|
The third Microsoft Research Summer School will be held at
Microsoft Research in
Cambridge on 7 July 2008 through 11 July 2008. It will include a series of
talks of academic interest and posters sessions that
will give invited students the opportunity to present their work to Microsoft researchers
and a number of Cambridge academics.
This year the
Summer School is organised in partnership with the
Cambridge University
Computer Laboratory. Invited students include all
first year PhD students of the Computer Laboratory and all
Microsoft Research 2007 PhD Scholars. Lectures and posters
sessions will be public and opened to all research staff and students from the
University of Cambridge.
Agenda
Monday, 7 July 2008 |
16:00 |
|
Registration,
New Hall
- All students |
16:30 |
|
Welcome,
Fabien Petitcolas (Microsoft Research)
and
Peter Robinson (University of Cambridge) |
|
16:45
|
|
Bus transportation from
New Hall to the Go-karting venue
|
|
17:30
|
|
Go-karting and dinner
|
22:30 |
|
Bus transportation back to
New Hall |
Tuesday, 8 July 2008 |
09:00 |
|
Bus transportation from
New Hall to Microsoft Research |
09:30 |
|
Posters
Session 1 [see
Guidelines] |
10:30 |
|
Break |
|
11:00
|
|
Research career - Industry vs.
academia, Andrew Herbert (Microsoft Research)
|
11:30 |
|
How to
write a great research paper, Simon Peyton-Jones (Microsoft
Research)
|
12:30 |
|
Lunch |
13:30 |
|
How to give a great
research talk, Simon Peyton-Jones (Microsoft
Research) |
14:30 |
|
Break |
|
15:00
|
|
Short presentations of past students
|
|
16:30
|
|
Bus transportation to
New Hall
|
|
17:30
|
|
Time to relax and get change if needed
|
|
18:00
|
|
Bus transportation from
New Hall to
Emmanuel
College
|
18:30 |
|
Drinks, group photo and dinner at
Emmanuel
College |
|
|
Bus transportation back to
New Hall |
Wednesday,
9 July 2008 |
09:00 |
|
Bus transportation from
New Hall to Microsoft Research
|
09:30 |
|
Posters Session 2 [see
Guidelines] |
10:30 |
|
Break |
11:00 |
|
Giving a good
presentation, Ken Shaw (Benchmark Communication Techniques)
|
12:30 |
|
Lunch |
13:30 |
|
Mind-reading machines, Peter Robinson (University of
Cambridge) |
| 14:30 |
|
Break |
15:00 |
|
Small group discussions [see
discussions themes and groups]
|
16:00 |
|
Break |
|
16:30
|
|
Presentation of the outcome of the group discussions
|
|
17:30
|
|
Bus transportation to punt location, via
New Hall
|
|
18:30
|
|
Punting
|
20:00 |
|
Free evening [see list of possible leisure
activities]
|
Thursday,
10 July 2008 |
09:00 |
|
Bus transportation from New Hall to Microsoft Research
|
09:30 |
|
Posters Session 3
[see
Guidelines] |
|
10:30
|
|
Break
|
11:00 |
|
Rough guide to being an entrepreneur, Jack Lang (University
of Cambridge)
|
12:30 |
|
Lunch |
13:30 |
|
Grand
challenges in computer science, Tony Hoare
(Microsoft Research) |
14:30 |
|
Break |
|
15:00
|
|
How does the Internet work?, Richard
Black (Microsoft Research)
|
16:00 |
|
Break |
|
16:30
|
|
How to apply for funding? In search of the holy grail, Wouter Spek
(European Science Foundation) |
|
17:30
|
|
Bus transportation
to
New Hall |
18:30 |
|
Drinks and dinner at
New Hall |
Friday, 11 July 2008 |
09:00 |
|
Bus transportation from
New Hall to Microsoft Research
|
|
09:30
|
|
Posters Session 4 [see
Guidelines]
|
10:30 |
|
Break |
11:00 |
|
Take control or How to manage your supervisor, Tristram
Hooley (vitae)
|
12:30 |
|
Lunch |
| 13:30 |
|
Write off-loading: Practical
power management for enterprise storage, Dushyanth Narayanan (Microsoft Research)
|
|
14:00
|
|
Surface computing: the post-PC
experience, Steve Hodges (Microsoft Research)
|
| 14:30 |
|
Break |
15:00 |
|
Enzymatic computing, Klaus
Peter Zauner (University of Southampton)
|
|
16:00
|
|
Concluding remarks
|
|
16:30
|
|
BBQ with Computer Laboratory faculty and Microsoft
researchers
|
|
20:00
|
|
Bus transportation back to
New Hall
|
Talk Abstracts and Speaker Biographies
Andrew Herbert, Managing
Director, Microsoft Research
Research career - Industry vs. academia
Biography
Andrew
Herbert is the managing director of Microsoft Research in Cambridge.
Initially joining Microsoft Research in 2001 as an assistant director, in
March 2003 he succeeded the founding director, Roger Needham.
Andrew’s research interests include networks, operating systems,
programming languages, and distributed information sharing.
Before joining Microsoft Research in 2001, he was director of Advanced
Technology at Citrix Systems, Inc., where he was instrumental in steering
the company toward Internet thin-client technologies, initiating development
of products for Web-based application deployment and for the emerging
application-service-provider market.
Andrew joined Citrix in 1998 from Digitivity, Inc., which he had founded
in 1996 to develop a product to enable secure deployment of Java clients for
business-to-business applications. Digitivity was a spinoff from APM, Ltd.,
a research/consulting company Andrew had founded in 1985. APM managed ANSA,
an industry-sponsored program of research and advanced development of
distributed-systems technology to support applications integration in
enterprisewide systems. The ANSA work included research on support for
interactive multimedia services, object technology for World Wide Web
applications, distributed-systems management, mobile-object systems, and
security for electronic commerce. Herbert led the ANSA technical program,
built the ANSA team, created the ANSA architecture, and made it known and
respected in the industry.
Andrew is a fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, England, a member of St
John’s College Cambridge, and a liveryman of the City of London Worshipful
Company of Information Technologists. In 1975, he graduated from the
University of Leeds with a B.Sc. in computational science, and in 1978, he
received a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in computer science.
Simon Peyton Jones, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research
How to write a great research paper
[PPT]
How to give a great
research talk [PPT] Abstract
Writing papers and giving talks are
key skills for any researcher, but they aren’t easy. In this pair of
presentations, I’ll describe simple guidelines that I follow for writing
papers and giving talks, which I think may be useful to you too. I don’t
have all the answers – far from it – and I hope that the presentation will
evolve into a discussion in which you share your own insights, rather than a
lecture. Biography
Simon
Peyton Jones, MA, MBCS, CEng, graduated from Trinity College
Cambridge in 1980. After two years in industry, he spent seven years
as a lecturer at University College London, and nine years as a
professor at Glasgow University, before moving to Microsoft Research
in 1998. His main research interest is in functional programming
languages, their implementation, and their application. He has led a
succession of research projects focused around the design and
implementation of production-quality functional-language systems for
both uniprocessors and parallel machines. He was a key contributor
to the design of the now-standard functional language Haskell, and
is the lead designer of the widely-used Glasgow Haskell Compiler
(GHC). He has written two textbooks about the implementation of
functional languages. More generally, he is interested in language
design, rich type systems, software component architectures,
compiler technology, code generation, runtime systems, virtual
machines, garbage collection, and so on. He is particularly
motivated by direct use of principled theory to practical language
design and implementation – that’s one reason he loves functional
programming so much. He is also keen to apply ideas from advanced
programming languages to mainstream settings.
Alessandro Duminuco, 2005 Microsoft PhD Scholar, Institut Eurécom
Towards a peer-to-peer file backup system
[PPT]
Abstract
Peer-to-Peer systems have received a lot of attention in recent years. The key property of Peer-to-Peer systems is self-scaling, i.e. as more peers become part of the system not only the service demand increases but also the service capacity. The research community has shown an increasing interest in the use of P2P systems for file storage.
This application can be very attractive for two main reasons: (i) centralized
solutions are expensive (ii) common PCs are equipped with high-capacity
local disks, often underutilized. The design of a Peer-to-Peer storage
system is not a trivial task and presents a considerable number of
challenging problems. I will illustrate briefly some of the issues involved,
explaining some of the solutions I proposed so far during my Ph.D. thesis.
Fabien Corblin, 2005 Microsoft PhD Scholar, Université Joseph Fourier
Generalizing the discrete analyses of genetic
networks using constraints
Abstract
Our work generalizes the current existing discrete approaches for
analyzing the properties of genetic networks as proposed by Thomas
using concepts that are available in constraint programming (CP).
Thomas’ networks can be formalized, generalized and implemented using constraints.
At the limit the proposed approach combines both aspects of simulation and reverse engineering. The ultimate goal of this work is to allow biologists to explore the combined effects of various types of hypotheses such as the assumed gene
interactions and the expected dynamic behavior.
We have developed a constraint program that utilizes the assumed hypotheses
expressed as data. When the data is interpreted by a CP processor the
proposed system is capable of responding to multiple queries that encompass
simulation, reverse engineering and hybrid combination of the two. After a
presentation of our approach, I will show you the constraint program in
action with the following functionalities: combination of simulation and
reverse-engineering, addition of hypotheses about the combination of
interactions over the genes of the network, creation of mutants, relaxation
of constraints in case of incoherence (the data having contradictory
effects), and consequently suggestion of refinement of the model.
Georg Weißenbacher, 2005 Microsoft PhD Scholar, ETH Zurich
Why breaking other kids’ toys (in time) is an achievement in computer
science [PPT]
Abstract
Automated software verification is a superb challenge. Unfortunately, in the many years of research in this field, few actual products (if any) have been proven correct beyond doubt. We can, however, look back to a long history of spectacular successes in software falsification (think Ariane 5).
The problem is that bugs are usually buried deep in the software and traditional testing techniques just don’t dig deep enough. I will talk about an approach that accelerates the digging, allowing us to dig deeper for bugs and ""break the toy"" before somebody else breaks it unintentionally. I’ll also explain how finding deep bugs in abstract software models can help verifying the actual software.
Kai
Kohlhoff, 2005 Microsoft PhD Scholar, University of Cambridge
Computational prediction of three-dimensional protein structure from NMR
chemical shifts [PPT]
Abstract
Proteins are involved in virtually every biochemical reaction in a living
cell. A protein’s function is strongly dependent on its three-dimensional
structure and there is a large interest in the pharmaceutical industry to
understand the native structure of proteins in order to perform targeted
drug design. Existing experimental techniques offer high spatial resolution,
but tend to be costly and time-consuming. A novel method, CamShift-MD, will
be presented that is based on relatively easy to perform chemical shift
measurements from nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. This method
predicts protein structure by introducing restraints into molecular dynamics
computer simulations. CamShift-MD offers a new way of automatically
generating protein structures based on a combination of experiment and
theory. It has the potential to solve structures for which traditional
methods are not suitable, such as highly dynamical non-native states.
Moreover, the method can be used to determine protein ensembles. Unlike a
single, rigid structure, such ensembles reveal information about the
distribution of conformations and dynamics of molecules in solution,
providing us with a better picture of the behaviour of proteins in the
cellular environment.
Ken Shaw, Benchmark Communication Techniques
Giving a good presentation
Abstract
Lecture, Presentation or Conversation? We will examine: Who your
audience is; What they want; Why you are addressing them; How you handle
practical issues like nerves, body language, speech & voice, humour,
visual aids etc.; What is success? What is plan B if everything goes
wrong; How you recover.
Biography
Ken
Shaw has taught communication skills to MBA students at Judge Business
School for 17 years. He has also taught at Said Business School, London
Business School, Cass Business School, Henley Management College, ESMT
in Berlin, Bled School of Management plus Leicester, Nottingham and
Bristol universities. He has delivered training for commercial clients
in France, Germany, Switzerland, The Bahamas, Holland, Norway, America,
The Caribbean, Australia and Singapore.
Peter Robinson,
Professor, University of Cambridge
Mind-reading machines
Abstract
Facial displays are an important channel for the expression of emotions,
and are often thought of as projections of a person’s mental state. Computer systems generally ignore this information. Mind-reading
interfaces infer users’ mental states from facial expressions, giving
them a degree of emotional intelligence. We use video processing to
track two dozen features on the user’s face. These are then interpreted
using statistical techniques through a hierarchy of analyses as basic
actions, head and facial gestures, and finally groups of mental states.
The talk will describe an implementation of facial affect inference,
together with an evaluation and some preliminary results of using the
system to monitor car drivers.
Biography
Peter Robinson is Professor of Computer Technology and Deputy Head of
Department at the University of Cambridge
Computer Laboratory in England, where
he leads the Rainbow
Group working on computer graphics, interaction and electronic CAD. He
is also a Fellow,
Praelector and Director of Studies in
Computer
Science at Gonville & Caius College
where he previously studied for a first degree in Mathematics and a PhD in
Computer Science under
Neil
Wiseman.
Professor Robinson’s
research concerns problems at the boundary between people and computers.
This involves investigating new technologies to enhance communication
between computers and their users, and new applications to exploit these
technologies. The main focus for this is human-computer interaction, where
he has been leading work for some years on the use of
video and
paper as part of the user interface. The idea is to develop augmented
environments in which everyday objects acquire computational properties
through user interfaces based on video projection and digital cameras.
Recent work has included desk-size projected displays and inference of
users’ mental states from video images of their faces.
Jack Lang, Lecturer
and Entrepreneur, University
of Cambridge
Rough guide to being an entrepreneur
[PPT]
Abstract
At some stage you might want to exploit your ideas by starting a company,
just as Bill Gates and Paul Allen did in 1975. It might even be the next
Microsoft, or bought by them. I’ll give an overview of the process, explain
some of the success factors investors look for, and how to go about writing
a business plan and getting off the ground.
Biography
Jack
Lang is a serial entrepreneur and business angel with high-tech and
internet companies based in Cambridge, where he is Entrepreneur in
Residence, Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, at the Judge
Business School, University of Cambridge, an affiliated Lecturer and
member of the Faculty Board at the Computer Lab and a by-fellow of
Emmanuel College. His latest venture is as co-Founder of
Artimi, which is
making the next generation of ultra wide band wireless chips.
Previously he was founder of Netchannel Ltd, an early Interactive TV
company which was acquired by ntl: where he became Chief
Technologist. Before that founder of Electronic Share Information
Ltd, one of the first online brokerages, acquired by E*Trade Inc.
Prior to that he started a consultancy (now SAIC UK Ltd) that was
involved in the early days of the "Cambridge Phenomenon", and was a
proper academic at the Computer Lab. He is author of "The High Tech
Entrepreneurs Handbook" (FT.Com/Prentice Hall 2001). He has other
interests in molecular gastronomy and fireworks.
Tony Hoare, Principal Research,
Microsoft Research
Grand challenges in computer science
[PPT]
Abstract
One way to do great research is to work with a great team,
collaborating over an extended timescale, to find answers to
fundamental questions that lie at the very basis of your branch of
science. I will call such a project a Grand Challenge.
Grand Challenges have long been common in Astronomy (the Hubble
telescope) and in Physics (the large hadron collider), and more
recently in Genetics (the enumeration of the human genome). Here
are six Grand Challenges that have recently been singled out by UK
computer scientists for the attention of the research community:
- ‘in vivo = in silico’ – multi-level simulation of the behaviour of
biological organisms;
- ‘memories for life’ – rapid recall of a lifetime’s memories;
- ‘architecture of the mind and brain’ – simulation of the relation
between them;
- ‘non-classical computation’ – a search for a theory that covers the
wide range of computing phenomena in nature;
- ‘ubiquitous computing’ – principles of engineering of the swarms of
computers that surround us;
- ‘dependable systems evolution’ – programs that are proved correct by
the computer before running them.
Can you think of any more? I will talk in more detail about the last of
these, which has been my own life-long research interest.
Biography
Tony’s computing interests were stimulated by his first (and only) degree
in the humanities (1956): he studied Latin and ancient Greek, followed by
philosophy, with particular interest in mathematical philosophy and logic.
He learnt Russian during National Service in the Royal Navy. He spent a
postgraduate year studying statistics at Oxford and another at Moscow State
University, where he discovered the sorting algorithm Quicksort. In 1960,
he joined the British Computer industry as a programmer, eventually rising
to the rank of Chief Engineer.
His Academic career started in 1968 with appointment as professor at the
Queen’s University, Belfast. He chose his long-term research area as proof
of the correctness of programs. In the thick of the troubles, he built up a
strong computing department, and moved in 1978 to do the same at Oxford.
Following the example of Theoretical Physics, his interests broadened to the
pursuit of Unifying Theories of Programming.
On reaching retiring age, he accepted an offer of employment at Microsoft
Research in Cambridge, where he has seen a strong surge of interest in
automation of computer proofs of program correctness. He continues to
pursue this interest, while exhorting academic researchers in long-term
pursuit of even more idealistic scientific goals.
Richard Black, Research Software
Development Engineer, Microsoft Research
How does the Internet work?
[PPT]
Abstract
Could you explain how the Internet works in simple terms to someone else?
Are there any gaps in your understanding, or questions you have? In this
talk I’ll be giving an introductory description to how it all works.
Biography
Richard
is currently a Research Software Development Engineer at
Microsoft Research Cambridge, where he is part of the
Systems and Networking
group. His research interests include performance analysis of distributed
systems, operating systems and networking. Recent projects include:
Constellation,
and
Network Inference. The Network Inference project gave rise to the
Network Map feature of Windows Vista. Underlying the Network Map feature
is the LLTD
protocol which is licensed by many companies as part of the
Windows Rally
program.
Richard obtained his B.A. in Computer Science from the
University of Cambridge in 1990 and his
Ph.D. addressing issues in operating systems and networking interaction in
1995. After a further three years at the
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory as a research associate and
research fellow he moved in 1997 to a lectureship at the
University of Glasgow Department of
Computing Science. He returned to Cambridge in January 2000, to join the
Microsoft Research laboratory, initially as a Researcher. He changed role to
Research Software Development Engineer in 2006.
Wouter Spek, Director, EuroBioFund,
European Science Foundation
How to apply
for funding? In search of the holy grail [PPT]
Abstract
Wouldn’t it be nice to have
unlimited sources of funding for your research? Wouldn’t it be nice to have
the freedom to operate? Wouldn’t is be nice not to be bothered with constant
applying and competing for financial sources? These are some of the topics
we will discuss, we will talk about unmet needs and I will give you some
pointers how to address the issue of finance and finance acquisition.
Biography
Dr
Wouter Spek is currently the Director for EuroBioFund at the European
Science Foundation, which he joined early in 2006. The aim of EuroBioFund,
also supported by the European Commission, is to promote the development of
strategic European Research Programmes in the area of life sciences. Dr.
Spek received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Leiden University (1988), with
part of the research undertaken at the University of California, San Diego.
From there he began his professional career at Senter (1988-1996), the
agency of the Ministry of Economic Affairs responsible for all science and
technology subsidy programmes, as project advisor/deputy head of the
biotechnology division. Dr. Spek subsequently moved to The Netherlands
Organisation for Scientific Research, where he was co-ordinator of the Life
Sciences Research Council Earth & Life Sciences (ALW-NWO) (1996-2002). In
2002 he joined the Netherlands Genomic Initiative as Manager for Innovation
and International Affairs, where he was involved in bringing together
relevant partners for projects, including industrial partners, government
agencies, and start-up companies.
Tristram Hooley,
Senior Network Manager, vitae
Take control or how to manage your supervisor
[PPT]
Abstract
This session will look at how to make supervision work well for you. It
will argue that to get the most out of your relationship with your
supervisor you will need to be proactive and assertive. In particular the
session will encourage you to think about the following issues:
- The relative rights and responsibilities of the supervisor and
supervisee;
- What your supervisor cares about and how you can move up in their
priorities;
- Strategies that you can use to manage the supervision and make them
more useful;
- What to do if things go wrong.
Biography
Tristram
Hooley is Senior Network Manager for the UK
GRAD Programme where he has responsibility for liaising between the
programme and universities. He wrote a PhD on dystopian fiction before
going on to work in various capacities including web design, learning
technology, researcher, and skills trainer. He is particularly interested in
the career development of researchers, online research methods, social
capital and the pedagogy of the research degree.
Dushyanth
Narayanan, Researcher, Microsoft Research
Write off-loading: Practical power management for enterprise storage [PPT]
Abstract
In enterprise data centres power usage is a problem impacting server density
and the total cost of ownership. Storage uses a significant fraction of the
power budget and there are no widely deployed power-saving solutions for
enterprise storage systems. The traditional view is that enterprise
workloads make spinning disks down ineffective because idle periods are too
short. We analyzed block-level traces from 36 volumes in an enterprise data
centre for one week and concluded that significant idle periods exist, and
that they can be further increased by modifying the read/write patterns
using write off-loading. Write off-loading allows write requests on
spun-down disks to be temporarily redirected to persistent storage elsewhere
in the data centre. The key challenge is doing this transparently and
efficiently at the block level, without sacrificing consistency or failure
resilience. We describe our write off-loading design and implementation that
achieves these goals. We evaluate it by replaying portions of our traces on
a rack-based testbed. Results show that just spinning disks down when idle
saves 28–36 % of energy, and write off-loading further increases the savings
to 45–60 %.
Biography
Dushyanth Narayanan
is a researcher in the Systems and Networking group at Microsoft Research,
Cambridge. His most recent research interest is in reducing the energy
consumption and improving the performance of enterprise storage.
Steve
Hodges, Principal Hardware Engineer, Microsoft Research
Surface computing: the post-PC experience
[PDF]
Abstract
The long-established ‘desktop’ computing metaphor continues to drive a lot
of our interactions with computers, But at the same time, new interaction
paradigms are being developed and we believe that these will increasingly
complement the traditional computing experience. To this end, at Microsoft
Research we are exploring a number of new interaction technologies along
with the novel form factors, user experiences and usage scenarios they
enable. This talk will present some of our work on ‘surface computing’, a
new approach to interaction which doesn’t required a keyboard or mouse for
input, but which is inherently multi-user and which allows direct
manipulation of digital content with hands, fingers and via tangible
objects.
Biography
Steve has a background in a broad range of computer-related technologies.
His first degree is in Computer Science with Electronic Engineering, from
University College London, and he
received his PhD from Cambridge
University Engineering Department in the area of Robotics and Computer
Vision. Prior to joining Microsoft Research, he was the Technical Director
of the Cambridge Auto-ID Lab,
where he was involved with many activities, including the global research
programme, the US Field Trial, the hardware-oriented action groups and
privacy and IP policy development. Due to its success, the work of the
Auto-ID Lab has been handed over to GS1
(formerly UCC.EAN, the barcode custodians). Steve has co-authored and
presented a number of
Auto-ID Centre
white papers, and he has also given presentations to a wide range of
audiences on the Auto-ID and EPC system. He was a founding director of the
easyEPC RFID training and consultancy company.
He worked as a Research Engineer for a
number of years at the Olivetti and Oracle Research Lab, which became
AT&T Laboratories
Cambridge before eventually shutting down in 2002. This lab was
internationally recognised as a centre of excellence across a broad range of
advanced research into communications, multimedia and mobile technologies.
Klaus-Peter Zauner, Lecturer,
University of Southampton
Enzymatic computing
[PDF]
Biography
Klaus-Peter
Zauner is a Lecturer in the Science and Engineering of Natural
Systems Group of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at
the University of Southampton. He was born in Stuttgart, soldered
together a Sinclair ZX81 as his first computer and went on to study
Biochemistry at the University of Tuebingen. Intrigued by Nature’s
molecular scale information processing mechanisms he left Tuebingen
in 1992 for Detroit to join Michael Conrad’s Biocomputing Group.
Under Michael Conrad’s mentorship he worked on conformational
computing and enzymatic computing. Klaus-Peter received his Ph.D. in
computer science from Wayne State University, Detroit in 2001. He
started his academic career as a Visiting Assistant Professor at
Wayne State University, then returned to Europe in 2002 to work with
Peter Dittrich in the Bio Systems Analysis Group at the University
of Jena, before taking up his current position in 2003. He served
on the Governing Board of the International Society of Molecular
Electronics and BioComputing and is an Editorial Board Member of the
International Journal of Unconventional Computing. He is a Microsoft
Research European Fellow (2005) and recipient of a Leverhulme
Research Leadership award (2007).
Posters Session 1
-
Adaptive combinatorial search
Alejandro Arbelaez (INRIA)
Show/hide abstract
The main goal, is to set automatic tuning methods for CSP algorithms, allowing e-scientists who have little knowledge of the search technique itself to nevertheless solve their optimization problem without the need for some optimization engineer. We will address both off-line and on-line tuning issues, at problem level as well as instance level. These techniques will be tested on several computational biological problems.
-
The cycle of modeling, modeling of the cycle
Alida Palmisano (CoSBi)
Show/hide abstract
Computer Science has been used to support Biology in the storage and analysis of huge amounts of data: this is a passive usage of CS. But Computer Science can also actively help Biology in creating new knowledge by modifying the way in which the process of modeling is carried out. Starting from wet experiments, we try to standardize and automatize each step of the modeling process. We developed new conceptual and computational tools that foster a new philosophy in life science investigation. Our tools can help biologists to carry out in-silico experiments and, analyzing the results, they can suggest new experiments and/or solutions. We applied this different modeling approach to a well characterized biological model of the budding yeast cell-cycle, obtaining results that have an experimental evidence and that are not observable with the classical mathematical approach.
-
Adaptive evolutionary computation
Álvaro Fialho (INRIA)
Show/hide abstract
Among the search algorithms applied to e-Science problems, there are the Evolutionary Algorithms (EA), that have already proved and have been constantly proving their great applicability in different areas of combinatorial optimization. But to achieve good performance, for each new problem/field, there is the need of fine tuning the EA parameters, which is a tedious and time-consuming task that requires knowledge about the domain and/or about the algorithm. Because of this, to improve the applicability of EAs to e-Sciences, this project aims to develop approaches which are able to automatically set-up their parameters, according to the characteristics of the problem or class of problems. Preliminary results are presented in the scope of the first direction taken, the Adaptive Operator Selection.
-
Adaptive software lock elision
Amitabha Roy (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
Most software transactional memory implementations execute code using fine-grained optimistic concurrency control. This does not perform well with low contention data structures where fine grained conflict detection means manipulating metadata for every object touched and optimistic concurrency control imposes the overhead of making thread private shadow copies. Also, a purely optimistic approach does not coexist naturally with legacy code that is either already concurrent using locks or does IO operations that cannot be revoked. My proposed solution is that concurrent software can dynamically adapt itself to available parallelism using only a software runtime and without recourse to special hardware or design effort on the part of the programmer. I intend to design, build and demonstrate a practical runtime that can be used to achieve this through software lock elision. The key idea will be to separate the notions of correctness and performance in concurrent programs. The responsibility for corectness will continue to lie with the programmer who needs to specify concurrent programs using the familiar and easy abstraction of the lock. The runtime chooses the appropriate level of concurrency by eliding locks and either executing critical sections speculatively for better throughput under high contention or grouping locks into a coarser lock for lower latency under low contention. Other than better performance, such runtime supported software lock elision can be used to safely run code with potential deadlocks as well as helping to mitigate the problem of lock convoying, that has long been a criticism of lock based concurrency control. I also show how my proposed mechanism, can preserve important properties of individual lock implementations such as fairness and hence allows existing programs using FCFS locking schemes to retain fairness across threads even when used with lock elision.
- Exact JPEG recompression and forensics using interval arithmetic
Andrew Lewis (University of Cambridge)
- Highly sensitive de novo identification of peptides from tandem mass
spectra by linear optimization and kinetic modeling
Axel Rack (Freie Universität Berlin)
Show/hide abstract
Protein identification (ID) using tandem mass spectrometry (MS) is a key method to study the protein content in biological samples (e.g. blood). In a clinical context, ID can put disease-related differences between the proteomes of e.g. healthy and unhealthy individuals into perspective of biological functions (e.g. metabolic pathways). Traditionally, there are two approaches for MS-based protein ID: sequence database-dependent screening and de novo prediction. The first approach is fast and relatively robust, but fails to identify novel/unknown proteins that are not stored in the databases. In contrast, the latter allows identifying virtually any protein. However, available de novo algorithms show high error rates as they usually rely on aggressively filtered data, idealized scoring models (due to limited understanding of peptide fragmentation), or simply neglect important biological information like protein alterations. Thus, current methods are unsatisfactory and show limited practical use. This work deals with the development of a new de novo method that is highly sensitive, more robust, and incorporates relevant biological and physical features. Furthermore, it must bear the computational efficiency to keep track with high-throughput data generation pipelines, which often produce noisy and incomplete data – two problems that also must be dealt with appropriately. Our approach builds upon the classical idea of spectrum graphs to efficiently perform search space pruning. Essentially, this approach translates the de novo ID problem into one of finding the highest scoring path in a directed acyclic spectrum graph. We hypothesize that satisfying solutions to the de novo ID problem will be available if a scoring scheme is used that builds upon most recent findings of peptide fragmentation rules and kinetics. This will generate large problem instances and involve scoring of features dependent on the complete peptide. Consequently, the classical spectrum graph optimization approach using dynamic programming is rendered useless, as it requires independent per-edge scores. We will address these large optimization problems by formulation of a mixed-integer linear program (MILP). However, under the assumption of a perfect scoring scheme, the influence of heuristics in the process of solving will become crucial because the solutions might deviate from the global optimum (i.e. the correct solution). We expect that even under improved - though imperfect – scoring, significantly better de novo predictions can be obtained if the MILP solver is specifically adjusted to the structure of the problem. This new de novo method will extend our highly sensitive MS processing pipeline that generates complex spectra with numerous peaks to provide superior predictions when compared to current state-of-the-art approaches.
- Illuminating circadian rhythms with Bayesian inference
Ben Calderhead (University of Glasgow)
-
Code reprogramming and dissemination in mobile WSN
Bence Pasztor (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
Wireless Sensor Networks are spreading, and in many cases, these systems are deployed in remote areas for environmental/wildlife monitoring purposes, and involve tens or even hundreds of sensors. They are expected to work without much human intervention, and for as long as possible. So far, the majority of these networks are not reusable or adaptive, in the sense that once the sensors are deployed, they cannot easily be reprogrammed unless someone collects them and connects them to a computer. This task is even more difficult (if not impossible) if the devices are attached to mobile entities or animals as these cannot easily be recollected. The current (few) solutions of the distribution of new code on a mobile sensor networks involved epidemic-like spreading of the code over the network. The poster presents a group-based code-dissemination protocol, which takes advantage of the dynamically built knowledge about the social relationships between the nodes to efficiently distribute the code; and a proposed system to selectively update specific subsets of the network.
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Quality-oriented handover scheme for adaptive multimedia streaming in
heterogeneous wireless network environment
Bogdan Ciubotaru (Dublin College University)
Show/hide abstract
Abstract—Inter-network mobility is achieved by allowing a mobile node to change its point of attachment to the network while preserving connectivity to its corresponding nodes. It is desired to achieve a high quality of service during network handover which requires the minimization of packet loss and delay which otherwise would affect negatively service quality. Streaming time sensitive and bandwidth hungry multimedia to mobile devices over wireless networks increases the challenge of performing seamless handover. Most handover solutions proposed in the literature rely on tunneling the data stream from the old access point to a new one or on switching the connection from one access point to another. These solutions involve a certain amount of quality degradation due to increasing loss and delay and suffer in terms of scalability and resilience to different mobile node speeds. Multimedia Mobility Management System (M3S) is mobility management framework which aims at maximizing user perceived quality by using multiple simultaneous connections to deliver high quality multimedia content to mobile users. M3S uses Smooth Adaptive Soft-Handover Algorithm (SASHA) as the core handover management solution which increases the quality of the multimedia delivery process when performing handover in heterogeneous wireless environment by gracefully transferring the load from one connection to the other.
-
Probabilistic interpretation of figures of speech
Ekaterina Shutova (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
It is common that the author of a text in a natural language does not explicitly state all the information necessary for understanding of the text. The reader needs to address his own background knowledge or make assumptions about the world in order to interpret and reason about the text and thus approach its meaning. The key idea underlying my project is that this necessary knowledge about the world as well as the relevant linguistic information is to a large extent contained in text corpora and, therefore, can be automatically induced from them. My project concentrates on a subtask of interpretation of figures of speech using a probabilistic model.
Consider an example of a metonymic phrase "enjoy a book". It is obvious to the reader that its meaning extends to "enjoy reading a book" or "enjoy writing a book" depending on the context. This, however, can not be automatically deduced in a similar way by a computer, as it is not aware of the fact that "enjoy" takes an event type argument. Nevertheless, the correct meanings can be induced from a large amount of textual data by looking at the verbs that complement "enjoy" and the verbs that take "book"
as an object. The phenomenon of metaphor, although linguistically different, is addressed in a similar fashion. In metaphoric expressions seemingly unrelated features of one object are associated with another object, e.g. "I invested a lot of time in this work", "my heart was dancing". Besides making our thoughts more vivid and filling our communication with richer imagery, metaphors also play an important structural role in our cognition. Therefore, another interesting aspect of this study would be to look at the way metaphors organize our conceptual system, in terms of which we think and act.
Posters Session 2
-
Video abstraction and stylisation
Christian Richardt (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
Video abstraction and stylisation covers a wide variety of artistic
styles for simplification and expressive rendering of video sequences.
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Time-aware routing in wireless sensor networks
Daniele Borsaro (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
The
main scenario is the one of a naturalistic park in which a network of
wireless sensors is deployed with a main duty of environmental
monitoring. Sensors are in part fixed and in part mobile: they collect
specific data, partially elaborate them, send them to sinks for
centralized and/or constraint- less elaboration, collaborate to
disseminate information to interested nodes which can be data collectors
or actuators. Such a network is actually a wireless sensor and actor
network which topology implies a non trivial routing: nodes can be
mobile or fixed; sensor or actuator or both; some can be strictly
constrained on buffer size, power supply, radio range and computational
power while other not. This high heterogeneity traduces in a complex
network. In this first year, I am currently focusing on the fixed node
subnetwork. These nodes are spread on a broad area, only few of them can
be wired to an external network, many are likely to be physically
accessed by staff very few times over a long period. This means that
memory and power management are main concerns during nodes workout. One
of the main way to save battery power is to switch the wireless
interface off when the communication is not needed as, for these
devices, the network communication is by orders of magnitude more
expensive than the other local
activities. Considering that each node has this kind of duty-cycle, the fixed nodes
subnetwork results to be intermittently connected. We assume that a
network manager assigns a specific duty-cycle to sensor nodes, which is
disseminated in a specific startup phase. Then sensors start to exchange
their duty cycle and construct their future communication behavior on
the duty cycling information propagated by the neighbours. We construct
a decentralized time-aware delay tolerant routing protocol which aims to
provide data delivery to specific points and minimize end-to-end cost,
considering that no contemporary end-to-end path could exist between a
source-destination node pair. I am currently verifying the algorithm
correctness and running it by means of simulations to identify its basic
properties.
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Towards optical PCI
David Miller (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
The local interconnect is perhaps not the first thing that comes to mind
when considering the performance of a computer system, but it’s becoming
apparent that electronic interconnects are going to run out of steam in
the middle
future. A lot of work has been done on optical cross connects as applied to
network packet routing - especially with respect to power consumption -
but as far as we know, there is little work in the area on local
interconnects. Where optical switching has not (yet) found much success
in the internetwork switching world, there are a number of
distinguishing features of local interconnects that perhaps make an
optical cross connect very well suited to future performance
requirements, perhaps saving power at the same
time. Still, optical interconnects are no silver bullet. There are some
significant challenges (not least of which, the lack of practical
optical buffering) that will require different techniques from those
used in conventional interconnects. My research is concerned with how
optical switching could be used to make a cost effective local
interconnect of sufficient performance to meet demands of future
computer systems.
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Spread-spectrum computation
Derek Murray (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
Fault tolerance is
important in distributed computation: processing nodes may crash, become
disconnected or experience long network delays. However, existing
approaches, based on rescheduling failed tasks or scheduling multiple
instances of each task, are inefficient. Furthermore, they are only
suited to the small class of embarrassingly-parallel
algorithms.
In this poster, we introduce
spread-spectrum computation: a novel approach to fault tolerant
distributed computation, based on the redundant encoding of algorithm
inputs. The redundancy allows a certain fraction of nodes to fail, and
yet the correct result can still be computed. We introduce two key
concepts in this work: computation dispersal algorithms (CDAs), and
distributed random scheduling. We also describe example applications of
our technique.
- Proof engineering: Refactoring proof
Eliot Setzer (University of Edinburgh)
-
Vehicular ad hoc networks
Eugenio Giordano (University of Bologna)
Show/hide abstract
Advances in
consumer electronics and satellite navigation aremaking vehicular
networking a reality. Early applications arelikely to use simple
vehicle-to-vehicle orvehicle-to-infrastructure one-hop networking for
safety alerts androadside information delivery. However, we envision a
plethora ofadvanced applications that may require a clean slate
re-design ofthe protocol stack. These networks can be characterized as
beinghighly mobile with frequent partitioning, and variable nodedensity.
With this poster we present both our simulation results and a
description of the UCLA Campus Vehicular Testbed(C-VeT). The simulations
yield to a deeper understanding of the behavior of vehicular networks as
a function of mobility, and network structure. C-VeTwill provide the
research community with aremote-accessible, fully virtualized platform
to design, developand evaluate the next generation of vehicular
protocols.
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Automatic derivation of loop bounds
Florian Zuleger (Technical University Darmstadt)
Show/hide abstract
In many
industries including robotics, consumer electronics, avionics,
automotive, and manufacturing, the system components must interact
according to a stringent real-time schedule. It is therefore crucial for
system engineers to have a good understanding of the worst case
execution time (WCET). Recent years have seen a rapid development in
automatic termination/ liveness provers, most notably Terminator. The
goal of this disseration is to leverage these methods for WCET. Current
techniques for termination are not constructive, i.e., they do in
general not give an explicit time bound when the program is guaranteed
to terminate. It is therefore crucial to extend the mathematical and
logical techniques to obtain constructive bounds.
-
Mechanized foundations
of finite group theory (handouts)
Francois Garillot (INRIA)
Show/hide abstract
We report on a long-term
formalisation effort on finite group algebra, aimed at a mechanized
proof of the Feit-Thompson theorem. With a better understanding of this
particularly long and intricate theorem as a goal, our work devotes
considerable attention to the scalability of our proof engineering
choices. We use the Coq proof assistant, extended by the SSReflect
library to benefit from small scale reflection. Our approach already
furnishes a leading development of finite group theory, that showcases
the advantages of syntactic notation facilities, as well as type system
constructs such as canonical structures.
-
New apparatus for
characterising molecular computing substrates
Gareth Jones (University of Southampton)
Show/hide abstract
Due to the
complexity of molecular computing substrates such as enzymes,
characterising them requires vast quantities of data to be obtained from
experiments. Data obtained by experimentation is limited by resource
consumption. Equipment limitations and cost, sample handling precision
and human error can lead to excessive consumption in an experiment. A
new method is being developed to resolve these issues and will initially
be evaluated in experiments on enzymatic signal processing.
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Contact network modeling of flu epidemics
Anilkumar Sorathiya & Ian Leung (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
Epidemic spreading is an intricate biological and sociological process which involves multiscale events from the molecular level of virus-cell interaction to the physical behavioral patterns in a population. Using actual census, family and age structure, land-use and population-mobility data, we have developed a model and related software to study disease propagation. In particular, we address age dependency in epidemic spreading, in which we look into age-dependent locations, contact networks, infection propensities as well as vaccination techniques. As a case study we study influenza epidemics in the UK. The results indicate the relative merits of different vaccination strategies combined with early detection without resorting to mass vaccination of a population.
Epidemic spreading is an intricate biological and
sociological process which involves multiscale events from the
molecular level of virus-cell interaction to the physical behavioral
patterns in a population. Using actual census, family and age
structure, land-use and population-mobility data, we have developed
a model and related software to study disease propagation. In
particular, we address age dependency in epidemic spreading, in
which we look into age-dependent locations, contact networks,
infection propensities as well as vaccination techniques. As a case
study we study influenza epidemics in the UK. The results indicate
the relative merits of different vaccination strategies combined
with early detection without resorting to mass vaccination of a
population.
Posters Session 3
-
Autonomous experimentation methods for characterising molecular
computing substrates
Chris Lovell (University of Southampton)
Show/hide abstract
Today’s computing technology is built on a
narrow foundation of materials. Nature demonstrates efficient information
processing implemented with macromolecular computing substrates. Molecular
materials possess a variety of properties that make them attractive for
future computing technologies. However, traditional engineering and design
approaches are ill suited to the complexity of these molecules. New methods
are required to add macromolecules to the toolkit of the computer engineer.
A crucial step towards this goal is the characterisation of the behaviour of
macromolecules in the context of other molecules. The present project
investigates and develops methods for efficiently characterising molecular
materials through computer controlled experimentation. The ultimate aim of
this work are algorithms that emulate the experimentation strategies of
human experimenters.
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Dynamic dependency graphs – How much parallelism is
out there?
Jonathan Mak (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
We examine the limits of parallelism in existing
sequential programs. This is achieved by constructing Dynamic Dependency
Graphs out of their execution profiles. The graphs are then analysed to find
the critical path and from that the average parallelism. We look at the
effect different types of dependencies, in particular true dependencies on
the stack pointer, have on parallelism. Our results show that a significant
amount of parallelism is available, and provide suggestions as to where this
parallelism may be realised.
- Pan-tropical modelling of the impact of land
use change on water quantity provision and low flows
Jorge Peña Arancibia
(King’s College London)
Show/hide abstract
Land use change, particularly deforestation has the potential to affect the
hydrologic cycle. This is of significant importance in areas where
precipitation exhibits strong seasonality and spatial variability and water
availability during the dry season is necessary to sustain ecosystems and
agriculture. Results from observations in small experimental catchments
suggest that deforestation increases total water yields. However, these
studies cannot be considered representative of natural conditions present in
large areas were land clearing and subsequent land use result in severe soil
disturbance. Post-forest land cover and soil conditions vary widely in
quality and therefore in vegetation water use, infiltration and runoff
response to rainfall. In catchments with progressive soil degradation, dry
season flows may decrease, irrespective of the increases in total flows. The
aim of this study is to provide a pan-tropical assessment of the most
sensitive landscapes in terms of hydrological impacts of LUCC incorporating
hydrological processes including land use impacts on infiltration, runoff
and subsurface flows, evapotranspiration and the best available data at the
pan-tropical scale. For this purpose, the FIESTA water resources simulation
model, already used throughout Latin America to quantify water resources,
will be enhanced to simulate the relevant hydrological processes – at the
adequate temporal (monthly) and spatial scale – that govern changes in
streamflow regime after land use change. The model and its results will be
available in an online GIS-based hydrological suite of models, incorporating
new databases including global databases of derived soil hydraulic
properties and streamflow validation data. To achieve this modeling across
the tropics, significant computational advances will need to be made,
modelling system will be converted for use in 64-bits and in a load balanced
computing environment. The resulting information will be made available
intuitively to decision makers by using recent MS developments in online
mapping (virtual earth and virtual earth 3D).
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The Infinit file system
Julien
Quintard (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
As computer networks grow in importance as a medium of exchange of
information, users’ need for reliably storing and sharing data increases as
well. Peer-to-peer file systems exhibit many interesting properties as a
uniform way of accessing information in a completely decentralised way.
Unfortunately, such systems are extremely difficult to design due to the
inherent byzantine nature of peer-to-peer environments.
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Designing robots for people
Laurel Riek (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
As robots enter domestic environments in greater numbers it is important that people are able to interact with them in a natural way to increase their acceptance and use. One critical aspect of natural interaction is how emotions are conveyed and understood by a robot.
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Diagrammatic reasoning across multiple domains: The automatic
construction of useful diagrams
Matthew Ridsdale (University of Cambridge)
-
Noise
from in-silico biology: A statistical perspective
Michele Forlin (CoSBi)
Show/hide abstract
The study
of biological systems through discrete state-space stochastic models is a
powerful tool that provides a rigorous conceptual framework for capturing in
unambiguous executable format the available information, determining dynamic
evolution and predicting the observed behavior of biological systems under
diseases scenarios, mutations or drug induced
perturbations. It becomes necessary then to develop methods and tools to manage the
stochastic simulation
results. The work presents two approaches: the first, for multi-run stochastic
simulation analysis, is based on Independent Component Analysis (ICA), while
the second approach uses statistical time regression models to estimate the
evolution in time of the concentration of a species with respect to the
others. Both
approaches represent a powerful tool to describe the noise effects arising
from in-silico biological stochastic simulations.
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Supporting village community through connected situated displays
Nick Taylor (University of Lancaster)
Show/hide abstract
The aim of this project is to investigate the ways that public, digital
displays can help support rural communities by improving communications and
awareness or fostering a sense of history and identity, and evaluate the
techniques we can use while designing these displays. This will be achieved
through real world deployments with the participation of residents in a
local village to provide feedback and design ideas.
- Examining the adoption and usage of m-banking applications in low-income
communities: The case of M-PESA in Kenya
Olga Morawczynski (University of Edinburgh)
Show/hide abstract
This research
will ethnographic methods to examine the adoption and usage of M-PESA, a
Kenyan m-banking application. In particular, it will analyze how the
application is being used by the low-income segment of the population. It
will also explain why it is being use in these ways. This analysis will take
place in two sites: (1) Kibera, an informal settlement on the outskirts of
Nairobi; (2) Bukura, a small village in Western province. This analysis will
make clear how the M-PESA application is fitting into already established
financial patterns of low-income constituents. It will also make clear how
patterns are changing as Kenyans adopt M-PESA.
Posters Session 4
-
Shape grammar and image based 3D reconstruction of buildings
Olivier Teboul
(École Centrale Paris)
Show/hide abstract
While very topical, creating 3D content is still very challenging.
It’s even more tedious when aiming at large scale contents like a whole city. In this work,
we tackle grammar-based techniques to generate efficiently large scale urban environment.
We will propose a general framework adapted from the work of Muller & al
to cope with image-based reconstruction of Paris buildings. Although the
optimization method will not be considered in details, some clues are given
to understand why such techniques can efficiently represent complex geometry
and may solve 3D reconstruction problems.
- The realities of graphical passwords
Paul Dunphy (Newcastle
University)
Show/hide abstract
Alphanumeric passwords are
a ubiquitous method of knowledge-based authen- tication that can deliver
high levels of theoretical security in limiting access to a resource.
However the realities of modern day password management requirements, and
human cognitive limitations mean this theoretical security is dicult to
realise. This problem manifests itself in the form of users choosing
guessable passwords, vulnerable to an automated dictionary attack, and other
less sophisticated guess attacks from social engineers and individuals with
a close relationship to the user. Often such weak passwords are kept for
each account the user owns too, meaning one password breach yields access to
all password protected services to which the user is enrolled. Graphical
passwords are one proposed alternative that aim to address the lack of
usability prominent in alphanumeric password systems. Such systems take
advantage of the innate human ability to recognise images for purposes of
authentication. Current research is geared towards exploring the vast
design space of graphical passwords leaving key questions of real world use
unanswered. Such questions include the vulnerability of schemes to shoulder
sur ng, the extent to which interference oc- curs in memory between multiple
graphical passwords, and the ability of users to disclose passwords using
description. To date, there has been a shortcoming in user study methodology
used to evaluate graphical schemes due to the design lacking ecological
validity. Work must focus towards a shift in authentication user study
methodology to model scenarios realistically, as this will ultimately become
a crucial tool in evaluating performance of graphical passwords in the
aforementioned areas, as well as the performance of authentication systems
in general.
-
Learning the temperature of a game
Philipp Hennig (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
We attempt to combine the pure mathematical theory of combinatorial games with applied machine learning techniques to develop a parallelizable architecture for approximate game
tree search.
- Automated planning with goal utility
dependencies within a satisfiability framework
Richard Russell (University of Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
Some planning
problems have many more goals than can be achieved with the available
resources. Deciding which goals to plan for is the aim of oversubscription
planning. Up until recently, systems have assumed that each goal is equally
useful or statically weighted but I have addressed how to incorporate
general utility functions over
goals. This is
aimed at situations where achieving a collection of goals is significantly
more useful than the sum of their individual utilities. I am working on
incorporating these ideas into a SAT-based planner.
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From BlenX to SBML
Roberto Larcher (CoSBi)
Show/hide abstract
Recently process calculi have been used to model biological
systems. The process calculi-based language BlenX is used to develop
executable models starting from the description of the molecules involved in
the system. We present here an algorithm to export BlenX programs in SBML
format. Starting from a BlenX program, the algorithm extracts the list of
molecules defined in the model and find out reactions these molecules can
perform. Then lastly it translates them into an SBML file. This approach
gives us the possibility to share the models we develop in BlenX with the
scientific community.
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Deployment of wireless sensor networks
Ruoshui Liu (University of
Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) provide a new paradigm for sensing and
disseminating information from various physical environments, with the
potential to serve many and diverse
applications.
Successful deployment of WSNs in real environments requires a comprehensive
knowledge of the radio channel characteristics within these environments,
since the channel has a significant impact on the coverage range and quality
of the radio links between nodes. The research investigates the use of
frequency and space (antenna) diversity techniques applied to WSNs to
ameliorate the impact of the wireless channel on the communication link and
improve the robustness of the radio links.
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Provable security at
implementation-level
Sebastian Faust (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
Show/hide abstract
Traditional provable security treats
cryptographic algorithms as black boxes. An adversary may have access to
inputs and outputs, but the computation within the box stays secret.
Unfortunately, this model often does not match reality where an adversary
can attack the algorithm’s implementation with more powerful attacks. An
important example in this context are side-channel attacks, which provide an
adversary with a partial view on the inner working of hardware. The goal of
this project is to develop theoretical models in which formally provable
security guarantees can be made concerning the implementation of
cryptographic
schemes. We
studied existing security models that take into account specific attacks on
the implementation. These attacks give the adversary either access to
additional information through side-channels,
or allow it to tamper with the physical device. Unfortunately, it
turns out that the existing models fall short: on the one hand they are not
suitable to formally analyze theoretical or practical constructions, and on
the other the incorporated attacks are of little relevance in
practice.
In the next phase of this research project, we will try to close this gap
and propose new security models that consider less general though more
relevant adversaries. Along the lines of the analysis of
boolean circuits in the power analysis model seems to be a promising next
step. A first analysis already showed that the constructions from Ishai et.
al do not provide provable security in this new model.
- Renewable energy in data centres
Sherif Akoush (University of
Cambridge)
Show/hide abstract
There are
directions to supply power for data centres from renewable energy sources
like (wind, solar...). This paper illustrates specific simulations for wind
power in UK and how wind intermittency might be solved. It also discusses
wind and solar power worldwide and how a simulator could be built to run
experiments. Moreover, how can I generalize the load optimizer
(balancer/un-balancer) to take into considerations power fluctuations,
different workloads and SLA guarantees.
-
Stochastic modelling of single cell assay data
Simon Youssef
(Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
-
Interactive visualization, annotation and processing of terabyte-scale
3D image volumes
Tahir Mansoori (University of Oxford)
-
A robust video receiver allowing WIMAX video broadcasting and indoor
WIFI retransmission
Usman Ali (Supélec)
Show/hide abstract
Our current work deals with header recovery at MAC layer of WiMAX. Several redundancies present in the MAC header and also the header check sequences (HCS) that covers only the header, can help to recover the erroneous headers and thus minimizing the possibility of dropping the packet. Thus increasing the possibility of seemingly erroneous video packets reaching the application layer, where one can use tools like JSCD to cope with them. This wok provides a system architecture, where one can apply the proposed header recovery method.
Posters Guidelines
Posters should should be designed for A1 portrait (594 mm x 841 mm) colour printing
(either PowerPoint or PDF) and articulate clearly and concisely either visually or textually:
- What challenge is being addressed or
question being answered by the research in such a way that a
non-expert can understand the importance of the research.
- What the research is.
- What the intended outcome is.
- What stage it is at.
- Any research results, preliminary
conclusions, or any potentially exciting or interesting next steps
are.
Posters should be aimed at other students and researchers who do
not necessarily have expertise in that specific area of research.
Posters should also clearly display your name and the name of your
university.
You can find example of posters on the page of the
2007 Summer School.
Discussions Themes
This type of discussions was requested by the students who attended the
2006 Summer School and the students who
attended the 2007 Summer School enjoyed
them very much. The goal is to make
the students think and discuss about a topic or issue of importance and get
to know each other.
Each group will be asked to share briefly to the other groups the
outcome of their discussion.
Ethics in scientific research
Discussion leader: Andrew Fitzgibbon (Microsoft Research)
Scientific method in computing research
Discussion leader: Jon Crowcroft (University of Cambridge)
Computer science education
Discussion leader: Kevin Bond (Aylesbury Grammar School, Cambridge)
Impact of research
Discussion leader: Wolfgang Emmerich (University College London)
Being a post-doc - Academia vs. industry
Discussion leader: Andrew Phillips (Microsoft Research)
Accommodation
Accommodation will be provided, for non-Cambridge students, at
New Hall
from Monday 7 July 2007 until the morning of Saturday 12 July.
Group Photo

(Click
to view larger image.)
Leisure
Food and Drinks
Cambridge
Pubs Guide
Cambridge
Restaurants Guide
Theatres
Cambridge
Arts Theatre
6, St. Edwards Passage, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB2 3PL Tel: 01223
578933 For major theatre productions and national tours.
ADC Theatre
Park St, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB5 8AS Tel: 01223 359547
Mumford Theatre
Anglia Polytechnic University, East Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
Tel: 0845 196 2320
Cambridge Corn
Exchange
3, Parson Court, Wheeler St, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB2 3QE Tel:
01223 357851 For rock, pop, comedy and opera.
The Junction
Cambridge Leisure Park, Clifton Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB1 7GX
Tel: (01223) 511511 Also for rock, pop, comedy.
Cinema
The Arts Picture House
38-39, St. Andrews St, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB2 3AR Tel: 01223
572929 Arthouse and international.
Cineworld
Cambridge Leisure Park, Clifton Road Tel. 0871 200 2000 Multi screen
Cinema complex.
Vue Cinema
The Grafton Centre, East Rd, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB1 1PS Tel: 0871
2240240 Multi screen Cinema.
Contact Details
If you have any question, send an e-mail message to
camevent@microsoft.com
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