The MONET Consortium
The Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd
The Numerical Algorithms Group
(NAG) develops and provides world-leading software to solve
complex mathematical problems. It has offices in the UK, France,
Germany, Japan and the US and has created a world-wide collaborative
network of the world's best mathematical experts. In 1971 NAG developed
the first mathematical software library that now has over 10,000 users
world-wide and contains over a thousand mathematical and statistical
functions. The range of products and services that NAG offers has
continually expanded into statistical, symbolic, visualisation and
numerical simulation software, compilers and application development
tools and wide-ranging consultancy
To meet its customers' needs the NAG Libraries span many
computing languages and platforms and are continually being
upgraded to take advantage of the latest technologies -
multi-processor PCs, for example. NAG's consultancy service offers
its own expertise in developing software, coupled with
world-leading knowledge of numeric computation. Customers who can't
develop their own application, need a specific solution or just
advice on how to get the best from the NAG Libraries can benefit.
NAG's software grew out of university mathematics departments, but
industries and businesses all around the world have been using it
for everything from space flights to agriculture. Simply defined as
"sophisticated number crunching" the software continues to evolve
at a dramatic pace to meet the surge in complexity of mathematical
problems in all walks of life from aircraft design to portfolio
management.
NAG believes strongly in the importance of collaboration as the
only way of keeping abreast of technological developments, and it
has a strong record in participation in and management of projects
at a national and international level. It is also committed to the
development of and adherence to standards to improve the efficiency
and flexibility of its software. In particular NAG coordinated the
recent OpenMath IST project and is currently managing the OpenMath
Thematic Network. It also participated in the development of W3C's
MathML 2 recommendation.
Key Personnel
Dr. Mike Dewar is a Senior Technical Consultant in
the Development Division of the Company. His PhD was in the area of
integrating symbolic and numerical approaches to problem solving and,
after working as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of
Bath, he joined NAG in 1994. He is responsible for packages in both the
Reduce and AXIOM computer algebra systems and has contributed to the
Aldor Compiler. He previously served as project Coordinator for the
ESPRIT projects FRISCO (21.024) and OpenMath (24.969), and is currently
managing the OpenMath Thematic Network (IST-2000-28719) as well as the
MONET project. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the OpenMath
Society, an organisation set up to maintain OpenMath at an international
level, and an Honorary Reader in Computer Science at the University of
St. Andrews.
David Carlisle is also a Senior Technical Consultant in the
Development Division. He holds a PhD in mathematics from the University
of Manchester and before joining NAG in 1998 was a research fellow at
the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge. He was one of the major
authors of the LaTeX2e typesetting system, and in his spare time still
contributes to the LaTeX3 project. He is a member of the W3C Math
Working group, and was a co-editor of the MathML 2 Recommendation.
He worked on the OpenMath Project (24.969) and is an editor of the
OpenMath standard, and is currently filling the rôle of CD
Maintainer in the OpenMath Thematic Network.
University of Bath
The University of Bath is a
comparatively small, science-oriented, university, ranked in the top ten
of British universities by all the league tables: indeed the Financial
Times' last league table said "Bath has definitely earned its place in
Britain's own Ivy League". It is the only University in the top ten to
make a year of industrial placement, sometimes abroad, a feature of
almost all its undergraduate degrees - indeed in 1998-9 a student was on
placement at ZIB and subsequently wrote the OpenMath -> MathML
translator based on Reduce. The University is committed to the
appropriate use of e-Learning technology, and, after a pilot in 2000-1
led by Professor Davenport, is now rolling out the use of Blackboard and
BoxMind throughout the University, with expertise provided by the
University's Centre for the Development of New Technologies in Learning
which is also developing one of the "fast track" courses for the U.K.'s
e-University project.
The Department of Computer Science, though newly formed in 2001, is
merely a restructuring of the Computing Group of the Department of
Mathematical Sciences, which goes back to the foundation of the
University. As such, it achieved a rating of 5 in the 1996 national
Research Assessment Exercise, and is confident of doing at least as well
in the 2001 exercise. It has participated in several European projects,
notably PoSSo (for which Professor Davenport's group provided the
technical manager), OpenMath (of which Professor Davenport was the
Chairman) and the OpenMath Thematic Network (of which
Professor Davenport is the Chairman).
The University is also home to the nationally funded centre of
expertise in digital information management UKOLN www.ukoln.ac.uk,
and Professor Davenport is one of the University's
representatives on UKOLN's Management Committee. UKOLN has several
rôles, among which are acting as the UK Higher Education
Funding Council's member of the World-Wide Web Consortium, and
providing UK Higher Education's "Web Focus". It publishes the
electronic newsletter Ariadne, and has taken part in several
European projects, notably SCHEMAS, DESIRE and Renardus. Staff
within UKOLN have experience of working with technologies
associated with the Semantic Web such as XML, RDF and the Dublin
Core.
Key Personnel
Professor Davenport Professor Davenport has worked on the
interface between Mathematics and Computer Science for over thirty
years. His major interest is computer algebra, where he wrote his thesis
and the first major textbook on the subject. He was a major designer of
the Axiom computer algebra system, and has also contributed extensively
to Reduce. He was the first holder of the Ontario Research Chair of
Computer Algebra at ORCCA. He also works in cryptography, having been
part of the team that broke the discrete logarithm problem over
GF(2127) in 1982, and in networking, where he has done much
consultancy for the UK Government and industry. He is also the
University's Director of Information Technology, where he has
responsibility for the University's Computing Service and Library, as
well as several initiatives such as e-Learning and Web accessibility.
University of Western Ontario (UWO)
The University of Western
Ontario is one of the premier research-intensive universities in
Canada. With approximately 25,000 students and 1200 faculty, the
University comprises the full range of academic and professional
programs, from science and engineering through medicine, law and music.
The university is the lead institution in Canada's current
super-computing effort, SHARC Net. The Department of Computer Science is
one of the most rapidly growing in Canada, with approximately 30
research and teaching faculty members. Degrees are offered at the
bachelors', masters' and doctoral levels in Computer Science. Several
joint degrees are offered at the bachelors level, including an
innovative program in Computer Science and Law. Major areas of research
in the department include image analysis and computer vision,
distributed systems management and network quality of service, formal
languages, compilers and computer algebra. The Department of Applied
Mathematics is one of only two in Canada, with a strong graduate program
and research areas including computational fluid flow, high energy
physics and financial mathematics.
The Ontario Research Centre for
Computer Algebra (ORCCA) is a joint effort between the
departments of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at UWO, and the
department of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. The centre
runs a program of invited Research Chairs, about which special programs
are organized. The past year's program focused on Symbolic Linear
Algebra, and the current year's centres on Mathematical Communication
(MathML, OpenMath, etc.) The major areas of research of the centre are
symbolic methods for differential equations, symbolic-numeric algorithms
for polynomials, mathematical communications and software systems for
computer algebra.
Researchers at the centre have direct experience in the conduct
of European projects, and have worked closely with some of the
MONET participants, specifically NAG and the University of Nice in
this context. It is understood that the EU shall not fund the
Canadian participation in the current project.
The members of ORCCA have significant technology transfer
experience, seeing the results of their research efforts taken up
in industrial contexts from pulp and paper processing to software
development. Most directly related to the present proposal is the
participation in the MathML and OpenMath standard definition
efforts, the successful alignment of these standards with each
other and with other industry standards, and the adoption of these
standards in commercial products, such as Maple 7.
Key Personnel
Stephen M. Watt (Ph.D. Waterloo) is Chair of the Department of
Computer Science at UWO, and the Director of the ORCCA. Previously he
was a Professor at Université de Nice and Responsable Scientifique
of the SAFIR project at INRIA. Prior to that he was a Research Staff
Member at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center for 12 years.
He has extensive experience working with both the NAG and Waterloo Maple
companies, has previously served as Chairman of the ESPRIT project
FRISCO (LTR 21.024), and presently serves on both the OpenMath executive
committee and the W3C Math Working Group. Dr. Watt is one of the
principal authors of Maple, Axiom and Aldor, and is active in the areas
of symbolic-numeric algorithms, internet-based mathematics, and
compilers. Dr. Watt shall serve as the UWO principal investigator for
this project.
Robert M. Corless (Ph.D. British Columbia) is a Professor in the
Department of Applied Mathematics, and the Deputy Director of ORCCA. He
is Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Symbolic and Algebraic
Manipulation (SIGSAM). He is the author of "Essential Maple"
(Springer-Verlag, 1995) and over 70 technical papers. As one of the
contributors to the Organic Mathematics Workshop (Simon Fraser
University, December 1995) he is one of the early contributors to
internet-based mathematics. Dr. Corless works in the area of
symbolic-numeric algorithms, numerical analysis and dynamical systems.
William Naylor (Ph.D. Bath) is an ORCCA postdoctoral fellow at
UWO, having previously worked on the OpenMath ESPRIT project. His
current research is in the automated creation of mathematical
stylesheets for XML markup of mathematical content.
Stilo Technology Ltd
Stilo Technology Ltd is a
wholly-owned division of Stilo International plc, the first specialist
XML company to be listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of
the London Stock Exchange. In addition to Stilo Technology Ltd, Stilo
International plc wholly owns Omnimark Technologies Corporation in
Ottawa, Canada, and holds a majority shareholding in eidon GmbH in
Nuremburg, Germany. Group companies develop and market content
engineering technologies which enable enterprises more readily to
automate the integration, creation, management and re-purposing of large
quantities of data using XML. Customers include major systems
integrators (CGEY, CSC, Siemens, EDS); Fortune 500 companies (IBM, SUN,
Boeing); Government agencies (the US Department of Defence, European
Parliament); and many of the world's largest publishing organisations,
including the US Government Printing Office and Reed Elsevier. With
offices now in Canada, USA, UK, Germany, Belgium, France and
distributors in Australia and Japan, Stilo companies operate in some of
the world's leading markets and so are additionally able to provide
global customers with local training, sales, consultancy and supporting
services. Stilo Technology Ltd has a research and development
responsibility within the group, investigating new standards,
technologies and models of service provision, and developing innovative
approaches, tools and techniques to meet the requirements of the
evolving markets. Stilo Technology Ltd was a member of the ESPRIT
OpenMath project (EP24969), and is a member of the OpenMath Thematic
Network (IST-2000-28719). Stilo Technology Ltd is also a member of the
W3C.
Key Personnel
Stephen Buswell - Chief Technology Officer After reading
mathematics at Oxford, Stephen Buswell has worked in IT in the UK,
Europe and North America at organisations including Logica, European
Payment Systems Services and, as an independent consultant, the Polish
Ministry of Finance. Applications included telecommunications, finance
and control software for life sciences experiments on board Spacelab.
Stephen co-founded Stilo in 1992, since when he has specialised in
markup languages, information architecture and web technologies.
Stephen is a member of the W3C Math Working Group and a Principal Writer
of the MathML Recommendation for mathematics on the web. He worked on
the ESPRIT OpenMath project (EP24969), and is a member of the ESPRIT
OpenMath Thematic Network (IST-2000-28719). Stephen is also a member of
the W3C Advisory Committee.
Nick Taylor - Senior Developer Nick specialises in enterprise
architectures using the Java 2 Enterprise Edition, distributed computing
using CORBA and application integration. He was previously Research
Fellow at the University of the West of England, participating in a
number of successful collaborative research projects. MOTOS (Management
of Traffic in Open Systems), a DTI funded investigation into the use of
open systems for real-time traffic monitoring, used neural network
technology to predict traffic flows and potential congestion. TRENDS
(Traffic Engineering Data Services) an ESPRIT funded project, was a
CORBA/Java implementation of the principles of the MOTOS project using
live traffic . FollowMe, an ESPRIT project, investigated the use of
mobile agents as a means by which information could be delivered to a
variety of devices such as PDAs and mobile phones. Nick has extensive
Java experience and holds an MSc in Communicating Computer Systems.
Nick James - Senior Developer Nick has worked as a software
engineer and project leader for twelve years. He specialises in data
management and database software, and has in depth knowledge of database
systems. He has worked as an engineer producing a sophisticated object
oriented database, and has produced advanced software for the GIS
industry. Nick has experience in a wide range of industrial areas
including finance and space, usually working with large data management
problems. He is currently working an ontology-based system for knowledge
management and complex data transformation.
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester
Department of Computer Science has a long and distinguished research
record dating back as far as 1948 when they developed the world's first
stored-program digital computer. Currently, the department has a strong
reputation for research across a wide area of Computer Science and in
particular in the area of information management.
The Information Management Group (IMG) carries out research in
different aspects of data intensive application development.
Current research seeks to extend the functionality of database
systems, to exploit Description Logics (DLs) in advanced
applications, and to make advanced information management systems
easier to use. IMG is one of the leading international centres for
research in the theory and practical application of DLs, having
been responsible both for the implementation of THE state of the
art DL reasoner (FaCT) and its use in a range of innovative
applications including the OilEd ontology editor.
Members of IMG have wide experience in national and
international projects in areas such as Managing Semi-Structured
Information (DWQ, CAMELOT, STARCH, COHSE), Object Data bases
(ODESSA, DOQL, POLAR) and User Interfaces to Data Intensive Systems
(TEALLACH, KALEIDOQUERY, INFOLENS). IMG maintains close links at
Manchester University with the Bioinformatics Group and also has a
range of projects in this area (TAMBIS, GIMS, RASH, IRBANE). IMG
also benefits from close links with the Formal Methods Group, the
Medical Informatics Group and the Advanced Interfaces Group.
Key Personnel
Ian Horrocks is a Lecturer in Computer Science. He graduated in
Computer Science from Manchester in 1982, winning the prize for most
outstanding graduate. After working in industry he returned to
Manchester to complete a PhD in 1997. His FaCT system revolutionised the
design of DL systems, redefining the notion of tractability and
establishing a new standard for implementations. He designed the OIL
language, is an editor of the DAML+OIL language and is a member of the
Joint EU/US Committee on Agent Markup Languages. He is the lead
researcher on several EPSRC projects and was a leading researcher on the
DWQ project (Esprit 22469). He has published widely in major journals
and conferences, winning the best paper prize at KR'98. He is a member
of the programme/editorial committees of several international
conferences, workshops and journals. His current research interests
include knowledge representation, automated reasoning, ontological
engineering and the Semantic Web.
Carole Goble is a Professor in Computer Science, and co-leads
the Information Management Group. She has been on the faculty since
1985, and has worked in the Multimedia and Medical Informatics groups.
She was/is an investigator on a number of projects using Description
Logics (DLs) as modelling and retrieval languages for: medical
information systems (PEN&PAD, GALEN), semantic hypermedia systems
(COHSE), picture archives (STARCH), mediating disparate bioinformatic
information sources (TAMBIS, TAMBIS-II), and improved protein function
prediction using ontologies (Irbane). She is co-investigator in a basic
research project on DL-based ontology servers (CAMELOT). She has over 40
publications in the area and has served on many conference committees on
databases and multimedia. Her current interests lie in conceptual
modelling, the use of ontologies and thesauri in a range of metadata and
data-intensive applications, including multimedia, hypermedia, medical
informatics and bioinformatics.
Technical University of Eindhoven
The Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
(TU/e) was founded in 1957, and is now the second largest
university of technology amongst the thirteen universities in The
Netherlands. The TU/e consists of eight departments in the fields of
Applied Physics, Biomedical Technology, Building and Architecture,
Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics
and Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Technology Management.
The TU/e has 2750 employees of which 120 are full professors and 425
assistant and associate professors. The TU/e provides 13 five-year
undergraduate study programmes ("ingenieur") for 5000 students, 10
two-year courses in technological design ("master of technological
design") for 250 postgraduates, as well as various PhD-programmes
("doctor") for 500 postgraduates. Lecturers and students make use of
modern information and communication means (e.g. almost all
students have laptops). TU/e leads prominent Dutch research schools and
institutes, and holds a strong position in international networks.
The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science is active in
the fields of algebra, applied analysis, scientific computing,
systems and control, discrete mathematics, combinatorial
optimisation, coding and cryptography, stochastic operation
research, statistics, scheduling, information systems, distributed
real time systems, computer graphics, programming methodology,
parallel systems, formal methods, and embedded systems. The
department has over 120 employees of which 14 are full professors
and 70 assistant and associate professors. The number of
undergraduate students is approximately 800. The department also
hosts RIACA, the Research Institute for Applications of Computer
Algebra, which plays a pivotal role in the development of
mathematical computation.
The Eindhoven research team consists of
Prof.dr. A.M. Cohen, Dr H. Cuypers,
Dr H. Sterk, Dr H.A. Wilbrink,
Prof.dr. A.E. Brouwer, together with three junior
researchers. The group performs research on Discrete Mathematics,
Computer Algebra and its applications and is one of the main
contributors to the OpenMath standard. Results in the past include
software packages for Algebra and Discrete Mathematics for Lie
theory, for non-commutative algebra, for codes, and for graphs.
Also, the group has produced an OpenMath Library for the
construction of phrasebooks, several phrasebooks for interfacing
mathematical software, and Interactive Algebra Lecture Notes
(published by Springer Verlag). The group has extensive teaching
experience (at under- and postgraduate level) in their respective
specialties. It is currently a member of both the Calculemus
project (RTN1-1999-00301) and the OpenMath Thematic Network
(IST-2000-28719).
Key Personnel
Professor Arjeh M. Cohen studied mathematics and theoretical
computer science at Utrecht University. His research fields are Discrete
Algebra and Geometry, and Mathematical Computation. He worked at
Rijnmond Authority, Rotterdam, the University of Twente, Enschede, and
CWI, Amsterdam, and at Utrecht University. Since 1992, he has been a
full professor of Discrete Mathematics at Eindhoven University of
Technology. He is scientific director of RIACA, chairman of the board of
the Research School EIDMA, and president of the OpenMath Society. He has
authored about eighty papers in refereed journals, nine books (edited
books included), and three software packages.
Dr Hans Cuypers studied mathematics in Nijmegen and Utrecht. His
research fields are Geometry and Groups, and Interactive Mathematics
Books. He worked at East Lansing (Michigan) and Kiel. Since 1991 he has
been a professor of Discrete Mathematics at Eindhoven University of
Technology. He is manager of RIACA. He has authored about forty papers
in refereed journals, and two books (edited books included).
Dr. Olga Caprotti received a PhD from RISC-Linz in symbolic
constraint solving in 1997 and then joined the European OpenMath Esprit
Project where she was one of the principal contributors to the OpenMath
standard. She is currently one of the editors of the standard and a
member of the OpenMath Society. Her main interest is the development of
client-server applications interconnecting various software systems such
as GAP, Maple, COQ, CoCoA and R. She has given numerous presentations
about OpenMath from the "Future of Mathematical Communication" in
Berkeley in 1999, to the recent "Electronic Media in Mathematics" in
Coimbra in 2001. She is co-chair of "Calculemus 2002: 10th Symposium on
the Integration of Symbolic Computation and Mechanized Reasoning".
University of Nice
The Uniersité de Nice-Sophia Antipolis
(UNSA) is a public university with some 27,000 students. The two
units principally responsible for teaching information technology
courses are the Dept. of Informatics and the Information Technology
Engineering School ESSI (École Supérieure en Sciences
Informatiques). Both units together have over 1000 students in various
programs, at various levels. The CNRS-affiliated laboratory I3S
(Informatique, Signaux, et Systèmes á Sophia-Antipolis) has
some 150 researchers, largely drawn from the above university units,
active in all aspects of information technology. The M@INLINE
(Multimedia Activities Involving Non-Linear Information for Networked
Education) group is the intersection of people involved in technologies
for informatics and communication from several institutes: the
Informatics Dept. of UNSA, ESSI, I3S, and the Institut
Universitaire de Formation de Maitres (IUFM). M@INLINE groups under the
same label researchers from complementary domains, all oriented towards
multimedia education and distance-learning. Non-Linear information and
its application to distance-learning correspond to a real need, both
from public education and private industry. We are particularly
interested in developing tools to communicate content using a mix of
multimedia sources, to personalize content, to aid in non-linear
navigation through content, and to test and evaluate results. M@INLINE's
activities can be divided into 3 categories: distance-learning,
interactive editing, and visualisation.
- Distance Learning
- We are concerned with the creation and development of course
material with digital support (CDrom, intranet, web, etc). This is
closely tied to the development and evaluation of the appropriate
tools for distance learning in an extension of work undertaken in
the European Trial-Solution project (IST-1999-11397). Briefly, the
aim of this project is to develop the necessary technology
(metadata and tools) to create new courses based on existing
material. Proposed methods and tools will allow a teacher to use
existing courses which have been pre-processed by splitting them
into small chunks. The teacher could then integrate these slices
from various sources into personalised courses.
- Interactive Editing
- The second aspect of M@INLINE, associated with the European
OpenMath project (Esprit 24-969), is oriented to the publication of
mathematical material over the web. OpenMath is a
platform-independent standard for the representation of
mathematical objects allowing their exchange between various
software tools (computer algebra systems, databases, etc.) in a
meaningful way. This project saw the development of JOME (Java
OpenMath Editor) an interactive formula renderer (selection, drag
and drop, iconification / uniconification, etc.) designed as a Java
Bean software component. JOME can be integrated into different
kinds of applications or applets to make mathematics come alive on
the web!
- Visualisation
- Communication via images plays an important role in
understanding the meaning of information. A third aspect of the
project is oriented towards interactive communication via images,
including the development of techniques for distributed
visualisation. The principal application will be presenting course
material via multimedia tools.
For administrative reasons this partner appears twice in the
summaries in part A as both the University of Nice and
CNRS.
Key Personnel
Michel Buffa is a Maître de Conférences at UNSA in the
Informatics Department, head of the Maîtrise d'Informatique
Appliquée á la Gestion (MIAGE) program, and a member of I3S.
He has taught courses specialising in image synthesis as well as the
Internet and Java. His research is oriented towards real-time 3-D
distributed graphics, as well as distance-learning platforms. He has
participated in the European Realize project.
Jean-Marc Fedou is a Professor at UNSA and head of the
Informatics Dept., and is a member of I3S. His research interests
include combinatorics and computer algebra, and he was one of the
developers of the Calico system. He has participated in the European
OpenMath project.
Marc Gaëtano is a Maître de Confèrences at
ESSI-UNSA, and a member of the Computer Algebra and Functional Equations
(CAFE) project of the Institut National de Recherches en Informatique et
en Automatique (INRIA). He has taught courses including algorithms,
programming, and computer algebra systems. His research interests are
principally in distributed computer algebra systems, and he has
participated in the European FRISCO, PoSSo and OpenMath projects.
Stéphane Lavirotte is a Maître de Conférences at
the IUFM in the New Technologies Dept., and a member of I3S. He has
taught courses including algorithms, programming, operating systems and
man-machine interfaces. His research centers on graphical user
interfaces for computer algebra systems, document analysis and
recognition (optical formula recognition), and also online teaching
techniques for scientific courses. He has participated in the European
Trial-Solution and OpenMath Thematic Network projects.
Peter Sander is a Professor at ESSI-UNSA and a member of I3S. He
was head of the Vision and Robotics postgraduate (DEA) program, and has
taught courses ranging from introductory programming with Java, to image
processing, to postgraduate differential geometry. His research
interests are in visual communication via distributed multimedia
systems. He has participated in the European Realize, OpenMath,
Trial-Solution, and OpenMath Thematic Network projects.
Jean-Paul Stromboni is a Maître de Conférences at
ESSI-UNSA and a member of I3S. He has taught courses on Control Theory,
Electronics, Applied Physics. His present research interests focus on
the use of so-called new technologies in the fields of open learning and
computer aided teaching.
Jean-Yves Tigli is a Maître de Conférences at
ESSI-UNSA and a member of I3S. He has taught courses on networks,
distributed software systems, robotics, and man-machine interfaces. His
research centers on distributed systems and tools, and interfaces for
cooperative distributed systems. He has participated in the Mauve and
Narval European projects.
© The MONET Consortium 2004