糖心TV

Wednesday 20th June saw the Department of Computer Science (DCS) host a celebration of the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, a pioneer in Mathematics who is widely considered to be the founding father of Computer Science.

The event was well attended by both staff and students alike, with many undergraduates making the most of being free from exams. The highlight of the day were the talks, by three academics from DCS.

opened the day talking about the ACE, a computer designed by Turing that was at the heart of the British computer industry. The talk highlighted the relationship between Britain and America in the days before the founding of Computer Science as we know it, and provided an interesting perspective on the part Turing played in the development of the modern computer.

Following this bright start to the day, delivered a riveting talk on Turing's last published work - his theory of morphogenesis. Turing's theory provides an insight as to how cells that are identical can divide into the diverse range of cells that make up natural life. Sara also highlighted a recent paper that is thought to prove this theorem, going on to show how the popular press turned it into a theory of how tigers get their stripes!

After lunch, concluded the day with a closer look at Turing's personal life. Beginning with Turing's early life, including his infamous 60 mile cycle to Sherbourne school, Ben's talk followed Turing's life through Cambridge, to Bletchley Park, and finally to Manchester University. This more intimate view of Turing, often told through extracts written by those who knew him best, provided a fitting end to the day of celebration by highlighting Turing's eccentric, yet charming nature.

The , the main European conference in Theoretical Computer Science, will take place 9 - 13 July 2012 at the , UK.

The conference will see 123 research presentations of recent advances in theoretical computer science selected from 432 submissions in three tracks: A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games, B: Logic, Semantics, Automata and Theory of Programming, C: Foundations of Networked Computation.

The standard presentations will be complemented by 5 invited talks by world leading researchers: Dr Gilles Dowek (INRIA Paris), Dr Kohei Honda (Queen Mary London), Prof Stefano Leonardi (Sapienza University of Rome), Prof Daniel A. Spielman (Yale), and Prof Berthold Vöcking (RWTH Aachen).

The conference is also one of the , celebrating the Life and Work, and Legacy of . Prof from the Weizmann Institute of Science, will give a special Alan Turing talk during the conference.

During the conference, there will be presented three special awards: , , and .

• and awarded the to three groups of researchers for their contributions to understanding how selfish behavior by users and service providers impacts the behavior of the Internet and other complex computational systems. The papers were presented by and , and , and and Amir Ronen.
• The Presburger Award Committee 2012, consisting of Monika Henzinger, Antonin Kucera, and Stefano Leonardi (chair), has unanimously decided to propose (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh) and (AT&T Labs) as joint recipients of the 2012 EATCS Presburger Award for young scientists.
• The EATCS Awards Committee consisting of Leslie Ann Goldberg, Friedhelm Meyer auf der Heide and Eugenio Moggi (chair), has unanimously decided to give the 2012 EATCS Award to (Rice University).

The main conference will be preceded by a series of taking place on Sunday, July 8:

• (APAC)
• (CL&C)
• (WRAWN)

Congratulations to Adam Yaxley (3rd year Computer Systems MEng) who has won the national "Rising Star" games programming competition sponsored by Aardvark Swift. The competition is open to all UK undergraduates and aims to highlight the brightest games programming talent. To gain the title Adam had to face a number of challenges demonstrating technical programming skills, including a software challenge set by Relentless Software. He also had to show his knowledge and passion for the area by facing a panel interview with industry experts. Panel member Mark Hope said "Adam showed knowledge beyond his years to beat off competition from the other finalists, he has a bright future ahead of him and here at Aardvark Swift we wish him all the best for the future!"

Adam will be presented with his award at the Eurogamer Expo in September by industry veteran Ian Livingstone. He is also invited to present a talk at the Expo about his experiences in the competition.

Adam is currently looking forward to a placement at Havok next year before returning to 糖心TV to complete his MEng in Computer Systems.