Ideas for projects

If you are looking for a project idea, please have a look at the following list. These are just ideas; in general, I'm happy to supervise anything that is at least vaguely related to my research work. I may be interested in other subjects as well, the best option for you is to book an appointment with me so that we can have a chat about this (I don't bite, don't be afraid of sending me an email!).

Development projects

• Web applications using barcode scanners: I am investigating the use of barcode scanners for a number of applications: monitoring attendance, customer order recording using wireless devices, etc. This work may be in collaboration with an external company providing concrete scenarios. You need to be proficient in php, MySQL, JavaScript, etc.
• Android applications for the management of a point-of-sale: this work is in collaboration with an external company providing a concrete scenario. You need to be proficient in Java, SQL, and ideally you should have some knowledge of developing Android applications.
• iPhone/Android applications (2): are you familiar with the development of software for iPhone/Android? If you enjoy writing code I have a few ideas about context-aware applications that make use of GPS location and other on-line services (and I am also happy to supervise your idea in this area).
• Facebook applications: as above, if you enjoy writing code and are familiar with online applications I have a few ideas related to my research that may be developed as Facebook applications. Otherwise, I am also happy to supervise your idea in this area.

Research-oriented projects

• Busy beavers: exploring non-computable state spaces using distributed computing.. This is a project with a good mix of theoretical and practical work. Consider a Turing machine with alphabet {0,1} and n states, and an additional Halt state. Start from an empty tape (i.e., all entries are 0). Run the machine, if it halts count the number of 1s on the tape. Let S(n) be the maximum number of 1s that a machine with n states can produce. S(n) is a well defined function and it can be shown that S(n) is an uncomputable function. Values of S(n) are known up to n=4, and lower bounds are known for n=5 and n=6. The aim of projects in this area is to investigate the use of parallel computations to improve known results for S(n), maybe as a distributed game. You will need a strong theoretical background in the theory of computation and a good mastering of programming.
• Model checking Java software using Java Path Finder Model checking is a logic-based method to perform verification. Java Path Finder is a model checker developed by NASA for the verification of Java code. It is a complex software and many extensions are possible. I am currently involved in the development of various plug-ins for Java Path Finder. A project in this area is for you if you have a good experience of Java Virtual Machines and are interested in working at low levels of coding.
• Perfect recall, bounded recall, memory-less semantics Epistemic logic is a logic used to reason about what ideal agents know. There are a number of possible assumptions that can be made: an agent remembers everything that has been seen in the past (perfect recall), or just a limited amount of information (bounded recall), or nothing at all. The aim of projects in this area is to review the current literature on the subject and make progress at the theoretical level. Ideally, an implementation could follow the theoretical work. This project is for you if you have a strong mathematical background, especially in discrete Mathematics and logics.
• Service Level Agreements and monitoring for electronic services: the aim of projects in this area is to develop new techniques to monitor the execution of electronic services (for instance on mobile devices), and to extend the existing work on SLAs for web services to other areas. This project is for you if like coding and you are familiar with web services, distributed applications, mobile applications, etc.