Category / Technology & Design

Critical Review Of Vendor Lock-In And Its Impact On Adoption Of Cloud Computing

PG research

We would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre for the new academic year, that will be delivered by Justice Opara-Martins.

 

Title: Critical Review Of Vendor Lock-In And Its Impact On Adoption Of Cloud Computing

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 19th November 2014

Room: P302, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

Cloud computing offers an innovative business model for organizations to adopt IT services at a reduced cost with increased reliability and scalability. However organizations are slow in adopting the cloud model due to the prevalent vendor lock-in issue and challenges associated with it. While the existing cloud solutions for public and private companies are vendor locked-in by design, their existence is subject to limited possibility to interoperate with other cloud systems. In this seminar we will present a critical review of pertinent business, technical, and legal issues associated with vendor lock-in, and how it impacts on the widespread adoption of cloud computing. The talk in this seminar will reflect on the issues associated with interoperability and portability, but with a focus on vendor lock-in. Moreover, the talk will demonstrate the importance of interoperability, portability and standards applicable to cloud computing environments along with highlighting other corporate concerns due to the lock-in problem. The outcome of this seminar provides a foundation for future analysis and review regarding the impact of vendor neutrality for corporate cloud computing application and services. 

We hope to see you there.

User Experience (UX) Themed Call for KTPs

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, student research

 

The User Experience (or UX) KTP competition  has just opened .

The aim is to encourage new, enhanced forms of interaction between computing systems and the people who use them.   Proposals may address technologies that contribute to these new forms, such as sensing information about the user, or those that improve specific types of experience, such as mobile and wearable devices.

A launch event is being held in London on 14 November 2014. Registration is required.

 To find our more about this call and other KTP opportuntities please contact Rachel Clarke in R&KEO . Contact details are as follows: email: clarker@bournemouth.ac.uk or ring extension 61347.

Three for the price of one: Keynote Talk, Outstanding Contribution Award and Media Appearance.

Prof Gabrys delivers a keynote talk at the KES 2014 international conference, receives the Outstanding Contribution to the KES International organisation award and appears in two popular Polish TV’s “Panorama” news programmes.

It was a very nice and productive trip to a beautiful Polish seaside city of Gdynia where the 18th International Conference on Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Information & Engineering Systems took place between the 14th and 17th of September 20014.

I thought that I was only going to deliver a keynote talk which in itself was a nice recognition of the ongoing work that we are doing in the areas of robust adaptive predictive modelling and data science and a great opportunity to talk to over 200 delegates from over 30 countries attending the conference but as it turned out there were some other attractions awaiting.

This very well organised conference attracted the attention of the Polish TV and the topics of data science, artificial intelligence or big data, all in the focus of our Data Science Institute at BU, were judged to be of considerable interest to the general public. Not only I had an opportunity to talk briefly about the conference topics during the TV coverage at the conference venue (which was aired in the evening news programme on the 15th of Sep) but together with one of the local organisers we were invited to the “Panorama” programme studio to take part in the morning news programme the following day (aired on the 16th of Sep). The interaction with the journalists and the production teams brought to my attention how important is our role in informing and educating about this very dynamically changing field and related technological innovations which have already had such a huge impact on our lives and will play even bigger role in the near future.

So whatever next, I thought. Well, there was another surprise around the corner. Though I have been involved in the KES International for a number of years it has come as a very pleasant surprise and an honour to receive the Outstanding Contribution to KES International award during the conference dinner.

An icing on the cake, you could say. 🙂

Interested in Digital Health research?

We will be holding a CHIRP meeting on Thursday 30th October at 1pm in P403 for anyone who may be currently conducting (or interested in conducting) research studies related to digital health.

The aims of these CHIRP meetings are to meet regularly as a group with common interests so that we can stay updated about current research/current technologies etc., potentially find areas of common interest for collaboration and generally bounce ideas around one another.

Meetings are open to anyone interested in digital technologies and health whether this focuses on digital health interventions, issues around the impact of digital technologies on health and wellbeing, how digital technologies can aid clinical training or something similar. We are particularly interested in creating a multi-disciplinary group of researchers so welcome any colleagues from Health and Social Care, Computing, Psychology, the Media School etc. etc.

We are currently working on pulling together a BU CHIRP/Digital Health research webpage and aim to share our first version with colleagues at the meeting as well as update current/planned projects and past/upcoming events of interest.

Please contact Sarah on swilliams@bournemouth.ac.uk if you would like to join our CHIRP group or would like to come along and find out more at our meeting on the 30th.

Dog Facial Animation (CTRC Guest Seminar)

Speaker: Professor Andres Newball
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cali, Colombia
Date: Thursday 30th October 2014   
Time: 15.00-16.00pm
Venue: P335

Abstract: Several human facial animation models have been developed in the last 30 years. In contrast, less attention has been given to animal facial models. Animal facial anatomical features are usually humanised, oversimplified, cartoonised or ignored. With Londra, our dog facial animation model, we successfully synthesised dog facial expressions such as anger, affection, attention, fear, happiness, yawning and smelling without displaying anthropomorphic features. A preliminary validation suggested that most expressions were recognised consistently. Our contributions include: a simplified model inspired by anatomy; a new bottom up form of the layered approach for the bone, muscle, complementary, skin and fur layers; a Dog Facial Action Coding System to synthesise the expressions; and the Tabulated Sphere Subsets to provide a fast way to approximate collisions between objects with constrained motion. This project was funded by the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cali; The University of Otago and Colfuturo and had the collaboration from the Manchester Metropolitan University.

Games & Interaction (CTRC Guest Seminar)

Speaker: Professor Andres Newball
Pontificia University Javeriana, Cali, Colombia
Date: Wednesday 29th October 2014   
 Time: 11-12
Venue: Lawrence LT

1. Chimú Interactive: We aimed to make accessible knowledge about the Chimú culture. In this project, we integrated an interactive immersive application on site, an augmented reality mobile application and a database to create a narrative where the player is an archaeologist. For the virtual reality based immersive environment, we required a system that allowed, according to a set script, viewing and exploring the pyramid of Tantalluc and to explore three of its tombs, excavating, cleaning, taking and observing objects and artefacts.

2. Talking to TEO– assisted speech therapy: It is a video game developed and based on verbal therapy and educational objectives, aimed at the rehabilitation of children with early diagnosed hearing disability, and who use aids such as cochlear implants. The software integrates speech recognition for user interaction and benefits from visual feedback.

All are invited

Ever launched a CR@B? We did!

Yesterday was the first meeting of the Consumer Research @ BU group (CR@B) and it turned out to be a busy and energising meeting of minds from a wide variety of disciplines from across BU.  As we listened to each other’s presentations and compared notes the opportunities for working together in new ways unfolded.

Our aim in bringing the group together is to foster inter-disciplinary research, provide a platform for interaction with industry, and a forum for ideas.  Given the success of our first meeting, we will now be holding informal coffee and cake meetings every 4-6 weeks with time for CR@B research bites (short presentations about our research) and discussion.  We will also be planning a series of high profile public research talks and workshops designed with research and industry application in mind.

Anyone who is doing consumer research is welcome.  This might include researchers working in:-

  • Consumer cultures
  • Consumer behaviour
  • Retail and marketing
  • Visual cognition and consumption
  • Food consumerism and consumption
  • Consumer neuroscience
  • Advertising

and almost certainly more.

So … if you think you might be a CR@B, and are out there hiding under a stone, please crawl out and come and join us.

Our next meeting is at 3pm on Wednesday 3rd December in D234, Dorset House, Talbot Campus.  If you would like to come along or would simply like to find out more please email either Jeff Bray in Tourism who is hosting our next session or any of the other contacts below so that we can get a feel for numbers.

 

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk) 

An Example of Research Informed Education

Fusion, Publishing, student research

I have been leading final year Design & Engineering “Advanced Technology & Innovation” unit. This is a 40 credit unit and 50% of the course work is assessed through a research publication.

During this unit the students had the opportunity to choose a topic for research within the area of coatings including nano coatings, structural integrity (corrosion simulation and modelling), thermodynamics, renewable energy and materials. These areas of research are supported through state-of-the-art experimental and analytical resources in Sustainable Design Research Centre and supported by significant industrial collaborations.

Final year design engineering students have been actively engaged with the research activity and were successful in publishing the following journal (open access) and conference papers.

Nugent, M., & Khan, Z. (2014). The effects of corrosion rate and manufacturing in the prevention of stress corrosion cracking on structural members of steel bridges. The Journal of Corrosion Science and Engineering JCSE, 17(16). Retrieved from http://www.jcse.org/

Grover, M., & Khan, Z. (2014). The Comparison on Tool Wear, Surface Finish and Geometric Accuracy when turning EN8 Steel in Wet and Dry Conditions. In M. Grover (Ed.), World Congress on Engineering 2014: The 2014 International Conference of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management (pp. 1093-1097). Imperial College London: Newswood Limited International Association of Engineers. Retrieved from http://www.iaeng.org/WCE2014/index.html

Wilton-Smith, K., Khan, Z., Saeed, A., & Hadfield, M. (2014). Accelerated Corrosion tests of Waste-gated Turbocharger’s Adjustable and Fixed End Links. In High Performance and Optimum Design of Structures and Materials Vol. 137 (pp. 501-508). Southampton: Wessex Institute of Technology, UK. doi: 10.2495/HPSM140461

Dobson, P., & Khan, Z. (2013). Design considerations for carbon steel pipes materials’ selection applied in fossil powered plants subjected to wet-steam flow accelerated- corrosion review paper. Journal of Corrosion Science and Engineering, 16, 1-13. Retrieved from http://www.scopus.com/source/sourceInfo.url?sourceId=12326&origin=recordpage

Denham, L., & Khan, Z. (2013). The prevention of corrosion and corrosion
stress cracking on structural members of
fixed deep sea oil rigs. The Journal of Corrosion Science and Engineering, 16, 1-13. Retrieved from http://www.jcse.org/

The paper “The Comparison on Tool Wear, Surface Finish and Geometric Accuracy when turning EN8 Steel in Wet and Dry Conditions” was accepted in the World Congress on Engineering 2014 organised by International Association of Engineers (IAENG) at the Imperial College London 2-4 July 2014. This paper was presented at the conference. This paper has now been selected to be contributed as a book chapter which will be published by Springer.

“We are happy to inform you that Springer has invited us to publish the edited book [ Transactions on Engineering Technologies – World Congress on Engineering 2014] for our WCE 2014 and we are now inviting our WCE 2014 conference participants of selected papers for the edited book.” [extract from invitation].

Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor)

Director Sustainable Design Research Centre

SciTech

 

Call for entries for fifth UK Energy Innovation Awards

Innovators from across the energy industry and SME community are being invited to enter the UK’s leading energy innovation awards which showcase and celebrate outstanding projects, technologies and talent making a real impact in the energy sector.

Now in its fifth year, the UK Energy Innovation Awards 2015, will unite figureheads of the energy industry and the innovation community in a high profile event to celebrate the best innovations across the electricity and gas networks including the renewables sector.

Following an unprecedented number of high calibre entries last year, the awards, organised by the Energy Innovation Centre and supported by leaders from the major energy companies, has been refreshed and extended to include new categories which reflect the diversity of entries in previous years.

These updated categories include:

  • Best Offshore Renewable Energy Innovation sponsored by the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult
  • Best Electricity Network Improvement
  • Best Gas Network Improvement
  • Best Innovation Contributing to Quality and Reliability of Electricity Supply
  • Best Innovation Contributing to Quality and Reliability of Gas Supply

Altogether there will be 14 categories with the closing date for entries on Friday, December 12th. A black tie awards ceremony will be held in Manchester on April 30th featuring leaders from across the energy networks. Entries can be made online by visiting www.energyinnovationcentre.com

Chief executives from across the energy industry will be on the judging panel including Northern Gas Network’s chief executive and Energy Innovation Centre chairman Mark Horsley.

Last year, the awards attracted more than 370 guests from the electricity, gas and offshore renewables sectors along with innovators from a wide range of small businesses, start-up companies and academia.

Amongst the winners were Open Grid Systems which won the ‘International Trade Award’ in recognition of strong overseas sales of its tablet application which gives network operators an augmented reality view of assets out in the field, the first tool of its kind. Other technologies recognised included a robotic system which internally repairs leaking cast iron mains, the UK’s first ‘smart grid’ in Orkney and a unique technology to allow keyhole excavations on highways and roads.

Denise Massey, managing director of the Energy Innovation Centre, said: “The UK innovation scene has continued to grow and develop so much since the awards began back in 2010 and we are proud to have been able to contribute to this. With this in mind, we look forward to seeing a diverse and exciting range of entries representing the continued improvements happening in the sector.

 “The Energy Innovation Centre exists to encourage this important collaboration between external innovators and the energy industry by modernising the networks and revolutionising the way electricity and gas is delivered. It’s clear the industry is alive with an incredible number of talented, creative and forward thinking problem solvers, engineers, technologists, and academics so we look forward to seeing the entries.”

The full list of categories includes:

For category sponsorship opportunities, please contact Out There Events on 0161 946 6262 or email ellie@outthereevents.com.

Cyber Security seminars for 2014-2015 start with a bang

Fusion

Yesterday, we held the first of this academic year’s cyber security seminars.  We hosted Dr John Lyle from Facebook, who spoke to a packed audience in the Barnes Lecture Theatre about some of the challenges fighting spam at Facebook.  After his talk, John described how impressed he was with some of the thought provoking questions raised by audience.

Our next seminar will be on Tuesday, 25th November and will be delivered by Dr Andrea Atzeni from the Computer and Network Security group at Politecnico di Torino.  Andrea will be visiting us that week as part of our Fusion funded Bournemouth European Network in Interdisciplinary Cyber Security (BENICS) project.  Watch this space for more details about  Andrea’s talk.

Our interdisciplinary seminar series on Cyber Security is a wonderful opportunity to hear interesting, thought-provoking talks on a variety of topics related to security and privacy.  Although some of these speakers will be academic, their talks will be approachable and require nothing more than a general interest in security, and an enquiring mind.  We’re also interested in ideas about possible speakers or seminar topics, so please get in touch if you have any suggestions.

£1million in digital healthcare innovation available from Creative England

Funding opportunities

This fund is designed to stimulate creative and digital innovation in This UK healthcare.
Are you working with or know of  small creative and digital businesses (SMEs) with innovative concepts or prototypes using digital technology to improve patient care and health services?
These maybe in areas such as dementia, social care, and cardiovascular and medication management.
The South West is one of the first three regions to benefit from this funding opportunity.
Key information:
  • 5 x £50,000 investments will be made.
  • Companies must be based in the North, Midlands or South West.
  • Examples of projects could be improving quality of care; caring for people with dementia; supporting people with long-term conditions; and data visualisation.
  • Mobile apps, development of a new game for tablet or mobile are also eligible.

Applications will be assessed on a rolling basis and the fund will close on 31 October 2014.

More information can be found here.

Alternatively please feel free to contact

Jayne Codling – Knowledge Exchange Adviser

Ext 61215 jcodling@bournemouth.ac.uk

BU helping to evolve security and privacy by design

On Monday, BU researchers co-organised a workshop on Evolving Security and Privacy Requirements Engineering (ESPRE) at the 22nd IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2014) in Karlskrona, Sweden.  The workshop brought together practitioners and researchers from around the world, who shared their thoughts about how security and privacy can be incorporated into the design of software as early as possible, without compromising productivity or sacrificing innovation.  The RE conference series is one of the premier conferences in software engineering, and the ESPRE workshop is the successor of several successful secure software engineering workshops.  Shamal Faily (SciTech) organised this workshop, together with colleagues from Germany (University of Duisberg-Essen), South Korea (Ajou University), and the USA (Carnegie Mellon University).

The workshop began with a keynote talk from Professor Angela Sasse (UCL), who described some recent research examining how companies build security into products they develop, and the need to change the discourse around usability and security.  Three technical paper sessions followed, before the workshop was concluded with an invited talk by Aljosa Pasic (Atos Research & Innovation) on some of the market trends and business challenges in security engineering.  Further information about the workshop itself can be found at http://espre2014.org .

We’re grateful to the Faculty of Science & Technology for co-sponsoring this workshop, and to all the workshop attendees for sharing their work.

Non-intrusive river flow measurement – funding available

Funding opportunities

This SBRI competition is focused on the Environment Agency’s need to measure river flows in challenging locations where existing standard instrumentation cannot be used. However, a solution that could also be deployed in less demanding/normal river conditions would be ideal.

 Over 5.5 million, or one in six, properties are at risk of flooding from all types of floods across England and Wales. The latest UKCP09 climate change projections indicate rising sea levels and increasingly severe and frequent rainstorms mean the risk of floods will increase.
The Environment Agency requires a non intrusive method of river flow measurement which is capable of measuring river flows to “bank full” in rivers with variable backwater, weed growth and with a mobile bed load.
Priority requirements
  • a cost-effective solution
  • minimise the need for in-channel civil engineering works
  • the solution must provide data outputs that can be ported into Environment Agency telemetry systems
  • the solution should be low maintenance
  • it should be able to be supported and maintained by non-specialist staff with moderate technical skills
  • to be able to measure flows in channels that are affected by in channel weed growth and mobile beds
  • to be able to measure flows to local bank full level
  • the solution should measure flows to an accuracy of 6 to 15% or better in the range of flows of interest
  • not affect fish migration, both upstream and downstream
  • have a minimal impact on river fauna and flora and sediment transport
  • meet as many of the aspirational specifications as possible for the proposed new technology (highlighted in the competition brief)
Further details of the challenge are included in the competition brief.
Register for the networking and  briefing event – to be held in London on  Monday 15 September 2014.
Key dates for this call can be found here.