- csc-general - CSC Mailman

This Week: Elyot Grant
by Computer Science Club 24 Oct '10

24 Oct '10

Hello everyone, We have a light week this week, with just the Tuesday talk. Member Elyot Grant will be presenting Tuesday at 4:30pm in MC4040. Title: Analysis of randomized algorithms via the probabilistic method Abstract: The probabilistic method is an extremely powerful tool in combinatorics that can be used to prove many surprising results. The idea is the following: to prove that an object with a certain property exists, we define a distribution of possible objects and use show that, among objects in the distribution, the property holds with non-zero probability. The key is that by using the tools and techniques of probability theory, we can vastly simplify proofs that would otherwise require very complicated combinatorial arguments. As a technique, the probabilistic method developed rapidly during the latter half of the 20th century due to the efforts of mathematicians like Paul Erdos and increasing interest in the role of randomness in theoretical computer science. In essence, the probabilistic method allows us to determine how good a randomized algorithm's output is likely to be. Possibly applications range from graph property testing to computational geometry, circuit complexity theory, game theory, and even statistical physics. In this talk, we will give a few examples that illustrate the basic method and show how it can be used to prove the existence of objects with desirable combinatorial properties as well as produce them in expected polynomial time via randomized algorithms. Our main goal will be to present a very slick proof from 1995 due to Spencer on the performance of a randomized greedy algorithm for a set-packing problem. Spencer, for seemingly no reason, introduces a time variable into his greedy algorithm and treats set-packing as a Poisson process. Then, like magic, he is able to show that his greedy algorithm is very likely to produce a good result using basic properties of expected value. Properties of Poisson and Binomial distributions will be applied, but I'll remind everyone of the needed background for the benefit of those who might be a bit rusty. Stat 230 will be more than enough. Big O notation will be used, but not excessively. Light refreshments will be served. Everyone is welcome and I hope to see you there. -- Edgar Bering, Vice President ebering at uwaterloo dot ca Computer Science Club http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~ebering Mathematics Society MC 3036, (519)888-4567,x33870 University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 3G1

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FYI: 2011 Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship
by Computer Science Club 21 Oct '10

21 Oct '10

Hello female CSC'ers Just a heads up - make sure to apply for this! *2011 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship - Deadline to Apply is February 1, 2011* Dr. Anita Borg (1949-2003) devoted her life to revolutionizing the way we think about technology and dismantling the barriers that keep women and minorities from entering the computing and technology fields. In honor of Anita's vision, Google is proud to announce the 2011 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, awarding a group of female students each a $10,000 scholarship for the 2011-2012 academic year. All finalists and scholarship recipients will also be invited to attend a 3-day Scholars' Retreat at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA in 2011. *Who Should Apply? * Applicants must satisfy the following eligibility criteria: • Be a female student entering her senior year of undergraduate study or enrolled in a graduate program in the 2011-2012 academic year at a university in the United States • Be enrolled in a Computer Science or Computer Engineering program, or a closely related technical field as a full-time student for the 2011-2012 academic year • Maintain a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5 on a 4.0 scale or 4.5 on a 5.0 scale or equivalent in your current program For complete details, please visit us at http://www.google.com/anitaborg/us/ Deadline to apply: Tuesday, February 1, 2011 Questions? Email us at anitaborgscholarship(a)google.com The Google Anita Borg Scholarship program is also available to students studying computer science in Asia, Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and New Zealand. Visit www.google.com/anitaborg for complete details. For more information about Google's scholarship programs, please visit www.google.com/jobs/scholarships.

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CSC Wear 2010
by Computer Science Club 20 Oct '10

20 Oct '10

Hi all, This year the CSC will be producing more black t-shirts and potentially some fantastic boxers to wear (no pants day!). In short, essentially the same as last year's shirt with a slight change in the logo on the reverse. The front is "University of Waterloo \n Computer Science Club" in courier with CSC logo on reverse. Men's are $10, Women's are $11. Please direct your favourite web browser to: http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/wear to fill out the form and view a sample. Please do so by October 29th, 2010 noon. Thanks! Rebecca Putinski CSC Treasurer 2010

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This Week: Shai Ben-David & Gathering 4 Gardner
by Computer Science Club 17 Oct '10

17 Oct '10

Hi everyone, This week we have two events. The first will be our usual talk, on Tuesday at 4:30pm in RCH 306. Dr. Shai Ben-David will be presenting a talk entitled "Machine learning vs human learning - will scientists become obsolete?". Light refreshments will be served and all are welcome. The second event is Thursday at 5:30pm in MC5158. We will (in concert with the PMC) be holding a Gathering 4 Gardner. For those who don't know, Martin Gardener passed away this year. He was a well known and much loved mathematician, writer, and skeptic, and for many years wrote the 'Mathematical Games' column in Scientific American where he discussed puzzles and recreational mathematics. At this event we will explore and present the many things Martin enjoyed, puzzles, paradoxes, and maybe even some Alice in Wonderland. This is not a memorial, just a chance to become acquainted with the fascinating things that fascinated Martin. If you can't wait until Thursday and would like to get a taste of things to come, try reading the MAA's in focus on him: http://maa.org/pubs/focus/mg.html Or if you just want a cool illusion to play with, try the Dragon illusion: http://www.g4g-com.org/storage/Dragon-Illusion-GG2010.pdf I hope to see you there. If you have any questions please check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/ or contact the executive (exec(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca)

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This Week: Dr. Chris Eliasmith, Unix 102, and more!
by Computer Science Club 11 Oct '10

11 Oct '10

Hi everyone, This week Dr. Chris Eliasmith will be giving Tuesday's talk, at 4:30 pm in MC4061. The title is "How to build a brain: from single neurons to cognition". Abstract: Theoretical neuroscience is a new discipline focused on constructing mathematical models of brain function. It has made significant headway in understanding aspects of the neural code. However, past work has largely focused on small numbers of neurons, and so the underlying representations are often simple. In this talk I demonstrate how the ideas underlying these simple forms of representation can underwrite a representational hierarchy that scales to support sophisticated, structure-sensitive representations. I will present a general architecture, the semantic pointer architecture (SPA), which is built on this hierarchy and allows the manipulation, processing, and learning of structured representations in neurally realistic models. I demonstrate the architecture on Progressive Raven's Matrices (RPM), a test of general fluid intelligence. We will also be holding an installment of our Unix tutorials: Unix 102. It will be on Wednesday, October 13, at 4:30 pm in MC3003. Unix 102 is a follow up to Unix 101, requiring basic knowledge of the shell. If you missed Unix 101 but still know your way around you should be fine. Topics covered include: "real" editors, document typesetting with LaTeX (great for assignments!), bulk editing, spellchecking, and printing in the student environment and elsewhere. To wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, there will be a ham and mustard in the office for lunch on Tuesday, first come first serve. Finally, for those of you who follow this sort of thing, the clang compiler has reached 'production ready' status for C++, so on Tuesday we'll be heading to Kickoff in the plaza for a pint or two. Hang around the office in the evening, if no one is there go straight away to Kickoff. As usual, if you have any questions check out the website http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/ or e-mail the executive: exec(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca

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Fall Office Staff
by Computer Science Club 07 Oct '10

07 Oct '10

Hello, This e-mail is being sent with regards to the club office staff members for the Fall term. I'd like to begin by thanking everyone who came to the scheduled staff training session and who proceeded to restore the office to its former semi-clean self. Your help is greatly appreciated and I will endeavor to ensure that general level of cleanliness does not fall too far from where it is now. As for the second order of business, the following office staffers were selected to become keyed staffers and will be receiving their keys shortly. 1) b4taylor 2) mimcpher 3) ajacob 4) jdmpapin 5) amstan My decision was based on two main factors. First, you were only considered for a key if you actually showed up to the event and secondly proficiency and familiarity with general club running procedure. *If for whatever reason you were unable to attend the training session* and were an Office Staff member in previous terms, if you would like to have your position reinstated, please respond to this e-mail and indicate as such. Without these additions, the list of office staff members currently resembles the following ajacob amstan a4park b4taylor dchlobow jdmpapin jdonland kshyatt kfarnwor mimcpher mthiffau nhaghtal If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to let me know. Thanks, -- Sayed Khader, Office Manager Computer Science Club University of Waterloo

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UNIX 103 Tomorrow, in MC3003
by Computer Science Club 05 Oct '10

05 Oct '10

Hello, the CSC is hosting UNIX 103 tomorrow at 04:30 PM in MC3003. Unix 103 will cover version control systems and how to use them to manage your projects. Unix 101 would be helpful, but all that is needed is basic knowledge of the Unix command line (how to enter commands). Hope to see you there. If you have any questions about the event e-mail the executive or check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca.

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This Week: BareMetal OS & Unix 103
by Computer Science Club 04 Oct '10

04 Oct '10

Hello, This week the CSC is holding a talk and another installment in our unix tutorials. The talk, entitled 'BareMetal OS' will be Today at 04:30 PM in MC4021. It will be presented by Ian Seyler of Return Infinity, the company that created BareMetal. Light refreshments will be provided. Talk Abstract: BareMetal is a new 64-bit OS for x86-64 based computers. The OS is written entirely in Assembly, while applications can be written in Assembly or C/C++. High Performance Computing is the main target application. We will also be holding Unix 103 on Wednesday October 6 at 4:30pm, in a lab to be announced. Unix 103 will cover version control systems and how to use them to manage your projects. Unix 101 would be helpful, but all that is needed is basic knowledge of the Unix command line (how to enter commands). -- Edgar Bering, Vice President ebering at uwaterloo dot ca Computer Science Club http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~ebering Mathematics Society MC 3036, (519)888-4567,x33870 University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 3G1

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Office Staff Training
by Computer Science Club 02 Oct '10

02 Oct '10

Hello everyone, This is a notice for any members that wish to get involved in the management of the club office for the Fall term. Anyone that is interested should be present in the office (MC 3036) at 1630 on Tuesday October 5th for a staff training session. This training session will be used to select 5 office staffers to be key holding office staff for the term. This event will be comprised of a review of general Computer Science Club office policies as well as an informal evaluation of the office proficiency of those wishing to be keyed staffers. I look forward to seeing you all and if you have any questions please feel free to contact me at offsck(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca - Sayed Khader Office Manager Computer Science Club offsck(a)csclub.uwaterloo.ca

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This week: Talk: 'A Brief Introduction to Video Encoding' & Unix 101
by Computer Science Club 27 Sep '10

27 Sep '10

Hello, this week the CSC is hosting two events. The first is a talk entitled 'A Brief Introduction to Video Encoding' on 2010-09-28 at 04:30 PM in MC4061. It will be presented by Peter Barfuss. Talk Abstract: With the recent introduction of digital TV and the widespread success of video sharing websites such as youtube, it is clear that the task of lossily compressing video with good quality has become important. Similarly, the complex algorithms involved require high amounts of optimization in order to run fast, another important requirement for any video codec that aims to be widely used/adopted. In this talk, I will go over the concepts used in video encoding (such as motion estimation/compensation, inter- and intra- frame prediction, quantization and entropy encoding), and then demonstrate these concepts and algorithms in use in the MPEG-2 and the H.264 video codecs. In addition, some clever optimization tricks using SIMD/vectorization will be covered, assuming sufficient time to cover these topics. The second is our popular Unix 101 on 2010-09-29 at 04:30 PM in MC3003. Need to use the Unix environment for a course, want to overcome your fears of the command line, or just curious? Attend the first installment in the CSC's popular series of Unix tutorails to learn the basics of the shell and how to navigate the unix environment. By the end of the hands on workshop you will be able to work efficiently from the command line and power-use circles around your friends. Hope to see you there. If you have any questions about the event e-mail the executive or check http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca.

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