Fri 11 Apr 13:00: Towards Global-scale Species Distribution Modelling
Abstract
Estimating the geographical range of a species from sparse observations is a challenging and important geospatial prediction problem. Given a set of locations where a species has been observed, the goal is to build a model to predict whether the species is present or absent at any location. This problem has a long history in ecology, but traditional methods struggle to take advantage of emerging large-scale crowdsourced datasets which can include tens of millions of observations of hundreds of thousands of species in addition to the availability of multi-modal data sources such as paired images and natural language descriptions. In this talk, I will present recent work from my group where we have developed deep learning-based solutions for estimating species’ ranges from sparse presence-only data. I will also discuss some of the open challenges that exist in this space.
Bio
Oisin Mac Aodha is a Reader in Machine Learning in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. He is also an ELLIS Scholar and former Turing Fellow. He obtained his PhD from University College London and was a postdoc at Caltech prior to his current role. His current research interests are in the areas of self-supervised learning, 3D vision, fine-grained learning, and human-in-the-loop learning. In addition, he works on questions related to AI for conservation and biodiversity monitoring.
- Speaker: Oisin Mac Aodha, University of Edinburgh
- Friday 11 April 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Main Seminar Room at the David Attenborough Building. Zoom link: https://cl-cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/4361570789?pwd=Nkl2T3ZLaTZwRm05bzRTOUUxY3Q4QT09&from=addon .
- Series: Energy and Environment Group, Department of CST; organiser: lyr24.
Fri 16 May 08:45: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Kelsey Lowman, Department of Veterinary Medicine
- Friday 16 May 2025, 08:45-10:00
- Venue: LT2.
- Series: Friday Morning Seminars, Dept of Veterinary Medicine; organiser: Fiona Roby.
Fri 02 May 08:45: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Ruweena Perera, Department of Veterinary Medicine
- Friday 02 May 2025, 08:45-10:00
- Venue: LT2.
- Series: Friday Morning Seminars, Dept of Veterinary Medicine; organiser: Fiona Roby.
Mon 17 Mar 13:00: Volcanic fissure localisation and lava delta formation: Modelling of volcanic flows undergoing rheological evolution
In this talk, I will present two volcanologically motivated modelling problems. In the first, I will detail how thermoviscous localisation of volcanic eruptions is influenced by the irregular geometry of natural volcanic fissures. Fissure eruptions typically start with the opening of a linear fissure that erupts along its entire length, following which activity localises to one or more isolated vents within a few hours or days. Previous work has proposed that localisation can arise through a thermoviscous fingering instability driven by the strongly temperature dependent viscosity of the rising magma. I will show that, even for relatively modest variations of the fissure width, a non-planar geometry supports strongly localised steady states, in which the wider parts of the fissure host faster, hotter flow, and the narrower parts of the fissure host slower, cooler flow. This geometrically-driven localisation differs from the spontaneous thermoviscous fingering localisation observed in planar geometries, and is potentially more potent for parameter values relevant to volcanic fissures.
The second problem concerns lava delta formation. A lava delta arises when a volcanic lava flow enters a body of water, extending the pre-eruption shoreline via the creation of new, relatively flat land. A combination of cooling induced rheological changes and the reduction in gravitational driving forces controls the morphology and evolution of the delta. I will present shallow-layer continuum models for this process, highlighting how different modes of delta formation manifest in different late-time behaviours. In particular, I will derive a steady state shoreline extent when the delta formation is driven only by buoyancy forces, and late time similarity solutions for the evolution of the shoreline when the viscous lava fragments and forms `hyaloclastic’ debris on contact with the water.
- Speaker: Jesse Taylor-West (Bristol)
- Monday 17 March 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: MR3, CMS.
- Series: Quantitative Climate and Environmental Science Seminars; organiser: Dr Kasia Warburton.
Thu 20 Mar 18:45: Natural Materials for Musical Instruments Please note the start time, being after the AGM, is approximate.
Immediately following the CNHS AGM , Jim Woodhouse will give a Presidential Address on the various uses of natural materials in the making of traditional musical instruments.
The talk will focus mostly on wood: why instrument makers prefer certain particular types of wood, what it is in the cellular structure that makes these timbers special, and what scope there may be to use alternative materials in the light of climate pressure and CITES restrictions.
Please note the start time, being after the AGM, is approximate.
- Speaker: Jim Woodhouse, CNHS President; Emeritus Professor of Structural Dynamics
- Thursday 20 March 2025, 18:45-20:00
- Venue: Main Seminar Room (First Floor) David Attenborough Building, University of Cambridge Pembroke St, Cambridge CB2 3QZ.
- Series: Cambridge Natural History Society; organiser: president.
Mon 17 Mar 13:05: Helsing: Simulating a System of Systems
At Helsing, speed and correctness are key in delivering high quality products. The two are often in antithesis; it is difficult to quickly iterate over designs while keeping your codebase correct and vice versa. To build confidence in the systems we build, we use deterministic simulation concepts to enable full end-to-end testing and verification of our software through our in-house simulation platform called Prophecy. Prophecy aims to make simulating easy by providing libraries and services necessary to orchestrate simulations and build a system of systems. This allows other teams to test scenarios up-front and ensure their code and models are resilient to failure, and to run complex, distributed workflows through closed or open loop simulations. In this talk, we’ll be having a look at what deterministic simulation is in a nutshell, how Prophecy works, and how to simulate concurrent code in Rust using tokio.
Please register at the following link: https://forms.office.com/e/E2nCWEpkA9
Please note that it is not a requirement to sign up in order to attend the event
You can also participate in a coding challenge, and the best submission will win a DJI drone. The challenge is available in this link: https://screen-ide.coderpad.io/invite/1323704f6f9c624b725
Some catering will be provided
- Speaker: Matei David
- Monday 17 March 2025, 13:05-13:55
- Venue: FW26, William Gates Building.
- Series: Technical Talks - Department of Computer Science and Technology ; organiser: Ben Karniely.
Wed 19 Mar 14:00: Entropy comparison inequalities with applications to additive noise channels
Motivated by a question of Eskenazis, Nayar and Tkocz (2018), which remains open, we will present an inequality involving the entropy of a sum of two i.i.d. random variables when one is replaced by a Gaussian with the same variance. This inequality involves a quantity known as entropic doubling, which is small when the Entropy Power Inequality (EPI) is close to equality. We will then discuss the question of stability in the EPI and present a qualitative stability result in the weak sense. Furthermore, by extending our inequality to independent random variables, we will show how we can improve the “half-a-bit” bound of Zamir and Erez (2004), related to the robustness of Gaussian codebooks, in the low capacity regime. Finally, we will present extensions to MAC and MIMO channels with general additive noise.
The talk is based on joint work with Ioannis Kontoyiannis and Mokshay Madiman.
- Speaker: Dr Lampros Gavalakis, University of Cambridge
- Wednesday 19 March 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: MR5, CMS Pavilion A.
- Series: Information Theory Seminar; organiser: Prof. Ramji Venkataramanan.
Fri 02 May 08:45: The global epidemiology of Streptococcus canis identifies genomic features of host adaptation, virulence and antimicrobial resistance
Speaker bio: • 2012-2018: Studies of Veterinary medicine, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Germany • 2018-2021: PhD in Microbiology at the Institute for Microbiology, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Germany: Investigation of virulence and fitness factors of Streptococcus suis • 2022-2024: PostDoc at the Institute for Microbiology, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation and two-month research visit in the group of Dr Lucy Weinert at the Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge: Further education in bioinformatics, analysis of genome sequences of Streptococcus suis, teaching responsibilities • Since October 2024: PostDoc (DAAD fellowship) at the Department of Veterinary Medicine, Institute of Microbiology and Epizootics, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany and Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge: Genome studies of the epidemiology, virulence and host adaptation of Streptococcus canis, supervision: Dr Lucy Weinert and Prof Dr Marcus Fulde (Berlin)
- Speaker: Muriel Dresen, Department of Veterinary Medicine
- Friday 02 May 2025, 08:45-10:00
- Venue: LT2.
- Series: Friday Morning Seminars, Dept of Veterinary Medicine; organiser: Fiona Roby.
Fri 02 May 08:45: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Muriel Dresen, Department of Veterinary Medicine
- Friday 02 May 2025, 08:45-10:00
- Venue: LT2.
- Series: Friday Morning Seminars, Dept of Veterinary Medicine; organiser: Fiona Roby.