Student schools in education
The Academic University encourages and sponsors student participation in scientific and educational events. In particular, quite often our students participate in international student schools. Participation in a student school allows not only to learn about the current state of science and technology, but also to communicate live with leading researchers and make connections in the community. In addition, at some schools, students are given the opportunity to make a report (on the so-called student session) about what he is currently doing (for example, about his master's work). This is very useful, especially if the student wants to do further research. It is possible that at such a school a student will decide on further areas of research or even find a supervisor.
If you yourself want to participate in such a student school, I advise you to look at the club's Computer Science site, which maintains a list of international student schools .
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As an example, we publish the report of our student Kirill Elagin on a trip to the Estonian Winter School in Computer Science in 2014. This school is held in Estonia every year and our students regularly attend it.
This spring I had the opportunity to participate in the Estonian Winter School on theoretical computer science , and I would like to tell a little about it. A school is passing in a place called Palmse , located approximately midway between Tallinn and Narva. Around beautiful nature, scenic views, clean air and a very beautiful hotel . In general, all the conditions for productive work.
This year, participants came from Denmark, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Estonia. The official language of the school is English. But there are many people in the list of participants with Russian and Estonian names, so it is not surprising that these two languages ​​could be heard in the corridors quite often. In order for everyone to communicate with each other, rather than go to the same companies, random seating was generated before every lunch and dinner. Of course, for a small number of meals it is impossible to make everyone sit with each, but I, for example, find myself with all the lecturers at least once. At breakfast, the seating arrangement is not fixed, you can tune in for another busy day in any company at your discretion.
A total of five courses were offered, as well as seven student reports . Each course consisted of four lectures, one hour each, and one or two practical exercises. The lecturers are all amazing and, of course, straight from the advanced modern computer science. By the way, not only lecturers - and among the participants there were also people known in certain circles.
Algorithmic mechanism design ( Elias Koutsoupias ). This is something like game theory the other way around. We have several agents, each of whom wants to achieve his goal and knows something that the others do not know. Our task: to come up with a “mechanism” (you can say, a game) that optimizes a certain function (the total benefit of the agents, the time to produce something, ...). A standard example is an auction in which each agent has his internal evaluation of the “usefulness” of a product for him; at the beginning each agent names his price (ideally, he should name the utility as the price, but he may lie). Our task is to figure out how to determine the winner and how much money to take from him for the goods so that it would be beneficial for each agent to be honest , that is, to call the true usefulness of this product for him, and the one who really needs the goods won. (Answer: Vickrey auction .)
An introduction to weighted automata theory ( Jacques Sakarovitch ). Weighted automata are just like ordinary automata, only each transition is given a weight. The idea is that if a traditional automaton gives the answer “yes” or “no”, then the weighted automaton compares each word with a certain value (for example, a natural number, although you can choose some other half ring). The questions here are more or less the same: what can be calculated using such automata? How to minimize them? To determine? In my opinion, it is much more interesting than the classical theory of atoms (and, importantly, it is its generalization, since you can always take just a Boolean semiring as an output and get familiar automata). Such a theory of automata with a taste of linear algebra. In practice, we had fun with the state machine emulator , invented, in fact, by the lecturer himself.
Cryptographic tools for secure two-party computation ( Claudio Orlandi ). The course about the current direction in cryptography is a calculation performed by several participants who do not trust each other. For example, you want to play poker on the network (for money, of course). The simplest option is a dedicated server that manages the game: distributes cards, ensures that no one cheats. But how can we trust the server? But what if the server owner is friends with one of our opponents and makes sure that strong cards always come to him? The solution is to distribute the role of the server to all participants in the game and using cryptographic protocols to ensure that no one can deceive the rest. A simpler example: two people want to make a decision using a coin toss, but the problem is that they are in different parts of the city. How do they “flip a coin” in such a way that absolutely none of them could influence the outcome? Answer: the coin flip protocol . There are many other examples: calculating a function that depends on two arguments, when one person has the first argument, and another person has the second, and they want to get the result of the calculation, so that no one knows the input data of the other; cryptocurrency; determination of the price of sugar beets .
Programming in dependent types ( Conor McBride ). In general, an introduction to programming on Agda . But not only. It all started as a standard, but by the third lecture, very, very unstable things had already gone - you can see for yourself that the course materials are available on GitHub . In fact, Conor very quickly and vividly showed some of his famous works (those who are actively interested in this topic probably read them, but I recommend the rest to fans of functional programming: an article about Applicative , about holes in types and about levitation ).
Unifying theories of programming ( Jifeng He ). Here they talked about programming theory: the meaning of programming languages, specifications, correctness of programs, that's all. I expected it to be very interesting, but, I must honestly admit, in the end I didn’t understand almost anything (and not me alone). Perhaps it was the most difficult course, full of theorems and incomprehensible icons.
Five lectures, a practical lesson and three student presentations a day, plus breaks, breakfast and lunch - as a result, I had to wake up somewhere around half past eight in the morning, and dinner began at half past seven in the evening. There was not much time left, but at some point I simply accepted the fact that I could not get enough sleep: the evenings were spent discussing all sorts of topics and smoothly flowed into preference until the very night.
One day instead of morning lectures there was a tour of the surroundings (which I missed). That same evening, everyone went to the sauna. I must say that this is a great opportunity to talk with representatives of different countries about both science and everyday issues, including politics (the beginning of March was not an easy situation, as you remember, and in Estonia the Prime Minister also submitted resignation). Of course, an ice pond and a cold beer were attached to the sauna. The only complaint from the regulars is that in the winter school only one evening is reserved for the sauna, and in the summer one - each.
Well, the main event for which everyone comes to EWSCS is, of course, CrapCon . A report can be made by anyone who prepares reports, usually on the same day, during lectures. The level of presentations is extremely high. Just watch this year's trailer:
In general, this school is a wonderful chance to learn something new, and at the same time to spend time in nature among smart and interesting people.
If you yourself want to participate in such a student school, I advise you to look at the club's Computer Science site, which maintains a list of international student schools .
')
As an example, we publish the report of our student Kirill Elagin on a trip to the Estonian Winter School in Computer Science in 2014. This school is held in Estonia every year and our students regularly attend it.
The story about participation in EWSCS 2014
This spring I had the opportunity to participate in the Estonian Winter School on theoretical computer science , and I would like to tell a little about it. A school is passing in a place called Palmse , located approximately midway between Tallinn and Narva. Around beautiful nature, scenic views, clean air and a very beautiful hotel . In general, all the conditions for productive work.
This year, participants came from Denmark, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Estonia. The official language of the school is English. But there are many people in the list of participants with Russian and Estonian names, so it is not surprising that these two languages ​​could be heard in the corridors quite often. In order for everyone to communicate with each other, rather than go to the same companies, random seating was generated before every lunch and dinner. Of course, for a small number of meals it is impossible to make everyone sit with each, but I, for example, find myself with all the lecturers at least once. At breakfast, the seating arrangement is not fixed, you can tune in for another busy day in any company at your discretion.
A total of five courses were offered, as well as seven student reports . Each course consisted of four lectures, one hour each, and one or two practical exercises. The lecturers are all amazing and, of course, straight from the advanced modern computer science. By the way, not only lecturers - and among the participants there were also people known in certain circles.
Courses
Algorithmic mechanism design ( Elias Koutsoupias ). This is something like game theory the other way around. We have several agents, each of whom wants to achieve his goal and knows something that the others do not know. Our task: to come up with a “mechanism” (you can say, a game) that optimizes a certain function (the total benefit of the agents, the time to produce something, ...). A standard example is an auction in which each agent has his internal evaluation of the “usefulness” of a product for him; at the beginning each agent names his price (ideally, he should name the utility as the price, but he may lie). Our task is to figure out how to determine the winner and how much money to take from him for the goods so that it would be beneficial for each agent to be honest , that is, to call the true usefulness of this product for him, and the one who really needs the goods won. (Answer: Vickrey auction .)
An introduction to weighted automata theory ( Jacques Sakarovitch ). Weighted automata are just like ordinary automata, only each transition is given a weight. The idea is that if a traditional automaton gives the answer “yes” or “no”, then the weighted automaton compares each word with a certain value (for example, a natural number, although you can choose some other half ring). The questions here are more or less the same: what can be calculated using such automata? How to minimize them? To determine? In my opinion, it is much more interesting than the classical theory of atoms (and, importantly, it is its generalization, since you can always take just a Boolean semiring as an output and get familiar automata). Such a theory of automata with a taste of linear algebra. In practice, we had fun with the state machine emulator , invented, in fact, by the lecturer himself.
Cryptographic tools for secure two-party computation ( Claudio Orlandi ). The course about the current direction in cryptography is a calculation performed by several participants who do not trust each other. For example, you want to play poker on the network (for money, of course). The simplest option is a dedicated server that manages the game: distributes cards, ensures that no one cheats. But how can we trust the server? But what if the server owner is friends with one of our opponents and makes sure that strong cards always come to him? The solution is to distribute the role of the server to all participants in the game and using cryptographic protocols to ensure that no one can deceive the rest. A simpler example: two people want to make a decision using a coin toss, but the problem is that they are in different parts of the city. How do they “flip a coin” in such a way that absolutely none of them could influence the outcome? Answer: the coin flip protocol . There are many other examples: calculating a function that depends on two arguments, when one person has the first argument, and another person has the second, and they want to get the result of the calculation, so that no one knows the input data of the other; cryptocurrency; determination of the price of sugar beets .
Programming in dependent types ( Conor McBride ). In general, an introduction to programming on Agda . But not only. It all started as a standard, but by the third lecture, very, very unstable things had already gone - you can see for yourself that the course materials are available on GitHub . In fact, Conor very quickly and vividly showed some of his famous works (those who are actively interested in this topic probably read them, but I recommend the rest to fans of functional programming: an article about Applicative , about holes in types and about levitation ).
Unifying theories of programming ( Jifeng He ). Here they talked about programming theory: the meaning of programming languages, specifications, correctness of programs, that's all. I expected it to be very interesting, but, I must honestly admit, in the end I didn’t understand almost anything (and not me alone). Perhaps it was the most difficult course, full of theorems and incomprehensible icons.
Entertainment
Five lectures, a practical lesson and three student presentations a day, plus breaks, breakfast and lunch - as a result, I had to wake up somewhere around half past eight in the morning, and dinner began at half past seven in the evening. There was not much time left, but at some point I simply accepted the fact that I could not get enough sleep: the evenings were spent discussing all sorts of topics and smoothly flowed into preference until the very night.
One day instead of morning lectures there was a tour of the surroundings (which I missed). That same evening, everyone went to the sauna. I must say that this is a great opportunity to talk with representatives of different countries about both science and everyday issues, including politics (the beginning of March was not an easy situation, as you remember, and in Estonia the Prime Minister also submitted resignation). Of course, an ice pond and a cold beer were attached to the sauna. The only complaint from the regulars is that in the winter school only one evening is reserved for the sauna, and in the summer one - each.
Well, the main event for which everyone comes to EWSCS is, of course, CrapCon . A report can be made by anyone who prepares reports, usually on the same day, during lectures. The level of presentations is extremely high. Just watch this year's trailer:
In general, this school is a wonderful chance to learn something new, and at the same time to spend time in nature among smart and interesting people.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/247915/
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