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School of CS newsletter
Published: Monday, 25 March 2019Weekly newsletter for the School of CS
[ top ]News from Head of School
[ top ]News and announcements
Listserv mailing list maintenance - 27 March
The ITS email team are performing some much needed upgrades to Listserv on Wednesday 27 March. The maintenance period is from 8.30am-10.30am and this will result in some downtime.
More information here.
Ruth Maddocks
[ top ]Events
Atlas Lecture 27/03/2019 14:00 Kilburn L.T 1.4
Understanding human behavior with technology: context, challenges and impact by Dr. Denzil Ferreira
Abstract:
Mobile phones have an increasing spectrum of built-in sensors, such as motion, light, atmospheric pressure. These sensors are primarily used to enhance the user experience with the device, such as detecting the screen orientation. More important for scientists, these sensors offer the potential to sense and reason about the user’s environment, or in other words, the user’s context. Mobile phones are the most widespread personal sensing device and provide an exciting opportunity for wider cross-disciplinary research to attain a better understanding of human behaviour by analysing the users’ unique context.
Bio:
Denzil Ferreira is Adjunct Professor, Senior Research Fellow and an Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the University of Oulu, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE), the Deputy Director of the Center for Ubiquitous Computing and the Principal Investigator of the Community Instrumentation and Awareness (CIA) research group. His main research interest is on technology-driven human behavior sensing and modeling, where he juxtapose methods from large-scale data analysis, sensor instrumentation, applied machine learning, mobile and ubiquitous computing to understand and study a variety of human behavioral and social phenomena in naturalistic settings. Combined, they enable a better understanding of how people use technology and most importantly, why they may use such technology. He believes technology should be imagined, developed and shared to tackle the most challenging societal issues. To facilitate this venture, he created AWARE (http://awareframework.com) during his PhD. AWARE is an interdisciplinary and collaborative mobile context and sensors’ data collection tool. By supporting and encouraging multidisciplinary collaboration from the ground up, AWARE is today one of his major academic accomplishments. Engaged in research efforts worldwide, AWARE is open-source and it is widely adopted by researchers and engineers in different domains. He is a Review Editor for Frontiers in Human-Media Interaction, IEEE Communications Society Magazine. He acts as an expert Proposal Reviewer in the Flanders Research Foundation, and the Icelandic Research Fund. He is an Associate Editor at the PACM IMWUT and participates in multiple program committees from ACM and IEEE conferences. He organises the Ubiquitous Mobile Instrumentation workshop, collocated with ACM UbiComp since 2012.
Karon Mee
Music on Campus - free pop up performances 26th & 27th March
Find 10 minutes if you can!
Creative Manchester presents Music on Campus
Tuesday, 26 March 2019, 12:00pm until 2:00pm on Bridgeford Street near to the Levenshulme food market
Listening to music reduces stress and can have a relaxing effect on our mind and bodies, therefore take some time to prioritise your wellbeing and drop by and listen to some live music performed by our University music students and members of the Manchester University Music Society (MUMS). Stop by for 10 minutes – or the full 2 hours – and enjoy the talents of our musicians and an opportunity to have a short break from your hectic day.
Schedule:
12:00 Bee flat Quartet - playing jazz and pop music
12:45 The Renaissance Consort - singing renaissance songs
13:30 Klezmer - playing klezmer music
In the event of bad weather the musicians will perform in the Drum of University Place
Columba event web link - http://man.ac.uk/UiIIN8
Wednesday, 27 March 2019, 12:00pm until 2:00pm in Alan Gilbert Square between the Learning Commons and the Library
Schedule:
12:00 Katie and Johnny – playing jazz standards
12:45 Camerata Players – playing Sibelius, Grieg, Elgar
13:30 Sing It! – singing a capella pop music, fun rounds/canons, folk songs, African songs, etc.
In the event of bad weather the musicians will perform in the Drum of University Place
Columba event web link - http://man.ac.uk/9tRtqA
EPSRC Meeting: Plans and Opportunities - 2nd April 2019
2nd April 2019. - An open meeting for all staff where Dr Neil Viner, EPSRC Programme Delivery and Dr Kathryn Magnay, EPSRC Associate Director, will present and be available to discuss their future plans and strategies.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/epsrc-updates-open-meeting-tickets-59062947867
Student mental health - current trends and future developments
On Wednesday, 10 April 2019 there is a one-off bespoke event which will help you to understand some of the big issues around student mental health at the University.
For further details please see here.
The BCS Women Lovelace Colloquium is coming to Salford!
You can register now to hear inspiring speakers and meet computing students from other UK Universities.
Keynote Speaker - Helen Leigh: Maker, writer, lecturer, musician & nerd. Wrote The Crafty Kid’s Guide to DIY Electronics. Made the MINI·MU glove. Other speakers include women from Bloomberg, the BBC, and University of Salford. Posters will be displayed by women students studying at Universities from across the UK, from Aberdeen to Portsmouth. Plenty of time for networking!
The event is free and open to both BCS members and non-members. Lunch included.
Full details and registration
