Research projects in Information Technology

PhD project abstract

The multi-agent path finding problem (MAPF) asks us to find a collision-free plan for a team of moving agents. Such problems appear in many application settings (including robotics, logistics, computer games) and a wide variety of solution methods have been proposed. Once a plan is computed, execution proceeds under the supervision of a human operator who is free to modify and adjust the plan, or even reject it entirely, because of changing operational requirements.

Short description

As a pregnancy approaches term (the point at which the foetus is considered fully developed), decisions are made about the timing of birth and the way babies are born. These decisions are incredibly challenging for clinicians and pregnant women. Digital health records, advances in big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence methodologies, and novel data visualisation capabilities have opened up opportunities for a dynamic, ‘Learning Health System’ – where data can be harnessed to inform real-time and personalised decision-making.

Metals are made of small crystals - i.e., atoms are arranged in a particular geometric arrangement, which are typically in the range of a few 10s of microns (0.01 mm). The arrangement of these crystals greatly affects the performance of the metal and hence the performance of components where metals are used - such as in aeroplanes, gas turbine engines, cars, etc. The manner in which such materials deform, crack and fail under a variety of conditions is an important area in terms of cost and safety.

This project aims to identify novel methods for inferring actors, activities, and other elements from short message communications. Covert communications are a specialist domain for analysis in the Law Enforcement (LE) context. In this project we aim to improve law enforcement’s understanding of online criminal communications, exploring texts for automated understanding of intent, sentiment, criminal capability, and involvement.

This project will investigate and develop the ways in which AI algorithms and practices can be made transparent and explainable for use in law enforcement and judicial applications

The use of AI in law enforcement and judicial domains requires consideration of a number of ethical issues.  This project will investigate and develop frameworks that embed ethical principles in the research, development, deployment ,and use of AI systems in law enforcement (LE). A major focus is expected to concern the acquisition, use, sharing and governance of data for AI in this context.

This project seeks to explore the use of 3D printing to provide better access to graphical information to those who are blind or have low vision.

Project description: