<!–Speaker: David Harris-Birtill, University of St Andrews
Date/Time: 2-3pm September 23rd, 2014–>
Location: Maths Theatre D
Abstract:
This talk outlines David Harris-Birtill’s previous research (at the Institute of Cancer Research and Imperial College London) focusing on applications in detecting and treating cancer. The talk will discuss photoacoustic imaging in the clinic, photothermal therapy with gold nanorods, and the advantages of imaging in a variety of settings and in it’s many forms from a nano to a macro scale to help the fight against cancer. This talk will also touch on the importance of displaying the right type of information to the right type of user and why data analysis skills are so important in efficient scientific research.
For any questions please email David on dcchb@st-andrews.ac.uk
Bio:
Dr David Harris-Birtill is a Research Fellow in the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews. His current research is in human computer interaction and information visualisation, and is particularly interested in data analysis, sensors and automising research.
David’s work has been published in journals including Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Journal of Biomedical Optics, and has presented his research across the globe at conferences including San Francisco (SPIE Photonics WEST) and Hong Kong (Acoustics 2012). He has created open source image analysis programs which have been downloaded by over 100 researchers all over the globe, has run a course on “Introduction to Matlab for busy researchers and clinicians” and supervised research by Masters and PhD students.
This seminar is part of our ongoing series from researchers in HCI. See here for our current schedule.

We’re delighted to announce the launch of the new SICSA knowledge exchange theme: Medical Imaging and Sensing in Computing. Led by Dr David Harris-Birtill from the University of St Andrews’ SACHI group, David has been awarded full funding for a series of events to foster new development and collaboration on this topic. (see full SICSA news item)
The theme will run until 31st July 2015 and will have events open to all universities in Scotland, stimulating new ideas, connections and collaborations in this exciting and dynamic field. Dr Robert Davey from Toshiba Medical Visualization Systems is the industry expert who will also be working with us on this theme, providing useful input on the commercial application of this area.
What does the new SICSA knowledge exchange theme cover?
Computing has provided significant technological advancements within medicine over the last decade, contributing to medical imaging within MRI and X-ray CT, PET and ultrasound and optical imaging, and in recent years, advances in smart phones and wearable sensors have also enabled patients and clinicians to get complementary information. These imaging and sensing advances impact the general population as they have found methods to detect cancer, detect arterial plaque which leads to heart attacks, and guide cancer radiotherapy treatments by providing information on how much radiation dose to give to which parts of the body.
By starting this new SICSA theme, Medical Imaging and Sensing in Computing, like-minded researchers across Scotland can form a new intellectual community, promote their research, and foster creativity across institutions and collaborations between academia and industry. In addition, computer scientists involved in other research fields, such as machine learning, will be invited to connect their relevant work to the field of medicine, sparking innovative new projects. Toshiba Medical has highlighted that local industry needs to connect with talented young academics to help stimulate new ideas, engage with academia to find joint funding for industry focused research, and attract talented personnel for recruitment in such a rapidly-growing field.
New areas of research and development needed within industry include extracting useful medical information from wearable sensors, and getting information from large data sources, such as vast medical image and data stores, to help detect disease earlier and make chronic illnesses more treatable. Ultimately this theme enables researchers from across Scotland at all stages of their careers to make meaningful connections with other academics and industry members, to work together to improve patients’ lives. We look forward to the first event!

Professor Harald Reiterer will visit SACHI in St Andrews from October of 2014 until March of 2015 on his research sabbatical. Together we have established ideas for new interaction paradigms for Distributed User Interfaces, like Blended Interaction. Harald visited SACHI in March 2013 and gave an invited talk about this topic. To discuss and present our ideas a greater audience we have organized together with a CHI 2013 workshop around this topic (More information are available here: http://hci.uni-konstanz.de/blendedinteraction2013/). As a follow up activity of the CHI 2013 workshop we organized in November 2013 a Dagstuhl Seminar called “Proxemics Interaction in HCI” (More information available here: http://www.dagstuhl.de/de/programm/kalender/semhp/?semnr=13452 ). Since this, we have submitted an EU grant proposal together and our students have started collaborations and follow up research.

Next month Dr. Eve Hoggan who is a research fellow with the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, Aalto University, Finland will visit SACHI until December. This visit is funded by the Academy of Finland as part of Eve Hoggan’s project – AbiComm: Ability-Based Multimodal Communication. The purpose of this research is to create a mediated interpersonal communication system adapted to the abilities of individual users.

Full details of the post are here and further particulars can be found here. More details of the students, researchers, academics and adjunct members of SACHI can be found on this website.
 
 

Applications for this post are now closed.
Teaching Fellow in Computer Science – SB1407
Description School of Computer Science, Salary: £31,342 – £37,394 per annum pro rata,
Start: 1 September 2014 or as soon as possible thereafter, Fixed term for 9 months
Details Applications are invited for a Teaching Fellowship in the School of Computer Science. In the first instance, at least, this is a fixed-term position of nine months with a start date of September 2014. We require a Teaching Fellow to assist with the development and delivery of high quality, innovative teaching. Applicants should have at least a BSc in Computer Science, preferably a PhD, and previous lecturing and tutorial experience at undergraduate level. Preferably they should also be able to demonstrate ability to deliver a range of core Computer Science courses, in particular within the field of HCI, in classroom, laboratory and small-group tutorial environments; experience in the development of innovative material for learning and teaching; and/or experience of contributing to pedagogical studies in the sciences.
Candidates are welcome to make informal enquiries to the School’s Director of Teaching, Dr Graham Kirby, dot-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk.
This post is for 9 months, starting 1 September 2014 or as soon as possible thereafter
Please quote ref: SB1407
Closing Date: 7 August 2014
Further Particulars: SB1407AO FPs.pdf
School of Computer Science
Salary: £31,342 – £37,394 per annum pro rata
Start: 1 September 2014 or as soon as possible thereafter
Fixed term for 9 months

Jakub Dostal from SACHI and external co-authors published a paper at this year’s DIS conference. The paper was awarded the best paper award, given to the top 1% papers at the conference. This paper is one of the outcomes of a Dagstuhl seminar on Proxemics in Human-Computer Interaction, which Aaron Quigley helped organise and which was attended by several SACHI members.
Dark Patterns in Proxemic Interactions: A Critical Perspective.
Saul Greenberg, Interactions Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary
Sebastian Boring, Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen
Jo Vermeulen, Expertise Centre for Digital Media, Hasselt University
Jakub Dostal, School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews
Abstract:
Proxemics theory explains peoples’ use of interpersonal distances to mediate their social interactions with others. Within Ubicomp, proxemic interaction researchers argue that people have a similar social understanding of their spatial relations with nearby digital devices, which can be exploited to better facilitate seamless and natural interactions. To do so, both people and devices are tracked to determine their spatial relationships. While interest in proxemic interactions has increased over the last few years, it also has a dark side: knowledge of proxemics may (and likely will) be easily exploited to the detriment of the user. In this paper, we offer a critical perspective on proxemic interactions in the form of dark patterns: ways proxemic interactions can be misused. We discuss a series of these patterns and describe how they apply to these types of interactions. In addition, we identify several root problems that underlie these patterns and discuss potential solutions that could lower their harmfulness.
More details about the paper can be found in the ACM Digital Library

This June, Honorary Professor and SACHI external faculty member Professor John Stasko delivered the capstone talk at EuroVis 2014 on The Value of Visualization…and Why Interaction Matters

EuroVis 2014: Capstone: The Value of Visualization…and Why Interaction Matters from VGTCommunity on Vimeo.

On the 19th of June, 2014, the group went out on an excursion to the Isle of May, just off the coast of Anstruther. It was the perfect time to visit, with beautiful weather all day long, and with what we were told to be a quarter of a million birds, as it was the middle of the nesting season. That was actually quite believable, as we saw entire cliff faces covered in birds nested as our ferry, the May Princess, toured round the island: there were puffins, seagulls, ducks, swans, terns – and even a few seals. We enjoyed hiking round the island and photographing the birds for close to three hours. The serene environment gave us a wonderful opportunity to step out of our offices/labs into the bright sunshine and taste the wind and sea – and to embrace the wonders of Mother Nature. As we were getting on and off the boat, we also had quite the “in the wild” experience, when the terns, who were nesting in the mini-harbour area, attacked us in droves, dive-bombing us from overhead to warn us off! We ended the day with an unforgettable meal of Fish and Chips from the famous Anstruther Fish Bar, and with smiles and happy memories! [Photo Credits: Michael Mauderer, Shyam Reyal, Article By: Martin McCaffery]

This year Aaron Quigley was the program chair for PerDis’14 the 3rd ACM International Symposium on Pervasive Displays at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. This year’s symposium extends the two previous successful symposia PerDis’13 in Google, Mountain View, California, USA and PerDis’12 at the University of Minho in Porto, Portugal.
This year we brought together researchers and practitioners from various disciplines with a common interest in the opportunities and challenges raised by the emergence of pervasive display systems as a new communication medium for public and semi-public spaces. The continued emergence of media facades, pervasive displays as art installations, 3D and in-air display, mobile and display networks gives rise to many new innovations and explorations.
Along with his role as program chair and session chair Aaron presented work on CSCT – Computer Supported Cooperative Teaching authored with Adam Buckland. The overall program included 30 papers, 4 posters, 4 demos and 3 videos which have helped lay the foundation for this emerging research community.