Web and Internet Science (WAIS) researchers from the University of Southampton have been involved in developing essential provenance software for the award-winning ORCHID project.

ORCHID is a £10m major research project tackling a key challenge in modern computer science – how humans and intelligent software systems can seamlessly and effectively work together to aid the management of a disaster environment such as the Haiti earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear tragedy.

The project explored the use of unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) fitted with audio-visual equipment and crowd-sourced information to improve the response of emergency services and populations to disaster management.

The human-agent collective technology has been used in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake to help save lives. Crowd-sourced data enabled rescuers to map settlements across the affected areas and identify aid, and search and rescue priorities. Crowd reports are collected and verified by UAVs, first responders are deployed and assignments may be changed depending on new information gathered.

However, the amount of data being generated during an emergency situation means the information is continually changing and needs to be constantly updated.

ORCHID co-investigator Dr Sarvapali Ramchurn, from Southampton’s Agents, Interaction and Complexity Research Group, said: “In order to ensure everybody involved gets the most up-to-date information to get the job done, we combine human and machine intelligence to optimise the collection, analysis and filtering of data coming from the disaster zone.”

His Southampton colleague Dr Dong Huynh, a WAIS researcher in the fields of trust, reputation and provenance, led a team developing software that would ensure the information available to responders was as accurate and up-to-date as possible.

He said: “When new information comes into the system this may invalidate an existing assignment. We have developed provenance management software that recognises these changes and feeds them back to the task allocation commander, thereby providing a continuous feedback loop of information.”

This was made possible by tracking and reporting the provenance of every piece of data or decision generated in the whole disaster management system. To enable them to effectively implement this, the team developed original software and tools to manage provenance using the latest PROV standards by the World Wide Web Consortium – the standardisation body for Web standards.

Professor Luc Moreau, ORCHID co-investigator and co-chair of the provenance standardisation group at the World Wide Web Consortium, said: “The provenance standard PROV was critical in describing changes to our knowledge about the situation on the ground, identifying all the planned activities that were dependent on that revised knowledge, and triggering re-planning where appropriate.”

ORCHID recently took top prize in the data and connectivity category at the
Collaborate to Innovate Awards organised by The Engineer – the UK’s longest-running engineering publication. The awards were aimed at identifying some of the UK’s most impressive and innovative examples of engineering collaboration.

Successful trials of 'CharIoT', a unique new system that simultaneously records temperature, humidity and energy use in the home, have opened the way for low-income households to save money while reducing risks to their health.

Researchers from Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton, alongside the University of Nottingham and the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE), developed Chariot with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Harnessing Internet of Things (IoT) technology, the system generates easy-to-use data that can help local authorities, housing associations, energy suppliers, health authorities and others to target and tailor the energy advice they give to vulnerable people.

As well as revealing under-heated or over-heated parts of a home, Chariot enables energy advisors to pinpoint where and why damp or mould may pose a problem. They can then suggest, for example, ways of using heaters more efficiently and cost-effectively, blocking draughts and eliminating dampness through better ventilation.

Each Chariot kit includes three small wireless sensors that regularly record the temperature and humidity in the rooms they are placed in, and wireless devices that monitor gas and electricity consumption. Data is forwarded to and stored securely in the ‘cloud’ and later analysed via tablet or computer using a simple-to-use web-based interface.

Chariot has now been trialled in over 20 low-income homes. A user guide helps energy advisors to make the most of the graphs and tables that the system generates and to provide tips geared to individual households’ needs – including measures as simple as fitting thicker curtains or loft insulation, or improving air circulation. Of potential value to all households and not just low-income ones, Chariot is now being promoted to potential user organisations across the UK and the team is exploring ways of adding further functionality.

Cold or damp can exacerbate medical conditions ranging from colds, flu, arthritis and asthma to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), circulatory diseases and mental illness. In total, nearly 1 million people in the UK suffer from COPD, for example, while cardio-vascular disease causes 42,000 premature deaths a year. People in the coldest houses can be most at risk.

Researchers from the University of SouthamptonÂ’s Agents, Interaction, and Complexity research group in ECS developed the sensor boards, algorithms, and user interfaces that were deployed during the project. The challenge was to ensure the kit was cheap enough to deploy at scale, and that the data visualisation employed was legible to a non-expert.

Dr Enrico Costanza, who led the research while at Southampton, says: “Chariot is the only system of its kind that collects data on temperature, humidity and energy use (and therefore CO2 emissions) all at the same time. It makes it easy for advisors to understand what’s going on energy-wise in a house, to make the householder aware of what the problems are and ultimately to get their buy-in to make the necessary beneficial changes.”

The work in the Chariot Project is now being taken forward as the ‘Chariot Agile’ project in an attempt to further mature the technology. Dr Sarvapali Ramchurn, who now leads the work at the University of Southampton says: “The Chariot kit will be both more affordable and more usable than most solutions out there. We will be putting state-of-the-art analytics engines in the hands of energy advisors so that they can provide the best recommendations to help the fuel poor save money and live more comfortably.”

Dr Nick Banks of the CSE says: “It’s not just a question of cutting energy use and greenhouse emissions. By giving energy advisors a tool that allows them to inform themselves and then sit down with a householder and talk through problems and solutions, it offers a very practical route to making wiser energy choices and therefore improving quality of life and enhancing health among vulnerable and low-income groups, who often suffer serious health impacts due to cold and damp homes.”

The 18-month CharIoT project began in October 2014 and ended in March 2016, receiving a total of just over £277,000 in EPSRC funding. The 6-month CharIoT Agile project began in October 2016 and will end in March 2017. It is funded by EPSRC from the Impact Acceleration fund.

Fresh scientific direction from a Southampton cyber expert is advancing secure cloud computing solutions for the public sector in an EU research and innovation programme.

Professor Vladimiro Sassone, Director of the University of Southampton’s Cyber Security Academy, has reshaped the Horizon 2020 SUNFISH project since being appointed Scientific Leader in the summer.

SUNFISH, which stands for SecUre iNFormatIon SHaring in federated heterogeneous private clouds, is overcoming current infrastructural and legislative barriers to develop and integrate software enabling computing clouds for European public sector bodies. The project is first meeting the specific challenges faced by the Maltese and Italian Ministries of Finance, as well as the UK’s Regional Cyber Crime Units.

Professor Sassone, part of the University’s department of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), has turned to the ‘blockchain’ distributed database method as an innovative infrastructure for base cloud computing. Under his leadership, the project has formulated the concept of Federation-as-a-service (FaaS).

“We had started the systematic study of FaaS, having identified blockchain as an exciting vehicle to implement the concept,” he said. “FaaS and blockchain are two largely independent things, but their combination – a new notion for cloud computing – offers us something really valuable and is already attracting the attention of the European establishment. The ideas were presented at the Italian Parliament in November in a round table discussion about the future of IT in public administration. I’ll also be speaking at a government conference in January.”

Professor Sassone believes the project’s technological solutions open the way for blockchain technologies to be used as an infrastructure to support the Internet of Things in the future.

His team, based in ECS' Agents, Interaction and Complexity research group, consists of researchers Andrea Margheri, Sadek Ferdous and Mu Yang, alongside PhD students David Young and Shorouq Alansari, and visiting student Edoardo Gaetani.

Dr Francesco Paolo Schiavo, Director General of Information Systems and Innovation at the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance and Project Coordinator for SUNFISH, commented: “I’m very satisfied with the results we are producing. The appointment of Professor Sassone as the project’s Scientific Leader is proving really fruitful, and I am grateful to him for his work and commitment.”

Staff and students from Electronics and Computer Science often feature in the news for their research, achievements and expert opinion. Here are some you may have seen:

Life may be getting better at evolving

Research from Dr Richard Watson, an associate professor in the Agents, Interaction and Complexity research group, has been featured on BBC Earth. The article considers Richard’s work on “evolvability” – a trait that could help could help explain why animals are so good at evolving.

Richard’s research has also featured in New Scientist and he is contributing to the world’s largest project to expand and update our understanding of evolutionary biology.

Engineering does not need ‘dumbing down’ to become attractive to girls.

Student Emma Curati-Alasonatti has been featured in The Manufacturer, reflecting on her experiences as an engineer. The article calls for inspiring role models for women and girls, to provide a clear vision of their potential future and better awareness of engineering. Emma is in the final year of an MEng Electronic Engineering degree and joins ARM this summer. The article was written while she held a UKESF scholarship.

Smart clothing that interacts with urban environments

Professor Steve Beeby from the Electronics and Electrical Engineering research group it lead a new project, featured in The Engineer, which could allow wearers of smart clothing to become mobile sensors, improving pollution and traffic monitoring within cities, and helping to coordinate evacuations during major incidents or disasters.

Expertise from Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton will help improve food and water security for people in sub-Saharan Africa in a new four-year interdisciplinary research project.

The £5m programme, funded by Research Councils UK (RCUK), is part of wider investment in one of the most ambitious international research programmes ever created.

Leading experts from the UK, and in developing countries across the world, are joining forces to tackle some of the most serious global challenges. £225m has been invested across 37 interdisciplinary projects to address challenges in fields such as; health, humanitarian crises, conflict, the environment, the economy, domestic violence, society, and technology. The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Research Councils UK Collective Fund is supporting these latest projects with awards of between £2m to £8m.

‘Building research capacity for sustainable water and food security in drylands of sub-Saharan Africa’, the new £5m project driven by the University of Southampton, is being led by Professor Justin Sheffield of Geography and Environment and co-investigated by Dr Sarvapali (Gopal) Ramchurn from ECS.

The programme will connect scientists from Kenya, Ghana and Malawi with each other and UK researchers, to help set in motion water and food research projects aimed at benefitting the region. Sarvapali is leading on collaborations and networking with industry during the project and will be looking into the use of crowdsourcing technologies to map water bodies and agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa.

“This is a great opportunity to grow the reach of ECS expertise beyond the western world and establish a long term collaborations with researchers in African universities,” he says. “By doing so, we aim to address water and food security problems that impact millions of people’s lives.”

Commenting on the funding award, Vice-President (Research and Enterprise) at the University of Southampton, Professor Mark Spearing, says: “This project is exemplary in bringing very high quality research to bear on a problem of global importance, with a strong group of international partners. I wish the team every success in delivering it and achieving its goals.”

The Global Challenges Research Fund aims to build upon research knowledge in the UK, and strengthen capacity overseas, to help address challenges, informed by expressed need in developing countries.

The University of Southampton has secured its place within the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Framework Agreement for the next three years.

This status is confirmation of the breadth and depth of research at the University with a current EPSRC portfolio of 146 grants worth over £211m.

The University’s Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, which contains the Departments of Electronics and Computer Science and Physics and Astronomy together with the Optoelectronics Research Centre, is currently undertaking over £89m of this research across 65 current grants.

Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi, Dean of Physical Sciences and Engineering, says: “The EPSRC Framework Agreement is a significant outcome for the University and reflects the thriving research community that continues to grow in our Faculty. Our researchers are carrying out impactful research and making fundamental advances in their disciplines and with ongoing EPSRC support this successful environment will continue long into the future.”

Southampton is one of 12 universities in the EPSRC Framework Agreement. The scheme aims to provide a structured and systematic basis for discussions between the EPSRC and the University, to help identify activities they can work on together. The agreement doesn’t provide any extra funding, but helps to recognise opportunities to use existing EPSRC funding more flexibly.

Southampton’s continued inclusion comes after a review undertaken by the research council, which was been based on the analysis of all new grants awarded in the past three years, including all research grants, fellowship grants and training grants awarded following competitive peer review.

Professor Mark Spearing, Vice-President (Research and Enterprise), comments: “The strong relationship we have with the EPSRC is very important in helping us and them align our strategies, to ensure all research investment is delivering and impact is being seen and recorded. We look forward to another three prosperous years working together.”

Research at the Optoelectronics Research Centre currently receives the largest portion of EPSRC funding at Southampton, with 30 current grants worth over £48m including the £10m National Hub in High Value Photonic Manufacturing and the £6m Silicon Photonics for Future Systems programme grant.

Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton is currently undertaking £33m across 28 current grants, while the Department of Physics and Astronomy is progressing £7m of research in seven current projects.

A team of artificial intelligence (AI) experts from Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton is challenging fantasy football managers across the world to take on their fiercely competitive machine learning algorithm.

Associate Professor Dr Sarvapali (Gopal) Ramchurn claims that his system, known as Squadguru, consistently outperforms millions of players in the popular the Fantasy Premier League game by tapping into the latest AI techniques

Last year, more than four million players around the world competed in the English Fantasy Premier League, tinkering with their squads to generate maximum points from their teams. In the game, shrewd dealings in the transfer market can make or break teams’ seasons and entrants scramble week on week to strengthen their sides as Premier Leagues stars go on and off the boil.

Squadguru has been tested on player data from previous seasons and produced teams which would have consistently ranked in the top one per cent of the Fantasy Premier League. Last season, a Squadguru generated team placed in the global top 60,000 of the game for most of the 38 gameweeks out of the millions of players.

“From Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking, everyone’s talking about AI taking over the world - is that now also true for Fantasy Football?” Gopal asks. “Come and take on the best AI engine for fantasy football, and see if you can beat the Squadguru!”

Fantasy managers can compete with Squadguru’s AI-fuelled 11 in a ‘Challenge the Squadguru’ league which is available in the free Fantasy Premier League game by entering league code 2917382-677658.

The Squadguru system was built using two steps. The first harnessed Bayesian Machine Learning techniques and five years of past football data to create and train a predictive model which forecasts the outcome of future matches and, more crucially, the performance of individual players. They next created a combinatorial optimisation algorithm which worked out the best transfers to make given the allowed budget and other constraints on teams that can be formed.

Gopal, a member of the University of Southampton’s Agents, Interaction and Complexity (AIC) research group, co-developed the algorithm with Dr Tim Matthews as part of his MSc project. This resulted in a publication at the world’s top AI conference back in 2012. Over the last five years, they have made significant improvements to the Squadguru and offered it as a free service for visitors to fantasyfootballfirst.co.uk. The system’s algorithms have been used to provide transfer advice to over 30,000 subscribers and helped optimise human teams’ performance.

“We’ve now got a robust implementation of the platform,” Gopal says. “The next step involves developing a mobile app to serve insights to users in real-time and allow them to do transfers automatically or on the go. We are always open to investors and we’ve had a few approaches this year.”