MANCHESTER

           1824

School of Computer Science

Weekly Newsletter

1 March 2010

Contents

News from HoS

This Week

School Events

External Events

Funding Opps

Prize & Award Opps

Research Awards

Staff News

Vacancies

 

Links

News Submissions

Newsletter Archive

School Strategy

School Intranet

School Seminars

ESNW Seminars

NaCTeM Seminars

 

News from Head of School

Faculty Minimum Numbers Policy for Course Units

The faculty has a policy to the effect that course units should attract at least 15 students. The policy is intended to “ensure effective academic delivery” – as every course unit has preparation and administrative overheads, the idea is that staff time is better deployed ensuring that larger course units are suitably resourced than on running lots of small units. In CS, the fact that both our UG and PGT programmes are being substantially revised means that we have few long lived units with small numbers of students, but new programmes will have to be revisited before long to identify components that seem not to be viable. The school will be making a case to faculty that new units or units in a new context should be given two years to demonstrate viability. For information, the following table contains information on current course units in the school identified as having less than 15 students, along with a comment on its status.

 

UNIT CODE

UNIT TITLE

09/10 nos

08/09 nos

COMMENTS

COMP60562

Clinical Decision Support

4

0

To be revised in restructured masters progs for 2010/11. 

COMP60551

Introduction to Health Informatics

4

0

To be revised in restructured masters progs for 2010/11. 

COMP60092

Computational Finite Element Methods

5

5

To be dropped for 2010/11

COMP60081

Fundamentals of High Performance

8

3

To be revised in restructured masters progs for 2011/12

COMP60022

Grid Computing and eScience

8

0

To be dropped for 2010/11

COMP60462

The Semantic Web: Ontologies

8

0

To be revised in restructured masters progs for 2010/11. 

COMP60302

Introduction to BioHealth Informatics

9

5

To be revised in restructured masters progs for 2010/11

COMP60071

Introduction to Computational Sci

10

8

To be dropped for 2011/12

COMP60311

Computational Biology

11

11

To be revised in restructured masters progs for 2010/11

COMP67011

Foundations of Computing

11

7

To be revisited in new masters masters plans 2011/12

COMP67021

High-Level Programming

11

7

To be revisited in new masters masters plans 2011/12

COMP67321

Systems Design and Databases

11

8

To be revisited in new masters masters plans 2011/12

COMP60442

Advanced Machine Vision

12

12

To be revised in restructured masters progs for 2010/11

COMP60121

Automated Reasoning

12

14

To be revised in restructured masters progs for 2010/11

COMP20012

Algorithms and Data Structures

2

0

Resits without Attendance students.  Dropped for 2010/11

COMP30202

From Transistors to Systems-on-Chip

6

9

Course unit dropped for 10/11. 

COMP40922

Business Feasibility Study

10

10

Mandatory MSEC component specific to MEng progs. 

COMP20512

Algori & Imperative Prog (CSE)

12

0

Mandatory in Joint Programme. Unit dropped from 12/13

COMP10502

Maths for CSE

12

13

Mandatory in Joint Programme. Unit dropped from 11/12.

COMP10508

Object Oriented Programming

13

14

Mandatory in Joint Programme. Unit dropped from 11/12.

 

 

Events

Ontologies and the Lexicon: Connecting World and Word Knowledge          

                                                                                                                              3 Mar 10

Dr Paul Buitelaar, National University of Ireland, Galway

14:15, Lecture Theatre 1.4, Kilburn building

Seminar page

Clickers session                                                                                                  26 Mar

14:00, CEEBL, C24 Sackville Street Building

Clickers are hand held devices that allow students to respond to
questions that the lecturer sets (they look a bit like a TV remote).
This allows both students and the lecturer to get instant and
effective feedback, particularly if they are used with such techniques
as Peer discussion.

It is hoped that this will provide both a practical introduction to
using clickers, some theoretical basis and promote further discussion.

There is no charge for this event and tea and coffee will be available.

Please email Richard Jardine with the subject header “Clickers session” for registration or further information.

BCTCS 2010: Second Call for Participation                                              6-9 April

26th British Colloquium for Theoretical Computer Science (BCTCS)
University of Edinburgh
The purpose of the 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 conference will consist of invited keynote presentations by distinguished researchers and a number of contributed talks.

Registration closes on 2 March 2010 or when numbers reach capacity.

Website

 

Research Awards

Systems approach to gene regulation biology through nuclear receptors

Funding Body: BBSRC
PI: Magnus Rattray
Award Amount: £403804