Chris Norval wins best paper at Mining Online Health Reports workshop

St Andrews researchers Chris Norval and Tristan Henderson won the Best Paper award at the Mining Online Health Reports workshop, part of the ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM 2017). The workshop brought together experts from academia, industry and the health sector to discuss techniques and future priorities for analysing online data for health research.

Norval and Henderson’s paper argued that the successful exploitation of people’s social data requires new and usable methods of obtaining consent, and proposed the use of machine learning algorithms to predict when someone is likely to give consent for their data to be used. This work forms part of a Wellcome Trust funded project on understanding consent for sharing health data over online social networks.

 “Unfrying your brain with F#”  Andrea Magnorsky, Workday Software Ltd

Abstract

 F#, just like other non-pure functional languages, allows you find the sweet spot between FP practices and OO language pragmatism. Most of the advanced features of F# give you the power to change the language and to introduce a higher level of abstraction to your code. In this talk, we will discuss active patterns, computation expressions, parsers, using type providers and more. These language features help you make your code simpler and easier to maintain.

 

Bio

 I ended up as a Software Developer, I am pretty sure there was no other viable option. My current technical interests are F#, games, programming languages and philosophy of computing .

I really enjoy finding different ways to write code, sometimes for performance, other times for succinctness, sometimes, just because you can, there is no better way to learn than trying.

When I am not working I tend to play with Haskell or other languages or cats

Event details

  • When: 6th March 2017 16:00 - 17:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Format: Colloquium, Seminar

Automated Remote Pulse Oximetry Talk

At the group meeting on 13th January Dr David Harris-Birtill gave a talk about ongoing work creating an automated remote pulse oximeter.

Here’s an abstract about this work which was presented at a recent conference in India:

“A patient’s blood oxygen saturation and heart rate are crucial indicators for monitoring their wellbeing; standard practice is to use a finger clip pulse oximeter, creating practical constraints on when and how these measurements are taken. Using multispectral imaging cameras, oxygen saturation and heart rate can be measured remotely, and without contact sensors. However, these devices are both expensive and lack the ability to accurately locate the body within the image. This project addresses these problems, creating and testing a prototype for a reliable, low cost system using a widely available camera normally used to control a gaming device, providing both colour and co-registered infrared images. The camera images are then used for remote sensing of oxygen saturation and heart rate for up to six people simultaneously.
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School of Computer Science – PhD Scholarships

The School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews offers funding for up to six students to undertake PhD research starting in the Fall of 2017 in any of the areas of research carried out by its academic faculty (which includes, but is not limited to, Artificial Intelligence and Symbolic Computation, Computer Systems Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction, and Programming Languages).

We are looking for highly motivated research students willing to be part of a diverse and supportive research community.

Applicants must hold a BSc or MSc in an area appropriate for their proposed topic of study (usually Computer Science, but not restricted to it). The Scholarship covers PhD fees and provides a tax-free maintenance stipend of £14,296 per year for 3.5 years. Exceptional students can apply for an additional £2,000 per year. International applications are welcome.

We especially encourage female applicants and underrepresented minorities to apply. Admission is competitive but candidate selection takes into account the motivation, skills and previous experience of the candidates. If you are interested, please get in contact with us by e-mail even if you are not sure of your eligibility or strength as a candidate (write an e-mail to pg-admin-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk Subject: Informal PhD Inquiry). We will facilitate contact with a member of research staff in your area of interest (for a list of existing faculty and areas of research see http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/prospective-pg/postgraduate-supervisors).

For further information, including the step-by-step procedure on how to apply please check our postgraduate-research web page (http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/prospective-pg/research-degrees). The closing date for applications is March 31st 2017 and we will make decisions on studentship allocation by April 30th 2017. Before preparing a full application we recommend that you contact us by e-mail at pg-admin-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk.

SACHI Seminar: The design of digital technologies to support transitional events in the human lifespan

Title:  The design of digital technologies to support transitional events in the human lifespan

Abstract:  This talk will focus on (i) qualitative research undertaken to understand how digital technologies are being used during transitional periods across the human lifespan, such as becoming an adult, romantic breakup, and end of life, and (ii) the opportunities for technology design that have emerged as a result. Areas of focus include presentation of self online, group social norms, and the problematic nature of ‘ownership’ of digital materials.

Biography – Professor Wendy Moncur, FRSA:  I hold an Interdisciplinary Chair in Digital Living at the University of Dundee, where I work across Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design and the School of Nursing and Health Sciences. I am also a Visiting Scholar at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, and an Associate of the Centre for Death and Society (University of Bath).

The work of my group, Living Digital (www.livingdigital.ac.uk) is grounded in Human Computer Interaction, and focuses on human experiences enacted in a digital age – for example, becoming an adult, becoming a parent, relationship breakdown, and the end of life.

I have been involved in grants totalling £2.7 Million since 2011, through an EPSRC Personal Fellowship and as a Principal Investigator/Co-investigator. Full details of my publications can be found at http://bit.ly/1kQx2zH. My next large research project, ‘TAPESTRY’, is funded under the EPSRC TIPS program, and explores normative online behaviour in social groups.

Event details

  • When: 14th February 2017 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Format: Seminar

Announcement of the 33rd British Colloquium for Theoretical Computer Science

The 33rd BCTCS will be hosted by the School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, from the 26th to the 28th of April 2017. The purpose of BCTCS is to provide a forum in which researchers in theoretical computer science can meet, present research findings, and discuss developments in the field. It also aims to provide an environment in which PhD students can gain experience in presenting their work, and benefit from contact with established researchers.

The scope of the colloquium includes all aspects of theoretical computer science, including algorithms, complexity, cryptography, formal methods, game theory, machine learning, languages, logics and quantum computation. Both computer scientists and mathematicians are welcome to attend, as are participants from outside of the UK.

This year the colloquium will feature the following invited speakers

LMS Keynote Lecture in Discrete Mathematics
Professor László Babai, University of Chicago

Confirmed Speakers
Perdita Stevens, University of Edinburgh
Conor McBride, University of Strathclyde
Felix Fischer, University of Glasgow
Edwin Brady, University of St Andrews
Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh, Queen Mary University of London

Registration is *now open*, and you can find more information at https://bctcs2017.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/

PhD students are especially encouraged to offer a talk.

As an additional event, there will be a Scottish Combinatorics Meeting at the School of Mathematics in St Andrews on the 24th and 25th of April. If you would like to take part in the meeting, please contact the organisers directly.

The organisers hope to welcome you to St Andrews in April.

Type-Driven Development of Communicating Systems using Idris

Speaker: Jan de Muijnck-Hughes

Abstract

Communicating protocols are a cornerstone of modern system design.
However, there is a disconnect between the different tooling used to design, implement and reason about these protocols and their implementations.
Session Types are a typing discipline that help resolve this difference by allowing protocol specifications to be used during type-checking to ensure that implementations adhere to a given specification.

Idris is a general purpose programming language that supports full-dependent types, providing programmers with the ability to reason more precisely about programs.
This talk introduces =Sessions=, our implementation of Session Types in Idris, and demonstrates =Sessions= ability to design and realise several common protocols.

=Sessions= improves upon existing Session Type implementations by introducing value dependencies between messages and fine-grained channel management during protocol design and implementation.
We also use Idris’ support for EDSL construction to allow for protocols to be designed and reasoned about in the same language as their implementation.
Thereby allowing for an intrinsic bond to be introduced between a protocol’s implementation and specification, and also with its verification.

Using =Sessions=, we can reduce the existing disconnect between the tooling used for protocol design, implementation, and verification.

 

 

 

Event details

  • When: 23rd February 2017 13:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33b
  • Format: Colloquium, Seminar, Talk

EPSRC Grant Success: A Constraint Modelling Pipeline

Congratulations to colleagues Professor Ian Miguel, Dr Chris Jefferson, Dr Tom Kelsey, Professor Ian Gent and Dr Peter Nightingale, who have secured an impressive EPSRC grant A constraint Modelling Pipeline, with NHS and SME project partners. The three and a half year grant, officially announced yesterday, aims to advance the state of the art in solving complex combinatorial search problems ubiquitous in many settings, such as planning, scheduling or design. Specifically, the aim is to produce a powerful, general automated modelling and solving system unique in targeting a range of powerful solving formalisms from a single abstract problem specification. The research will impact across the public and private sectors, and academia.
Read more about the grant application through EPSRC reference:EP/P015638/1