Internet-of-Things (IoT) Technologies for Integrated Smart Cities Applications by Prof John Soldatos

Title: Internet-of-Things (IoT) Technologies for Integrated Smart Cities Applications

Abstract: The aim of this talk is to illustrate the use of Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies as building blocks of smart city applications. As a first step the talk will present the pertinence of IoT and smart cities and accordingly it will introduce a range of smart city challenges that could be remedied based on recent advances in IoT technologies. Specifically, we will present how IoT/cloud convergence and IoT semantic interoperability can be used to facilitate the integration of existing silo developments in smart city developments, while at the same time providing new opportunities for innovative applications. The talk will also include the presentation of three practical smart city applications that make use of IoT technologies, notably applications in the areas of smart security, live news and urban planning. These applications are developed in the scope of (on-going) FP7 projects PROACTIVE (FP7-285320), SMART (FP7-287583) and VITAL (FP7- 608682-VITAL) and deployment in European cities (Santander (Spain), Camden/London (UK), Istanbul (Turkey)).

Short bio:
John Soldatos is an Associate Professor at the Athens Information Technology, whose current research interests span the areas of internet-of-things, cloud computing and their (IoT/cloud) convergence in the scope of smart city applications. He holds a BSc. Degree (1996) and a PhD degree (2000) both from the National University of Athens, Greece, and since 1995 he has had very active involvement in more than fifteen (EC co-funded) research projects in the areas of broadband networks, pervasive/cloud computing, and the internet-of-things. He is also the initiator and co-founder of open source projects AspireRFID (http://wiki.aspire.ow2.org) and OpenIoT (https://github.com/OpenIotOrg/openiot). As a result of his research activities, he has published more than 140 papers in international journals and conferences. He has also been an Adjunct Professor at the Information Networking Institute of the Carnegie Mellon University (2007-2010) and a Honorary Research Fellow of the School of Computing of University of Glasgow (March 2014 – May 2015).

Event details

  • When: 2nd April 2014 13:00 - 14:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33b
  • Format: Seminar

Cigna: Technology enabling Health & Well being provision across the Globe

Cigna – a global health services company is dedicated to helping those we serve to improve their health and well being. Cigna provides globally connected healthcare services with access to a global network of clinical providers through leveraging the use of pioneering and innovative technology. Find out how you can get engaged and join the team driving innovation in Healthcare!

Maths Lecture Theatre B
Time: 14:00 to 15:00
Date: Tuesday 4th March

Event details

  • When: 4th March 2014 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Maths Theatre B
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar

Data Matching Research at the Australian National University

Seminar by Peter Christen, Australian National University

Techniques for matching, linking, and integrating data from different sources are becoming increasingly important in many application areas, including health, census, taxation, immigration, social welfare, in crime and fraud detection, in the assembly of national security intelligence, for businesses and in bibliometrics, as well as in the social sciences.

Today, data matching (also known as entity resolution, duplicate detection, and data or record linkage) not only faces computational challenges due to the increasing size of data collections and their complexity, but also operational challenges as many applications move from static environments into real-time processing and analysis of potentially large and fast data streams, where real-time matching of records is required. Finally, with the growing concerns by the public of the use of their data, privacy and confidentiality often need to be considered when personal information is being linked and shared between organisations.

In this talk I will present a short introduction to data matching, describe these above discussed challenges, and provide an overview of three areas of research currently conducted in data matching at the Australian National University:

  1. Scalable real-time entity resolution on dynamic databases
  2. Scalable privacy-preserving record linkage techniques
  3. Efficient matching of historical census data across time

 

Event details

  • When: 12th February 2014 13:00 - 14:00
  • Where: Honey 103 - GFB
  • Format: Seminar

At the Edge by Alan Dix, University of Birmingham

Abstract:
From buying plane tickets to eGovernment, participation in consumer and civic society is predicated on continuous connectivity and copious computation . And yet for many at the edges of society, the elderly, the poor, the disabled, and those in rural areas, poor access to digital technology makes them more marginalised, potentially cut off from modern citizenship. I spent three and half months last summer walking over a thousand miles around the margins of Wales in order to experience more directly some of the issues facing those on the physical edges of a modern nation, who are often also at the social and economic margins. I will talk about some of the theoretical and practical issues raised; how designing software with constrained resources is more challenging but potentially more rewarding than assuming everyone lives with Silicon Valley levels of connectivity.

Bio:
Alan is Professor of Computing at University of Birmingham and Senior Researcher at Talis based in Birmingham, but, when not in Birmingham, or elsewhere lives in Tiree a remote island of the west coast of Scotland.

Alan’s career has included mathematical modelling for agricultural crop sprayers, COBOL programming, submarine design and intelligent lighting. However, he is best known for his work in Human Computer Interaction over three decades including his well known HCI textbook and some of the earliest work in formal methods, mobile interaction, and privacy in HCI. He has worked in posts across the university sector as well as a period as founder director of two dotcom companies, aQtive (1998) and vfridge (2000), which, between them, attracted £850,000 of venture capital funding. He currently works part-time for the University of Birmingham and is on the REF Panel for Computer Science. He also works part-time for Talis, which, inter alia, provides the reading list software used at St Andrews.

His interests and research methods remain, as ever, eclectic, from formal methods, to technical creativity and the modelling of regret. At present he is completing a book, TouchIT, about physicality in design, working with musicologists on next generation digital archives, envisioning how learning analytics can inform and maybe transform university teaching, and working in various projects connected with communication and energy use on Tiree and rural communities.

Last year he completed a walk around Wales as an exploration into technical issues ‘at the edge’, the topic of his seminar.

Event details

  • When: 6th May 2014 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Maths Theatre B
  • Format: Seminar

Highly Deformable Mobile Devices & Future Mobile Phones by Johannes Schöning, Hasselt University

Speaker: Johannes Schöning, Hasselt University
Date/Time: 2-3pm April 8th, 2014
Location: Maths Lecture Theatre B, University of St Andrews

Title: Highly Deformable Mobile Devices & Future Mobile Phones

Abstract:
In the talk I will present the concept of highly deformable mobile devices that can be transformed into various special-purpose controls in order to bring physical controls to mobile devices (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLe52PFZrtc). I will present different interaction techniques enabled by this concept and present results from an in-depth study. Our findings show that these physical controls provide several benefits over traditional touch interaction techniques commonly used on mobile devices. In addition we will give insights on a large-scale study that logged detailed application usage information from over 4,100 users of Android-powered mobile devices.

Bio:
Johannes Schöning is a professor of computer science with a focus on HCI at Hasselt University, working within the Expertise centre for Digital Media (EDM) – the ICT research Institute of Hasselt University. In addition, he is a visiting lecturer at UCL London within the Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Sustainable Cities.

His research interests are new methods and novel mobile interfaces to navigate through spatial information. In general, he develops, designs and tests user interfaces that help people to solve daily tasks more enjoyable and/ or effectively. This includes the development of mobile augmented reality applications, interactive surfaces and tabletops and other “post desktop” interfaces. His research and work was awarded with several prices and awards, such as the ACM Eugene Lawler Award or the Vodafone Research Award for his PhD.  In addition, Johannes serve as a junior fellow of “Gesellschaft für Informatik”.

This seminar is part of our ongoing series from researchers in HCI. See here for our current schedule.

Event details

  • When: 8th April 2014 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Maths Theatre B
  • Format: Seminar

Should Technology be more mindful? by Yvonne Rogers, UCL.

Abstract:
We are increasingly living in our digital bubbles. Even when physically together – as families and friends in our living rooms, outdoors and public places – we have our eyes glued to our own phones, tablets and laptops. The new generation of ‘all about me’ health and fitness gadgets, that is becoming more mainstream, is making it worse. Do we really need smart shoes that tell us when we are being lazy and glasses that tell us what we can and cannot eat? Is this what we want from technology – ever more forms of digital narcissism, virtual nagging and data addiction? In contrast, I argue for a radical rethink of our relationship with future digital technologies. One that inspires us, through shared devices, tools and data, to be more creative, playful and thoughtful of each other and our surrounding environments.

Bio:
Yvonne Rogers is a Professor of Interaction Design, the director of UCLIC and a deputy head of the Computer Science department at UCL. Her research interests are in the areas of ubiquitous computing, interaction design and human-computer interaction. A central theme is how to design interactive technologies that can enhance life by augmenting and extending everyday, learning and work activities. This involves informing, building and evaluating novel user experiences through creating and assembling a diversity of pervasive technologies.

This seminar is part of our ongoing series from researchers in HCI. See here for our current schedule.

Event details

  • When: 11th March 2014 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Maths Theatre B
  • Format: Seminar

How human-human dialogue research can lead us to understand speech behaviours in human-computer dialogue: The case of lexical alignment by Benjamin Cowan, University of Birmingham.

Abstract:
Dialogue is a dynamic social activity. Research has consistently shown that our dialogue partners impact our speech choices whereby we converge (or align) on aspects such as lexical choice and syntax. With the development of more natural computer dialogue partners and the increase of speech as an interaction modality in many devices and applications, it is important that we understand what impacts how we behave linguistically in such dialogue interactions wth computers. My talk will focus on my current work looking at how design choices and computer partner behaviours affect alignment in human-computer dialogue and how this can inform the theory-based debate over what leads to such a behaviour.

Bio:
Dr Benjamin Cowan is a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham’s Human-Computer Interaction Centre, based in the School of Computer Science. His research is at the juncture between Psychology and Computer Science, studying how interface design affects user perceptions, emotions and behaviours in human-computer based interactions. Specifically he studies how design and system actions affect user linguistic behaviours as well as the causes and predictors of user anxiety towards social system contributions.

Event details

  • When: 25th February 2014 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Maths Theatre B
  • Format: Seminar

Ubicomp, Touch and Gaze by Hans Gellersen

Abstract:
Touch input and two-handed interaction were intensively studied in the mid 80′s but it’s taken 20 years for these ideas to emerge in the mainstream, with the advent of multi-touch interfaces. Gaze has been studied for almost as long as interaction modality and appears on the brink of wider use. This talk will present recent work that reconsiders touch and gaze to address challenges in ubiquitous computing: interaction across personal devices and large displays, and spontaneous interaction with displays using our eyes only.

Bio:
Hans Gellersen is a Professor of Interactive Systems in the School of Computing & Communications at Lancaster University. His research interests are in ubiquitous computing and systems and technologies for human-computer interaction. He has contributed on topics including location, context and activity sensing, device association and cross-device interaction, and interfaces that blend physical and digital interaction. In his recent work, he is particularly interested in eye movement analysis: as a source of contextual information on human activity, interest and well-being; and as a resource for interaction beyond the lab. Hans is closely involved with the UbiComp conference series which we founded in 1999, and served on the Editorial Boards of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, and IEEE Pervasive Computing. He holds a PhD from Karlsruhe University.

Event details

  • When: 11th February 2014 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Maths Theatre B
  • Format: Seminar

Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure

Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure, or ‘how to break into a nuclear power station for fun & profit’

Dr Richard Gold, Cisco Systems, UK

Cyber Security for Critical Infrastructures such as the power grid, oil & gas pipelines and dams has become a hot topic since the Stuxnet malware attack against the nuclear enrichment centrifuges in Iran. However, due to intrinsic issues with the field of Critical Infrastructure (a.k.a., ICS or SCADA), it is difficult to deploy standard IT security solutions “as is” to these systems. In this talk I discuss the problems associated with deploying effective security processes in Critical Infrastructures, the various types of security holes which these system contain and a step-by-step approach to exploiting a Critical Infrastructure installation. Thinking from the attacker’s perspective allows us to get an insight into how these systems are vulnerable and how a potential attacker might exploit them.

Event details

  • When: 18th February 2014 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Maths Theatre B
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar

Evaluation of Network Resilience and Survivability: Analysis, Simulation, Tools, and Experimentation by James P. G. Sterbenz, ITTC, University of Kansas

As the Internet becomes increasingly important to all aspects of society, the consequences of disruption are increasingly severe. Thus it is critical to increase the resilience and survivability of the future networks in general, and the Internet in particular. We define resilience as the ability of the network to provide desired service even when the network is challenged by attacks, large-scale disasters, and other failures. Resilience subsumes the disciplines of survivability, fault-tolerance, disruption-tolerance, traffic-tolerance, dependability, performability, and security. After an introduction to the disciplines and challenges to network resilience, this presentation will discuss analytical, simulation, and experimental emulation techniques for understanding, evaluating, and improving the resilience of the Future Internet. This includes a multilevel state-space based approach that plots network service delivery against operational state that is the basis for both mathematical- and simulation-based analysis, and graph-theoretic complex-system approaches that embed fundamental properties such as redundancy and diversity into all aspects of network structure, mechanism, and protocols. A set of tools to help in this analysis has been developed: KU-LoCGen (Location and Cost-Constrained Topology Generation), KU-TopView (Topology Viewer), and KU-CSM (Challenge Simulation Module). Plans to experimentally evaluate resilience include using the international programmable testbed GpENI: Great Plains Environment for Network Innovation. A new composable, cross-layered resilient transport protocol (ResTP) and geodiverse multipath routing protocol (GeoDivRP) are being developed.

Event details

  • When: 28th January 2014 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Maths Theatre B
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar