Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology
School of Information Technology
Department of Computer Science
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
The Department of Computer Science has several research groups, each with their own research foci. The Computational Intelligence Research Group (CIRG) is studying computational intelligence, and its research fields include artificial neural networks, swarm intelligence, evolutionary computation, artificial immune systems, data and text mining, multi-agent systems, image analysis, and game-playing systems. Computer and Information Security, with specific reference to distributed systems, security and privacy (ICSA) is studying computer and information security, and its research fields include digital forensics, distributed trust and security issues in pervasive computing, privacy, vulnerability scanning, intrusion detection, and database and workflow security. Distributed Systems and Languages (Polelo) is studying computer science and geographic information systems, and its research fields include geographic information systems, distributed systems, and programming languages. Theoretical and Applied Computer Science Research (FASTAR) is studying theoretical and applied computer science research, and its research fields include finite state systems finite automata, regular expressions, pattern matchers, parsers, transducers, algorithms and data structures, and formal concept lattices. Software Engineering Principles and Practices (Espresso) is studying software engineering principles and practices, and its research fields include methods and processes, such as agile methods and open source development, tools and environments, such as software configuration management (SCM) and refactoring, human aspects. Software Science and Formal Methods(SSFM) is studying software science and formal methods, and its research fields include formal specifications of systems, model-driven engineering, theoretical and methodological foundations of software engineering, and tools for computer-aided/automated software engineering. The department also maintains the CILib resource, a framework for developing computational intelligence software in swarm intelligence, evolutionary computing, neural networks, artificial immune systems and fuzzy logic.
Contributions were made on optimisation methods to locate multiple optima and to track optima in changing environments, swarm-based algorithms for solving dynamic multi-objective optimisation problems, bare bones differential evolution, fuzzy hybrid-simulated annealing algorithms for the topology design of switched local area networks, a fraud management system architecture for next-generation networks, adapting usage control as a deterrent to address the inadequacies of access control, metadata context in database forensics, regular expression hashing to reduce FA size, developing an incremental algorithm to construct a lattice of set intersections, developing a virtual machine framework for constructing domain-specific languages, and sensitivity analysis of Voronoi-based sensor deployment and reconfiguration networks.
Contact person: Prof AP Engelbrecht.
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