Month: May 2011

ELEVATOR SHUTDOWN

The Goodwin Hall elevator will be shutdown on Monday, June 6th from 8:00 a.m. until Wednesday, June 8th at 8:00 a.m. to replace the elevator ropes.  The work is being completed by Thyssen Krupp Elevator Contractors.

We ask that you please inform everyone in your department of this notice.

If you have any questions regarding this elevator shutdown please contact Perry Conrad, Manager Specialty Shop, Physical Plant Services at extension #36481 or the Fixit Desk at extension #77301.

Karen Walker
Physical Plant Services
Queen’s University
Kingston, ON   K7L 3N6
Tel:  613-533-6757
Fax: 613-533-6469

Christopher “Kit” Pullen, ’61, came to Queen’s from Oakville in 1957 to study mechanical engineering. He planned to work in the field after he graduated. Everything was going according to plan until one day in his final year.

“I still recall sitting in my thermodynamics class,” says Pullen, who is coming back to Queen’s this weekend to take part in Spring Reunion, “when [Engineering] Dean Conn, our professor, told us that the university just got its first computer.”

Dean Conn then showed Pullen and his classmates the new Bendix G-15 computer. Produced by Bendix, a manufacturer of washing machines, the computer stood 5 by 3 feet, and weighed a staggering 950 lbs. It cost $60,000. The computer was housed in Richardson Hall.

http://www.queensu.ca/news/articles/spring-reunion-returnee-recalls-working-queens-first-computer

The Queen’s School of Computing held an open house today with several demonstrations at Goodwin Hall and the laboratory located at 141 Collingwood Street. The tour allowed Queen’s alumni and community members to learn about the latest research and interact with faculty members and graduate students.

Joey Pape, a master’s student in the Engineering Interactive Systems at Queen’s University (EQUIS) Lab, explains his research to Queen’s professor Nancy Salay. Mr. Pape’s master’s research examines social gaming on a multi-touch tabletop computer.

http://www.queensu.ca/news/articles/school-computing-opens-doors-share-research-activity

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.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/shaping-the-future/gamings-next-great-breakthrough-ai-that-doesnt-act-like-ai/article2033959/

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

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.

 

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

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).

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