This curriculum vitae outlines the qualifications and experience of Dr. Andrew Paul Nisbet. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he has worked since 2004. His research focuses on compiler optimization techniques for parallel, multicore, and embedded systems. He has supervised several PhD students to completion and currently supervises two PhD students.
Design of an IT Capstone Subject - Cloud RoboticsITIIIndustries
This paper describes the curriculum of the three year IT undergraduate program at La Trobe University, and the faculty requirements in designing a capstone subject, followed by the ACM’s recommended IT curriculum covering the five pillars of the IT discipline. Cloud robotics, a broad multidisciplinary research area, requiring expertise in all five pillars with mechatronics, is an ideal candidate to offer capstone experiences to IT students. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a long term master project in developing a cloud robotics testbed, with many capstone sub-projects spanning across the five IT pillars, to meet the objectives of capstone experience. This paper also describes the design and implementation of the testbed, and proposes potential capstone projects for students with different interests.
Design of an IT Capstone Subject - Cloud RoboticsITIIIndustries
This paper describes the curriculum of the three year IT undergraduate program at La Trobe University, and the faculty requirements in designing a capstone subject, followed by the ACM’s recommended IT curriculum covering the five pillars of the IT discipline. Cloud robotics, a broad multidisciplinary research area, requiring expertise in all five pillars with mechatronics, is an ideal candidate to offer capstone experiences to IT students. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a long term master project in developing a cloud robotics testbed, with many capstone sub-projects spanning across the five IT pillars, to meet the objectives of capstone experience. This paper also describes the design and implementation of the testbed, and proposes potential capstone projects for students with different interests.
NLP on Hadoop: A Distributed Framework for NLP-Based Keyword and Keyphrase Ex...Paolo Nesi
Abstract—The recent growth of the World Wide Web at increasing rate and speed and the number of online available resources populating Internet represent a massive source of knowledge for various research and business interests. Such knowledge is, for the most part, embedded in the textual content of web pages and documents, which is largely represented as unstructured natural language formats. In order to automatically ingest and process such huge amounts of data, single-machine, non-distributed architectures are proving to be inefficient for tasks like Big Data mining and intensive text processing and analysis. Current Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems are growing in complexity, and computational power needs have been significantly increased, requiring solutions such as distributed frameworks and parallel computing programming paradigms. This paper presents a distributed framework for executing NLP related tasks in a parallel environment. This has been achieved by integrating the APIs of the widespread GATE open source NLP platform in a multi-node cluster, built upon the open source Apache Hadoop file system. The proposed framework has been evaluated against a real corpus of web pages and documents.
The recent rapid progress in ICT technologies such as smart/intelligent sensor devices, broadband / ubiquitous networks, and Internet of everything (IoT) has advanced the penetration of sensor networks and their applications. The requirements of human daily life, security, energy efficiency, safety, comfort, and ecological, can be achieved with the help of these networks and applications. Traditionally, if we want some information on, for example, environment status, a variety of dedicated sensors is needed. This will increase the number of sensors installed and thus system cost, sensor data traffic loads, and installation difficulty. Therefore, we need to find redundancies in the captured information or interpret the semantics captured by non-dedicated sensors to reduce sensor network overheads. This paper clarifies the feasibility of recognizing human presence in a space by processing information captured by other than dedicated sensors. It proposes a method and implements it as a cost-effective prototype sensor network for a university library. This method processes CO2 concentration, originally designed to check environment status. In the experiment, training data is captured with none, one, or two subjects. The information gain (IG) method is applied to the resulting data, to set thresholds and thus judge the number of people. Human presence (none, one or two people) is accurately recognized from the CO2 concentration data. The experiments clarify that a CO2 sensor in set in a small room to check environment status can recognize the number of humans in the room with more than 70 % accuracy. This eliminates the need for an extra sensor, which reduces sensor network cost.
Semi-supervised learning approach using modified self-training algorithm to c...IJECEIAES
Burst header packet flooding is an attack on optical burst switching (OBS) network which may cause denial of service. Application of machine learning technique to detect malicious nodes in OBS network is relatively new. As finding sufficient amount of labeled data to perform supervised learning is difficult, semi-supervised method of learning (SSML) can be leveraged. In this paper, we studied the classical self-training algorithm (ST) which uses SSML paradigm. Generally, in ST, the available true-labeled data (L) is used to train a base classifier. Then it predicts the labels of unlabeled data (U). A portion from the newly labeled data is removed from U based on prediction confidence and combined with L. The resulting data is then used to re-train the classifier. This process is repeated until convergence. This paper proposes a modified self-training method (MST). We trained multiple classifiers on L in two stages and leveraged agreement among those classifiers to determine labels. The performance of MST was compared with ST on several datasets and significant improvement was found. We applied the MST on a simulated OBS network dataset and found very high accuracy with a small number of labeled data. Finally we compared this work with some related works.
Scientific Workflows: what do we have, what do we miss?Paolo Romano
Presentation given on June 22, 2013, in Nice, at the CIBB 2013 International Workshop.
In collaboration with Paolo Missier, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Lambda data grid: communications architecture in support of grid computingTal Lavian Ph.D.
The practice of science experienced a number of paradigm shifts in the 20th century, including the growth of large geographically dispersed teams and the use of simulations and computational science as a third branch, complementing theory and laboratory experiments. The recent exponential growth in network capacity, brought about by the rapid development of agile optical transport, is resulting in another such shift as the 21st century progresses. Essential to this new branch of e-Science applications is the capability of transferring immense amounts of data: dozens and hundreds of TeraBytes and even PetaBytes.
NLP on Hadoop: A Distributed Framework for NLP-Based Keyword and Keyphrase Ex...Paolo Nesi
Abstract—The recent growth of the World Wide Web at increasing rate and speed and the number of online available resources populating Internet represent a massive source of knowledge for various research and business interests. Such knowledge is, for the most part, embedded in the textual content of web pages and documents, which is largely represented as unstructured natural language formats. In order to automatically ingest and process such huge amounts of data, single-machine, non-distributed architectures are proving to be inefficient for tasks like Big Data mining and intensive text processing and analysis. Current Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems are growing in complexity, and computational power needs have been significantly increased, requiring solutions such as distributed frameworks and parallel computing programming paradigms. This paper presents a distributed framework for executing NLP related tasks in a parallel environment. This has been achieved by integrating the APIs of the widespread GATE open source NLP platform in a multi-node cluster, built upon the open source Apache Hadoop file system. The proposed framework has been evaluated against a real corpus of web pages and documents.
The recent rapid progress in ICT technologies such as smart/intelligent sensor devices, broadband / ubiquitous networks, and Internet of everything (IoT) has advanced the penetration of sensor networks and their applications. The requirements of human daily life, security, energy efficiency, safety, comfort, and ecological, can be achieved with the help of these networks and applications. Traditionally, if we want some information on, for example, environment status, a variety of dedicated sensors is needed. This will increase the number of sensors installed and thus system cost, sensor data traffic loads, and installation difficulty. Therefore, we need to find redundancies in the captured information or interpret the semantics captured by non-dedicated sensors to reduce sensor network overheads. This paper clarifies the feasibility of recognizing human presence in a space by processing information captured by other than dedicated sensors. It proposes a method and implements it as a cost-effective prototype sensor network for a university library. This method processes CO2 concentration, originally designed to check environment status. In the experiment, training data is captured with none, one, or two subjects. The information gain (IG) method is applied to the resulting data, to set thresholds and thus judge the number of people. Human presence (none, one or two people) is accurately recognized from the CO2 concentration data. The experiments clarify that a CO2 sensor in set in a small room to check environment status can recognize the number of humans in the room with more than 70 % accuracy. This eliminates the need for an extra sensor, which reduces sensor network cost.
Semi-supervised learning approach using modified self-training algorithm to c...IJECEIAES
Burst header packet flooding is an attack on optical burst switching (OBS) network which may cause denial of service. Application of machine learning technique to detect malicious nodes in OBS network is relatively new. As finding sufficient amount of labeled data to perform supervised learning is difficult, semi-supervised method of learning (SSML) can be leveraged. In this paper, we studied the classical self-training algorithm (ST) which uses SSML paradigm. Generally, in ST, the available true-labeled data (L) is used to train a base classifier. Then it predicts the labels of unlabeled data (U). A portion from the newly labeled data is removed from U based on prediction confidence and combined with L. The resulting data is then used to re-train the classifier. This process is repeated until convergence. This paper proposes a modified self-training method (MST). We trained multiple classifiers on L in two stages and leveraged agreement among those classifiers to determine labels. The performance of MST was compared with ST on several datasets and significant improvement was found. We applied the MST on a simulated OBS network dataset and found very high accuracy with a small number of labeled data. Finally we compared this work with some related works.
Scientific Workflows: what do we have, what do we miss?Paolo Romano
Presentation given on June 22, 2013, in Nice, at the CIBB 2013 International Workshop.
In collaboration with Paolo Missier, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Lambda data grid: communications architecture in support of grid computingTal Lavian Ph.D.
The practice of science experienced a number of paradigm shifts in the 20th century, including the growth of large geographically dispersed teams and the use of simulations and computational science as a third branch, complementing theory and laboratory experiments. The recent exponential growth in network capacity, brought about by the rapid development of agile optical transport, is resulting in another such shift as the 21st century progresses. Essential to this new branch of e-Science applications is the capability of transferring immense amounts of data: dozens and hundreds of TeraBytes and even PetaBytes.
My updated resume for (UMTS, WCDMA, LTE-Advanced 4G and 5G, SDN and NVF) wireless engineering.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
UK e-Infrastructure: Widening Access, Increasing ParticipationNeil Chue Hong
A talk given at the ICHEC Annual Seminar by Neil Chue Hong, reflecting on the rise of Grid and Web 2.0, and how this might enable increased participation and use of computing infrastructure for e-Science and research.
National scale research computing and beyond pearc panel 2017Gregory Newby
Panel at the PEARC 2017 event in New Orleans, July 11-13. Panelists were: Gregory Newby, Chief Technology Officer, Compute Canada; Florian Berberich, Member of the Board of Directors PRACE aisbl; Gergely Sipos, Customer and Technical Outreach Manager, EGI Foundation; and John Towns, Director of Collaborative eScience Programs, National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
Panel abstract: How might the international community of research computing users and stakeholders benefit from knowledge sharing among national- or international-scale research computing organizations and providers? It is common for large-scale investments in research computing systems, services and support to be guided and funded with government oversight and centralized planning. There are many commonalities, including stakeholder relations, outcomes reporting, long-range strategic planning, and governance. What trends exist currently, and how might information sharing and collaboration among resource providers be beneficial? Is there desire to form a partnership, or to build upon existing relationships? Participants in this panel will include personnel involved in US, Canadian and European research computing jurisdictions.
CupCarbon simulator: Simulating the D-LPCN algorithm to find the boundary nodes of a WSN by Ahcene Bounceur, University of Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France
ICT research in the context of European Union
CASE SUMMER SCHOOL ON APPLIED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
APPLIED SOFTWARE PROCESS MANAGEMENT AND TESTING
JULY 6-10, 2009, BOZEN/BOLZANO, ITALY
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
Search and Society: Reimagining Information Access for Radical FuturesBhaskar Mitra
The field of Information retrieval (IR) is currently undergoing a transformative shift, at least partly due to the emerging applications of generative AI to information access. In this talk, we will deliberate on the sociotechnical implications of generative AI for information access. We will argue that there is both a critical necessity and an exciting opportunity for the IR community to re-center our research agendas on societal needs while dismantling the artificial separation between the work on fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics in IR and the rest of IR research. Instead of adopting a reactionary strategy of trying to mitigate potential social harms from emerging technologies, the community should aim to proactively set the research agenda for the kinds of systems we should build inspired by diverse explicitly stated sociotechnical imaginaries. The sociotechnical imaginaries that underpin the design and development of information access technologies needs to be explicitly articulated, and we need to develop theories of change in context of these diverse perspectives. Our guiding future imaginaries must be informed by other academic fields, such as democratic theory and critical theory, and should be co-developed with social science scholars, legal scholars, civil rights and social justice activists, and artists, among others.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
1. CURRICULUM VITÆ
Dr. Andrew Paul Nisbet
School of Computing, Mathematics & Oce Phone: (+44) 161-246-1566
Digital Technology, Mobile Phone: Not provided.
Manchester Metropolitan University, Work Email: A.Nisbet@mmu.ac.uk
Chester Street, Home Email: Not provided.
Manchester, M1 5GD, http://sites.google.com/site/drandynisbet/
UK.
Employment
10/2004current: Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, Manchester Metropolitan Univer-
sity. Ph.D student Adeel Hashmi: Hardware Acceleration of Snort Network Intrusion Detec-
tion using FPGAs, supervised to completion in January 2011. Currently supervising 2 Ph.D
students. Member of Novel Computation Group undertaking research on compilers, perfor-
mance optimisation for multicore, GPUs, Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGAs, and applications concerning
biologically inspired algorithms and wireless sensor networks.
10/199910/2004: Lecturer in Computer Science, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, D2,
Ireland. Principal investigator/scientist for 3 national and an EU (Marie-Curie) project,
collaborator on 2 further nationally funded projects. Research in compilation, performance
optimisation, Xilinx Virtex2/Spartan3 FPGAs and virtual environments. Joint management
of a team of 8 personnel including Ph.D. students, and postdoctoral researchers.
02/199309/1999: Research Associate, Centre for Novel Computing, Department of Com-
puter Science, Manchester University, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK. Involved in a
variety of EU and EPSRC projects concerning high performance parallel computing, computer
architecture, operating/run-time systems, compilers and parallel application development for
a semantic network classier and a temporal logic theorem prover. Delivered short fat inten-
sive 2-5 day C/C++ and OOAD courses as a consultant to industry. Expertise in C/C++
and some SPARC assembler (rewrote a network driver for a distributed parallel computer
architecture).
07/198809/1989: Systems Engineer, Siemens (UK) PLC, Energy and Automation Division,
Varey Road, Congleton, UK. Application of S5 Programmable Logic Controllers for the au-
tomation of plant and machinery. Seconded to Erlangen, Germany January-August 1989,
German language training course (January-March 1989).
Education
19891993 (conferred 1994) Ph.D., Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of
Manchester, Dover Street, Manchester. My Ph.D. research (An Object Oriented Environment
2. Dr. Andrew Paul Nisbet 2
for the Simulation of Multiprocessor DSP Systems), produced software tools for the design
and implementation of real-time digital signal processing systems. An ecient method for the
evaluation of graphically specied algorithms was produced. Algorithms were automatically
scheduled and partitioned for minimum execution time on user-specied multiprocessor hard-
ware. This was accomplished using a multiprocessor simulator in conjunction with simulated
annealing or genetic algorithm optimisation techniques. All software was implemented under
the object-oriented paradigm using C++ on Sun-4 workstations.
19851988 University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL. Grade II(i) B.Sc. joint
honours degree in Physics and Electronic Engineering. This gave a solid grounding in the
theory and practice of Physics and Electronic Engineering. Final year options in Numerical
Methods and Computing, Digital Speech and Image Processing, and Communications. Final
year project: (Post-processing Software for the Hilo-3 Digital Logic Simulator) transformed
textual simulation output into a graphical display with pan, zoom and HPGL plotting func-
tionality.
Research
Research Interests
The main drive of my research work is to develop tools and techniques to aid the exploitation of
parallel/novel computing technology. My work has mainly addressed the development of parallelis-
ing compiler tools, run-time systems, and hardware compilation techniques for embedded systems
and applications. My interests include the development of skills/expertise in areas related to com-
pilation, computer architecture and application or system level optimisation for high performance
and/or low power.
Compilation I initiated, devised and performed all implementation work on an EPSRC project as
a natural extension of my PhD research; GAPS GR/K82291 (April 96 - April 99), Genetic Algorithm
Optimised Compilation of FORTRAN for Distributed Memory Architectures. GAPS developed a
novel iterative feedback based approach to compilation where a genetic algorithm was used to
optimise the applied loop transformations. The Omega project's petit prototype auto-parallelising
source-to-source compiler tools provided the base software infrastructure for this work.
Compiler research under the EC ESPRIT OCEANS 22729 project retargeted GAPS to optimize
code for embedded applications running on VLIW or superscalar architectures. The main back-end
target for this work was the Phillips TriMedia-1 VLIW processor. The continuation of this work
at Trinity College has resulted in the development and funding of an Enterprise Ireland Research
Innovation Fund grant IDEAS: Iterative Design Tools for Embedded FPGA Systems.
Optimisation for multicore:GPUs:FPGAs The main focus of my current research is the
application of parallelising compiler and parallel applications research to optimisation. This requires
signicant knowledge of compiler theory, program performance optimisation, computer architecture
and digital logic design. My research seeks to develop tangible assets such as software prototype
compilers, optimised applications, as well as the traditional research outputs of learned publications
and research theses. The signicance of my research is that it will make the development of optimised
embedded and/or high performance systems easier and faster. Further, that it will reduce the level
of expertise required to develop such systems. The base software infrastructure for this work is
LLVM which is used in my teaching for compiler related (Software Architecture) courses.
3. Dr. Andrew Paul Nisbet 3
Funded Research Grants
Host academic: HiPEAC Collaboration Grant 2010 subsistence funding for Jose Maria Cecilia
(University of Murcia, Spain) to collaborate for 3 months and work on biologically inspired
computiation using GPUs in the Novel Computation Group at MMU.
Co-investigator: ¿27000 2010-2011 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council from
Bridging the Gaps: Nano-Info-Bio (Principal Investigator Dr M. Amos, MMU), salary costs of a
research assistant to investigate novel real-time GPU implementations of algorithms for tracking
skeletal muscle contraction in ultrasound video sequences.
Principle Investigator: e2000 HiPEAC travel and networking 2009: Value Based Optimisa-
tion: aims to perform preliminary investigations into how value based optimisation can be used
to optimise sparse-matrix based applications.
Principle Investigator: e4000 HiPEAC travel and networking 2008: Value Proling Driven
Optimisation for Embedded Processor Architectures and Applications, using a combination of
Pin, LLVM and Simics.
Principle Investigator: e113970 IDEAS: Iterative Design Tools for Embedded FPGA Sys-
tems, Enteprise Ireland Research Innovation Fund, 2yr project, IDEAS/IF2002/035 (2002-2004).
Principle Investigator: e143928 Hardware Acceleration of High Performance Computing
Applications, Enterprise Ireland, Basic Research Grant, 3yr project, SC/02/288 (2002-2005)
Principle Investigator: e214487 Virtually Healthy: Creating a compelling on-line environ-
ment to help young people access positive mental health information, HEA/Media Lab Europe.
3 year project, (2002-2005)
Principle Investigator: e123000 Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship for Milan Tichy,
LFAPDIFI 502085, Digital Filtering using Fast Ane Projection and Logarithmic Arithmetic,
2yr project, EU FP6, Trinity College, Dublin (2004-2006).
Co-investigator: e350000 FIAMMA: Finite Iterative Algorithm Matrix Mathematics Accel-
erator TD/04/205, Trinity College, Dublin, 2yr project, Enterprise Ireland, Commercialisation
Fund (2004-2006). Involvement in research limited due to changing post to MMU.
Co-investigator: e90000 approx. World's Fastest Java Interpreter, Trinity College, Dublin,
Enterprise Ireland, Research Innovation Fund (2002-2004).
Professional Activities
Memberships
Member of HiPEAC: European Network of Excellence on High Performance and Embedded
Architecture and Compilation http://www.hipeac.net.
MBCS: Member of the British Computer Society.
Awards Patents
The initialPersonal Investigator 3D virtual environment prototype software developed under my
Virtually Healthy Project at Trinity College Dublin and Media Lab Europe, won an O2 Digital
Media Innovation Award (Consumer category) in 2004.
http://medialabeurope.org/news/announcement.php?id=5
4. Dr. Andrew Paul Nisbet 4
2004, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Honorary M.A.
Ozer, E., Nisbet, A.P., Gregg, D., Trinity College Dublin Preliminary Irish Patent TRI213: Filed
November 2004 - Expired November 2005, An Estimation Method in Customising Data Bus Size
for Application-Specic Processors, funded with support from Enterprise Ireland IF/2002/035/IDEAS.
Examining
M.Phil (external examiner): Iain Walsh, A Study of Contention Management for Transactional
Memory, Manchester University, 2010.
M.Phil (external examiner): O.M. Esoul, VMX-Rootkit: Implementing Malware With Hardware
Virtual Machine Extensions, Salford University, 2008.
M.Phil. (external examiner): Dervla O'Keefe, A Simple HDL, Trinity College Dublin 2007.
Ph.D. (external examiner): Faycaal Bensaali, Accelerating Matrix Product on Recongurable
Hardware For Image Processing Applications, Queen's University of Belfast, 2005.
Ph.D. (internal examiner): Philip Mackenzie, Software and Recongurability for Software Radio
Systems, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, 2004.
Supervisions
3 M.Sc. project supervisions.
Fayez Abdulrahman Alfayez, (due to start in July 2011), Optimisation of Multichannel Medium
Access Control Protocols for Wireless Mesh Networks (joint with Dr Mohammad Hammoudeh,
Dr. Zuhair Bandar, Dr Liangxiu Han).
Matthew Crossley: Bioinspired Computation using Multicore GPUs (started September 2010,
joint with Dr. Martyn Amos).
Tariq Alsbooey: An Integrated Framework for Information Extraction in Wireless Sensor Net-
works (started October 2010, joint with Dr Mohammad Hammoudeh. Dr Zuhair Bandar)
Dr. Adeel Hashmi, Ph.D. (completed January 2011).
Dr. Owen Callanan (Trinity College Dublin 2002-04), supervised to completion by Dr. David
Gregg in 2006.
Dr. David Coyle (Trinity College Dublin 2002-04), supervised to completion by Dr. Gavin
Doherty in 2008.
Dr. Mark Matthews (Trinity College Dublin 2002-04), supervised to completioon by Dr. Gavin
Doherty in 2009.
Conference Committee Memberships
IMVIP 2005: Irish Machine Vision Image Processing Conference, Northern Ireland, 2005
HipHac08: 1st International Workshop on New Frontiers in High-performance and Hardware-
aware Computing, Italy, 2008
HipHac11: 2nd International Workshop on New Frontiers in High-Performance and Hardware-
aware Computing, USA, 2011.
ITA11: 4th Intl. Conference on Internet Technologies Applications, Wales, 2011.
5. Dr. Andrew Paul Nisbet 5
UCHPC2011: 4th Workshop on UnConventional High Performance Computing 2001, held in
conjunction with Euro-Par, Bordeaux, France 2011.
General Skills
LLVM : supervised undergraduate student projects using LLVM. Incorporating a simple-C front-
end into laboratory and lecture material for compiler courses. Developed a back-end for a soft-
core FPGA processor. Currently evaluating a high-level synthesis LLVM backend developed
at Haifa University and developing an LLVM backend to ILOC (similar to MIPS) for teaching
of compilation concepts.
Virtutech Simics previously used in M.Sc. level courses to demonstrate virtualisation and system
level simulation.
Intel Pin dynamic binary instrumentation tool, used in undergraduate and M.Sc. level courses to
obtain memory access traces, value load/store information.
Computer Language Exposure: familiar with Linux and Windows operating systems, and have
used C++, C, Java, Python, Pascal, Z80, 6809 and SPARC assembler. Hardware
compilation has used Celoxica's DK toolds for HandelC, Synopsys Design Compiler/SystemC
Compiler, Xilinx ISE, Mentor Graphics Modelsim, Verilog and Balsa (asynchronous logic
simulation/synthesis system from University of Manchester).
Self Development: Attended a one week residential SERC graduate school course (February
1991). Involved group work, decision making, and presentations. I have developed, lectured
and demonstrated intensive C, C++ and Object Oriented Design courses as a consultant to
industry whilst employed as a Research Associate at Manchester University. Attended Xilinx
Training modules on Fundamentals of FPGA Design and Designing for Performance. At-
tended ACID-WG Summer School on Asynchronous Logic Design in Grenoble, July 2002.
Attended 3 seminars on Intel compiler/performance optimisation tools June/July 2011.
German language: Intensive language training and secondment to Siemens in Germany has pro-
vided a basic knowledge of German.
Teaching
Manchester Metropolitan University
3 year undergraduate and one year postgraduate degree courses, currently taught units have course
codes and enrolled student numbers for session 2010-2011. Bold font indicates unit leader.
63SN5301: Computer Networks and Operating Systems, 100 students, 2nd year courses
24 weeks, 2 lectures, 1 hour lab sessions. Innovation: introduced virtualisation into teaching via
kvm, and dynamic binary instrumentation using Pin.
Network Management Security, 3rd year unit, 24 weeks, 1 lecture, 1 laboratory session.
63SN6302: Information Network Security, 44 students, 3rd year unit dealing with crypto-
graphic applications and network security. Python programming is used to introduce simple
cryptographic examples.
6. Dr. Andrew Paul Nisbet 6
63SN6301 Software Architectures, 22 students, 3rd year unit, 24 weeks, 1 lecture, 1 labo-
ratory session. Research led unit in compilation and performance optimisation. Also delivered
in a modied form as an advanced M.Sc. 63SW7301 unit with 10 students over 13 weeks
with 4 contact hours. Innovations: introduced LLVM, ANTLR and Pin material. Currently
introducing Intel compiler and optimisation tools for academic session 2011-2012.
63CP6302 Software Engineering Group Project, 20 students, 24 weeks. Responsible for
collating group project list, organising project selection, group formation, vivas and managing
problematic group dynamics as they arise.
63MM7301 Introduction to Multimedia the Internet, MS.c. conversion unit, 25 students, 4
hours per week over 13 weeks. JavaScript and material on Mozilla refox plugins.
Trinity College Dublin
4 year undergraduate and one year postgraduate degree courses.
Concurrent Programming and Operating Systems. 3rd year course, 24 weeks, 2 lectures + 2
hours programming.
Hardware Compilation. Final year research led unit in compilation, performance optimisation
and high-level synthesis. 24 weeks, 2 lectures + 2 hours programming.
Client-Side Programming. Conversion M.S.c unit for arts graduates covering basic JavaScript,
HTML and multimedia. 12 weeks, 4 hours.
Publications
Refereed Journals
1. Ozer, E., Nisbet, A.P., Gregg, D., A Stochastic Bit-width Estimation Technique for
Compact and Low-power Custom Processors, ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing
Systems (TECS), Volume 7 Issue 3, April 2008,
2. Gregg, D., Beatty, A., Casey, K., Davis, .B, Nisbet, A., The Case for Virtual Register
Machines, Science of Computer Programming, Volume 57, Issue 3, September 2005, Pages
319-338
3. Ozer, E., Nisbet, A.P., Gregg, D. Callanan, O., Estimating Data Bus Size for Custom
Processors in Embedded Systems, Springer Design Automation for Embedded Systems Journal,
Volume 10(1), pp. 5-26, Springer, March 2005.
4. Coyle, D., Matthews, M., Sharry, J., Nisbet, A., Doherty, G., Personal Investigator: A
Therapeutic 3D Game for Adolescent Psychotherapy. International Journal of Interactive
Technology and Smart Education, Volume 2, issue 2, pp.73-88, 2005.
5. Nisbet, A.P. S. Dobson, S., A Systems Architecture for Sensor Networks based on Hard-
ware/Software Co-design, The 1st IFIP TC6 WG6.6 Workshop on Autonomic Communication
(WAC 2004) Autonomic Communication Principles 18-19 October 2004 in Berlin, Germany,
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 3457, pages 115-126.
7. Dr. Andrew Paul Nisbet 7
6. Ozer, E., Nisbet, A.P., Gregg, D., Automatic Customization of Embedded Applications
for Enhanced Performance and Reduced Power using Optimizing Compiler Techniques, Euro-
Par'04, Pisa, Italy, Aug., Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 3149, ISBN: 3-540-
22924-8, ISSN: 0302-9743, pages 318-327, 2004.
7. Ozer, E., Nisbet, A.P., D. Gregg, D., Stochastic Bit-width Approximation using Extreme
Value Theory for Customizable Processors, in 13th International Conference on Compiler
Construction (CC), LNCS 2985, Barcelona, Spain, Mar. 2004, ISBN: 3-540-21297-3 ,ISSN:
0302-9743 , Chapter: pp. 250 - 264.
8. Casey, K., Gregg, D., Ertl, M.A., Nisbet, A., Towards Superinstructions for Java In-
terpreters Lecture Notes in Computer Science, ISSN: 0302-9743, Volume 2826 / 2003, Title:
Software and Compilers for Embedded Systems: 7th International Workshop, SCOPES 2003,
Vienna, Austria, September 24-26, 2003, Proceedings ISBN: 3-540-20145-9, pages 329-343.
9. Barreteau, M., Bodin, F., Chamskiz, Z. Charles, H., Eisenbeis, C., Gurd, J., Hoogerbrug-
ger. J., Hu, P., Jalby, W., Kisuki, T., Knijnenburg, P.M.W, van der Mark, P., Nisbet,
A.P., O'Boyle, M.F.P., Rohou, E., Seznec, A., Stoehr, E.A., Treers, M. Wijsho, H.A.G.,
OCEANS: Optimising Compilers for Embedded Applications, Euro-Par99, 5th European Con-
ference on Parallel Processing, Toulouse, France, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume
1685, pages 1171 - 1175, (1999).
10. O'Boyle, M., Ford R.W., Nisbet, A.P., Compiler Reduction of Invalidation Trac in
Virtual Shared Memory Systems, Proceedings of Euro-Par 96, Lyon, France, August, Lecture
Notes in Computer Science, Volume 1123, pages 432-440.(1996)
11. Nisbet, A.P. Ford, R.W., Spinning-on-Coherency: A New VSM Optimisation for Write-
invalidate, Proceedings of High Performance Computing and Networking Europe, Brussels,
Belgium, April, Lecture Notes in Computer Science , Volume 1067, pages 792-797. (1996)
12. Ford, R.W., Nisbet, A.P., Bull, J.M., User-level VSM Optimisation and its Application,
Proceedings of PARA95 Workshop on Applied Parallel Computing in Physics, Chemistry
and Engineering Science, Lyngby, Denmark, August, Lecture Notes in Computer Science,
Volume 1041, pages 223232. (1995)
Refereed Conferences
13. Alsboui, T.A.A, Hammoudeh, M., Bandar, Z., Nisbet, A,, An Overview and Classication
of Approaches to Information Extraction in Wireless Sensor Networks, SENSORCOMM2011,
Fifth International Conference on Sensor Technologies and Applications, August, 2011 ( in
press, accepted for publication).
Nisbet, A., Amos, M., Parallelization Strategies for
14. Cecilia, J.M, Garcia, J.M., Ujaldon, M.,
Ant Colony Optimisation on GPUs, 14th International workshop on Nature Inspired Comput-
ing (NIDISC 2011 May16th-20th), held in conjunction with 25th IEEE/ACM Intl. Parallel
and Distributed Computing Symposium (IPDPS 2011).
15. Hashmi, A, Nisbet, A., Hardware/Software Co-design Platform for Network Intrusion
Detection System (NIDS), Proceedings of ITA 09, 3rd International Conference on Internet
Technologies and Applications, September 2009, Wrexham, UK.
8. Dr. Andrew Paul Nisbet 8
16. Callanan, O., Gregg, D., Nisbet, A., Peardon, M. High Performance Scientic Computing
using FPGAs with IEEE Floating Point and Logarithmic Arithmetic for Lattice QCD FPL
2006 16th International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications, School of
Engineering - Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, SPAIN Madrid, August 28-30.
17. Callanan, O., Nisbet, A., Ozer, E., Sexton, J. Gregg, D., FPGA Implementation of a
Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics Algorithm Using Logarithmic Arithmetic, in 12th Recon-
gurable Architectures Workshop (RAW 2005), in 19th International Parallel and Distributed
Processing Symposium CD-ROM / Abstracts Proceedings, IEEE Computer Society, Denver,
California, May 2005.
Nisbet, A., Doherty, G. (2004), Personal Investigator:
18. Matthews, M., Coyle, D., Sharry, J.,
Computer Mediated Adolescent Psychotherapy using an interactive 3D game. Proceedings of
NILE2004 Narrative and Interactive Learning Environments, pp. 75-81, 10-13 August 2004,
Edinburgh, Scotland.
19. Beatty, A., Casey, K., Gregg, D. Nisbet, A.P., An optimized Java interpreter for connected
devices and embedded systems, in Proceedings of the 18th ACM Symposium on Applied Com-
puting (SAC 03), pp. 692-697, Melbourne, Florida, March 2003, Symposium on Applied
Computing archive Proceedings of the 2003 ACM symposium on Applied computing, Pages:
692 - 697 , ISBN:1-58113-624-2
20. Eadie, D., Shevlin, F. Nisbet, A.P., Geometric Correction of Image Distortion using
FPGAs, Proceedings of SPIE Conference on Optical Metrology, Imaging and Machine Vision,
September 2002, Galway, Ireland, Volume 4877, pg 28-37,ISBN 0-8194-4658-0.
21. O'Boyle, M., Nisbet, A.P., Ford, R.W., A Compiler Algorithm to Reduce Invalidation La-
Proceedings
tency in Virtual Shared Memory Systems, (also appears as invited publication 35),
of Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques, Boston USA, October, (1996).
22. Johnson, R., Shen. K., Fisher, M.D., Keane, J.A. Nisbet, A.P., An Abstract Machine for
Prototyping Parallel Proof Mechanisms, Proceedings of Third Annual Workshop on Abstract
Machine Models for Parallel and Distributed Computing, IOS Press, April 1996, pages 191-
202.(1996)
23. Mayes, K., Quick, S., Bridgland, J. Nisbet, A.P., Language- and Application-oriented
Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGOPS Euro-
Resource Management for Parallel architectures.
pean Workshop Matching Operating Systems to Application Needs, Dagstuhl Castle, Wadern,
Germany, September, 172-177.(1994)
Non-refereed Papers
24. Tichy, M.,Nisbet, A., Gregg, G., GSFAP adaptive ltering using log arithmetic for resource-
constrained embedded systems, (poster) Proceedings of the International Symposium on Field
programmable gate arrays, Monterey, California, USA, (poster), Pages: 236 - 236 Year of
Publication: 2006 ISBN:1-59593-292-5.
Nisbet, A., Implementation of an Image Segmentation
25. Bannister, R., Gregg, D., Wilson,S.,
Application using Logartihmic Arithmetic, Proceedings of the IEEE Intl. Midwest Symposium
on Circuits and Systems, Ohio USA, August, (poster) 2005.
9. Dr. Andrew Paul Nisbet 9
26. Ozer, E., Nisbet, A.P., Gregg, D., Fine-tuning Loop-level Parallelism for Enhancing
Performance of DSP Applications on FPGAs, in 12th Annual IEEE Symposium on Field-
Programmable Custom Computing Machines (FCCM'04), Napa Valley, CA, USA, Apr. 2004,
pages 273-274 (poster) ,ISBN 0-7695-2230-0
27. Ozer, E., Nisbet, A.P., D. Gregg , ILP versus Clock Rate: A Study of Performance Analysis
for Embedded Applications on FPGAs, Technical Report, Department of Computer Science,
Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, May 2004.
28. Coyle, D., Sharry, J., Nisbet, A., Matthews, M. (2003). Virtual Perspectives: Developing
a Therapeutic 3D Virtual Environment for Adolescents. Invited Publication in Eisteach: A
Quarterly Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 2(25), 27-31.
29. Ozer, E., Nisbet, A.P., D. Gregg, Classication of Compiler Optimizations for High Per-
formance, Small Area and Low Power in FPGAs, Technical Report, Department of Computer
Science, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, June 2003.
30. Nisbet A.P., Towards Retargettable Compilers Feedback Directed Compilation Using Ge-
netic Algorithms, Proceedings of Compilers for Parallel Computers, Edinburgh, Scotland, June
2001, http://www.icsa.informatics.ed.ac.uk/cpc2001/Speakers/nisbet.html
31. Nisbet, A.P., Iterative Feedback Directed Parallelisation Using Genetic Algorithms, Work-
shop on Prole and Feedback-Directed Compilation, in conjunction with PACT98: Interna-
tional Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques (1998).
32. Nisbet, A.P., GAPS: Iterative Feedback Directed Parallelisation Using Genetic Algorithms,
(poster), in Proceedings of Supercomputing 98,November, Orlando Florida, USA (1998).
33. Nisbet, A.P., GAPS: A Compiler Framework for Genetic Algorithm (GA) Optimised Paral-
lelisation, (extended poster) Proceedings of High-Performance Computing and Networking
Europe, Amsterdam, April, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 1401, pages 987-989.
(1998)
34. Nisbet, A.P., GAPS: Genetic Algorithm Optimised Parallelisation, (invited publication),
7th Workshop on Compilers for Parallel Computers, pages 172-183, Linkoeping, Sweden.
(1998)
35. Mayes, K.R., Bridgland, J., Quick, S., Nisbet, A., Network Performance in Arena, Pro-
ceedings of High-Performance Computing and Networking Europe, Brussels, Belgium, April,
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 1067, (poster), pages 1007-1008. (1996)
36. O'Boyle, M., Nisbet, A.P., Ford, R.W. (1996), A Compiler Algorithm to Reduce In-
validation Latency in Virtual Shared Memory Systems, (also appears in PACT96) (invited
publication) 6th Workshop on Compilers for Parallel Computers, Aachen, Germany, Decem-
ber, Volume 21, Konferenzen des Forschungszentrums Juelich (1996)
37. Riley, G.D., Bull, J.M., Nisbet, A.P., Parallelisation of a Semantic Network Classier,
Proceedings of the 2nd European School of Computer Science Parallel Programming Environ-
ments for High Performance Computing (ESPPE), IMAG-INRIA, France, Alpe d'Huez, April,
pages 209-212.(1996)
10. Dr. Andrew Paul Nisbet 10
38. Nisbet, A.P. (1995), Static Task Scheduling and Partitioning for Shared Memory Multi-
processors Using Stochastic Techniques, Proceedings of 5th IMACS-Symposium on Systems
Analysis and Simulation, Berlin, Germany, June, Systems Analysis Modelling Simulation,
Volumes 18-19, pages 463-466.(1995)
39. Mayes, K., Nisbet, A.P., (1993) Aspects of Multiprocessor and Multi-computer Schedul-
ing, Centre for Novel Computing Technical Report CNC/1993/015, University of Manch-
ester.(1993)
40. Nisbet, A.P., An Object Oriented Environment For The Simulation of Multiprocessor Digital
Signal Processing (DSP) Systems, PhD thesis, Dept. Electronic Engineering, University of
Manchester.(1993)
Papers under Review
41. Cecilia, J.M. Garcia, J.M., Nisbet, A., Amos, M, Ujaldon, M.: Enhancing Data Parallelism
for Ant Colony Optimisation on GPUs, JPDC-11-139, under review for the Journal of Parallel
and Distributed computing, Elsevier.
Papers in Preparation
42. Harding P., Costen, N., Nisbet, A., Darby, J., Loram, I.: A Real-time Biofeedback Applica-
tion Using Ultrasound Imaging on the GPU, extended version of presentation at Using GPUs
for Vision, One Day BMVA Symposium at the British Computer Society, May 18th 2011.
43. Andy Nisbet, Adeel Hashmi: Snort Network Intrusion Detection on an Embedded FPGA
Platform.
References supplied on request
Last updated: June 28, 2011