Thu 27 Feb 14:00: Vision: A Symphony of Physics and Intelligence
Vision, as a symphony of physics and intelligence, encompasses two interconnected dimensions: sensing and perception. Visual sensing, grounded in physical optics, harnesses computational intelligence to enhance light capture. Visual perception, driven by intelligence, is now empowered by physical optics to interpret visual data with greater efficiency. This talk begins with light field meta-imaging achieving aberration-corrected sensing across a 1,100 arcseconds field-of-view on an 80-cm ground-based telescope, demonstrating how computational intelligence enhances visual sensing. It then explores photonic-domain neural networks, illustrating how physical optics synergistically advances visual perception. Together, these innovations tend to dissolve the boundaries between sensing and perception, paving the way for a neuromorphic ‘senception’ embodied vision across diverse fields such as astronomy, smart cities, and autonomous systems.
- Speaker: Lu Fang, Tsinghua University
- Thursday 27 February 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: SS03 - William Gates Building.
- Series: Rainbow Group Seminars; organiser: Rafal Mantiuk.
Wed 29 Jan 11:30: Reflecting upon the double empathy problem: new directions and practical implications.
Embedded within diagnostic criteria for autism is the idea that autistic people have impaired social understanding. A number of psychological theories suggest autistic people have a deficit in empathising with others or in theory of mind. It is certainly true that autistic people, especially when young, can struggle to process and understand the ‘quick-fire’ social interactions that many non-autistic people take for granted. Yet to what extent do such interactions require empathy? To what extent do non-autistic people acquire a ‘theory of autistic mind’? Where does the ability to predict the thoughts and actions of others reside? This presentation reflects on the concept of empathy in relation to autistic people and their interactions with non-autistic people. According to the theory of the ‘double empathy problem’, these issues are due to a breakdown in reciprocity and mutual understanding that can happen between people of very different dispositions. In this presentation, I reflect on the development of the concept through to more recent related empirical studies, as well as practical implications and potential new directions.
Damian works part-time for the Tizard Centre, University of Kent as a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Damian’s interest in autism began when his son was diagnosed in 2005 as autistic at the age of two. Damian was also diagnosed with Asperger’s in 2009 at the age of thirty-six. Damian’s primary focus is on increasing the meaningful participation of autistic people and people with learning disabilities in the research process and chairs the Participatory Autism Research Collective (PARC).
- Speaker: Damian Milton, University of Kent
- Wednesday 29 January 2025, 11:30-12:30
- Venue: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87076030035?pwd=XUpJuh8jiR0mae1AhkV79qbg8MtlSM.1.
- Series: ARClub Talks; organiser: Simon Braschi.
Fri 07 Feb 14:00: Harnessing non-smooth dynamics for self-propelled gastrointestinal endoscopies with vibro-impact capsules
The rectilinear motion of a capsule can be generated using a periodically driven internal mass interacting with the main body of the capsule as a ‘hammer’ in the presence of external resistances. At resonance, this ‘hammer’ enables the capsule to progress efficiently through complex environments without the need for external accessories. This simplicity in mechanical design and control significantly reduces complications associated with traditional external propellers or fins. However, as a non-smooth system experiencing vibrations, frictions, and impacts, the capsule exhibits a rich variety of behaviours known as multistability, where different long-term behaviours co-exist for a given set of parameters. This can pose significant control challenges when specific attractors dominate the dynamics inside the gut. This talk will discuss our journey from mathematical modelling and numerical analysis to optimisation, control, experimental validation, and ex vivo testing. I will focus on the non-smooth dynamics of the system and the fine-tuning of its parameters to optimise progression rate and force generation, presenting both numerical and experimental results to demonstrate its feasibility in lower gastrointestinal endoscopies.
- Speaker: Prof. Yang Liu University of Exeter
- Friday 07 February 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: Oatley 1 Meeting Room, Department of Engineering.
- Series: Engineering - Mechanics and Materials Seminar Series; organiser: Burigede Liu.
Mon 03 Feb 13:00: The atmospheric response to Arctic amplification: Insights from idealised models
Over recent decades the Arctic has warmed about three times as much as the global average, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification (AA). There has been much interest in the extent to which AA can influence mid-latitude climate, with some studies suggesting that it may drive more frequent or long-lived weather extremes. However, general circulation models (GCMs) simulate widely diverging responses to polar heating, both in the mean atmospheric circulation and its variability. In this talk I will present two examples of recent work from my group, in which an idealised model, Isca, helps to explain some of the causes of this uncertainty. In the first, I will discuss the response of the persistence of surface temperature anomalies to AA. I will show that this response is large but absent in most GCM experiments due to the method by which they remove sea-ice. The persistence response is largest in the Arctic, but extends to mid-latitudes, where it is dynamically-driven, caused by a slowing of meridional wind anomalies. In the second example, I will discuss the ‘stratospheric pathway’, by which AA may dynamically impact lower latitudes. I will show that, by varying a single parameter that controls the mean strength of the stratospheric polar vortex, a range of stratospheric responses (both a strengthening and a weakening of the polar vortex) can be obtained, similar to the range seen in GCMs. These range of stratospheric responses, in turn, significantly impact the magnitude of the shift of the eddy-driven jet.
- Speaker: Will Seviour (Exeter)
- Monday 03 February 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: MR3, CMS.
- Series: Quantitative Climate and Environmental Science Seminars; organiser: Bethan Wynne-Cattanach.
Mon 19 May 12:30: QBS
Abstract not available
- Speaker: David Savage, UC Berkeley
- Monday 19 May 2025, 12:30-13:30
- Venue: CRUK CI Lecture Theatre.
- Series: Seminars on Quantitative Biology @ CRUK Cambridge Institute ; organiser: Kate Davenport.
Thu 16 Oct 13:00: Seminars in Cancer
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Steffi Oesterreich, University of Pittsburgh
- Thursday 16 October 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: CRUK CI Lecture Theatre.
- Series: Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute (CRUK CI) Seminars in Cancer; organiser: Kate Davenport.
Wed 29 Jan 14:30: NMR Prediction Uncertainty Enables DFT-Free Structural Confirmation
While density functional theory (DFT) remains the standard for accurate simulation of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra, its computational cost remains prohibitive. Use of DFT for structural confirmation is only justified where it offers substantial time savings over the experiment, such as total synthesis of natural products. Neural networks are a promising solution for simpler molecules, but published examples cannot estimate the prediction uncertainty.
By incorporating uncertainty estimation into an existing neural network, we can confirm the structure from its NMR spectrum 100,000 times faster than using DFT , with calculations completed in milliseconds rather than hours. Large-scale combinatorial studies show that our approach matches accuracy of DFT -based DP5 analysis and exceeds the sensitivity of simple error analysis. Analysis of 24 misassigned natural product structures demonstrates the generalisability of the method and equal performance to that of DFT .
We are now exploring the potential of the new method for automated structure revision and interpretation of 1H NMR spectra.
- Speaker: Ruslan Kotlyarov, University of Cambridge
- Wednesday 29 January 2025, 14:30-15:00
- Venue: Unilever Lecture Theatre, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry.
- Series: Theory - Chemistry Research Interest Group; organiser: Lisa Masters.
Wed 29 Jan 15:00: Halogenation Site-Selectivity Prediction Just Got Faster
Predicting aromatic substitution sites for new molecules remain a challenge with large industry demand as its products have a myriad of applications. Classical methods involve rule-based approaches to ab initio methods that scale in computational time for more complex scenarios of heteroaromatic and multi-substituted systems. Previous works have explored ab initio, as well as hybrid methods with bespoke descriptors for each reaction site (86% accuracy, average 2,899 ms/inference). Here, we explore a data-driven model for halogenation site-selectivity achieving 80% accuracy with average 43 ms/inference. Our architecture combines machine learning with molecular fingerprints and algorithmic manipulation of chemical scaffolds. We also present an exploration of how different datasets – chlorination, bromination, and iodination – can be combined into a superset to increase prediction power of the final model. Finally, model performance is higher when compared to chemist, as they have through knowledge of scaffolds they have previously worked with. This model compared to chemists. Although the sample size is small, those working on the chemical industry have deep knowledge on certain molecular scaffolds while fast and accurate models can extend their reach to new areas.
- Speaker: Henrique Magri Marçon, University of Cambridge
- Wednesday 29 January 2025, 15:00-15:30
- Venue: Unilever Lecture Theatre, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry.
- Series: Theory - Chemistry Research Interest Group; organiser: Lisa Masters.