2014/2015 Summer Scholarship Project List Dr Leigh-Ellen Potter

Email: [email protected]

1. Virtual reality emerging technologies Skills required: game design and development, knowledge of the Oculus Rift and Leap Motion controllers, usability testing. Virtual reality devices are moving out of science fiction and into everyday reality. The development of affordable mainstream technologies such as the Leap Motion controller and Oculus Rift headsets is bringing virtual reality into ordinary living rooms. Software applications exist for these devices, however their development and usability can be challenged. To explore this, a study has been performed to develop a set of heuristics designed to support game designers and developers in producing virtual reality games that maximise both the potential of the emerging technology and the notion of 'presence' in the game for the player. This project builds on that study, and proposes development of a virtual reality game application using the heuristics, together with an evaluation of the game for presence as perceived by a game player. 2. Support for Work Integrated Learning Skills required: business analysis, research This project seeks to explore frameworks for Work Integrated Learning (WIL) and the potential role of software to support value creation for the three primary stakeholders: learning institutions, host employers and students. This project would involve analysis of existing frameworks from the perspectives of key stakeholders, with the aim of identifying additional value potential that could be achieved for each primary stakeholder in a given placement instance. This could include: • • • • •

Building a vision of what kind of employee a student can be and how they can contribute to a workplace Work Readiness Identifying existing and potential skills Identifying pathways to achieving career aspirations Facilitating WIL placement with consistent quality by providing a framework for host employers

Dr Larry Wen

Email: [email protected]

1. Investigating the hardness and stability of simple Answer Set Programming Skills required: Good programming skills (in Java will be preferred), good mathematics background. Answer Set Programming (ASP) is one of the most popular non-monotonic logic (or common scene logic) programming. For a given type of ASP, how difficult it can be solved, does it have a stable model is an interesting question both theoretically and practically. In this project, the student is asked to use and improve a Java based software tool to study the hardness and stability of simple Answer Set Programming (ASP). This work can lead to possible PhD research.

A/Professor Bela Stantic

Email: [email protected]

1. NoSQL Databases on Hahoop With the explosion of big data need for a combination of Hadoop and NoSQL databases is evident to manage data-intensive projects. Due to the distributed processing and massive scalability, Hadoop provides the processing power needed to manage large and diverse data sets. And NoSQL databases, such as MongoDB, can deliver required performance to mine data. However deploying Hadoop and NoSQL databases pose a lot of challenges as they can add considerable complexity to existing infrastructure. Legacy integration tools are often

ICT/IIIS Summer Scholarship Project List 2014/2015

inadequate when dealing with the many new types of data involved in a Hadoop/NoSQL implementations. This project will investigate how to combine different newly proposed technologies and identify which combination can perform the best on specific problem. Particular attention will be given to Spark, which builds upon Hadoop and HDFS, MongoDB, and mongo-hadoop connector, to allow direct access to a MongoDB database. Professor Vladimir Estivill-Castro and Dr Rene Hexel

Email: [email protected]

1. Vision Recognition Module As A Logic Labelled Finite State Machine This project would involve adapting the MiPal lab's current image processing module so that it operates as a logic labelled finite state machine. The current implementation of the MiPal labs vision recognition software use a pipeline architecture to process images. This project would implement this pipeline as part of a state machine. Other components of the vision module such as the process of retrieving an image from a camera could also be recreated as sub machines. These state machines would be implemented using MiPal's clfsm state machine interpreter software. 2. IDE and Eclipse/java plug-in to enable code generation for MiPal whiteboard types. This project would provide/develop a tool to specify communication-message classes for the gusimplewhiteboard middleware and generate automatically the C-base class and the C++ classes with standard parsing for posting with guwhiteboardposter and standard monitoring with gusimplewhiteboard. It should be done in Java and should consider its design so it would eb a stand-alone tool but also work as a plugin so it may complement MiEditllfsm or maybe include clfsm editor as a BRIDE Eclipse plug-in. 3. Attach gripper to Raspberry-pi Lego NXT differential robot, and develop MiPal whiteboard controller interface for gripper This would extend the current infrastructure of a Raspberry Pi send a Lego NXT that constitute a differential mobile robot. With the gripper, the robot could perform challenges as per the competition RoboCup@Work. Consideration should be given to potentially model the new robot so it has a gazebo-model and the interface could drive the real robot or the robot in simulation. This would create a very inexpensive platform comparable to the Kuka robot. Exploration could be given to articulate two NXTs, and build an arm for the gripper and perhaps inverse kinematics modules for the arm.

Professor Yaoqi Zhou and Dr. Yuedong Yang

Email: [email protected]

1. Computational Protein/Peptide drug and design Biological drugs such as proteins, nucleic acids, and sugars are medicinal products extracted from living systems. Unlike small molecular drugs, they are found to be more specific to the intended target, and more effective in interacting with multiple receptors. More importantly, developing biological drugs enjoys much higher success rate than small molecular drugs in every stage of drug development from preclinical to registration. It was estimated that 50% of top 100 selling drugs are biological drugs this year. This percentage is expected to increase further as the gap widens between the number of patents filed for biologics and the number filed for small molecules. However, unlike small molecules, biologic drugs are expensive to manufacture due to low yields and short in shelf-life due to their low stability. The objectives of our research are to improve drug production by codon optimisation, to increase drug stability by protein engineering, and to design peptides or proteins with specific therapeutic effects. The summer projects of students build a database of outer-membrane surface proteins and examine their possibility to be inhibited. 2. Protein structure refinement How to improve protein structure models over the template employed for model building is an unsolved problem. Its solution will have a direct impact in structure-based drug design. In this project, you will use optimization technologies for optimizing energy functions and examine the resulting optimized structures. Required skills: familiar with programming and data analysis.

ICT/IIIS Summer Scholarship Project List 2014/2015

3. Target discovery and drug repurposing Many drugs have side effects. The targets causing by these side effects are largely unknown. Moreover, drugs used for one purpose may be used for some other diseases (drug repurposing). In this project, you will utilise a bioinformatics tool developed by our group to perform large-scale screening the cross interactions between FDA-approved drugs and human proteins. Surprising discovery is ensured. Required skills: familiar with programming and data analysis.

Dr Jarrod Trevathan

Email: [email protected]

1. Online Auction Data Gathering Tool Skills required: Programming (using PHP and MySQL) and data gathering/logistical skills This project involves creating a software tool for extracting auction data from the online auction house TradeMe. Once a user conducts a search on TradeMe, s/he enters the URL containing the auction listings. The system scans through listed auctions and extracts the item information and bid history (see the figure below). This tool must collect all the data for a given search criteria on auctions that have completed, and also return later to collect the data from ongoing auctions once they have completed (without user intervention). The data is parsed and then stored in a database. The system must provide reporting features and statistics on the collected data.

An existing program for collecting data from eBay auctions has already been written, and students would have access to it in order to model their new project on it. The ultimate goal is to see how much auction data can be extracted by the end of the project using the automated approach. Results can then be used by the clients in a scientific publication which will gain international reputation in a journal or conference. This is extremely important for any students considering doing Honours or postgraduate studies. Note that the project’s scope will be scaled to suit the number of students involved. 2. Updating and Administering an Online Auction Server Skills required: Programming (using PHP and MySQL), graphic design and data gathering/logistical skills Many tasks in industry don’t actually involve creating a new piece of software. Instead a client typically has an existing system that was programmed by a different (and in many cases defunct) company that needs to be updated and extra functionality added. This project involves updating and administering an existing online auction server.

ICT/IIIS Summer Scholarship Project List 2014/2015

Students would be responsible for bringing the software up to current standards and making it robust against security threats. The entire user interface must be redesigned to enhance its visual appeal and usability. The client also requires the auction format to be amended so that it uses an auto-extension period at the auction close to prevent late bidding (referred to as bid sniping). Finally, students must run a series of experiments with real users bidding on items over a three week period to determine how the effective the new functionality is, and

also as an exercise in administering a live piece of software. The ultimate goal is to see how much auction data can be extracted by the end of the project via the auction experiments. Results can then be used by the clients in a scientific publication which will gain international reputation in a journal or conference. This is extremely important for any students considering doing Honours or postgraduate studies. Note that the project’s scope will be scaled to suit the number of students involved. 3. A Proactive Approach to Prevent Phishing Attacks Skills required: Programming (using own programming language of choice) and data gathering/logistical skills The clients have proposed a proactive approach to remove a phishing page from the host server. Rather than just filtering email and flagging suspect messages as ‘spam’, their approach actively seeks out Phishers in an attempt to disconnect them at the source. To use an analogy, the system introduces sharks (or Pharks as we refer to them) that lie in wait for a Phisher to dangle his/her line in the water. Once the presence of a Phisher has been confirmed, the Phark moves in to bite the Phisher back (by continually taking its baits) and essentially stop them from phishing. Initially the system is alerted to the presence of a phishing page upon receiving the Phisher’s solicitation e-mail. Next the system retrieves the location, IP address and contact information of the host server using a tracking program. Finally, the system sends notification to the Administrator about the phishing page on their server. It is then up to the host server Administrator to remove the phishing page from its server, or face the possibility of criminals continuing to use its site. This approach acts as the basis for further development into proactively (or aggressively) attacking Phishers back, rather than being a reactionary approach that is common to most email filters and anti-virus software. The figure below illustrates the process:

ICT/IIIS Summer Scholarship Project List 2014/2015

In a previous study, the clients were able to remove 92% of all phishing pages within 24 hrs. However, this was by manually performing the Pshark process. Students undertaking this project would be required to implement the basic version of the aforementioned system in software in order to automate the Pshark process for removing phishing web sites. Once a suspected phishing email is received, the system should automatically extract the relevant information (URL, etc.), perform the server lookup and extract the administrator information, notify the administrator (via email) and then periodically check to see whether the phishing page has been removed. The ultimate goal is to see how many phishing web sites can be removed by the end of the project using the automated approach. Results can then be used by the clients in a scientific publication which will gain international reputation in a journal or conference. This is extremely important for any students considering doing Honours or postgraduate studies. Note that the project’s scope will be scaled to suit the student involved.

Dr Jolon Faichney

Email: [email protected]

1. Authoring Tool for Touch based devices Skills required: system architecture, programming, and/or user interaction design Build a new authoring tool for touch-based devices. This will be a brand new tool developed from scratch. I'm interested in students with skills in system architecture, programming, and/or user interaction design, and students interested in thinking outside the box. Professor Michael Blumenstein and Dr Kevin Ross

Email: [email protected]

1. Investigation of recommendation systems for use in e-Travel applications Key topics: • Recommendation systems • Big data • Machine learning • Travel Ecommerce applications Recommendation systems have been used successfully by organisations such as Amazon and Netflix for making personalised recommendations to consumers by analysing their preferences and making ranked suggestions on other items that user is likely to show interest in.

ICT/IIIS Summer Scholarship Project List 2014/2015

SkiDreamz.com is a ecommerce startup in the ski industry that aims to help skiers find their dream skiing holiday. The site represents a large inventory of ski resorts, suppliers and activities that a skier may choose from. The challenge is though that there are so many options, availability and pricing, that skiers require assistance to help find those ski activities that will fulfil their desires. Here we intend to provide trip planning tools and digital marketing to assist skiers to plan their trip and make suggestions of deals, offers and events that complement their holiday plans. However a key component of that is the ability to make recommendations. Recommendation systems have the capability to act as the "intelligent travel agent" that understands the skiers personalised plans, preferences and needs and can make timely recommendations to complement these. For instance the recommendation engine could recommend deals where similar skiers have found the deal engaging. Similarly, it could recommend suppliers, offers and deals to add to the itinerary, based on what the skier has already added to their itinerary. We are seeking students wishing to undertake a research project to investigate the application of recommendation systems in their application to the adventure travel planning sector. We are seeking a student to examine where recommendation systems could be applied, and review what algorithms and techniques are available and appropriate. A prototype of the implementation in limited areas should be considered, and evaluation on the effectiveness of chosen algorithms should be considered.

Dr Ruben Gonzalez

Email: [email protected]

1. Computer Vision Augmented Reality Framework Skills required: C/C++ and JAVA programming Google glass is an example of augmented reality glasses where data (text+graphics) is projected onto whatever you are looking at. Most of these glasses come with a camera that allows you to grab pictures of what you are looking at so that you can use image recognition or computer vision to figure out what you are looking at. Rather than doing to processing on the relatively low power glasses this project seeks to create a client server framework where the glasses send the video data to a remote server for processing which responds with the results to be displayed on the glasses. The glasses are running android and the server will be using either osX/Linux/MSWin. The framework will allow a number of different computer vision based applications to be developed. 2. Portable Vector Processing library Skills required: Linux/MSWin C programming (possibly some assembly) Modern processors cores contain high speed vector engines that when used can speed up programs by a huge factor. These require using special MMX, SSE, SSE2 or VEC extensions to the x86 instruction set. Unfortunately most standard C/C++ compilers are not capable of automatically targeting the vector engines. Instead these need to be manually targeted by using either inline assembly routines (portable) or compiler specific intrinsic functions that are not portable by definition. This project aims to build a portable source library of functions that target the vector engine like a simple form of intel’s performance primitives. Portability across GNU and MS compilers should be achieved using either inline assembly, conditional compilation with compiler intrinsics or a combination of both. 3. Visualisation Lab Interactive 3D Demos Skills required: Cryengine or unreal engine 4, design, modelling, scripting etc This project will require the development of one or more interactive 3D demos using either cryengine or unreal engine for the visualisation lab. These demos are fairly open-ended and may range from scientific simulations to small interactive worlds. This project suits BMM students with strong design / coding skills.

ICT/IIIS Summer Scholarship Project List 2014/2015