Professor Ian Miguel’s Inaugural Lecture

Staff and students from the School of Computer Science attended Prof. Ian Miguel’s Inaugural Lecture in St Salvator’s Quadrangle yesterday evening. The well-received and highly accessible lecture titled “Constraint Satisfaction and the Crystal Maze”, was accompanied by a reception in Lower College Hall. Many will remember celebrating Ian’s installation as a new Professor at December graduation last year. Inaugural lectures provide newly appointed professors the opportunity to inform colleagues, the student community and the general public of their research interests and future plans.

Professor Ian Miguel's Inaugural Lecture

Professor Ian Miguel’s Inaugural Lecture

Aleksejs Sazonovs: Undergraduate Awards Success

Congratulations to our recent graduate Aleksejs Sazonovs who accomplished overall winner in the 2015 Undergraduate Awards for Computer Science yesterday. His Winning Paper: ‘A Metapopulation Model for Predicting the Success of Genetic Control Measures for Malaria’ supervised by Prof. Simon Dobson and Prof. Oscar Gaggiotti, was assessed by panels of international academics and will be published in The Undergraduate Awards Academic Journal. Overall winners are invited to the UA Global Summit, a four-day networking and brainstorming event which brings the world’s top students together for a series of inspirational lectures, workshops and discussions. We look forward to hearing more about the event from Aleksejs in November. Read more about the project in our highly commended post.

Aleksejs pictured at June Graduation

Aleksejs pictured at June Graduation

Computer Science 2015: Orientation and Welcome

After a busy week of induction and module talks, staff and students are pictured during orientation and welcome receptions. Undergraduate students were invited to a gaming session followed by pizza. It’s always rewarding to see so many students and staff welcoming our new 1st year students. Thanks to School president, Maria Kustikova for overseeing events.

Undergraduate gaming and pizza during orientation

Undergraduate gaming and pizza during orientation

Welcome receptions last Wednesday and Thursday evening for our MSc and Honours students, also proved popular and highlight the outstanding student community within the School.

MSc reception September 2015

MSc reception September 2015

Honours welcome reception 2015

Honours welcome reception 2015

Dr Roy Dyckhoff, Hon. Senior Lecturer: ‘Coherentisation of first-order logic’

The School of Computer Science is delighted to announce that honorable lecturer Dr Roy Dyckhoff is an invited speaker at the conference on Automated Reasoning with Analytic Tableaux and Related Methods, in Wrocław (Poland) from 20–24 September.

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Abstract: This talk explores the relationship between coherent (aka “geometric”) logic and first-order logic (FOL), with special reference to the coherence/geometricity required of accessibility conditions in Negri’s work on modal logic (and our joint work with her on intermediate logic). It has been known to some since the 1970s that every first-order theory has a coherent conservative extension, and weaker versions of this result have been used in association with the automation of coherent logic; but, it is hard to find the result in the literature. We discuss various proofs of the result, and present a coherentisation algorithm with the desirable property of being idempotent.

Please see: http://tableaux2015.ii.uni.wroc.pl/index.html for further details

Event details

  • When: 20th September 2015 10:00 - 24th September 2015 17:00
  • Format: Conference, Talk

Inaugural Lecture: ‘Constraint Satisfaction and the Crystal Maze’ by Professor Ian Miguel

The School of Computer Science is delighted to announce the Inaugural Lecture of Professor Ian Miguel.

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Title: ‘Constraint Satisfaction and the Crystal Maze’

Abstract: In numerous contexts today we are faced with making decisions of increasing size and complexity, where many different considerations interlock in complex ways. Consider, for example, a staff rostering problem to assign staff to shifts while respecting required shift patterns and staffing levels, physical and staff resources, and staff working preferences. The decision-making process is often further complicated by the need also to optimise an objective, such as to maximise profit or to minimise waste. In this talk I will introduce the field of Constraint Programming, which offers a means of solving such problems automatically. Using an illustrative example from the annals of the Crystal Maze, a popular TV game show from the 1990s, I will explore the process of modelling and solving problems with constraints and discuss some of the most significant challenges in the field.

The lecture will be held at School III, St Salvator’s Quadrangle

and there will be a reception afterwards, in Lower College Hall.

 

Event details

  • When: 23rd September 2015 17:15 - 18:30
  • Where: St Andrews
  • Format: Lecture

Academic Skills Project – Workshop 1A: Securing Internships and Job Placements

This is the first part of a 4-part workshop. Details are as follows:

Date and time: 24th Sept 4.30PM – 6.30PM

Venue: Jack Cole 1.33A/B

Workshop Leader: Shyam Reyal (smr20)

Sign up here: http://goo.gl/forms/RfnaQhZSB2 (Only 3 days left)

 Workshop 1A (24th September) Contents:

  • Introduction to the internship recruitment process
  • Panel discussion on the most important aspects of securing an internship/job placement
    • Facing the programming interview
    • Enhancing your required skills and CV
  • Sharing internship experiences by current/returning Computer Science Honours and PhD students
    • Shyam Reyal, Peter Josling, Robin Nabel (Google)
    • Simone Conte (Adobe)
    • Ilia Shumailov (Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase)
    • Gala Malbasic (Makers Academy)
    • Maria Kustikova (Soliton Systems)
    • Nick Tikhonov (Amazon)
  • Informal networking session

Some points of discussion are highlighted below:

  • What to expect during the recruitment / selection process
  • How to enhance your resume/portfolio to boost your chances of getting an interview
  • How to prepare for ‘the programming interview’
  • What skills/qualifications should be developed to improve your chances, and how

Future Workshops:

Workshop 1B – 1st Oct

  • Detailed workshop on enhancing your online presence and portfolio, preparing for ‘the programming interview’

Workshop 1C – 19th Nov

  • Interactive session on solving interview style programming problems in a time constrained scenario

Workshop 1D – 26th Nov

  • Practice/mock interview session with feedback for improvement

Our ultimate objective is to see our students secure more, high quality internships/job placements in high-end tech companies and/or start-ups!

This workshop is targeted at honours and masters students. However, keen sub-honours students and PhD students are welcome. We believe it is never too early or too late to start looking for internships and developing your skills. Refreshments will be provided!

 

Contact aef6@st-andrews.ac.uk for more information.

 

Lockheed Martin Award

Congratulations to our recent graduate Sam Elliott, who has won the Lockheed Martin Award SIS-0518for  Best Engineered Project at the Young Software Engineer awards.

The Young Software Engineer of the Year Awards are given for the best undergraduate software projects drawn from across all students studying computer science and software engineering in Scotland.

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Sam’s project, “A Concurrency System for Idris and Erlang”, takes an important step towards addressing the problem of writing large scale software, coordinated across several concurrently running machines, possibly distributed throughout the world. Writing such software is notoriously difficult because not only  do programmers need to think about the progress of a an individual task, they also need to think about how data is communicated between each task.

 

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The project combines Idris, a new programming language developed at the University of St Andrews, with Erlang, a programming language specifically designed for building robust distributed systems, and contributes a new system for running concurrent programs, with guaranteed behaviour, in a robust, industrial strength concurrent environment.

 

Seminar: ‘How to deliver Software Projects and be a Brilliant Software Developer’ by Howard Simms (Apadmi)

Abstract:

This talk will cover a wide range of issues in the practical aspects of delivering software projects, including cohesion and coupling, design patterns, software engineering models, and native vs. hybrid apps. The second part will give an overview of the desirable and undesirable attributes of software developers and how to make your career future proof.

Howard Simms

 

Bio:

 

With more than 15 years’ experience working in the mobile industry, creating technology solutions, building brilliant teams, and delivering continual growth, Howard’s journey at the forefront of one of the world’s most dynamic and exciting technology booms has been exhilarating.

 

 

About Apadmi:

Apadmi is now the UK’s leading mobile software development company, working with organisations such as the NHS and the BBC, as well as a range of business including Lexus and Skyscanner. The business has also spun out technology companies in several different areas, including Market Research, Retail, Loyalty schemes within football and the Internet of Things.
Apadmi has now launched Apadmi Ventures, a formalisation of their spinout business model that is bringing their technical excellence, experience and significant investment capacity to all business sectors.

Event details

  • When: 3rd November 2015 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar

Seminar: ‘Trading Programs – How the Finance industry has become so complex that today’s products are similar to programs’ by Joel Bjornson

Abstract:

In this presentation, we’ll explore the ways in which Bloomberg uses functional programming to solve financial problems. In particular, we’ll focus on the challenges involved in the development of the Bloomberg Derivatives Library – an application for structuring and pricing financial contracts.

Bio:

Joel Bjornson is a developer at the Bloomberg Derivatives Library team, specializing in the usage of OCaml for modelling financial contracts. Joel has been interested in functional programming since discovering Haskell at an introductory programming course in university.

 

Event details

  • When: 20th October 2015 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar