Research Highlights at DCSIS
This is a selection of the research projects currently running at DCSIS.
View all of our research projects.
Knowledge Representation & Reasoning about Distances
Models of closeness in space
Distance spaces - as models of closeness in space or similarity of objects - play a fundamental role in such diverse fields as geographic information systems, computational molecular biology, text processing, and data mining.
Complementing the existing database technology by means of knowledge representation methodologies is a promising approach to many of the challenging open problems in these and other fields, where sets of objects whose properties depend heavility on some notion of distance play an important role. In this project we will design representation and reasoning formalisms covering both quantitative and qualitative knowledge about distances. The project will combine work on logical and computational properties of the designed logics with work on tableau, resolution, and term-rewriting types of reasoning algorithms. The algorithms will be implemented and resulting systems will be used for initial experiments with representative case studies. An integration of the resulting languages with terminological languages (description logics) will be developed, implemented, and tested as well.
L4All
Life Long Learning London for All
L4All has targeted the independent lifelong learner by creating a system that records and shares learning pathways and trails.
L4All has created a portal that allows learners to access selected information and resources, plan their own learning pathways, and maintain and reflect upon their individual record of learning throughout their lives. The system allows learners to share their learning plans and pathways with other learners, in order to support collaborative learning and to formulate future learning goals and aspirations. Tutors are able to publish recommended pathways through courses and modules, thereby facilitating progression into Higher Education (HE) and supporting career choices. Go to the L4All project page.
The Ubicomp Google
Exploring ambient dynamics and findability
The construction of spaces composed of physical artefacts augmented with computational, sensing, auto-identification and wireless communication capabilities is becoming increasingly practical at larger scale and drives research interest in the technical challenges related to the everyday use of such intelligent environments. Nevertheless, several barriers remain before intelligent environments can be effectively used, notably the fact that abundance of such computational and communication capability does not necessarily imply the availability of useful or usable services and applications. In fact, the contrary is often the case since such spaces are the source and possibly also the repository of massive amounts of data created by the continuous archival of personal experiences, which users cannot access in a meaningful way. A major challenge in making intelligent environments useful is indeed the development of efficient and effective navigation mechanisms that is, the ability to search, locate and retrieve information as and when needed so as to fit the task at hand. To be sure, in addition to capture, intelligent environments must provide mechanisms for the effective navigation of recorded personal experiences as a core ingredient of their architecture.
Feral Robots
What background environmental factors affect our neighborhoods?
Robotic Feral Public Authoring links together two branches of research for community fun and action. Hobbyist robotics and public authoring (knowledge mapping and sharing) both enable people to use emerging technologies in dynamic and exciting new ways. Brought together they open up whole vistas of possibilities for exploring our local environments with electronic sensors to detect all kinds of phenomena and map them using online tools.
MiGen
MiGen: Intelligent Support for Mathematical Generalisation
The MiGen project is tackling a thorny problem that confronts all teachers of mathematics:
What is algebra for?
* How is it useful for expressing generalisations?
* What does it mean to generalise in mathematics?
We are building a pedagogical and technical environment to support 11-14 year-old students' learning of mathematical generalisations. The system comprises a microworld, the eXpresser and two intelligent tools, the eGeneraliser and the eCollaborator. When students are tackling generalisation tasks, the eGeneraliser will be providing personalised feedback adapted to the learning trajectories of each student. Through the eCollaborator, students will be able to view each others' constructions and compare, critique and discuss them. Both intelligent tools will send information to teachers to help them provide appropriate guidance.
Our research team of social, educational and computer scientists, together with teachers and teacher educators are co-designing the system and iteratively testing it with students.
Samtla
Samtla: Search And Mining Tools for Linguistic Analysis
The SAMTLA system has been designed to assist researchers in the Humanities with the task of quantifying historic corpora through phrase searches and comparative methods. SAMTLA adopts methods developed in Information Retrieval including character-based Suffix Trees, probabilistic Language Models, Named Entity Recognition, and Data Mining techniques such as clustering and classification. SAMTLA presents search results according to the underlying principles and structure of the language present in domain specific corpora.
