Computer Science News

We are pleased to welcome Dr Victor Sanchez to the department who will be joining us as an Assistant Professor in October 2012.

Victor obtained his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2010 from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He then joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley as a post-doctoral fellow, where he worked in the Video and Image Processing Laboratory.

Victor has been the recipient of research awards from the main federal funding agencies in Canada, CIHR and NSERC, and Mexico, CoNACYT. Victor's primary research interest lies in the areas of signal processing and discrete-event simulation with applications healthcare. He has published several papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences in the areas of medical imaging, telemedicine and computer simulation in healthcare. Victor recently co-authored a book on computer simulation for healthcare evaluation.

Victor will be teaching the new module CS345 Sensor Networks and Mobile Data Communications.

For more information about Victor's research please visit his homepage at UC Berkeley.

We would like to congratulate our new intake of student on their excellent exam results this year. The grade average for our Department's undergraduate intake has been rising steadily over recent years, and we are delighted to report that the intake for this year looks to be one of our best.

Warwick has an excellent reputation for attracting top-quality Computer Science, Computing and Business, and Discrete Mathematics students. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why we enjoy excellent employment statistics for graduating students.

This year we have a very healthy cohort - up about 25% on last year's intake. We would like to wish our new students all the very best for your time at Warwick and hope that you will find Warwick an energetic, exciting and inspiring place to study.

Philip How, a recent graduate in MEng Computer Science, has returned to the United Kingdom after developing and leading a successful workshop at Scratch@MIT 2012. As well as marking the end of his undergraduate degree, Philip's role in this exceptionally popular event represents the culmination of a long-standing involvement with Warwick Technology Volunteers, a dedicated groups of technically minded students and staff members who make a significant contribution to the local community through involvement with schools.

Scratch@MIT is the biennial conference where educators, researchers and developers gather on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts to share their experiences and imagine the possibilities of Scratch. The workshop that Philip led, entitled Sensing Our World, involved participants building a variety of sensors, ranging from simple sensors that relied on the conductivity of pencil tracks to working touchpads made from CD cases.

On his involvment, Philip is quick to acknowledge the contributions of those around him, noting that "The staff and students contributing to Warwick Technology Volunteers are fantastic. We couldn't have hoped to achieve what we have without the hard work and comittment of the team of staff and students involved, particuler Margaret Low. In my time here she's an fantastic at organising the efforts of students and liasing with local schools".

For more information please see Warwick Technology Volunteers and Department of Computer Science - Schools.

Wednesday 20th June saw the Department of Computer Science (DCS) host a celebration of the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, a pioneer in Mathematics who is widely considered to be the founding father of Computer Science.

The event was well attended by both staff and students alike, with many undergraduates making the most of being free from exams. The highlight of the day were the talks, by three academics from DCS.

Martin Campbell-Kelly opened the day talking about the ACE, a computer designed by Turing that was at the heart of the British computer industry. The talk highlighted the relationship between Britain and America in the days before the founding of Computer Science as we know it, and provided an interesting perspective on the part Turing played in the development of the modern computer.

Following this bright start to the day, Sara Kalvala delivered a riveting talk on Turing's last published work - his theory of morphogenesis. Turing's theory provides an insight as to how cells that are identical can divide into the diverse range of cells that make up natural life. Sara also highlighted a recent paper that is thought to prove this theorem, going on to show how the popular press turned it into a theory of how tigers get their stripes!

After lunch, Ben Sach concluded the day with a closer look at Turing's personal life. Beginning with Turing's early life, including his infamous 60 mile cycle to Sherbourne school, Ben's talk followed Turing's life through Cambridge, to Bletchley Park, and finally to Manchester University. This more intimate view of Turing, often told through extracts written by those who knew him best, provided a fitting end to the day of celebration by highlighting Turing's eccentric, yet charming nature.

The 39th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP 2012), the main European conference in Theoretical Computer Science, will take place 9 - 13 July 2012 at the University of Warwick, UK.

The conference will see 123 research presentations of recent advances in theoretical computer science selected from 432 submissions in three tracks: A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games, B: Logic, Semantics, Automata and Theory of Programming, C: Foundations of Networked Computation.

The standard presentations will be complemented by 5 invited talks by world leading researchers: Dr Gilles Dowek (INRIA Paris), Dr Kohei Honda (Queen Mary London), Prof Stefano Leonardi (Sapienza University of Rome), Prof Daniel A. Spielman (Yale), and Prof Berthold Vöcking (RWTH Aachen).

The conference is also one of the Alan Turing Centenary Celebration events, celebrating the Life and Work, and Legacy of Alan Turing. Prof David Harel from the Weizmann Institute of Science, will give a special Alan Turing talk during the conference.

During the conference, there will be presented three special awards: EATCS/ACM SIGACT Gödel Prize 2012, EATCS Award 2012, and EATCS Presburger Award 2012.

• EATCS and ACM's Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) awarded the Gödel Prize 2012 to three groups of researchers for their contributions to understanding how selfish behavior by users and service providers impacts the behavior of the Internet and other complex computational systems. The papers were presented by Elias Koutsoupias and Christos H. Papadimitriou, Tim Roughgarden and Éva Tardos, and Noam Nisan and Amir Ronen.
• The Presburger Award Committee 2012, consisting of Monika Henzinger, Antonin Kucera, and Stefano Leonardi (chair), has unanimously decided to propose Venkatesan Guruswami (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh) and Mihai Patrascu (AT&T Labs) as joint recipients of the 2012 EATCS Presburger Award for young scientists. (pdf)
• The EATCS Awards Committee consisting of Leslie Ann Goldberg, Friedhelm Meyer auf der Heide and Eugenio Moggi (chair), has unanimously decided to give the 2012 EATCS Award to Moshe Vardi (Rice University). (pdf)

The main conference will be preceded by a series of workshops taking place on Sunday, July 8:

• Workshop on Applications of Parameterized Algorithms and Complexity (APAC)
• Fourth International Workshop on Classical Logic and Computation (CL&C)
• Third Workshop on Realistic models for Algorithms in Wireless Networks (WRAWN)

Congratulations to Adam Yaxley (3rd year Computer Systems MEng) who has won the national "Rising Star" games programming competition sponsored by Aardvark Swift. The competition is open to all UK undergraduates and aims to highlight the brightest games programming talent. To gain the title Adam had to face a number of challenges demonstrating technical programming skills, including a software challenge set by Relentless Software. He also had to show his knowledge and passion for the area by facing a panel interview with industry experts. Panel member Mark Hope said "Adam showed knowledge beyond his years to beat off competition from the other finalists, he has a bright future ahead of him and here at Aardvark Swift we wish him all the best for the future!"

Adam will be presented with his award at the Eurogamer Expo in September by industry veteran Ian Livingstone. He is also invited to present a talk at the Expo about his experiences in the competition.

Adam is currently looking forward to a placement at Havok next year before returning to Warwick to complete his MEng in Computer Systems.

A consortium of four academic and clinical institutes has won an international grant for a research project on novel multiplex prognostic biomarkers for colorectal cancer via computerised analysis of multi-protein fluorescence images. The research project led by Dr Nasir Rajpoot has been awarded the total amount of $1.05m by the Qatar Foundation. The consortium involves academic and clinical partners based in the UK and Qatar. The research team at Warwick will be composed of two new researchers and key investigators from four departments across the campus in Dr Nasir Rajpoot (Computer Science), Dr Mike Khan (Life Sciences), Prof David Epstein (Mathematics), and Dr Rich Savage (Systems Biology).