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School of Computer Science

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Global Aerospace – Reflections and Crystal Ball Gazing.  A lecture by John Whalley, Director of the Aerospace Wales Forum

Small Lecture Theatre 2:30 – 3pm Thursday 16th February

More information...

The Future of Medical Imaging and Visualisation

By Prof Nigel John, Director of Research – School of Computer Science

Thursday 15 March - 1.00-2.00pm Room 313 Dean Street, Bangor University Bangor, Gwynedd

The computer graphics that you are used to seeing in video games or on film special effects are becoming more and more common on computers used in hospitals. Computer graphics can be used to help the doctor interpret medical scan data to diagnose what is wrong with a patient or to plan the surgery that may be needed. Also, similar to a flight simulator, patient simulators can be built to help train surgery procedures. Here we use computer graphics to create a virtual patient, combined with special force feedback joysticks so that you can for example feel a needle being inserted.

The NISCHR Advanced Imaging and Visualization Unit, based at the School of Computer Science, Bangor University, is carrying out research in this exciting area.You are invited to come along to our laboratory and have a hands-on experience with our latest patient simulators.

Event details are here and more details can be found here for Bangor Science Festival.

Computers can understand our emotions?

Having a computer that can read our emotions could lead to all sorts of new applications, including computer games where the player has to control their emotions while playing. Thomas Christy, a Computer Science PhD student at Bangor University, is hoping to bring this reality a little nearer by developing a system that will enable computers to read and interpret our emotions and moods in real time.

Tom’s work focuses on ‘hands-on’ pattern recognition and machine learning. His supervisor Professor Lucy Kuncheva at the University’s School of Computer Science is a world expert in pattern recognition and classification, specifically in classifier ensembles. A classifier ensemble is a group of programmes that independently analyse data and decide to which label or group the data belongs.

Tom is aiming to pioneer classification software techniques that will allow players’ emotions to be identified within the gaming environment. This will open up new and exciting markets for the gaming industry. New games can be created; where players must control their feelings in order to advance within their virtual environment.

“This area of emotional study is fast becoming an important part of research within Computer Science and is known as Affective Computing,” explained Prof. Lucy Kuncheva.

Team of Bangor Academics win award for software

This year, a team of academics including staff from the RIVIC research group at Bangor entered the IEEE VAST Challenge 2011. This contest provides synthetic data sets with an embedded ground truth surrounded by obfuscating data, and challenges teams to correctly answer a series of questions on the scenario.

There were a number of mini-challenges, and the one we tackled was concerned with tracking the spread of an epidemic within a city using Twitter messages. We built a tool to help us understand the underlying narrative of the scenario, and to analyse the data, and discovered not just the spread, but also the transmission method and cause of the epidemic.
We received notification at the end of July that our submission has been selected for an award - "Outstanding Analysis Using Custom Tools" - and were invited to write up our work for publication and to present at a workshop as part of Visweek 2011 in Providence, RI in October.  There were 30 entries from around the world with solutions to this mini chalenge. Four other entries received awards (from Purdue University, VIS Stuttgart, VSTI/SAS, and MTA-SZTAKI).

This is the second successive year that the team at Bangor has received an award, and is indicative of our strength at international level in the field of visual analytics. Bangor's team consisted of Llyr ap Cenydd, Rick Walker, Serban Pop, Helen Miles, Chris Hughes, William Teahan and Jonathan C. Roberts.

More details about the competition can be found here.

More details about the Bangor implementation can be found here.

Watch the video explaining the challenge and the solution they created.

School of Computer Science partners with visualizing.org.

Visualiszing.org is a site that promotes visualization and runs competitions. Bangor University has organised a team to take part in the London competition:

Dr Jonathan Roberts, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science says, "This is a really good opportunity for our students to get involved in "data journalism", and allows them to apply the  knowledge that they have learned in Computer Science."

For further information or to get involved please contact Dr Jonathan Roberts j.c.roberts@bangor.ac.uk

Nuclear Institute Inaugural Lecture in North Wales 4th October 2011

You are invited to a lecture arranged by the Nuclear Institute and hosted by Bangor University.

Lecture Title: Safe Nuclear Reactor Design and the Consequences of the Accident at Fukushima.

More information...

Schools of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Annual Lecture

Thursday 17th November 2011

Professor Darrel Ince

Darrel Ince is a graduate of the School.  He is currently Professor of Computing at the Open University and the author of around 120 academic articles on systems development topics and 22 books.  He was the editor of the computational papers of Alan Turing, the pioneer computer scientist and wartime cryptographer.  He was a member of the recent coalition government's review of children's care.

“Why Systems Development Still Fails”

A recent survey estimated that £26 billion has been wasted on British government systems. In my lecture I will examine many of the reasons. There is a paradox: we are getting much better at technical tasks, but still there are huge embarrassing failures. My talk will focus in on the Integrated Children's System (ICS). This was a set of processes mandated for England by the previous Labour government but also adopted in Wales. It has lead to children's social workers being tied to their computers for up to 85% of their time preventing them from interacting with children in need and their families.  ICS was unique in that it represented a technical, organisational, political, professional, managerial and cultural failure in which the systems developers were blameless. However, it was also unique in that it encapsulates all the errors that could be made during systems development. The talk will be suitable for a non-computing audience.

  • 5.30pm – John Phillips Hall, School of Creative Industries, College Road
  • Everyone welcome, no advance booking required.
  • Refreshments available from 5.00pm

EUROGRAPHICS 2011

32nd Annual Conference of the European Association for Computer Graphics

April 12-15, 2011 Llandudno, Wales

Online registration is now open at http://eg2011.bangor.ac.uk/registration.html

Early bird registration before 4th March 2011.

The Eurographics 2011 conference will take place in the town of Llandudno in Wales, UK. The hosts for 2011 are the Wales Research Institute of Visual Computing, locally organised by the Visualization and Medical Graphics group at the School of Computer Science, Bangor University.

Eurographics 2011 will provide a unique platform for the computer graphics community to showcase latest techniques and educational work, and to explore new trends and ideas, and it will also offer the opportunity to demonstrate products and services to this community.

We look forward to welcoming you to Wales!
Jonathan Roberts
EG2011 Co-Chair

Meet our Future – Final year project poster presentations

4pm, Wednesday 9th February 2011, School of Computer Science

2nd Floor Library, Dean Street, Bangor University

Afternoon tea, free parking

Come and meet Bangor University’s final year Computer Science Students before they write their dissertations.  This annual poster session is an invaluable tool in the completion of their final year projects, as it gives our students an opportunity to demonstrate the exciting projects they are developing.  We wholeheartedly welcome industry professionals and other academics to meet our students and talk to them about their projects at a very critical time in their academic career.

For your ticket to this free event and a parking permit please reply with your contact details and the numbers of attendees stevie.scanlan@bangor.ac.ukSeminar: Business liaison at the Schools of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Bangor University.

Photographs of the poster session and the winners can all be viewed on the Electronic Engineering Facebook Group page

Seminar: Business liaison at the School of Computer Science, Bangor University.

In the current climate it is more important than ever that we share knowledge, collaborate effectively and make the most of joint business and academia funding opportunities. The Welsh Assembly Government funds various schemes, which are designed to help universities support the needs of local businesses. These schemes are designed to facilitate access to both the specialist equipment, and the staff and students at universities; so whether it is recruitment of top quality graduates or use of the latest kit, there is probably a scheme that can help.

This seminar will give you an opportunity to see what we have to offer and also explain how you can access funding and make use of our expertise and equipment.

A lunch-time seminar will take place from 12pm -1pm on the 2nd December 2010 at the School of Computer Science, Dean Street, Bangor LL57 1UT. Free parking is available. For your ticket to this free event and a parking permit please reply with your company details and the numbers of attendees. Lunch will be provided. For more details email stevie.scanlan@bangor.ac.uk

Schools of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Annual Lecture

Wednesday 24th November 2010, 5.30pm – John Phillips Hall, School of Creative Industries, College Road

Richard Parry-Jones, Former Group Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of the Ford Motor Company.

“Sustainable Speed - the story of how cutting edge technology is transforming future cars - to eliminate all accidents, emissions and congestion”

 A discussion on how the design of the personal transportation system is set to be transformed through changes to vehicle technology, energy technology and communications technology to make motoring sustainable, accident-free and to eliminate congestion. This will be achieved without compromise to all of the compelling advantages of today's personal transportation system, such as convenience, comfort, flexibility and fun. The role of electrification and pervasive digital control, including autonomous control, will be covered. 

Everyone welcome, no advance booking required.

Refreshments available from 5.00pm

Congratulations to all our 2010 Computer Science graduates!

 

Final Year Poster Session 2010

On Wednesday, February 10th, Computer Science third year students presented posters on their final year projects at a poster session.  Student's friends family peers and staff as well as industry partners all attended the morning event.  Students presented the progress, to date, of their final year project and fielded questions from the judging panel:  Prof. Sian Hope, Pro Vice Chancellor and Professor of Computer Science, Dr Jonathan Roberts, Computer Science and Dr Iestyn Pierce, School of Electronic Engineering.  The first prize of a flight for two over Snowdon was awarded to Jack Warder and a second and third prize went to Adam Telford and Olga Kasprzyk respectively, both of whom received £40 Amazon vouchers.  Special commendations also went to Anthony Albuquerque and Gareth Roberts.  Most of the posters have been put up around the School.  Many congratulations to all the winners.

Click here to watch the video

winners

From left: Dr Iestyn Pierce, Jack Warder, Adam Telford, Gareth Roberts, Olga Kasprzyk, Anthony Albuquerque and Dr Jonathan Roberts

Congratulations to all our 2009 Computer Science Graduates!

Pictured above left is Thomas Beverley receiving the British Computer Society prize for Best Graduating Student on a BCS Accredited course. Above right are Thomas Beverley and Thomas Cristy receiving the Eurographics UK Prize for demonstrating the best use and understanding of Computer Graphics or related technologies in the final year of their course.  The award is given in memory of Jan Abas.

Above is Melissa Sealand, Oceanography and Computer Science student, receiving the J H Gee Prize for outstanding performance in computing related maths.

interface@bangor

For all the latest news and events at the School of Computer Science, download the latest edition of our newseltter (pdf file) here .... interface@bangor

Research Assessment Evaluation 2008

Bangor University has been investing in and growing the School of Computer Science for the last decade. This has led to computer science research at Bangor being submitted for the first time to the latest Research Assessment Evaluation (RAE) in 2008. The purpose of the evaluation is to produce a quality profile of the research activities being undertaken. At Bangor, 50% of our computer science research was rated as being either world leading or internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour. The evaluation panel noted the advances made by the School during the census period, and found evidence of emerging strength in research infrastructure, cumulative impact of research, research degrees awarded and research income. Prof. Nigel John, Head of Research at the School stated "This is a pleasing outcome for our very first RAE return. We have established a solid base from which we will continue to grow our research activites at the leading edge of computer science."

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