PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 30 January, 2020
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

The Effect of Spatial Skills Training on our First Year Computing Students

Group: CS Cakes Talks
Speaker: Jack Parkinson, Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 31 January, 2020
Time: 15:30 - 16:00
Location: Lilybank Gardens, F121 Conference Room

Spatial skills are a set of skills related to tasks like identifying patterns, visualising objects presented in 2D and manipulating internal structures. Research has shown a relationship between spatial skills and computing, specifically identifying that people with high spatial skills have better computing grades, retention in STEM subjects and progress further in CS and wider STEM academia than their peers with lower spatial ability. Jack has delivered a pencil-and-paper spatial skills training course over five weeks of semester 1 to see if, by training spatial skills, we can improve our students’ computing outcomes. For the CS1CT students this appears to have worked, but the CS1P students tell a different story, contrary to expectations based on research and prior experience. Join us to see these results, reflect on what they could mean and discuss what directions this research could take in the future.

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 30 January, 2020
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

The Effect of Spatial Skills Training on our First Year Computing Students

Group: CS Cakes Talks
Speaker: Jack Parkinson, Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 31 January, 2020
Time: 15:30 - 16:00
Location: Lilybank Gardens, F121 Conference Room

Spatial skills are a set of skills related to tasks like identifying patterns, visualising objects presented in 2D and manipulating internal structures. Research has shown a relationship between spatial skills and computing, specifically identifying that people with high spatial skills have better computing grades, retention in STEM subjects and progress further in CS and wider STEM academia than their peers with lower spatial ability. Jack has delivered a pencil-and-paper spatial skills training course over five weeks of semester 1 to see if, by training spatial skills, we can improve our students’ computing outcomes. For the CS1CT students this appears to have worked, but the CS1P students tell a different story, contrary to expectations based on research and prior experience. Join us to see these results, reflect on what they could mean and discuss what directions this research could take in the future.

Justifying All Differences Using Pseudo-Boolean Reasoning

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Ciaran McCreesh, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 04 February, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Lilybank Gardens, F121 Conference Room

Note the room change to F121.

(Joint work with Jan Elffers, Stephan Gocht, and Jakob Nordström. This is a practice talk for AAAI.)

Constraint programming solvers support rich global constraints and propagators, which make them both powerful and hard to debug. In the Boolean satisfiability community, proof-logging is the standard solution for generating trustworthy outputs, and this has become key to the social acceptability of computer-generated proofs. However, reusing this technology for constraint programming requires either much weaker propagation, or an impractical blowup in proof length. This paper demonstrates that simple, clean, and efficient proof logging is still possible for the all-different constraint, through pseudo-Boolean reasoning. We explain how such proofs can be expressed and verified mechanistically, describe an implementation, and discuss the broader implications for proof logging in constraint programming.

Did anything pop at POPL, or peak at HIPEAC?

Group: Programming Languages at University of Glasgow (PLUG)
Speaker: You.
Date: 04 February, 2020
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 203 Meeting Room

In the first PLUG of 2020 we will have a group discussion about HIPEAC and POPL, two events of interest that happended in Janruary.

If you attended either of the events then please do come along and help point out anything that might be of interest.

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Gareth Tyson, Queen Mary University of London
Date: 05 February, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

Machine verification with Agda

Group: Machine verification
Speaker: Rogxiao Fu & Uma Zalakain
Date: 05 February, 2020
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 303 Meeting Room

The Curry-Howard isomorphism has made it from the whiteboard to the
processor: type theory has taken intuitionistic logic and programmed it
into a typechecker that checks your constructive proofs, delivering
unprecedented correctness guarantees. Losing sleep over undischarged
assumptions and hand-wavy proofs? Stop worrying and let the machine take
care of it. Machine verification is a delicious blend of proving and
programming, a taste of interactive puzzle solving that you cannot miss
out.

We — a bunch of enthusiastic graduate students with some previous experience in
"proving through programming" — have come together and have organized a weekly
seminar meant as an introduction to machine verification with Agda, a language
in which cutting edge type theory is implemented. Development in Agda is highly
interactive, and so will our seminars be! If shouting at a projector is your
thing, you will find yourself in your element. Come along!

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 05 February, 2020
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

Emerging Cyber-Risk Challenges for Finance, Insurance and Technology Sector

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 06 February, 2020
Time: 09:30 - 19:30
Location: The University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics, Informatics Forum, Room G.07, 10 Crichton Street , Edinburgh , EH8 9AB , United Kingdom

Despite the increasing risk from information security breaches, companies have not taken sufficient steps to improve IT as defence against cyber-risks. Allianz’s (2018) survey reports that cyber-risk in terms of data loss, misuse and theft are the biggest risks of UK private firms. Insurance is one of the effective and tested mechanisms to accept the unwanted risks of the businesses thus providing economic security in the presence of uncertainty. In addition to providing economic security to the businesses, insurers provide risk management advice to mitigate the risks of their clients. Essentially, cyber-risk is a new phenomenon for both academics and the finance/insurance industry. This workshop on protection from cyber-risk will bring together academics and practitioners - people who wouldn’t ordinarily get the chance to meet - to share ideas and collaborate to develop products and risk management techniques to protect the economic damage of industry. This workshop will facilitate collaboration among academics, finance/insurance industry leaders, SMEs, several associated government and industry organisations (e.g. National Cyber Security Centre, EIT Digital Doctorial Training Centre in Security, Data-driven Innovation, Fintech Scotland etc) and seek effective ways of working together. Topics The specific characteristics of cyber risk for private firms The latest technologies and methods in protecting individuals/firms from cyber risk The traditional insurance coverage for business risks including cyber risk The scope of quantification and pricing industry firms’ economic losses from cyber risk Benefits Bring both industry and academic communities together to review the risk management initiatives in the era of growing cyber threats Generate ideas to review and develop a risk-based resilience system to protect industry firms from growing cyber threats Identify the areas of further research within the broader field of risk and vulnerability management of industry firms. Draft Outline Programme 8.30 - 9.00 - Arrival and registration 9.00 - 9.10 - Welcome by Head of School 9.10 - 9.20 - Opening speech by National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) 9:20 - 10.40 - Industry and academic presentations 10.40 - 11.10 - Session 1: Discussion and Q&A 11.10 - 11.30 - Tea//coffee break 11.30 - 13.00 - Industry presentations 13.00 - 14.00 - Lunch 14.00 - 14.40 - Industry presentations 14.40 - 15.10 - Session 2: Discussion and Q&A 15.10 - 15.30 - Tea/coffee break 15.30 - 17.30 - Industry and academic presentations 17.30 - 18.00 - Session 3: (Academic & Practitioners) Discussion and Summary focusing how Practitioners and Academics can work together to help Finance/Insurance industry to manage their Cyber Risk, together with IFoA’s Cyber-Risk Panel 18.30 - 19.30 - Buffet dinner and social networking Attendance is free but you should register to ensure your place here    

Mary Ellen's new project

Group: CS Cakes Talks
Speaker: Mary Ellen Foster, Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 07 February, 2020
Time: 15:30 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Mary Ellen will talk about her newly funded project under the Canada-UK AI Initiative, with particular emphasis on how the consortium came together (spoilers: it involves two married couples, as well as an acquaintance dating back nearly 30 years to high school in Canada)

The b-chromatic number of a graph

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: David Manlove, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 11 February, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Lilybank Gardens, F121 Conference Room

Please note the change of room to F121.

TBC

Book Launch: Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: Dr Matthew Barr, University of Glasgow
Date: 11 February, 2020
Time: 17:00 - 18:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

Join us to mark the publication of Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning (Palgrave), by Games & Gaming Lab co-director, Dr Matthew Barr.

There will be wine and nibbles, as well as an opportunity to play some of the games Matt talks about in the book!

About the book

This book explores the efficacy of game-based learning to develop university students’ skills and competencies. While writing on game-based learning has previously emphasised the use of games developed specifically for educational purposes, this book fills an important gap in the literature by focusing on commercial games including Portal 2, Borderlands 2, Lara Croft, Warcraft and Minecraft. Underpinned by robust empirical evidence, the author demonstrates that the current negative perception of video games is ill-informed, and in fact these games can be important tools to develop graduate skills related to employability. Speaking to very current concerns about the employability of higher education graduates and the skills that university is intended to develop, this book also explores the attitudes to game-based learning as expressed by instructors, students and game developers.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27786-4

Matthew Barr is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow, UK, where he convened the university’s first game studies course and founded the peer reviewed student game studies journal Press Start. He is currently Programme Director for the Graduate Apprenticeship in Software Engineering, and a co-director of the University’s Games and Gaming Lab. He serves as Vice Chair of British DiGRA (the Digital Games Research Association) and as a Director & Trustee of the Scottish Game Developers Association. He is also the current Chair of the BAFTA Scotland Games Jury.

Endorsements

Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning offers us a new tool for the heart and soul of graduate education, a tool for experimentation, risk-taking, creativity, and using failure as a form of learning.  These are just the bits where we need the most help.

— James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Regents’ Professor, Arizona State University

A compelling read for any faculty member who is considering whether and how to use games in their teaching. This book provides practical recommendations and robust research evidence about how students can learn important transferable skills through gaming.

— Professor Judy Robertson, Chair in Digital Learning, University of Edinburgh

This book provides a much needed foundation for games in learning, linking them explicitly to graduate attributes and pedagogic theory. Moving beyond potential and advocacy, Barr grounds the application in empirical research, while also clearly setting out the perspectives of educators and students. It provides a very insightful account of how games can be used effectively in higher education, and also the issues involved.

— Martin Weller, Professor of Educational Technology at the Open University, President of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT)

This work provides key insights to using games as pedagogical tools in graduate education, positioning games in the classroom, and understanding the views and opinions of graduate students in engaging with such efforts. It explores the themes of games as tools for inquiry and experiential learning in ways that are both grounded in relevant theory and wonderfully concrete for practicing educators. I have no doubt that this will prove to be an important work for those in the field.

— Andrew Phelps, Professor, Human Interface Technologies Laboratory, University of Canterbury, and Professor and Director, American University Game Lab

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Eerke Boiten, De Montfort University
Date: 12 February, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 13 February, 2020
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

GWiCS February meet up: Parenting in academia

Group: Glasgow Women in Computing Science (GWiCS)
Speaker: Carol Webster, Walt Adamson, Fiona Speirits and Jan de Muijnck-Hughes, University of Glasgow
Date: 13 February, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Lilybank Gardens, F121 Conference Room

Considering a Peer Observation of Teaching Scheme

Group: CS Cakes Talks
Speaker: Matt Barr, Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 14 February, 2020
Time: 15:30 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Matt set up a scheme supporting peer observation of teaching in his previous role in the University and will talk about it here.  We are considering setting up a similar scheme here in the School of CS.

How Scotland becomes a leading global centre for tech start-ups - Professor Mark Logan Inaugural Lecture

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: Professor Mark Logan, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 18 February, 2020
Time: 16:00 - 18:00
Location: Main Building, Room 466

Description

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Karim Djemame, University of Leeds
Date: 19 February, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

Hacky Hour

Group: Interdisciplinary Collaboration Events
Speaker: William Pettersson
Date: 19 February, 2020
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Cafe in 1A, The Square

 

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 19 February, 2020
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

Talk by Paul Kirk

Group: Inference, Dynamics and Interaction (IDI)
Speaker: Paul Kirk, University of Cambridge
Date: 20 February, 2020
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

TBD

Preprocessing in Stable Matching Problems

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Will Pettersson, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 25 February, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

TBC

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Tristan Henderson, University of St Andrews
Date: 26 February, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 27 February, 2020
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

Multiresolution Multitask Gaussian Processes: Air quality in London

Group: Inference, Dynamics and Interaction (IDI)
Speaker: Theo Damoulas, University of Warwick
Date: 27 February, 2020
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Date to be confirmed

We consider evidence integration from potentially dependent observation processes under varying spatio-temporal sampling resolutions and noise levels. We offer a multi-resolution multi-task framework, termed MRGPs, while allowing for both inter-task and intra-task multi-resolution and multi-fidelity. We develop shallow Gaussian Process (GP) mixtures that approximate the difficult to estimate joint likelihood with a composite one and deep GP constructions that naturally handle scaling issues and biases. By doing so, we generalize and outperform state of the art GP compositions and offer information-theoretic corrections and efficient variational approximations for inference. We demonstrate the competitiveness of MRGPs on synthetic settings and on the challenging problem of hyper-local estimation of air pollution levels across London from multiple sensing modalities operating at disparate spatio-temporal resolutions.

New staff introductions

Group: CS Cakes Talks
Speaker: Lito Michala and Fani Deligianni, Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 28 February, 2020
Time: 15:30 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

Lito and Fani are new members of academic staff in the School (although Lito was here before in another guise, of course), and will introduce themselves and their work in this talk.

Talk by Iain Murray

Group: Inference, Dynamics and Interaction (IDI)
Speaker: Iain Murray, University of Edinburgh
Date: 02 March, 2020
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

TBD

GWiCS March meet up: An almost completed PhD

Group: Glasgow Women in Computing Science (GWiCS)
Speaker: Frances Cooper, University of Glasgow
Date: 02 March, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Implicitly Learning to Reason in First-Order Logic

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Vaishak Belle, University of Edinburgh, Alan Turing Institute
Date: 03 March, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

We consider the problem of answering queries about formulas of first-order logic based on background knowledge partially represented explicitly as other formulas, and partially represented as examples independently drawn from a fixed probability distribution. PAC semantics, introduced by Valiant, is one rigorous, general proposal for learning to reason in formal languages: although weaker than classical entailment, it allows for a powerful model theoretic framework for answering queries while requiring minimal assumptions about the form of the distribution in question. To date, however, the most significant limitation of that approach, and more generally most machine learning approaches with robustness guarantees, is that the logical language is ultimately essentially propositional, with finitely many atoms. Indeed, the theoretical findings on the learning of relational theories in such generality have been resoundingly negative. This is despite the fact that first-order logic is widely argued to be most appropriate for representing human knowledge. In this work, we present a new theoretical approach to robustly learning to reason in first-order logic, and consider universally quantified clauses over a countably infinite domain. Our results exploit symmetries exhibited by constants in the language, and generalize the notion of implicit learnability to show how queries can be computed against (implicitly) learned first-order background knowledge.

This paper was accepted at NeurIPS-2019, and was selected as a best paper at The Fourth International Workshop on Declarative Learning Based Programming (IJCAI-2019).

Bio:
Dr Vaishak Belle is a Chancellor's Fellow and Faculty at the University of Edinburgh, an Alan Turing Institute Faculty Fellow, a Royal Society University Research Fellow,
and a member of the RSE (Royal Society of Edinburgh) Young Academy of Scotland. At the University of Edinburgh, he directs a lab that specializes in the unification of symbolic systems and machine learning.
Vaishak's research is in artificial intelligence, and is motivated by the need to augment learning and perception with high-level structured, commonsensical knowledge, to enable AI systems to learn faster and more accurate models of the world. In particular, he has worked on areas such as knowledge representation, probabilistic inference, statistical relational learning, probabilistic programming, cognitive robotics, and his recent research has touched upon explainability and ethics in AI.

He has co-authored over 50 scientific articles on AI, at venues such as IJCAI, UAI, AAAI, MLJ, AIJ, JAIR, AAMAS, and along with his co-authors, he has won the Microsoft best paper award at UAI, the Machine learning journal award at ECML-PKDD, and the Machine learning journal best student paper award at ILP. In 2014, he received a silver medal by the Kurt Goedel Society. More information can be found at: https://vaishakbelle.com/lab

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: José Luis Abellán, Catholic University of Murcia
Date: 04 March, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 04 March, 2020
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

Soft Squishy Electronic Skin

Group: Inference, Dynamics and Interaction (IDI)
Speaker: Ravinder Dahiya, School of Engineering, University of Glasgow
Date: 05 March, 2020
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Abstract:

The miniaturization led advances in microelectronics over 50 years have revolutionized our lives through fast computing and communication. Recent advances in the field are propelled by applications such as electronic skin in robotics, wearable systems, and healthcare technologies etc. Often these applications require electronics to be soft and Squishy so as to conform to 3D surfaces. These requirements call for new methods to realize sensors, actuators electronic devices and circuits on unconventional substrates such as plastics, papers and elastomers. This lecture will present various approaches (over different time and dimension scales) for obtaining distributed electronic, sensing and actuation devices on soft and flexible substrates, especially in context with the tactile or electronic skin (eSkin). These approaches range from distributed off-the-shelf electronics integrated on flexible printed circuit boards, to novel alternatives such as eSkin constituents obtained by printed nanowires, graphene and ultra-thin chips, etc. The technology behind such sensitive flexible and squishy electronic systems is also the key enabler for numerous emerging fields such as internet of things, smart cities and mobile health etc. This lecture will also discuss how the flexible electronics research may unfold in the future.

Bio:

Ravinder Dahiya is a Professor of Electronics and Nanoengineering and EPSRC Research Fellow in James Watt School of Engineering at University of Glasgow, UK. Prof Dahiya is the director of Electronic Systems Design Centre and the leader of Bendable Electronics and Sensing Technologies (BEST) group. For a full bio, see https://rsdahiya.com/about-me/

TBC

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Jess Ryan, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 10 March, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

TBC

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Ward Jarat, Adobe
Date: 11 March, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 12 March, 2020
Time: 10:00 - 11:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

WorkflowFM: a smart framework for modelling, verifying and deploying workflows (working title)

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Petros Papapanagiotou, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Date: 17 March, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

TBC

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Julio Hernandez-Castro, University of Kent
Date: 18 March, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

Hacky Hour

Group: Interdisciplinary Collaboration Events
Speaker: William Pettersson
Date: 18 March, 2020
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Cafe in 1A, The Square

 

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 18 March, 2020
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: John Wickerson, Imperial College London
Date: 25 March, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 26 March, 2020
Time: 10:00 - 11:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

Seminar by Chris Yau

Group: Inference, Dynamics and Interaction (IDI)
Speaker: Chris Yau, University of Manchester
Date: 26 March, 2020
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 01 April, 2020
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

Generating music in the raw audio domain

Group: Inference, Dynamics and Interaction (IDI)
Speaker: Sander Dielman, Deep Mind
Date: 02 April, 2020
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Realistic music generation is a challenging task. When machine learning is used to build generative models of music, typically high-level representations such as scores, piano rolls or MIDI sequences are used that abstract away the idiosyncrasies of a particular performance. But these nuances are very important for our perception of musicality and realism, so we embark on modelling music in the raw audio domain. I will discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, and the challenges it entails.

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 09 April, 2020
Time: 10:00 - 11:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 15 April, 2020
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Edwin Brady, University of St Andrews
Date: 22 April, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 23 April, 2020
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

GWiCS April meet up: PWSAfrica

Group: Glasgow Women in Computing Science (GWiCS)
Speaker: Sofiat Olaosebikan, University of Glasgow
Date: 23 April, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Stephen Kell, University of Kent
Date: 29 April, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 29 April, 2020
Time: 17:00 - 18:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Chris Xiaoxuan Lu, University of Oxford
Date: 06 May, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 07 May, 2020
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Ajitha Rajan, University of Edinburgh
Date: 13 May, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 13 May, 2020
Time: 17:00 - 18:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Ioannis Moscholios, University of the Peloponnese
Date: 20 May, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 21 May, 2020
Time: 11:00 - 12:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

External Systems Seminar

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Milena Radenkovic, University of Nottingham
Date: 27 May, 2020
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room

PhD Support Group

Group: PhD Support Group
Speaker: PhD Students
Date: 27 May, 2020
Time: 17:00 - 18:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 404 Meeting Room

The support group is run by PhD students for PhD students. No lecturers or supervisors are included. We encourage you to come along and have a relaxing time to talk about anything you want, be it stress about deadlines, an acute feeling of imposter syndrome or an upcoming progression review. Or anything else, really.

Who we are: We are a group of PhD students who did a mental health first aid course over two days, certified by the NHS. We don’t claim to be counsellors or to give any advice. Our task is to manage the support group and to create a space where people can speak and express themselves, without judgement. If you need support finding professional help, please come and talk to us, we will try to support you in this.
Equally, if you prefer to talk one-to-one, contact any of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Support group — Policies

In this space, we want to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. Participating means we might share stories and parts of ourselves that are vulnerable. With that in mind, we expect everybody to help in sustaining a trusting, wholesome and supportive community by following our policies:

●Be non-judgemental and respectful.
●Keep everything within the group.
●No phones!
●Nobody has to share anything if they don't want to.
●Late-comers are welcome, but please be respectful and quiet when coming in.
●No food during the session, but drinks are OK.


Thank you,
Your Mental Health First Aiders

To view past events, please click here