| Qualification | Start dates | Entry requirements | Full- or Part-time | Assessment | |
| Master of Philosophy (MPhil); Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) | January April July September | First or second class honours degree or significant experience in computing | Level of English required | Full-time or Part-time | Written dissertation |
Course Outline
The Applied Computing Department is a young department of modest size but is successful in attracting research funding from various sources in the UK and the EU (including industry, research councils and charitable foundations). It supports a significant range of research interest and over the last few years the number of research students has grown steadily. The Department has a history of involvement in EU framework projects. More recently, we were partners in two EU FP6 funded projects: SecurePhone and BroadWan. We have been working and collaborating with many European research institutions including The Technical University Graz, CNUCE, Pisa, Thales, Thomson, TELENOR, RAL, Salzburg, Telephonica – Spain, Atos Origin, The University of Saarbrucken – Germany, INFORMA – Italy, and ENST – France.
The main research areas of interest in the Department cover image / video processing and analysis techniques and applications; wireless mobile network technologies; and biometric-based authentications for constrained devices / environments. In image processing we mainly, but not exclusively, use wavelet transform techniques for facial feature detection and recognition, online image / video compression for constrained devices, visual speech recognition, feature detection in biomedical images, digital watermarking, content-based video indexing for biometric video databases. In the wireless networking area, our research effort focuses on convergence and integration of different wireless technologies and standards, wireless mesh technologies, intrusion detection and prevention, efficiency and stability of ad hoc networks.
Currently the Department has a number of research groups consisting of 5 research active academics, 12 PhD and 3 MSc/MPhil students at various stages of their studies.
Teaching Method
Candidates spend the aforementioned time period undertaking supervised research, at the end of which they submit a thesis embodying the results of that research. This thesis must demonstrate familiarity with, and an understanding of the subject, its principal sources and authorities. It should display critical discrimination and a sense of proportion in evaluating evidence and the judgements of others. The subject should be dealt with in a competent and scholarly manner.
After your degree
The increasing specialisation which is frequently required in the employment market is no longer provided by just an undergraduate degree. A postgraduate degree provides these advanced skills and, in today’s competitive employment market, is becoming increasingly important in order to stand out from the crowd.
Any successful career choice in the market place will be dependent on a number of factors. Your academic qualification, while important, may not be the deciding factor. Your attitude, skills and experience matter too. Whatever your motivation in taking a postgraduate course, you should think about the transferable skills an employer is seeking, and taking advantage of every opportunity for self-development to improve your chances of success in your future career. The Careers Service has the resources to help you with this process.
What our students and alumni say
Ali Abboud
My research mainly focuses on developing quality measures for different biometric samples (e.g. Face, Iris, Fingerprint, etc.), and how we can utilise these measures in developing adaptive algorithms for uni-modality or multi-modality biometric recognition systems that can work under different recording conditions. Such adaptive recognition systems are needed because fast changes in recording conditions (e.g. illumination, user behaviour, focus, scars, and any other environmental or user behaviour conditions) will increase recognition errors, and eventually decrease system performance. Two face biometric illumination quality measures have been developed. These measures are called Middle Half (MH) and symmetrical adaptive local quality index (SALQI). The two measures are used to develop an adaptive pre-processing algorithm, which is called Symmetrical Adaptive Histogram Equalization (SAHE).
My future work will focus on developing another adaptive algorithm for different pattern classification problems. And also developing novel quality measures for other biometrics like Fingerprint and Iris. These measures will be used to boost the recognition performance of biometric systems.
Ali Al-Sherbaz
My main research areas are WiFi-WiMAX (IEEE 802.x standards) convergence with nanosecond PHY and MAC level synchronization, field-programmable gate array (FPGA) support for OFDM bridges for mixed network standards, and network routing strategies using ad hoc mechanisms in a predominantly wireless environment.
Currently, the University of Buckingham is part of the European project COST- ICO803, and we are investigating a Dynamic Reconfiguration of the Spectrum. The scheme utilises existing standards but it modifies the static frequency index table and other parameters to a dynamic OFDM modulation format, which adapts to the available sub-bands (e.g. WiFi/WiMAX). The dynamic OFDM will be also used in 4G technologies.
Wafaa Hussein
My research project aims to investigate and develop novel algebra techniques and transformations (e.g. Delaunay triangulation and geometric transformations) and improve existing classification and clustering methods for face images. Such mathematical techniques are meant to provide theoretical models that underpin the practices of security for face biometric data in particular. The research is an effort to further develop in-depth understanding of the subject area and to explore relevant areas of research such as algebra and data mining for the intended domain of applications.
Safa Al-Tekreeti
My research is about constructing Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) using Bluetooth. The research is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the problems emerging from using Bluetooth as a standard to construct MANET. These problems include setup-time, number of nodes and power consumption. The second part is constructing Bluetooth – Wi-Fi convergence environment. The third part is improving MANET security to defend against routing attack such as black hole attack and control packet manipulating.
Kleddao Suwansawat
My proposed research will focus on the emphasis design principles and methods of icons design based on psychological studies of usability for the elderly in Thai culture that allow a wide range of older-generation users to access and understand them more easily.
Torben Kuseler
My research area is the System on a Chip (SoC) design using FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) and HDL (Hardware Description Language) technologies.
The aim of my project is to create a highly specialised chip to do biometric-based verification, mainly face verification using wavelets, on mobile devices like PDAs or mobile phones.
