School of CS newsletter

(From Manchester RAG)

Are you one of the brave? Can you take on a challenge for charity and beat the mysterious Bogle?

In 1961 a team of stranded UoM lecturers tamed the mythological Bogle monster as they made the gruelling 55 mile journey from Lancaster to Manchester, having missed the last train.

Each year since then UoM students and staff, alongside members of the public, have taken on the challenge to beat the Bogle, walking 26 or 55 miles around Greater Manchester for charity.

Now in its 55^th year, Bogle 2016 is taking place on the 4^th – 5^th of March.  Take a sponsored scenic stroll around our wonderful city, for our partner charity the Booth Centre (an amazing local organisation working to support homeless people – www.boothcentre.org.uk) or for a charity of your choice.

For more information or to sign up, please head to the website:  www.manchesterrag.com/bogle or attend our information meeting 5pm – 6pm in room 8 of the Students Union!

Bogle is organised by Manchester RAG, the fundraising arm of the University of Manchester Students’ Union. If you have any queries about the event, please feel free to get in touch by emailing bogle@manchesterrag.com.

University Place, Lecture Theatre B, 17:30

The Internet of me: It’s all about my screens by Robert Schukai MBE, Head of Applied Innovation, Thomson Reuters

The remarkable adoption of the smart phone globally has completely revolutionised the way we play, work, and live. New applications and services are being created on a nearly daily basis giving us access to global information at the press of a search or a question to Siri.

We now have this exact same power on our wrists as we had on personal computers just a few short years ago. We cannot even imagine a world where we are unconnected and out of touch.

In near parallel, we are living in a world of big data that gets bigger with each passing day. People and machines are generating incredible amounts of content that can be accessed at any time, courtesy of cheap, connected storage.

Thus lies the crux of our information challenge in the future. Data is everywhere. It’s overwhelming. How does one find a true and accurate answer in a sea of knowledge, opinion, disinformation and pure speculation?

Tools like machine learning, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence are all billed as ways of mining information to cut through the clutter and deliver answers.

Those answers need to be relevant, contextual, timely, and most importantly, personal on whatever device is handy and appropriate.

This lecture will explore our future in this hyperconnected environment, and how our lives will seamlessly drift into a work-life blur based on a “dayflow” of activity.

The Lecturer will describe the digital trends which are driving this from both a consumer perspective as well as from the service provider and will paint a picture of what this means for our 21st century lives.

Click here for further information and registration: http://conferences.theiet.org/turing/

Applications are now open for the British Science Association's Media Fellowship scheme. This is a unique opportunity for practising scientists, clinicians and engineers to spend two to six weeks working at the heart of a media outlet such as the Guardian, BBC Breakfast or the Londonist.

Deadline: 18 March 2016

http://epscommunity.tumblr.com/post/139165924150/applications-are-now-open-for-the-british-science

24th February 2016 14:00, Kilburn Lecture Theatre 1.4

Speaker:   Mr  Paul Marks-Jones  (University of Manchester, Equality and Diversity)

Host:   Uli Sattler

Abstract

Paul Marks-Jones, an Equality and Diversity Advisor from the Directorate of Human Resources, will give a short talk on bullying and harassment where he explains what these are and what kind of support the University has in place to prevent them in the first place, and to deal with cases should they nevertheless arise.

This will be followed by a Q&A session and then by a more informal chat in the common room - with coffee, tea, and cake!

Faculty of Life Sciences Women in Science Conference 2016: Becoming the Best

Tuesday 08 March 2016, 10:30-15:00

Kanaris Lecture Theatre, Manchester Museum

Becoming the best is a programme of events designed to provide a platform for Women in Science and Engineering to discuss strategies that help in advancing their careers. The day will start with a panel debate focusing on personal case studies and an open discussion with the audience. After a networking lunch, we will gather again for a further panel debate with audience participation on lessons learnt from other successful women and how we can develop or adopt various habits/strategies to advance our own careers.

http://tinyurl.com/becomingthebest

EPS specific events

30 March 2016, 13-14:00, Chemistry Building, Room G07-08

06 April 2016, 13-14:00, Sackville Street Building, Room D39

Engaging with Parliament through the Select Committee system can be a good way to achieve real impact for research outputs and build impact cases.

Professor Colin Talbot (Politics and Co-Director of policy@manchester) has been an expert witness more than two dozen times before Parliamentary Select Committees and has also appeared at committees in the Scottish Parliament and NI Assembly. He’s also been a “behind the scenes” specialist adviser to two House of Commons Select Committees.

Come and find out more about opportunities, explore how you might engage with Parliament and how it works in a very informal, Q&A session with colleagues and Colin.

No need to register, just turn up, and feel free to bring a colleague, and your lunch.

For more information, please contact Colin Talbot.

To see a list of Parliamentary Select Committee inquiries currently taking evidence, please see http://www.policy.manchester.ac.uk/resources/evidence/  

J. Malone, R. Stevens, S. Jupp, T. Hancocks, H. Parkinson, and C. Brooksbank. 

"Ten simple rules for selecting a bio-ontology." PLoS Computational Biology, 12(2):e1004743, 2016. DOI:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004743

http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004743

Paul Thompson, Raheel Nawaz, John McNaught & Sophia Ananiadou.

"Enriching news events with meta-knowledge information" Language Resources and Evaluation, (), 1-30. DOI: 10.1007/s10579-016-9344-9

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10579-016-9344-9

Suzanne Embury has recently been awarded funding for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between the School and Heat Trace Ltd.

The project will design, develop and embed an advanced software system to design and monitor total life cycle of installed trace heating systems, for novel applications such as commissioning, planned maintenance and monitoring and control of trace heating systems.