Research Overview

Provenance, Semantic Web, Intelligent Systems, Agri-food, Internet of Things (IoT), Accountable AI Systems, Crowdsourcing

Current Research

IoFT Working Group: Data Sharing and Interoperability for Data Trusts in Agri-Food

Sep 2020 – Present

The working group investigates potential technological solutions to the challenges of data sharing within data trusts for the agri-food sector. 

https://ioftdatatrustwg.github.io/

RAInS

Jan 2020 – Present

Project descriptionThe RAInS project aims to realise processes by which AI systems can be made accountable, by developing an accountability fabric for use by a variety of stakeholders. The project uses computational models of provenance – as a substrate for enabling trust; such a mechanism facilitates transparency and accountability by recording the processes, entities and agents associated with a system and its behaviours-supporting verification and compliance monitoring. Overview video https://vimeo.com/481206247.

 https://rainsproject.org/

https://vimeo.com/481206247

Past Research

TrustLens

2016 – Dec 2020

Our vision for the Internet of Things is built around the concept of the TrustLens –a future computational infrastructure supporting the three pillars of a user-centred IoT ecosystem: empowerment – providing citizens with insight and meaningful control over their data, and means to access/use data for their own purposes; transparency – presenting individuals with understandable and relevant information on how their data is being acquired and used, and the associated risks and benefits; accountability – means to support principled and enforceable data use, combined with verifiable evidence that appropriate measures are being taken.

PROoFD-IT

May 2019 – Mar 2020

Project descriptionA pilot project exploring the use of IoT, semantic technologies, and blockchains to monitor food delivery.

https://proofd-it.github.io/

The Food Sentiment Observatory: Exploiting New Forms of Data to Help Inform Policy on Food Safety & Food Crime Risks

2017 – Aug 2018

The Food Sentiment Observatory is a 12-month pilot study funded by the UK’s Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC). The project is investigating the potential for new forms of data such as social media and other online content to be used as part of the government policy making and policy assessment process. Our team is a partnership between Computer Science researchers at the University of Aberdeen, and Food Standards Scotland – the government agency responsible for food policy across Scotland, including aspects of food safety, food crime and nutrition.

Smart Routing

2016 – Dec 2017

Industry led project in collaboration with researchers from the University of Aberdeen. The focus of the project is to explore how the Internet of Things can act as a means of sharing transport data in an efficient and timely way, what the data privacy challenges are, and how the smart phone can deliver more effective means of travel personalisation. For more info follow the project url.

FOOD SAFETY ASSURANCE: COMBINING PROVENANCE & THE INTERNET OF THINGS

Dec 2015 – Mar 2016

This project explores the potential of lightweight, low-cost sensing in a commercial kitchen as a means to aid understanding of food safety compliance issues.

Social Journeys

Jan 2015 – Oct 2015

Exploring how social media updates can be combined with existing (open) datasets to further enhance real-time passenger information. There has been a rapid growth in the use of social media in public transport in recent years. Public transport service providers currently communicate with customers via social networks such as Twitter. This benefits transport operators as they can gain insight into customer attitudes and behaviours. It also enables passengers to be alerted to delays and disruption at an early stage through the existing channels they use.

Informed Rural Passenger

Jul 2011 – Oct 2014

The Informed Rural Passenger Project is exploring the creation of a transport information ecosystem with passengers at its centre as both consumers and suppliers of information.