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A multi-coloured mix of molecules, columns of numbers and radio waves, depicting modern communications and research into internet security.
Centre for Secure, Intelligent and Usable Systems
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  • Our research and enterprise impact

Our research and enterprise impact

The intersection between information technology, society and security is becoming exponentially complex. Researchers at the University of Brighton are working on new approaches to create secure ways for people to make use of the huge potential that today’s connected and interactive world offers. 

The world of information technology has changed considerably over the past 30 years. A generation ago, computers were mostly stand-alone devices with minimum connectivity, used by professionals, specialists and enthusiasts to perform specialised tasks. 

Today, computers, smartphones and even household appliances are widely connected and used to store, exchange and gain instant access to information and data wherever it is stored. 

As a result, one of the biggest security challenges is the ever-increasing levels of human interaction with technology. 

Map of the world with lights connecting computers worldwide to depict methods of securing computer systems. 

Download the 'Securing computer systems article' from our Making research matter publication.

Information technology is so embedded into our lives that security requires an effort that combines people, technology and processes in an integrated fashion. As recent research has shown, purely technical approaches do not always produce the expected results.

Haris Mouratidis, Professor of Software Systems Engineering.

Producing effective and accessible privacy protection models

For major corporations, protecting individuals’ privacy when using data is a key business process. One international player, Nokia, is working with the University of Brighton to help manage this complex area. 

Every time we use a mobile phone, our location is recorded. Originally, this was necessary to enable the cellular communications system to work properly. Today, however, our location is a valuable piece of commercial data, used to direct us to the nearest coffee shop or to tell us which motorway exit to take. 

Ensuring individuals’ privacy is protected is a business-critical task and telecoms giant Nokia recognised that research being undertaken by the University of Brighton led by Professor John Howse, could give them a competitive advantage. Today, diagrammatic logics, automated diagram drawing and theorem proving are producing effective and accessible privacy protection models for the company. 

“We worked with Nokia first on ontology design,’ said Dr Gem Stapleton, “we developed ways to share data infrastructure across different software and hardware platforms. Concept diagrams have helped Nokia design ontologies – frameworks for organising information – and this will be a big growth area in the future as ontology engineering demands increase.”

Concept diagrams can take many forms, but at heart they are a way of communicating more simply and more visually. Nokia’s challenge is to bridge different language and technical backgrounds to make sure that everyone involved in collecting and using personal data is aware of the rules that affect them, their colleagues and their customers.

Privacy engineering in the telecommunications sector is a complex task. Not only are millions of new pieces of data created every second, as a global business Nokia deals with scores of different legal jurisdictions with staff fluent in all of the world’s major languages. As a high-tech company, it also employs professionals in many fields, all of whom speak their own technical language.

Drawing of a Nokia mobile next to the article Keeping it simple for Nokia

Download the 'Keeping it simple for Nokia' article from our Making research matter publication.

We’ve found that most people – including those who are technically trained as well as those who are not – relate to this approach intuitively, and concept diagrams are a good way of achieving consistency of message whatever the audience’s prior knowledge. Our concept diagrams are now widely used in Nokia’s privacy engineering, to define internal taxonomies and ontologies and their relationships, which is a key part of their data analysis. Concept diagrams can be communicated to a wide range of stakeholders quickly and consistently.

Dr Gem Stapleton, University of Brighton

Sketch Engine: Revolutionising language use

Researchers have developed a lexicographical tool that has helped change the face of dictionary publishing and enabled accurate analysis of language usage around the world.

Not so long ago dictionaries used to be compiled on huge card indexes. Compilers would collect examples of how words were used in different ways and make subjective decisions on their meanings in a range of contexts. All that has changed and University of Brighton researchers have been at the forefront of providing computational tools that can analyse large quantities of text objectively and keep up-to-date with the fast-changing nature of language in a diverse world through computer-based statistical analysis of the behaviour of individual words in large bodies of text online. 

Using word sense profiles, or word sketches, a computational lexicography Tool is created, which was commercialised as the ‘Sketch Engine’ by company, Lexical Computing Ltd, in 2003, at a time when dictionary publishers were beginning to look at moving online. 

Since then the Sketch Engine has been adopted by four of the UK’s five major dictionary publishers. Lexical Computing Ltd is working with Oxford University Press to analyse children’s language and Cambridge University Press to analyse the language produced by learners of English. National language institutes in nine European countries and 200 universities worldwide use it to support language research, dictionary production, language technology products and to enable language teaching. It has allowed users to access information on between 30 million and 70 billion words in 61 different languages. Lexical Computing Ltd now employs staff in the UK and the Czech Republic, along with freelancers in a number of other countries. Half of the company’s business is overseas and it runs training courses around the world.

 


200 universities worldwide and national language institutes in nine European countries use sketch engine to support language research, dictionary production, language technology products and to enable language teaching

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