Computer Science
Teachers available for thesis supervising and their field of interest
Spring 2013
| Supervisor | Slots | Keywords |
| Bengt Aspvall | 0 |
Analysis of algorithms, Data structures, Complexity theory, Performance, Discrete mathematics |
| Stefan Axelsson | 0 |
Security, Anomaly detection, Intrusion detection, Information visualization (as applied to these areas), Network security, Digital forensics, unix/linux |
| Hussein Aziz | 2 |
Video streaming, Adaptive the video streaming, video conferencing, QoE for video communication |
| Guohua Bai | 0 |
Cloud computing in healthCare. System thinking and activity modeling in HCI. Knowledge sharing and knowledge modeling. |
| Martin Boldt | 0 |
Computer security, Information security, Malicious software, Software security, Reputation/recommendation systems, Machine learning, Social networks, Social engineering |
| Bengt Carlsson | 1 |
Social computing, Security, Privacy tasks, Information ecosystems, Cognitive behaviors, Social security, Social nets, Malware, AI-techniques |
| Sara Eriksén | 0 |
Service Design, Participatory Design, End User Development, User Driven Service Design, Interaction Design, e-government, e-health, health informatics, applied health technology Current and upcoming R&D projects I am involved in:
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| David Erman | 0 |
Non-realtime streaming video distribution, Large content distribution, IMS & service architecture performance, Network coding, Cloud computing, virtualization, overlay networks, P2P networks.
Note: Read the instructions on my home page on how to contact me regarding the thesis ideas above.
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| Håkan Grahn | 0 |
Multicore systems, Parallel programming, Computer Architecture, Performance Evaluation, Operating System |
| Bo Helgeson | 0 |
Interaction design, Computer supported cooperative work, Ethnography, HCI, Mobile computing, User experience, User centered design, Telemedicine and eHealth |
| Johan Holmgren | 2 |
Agent Technology, Simulation, Agent-based simulation, Mathematical optimization, Intelligent transport systems, Transport policy analysis |
| Christian Johansson | 0 |
Energy systems, District heating and cooling, Multi agent systems, Artificial intelligence, Mathematical optimization, Simulation, Wireless communication, Routing protocol |
| Stefan Johansson | 0 |
Artificial potential fields, Multi-agent systems, Game AI, Board games |
| Hans Kyhlbäck | 2 |
Interaction as situated action in the world, Human computer interaction, Computer supported collaborative work, Participatory design, Developmental work research, Activity theory, Object-oriented system development |
| Niklas Lavesson | 2 |
Machine learning, Computational learning theory, Artificial intelligence, Data mining, Knowledge discovery, Pattern recognition, Natural language processing, Supervised learning, Clustering, Classification, Parameter tuning, Complexity analysis, Evaluation methods, Evaluation measures |
| Craig Lindley | 0 |
Robotics; Cognitive architectures |
| Jenny Lundberg | 0 |
Diagnosis on distance including sensors/actuators, information flows to be applied in support situations to for example elderly persons. |
| Lars Lundberg | 0 |
Multiprocessor scheduling, Real-time scheduling, High performance scheduling, Performance issues, Cloud computing |
| Gideon Mbiydzenyuy |
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| Andrew Moss | 0 |
Program analysis, Compilers, Parsing, Language design, Domain specific languages, Cryptography, Performance measurement, Parallel processing, Algorithms, GPU |
| Marie Persson | 1 |
Healthcare management, Operating room scheduling, Waiting list management, Simulation, Optimization, Agent technology, Machine learning |
| Kari Rönkkö | 1 |
Child friendly computing, User experience, Wicked design problems, Usability, Work practice studies, Human aspects and communication, Flexible research studies, Techniques, Methods and Processes |
| Charlotte Sennersten | 0 |
Game- and simulation development, Cognitive science, Human Factors, Playability, Game design, Gameplay, Eyetracking and physiological in- and output, the Arts, Sensor interaction, 3D scanning and printing |
| Veronica Sundstedt | 0 |
Computer graphics (Modeling, Animation, Rendering), Novel gaze interaction (Games and interfaces), Experimental psychology (User studies), Perceptual models, Visualisation, Image quality metrics, Virtual environments |
| Hans Tap | 0 |
IT and work practice, Interaction design, Interaction aspects within: HCI, UbiComp, CSCW etc, Interaction analysis, Innovative interfaces, Appliance design, Serious gaming |
| Johanna Törnquist | 0 |
Transport and traffic scheduling, Railway traffic, Optimization, Mathematical modeling, Heuristics, Simulation, Decision support systems, Data sensitivity analysis |
General description, Bengt Aspvall
Algorithms and data structures:
In Analysis of Algorithms one studies fundamental aspects of algorithms as well as the interplay between data structures and algorithms. Decisions about structuring data cannot be made without knowledge of the algorithm, and vice versa, the choice of algorithms depends on the structure of the underlaying data. New and faster hardware will help to speed up computations. Finding better combinations of algorithms and data structures might result in even larger performance increase. Parallel and distributed computing adds power ---and additional challenges.
Theoretical research in the field is today quite specialized and often requires advanced mathematics. Application areas are rich sources of algorithmic challenges that can lead to practical (and possibly theoretical) contributions. A good starting point for thesis work on algorithms and data structures is a well-selected and interesting application area.
General information, Stefan Axelsson
My main interest is the application of information visualization to the problem of anomaly detection (esp. machine learning/data mining algorithms) so that the operator can gain an operational understanding of what the anomaly detector is saying and why. This technique is of course more generally applicable.
Other interests are digital forensics, esp. file fragment analysis, memory fragment analysis etc. possibly applying the same methods as above. I also have a background (from industry and personal interest) in networking and the unix/linux plattform.
Contact information: stefan.axelsson@bth.se
General description, Hussein Aziz
Mobile wireless networks becomes very popular now days due to the wide spread of computer laptops, mobile devices and PDAs. Mobile wireless networks are expected to support different type of services, such as video streaming which make a great demand on the bandwidth. Video Streaming is a classical technique for achieving real time video directly over the networks without downloading the entire file before playing the video.
Video frames must arrive at the mobile device before the playout time and with enough time to display the contents of the frames. Real-time video transmission is particularly sensitive to delay as it has a strict bounded end-to-end delay constraint. The main challenge of real time video streaming over a wireless networks is to provide good quality service (QoS) to the mobile viewer. However, wireless networks have a limited bandwidth that may not be able to handle the continues video frame sequence and also with the possibility that video frames could be dropped or corrupted during the transmission. This could severely affect the quality of the video. Contact information: hussein.aziz@bth.se
General description, Martin Boldt
My main research interest involves the study of Privacy-Invasive Software (PIS), loosely labelled spyware. The main research goal in this setting is to create a classification of PIS, and thereby investigate how PIS relate to both legitimate and traditionally malicious software. I focus on the process of informing users about software implications as they are about to install new software on their system. One method we are working on is automatic analysis of the End-User License Agreements (EULA) as well as the use of a collaborative reputation systems. Apart from this I'm also interested in topics within the additional areas specified by the keywords.
Contact information: martin.boldt@bth.se
General description, Bengt Carlsson
Most security and privacy related problems are connected to net activities. When we do a Google search, stay in contact with friends through a Facebook connection or store our files on the web we may put our privacy at risk or be a target for malicious activities. Investigating the computer cloud and especially social computing, e.g. social security and social nets are an increasing area of interest. Models of information ecosystems, cognitive skills including AI-applications and management issues together form a complex virtual environment where security and privacy play important roles. By combining traditional malware behavior /prevention, analysis of software in commercial use and AI-techniques with activities within the computer cloud we may describe and find solution to the state-of-the art social computing problems.
Contact information: bengt.carlsson@bth.se
General description, Sara Eriksén
My main research focus is on participatory and user driven service design in the areas of e-government and e-health. During recent years this has come to include studies of design and development of serious games for habilitation and rehabilitation for instance a balance training prototype for patients suffering from stroke. Iterative design of prototypes together with future users is to my mind a great way to learn more about the issues at stake in the specific domain one is studying as well as to learn more about design of IT and central concepts of design research and practice. Thus a design project can be used to probe and explore both the practical problem area being addressed and methods and theories of design and development of IT.
I have an interdisciplinary background in Informatics and Human Work Science. Informatics in the Scandinavian interpretation of the discipline - includes people and organizations in the study of information systems. In informatics, we dont usually talk about applied technology, but rather about technology in use. This difference in terminology implies a different research approach, and a more deliberate positioning of self as action researcher and co-designer in the research context, than is traditional in engineering sciences. Human Work Science has added to this approach a special focus on skills and technology as well as on work practice how we actually get things done in everyday life. I am most experienced with qualitative research methods such as ethnographic field studies and participatory design, usually involving iterative prototyping. I use multiple methods, sometimes a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, and I am currently very interested in exploring how user driven service design can be conceptualized and supported.
Contact information: sara.eriksen@bth.se
General description, David Erman
Large-scale, real-time multimedia distribution over the Internet has been the subject of research for a substantial amount of time. A large number of mechanisms, policies, methods, and schemes have been proposed for media coding, scheduling, and distribution. IP multicast was expected to be the primary transport mechanism for this, though it was never deployed to the expected extent. Recent developments in overlay networks have reactualised the research on multicast, with the consequence that many of the previous mechanisms and schemes are being re-evaluated. BTH have extended the popular BitTorrent protocol to become suitable as a solution for streaming video, and implemented this in both a simulator as well as in a actual BitTorrent client. However, much work remains to be done to provide real-time streaming support, more efficient peer selection schemes, as well as a more comprehensive incentive mechanism. IMS is a very important part of the next generation telephony and communication services, VoIP as well as land-line and mobile. However, earlier tests have shown that some of the implementations of IMS available on the market today suffer from prohibitively large delays. It is presumed that this is due to both the execution environment of the IMS installation, as well as the protocols used in their interaction, primarily SIP. More work is needed to investigate these issues, and suggest improvements. Network coding is a promising technique for, among other things, decreasing network load in multi-path wireless networks and improving effciciency in multicasting. NC extends the capabilities of a typical router (forwarding on a single outgoing link or replicate to several outgoing links) with processing capabilities. This assumption is also one made in the implementation of P2P overlay systems such as Gnutella, Skype, BitTorret etc. However, little work has been done on looking into the implications and possible uses of NC in a P2P context. Contact information: david.erman@bth.se
General description, Håkan Grahn
Today we are in the middle of a paradigm shift in the computer industry. Current and future processor generations are based on multicore architectures, and multicore processors are the main computing platform in all types of system from small-scale embedded systems to large-scale server systems. The hardware performance increase will mainly come from an increasing number of cores on each chip, and hardware manufacturers predict that the number of cores will double every second year. In order to harvest the performance potential of future multicore processors, the software also need to be parallel and scalable. However, writing parallel programs is not trivial. Therefore, a number of areas needs to be addressed in order achieve both correct and high-performance parallel software. Suitable topics for master thesis projects in this area are, e.g., correctness and testing issues, performance evaluation, general parallel programming issues and languages, GPU computing, compilation techniques, computer architecture, and operating system support.
Contact info: hakan.grahn@bth.se
General description, Bo Helgeson
My main interest is oriented towards how people actually do things, and how we could design IT-based tools to support people in doing so.
I have been working within the field Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) for more than 20 years, and I still think this is an extraordinary exciting area for research. Interaction Design is another research area, which closely overlaps CSCW. Also here knowledge about how people actually are carrying out things is crucial for design and development. Of course, issues related to usability and interfaces are central for my interests in the area of people and computers.
Contact information: bo.helgeson@bth.se
General description, Johan Holmgren
My research mainly concerns the integration of agent technology, simulation and mathematical optimization with applications to decision support and policy analysis in freight transportation. My research has, for instance, resulted in TAPAS (www.bth.se/tapas), which is a simulation tool for analyzing transport-related policy and infrastructure measures. My main application domain is freight transport modeling, but since the emphasize in my research is on technologies, I am also able to supervise master thesis projects in which the techniques listed above are applied in application areas other than freight transport modeling.
Contact information: johan.holmgren@bth.se
General description, Christian Johansson
Please note that this description relates to a specific project proposal. A cornerstone of the energy systems of the future is the ability to communicate sensor data among all participating system entities. This sensor data is used in order to optimize the operational and strategical behaviour of the system. Historically such communication is done by cable, but wireless technologies are continuously gaining ground. The advantages using wireless are numerous, but there are still a few challenges in order to make such systems work smoothly. One such challenge relates to the conservation of battery power in wireless nodes. Normally most of the power usage in a wireless node is related to communication behaviour. Hence it is very important to make sure that the wireless nodes communicate in such a way as to minimize power usage. Wireless nodes often communicate by forming network structures, and the layout of these structures can greatly affect the levels of power required for the data to traverse the network. The aim of this project is to develop an algorithm for automatically creating such network structures in relation to minimize power usage while maintaining required levels of communication availability among wireless sensor nodes. The project is done in cooperation with an industrial partner, which allows for practical experimentation in real-life settings.
Contact information: christian.johansson@bth.se
General description, Stefan Johansson
Artificial potential fields (APF) is a technique mainly used in robot navigation systems to avoid obstacles in dynamic environments. Lately we have shown its applicability also in a number of other domains such as Real Time Strategy (RTS) games, and car racing simulations. We have e.g. a competitive bot that we have developed for the Starcraft bot competitions and there are good opportunities to make interesting investigations using that platform and the same applies to the car racing competition.
Another option is to make a project using Multi-agent concepts to implement a bot playing some sort of board game and test its performance against other solutions. So far we have covered the games Diplomacy, Risk and Settlers of Catan.
In both these two project options (APFs and Bord games), we have a strong research background and publish our results on a regular basis in journals and at conferences. All projects require quite a bit of programming, so if you are looking for a non-programming project, kindly move on to the next description. Post-project co-writing with students on papers that report on the results of the project is encouraged if the results are interesting enough.
Contact information: stefan.johansson@bth.se
General description, Hans Kyhlbäck
However, observation of real world activities are fundamental to many of those communities. Analysis of such fieldwork can provide a good ground for a changed work organization and/or design of an information and communication technology (ICT) system. With anobject-oriented approach to software development, changed computer tools and changed life activities can become a shared interest among people with different work roles and various preferences.
Contact information: hans.kyhlback@bth.se
General description, Niklas Lavesson
Machine Learning is the study of programs that improve their performance through experience. Since the birth of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science, Machine Learning has resided within the core of these subjects. One of the most heavily studied problems in machine learning is that of Classification, which can be described as the assignment of categories to unknown instances of data. The supervised learning paradigm comprises algorithms that try to generalize from data with known categories to generate a Classifier that is able to categorize previously unseen instances of data. Machine Learning techniques are frequently applied to solve problems in other disciplines such as: natural language processing, pattern recognition, data mining, and robotics. Machine Learning is an exciting research area with a large potential for interesting research problems in both theory and application. Theoretical research could for example involve the study of: computational efficiency, learnability, generalizability, model selection, or bias plus variance decompositions. The potential applications of machine learning are endless but typical examples are: face recognition, voice recognition, machine translation, spam detection, and personalization.
Contact information, Niklas.Lavesson@bth.se
General description, Craig Lindley
Research in robotics is advancing rapidly, with parallel technology developments providing many new opportunities in advanced robotics systems concepts and new modes of human-robot interaction, such as eye gaze tracking and brain-machine interfaces. Robotic systems of interest include robotic systems in manufacturing and field robots, such as air, land, space and underwater vehicles. At the same time, autonomy of robotics systems proceeds more slowly, raising the possibility of new paradigms for synthetic intelligence, founded upon non-silicon substrates such as molecular computing or biological neuron cell cultures. New manufacturing methods also provide possibilities for new robot materials and synthetic intelligence architectures. Digital Fabrication of Physical Systems is concerned with the development of technologies for modelling products, systems and artifacts in interactive 3D visualisation and simulation environments, and then using digitally controlled fabrication technologies to directly produce the modelled items in a physical form. Examples range from current additive rapid prototyping/manufacturing systems, to new and emerging digital biosynthesis technologies.
Contact information: craig.lindley@bth.se
General description, Lars Lundberg
Multiprocessor scheduling:
Scheduling of processes (or tasks) to processors (or computers) is becoming increasing important. In the future we will use parallel computer platforms even more than we do today; examples of such parallel platforms are multi-core processors and clusters of computers. At least two important aspects of multiprocessor scheduling can be identified:
- High performance scheduling. In this case the goal is to minimize the completion time (or makespan) of one parallel program.
- Real-time scheduling. In this case the goal is to find a schedule that guarantees that a set of real-time tasks will meet their deadlines.
Cloud computing:
Cloud computing is becoming increasingly popular, and there is a lot of interest for this in both industry and academia. There are different kinds of computer clouds, such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and Software-as-a-Service. Another dimension is the difference between public clouds, e.g. Amazon and Google versus private clouds. There are many interesting and challenging aspects of cloud computing, ranging from technical aspects, such as virtualization, resource allocation, to business aspects, such as charging models and revenue management.
Contact information: lars.lundberg@bth.se
General description, Gideon Mbiydzenyuy
General description, Andrew Moss
Contact information: andrew.moss@bth.se
General description, Kari Rönkkö
To successfully design and develop software products and services for targeted users is besides the technical effort also a human effort and challange where the results are heavily depending on the involved actors interpretations, interactions and means for co-constructing of the future artifact under development. Understanding the influence of human aspects and communicaiont can increase the success rate significantly, approaches and theories borrowed from other research areas can contribute here. Especially how to understand and handle soft values is a challange, be it related to software development methods and processes, or designing for the user experience - master projects that contributes with knowledge here are most welcome.
Contact information: kari.ronkko@bth.se
General description, Charlotte Sennersten
From a Computer Science (CS) perspective I operate in a subdiscipline which is called Human Computer Interaction (HCI), more precisely though a discipline called Game Development. The focus is the actual interaction between the computer computing and a person. Game Development is covering technical as well as psychophysiological challenges when it comes to how- to design games for players (reward and motivation mechanisms), how to run them, how to design them both for entertainment as well as for more serious survival issues, update frequencies, quality prestanda, optimization etc. In what we conceptualize being serious games we mean often training for special purposes where the learning aspect and transfer to real circumstances are crucial, this happens often via simulation engines and constructed scenarios. To design games, simulations and other kinds of interactions there has to be a close collaboration concerning task issues for individuals or groups to be able to deliver an useful application at the end. The time and timing concerning decisions in these scenarios are of highest importance. Theoretically but also practically most of the work is also associated to cognitive psychophysiological processes (Cognitive Science (CogSc), Psychology and Physiology)) , frankly how we as humans can update information via our senses in relation to computing but also vice verse and how we may design for support because of our own shortcomings or if information may has to be allocated to many people at the same time and how to meet those requirements. Additional interests and work lays within embodied cognition, perception with visual attention as specialty, eyetracking as method used as one physiological in- and output (but also heart rate variability, brain activity and sweating), sensor triggers for music, speech, emotions and movement (dance). My background is also in the visual (drawing, painting, sculpture) - and performing arts (dance and theater).
Contact information: charlotte.sennersten@bth.se
General description, Veronica Sundstedt
Computer graphics is divided into three main areas: 3D modelling, animation, and rendering. Interesting projects with modelling include procedural generation of content for applications such as entertainment, architecture or archeology. This overlaps with possible projects in visualisation, and questions in human perception. Current research topics in animation involve how to model motion to avoid perceptual anomalies such as the 'uncanny valley' effect. Perceptually realistic rendering requires accurate simulation of the physical properties of materials and the behaviour of light. As realistic computer graphics imagery is computationally expensive interesting topics include local reflection models, global light transport, and the whole realistic image synthesis pipeline through to image display.
The human observer does not use all the information computed in the scene. By removing perceptually unnecessary details we can explore how to reduce overhead in rendering algorithms. In order to make this improvement we must increase our understanding of models of human visual perception. We validate this approach using psychophysical experiments, objective difference metrics, and eye tracking technology. Pervasive eye tracking technology enables novel input modalities in many applications. One area of research is the impact on the next generation of games, measuring its viability in comparison to traditional input devices, while other areas include accessibility for disabled users, and fusion with other input modalities such as voice.
Contact information: veronica.sundstedt@bth.se and http://www.bth.se/com/vsu.nsf/
General description, Hans Tap
How people use technology in their everyday activity is point of departure for my research interest. A close look and understanding of peoples context is important and demands a qualitative approach based on different ethographical methods. The interactional aspects of interest are mainly concerning the functional aspects of a design. How different functions can be integrated in every day activities in order to support the activity at hand. This includes taking cooperation and coordination into account in the analysis and concept development. The design space is mainly within areas that look at interfaces beyond traditional desktop set-up.
Contact information: hans.tap@bth.se
General description: Johanna Törnquist
The area of transport and traffic scheduling contains a wide selection of interesting and real life problems which the industry find challenging to cope with. Many of these problems are resource allocations problems which are so complex that a decision support often is needed (or would be highly beneficial) to assist the planning staff. The problems may be complex in the sense that there are many alternatives to compute and evaluate, but also because certain decisions have to be made within a short time (seconds or minutes) and taking into account a lot of information.
Contact information: johanna.tornquist@bth.se
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