Blesson Varghese won a Windows Azure for research award. Details of the award can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msr_er/archive/2014/01/16/latest-recipients-of-windows-azure-for-research-awards-announced.aspx#recipients
Techniques for Scalable Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage
Three-Hour Research Tutorial by Peter Christen, Australian National University
Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage (PPRL) is an increasingly important topic in data management, data engineering, and data mining, as organizations in both the private and public sectors are under pressure to share, integrate, and link their data in order to allow analysis that is not possible on individual databases. At the same time, sensitive information such as personal identifying details or confidential business data need to be protected. PPRL can for example be applied to match health databases without revealing any sensitive personal details of patients, or to detect individuals that have been involved in fraudulent activities across organizations without the need to share the full, potentially confidential, databases. Research in PPRL over the past decade has developed a variety of algorithms, however the challenge of linking very large databases in privacy-preserving, scalable, accurate, and automatic ways is still an open problem. In this half-day tutorial I will illustrate the significance of PPRL through several real-world scenarios, and introduce the concepts, techniques, algorithms, and research directions of PPRL.
This tutorial was previously held at CIKM 2013. Further details at: http://cs.anu.edu.au/people/Peter.Christen/cikm2013pprl-tutorial/.
There will be a limit on numbers due to the size of the venue. Attendance is free but prior registration is required. Please contact Graham Kirby <graham.kirby@st-andrews.ac.uk> if you wish to attend.
Event details
- When: 11th February 2014 14:00 - 17:00
- Where: Cole 1.33a
- Format: Seminar
Funded PhD Research Studentships
The School of Computer Science 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 8 funded studentships, including industrial sponsored studentships, available for students interested in working towards a PhD. The studentships offers costs of fees and an annual tax-free maintenance stipend of about £13,726 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 (http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/prospective-pg). The closing date for applications is March 31st 2014 and we will make decisions on studentship allocation by May 31st 2014. (Applications after March 31st may be considered, at our discretion.) Informal enquiries can be directed to pg-admin-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk or to potential supervisors.
Researcher wins NVIDIA award
Blesson Varghese won a NVIDIA award for his proposal “GPU Accelaration for Real-time Analytics”. Details of the award can be found at http://bigdata.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/nvidia-award-for-blesson-varghese/
An Experience of Peer Instruction
Talk by Quintin Cutts, University of Glasgow
Fed up with talking at students in one-hour chunks? Fed up with them not turning up, or falling asleep, or not remembering anything you said? Alternatively, are you fed up going to seminars where you get talked at for 55 minutes with only 5 minutes to ask questions?
Come along on Tuesday for a taste of something different. Peer Instruction (PI) is a pedagogy from the “flipped classroom” stable, where students do preparatory work before coming to lecture, and the lecture itself is more of a tutorial with lots of small-group and class-wide discussion. PI has been documented to give “times two” learning gains on standardised tests over traditional methods. Students work hard in these lectures, making your and their time worthwhile – one student said this term “I felt mentally tired after these lectures, which felt really good actually!”
I’ll run the first part of the session (at least) as if we were in a PI classroom. This will only really work if you have already at least skim-read the short three page article linked below which introduces some of the aspects of PI – saving me having to go over it again in the seminar, and allowing you to process it and be ready to grill me in the session itself!
Event details
- When: 17th December 2013 14:00 - 15:00
- Where: Cole 1.33a
- Format: Talk
2013 in Computer Science: A Year in Pictures
A Christmas Hog Roast in Computer Science
School merchandise increases in popularity
Good summer weather pays dividends in the School Garden
A round up of research activities, including some of the SACHI group testing out visibility, affordance and feedback for steering mechanisms in Dundee 🙂
An opportunity to celebrate with our students at Graduation
Posters, prizes and competitions throughout the year
Catching up with recent graduates, established alumni and great ambassadors for the School
Dr Per Ola Kristensson: A visionary that will shape the future
Congratulations to our very own Per Ola Kristensson. Earlier this year he was named as one of the people most likely to change the world by the prestigious MIT Technology Review’s list of Innovators under 35.
Described as visionary he appears, today at number 11 in IMPACT 100, he is a lecturer in Human Computer Interaction here in the School of Computer Science, where he leads the Intelligent Interactive Systems Group.
IMPACT 100 PANEL VIEW:
People like Per Ola Kristensson are the shapers of the future where social interaction and new technology are concerned. Recognition at this level from an organisation like MIT is hugely impressive.
The Usual Suspects
Breaking away from the CS coffee machine at last. Academics from the School subtly advertise Costa sponsorship deal at November Graduation? Surely not!
We reserve the right to protect the confidentiality of our source.
Honorary Professor John Stasko
Professor John Stasko and the Associate Chair of the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech has been appointed as an Honorary Professor in the School of Computer Science. This appointment comes following a SICSA distinguished visiting fellowship John was awarded. This fellowship allowed John to participate in the SACHI/Big Data Lab summer school in Big Data Information Visulisation in St Andrews. This industry linked summer school has successful paved the way for a new generation of students to explore Data Science and Information Visualisation.
John is a newly elected fellow of the IEEE for his contributions to information visualization, visual analytics and human-computer interaction. Professor Quigley who has known John for the past 14 years and said, “I’m delighted John will join us a honorary Professor here in St Andrews. His world leading research and experience in Information Visualisation will be of great benefit to our staff, students and colleagues across the University. I first met John when I was a PhD student and organiser of a Software Visualisation conference we held in Sydney. Then, as now, his enthusiasm, breath of knowledge and desire to engage and work with others marks him out as a true intellectual thought leader. We hope to see John here regularly in the years ahead and we will be working with him on new projects.”
November Graduation 2013
Congratulations to the Masters Class of 2013, and PhD student Galhenage Perera, who graduated today. Students were invited to a reception in the school to celebrate their achievement with staff, friends and family. Our graduates have moved on to a wide variety of interesting and challenging employment and further study opportunities, and we wish them all well with their future careers.
