Annual Report 2008

Annual Report 2008

Events 2008

January

1st
The Algodan centre of excellence started its operations

Algodan (Algorithmic Data Analysis) is a national Finnish Academy centre of excellence during 2008-2013. The research unit develops new concepts, principles and algorithms for computational data analysis, and applies them in practice. Both basic computer science research and widely multidisciplinary collaboration are carried out in the unit. Professor Esko Ukkonen from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki is head of this centre of excellence. Ukkonen is an international leader in developing combinatorial pattern matching. The unit comprises some 70 scientists. Algodan is a continuation of the work of the FDK (From Data to Knowledge) centre of excellence of the period 2002-2007.

16th
Guest lecture: "Query Suggestions"
Dr Evimaria Terzi, IBM Almaden Research Center, California, USA.

25th
Vision and results of the FinnONTO project

FinnONTO - Finnish semantic-web ontologies is a large project carried out during 2003-2007 under the auspices of the Tekes Fenix programme. Its objective was to create a national semantic web infrastructure in Finland. The project was led by the research group for semantic computing, SeCo, a collaboration between Helsinki University of Technology and the University of Helsinki. As a conclusion to the project, SeCo organised a presentation of the FinnONTO results with a summary and demonstration of the project.

26th
Jaakko Kangasharju's public defence of his thesis
"XML Messaging for Mobile Devices".

30th
Computer technology: Now!

"Tietoturvan käytännön haasteet" (practical challenges of information security). Lea Viljanen, LAV Security Oy.
Information technology: Now! is a studia generalia lecture series with invited guests speak on issues pertaining to future computer technology and information society.

Frebruary

1st
Ilkka Autio's public defence of his thesis

"Modeling Efficient Classification as a Process of Confidence Assessment and Delegation".

6th
Computer technology: Now!

"Service science - palveluista tiedettä?". Jyrki Koskinen, IBM.

13th
Computer technology: Now!

"R&D-dynamiikka uuden teknologian pk-yrityksessä: case Ekahau" (R&D dynamics in SMEs: case Ekahau). Kari Vasko, Ekahau Oy.

20th
Computer technology: Now!

"Tekijänoikeus: luovuuden kannustin vai tietoyhteiskunnan kehityksen jarru?" (copyright: an incentive to creativity or an obstruction to the development of the information society?). Arto Alaspää, Suomen Ääni- ja kuvatallennetuottajat ÄKT ry / IFPI-Finland.

March

3rd
Launch of the Semantic Web 2.0 project

An exceptionally wide-ranging research and development project on web technology, "Semantic Web 2.0 - intelligent social services" was launched in Finland for the years 2008-2010. The purpose of the project is to combine two web mega-trends, Web 2.0 and semantic web technologies, and utilise them in pilot applications. Most of the research will be carried out in the research group on semantic computing (SeCo) at Helsinki University of Technology and the University of Helsinki, which leads the project. The University of Tampere is also a partner in the research collaboration.

17th
Guest lecture: "Computational Geometry Methods to Improve Efficiency and Safety in Air Traffic Management".

Professor Joseph Mitchell, Stony Brook University, New York, USA.

26th
The Indian Minister of Science and Technology visited Kumpula

Mr Kapil Sibal, India's Minister of Science and Technology, visited the University of Helsinki and two centres of excellence with Rector Ilkka Niiniluoto as host. At Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), bioinformatics research, the Contexture platform, and the latest search engine technologies were on the Minister's agenda. Research Director Esko Ukkonen, Professor Hannu Toivonen, and Professor Petri Myllymäki acted as his guides.

27th
Guest lecture: "Information Geometry and Fast Supervised Learning".

Professor Richard Nock, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane, French Guiane.

April

8th
Niina Haiminen's public defence of her thesis

"Mining Sequiental Data - in Search of Segmental Structures".

May

6th
Guest lecture: "Software Requirements in the 21st Century: Current Practice & Emerging Trends".

Professor Kalle Lyytinen, Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, USA.

16th
Bioinformatics day at Exactum

The main annual event of the Finnish Society for Bioinformatics, the Bioinformatics day, was organised at the Department of Computer Science on Friday 16th May 2008. The programme included three invited talks, the publication of the thesis award for year 2007, and several shorter presentations.

June

2nd
Guest lecture: "Improving Performance and Usability of Web Search Engines".

Aristides Gionis, Yahoo! Research Barcelona, Spain.

5th
Guest lecture: "Introduction to Graph Theory".

Professor Alain Bretto, University of Caen, France.

6th
Two guest lectures: "Algebraic Aspects of Graph Theory" ja "Hypergraphs and Image Compression".

Professor Alain Bretto, University of Caen, France.

9th
Petteri Kaski receives international acknowledgment for his research effort

Petteri Kaski, 31, post-doc researcher at HIIT, received internationally valued recognition for his work. The Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications (ICA) awarded Kaski their 2007 Kirkman medal for his merits as a young researcher into combinatorics. Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics that studies finite structures and the relations between their properties. Some of its main application areas are data communication and computer science.

16th
Launch of the Future Internet research programme

The Future Internet research programme, an exceptionally wide-ranging programme in the Finnish research space, was launched on 16thJune. This project, a collaboration between universities and corporate partners, will try to solve problems related to the expansion of the Internet, and to raise Finnish Internet research to the cutting edge internationally.

July

5th-12th
Three conferences on AI research

A series of international conferences on artificial intelligence were organised at the University of Helsinki. Lasting for over a week, the series of conferences was by far the most significant international event on machine learning with nearly 800 participating researchers from universities and companies around the world.

The core of the conference cluster consisted of ICML (International Conference on Machine Learning) and COLT (The 21st Annual Conference on Learning Theory), as well as UAI (The 24th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence). In addition, 12 smaller meetings on current issues were held in the same context.

The Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki organised the conferences. These high-end conferences were gained to Finland on the basis of the department's international status in the field of machine learning, data mining, and computational data analysis research.

29th
Guest lecture: "Secure File-Sharing in the GNUnet Peer-to-Peer Framework".

Assistant Professor Christian Grothoff, University of Denver, Colorado, USA.

31st
End of the transition period for the degree requirements

All students transferred to the new syllabus. The transition was preceded by a veritable flood of Master's theses as old students wanted to complete their degrees before the new requirements came into force. In total, 205 new Masters of Science graduated from the department.

August

1st
Transition to the new syllabus and degree programmes

The new sub-programmes for the advanced (MSc) level are algorithms and machine learning, distributed systems and data communication, and software systems. In the new degree structure, students take both the Bachelor and the Master's degrees following a personal study plan (called HOPS, short for henkilökohtainen opintosuunnitelma).

4th
Guest lecture: "Using Collaborative Interest and Transition Models to Predict Visitor Locations in Museums".

Fabian Bohnert, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

18th
Guest lecture: "Towards Semantic Search".

Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Head of Yahoo! Research (Barcelona and Santiago), Spain.

28th
Mini-notebooks for ne computer science undergraduates

New majoring undergraduates in computer science at the University of Helsinki were given mini-notebooks. The department gave 154 undergraduates a mini-notebook for personal use.

September

5th
Guest lecture: "Probabilistic Analysis of Gene Family Evolution - Gene Duplications and Sequence Evolution".

Dr. Lars Arvestad, KTH Computational Biology, Stockholm, Sweden.

12th
Launch of the TerveSuomi portal

A national health portal, TerveSuomi.fi, funded by the Ministry of Social Welfare and Health, was completed at the beginning of 2009 at the National Institute for Health and Welfare. The TerveSuomi system offers a search and recommendation service on health-promotion information on the web. The prototype of the TerveSuomi service has been developed by the research group on semantic computing at Helsinki University of Technology and the University of Helsinki. The research is a part of the FinnONTO programme.

25th Publication of the prototype of Kulttuurisampo
"Kulttuurisampo - Finnish culture on the semantic web" is a prototype of an intelligent search and browsing service for memory organisation, and of a shared publication platform. The pilot version of Kulttuurisampo contains the collections and other material of some 20 Finnish museums, libraries, archives and other organisations. The system has been developed by the research group on semantic computing at Helsinki University of Technology and the University of Helsinki. The research is a part of the FinnONTO programme.

October

8th
Guest lecture: "Ketterä testaus" (nimble testing).

Tiina Kiuru, Reactor Innovations.

17th
Open day at the department and alumni meeting

The programme for the open day included interesting talks, the presentations of research units and project groups, as well as the meeting of department alumni.

29th
Guest lecture: "Computer Vision in the Study of Art: New Rigorous Approaches to the Analysis of Paintings and Drawings".

Dr. David Stork, Ricoh Innovations & Standford University, California, USA.

30th
Guest lecture: "100 Years of Data Mining Using Seriation and Matrix Reordering".

Dr. Innar Liiv, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia.

November

13th
The department is elected a centre of excellence of university education

For the second time in a row, the Finnish Higher Education Council elected the Department of Computer Science to be a centre of excellence for university education, during the years 2010-2012. The present centre-of-excellence period spans the years 2007-2009.

19th
Guest lecture: "PeerWise".

Lecturer Paul Denny, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

21st
Jouni Korhonen's public defence of his thesis

"IP Mobility in Wireless Operator Networks".

28th
Jussi T. Lindgren's public defence of his thesis

"Learning Nonlinear Visual Processing from Natural Images".

December

9.12.
Guest lecture: "Contributions to Machine Learning by Means of Genetic Programming".

Dr. Sébastien Mahler, Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale, Calais, France.