Dr Alvaro A. A. Fernandes

Research Interests

• Databases and Dataspaces, especially query processing and optimization, and query-based techniques for data integration.
  • In the broader context of advanced databases, I am currently interested in the resurgence of massively-parallel approaches to data management, as exemplified by data appliances and by the map/reduce approach to cluster-based computing.
  • In the dataspaces area, I was an active member of a 36-month EPSRC-funded research project on this topic that ran from Jul 2008 to Jun 2011. The particular approach to dataspaces that this project followed is the intensive use of metadata and of user feedback for continuous improvement of semantic judgements thereby maximizing their utility for the purposes of querying dataspaces. The project built a dataspace management system called DSToolkit that, internally, uses model-management operators to bootstrap a dataspace and view-based rewriting to query component resources.
• Data Management of Streams and Sensor Networks, especially query processing and optimization that reconcile different objective functions, and query-based techniques for data integration.
  • Between Oct 2005 and Sep 2008, in an EPSRC-funded research project, called DIAS-MC, I was active in developing a sensor network query processing infrastructure, called SNEE, that is distinctive in construing a sensor network as, strictly, a distributed computing platform. Thus, SNEE query plans are fragmented and executed in specific nodes in a truly distribued manner. Routing and scheduling take place at the level of query fragments. SNEE generates code for a target sensor network software layer (currently, nesC/TinyOS).
  • A follow-on, 36-month EU-funded research project, called SemsorGrid4Env, ran from Sep 2008 to Aug 2011. The main focus was on enabling the construal of sensor networks in environmental monitoring as fully-fledged data resources amenable to high-level, view-based, semantic integration, thereby allowing rapid developement techniques (e.g., mash-ups) to draw data from sensor networks inn emergency response scenarios.
• Data-Centric Internet of Things
I am very interested in making use of our work on sensor network data management to develop the idea of a data-centric Internet of Things. I have sketched some ideas for PhD projects in this area.
• Adaptive/Autonomic Systems, especially in query processing and in workflow management.
  • I have been an active team member in two EPSRC-funded projects whose goal has been to investigate principled ways of developing generic adaptive systems technology in the areas of query processing and workflow execution.
  • In this area, I am currently interested in quality-of-service-driven adaptive strategies that use utility functions to act with global scope in a coordinated fashion and in a principled manner.

Research Projects

1. SemsorGrid4Env: applying semantic-grid ideas to allow mash-ups over diverse environmental sensor networks (2008-2011).
2. Dataspaces: relying on user feedback to refine and improve the outcome of automated schema matching and schema mapping algorithms (2008-2011).
3. An Infrastructure for Adaptive System Development (EPSRC EP/C537157/1)
4. DIAS-MC: Design, Implementation and Adaptation of Sensor Networks Through Multi-Dimensional Co-Design (EPSRC EP/C014847/1)
   Local Pages ::: Project Website
5. OGSA-DAI Two
6. OGSA-DAI
7. High-Performance Query Processing for The Grid
8. MyGrid: Directly Supporting the e-Scientist
9. Tripod: A Spatio-Temporal Object Database System
10. ODESSA: An Object-Deductive Spatial System Architecture
11. ROCK & ROLL: A Deductive and Object-Oriented Database Management System

Research Students

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students interested in working in my current areas of interest. I maintain descriptions of specific PhD projects I'm interested in supervising (but don't assume that I'm only interested in those PhD projects). Note, however, that you should have considered the question of funding your studies beforehand, as, in general, the School of CS in Manchester does not devolve to academics the power to grant studentships of any kind. On all matters regarding doing a PhD in the School of CS, go to Postgraduate Research and take some time to explore.

I currently (jointly) supervise the following PhD students:

1. (Oct 2011-to date) Fernando Osorno Gutierrez on crowdsourcing for pay-as-you-go data integration (with Norman Paton).
2. (Oct 2010-to date) Klitos Christodoulou on pay-as-you-go data integration over linked open data (with Norman Paton).
3. (Oct 2010-to date) Alan Stokes on autonomic approaches to quality-of-service compliance in wireless sensor network query processing (with Norman Paton).

I have supervised to completion (mostly jointly) more than 10 PhD students (see below) and more than 20 MSc students in the course of my career:

1. (submitted) Lu Mao on schema mapping for dataspaces (with Norman Paton).
2. (2011) Chenjuan Guo on schema matching for dataspaces (with Norman Paton).
3. (2010) Farhana Jabeen on distributed algorithms for spatial operations over sensor networks.
4. (2010) Ixent Galpin on QoS-aware sensor-network query optimization (with Norman Paton).
5. (2009) Christian Brenninkmeijer on a formally-defined sensor-network query language with empirically-validated analytical cost models (with Norman Paton).
6. (2009) Kwanchai Eurviriyanukul on adaptive query processing (with Norman Paton).
7. (2005) Veruska Aragão on service-oriented mediators.
8. (2005) Ane Tröger on an in-silico experiment language over heterogeneous, autonomous, distributed scientific resources.
9. (2004) Marcelo Aragão on combining induction and deduction for knowledge management in a logic programming setting.
10. (2004) Seung-Hyun Jeong on efficient algorithms for spatio-temporal query processing (with Norman Paton).
11. (2003) M. Akhtar Ali on a comprehensive solution to incrementally maintaining materialized OQL views (with Norman Paton).
12. (2000) James Ohene-Dhan on personalizable hyperlink-based systems

Teaching

Admin

• Being PhD Tutor within the Research School.
• Helping to run the Mentoring Scheme for the department's research students. (The mentors webpage is full of useful information for research students.)

More Information

• On the Information Management Group, on the School of Computer Science, on The University of Manchester, on the city of Manchester.
• On the landscape of computer science research, see the brilliant DBLP web site.
• On this page's author:
  • This is my DBLP entry (with the best cross-links).
  • Bearing in mind inflation due to false positives and duplicates, this is my Google Scholar Profile and my Microsoft Academic Search data.
  • On 21 Oct 2011, Publish or Perish had the following stats (somewhat filtered to remove false positives but still very likely inflated figures) about me:
    • Papers: 93
    • Authors/paper: 2.96
    • Cites/paper: 15.49
    • Citations: 1441
    • Cites/year: 72.05
    • h-index: 21
    • g-index: 34
• My Erdös number is 5.
• You can see the pages known to Google to have backlinks to this page.
• Some old photos, the 1998 photo, a 1993 portrait and its painter @ illugraphics :: http://www.illugraphics.co.uk/.
• If you like football, then let it be known that five stars stand above my heart, and every four years I hunger for one more.

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