Relaxed correctness criteria for modern multi-core architectures. This project seeks to lay groundwork for fully exploiting the potential of multicore computers. Multicore computers have become ubiquitous over the last decade, now being standard in everything from laptops to mobile phones. Their benefits are clear – better performance leading to more sophisticated applications. Key to ensuring those benefits are complex, and often subtle, algorithms that exploit the parallelism that multicore co ....Relaxed correctness criteria for modern multi-core architectures. This project seeks to lay groundwork for fully exploiting the potential of multicore computers. Multicore computers have become ubiquitous over the last decade, now being standard in everything from laptops to mobile phones. Their benefits are clear – better performance leading to more sophisticated applications. Key to ensuring those benefits are complex, and often subtle, algorithms that exploit the parallelism that multicore computers offer. This project aims to lay foundations for extending those benefits to applications where high reliability is a concern. It plans to do so by developing theoretical results about the correctness of algorithms on standard multicore computers, and practical tools and techniques to help programmers of multicore computers to better understand the behaviour of their code.Read moreRead less
A new approach to compressed sensing. Compressed sensing is an exciting new paradigm promising vastly improved signal sampling and reconstruction in a wide variety of applications including digital cameras, mobile phones and MRI machines. This project will explore a newly discovered approach to compressed sensing which uses mathematical arrays known as hash families.
Towards the prime power conjecture. This project attacks a famous and long standing conjecture in pure mathematics that has important ramifications in many applied areas. The project aims to determine when it is possible to produce more efficient codes for electronic communication and statistically balanced designs for experiments in areas as diverse as agriculture and psychology.
Algorithmic engineering and complexity analysis of protocols for consensus. Opinions, rankings, observations, votes, gene sequences, sensor-networks in security systems or climate models. Massive datasets and the ability to share information at unprecedented speeds, makes finding the most central representative, the Consensus Problem, extremely complex. This research delivers new insights and new, efficient algorithms.
Virtual transport networks. This project will develop specialised time-dependent networks for use in algorithmic software testing and development, focussing on public transportation networks, but applicable elsewhere. The virtual transport networks developed in this project will significantly reduce the cost of producing software products that perform network searches.
Assuring dependability of complex adaptive multi-agent systems using time bands. As the complexity of computer-based systems rapidly increases, we need new methods for assuring their correct behaviour. This project will provide a means of relating behaviour at different timescales, enabling us to understand how the long-term behaviour of a system results from the short-term interactions between its components.
Ultimately Trusted Security through Human-Powered Cryptography. Cryptography offers wonderful tools for unbreakable data security, but only between computer nodes, leaving their human owners helpless. Encrypted tunnels terminate not at humans but at mobile phones and personal computers, exposing users' secrets to spyware from search-engine keyloggers to full-bore malware planted by crooks, hackers, and foreign spy agencies. This project aims to create a simple and strong cryptography, so that hu ....Ultimately Trusted Security through Human-Powered Cryptography. Cryptography offers wonderful tools for unbreakable data security, but only between computer nodes, leaving their human owners helpless. Encrypted tunnels terminate not at humans but at mobile phones and personal computers, exposing users' secrets to spyware from search-engine keyloggers to full-bore malware planted by crooks, hackers, and foreign spy agencies. This project aims to create a simple and strong cryptography, so that humans can, for the first time, take front seat in real security protocols. The technical challenge is to build public-key ciphers, operable manually from a mental key in seconds, and from there remake human-powered versions of many useful information security protocols.Read moreRead less