The latest JANET high speed network, launched last year, is enabling
researchers and others to share data reliably at previously
unattainable speeds and tackle tasks that would otherwise have been
impossible. Imagine, then, what you could do with a network four, ten
or even 100 times faster (40,100 or even 1000 Gbits/s compared with the
present 10Gbit/s). Today’s applications that involve the transmission
of large amounts of data across the network - such as sophisticated
heart modelling, detailed simulations of complex molecules, or
collaborative dance or music performances among remote partners - would
be available to all rather than a few pioneers.
Wanting to keep well ahead of demand, JISC already has its sights on
such a network. The JSR (JISC Support of Research) sub-committee is
funding the JANET Aurora project, a so-called dark fibre facility for
research into the components and architecture needed for next
generation networks. “JANET Aurora is a substantial new infrastructure
to enable collaboration between optical networking specialists and
their colleagues researching ways in which future optical networks
might be used by very demanding projects and application groups,” says
David Salmon, JANET(UK)'s Research Support Unit Manager.
Most data is now transmitted across networks on a light wave that
travels along an optical fibre. However, bottlenecks that limit
network speed and capacity occur because optical signals must be
converted to electrical signals for routing and processing and back
again for onward transmission.
JANET Aurora is putting the UK at the forefront of network research by
enabling the design and testing of all-optical switches and new network
architectures that minimise the need for processing at network nodes.
It is linking three sites at the universities of Cambridge, Essex and
University College London with 350km of high quality optical fibre
provided by ntl:Telewest Business, part of Virgin Media. The fibre is
supplied with no light shining down it (hence dark fibre), leaving
researchers free to experiment with all-optical routing equipment at a
variety of wavelengths.
“We will populate the network with our own technology and form an
on-line distributed research environment, a UK virtual photonics
laboratory,” says Professor Dimitra Simeonidou who is leading the
project at the University of Essex. The UK has the advantage of
very strong research groups in advanced networking technologies that
are physically close enough to link together with the dark fibre, she
says. Other groups in the UK will also be able to use the
facility by connecting to it via JANET Lightpath, with its connection to
Europe and North America through the GÉANT 2 European network. A
number of projects are already planned with international partners.
Some initial projects will explore the demands on the network of
potential future users, such as radio astronomers who are preparing to
build the world’s largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array.
Very high data rates and reliable network performance will be needed to
pool data from widely-dispersed receivers and form an image of a
celestial object almost instantaneously. “Another application
we’re looking at is ultra-high performance video where you need to
transmit uncompressed images in real-time, making it possible to watch a
full length feature film over the internet with no loss of quality,
sound delays or awkward gaps as the data downloads,” says Professor
Simeonidou.
Last month Essex was well represented at the Evo*2008 conferences and workshops in Naples. Bill
Langdon (Maths and Biology) was given the EvoStar 2008 Award in
recognition of the most outstanding contribution to Evolutionary
Computation. Philip Saks and Dietmar Maringer (CCFEA) won the best paper prize in evolutionary finance.
Stephen Dignum (CES) won the best student paper award.
Also Nicholas McPhee (who is on sabatical here in Computing and
Electronic Systems), Brian Ohs and Tyler Hutchison won the best paper
prize at EuroGP and Essex collaborators from the University of Kent won
the best paper prize in Bioinformatics.
The event also saw the launch of A Field Guide to Genetic Programming by Riccardo Poli, Bill Langdon and Nick McPhee.
See below for a list of Essex awards, nominations and papers submitted.
Best Paper Awards
EuroGP Winner: Semantic building blocks in genetic programming Nicholas McPhee, Brian Ohs, Tyler Hutchison
EvoFin Winner: Genetic Programming in Statistical Arbitrage Philip Saks, Dietmar Maringer
EvoPhD Winner: An Analysis of Genetic
Programming Operator Bias regarding the Sampling of Program Size with
Potential Applications Stephen Dignum
EuroGP Best Paper Nominations
Operator Equalisation and Bloat Free GP Stephen Dignum, Riccardo Poli
A Linear Estimation-of-Distribution GP System Riccardo Poli, Nicholas McPhee
Other Papers
Practical Model of Genetic Programming's Performance on Rational Symbolic Regression Problems Mario Graff, Riccardo Poli
The Effects of Constant Neutrality on Performance and Problem Hardness in GP, Edgar Galvan-Lopez, Stephen Dignum, Riccardo Poli
Crossover, Sampling, Bloat and the Harmful Effects of Size Limits Stephen Dignum, Riccardo Poli
A SIMD interpreter for Genetic Programming on GPU Graphics Cards W.B. Langdon, Wolfgang Banzhaf
Inc*: An Incremental Approach to Improving Local Search Heuristics Mohamed Bader-El-Den and Riccardo Poli
An Evolutionary Game-Theoretical Approach to Particle Swarm Optimisation Cecilia Di Chio, Paolo Di Chio, Mario Giacobini
On March 19, The Times featured an article
that highlighted the rise in demand for web developers and programmers
in response to the business world’s increasing reliance on the
Internet. In the piece, Dr Simon Lucas emphasises the importance
of obtaining an undergraduate degree in a numerate discipline before
going on to study web application programming at MSc level. For
the full article at the Times Online, click here.
MSc student Muneerah Essa Al-Oud was also interviewed in The Times on
why she chose to study e-commerce technology at postgraduate level –
read the interview here.
Professor Crawford will be making two presentations on behalf of the University on “The Mobile Television Market” and “Spectrum for Mobile Multimedia” at the Workshop on Enabling Mobile Multimedia Convergence in Middle East and North Africa to be held at Hourghada, Egypt on 2 – 4 April.
Professor Richard Bartle was interviewed by BBC Essex's Etholle
George on 27 March, regarding the Byron Review about children, computer
games and the Internet (which was published that day). Sadly for Etholle, he didn't have much to criticise: "It's a good report". You can read the report here.
Richard also gave the keynote speech at the Indie MMO Game Developers Conference in Minneapolis on 30 March.
The slides are available here.
*Warning* slide 35 contains mature language - actually a reference to a category of weapons found in computer games.
See this entry in Wikipedia for an explanation.