Month: January 2024

Singing bird – a human choir, singing birdsong

by Jane Waite, Queen Mary University of London

“I’m in a choir”. “Really, what do you sing?” “I did a blackbird last week, but I think I’m going to be woodpecker today, I do like a robin though!”

This is no joke! Marcus Coates a British artist, got up very early, and working with a wildlife sound recordist, Geoff Sample, he used 14 microphones to record the dawn chorus over lots of chilly mornings. They slowed the sounds down and matched up each species of bird with different types of human voices. Next they created a film of 19 people making bird song, each person sang a different bird, in their own habitats, a car, a shed even a lady in the bath! The 19 tracks are played together to make the dawn chorus. See it on YouTube below.

Marcus talks about his work, and the installation at Brighton Fabrica.

Marcus didn’t stop there, he wrote a new bird song score. Yes, for people to sing a new top ten bird hit, but they have to do it very slowly. People sing ‘bird’ about 20 times slower than birds sing ‘bird’ ‘whooooooop’, ‘whooooooop’, ‘tweeeeet’. For a special performance, a choir learned the new song, a new dawn chorus, they sang the slowed down version live, which was recorded, speeded back up and played to the audience, I was there! It was amazing! A human performance, became a minute of tweeting joy. Close your eyes and ‘whoop’ you were in the woods, at the crack of dawn!

Computationally thinking a performance

Computational thinking is at the heart of the way computer scientists solve problems. Marcus Coates, doesn’t claim to be a computer scientist, he is an artist who looks for ways to see how people are like other animals. But we can get an idea of what computational thinking is all about by looking at how he created his sounds. Firstly, he and wildlife sound recordist, Geoff Sample, had to focus on the individual bird sounds in the original recordings, ignore detail they didn’t need, doing abstraction, listening for each bird, working out what aspects of bird sound was important. They looked for patterns isolating each voice, sometimes the bird’s performance was messy and they could not hear particular species clearly, so they were constantly checking for quality. For each bird, they listened and listened until they found just the right ‘slow it down’ speed. Different birds needed different speeds for people to be able to mimic and different kinds of human voices suited each bird type: attention to detail mattered enormously. They had to check the results carefully, evaluating, making sure each really did sound like the appropriate bird and all fitted together into the Dawn Chorus soundscape. They also had to create a bird language, another abstraction, a score as track notes, and that is just an algorithm for making sounds!

Fun to try

Use your computational thinking skills to create a notation for an animal’s voice, a pet perhaps? A dog, hamster or cat language, what different sounds do they make, and how can you note them down. What might the algorithm for that early morning “I want my breakfast” look like? Can you make those sounds and communicate with your pet? Or maybe stick to tweeting? (You can follow @cs4fn on Twitter too).

Enjoy the slowed-down performance of this pet starling which has added a variety of mimicked sounds to its song repertoire.


This article was originally published on the CS4FN website and can also be found on page 15 in the magazine linked below. It also featured on Day 7 of our CS4FN Christmas Computing Advent Calendar.

Related Magazine …

EPSRC supports this blog through research grant EP/W033615/1.

Eggheads: helping us to visualise objects and classes

by Daniel Gill, Queen Mary University of London

Past CS4FN articles have explored object-oriented programming through self-aware pizza and Strictly Come Dancing judges. But, if you’re one of those people who like to learn visually, it can be challenging to imagine what an object or class looks like. This article will hopefully help you to both think more about what makes this paradigm so useful as well as to give you a way to visualise objects.

Ada the Egghead
by Daniel Gill

To begin this adventure, I’d like to introduce Ada. Ada is an example of the newly discovered species egghead. Every egghead has very distinctive hair and eye colours. For example, Ada’s hair is a delightfully bright pink, and their eyes, a deep red. Despite their appearance, the egghead has a vicious roar intended to ward off predators, or indeed poachers.

Classes

As computer scientists, we might want to represent different eggheads in a program, but we don’t really want to store information about the eggheads with a written description or an image, because this would be harder than need-be for a computer to ‘understand’ (or rather to process as they don’t understand as such). Instead, we can store lots of individual features together, so that the computer can find out exactly what it needs from each egghead.

Egghead class

One way to achieve this is by using a class. A class is a template which contains spaces for us to fill in details for the thing we want to represent. For the egghead, we might want to store data about their name, hair colour, and eye colour – then we can fill in the template for each of the eggheads we find. These individual features are often called attributes. In a program, these attributes would be represented with variables: a place where a value, a piece of data, is stored. We can visualise a class therefore as a box with gaps to fill in for the attributes like the one on the left.

From this image, you will see alongside the attributes, we also have an image of a button for roaring. As well as storing attributes, we also define behaviours. These are actions that we can perform on the thing being represented. We visualise any behaviour as such a button. For this example, we could imagine that pressing this button might provoke the egghead causing them to roar. In programming, a behaviour is represented by a procedure, some pre-defined code that when executed makes something happen. A button that causes something to happen is a simple way to visualise such procedures.

A key point to realise is that this class is simply a template – it isn’t storing any information, nor will the roar button work. We have no actual eggheads yet… That is where objects come in.

Objects

You may have noticed that I have been using the word thing to represent the actual thing (here eggheads) that we are representing with the class. This is to avoid using the word object, which has its own special meaning, in, you guessed it, object-oriented programming. If we want to actually use our class, we need to make an instance. That just means filling in the relevant details about the specific egghead we want to store. This instance is called an object.

Let’s imagine we want to store a representation of Ada in our program. We would take an instance of the Egghead class and fill in their details. The resulting object would represent Ada, whereas the class we started with represents all and any egghead that might ever exist. Below, you can see the objects for Ada and some of Ada’s friends; Alan and Edsger. We still visualise objects as boxes, just like classes, except now the gaps are all filled in.

Objects representing Ada, Alan and Edsger

We (or a computer) could even take the given features of Alan and Edsger and generate an image of what they might look like. We have everything we need here to create something that looks and behaves like an egghead. This method of storing data means that a program can take whatever information it might want directly from the object. Likewise, it can do the equivalent of pressing the roar button and make each individual egghead roar.

Hiding the Details

Trying to change Alan’s eye colour

One thing we should consider while making the class is the integrity of the data. In its current form, any other part of our program, or another program using our class, can directly edit the attributes stored. Another part of the program (perhaps representing a virtual world for a virtual egghead to live in) might accidentally change the eye colour attribute for Alan, for example. This wouldn’t change Alan’s actual eye colour (which couldn’t happen anyway!), so our data would then be wrong. We can’t have that!

We can fix this by hiding the eye colour from the rest of the program, so it is stored within the object, but not accessible outside of it. But we still need a way for the program to read it: for this we use a button in our picture of the Egghead class. The existence of the eye colour attribute can then only be seen by other parts of the program by a procedure that gets the eye colour. No similar procedure is given for changing the eye colour, so there is no way to do it by mistake. Let’s build this new version of our class.

(a) Our new class, (b) An object representing Edsger, with eye colour hidden, (c) Pressing GetEyes gives us the eye colour.

This concept of hiding details is sometimes called encapsulation or information hiding, but computer scientists disagree about what these terms refer to exactly. Encapsulation is broader in its meanings, whereas information hiding is closer to what we are trying to do here. This video by ArjanCodes (see below) explains this distinction further.

We could change our class to include this concept for the name and hair colour, too. Whilst it is entirely possible for these attributes to change, it turns out that it is a good idea to hide them too: so hide name and use SetName and GetName buttons. That allows us to control the type of data we have going into that attribute (for example, checking the given name isn’t a number, which as all egghead names are made of letters would be a mistake).

Where next?

Now we have a class that represents all eggheads, we can store the details of any new egghead efficiently and safely. Hold on… some last-minute breaking news: scientists have found a new sub-species of egghead they are calling a rainbow egghead. All rainbow eggheads have rainbow hair, and a unique roar. Next time, we’ll use the concept of inheritance to give a more efficient way to write programs that store information about eggheads.

Image credits: all images were created by the author, Daniel Gill.

EPSRC supports this blog through research grant EP/W033615/1.

Ethics – What would you do? Part 2: answers

by Peter McOwan, Queen Mary University of London

Yesterday we published ‘Ethics – What would you do?‘ which had a poll at the end where readers could pick one of three options. If you’ve not selected your option you might like to do that first before reading on…

Ethics – What would you do?

The answers

If you picked Option 1

1) Go ahead and launch. After all, there are still plenty of parts to the game that do work and are fun, there will always be some errors, and for this game in particular thousands have been signing up for text alerts to tell them when it’s launched. It will make many thousands happy.

That means you follow an ethical approach called ‘Act utilitarianism’.

Act Happy

The main principle of this theory, put forward by philosopher John Stuart Mill, is to create the most happiness (another name for happiness here is utility thus utilitarianism). For each situation you behave (act) in a way that increases the happiness of the largest number of people, and this is how you decide what is wrong or right. You may take different actions in similar situations. So you choose to launch a flawed game if you know that you have pre-sales of a hundred thousand, but another time decide to not launch a different flawed game where there are only one thousand pre-sales, as you wont be making so many people unhappy. It’s about considering the utility for each action you take. There is no hard and fast rule.

If you picked Option 2

2) Cancel the launch until the game is fixed properly, no one should have to buy a game that doesn’t work 100 per cent.

That means you follow an ethical approach called ‘Duty Theory’

Do your Duty

Duty theories are based on the idea of there being universal principles, such as ‘you should never ever lie, whatever the circumstances’. This is also known as the dentological approach to ethics (philosophers like to bring in long words to make simple things sound complicated!). The German philosopher Emanuel Kant was one of the main players in this field. His ‘Categorical Imperative’ (like I said long words…) said “only act in a way that you would want everyone else to act” (…simple idea!). So if you don’t think there should ever be mistakes in software then don’t make any yourself. This can be quite tough!

If you picked Option 3

3) Go ahead and launch. After all it’s almost totally working and the customers are looking forward to it. There will always be some errors in programs: it’s part of the way complicated software is, and a delay to game releases leads to disappointment.

You would be following the approach called ‘Rule utilitarianism’.

Spread a little happiness

Say something nice to everyone you meet today…it will drive them crazy

The main principle of this flavour of utilitarianism theory, put forward by philosopher Jeremy Bentham, is to create the most happiness (happiness here is called utility thus utilitarianism). You follow general rules that increase the happiness of the largest number of people, and this is how you decide what’s wrong or right. So in our dilemma the rule could be ‘even if the game isn’t 100% correct, people are looking forward to it and we can’t disappoint them’. Here the rule increases happiness, and we apply it again in the future if the same situation occurs.

Related Magazine …

EPSRC supports this blog through research grant EP/W033615/1.

Ethics – What would you do?

by Peter McOwan, Queen Mary University of London

You often hear about unethical behaviours, be it in politicians or popstars, but getting to grips with ethics, which deals with issues about what behaviours are right and wrong, is an important part of computer science too. Find out about it and at the same time try our ethical puzzle below and learn something about your own ethics…

Is that legal?

Ethics are about the customs and beliefs that a society has about the way people should be treated. These beliefs can be different in different countries, sometimes even between different regions of the same country, which is why it’s always important to know something about the local area when going on holiday. You don’t want to upset the local folk. Ethics tend to form the basis of countries’ laws and regulations, combining general agreement with practicality. Sticking your tongue out may be rude and so unethical, but the police have better things to do than arrest every rude school kid. Similarly, slavery was once legal, but was it ever ethical? Laws and ethics also have other differences; individuals tend to judge unethical behaviour, and shun those who behave inappropriately, while countries judge illegal behaviour – using a legal system of courts, judges and juries to enforce laws with penalties.

Dilemmas, what to do?

Now imagine you have the opportunity to go treading on the ethical and legal toes of people across the world from the PC in your home. Suddenly the geographical barriers that once separated us vanish. The power of computer science, like any technology, can be used for good or evil. What is important is that those who use it understand the consequences of their actions, and choose to act legally and ethically. Understanding legal requirements, for example contracts, computer misuse and data protection are important parts of a computer scientist’s training, but can you learn to be ethical?

Computer scientists study ethics to help them prepare for situations where they have to make decisions. This is often done by considering ethical dilemmas. These are a bit like the computer science equivalent of soap opera plots. You have a difficult problem, a dilemma, and have to make a choice. You suddenly discover you have a unknown long lost sister living on the other side of the Square, do you make contact or not, (on TV this choice is normally followed by a drum roll as the episode ends).

Right / Wrong image by Tumisu from Pixabay

Give it a go

Here is your chance to try an ethical dilemma for yourself. Read the alternatives and choose what you would do in this situation. Then click on the poll choice. Like all good ‘personality tests’ you find out something about yourself: in this case which type of ethical approach you have in the situation according to some famous philosophers. There are also some fascinating facts to impress your mates. We’ll share the answers tomorrow.

Your Dilemma and your ethical personality

You are working for a company who are about to launch a new computer game. The adverts have gone out, the newspapers and TV are ready for the launch … then the day before you are told that there is a bug, a mistake, in the software. It means players sometimes can’t kill the dragon at the end of the game. If you hit the problem the only solution is to start the final level again. It can be fixed they think but it will take about a week or so to track it down. The computer code is hard to fix as it’s been written by 10 different people and 5 of them have gone on a back-packing holiday so can’t be contacted.

Answers tomorrow!

This article was first published on the original CS4FN website and a copy also appears on page 6 of issue 26 of the CS4FN magazine: Peter McOwan: Serious Fun, celebrating the life and research interests of Peter, who died in 2019. You can download a free PDF copy of the magazine below as well as our entire range of back issues of magazines and booklets at our CS4FN download site.

Related Magazine …

EPSRC supports this blog through research grant EP/W033615/1.

Equality, diversity and inclusion in the R Project: collaborative community coding & curating with Dr Heather Turner

You might not think of a programming language like Python or Scratch as being an ‘ecosystem’ but each language has its own community of people who create and improve its code, flush out the bugs, introduce new features, document any changes and write the ‘how to’ guides for new users. 

The logo for the R project.

R is one such programming language. It’s named after its two co-inventors (Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman) and is used by around two million people around the world. People working in all sorts of jobs and industries (for example finance, academic research, government, data journalists) use R to analyse their data. The software has useful tools to help people see patterns in their data and to make sense of that information. 

It’s also open source which means that anyone can use it and help to improve it, a bit like Wikipedia where anyone can edit an article or write a new one. That’s generally a good thing because it means everyone can contribute but it can also bring problems. Imagine writing an essay about an event at your school and sharing it with your class. Then imagine your classmates adding paragraphs of their own about the event, or even about different events. Your essay could soon become rather messy and you’d need to re-order things, take bits out and make sure people hadn’t repeated something that someone had already said (but in a slightly different way). 

When changes are made to software people also want to keep a note not just of the ‘words’ added (the code) but also to make a note of who added what and when. Keeping good records, also known as documentation, helps keep things tidy and gives the community confidence that the software is being properly looked after.

Code and documentation can easily become a bit chaotic when created by different people in the community so there needs to be a core group of people keeping things in order. Fortunately there is – the ‘R Core Team’, but these days its membership doesn’t really reflect the community of R users around the world. R was first used in universities, particularly by more privileged statistics professors from European countries and North America (the Global North), and so R’s development tended to be more in line with their academic interests. R needs input and ideas from a more diverse group of active developers and decision-makers, in academia and beyond to ensure that the voices of minoritised groups are included. Also the voices of younger people, particularly as many of the current core group are approaching retirement age.

Dr Heather Turner from the University of Warwick is helping to increase the diversity of those who develop and maintain the R programming language and she’s been given funding by the EPSRC* to work on this. Her project is a nice example of someone who is bringing together two different areas in her work. She is mixing software development (tech skills) with community management (people skills) to support a range of colleagues who use R and might want to contribute to developing it in future, but perhaps don’t feel confident to do so yet. 

Development can involve things like fixing bugs, helping to improve the behaviour or efficiency of programs or translating error messages that currently appear on-screen in the English language into different languages. Heather and her colleagues are working with the R community to create a more welcoming environment for ‘newbies’ that encourages participation, particularly from people who are in the community but who are not currently represented or under-represented by the core group and she’s working collaboratively with other community organisations such as R-Ladies, LatinR and RainbowR. Another task she’s involved in is producing an easier-to-follow ‘How to develop R’ guide.

There are also people who work in universities but who aren’t academics (they don’t teach or do research but do other important jobs that help keep things running well) and some of them use R too and can contribute to its development. However their contributions have been less likely to get the proper recognition or career rewards compared with those made by academics, which is a little unfair. That’s largely because of the way the academic system is set up. 

Generally it’s academics who apply for funding to do new research, they do the research and then publish papers in academic journals on the research that they’ve done and these publications are evidence of their work. But the important work that supporting staff do in maintaining the software isn’t classified as new research so doesn’t generally make it into the journals, so their contribution can get left out. They also don’t necessarily get the same career support or mentoring for their development work. This can make people feel a bit sidelined or discouraged. 

Logo for the Society of Research Software Engineering

To try and fix this and to make things fairer the Society of Research Software Engineering was created to champion a new type of job in computing – the Research Software Engineer (RSE). These are people whose job is to develop and maintain (engineer) the software that is used by academic researchers (sometimes in R, sometimes in other languages). The society wants to raise awareness of the role and to build a community around it. You can find out what’s needed to become an RSE below. 

Heather is in a great position to help here too, as she has a foot in each camp – she’s both an Academic and a Research Software Engineer. She’s helping to establish RSEs as an important role in universities while also expanding the diversity of people involved in developing R further, for its long-term sustainability.

Further reading

*Find out more about Heather’s EPSRC-funded Fellowship: “Sustainability and EDI (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion) in the R Project” https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FV052128%2F1 and https://society-rse.org/getting-to-know-your-2021-rse-fellows-heather-turner/ 

Find out more about the job of the Research Software Engineer and the Society of Research Software Engineering https://society-rse.org/about/ 

Example job packs / adverts

Below are some examples of RSE jobs (these vacancies have now closed but you can read about what they were looking for and see if it might interest you in the future).

Note that these documents are written for quite a technical audience – the people who’d apply for the jobs will have studied computer science for many years and will be familiar with how computing skills can be applied to different subjects.

1. The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) wanted four Research Software Engineers (who’d be working either in Warrington or Oxford) on a chemistry-related project (‘computational chemistry’ – “a branch of chemistry that uses computer simulation to assist in solving chemical problems”) 

2. The University of Cambridge was looking for a Research Software Engineer to work in the area of climate science – “Computational modelling is at the core of climate science, where complex models of earth systems are a routine part of the scientific process, but this comes with challenges…”

3. University College London (UCL) wanted a Research Software Engineer to work in the area of neuroscience (studying how the brain works, in this case by analysing the data from scientists using advanced microscopy).

EPSRC supports this blog through research grant EP/W033615/1.