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Department of CS newsletter
Published: Thursday, 10 October 2019Weekly newsletter for the Department of CS
Department Newsletter - Contents
[ top ]News from Head of Department
Welcome to David Wong
Welcome to David Wong, a newly appointed lecturer in Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare. David is appointed half here and half over in FBMH. david has recently moved from the University of Leeds. He uses machine learning and signal processing methods to predict clinical events from time series data. In addition, he is interested in how information from predictive algorithms is conveyed to clinicians and patients, how it affects their decision-making, and how to measure and quantify benefits.
He has taught on a diverse range of topics (from engineering mathematics and machine learning, to soft systems methods) in Engineering Science and Health Informatics to both undergraduates and postgraduates.
His previous work on detecting deterioration of patients via vital signs included the design and development of the SEND e-Obs platform, which is part of clinical care in six UK hospitals. SEND was commercialised as part of a key strategic partnership between the University of Oxford and Sensyne Health.
Robert.
Karon Mee
Department Fora
Now we're no longer a School we will no longer have a School Board for Computer Science. Instead we'll have a Department Forum. There will be a School of Engineering School Board and a Faculty Committee. I'll go through how all of this will work a bit more at our first Department Forum on Wednesday 16 October in IT 407.
Department Fora are for all staff, so do come along; there will be stuff to find out and it will be fun.
Robert.
[ top ]News and announcements
[ top ]Events
Computer Science Seminar: ML to Augment Scholarly Infrastructure
Monday 14th October 2019 at 2pm in the Atlas suite
This talk is about Rich Context and the associated new features for data governance and collaboration which are going into JupyterLab. Rich Context is a research effort within the Coleridge Initiative at NYU Wagner, developing a knowledge graph built from metadata about the use of curated datasets and related research. As a foundation, the Administrative Data Research Facility (ADRF) is a platform used across 15 government agencies in the US for social science research with sensitive data. ADRF promotes evidence-based policymaking and provides support for data stewardship practices among the agencies.π Rich Context, in turn, is used to represent several kinds of entities involved: datasets, data providers, researchers, research publications, subject headings, etc. Machine learning applications leverage this graph to perform entity linking, e.g., identifying dataset attribution within open access research publications.
Wear it Pink Coffee Morning 18th October 2019 at 11am
Wear it Pink Coffee Morning in Staff Common Room on Friday 18th October!
Come and enjoy a delicious cake and contribute to the amazing Breast Cancer charity at the same time. Make sure you wear something pink!
Computer Science Christmas Party - Save the Date!
Save the date!
The famous Computer Science Christmas Party is on Thursday 12th December from 3.30pm onwards!
Multiple Degrees-Of-Freedom Input Devices for Interactive Command and Control within Virtual Reality
Multiple Degrees-Of-Freedom Input Devices for Interactive Command and Control within Virtual Reality
Computer Science Mercury Talk on Wednesday 16th October 2019 in Kilburn L.T 1.5 at 2pm
Speaker: Mario Sandoval
Host: Sarah Clinch
Title: Multiple Degrees-Of-Freedom Input Devices for Interactive Command and Control within Virtual Reality
Abstract: The aim of this research is to present a new multimodal interaction mapping framework for 3D object manipulation within the virtual reality (VR) realm, by leveraging the advantages of having multiple DoF (Degrees of Freedom). In this new software engineering designed framework, interaction devices such as the keyboard, mouse, joystick, and specialist devices for 3D interactions; the Wing and the 3D connexion spacenavigator, can all be combined to provide a more intuitive and natural command system. This can be applied to many different specific systems including industrial applications within the petroleum, geology and materials sciences.
[ top ]PGR News
2020 IBM PhD Fellowship Award Program
Nominations for the 2020 IBM PhD Fellowship Award program will be accepted until late October.
The IBM PhD Fellowship Award program advances collaboration by recognizing and supporting exceptional PhD students who want to make their mark in promising and disruptive technologies.Eligibility
Students must be nominated by a doctoral faculty member and must be enrolled as a full-time student in an academic PhD program. In addition, the student should have three academic years remaining at the time of nomination to benefit the most.For more information, and to nominate candidates, visit:
www.ibm.com/university/phdfellowshipSimon Harper
[ top ]Research Funding Opportunities
Research Support Reminder
Remember to let the research support team know about any upcoming proposal calls that you are interested in. Contact us through researchsupportcsm@manchester.ac.uk
Sarah Chatwin
EPSRC Physical Sciences Theme Early Career Researcher workshops
EoI closing date: 24 Oct 2019
Workshops: Newcastle, 20 Nov 2019; Bristol, 27 Jan 2020EPSRC is holding two one-day workshops for ECRs to:
• Develop ECR’s understanding of EPSRC, including strategic priorities and funding mechanisms.
• Inform the ECRs on the range of schemes available to them, and to clarify the differences between these.
• Develop relationships between EPSRC and ECRs who will become future advocates for EPSRC.The workshops will be attended by a number of EPSRC staff, and also by experienced academics, current or previous Early Career Fellowship holders from across the Physical Sciences portfolio, UKRI Future Leadership Fellows and New Investigator Awardees, all of whom will provide guidance and mentoring throughout the workshop. The workshops will also include opportunities for networking with other Early Career colleagues.
Those wishing to attend the workshop should complete the online Expression of Interest (EoI) form.EPSRC Engineering Engagement Champions (Pilot)
Deadline: 07 Nov 2019
EPSRC has up to £1.5m available to provide bespoke support to EPSRC researchers to undertake public engagement activities in order to inspire, and interact with the public as well as attract them to Engineering and Physical Sciences.
£1.5m is available to support up to 10 Champions (from all career stages). Applicants must have been named on an EPSRC grant within the last 5 years.
It is expected that applicants will be active researchers in engineering and physical sciences, however this funding is to support public engagement activities to sit alongside core research. Funding for technical research is not available in this call. Engagement activities could include, but are not limited to, engagement with individuals of particular protected characteristics who may be underrepresented in engineering, education sector stakeholders or government representatives.
Through this call resources can be requested to cover staff time, overheads, and consumables associated with public engagement and wider outreach activities. Applicants can apply for 0.2-0.5 FTE for up to 24-36 months.
Applicants will be expected to evaluate the impact of their activities and include a 1-page summary of their approach to evaluation in the proposal.
EPSRC will work in partnership to deliver specific training and networking opportunities for applicants funded through this call.EPSRC Telling Tales of Engagement (TTE) Competition 2019
Deadline: 12 Dec 2019
The Digital Economy (DE) theme invites applications for the TTE competition to help capture and promote the impact of research supported by one of the Digital Economy Theme partners EPSRC, ESRC or AHRC.
Three TTE awards will be available, each worth £10k over 18 months. These awards are designed to help capture the wider impact of DE research and to provide researchers with the opportunity to tell their story of research impact in an interesting and engaging way to a wider audience, including the general public.
This year, the Telling Tales of Engagement (TTE) 2019 competition has three aims:
1. Capture the impact and benefits that the DE Theme’s research is having, how this impact unfolded and what benefits for society and economy has (or are expected to be delivered) from your research.
2. Tell a tale that describe how your impact pathway genuinely unfolded in order to help the wider research community learn examples of best practice from your experiences of how impact can really occur, and how you went about engaging with any partners.
3. Engage the public (while helping to address UKRI’s equality, diversity and inclusion agenda) with your research in order to show how the benefits of your research help make a contribution to various challenges.
Please note that applications are open to teams as well as individuals, from all career stages in academia (including PhD students), industry, users and the third sector. Only one application for a TTE award is accepted per digital economy research grant funding.
To apply, please complete the online form.Resource Allocation Panel (RAP): Open access to Tier-2 (Autumn 2019)
EPSRC is offering open access to five Tier-2 High Performance Computing facilities through this call. The facilities users can access through this call are: Cirrus, GW4, CSD3, HPC Midlands +, and JADE.
The aim of this call is to:
Provide access to our national Tier-2 HPC facilities for adventurous high-risk, high-reward projects that will benefit from the diversity of computing architectures available at Tier-2.
A non-exclusive list of eligible projects includes:
- Short computational projects that do not warrant a full grant application;
- UK led collaborative projects with international and/or industry partners;
- Joint applications from students (as Co-Is) with proven HPC experience and their PIs;
- Projects that link consecutive standard grant applications or that aid the preparation of a grant or fellowship application;
- Extended feasibility studies and trialling application developments at scale;
- High-risk, high-reward projects that would benefit from using novel architectures
[ top ]Wellbeing
TRY BEFORE YOU BUY
Come and take part in some taster sessions from our great Be Active Programme at the Wellbeing Rooms – Simon Building.
There are loads of classes on offer from Hard core fitness classes to gentle holistic Yoga sessions. Click the link to view the week’s schedule http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=44388
Please note there is no pre bookings so it will be done on a first come first served basis.
If you know what you want to book on for our Be Active programme please click here
Wellbeing Calendar updates http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=41489
Breast Cancer awareness week – Mandy Toothill will be bringing her great stand-up comedy show Twin Peaks to the Museum along with the BooBee bus – for more information :_
https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/news/display/?id=22602
Ruth Maddocks