During the year, Mr Frank Bott completed a heroic ten
year stint as the Computer Science Department’s third Head. The department’s
achievements during that period have been considerable. Under his leadership,
the department has quadrupled its annual research income, and trebled its
student intake. He will be a difficult act for his successor to follow. Early
in the year, Professor Chris Price was awarded a personal chair by the
University of Wales, and in September, he succeeded Mr Bott as Head of
Department. The excellent research
being carried out by the Department’s Bioinformatics Group was also recognised
with a University of Wales Readership for Dr Ross King.
Other notable changes were the retirement after many
years as the Department’s “Mum” of administrator Mrs Rosemary Law, the
departure of Drs Mark and Marie Neal to sail a yacht around the world, Mr Chris
Loftus leaving to work in computer consulting, and Dr Roy Featherstone moving
to the National University of Australia. We welcomed new permanent staff in
administrator Dr Mora McCallum (previously the University’s timetabling
officer), lecturers Dr Fred Labrosse and Dr Lynda Thomas, and Mr John Woodbury.
A highlight of the year was an extended visit by one
of our honorary professors. Professor Pat Hayes, presently at the University of
West Florida, has been a key figure in Artificial Intelligence research over
the past three decades. He spent two weeks in Aberystwyth during November, and
as well as giving two open lectures, he gave generously of his time and advice
to both staff and research students.
The department was pleased and honoured to act as
host to Professor Roger Needham, FRS, who gave the 2000 Gregynog Lectures on
the topic Coming to Terms with Information Technology. Professor Needham is the Director of
Microsoft Research (UK) and was formerly Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University
of Cambridge and Head of the Computing Laboratory there.
Rhoddwyd Darlith Walter Idris Jones gan Sion Wyn, cyn
fyfyrwr yr adran, ar y pwnc Alan Turing: Y Cyfrifiadur a'ch Meddwl.
TEACHING
The trend in increasing student numbers within the
department continued with a record intake of 140 first year undergraduates. The
MSc in Computer Science also recruited more than ever with an intake of 49
against a previous maximum of 38. The MSc has now been running for over 25
years and continues to be a successful venture, both for the full time course
delivered in Aberystwyth and the more recent development of delivering a part-time
version in Singapore. We were particularly pleased to welcome two of the
students from the Singapore course who came to Aberystwyth for their graduation
ceremony.
The emphasis in our courses on career related
activities, and the enthusiasm with which our students embrace these, was
exhibited to good effect in the Annual Careers Fair when the Computer Science
team came second overall. Once again, comments from the industrial participants
reflected the high regard that these people hold for our degree schemes.
As part of the College’s portfolio renewal exercise,
we have launched new degrees in Internet Computing and Internet Engineering.
These degree schemes are progressing well and look like attracting significant
numbers in 2001. This is the culmination of a major effort by the staff
involved, including the development of a dozen new modules.
Another new venture was the provision of an optional
20-credit module on The Environment of e-Commerce for the MSc in
Management run by the School of Management and Business. This is a new
departure for the department and had attracted most of the students taking the
MSc.
The
development of an objective testing system has proved to be very successful. We
have introduced web based multiple-choice testing, for selected modules, every
four weeks. This system has the advantage of not only providing a rapid
turnaround of marks, but more importantly gives feedback to the students. By
connecting to the email system, students are given an individualised report,
which tells them which areas they need to study further. It certainly seems to
be helping students improve their learning - in the last two years we have seen
a gradual improvement in the ability of our students in the modules where we
have introduced this scheme.
Members of the department’s academic staff continue to be in demand as external examiners for courses in other institutions. In 2000, they examined at the Universities of Bournemouth, Staffordshire, Reading
Glasgow,
East London, Huddersfield, Karachi and Cranfield (Royal Military College of
Science).
RESEARCH
The Monet Network of
Excellence in Model-Based Systems and Qualitative Reasoning has just completed
its final year. Monet is one of 20 European Networks funded by the EC and
consists of 85 research and industrial sites across Europe, coordinated and
managed from UWA.
Our mission has been to
promote MBS technology, both in research and applications, and to provide
structure and coherence for the MBS community within Europe. The extent of our
success could be seen at the recent ECAI2000 conference in Berlin (the 14th
European Conference on Artificial Intelligence). This is a tightly refereed
conference (31% acceptance rate) and submissions came from 42 countries. So it
was pleasing that, of 16 topic categories, MBS formed the joint second largest
category, accounting for over 10% of the papers. This is a significant growth
of activity from the meagre state of the subject three years ago.
Another major achievement
was our one-week intensive summer school held in Bertinoro, Italy. A team of
Monet members prepared an excellent programme, which was presented by an
invited group of top world authorities. This very successful event enabled
researchers, postgraduates, and industrialists to learn, interact and discuss
state-of-the-art issues.
We
are currently applying for funding for a further phase of Monet.
New funding for the model-based research group
included a total of £460K for the Dougal project. This is a Foresight Vehicle
grant with Ford, FirstEarth Limited and Avant! Limited continuing the group’s
research in automated design software. We also installed a powerful new Sun
Enterprise machine worth £600K to be used in the research of the group, jointly
paid for by Sun Computers and the government’s JREI scheme. The group also began new work in diagnostic
software funded by Corus Limited.
The Bioinformatics Group continued its rapid growth
with a number of new grants. Perhaps the most exciting is the Robot Scientist
project. It performs close-looped learning, generating scientific hypotheses
and designing experiments to test the hypotheses. The experiments are performed
by robot, and the results fed back to the system. It was the basis of a recent
article in New Scientist, and a follow-on discussion on the BBC Today
programme. It is currently being used to discover the function of genes in
newly sequenced organisms.
The Space Robotics aspect of the Robotics Group’s
research has been attracting a lot of interest, both from the media, with a
constant flow of cameramen and journalists through the Robot Lab, and also from
other research groups. They have also been invited to join the Beagle-2 Mars
Lander consortium. The Mars Lander is to be launched in 2003, and the group
will be working on lander robot arm calibration, and software modelling and simulation for mission support. The group gave a
live demonstration of its aerobot at the European Space Agency’s annual
conference in Holland in the autumn.
The Department has responded to an increased external
emphasis on technology transfer work with industry. Perhaps the best example of
this is the work of Professor Mike Tedd and Mr Dave Price. Between them, they
have won a number of consultancy grants for providing telematics assistance and
advice to regional and national bodies such as Powys County Council, UW
Lampeter and UKERNA. They have also had
a number of contracts concerning internet-based video conferencing, exploring
network quality issues with today’s video technology, working on the National
Video Technology Advisory service, and contributing to the SuperJANET 4 quality
of service think-tank.
Two spin-off companies from research within the
Department received venture capital funding from the Aberystwyth Challenge
Fund. FirstEarth Limited has ten staff based in Aberystwyth, selling and
supporting automated design software derived from the model-based reasoning
group to engineering companies. Pharma DM is a company formed in collaboration
with the Universities of Oxford and Leuven to exploit innovative learning
approaches.
Members of the academic staff of the department have served as external examiners for research degrees in the Universities of Bristol, Loughborough, Manchester
Alsberg,
B.K., Parsimonious multiscale classification models. Journal
of Chemometrics, 14 (5-6), 529-539, 2000.
Alsberg,
B.K. Wavelets in parsimonious functional data analysis
models. In: Wavelets in chemistry, (Data Handling in Science and
Technology, Vol.22), 351-410, (ed. B. Walczak), Elsevier, Amsterdam, ISBN
0444501118, 2000.
Bachmann,
F., Bass,L., Buhman, C., Comella-Dorda, S., Long,F. Robert,J. Seacord,R. and
Wallnau,K. Volume II: Technical Concepts of Component-Based
Software Engineering: SEI Technical Report, CMU/SEI-2000-TR-008, May
2000.
Barnes D.
P., Summers P., Shaw A. An Investigation into Aerobot
Technologies for Planetary Exploration. 6th ESA Workshop on Advanced Space
Technologies for Robotics and Automation, ASTRA 2000, ESTEC NL, pp. 3.6-5,
Dec. 2000.
Bass, L.,
Buhman, C., Comella-Dorda, S., Long, F., Robert, J., Seacord, R. and Wallnau, K. Volume I:
Market Assessment of Component-Based Software Engineering", SEI
Special Report, CMU/SEI-2000-SR-007, May 2000.
Bott,
M.F., Coleman, J.A., Eaton, J and Rowland, D.
Professional Issues in Software Engineering. (Third
edition) Taylor and
Francis, London, 2000. pp xvi+364.
Bott, M.F. Software as a corporate asset. IEE Proceedings - Software. 147 (2),
pp31-36. April 2000.
Carney, D.
and Long, F. What Do You Mean by COTS?: Finally, a Useful Answer. IEEE Software 17 (2),
March/April 2000, pp. 83-86.
Featherstone,
R. On the
Limits to Invariance in the Twist/Wrench and Motor Representations of Motion
and Force Vectors'. Proc. Ball
Centenary Symposium, Cambridge, UK, July 9-12, 2000.
Featherstone,
R., Rigid Body Dynamics Algorithm for Parallel Computers,
ERCIM News, 42, pp.39-40, July 2000.
Featherstone,
R., and Orin, D. E. Robot Dynamics: Equations and
Algorithms. Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics and Automation, San
Francisco, CA, April 24-28, pp. 826-834, 2000.
Frielingsdorf,
B., Price, C.J. and Montgomery, T.A. Whole
Lifecycle Electrical Design Analysis.
In Electronic Systems for Vehicles, Baden-Baden, October 2000.
Gilbert
R.J., Rowland J.J. and Kell D.B., Genomic computing:
explanatory modelling for functional genomics. In Proc. Genetic and
Evolutionary Computing Conference, GECCO 2000, Las Vegas. pp
551-557.
Goodacre,
R., Shann, B., Gilbert, R.J., Timmins, É.M., McGovern, A.C., Alsberg, B.K.,
Kell, D.B. and Logan, N.A. The detection of the dipicolinic
acid biomarker in Bacillus spores using Curie-point pyrolysis mass spectrometry
and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. Analytical Chemistry, 72,
119-127, 2000.
Kell, D., & King, R.D On
the optimization of classes for the assignment of unidentified reading frames
in functional genomics programmes: the need for machine learning. Trends in
Biotechnology 18, pp93-98, 2000
King R., Garrett S, & Coghill G. M. Bioinformatic System Identification. Proc 2nd International Conference on Bio-Informatics of Genome Regulation and Structure, Novosibirsk, Russia, August 7-11, 2000.
King, R.D., Ouali, M., Strong, A.T., Aly, A.,
Elmaghraby, A., Kantardzic, M., & Page, D. Is it better to combine predictions?
Protein Engineering 13, pp15-19, 2000.
King, R.D., Page, D., & Ouali, M. Combining
Legacy Prediction Systems in Bioinformatics.
In: R.S Michalski & P.B. Brazdil (eds.): Fifth International Workshop on Multistrategy Learning (MSL
2000), pp 77-90, 2000
King, R.D., Karwath, A., Clare, A. & Dehaspe, L. Genome scale prediction of protein functional
class from sequence using data mining. In: R. Ramakrishnan, S. Stolfo, R.
Bayardo, & I Parsa (eds.): Proc Sixth ACM SIGKDD International
Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. pp. 384-389. The
Association for Computing Machinery, New York, USA, 2000
King, R.D., Karwath, A., Clare, A. & Dehaspe,
L. Accurate
prediction of protein functional class in the M. tuberculosis and E.
coli genomes using data mining. Yeast
(Comparative and Functional Genomics) 17, pp283-293, 2000.
Lee M.H. Tactile
Sensing: new directions, new challenges.
Int J.Robotics Research 19 (7), pp636-643. July 2000.
Lee
M.H., Model-Based Reasoning: A Principled Approach for
Software Engineering, Software -
Concepts and Tools, 19(4), pp179-189, 2000.
Lee
M.H., Many-Valued Logic and Qualitative Modelling of Electrical
Circuits. In Proc. QR’2000: 14th
Int. Workshop on Qualitative Reasoning, Morelia, Mexico, June 3rd - 7th,
2000.
Lee
M.H., Qualitative Modelling of Linear Networks in
Engineering Applications. In Proc.
ECAI’2000: 14th European Conf. on Artificial Intelligence, pp161-5. Berlin,
August 19th - 25th, 2000.
Lee
M.H., Qualitative Modelling of Linear Networks in ECAD
Applications", Expert Update, 3 (2), pp23-32, BCS SGES 2000.
Lee,M.H.
and Garrett, S.M. Qualitative modelling of unknown interface
behaviour, International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 53 (4),
pp. 493-515, 2000.
Long, F. Avoiding Garbage Collection in Java Applications. Java Report, 5 (1), pp.28-34.
January 2000.
Ouali, M. & King, R.D. Cascaded multiple classifiers for secondary structure
prediction. Prot. Sci 9,
1162-1176. 2000.
Price, C.J. AutoSteve:
Automated Electrical Design Analysis.
In: Proceedings ECAI-2000: Prestigious Applications of Artificial
Intelligence (PAIS-2000), pp721-725.
Berlin, August 2000,
Shaw A., Summers P., Geneste E. and Barnes D. ALTAIR-1: A laboratory based aerobot for
planetary exploration experiments. In: Proc.
EUREL European Advanced Robotics Systems, Masterclass and Conference,
Salford UK, April 2000.
Sherratt, E.M. and Loftus, C.W.
Designing distributed services with SDL. IEEE
Concurrency, 8 (1).
January-March 2000.
Snooke,N.A., Montgomery, T.A. and Price, C.J. Whole Lifecycle Electrical Design Analysis, 45th
Intl Reliability and Maintainability Symposium. Los Angeles, January 2000.
Sternberg, M.J.E., King, R.D., Srinivasan, A. &
Muggleton, S.H. Drug design by machine learning. Machine Intelligence 15 pp
328-338. 2000
Williams, T.G., Rowland J.J., Lee M.H.
and Neal, M.J. Teaching by Example in Food Assembly by Robot. Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. On Robotics and
Automation, pp3247-52. San
Francisco, April 2000.
Williams, T.G. and Hardy, N.W. The Application of Behaviour-Based
Methodologies to Compliant Motion Control Proceedings of SYROCO 2000. Vienna, Austria, 2000.
Wilson,M.S. Preston:
A System for the Evaluation of Behaviour Sequences. Interdisciplinary
Approaches to Robot Learning. 24,
pp 185-208. 2000.
Wilson,M.S. and Neal,M.J.
Telerobotic Sheepdogs: how useful is autonomous behaviour? In: Meyer,J.A.,
Berthoz,A., Floreano,D., Roitblat,H.L and Wilson,S.W. (eds) Proceedings of
the 6th International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behaviour pp 125—134.
2000.
Barnes, D
P. Member of the Panel of Examiners for the British Computer
Society Professional Examination Board. Co-ordinator for Engineering Science,
Adjunct Scientists Committee. ‘Beagle 2’ 2003 ESA Mars Mission. Member of the
EPSRC Peer Review College 2000-2002.
Bott, M. F. Member of
the British Computer Society Professional Examinations Board.
Coghill, G M. Chairman
of the MONET executive board.
Lee, M H..
Member of CRIT-2, research cooperation in Information Technology with Prof.
Mariusz Flasinski of the Artificial Intelligence Systems Dept., Institute of
Computer science, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland. Member of the
International Programme Committee of Second Int. Workshop on European
Scientific and Industrial Collaboration to Promote Advanced Technologies in
Manufacturing. University Subject Panel Member at U.W. Swansea and UCW Newport
Long, F W.
Visiting Scientist at the Software Engineering Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University. University of Wales Moderator for the BSc in
Business Computing and Information Technology at Informatics, Singapore.
University Subject Panel Member at the Swansea Institute of Higher Education.
Price, C J. Member of
the EPSRC College.
Price, D
E. HEFCW/FWFECW funded Welsh Video Network. Procurement Panel
Member. Review Group for Academic Computer Service, UW, Lampeter. External
Consultant. SuperJanet 4, Quality of Service Think Tank member. UKERNA.
Tedd, M D.
Chairman of the Welsh Advisory Committee on
Telecommunications. Chairman of OFTEL’s Consumer Panel. Vice Chairman of the
Steering Group of the Llwybr/Pathway (Rural Wales Information Society) Project.
Vice Chairman of the Governors of Penglais School.
Bott, M.F.
Member of the Editorial Board of the Practitioner Series, published
jointly by the BCS and Springer Verlag.
Lee, M H. Member
of Editorial Board of Artificial Intelligence in Engineering, Elsevier Science.
Member of Editorial Board of Artificial Intelligence Communications, IOS Press
RESEARCH GRANTS AND CONTRACTS RECEIVED
Researchers: B
K Alsberg
Sponsors: EPSRC
Research Area: Solving peak shift problems in infrared spectroscopy with the peak parameter representation.
Financial Support: £60,000
Researchers: G
M Coghill
Sponsor: CORUS (UK)
Research Area A Feasibility Study on Model-based Diagnosis for an Ammonia Washer System.
Financial Support: £3500
Researchers: G
M Coghill
Sponsor: CORUS
(UK)
Research
Area: CASE
Award
Financial
Support: £11,000
Researchers: D B Kell, J J Rowland and B K
Alsberg
Sponsors: BBSRC
Research
Area: Registration and
compression of proteome gel images using a novel transform.
Financial
Support: £185,388
Researchers: R
D King, J J Rowland and G M Coghill
Sponsors: Royal Society/Wolfson
Research Area: Laboratory Refurbishment in Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics
Financial
Support: £70,965
Researchers: Lee, M H, Price, C J &
Rowland J J
Sponsors: HEFCW-JERI and Sun
Computers
Research
Area: Efficient and Effective
Automated Electrical Design Analysis for Vehicles
Financial
Support: £324,248 (JERI),
£276,968 (Sun Computers
Researchers: M
H Lee
Sponsors: HEFCW TACS Plan
Research Area: Funding for Marketing Manager for Centre for Intelligent Systems
Financial
Support: £15,000
Researchers: D E Price, R Ash
Sponsors: Powys County Council
Research
Area: IT infrastructure
review
Financial
Support: £8,000
Researchers: D E Price
Sponsors: UKERNA
Research
Area: VIP
Demonstration Project
Financial
Support: £10,000
Researchers: D
E Price
Sponsors: University of Newcastle
Research Area: Video Technologies Advisory Service. Technical Advisor (via UKERNA).
Financial
Support: £4,000
In addition, the following research work funded by outside institutions continued during 2000.
Researchers: G M Coghill
Sponsor: EPSRC
Research Area: Model Switching in Diagnosis
Financial support: £52,738
Researchers: R Goodacre, D B Kell and J J
Rowland
Sponsors: BBSRC
Research
Area: Characterisation of
Intact Microorganisms using Electrospray Ionisation Mass Spectrometry
Financial
Support: £205,640
Researchers: D B Kell, J J Rowland and B K
Alsberg
Sponsors: BBSRC
Research
Area: Making the most of a
Genome Sequence: the Application of Transcriptome and Proteome Analysis to
Streptomyces….
Financial
Support: £232,980
Researchers: D B Kell and J J Rowland
Sponsors: BBSRC
Research
Area: Functional Genomics via
the Metabolome
Financial
Support: £321,360
Researcher:
R D King
Sponsor: EPSRC
Research
Area: Deep Database mining
Financial
Support: £53,117
Researchers: R D King and B K Alsberg
Sponsors: BBSRC
Research
Area: Inductive Logic
programming for 3-Dimensional Structure Based Drug Design
Financial
Support: £146,664
Researchers: R D King, D B Kell, J J Rowland, B K Alsberg, G M Coghill et al.
Sponsors: Royal Society/ Wolfson
Foundation
Research Area: Laboratory Refurbishment for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics in Computer Science and Biological Sciences
Financial
Support: £100,465
Researchers: R D King, Oliver S G, G M Coghill, D B Kell amd Srinivasan, A.
Sponsor: BBSRC
Research Area: Bioinformatic System Identification.
Financial Support: £160,696
Researchers: R D King, J J Rowland and D B
Kell
Sponsors: BBSRC
Research
Area: The Robot Scientist:
Application to Functional Genomics
Financial
Support: £313,380
Researchers: R D King
Sponsors: BBSRC/EPSRC
Research
Area: Improved Protein
Secondary Structure Prediction
Financial
Support: £140,968
Researchers: R D King
Sponsors: EPSRC
Research
Area: Closed Loop Machine
Learning
Financial
Support: £182,567
Researchers M H Lee, Coghill, G M and
Price C J
Sponsors: EU
Research
Area MONET: The European
Network of Excellence in Qualitative and Model-Based Reasoning
Financial
Support: 675,000ecu
Researchers: C J Price and N A Snooke
Sponsors: EPSRC/ Ford (USA)
Research Area: Dougal- Whole Vehicle Whole Lifecycle Electrical Design Analysis.
Financial
Support: £475,528
Researcher: J J Rowland
Sponsors: BBSRC
Research Area: ‘Teaching by Example’ for Flexible Automation in Food Product Assembly.
Financial Support: £163,904
Researchers J J Rowland, D P Barnes, R Featherstone, H Holstein, M Wilson
Sponsors: HEFCW Research Capital
Initiative
Research
Area: A Motion Tracking
Facility for Robotics and Biomechanics
Financial
Support: £100,000
Researcher: M D Tedd and D E Price
Sponsor: Llwybr/Pathway
Research
Area: Llwybr/Pathway
Technical Support Centre
Financial
Support: £111,815
LECTURES AND ADDRESSES TO LEARNED SOCIETIES AND CONFERENCES
King, R. D. Bioinformatics
in genome regulation and structure. BGRS2000 Fifth International workshop on
Multistrategy Learning at GPCVI 2000
Price, D.E. Overview
of Videoconferencing Technology. Welsh Video Network Briefing Day. Gregynog,
June 2000
Price, D.E. Past
Experiences of Using the MBone and MBone Applications. Invited Speaker, London
Internet Exchange (LINX), Multicast Seminar, July 2000
Price, D.E. Mbone
Application Configurations and Resource Requirements. Invited Speaker,
London Internet Exchange (LINX), Multicast Seminar, July 2000
Thomas, L. A. The
influence of learning styles on Software Engineering Education. CSEET, Texas
2000
Thomas, L. A. The
implication of different learning styles on the modeling of object-oriented
systems. ICSE 2000, Limerick
Williams, T. G.
ABLE assembly by learning from examples. Younger Engineers Reception, House
of Commons December 2000
POSTGRADUATE SCOLARSHIPS AND STUDENTSHIPS
An EPSRC Research Studentship was awarded
to Gareth Bowker.
A Department Studentship was awarded to
Emmanuel Geneste
HIGHER DEGREES AWARDED
PhD
Lush, Alan. A
Hybrid-Behavioural Architecture for Industrial Robotic Manipulation.
Huss, Richard. The
Effect of Cartilage Deformation on the Human Knee Joint.
Reiser, Philip.
Evolutionary Algorithms for Learning Formulae in first-order Logic
King, Clive.
Retrospective Empirical Analysis of Distributed System Software
Fuell, Helen.
Determining the Usage of Networks
Timmis, Jon.
Artificial Immune Systems: A Novel Data
Analysis Technique Inspired by the Immune Network Theory
Lacey, Nick. The
Relevance and Application of Epistimological Theories to Agent Knowledge Bases
Taylor, Janet. Genetic
Programming & Genetic Algorithms in the Spectroscopic Analysis of
Biological Samples
MPhil
Pickering, Jon. Automatic
Camera Planning
Gregory-Smith, Jeanette. The
Collection, Analysis and Use of Data in General Practice
Boyce, Darren Spatial
Structures and Metaphors for Visualization and Control
MSc
The Degree of MSc in Computer Science was
awarded to 37 candidates, including 3 who studied for the degree in Singapore.
CONFERENCES
Featherstone, R Organised
and chaired the Dynamics Symposium within IEEE ICRA 2000. Member of scientific
committee on ICRA 2000. Member of scientific committee on ISR 2000.
Lee,
M. H. Member of Advisory Board of AID2000 - the 6th
International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Design. Member of
International Programme Committee of Second International Workshop on European
Scientific and Industrial Collaboration to Promote Advanced Technologies in
Manufacturing.
Long, F. Member
of the programme committee for CoSET 2000. Member of the programme committee
and publicity co-chair for ICCBSS.