Page 61 - University of Pretoria Research Review 2017

Foreword
Introductory Messages
DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE
PEOPLE AND CONTEXTS
4IR
HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
PLANET AND SUSTAINABILITY
Awards
Lead Researchers
59
Professor Andries Engelbrecht, the research leader of CIRG. While people can easily understand a three-dimensional image, the question is how to visualise solutions in, for example, 10 dimensions, or the population of the algorithm in the search process, so as better to understand the behaviour of the algorithm during the run. The latter is especially important when solving dynamic problems, where it is necessary to understand the effect of change on the performance of the algorithm.
The research of Helbig and her colleagues can
be applied to a vast range of problems, such as optimising the treatment of water, the costing of electricity or the scheduling of jobs at a production plant.
Institute for Big Data
and Data Science
In a significant development in transdisciplinarity as a new frontier
in research, the Institute for Big Data and Data Science was established in 2017. Led by Professor Andries Engelbrecht, the Institute aims to address the complexities entailed in the tremendous increase in the amount of data being generated globally, and the demand for new efficient data analysis techniques that have spawned the Big Data revolution.
The Institute draws strength from a number of academic departments, Research Chairs and research entities at UP. The SARChI Chair in Artificial Intelligence, with Professor Engelbrecht as the chair holder, and the affiliated CRIG, are already well known for work on swarm intelligence and its application to solve complex optimisation problems, and research in the development of new machine learning approaches to extract meaning from data.
There are a number of internationally recognised research entities within the University producing large bodies of data, which provide challenges for the Big Data (BD) and Data Science (DS) communities. Examples include primary health care; lifestyle research; genomic
data and bioinformatics; cellular and molecular medicine; infectious diseases; and transport development, all of which are examples of data- intensive research.
Linked to the Institute is the newly established Absa-funded Chair in Data Science located in the Departments of Computer Science and Statistics that focuses on data analytics, the science of examining big data to uncover hidden patterns, unknown associations, and other useful information to improve decision-making abilities. Data analytics is central to the banking environment, for example, for the purpose of sentiment analysis; product cross-selling; risk management; security and fraud management; digital forensic investigations; customer segmentation and profiling; and the analysis of the spending patterns of customers.
Also linked to the new Institute, and as part of the DST-NRF South Africa-Canada Research Chairs Mobility Initiative, the SARChI Chair in Artificial Intelligence secured funding for a collaborative project entitled, Bayesian Joint Analysis of Neuroimaging and Genetic Data. The significance will be the development of new statistical mixture models and tools to examine the influence of gene-gene interaction on either the function or structure of the brain, and the development of software that will be made freely available to neuroscientists conducting studies on genetics and neurological disease.