The 24th European Conference on Modelling and Simulation (ECMS 2010) has a specific aim of bringing together researchers and practitioners of modelling in simulation from Europe and Asia. The conference, which for the past 23 years has been held in Europe, is making a bold change to this pattern with its 2010 venue in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The conference will be held between the 1st and 4th of June, 2010.

Dr. Tim Brailsford gave a Research Seminar entitled "Geospatial Hypermedia", on the 2nd of March 2010.

Abstract: Mobile computing devices (such as phones) are increasingly becoming capable of delivering rich media over networks (3G), and many of these devices are aware of their geospatial location (using GPS, and sometimes other technologies).   This raises the interesting possibility of Geospatial Hypermedia, where the triggers used to traverse an information space include physical location as well as user interactions.  Where topographic data of the surroundings is available, this may be used to calculate "viewsheds", which are areas that are visible to the human eye from any given vantage point. Mobile devices that are direction as well as location aware,  may then use what the user can see as a trigger rather than proximity ... (download full abstract)

Dr. Zakria Hussain from the Department of Computer Science, University College London, gave a talk entitled "The Set Covering Machine (SCM)", on the 3rd of February 2010.

Abstract: The Set Covering Machine (SCM) is based on strong theoretical principles and shown to compete well with the SVM. In this talk I will discuss the SCM, which uses older learning theory techniques in order to construct hypotheses, and fits into the class of ensemble learners. The SCM has some nice properties such as sparsity, tight generalization error bounds and a simple greedy solution, making it an appealing alternative to the SVM.

The School of Computer Science was visited by Dr. Peter Blanchfield from Computer Science (UK). Peter shared his valuable experience by giving  a seminar on the 20th of January 2010 on the  subject: Engaging the Un-engageable.

The talk examined the problem of integrating game-play and education with reference to a study which attempts to utilise the motivational power of computer games to aid the education of some of  the most challenging students: children who are exhibiting behavioural disorders (oppositional defiant behaviour, attention deficit).

Professor Backhouse shared his valuable experience by giving a seminar on Tuesday, 8 December 2009, on the subject of ‘Algorithmic Problem Solving’.

In the seminar, Professor Backhouse explained some of the background to why algorithms are important, offering examples of some of the problems that are presented and how they have been chosen, as well as discussing its relevance to other disciplines, in particular to a modern mathematics curriculum.