How Automated Data Reconciliation can Increase the Reliability of Measurements.

Over the last few years many companies in the UK have come under increasing pressure from regulatory bodies to improve the accuracy of data acquisition. This has meant large investment in new plant, data control systems and general data acquisition infrastructure. One cost effective way of increasing confidence in data accuracy is to use a technique known as data reconciliation.

The technique is best implemented as a computer program either as a stand alone application or by integrating validation code into an existing data control system and reconciling the data as it is acquired. In each of these cases the implementation may be broken down into several stages: system selection, formulation of conservation equations, pre-processing of measurements and uncertainties and reconciliation.

The reconciliation process requires two sets of inputs; the measured values and their associated uncertainties. Conservation equations are never strictly obeyed by the measurements. Reconciliation uses the principle of minimised error squares to calculate corrections to each of the measurements so that the modified values obey the equations. These modified values are subject to reduced uncertainties.

Use of the process has several important benefits to operators of industrial plant:

• Reduced measurement uncertainty and increased reliability
• Detection of instrument drift in many industrial applications
• Targeting and prioritisation of equipment maintenance
• Potentially very large financial savings
• Compliance with industry regulators

Will consider the nature of artificial intelligence from an engineering perspective, examine the interaction of artificial intelligence and software engineering, compare artificial intelligence and software engineering methods and discuss how artificial intelligence may usefully enhance more conventional software systems.

Dr Brian Lees is currently Reader in Applied Artificial Intelligence at the University of Paisley. His research interests include the application of artificial intelligence to education and engineering and has extensive experience of presenting his work internationally. He is also the organiser of the annual UK Case-Based Reasoning Workshop at the BCS Special Interest Group in Artificial Intelligence annual conference.

Automated planning research has made some significant progress in the past few years. From planners capable of generating simple plans of up to a dozen steps, in less than a decade we have now achieved planners capable of producing complex plans, involving management of resources and time, consisting of hundreds of steps. In this talk, Dr Derek Long will discuss some of the techniques that have contributed to this dramatic progress and outline the ways in which this technology is playing roles in applications, from pipeline management to autonomous space landers.

80% of Ordnance Survey revenue comes from the supply of digital data, and increasingly the use of this information, in ways often hidden to the user, will impact all our lives. Discover the connections between Napoleon, missile submarines and your mobile phone with an explanation of the potential impact of location based services.

Last year, Stephen Brewster of Glasgow University's Multimodal Interaction Group treated us to a fascinating presentation on multimodal means of interacting with modern computing devices. Glasgow University's Multimodal Interaction Group is part of Glasgow Interactive Systems Group (GIST) and it is at the forefront of research into Haptic Computing.

This year, two of Professor Brewster's colleagues, Dr Marilyn McGee and Dr Steven Wall will demonstrate some of the devices that the team are working on. The group's research includes the use of earcons, three-dimensional sound and input by gesturing to communicate with computers.

For more information see the research pages of Dr Marilyn Rose McGee and the PDF version of her presentation.

Details to follow . . . .

For more information on the BCS Specialist Group that provides networking opportunities and support for all women working in IT around the world - see BCSWomen.