In 1980 the independent Department of Computer Science was formed with Prof. Peter Kirstein as its first Head. At that time there were 7 academic staff (including 3 professors) and only one substantial research area: computer networks and data communications. Since that time the Department has enjoyed a period of continuous growth and currently has 30 academic staff (including 10 professors) and some 40 research staff. In addition to its data communications and distributed systems strengths, research in the department now also includes artificial intelligence, neural networks, software systems engineering, intelligent systems, multimedia, communications, imaging, computer vision and virtual reality.
At least 70% of our research is collaborative with industry. All the European Union, industrial and US government work is collaborative with industry; our charities and some of the EPSRC work is less industrially based.Within UCL, we have joint projects with several other departments and research groups, including for example the Centre for Advanced Instrumentation Systems, the Departments of Anatomy, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Medical Physics, Psychology and the Bartlett School of Architecture.
In the past, data communications and the related fields of distributed computing and multimedia systems have dominated the department’s research activities. It is expected that they will continue to play an important part, although other areas of research are increasing in importance; indeed one of our great strengths is the strong links that exist between our activities in Human Computer Interactions, Networks, Communications, Multimedia, Software Engineering, and Imaging and Virtual Reality.
Communications
Computer Science at UCL has carried out pioneering packet switched network research with close ties to leading US and European industrial and university research laboratories. Its successes include evaluation and research into the protocols and structures needed for the efficient use of many networks including Arpanet, packet satellite networks, X.25, the Cambridge Ring, ATM links, and SuperJanet. This work has affected modern network architectures through the involvement of staff on Internet and international standards bodies. Network research also includes the need to pursue issues of new services and the management of network services. In these areas it has included design, deployment and analysis of multicast protocols, and protocols for real-time data such as packetised video, VR and audio over IP.Quality of Service management issues affecting network management and end-systems are currently being pursued.Network management has also included very large-scale experiments in deploying Directory Services (X.500) and more recently in the management and deployment of security and public keys. Current work also includes performance and scalability issues of mobile systems and we have been particularly active in the study of heterogeneous interconnected networks where we have built on our earlier work covering many network technologies.
Multimedia and Usability
We have been working in the areas of compound and multimedia documents for many years. While the document work has steadily diminished, the areas of multimedia conferencing and multimedia teaching have been growing strongly, and now represent a substantial part of departmental research. The strength of our research in this area is partially due to the strong ties with the communications research, many projects link the two areas and our multimedia applications draw on our expertise in networking.
We encompass a broad variety of networked multimedia activities – conferencing systems, interaction with the underlying networks, and applications, including user interfaces and user assessment. Our work also includes research on audio components, and we have developed a new protocol and tool for providing high-quality audio over packet switched networks (The Robust Audio Tool), an application for remote language teaching. Other work addresses broader synchronisation issues, and some video coding, while we now have a growing interest in the problems of security. Most of the work is concerned with secure conferencing and its requisite security infrastructure; there is also some work on secure WWW and messaging systems.
Intelligent Systems
The Intelligent Systems Research group pioneered the use of so-called ‘intelligent’ computing techniques in business sectors ranging from retail to banking. The techniques used include many familiar from artificial intelligence, such as the use of expert systems, rule induction, fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms. Successful applications have included customer profiling, asset forecasting, credit evaluation, fraud detection, risk assessment, economic modelling, sales forecasting and retail outlet location. Now, together with newer techniques such as genetic programming, evolutionary computing techniques, and dynamical systems theory, there has been a strong movement towards combining these techniques in hybrid systems, which have themselves had an impact on new areas. These include the development of software systems in the rapidly growing area of electronic commerce, and the design of clothing and the modeling of the shape and external features of the human body. A specially designed Body Lines Scanner has been a valuable addition to the department for obtaining good quality data. The department also supports key research in examining forms of knowledge. These have previously received little attention in AI, in particular, knowledge that is expressed in terms of cases and case histories. In addition to work on applications, the theory of machine learning systems is being investigated.
Imaging
The Vision, Imaging, Virtual Environments and Simulation (VIVES) group is involved in research on machine vision, medical image processing, virtual reality and novel simulation techniques. On the one hand, vision research and image processing involves the design and implementation of algorithms and techniques for machine interpretation and enhancement of image data, for example by use of colour, shape or texture information. On the other hand virtual environments and simulation work requires computer-generated models and imagery, often to create the illusion that the user is immersed in the computer world or to model the properties and behaviour of a system that cannot be explored by direct physical means. In 1999 the department won funding for an Immersive Virtual Reality CAVE at UCL, one of only three in the UK. Here a virtual environment is projected on four walls and by wearing stereo glasses with a head –tracking device the viewer is immersed in a completely surrounding VE, a system ideal for visualization of complex phenomenon. There is strong collaboration within the department, especially with the intelligent systems group and networks group, and within UCL the VIVES group has a long-standing collaboration with the Department of Medical Physics and the Bartlett School of Architecture. Applications of our research include medicine and healthcare, communications, retail and commerce, disaster control and planning, machine automation and robotics and the development of virtual and augmented reality systems for entertainment, training, visualization, design, learning and education.
Software Systems Engineering
The department has developed strong research interests in Software Systems Engineering - the construction of large and complex pieces of software, often for information systems. The Software Systems Engineering Group, which was formally set up in 1999, is a constituent part of the department. Not only does it work closely with industry conducting research in Software Systems Engineering which is scaleable and useable, but it also supports consultancy and develops and delivers advanced training in the areas of its expertise. The Group is closely linked to other groups within UCL-CS in particular the Communications Group, reflecting a particular focus on the engineering of distributed software systems.
The Group contributes to the UCL Centre for Systems Engineering (UCLse) an interdisciplinary centre with interests in the development of complex technologically heterogeneous systems. This Centre brings together expertise from a number of departments within UCL and aims to further research, teaching and technology transfer. Though it specialises in software-intensive systems it is strongly concerned to fit the work within an overall systems engineering approach.
Other areas we are working on include: novel programming languages and methods, databases (in particular knowledge discovery and the handling of inconsistent information), and the specification of system requirements. Work on design patterns, the ergonomics of human-computer interfaces, cognitive issues in information systems and management, notations for specifying parallel object-oriented systems and system development methods, together with applications of game theory, model theory and algebraic logic are an important part of this research.
For further information about our research, please visit the departmental research web pages at http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/research.html
Bioinformatics
The Bioinformatics Unit is under the Directorship of Professor David Jones. This is a new Unit and aims to develop and apply state-of-the-art mathematical and computer science techniques to problems now arising in the life sciences, driven by the post-genomic era. The interdisciplinary research will be closely linked with the UCL Centre for Mathematics and Physics in Life Sciences and Experimental Biology (CoMPLEX). A major theme of the Unit is to combine the essentially static information stored in conventional bioinformatics databases with computer simulations of interactions that determine integrated biological function, the Hybrid Database-Simulation approach. Professor Jones has interests in protein structure prediction and analysis, simulations of protein folding, Hidden Markov Models, transmembrane protein analysis, neural network applications in bioinformatics, de novo protein design methodology, and genome analysis including the application of intelligent software agents.
The Unit occupies dedicated space within the Department, and makes full use of the available Departmental computing facilities, along with joint access to a 150-CPU Beowulf Cluster housed within the Department. The Unit also maintains some dedicated computing facilities of its own to allow maintenance of specialized biological databases and public access to the software and methods developed within the Unit.
Our undergraduate programmes are regularly reviewed to take into account factors such as developments in the discipline itself, developments in teaching methods and changing requirements to prepare students for their future careers in industry, commerce, research and education. As a result of the most recent review in the late 1990s, the department now teaches a four-year MSci programme alongside its BSc degree. This new programme represents an important and exciting development because in a four-year degree there are more opportunities for an in-depth treatment of selected topics, particularly where the department’s own research is influential. In addition, the new programme gives us the scope to address the professional issues involved in the proper application of computer technology.
BSc programmes continue to be offered, in a new updated format, providing the essential material required by computer science graduates. Since the first two years of a BSc and MSci programme cover the same common core, students who enter a BSc programme may transfer to the MSci at the end of the second year (subject to satisfactory progress) and vice-versa.
The two-year common core structure of the BSc and MSci programmes is seen as an important development. The aim is to cover the essential material required by all computer scientists, whatever their particular interest or specialisation. Thus all the main strands of computer science are addressed, including programming, software engineering, architecture and theory. In years three (and four in the case of the MSci programme) students undertake group and individual project work, plus the required number of specialist options. To complement formal and laboratory teaching, students are expected to attend weekly tutorial sessions which, in addition to covering course-related issues, also have the role of developing students’ communications and other transferable skills.
Accreditation by the relevant professional organizations (the British Computer Society and the Institution of Electrical Engineers) is currently being sought for all our undergraduate programmes. This recognition is important for students' career prospects in Europe and further afield, particularly regarding Chartered Engineer status.
Our students come from all walks of life and from all over the world. Some have little or no computing experience, while others have a lot. Good mathematical skills are regarded as essential for a basic understanding of the more formal aspects of Computer Science. Qualifications in physics are also sought in respect of candidates for the programmes in CSEE. However, every effort is made to recruit appropriate BTEC, Access and mature students in addition to those with conventional A-Level or similar qualifications. As a result of this, together with the balance between theoretical and practical work on our courses and our record of producing well-trained graduates, we attract students of high quality from a variety of backgrounds and benefit from the presence of a healthy proportion of mature students. For the CS programme we have an intake of about 60 students annually.
We currently run three ancillary courses that are offered to students from other departments. These are all extremely popular: COMPB401 provides a general introduction to computer science for students in the arts and humanities, COMPB402 deals with aspects of electronic commerce, and COMPB404 addresses digital business.
We are expanding our postgraduate activities with a new MSc in Intelligent Systems. This is an EPSRC-funded Masters Training Package initiative, with extensive industrial involvement, and the first intake will be in the academic year 2001/2.
The two conversion MSc programmes (Computer Science and Information Technology) share a similar structure with basic material being covered in the Autumn Term, options in the Spring Term and an individual project over the summer. For the MSc IT, half the basic material is taught by the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and there is a different range of options. Between 35-50 high quality students are enrolled on each programme annually, and for many years we have attracted a significant number of EPSRC quota awards for home students.
The advanced MSc in Data Communication Networks and Distributed Systems admits students with considerable computer science knowledge and attracts a large number of well-qualified applicants from around the world. Students take a number of specialist courses and then carry out a significant group project over nine months starting in January. An important feature of this programme is the inclusion of a series of seminars conducted by industrialists and via video links with European experts. About 25 students are admitted to this MSc each year. A major review of the programme took place in the latter half of the 1990s. We believe that the resulting new structure and subject coverage will ensure the programme's continuing strength and relevance to the needs of industry for many years to come.
In recent years, there have been remarkable advances in computer vision, graphics, image processing, and virtual environments. The department’s graduate teaching activities in these areas began firstly with the introduction of a Masters in Research (please also see the next section entitled Postgraduate Research) and, from 1998, an MSc in Vision, Imaging and Virtual Environments.
BCS accreditation for all the department's taught postgraduate programmes (including the MRes) is currently being sought.
The department also works in collaboration with others in teaching a new MSc in Systems Engineering (from 1999/00).
For further information about our teaching, please visit the departmental teaching web pages at http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/teaching/index.html
We try to provide a challenging and well-appointed environment for research students. Some of them work closely with funded research projects and share in their accommodation and workstation access. The department has recently expanded into new accommodation and provides a computer or workstation to almost all research students. There are a number of seminar series related to the research interests of the department and research students are actively involved in these.
All rooms in the department, including lecture and seminar rooms, have network connections, and most of the cabling is capable of operating at data rates up to 100 Mbits/sec. The connections provide access to a range of College data and services as well as connection to the Internet. A strong team provides support for the hardware, network, and software systems, as well as providing support for World Wide Web, electronic mail and directories.
The majority of teaching and research uses Unix systems from Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics and Hewlett Packard, although at the last count there were over 125 PCs in use in the Department. Some of these PCs run variants of the Unix operating system while others run Microsoft operating systems (Win 3.1, Windows 95, or NT) and we are currently investigating the possibility of fully integrating these systems. In September 1997 we started an experimental Insignia NTrigue service which provides access to standard Microsoft Windows applications to all Unix users in the Department.
During the past two years, the computer systems have been continually upgraded with the latest available models, including a Silicon Graphics Onyx RC10000 system for the Vision and Virtual Reality group, a Sun Microsystems Enterprise 3000 server for the Network and Multimedia group, two Sun Microsystems Enterprise 2 servers, three sizeable Hewlett Packard NT servers, a large number of Sun Sparc 5 and Silicon Graphics O2 and several Sun UltraSparc of various sorts.
There are five teaching laboratories with over 95 Unix workstations for student use and these are open until 9 p.m. most evenings during term-time. The majority of full-time research students have sole use of a Unix machine or a PC. In addition, all students have access to College managed machines providing access to standard PC office productivity tools. Some study bedrooms in halls of residence have been wired for network access.
It is College policy that all academics have access to a computer on their desk. In this department all staff either have a Unix workstation or a PC on their desk.