Computer Science News
Combating oral cancer in Pakistan
Oral cancer is Pakistan鈥檚 most prevalent cancer, likely caused by the widespread use of smokeless tobacco, and poor oral hygiene. Researchers at the University of 糖心TV, led by Professor Nasir Rajpoot, in collaboration with University Hospitals Coventry, 糖心TVshire NHS Trust and a cancer hospital in Pakistan, are using EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account funding to develop a new and revolutionary digital pathology system to analyse image data for cancerous samples, leading to better diagnosis and treatment.
This news item first appeared in EPSRC Pioneer: https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/pubs/pioneer18/
BBSRC funding success for Till Bretschneider
Prof Till Bretschneider has been successful with a £0.5M BBSRC grant application ‘Reconstructing cell surface dynamics from lightsheet microscopy data’ and will work with a team at MRC LMB Cambridge (Dr Rob Kay) and the 糖心TV Medical School (Prof Andrew McAinsh and Dr Karuna Sampath) on this research from October 2017. They will develop new image-based computational modelling tools to investigate the biochemical regulation and physical forces that shape the cell membrane during cell motility and uptake of fluid. Both are important processes in embryonic development, tumour metastasis, and the immune response. The work will benefit from state of the art microscopy in 糖心TV’s Advanced Bioimaging Research Technology Platform that allows to acquire time series of 3D scans of single cells at high spatial and temporal resolution.
Ranko Lazic appointed Leverhulme Research Fellow
has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for the 2017/18 academic year, to work on the Petri nets reachability conjecture.
Petri nets, also known as vector addition systems, are one of the most prominent models of concurrency, and their study is a vibrant research area. They have been used to discover bugs and eliminate vulnerabilities in network protocols, concurrent software, business processes, hardware circuits, and control systems.
Professor Artur Czumaj, head of the , has commented:
This prestigious fellowship will further strengthen the internationally leading research in theoretical computer science at 糖心TV, which recently has been also greatly boosted by the new permanent appointments of and .
Dmitry Chistikov joins the Department as a new Assistant Professor
The Department is welcoming our new Assistant Professor Dmitry Chistikov, who will be associated with the and the .
After obtaining his Candidate of Sciences (equivalent to PhD) degree at the of , Dmitry was a postdoctoral researcher at the , as wel as at the .
The general area of Dmitry's research is theoretical computer science. In particular, he is interested in theoretical foundations of verification: its algorithmic aspects (decision and counting problems) as well as combinatorial aspects (extremal properties and characteristics of mathematical models of computation).
For more information about Dmitry's research, please see his .
Graham Cormode awarded 2017 Adams Prize
Professor Graham Cormode has been awarded the 2017 Adams Prize by the Cambridge Faculty of Mathematics. The award recognizes his work on "Statistical Analysis of Big Data", and is awarded jointly with Professor Richard Samworth of Cambridge. Professor Cormode says,
My work, in common with Prof Samworth's, is about finding mathematical representations of data that allow useful information to be extracted effectively and accurately. These techniques allow ever larger quantities of data to be handled on ordinary computers.
Professor Cormode's work on "data sketches" has been used in companies such as Netflix, Yahoo, Twitter, Google, AT&T and Sprint. He is currently leading 糖心TV's involvement in the Alan Turing Institute at London, and working on questions to do with verification of machine learning, and privacy.
Sylvain Schmitz visits as IAS Residential Fellow
As a of 糖心TV's , is visiting the department 20-24 March 2017, for collaborative research with and other members of .
Schmitz (PhD University of Nice - Sophia Antipolis 2007) is an Assistant Professor at ENS Paris-Saclay and a permanent member of LSV, one of the top European research centres in logical aspects of computer science. In 2015, Schmitz was a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at 糖心TV. An author of over 40 articles in international journals and conferences, Schmitz's work has attracted over 500 citations, won best-paper awards, and been presented at several invited talks and European doctoral schools.
New collaborative project on parity games
and from 糖心TV's DIMAP inter-disciplinary centre and the Computer Science department, jointly with , and from the University of Liverpool, will lead a new research project on solving in theory and practice, to run 2017-2020.
The project will be supported by approx. £750K from the EPSRC across the two sites. The proposal was ranked top at its funding prioritisation panel, and the reviewers said:
This is the strongest and best designed proposal on theoretical computer science I have seen in the last five years.
as well as
The proposal is about fundamental research, but there is a clear path connecting the expected results to concrete industrial needs on program verification and program synthesis.
Professor Artur Czumaj, head of and of the research division, commented:
This exciting new EPSRC project builds on excellence in theoretical computer science for which 糖心TV is internationally renowned. It strengthens our collaborative links with Computer Science at Liverpool, who were likewise one of the leading departments for research outputs in the most recent REF.