october 07practicalities and course overview natural computation practicalities and course overview

October 07 Practicalities and Course Overview

Natural Computation

Practicalities and Course Overview

October 07Practicalities and Course Overview

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Toilets 1st Floor by main entrance, opposite CS122 2nd floor, in corridor close to lift Ground floor, opposite main doors

Fire Alarm = continuous siren - tested Monday 10am Assembly areas- car park if upstairs - by library snack bar if downstairs

Car Parking Outside the buildingBUT Don’t park in “staff only” car parks, disabled bays etc.

security are enthusiastic clampers “Pay and Display” at machines

Practicalities 1


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Drinks Library snack bar Vending machines downstairs in foyer

Food (lunch) See next slide for lunch options

Mobile phones Do not use in atrium (upstairs is open plan) Switch off in lectures!

Practicalities 2


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Computer Science

Library snack bar(drinks and sandwiches)

Alcuin (B’Henry’s)(hot bar food and drinks)

Seebohm Rowntree Building(drinks and snacks)

Charles 12th(hot bar food and drinks - warning - SLOW!)

Brown’s(sandwiches)

College cafeterias (Vanbrugh, Langwith, Derwent, Goodricke)(hot and cold food)

Where to eat


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Organisation of Week 1

Monday Introduction, supervisors, photographs, library tour

Tuesday “Taster” lectures, International Student orientation

Wednesday More taster lectures, empirical methods session

Thursday CSW lectures, MATLAB session, empirical methods

session

Friday CSW lecture, MATLAB session


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More about today…

Meet your supervisor Some supervisors are available today,

others tomorrow or later in the week

Photographs In the ground floor foyer

Library tour Meet at CS reception desk

Reception In the staff common room, for all new

students (undergrad and postgrad) and staff


Course Overview


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University of York

Founded in 1963 Collegiate based

Departments mapped over Colleges (not 1:1)

Campus contains supermarket,

sports centre, travel agent, library, bars, cashpoints, bookshop

Heslington contains 2 pubs, post office, newsagent, main 4 banks, sandwich shop

Being a student You’re entitled to an NUS card

available from Graduate Student Association (GSA) University ID card Automatic membership: SU, GSA


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The Department

Computer Science Department people

over 40 academics about 180 research students (RSs) and

research associates (RAs) assorted support staff about 500 students

BSc, BEng, MEng MSc NC, MSc IT, MSc SCSE, MSc SWE, Cert

SSE, MSc GTC


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Useful Contacts

Academic Simon O’Keefe - course co-ordinator –

01904 432762 [email protected]

Supervisors Simon O’Keefe: [email protected] Sam Braunstein: [email protected] Susan Stepney: [email protected] Jim Austin: [email protected]

Administrative staff Keith Maynard: [email protected] Louise Earnshaw: [email protected]


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Course Overview

MSc in Natural ComputationPurpose

a grounding in techniques of natural computation to provide a broad education in applicable areas of

natural computation and associated technologies to provide more specialised knowledge in natural

computation technology via the project.

Organisation 9 modules to be taken

1 module mandatory – Computer Science Writing 8 options chosen from 10

six month project


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Option Selection

You need to take 8 optional modules out of 10 on offerOption choices for this term should be regarded as final…Option choices for next term may be revisedOption selection forms should be completed by Thursday this weekThere are some constraints on which modules you can choose togetherTo balance your load, we suggest either

Autumn 3 options (plus CSW), Spring 5 options Autumn 4 options (plus CSW), Spring 4 options


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Optional Modules

CODE Name Term Formal Pre-req.Modules

NEU Neural computing Aut

EVO Evolutionary computing Aut

DSA Dynamical systems Aut

QIP Quantum Information Processing Aut

CBA Cooperative Bioinspired Algorithms Aut

CBC Computing with Biology & Chemistry Spr

ALA Adaptive & Learning Agents Spr

SCB Simulating Complex Biosystems Spr

EME Engineering Emergence Spr

EHW Evolable Hardware Spr EVO


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Option information

Module descriptions are on the website: From the Department student page

select “courses” then “module descriptions”

To help you make informed choices, there will be 15 minute “taster” lectures on Tuesday and Wednesday this week


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Course structureV V

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3PRN

DSADSBQIP

EVO

NEU

EVO

EHW

QIP

CBCALA

Autumn Spring

EHWSCB

CBC

CBA SCBNEU

ALA

EME

DSADSB

CBAEME

V Summer1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 … 11 12

PRN

PRN

EME

Vac


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Timetable

Timetables available onlineDiscuss your timetable with your supervisor

Make sure you know where you should be and when!

Lecture attendance is “optional”Practical and seminar attendance is mandatorySee your Handbook for more detailsSee your supervisor if you have a problem

EVO CS/006 {RW}

PRAC wks7au-10au Clark J, Stepney S CBA AEW/105

{W} LECT wks2au-5au

Timmis J

Timetable entries look like this


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Organisation of Week 1 (again)

Monday Introduction, supervisors, photographs, library tour

Tuesday “Taster” lectures, International Student orientation

Wednesday More taster lectures, empirical methods session

Thursday CSW lectures, MATLAB session, empirical methods

sessionFriday

CSW lecture, MATLAB session


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MATLAB and Empirical Methods…

MATLAB is used by more than one module. If you haven’t used MATLAB before, there is a tutorial

session in the software lab CS006 with assistance on Thursday and Friday mornings

The sessions on empirical methods are to reinforce experimental and statistical techniques that will be useful to you in doing the assessments for a number of modules.

Some of the teaching will be illustrated with MATLAB examples.


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Assessment formats

Open assessments for most modules Done in your own time over about 4-6 weeks Typically 20+ hours work (approx. 3+ working days)

Note it is assumed that you read around and understand the material as well

We find people do take a considerable amount of time over their assessments to get to the depth of answer we expect

Typically a mixture of Specific questions designed to test your ability to

absorb and present knowledge Open questions, designed to test your ability to think

constructively and critically when presented with a problem


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Projects

Take place from April/May 90 credits worth Works out to be same amount of work as 9 modules Subject from one listed in the project database or one you

create in collusion with a member of staff - discuss with your supervisor in first instance

Create and maintain a web page to show project progress Update each time you correspond with supervisor, do

anything Add to at least once a week even if to say “nothing done this

week”

Project Allocation: www.cs.york.ac.uk/projects/index.php Phase 1: Spr/7/Mon - Spr/8/Thur – Descriptions online, select

projects Phase 2: Spr/8/Fri - Spr/9/Fri – Allocation based on selections


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Asessments

Project report Major piece of writing – up to 50,000 words More details about how to approach this in

CSW

More about assessments on Wednesday Approaches to question answering Depth of answers required


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Passing the course

For award of a Masters degree Average at least 50% on modules No more than two module failures At least 50% on project

No retakesDistinction recommendation for MSc

all taught modules passed overall mark > 70% (project mark > 75% taught

module average > 65%)


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Students’ Handbook

Paper copy issued to each student On-line copy available at:

www.cs.york.ac.uk/hdbk/ Should be visible off-site, with userid + password

MSc-specific information in Chapter 21 (pp136+ )

Information on projects – pages 62-70

Module descriptions do not appear in the Handbook, but are available online at:

www.cs.york.ac.uk/courses/


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Supervisors

All registered students have a Supervisor get to know yours

Advice on academic matters and progress choosing options, reviewing progress

Advice on accommodation, finance, welfare; or help in enlisting the help of othersStay in touch with your Supervisor

they are there to help advise them of (personal, academic) difficulties (illness)

sooner rather than later

If you have problems with your Supervisor other staff in the team, HoD, Welfare...


Any questions?


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Computing Facilities: hardware 1

Departmental Network Ethernet; fully switched 100 Mb/s to desktop PCs student laptop/PDA connections

802.11b wireless network RJ45 style plug-in connections in CS002 power supplies must be safety-tested by hardware

staff if used in the department http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/support/wireless.php connected to campus network, and through campus

firewall to YHMAN, SuperJANET and the Internet

Servers provide file, compute, mail, WWW and FTP services


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Computing facilities: Hardware - 2

PC Classrooms CS006/7 (48 PCs in each)

Note: Strictly no food or drink is permitted in these rooms

PCs dual boot Windows XP and Slackware Linux (NB. See posters in classrooms for how to switch between them safely)

minimum specification: 2 GHz AMD Athlon, 512 Mb RAM, mix of Zip 100/250 and CD-RW drives

PCs on side benches have DVD/CD-RW drives and scanners (Note: These PCs run only Linux)


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User Accounts - 1

Username of the form abc123 Computer Science and Computing Service usernames

are the same, but accounts (and passwords) are separate

Passwords separate passwords for:

Solaris/Linux (change using the command passwd) Windows XP (CTRL-ALT-DEL, click on Change Password) Computing Service (initial password is your library number)

passwords are case-sensitive http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/support/passwords.php NOTE: Dept is moving to Kerberos so this may change!


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User Accounts - 2

Home Directories/Folders are held on Fileservers save all important files under these areas /usr/username (Solaris/Linux)

quota 80 MB (check using the command quota –v) H: drive (Windows)

quota 80 MB (right click on H: drive, select Properties) roaming profile (allows you to log in to any PC) stored here

http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/support/sambancp.php

Web Directory (quota 5 MB) for study-related personal WWW pages URL is http://www-student.cs.york.ac.uk/~username /n/www/student/username (Solaris/Linux) map drive to \\Hercules\www (Windows)


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Services -1

Compute Servers Hercules (Solaris); milan (Linux)

can connect to these servers from outside Department using ssh

http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/support/netaccess.php

SFTP Servers (for external file transfer) Hercules.cs.york.ac.uk (Solaris/Linux files) milan.cs.york.ac.uk (Solaris/Linux files) aurora.cs.york.ac.uk (Windows files)


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Services - 2

Mail your e-mail address is: [email protected] mailbox quota is 20 MB recommended mail clients:

Thunderbird (Linux + Windows) for external read access use the address:

imap-student.cs.york.ac.uk for external read and send access via the Web:

https://www.cs.york.ac.uk/swebmail virus and “spam” filtering of mail are in operation

http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/support/smail.php

Can set up email forwarding at own risk http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/support/smail_forward


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Services - 3

Printing pp02s (CS006) and pp03s (CS007)

black & white, A3/A4, duplex (pp01s: A4 only) cost is 4p per side

first £12 worth of printing is free, after which you must pre-pay using coinbox on the side bench in CS006

http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/support/studprint.php Computing Service printers are charged separately

Photocopying photocopier in corridor outside CS006 purchase photocopier card from General Office


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Useful Web Pages

Departmental home page http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/

Computer Science student handbook http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/hdbk/

Departmental Web forums http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/forum/

University home page http://www.york.ac.uk

York Extra http://www.york.ac.uk/yorkextra/

University library http://libcat.york.ac.uk


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Getting Help

First consult the various guides etc on the Support Web pages:

http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/support/

By e-mail to these addresses: faults – for printer and hardware problems

recover – to request the recovery of deleted files support – all other problems and requests Squint – Web-based query tracking system http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/support/cgi-bin/squint

Only visit the Support office if you cannot use e-mail and there is no information about system problems on the “System Status” whiteboard opposite CS002


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Next…

You should have your usernames and passwords, so…

[15 minute break, then]…off to the lab to make sure you can

login in, change your password, and read your email.

october 07practicalities and course overview natural computation practicalities and course overview

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