Tue 11 Feb 14:00: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Wendelin Werner (Cambridge)
- Tuesday 11 February 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: MR12.
- Series: Probability; organiser: ww295.
Biomimetic bone hydrogel enables a seamless interface for aqueous battery and human/machine interaction
DOI: 10.1039/D4EE05066E, PaperLingbo Yao, Yichao Wang, Lvzhang Jiang, Gege Wang, Xiaowei Chi, Yu Liu
An ultra-dense biomimetic bone hydrogel with a seamless interfacial structure was designed for aqueous batteries and on-skin monitoring systems.
To cite this article before page numbers are assigned, use the DOI form of citation above.
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Tue 11 Feb 14:00: Symmetric Quantum Computation
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Davi Castro-Silva (Cambridge)
- Tuesday 11 February 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building, Room SS03.
- Series: Quantum Computing Seminar; organiser: Tom Gur.
Mon 10 Feb 16:30: ANNUAL LECTURE: Cell types as windows into brain function and treatment
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Botond Roska, Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB), Basel, Switzerland
- Monday 10 February 2025, 16:30-18:00
- Venue: Physiology Lecture Theatre, Department of Physiology Development and Neuroscience.
- Series: Adrian Seminars in Neuroscience; organiser: Sepiedeh Keshavarzi.
Thu 20 Feb 09:30: The role of transcription factors in cancer
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Prof Jason Carroll, CRUK Cambridge Institute
- Thursday 20 February 2025, 09:30-10:30
- Venue: William Harvey Lecture Theatre, School of Clinical Medicine.
- Series: Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre Lectures in Cancer Biology and Medicine; organiser: Justin Holt.
Ultrasonic spraying of Ce(Mn,Fe)O2 nanocatalysts onto a perovskite surface for highly efficient electrochemical CO2 reduction
DOI: 10.1039/D4EE03893B, Paper Open Access   This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.Sang Won Lee, Tae Heon Nam, Seok Hee Lee, Tatsumi Ishihara, John T. S. Irvine, Tae Ho Shin
We propose an ultrasonic spraying strategy for the one-step fabrication of uniform nano-electrodes with a nano-convex structure on an all-ceramic fuel electrode, enhancing both activity and durability.
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Fri 14 Feb 15:00: Dematerialisation in Construction
Only in the last three decades, cement and plastic production has grown 2.5-fold, glass 2 and steel 1.5-fold (Cullen J.M., Drewniok M.P. et al. 2020). In 2022, the global building sector accounted for 34% of energy demand and 37% of total energy related CO2 emissions, reaching nearly 10 Gt CO2 (Hamilton, Kennard et al. 2024). More than a quarter were related to production of cement, steel, aluminium, bricks and glass (embodied carbon). It is predicted that global building stock should almost double by 2050 to meet population growth needs (GABC and IEA 2017 ). In the UK context, the built environment already accounts for nearly 30% of the UK’s total territorial GHG emissions (Green, Jonca et al. 2021), with the main materials used in construction accounting for up to 6% (Drewniok, Azevedo et al. 2023). As demand for construction is expected to increase (residential, commercial, non-emitting carbon infrastructure), we expect the use of materials to increase.
Emissions reduction techniques during manufacture (e.g. using alternative fuels, increase resource efficiency in production) can only slightly reduce rather than entirely eliminate the emissions related to construction materials. Moving to the most materially and carbon efficient technology options for buildings can bring further savings (Drewniok, Azevedo et al. 2023) with the largest savings occurring in structural efficiency (Dunant, Drewniok et al. 2021). Nevertheless, this will not allow to reach net-zero carbon by 2050. It is therefore crucial to minimise the overall flow of materials in the UK construction – dematerialisation (Drewniok, Azevedo et al. 2023).
In the presentation we will try to analyse the extent to which dematerialisation should be implemented in the UK construction industry to minimise the emissions from UK construction.
- Speaker: Michal Drewniok, University of Leeds, UK
- Friday 14 February 2025, 15:00-16:00
- Venue: CivEng Seminar Room (1-33) (Civil Engineering Building).
- Series: Engineering Department Structures Research Seminars; organiser: Shehara Perera.
Suppressing phase segregation and nonradiative losses by a multifunctional cross-linker for high-performance all-perovskite tandem solar cells
DOI: 10.1039/D4EE02898H, PaperXin Zheng, shaomin Yang, Jingwei Zhu, Ranran Liu, Lin Li, Miaomiao Zeng, Chunxiang Lan, Shangzhi Li, Jinghao Li, Yingying Shi, Cong Chen, Rui Guo , Ziwei Zheng, Jing Guo, Xiaoyu Wu, Tian Luan, Zaiwei Wang, Dewei Zhao, Yaoguang Rong, Xiong Li
The tunable bandgaps and facile fabrication of metal halide perovskites make them attractive for tandem solar cells. One of the main bottlenecks to achieve high-performance and stable perovskite-based tandems is...
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Wed 30 Apr 14:00: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Dr Bjarne Bergh, DAMTP, University of Cambridge
- Wednesday 30 April 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: MR5, CMS Pavilion A.
- Series: Information Theory Seminar; organiser: Prof. Ramji Venkataramanan.
Fri 07 Feb 12:00: LLMs as supersloppers and other metaphors
Abstract: The interdisciplinary pilot project `Exploring novel figurative language to conceptualise Large Language Models’ is funded by Cambridge Language Sciences. This talk mainly concerns `slop’, by which we mean text delivered to a reader which is of little or no value to them (or is even harmful) or is so verbose or convoluted that the value is hidden. Examples range from unnecessarily obscure legal agreements to academic papers in predatory journals. Intuitively, slop has negligible information density for the reader. Although the term `slop’ is often used specifically for generative AI output, we argue that slop predates the machine-generation of text and has to be understood in the context of wider societal processes. Modern ways of delivering text are driving an increase in slop. In this context, systems incorporating LLMs have the capacity to be `supersloppers’—- tools for the creation and delivery of more and more pointless text.
Depending on time, I will discuss some other examples of figurative language and other ways of exploring aspects of LLMs. This will be a very informal talk – I am especially keen to hear about metaphors that other people find helpful (or unhelpful).
Ann Copestake, Lucy Duggan, Aurelie Herbelot, Amira Moeding and Eva von Redecker (2024). `LLMs as supersloppers’ Cambridge Open Engage. doi:10.33774/coe-2024-dx12p
- Speaker: Ann Copestake (University of Cambridge)
- Friday 07 February 2025, 12:00-13:00
- Venue: Room SS03 .
- Series: NLIP Seminar Series; organiser: Suchir Salhan.
Wed 28 May 11:15: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Paul Goddard - University of Warwick
- Wednesday 28 May 2025, 11:15-12:00
- Venue: Mott Seminar Room (531), Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics.
- Series: Quantum Matter Seminar; organiser: Mads Fonager Hansen.
Defect-rich Carbon Induced Built-in Interfacial Electric Field Accelerating Ion-conduction towards Superior-stable Solid-state Batteries
DOI: 10.1039/D4EE05966B, PaperLiyu Du, Yiming Zhang, Yiyang Xiao, Du Yuan, Meng Yao, Yun Zhang
The electrochemical performances of composite solid-state electrolytes (CSEs) cannot satisfy the application requirements of solid-state batteries (SSBs) due to the low concentration of movable cations with disordered and slow cation...
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Thu 06 Feb 17:00: Formalisation of Combinatorial Optimisation in Isabelle/HOL: Network Flows
Combinatorial optimisation (CO) is a sub-area of discrete mathematics. Basic examples for CO problems are finding a shortest path or a minimum spanning tree in a graph. So-called network flows or variations of matching would be more advanced problems. There are also abstract concepts like matroids that offer an algebraic point of view and a uniform foundation for some of the more concrete problems.
Since the considered structures are finite, it is a natural aim to compute a solution efficiently. That implies an overlap with the theory of algorithms, especially running time analysis.
This talk is mainly about the Isabelle/HOL formalisation of a specific CO problem, namely, minimum cost flows, which are a subtype of network flows. Among others, this includes Orlin’s Algorithm, which is a most efficient method to compute a minimum cost flow in general networks. Also, the running time argument for this advanced algorithm and some reductions among flow problems were formalised.
- The Isabelle proof scripts can be found in this GitHub repo: https://github.com/mabdula/Isabelle-Graph-Library
- The formalisation is described in this paper: A Formal Analysis of Capacity Scaling Algorithms for Minimum Cost Flows by Mohammad Abdulaziz and Thomas Ammer, ITP 2024
=== Hybrid talk ===
Join Zoom Meeting https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/87143365195?pwd=SELTNkOcfVrIE1IppYCsbooOVqenzI.1
Meeting ID: 871 4336 5195
Passcode: 541180
- Speaker: Thomas Ammer (King's College London)
- Thursday 06 February 2025, 17:00-18:00
- Venue: MR14 Centre for Mathematical Sciences.
- Series: Formalisation of mathematics with interactive theorem provers ; organiser: Jonas Bayer.
Fri 14 Mar 10:30: TBC (Mini-course talk 2) Please note the unusual time and place.
Abstract not available
Please note the unusual time and place.
- Speaker: Jonny Evans (Lancaster)
- Friday 14 March 2025, 10:30-11:30
- Venue: CMS, MR15.
- Series: Differential Geometry and Topology Seminar; organiser: Ailsa Keating.
Thu 13 Mar 11:15: TBC (Mini-course talk 1) Please note the unusual time and place.
Abstract not available
Please note the unusual time and place.
- Speaker: Jonny Evans (Lancaster)
- Thursday 13 March 2025, 11:15-12:15
- Venue: CMS, MR14.
- Series: Differential Geometry and Topology Seminar; organiser: Ailsa Keating.
Tue 04 Feb 14:00: Researchers‘ experiences with vulnerability disclosures
Vulnerabilities are becoming more and more prevalent in scientific research. Researchers usually wish to publish their research and, before that, have the vulnerabilities acknowledged and fixed, contributing to a secure digital world. However, the vulnerability disclosure process is fraught with obstacles, and handling vulnerabilities is challenging as it involves several parties (vendors, companies, customers, and community). We want to shed light on the vulnerability disclosure process and develop guidelines and best practices, serving vulnerability researchers as well as the affected parties for better collaboration in disclosing and fixing vulnerabilities.
We collected more than 1900 research papers published at major scientific security conferences and analyzed how disclosures are reported, finding inconsistent reporting, as well as spotty acknowledgments and fixes by affected parties. We then conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 security researchers with a broad range of expertise who published their work at scientific security conferences and qualitatively analyzed the interviews.
We discovered that the main problem starts with even finding the proper contact to disclose. Bug bounty programs or general-purpose contact email addresses, often staffed by AI or untrained personnel, posed obstacles to timely and effective reporting of vulnerabilities.
Experiences with CERT (entities supposed to help notify affected parties and facilitate coordinated fixing of vulnerabilities) were inconsistent, some extremely positive, some disappointing. Our interviewees further talked about lawsuits and public accusations from the vendors, developers, colleagues, or even the research community. Successful disclosures often hinge on researcher experience and personal contacts, which poses personal and professional risks to newer researchers.
We’re working on making our collected best practices and common pitfalls more widely known both to researchers and industry, for more cooperative disclosure experiences.
Zoom link: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/89699287551?pwd=shaVGdAyVagZX2AvrVI9mazeKk8ssI.1
Meeting ID: 896 9928 7551 Passcode: 471680
Bio: Yasemin Acar (she/her) is a professor of computer science at Paderborn University, Germany, and a research assistant professor at The George Washington University. She focuses on human factors in computer security. Her research centers humans, their comprehension, behaviors, wishes and needs. She aims to better understand how software can enhance users’ lives without putting their data at risk. Her recent focus has been on human factors in secure development, investigating how to help software developers implement secure software development practices. Her research has shown that working with developers on these issues can resolve problems before they ever affect end users. Her research has won distinguished paper awards at IEEE Security and Privacy and USENIX Security, as well as a NSA best cyber security paper competition. Her web page: https://yaseminacar.de.
- Speaker: Yasemin Acar, Paderborn University
- Tuesday 04 February 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: Webinar & FW11, Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building..
- Series: Computer Laboratory Security Seminar; organiser: Tina Marjanov.
Wed 12 Mar 16:00: TBC (Geometry Colloquium)
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Jonny Evans (Lancaster)
- Wednesday 12 March 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Differential Geometry and Topology Seminar; organiser: Ailsa Keating.
Tue 04 Feb 13:00: Text-and-audio methods
This talk supports the R255 Advanced Topics in Machine Learning module on Multimodal Learning and provides a bird’s eye view of the rapidly evolving text-audio landscape, with a focus on music as a primary example of audio data. I will first present types of tasks that exist in this space, then discuss data curation challenges and follow with an overview of some existing retrieval and generation methods, including a quick primer on diffusion models. Finally, I will describe current evaluation metrics and their limitations.
- Speaker: Cătălina Cangea, ex-Google DeepMind
- Tuesday 04 February 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Lecture Theatre 2, Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building.
- Series: Artificial Intelligence Research Group Talks (Computer Laboratory); organiser: Mateja Jamnik.
Thu 10 Apr 09:30: Myc in Cancer and Regeneration
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Dr Catherine Wilson, Dept of Pharmacology
- Thursday 10 April 2025, 09:30-10:30
- Venue: Theo Chalmers Lecture Theatre (LT2) School of Clinical Medicine.
- Series: Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre Lectures in Cancer Biology and Medicine; organiser: Justin Holt.
Wed 28 May 11:15: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Paul Goddard
- Wednesday 28 May 2025, 11:15-12:00
- Venue: Mott Seminar Room (531), Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics.
- Series: Quantum Matter Seminar; organiser: Mads Fonager Hansen.