Scaleable Information Management

Our Research is aimed at enabling people to use information where, when and how they need it. This involves overcoming the challenges of distribution, complexity and scale. The group's ethos is to apply our solutions to real problems, ensuring that ideas are properly evaluated. This also invariably generates new requirements and challenges.

The group has been at the heart of the UK's e-science programme since its inception, including hosting the North East Regional e-Science Centre. As a result of our work on e-science, our main application drivers are e-business, bioinformatics, neuroinformatics and cultural computing.

Research Areas

Our main areas of research are:

Data Integration

Our early work on Grid-enabled databases and the application of Web Services technologies to Grid computing was influential in both industry and academia. This has led to research into the integration of distributed, autonomous and heterogeneous data.

Dynamic Resource Provisioning

We investigate the highly dynamic provisioning of resources in service-oriented architectures, from dynamic and usable deployment of services (e.g. Dynasoar), through to scaleable computational grids for genomic analysis.

Human Computer Interaction

Research in human computer interaction combines formal approaches with practical developments of ubiquitous computing. Usable formal tools based on interactors and model checking techniques have been developed to analyse template-based properties. Research in the context of designs to support pedestrian navigation have increased the understanding, modelling and application of spatial concepts in human-computer interaction with mobile and ubiquitous systems.

Agent-based Simulation

Agent-based simulation, dynamics and evolution in complex systems have been applied to biological, social and technological systems. They have been used to study the role of environmental uncertainty in the emergence and evolution of cooperation.

Network Analysis

Network analysis has also been used to explore the spatial organisation of neural systems as a paradigm for computation. Results include the discovery that brain networks are optimized for fast processing rather than for saving energy resources.

Research Challenges

We are currently addressing an exciting set of research challenges in all the above areas.

Research Themes

We are involved in running a number of Research Themes, whose web sites (available from the menus on the left of this page) give more information on our research.

Funding

Our work is funded from a variety of sources, including BT, CodeWorks, DTI, EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC, AHRC, EU, e-Therapeutics, JISC, MRC and NStar.

Collaboration

We collaborate widely with industry and other Universities, including: Queens University Belfast, Birmingham, Cambridge, IBM, Imperial College, IT Innovations, Manchester, Microsoft, Minho Portugal, Nottingham, Oracle, Rutgers, Southampton, Swansea, Warwick, and York.