Inaugural Lecture: The computer is the new microscope by Professor Simon Dobson

Professor Simon Dobson, School of Computer Science, will deliver his Inaugural Lecture “The computer is the new microscope” in the Lecture Theatre, Medical and Biological Sciences Building, on Wednesday 7 December 2011 at 5.15 p.m.  PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE.

The Princpal will take the Chair and the Dean of Science will give the vote of thanks.

The School will host a reception in the coffee area (near the foyer) of the Jack Cole Building.

Event details

  • When: 7th December 2011 17:15 - 18:15
  • Format: Lecture

Funded 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 available for students interested in working towards a PhD. The studentships offer costs of fees and an annual tax-free maintenance stipend of about £13,590 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. The closing date for applications is March 1st 2012 and we will make decisions on studentship allocation by May 1st 2012. (Applications after March 1st may be considered, at our discretion.) Informal enquiries can be directed to pg-admin-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk or to potential supervisors.

Palindromic moment

How did you mark the palindromic moment? Did it involve chocolate fingers and giant chocolate buttons?

Events across the UK also marked Armistice Day with a two-minute silence.

Biological Data: Analysis, Visualisation and Prediction by Geoff Barton – Professor of Bioinformatics, College of Life Sciences, University of Dundee

Abstract: Modern biological research hinges on technologies that are able to generate very large and complex datasets. For example, recent advances in DNA sequencing technologies have led to global collections in the multi-petabyte range that are doubling every five months. These data require organising in a form that allows interpretation by a very large and diverse user community that are interested in everything from human health and disease, through crop and animal breeding to the understanding of ecosystems. In this talk I will first give an overview of core molecular biology concepts and some of the different types of data that are currently collected, I will then focus on work from my group in visualisation and analysis of sequence alignment data before turning to examples of prediction of properties and features from biological data.

Continue reading

Event details

  • When: 14th November 2011 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Phys Theatre C
  • Series: CS Colloquia Series
  • Format: Colloquium

Multimodal mobile interaction – making the most of our users’ capabilities by Stephen Brewster, University of Glasgow

Title: Multimodal mobile interaction – making the most of our users’ capabilities


Mobile user interfaces are commonly based on techniques developed for desktop computers in the 1970s, often including buttons, sliders, windows and progress bars. These can be hard to use on the move which then limits the way we use our devices and the applications on them. This talk will look at the possibility of moving away from these kinds of interactions to ones more suited to mobile devices and their dynamic contexts of use where users need to be able to look where they are going, carry shopping bags and hold on to children. Multimodal (gestural, audio and haptic) interactions provide us new ways to use our devices that can be eyes and hands free, and allow users to interact in a ‘head up’ way. These new interactions will facilitate new services, applications and devices that fit better into our daily lives and allow us to do a whole host of new things


I will discuss some of the work we are doing on input using gestures done with fingers, wrist and head, along with work on output using non-speech audio, 3D sound and tactile displays in applications such as for mobile devices such as text entry, camera phone user interfaces and navigation. I will also discuss some of the issues of social acceptability of these new interfaces; we have to be careful that the new ways we want people to use devices are socially appropriate and don’t make us feel embarrassed or awkward


Biography: Stephen is a Professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow, UK. His main research interest is in Multimodal Human-Computer Interaction, sound and haptics and gestures. He has done a lot of research into Earcons, a particular form of non-speech sounds. He completed his degree in Computer Science at the University of Herfordshire in the UK. After a period in industry he did his PhD in the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the University of York in the UK with Dr Alistair Edwards. The title of his thesis is “Providing a structured method for integrating non-speech audio into human-computer interfaces”. That is where he developed his interests in earcons and non-speech sound. After finishing his PhD he worked as a research fellow for the European Union as part of the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM). From September, 1994 – March, 1995 he worked at VTT Information Technology in Helsinki, Finland. He then worked at SINTEF DELAB in Trondheim, Norway.

Event details

  • When: 20th February 2012 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Phys Theatre C
  • Series: CS Colloquia Series
  • Format: Colloquium

Idris: Verified Systems Programming with Dependent Types by Edwin Brady

Systems software, such as an operating system or a network stack, underlies everything we do on a computer, whether that computer is a desktop machine, a server, a mobile phone, or any embedded device. It is therefore vital that such software operates correctly in all situations. In recent years, dependent types have emerged as a promising approach to ensuring program correctness using languages and verification tools such as Agda and Coq. However, these tools operate at a high level of abstraction and so it can be difficult to map these verified programs to efficient low level code, working with bit-level operations and interacting directly with system services.

In this talk I will describe Idris, a dependently typed programming language implemented with systems programming in mind. I will show how it may be used to implement programs which interact safely with the operating system, in particular how to give precise APIs for verifiable systems programming with external C libraries.

Bio: Edwin Brady is a SICSA Advanced Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews
(http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~eb)

Event details

  • When: 6th February 2012 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Phys Theatre C
  • Series: CS Colloquia Series
  • Format: Colloquium