Sunday 26 February 2017

BCS Bedford: Brex-IT: How to do IT?


Brex-IT:
How to do IT?
Dalim Basu
Chairman, BCS North London Branch

Tuesday, 14th March 2017
6.30-8.00pm
(Registration starts at 6:30pm)
Tavistock Suite
The Park Inn Hotel, 2 St Mary's Street,
Bedford MK42 0AR
(Free Parking at the rear – Inform Hotel Reception on arrival)
Register online at: https://events.bcs.org/book/2438/



Dalim Basu  CISA, CRISC, FBCS, CITP, BSc.(Hons.)
Chairman, BCS North London Branch
Events Director, ISACA London Chapter
Director, DSL IT Risk Management Consultancy

Dalim is an IT professional with expertise in IT Governance and Risk Management. His experience includes IT audit, compliance, controls, security, PMO and project management.

He is a Director of DSL IT Risk Management Consultancy, and has worked in the UK and other countries for major financial and business services firms such as PwC, KPMG, Chase Manhattan Bank, ITN, Lehman Brothers, Lloyds Banking Group, Mitsubishi, Mizuho Bank, Nomura, Shell and Zurich Financial Services.

As voluntary activities, for many years Dalim has been Chairman of the dynamic North London Branch (NLB) of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT; and also a judge of BCS/Computing ‘UK IT Industry Awards’. He is the Events Director of ISACA London Chapter. He also mentors and guides IT students, innovators and entrepreneurs at London University and elsewhere.

Dalim is a firm believer in the high value of IT professionalism and actively encourages and promote it at many levels – including at events and conferences with various organisations in the UK and overseas.

Agenda
6.30pm                       Registration, refreshments and networking
7.00pm                       Guest Speaker – Dalim Basu
8.00pm                       Opportunity to network and talk to the speaker

Please visit  www.beds.bcs.org - Click on Past Events to view or dowload past presentation slides, where they have been provided. 


All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon

Thursday 23 February 2017

Computing Open Education Resources

In previous posts the availability on the JISC Jorum repository of three Open Education Resources (OERs) from the Computing Team at the University of Northampton was discussed. After 13 years the Jorum repository was discontinued.

Two of the OERs though were migrated across to the JISC Apps and resource store and available for reuse.

1. C Programming


Now available at https://store.jisc.ac.uk/#/resource/8395 and download from https://store.jisc.ac.uk/download/8395


















2. Summary of Evolutionary Algorithms


Now available at https://store.jisc.ac.uk/#/resource/8405 and download at https://store.jisc.ac.uk/download/8405





















All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon

Wednesday 22 February 2017

BCS Northampton Event: Becoming a Certified Information Systems Security Professional

When: 22 February 2017 19:00-21:00. (UTC) 
Where: Newton Building Room NW205 - NN2 6JB - Park in Car Park 6

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
CISSP® - Certified Information Systems Security Professional

Scott Bullock Forcepoint's Cloud Trust Officer will present an overview of what it takes/means to become a Certified Information Systems Security Professional . 

Scott Bullock 
Cloud Trust Officer
Forcepoint 
7pm with 7:30 
Rm NW205  
University of Northampton


Location
Rm 205
Newton Building
University of Northampton
NN2 6JB

All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon

Saturday 18 February 2017

And so it begins



2017 has started off well for the Computing team at University of Northampton with four papers coming out in January and February 2017.


Abstract
In wireless communication, there exists a phenomenon known as ‘multipath’. This phenomenon is considered as a disadvantage because it causes interference. The multipath phenomenon results in an antenna receiving two or more signals from the same sent signal from different paths. This paper considers them as redundant copies of the transmitted data and utilises them to improve the performance of forward error correction (FEC) codes without extra redundancy, in order to improve data transmission reliability and increase the bit rate over wireless communication channels. The system was evaluated in bit error rate (BER) and used Bose, Ray-Chaudhuri and Hocquenghem (BCH) and Reed-Solomon (RS) codes as FEC. The results showed that the utilisation of the multipath improves the performance of FEC. Furthermore, the performance of FEC codes had t1 error correction capability and employed the multipath is better than FEC codes have t2 error correction capability and without the multipath, where t1 < t2. Consequently, the bit rate is increased, and communication reliability is improved without extra redundancy.



Abstract
Cache coherence protocols play an important role in the performance of distributed and centralized shared-memory of a multiprocessor, and it they are required for maintaining data consistency in a chip-multiprocessor system (CMP). Thus, cache protocols play a major role in improving the performance of multiprocessor systems. Specifically, an efficient cache coherence protocol should ensure the updating of processor data, broadcasting valid data to all other processors and main memory to prevent the main memory or other processors from loading invalid values. To address this issue of efficiency in maintaining cache coherency, several contribution, such as using Invalidation-based protocols with a write through cache coherence, have been made over the past years. This paper presents an overview of emerging cache coherence protocols which aim at improving the performance of CMPs. Furthermore, an example of using an Invalidation-based protocol with a write through for solving cache’s coherency is provided.

Abstract
Wireless Networks-on-Chip (WiNoCs) have emerged to solve the scalability and performance bottleneck of conventional wired NoC architectures. However unlike communication in the macro-world, on-chip communication poses several constraints, hence there is the need for simulation and design tools that consider the effect of the wireless channel at the nanotechnology level. In this paper, we present a parameterizable channel model for WiNoCs which takes into account practical issues and constraints of the propagation medium, such as transmission frequency, operating temperature, ambient pressure and distance between the on-chip antennas. The proposed channel model demonstrates that total path loss of the wireless channel in WiNoCs suffers from not only dielectric propagation loss (DPL) but also molecular absorption attenuation (MAA) which reduces the reliability of the system.

Abstract
o meet the performance and scalability demands of the fast-paced technological growth towards exascale and Big-Data processing with the performance bottleneck of conventional metal based interconnects, alternative interconnect fabrics such as inhomogeneous three dimensional integrated Network-on-Chip (3D NoC) has emanated as a cost-effective solution for emerging multi-core design. However, these interconnects trade-off optimized performance for cost by restricting the number of area and power hungry 3D routers. Consequently, in this paper, we propose a low-latency adaptive router with a low-complexity single-cycle bypassing mechanism to alleviate the performance degradation due to the slow 2D routers in inhomogeneous 3D NoCs. By combining the low-complexity bypassing technique with adaptive routing, the proposed router is able to balance the traffic in the network to reduce the average packet latency under various traffic loads. Simulation shows that, the proposed router can reduce the average packet delay by an average of 45% in 3D NoCs.


To read more about the Computing Team's work go to http://www.computing.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/research/publications


All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon

Friday 10 February 2017

Utilisation of multipath phenomenon to improve the performance of BCH and RS codes

Al Barrak, A.Al-Sherbaz, A.Kanakis, T. and Crockett, R. G. M. (2017) Utilisation of multipath phenomenon to improve the performance of BCH and RS codes. In: 8th Computer Science & Electronic Engineering Conference. New York: IEEE. 978-1-5090-2050-8. pp. 6-11

DOI: 10.1109/CEEC.2016.7835880

Abstract

In wireless communication, there exists a phenomenon known as ‘multipath’. This phenomenon is considered as a disadvantage because it causes interference. The multipath phenomenon results in an antenna receiving two or more signals from the same sent signal from different paths. This paper considers them as redundant copies of the transmitted data and utilises them to improve the performance of forward error correction (FEC) codes without extra redundancy, in order to improve data transmission reliability and increase the bit rate over wireless communication channels. The system was evaluated in bit error rate (BER) and used Bose, Ray-Chaudhuri and Hocquenghem (BCH) and Reed-Solomon (RS) codes as FEC. The results showed that the utilisation of the multipath improves the performance of FEC. Furthermore, the performance of FEC codes had t1 error correction capability and employed the multipath is better than FEC codes have t2 error correction capability and without the multipath, where t1 < t2. Consequently, the bit rate is increased, and communication reliability is improved without extra redundancy.

To read more: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7835880/

All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon

Wednesday 8 February 2017

efficient channel model evaluating NoC architectures DOI: 10.1109/SBAC-PADW.2016.23

Opoku Agyeman, M., Vien, Q.-T., Hill, G., Turner, S. J. and Mak, T. (2017) An efficient channel model for evaluating Wireless NoC architectures. In: 2016 International Symposium on Computer Architecture and High Performance Computing Workshops (SBAC-PADW). Online: IEEE. 978-1-5090-4844-1. pp. 85-90.

DOI: 10.1109/SBAC-PADW.2016.23

Abstact
Wireless Networks-on-Chip (WiNoCs) have emerged to solve the scalability and performance bottleneck of conventional wired NoC architectures. However unlike communication in the macro-world, on-chip communication poses several constraints, hence there is the need for simulation and design tools that consider the effect of the wireless channel at the nanotechnology level. In this paper, we present a parameterizable channel model for WiNoCs which takes into account practical issues and constraints of the propagation medium, such as transmission frequency, operating temperature, ambient pressure and distance between the on-chip antennas. The proposed channel model demonstrates that total path loss of the wireless channel in WiNoCs suffers from not only dielectric propagation loss (DPL) but also molecular absorption attenuation (MAA) which reduces the reliability of the system.



All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon

Sunday 5 February 2017

Some tweets from The 2nd UoN IoT event - University of Northampton

Some tweets from The 2nd UoN IoT event - Entrepreneurship with Technology - IoT in Transportation

















All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon

Saturday 4 February 2017

Computing at Northampton Video

Here James talk about his project - which was part of the larger Junkbot's project (http://junkbots.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/see-junkbot-interface-for-primary.html)




All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon

Thursday 2 February 2017

Green Apple Award for helping teach children to code

Taken from: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/university-of-northampton-receives-a-green-apple-award-for-helping-teach-children-to-code/


The University of Northampton has been praised for a competition it helped set up with the aim of improving the teaching of computer coding and school pupils’ technology skills.
The Race to the Top contest, which challenged children across the county to design a digital game or mobile app based around saving energy, was awarded a Gold Green Apple Award by the Green Organisation. These are awarded for projects which are considered to be demonstrative of environmental best practice within the public sector.
The winning teams were from Park Junior School in Wellingborough and Kettering Buccleuch Academy who came up with a game which challenges players to fix degrading solar panels on the school roof and an app which tracks household energy consumption.
The competition was organised by the University of Northampton, in partnership with Northamptonshire County Council, Code Club and the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT).
The initiative was part of Northamptonshire’s school improvement strategy and the award was presented at a recent ceremony at the Houses of Parliament in London.
Dr Scott Turner, Associate Professor in Computing said: “The feedback we received from the children has shown that the Race to the Top contest has enthused them and having the opportunity to come to the University campus for the celebration event was a real confidence boost and they really enjoyed it.”


All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon

Wednesday 1 February 2017

IoT Things Event 4th and 5th February 2017

Taken from: Budding entrepreneurs have the chance to turn their ideas into reality



This weekend sees the second University of Northampton Internet of Things (IoT) event; a three-day event that will focus on entrepreneurship and technology, with participants having the opportunity to start up their own enterprise.
Taking place at the University’s Park Campus on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 February, with a follow up day on Saturday 4 March, the event will feature speakers from big industry names, such as Google Digital Garage, Catapult Transform Systems and Parallel Wireless.
The participants will take part in a series of workshops and will eventually be separated into ‘startup’ groups where they will be provided with basic technical equipment to get started setting up their own technology business based around the theme of transportation and logistics.
They will then be invited back in March to try to secure funding by presenting their ideas to a Dragon’s Den style panel, competing against the other start up teams.
Dr Triantafyllos Kanakis, from the Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology at the University of Northampton, commented: “The rapid development of the Internet in recent years and the huge acceptance of technology by the consumer has fundamentally had an impact of all our lives.
“In previous years the time between major technological breakthroughs was between 10 and 15 years but now it is less than five years. Part of this is played by the Internet of Things, which due to its vast size, it is still impossible to predict its impact on the market.
“This event is a great way for students and budding entrepreneurs to learn first-hand about creating a startup business. The workshops and presentations will provide the knowledge they need to think about how to use technology to tackle projects, the art of business planning and how to reach customers. This is their opportunity to turn their ideas into reality.”


All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon