All Available Projects

This is a mentored project by IBM!

Motivation

Learning can be a solitary experience  - and also In the short term a potentially challenging experience too. To help and encourage people to avail themselves of learning experiences that will enrich their lives - we need to make learning more fun, engaging and collaborative.

Task / Artefact

Create a city building game In the form of a web app - where the user builds elements of their city by completing learning experiences.  Each specific learning experience will offer a boost or 'buff' to the city. So for example - completing Agile and Design Thinking learning experiences will allow the city to progress at a faster rate (In terms of building facilities for the population). Whereas AI and Automation could reduce cost of goods and Items - making the population happier.

In the game there will be other cities being built - either by AI or other players. If one city progresses beyond the other cities - then the population will slowly move from other cities Into the more advanced one. This In turn will provide the resources for the city to grow and build new capabilities

The winner of the game is the city which has the most population (or all of the population) on the map.

Learning experiences are to be taken from Skills Build: https://skillsbuild.org/ 

To test whether a user has successfully completed a learning experience the game will ask questions to test the knowledge of the user. Once the questions are answered the new capability will be unlocked

For Inspiration on the look of the game - review games such as Tribal Wars.

Technologies

Recommend using IBM Cloud and also Incorporating IBM Watson to support enhanced Interaction with the user. The game could for example 'speak' to the player to guide them.

To get started: https://bit.ly/PathWaytoLearning

A few important notes:

• the point of contact about this project is available to answer questions and confirm whether it is available for you to take on still
• you still need to approach potential supervisors, who feel able to guide you through this project
• you also need to make this project your own, and determine some details as it is defined at a higher level, which would all go into your project proposal

This project is open for multiple students, though you need to work independently (cannot collaborate on literature review, methodology, development, etc).

This project is open for multiple students, though you need to work independently (cannot collaborate on literature review, methodology, development, etc).

This is a project that is defined by a client called Respected. Details about Respected are available here: https://www.Respected.org.uk. 

This project is open for two students, though you need to work independently (cannot collaborate on literature review, methodology, development, etc).

IBM have made available their 7 bit quantum computer online for anyone to access. This project would involve you interacting with the IBM Quantum Computer and programming it to solve a simple problem.

A range of problems can be undertaken such as (these are only indicative)

• Factor a number
• Build a quantum random number generator (maybe)
• Open to other suggestions

Please note that you will need a little bit of mathematical skill to work with this project. I suggest that you log onto the quantum computer and investigate on your own first to see what you can do and whether it is right for you. Quantum Lab - IBM Quantum

A range of simple problems can be undertaken including in discussion with the supervisor such as (these are only indicative)

• Factor a number
• Build a quantum random number generator (maybe)
• Open to other suggestions

Please note that you will need a little bit of mathematical skill to work with this project. I suggest that you log onto the quantum computer and investigate on your own first to see what you can do and whether it is right for you. Quantum Lab - IBM Quantum

Information-centric networking is a new networking paradigm that focuses on content rather than hosts. Ubiquitous in-network caching is one of the key aspects of ICN which has received widespread research interest in recent years. ICN in-network caching has promised to improve various aspects of content delivery in the Internet including reducing bandwidth usage, decreasing content delivery latency, etc.

While in-network caching in ICN has potential to improve content delivery process in the Internet, there have not been a consensus on how it should be done. Various caching strategies / schemes have been proposed in the literature. In this project, the aim is to design, implement and evaluate novel in-network caching algorithms.

Interested student may refer to the following paper to get the context of this project:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014036641300025X

• Student will be given pointers to relevant literature at the beginning of the project.
• Student can freely choose the tool/programming language for this project (python, C/C++, MATLAB, Octave, existing network simulators, etc).
• Student will be given a basic simulation tool (implemented in MATLAB) to kickstart the project.
• This project is open to multiple students. 

This project is associated under the Flexible and Complex Network (FLEXNET) Research Group. 

The ability of a network to withstand perturbations such as link or node failures is important to ensure seamless provision of services. Information-centric networking (ICN) is a new networking paradigm that focuses on content rather than hosts that has potential to improve network resilience. In this project, the focus will be on information resilience in information-centric networks. 

• Student will be given pointers to relevant literature at the beginning of the project.
• Student can freely choose the tool/programming language for this project (python, C/C++, MATLAB, Octave, existing network simulators, etc).
• This project is open to multiple students.

This project is associated under the Flexible and Complex Network (FLEXNET) Research Group. 

The Internet has grown significantly in size and complexity. In this project, the aim is to analyse the evolution of the Internet topology at the domain level including in the considerations their connections, inter-domain relationship, their tiers. 

• Student will be given pointers to relevant literature at the beginning of the project.
• Student will be given the necessary dataset.
• Student can freely choose the tool/programming language for this project (python, C/C++, MATLAB, Octave, existing network simulators, etc).

This project is associated under the Flexible and Complex Network (FLEXNET) Research Group. 

Networks facilitate spreading of various entities (e.g., news, information, viral marketing, virus, malware, etc.). In this project, the student is to build a simulator to simulate and understand spreading processes in networks with different properties/characteristics. 

Interested student may refer to the following paper to get the context of this project (do not worry about the Maths in the paper):

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7543480

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8074785

• Student will be given pointers to relevant literature at the beginning of the project.
• Student can freely choose the tool/programming language for this project (python, C/C++, MATLAB, Octave, existing network simulators, etc).

This project is associated under the Flexible and Complex Network (FLEXNET) Research Group. 

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to most businesses in the UK requiring them to safeguard personal data [1] . In the UK, the Data Protection Act 2018  (DPA) was enacted to implement this regulation into law in the UK. This project will look at what steps an organisation must take to respond to a data breach, or suspected data breach to not only ensure compliance with the DPA but also keep the organisation and their customer's data safe. 

This project could, for example, leverage existing frameworks, such as security by design, privacy by design, incident response planning, disaster management or Business Continuity frameworks and/or look to appropriate standards (ISO and/or NIST) for inspiration to create a Data Privacy Incident Response Framework to guide practitioners in handing any data breach or similarly incident in a timely and appropriate manner. 

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to most businesses in the UK requiring them to safeguard personal data[1] . In the UK, the Data Protection Act 2018  (DPA) was enacted to implement this regulation into law in the UK [2].  This project will seek to create best practice guidance for SMEs to follow about what they must to, not only comply, but also demonstrate compliance with DPA and GDPR.

Past literature either focuses on the process of virus spreading in a static network or topology changes. The co-evolution of the both recently received increasing attention especially due to COVID-19. In this project, the aim is to study this coevolution and gain insights into the behaviour of the spreading patterns under different network adaptation strategies. 

• Student will be given pointers to relevant literature at the beginning of the project.
• Student with strong Mathematical ability would have an advantage for this project. 
• Student can freely choose the Mathematical tools or programming language for this project (python, C/C++, Java, MATLAB, Octave, etc).

This project is associated under the Flexible and Complex Network (FLEXNET) Research Group. 

Securing the privacy of organizational and consumer data, and complying with different cyber security requirements, is an ongoing challenge for those providing services at both a local and global scale. Compliance policies specify allowed system behaviour and are ubiquitous in today's IT systems, ranging from access-control and security policies to regulations of personally identifiable data processing.

In this project area, you will have the opportunity to work on developing techniques and tools to support online monitoring of system behaviours with respect to compliance policies. The goal is to providing data stakeholders with ongoing intelligence about the state of their data.

Cyber threat intelligence involves the real-time collection, normalisation, and analysis of the data generated by users, applications and infrastructure and information ingested from external sources - that impacts the IT security and risk posture of an enterprise.

In this project area, you will have the opportunity to work on developing and implementing cyber threat intelligence techniques and tools to provide actionable and comprehensive insight that reduces risk and operational effort for any size organization.

Possible projects include:

1. develop and implement an actionable intelligence platform
2. develop a model for threat landscape understanding
3. develop a framework for threat actor identification, monitoring and intervention
4. develop and implement techniques for threat actor profiling
5. investigation of cyber-criminal ecosystem, their organizational structures and business models

In this project area, you will have the opportunity of investigating the cyber security risk of an organization and providing appropriate cyber security management strategies.

Possible projects include:

1. develop and/or enhance techniques for continuously gauging an organization’s cyber security capability/maturity and recommending improvements
2. investigate and develop a framework for secured application development and deployment
3. develop bespoke cyber security awareness and training procedures that specifically address the work culture and needs of a chosen organization or enterprise

• the point of contact about this project is available to answer questions and confirm whether it is available for you to take on still
• you still need to approach potential supervisors, who feel able to guide you through this project
• you also need to make this project your own, and determine some details as it is defined at a higher level, which would all go into your project proposal

• the point of contact about this project is available to answer questions and confirm whether it is available for you to take on still
• you still need to approach potential supervisors, who feel able to guide you through this project
• you also need to make this project your own, and determine some details as it is defined at a higher level, which would all go into your project proposal

• this is a design-heavy project (low code)
• the point of contact about this project is available to answer questions and confirm whether it is available for you to take on still
• you still need to approach potential supervisors, who feel able to guide you through this project
• you also need to make this project your own, and determine some details as it is defined at a higher level, which would all go into your project proposal

This is a project that is defined by colleagues from Bournemouth University Sustainability Team. The digital platform should create a supportive environment, enhance knowledge, encourage the use of efficient energy sources through tracking and monitoring of current uses and to account for climate responsibility by students and staff at BU. The goal is to create a Dashboard for members of the BU community who will be able to see current usage for various energy types, and their potential emissions contributions. Information to be displayed in a fun and creative manner which engages the target audience. The platform will support the work of BU’ Sustainability Team as they aim to achieve environmental targets.

This project is open for multiple students, though you need to work independently (cannot collaborate on literature review, methodology, development, etc).

• Problem: Inputting emoji through the visual keyboard is not great.
• Solution: Develop a few different ways to input emoji with custom swipe (or others) gestures.
• Evaluation: Comparative evaluation to see which of your new designs is best

• Problem: Accessibility on the web is still poor, there are many evaluation tools, yet they are cumbersome to use and their results can be difficult to interpret.
• Solution: Develop a new tool that improves displaying of WCAG errors to developers.
• Evaluation: Compare your tool against common tools such as WAVE, AXE, or Lighthouse

• NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) have been very popular since 2021 (e.g., https://www.nbatopshot.com/ or https://www.cryptokitties.co/). They have numerous advantages over common collecting, but how could we improve it or move it in new directions? This project could explore either new ideas for NFTs (I have some speculative ideas) or discover how to explain NFTs to users, other ideas could explore how to display, curate, and store NFTs.
  Tracking Cryptocurrency portfolios is often limited to the wallet/exchange or you need to export your wallet data to a service like Koinly (https://koinly.io/). The features are often limited. Could there be a better way for people to track their portfolios without needing to connect their wallets?
  
  
• Cryptocurrency and NFTs are potentially contributing to the climate emergency, yet are likely not going away anytime soon. Could you develop a system where you export someone's crypto portfolio and demonstrate how much it has cost the climate? Similar to http://cryptoart.wtf/ but for full portfolios, could you then allow people to offset this?

• NFTs is still seen as a solution looking for a problem. Yet many applications are yet to be seen realised. Consider using NFTs to track online course progression (e.g., Coursera).

• Problem: Accessibility is still an afterthought when producing content.
• Solution: Investigate ways of providing nudge support (https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3290605.3300733) during the production of content.
• Evaluation: Compare against typical ways of providing access feedback.

Problem: Media consumption could increase engagement with use of IoT Devices. Many houses now have IoT devices (e.g., Smart Speakers, Smart Lights etc). Could they be used or activated using media to improve engagement and audience experiences? Imagine your IoT lights changing colour when Darth Vader is on screen or even when his name is spoken. Or the lights flickering when Voldemorts name is spoken.

Solution: Using triggers within media, activate smart devices based on these triggers during media playback.

Evaluation: Explore audience reaction to system to evaluate engagement levels.

Various lung audio sounds (labelled and unlabelled) need to be investigated in order to deploy ML methods for understanding the chronic respiratory diseases. The aim here is to deploy scientific experiments in order postulate your hypotheses and verify them through prediction bases algorithms for the classification of the diseases. The ranking of such algorithms in terms of their performances is a key finding.

Shoulder pain is an issue that affects a significant portion of the population, with an annual prevalence of up to 46.7% and a lifetime prevalence of up to 66.7% according to Artus, et al, 2017. It is commonly managed in primary care settings and ranks as the third most common reason for musculoskeletal consultations. A considerable number of adults, approximately 3%, seek medical advice annually for new shoulder pain.

In this project, a technical solution for measuring shoulder motion needs to be developed. The solution should be based on MediaPipe Pose (https://developers.google.com/mediapipe/solutions). The research questions:

1. What are the requirements for measuring shoulder motion for recovery and/or diagnosis?
2. What are factors influencing the measurement accuracy and how can this be improved?

Strong programming skills are required. 

This project will also receive supervision from Prof. Carol Clark of the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences and Mrs. Emily Middleton of University Hospitals Dorset.

Shoulder pain is an issue that affects a significant portion of the population, with an annual prevalence of up to 46.7% and a lifetime prevalence of up to 66.7% according to Artus, et al, 2017. It is commonly managed in primary care settings and ranks as the third most common reason for musculoskeletal consultations. A considerable number of adults, approximately 3%, seek medical advice annually for new shoulder pain.

The project needs to review potential technologies for support. 

1. measuring positions using static pictures
   • What are supported technical solutions and comparison of different solutions? 
   • What are the requirements for implementation of the solutions?
   • What is the feasibility of implementing the different solutions using static pictures?
2. measuring position based on shoulder motion respectably  
   • What are supported technical solutions and comparison of different solutions? such as MediaPipe Pose, OpenPost
   • What are the requirements for implementation of the solutions?
   • What is the feasibility of implementing the different solutions based on shoulder motion?

This project will also receive supervision from Prof. Carol Clark of the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences and Mrs. Emily Middleton of University Hospitals Dorset.

EduAbility considers assistive technologies for education and how these can be recommended to pupils who have special educational needs and disabilities.

How can you measure the performance of the library best?

• What test data represents a normal use case?
• How can you determine optimization opportunities?
• What optimizations are (most) effective?

xmlutil is found here

You will need very strong mathematical background and interest in Quantum Computing.

Scientific papers published by researchers and scientists make significant contributions to the field of science. These papers are typically regarded as objective and impartial; however, it's important to recognize that emotions also play a pivotal role in shaping their findings. Understanding the emotions and motivations of researchers can foster a more empathetic approach to scientific collaboration and the decision-making process.

1. Are emotions disseminated through CAiSE conferences? 
2. Can we discern the prevailing emotions and emotional patterns within the abstracts of papers presented at CAiSE conferences?
3. Which method, between Lexicon-based and Machine Learning approaches, would be most suitable for identifying emotions in CAiSE conference papers? Why?

The growth of wireless devices and sensors usage have give rise to interest on understanding the behaviour of mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) (e.g., in terms of performance and resilience). In such networks, nodes are mobile and have limited connectivity capability. Under such conditions, the network topology evolve over time. In this project, the student is to study the topological properties of such networks with different mobility models under different settings. 

Student will be given pointers to relevant literature at the beginning of the project. 

Student is required to design and implement a basic MANET simulator with different mobility models. 

Student can freely choose the tool/programming language for this project (python, C/C++, MATLAB, Octave, existing network simulators, etc.).

Objective: To Identify a subgroup of patients with acute clavicle fractures who would benefit from early surgical intervention

Background: This projects represents an exciting collaboration between the Trauma & Orthopaedic team at University Hospitals Dorset (UHD) and Bournemouth University.

The clavicle is a commonly fractured bone with approximatley 400 patients presenting to A&E at UHD per year. Patients can be treated wither using a simple sling or with surgery, which involves fixing the bone with plates and screws. The long term results of surgery and non-operative treatment are the same as long as the fracture heals.

However 15% of fractures treated with a sling alone do not heal (non-union). Most of these require delayed surgery (which is more difficult) and this leads to patient dissatisfaction.

At the moment there is no accurate way to predict who are the patients likley to develop non-union and would have therefore benefited from early surgery.

Similar studies using ML to predict hip replacement failure suggest that there are relevant features on x-rays that are iinvisible to the human eye. This technology has, as yet, not been applied to clavicle fractures.

Using the UHD fracture database we aim to develop and train a model to assess whether ML can see early x-ray features that predict clavicle healing?

A database of serial x-ray images, patient demographics and patient outcomes will be provided as well as support to provide clinical context to the research project.

Real world networks are often time-varying, i.e., the network topology changes over time. However, in the literature, most studies simplify these networks as static and thus, ignoring the time ordering of contacts which can be important to understand the information diffusion process taking place in the network. 

In this project, 

• Student is expected to simulate information diffusion processes in temporal networks and gain insights into the behaviour of these processes under different conditions. 
• Student will be given pointers to relevant literature at the beginning of the project.
• Student will be given access to various appropriate datasets.
• Student can freely choose the tool/programming language for this project (python, C/C++, Matlab, Octave, etc.)

Interested student can refer to the following paper as a start to understand the context:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43029-5

This project is associated under the Flexible and Complex Network (FLEXNET) Research Group. 

Many real-world systems are interconnected (e.g., power grid and communication networks). Their inter-dependency could lead to what is called cascading failures in which failure from one network may affect the functioning of the other networks which in turn may affect the first network, causing a catastrophic degradation of the entire system. 

Interested student may refer to the following paper to get the context of this project:

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7497224

In this project, the student is expected to implement and simulate such cascading failures and study the robustness of inter-dependent networks. 

• Student will be given pointers to relevant literature at the beginning of the project.
• Student can freely choose the tool/programming language for this project (python, C/C++, MATLAB, Octave, existing network simulators, etc).

This project is associated under the Flexible and Complex Network (FLEXNET) Research Group. 

Multiple organisations might collaborate on the creation of a software product, but have different expectations around trust and information classification.  If the organisations adopted Dev[Sec]Ops then what would be the risks of such organisations forming part of a single CI/CD pipeline.

Creating a risk model and, if there isn’t a repeatable/pre-existing process for coming up with it, a tool-supported process for incorporating Dev[Sec]Ops into software development, to form a single CI/CD pipeline for software creation

NIST SP 800-37 is an approach for ensuring security embedded into the design and operation of new and existing systems from the outset and through life.  Responsibility for implementing this approach rests not with accreditors, but with the teams responsible for delivering and operating the systems. 

Because the availability of substantial security expertise on project teams might be limited, responsibility for many risk management tasks falls on those with expert domain knowledge, but comparatively limited knowledge of security.  In theory, this situation should not inhibit the approach; many of the ‘PREPARE’ steps don’t assume they are completed by security experts.  In practice, however, non-security experts would benefit from tool-support to guide the capture, management and analysis of collected risk data.  Such tool-support should also support the means of outputting risk data in a format that would help accreditors obtain assurance that a project team is properly following the approach.

Student would need to be willing to pick up NIST SP 800-37 and CAIRIS.  To support the later, some experience with SQL, Python and JavaScript / Vue.js would be useful.

The main aim of the project is to learn about the difficulties of implementing a system-level fuzzer, as well as the benefits that it may provide. A secondary (significantly more complex) aim would be to have a way of identifying scenarios that result in radically different system behaviour for two different versions of the software under test.

The above figure roughly indicates the sort of prototype that a student might produce.

In today's software development landscape, Scrum has become the leading methodology for managing projects. However, there is still limited understanding of the complex dynamics within Scrum teams, particularly how personality traits influence their effectiveness. This study aims to address this knowledge gap by exploring the relationship between team members' personality traits and Scrum team effectiveness. The research will employ a quantitative approach to analyse and measure these impacts. 

This is a project to help with cross-disciplinary research at BU, so you can help non-technical researchers by bringing your technical skills to the table 🌟

People with a plethora of health conditions benefit significantly from spending time in nature. Recent research has shown that the duration of time spent in nature is correlated with improved health and wellbeing. While technology can be a barrier to people spending time in nature, this project seeks to explore how technology can help people go out and spend more time in nature.

This project is based on work already started at the University, incorporating information on this website to help address this challenge: https://www.awetrails.co.uk/ 

This project specifically seeks one or more students to create a proof of concept AR application (on a mobile phone) that incorporates information from the above website, but in a more immersive and direct way to people using the app.

Open to one or two students, but you need to work independently to avoid collusion.

This project can be done with a different supervisor than the point of contact (Vegard), but please keep him in the loop. He will fascilitate the connection with the client and would like to be updated on the outcomes :)

This project focuses on developing an AI tool that translates complex clinical letters into simplified versions understandable by patients aged 12 to 16. The system will aim to ensure that young epilepsy patients, who often struggle with medical jargon, can comprehend their diagnosis and treatment plans clearly, improving their understanding and adherence to treatment.

Methodology:

1. Gather a dataset of complex clinical letters and simplified versions.
2. Train the AI to translate clinical jargon into language suitable for adolescents.
3. Test the tool's effectiveness on 20 real examples by comparing AI outputs with feedback from patients and healthcare providers.
4. Refine the translation model based on user feedback.

Expected Outcome:
Improved patient understanding of their medical conditions and treatment, leading to better compliance with medical advice and enhanced communication between doctors and younger patients.