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General: I research in symbolic Artificial Intelligence: Knowledge Representation and Reasoning and Knowledge Based Systems. In particular, I look at the development of intelligent systems that support creativity and learning. By "intelligent systems" I mean, essentially, "systems that embed human expertise expressed declaratively". Current: The application areas that currently are in my sphere of interest are: intelligent (new) media, intelligent design, intelligent tutoring, digital museums, and creativity. Keywords: Other keywords/phrases that describe different facets of my research and expertise include: new media, ontological engineering, semantic web, user modelling, information classification and retrieval, digital archives, geometric reasoning, normative reasoning, database systems, arts computing. |
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Undergraduate
FINAL
YEAR PROJECT TOPICS FOR 2006-2007 Postgraduate (MSc Arts Computing): |
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Administration |
I am the Director of Undergraduate Studies of the Department of Computing. Our undergraduate programmes are: BSc/BA Computing and Design for the World Wide Web, BSc Computer Science, BSc Computing and Information Systems, BSc Internet Computing, and BSc Information Technology. |
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My main expertise is in data and knowledge representation and automatic reasoning. I have carried out consultancy in ontologies, meta-data, semantic web, RDF, OWL, databases, e-learning and e-government. |
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Education |
PhD in Artificial Intelligence: 'Automatic Compliance Checking for Computer Aided Design', Department of Computing and Information Systems, Brunel University, UK. Supervisor: Prof. Peter Hammond, examiner Prof. Marek Sergot. Inginer (Romanian qualification) in Computer Science: a 5 year degree in Computer Science from the Department of Computer Science, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. |
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| DETAILS | ||||
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My research, until 2002, was mainly in Intelligent Design Assistants (IDA), built as Knowledge Based Systems. An IDA, in my approach, is a reusable piece of software, (e.g., a plug-in to any Computer-Aided Design (CAD) environment, such as CATIA or AutoCAD), that is able to supervise design processes carried out by human designers. In the main, an IDA encapsulates two types of knowledge: (i) domain specific design knowledge or design expertise and (ii) interaction knowledge. Informally, the former relates to what the IDA knows, whilst the latter relates to how the IDA applies that knowledge at the interface with the human designer. My previous research focused on human led design processes, where the designers are responsible for the creative processes and the IDAs are responsible for the routine and usually tedious and error prone tasks. It focused on design verification rather than design synthesis (yet, it should be noted that design verification crucially informs synthesis and has to be performed in parallel with it; this has strong implications upon the behaviour of IDAs). For design verification, the domain knowledge has a regulatory nature, in that it restricts erroneous design and/or enforces good design practice (e.g. fire safety regulations in building design). The interaction knowledge defines the way regulations are applied during the design process (e.g., ‘how should the IDA deal with incomplete designs?’) and the way errors and/or advice are reported to designers (e.g., ‘report only the most relevant errors, in order not to overload the designer’). This is somewhat subsequent to domain knowledge. The major issue towards which my work in IDA gravitated was that of knowledge representation. For reasons discussed in [9], I concluded that a declarative approach to knowledge representation is required at least for the expression of design expertise, but is desired for interaction knowledge. A main advantage, for example, would be the ability to automatically reason about and manipulate such knowledge. Within this context, I followed and combined two main research directions: (i) logics for the expression of different normative statements [7, 8] and (ii) standards or ontologies for domain vocabularies [7]. Along the former, I worked with the model of integrity constraints on logic databases, with operational semantics for both checking and automatic repair. In strong link, I also investigated different behaviour modes that could be associated with different logic forms. Along the latter direction, I looked in depth at quantitative and qualitative spatial representations [7]. Since 2002, I have expanded this research along a related route. I look at structures of information spaces and the development of 'intelligent' tools for their design, implementation and exploration. Along this route I am currently involved in two projects: NM2 (New Media for a New Millennium) and Tate Intelligent Archive of Online Events. The former is a Framework 6 IP Project that aims, on the one hand, to define a new media concept, one that inherently subsumes interactivity and non-linearity, and, on the other, to develop software systems for the production and delivery of corresponding new-media productions (details) [2]. The latter is a collaboration with the Tate, which aims to develop intelligent tools for the research/exploration of archives of digital events, Tate's in particular (details). I started a new research direction in the summer of 2003, in collaboration with BT Exact's AI Lab (Intelligent Systems Research): workforce allocation within an agent-based paradigm, where both global and local strategies are explicitly represented [3, 1]. By 'explicit' I mean that strategies are expressed in symbolic forms, as opposed to being hard-coded (details). Another research topic in which I am currently interested is the development of operational models for creativity. The mechanism that I currently have in focus is that of identifying connections between “apparently” unrelated pieces of knowledge (pieces of knowledge that are not explicitly linked). This could be understood in a similar fashion with emergence (in geometrical representations, for instance). For this, I work with colleagues from the Visual Arts Department. This work has not yet led to any specific research projects. I am also interested in investigation of human expertise (behaviour) in domains at the intersection of computing and arts/media and the subsequent development of computing models for their representation and operationalisation. |
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[1] Co-investigator, from Goldsmiths together with Prof. Robert Zimmer, in NM2: New Media for a New Millennium. NM2
is an Integrated Project (IP) of the European 6th Framework Programme
Priority 2 (Information Society Technology) NM2 has 13 partners from 8 European countries. It is running from 1 September 2004 to 31 August 2007. Its total budget is about 7.5 Million Euros. Our budget (Ursu and Zimmer) is over 0.55 Million Euros. [2] Co-investigator, together with Ms. Kelli Dipple (Tate) and Prof. Robert Zimmer (Goldsmiths), in Tate Intelligent Archive of Online Events (you can further refer to a brief technical description or to the project's web resource on Tate's site). This work is currently being supported by the Tate and Goldsmiths College. A research project proposal is currently being developed. [3] Co-investigator, together with Dr. Botond Virginas (BT), in DISTARMS: Distributed Resource Allocation via a Combination of Local and Global Strategies. This project is the result of an initial funding by BT Exact, the Artificial Intelligence Lab, of a research fellowship that I received in summer 2003. |
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[1] Virginas, B., Ursu, M.F., 2005. "Distributed versus Centralized Resource Allocation: An Interplay of Power in an Agent-Based System", accepted for the The IASTED International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Applications, Innsbruck, Austria, February 14-16, 2005. [2] Williams, D., Kegel, I., Ursu, M.F., et. al., 2004. "NM2, New Media for a New Millenium", accepted for IEE European Workshop on the Integration of Knowledge, Semantics and Digital Media Technology, London, UK, November 25-26, 2004. [3] Ursu, M.F., Virginas, B., 2004. "Distributed Resource Allocation via Local Choices: General Model and a Basic Solution". In (eds. M.Negoita, R.J.Howlett and L.C.Jain) Eigth International Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES04)Wellington, New Zealand, 22-24 September 2004, Lecture Notes in AI, Springer-Verlag. [4] Rosengard, J.M., Ursu, M.F., 2004. "Ontological Representations of Software Patterns". In (eds. M.Negoita, R.J.Howlett and L.C.Jain) Eigth International Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES04)Wellington, New Zealand, 22-24 September 2004, Lecture Notes in AI, Springer-Verlag. [5] Ursu, M.F., Zimmer, R., 2002. "On the Notion of Compliance in Critiquing Intelligent Design Assistants: Representing Duty and Contrary-to-Duty Statements". The Sixth International Conference on Information Visualisation; Symposium on Computer Aided Design, London, UK, 10-12 July 2002, pp. 644-649, IEEE Computer Society. [6] Ursu, M.F., Zimmer, R., 2002. "Compliance in Critiquing Intelligent Design Assistants: Isomorphic Representation of General Norms and Exceptions". The Sixth International Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (Eds: Damiani, E., et al) Crema, Italy, 16-18 September 2002, pp. 98-104, IOS Press. [7] Ursu, M.F. and Hammond, P., 2000. "Expressing Regulatory Design Knowledge for Critiquing Intelligent Design Assistants - Spatial Representations", Artificial Intelligence in Design - AID00 (Ed: Gero, J. S.), Worcester, USA, 26-29 June, pp. 103-126, Kluwer Academic Publishers. [8] Ursu, M.F., 1998. "Towards the Standardisation of Intelligent Design Assistants", The 13th Biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, ECAI98 (Ed: Prade, H.), Brighton, UK, August 23-28, pp. 104-105, John Wiley & Sons. [9] Ursu, M.F. and Hammond, P., 1998. "Representing Expressed Design Knowledge", Association for Information Systems 1998 Americas Conference, AIS98 (Ed: Benbasat, I.), Baltimore, Maryland, USA, August 14-16, pp. 393-395. |
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[1] Distributed Workforce Allocation via Local Strategies (pdf) [2] Case Study: Using Ontologies by Local Councils (pdf) [3] Case Study: A Web-Site for a Local Council (pdf) [4] Generating and Finding Knowledge/Information on the Web (pdf) [5] Ontologies, a Very General Introduction (pdf) [6] RDF, an Introduction (pdf) [7] Reasoning within a Web-Site of a Museum (built as a database driven resource) (pdf) [8] Generating and Finding Knowledge/Information on the Web (pdf) [9] Ontologies, a Very General Overview (pdf) |
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and Fellowships
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[1] September 2004, workshop chair on Formal
Structures for the Representation of Visual Narratives, Crucible
Studios, Media
Lab and Media Centre Lume, University
of Art and Design, Helsinki.
[2] May 2004, "AI in Cultural and Creative Contexts", invited seminar at the Department of Computer Science, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. [3] November 2003, research sabbatical at the MIT Media Lab, USA. [4] August 2003, "Monitors and Facilitators for Trading Agents", talk at BT Exact, Ipswich, UK. [5] July/August 2003, 6 weeks research fellowship at BT Exact, Ipswich, UK. Project: Trading System with Local Strategies for the Allocation of Engineers to Jobs in a Virtual Market. [6] April 2003, “The Expanding Field”, invited expert on AI for learning environments at one-day colloquium organised by the Tate, London, UK, at “innovateUK”, London. [7] February 2003, “RDF, Metadata and Ontologies and their Applications to eGovernment”, one day seminar for resource description for the local council of London Borough of Lewisham, I organised at Goldsmiths College, UK (presentations). [8] November 2001, “Semi-Automatic Compliance Checking for Computer Aided Design”, invited seminar at Daimler Chrysler, Research and Technology, Knowledge Based Engineering, Berlin, Germany. |
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[1] Adrian Passow: 'Intelligent Behaviour in Archive Interfaces'. [2] Jean-Marc Rosengard: Ontological Representations of Software Patterns. |
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During my academic career I have taught a diverse range of subjects. I have worked, as a lecturer or as an academic visitor, at different European universities. Currently, I teach on the CIS213: Database Systems course. I have developed this course from scratch, in 1998/1999. (old web resource). From 2003, the first half of the course has been taken over by Dr. Daniel Stamate. I, now, am responsible for the second part of the course at both undergraduate and postgraduate level (web resource) and for the seminar series "Databases and the Arts", which runs in the first term for the MA in Arts Computing (web resource). For this course, I was awarded in 2000/2001 the college Teaching Peake Award and in 2002/2003 a college grant for Excellence in Teaching. I held two CELT (Centre for Excellence in Learning Technology) fellowships (2002/2003 and 2003/2004). The focus of the first was the development of YAIA (You Ask I Answer): a web learning environment focused on automatic manipulations of questions and answers for students. The focus of the second was on further developments to the department's database driven system for monitoring students' performance. In 2004 I received European funding, under the Socrates/Erasmus programme to develop teaching links with two Romanian Universities. In spring 2003 I contributed to the teaching of the course in e-museology ran by the Department of Computing, Goldsmiths College. (my material) I have also been involved in the EU Tempus programme. In 1994, I received an Individual Mobility Grant for a three months visit at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Coventry University. In the same year I was a member of the core team that wrote the successful project proposal of the Joint European Tempus Project "Setting up a Pilot Inter-University Centre at the level of Electrotechnics Departments". |
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[1] Ursu, M. F., 1999. "Database Systems", University of London Press (Study Guide in 2 volumes). [2] Ursu, M.F., and Vlad, S, 1996 . “Programming in C”, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca Printing House, Romania (in Romanian). |
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[1] I received an EU Socrates/Erasmus preparatory grant, of 800 Euros, in order to establish teaching links with the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and "1 Decembrie" University, Alba-Iulia, both in Romania. [2] I have designed and co-ordinated the implementation of the departmental database-driven system for monitoring students' performance. You can access this (intranet resources) only if you are a member of staff or a student of the Department of Computing. This was partly funded through a Goldsmiths College CELT award. [3] 'YAIA: You Ask I Answer' is an idea about an intelligent system whereby students exchange information. This work was carried out together with Dr. Richard Keeble and was partly funded through a Goldsmiths College CELT award. [4] I held an EU Tempus Individual Mobility Grant, 1 March 1994 - 15 June 1994, Department of Electrical Engineering, Coventry University, worth 3,800 Euros. [5] I was a member of the core team that set up the Joint European Project "Setting up a Pilot Inter-University Centre at the level of Electrotechnics Departments", in summer and autumn 1994. The overall funding of the project was approximately 385,000 Euros. The project ran successfully for three years. I was also involved in some of its events during its first one and a half years. |
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| Universities at which I worked |
[1] Lecturer, 1998 – present, Department of Computing, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. [2] Part-Time Lecturer, 1995 – 1998, Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel University, UK. [3] Academic Visitor, June 1996, Department of Physics, University of Balearic Islands, Spain. [4] Academic Visitor, Nov/Dec 1994, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Southampton, UK [5] Academic Visitor, March-June 1994, Department of Electronics and Communications, Coventry University, UK. [6] Lecturer, 1990 – 1995, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. |
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[1] April 2003, "TATE, The Expanding Field" – WEBJOURNAL [2] February 2003, "RDF, Metadata and Ontologies and their Applications to e-Government", for the local council of London Borough of Lewisham. |
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page last updated: 3 November 2004