RGU IDEAS Inserts

project title:the centre for design and innovation (c4di)

url: www.c4di.org.uk

contact details:C4di AVC Business CentreWellington CircleAltens Aberdeen AB12 3JGTel : 01224 216087e-mail: [email protected]

research team:Professor Julian MalinsChris RigbyGraham GrantVenkat LakkireddyLynne Paterson

project description:In order to survive and prosper companies are required to find ways of constantly updating and innovating their products and services. This may mean developing new products, new ways of doing things or diversifying into new areas based on existing skills and knowhow.

C4di applies design thinking methods to support SMEs to develop their sustainable innovation strategies. The project has developed a number of creative thinking tools, which it uses when delivering workshops and one to one consultation with SMEs. The tools are used to assist com-panies to develop their own culture of innovation, identify key problems and then apply creative problem solving methods to generate new solutions. The approach draws on design methods that include rapid ethnography, user focused observation, visualisation and ultra-rapid proto-typing.

At the heart of the project is knowledge transfer. The underlying research is focused on develop-ing new, interactive methods of supporting innovation within organisations.

funding and duration: It is a three year project, the principal funders being the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Scottish Government’s SEEKIT programme and additional in kind funding from Scottish Enterprise, Aberdeen City Council, Interface and Skills Development Scotland.

THE CENTRE FOR DESIGN AND INNOVATION

www.c4di.org.uk

C4diAVC Business CentreWellington CircleAltensAberdeen AB12 3JGt: 01224 216087e: [email protected]

Research Team:Professor Julian MalinsChris RigbyGraham GrantVenkat LakkireddyLynne Paterson

IDEAS RESEARCH INSTITUTEInnovation, DEsign And Sustainability

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

In order to survive and prosper companies are required to find ways of

constantly updating and innovating their products and services. This may

mean developing new products, new ways of doing things or diversifying

into new areas based on existing skills and knowhow.

C4di applies design thinking methods to support SMEs to develop their

sustainable innovation strategies. The project has developed a number of

creative thinking tools, which it uses when delivering workshops and one

to one consultation with SMEs. The tools are used to assist companies to

develop their own culture of innovation, identify key problems and then

apply creative problem solving methods to generate new solutions. The

approach draws on design methods that include rapid ethnography, user

focused observation, visualisation and ultra-rapid prototyping.

At the heart of the project is knowledge transfer. The underlying research is

focused on developing new, interactive methods of supporting innovation

within organisations.

FUNDING AND DURATION:

It is a three year project, the principal funders being the European Regional

Development Fund (ERDF) and the Scottish Government’s SEEKIT

programme and additional in kind funding from Scottish Enterprise,

Aberdeen City Council, Interface and Skills Development Scotland.

www.rgu.ac.uk/ideas • [email protected]

ENVIRONMENTS FOR PEOPLE RESEARCH CENTRE

Professor Richard Laing

t: +0044 1224 263716

f: +0044 1224 263777

e: [email protected]

The Scott Sutherland School of Architecture

and Built Environment

Robert Gordon University

Garthdee Road

Aberdeen AB10 7QE

www.rgu.ac.uk/sss/research


ACTIVITIES

Research in architecture and the built environment at Robert Gordon

University relates to national policy and social agendas and usually involves

the solution of practical problems. There is a high degree of collaboration

between disciplines, with industry and with professional and public bodies.

Most research is based around the ‘Environments for People’ Centre,

with a focus on social, economic and physical resource sustainability and

evaluation of the design of built environments in terms of their ability to

meet the needs of people.

The centre brings together a team of surveyors, architects, social scientists,

physical scientists and engineers. The Centre reflects our belief that

producing successful architecture and built environments is predicated on

their evaluation by reference to the widest possible group of people for

whom they are designed.

The diverse issues we have dealt with include the design of assistive

technology systems, the modelling, planning and design of urban open

space, social issues arising from new ways of building houses, the

sustainability of new housing, mapping social research on architecture

across Europe, life-cycle issues in the design of hospital environments and

understanding of experience in virtual environments.

Research undertaken by the centre deals with the assessment of present

and future built environments in terms of their suitability for the people

for whom they are designed, and is also underpinned by a practical

grounding in the design, production and assessment of innovative, ground-

breaking buildings, mostly in the field of housing, achieving national and

international recognition.


CULTURES OF REPRESENTATION

Michael AgnewAndrew CranstonLennox Dunbar

e: [email protected] t: +44 1224 263694

Gray’s School of ArtRobert Gordon UniversityGarthdee RoadAberdeen AB10 7QE

www.rgu.ac.uk/subj/ats/research/staff/dunbar.html


MICHAEL AGNEW

My work, past and present, has always been concerned with the making of ideas through the processes of drawing, painting, collage and printmaking. Contextually my work examines ideas of nationality, colonialism, locale and autobiography. Ideas that are both emblematic and enigmatic. The painted works are objects: three dimensional, layered, built surfaces, icons buried in paint: sometimes later revealed, sometimes entombed forever. The notion of making and unmaking, and obliteration, is central to their production. The prints are complex visual spaces, juxtaposing iconography from many sources. The collages/drawings are investigations at the preliminary stages.

Current research examines the possible procedures and philosophies for constructing complex pictorial solutions with the aim of outputting these ideas through traditional fine art methodologies. The language is ever evolving and iconography determined from a broad spectrum of starting points: drawings from the objective source, found matter, photographs, postcards, downloads etc. Essentially any appropriate visual information, from any source can be utilised in the work.

An ongoing research strategy is the development and production of the “Printmaking Department Annual Portfolio” in collaboration with Professor Lennox Dunbar and Cameron Ross, now in it’s eight year. The aims of this project are to foster a professional environment for staff, students and invited artists to explore historical/contemporary means of making limited edition prints and to nurture the pedagogic relationship through my personal teaching and learning.

ANDREW CRANSTON

The interior, whether it be observed or imagined, forms the basis of Andrew Cranston’s paintings. He is interested in how both presence and absence are felt ( and represented) in architectural space. He often looks to literary descriptions of such spaces and this is closely linked to his belief in painting as a real kind of fiction.

PROFESSOR LENNOX DUNBAR RSA

The continued development of my studio practice includes Drawing, Painting and Printmaking. Recent prints have been shown in a one-man exhibition at the Museum of contemporary Art in Gyor Hungary. This show was as a result of winning a major award at “Matrices” an International exhibition of contemporary printmaking held in Hungary in 2007. My current research is looking at how to combine traditional methods of print making with digital technologies.

In addition to my studio practice, other research has focussed on creating a Summer school of contemporary printmaking that embraces and develops safer applications of print practice using low and non toxic methods, building on the pilot programme run last year with New York artist Dan Welden who conducted a workshop in Solar plate, a process that utilises energy from the sun. This years workshops will again be held in collaboration with Peacock Visual Arts. These workshops will be conducted by Elspeth Lamb, Keith Howard and Paul Furneaux, who all have an International reputation in Printmaking and the aim is to further establish Printmaking at Grays as a centre of excellence. The summer workshops I conduct at the Printmaking Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico has had significant impact in attracting instructors and hopefully students to the summer school programme.

Front cover image, detail from, ‘The Jacket’ by Lennox Dunbar.


www.rgu.ac.uk/eng/cvc

Contact:

Dr Sampath Kannangara, Dr Yafan Zhao Dr Laura Muir

Centre for Video Communications, School of EngineeringThe Robert Gordon UniversitySchoolhill, AberdeenAB10 1FR

Tel: +44 1224 262423IDEAS RESEARCH INSTITUTEInnovation, DEsign And Sustainability

Our research and

development work covers

the technology of imaging

and communication.

CENTRE FOR VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS

Our active research areas include, image and video compression (coding), compression standards (MPEG1/2/4, H.264/AVC, SVC, RVC), video quality metrics and perceptually optimised video coding, low-complexity video coding, applied visual communications (including video compression for sign language communication) and transport of compressed multimedia data across networks.

CURRENT PROJECTS

Fast video coding: estimation based control of video codec complexity Funded by EPSRC, this new approach delivers high quality compressed video whilst controlling rate and computation to match the resource availability of a power- or computation-constrained platform.

TRANSPORT OF CONFIGURABLE VIDEO DATA FOR CONFIGURABLE VIDEO CODING

Re-configurable / Fully-configurable video coding is a radical new concept in video coding where a receiver is automatically configured to decode any video format. This project is to develop a novel framework for efficient and robust transport of configurable video data. This new framework will enable the adaptation of configurable video coding in a variety of industry applications such as television broadcasting and multimedia streaming over the internet.

PERCEPTUALLY OPTIMISED RATE CONTROL FOR VIDEO CODING

This project started in April 2010. Bit-rate control is an essential part of video compression and communication. State-of-the-art rate control schemes are only designed to minimise the objective video degradations based on error measurements. The aim of this project is to develop new rate control algorithms that maximise perceptual / visual video quality whilst satisfying bandwidth constraints.

VISUAL QUALITY MEASUREMENT FOR BROADCASTING

With the advent of HDTV broadcasting, there is significant industry interest in optimising compression techniques to maximise visual quality. The aim of this project is to develop a video quality measurement tool that can mimic specialist video quality evaluators or observers, so- called, “Golden eyes” that can measure small changes in visual quality by detecting artefacts that affects the visual experience.

VCLEAR: PERCEPTUALLY OPTIMISED VIDEO COMPRESSION

This project developed from a Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept award, it was awarded second place in the Thales Scottish Technology Prize 2009 and is currently being developed for commercial applications. The patented technology provides better video image quality at low bandwidths than standard video CODECs by giving priority in the coding scheme to perceptually important image content. It is currently available as a real-time software package which demonstrates the concept using “live” video captured from a camera and can be integrated into any system/instrument that makes use of video coding, streaming and display.



Cognitive Engineering involves a

multidisciplinary approach to the

analysis, design, implementation

and evaluation of highly complex

interactive systems.

www.comp.rgu.ac.uk/docs/is/

Contact:

Professor Patrik O’Brian Holt

[email protected]

Tel: +44 1224 262700

COGNITIVE ENGINEERING RESEARCH GROUP

The academic aims are to understand human interaction with complex systems

while the applied objectives are to design and build novel interactive systems that

are highly usable.

COGNITIVE ENGINEERING AT RGU

Cognitive Engineering research at RGU focuses on imaging, graphics, visualisation,

cognitive & performance modelling and complex visual user interaction. All the

research has a common theme of visualisation and visual interaction and this is

manifested in a number of themes:

• Optimisation of graphical user interface layouts with cognitive modelling and

genetic algorithms.

• Face recognition and facial modelling.

• Perceptual and cognitive issues in visual interaction and communication.

• Visual Learning Systems.

• Human error modelling in visual communications.

• Wearable and portable Augmented and Virtual Reality Systems.

• Visualising complex statistical data.

Additionally, we do applied work in Usability Engineering, Usability Evaluation and

User Experience data capture.

APPLICATION AREAS

Our research is applied in a number of different areas that include:

• Medicine (Telemedicine & Human Error Modelling; Data Visualisation; Facial

Modelling).

• Oil and Gas (Human Error Modelling; Usability Engineering; Data Visualisation).

• Aerospace (Augmented Wearable Virtual Reality; Usability Engineering; Visual

Learning).

• Games (Face recognition and Facial Modelling).

• Trauma Therapy (Augmented Virtual Reality).

INDUSTRIAL LINKS

We lead the dePICT project (Developing the ICT Business Base) which aims

to support SMEs in the North East to develop and globalise advanced ICT

products. The project has a value of £1.1M with funding from EU ERDF Priority

1 and the Scottish Government SEEKIT programme. Members of the group

have acted as consultants for numerous organisations such as NHS (Scotland),

Scottish Government, Lockheed-Martin Avionics, BAE SYSTEMS, Selex Galileo,

ConocoPhillips.

PARTNERSHIPS

The Cognitive Engineering Research Group leads the Joint Research Institute for

Computational Systems, which is part of the Northern Research Partnership in

Engineering, a pooling initiative funded by the Scottish Funding Council. We work

in partnership with Dundee University and the University of Aberdeen. We are

also members of the world-leading Scottish Informatics and Computer Science

Alliance (SICSA).



THE CENTRE FOR RESEARCH IN ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

www4.rgu.ac.uk/cree

Contact:

Director:Professor Pat PollardCRE+EIDEAS Research InstituteRobert Gordon UniversitySchoolhillAberdeen AB10 1FR

Tel: +44 (0) 1224 262836

Email: [email protected]

CRE+E -THE CENTRE FOR RESEARCH IN ENERGY AND THE

ENVIRONMENT

ACTIVITIES:

The Centre for Research in Energy and the Environment is a

multidisciplinary group with expertise in applied research in environmental

monitoring, taggant development, labels and sensors, advanced water

and air treatment technology and environmental catalysis. The research

is primarily directed towards solving problems and technology transfer

and involves consultancy, industrial partners and national and international

collaborations. Research interests have been developed in terms of

National and EU Government priorities, which address many environmental

challenges facing the world. The multidisciplinary Centre including

physicists, chemists, biologists, mechanical and electronic engineers and

environmental scientists and is split into 3 Groups: Environmental Sensing

and Monitoring, Renewable Energy/CUSP and Water Sustainability. With

9 purpose built laboratories incorporating a diverse range of advanced

optical/laser equipment, excellent analytical facilities, materials processing

and a range of advanced water treatment reactors and sensors, our

flexibility is second to none.

The Environmental & Sensing subgroup group develops environmental

sensors and tracers for detecting a range of compounds in air, water and

soil and has been involved in the development of reference materials

and monitoring regimes. The sensors developed are mainly based on

spectroscopy and electrochemical technologies allowing remote or in-situ

detection. Novel taggants have also been developed which can be utilised

in a wide range of applications not only in environmental monitoring and

tracer studies but also as security taggants and as medical labels.

The group also carries out industrial consultancy to the oil industry

developing, optimising and exploiting the chemistry/biology of target

species and detection systems to solve a range of problems giving

complete integrated solutions.



www4.rgu.ac.uk/cusp/general/

Contact:

Dr Alan Owen

Director, CUSP

The Robert Gordon University

Schoolhill

Aberdeen

AB10 1FR

T: 0044 1224 262360 / 262362

F: 0044 1224 262316


CENTRE FOR UNDERSTANDING SUSTAINABLE PRACTICE (CUSP)

BACKGROUND:

The Centre for Understanding Sustainability in Practice (CUSP), a

£0.5 million virtual centre brings together a broad range of cross-

faculty academic expertise in energy, business, architecture and social

subjects from the Robert Gordon University. The newly established

Centre works closely with the Centre for Research in Energy and the

Environment (CRE+E), aiming to educate and inspire people to embrace

sustainable practice in their daily lives.

ACTIVITIES:

CUSP will seek to change thinking, behaviour and practice, focusing

on sustainable development, in all areas of activity by individuals,

organisations and government. The University is committed to applying

the principles of sustainable development to its estates management

with particular emphasis on environmental management systems, energy

sustainability, waste management, green travel planning, Fair Trade status

and procurement.

CUSP will assist to develop and deliver teaching modules at both

undergraduate and postgraduate level covering general sustainability

issues and/or the specific application of sustainable practices in

relevant degree subjects. Topics for study are likely to include: water

use, treatment and reclamation; energy (renewables, technology

optimisation, resource modeling, conservation) carbon management,

building design and energy use; business applications; travel and

transport. The research model for CUSP includes resource for PhD

studentships and research undertaken by staff.

The centre also aims to form strategic partnerships with schools,

colleges, local authorities, professional bodies, industry organisations

and the voluntary sector with a view to incorporating sustainability as part

of the policy making and strategic agenda for any organisation.

CUSP will seek to identify individuals, businesses, local authorities

and institutions willing to incorporate sustainability projects into

their activities. The initial work will be to understand the barriers

that constrain the uptake of sustainable practices. CUSP will offer

consultancy to organisations on developing sustainable practice within

their environments.



INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

www.comp.rgu.ac.uk/staff/ds/

Contact:

Professor Dawei Song

T: 01224 262475

E: [email protected]

Information Retrieval (IR) is the study of methods and systems for representing, organising and retrieving information from online text and multimedia document collections and data repositories to support users’ information seeking and knowledge discovery.

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

Our research is focused on the following directions:

- Text Document and Entity Retrieval

- Multimedia and Social Information Retrieval

- User Modelling and Interaction

- Domain knowledge structure discovery and adaption

THE AUTOADAPT PROJECT

(FUNDED BY EPSRC: EP/F035705/1)

The goal of the project is to find ways of aiding the information seeking

process within the intranets by providing:

- A model of document collections that summarise the underlying

knowledge structures, and to guide seekers to explore the

information space.

- A trail of information scent throughout the user’s search process

and space.

- The self-adaption of these to changing collections and users over

time.

THE RENAISSANCE PROJECT

(FUNDED BY EPSRC: EP/F014708/2)

The project aims to provide a unified framework and effective mechanisms

to integrate context-sensitive and multimodal search, leading to a

revolutionary shift of the Information Retrieval paradigm. Special

attention is paid to verifying, quantifying, formalising and operating the

“entanglements” between users, textual and multimedia content and

retrieval contexts, i.e. how they are interacting with each other in an

integrated way, to support more effective contextual IR systems.

CONTENT-BASED IMAGE AND VIDEO RETRIEVAL

(FUNDED IN PART BY NORTHERN RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP)

We are incorporating visual content, textual, ontological, and social

information into retrieval systems. Current research is focused on

extracting local features, building “visual words”, and applying these

methods to adaptive user profiling in image retrieval. In video retrieval,

we aim to consider not only “what it is”, but also “where it is” and “how it

behaves” by utilising spatial and temporal features when modelling the

content of videos. The motion patterns of visual words are recorded and

classified to represent the spatial-temporal structures within a video.



ENERGY RESEARCH GROUP

Our mission is to engage

in cutting edge research to

provide solutions to the current

and future operational and

technological challenges of the

oil and gas industry.

www.rgu.ac.uk/eng/research/page.cfm?pge=43848

Contact:

Professor Babs Oyeneyin


T: +44 1224 262327

OIL AND GAS CURRENT PROJECTS

• The Mare’s Tail® Produced Water Management System

• Intelligent Variable Slot Screen System (VSSSTM )

• Sand Management Network (SMN)

• Unconventional Reservoir Management [Heavy Oil & Condensate]

ASSET AND INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT

• Asset Diagnostic, Prognosis, Monitoring and Management

• Non Destructive Testing (NDT)

• Integrity Management of Ageing offshore installations

• Decommissioning of offshore Infrastructures

RENEWABLES (RNW)

Robert Gordon University has been involved in renewable energy research

since 1995 and continues to contribute at an international level.

We have strong capabilities in numerical resource modelling for all renewables,

CO2 footprint quantification and management, energy balancing and optimal

technology selection for any application, and project due diligence.

We are presently analysing the tidal current resource of Guernsey so that the

States of Guernsey can build an appropriate seabed licensing system, and

have just been selected as the lead academic institution (supported by Oxford

& Edinburgh) for the collaborative renewable energy project between the

Scottish Government and the Government of the Maldives

OIL AND GAS

Our People Our Focus

Professor B. Oyeneyin Well & Reservoir optimisation

Dr M. Hossain Sand management

Dr G. Oluyemi Flow assurance

Ms B. Vijayakumar Drilling optimisation, Multiphase flow

ASSET AND INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT


Professor I. Steele Asset integrity

Dr J. Andrawus Condition monitoring

Dr E. Adom

RENEWABLES


Dr A. Owen Tidal wave energy

Dr M. Hossain Wind energy

Dr D. Ali Turbine, Fuel cells



COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCELEARN, OPTIMISE, COMPUTE!

www.comp.rgu.ac.uk/research/cig

Andrei Petrovski

John McCall

Horacio Gonzalez-Velez

Contact:

Andrei Petrovski


Tel: +44 1224 26270

The IDEAS Computational

Intelligence research group

has a primary focus in three

related areas: evolutionary

algorithms; probabilistic

modelling; and parallel

computing.

LEARN, OPTIMISE, COMPUTE!

We specialise in adaptive, intelligent computational approaches to

problem-solving. Many real-world problems are complex, involving

the consideration of vast amounts of data, the balancing of multiple

objectives within challenging constraints and the evolving requirements

for information and communication resources. We research powerful

computational approaches to discover key relationships in data, to

intelligently search for solutions in complex scenarios and to provide high

performance computing strategies that best adapt resources to demands.

RESEARCH APPLICATION AREAS

• prediction of pathological staging in prostate cancer

• chemotherapy treatment design and optimisation

• care visit scheduling

• data modelling for rig operations

• concurrent mining of neuro-oncological data

• parallel molecular dynamics of nano-materials

TECHNICAL INTERESTS

• Data modelling and inference using probabilistic graphical models

such as Bayesian and Markov network models.

• Theory and applications of a wide range of naturally inspired

techniques for single- and multi-objective optimisation, including

evolutionary algorithms, particle swarms, ant colonies and

• estimation of distribution algorithms.

• Models and applications of computational science and parallel

systems, including structured parallelism, algorithmic skeletons

and parallel patterns, cloud and grid computing, heuristic

scheduling, and resource adaptivity.

COLLABORATION AND FUNDING

The group has strong collaborative links with other institutions worldwide.

We are members of the world-leading Scottish Informatics and Computer

Science Alliance (SICSA) with strong representation in the Complex

Systems Engineering theme. We also belong to the Northern Research

Partnership, where we have strong links to the Medical Technologies

JRI. Collaborators include: British Telecom plc, GlaxoSmithKline plc,

NHS Grampian, the DTI, ODS-Petrodata Ltd., and Technology Managers

Ltd. Funding is received from: EPSRC, SHEFC, TSB (KTP), NESTA, The

European Commission, NHS, Scottish Enterprise, The Carnegie Trust, The

Nuffield Foundation; industrial consultancy and charities.



dePICT:DEVELOPING THE ICT BUSINESS BASE

www.comp.rgu.ac.uk/docs/is/

Contact:

Professor Patrik O’Brian Holt


Tel: +44 1224 262700

WHAT IS DEPICT?

dePICT (developing the ICT Business Base) is an RGU led initiative that aims to establish a new and innovate collaborative pooling network of academia and SMEs in the North East of Scotland, Highlands and Lowlands. The project is product driven and will, through new ways of working, deliver new and improved products with increased marketability, greater flexibility and routes to global exploitation. SMEs will be assisted in developing new products but also to move from a service orientation to a global product focus. The dePICT project will run from 2010 to 2012 and is funded by EU

ERDF Priority 1 and the Scottish Government SEEKIT programme.

HOW DOES dePICT WORK?

dePICT partners will work with SMEs through initial feasibility studies before providing assistance in obtaining external funding for new and novel R&D in a partnership between industry and academia.

dePICT PARTNERSHIP

In the dePICT project innovation will be driven by the Joint Research Institute for Computational Systems (JRIcs), which is part of the Northern Research Partnership in Engineering (NRPe), a Scottish Funding Council funded pooling. The JRIcs pools expertise from three universities, the Robert Gordon University, Dundee University and the University of Aberdeen. The academic partners represent recognized international excellence in research and will provide expertise and experience in research and research project management. dePICT has support from Scottish Enterprise, Interface, KTP, TSB and other economic development agencies, Scotland IS as well as various SMEs.

IMPACT OF dePICT

The primary aim of dePICT is to assist SMEs to enhance and develop new ICT products through increased research and development. An important aspect of the project is the expansion and diversification of skills and expertise. There will be a focus initially on ICT related SMEs that work in the Oil, Gas and Energy sectors, but will also include companies and organisations outside these sectors. This will allow SMEs to expand into new sectors and to exploit global markets.

In addition to new and improved products, job creation and the expansion of markets, the project aims to introduce and sustain innovative collaborative methods of working that will build permanent bridges between SMEs and academia to mutual benefit. These activities will contribute to enhancing ICT skills in the SME sector. This mirrors other activities currently seen in Oil and Gas where large organisations are establishing new and novel collaborations using the Northern Research Partnership in Engineering as a core facilitator as well as a source of recognised expertise.



ENERGY FUTURES RESEARCH CENTRE

www.rgu.ac.uk/eng/research/page.cfm?pge=13128

Contact:

Professor Hicham Idriss

School of Engineering


(and University of Aberdeen)


T: +44 1224 274503

ACTIVITIES:

The centre has been created to put together scientists with a common

mission on research projects focusing on alternative and renewable

sources and carriers of Energy in Europe. The centre main activity is in

solid materials related research including catalysis, surface and materials

sciences and nano-structured materials for energy application such as in

fuel cells, hydrogen storage and photo-conversion. The centre objectives

are (i) to establish an internationally leading research centre with a

focused activity on long term research and (ii) educate present and future

generations in Energy related research and development projects that are

compatible with the environment and renewable.

One of the main activities of the centre is on Hydrogen production from

renewables which is the only possible solution for fuel cells if one is to

include the environment into the overall economical/technical equation.

We were among the pioneers studying the reactions of ethanol for

hydrogen production with publications dating back a decade ago. The

work is conducted on two fronts: catalytic and photo-catalytic reactions.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

1. Fastandefficienthydrogengenerationcatalyzedbycobalttalc

nanolayersdispersedinsilicaaerogel.M.Domínguez,E.Taboada,H.

Idriss,E.Molins,J.Llorca,JMaterialsChemistry,inpress.

2. TheSurfaceReactionsofUraniumOxides.H.Idriss,Surf.Sci.Reports

65,67-109(2010)

3. SizeEffectsintheGasPhaseHydrogenationofDinitrobenzeneover

Au/TiO2.F.Cárdenas-Lizana,S.Gómez-Quero,H.IdrissandM.A.

Keane.J.Catalysis.268,223-234(2009).

4. PhotoreactionofethanolandaceticacidovermodelTiO2singlecrystal

surfaces.G.W.N.Waterhouse,H.Idriss;in“OnSolarHydrogen&

Nanotechnolog;L.Vayssiereseditor,JohnWiley&Sons(2009).

5. HandbookofGreenChemistry-GreenCatalysis,Volume1,Chapter

10;HeterogeneousCatalysisforHydrogenProduction.Scott&Idriss,,

EditorsAnstis&Crabtree,ISBN-10:3-527-31577-2(2009)



RHETORICS OF PRACTICE

www.rgu.ac.uk/subj/ats/research/staff/osullivan.html

Researchers:

Dr Joanne Tatham

Tom O’Sullivan


T: +44 1224 263647

RHETORICS OF PRACTICE

RESEARCHERS: JOANNE TATHAM AND TOM O’SULLIVAN

Rhetorics of Practice is an ambitious and long-term enquiry into the

function, role and status of art in the public sphere. The project is an

ongoing practice-based enquiry that benefits from an extensive network of

external partners. The research enquiry occurs through multi-disciplinary

collaborative working across a range of public outputs.

Rhetorics of Practice considers how the design of objects, environments

and experiences can stimulate critical and/or reflective thinking in

audiences. The project develops innovative approaches that enquire

into the relationships between contexts and audiences. The project

considers how material processes can enable the design of new models of

interpretation and investigates how different models of documentation and

dissemination construct and order knowledge.

Our most recent output will be an exhibition at the Centre for

Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, in Autumn 2010. The exhibition will use

objects, images, text and performance as a strategic enquiry into the

context of their exhibition and consider how the construct of the Arts

Centre shifts and frames an audience’s encounter with Contemporary Art.

The exhibition is being funded by the Scottish Arts Council and Glasgow

City Council through the CCA and The Henry Moore Foundation.



ON THE EDGEVISUAL ARTS RESEARCH

www.ontheedgeresearch.org

Professor Anne Douglas

Gray’s School of Art


Aberdeen

AB10 7QD


t: 01224 263647

Investigating the

aesthetics and ethics

of artists working

in the public sphere

On the Edge is a research programme that is concerned with the changing nature of art in the public sphere. It is part of the Creativity, Design and Innovation theme of the IDEAS Institute. This research involves doctoral and postdoctoral researchers in the development of art research developing questions and methodologies to address issues such as contemporary art and remote rural cultural contexts, artistic leadership and the aesthetics and ethics of artists working in the public sphere. On the Edge regularly develops collaborations with external partners including Fremantle Consultants and Performing Arts Labs, London. The researchers also contribute to the Art, Anthropology, Architecture and Archaeology network (AAAA) in collaboration with University of Aberdeen.

The research questions arise out of artists’ experiences working with other non art sectors of society. Current doctoral projects include:

EMPATHY IN ECOLOGICAL ART

Reiko Goto

‘CURATING THE FARM’,

investigating the synergies and generative relations between art and farming Georgina Barney

THE OCCUPATION AND CRAFT OF INDEPENDENT CONTEMPORARY CURATING

Iain Irving

CRAFT, MODERNITY AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN SCOTLAND AFTER 1970

Andrea Peach

THE PRACTICE OF ART AS A FORM OF KNOWLEDGE IN PARTICIPATIVE, COLLABORATIVE ART PROCESSES

Chu Chu Yuan

CHALLENGING INTERACTIVITY IN PUBLIC SPACE THROUGH DIGITAL MEDIA

Jiiun-Jhy Her

On the Edge has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Artist and Leader and contemporary art in remote rural locations), The Scottish Arts Council as well as the Henry Moore Foundation.

www.ontheedgeresearch.orgwww2.rgu.ac.uk/subj/ats/ontheedge2/artistasleader/index.htmlwww.workinginpublicseminars.orghttp://discussionsart.wordpress.com

The drawing “You know when it’s time to walk out into the cold” is done by Susan Benn, PerformingArts Labs, The Artist as Leader.

The drawing “You know when it’s time to walk out into the cold” is done by Susan Benn, Performing

Arts Labs, The Artist as Leader.



CASE BASED REASONING: REUSING EXPERIENCES

www.comp.rgu.ac.uk/docs/kbs/

Professor Susam Craw

Dr Nirmalie Wiratunga

Dr Rob Lothian

Dr Stewart Massie

Contact:

Dr Nirmalie Wiratunga


T: +44 1224 262573

Closing the Loop

between

Corporate

Knowledge

and

Innovation

CORPORATE COLLABORATORS:

European Space Agency, AxSys Technology Ltd, XCD Ltd, NHS Grampian, British Geological Survey, AstraZeneca

ACADEMIC COLLABORATORS:

Aberdeen University, Dundee University, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Université Laval, Indian Institute of Technology Madras

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

Case Based Reasoning (CBR) solves problems by retrieving and reusing similar experiences that are stored in a case base of previously solved problems and their solutions. This research has developed innovative techniques for building and applying case-based systems for real-world problems, especially decision support, product design, project planning and information management.

REASONING FROM EXPERIENCES

Case-based decision support systems have been developed for various problem domains: evidence-based decision making in healthcare from Excelicare electronic patient record data, project planning for well engineering in the Oil & Gas industry, and a joint project with AstraZeneca designing pharmaceutical formulations.

Research has developed knowledge-light learning techniques that use only the cases in the case-base to learn explicit knowledge to improve the design and maintenance of CBR systems. Case knowledge is at the heart of a CBR system. A novel complexity-based competence model is the basis of editing tools that have been effective in discovering new cases, reducing redundancy and removing faulty cases.

Effective similarity-based retrieval is essential for CBR, and adaptation of the retrieved solution is often necessary for case-based design and planning. A software tool has been developed that transforms a database of solved cases into a fully-fledged case-based system. Applied to tablet design for AstraZeneca, this research successfully replicated knowledge engineering results that were expensive to achieve manually.

KNOWLEDGE DISCOVERY FROM TEXT

Textual CBR has been applied in various domains where experiences are predominantly captured in text form: a joint project with ESA for reusing satellite anomaly reports; email workflow management for the ageing population; designing supported home-living solutions from occupational therapists’ reports; health and safety report management for Grampian NHS; and text generation for weather forecasting. More recent projects address multimedia data for image management and music recommendation.

A suite of text mining software components has been developed to extend the open-source jCOLIBRI CBR framework. Concept discovery algorithms establish similar context within textual content. Semantic knowledge is extracted from concepts and organised into domain-specific taxonomies. Layered architectures integrate existing natural language processing tools with information extraction and natural language processing functionality. Finally a template based GUI guides the design of TCBR systems followed by Java code generation by jCOLIBRI. The generic nature of these software components allows easy integration with large-scale text collections and industrial databases.


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