2014/15 Graduation Reception on St Andrews Day

The School of Computer Science will be holding a Graduation Reception in the Jack Cole Building on Monday 30th November 2015 from 11:00am to 14:00pm for Masters and PhD students who are graduating that day at Younger Hall.

The graduates are invited, along with their guests, to come along after the ceremony for a glass of bubbly and mini cream cake or two! Staff are encouraged to come along and join in the celebrations.

On behalf of the school may I wish those graduates unable to attend Graduation the very best for their future endeavors.

 

Event details

  • When: 30th November 2015 11:00 - 14:00
  • Where: Cole Coffee Area

Distinguished Lecture Programme: ‘Scalability and Fault-tolerance, are they the same?’ by Joe Armstrong

The first of this academic year’s distinguished lectures will be given by Professor Joe Armstrong, co-inventor of Erlang, on Monday 16th November 2015 at The Byre Theatre. The programme is as follows:

09:15 – 09:30   Introduction By Professor Kevin Hammond

09:30 – 10:45   Lecture 1 [Setting the scene: I’ll talk about the software landscape of the mid 80’s and discuss which problems we were  trying to solve. I’ll talk about the early experiments that led to Erlang.]

10:45 – 11:15   Coffee Break – Refreshments provided

11:15 – 12:30   Lecture 2 [The middle years: I’ll talk about the enhancements we made to Erlang. How we added distribution and the bit syntax and so on. I’ll talk about company politics, building a community and about the obstacles to introducing a new technology.]

12:30 – 14:00   Lunch Break – Free time

14:00 – 15:15   Lecture 3 [WhatsApp and the future: I’ll talk about what happened after Erlang became open source and how this changed everything. I’ll talk about the explosive growth of Erlang which lead to adoption by WhatsApp.

 I’ll also talk about the future. What are the challenges of the Internet of things? How can we make massively distributed systems that run forever?]

15:15 – 15:30   Q & A Session – Open forum

Seminar: “Interaction, Embodiment and Technologies in Early Learning” by Dr Andrew Manches

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Abstract: 

 

Most of us might agree that ‘hands-on learning’ is good for children in the early years. But why? Is it simply more fun and sociable, or are there any more direct cognitive benefits? And what determines definitions of ‘hands-on’? Can we include iPads? This talk will draw upon an ESRC-funded project to examine the educational implications of recent theoretical arguments about the embodied nature of cognition. Video data from the project will be used to illustrate the methodological significance of the way children gesture when describing mathematical concepts and evaluate a hypothesis that numerical development is grounded upon two particular embodied metaphors. If correct, this presents a serious challenge to traditional approaches to the types of learning materials we offer children. The talk then demonstrates two embodied technologies to consider the potential of new forms of digital interaction to further our understanding of embodied cognition as well as support early learning.

 

 Bio:  

 

Dr Andrew Manches is a Chancellor’s Fellow in the School of Education and leads the Children and Technology group at the University of Edinburgh.  He has 20 years experience working with children, first as a teacher, then as an academic. His recent research, funded by an ESRC Future Research Leader grant, focuses on the role of interaction in thinking, and the implications this has for early learning and new forms of technology.  When not being an academic, Andrew is a parent of two young children and directs an early learning technology start-up that was awarded a SMART grant this year to build an early years maths tangible technology.

Event details

  • When: 24th November 2015 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar, Talk

Children in Need Bake Sale 2015

Pudsey2

On Friday November 13 from 10.30 there will be a bake sale hosted by Sophie Gent in aid of BBC Children in Need in the Jack Cole Building coffee area.

There will be a vegan and gluten free option, but if you need this please feel free to let us know in advance so we can reserve some for you. (Tell Ian Gent)
All money taken will go towards the BBC Children in Need. This is a charity to help children in the UK, and more can be found at the BBC Children in Need website

This is the fourth time we’ve done this and it’s been successful every time, so we hope to see you there.  Here are some photos from two years ago to tempt you.

 

Event details

  • When: 13th November 2015 10:30 - 11:30
  • Where: Cole Coffee Area

China Scholarship Council and University of St Andrews Scholarships

The School has a number of scholarships available for Chinese students to study for a PhD with us.

Scholarships are available for individuals normally resident in mainland China, intending to return to China at the end of their studies. Scholarships will be awarded on the basis of academic merit, potential to become a leader in your field and potential to become a decision-maker and opinion former within China.

More details can be found here. Please note that the closing data for applications is 30 November 2015.

 

IEEE talks: JEEVES and the Speculative W@nderverse

In October 2015 we attended two IEEE conferences in the USA. Daniel Rough presented a full paper at the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, October 18–22, in Atlanta, Georgia. Uta Hinrichs presented a full paper at the IEEE Information Visualization (InfoVis) conference as part of VizWeek, October 25-30 in Chicago, Illinois. You can find details of these and all our papers on the publications page.

On November 10th, Daniel and Uta will reprise their talks here in St Andrews and everyone is welcome to attend. You can find the details for the two talks below along with links to the papers via the University of St Andrews research portal.

Talk 1 by Daniel Rough
Title: Jeeves – A Visual Programming Environment for Mobile Experience Sampling
Authors: Rough, D and Quigley, A.

Abstract: The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) captures participants’ thoughts and feelings in their everyday environments. Mobile and wearable technologies afford us opportunities to reach people using ESM in varying contexts. However, a lack of programming knowledge often hinders researchers in creating ESM applications. In practice, they rely on specialised tools for app creation. Our initial review of these tools indicates that most are expensive commercial services, and none utilise the full potential of sensors for creating context-aware applications.

We present “Jeeves”, a visual language to facilitate ESM application creation. Inspired by successful visual languages in literature, our block-based notation enables researchers to visually construct ESM study specifications. We demonstrate its applicability by replicating existing ESM studies found in medical and psychology literature. Our preliminary study with 20 participants demonstrates that both non-programmers and programmers are able to successfully utilise Jeeves. We discuss future work in extending Jeeves with alternative mobile technologies.

Paper details from the St Andrews Research Portal: Rough, DJ & Quigley, AJ 2015, ‘ Jeeves – a visual programming environment for mobile experience sampling ‘, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), Atlanta, United States

 

Talk 2 by Uta Hinrichs

Title: Speculative Practices: Utilizing InfoVis to Explore Untapped Literary Collections

Authors:
Hinrichs, U.,  Forlini, S. ; Moynihan, B.
Abstract:
In this paper we exemplify how information visualization supports speculative thinking, hypotheses testing, and preliminary interpretation processes as part of literary research. While InfoVis has become a buzz topic in the digital humanities, skepticism remains about how effectively it integrates into and expands on traditional humanities research approaches. From an InfoVis perspective, we lack case studies that show the specific design challenges that make literary studies and humanities research at large a unique application area for information visualization. We examine these questions through our case study of the Speculative W@nderverse, a visualization tool that was designed to enable the analysis and exploration of an untapped literary collection consisting of thousands of science fiction short stories. We present the results of two empirical studies that involved general-interest readers and literary scholars who used the evolving visualization prototype as part of their research for over a year. Our findings suggest a design space for visualizing literary collections that is defined by (1) their academic and public relevance, (2) the tension between qualitative vs. quantitative methods of interpretation, (3) result- vs. process-driven approaches to InfoVis, and (4) the unique material and visual qualities of cultural collections. Through the Speculative W@nderverse we demonstrate how visualization can bridge these sometimes contradictory perspectives by cultivating curiosity and providing entry points into literary collections while, at the same time, supporting multiple aspects of humanities research processes.

Published in:
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics,  (Vol:22, Issue: 1 )  Page(s): 429 – 438
ISSN :  1077-2626
DOI:     10.1109/TVCG.2015.2467452

Paper details from the St Andrews Research Portal:
Hinrichs, U, Forlini, S & Moynihan, B 2015, ‘ Speculative practices: utilizing InfoVis to explore untapped literary collections ‘ IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics .

Event details

  • When: 10th November 2015 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Format: Talk

Laidlaw Undergraduate Internships

The Laidlaw Undergraduate Internship Programme in Research and Leadership 2016

The Laidlaw Undergraduate Internship Programme in Research and Leadership is an exciting opportunity which aims to equip students with the skills and values to become leaders in their chosen occupations beyond University.

Students will design, pursue and report on a research question with an academic in their School during the summer vacation in 2016. In addition, they will complete two bespoke Leadership training weekends facilitated by CAPOD.

The summer project should last between 8-10 weeks for which interns will paid a weekly stipend of £400. All elements of the programme are compulsory including the Leadership weekends.

This award is open to matriculated undergraduate students in their penultimate year of study.

Please see the Laidlaw webpage for more information. http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/students/involve/laidlaw/

Closing Date 30th November 2015

Local Hack Day for STACS

Congratulation to our STACS community, on running another successful hack day earlier this month in conjunction with Major League Hackers The event hosted in the School looked like great fun and provides a great learning, building and socialising opportunity. Night bus tracker, CS story!, Crash alert, Game of phones, Notilife, Sports report and Bubble tree are just some of the resulting applications.

The students captured some great photos and a short video stream on their twitter account. The takeaway message appears to be that “hacking is a serious business”, but also great fun when it involves STACS. We look forward to hearing about the next event.
stacshack

Images courtesy of Viktoriya Anisimova and STACS.

General Research Students Arrive at Computer Science

As the new academic year gets underway we welcome the following new PhD students to the School. Good luck guys!

Awada

Uchechukwu Awada

Awada
My name is Awada Uchechukwu, I am starting a PhD program with the Systems Research Group at the School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, where I will be researching on innovative technologies that addresses the current and future data-intensive challenges. Prior to this, I was a PhD research assistant with the Network and Cloud Computing Laboratory at the School of Computer Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, China. I received my MEng degree in Computer Applied Technology, from Harbin Engineering University (China) and my BSc in Computer Science from Ebonyi State University (Nigeria).

 

Fearn

Fearn Bishop

Fearn
Fearn is interested in the creation of information visualizations. Primarily her research is looking at how children visually represent datasets, and how this knowledge can be used to aid the creation of new visualizations, perhaps also aiding in their accessibility. She also has an interest in tangibles and the physicalization of data. She has blue hair and plays more board games than are necessarily advisable.

 

 

Tom Dalton

Tom
I’m a new PhD student in the department working on Data linkage with direction from Graham and Al. My research is likely to focus on the preservation of provenance in our linkages and how we handle the associated uncertainties while still trying to produce high quality linkage solutions – obviously it’s still month one and we haven’t yet nailed down an exact research question yet, so things are liable to change slightly.My undergrad was also here in the department and so the place, and the people, isn’t all that different to me – but having an office is definitely something that I’m enjoying. I’m originally from Manchester where I spent all of my life before escaping to St Andrews.In my free time I enjoy climbing mountains, watching cycling and cricket, I’m also involved in the CU and the Free Church in town; otherwise I’ll be hidden behind my new camera or in the pub.

Michael Pitcher

Mike
I’m Mike, and I’m originally from the North Wales-Shropshire border region. I graduated from Keele University in 2010 with a dual honours degree in Mathematics and Computer Science. I then worked for 4 years as a computer programmer before coming to St. Andrews in 2014 to complete a Masters in Artificial Intelligence, after which I started my PhD. My hobbies include football, rugby and video gaming and I’m also Secretary of the University’s Real Ale Society.

For my PhD, I’m working with both the School of Computer Science and the School of Medicine, and my research is investigating the use of complex network based computer models to study diseases, in particular tuberculosis. The aim is to create realistic models of human physiology and disease dynamics within the body to aid the testing and discovery of new treatments.

Hui-Shyong Yeo

Yo

My name is Hui-Shyong Yeo, but feel free to just call me YO. I am from Malaysia which has the best food in the world.

I graduated from Multimedia University in Malaysia for my undergrad and Dongseo University in Korea for my master. Before coming to St Andrews. I worked as a researcher for one year in UVR Lab, KAIST, Korea.

I am starting my PhD in SACHI, under Prof. Aaron Quigley. I am particularly interested in exploring and developing novel interaction techniques that transcend the barrier between human and computers, especially on topics such as gestural/mid-air interaction, mobile/wearable interaction, augmented/virtual reality and text entry. For my PhD, I am likely to focus on Around Body Interaction with free-hand gestures.

I like to talk about latest research in HCI and I actually maintain a educational fan-page on Facebook for sharing interesting HCI news/papers. Please feel free to have a look.