Pushing image sensors and algorithms to the quantum limit

Group: Inference, Dynamics and Interaction (IDI)
Speaker: Bruno Sanguinetti, Dotphoton
Date: 11 December, 2018
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Quantum inspired image compression.

Group: Inference, Dynamics and Interaction (IDI)
Speaker: Bruno Sanguinetti, Dotphoton
Date: 11 December, 2018
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Workshop on Conversational AI

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 12 December, 2018
Time: 00:00 - 00:00
Location:Heriot Watt University, Robotics Seminar Room, Heriot Watt University, United Kingdom

The SICSA HCI and AI Research Themes are pleased to be sponsoring the Workshop on Conversational AI which takes place on 12 December 2018. This workshop brings together researchers and practitioners from both academia and industry for a series of presentations and discussions to explore some of the pressing issues around Conversational AI, including but not limited to: domain-generality, data-efficiency, incremental processing, multi-modality, grounding, disfluencies, real-time adaptation, semantic modelling and plasticity, and deep learning techniques. This workshop is sponsored by SICSA AI and SICSA HCI Themes. We strongly encourage you to submit an abstract to present at the workshop - see our call for abstracts. The workshop is free for all to attend. However, space is limited, so we give priority to those who are presenting, and otherwise proceed on a first come first served basis. For full details on the event, please visit the Workshop web-site To register, please see our Eventbrite page. Organisers: Oliver Lemon & Arash Eshghi

Cyber Security Christmas Lectures

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 12 December, 2018
Time: 00:00 - 00:00
Location:University of Abertay, Bell Street, Dundee, DD1 1HG, Scotland, United Kingdom

Supported by Scottish Government and industry, the annual Cyber Security Christmas Lectures tour is now in her 7th year. Since its inception in 2012 the tour has grown significantly in size year on year and this year will be visiting 6 locations across Scotland in 6 days talking to over 2500 pupils and teachers. Aimed at encouraging ages 12-18 to consider a career in cyber security, the lectures take the format of two hours of interactive and light hearted presentations on a wide range of security topics. Never a dull moment and entirely free, the Christmas lectures are the must attend School event of the year. SICSA is proud to sponsor the events at the University of Abertay, Dundee. Details about other lectures and registration can be found at Christmas Cyber Lectures.

Deep Diving into the Security and Privacy of the Fitbit Ecosystem

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Paul Patras, University of Edinburgh
Date: 12 December, 2018
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

In this talk I will present an in depth security and privacy analysis of the Fitbit ecosystem. I will first reveal an intricate security through obscurity implementation of the user activity synchronization protocol on early device models. Based on reverse engineering, I will show how sensitive personal information can be extracted in human-readable format, and demonstrate that malicious users can inject fabricated activity records to obtain personal benefits. I will also discuss how attackers can exploit protocol weaknesses to associate nearby victim trackers with a controlled account and subsequently exfiltrate fitness data. Second, I will reveal that the firmware update procedure can be compromised and the code running on devices within wireless range can be modified without consent. Finally, I will discuss how we altered the official smartphone app with the aim of subverting the Fitbit cloud. Although the majority of the vulnerabilities identified have been patched, the lessons learned apply to other Internet of Things applications where the smartphone mediates between user, device, and service.

References:

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/ppatras/pub/imwut18.pdf

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/ppatras/pub/raid17.pdf

Bio:

Paul Patras is a Lecturer and Chancellor's Fellow in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, where he leads the Internet of Things Research Programme. He received his Ph.D. from University Carlos III of Madrid and held visiting research positions at the University of Brescia, Northeastern University, TU Darmstadt, and Rice University. His research interests include performance optimisation in wireless and mobile networks, applied machine learning, mobile traffic analytics, security and privacy, prototyping and test beds.

Paths between colourings of sparse graphs

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Carl Feghali, Bergen University
Date: 12 December, 2018
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Lilybank Gardens, F121 Conference Room

The reconfiguration graph R_k(G) of the k-colourings of a graph G has as vertex set the k-colourings of G and two vertices of R_k(G) are joined by an edge if the corresponding colourings differ on the colour of exactly one vertex. Given a k-degenerate graph G, a conjecture of Cereceda from 2008 states that R_{k+2}(G) has diameter O(|V(G)|^2). I will give a short proof of an existing theorem that addresses the conjecture for graphs with bounded maximum average degree. I will also discuss some progress on the conjecture for planar graphs.

RA Coffee Break

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: you
Date: 13 December, 2018
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, Common Room

Every Thursday 11am RAs and post-docs meet for coffee in the common room. This is a good opportunity to meet new people if you recently joined the school, informally discuss issues with the School's RA representatives, or just hang out and enjoy a coffee and some biscuits.

Making Diabetes Education Interactive: Tangible Educational Toys for Children with Type-1 Diabetes.

Group: Human Computer Interaction (GIST)
Speaker: Babis (Charalampos) Kyfonidis, University of Glasgow
Date: 13 December, 2018
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Lilybank Gardens, F121 Conference Room

Abstract:

Younger children (under 9 years) with type-1 diabetes are often very passive in the management of their condition and can face difculties in accessing and understanding basic diabetes related  information. This can make transitioning to self-management in later years very challenging. Previous research has mostly focused on educational interventions for older children. To create an educational tool which can support the diabetes educational process of younger children, we conducted a multiphase and multi-stakeholder user-centred design process. The result is an interactive tool that illustrates diabetes concepts in an age-appropriate way with the use of tangible toys. The tool was evaluated inside a paediatric diabetes clinic with clinicians, children and parents and was found to be engaging, acceptable and effective.

Bio:

Charalampos (Babis) Kyfonidis is a Research assistant at the University of Glasgow. His  background is on Electronic & Computer Engineering, Computing Science(MSc) and Human-Computer Interaction (PhD).
Some of his reserach interests are Serious Games,  Tangible Interaction, Wearables, Maker-Movement, Programming Education and Digital Cultural Heritage.

SoCS Seminar Series: Distributed Ledger Technology, Cyber-Physical Systems, and Social Compliance

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: Professor Robert Shorten, University College Dublin
Date: 13 December, 2018
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

School of Computing Science Seminar Series, 13 December (Thursday), 15:00-16:00, in SAWB 422, followed by an informal reception with light snacks and drinks.

Abstract: This talk describes how Distributed Ledger Technologies can be used to design a class of cyber-physical systems, as well as to enforce social contracts and to orchestrate the behaviour of agents trying to access a shared resource. The first part of the paper analyses the advantages and disadvantages of using Distributed Ledger Technologies architectures to implement certain control systems in an Internet of Things (IoT) setting, and then focuses on a specific type of DLT based on a Directed Acyclic Graph. In this setting we propose a set of delay differential equations to describe the dynamical behaviour of the Tangle, an IoT-inspired Directed Acyclic Graph designed for the cryptocurrency IOTA. The second part proposes an application of Distributed Ledger Technologies as a mechanism for dynamic deposit pricing, wherein the deposit of digital currency is used to orchestrate access to a network of shared resources. The pricing signal is used as a mechanism to enforce the desired level of compliance according to a predetermined set of rules. After presenting an illustrative example, we analyze the control system and provide sufficient conditions for the stability of the network.

Bio: Robert Shorten is Professor of Control Engineering and Decision Science at UCD. He was a cofounder of the Hamilton Institute at Maynooth University, and led the Optimisation and Control team at IBM Research Smart Cities Research Lab in Dublin Ireland. He has been a visiting professor at TU Berlin and a research visitor at Yale University and Technion. He is the Irish member of the European Union Control Association assembly, a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society Technical Group on Smart Cities, and a member of the IFAC Technical Committees for Automotive Control, and for Discrete Event and Hybrid Systems. He is a co-author of the recently published books AIMD Dynamics and Distributed Resource Allocation (SIAM 2016) and Electric and Plug-in Vehicle Networks: Optimisation and Control (CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2017.

How to build a strong research team

Group: Upwards - a seminar series about all aspects of research life
Speaker: Iadh Ounis, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 14 December, 2018
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Scottish Theorem Proving (STP) Event

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 14 December, 2018
Time: 12:30 - 17:00
Location:International Centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS), 47 Potterow, Edinburgh, Bayes Centre, United Kingdom

SICSA is pleased to be sponsoring the next Scottish Theorem Proving (STP) Event which will take place on Friday 14th December at the International centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS), Bayes Centre Edinburgh Theorem proving research is notably strong in Scottish universities, with active groups and researchers in at least six departments. The Scottish Theorem Proving Seminar Series provides a common venue for communication and sharing of ideas by all these researchers. At least once a term, one of the departments hosts an informal seminar for the whole Scottish theorem proving community. The usual format is to have two or three talks in an afternoon session, starting around 14:00 and finishing by 17:00. This deliberately lightweight format makes the seminar an easy day trip for everyone from across Scotland. The speakers for this event are: - Kirsty Duncan (Heriot-Watt University): Existing landscape in verification of neural networks - William Kavanagh (University of Glasgow): Model Checking for Interesting Stochastic Turn-Based Games - Juan Casanova (University of Edinburgh): Meta-resolution: A Least Commitment Algorithm for Enumerating Provable Instantiations of Formulas Containing Meta-variables Talks start at 1.30pm in the ICMS Lecture Theatre. There is a lunch from 12.30pm - If you wish to attend the lunch you need to contact Andrew Ireland (a.ireland@hw.ac.uk) by November 30. For more details, and background on STP, see: http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~air/stp/

Robin Cockett 'Abstract differential geometry matters!'

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 14 December, 2018
Time: 16:15 - 17:00
Location:The University of Strathclyde, LT1415, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom

SICSA DVF Professor Robin Cockett, Department of Computing Science at the University of Calgary will be giving a lecture at the University of Strathclyde on 14th December 2018. Title: Abstract differential geometry matters! Abstract:The last few years has seen the development -- largely in Canada and Australia -- of an axiomatic approach to differential geometry based on tangent categories. Tangent categories incorporate the previous leading settings for differential geometry: finite dimensional manifolds, synthetic differential geometry, convenient manifolds, etc. In addition they widen the scope significantly as they also include combinatorial species, Goodwillie Functor calculi, and examples from computer science. The talk will give a survey of tangent categories and some of the developments so far. Bio: Prof. J. R. B. Cockett (1952) is a category theorist and computer scientist working in proof theory, computability and complexity, programming languages and semantics, categorical quantum information theory, and abstract differential geometry. After his PhD in Mathematics at the University of Leeds in 1979, he has worked in Essex (for Marconi research), Tennessee (US), Sydney (Australia), and since 1991 has been at the University of Calgary (Canada), where is a professor of computer science. He has developed three programming languages, Chartity, LQPL, and MPL, and is known for introducing and studying restriction categories, Turing categories, differential categories, and tangent categories. Professor Cockett is being hosted by Dr Chris Heunen, University of Edinburgh

Pushing image sensors and algorithms to the quantum limit

Group: Inference, Dynamics and Interaction (IDI)
Speaker: Bruno Sanguinetti, Dotphoton
Date: 11 December, 2018
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Quantum inspired image compression.

Group: Inference, Dynamics and Interaction (IDI)
Speaker: Bruno Sanguinetti, Dotphoton
Date: 11 December, 2018
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Workshop on Conversational AI

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 12 December, 2018
Time: 00:00 - 00:00
Location: Heriot Watt University, Robotics Seminar Room, Heriot Watt University, United Kingdom

The SICSA HCI and AI Research Themes are pleased to be sponsoring the Workshop on Conversational AI which takes place on 12 December 2018. This workshop brings together researchers and practitioners from both academia and industry for a series of presentations and discussions to explore some of the pressing issues around Conversational AI, including but not limited to: domain-generality, data-efficiency, incremental processing, multi-modality, grounding, disfluencies, real-time adaptation, semantic modelling and plasticity, and deep learning techniques. This workshop is sponsored by SICSA AI and SICSA HCI Themes. We strongly encourage you to submit an abstract to present at the workshop - see our call for abstracts. The workshop is free for all to attend. However, space is limited, so we give priority to those who are presenting, and otherwise proceed on a first come first served basis. For full details on the event, please visit the Workshop web-site To register, please see our Eventbrite page. Organisers: Oliver Lemon & Arash Eshghi

Cyber Security Christmas Lectures

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 12 December, 2018
Time: 00:00 - 00:00
Location: University of Abertay, Bell Street, Dundee, DD1 1HG, Scotland, United Kingdom

Supported by Scottish Government and industry, the annual Cyber Security Christmas Lectures tour is now in her 7th year. Since its inception in 2012 the tour has grown significantly in size year on year and this year will be visiting 6 locations across Scotland in 6 days talking to over 2500 pupils and teachers. Aimed at encouraging ages 12-18 to consider a career in cyber security, the lectures take the format of two hours of interactive and light hearted presentations on a wide range of security topics. Never a dull moment and entirely free, the Christmas lectures are the must attend School event of the year. SICSA is proud to sponsor the events at the University of Abertay, Dundee. Details about other lectures and registration can be found at Christmas Cyber Lectures.

Deep Diving into the Security and Privacy of the Fitbit Ecosystem

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Paul Patras, University of Edinburgh
Date: 12 December, 2018
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

In this talk I will present an in depth security and privacy analysis of the Fitbit ecosystem. I will first reveal an intricate security through obscurity implementation of the user activity synchronization protocol on early device models. Based on reverse engineering, I will show how sensitive personal information can be extracted in human-readable format, and demonstrate that malicious users can inject fabricated activity records to obtain personal benefits. I will also discuss how attackers can exploit protocol weaknesses to associate nearby victim trackers with a controlled account and subsequently exfiltrate fitness data. Second, I will reveal that the firmware update procedure can be compromised and the code running on devices within wireless range can be modified without consent. Finally, I will discuss how we altered the official smartphone app with the aim of subverting the Fitbit cloud. Although the majority of the vulnerabilities identified have been patched, the lessons learned apply to other Internet of Things applications where the smartphone mediates between user, device, and service.

References:

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/ppatras/pub/imwut18.pdf

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/ppatras/pub/raid17.pdf

Bio:

Paul Patras is a Lecturer and Chancellor's Fellow in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, where he leads the Internet of Things Research Programme. He received his Ph.D. from University Carlos III of Madrid and held visiting research positions at the University of Brescia, Northeastern University, TU Darmstadt, and Rice University. His research interests include performance optimisation in wireless and mobile networks, applied machine learning, mobile traffic analytics, security and privacy, prototyping and test beds.

Paths between colourings of sparse graphs

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Carl Feghali, Bergen University
Date: 12 December, 2018
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Lilybank Gardens, F121 Conference Room

The reconfiguration graph R_k(G) of the k-colourings of a graph G has as vertex set the k-colourings of G and two vertices of R_k(G) are joined by an edge if the corresponding colourings differ on the colour of exactly one vertex. Given a k-degenerate graph G, a conjecture of Cereceda from 2008 states that R_{k+2}(G) has diameter O(|V(G)|^2). I will give a short proof of an existing theorem that addresses the conjecture for graphs with bounded maximum average degree. I will also discuss some progress on the conjecture for planar graphs.

RA Coffee Break

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: you
Date: 13 December, 2018
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, Common Room

Every Thursday 11am RAs and post-docs meet for coffee in the common room. This is a good opportunity to meet new people if you recently joined the school, informally discuss issues with the School's RA representatives, or just hang out and enjoy a coffee and some biscuits.

Making Diabetes Education Interactive: Tangible Educational Toys for Children with Type-1 Diabetes.

Group: Human Computer Interaction (GIST)
Speaker: Babis (Charalampos) Kyfonidis, University of Glasgow
Date: 13 December, 2018
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Lilybank Gardens, F121 Conference Room

Abstract:

Younger children (under 9 years) with type-1 diabetes are often very passive in the management of their condition and can face difculties in accessing and understanding basic diabetes related  information. This can make transitioning to self-management in later years very challenging. Previous research has mostly focused on educational interventions for older children. To create an educational tool which can support the diabetes educational process of younger children, we conducted a multiphase and multi-stakeholder user-centred design process. The result is an interactive tool that illustrates diabetes concepts in an age-appropriate way with the use of tangible toys. The tool was evaluated inside a paediatric diabetes clinic with clinicians, children and parents and was found to be engaging, acceptable and effective.

Bio:

Charalampos (Babis) Kyfonidis is a Research assistant at the University of Glasgow. His  background is on Electronic & Computer Engineering, Computing Science(MSc) and Human-Computer Interaction (PhD).
Some of his reserach interests are Serious Games,  Tangible Interaction, Wearables, Maker-Movement, Programming Education and Digital Cultural Heritage.

SoCS Seminar Series: Distributed Ledger Technology, Cyber-Physical Systems, and Social Compliance

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: Professor Robert Shorten, University College Dublin
Date: 13 December, 2018
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

School of Computing Science Seminar Series, 13 December (Thursday), 15:00-16:00, in SAWB 422, followed by an informal reception with light snacks and drinks.

Abstract: This talk describes how Distributed Ledger Technologies can be used to design a class of cyber-physical systems, as well as to enforce social contracts and to orchestrate the behaviour of agents trying to access a shared resource. The first part of the paper analyses the advantages and disadvantages of using Distributed Ledger Technologies architectures to implement certain control systems in an Internet of Things (IoT) setting, and then focuses on a specific type of DLT based on a Directed Acyclic Graph. In this setting we propose a set of delay differential equations to describe the dynamical behaviour of the Tangle, an IoT-inspired Directed Acyclic Graph designed for the cryptocurrency IOTA. The second part proposes an application of Distributed Ledger Technologies as a mechanism for dynamic deposit pricing, wherein the deposit of digital currency is used to orchestrate access to a network of shared resources. The pricing signal is used as a mechanism to enforce the desired level of compliance according to a predetermined set of rules. After presenting an illustrative example, we analyze the control system and provide sufficient conditions for the stability of the network.

Bio: Robert Shorten is Professor of Control Engineering and Decision Science at UCD. He was a cofounder of the Hamilton Institute at Maynooth University, and led the Optimisation and Control team at IBM Research Smart Cities Research Lab in Dublin Ireland. He has been a visiting professor at TU Berlin and a research visitor at Yale University and Technion. He is the Irish member of the European Union Control Association assembly, a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society Technical Group on Smart Cities, and a member of the IFAC Technical Committees for Automotive Control, and for Discrete Event and Hybrid Systems. He is a co-author of the recently published books AIMD Dynamics and Distributed Resource Allocation (SIAM 2016) and Electric and Plug-in Vehicle Networks: Optimisation and Control (CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2017.

How to build a strong research team

Group: Upwards - a seminar series about all aspects of research life
Speaker: Iadh Ounis, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 14 December, 2018
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Scottish Theorem Proving (STP) Event

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 14 December, 2018
Time: 12:30 - 17:00
Location: International Centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS), 47 Potterow, Edinburgh, Bayes Centre, United Kingdom

SICSA is pleased to be sponsoring the next Scottish Theorem Proving (STP) Event which will take place on Friday 14th December at the International centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS), Bayes Centre Edinburgh Theorem proving research is notably strong in Scottish universities, with active groups and researchers in at least six departments. The Scottish Theorem Proving Seminar Series provides a common venue for communication and sharing of ideas by all these researchers. At least once a term, one of the departments hosts an informal seminar for the whole Scottish theorem proving community. The usual format is to have two or three talks in an afternoon session, starting around 14:00 and finishing by 17:00. This deliberately lightweight format makes the seminar an easy day trip for everyone from across Scotland. The speakers for this event are: - Kirsty Duncan (Heriot-Watt University): Existing landscape in verification of neural networks - William Kavanagh (University of Glasgow): Model Checking for Interesting Stochastic Turn-Based Games - Juan Casanova (University of Edinburgh): Meta-resolution: A Least Commitment Algorithm for Enumerating Provable Instantiations of Formulas Containing Meta-variables Talks start at 1.30pm in the ICMS Lecture Theatre. There is a lunch from 12.30pm - If you wish to attend the lunch you need to contact Andrew Ireland (a.ireland@hw.ac.uk) by November 30. For more details, and background on STP, see: http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~air/stp/

Robin Cockett 'Abstract differential geometry matters!'

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 14 December, 2018
Time: 16:15 - 17:00
Location: The University of Strathclyde, LT1415, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom

SICSA DVF Professor Robin Cockett, Department of Computing Science at the University of Calgary will be giving a lecture at the University of Strathclyde on 14th December 2018. Title: Abstract differential geometry matters! Abstract:The last few years has seen the development -- largely in Canada and Australia -- of an axiomatic approach to differential geometry based on tangent categories. Tangent categories incorporate the previous leading settings for differential geometry: finite dimensional manifolds, synthetic differential geometry, convenient manifolds, etc. In addition they widen the scope significantly as they also include combinatorial species, Goodwillie Functor calculi, and examples from computer science. The talk will give a survey of tangent categories and some of the developments so far. Bio: Prof. J. R. B. Cockett (1952) is a category theorist and computer scientist working in proof theory, computability and complexity, programming languages and semantics, categorical quantum information theory, and abstract differential geometry. After his PhD in Mathematics at the University of Leeds in 1979, he has worked in Essex (for Marconi research), Tennessee (US), Sydney (Australia), and since 1991 has been at the University of Calgary (Canada), where is a professor of computer science. He has developed three programming languages, Chartity, LQPL, and MPL, and is known for introducing and studying restriction categories, Turing categories, differential categories, and tangent categories. Professor Cockett is being hosted by Dr Chris Heunen, University of Edinburgh

Second Symposium on Compositional Structures (SYCO 2)

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 17 December, 2018
Time: 00:00 - 00:00
Location: The University of Strathclyde, Computer & Information Science, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom

The SICSA Research Theme Leaders for Theory, Modelling & Computation are pleased to be sponsoring the Second Symposium on Compositional Structures (SYCO 2) which till take place on Monday 17 & Tuesday 18 December at the University of Strathclyde. SYCO is an interdisciplinary series of meetings aiming to support the growing community of researchers interested in the phenomenon of compositionality, from both applied and abstract perspectives, and in particular where category theory serves as a unifying common language. The first SYCO was held at the School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, 20-21 September, 2018, attracting 70 participants.We welcome participation from researchers across computer science, mathematics, physics, philosophy, and beyond, with the aim of fostering friendly discussion, disseminating new ideas, and spreading knowledge between fields. Submission is encouraged for both mature research and work in progress, and by both established academics and junior researchers, including students. Accepted Presentations: The full list of accepted presentations can be found at http://events.cs.bham.ac.uk/syco/2/accepted.html Invited Speakers: Corina Cirstea, University of Southampton - Quantitative Coalgebras for Optimal Synthesis Martha Lewis, University of Amsterdam - Compositionality in Semantic Spaces More information on the SYCO 2 can be accessed at: http://events.cs.bham.ac.uk/syco/2/

The Jon Oberlander Memorial Lecture: Let Robots be Robots

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 17 December, 2018
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Location: Room G.07, Informatics Forum, University of Edinburgh, Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB, Scotland, United Kingdom

To attend this lecture, please register by Monday 10thDecember 2018 (tickets are free, but space is limited) via : Jon Oberlander Memorial Lecture Abstract: Many things that are really hard for us humans, like playing top-level chess, finding complex integrals, or finding trends in huge amounts of data, are quite easy for artificial minds. Oddly, many things that are quite easy for us, like pouring tea, making a bed, or playing football, are very difficult for robots. One of the hardest things for robots is to communicate with humans in the same way humans interact with each other. Many people believe that the long-term goal of robotics should be to make robots that interact the same way humans do (e.g. the Turing Test). I think that this is not only unreasonably difficult, but also undesirable. I will discuss an alternative, and in my view more optimal, road map for the development of social robots, and will speculate on some of the consequences that this would have for science and society. Bio: Jan (J.P.) de Ruiter is a cognitive scientist whose primary research focus is on the cognitive foundations of human communication. After receiving his PhD from Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands), J.P. de Ruiter worked at the Department of Social Psychology at the University of Cologne (Germany), and at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistic in Nijmegen, where he coordinated an institute project on Multimodal Interaction. From 2009 to 2016 he was the Chair for Psycholinguistics at Bielefeld University (Germany). At present, J.P. de Ruiter is the Bridge Professor in the Cognitive Sciences at Tufts University (Medford, Massachusetts), with a double appointment at the departments of Computer Science and Psychology. J.P. de Ruiter works on human gesture, conversational turn-taking, multimodal communication, intention recognition, and the cognitive science of misunderstanding. He has published in linguistic, psycholinguistic, methodological, neurocognitive, and cognitive-psychological journals. His interests include conversation analysis, philosophy of science, artificial intelligence, and inferential statistics. He has initiated and/or been involved in several large-scale European and US projects in social robotics, focusing on collaborative interaction between humans and artificial systems.

RA Coffee Break

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: you
Date: 20 December, 2018
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, Common Room

Every Thursday 11am RAs and post-docs meet for coffee in the common room. This is a good opportunity to meet new people if you recently joined the school, informally discuss issues with the School's RA representatives, or just hang out and enjoy a coffee and some biscuits.

TBD

Group: Human Computer Interaction (GIST)
Speaker: Theodoros Georgiou, Heriot-Watt University
Date: 24 January, 2019
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR)

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 10 March, 2019
Time: 00:00 - 00:00
Location: The University of Strathclyde, Richmond Street, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom

SICSA is pleased to be sponsoring the ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR) which is taking place in Glasgow from 10 - 14 March 2019 Online information influences every aspect of our lives: work, leisure and learning. As information systems become more embedded in our day-to-day experiences, it becomes increasingly important to understand how people interact with information and the consequences of those interactions. Access to information is critical to preserving democracy. Beyond designing effective and engaging information retrieval systems and interfaces, understanding how users access and use information is crucial to designing fair and ethical systems. ACM CHIIR 2019 invites submissions focused on user-centered approaches to design and evaluation of systems for information access, retrieval, and use. This includes studies of interactive retrieval systems, novel interfaces and interaction paradigms, new evaluation methods, and related areas. Alongside focused studies on specific information retrieval systems and situations, we also welcome longitudinal, real-life, and ethnographic research of contextually embedded search tasks. Topics covered include but are not limited to: Information seeking, including task-based and exploratory studies Search interfaces, including those for specialized tasks, populations and domains User-Centered Design approaches to humans interacting with information and systems Interaction techniques for information retrieval and discovery Online information seeking, including log analysis of search and browsing Modeling and simulation of information interaction Information use, including measures of use as well as broader sense-making Field and case studies relevant to understanding prerequisites for information searching, design and access User-centered evaluation methods and measures, including measures of user experience and performance, experiment and search task design, eye-tracking and physiological approaches, data analysis methods, and usability Human interaction and experience with mobile searching and services Context-aware and personalized search, including design, contextual features and analysis of information interaction Information visualization and visual analytics, including search result presentation Collaborative information seeking and social search, including social utility and network analysis for information interaction Conversational search and other types of stateful and multi-turn interactions between users and search applications Full details of the CHIIR 2019 can be found on the web-site: http://sigir.org/chiir2019/index.html

ACM CHI 2019

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 03 May, 2019
Time: 00:00 - 00:00
Location: The Scottish Event Campus, Glasgow, Glasgow, G3 8YW, United Kingdom

SICSA is extremely pleased to be sponsoring the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems which is the premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction. CHI – pronounced ‘kai’ – is a place where researchers and practitioners gather from across the world to discuss the latest in interactive technology. We are a multicultural community from highly diverse backgrounds who together investigate new and creative ways for people to interact. This will be the first time that CHI has taken place in the UK and it will be hosted at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow. Our theme is ‘Weaving the Threads of CHI’. This is reflected in our celtic knot logo, a symbol of strength and friendship. Threads are interconnected and interwoven, without clear beginning or end. We are the threads of CHI, people from different disciplines, cultures, sectors, communities, backgrounds – designers, researchers, practitioners – weaving together into one community, with the common purpose of technology that works for people and society. Full information on CHI 2019 can be found here: https://chi2019.acm.org/ Stephen Brewster and Geraldine Fitzpatrick CHI 2019 General Chairs generalchairs@chi2019.acm.org

SICSA PhD Conference 2019

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 18 June, 2019
Time: 01:00 - 01:00
Location: University of Stirling, Pathfoot Building, University of Stirling, United Kingdom

The SICSA PhD Conference 2019 will take place on 18th & 19th June at the University of Stirling. The SICSA PhD Conference has become one of the highlights of the SICSA events calendar, bringing together Computing Science and Informatics PhD students, leading academics, and industry practitioners for 2 days of workshops, keynote presentations, poster sessions and social events. The conference is an event aimed specifically at Informatics and Computing Science PhD students and is organised each year by a hard working committee of PhD students and members of the SICSA Executive. Registration for the Conference will open in Spring 2019. If you wish to be considered to be a member of the organisation committee, please complete the short Application Form. If you are a PhD student in Informatics/Computer Science, working in a SICSA institution you are eligible to apply to be part of the committee More information on the 2019 Conference will be posted here in the near future but if you have any questions please email the SICSA Executive Team at admin@sicsa.ac.uk