Research Laboratories

Advanced Information Management

http://aim.cs.uct.ac.za

The AIM Laboratory is loosely formed around the ideas of creating and managing information. The AIM group consists of Prof. Berman, Dr Kuttel, Prof. MacGregor, Prof. Marsden, Ms Potgieter and Dr Suleman. The research areas covered include databases, conceptual modelling, persistent programming languages, object-oriented databases, scientific computing, parallel and distributed computing, client/server computing, object technology, digital libraries, complex adaptive systems, distributed artificial intelligence, component-based software engineering and information retrieval.

Collaborative Visual Computing

http://www.cs.uct.ac.za/Research/CVC/

The Collaborative Visual Computing (CVC) laboratory consists of four full time academic staff members (Prof. E. H. Blake, A/Prof. G. Marsden, Dr J. Gain and Dr P. Marais) and numerous research students. The group forms an integral part of the Telkom and Siemens Centre of Excellence in ATM and Broadband Networks and their Applications, a joint undertaking by the University of Cape Town, the University of the Western Cape and the University of Stellenbosch. The CVC lab brings together expertise in graphics, interface design and psychology. Typical areas of research include: virtual modelling, visualisation, mobile computer interfaces, scene rendering and collaboration in virtual environments. The lab is involved in work funded by a number of South African agencies, including the NRF, THRIP and the Innovation Fund (initiated by DACST). Industry sponsors of our research include Telkom, Siemens and Microsoft. The CVC group is also a key consortium member in the CAVES (Innovation Fund) project.

Data Network Architectures

http://www.cs.uct.ac.za/Research/DNA/

The DNA Group consists of Professor Pieter Kritzinger, Adjunct Professor Andrew Hutchison, a previous graduate of the group and now working for T-systems (Pty) Ltd and Justin Kelleher, as team members. The DNA Laboratory specialises in the security, correctness analysis, performance analysis, design, specification and modelling of stochastic concurrent communicating systems (SCCS) in general, and telecommunication systems in particular.

Research Funding

Editorships and Conference/Workshop Organisation

P Kritzinger

• Specialist Editor for Computer and Software Engineering Responsible for a Special Issue of the SAIEE Transactions on Software Engineering published in December 2004.

M Kuttel

• Treasurer for the World Association of Theoretically Oriented Chemists (WATOC) conference to be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on January 16-20, 2005.

P Marais

• co-Chair of AFRIGRAPH.

G Marsden

• Chaired SAICSIT conference at Stellenbosch.
• Programme Chair of AFRIGRAPH at Stellenbosch.

H Suleman

• Co-organiser of ETD Africa workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Publications

Journals

1. Marsden, G. and Cairns, D.E. (2004) "Improving the Usability of the Hierarchical File System", South African Computer Journal, 32, pp. 69-78.

Conference Papers

1. Arnab, Alapan and Andrew CM Hutchison (2004) Digital Rights Management - An Overview of current challenges and solutions. In Venter, HS, JHP Eloff, L Labuschagne and MM Eloff, Eds. Proceedings Information Security South Africa (ISSA), Gallagher Estate, Midrand, South Africa.
2. Arnab, Alapan and Andrew Hutchison (2004) Security Considerations for an Idealised DRM Framework. In Proceedings Southern African Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC) 2004, Spier Wine Estate.
3. Berman, S., K. April and A. Potgieter (2004) "Knowledge management - what education can learn from corporate memory systems", presented at SACLA Conf., Durban, 2004.
4. Blake, Edwin H (2004) An Extended Platter Metaphor for Effective Reconfigurable Network Visualization. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Information Visualisation --- IV04, pages 752-757, London.
5. Blake, Edwin H and William D Tucker (2004) Bridging Communications Across the Digital Divide. In Proceedings of Social Intelligence Design 2004, Enschede, Netherlands.
6. Chetty, Marshini, Bill Tucker and Edwin Blake (2004) Telemedicine in the Eastern Cape using VoIP combined with a Store and Forward Approach In Proceedings Southern African Telecommunication Networks & Applications Conference, Cape Town, South Africa.
7. Chetty, Marshini, Tucker, William and Blake, Edwin. (2004) Developing Locally Relevant Software Applications For Rural Areas: A South African Example in the Proceedings of SAICSIT 2004, coming up on 4-6 October, Cape Town.
8. Congia, S., M. Gaylord, B. Merchant and H. Suleman (2004). "Applying SOAP to OAI-PMH", in R. Heery and L. Lyon (eds): Proceedings of 8th European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries (ECDL2004), LNCS 3232, Bath, UK, 12-17 September 2004, pp. 411-420. ISSN: 0302-9743. ISBN: 3-540-23013-0
9. Consani, Colette (2004) Quality of Service of IEEE 802.11e. In Proceedings Southern African Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC) 2004, Spier Wine Estate.
10. de Wet, N., and P. Kritzinger (2004) Using UML Models for the performance analysis of network systems, in Proceedings of the Workshop on Integrated-reliability with Telecommunications and UML Languages, IRISA, Rennes, France.
11. de Wet, N., and P. Kritzinger (2004) Using UML Models for the Performance Analysis of Network Systems. In Proceedings Workshop on Integrated-reliability with Telecommunications and UML Languages, to appear in Computer Networks.
12. Eyambe, L. and H. Suleman (2004). "A Digital Library Component Assembly Environment", in G. Marsden, P. Kotze and A. Adesina-Ojo (eds): Proceedings of SAICSIT 2004, Stellenbosch, 4-6 October 2004, pp. 15-22. ISBN: 1-58113-982-9
13. Jones, M. and Marsden, G. (2004) "Please turn ON your mobile phone - First Impressions of Text-messaging in Lectures", Mobile HCI 2004, Short paper, pp. 436-440.
14. Jones, M., and Marsden, G. (2004) "The View from the Clapham Electronics Store", Proceedings Ubiconf 2004, London, UK (Electronic Proceedings).
15. Landman, J., and P. Kritzinger (2004) Modelling a DS-CDMA Fading Channel with Bursty Traffic Arrivals, Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad Hoc and Wireless networks (WiOpt 2004), Editors T Basar and M Conit, March 2004, pp.414-416, published by Springer Verlag.
16. Lukell, Simon and Andrew Hutchison (2004) Selection of an Attack-Construction Engine to Enhance Security Protocol Analysis. In Proceedings Southern African Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC) 2004, Spier Wine Estate.
17. Marsden, G. and Yang, S. (2004) "Eliminating Design and Execute Modes from Virtual Environment Editors", Presence 2004, pp. 168-173.
18. Nirenstein, Shaun and Edwin Blake (2004) Hardware Accelerated Visibility Preprocessing using Adaptive Sampling. In Jensen, Henrik Wann and Alexander Keller, Eds. Proceedings 15th Eurographics Symposium on Rendering, Norrkoping, Sweden.
19. Patel, D., and Marsden, G (2004) "Creating Software for Developing Countries", Proceedings SAICSIT 2004, pp.234-238.
20. Patel, D., Marsden, G., Jones, S. and Jones, M. (2004) "An Evaluation of Techniques for Browsing Photograph Collections on Small Displays", Proceedings Mobile HCI 2004, pp. 132-143.
21. Ryndina, Oksana and Pieter Kritzinger (2004) Improving Requirements Specification for Communication Services with Formalised Use Case Models. In Proceedings Southern African Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC) 2004, Spier Wine Estate.
22. Schroder, R., and Marsden, G (2004) "RIVERN: Controlling Virtual Environments from PDAs", Proceedings SAICSIT 2004, pp.135-141.
23. Semwayo, D., and S. Berman (2004) "Representing niches in an ontological data model", presented at CoMoGIS workshop, 23rd Int. ER Conf. On Conceptual Modelling, China 2004.
24. Semwayo, D., and S. Berman (2004) "Ontological Engineering for Resolution and Context Sensitivity", SANTREN Conf., Botswana, 2004.
25. Suleman, H. (2004). "Analysis and Evaluation of Service-Oriented Architectures for Digital Libraries", in M. Agosti, H. Jorg-Schek and C.Turker (eds): Pre-Proceedings of 6th DELOS Workshop on Digital Library Architecture: Peer-to-Peer, Grid and Service-Orientation, S. Margherita di Pula, Italy, 24-25 June 2004, pp. 163-174. ISBN: 88-87331-60-X
26. Tobler, Benjamin and Andrew Hutchison (2004) Generating Network Security Protocol Implementations from Formal Specifications. In Nardelli, Enrico, Sabina Posadziejewski and Maurizmo Talamo, Eds. Proceedings IFIP World Computer Congress - CSES 2004 2nd International Workshop on Certification and Security in Inter-Organizational E-Services, Toulouse, France.
27. Winterbottom, Cara and Edwin Blake (2004) Designing a VR Interaction Authoring Tool using Constructivist Practices. In Spencer, Stephen, Eds. Proceedings 3rd International Conference on Virtual Reality, Computer Graphics, Visualization and Interaction in Africa, pages 67-71, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Book Chapters

1. Fox, E. A., G. McMillan, H. Suleman, M. A. Gonçalves and M. Luo (2004). Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), chapter in D. Law and J. Andrews (eds): Digital Libraries: Policy Planning and Practice, Ashgate Publishing. ISBN: 0754634485
2. Fox, E. A., H. Suleman, D. Madalli and L. Cassel (2004). Digital Libraries, chapter in M. P. Singh (ed). Practical Handbook of Internet Computing, CRC Press. ISBN: 1584883812
3. Suleman, H., A. Atkins, M. A. Gonçalves, R. K. France, E. A. Fox, V. Chachra, M. Crowder and J. Young (2004). Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, chapter in Fox, E. A., S. Feizabadi, J. M. Moxley and C. R. Weisser (eds), Electronic Theses and Dissertations: A Sourcebook for Educators, Students, and Librarians, Chapter 5, pp. 49-72, Marcel Dekker Inc..
4. Suleman, H. (2004) NDLTD Union Catalog Project, chapter in Fox, E. A., S. Feizabadi, J. M. Moxley, and C. R. Weisser (eds), Electronic Theses and Dissertations: A Sourcebook for Educators, Students, and Librarians, Chapter 6, pp. 73-77, Marcel Dekker, Inc..

Other Conferences, Workshops and Excursions

S Berman

• Visited Prof Alan Amory, University of Natal, 2004.

M Chetty

• Attended and presented short talk on "Using VoIP For Rural Telehealth" at the Joint IFIP TC. 13 and CHI-SA Workshop held at University of PE 3 March 2004.

J Gain

• Attended SIGGRAPH 2004 in Los Angeles, 8-12 August 2004.
• Attended Afrigraph 2004 in Stellenbosch, 3-5 November 2004.

P Kritzinger

• Spent a week teaching courses on Mobile Computing, Project Management and Basic Software Engineering in their International MSc programme in IT at the Institut National des Télécommunications in Evry France in April.
• Spent 4 months study and research leave at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory working on performability aspects of RAID systems.
• Attended as a member of the Technical Programmimg Committee the International Conference on Quantitative Evaluation of SysTems (QEST) at the University of Twente, the Netherlands.

M Kuttel

• High Performance Computing for SKA Workshop, October 5th 2004, Cape Town.
• CHPC Planning Workshop, 28-29 October 2004, Cape Town.
• Scientific Computing and Applications Workshop (SCAW), 6-8 Dec 2004, Cape Town.

G Marsden

• Presented at the DST HCI roadmapping workshop.
• Usability workshop at CITI with Gilbert Cockton (Chair of BCS HCI) and CHI-SA.

H Suleman

• Attended OSS for Learning workshop at UWC, 16 January.
• "NDLTD and ETDs", presented at a meeting of the CALICO Heads of Libraries, 20 May 2004.
• "Not to wait is the answer: Institutional Repositories from the bottom up", presented at SASLI Open Access Conference, 29-30 July, Pretoria.
• Attended SARIS (Cape Town, 20 September) and SARKIN, (Pretoria, 4 October) workshops on research infrastructure.
• Invited speaker at Institutional Repository workshop at UNAM, Windhoek, Namibia, 18-19 October.
• Attended CHPC Planning Workshop, 28-29 October, Cape Town.
• Attended Scientific Computing and Applications Workshop (SCAW), 6-8 Dec 2004, Cape Town.

Industrial Collaboration

G Marsden

• Microsoft funded research project for embedded systems.
• Donation from HP and bridges.org of 32 PDAs.