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 | Newsletter May 2000 Number 7 |
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ContentsAppointmentsPromotions Visitors Departmental News: Otago CS Otago IS Canterbury Lincoln Auckland Events Conference Reports Masters Theses PhD Theses
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Marjan Lousberg
Teaching Fellow (from January)
Simon McCallum
Teaching Fellow (from February)
Raymond Scurr
Teaching Fellow (from January)
Nic Smith
Teaching Fellow (from July)
Mathematical modelling, visualisation
Dr James Noble
Lecturer (from November '99)
Software design, design patterns, usability, object-oriented programming
Frances Rosamond
Senior Lecturer (from July '99)
Computer science/mathematical sciences education
Dr Mark Hall
Lecturer (from February)
Machine learning, data mining
Mr Jörg Micheel
Data Network Researcher (from March '99)
Network measurements, operating systems, compiler design
Dr Masood Masoodian
Lecturer (from February)
Computer supported cooperative work, human computer interaction, user-centred design, group communication
Dr Bernhard Pfahringer
Senior Lecturer (from March)
Machine Learning, data mining, AI, programming languages (CP + OOP)
Dr Gordon Paynter
Research Assistant (from March)
Programming by demonstration, information retrieval, digital libraries
Mr Greg Reeve
Research Assistant (from December '98)
Formal specification, Z, micro-charts, denotational semantics, functional programming
Mr Yong Wang
Part-time Lecturer (from February)
Data mining, machine learning, artificial intelligence
Dr Ulrich Günther
Temporary Lecturer (from February 2000)
Coding, Internet technology, signal processing and information theory, technology transfer between cultures
Ms Ute Loerch
Temporary Lecturer (from January 2000)
Natural language recognition, fuzzy logic, case-based reasoning, educational software, artificial intelligence
Ms Miriam Walker
Limited Term Tutor (from January 1999)
Human-computer interaction
Dr Ian Watson
Senior Lecturer (from April 2000)
Case-based reasoning, applications of AI on the Web
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Dr Steve Reeves BSc(Hons) PhD(Birm)
Promoted to Associate Professor in April.
Formal methods in software engineering and HCI, functional and logic programming, mathematical foundations of computer science
Dr Georgy Gimel'farb MSc PhD(Kiev) DSc(Moscow)
Promoted to Associate Professor during 1999. Georgy has more than 135 refereed publications in Russian and Ukrainian (before 1997) and more than 45 refereed publications in English (after 1991) on computational stereo vision, space and aerial image analysis, image texture simulation, segmentation and retrieval, and other topics in computer vision and image processing. In 1999, Georgy published a monograph "Gibbs Random Fields and Image Textures" (Kluwer Academic).
Computational stereo vision, texture modelling and segmenting, query-by-image data retrieval, low-level image processing, 3D scene understanding, space and aerial image analysis.
Dr Hans Guesgen Dipl.-Inform.(Bonn) Dr. rer. nat.(Kaiserslautern) Dr. habil.(Hamburg)
Promoted to Associate Professor during 1999. Hans has more than 70 refereed publications in spatio-temporal reasoning, constraint satisfaction, and other topics in AI. Since joining our staff in 1992, Hans has co-organized and co-chaired workshops on spatial and temporal reasoning at international, American, and European conferences on artificial intelligence. He serves on the editorial boards for the International Journal of Applied Intelligence and for the Pattern Analysis and Applications Journal.
Spatial and temporal reasoning, constraint satisfaction.
Dr Richard Lobb MSc PhD(Auckland)
Promoted to Senior Lecturer above the Bar during 1999.
Computer graphics and visualization.
Dr Sathiamoorthy Manoharan PhD(Edinburgh)
Promoted to Senior Lecturer during 1999.
Parallel and distributed computing, computer architecture, performance modelling and simulation, object-oriented programming, and optimization problems.
Dr Radu Nicolescu PhD
Promoted to Senior Lecturer during 1999.
Object-oriented computing and its integration with the Web and databases, information coding and complexity, discrete mathematical models.
Dr Xinfeng Ye BSc(Hua Qiao) MSc PhD(Manchester)
Promoted to Senior Lecturer during 1999.
Internet based computing and distributed systems.
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David Nichols (February December)
Lancaster University, UK
Digital libraries, computer supported cooperative work
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Student Numbers: While the University of Otago has not grown significantly in the year 2000, the Department of Computer Science has seen a further major growth of some 16% over 1999 figures. While some of this growth has been at 100-level, the largest increase has been nearly 60% in some 200-level classes, and a return to significant numbers at 400-level. On the other hand, the number of MSc and PhD students has declined, as new students have not replaced those completing in 1999 or early 2000.
Significant Events: The most significant event in 1999 was a small fire in our main building Archway West in the early hours of 7 July 1999, in a laboratory just refurbished for the second semester. Structural damage was contained by prompt action by the Fire Service, and without the sprinklers being triggered, but the smoke damage throughout the building was considerable. Some 80 units had to be sent away for specialist cleaning, and a few older systems were simply replaced. Dislocation to departmental services was substantial, but was minimised by heroic efforts of technical and programming staff. Restoring original services a month or so later was even more difficult being within a teaching period. Smoke detectors to get earlier warning of such events have been installed, and can be strongly recommended to any installation with substantial groups of computers. The one benefit of it all was a trial run of some of our contingency planning for the Y2K problem!
At the end of 1999 we converted yet another house in Castle Street from a student flat to departmental use, and again added a small annex at the rear with a covered courtyard between the house and the annex. This is providing a comfortable base for the AI group, and the Robotics Group. We are now in seven locations, and fear that we shall be in even more places before we get into any form of new building.
Funded Research: Work continues on the Marsden project "Computer Assisted Surface Design" under the direction of Geoff Wyvill, and is starting on the recently approved NERF project "Visualisation and Semantic Analysis of Information Webs" under Albert Yeap. Our Applied Research Centre (The Black Albatross) continues its work with industrial clients.
Brian Cox
The holders of the fellowships will contribute to the teaching activities of the group on a half time basis while at the same time they undertake a research degree.
Emma Raymond, who has a masters degree in Computer Science and undergraduate qualifications in Mathematics and Computer Science took up her fellowship in March.
The other fellowship has been awarded to Nic Smith who will complete his undergraduate degree in Commerce and Applied Computing in June. We are delighted to have these people appointed and look forward to the contribution they will make to the research and teaching activities of the group.
Awards: Peter Johnson won the best student paper award in the general systems category at the MODSIM99 conference in December 1999 in Hamilton. (MODSIM is a biannual conference organised by Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and NZ)
Peter's paper on the development of a simulation model of the Air New Zealand Remanufacturing plant was among 196 papers presented and published in the refereed proceedings. Many students mainly from Australia, New Zealand, USA and Germany presented their work, and there was an impressive array of papers in the conference.
Don Kulasiri and Peter have been invited to expand the paper to be included in a special edition of the "Mathematical and Computer Modelling" journal published by Elsevier.
Textbook Published: Elizabeth Post recently published a textbook "Jade for Developers". This textbook is intended both for professional software developers and for senior students wanting to learn JADE. Intended readers are expected to have some programming experience, but this need not be object-oriented. The book also includes introductory material on object-oriented analysis and design.
This book was launched in April at a function at the JADE Development Centre attended by the CEO of Aoraki Corporation, Sir Gil Simpson, the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor of Lincoln University, the Hon. Margaret Austin and Dr Frank Wood, the JADE Professor of Applied Computing, Alan Mckinnon, and other guests.
Publications Website: http://www.lincoln.ac.nz/amac/research/acms/acmspub.htm
Elizabeth Post
This project brings together a range of researchers with complementary skills to develop a complete, client-server based solution for the delivery of education at a distance. The delivery will be web-based and will exploit multimedia that streams over 14K modems. The content will be annotated and integrated into a comprehensive knowledge base that answers students' questions and monitors their progress, thus providing a flexible and adaptive tutoring environment. Teachers will create content through easy-to-use authoring tools making the system applicable for school, university and continuing education. The project blends ambitious research goals with close-to-market prototyping, giving a progression of outputs that could be commercialised from its first year. The basic research will be in the areas of easy-to-use multimedia authoring tools, streaming, natural-language interfaces to the courseware, and the development of sophisticated student models and monitoring processes. Demonstration and evaluation of the system will be an important part of the project at both universities and schools. Human capital development will be achieved through the active use of the project's outputs.
Chris Jesshope
Student Numbers: Our Department continues to have strong demand from students and high student growth. Our student numbers seem likely to grow this year by approximately 20%, to be close to 1000 EFTS. This makes the department one of the three largest in our University.
New Bachelor of Engineering: The departments of Computer Science and Electrical and Electronic Engineering are jointly offering a Bachelor of Engineering in Software Engineering. The new programme got off to a promising start this year. The quality and number of applicants were higher than expected, with 62 accepted into Part I. Bursary marks of those accepted ranged from 330 to 465. We plan to accept 100 students into Part I in 2001, with guaranteed entry for those with bursary marks 360 and over. A Chair in Software Engineering has been advertised, and several other academic positions will be advertised in the next few weeks. The curriculum for the programme will evolve as staff are appointed and as international subject definition efforts mature. Software Engineering students enrol for a common Part I, so that they have some familiarity with other programmes, with their elective being a Stage I Computer Science paper. Project work will be an important component of the programme, with teams working on industry-sponsored projects in Part IV.
Clark Thomborson
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