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TUCS Newsletter 23.9.2014

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TUCS activities

New courses

Announcements

Latest publications at TUCS

TUCS activities

TUCS 20 years anniversary

Turku Centre for Computer Science (TUCS) celebrates its 20 years anniversary this year. TUCS was founded in 1994 on the basis of excellence in fundamental research in computer science and discrete mathematics as represented by its founders: Ralph-Johan Back, Timo Järvi, Tapio Reponen, and Arto Salomaa.

The anniversary will be celebrated on Friday 24 October 2014. The festivities will start with a Distinguished Lecture by Turing Award winner Joseph Sifakis at 13.15. The lecture will be held in lecture room Beta in the ICT building.

Poster session about the research in TUCS will be held in front of the Lecture Hall Beta after the lecture. Coffee will be served during the poster session.

In the evening a cocktail party and dinner will be organised at Radisson Blu Marina Palace Hotel for invited guests.

TUCS Distinguished Lecture associated with the TUCS 20 year anniversary

 

Friday, October 24, 2014 at 13.15

ICT Building, Auditorium Beta

 

Turing Award winner Joseph Sifakis, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland on “From Programs to Systems – Building a Smarter World"

 

Host: Johan Lilius, Turku Centre for Computer Science

 

Abstract:

The focus of computing has been continuously shifting from programs to systems over the past decades. Programs can be represented as relations independent from the physical resources needed for their execution. Their behavior is often terminating, deterministic and platform-independent. On the contrary, systems are interactive.  They continuously interact with an external environment. Their behavior is driven by stimuli from the environment, which, in turn, is affected by their outputs.

Modern computing systems break with traditional systems, such as desktop computers and servers, in various ways: 1) they are instrumented in order to interact with physical environments; 2) they are interconnected to allow interaction between people and objects in entirely new modes; 3) they must be smart to ensure predictability of events and optimal use of resources. Currently, we lack theory methods and tools for building trustworthy systems cost-effectively.

In this talk, I will advocate system design as a formal and accountable process leading from requirements to correct-by-construction implementations. I will also discuss current limitations of the state of the art and call for a coherent scientific foundation of system design based on a three-pronged vision: 1) linking the cyber and the physical worlds; 2) correctness-by-construction; 3) intelligence.

I will conclude with general remarks about the nature of computing and advocate a deeper interaction and cross-fertilization with other more mature scientific disciplines.

Biography:

Joseph Sifakis is a computer scientist, laureate of the 2007 Turing Award, along with Edmund M. Clarke and E. Allen Emerson, for his work on model checking.

 

He studied Electrical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens and Computer Science at the University of Grenoble. He is the founder of the Verimag laboratory, which he directed for 15 years.

 

He is a Full Professor at EPFL, Lausanne. His current research interests cover fundamental and applied aspects of embedded systems design. The main focus of his work is on the formalization of system design as a process leading from given requirements to trustworthy, optimized and correct-by-construction implementations.

 

Joseph Sifakis is a member of the French Academy of Sciences, a member of the French National Academy of Engineering and a member of Academia Europea. He is a Grand Officer of the French National Order of Merit, a Commander of the French Legion of Honor and a Commander of the Greek Order of the Phoenix. He has received the Leonardo da Vinci Medal in 2012. He is the President of the Greek National Council for Research and Technology.

 

The ACM A.M. Turing Award, named after Alan Turing regarded as the “father of computing”, is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community". It is stipulated that "The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the computer field". The Turing Award is recognized as the "highest distinction in Computer science" and the "Nobel Prize of computing".

 

The TUCS Distinguished Lecture Series is a forum for public lectures by outstanding national and international researchers in all aspects of computing, coming both from academia and industry. All lectures are free and open to the public.

 

Welcome!

 

Turku Centre for Computer Science

TUCS Research Programme activities

TUCS Short Course: Challenges of Secure Computation and Communication on Energy-Constrained Devices

Lecturer: Prof. Joerg Keller, FernUniversitaet in Hagen, Germany

Lectures:

Tue 14.10.2014, 9-16 in Algol (B3039)

Wed 15.10.2014,  9-16 in Algol (B3039)

Goals:

Energy-constrained devices such as sensor nodes have conflicting targets: increasing mission time by reducing power consumption, increasing security of operation by adequate encryption and authentication techniques. On the one hand, reducing the number of instructions per cryptographic operation or reducing processor speed decreases power consumption. On the other hand decreasing key length increases vulnerability, and increasing the time to perform a protocol increases energy consumption due to longer

activation of the radio receiver.

Most students are either familiar with the security aspects or with the hardware and energy-efficiency aspects of such scenarios, but not with both. Hence, the goal of the course is to provide the necessary level of familiarity with both aspects, and use the example scenario to demonstrate the challenges and solution approaches for these kinds of multi-criteria optimization problems.

Contents:

The first part of the course will summarize facts from security/encryption, computer hardware and power consumption, and optimization, each field is treated with consideration of the other two fields (3 lectures). The second part of the course will focus on two problem fields from the example scenario: (1) determine the required key length given a certain attacker strength (more security related) (2 lectures), (2) how to choose speed when performing a cryptographic protocol such as authentic code update to minimize total energy consumption (2 lectures). The final part will give an outlook where similar problems appear in theory and practice (1 lecture).

Students should have their own laptop to perform the lab. exercises.

Addressed student groups:

Doctoral students or master students with a background and interest in hardware, security and energy efficiency.

Prerequisites:

basic knowledge of security primitives

basic knowledge of computer organization

basic knowledge of combinatorial optimization

knowledge of C or Java programming for exercises

Organization/Structure:

2 days

8 lectures (45 min each), 4 per day (morning)

2 lab exercises (2+hrs each), 1 per day (afternoon)

Third call for TUCS travel grants

The third and final call for the TUSC travel grants during 2014 is underway. The  deadline for applications is Tuesday 30th September and the applicants will be informed of decisions by Tue 7th October.

 

Applications should be submitted to (tucs@abo.fi) according to the guidelines at http://tucs.fi/education/information-students/travelling-instructions-phd-students/ before the deadline 30.9.2014, 16.00 pm.

 

Any applications arriving after the deadline will automatically be moved to next year.

TUCS PhD Student Toolkit 2014

The presentations from the TUCS PhD Student Toolkit course are now available on TUCS webpages:

http://tucs.fi/news/article/tucsphdstudenttoolkit2014.php

“TUCS PhD Student Toolkit” is a graduate course targeted for doctoral students and researchers. The aim of the course is to provide an intensive information package for successful PhD studies, research funding possibilities, innovation processes, communication skills and R&D activities in both academia and business environment. The course language is English.

TUCS Courses

TUCS Courses for the fall semester have been updated. The list of courses can be seen on the TUCS web page http://tucs.fi/education/courses/. Furthermore, the courses are marked on the dedicated Google Calendar at http://tinyurl.com/tucscourses-googlecalendar.

TUCS GP PhD defences

On Thursday, September 4th, TUCS GP Student Katri Haverinen presented her Doctoral thesis ”Natural Language Processing Resources for Finnish: Corpus Development in the General and Clinical Domains” for public criticism. The opponent of M.Sc. Haverinen was Dr. Anna Korhonen, University of Cambridge, U.K. Professor Tapio Salakoski acted as a custos at this public defence.

Time: 12 noon

Place: Auditorium Beta, ICT Building

New courses

New INFORTE courses

eHealth

September 25th – 26th

Turku

Speakers:

Professor Stefan Klein (University of Münster, Germany)

Assistant professor Tobias Mettler (University of St. Gallen, Switzerland)

Professor Reima Suomi (University of Turku)

Organizer:

Professor Reima Suomi (University of Turku)

 

Registration: August 1st – September 15th

Registration and more information: http://inforte.jyu.fi/events/eHealth

 

 

Qualitative Research Methods in Information Systems

October 13th – 14th

Jyväskylä

Speaker:

Professor Michael D. Myers (University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand)

Organizer:

Professor Tuure Tuunanen (University of Jyväskylä)

 

Registration: August 1st – October 1st

Registration and more information: http://inforte.jyu.fi/events/qualitative_research_methods

 

Please, see all detailed programs in: http://inforte.jyu.fi/

Participating in all seminars and workshops is free of charge for PhD students and staff members working in participating university departments. Check out the member list when registering: www.inforte.fi/participate

Courses on transferable skills at University of Turku

http://www.utu.fi/fi/Tutkimus/tutkijakoulu/courses/Sivut/home.aspx

Announcements

Get your Business Started with EIT ICT Labs Idea Challenge

 

The European innovation network EIT ICT Labs kicks off the next submission round of its EU wide Idea Challenge on the 1st of September 2014. For the second time this year, twelve talented ICT teams have the opportunity to win 320,000 Euro in total, coaching from the EIT ICT Labs Business Development Accelerator and six months office space at one of the Co-Location Centres in Europe.  Additionally, winning the Idea Challenge also means access to the large innovation network of EIT ICT Labs with over 120 partners including some of Europe’s and the world’s biggest ICT companies such as Siemens, Nokia, SAP, Intel, and Philips as well as leading universities and research institutes.

 

The contest

EIT ICT Labs calls entrepreneurs with the drive to found a business to submit ideas that address the topics Smart Energy Systems, Internet of Things, Cyber Security & Privacy, and Urban Life & Mobility. The best teams will be invited to Berlin, London, Trento, or Stockholm (depending on the topic) and receive the chance to pitch their ideas in front of an expert jury, investors and media representatives. The finalists will receive 500 Euro to cover the travel expenses. And what’s really best about it: Winners don’t need to give up any equity since the EU publicly funds the Idea Challenge.

 

Deadline

Applications can be submitted through www.ideachallenge.eitictlabs.eu between the 1st and the 30th of September, 2014.

 

About EIT ICT Labs and the Idea Challenge

Since 2010, EIT ICT Labs is consistently mobilising talents, ideas, technologies, investments as well as businesses across Europe and beyond. The target of EIT ICT Labs is to empower ICT top talents for the future and to bring ICT innovations to life by providing resources, mentoring and a unique network to help startups succeed.

With EIT ICT Labs Idea Challenge, not one but several winners get the chance to benefit from the huge European network of expertise and contacts. The EU wide contest for innovators focuses on the eight most important trends in ICT: Health & Wellbeing, Smart Spaces, Cyber-Physical Systems, Future Cloud, Cyber Security and Privacy, Internet of Things, Urban Life and Mobility as well as Smart Energy Systems.

EIT ICT Labs Idea Challenge enables to contribute strongly to the objectives set out in Horizon 2020 - a flagship initiative by the European Commission aimed at enhancing Europe's global competitiveness.

Business Essentials for Scientists 2014 Course

If the answer to any of these questions is YES then BES 2014 is for you

What is BES 2014?

BES 2014 is a seminar-based introductory course primarily for PhD students,

postdocs and researchers in ICT, chemical engineering, biological & chemical

sciences from ÅA and UTU.

Topics

Business Strategy, Marketing, Project Management, Intellectual Property Strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Accounting for Decision Making, Pitching Workshops, Lean Startup and many more...

Guest Speakers

A selection, by no means exhaustive, of the guest speakers and companies at

BES 2014:

When is it?

BES is held over 6 afternoon sessions from 12pm - 6pm on October 24th, 28th, 30th, November 4th, 6th & 11th.

How can I apply?

Visit http://abo.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=fb0199bea20ffeaee6627c2e8&id=dd5a3fcc9d&e=fa88b81bc3> http://blogs2.abo.fi/techtransfer/bes2014/ for more information and a link to the online application form.

Deadline for applications is Friday 3rd October 2014.

Any more questions?

Contact the course organiser, Claire Hyder at claire.hyder(a)abo.fi

DAAD – German Academic Exchange Service – Research Grants for foreign PhD

Candidates:

1. One-Year Grants, Application deadline: 19.12.2014

2. Short-Term Grants, Application deadline: 1.10.2014 / 1.04.2015

3. Cotutelle Doctoral Programmes, Application deadline: 19.12.2014

Information on application requirements and application procedure: www.funding-guide.de

DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) offers Research Grants for foreign PhD Candidates:

1.Research Stays for University Academics and Scientists

2.Re-invitation Programme for Former Scholarship Holders

Application deadline: October 1st for the scholarship period January 1st to June 30th of the following year. / April 1st for the scholarship period July 1st of the same year to January 31st of the following year.

Information on application requirements and application procedure: www.funding-guide.de

Information and advisory centres: DAAD-Lecturers in Finland

Dina Heegen

dvbhee@utu.fi

dheegen@abo.fi

Dr. Anta Kursisa

anta.kursisa@helsinki.fi

Anne Stegemann

anne.stegemann@uva.fi

ÅA Research scholarships for 2015

The Foundation of Åbo Akademi University has a call for applications for doctoral and postdoctoral  scholarships and grants for 2015. Electronic application form should be submitted by Friday, October 17, 2014 at 15.00. More details are given by secretary Inger Hassel, Tavastgatan 13, 20500 ÅBO, phone:  02-215 3478, e-mail:  inger.hassel@abo.fi

a)  Doctoral grants (6-12 months)

Doctoral grants can be awarded enrolled graduated students at Åbo Akademi University and they are intended for full-time research (leave of absence required) for 6-12 months. Under special circumstances also shorter scholarships may be eligible. The grant is 1 600 €/month for masters or equivalent and 1 700 €/month for licentiates for work to be done in Finland. If the scholarship is used for research abroad, the sum per month is 50% higher. Grants are paid in monthly installments and should be utilized during the year 2015. References are not requested, but supervisors will be asked to rank the applications after the deadline.

b) Postdoctoral grants (12 months)

Postdoctoral grants can be awarded to five persons engaged in research at a unit at Åbo Akademi University. The grants for 12 months are intended for research full time (leave of absence required). Applicants should have defended their thesis by the date of the deadline and received the PhD degree before the grant period starts. No more than five years may have elapsed since the PhD degree. The scholarship amount in Finland is 1 800 €/month. Grants are paid in monthly installments and should be utilized during 2015.

More information: http://www.abo.fi/forskning/forskarrorlighet#document3

MCC14 - Seventh Swedish Workshop on Multicore Computing

Objectives

The objective of this workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries to present and discuss recent work in the area of multicore computing. The workshop is organized as an activity within the network "Swedish Multicore Initiative".

The scope of the workshop is both hardware and software aspects of multicore computing, including design and development as well as practical usage of systems.

Topics of interest include, but not limited to:

There are two types of presentations at the workshop. The first one is a 20 minutes regular presentation of the current research work and the second one is 10 minutes short presentations of recently published work (published 2012 or later).

Participants willing to give a 20 minutes presentation are asked to send an electronic version of a paper presenting original work that does not exceed four pages using the ACM proceedings format as a PDF document (with all fonts embedded, please) through the submission site: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mcc14.

For 10 minutes presentation it is required to submit a link to the already published work to be presented at the workshop.

Workshop proceedings with the camera-ready versions of accepted papers (20 minutes presentations only) will be available at the workshop. Because the proceedings have a small and limited distribution, contributions will not disqualify subsequent publications in conferences or journals.

Important dates

Sep 28, 2014 Paper submission deadline (firm)

Oct 19, 2014 Notification of acceptance

Oct 29, 2014 Camera ready papers due

Nov 10, 2014 Early registration deadline

Nov 27-28, 2014 Workshop

General Chairs

Program Committee

New people and start-ups at the EIT ICT Labs Helsinki CLC

Maria Boychenko took a lead on organising and marketing EIT ICT labs brand new innovation contest Idea Challenge from Helsinki side, as well she will be focusing on building connections with startups in other EU countries outside of EIT network. Maria has recently graduated from Aalto University with a Master Degree combining the areas of International Business, ICT and Product Development. With her passion to help new ideas to grow she has been active in local startup community by organizing startup events and coaching startups on using human centric approach in business model creation. Now via EIT ICT Labs and Idea Challenge she is helping entrepreneurs and students to find resources and connections needed to succeed on their startup journey.

 

Stefanie Schulz just started to work at EIT ICT Labs Master School as a study advisor. She will be helping students with everything study related like study plan, problems with studies, degree regulations, statements of estimated graduation, progress reporting (thesis etc.), graduation formalities. Stefanie's office is in the Computer Science building, Konemiehentie 2, as she also works at the Student Service Office at the School of Science

 

Nimble Devices provides easy to integrate indoor navigation solutions for mobile application developers. The cross platform libraries and state of the art technology make it possible to add robust and accurate indoor navigation capabilities to any application. The solution is compatible with Apple's iBeacon, but provides many advantages over iBeacon such as navigation, GPS coordinates and much greater positioning accuracy.

 

Demophon Inc. is a start-up company developing open and auditable security solutions for interpersonal and machine-to-machine communication over the Internet. Our system design, security protocols and source code are open and can be audited. We will have independent third parties audit our product and if our customers wish, they can audit it themselves and compile their binary software in their own machines from a digitally signed and duly audited source code tree.

The first version of our AuditCrypt product family will have solutions for interpersonal communication, including Voice over IP, Instant Messaging and File Sharing. The system includes client software for smartphones, tablets and desktop machines as well as the necessary server software needed for functions such as authentication and traversal of firewalls and other middle boxes.

 

Noticed - Student Engagement Platform for Universities is a platform that sources information from all channels currently in use at universities: webpages, notice-boards, apps, emails, university portals and student platforms. It unifies and organizes this information onto a single mobile-based service, allowing for easy and quick access. Noticed also recommends new pieces of information based on the understanding of users information-consumption behaviour.

SLUSH start-up conference        

 

The Northern Europe's biggest start-up event SLUSH will gather more than 10000 visitors and 2500 companies to Helsinki, Finland on 18-19 November. EIT ICT Labs will be bringing around 20 health start-ups from all over Europe to demonstrate, pitch and meet potential investors. We are also supporting start-ups from other EU countries where EIT ICT Labs is not present with reduced ticket prices.

You can meet these innovative companies and our business developers on the latter day, 19th of November at the Health Track area. Mark your calendar and join us at this fantastic event full of passion and innovation!

More information of SLUSH from here: www.slush.org

EIT ICT Labs Idea Challenge

EIT ICT Labs has launched the second round of the Idea Challenge. The EU wide contest for innovators and early stage startups in the field of ICT provides essential resources to boost a business: cash, office spaces, coaching and access to some of the world’s leading universities, research institutes and companies. The ideas should relate to one of the following innovation areas: Smart Energy Systems, Cyber Security & Privacy, Internet of Things, and Urban Life & Mobility.

The first round of the Idea Challenge drew over 300 entries from 25 EU countries. Twelve European startups won an overall amount of 320,000 Euros, and are already working closely with the EIT ICT Labs Business Accelerator to further develop their ideas.

Apply by 30 September.

More information: http://ideachallenge.eitictlabs.eu/

Nokia Foundation Scholarship and Jorma Ollila Grant

The mission of the Nokia Foundation is to support the scientific development of information and telecommunications technologies and to promote the research education sector in Finland. Multidisciplinary research that bridges knowledge from other fields, like social, behavioral, business and services sciences, is highly valued.

 

Nokia Foundation has opened on the 20th of August the yearly application call for Nokia Scholarships, and in addition to that, the first application call for the new Jorma Ollila fund launched earlier this year. The Intention of the grants and targeted applicants are described as follows;

 

 

The application period for both grants will close on the 3rd of October, 2014 at 23:59 GMT+2. Please note that while postgraduate students may be familiar with the prized opportunity of the “traditional” Nokia Scholarships, this is first application call for the Jorma Ollila fund. Thus recently graduated doctors are not as well aware about this new opportunity, and we would appreciate if you would also spread the word about this this new Jorma Ollila grant to applicable recently graduated doctors.

 

Applicants may submit their applications (both Nokia Scholarship and Jorma Ollila grant) online at http://www.aspicore-asp.net/nokiafoundation/. This application tool makes it possible to register, create a draft application, and save and continue the application submission at later session. Application instructions are located within the tool and there is a section marked “need help?” for any specific questions regarding the application. Please note that referees of the applicant may submit their recommendation directly to the tool, but they are only able to do so after the applicant has submitted the application. Thus it is advisable to prepare the application with that requirement in mind, notwithstanding that referees will have one extra week after the deadline to submit their recommendation.

 

Please also note that Nokia Foundation Visiting Professor grants can be applied throughout the year, and the next deadline is also 3rd of October, 2014. More information about Nokia Foundation and all the Nokia Foundation Scholarships is available at www.nokiafoundation.com.

Väisälä Foundation grants

Väisälä Foundation grants are open for applications 15.8.–26.9.2014. The Finnish Academy of science and Letters grants scholarships annually for researchs in mathematics, physics, astronomy, geophysics and meteorology.

Announcement (in Finnish) here: http://www.acadsci.fi/apurahat/vaisala_tiedotus.htm

Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship: Europe, Middle East and Africa
   

Scholarship for female Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD students studying Computer Science or a closely related technical field. Recipients will receive a 7000 EUR Scholarship and have the opportunity to attend a networking retreat in summer 2015

Deadline for applications: February, 2015

More information: www.google.com/anitaborg/emea/

Europe Scholarship for Students with Disabilities  

Scholarship for Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD students with a disability studying Computer Science or a closely related technical field. Recipients will receive a 7000 EUR Scholarship.

Deadline for applications: February 17, 2015

More information: www.google.com/studentswithdisabilities-europe/

TUCS GP travel reports

TUCS GP travel report: S+SSPR 2014 by Juho Heimonen

Full name of the event: IAPR Joint International Workshops on Statistical Techniques in Pattern Recognition (SPR 2014) and Structural and Syntactic Pattern Recognition (SSPR 2014)

Place and date: Joensuu, Finland, August 20th – 22nd, 2014

Type of event: Workshop

My article:

The scientific profile of the event: S+SSPR is a biennial satellite event of the International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR). It focuses on pattern recognition topics such as graph-based methods, kernel methods, metrics and dissimilarities, as well as their applications.

Opinion on the best paper and its topic: I found the presentation by Ludmila Kuncheva very interesting. Her topic "Who is missing? A New Pattern Recognition Puzzle" was about a multi-class classification problem in which objects in a set must be classified in order to find which classes are missing from the set. This topic combined with her good presentational skills resulted in an intriguing talk.

Number of participants: 65

Social events: Welcome reception in Polar Bear Club (sauna, lake, and tasty food); Banquet in Theatre Restaurant in Joensuu City Hall; Excursion to Koli

Touristic impressions: Joensuu is a lovely city surrounded by forests and lakes. I was surprised that there were nice forest trails and swimming possibilities very close to the centre.

Open jobs at University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University

Latest publications at TUCS

Edited proceedings (1):

Articles in journals (3):

Articles in proceedings (10):