Post Graduate Researcher Profiles - Sam Tickle

My name is Sam Tickle, and I am a doctorate researcher at the University of Leeds, and my research concerns the detection of change in signals.

 

At first glance this may seem somewhat innocuous and abstract, but the uses for change detection are incredibly ubiquitous, especially for a company such as BT, where spotting a small shift in a single data series in efficient fashion can make all the difference in mitigating a future operational failure, containing a denial of service attack, or simply maximising speed of customer service.

 

Changepoint detection has been used elsewhere to great effect, including, health care, finance, environmental science and large-scale retail. The advent of the Big Data Age, however, has presented something of a challenge for existing changepoint methods, where datasets of interest can have millions of variates in addition to a high density of observations.

 

I am therefore specifically interested in efficient changepoint detection for data streams. This project contains two broad phases

• The first being to examine the means of speeding up current techniques, and
• The second to pioneer novel approaches to multivariate changepoint detection.

We have had some success with the first phase already, with potential for real-time high-dimensional change detection now a reality. The paper, and computer package, for this will be appearing soon.

Hanif Mansoor to open the TFI Summer Conference

BT’s Director for Converged Networks - Mansoor Hanif - will open the conference and outline industry initiatives to deliver 100% connectivity and ultra-reliability enabled through converged technology. These include the Telecom Infra Project’s Ecosystem Acceleration Centre, the Future Networks Research Centre and the Lime SDR hackathon.

He will describe how the focus on optimal converged customer experience will lead to a Converged 5G network that is best for customers

Mansoor joined EE in November 2011 and led the technical launch of the 1st 4G network in the UK and was also accountable for the integration of the legacy 2G and 3G Orange and T-mobile networks. Until 2016 he led the team who plan, design, rollout, optimise and operate all EE radio access networks, including Mobile Backhaul and Small Cells, and was accountable for the coverage aspects of EE’s Emergency Services over LTE programme. He was also a board member of MBNL (the joint venture of EE with H3G) until 2016. During the acquisition of EE by BT, Mansoor led the EE network Integration team and is currently Director of the  Converged Networks Research Lab based in BT’s Global Research centre in Adastral Park. He is a member of the BT Technology Steering Board and is a board member of the Scottish Innovation Programme.

Our 2017 Summer Conference is approaching fast

Our Summer Conference on 'Converged User Experience' is taking place at Adastral Park, Ipswich, on the 13th and 14th June 2017.

Converged User Experience - what is that all about?

One may have heard about 'Converged Networks', a term which says it on the tin and which WhatIs.com describes as:

"Network convergence is the efficient coexistence of telephone, video and data communication within a single network. The use of multiple communication modes on a single network offers convenience and flexibility that are not possible with separate infrastructures. Network convergence is also called media convergence."

Then there is 'Technological Convergence', when different systems or procedures come together in one device or form factor*. 'Convergence' seems to be a key word wherever we look these days, there even is Convergence 2017 a music, art and technology festival in London.

So, bringing things together, building context, cross-pollinate between previously unrelated subjects, building, creating, enabling is what it is about, in whichever way or form, and the world of ICT is the medium it thrives on. 

As an organisation that aims to bring academic expertise together with industrial power to create a better world for people, we identified the subject of 'Converged User Experience' as one of the big strategic challenges.

Fixed, mobile and IoT (Internet of Things) infrastructures are coming together as technology evolves, but it is the user who remains the point at which all this technology truly converges. It is the experience of the user that matters. Network engineering and data science combine in order to serve the users' need to communicate with each other wherever and whenever, to be entertained, and to control their environment on the switch of a button. 

The ICT industry faces and ongoing challenge to cost-effectively deliver the connectivity and the performance required. 

The Tommy Flowers Institute Summer Conference will address this challenge. We have fantastic speakers lined up and participants will have the opportunity to network and input their expertise in break out sessions. Additionally participants will have the opportunity to visit Innovation 2017, BT's major technology exhibiton.









*quote from WhatIs.com