Research Areas
Our research strategy in fundamental areas of data management is aimed to balance the importance of the needs of users and computers. We believe that computing in the 21st century will be shaped by the pace of the shift from the what-computers-can-do computing to the what-users-can-do computing. A key transformation is universal usability, enabling participation by young and old, able and disabled, novice and expert.
Core areas in what-users-can-do computing:
The following research areas are inspired by two grand principles that is the foundation for what-users-can-do computing. First, technical excellence must be in harmony with user needs. Second, great works of art and science are for everyone.
Interface Computing Infrastructure:
This is a multidisciplinary research that aims to build what-users-can-do computing infrastructure to support human needs and aspirations. It integrates human-computer interaction, psychology, social sciences, and database technology. Specific research issues include interface modeling, information visualization, interface-driven query processing, interface-driven knowledge management, user interaction modeling, usability measurement, preference-driven information processing.
Information Privacy & Security:
Concepts like ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence that exploit increasingly interconnected networks and mobility put new requirements on data management. An important element in the connected world is that data will be accessible anytime anywhere. This also has its downside in that it becomes easier to get unauthorized data access. Furthermore, it will become easier to collect, store, and search personal information and endanger peoples' privacy. Therefore, secure and privacy-enhanced data management turns out to be a challenging goal that will also seriously influence the acceptance of ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence concepts by society. In this research, we explore novel techniques in the arena of secured data access and processing, privacy preserving data management, privacy preserving data integration and mining.
Digital Library:
Digital library research in CAIS focuses on developing advanced information management tools and algorithms for constructing knowledge and sharing them in learning activities. The main research topics include automatic metadata extraction, classification, maintenance, query processing, visualization and sharing. We also investigate the integration between digital library systems and other web-based applications to expand the amount of content and to the variety of functions available to users.
Core areas in what-computers-can-do computing:
There is still a need for building faster algorithms and efficient storage structures for complex data. In fact, much of the what-users-can-do computing infrastructure will be built on top of what-computers-can-do computing framework. Hence, in the arena of what-computers-can-do computing, we focus on the following areas;
Next-generation Information Management Infrastructure:
The growth of the Internet along with the exponential growth of life sciences data in the last decade has dramatically changed the way in which information is managed and accessed. In this area we explore novel issues to manage such growing volumes of non-traditional data. In particular, we focus on several interesting issues such as efficient storage, indexing, and query processing strategies for complex data types such as XML, geo-spatial data, biological data, data streams, multimedia data, Web data, etc.; change detection and management; integration of information retrieval and database search; network analysis; data integration; intelligent information extraction.
Data Mining:
Data mining is the process of automatically extracting new and useful knowledge hidden in large datasets. This discipline has becoming increasingly important since its inception in the early 90s as advances in data collection have lead to the explosive growth in the amount of available data. In this arena, we focus on developing novel efficient and scalable algorithms for mining Web data, mobile data, biological and biomedical data, data streams and XML data. We also investigate novel variant of data mining such as evolution mining.
Mobile Data Management:
The strong growth in wireless communications and the ever increasing availability of mobile multi-purpose devices have created a global computing environment that plays a key role in the daily activities of millions of people. Conventional issues in data management have to be rethought and reevaluated in this rapidly changing environment. Non-traditional issues including semantics of data, location-centric data services, broadcast and multicast delivery, data availability techniques, security of data, as well as privacy and ease of usage questions have to be addressed. In this research, we focus on challenges and opportunities for data management and access technology in the evolving world of mobile, wearable, and pervasive computing.
We also focus on addressing on the following data management challenges in industries that are relevant to Singapore:
Manufacturing Informatics:
Product innovation and development has become a major growth driver for companies moving up the value-chain. Mass-customization, through Customer-driven Product Development (MCPD) that provides products and services meeting customer´s specification at close to mass-produced price and time-to-market, is emerging as a crucial capability for a company´s strong competitive advantages. As about 70% of a product´s cost is determined at the product design stage, a crucial key to realize MCPD lies in the ability to rapidly develop a product design that is "right-the-first-time" and that has accurate estimation of the cost and time-to-market. To meet the requirements, manufacturing informatics focuses on the set of techniques that enriches and updates a product knowledge base through intelligent self-learning algorithms as product life-cycle data for a new product is generated. When a set of customer requirements is given, a set of design configurations and the associated value-chains that would at least satisfy some of the requirements can be re-computed. Manufacturing informatics gives companies the gain in competitive advantage in the global high technological-barrier and value-add market.
Maritime Informatics:
Singapore prides itself as operating one of the busiest ports in the world. In order to prepare for the future of next-generation maritime port operations, maritime informatics explores the development of people, data, software and technology that are necessary for the future port operations. Projects in this area have helped the local port authorities to come up with a new operating system for port, quayside and yardsize operations that will substantially boost the efficiency of Singapore's port while keeping costs down for shippers. NTU and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) have also signed agreements to jointly develop a high capacity terminal simulation system that could be applied to handle mega-container vessels.