Today, video games have become far more sophisticated: Computers can adapt to their human opponent’s patterns, and games can precisely match the physical movements of an at-home player to an avatar on screen.
Plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum can compute a map!
Recently, Andy Adamatzky and I have shown that the plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum can compute a map of the Canadian highway system fairly accurately. Andy, who is based in Bristol, U.K., is well known for his work with nature-inspired unconventional computer models, such as reaction-diffusion computers and cellular automata.
If you are curious about all this, please read the details of our result:
http://research.cs.queensu.ca/home/akl/NaturalComputing/PhysarumCanada.pdf
and watch a video of our experiment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4jRr7YAzfI
Cheers,
Selim
Queen’s School of Computing placed in the Top 150 Universities worldwide!
The QS World University Rankings are in and Queen’s Department of Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics, Environmental Science, Psychology, and the School of Computing all placed in the Top 150 Universities worldwide.
The Departments of Biology and Physics placed in the Top 200 Universities worldwide.
Check out the complete QS World University Rankings.
Welcome Summer Researchers!
Dear all,
On this beautiful spring day we would like to send out a warm welcome to our 2011 summer undergraduate research students. You are embarking upon an exciting summer of exploration and discovery. Your assignment will give you a taste of research at the highest level, as you work with a supervisor who is a recognized leader, nationally and internationally. Scientific research is a truly rewarding endeavor, especially for a computer scientist. Believe me, there is nothing like the thrill of realizing, for a brief yet exhilarating moment, that you have found something new, and that you are the first and only person in the world to know it.We hope that your summer experience will be informative and enriching, as well as helpful in planning your future career. Please look upon all the members of the School of Computing as your mentors and colleagues. We’re here to guide you and support you, and I look forward to meeting all of you over the next few months.
Congratulations and welcome to the School of Computing labs to:
Greg Allan (NSERC USRA)
Anna Belkova
Charlotte Blinston (Ian Van Toch Award)
Alexis Boucharin
Michelle Brown (NSERC USRA)
Connor Dickie
Azadeh Eftekhari
Elizabeth Favot
Nick Fellion
Mark Fischer
Mike Godfrey
Matthew Holden (NSERC CREATE-HMRC)
Ryan Kavanagh (NSERC CREATE-QSC)
Brandon MacKenzie (NSERC USRA)
Blake Mcfarlane
Eric Moult (NSERC USRA)
Muhammad Muhaimin
Andrew Murray (NSERC USRA)
Myles Nicholson
Mike Ounsworth
Derek Sargent
Chris Staikos (NSERC USRA)
Thomas Vaughan (Ian Van Toch Award)
Luke Walker
Mattea Welch
Hongbo Wu (NSERC USRA)
Best wishes,
Selim
School in the news around the world!
Roel Vertegaal – The unveiling of the flexible computer, in TimeMagazine.com, Daily Telegraph, BBC.com, Wired Magazine (UK edition), EFE News (world’s largest Spanish-language news service), Discovery Channel, CTV National News, PC Magazine, New Brunswick Telegraph Journal, Kamloops Daily News and on many websites around the world, such Journal du Geek (French) and Alarabiya (Arabic).
Audrey Girouard – The unveiling of the flexible computer, EFE News (world’s largest Spanish language news service), CTV National News, CBC TV (French language), Marketplace Tech Report (nationally syndicated U.S. radio show) and the Peterborough Examiner and many websites around the world.
Mohammad Zulkernine – Internet privacy and computer security, in Homemakers Magazine.
Aneesh Tarun – The unveiling of the flexible computer, on QR77 (Calgary talk radio).
Sacha Pompeu-Robinson Awarded ACM-W Scholarship
The Association for Computing Machinery announced today that Queen’s School of Computing graduate student Alexandra (Sacha) Pompeu-Robinson has been awarded an ACM-W scholarship to attend the Computer Assisted Radiation and Surgery Conference to be held June 22-25, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. Congratulations Sacha to you and to your supervisor Dr. Gabor Fichtinger for this distinct honor!
http://www.cs.queensu.ca/frameset/frameset.php?url=perk.cs.queensu.ca
David Skillicorn comments on the Sony Security Breach
David Skillicorn (School of Computing) – Hackers get personal information of 75 million Sony PlayStation users, in the Globe and Mail, Montreal Gazette, CTV National News, CTV News Channel, and on CBC Radio’s Ontario Today, CBC.ca and CTV.ca.
2nd Annual Queen’s Computing Invitational High School Programming Contest
Area high schools entered seven teams of four students in the second annual programming contest hosted by the Queen’s School of Computing held on March 29. The contest consisted of a set of four programming problems which the teams had to try to solve in three hours. The winning team was from Sydenham High School, coached by Mr. Jon Swaine. The four top teams from the contest will compete at the next level of the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario’s programming contest series on April 16. Well done, all!
3rd Annual COCA201 Computer Art Exhibit
COCA201 is an inter-disciplinary course in the School of Computing’s Computing and the Creative Arts program where Queen’s students from visual arts, computer science, engineering, and music collaborate to create interactive art pieces. On April 4th, the students displayed their final course projects in the ILC atrium in the 3rd Annual Exhibit.
CISC470 & CISC499 Poster Presentations
Students in the 2011 graduating class had a chance to present their thesis projects by way of an exhibition of posters held during the last week of the Winter term