honours) in Computer Science is an exciting new integrated masters degree that is being introduced for 2013 entry. It takes place over five years, with an option for direct entry into the second year. Qualified students can therefore graduate with a Masters degree in four years.

The first three years of the MSci are shared with the BSc programmes. In the final two years, you can choose among modules at 4000 and 5000 (Masters) level, enabling both breadth and depth across the discipline.

The final year is spent in 5000 level modules as well as an advanced project. This may take the form of a project within the School, an industrial placement or a research internship, enabling MSci students to build skills that are useful for both academic and industrial careers.

Further information is available through the School Website.