CEPS RESEARCH SEMINARS

Tuesday 30th January 2024

Enhancing Emergency Healthcare with 5G: The Role of Network Slicing in Ensuring Reliable End-to-End Communications

Pablo Salva Garcia

Division of Computing

Empowered by next-generation 5G mobile networking technologies and machine learning-based Artificial Intelligence (AI), Smart Ambulances are poised to significantly enhance emergency management services. These 5G-connected autonomous eHealth ambulances could act as high-speed mobile connections for emergency medical teams. Equipped with audio-visual sensors like head cameras, both the ambulance and paramedic staff can effectively capture the environment and the patient's condition. Additionally, wearables can be used to monitor patients' vital signs. The information gathered can then be transmitted in real-time to hospital emergency teams. In situations with limited medical services, sharing data with specialists who are not on-site could be crucial for timely diagnosis and treatment while the patient is being transported. A key feature of these advanced ambulances is network slicing, which ensures reliable end-to-end communication quality, particularly crucial for mission-critical eHealth services like video streaming. This is further optimized using Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), enhancing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of emergency medical responses.

Chaired by Dr Joanna Olszewska

Tuesday 13th February 2024

An empirical evaluation of the standard upgradability methods used in Ethereum Smart contracts

Aboua Kevin Ange N'Da

Division of Computing

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Blockchain offers businesses the opportunity to enhance asset-based activities through a revolutionary software known as a smart contract. These smart contracts, like other assets stored in a blockchain, are immutable and unmodifiable. While these characteristics ensure the security of asset transactions in untrustworthy environments, they may pose challenges from a software development perspective. Smart contracts, like any other software, are susceptible to defects and decay, necessitating the maintenance of what appears to be an immutable piece of software. To address this immutability, the blockchain community, particularly the Ethereum community, has introduced standard upgradability methods (EIP-897, EIP-1822, EIP-1967, and EIP-2535). Developers can use these methods to update smart contracts, providing the flexibility needed for maintenance in a blockchain environment that inherently discourages mutability. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is limited information about the impact of these upgradability methods on smart contracts in the context of software evolution. Given the crucial role played by these proposed upgradability methods in smart contract maintenance, it is essential to understand their impact on smart contract project development for effective developer and business decision-making. This talk presents empirical research on Ethereum's standard upgradability methods, considering transaction costs and three of Lehman’s laws to comprehend how smart contracts evolve over time. Through a case study involving various smart contract projects, we examine the impact of choosing upgradability methods in terms of transaction cost, size, complexity, and security. The results of our investigation show that the implementation of EIP-2535 involves lower costs compared to other upgradability methods. Additionally, our observations on the size, complexity, and security of the smart contract projects in this study generally align with Lehman’s laws.

Chaired by Dr Joanna Olszewska

Tuesday 27th February 2024

Machine Learning-Enhanced Digital Forensics for E-Multimedia Authentication in the Era of Deep Fakes

Sajjad Bagheri

Division of Computing

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

The rise of deep fake technologies has severely compromised the reliability of e-multimedia content, posing significant challenges to digital forensics. These easily accessible tools, even for non-experts, rapidly advance, making it increasingly challenging to distinguish between real and manipulated images or videos. The spread of AI-driven deep fakes raises serious concerns for society, national security, and legal processes, as these technologies can be weaponized for disinformation, public manipulation, and threats to national security. To combat these issues, this research aims to develop an advanced machine learning technique, along with a framework to enhance digital forensics by identifying deep-fake generated e-multimedia.

Chaired by Dr Marco Gilardi

Tuesday 12th March 2024

12.00 - 13.00 

Artificial Intelligence on the Edge: Ambient Assisted Living Applications

Cezar Anicai

Division of Computing

Nowadays Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being deployed in many fields and new implementation paradigms emerge. One such paradigm, Edge Intelligence, suggests that AI processes should relocate closer to the data source for enhanced privacy and reduced latency. In this talk we will introduce some Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) concepts, we will describe Edge Intelligence and we will present two Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) applications. One application highlights the effects of ambient environment on heart rate and electrodermal activity and estimates these health indicators. The other use case investigates the effectiveness of distributed learning for daily activity recognition.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Chaired by Dr Marco Gilardi

Wednesday 27th March 2024

12.00 - 13.00

Unlocking the Potential: Expanding Applications of Immersive Technologies Beyond Entertainment

Soheeb Khan

Division of Computing

Technological advancements in the entertainment industry, including Video Games, 3D Animation, and Film Visual Effects (VFX) have fuelled the development of tools (Game Engines/3D software) and devices (Virtual Reality (VR) Headsets, other immersive technologies). Although technologies such as VR, Video Games, and other immersive technologies are commonly associated with the entertainment industry, their applications extend far beyond entertainment. However, many sectors remain unaware of the potential for these technologies to address real-world issues.

This research explores the potential of 3D Visualization & Simulation, VR and Serious Games to address real-world issues. It involves enhancing existing systems and exploring new use cases tailored to diverse groups for education, training, and information engagement. The research also evaluates the implementation and effectiveness of these systems in real-life scenarios, contributing to the practical integration of immersive technologies across various domains.

Bio: Dr Mohammed Soheeb Khan is a Senior lecturer in the area of Creative Computing (Video Games, 3D Visualisation and Virtual Reality) at UWS. He holds a PhD in Enhancement of Asynchronous Musculoskeletal Diagnostic Methods with the use of Real-Time Virtual Reality and Motion Capture Systems for Telemedicine from GCU. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). His research interests are in 3D visualisation, Human Computer Interaction for Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/ AR) applications. His works have contributed in the area of 3D visualisation, virtual prototyping, Serious Games and 3D simulation. He has diverse past work experience and a technical skill set for the development of serious games, simulators, and 3D visualisation applications for a range of disciplines including medical, automotive, servatization, construction and building environments. Due to the aforementioned capacities, he has contributed on the development of various applications for educational, simulation, research and training purposes funded by EPSRC, RCPSG, RCSEd, NHS, ARUK, and NHS Education Scotland (NES).

Delivered on Microsoft Teams only, not on campus

Chaired by Dr Marco Gilardi

Tuesday 2nd April 2024

12.00 - 13.00

The role of Women in Engineering towards achieving SDGs in Africa

Evi Viza

Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences

The session will give an overview of the role of women towards climate change, gender equality and economic development based on the work of 5 multidisciplinary projects across Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda. The research projects, although diverse   (focused on building manufacturing capacity, gender diversity in engineering and safer end of engineering life for cars) they emphasise the important role that women play in achieving Sustainable Development Goals, particular in low resource economies.

Bio: Dr Evi Viza is a Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineer with specialisation on Quality Management and Continuous Improvement. She is a Chartered Quality Professional and a Black Belt Lean Six Sigma practitioner. She is member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). She also serves a trustee for the Chartered Quality Institute.

Dr Viza’s research is centred on applying operations management, quality improvement and lean principles to solve industry problems as well as how they apply to the work of craft groups and in the cottage industry particularly in low resource economies. She has been involved and interdisciplinary research projects with focus on systems approach and sustainability, and gender diversity within STEM across different settings. She has been awarded and participated a number of grants to address gender diversity within Engineering and support economic development for women in the Global South. Examples are:” FemaleINSPIRES” and as UK partner in 2 Africa Catalyst projects funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, “Changing the landscape within Engineering and Physical Sciences (Equality and Inclusion in industry, academia and research)” funded by the Scottish Funding Council; “Building Manufacturing capacity for Kenyan Craft Women” by Global Challenges Research Fund.

She has been recently selected as one of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)  Women in Engineering Ambassadors (WES) and she has been a finalist for the IET Young Woman Engineer Awards 2023 for the Gender Diversity Ambassador Award.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Chaired by Dr Mojtaba Mirzaeian

Tuesday 9th April 2024

12.00 - 13.00

Rapid Prototyping of Conventional and Heteromorphic Core Sandwich Composite Structure

Tony Murmu

Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Chaired by Dr Mojtaba Mirzaeian

Tuesday 16th April 2024

12.00  -13.00

The concepts of APICOPHILICITY and BERRY PSEUDO-ROTATION will be included to rule out alternative isomers

Alastair Marr

Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences

The presentation will outline the synthesis and properties of H2PF3 and will show elucidation of its structure using Infrared, Raman, Mass Spectrometry, Multi-Nuclear NMR and Electron Diffraction techniques.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Chaired by Dr Callum McHugh

Tuesday 23rd April 2024

12.00 - 13.00

Numerical Analysis for multi-material powder beds deposited with bi-directional multi-track selective laser melting

Obeid Obeid

Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

With the rapid use to additive manufacturing (AM) in industry, selective laser melting (SLM) method has been widely used to fabricate parts with complex geometry. Despite this, the majority of attention in manufacturing industry has been paid to use a single material for each printed component. It is difficult to produce a part from a sole material meeting superior thermal and mechanical properties at a time. Some efforts have been currently achieved to use two metals together to print a part with excellent specifications, so called bimetallic structures or metallic sandwich composites. These composites such as 316L stainless steel/C18400 copper alloy and AlSi10Mg aluminium alloy/C18400 copper alloy combine the advantages of two materials but probably not enough.

Bio: Dr Obeid Obeid has been a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the University of the West of Scotland since 2020. He holds a PhD certificate in Mechanical Engineering from Brunel University and MSc certificate in Advanced Manufacturing Systems from Brunel University. Dr Obeid is a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (CEng MIMechE). He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). His main PhD research interests are the mechanical behaviour of lined pipelines under critical problems. The research comprehensively covers the effect of residual stresses produced from welding and high-speed dynamic impact on the lined pipe experimentally and numerically using FORTRAN and ABAQUS codes. In the meantime, Dr Obeid is working on developing finite element models using APDL and ANSYS codes for multi-layer and multi-material powders of selective laser melting in 3D additive manufacturing.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Team

Chaired by Dr Mojtaba Mirzaeian

Tuesday 30th  April 2024

12.00 - 13.00

The beauty of holomorphic symplectic geometry: from motivation to recent progress

Nikon Kurnosov

Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences

I will begin with introducing the concept of holomorphically symplectic manifolds, highlighting their unique properties and their role as a rich playground for mathematical investigations. We will discuss the intricate interplay between complex and symplectic geometry, shedding light on the profound connections between these two branches of mathematics.

Two remarkable subclasses of holomorphically symplectic manifolds are Calabi-Yau and Hyperkähler manifolds. Calabi-Yau manifolds, with their intricate topology and rich algebraic structure, have become central in string theory and theoretical physics, providing a fertile ground for exploring the mysteries of our universe. Hyperkähler manifolds, on the other hand, exhibit a mesmerizing interplay of symplectic structures, offering deep insights into the geometry of physical systems and their symmetries.

Throughout the talk, we will strive to make these abstract concepts accessible to a broad audience of mathematicians, physicists, and chemists, emphasizing the beauty and significance of holomorphically symplectic manifolds in diverse scientific domains.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Chaired by Dr Gregory Morozov

Tuesday 7th May 2024

12.00 - 13.00

Understanding the Material Removal Mechanism in Drill Bit-Rock Interaction

Balaji Aresh

Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences

The current energy crisis has accelerated the exploration and use of renewable energy sources; however, the extant knowledge gap in the material removal process in drilling for geothermal resources presents as a significant roadblock to success, jeopardising the likes of the Scottish Energy Strategy 2045 to achieving Net Zero. This presentation will look at past work undertaken during my PhD to understand the mechanics of material removal during rock cutting which could be translated to geothermal drilling.

Bio: Dr Balaji Aresh is a Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at UWS since September 2022. He is a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and having over 10 years of combined work experience in the Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, Education and the Services industries.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Chaired by Dr Mojtaba Mirzaeian

Tuesday 21st May 2024

12.00 - 13.00

Title TBC

Chao Luna Guo

Enterprise Services

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Chaired by Dr Marco Gilardi

Tuesday 28th May 2024

12.00  - 13.00

Transforming Heritage and Culture sectors using XR: UWS CCT and Smartify KTP Insights

Ray Holder

Division of Computing

Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality (XR) technologies offer transformative potentials for the cultural and heritage sector, where research with limited implementations has begun to unveil the ways these innovations can enhance engagement, education, and accessibility. Smartify, hailed as the 'Shazam of art', has already transformed cultural engagement for over 3 million users across 700+ museums. In this talk, we spotlight the pioneering journey of Smartify in partnership with UWS CCT, through their Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP). Showcasing the immersive experiences built for renowned global institutions that integrate XR technology with deep cultural insights, we glimpse into the future of the sector to envision the endless possibilities that the technology brings.

Bio: A UWS graduate, who recently completed a Ph.D. in Virtual Reality Gamification of Computer Science education, now the KTP Associate with Smartify bridging the knowledge and expertise between UWS and Smartify.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Chaired by Dr Marco Gilardi

Tuesday 4th June 2024

12.00  -13.00

Predicting Indoor Air Quality and Its Impact on Occupant Comfort: A Machine Learning and IoT Approach

Yingbo Zhu

Division of Computing

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

With people spending significant time indoors, concerns about indoor air quality (IAQ) and its health impacts are rising. In this talk we introduce an innovative IoT and machine learning approach to IAQ monitoring and prediction.  A real-time IAQ monitoring dashboard  has been developed, utilizing ambient air parameters to predict and formulate a new IAQ index. We also explores the correlation between various air quality parameters and indoor thermal comfort, aiming to enhance occupant health and well-being. This research signifies an important advancement in blending environmental monitoring with advanced analytics, paving the way for healthier indoor living  and working spaces.

Chaired by Dr Joanna Olszewska

Tuesday 18th June 2024

12.00  - 13.00

Non-terrestrial networks (NTN); a vital component of 6G framework for global connectivity

Nurudeen Salu

Division of Computing

As the first wireless standard to apply full-duplex communications which is postulated to achieve double spectral efficiency; 6G technology’s main goal is to develop and integrate wireless communications, sensor technology and cloud computing into a seamless whole. In order to achieve its ambitious goal, 6G network requires the following among other essential technologies: THz communications, joint communications and sensing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces and photonics. Above all, non-terrestrial networks (NTN); a vital component of 6G framework required for global integration, ubiquitous and continuous connectivity of these heterogenous platforms and myriads devices will be our focus of discussion.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Chaired by Dr Joanna Olszewska

Tuesday 12th November 2024

12.00  - 13.00

Analytical Approach for Some Hydraulic Engineering Problems

Lyes Amara

Jijel University, Algeria

In hydraulic engineering, many problems are treated either by empirical approaches deduced from laboratory tests on scale models, or numerically by the means currently offered by the CFD software tools. In several practical cases, analytical approaches based on the exact or approximate solutions of the governing mathematical models of the phenomenon offer a simpler and more powerful strategy to capture the essence of the physics of the problem for design purposes with simplicity, elegance and even allow more insight of the phenomenon. This presentation aims to expose some results of recent research by the author on some hydraulic engineering problems related to flows through hydraulic structures. Also, a brief overview of ongoing research topics for the analytical treatment of some problems will be given to open fields and instigate research/exchanges in this area.

Biography: Dr. Lyes Amara is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) at Jijel University (Algeria). He obtained his Engineer’s degree (2010), Magister (MSc) degree (2013), and Doctor of Science (2017) from Bejaia University (Algeria), all in hydraulic engineering, with the highest distinction. He defended his Habilitation in 2020 at the same Bejaia University.

He has been adjunct Professor at Bejaia University from 2011 to 2014, and then was appointed at Jijel University as Assistant Professor from 2015 to 2020 and Associate Professor since 2020 to date. Dr. Amara is currently teaching Free Surface and Pressurized Flows, Theoretical Hydraulics, Hydraulic Machines, and Numerical Methods for Engineers. 

He has published over 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and his research interests cover topics related mainly to steady and unsteady flow problems in channels and pipes, flows through weirs and spillways, and some subjects related to structural dynamics.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Tuesday 26th November 2024

12.00  - 13.00

ClangOz: Parallel constant evaluation of C++ map and reduce operations

Paul Keir

Division of Computing

Interest in metaprogramming, reflection, and compile-time evaluation continues to inspire and foster innovation among the users and designers of the C++ programming language. Regrettably, the impact on compile-times of such features can be significant; and outside of build systems, multi-core parallelism is unable to bring down compilation times of individual translation units. We present ClangOz, a novel Clang-based research compiler that addresses this issue by evaluating annotated constant expressions in parallel, thereby reducing compilation times. Prior benchmarks analyzed parallel map operations but were unable to consider reduction operations. Thus we also introduce parallel reduction functionality, alongside two additional benchmark programs.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Tuesday 20th January 2025

12.00  - 13.00

Helical Bloch modes in chiral photonic crystal fibers

Yang Chen

Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences

The behaviour of electromagnetic waves in chirally twisted structures is a topic of enduring interest, dating back at least to the 1940s invention of the microwave travelling-wave-tube amplifier and culminating in contemporary studies of chiral metamaterials, metasurfaces, and photonic crystal fibers (PCFs). Optical fibers with chiral microstructures, drawn from a spinning preform, have many useful properties, exhibiting, for example, circular birefringence and circular dichroism. It has recently been shown that chiral fibers with 𝑁-fold rotationally symmetric transverse microstructures support families of helical Bloch modes (HBMs), each of which consists of a superposition of azimuthal Bloch harmonics (or optical vortices). 

This seminal presents my recent work on chiral PCFs and hollow-core PCFs, introducing a vectorial coupled mode theory to precisely evaluate the full properties of these HBMs in a single ring of coupled waveguides. The rigorous analysis helped interpret the extraordinary light-matter interactions recently discovered in chiral PCFs, including strong circular dichroism, Raman conversion of optical vortices in chiral optical fibers and Bloch-mode conversion in tilted fiber Bragg gratings. The theory also furthers the discovery and understanding of light localization in multi-helical arrays of discrete coupled waveguides. 

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Tuesday 28th January 2025

12.00  - 13.00

Predicting Indoor Air Quality and Its Impact on Occupant Comfort: A Machine Learning and IoT Approach

Yingbo Zhu

Division of Computing

With people spending significant time indoors, concerns about indoor air quality (IAQ) and its health impacts are rising. In this talk we introduce an innovative IoT and machine learning approach to IAQ monitoring and prediction.  A real-time IAQ monitoring dashboard has been developed, utilizing ambient air parameters to predict and formulate a new IAQ index. We also explores the correlation between various air quality parameters and indoor thermal comfort, aiming to enhance occupant health and well-being. This research signifies an important advancement in blending environmental monitoring with advanced analytics, paving the way for healthier indoor living and working spaces.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Tuesday 4th February 2025

12.00  - 13.00

Operating Future Aircrafts with Hydrogen and its Challenges to Design Safe Composites Fuel Tanks in Carbon-Zero Transport System

Tony Murmu

Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences

In today’s global society, aviation is an essential ingredient bringing people and cultures together. As per statistics over 80 million people are employed worldwide in aviation and associated tourism. Of this, over 10 million people work directly in the aviation industry. This air transport produces 2-3 % of man-made CO2 emissions (900 million tonnes a year). Given the 4% growth rate in aviation, emissions are projected to be more than double by 2050 (ATAG, 2020). There is a necessity for decarbonization of aviation. The challenge for future carbon-zero transport system is to overcome structural design limitations in terms of weight and structural integrity. Non-hydrocarbon fuel such as hydrogen has shown promising performance characteristics as a mainstream energy supply due to its high gravimetric energy density. In this research talk, the feasibility and challenges of hydrogen fuel in future aircraft will be addressed. Further insights into the uses and research on the existing composite material and nanocomposites for hydrogen fuel tank design for future carbon-zero aircrafts will be presented.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Tuesday 11th March 2025

12.00  - 13.00

Recognising Human Emotions in Real-Time Using Low-Cost Internet of Things Technology

Sohail Ahmad

Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences

Access to adequate housing is one of the major challenges in the rapidly urbanising megacities of the Indian subcontinent. This study examines variations in housing adequacy and its determinants in Delhi, Dhaka and Karachi. It investigates potential planning interventions to improve housing conditions, drawing on urban policies, programmes and insights from Demographic and Health Surveys. Findings reveal severe housing inadequacy, with four out of ten households living in inadequate housing. Notably, certain socio-cultural disadvantaged communities experience exceptionally poor housing conditions. Income inequality is identified as the most important factor contributing to housing inadequacy, followed by inhabitants' socio-cultural backgrounds and educational attainment. Dhaka and Karachi have made considerable progress in housing adequacy, whereas Delhi's progress has stalled. A key challenge remains the need to expand living spaces, although Dhaka also requires improvement in urban amenities. To achieve sustainable and inclusive housing, it is crucial to enhance access to adequate living spaces, particularly among disadvantaged communities, establish interlinkages between housing adequacy and socio-economic conditions and reimagine urban governance systems.

Biography: Sohail Ahmad is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for BSc (Hons) Town Planning at UWS.
Profile: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/sohail-ahmad

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams

Tuesday 25th March 2025

12.00  - 13.00

Recognising Human Emotions in Real-Time Using Low-Cost Internet of Things Technology

James Black

Division of Computing

Human-computer interactions in affective computing often rely on expensive or complex hardware. Can the power of machine learning provide a more accessible solution? This presentation explores a novel method for real-time emotion classification using data from thermal cameras and microphones, offering a cost-effective alternative. We demonstrate how combining thermal imaging with vocal features from audio enables the development of machine learning models optimized for low-cost hardware, demonstrating the potential applications in areas such as healthcare, education, and smart environments.

Room E225 Paisley Campus and on Microsoft Teams