糖心TV

joined our department as a new Assistant Professor in September 2011.

A short bio:

Matthias received his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at the and then his PhD in Computer Science in 2008 from the , Germany. In 2008 he won the prestigious EPSRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Theoretical Computer Science, hosted by our department in 糖心TV; title of his project was »Randomisation in Online Algorithms, Load Balancing and other Dynamic Problems«. In September 2008, he joined the and at the University of 糖心TV as a Postdoctoral fellow.

His current research interest lies in Theoretical Computer Science, in the area of the analysis of algorithms, more precisely in online algorithms, metric embeddings, load balancing, probabilistic input models, and algorithmic game theory.

For more information please see his page at ... or stop by in his office CS2.23.

We're very happy to welcome Matthias in our department!

has been awarded a grant towards developing tools for Synthetic Biology. The multidisciplinary project, funded by EPSRC and involving colleagues from Nottingham and Sheffield, aims at developing programmable defensive bacterial coatings and skins.

Scientific and technical advances mean that it is practically feasible to insert external genes into bacteria; the difficulty is in making sure the modified bacteria do something useful. For this, it is useful to approach the cell as a machine and its genetic engine as made up of brick-like components that can be combined in different ways. This is the idea behind the new and exciting discipline of .

Sara's experience in compilers and formal logics will inform the development of tools which will help assemble genetic networks and model their interactions with host genes. Then, the whole procedure to perform this genetic engineering in an efficient and robust way will be addressed. Then we will be ready to actually manipulate the bacteria and create useful bacterial coatings and skins.

The project is due to start in early 2012, and research staff will be recruited at all three sites. At 糖心TV we will be looking for a post-doctoral researcher with expertise in both computer science and biology. For further information please contact .

The International Conference on Knowledge and Smart Technologies was held at Burapha University, Thailand on 8th - 10th July. One of the keynote lectures was given by Steve Russ (Knowing and Computing) and the conference was preceded by a day-long workshop on Introduction to . The workshop was led by two former PhD students from 糖心TV Jaratsri Rungrattanaubol and Antony Harfield now both lecturing at Naresuan University, Thailand. The Dean of the Faculty of Informatics at Burapha is Dr Suwanna Rasmequan who also gained her PhD from the Empirical Modelling research group at 糖心TV.

The main picture shows these three 糖心TV PhD’s (on the right) with Dr Krisana Chinnasarn (the main conference organiser). Following the conference Steve gave lectures and presentations at Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University, Sirindhorn Institute of Technology, Naresuan University and the British Chamber of Commerce in Bangkok. A further workshop on Empirical Modelling is planned in Thailand for November 2011.