News Archive

Johny Ball Lecture and Science Challenge 2008

Bangor University and the Wales Institute of Mathematical and Computational Sciences (WIMCS) presented the lecture "WOBBLING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS". Given by the BBC presenter Johnny Ball. The lecture was free to attend and took place at the School on Friday 27th June 2008.

The lecture was greatly entertaining and stimulated much discussion and many questions. Johnny presented a Nintendo DS Brain Training package to the lucky student who asked the best question!

Guardian University Guide 2008

The Guardian 2008 University Guide for Computer Sciences and IT rated Bangor in the top 10 in the UK. Professor Sian Hope states: "We have been delighted by this result. We work hard at Bangor to develop Computer Science courses and to offer students a high quality education within a small, friendly environment."

The Future of IT Debate

Prof Nigel John was one of the panelists at the Future of IT Debate organised by the Chester and North Wales Branch of the British Computer Society (BCS) and the Centre for Applied Internet Research (CAIR), NEWI. This was one of many events taking place during the Wrexham Science Festival in March 2008. The panelists - David Parsons, University of Salford; Nigel John, Bangor University; Graeme Wilkinson, NEWI (chair); Peter Excell, NEWI; Gill Ringland, St Andrews Management Institute; - presented their predictions, which was followed by a lively public debate. Prof John posed the question - is the Star Trek Holodeck achievable in this century?

First year Computer Science Student wins scholarship

Congratulations to Gary Hung a first year student studying Computer Science. He recently won the The School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering Entrance Scholarship of £1500. Gary sat two exams in January, A general paper and a subject paper of his choice.

He was presented with his Scholarship by the Vice-Chancellor Professor Merfyn Jones at a ceremony in November 2007. Please email us for more information.

Computer Science & Engineering Lecture 2007

The Annual Computer Science & Engineering Lecture was held on November 15th, 2007 at Technium CAST in Parc Menai, Bangor, supported by the BCS and the IET. The guest speaker was Professor Dieter W. Fellner, Director IGD, Fraunhofer Institute of Computer Graphics, Germany who gave an entertaining talk on the topic of "Exploiting Semantics for 3D Graphics". Prof Fellner was presented with a certificate to mark the occasion.

Over 60 guests attended both the lecture and the dinner that was held in the Techium CAST building.

Awards were also presented to reward the achievemnts of students from the Schools of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering:

Sion Rhys Huws, W E Willimas Prize 2007
Richard Pinnell, IEEE Best Penultimate Year Student Prize 2007
Craig Elliott, IEEE Project Prize in Telecommunications

Please email us for more information.

CNN Report on Virtual Surgery becoming a Reality

In a recent news article, CNN investigated how new virtual reality surgical procedures are improving the lives of patients. Prof. Nigel John from the School of Computer Science, who leads one of the leading UK research groups in this area, added commentary on future developments. The full story is available here.

Forensic computing expert assists police

With technology being involved in most of our day to day routines, there is an increasing amount of information being stored on devices about us. From computers to mobile phones and GPS systems, they all store valuable information that paint a picture of someone's activities. This information has become a valuable resource in the fight against crime, with Police regularly using digital forensics in a wide spectrum of crimes.

In a unique appointment, Dr Les Pritchard from the School of Computer Science has been appointed as a Special Constable in the North Wales Police force to assist the Hi-Tech Crime Unit. Les shares his specialist expertise to assist the unit in analysing exhibits and researching new methods for data retrieval. SC9098 is the only non uniformed Special Constable in the force, "It's a two way process - I am bringing my expertise to the unit and I'm taking experience back to the school, where I can give the students real world knowledge" explains Les, who works for the Force one day a week. Les gained his PhD in Computer Science from Bangor in 2006 and now works as a lecturer and also a consultant with Technium Cast in Parc Menai.

Time Series Classification Challenge

Dr Juan Rodriguez, (Burgos, Spain) and Dr Lucy Kuncheva (Bangor) have won the international Workshop and Challenge on Time Series Classification organised by the Thirteenth ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, San Jose, California 2007. Time series classification is useful in it's own right in medical, scientific and business domains, and is also a useful subroutine in other algorithms, such as novelty detection. This challenge was to determine which of the many different methods for time series classification is best for what kind of data. Dr Rodriguez and Dr Kuncheva worked together to design and implement their own novel classification algorithms and apply them to the competition data sets. Not only were they the overall winners, but they won on 6 individual datasets, and won by a large margin. Classifiers and knowledge discovery are major research themes at the School of Computer Science in Bangor. Contact Dr Kuncheva for more details.

Student developers place order for success

A group of six second year computing students have been celebrating as their project received a prize in recognition of their hard work and achievement. The project was developed for the 'Software Hut' module taken by computing students in the second semester.

The module requires groups of students to work together to create a piece of software for a local business. Each group must bid for real world projects and deal directly with the 'clients', understanding their needs and software requirements. Throughout the module, the groups must communicate with their clients to ensure they stick to original requirements. The module then culminates in an event where each group must present their products to an audience of local businesses.

This year's software projects ranged from swipe card access systems to online chatbots. The winning group, named Team Eksi, developed an online lunch ordering system for large organisations and incubation centres to relieve the large administration overhead involved in coordinating orders to in-house or remote catering services. Their solution was developed using JSP technology and provided the clean, intuitive interface that had been specified by the client. Team members David Harrison, Dylan Horman, Sion Hughes, Sion Huws, Luke Rathbone and Gwyndaf Williams all agreed that the module had been an important learning experience for them. They said that they will now feel a lot more confident in taking on large software development projects in the future.

Module coordinator Dr Les Pritchard said "The module has been created to give students valuable experience working with real companies and learning how to communicate with clients of all technical abilities. He added, "Every year I'm always impressed with how much work the students put into the module, there were so many excellent projects this year it made the judging a very difficult process. Team Eksi went through a fast learning curve, produced a high quality piece of software and also gave a very professional presentation."

The best project prize was sponsored by Technium CAST of Parc Menai, with each member of the winning group receiving an iPod in recognition of their hard work. The photo shows group members Dylan, Gwyndaf, Sion and Luke being presented with their prizes by Cast Ltd Managing Director Roger Cunningham accompanied by Dr Rob Shepherd, Computer & Network Engineer for CAST Ltd (left) and Dr Les Pritchard (right).

Any businesses interested in being involved in future modules should contact Les Pritchard for more information.

Terry Hewitt awarded Honorary Professorship

Terry Hewitt from the University of Manchester has been made an Honorary Professor in the School of Computer Science. The announcement was made at the "Theory and Practice of Computer Graphics" conference that was hosted in Bangor during June 2007. Prof Hewitt studied Mathematics at Bangor in the 1970's and is a well known international figure in high performance computing and visualization. He is currently Director of Research Computing at the University of Manchester and Deputy Director of the ESRC National e-Social Science Centre. He leads the research support activity of Manchester Computing and provides strategic leadership of the research computing services at the University.

Official Launch of Bangor's First Access Grid Facility

Image of the Access Grid The School of Computer Science and IS Services have built Bangor's first Access Grid node in Dean Street. Access Grid is an advanced videoconference system where people in different places meet in a `virtual venue' using audio and video tools, and other shared applications, such as presentations. The Access Grid is particularly suited to group-to-group collaboration between potentially large numbers of sites. Most Universities in the UK now operate such a facility. Pro Vice Chancellor Professor John Farrar launched the Access Grid at an opening ceremony on May 21st 2007. Invited speakers were Terry Hewitt, head of research computing at Manchester University, and Mike Daw, head of the UK Access Grid Support Centre.

More information on Access Grid can be found at: http://www.agsc.ja.net/

Pictures from the launch event can be found at: http://www.hpv.cs.bangor.ac.uk/gallery.php

Computer Science Masters Scholarship

If you already have a first degree in computer science or a degree with a high computing content, then you may consider one of our Master’s taught courses.

The School of Computer Science has launched a Computer Science Masters Scholarship of £2,500 to provide financial support for full-time students on all our taught M.Sc courses in 2007. The number of Scholarship awards varies from year to year, but normally a good number will be available. We do not consider country of origin when determining the recipients of Scholarship awards. To be eligible to apply for a Scholarship, you must be applying for or have already been offered a place on one of the taught postgraduate degree courses listed below.

Download our pdf brouchure to find out more.

New bursaries

The University has decided to award subject-specific bursaries of £500 per annum for the duration of the course to undergraduate students from the UK and EU who will be entering the University in 2007 to study at the Schools of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science.

"This recongnises the the regional and national importance of the subjects on offer at the Schools of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, and will be a welcome boost to the finances of eligible students." said Dr Iestyn Pierce, Senior Admissions Tutor for the Schools.

Visit the bursaries page on the Study at Bangor site for more information.

BCS Accreditation extended

The British Computer Society has extended the accreditation of our BSc Honours degrees in Computer Science, Computer Systems with Psychology and
Computer Systems with Business Studies and our MSc in Computer Systems until the 2010 intake.

Professor Nigel John, Head of the School of Computer Science, said,

"BCS Accreditation is a guarantee for students that the courses they study will prepare them thoroughly for professional practice in the Computer and
related industries".

Important news for prospective MSc students

European Social Fund (ESF) funding is now available for all of our MSc programmes in the 2007/08 academic year. Fees are covered, together with a maintenance grant of £80 per week. To qualify, applicants must be resident in the "West Wales and the Valleys" Objective 1 area (which includes in North Wales: Gwynedd, Anglesey, Conwy, and Denbighshire). Please contact us pg-admissions@informatics.bangor.ac.uk for more details.

Satava Award to our Professor of Computing

Professor Nigel John has brought an international award to the UK for the first time. Prof John of the University of Wales, Bangor, was awarded the 2006 Satava Award, which recognises and rewards unique vision and commitment to the improvement of medicine with the use of advanced technology.

Each year the award is presented to an individual or group who demonstrate unique vision and commitment to the improvement of medicine with the use of advanced technology. Nigel won the award to recognise his many accomplishments in the field of computer graphics and medical visualization and for his ongoing contributions to the Medicine meets Virtual Reality Conference.

Read on...

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