About

I am a Professor in Computer Science and the Head of School of Computing and Engineering at the University of Derby. My responsibility includes oversight of teaching and research in the school; my ambition is to continue evolving all subject areas in the school to further strengthen the interaction of teaching, research, and knowledge exchange and create greater interaction between the subject areas in the school and beyond to address current opportunities and challenges in an ever better-connected world. I strongly believe that interweaving the strands will lead to a strong impact on the local economy while providing great opportunities for our students and furthering our applied research agenda.

Prior to joining the University of Derby, I worked in a dual role at the University of Leicester, leading the Leicester Innovation Hub whilst being an Associate Professor in Informatics. As an Associate Professor, I was engaged in research and teaching in areas of web and cloud systems as well as IoT, leading the MSc course portfolio and international outreach. As Director of the Innovation Hub, I led industry engagement, focused on regional SMEs, across all subject areas at the University.

Research interests

My research considers runtime adaptation of complex networked software systems and approaches and software architectures for modelling, managing (using semantic data integration) and efficiently processing data for data analytics. I have a particular interest in architectures, data management and analytics that can be distributed and allow action close to the source of the data as is needed for smart environments.

I have pursued three related research strands which are now cumulating in solutions for problems in the context of IoT and Smart World solutions.

1. I have conducted research in various systems that adapt at runtime, ranging from feature interactions in telecommunications, adapting workflows and selecting most appropriate software services and recently cloud and IoT resources. Solutions typically evaluating multi-criteria decision problems to dynamically decide which of many possible components providing a certain functionality are best for a given situation that has been created.
2. A second strand focuses on data modelling and management; this uses technologies ranging from UML modelling to semantic web solutions to complex event processing (CEP) to capture data in the best possible way and to allow reasoning about the data – some of my current work is considering the application of AI techniques to such data.
3. A third, and partly more recent, strand of work is focussing on fast data processing. The achievements in this strand are a platform providing a combined pull-push model for collecting data and accessing information with near-zero delay. This platform has been formally modelled using ITL (interval temporal logic) and hence can be formally reasoned about.

Bringing these strands together, I am currently investigating data processing platforms that optimise where data is processed (in device, fog/edge or cloud – or a combination thereof). This optimisation is driven by numerous factors such as the availability of the data to make decisions, the processing need and device capabilities as well as the speed and precision needed for deriving answers. Initial results exist for providing autonomy to IoT devices, allowing them to work in a peer to peer fashion and processing data locally as well as a hybrid approach for processing data in the cloud and edge/fog. We have also developed a simulator (FABIoT) to experiment with various data processing setups.

Externally funded research activities

I am (joint) principle investigator on the following projects:

• Leicester Innovation Accelerator in the Leicester Innovation Hub
  Grant Reference: ESIF PA1
  Duration April 2017 - March 2020 (extended to June 2020)

• EPSRC iCASE with Airbus: High Assurance Runtime Monitoring of Industrial Control Systems/SCADA
  Grant Reference: EP/N509255/1
  Duration: February 2016 - January 2020

The objective of the research is to develop a low-cost, easy deployable monitoring infrastructure for existing, vulnerable SCADA systems that is passive with respect to the monitored components and thus does not directly influence the behaviour of the control system.

• KTP with Synapse Information Ltd
  Grant Reference: KTP 009972
  Duration: October 2015 - September 2017

The aim of the KTP is to develop innovative products for integrating financial data using semantic technology capable of automatically integrating data from multiple companies to create consolidated accounts and enable complex multinational financial analysis.

• SME Support to Growth
  Funding: European Regional Development Fund
  Duration: January 2013 - June 2015
  

  This project aims at supporting local (Leicester City) based businesses to enhance their export potential through collaborations with the University of Leicester.

I am co-investigator in the following projects:

• BEHAPI (Behavioural Application Program Interfaces)
  Grant Reference: MSCA-RISE 778233
  Duration March 2018 - February 2022

I am holder of the following Conference Support Grants:

• LMS Computer Science Committee Grant (BCTCS 2015)
  Funding: LMS
  Duration: Sep - Dec 2015
• LMS Computer Science Committee Grant (BCTCS 2014)
  Funding: LMS
  Duration: Mar - July 2014
• LMS Computer Science Committee Grant (BCTCS 2013)
  Funding: LMS
  Duration: Mar - July 2013

Editorial Boards

• Editorial Board Member of the Services Transactions on Internet of Things (STIOT). 2016-
• Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology. 2015-
• Editorial Board Member of the Open Journal of Cloud Computing. 2013-

Membership of professional bodies

• I am a fellow of the BCS, chartered status (FBCS CITP)
• I am a member of the IST (MIScT, CSci)
• I am professional member of the ACM and a ember of IEEE

In the media

BBC Radio Leicester, 28th March, Live Interview with Jonathan Lampoon on SmartTechnology.

From Flying Warehouses to Robot Toilets –Five Technologies that Could Shape the Future. L.L. Minku, N.X. Verdezoto D, S. Reiff-Marganiec. The Conversation. July2017.

Teaching responsibilities

I oversee teaching and research within the department. I have also mentored, and continue to mentor, PhD students.

• Fola-Dami Etiyemi (2017 - current)
• Bbadraddin Alturki (2016 - current)
• Marco Perez Hernandez (2013 - 2017) - Thesis: "Realising Relative Autonomy and Adaptation in Smart Object Systems"
• Budoor Allehyani (2013 - 2017) - Thesis: "Goal Compliance Assurance for Dynamically Adaptive Workflows"
• Yi Hong (2009 - 2015) - Thesis: "Collaborative Annotation, Search and Categorisation"
• Marcel Tilly (2009 - 2015) - Thesis: "Fast Data Processing in Hyper Scale Systems"
• Kamran Pathan (2008 - 2013) - Thesis: "Activity Awareness in Context-aware Systems using Software Sensors"
• Zohra Adnan Khowaja: (2008 - 2012) - Thesis: "Structural Domain Modelling for Policy Language Specialization with Conflict Analysis"
• Noor Jehan Rajper (2007 - 2012) - Thesis: "VOML: Virtual Organization Modelling Language"
• Manar Ali (2006 - 2013) - Thesis: "Maintaining Transactional Integrity in Long Running Workflow Services: A Policy-Driven Framework"
• Stephen Gorton (2005 - 2011) - Thesis: "Policy-driven Reconfiguration of Service-targeted Business Processes"
• Hong Qing Yu (2005 - 2009) - Thesis: "Context Aware Automatic Service Selection"