School of Computing Science

Training Adaptive BERT-based Dense Retrievers: Matryoshka, 2D Matryoshka, and Starbucks Approaches 

Group: Information Retrieval (IR)
Speaker: Shuai Wang, University of Queensland
Date: 20 October, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Title:
Training Adaptive BERT-based Dense Retrievers: Matryoshka, 2D Matryoshka, and Starbucks Approaches

Abstract:
Modern dense retrieval models, such as those based on BERT, offer strong effectiveness but at high computational cost. Recent advances in adaptive embedding training: including Matryoshka, 2D Matryoshka, and our proposed Starbucks method—aim to train a single model that can operate efficiently at multiple depths and dimensions without retraining. In this talk, I will discuss how 2D Matryoshka training extends standard approaches to jointly optimize across both layer and dimension spaces, its challenges in information retrieval tasks, and how Starbucks improves upon it through structured fine-tuning and masked autoencoder pre-training. Together, these methods enable adaptive and efficient dense retrievers that maintain effectiveness across diverse task and resource constraints.

Bio:
Shuai Wang is a Research Officer (a role invented for postdocs still waiting for their defense) at the University of Queensland. His PhD focuses on automating medical systematic reviews (using just about every approach you can think of, including LLMs). Beyond that, he explores broader IR and NLP challenges such as federated RAG (not the security one), retrieval model efficiency (like his Starbucks approach), RAG efficiency (context compression), and effective ranking methods (yes, even the “boring” ones like fusion). He’s passionate about making retrieval systems faster, smarter, and himself a little less caffeinated.

Towards Transparent Ocean using Underwater Sensor Networks

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Nazila Fough , University of Glasgow
Date: 21 October, 2025
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

Abstract:

Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) are key enablers of intelligent subsea monitoring, supporting applications across offshore energy, environmental observation, and infrastructure inspection. Yet, these systems continue to face significant challenges arising from the harsh underwater acoustic environment, including severe signal attenuation, high latency, and bandwidth limitations.

This talk presents my recent research on adaptive communication and localization strategies for UWSNs, aimed at enhancing reliability, security, and scalability in dynamic subsea conditions. I will discuss the development of hybrid acoustic–optical communication frameworks that enable intelligent link switching to improve throughput and support real-time data exchange. The talk also covers robust routing and localization algorithms designed for energy efficiency and accuracy, incorporating satellite-assisted data fusion to extend network situational awareness.

In parallel, I will introduce my group’s ongoing work on security-aware underwater communication, exploring suitable methods to align emerging security needs with the physical constraints of underwater networks.

Together, these research efforts advance the vision of AI-driven, secure, and autonomous subsea sensor networks, paving the way for long-term, resilient ocean monitoring and smart offshore operations.

[FATA Seminar] Total b-chromatic colouring of graphs

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Fabricio Mendoza Granada, FATA
Date: 21 October, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Room 422, SAWB

A b-chromatic colouring of a graph G is a proper k-colouring of the vertices of G, for some integer k, such that, for each colour i (1 <= i <= k), there exists a vertex v of colour i such that v is adjacent to a vertex of colour j, for each j (1 <= j <= k, j != i).  The b-chromatic number of G is the maximum integer k such that G admits a b-chromatic colouring using k colours. In this talk, we introduce the concept of a total b-chromatic colouring, which extends the notion of b-chromatic colourings to both vertices and edges in a graph.  We show that the problem of computing the total b-chromatic number is NP-hard in general graphs.  On the other hand for a subclass of caterpillars we give a polynomial-time algorithm to compute the total b-chromatic number, and indeed a total b-chromatic colouring with the maximum number of colours.

Title TBA

Group: Programming Languages at University of Glasgow (PLUG)
Speaker: Daniel Hillerström, Category Labs & University of Edinburgh
Date: 22 October, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: F121 Lilybank Gardens and Online

Daniel will be giving us a PLUG talk, the details of which are to be confirmed. Expect continuations!

GWiCS - Bridging Industry and Academia

Group: Glasgow Women in Computing Science (GWiCS)
Speaker: Effie Koursari and Despoina Sampatakou, University of Glasgow
Date: 22 October, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: 422 SAWB AND https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/j/82511055489?pwd=p9LAsLrszzoLUoMQsK671Dfl5pRvaV.1

GWiCS invites you to participate to a special event with exceptional speakers

Eftychia (Effie) Koursari, Technical Director at Amey | ICE Scotland Sustainability Champion 2023 | IET Young Woman Engineer 2021 WES Prize | Top 50 Women in Engineering 2020: Sustainability | PhD Researcher at the University of Glasgow

Title: Bridging Expertise and Leadership: Engineering a Path to Global Impact

Short Bio: Effie Koursari is an internationally recognised expert in scour, the main cause of bridge collapse worldwide and the main impact of climate change on infrastructure. She is currently undertaking PhD Research at the University of Glasgow on the topic of scour, while working as a Technical Director for Amey.

Effie’s leadership extends beyond project delivery. She serves as Industrial Chair of the University of Glasgow’s School of Engineering Industrial Advisory Board, she is an Associate Editor of the Bridge Engineering Journal, a member of the ICE Scotland Policy and External Affairs Group, and a member of the WES Climate Emergency Group, influencing climate action and Net Zero alignment on engineering delivery and policy.

Effie has awarded numerous awards including Inspirational Leader – Consultant at the CN & NCE Inspiring Women in Construction and Engineering Awards 2025, the Royal Academy of Engineering and Transport for London featured Effie in the Engineering Icons Tube Map in 2024, the Institution of Civil Engineers Scotland Sustainability Champion of the Year in 2023 and Young Women Engineers of the Year 2021.

Abstract: Effie will share her inspiring journey, demonstrating how mentorship transforms technical experts into influential leaders. She'll explain how development programmes and supportive guidance built her confidence to lead specialist teams, shape net zero policies, and influence civil engineering practice globally. Drawing on her own experience, she'll discuss her commitment to mentorship and her vision for nurturing future engineering leaders as Industrial Chair at the University of Glasgow.

Despoina Sampatakou, Research Associate in Immersive Interaction Design, University of Glasgow | Digital Archaeologist and Storytelling Specialist | Author of Creating and Evaluating Digital Media for Archaeological Storytelling (BAR, 2025) | Heritage Consultant

Title: Bridging Industry and Academia: Travelling Between Realms

Short Bio:
Despoina Sampatakou is a digital archaeologist with an interdisciplinary background, working in the School of Computing Science. Her work connects archaeological methods with immersive design and storytelling. After a few years in industry, she returned to university to complete a PhD in Digital Archaeology at the University of York. She is now a Research Associate in Immersive Interaction Design at the University of Glasgow, where she studies how people engage with cultural heritage in XR and how to improve these experiences. Alongside her academic role, she consults for heritage organisations and collaborates with curators, architects, and computer scientists. Her publications include a BAR monograph on evaluation frameworks for archaeological storytelling and interactive media, peer-reviewed articles on immersive experiences and archaeogaming, and practice-led work in interactive media.

Abstract:
This talk traces a career that moves between industry and academia and shows that the route to impact is rarely linear demonstrating how professional practice shaped an evolving research trajectory. Despoina will share practical lessons on working across sectors, building credible networks, and the value of mentorship.

Training Adaptive BERT-based Dense Retrievers: Matryoshka, 2D Matryoshka, and Starbucks Approaches 

Group: Information Retrieval (IR)
Speaker: Shuai Wang, University of Queensland
Date: 20 October, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Title:
Training Adaptive BERT-based Dense Retrievers: Matryoshka, 2D Matryoshka, and Starbucks Approaches

Abstract:
Modern dense retrieval models, such as those based on BERT, offer strong effectiveness but at high computational cost. Recent advances in adaptive embedding training: including Matryoshka, 2D Matryoshka, and our proposed Starbucks method—aim to train a single model that can operate efficiently at multiple depths and dimensions without retraining. In this talk, I will discuss how 2D Matryoshka training extends standard approaches to jointly optimize across both layer and dimension spaces, its challenges in information retrieval tasks, and how Starbucks improves upon it through structured fine-tuning and masked autoencoder pre-training. Together, these methods enable adaptive and efficient dense retrievers that maintain effectiveness across diverse task and resource constraints.

Bio:
Shuai Wang is a Research Officer (a role invented for postdocs still waiting for their defense) at the University of Queensland. His PhD focuses on automating medical systematic reviews (using just about every approach you can think of, including LLMs). Beyond that, he explores broader IR and NLP challenges such as federated RAG (not the security one), retrieval model efficiency (like his Starbucks approach), RAG efficiency (context compression), and effective ranking methods (yes, even the “boring” ones like fusion). He’s passionate about making retrieval systems faster, smarter, and himself a little less caffeinated.

Towards Transparent Ocean using Underwater Sensor Networks

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Nazila Fough , University of Glasgow
Date: 21 October, 2025
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

Abstract:

Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) are key enablers of intelligent subsea monitoring, supporting applications across offshore energy, environmental observation, and infrastructure inspection. Yet, these systems continue to face significant challenges arising from the harsh underwater acoustic environment, including severe signal attenuation, high latency, and bandwidth limitations.

This talk presents my recent research on adaptive communication and localization strategies for UWSNs, aimed at enhancing reliability, security, and scalability in dynamic subsea conditions. I will discuss the development of hybrid acoustic–optical communication frameworks that enable intelligent link switching to improve throughput and support real-time data exchange. The talk also covers robust routing and localization algorithms designed for energy efficiency and accuracy, incorporating satellite-assisted data fusion to extend network situational awareness.

In parallel, I will introduce my group’s ongoing work on security-aware underwater communication, exploring suitable methods to align emerging security needs with the physical constraints of underwater networks.

Together, these research efforts advance the vision of AI-driven, secure, and autonomous subsea sensor networks, paving the way for long-term, resilient ocean monitoring and smart offshore operations.

[FATA Seminar] Total b-chromatic colouring of graphs

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Fabricio Mendoza Granada, FATA
Date: 21 October, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Room 422, SAWB

A b-chromatic colouring of a graph G is a proper k-colouring of the vertices of G, for some integer k, such that, for each colour i (1 <= i <= k), there exists a vertex v of colour i such that v is adjacent to a vertex of colour j, for each j (1 <= j <= k, j != i).  The b-chromatic number of G is the maximum integer k such that G admits a b-chromatic colouring using k colours. In this talk, we introduce the concept of a total b-chromatic colouring, which extends the notion of b-chromatic colourings to both vertices and edges in a graph.  We show that the problem of computing the total b-chromatic number is NP-hard in general graphs.  On the other hand for a subclass of caterpillars we give a polynomial-time algorithm to compute the total b-chromatic number, and indeed a total b-chromatic colouring with the maximum number of colours.

Title TBA

Group: Programming Languages at University of Glasgow (PLUG)
Speaker: Daniel Hillerström, Category Labs & University of Edinburgh
Date: 22 October, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: F121 Lilybank Gardens and Online

Daniel will be giving us a PLUG talk, the details of which are to be confirmed. Expect continuations!

GWiCS - Bridging Industry and Academia

Group: Glasgow Women in Computing Science (GWiCS)
Speaker: Effie Koursari and Despoina Sampatakou, University of Glasgow
Date: 22 October, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: 422 SAWB AND https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/j/82511055489?pwd=p9LAsLrszzoLUoMQsK671Dfl5pRvaV.1

GWiCS invites you to participate to a special event with exceptional speakers

Eftychia (Effie) Koursari, Technical Director at Amey | ICE Scotland Sustainability Champion 2023 | IET Young Woman Engineer 2021 WES Prize | Top 50 Women in Engineering 2020: Sustainability | PhD Researcher at the University of Glasgow

Title: Bridging Expertise and Leadership: Engineering a Path to Global Impact

Short Bio: Effie Koursari is an internationally recognised expert in scour, the main cause of bridge collapse worldwide and the main impact of climate change on infrastructure. She is currently undertaking PhD Research at the University of Glasgow on the topic of scour, while working as a Technical Director for Amey.

Effie’s leadership extends beyond project delivery. She serves as Industrial Chair of the University of Glasgow’s School of Engineering Industrial Advisory Board, she is an Associate Editor of the Bridge Engineering Journal, a member of the ICE Scotland Policy and External Affairs Group, and a member of the WES Climate Emergency Group, influencing climate action and Net Zero alignment on engineering delivery and policy.

Effie has awarded numerous awards including Inspirational Leader – Consultant at the CN & NCE Inspiring Women in Construction and Engineering Awards 2025, the Royal Academy of Engineering and Transport for London featured Effie in the Engineering Icons Tube Map in 2024, the Institution of Civil Engineers Scotland Sustainability Champion of the Year in 2023 and Young Women Engineers of the Year 2021.

Abstract: Effie will share her inspiring journey, demonstrating how mentorship transforms technical experts into influential leaders. She'll explain how development programmes and supportive guidance built her confidence to lead specialist teams, shape net zero policies, and influence civil engineering practice globally. Drawing on her own experience, she'll discuss her commitment to mentorship and her vision for nurturing future engineering leaders as Industrial Chair at the University of Glasgow.

Despoina Sampatakou, Research Associate in Immersive Interaction Design, University of Glasgow | Digital Archaeologist and Storytelling Specialist | Author of Creating and Evaluating Digital Media for Archaeological Storytelling (BAR, 2025) | Heritage Consultant

Title: Bridging Industry and Academia: Travelling Between Realms

Short Bio:
Despoina Sampatakou is a digital archaeologist with an interdisciplinary background, working in the School of Computing Science. Her work connects archaeological methods with immersive design and storytelling. After a few years in industry, she returned to university to complete a PhD in Digital Archaeology at the University of York. She is now a Research Associate in Immersive Interaction Design at the University of Glasgow, where she studies how people engage with cultural heritage in XR and how to improve these experiences. Alongside her academic role, she consults for heritage organisations and collaborates with curators, architects, and computer scientists. Her publications include a BAR monograph on evaluation frameworks for archaeological storytelling and interactive media, peer-reviewed articles on immersive experiences and archaeogaming, and practice-led work in interactive media.

Abstract:
This talk traces a career that moves between industry and academia and shows that the route to impact is rarely linear demonstrating how professional practice shaped an evolving research trajectory. Despoina will share practical lessons on working across sectors, building credible networks, and the value of mentorship.

Upwards seminar: Applying for ERC Grants

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: Dr Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas and Professor Julie Williamson, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 28 October, 2025
Time: 10:00 - 11:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Topic: Applying for ERC Grants

Speakers:

- Dr Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas (SoCS, GIST)

- Professor Julie Williamson (SoCS, GIST)

Location: in room SAWB 422 and on Zoom: https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/j/84976190263?pwd=yRsasB6HLqVtTW307b4028jJAKdYuj.1

What will this session be about?
 
It is up to the speakers to set the agenda for their Upwards talks, but the idea of this seminar instance is to hear about experiences applying (successfully) for ERC funding (such as Starting Grants and Consolidator Grants). Why would you want to try? What can you expect from winning an ERC grant? How might it impact your work, group, and career? What are the big strategic decisions you want to get right when working on your grant application? How much time might you need? Whom to ask for help? How to prepare for the interview?

What is Upwards?
 
Upwards is the School of Computing Science’s research culture seminar, covering all facets of developing, conducting, and disseminating research and related topics (e.g. managing a research team, time management to do research, connections between research and teaching). It is open to everyone in the School, but a specific aim is to support ECR development and some sessions are aimed mainly at PGRs and/or PDRAs.

How are the seminars held?

Upwards seminars are held in person in the School to bring people together. However, the sessions are also streamed on Zoom to allow to join remotely, if attending in person is not an option. To preserve the off-the-record atmosphere of the seminars, which allows speakers to speak more freely about personal experiences, the seminars are not recorded and slides are not shared.

TBC

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Tomasz Lyko, Lancaster University
Date: 28 October, 2025
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

TBC

In-Network GOOSE Encryption with eBPF-based Programmable Network Architecture

Group: Networked Systems Research Laboratory (NETLAB)
Speaker: Filip Holik
Date: 29 October, 2025
Time: 09:00 - 10:00
Location: Room 422, SAWB

Retrofitting cybersecurity to digital substations is a costly and challenging effort. Communication encryption and device authentication are two of the most important techniques to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability. However, most common grid devices do not support modern cryptography due to limited computational capacity of legacy devices. In this paper, we perform detailed performance comparison of several encryption protocols on GOOSE traffic, taking into consideration entire payload encryption, encryption of only critical fields, and CPU performance. We compared the efficiency of five algorithms and their effect on end-to-end latency on resource-constrained single board devices. Finally, we propose an in-network eBPF-based programmable data plane solution which performs encryption and decryption in–network as opposed to grid devices and therefore eliminates the need for replacing the power grid IEDs or buying additional encryption / decryption cards. We implemented the best performing algorithm – Chacha20 in-network and tested the proposed architecture achieving end-to-end latency under 0.5 ms during normal operation and under 1 ms under heavily loaded network and high messages frequency, thus complying with the GOOSE latency limit.

The SCOttish Networking Event (SCONE) Meeting

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 29 October, 2025
Time: 12:00 - 17:30
Location: Abertay cyberQuarter, 1-3 Bell Street, Dundee, DD1 1LH

The Scottish Networking Event (SCONE) will have their next meeting at Abertay cyberQuarter in Dundee. SCONE is an informal gathering of networking and systems researchers in and around Scotland. Each meeting will take place over the course of an afternoon and feature: talks from PhD students talks from faculty, postdocs and industrial researchers discussions of possible funding opportunities food and drink Check the website for more information and to register

Wasm for Secure Compute on CHERI

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Yuxin Qin, University of Glasgow
Date: 04 November, 2025
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

This talk will explore WebAssembly (Wasm), CHERI, and Large Language Models (LLMs) to improve safety and performance of low-level programs. First, it characterises Wasm workloads, covering instruction mix, allocation, opcode dynamics, and execution costs, identifying bottlenecks and assessing Garbage Collection (GC) extensions. Then, it integrates Wasm with CHERI, showing hardware-enforced capabilities prevent buffer overflows and use-after-free with minimal overhead. Last, it profiles LLM-generated C on CHERI using ASan, Valgrind, and CBMC, revealing novice-like unsafe patterns. Together, these studies demonstrate hardware-assisted memory safety as a practical path toward robust Wasm systems.

Bio: 

Yuxin Qin received her B.E. degree in Electrical Engineering and Automation from Central South University (CSU, 985 listed) in 2019. She first came to Scotland in 2022, for her PhD study in School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow. She submitted her PhD thesis recently which supervised by Prof. Jeremy Singer. This talk is mainly about her PhD thesis and looking for comments. Yuxin has received several awards, including CSC PhD scholarship, CSU First-Class Scholarship for 3 years, and CSU Outstanding Graduation Award. Her research interests include memory safety, bytecode interpreters, and edge computing.

TBA

Group: Programming Languages at University of Glasgow (PLUG)
Speaker: Bob Atkey, University of Strathclyde
Date: 05 November, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: F121 Lilybank Gardens and Online

Bob will give us a talk on something interesting; details of which are to be confirmed.

Leveraging LLMs in the Software Development Lifecycle: Practical Insights on Code Quality and Test Generation

Group: Glasgow Computing Science Innovation Lab
Speaker: Dr Gul Calikli and Dr Debasis Ganguly, School of Computing Science, UofG
Date: 10 November, 2025
Time: 12:15 - 14:00
Location: Studio 2, Advanced Research Centre

Glasgow Computing Science Innovation Lab (GLACSIL) welcomes colleagues, researchers, GLACSIL partners, and industry representatives to this latest in our series of hybrid events where hot topics in computing and innovation are explored over a working lunch and networking.

Leveraging LLMs in the Software Development Lifecycle: Practical Insights on Code Quality and Test Generation

Speakers: Dr Gul Calikli and Dr Debasis Ganguly, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow

Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT-4.o are becoming powerful tools in modern software engineering—powering code assistants, enabling rapid prototyping, and now playing a growing role in testing. This talk shares two industry-relevant research studies focused on helping developers make the most of LLMs in real-world workflows.

The first study addresses a common challenge in feature-driven and rapid development environments: how do you assess the quality of generated code when you don’t yet have tests? We present a practical technique that uses in-context learning (ICL) to estimate the functional correctness of LLM-generated code by analyzing ranked alternatives—similar to how search engines rank results. By showing LLMs examples of correct code during generation, developers can get more reliable signals about which output is most likely to work.

The second study dives into automated unit test generation—a time-consuming but critical task. We evaluate how LLMs perform when prompted with different types of test examples: human-written, traditional tool-generated (like SBST), and LLM-generated. Our findings, based on popular benchmarks and GPT-4.o (used in tools like GitHub Copilot), show that the right few-shot examples—especially human-written ones—can significantly improve test quality and code coverage. We also demonstrate how combining code and problem similarity helps select the most effective examples automatically.

Packed with actionable insights, this session will help practitioners understand how to better guide LLMs, improve the reliability of generated code, and boost the effectiveness of automated testing—all without overhauling existing workflows.

[FATA Seminar] TBA

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Laura Larios-Jones, FATA
Date: 11 November, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Room 422, SAWB

TBA

TBC

Group: Networked Systems Research Laboratory (NETLAB)
Speaker: TBC
Date: 12 November, 2025
Time: 09:00 - 10:00
Location: Room 422, SAWB

Designing Transport-Level Encryption for Datacenter Networks

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Michio Honda, University of Edinburgh
Date: 13 November, 2025
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

Cloud applications need network data encryption to isolate from othertenants and protect their data from potential eavesdroppers in the network infrastructure. This paper presents SDT, a protocol design for emerging datacenter transport protocols, such as NDP and Homa, to integrate data encryption. SDT uses per-message record sequence number spaces in a secure session, which ensures unique message identities for its messages to prevent replay attacks. This design enables transport-level encryption that supports existing NIC offloads designed for TLS over TCP, native protocol number alongside TCP and UDP, and message-based abstraction that mitigates head-of-line blocking and enables the network or host stack to identify the message boundaries for load balancing. We implement SDT in the Linux kernel by extending Homa/Linux and improves RPC throughput by up to 41 % and latency by up to 35 % in comparison to TLS/DCTCP.  This work is to appear in IEEE S&P 2026.

Bio:

Michio Honda is a Reader in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh since 2020. His best known work is identifying TCP extensibility against middlebox interference and building the first TCP/IP network stack for persistent memory. His current research interests include secure datacenter transport protocols, host network stack design and scale-out networking. He is a recipient of IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize, Facebook Research Award and Google Research Scholar Award.

Upwards Seminar: Why and How to Organise a Conference in Glasgow

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: Drs Marwa Mahmoud and Gerardo Aragon Camarasa, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 14 November, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Topic: Why and How to Organise a Conference in Glasgow

Speakers:

- Dr Marwa Mahmoud (SoCS, GIST)

- Dr Gerardo Aragon Camarasa (SoCS, IDA)

Location: In room SAWB 422 and on Zoom (https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/j/81666424276?pwd=zvsl5GIybLXcVXLkPBtInRaoKvtOyf.1).

What will this session be about?
 
It is up to the speakers to set the agenda for their Upwards talks, but the idea of this seminar instance is to hear lessons learned from organising a major conference in Glasgow, answering key questions such as: Why would you commit the time? How do you bid for hosting a major conference in Glasgow? How do you compose your organisation team? How do you advertise the event? How do you make your conference memorable with social events? What has to happen before, what during, and what after the conference?

What is Upwards?
 
Upwards is the School of Computing Science’s research culture seminar, covering all facets of developing, conducting, and disseminating research and related topics (e.g. managing a research team, time management to do research, connections between research and teaching). It is open to everyone in the School, but a specific aim is to support ECR development and some sessions are aimed mainly at PGRs and/or PDRAs.

How are the seminars held?

Upwards seminars are held in person in the School to bring people together. In addition, the sessions are streamed on Zoom to allow to join remotely, if attending in person is not an option. To preserve the off-the-record atmosphere of the seminars, which allows speakers to speak more freely about their personal experiences, the seminars are not recorded and the slides are not shared. For the same reason, AI tools (such as those that automatically take meeting notes) will not be permitted. 

xMem: A CPU-Based Approach for Accurate GPU Memory Prediction in Deep Learning Training

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Jiabo Shi, University of Glasgow
Date: 18 November, 2025
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

The widespread adoption of Deep Learning (DL) in diverse application areas has significantly increased the demand for GPUs. Consequently, GPU resources are scarce and are managed in clusters to maximize resource utilization. However, this shift introduces new debugging challenges when training DL models on shared clusters particularly Out-Of-Memory (OOM) errors, an issue commonly reported in industry and academic literature. Existing solutions for avoiding OOM primarily rely on static analysis of the DL model’s computational graph, or leverage GPU resources directly or indirectly to estimate the peak memory required for training the given task on the target GPU. Unfortunately, relying on GPUs for these predictions exacerbates resource contention and increases scheduling challenges. Furthermore, the dynamic nature of model development limits the accuracy of static analysis to estimate peak memory usage. To address these limitations, we propose xMem, a novel tool that uses CPU-based analysis to accurately predict the memory required for model training on a GPU. By eliminating the reliance on GPUs for memory estimation, xMem promotes efficient GPU utilization while mitigating OOM errors. Our empirical evaluation of 16 DL models (a total of 5,040 runs) demonstrates that, compared to state-of-the-art GPU memory estimators, xMem decreases the median relative error by 84.32%, reduces the average probability of estimation failure by 73.44%, accelerates the runtime by 50.16%, and improves memory conservation by 125.36%.

About the Speaker:

Jiabo Shi is a PhD student at the University of Glasgow, supervised by Dr Yehia Elkhatib and Professor Dimitrios Pezaros. His interests focus on machine learning performance measurement and prediction, as well as developing efficient and reliable resource scheduling systems for deep learning clusters. His current PhD research investigates the widespread resource waste in large-scale deep learning clusters, with a focus on job failures due to Out-of-Memory (OOM) errors amid the global GPU shortage. 

[FATA Seminar] TBA

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Alceste Scalas, DTU Compute - TU Denmark
Date: 18 November, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Room 422, SAWB

TBA

TBA

Group: Programming Languages at University of Glasgow (PLUG)
Speaker: Anton Lorenzen, University of Edinburgh
Date: 19 November, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: F121 Lilybank Gardens and Online

Anton Lorenzen from Edinburgh will give us a talk -- most likely on his work on Functional-but-in-place programming. Details TBA.

What makes a "serious" computer science department?

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: Stephen Kell, King's College London
Date: 21 November, 2025
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Location: 422 Sir Alwyn Williams (SAWB), University of Glasgow

What are the hallmarks of "things done right" in a computer science 
department that aspires to world-class research and teaching? In this 
polemic I'll share my own thoughts on this question, based on 
experiences working at a few different departments (while enjoying a 
blissful absence of management responsibility), and invite thoughts from 
the audience. The struggle is real, in that no department does uniformly 
well by these criteria. I'll share some anecdotes about the obstacles 
that can arise and some possible tactics (or "armchair wisdom") that may 
sometimes help overcome them.

TBC

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Yuvraj Patel, University of Edinburgh
Date: 25 November, 2025
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

TBC

[FATA Seminar] TBA

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Paul Besci, University of Oxford
Date: 25 November, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Room 422, SAWB

TBA

TBC

Group: Networked Systems Research Laboratory (NETLAB)
Speaker: Martin Nahalka
Date: 26 November, 2025
Time: 09:00 - 10:00
Location: Room 422, SAWB

TBC

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Marc Juarez, University of Edinburgh
Date: 02 December, 2025
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

Abstract:

TBC

Bio:

Marc Juarez is a Lecturer in Cyber Security and Privacy at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics. Prior to his current appointment, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Computer Science Department of the University of Southern California. His research focuses on investigating the privacy risks that arise from the application of machine learning techniques. More specifically, Marc’s work involves designing and evaluating countermeasures against machine learning-based attacks for privacy-aware Internet protocols, studying the privacy of deployed machine learning models, and developing mechanisms to measure the fairness properties of such models.

Title TBA

Group: Programming Languages at University of Glasgow (PLUG)
Speaker: Jacob Trevor
Date: 03 December, 2025
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: F121 Lilybank Gardens and Online

Jake will give us a talk/rant about package managers. Details TBA.

TBC

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Stephen McQuistin, University of St. Andrews
Date: 09 December, 2025
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

TBC

Group: Networked Systems Research Laboratory (NETLAB)
Speaker: Kelsey Collington
Date: 10 December, 2025
Time: 09:00 - 10:00
Location: Room 422, SAWB

Measuring and understanding Distributed Denial of Service attacks

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Daniel R. Thomas, University of Strathclyde
Date: 20 January, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

Bio:

Dr Daniel R. Thomas is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde where he is Director of the NCSC certified Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR). His research interests are in measuring security and cybercrime so that we can monitor improvement, evaluate interventions and inform regulators. This reveals which techniques work and provides the missing economic incentives to improve security and reduce cybercrime. He co-organises the Strathclyde International Perspectives on Cybercrime Summer School [link](https://www.strath.ac.uk/science/computerinformationsciences/strathcyber/cybercrimesummerschool) , which next runs 24th-28th August 2026.

TBC

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Tom Spink, University of St. Andrews
Date: 27 January, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

TBC

TBC

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Tao Chen, University of Birmingham
Date: 19 February, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

TBC