School of CS newsletter

The new Dean of the Faculty of EPS and Vice President of the University, Martin Schröder, started work on Monday 1st June. Martin joins the University from the University of Nottingham where he was Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry. A short biography can be found on Wikipedia.

For lecturers and postgraduate students who are interested in the Philosophy of Computer Science, we are running a monthly (possibly bimonthly) reading group on the topic. Each session we will discuss a set of papers related to the Philosophy of Computer Science. Some topics include:

• Computer Science as Mathematical, Engineering or Empirically based subject
• The validity of using Computer Science methods to solve Mathematical problems
• General discussions on the Philosophy of Science

Anyone can join. The first session is on June 12^th at 2.00pm in Atlas 1. Coffee will be provided. We will be discussing the following two papers:

Computing as a discipline - Denning, P.J. (Chairman), Comer, D.E., Gries, D., Mulder, M.C., Tucker, A., Turner, A.J., & Young, P.R

The Computer Scientist as Toolsmith 2- Brooks, F.P., Jr

 

If you wish to join the reading group please contact research student Michael Lee at leems@cs.man.ac.uk.

On Monday 18th May, we held the inaugaural PhD Tutorials event.  The speakers were selected from the School's PhD students. Each speaker was asked to present on a technology or skill which they had found to be important through their own research.  The first talk gave an introduction to LaTeX, with excellent live-coded examples. The second covered statistical hypothesis testing and the dangers of mis-interpreting a p-value. The final talk of the day presented a series of case studies of CS research and used these to explain proper experimental procedures.

 

This event was hosted by the CS Mentors.  A group of PhD students who seek to enrich the academic experience for other PGR students.  We hope to repeat this event annually.  Now is the time to get thinking about what talks you would like to see at the next event and whether you might like to present something.  If you would like to join the Mentors scheme, we will have our annual recruitment in September, so watch your emails for the call.

 

Our thanks go to all of the speakers who gave up their time to present at this event.  The talks were lively, engaging and attended by a broad spectrum of PhD students, new-starters and final-years alike.  The speakers have kindly allowed their slides to be distributed for people to look back over in their own time.  The slides are acessible at the following links:

 

An Introduction to LaTeX - Andrew Mundy

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7IM2a9sWxijYVNQTUVWTnRHZXhuTkl2LU1LdU5NNmFJM29j/view?usp=sharing

 

See also:

https://github.com/mundya/unofficial-university-of-manchester-beamer,

http://amundy.co.uk/2015/05/18/beamer-theme-windows-installation.html).

 

An Introduction to Statistical Testing and Estimation - Kostas Sechidis

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7IM2a9sWxijTG1GSHhUdFhld09BbVN0aS1lSzBDVTAzT2Z3/view?usp=sharing
 

Experimental Setup for Empirical PhD Research - Concepts and Tools - Nico Matentzoglu

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7IM2a9sWxijSkluS0hhaVdfT3dCcGg3YTJPczFPbm83bGRJ/view?usp=sharing

 

The Mentors

Tuesday 2nd June 2015, 12-13:00, 1.10 Kilburn building.

Tom Pieroni, our new eLearning support officer will be running a session focusing on how assignment marking can be supported in Blackboard and how this has changed in the new release. This includes changes to the Assignment Tool, SafeAssign (Blackboard’s integrated plagiarism checker) and introduction of the Student Preview. He will be concentrating on the changes to the Assignment tool and how these might support the way marking takes place within the School. He will be demonstrating the tool and comparing it to the current implementation of Turnitin. If you have any questions please feel free to contact him:  tom.pieroni@manchester.ac.uk / x64011.

Closing date: 12th June 2015

Manchester is the European City of Science in 2016 and we intend to bring science from the margins into a wider consciousness with the general public, reaching new audiences and creating mass appeal.  We want to engage a mass audience across the UK, Europe and potentially globally through a large scale, far reaching, participatory activity - a digitally driven citizen science project.  

We invite you to submit your ideas for a mass citizen science project that will be scientifically credible, capture the imagination of a broad swathe of the general public and appeal to an international audience. The winning idea will be fully supported, developed and launched through the European City of Science delivery partners, the University of Manchester, Manchester City Council, Marketing Manchester - alongside the BBC.

The application is relatively light-touch (2 sections and total max 1000 words). Contact sarah.chatwin@manchester.ac.uk for more details and the application form.

Next deadline: 26 June 2015 

Up to £5k public engagement funding is available through the Wellcome trust but proposals must be led by PIs in FMHS or FLS.

The scheme is open to staff and postgraduate students across the University for public engagement and outreach projects around the general theme of biomedical research and health. The proposal is light-touch (1 page A4).

Contact sarah.chatwin@manchester.ac.uk for full details.

EPSRC Statements of Need for Mid-range Facilities 2015

Intention to Submit (new facilities only): 22 June 2015
Closing Date:           14 Sept 2015 at 16:00

https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/calls/statementsofneedmidrange/

EPSRC offers an annual opportunity to submit Statements of Need for Mid-range Facilities in support of excellent Engineering and Physical Sciences research. Statements of Need should originate from the research community that will benefit from the facility rather than deriving from individual groups or institutions.

Communities who wish to apply for a new Mid-range Facility in the future are encouraged to work with the appropriate EPSRC theme from an early stage. Any new facilities must register their intent to submit, using the electronic 'Intent to submit' form.

All Statements of Need must use the electronic Statement of Need template form.

All submissions of Statements of Need will be tensioned against each other and against the current EPSRC Mid-range Facilities portfolio. After the prioritisation panel, EPSRC themes will decide on whether there is enough evidence to support a facility in this area. The final decision on whether to open a tender process for a facility or how to take the advice from the panel forward lies in the remit of the respective EPSRC theme. Feedback will be sent to all Statement of Need applicants and EPSRC themes will work with the individual research communities on the appropriate downstream process.

 

 

Industrial Biotechnology Catalyst - Round 4

Closing date for registration: noon 05 August 2015

Closing Date: noon 12 August 2015

EPSRC, BBSRC and Innovate UK are inviting Expressions of Interest for funding from the Industrial Biotechnology Catalyst. The Industrial Biotechnology Catalyst programme will accelerate commercialisation by supporting the development of new industrial biotechnology products and processes, and enabling their potential scale-up. It will support research and development for the processing and production of materials, chemicals and bioenergy through the sustainable exploitation of biological resources. We are particularly encouraging a collaborative approach.

 

 

Joint Singapore-UK Research in Cyber Security

Closing Date: 30 July 2015 at 16:00

Singapore's National Research Foundation (NRF), the UK's Cabinet Office (CO) and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) wish to encourage up to 3 joint research activities in cyber security. 

Proposals for new projects in any area relevant to cyber security, from new or established partnerships, are welcome. We intend to fund a balanced programme of research in which the individual projects can work together to maximise mutual benefit. Collaborations need to prepare a single, unified, proposal which describes a full programme of work in both countries. This will be submitted to EPSRC by the UK lead organisation on behalf of the research partners in both the UK and Singapore. Projects should last 25-36 months, starting in Spring 2016 and ending no later than December 2018.

 

SUPERGEN Marine Challenge 3 - Research on Marine Energy Development

EoI deadline: 23:59 16 June 2015
Closing Date: 04 August 2015 at 16:00

EPSRC, as part of the Research Councils UK (RCUK) Energy Programme, invites proposals for collaborative research projects (new or existing collaborations) to undertake fundamental research that will investigate novel concepts for marine energy development. Three priority remit areas were identified at a scoping workshop in October 2013 and have been further refined (in consultation with UK marine energy champions) to form the remit of this call:

• Wave and Tidal Array Modelling
• Novel Materials, Components and Sub-Systems
• Increasing Survivability and Reliability

Up to £3M is available for this call with EPSRC looking to fund 4-5 projects for up to 3 years. Each project should provide a single submission with a single PI. The Institutions involved in the successful application(s) will be expected to become associate members of the SUPERGEN Marine Hub (UK Centre for Marine Energy Research [UKCMER]). In order to focus effort, applicants may only be named on one proposal for this call, either as a Principal Investigator (PI) or as a Co-Investigator (Co-I).

Any applicant intending to submit a proposal to this call must register their intent through an EoI including names and affiliations of the PI and any Co-Is, project partners, the research remit area(s), project outline, fit to UK marine research strategy and the approximate value of the funds to be requested. 

 

Reminder - Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security (Early and Established Career Fellowships only)

www.epsrc.ac.uk/skills/fellows/areas/priorityareas/digitaleconomy/
Issues of Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security (TIPS) are of fundamental importance to both the RCUK Digital Economy (DE) Theme and the cyber security strand of the Partnership for Conflict, Crime and Security (PaCCS). Working with partners across the Research Councils, together EPSRC wishes to support early and established career fellows in TIPS. Fellowships in this priority area should help to develop and bring together the community, supporting true leaders who are able to deliver both underpinning and enabling research. In your application you will need to define and justify the focus of your proposed fellowship research within this broad TIPS priority area.

Briefing event:  02 June 2015
Registration deadline: 24 Jun 2015
Deadline: noon 01 Jul 2015

https://interact.innovateuk.org/competition-display-page/-/asset_publisher/RqEt2AKmEBhi/content/finding-value-in-complex-biological-data-integrated-omics-feasibility-studies

Innovate UK and BBSRC are to invest up to £2.5 million to stimulate innovative, integrated approaches to biological systems. The aim of this competition is to build a commercial ecosystem to exploit the commercial opportunities of ‘omics (e.g. genomics, proteomics etc.), systems biology and complex biological data streams.  

We are especially seeking projects that develop sustainable business models for SMEs to service innovation requirements of key industrial sectors such as pharmaceuticals and agri-tech. Projects must be business-led, collaborative and include at least one micro company or SME as a lead or significant collaborator. 

We have allocated up to £2 million to fund collaborative R&D projects of up to 2 yrs for between £250k-400k.  A further £500k is available for smaller-scale feasibility study projects lasting 12-18 months with total project costs up to £150k.