INSTITUTE OF
COMPUTING SCIENCE
AND MATHEMATICS
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UNIVERSITY . COMPUTING SCIENCE . SEMINARS

SEMINARS - Spring 2011

[Talk Schedule] [Abstracts] [Previous Seminars]

The Department of Computing Science and Mathematics presents the following seminars. Unless otherwise stated, seminars will take place in Room 4B94 of the Cottrell Building, University of Stirling from 15.00 to 16.00 on Friday afternoons during semester time. For instructions on how to get to the University, please look at the following routes.

If you would like to give a seminar to the department in future or if you need more information, please contact the seminar organiser, Marwan Fayed, by

or sending email to email.png.)

Talk Schedule [Top] [Abstracts]

23nd Sep, 3-4pm
Sharon Crook
Title: Approaches for Reproducibility in Computational Neuroscience.
Arizona State University
[abstract]
7th Oct, 3-4pm
Michael Mendler
Title: Towards a Simply Typed CALculus for Semantic Knowledge Bases: Curry-Howard for Constructive Modal Logics.
Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg
[abstract]
14 Oct, 3-4pm
Michael Oudshoorn
Towards Autonomic Computing: Goals and Challenges
Montclair State University, USA
[abstract]
21 Oct, 3-4pm
Peter Harper
--
Sword-Ciboodle
[abstract]
4th Nov, 3-4pm
Marwan Fayed
Title: The Evolution of Layered Protocol Stacks in the Internet (re-presentation).
University of Stirling
[abstract]
11th Nov, 3-4pm
Allan Clark
Title: tba.
University of Edinburgh
[abstract]
25th Nov, 3-4pm
Professor Leslie Smith
Title: Am I spikes over time?
University of Stirling
[abstract]

23rd Sep [Schedule]
Approaches for Reproducibility in Computational Neuroscience.
Sharon Crook
Arizona State University
The independent verification of results is a critical step in the scientific process, and it would seem that achieving reproducibility should be much easier for computational scientists than for experimentalists. However, problems with reproducibility have received wide attention in recent years in many fields of computational inquiry, and some refer to the inability to routinely achieve reproducibility as a true crisis in computational science. Reproducibility in computational neuroscience requires descriptions of complex models that are precise and unambiguous. In this talk, I will discuss some recent neuroinformatics approaches aimed toward achieving reproducibility including model sharing databases, suggestions for publication standards, software for tracking computational "experiments", and simulator independent model description languages. In addition, I will provide an overview of the current status of efforts in our community and their trajectories.
7th Oct [Schedule]
Towards a Simply Typed CALculus for Semantic Knowledge Bases: Curry-Howard for Constructive Modal Logics.
Michael Mendler
Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg
The talk will demonstrate how a constructive version of the description logic ALC (Attribute Logic with Complement) can serve as a semantic type system for an extension of the simply typed lambda-calculus to express computations in knowledge bases. This cALculus embodies a functional core language which provides static type checking of semantic information processing of data whose structure is organised under a relational data model as used in description logics. The cALculus arises from a natural interpretation of the tableau rules for constructive ALC following the Curry-Howard-Isomorphism. We will argue that this modal type theory, due to its strong constructive interpretation, can deal with incomplete and dynamically changing data. This includes knowledge states of mobile agents which would be inconsistent in classical or even intuitionistic modal logics.
14th Oct [Schedule]
Towards Autonomic Computing: Goals and Challenges
Michael Oudshoorn
Montclair State University, USA
Autonomic systems are ones that exhibit the properties of self-organization, self-healing, self-optimization and self-protection. This talk explores some of the issues surrounding autonomic computing; namely the automatic distribution of an application across available resources. The goal is to provide the benefits of autonomic computing while at the same time relieving the applications programmer from the need to interact with complex middleware interfaces and deal with the mechanics of manual distribution.

This talk will examine 1) AdJava, an extension to Java to provide support to convert a multi-threaded application into a distributable one and inject autonomic properties, and 2) an agent-based approach to convert legacy Java systems (byte code) into distributed autonomic systems.

21th Oct [Schedule]
tba.
Peter Harper
Sword Ciboodle
tba.
4th Nov[Schedule]
The Evolution of Layered Protocol Stacks in the Internet (re-presentation).
Marwan Fayed
University of Stirling
The Internet protocol stack has a layered architecture that resembles an hourglass. The lower and higher layers tend to see frequent innovations, while the protocols at the waist of the hourglass appear to be 'ossified'. The authors of this work have proposed a model by which this might occur, suggesting even that this ossification may be inevitable. This work is particularly interesting for the questions it tries to answer, as well as the strong feelings it evoked.
4th Nov[Schedule]
tba.
Allan Clark
University of Edinburgh
tba.
25th Nov[Schedule]
Am I spikes over time?
Professor Leslie Smith
University of Stirling
No-one seriously doubts that the brain is the site of the mind. But what is the nature of this sited-ness? What are the candidates? Von der Malsburg has a much-cited paper entitled "Am I thinking Assemblies" in 1988: but what does that imply? We are tempted to assume that what we can measure is what matters (whether that be local field potentials, spikes, fMRI measurements, or others. Indeed, much has been made of mind-reading machines based on fMRI in some parts of the press. But what are the alternatives, and why and how might we pursue this issue?

Previous Seminar Series [Top] [Abstracts] [Schedule]

2010 - Spring 2009 - Spring Autumn
2008 - Spring Autumn
2007 - Spring Autumn
2006 - Spring Autumn
2005 - Spring Autumn
2004 - Spring Autumn
2003 - Spring Autumn

 


Last Modified: 18th February 2010