Final Year Projects

Business rules provide a promising approach for specifying business processes that involve complex decisions; the academic regulations of the University of Limerick being a familiar example of such complexity. Business rules engines are essentially production rule systems that automate those parts of the system that are based on the business rules. There are many examples of business rules engines, including JBoss, formerly known as Drools. The aim of this project is to specify the UL academic regulations as business rules and implement them using an engine such as JBoss.

Project Tags: requirements engineeringartificial intelligencesoftware engineeringapplication development

The Funnel and Filter site project will allow a user to register an interest in a particular football club. The site will then search suitable news sites for stories about the nominated football club and will return any finds in the form of an html page of annotated links. It should be possible for the user to identify and thus "filter out" unworthy sites. It should be possible for the user to nominate a site for inclusion in the news sites searched. The site http://www.goonernews.com/ is an example of some of what is required but only supplies Arsenal news stories but doesn’t allow unworthy news sites to be filtered out. The project will use "web scraping" techniques to locate news about the selected football club.

Project Tags: web application developmentdatabase technology

Title subject to change pending systematic literature review. The purpose of this project is to establish a baseline profile of the speech and language competency of the target audience, and methodologically develop a game that supports language development. The final product will be far from commercial, but will serve as a basis for you to explore the subject of support of special needs through computational paradigms. Look at starfall.com

Project Tags:

An application that allows user to add stocks in their stock portfolio, including the number of shares bought, the buying price, the fees paid, the dividend paid (if any) The application should be able to show the current value of your portfolio by downloading the current prices from a site such as Yahoo finance. For each item of stock the item should show the name of the stock, its ticker id, the qty, the buying price, the total cost, the current price, the current value, the break-even exit share price, the yearly dividend, the dividend yield and the retain share price. The price at which we can retain 50% of the shares but still recover the full costs. Where a stock is purchased a number of times at different prices an AverageStock line should show the average of all the items above for the stock.

Project Tags: application developmentdatabase technology

Research and develop an algorithmic music system which controls and structures a wide range of 'performances' in which stylistic, timbral and other aesthetic qualities are predetermined. The output should be synthetic in nature and create works with a high degree of 'finish' with each output of the system having the potential to be considered compositionally complete. The work should be created in MaxMSP or on a similar platform.

Project Tags: electroacoustic music composition/musicologydigital interfacessound synthesis

Ambient visualisation is using objects of art in the periphery of our vision for conveying meaningful information. An example of ambient visualisation can be a digital painting on an office wall which changes its colours according to some changes on the stock market. The goal of this project is to design and develop an ambient visualisation installation. The project will involve C++/Java programming and optionally it may involve the creation an art object(s).

Project Tags: data visualizationdigital video art/productionreal-time media performance/practicehuman computer interaction

Development of a real-time composition, which uses all the hardware equipment and instruments available in the UL Recording Studio properly connected to and controlled by a host computer. Communication Protocol: MIDI and OSC. Software: Max/Msp or Pd.

Project Tags: real-time media performance/practicecomputer networksapplication development

The preparation, creation, organization, editing and post-production of digital art can be a long, laborious process. This is to be an exploration in the design of systems that automate some, or all of the above processes, freeing the digital artist from some of the most labour intensive parts of production.

Project Tags: digital audio production/technologydigital interfacesdigital video art/productiondigital video technologyimage processingoperating systems

Develop an interactive Computer Aided Learning package for illustrating and investigating the operation of Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO), Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) and Artificial Immune Systems (AIS).

Project Tags: artificial intelligenceevolutionary computation

Design and prototyping of an interactive "Portal" to link the university of Limerick Campus with Limerick City Centre. The installation should provide ways to create social awareness between the campus community and locations of the city centre. The project will entail research and specification on social awareness systems, development of design concept and scenarios and implementation of a mock-up. The details of interaction and choice of technology is left to the student as they are part of the interaction design process.

Project Tags: interaction designdigital interfacescomputer supported cooperative workresearch methods

The creation of interaction scenarios and prototype of a collaborative interactive class portfolio, where a group pf students could share and showcase project work interactively within the class and to the outside world. More than one device should be involved, mixing the use of personal devices to create and store content, and of shared networked displays to collaboratively design and manage the portfolio. The project will include the specification of requirements, scenario design and development and prototype of the system.

Project Tags: computer supported cooperative workinteraction designdigital interfaces

Object-Oriented programming, C++, C#, Java, Software metrics, Understand for C++/Java Project Description: There is widespread discussion of which programming languages are considered the ‘best’. The aim of this project is to take a number of projects developed in C++, C# and Java and compare the quality of the projects. How the quality of the projects is measured is open to discussion but will probably involve the use of some software metrics. ‘Understand’ is a useful source-code analysis tool that can be used in this project.

Project Tags: software qualityapplication development

This project will investigate approaches towards the identification of the component's data model. Currently, component recovery techniques stop short of assessing whether the component has sufficient data to service the methods of the component and producing a data model that structures this data. This project will assess approaches that can automatically or semi-automatically inform on this data model and, for top grades, it is envisaged that the student will develop a prototype tool in support of their approach.

Project Tags: software re-engineering

This project will investigate approaches towards the identification of component interfaces. Currently, component recovery techniques stop short of identifying the methods that should remain private and those that should be public. In addition, they offer no guidance on who to partition the methods that should be public into different interfaces. This project will assess approaches that can automatically or semi-automatically inform on this partitioning and, for top grades, it is envisaged that the student will develop a prototype tool in support of their approach.

Project Tags: software re-engineering

With the advent of electroacoustic music in the 20th century, composers attempted to combine electronic resources with classical instrumentation with varying degrees of success. Different ideas have led to different approaches in bringing together humans and electronics, from fixed medium works to real-time computer music. This project proposes to study and analyze significant works in the repertoire, specifically on what aspects of each work led to its influence in music history. A significant component to this proposal will be an original electroacoustic composition with instrumentalist(s). Therefore, this proposal is intended only for students with classical music training.

Project Tags: cultural studieselectroacoustic music composition/musicologyreal-time media performance/practicesound artsound synthesis

The project consists of the development of a novel three-dimensional sound spatialisation software tool. It will incorporate recent studies in psychoacoustics, perception experiments and established multi-channel compositional techniques in its design. The software will include spatialisation, envelopment, apparent source width, reverberation and distance parameters.

Project Tags: application developmentsound spatialisationauditory displaypsychoacoustics

There is a considerable body of literature on the research topics of program families, software product lines and domain (requirements) engineering. This project would allow a good student to get involved in that research by investigating an application domain and studying the commonalities and the variabilities within it. A simple example is B&B Booking systems. Most B&B operators have similar requirements for their booking systems, but there are plenty of opportunities for variability, such as confirming bookings, how deposits are paid, whether room availability is automatically or manually confirmed, etc. In fact the degree of automation desired might be one area for the study of differences. The student choosing this project would be required to specify the requirements and implement a prototype system that can be configured to include or exclude various optional and variable functionality.

Project Tags: requirements engineeringapplication developmentinteraction design

A project for a student who wants to specialise in requirements engineering. See NP04, which is a more practical project, for what is meant by the term domain requirements engineering. The aim of this project is to develop an effective way of specifying domain requirements in terms of the common and the variable features and in particular the quality requirements. The following approach is suggested, focusing on the domain of scheduling (generally, the allocation of resources to tasks): Study the features and the quality requirements that are common to a comprehensive set of scheduling systems. Identify the features that are always included in such systems and the features that are considered desirable and those that are optional in that application domain. Reverse-engineer the features into a comprehensive requirements specification for a family of scheduling systems. Your specification template will be based on an existing requirements specification template, but modified to distinguish effectively the common requirements from the variable ones and to show the interdependencies of the variable requirements, based on your findings.

Project Tags: requirements engineeringsoftware re-engineeringresearch methods

Metrics are widely used to assess the quality of software and to build prediction models of external quality characteristics of software. However such models tend to be ‘black boxes’ that do not provide insight/understanding of the software itself. By providing visualisations of software metrics to software developers, the developers can quickly identify hotspots in the code and thus focus their attention on certain parts and help their understanding. The aim of this project is to provide such a visualisation tool.

Project Tags: software engineeringsoftware qualityapplication development

Many successful software projects endure continuing change as they adapt to new requirements or fix bugs in the system. It is useful for software developers to be aware of the parts of the system that are most change prone. This can help with cost and resource estimations and with guiding code refactoring. Existing tools provide visualisations of the number of changes at a particular point in time. However, these tools do not show how the location of changes, fluctuates over time. The aim of this project is to address this gap in software visualisation over time.

Project Tags: data visualizationsoftware engineering

Research and analyse a selection of significant compositions that integrate live instrument/s with electronics. Subsequently develop a new composition which builds upon these researched approaches. The set of works to be analysed must be agreed upon with your supervisor and should be representative of works which have pushed the boundaries aesthetically or technologically. The final materials to be presented are a score, the materials necessary to perform the work (e.g. A 'tape' part or a MaxMSP patch for live performance) and a recording of the completed work.

Project Tags: electroacoustic music composition/musicologysound synthesis

Use Grammatical Evolution or some other evolutionary method to evolve sounds or sound filters.

Project Tags: evolutionary computationsound synthesis

Conduct a qualitative research study of the project management practices performed by an organization engaged in agile software development. It is expected that this project will use PMI’s PMBOK as the base set of processes for analysis. The student must source an organization engaged in agile software development. He/She will then identify and analyse the project management activities used against the PMBOK practices in order to propose strengths and weaknesses of various practices observed.

Project Tags: project managementsoftware engineeringresearch methodsapplication development

Conduct a research study of technology applications launched and/or used in one or more Irish healthcare settings. A theoretical framework must be constructed based on technology adoption theory. This framework will then be used as a basis for the study. The goal of this study is to characterize the nature of technology adoption in a distinct set of health care settings within Ireland.

Project Tags: information extraction/retrievalapplication developmentresearch methodsproject management

The field of Evolutionary Robotics deals with the evolution of control strategies (brain) and/or morphology (body) of robots. Of specific interest is the evolution of bio-inspired artifacts able to cope with the challenges of real-world tasks and environments.

Project Tags: artificial intelligenceevolutionary computationrobotics

Development of a Generative Drum Machine that utilizes an extended set of plug-in parameters for generating drum patterns, which enable composers to arrange and work on the overall structure of his/her drum composition/line. This tool will enable interaction with macro compositional parameters rather than individual loops/sections only.

Project Tags: application developmentsound synthesis

Use Evolutionary Algorithms and Neural Networks to predict future movements in international financial markets based on past performances.

Project Tags: artificial intelligenceevolutionary computation

In 2008, Finlay McAree wrote a physics engine for 2D games as his final year project. This project will build on that engine to create a fully realised butterfly collecting game. The basic scenario for the game is that butterflies are fluttering about the field of play. Low scoring, common, butterflies are easily accessible at normal height while the rare, high value, butterflies flutter out of reach. A player must collect as many butterflies as he can to fill his specimen book in a specified period of time. To reach high value specimens the player must run and jump and take advantage of the many ramps, springboards, platforms, and updrafts to be found on the field of play. Catching more than one butterfly at a time will attract bonus points. As the butterflies are captured the specimen book fills up.

Project Tags: application developmentgame development

The project will consist of composing music that demonstrates new compositional and spatialisation techniques possible with the utilisation of two or more subwoofers. The composition/s will incorporate recent experimental findings in the disciplines of auditory perception and cognition in the both the spatialation and compositional approaches.

Project Tags: electroacoustic music composition/musicologysound spatialisationauditory display

Gamebryo Lightspeed is the latest game development tool from Emergent, the world's leading game engine manufacturer. The CSIS department has recently been granted an academic licence to use this software. It is a fully functional game engine that can be used for rapid prototyping and producing full games in virtually any genre. This project will be about learning to use the tool and producing a playable game. http://www.emergent.net/Products/Gamebryo-LightSpeed/

Project Tags: game development

Development of an application for the dynamic retrieval of specific data chunks from large sonified data sets in a multichannel audio setup. The application uses a WIMU based glove device that enables users to browse and control the audio data stream by using simple and intuitive gestures.

Project Tags: application developmentdata visualizationsound spatialisation

Google Maps is very good at finding a shortest path from A to B, even if you specify an intermediate point. But what about if I want to find the shortest path that goes through A, B, ..., X? This project would involve opening contact with the Google Maps service, querying it, parsing the data it returns and then drawing the computed shortest route on a map.

Project Tags: information extraction/retrievalsoftware engineering

You are probably familiar with Google's Street View, where you can see how streets of a city actually look. (This is invaluable when you find yourself negotiating Paris' Gare du Nord area at 04.00 in the morning :-).) Google's problem is that they would like to photo every street as quickly as possible ? given that they have to obey speed limits! So they want to keep to an absolute minimum driving over streets that they have already photographed. The goal of this project is to develop an algorithm that finds the optimal routing of the Google Car for an arbitrary city.

Project Tags: application development

GPUs such as Nvidia's or ATI's can now be used for general computations. The web site www.gpgpu.org lists many areas that have benefitted from the calculation powers of GPUs. In this project you can pick a numerical algorithm of your choice and you will implement one of these processors. If you are interested in the idea but can't think of an algorithm please see me.

Project Tags: application development

The project will consist of composing multi-channel electroacoustic music that includes elevated loudspeakers in the set-up. The project will focus on exploiting the elevated loudspeakers, highlighting the sonic advantages available in the third dimension. The incorporation of recent sound perception studies is a key feature of the project, as is the inclusion of psychoacoustics and auditory scene analysis findings.

Project Tags: electroacoustic music composition/musicologysound spatialisationpsychoacousticsauditory display

In the field of music technology, musicians are often called upon to understand mathematical and physical models of acoustic vibrations, resonating bodies, and other complex mechanical systems. Many musicians do not have the mathematical background to understand these principles. This project proposes to create a series of interactive tutorials/demonstrations of the mathematical and physical foundations of resonating systems that musicians could use to intuitively understand the math and physics in their field. This proposal requires a solid understanding of mechanical physics and calculus.

Project Tags: application developmentcomputer assisted learningdigital audio production/technologydigital signal processinghuman computer interactioninteraction design

Develop a sound-art installation which has an interactive relationship with its environment. The installation should be site specific and take into account its architectural and social situation. The work will use sensors, loudspeakers and MaxMSP. It should exhibit technical competence whilst presenting a strong aesthetic vision. It will be necessary to research previous examples of such work with this research playing an important part in the projects development.

Project Tags: electroacoustic music composition/musicologysound artsound synthesis

Mastermind was a very popular game in the 70s. There are several web sites where you can play it (e.g. http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/mastermind/mastmind.html) but the goal of this project is to write a stand alone application that is part of the KDE games suite. This would involve using the Qt class library, a very modern but well thought out library.

Project Tags: software engineering

Tetravex is an infectious 'strategy' game that comes with the Gnome Linux desktop. The goal of this project is to write a stand alone application that is part of the KDE games suite to play this game; possible extensions would be to allow for more than square tiles, e.g. hexagonal tiles. Again, use of the Qt class library is strongly recommended.

Project Tags: software engineering

The student will investigate the efficacy of reinforcement learning in facilitating robotic platforms to acquire basic competency in behaviours such as wandering and navigation. Initial experiments will be simulation based, and then progress to real world prototypes. Students will spend the first semester doing background reading and a literature review. The second semester is focused on design and implementation. Simulation can be done in Java, but the real world prototype will be developed in C++. An added twist to the proverbial tale for the ambitious student is the seeding of the environments with perceptual aliasing - places that look the same on the robot's sensory channel, but are actually different and would therefore require different actions to yield a near optimal behaviour. The benefit of this type of project is that it provides one with a basic infrastructure necessary to develop more intelligent autonomous agents for game playing.

Project Tags: roboticsartificial intelligence

Grammatical Evolution is the world's most well used Automatic Programming system, using Grammars to guide how to produce programs. This project will involve producing grammars for Limericks (or some simple and well established form of verse) and using an existing tool to produce a system to automatically evolve poetry. http://grammaticalevolution.org/

Project Tags: evolutionary computation

Colouring the vertices of a given graph so that no two adjacant vertices have the same colour is a surprisingly important problem in computer science with applicatinos in timetabling, mobile phone frequency assignment situations, and others. The goal of this project is to study existing colouring programs and then to come up with better ones. This is a hard project and is aimed mainly at the ambitious student.

Project Tags: application development

Research and development of a real-time system using interface technologies to interact with music software. The interface should enable the user to access a wide range of possible real-time sound creation/manipulation techniques and the completed system should be stable and user friendly as befits a tool for live music performance. Additionally the system should be presented in performance.

Project Tags: electroacoustic music composition/musicologydigital interfaces

It is well known that the games industry caters mainly for a male market. Additionally, girls are still underrepresented in computer systems/computer science/ software engineering courses nationally and internationally. This computer game would be developed specifically for girls, including features which would be of interest to them. However, it would include concepts from computer science, computer systems and software engineering so that there is some learning involved. I expect that the developer of this game will follow requirements engineering techniques to gather and analyse requirements collected from the user group before embarking on the implementation of this project.

Project Tags: application developmentcomputer assisted learningcomputer graphicsgame developmenthuman computer interactionweb application development

Create a short animated movie using Machinima techniques. http://www.machinima.com/

Project Tags: digital video art/productiondigital video technology

The goal of this project is to develop a massively multiplayer online game that will be played in a browser. The actual topic of the game will be chosen by the student. Ideally, by the demo day the game should be online. The project involves the development of a highly-interactive website and database design. The platform for the game (PC, Playstation, iPhone, etc.) will be chosen by the student.

Project Tags: game developmentdatabase technologyweb application development

The goal of this project is to design and develop a mind-mapping technique which will become the basis of user-to-user interaction within a Web-based social network. The project involves the development of a highly-interactive social network website, database design and the design of suitable mind-mapping techniques. Suggested technologies and tools to be used: AJAX, PHP, MySQL.

Project Tags: computer supported cooperative workdata visualizationdatabase technologyweb application development

Most advanced digital compact cameras support face detection. Lets have a go at doing the same for mobiles. Survey the approaches to face detection and implement one for a mobile platform. Note that face recognition is beyond the scope of this project.

Project Tags: machine vision

We have all heard about the predicitive text user who thought they were typing 'picking' but -- because both hashed to the same 7-digit sequence of digits -- it came up as 'shaking'. Write a program that would take random text and would turn it in to something equivalent (in the above sense), but amusing.

Project Tags: application development

Specification, design and prototype development of an Augmented Reality interface for mobile phones to aid the navigation of a space (exhibition, university campus, urban space, etc.) through video content. Using an Augmented Reality toolkit, the contents and interaction scenarios will have to be specified in accordance to a particular space/user group.

Project Tags: augmented realityhuman computer interactioninteraction design

The project will consist of composing multi-channel electroacoustic music that is informed by research outcomes from psychoacoustics, reproduced multi-channel and concert hall research in the spatialisation, sound generation and sound manipulation of the work/s

Project Tags: electroacoustic music composition/musicologysound spatialisationpsychoacousticsauditory display

The project consists of running a series of multi-dimensional perception experiments in an anechoic chamber and within a concert hall environment in order to determine whether the proposed spatial attribute of ‘engulfment’ can be validated. *Engulfment – covered in sound.

Project Tags: auditory display

The building of a prototype of a multi-touch table to support diabetes management meetings. The patients should be able to share the graphs monitoring their condition on a weekly basis and to relate them to those of others for mutual support. This project is linked to the PRTLI "FutureComm" research initiative at the Interaction Design Centre.

Project Tags: computer supported cooperative workdigital interfacesinteraction design

Realization of a Multimedia Art Installation using data collected by sensor devices built into the UL fountain in front of the Concert Hall. Input to the system will be a single data stream taken from a single sensor device accordingly chosen. A study of the “One to Many” mapping strategy will also be implemented.

Project Tags: real-time media performance/practicesound artdigital interfaces

Evolutionary algorithms, such as cellular automata or genetic algorithms, have been applied to the field of music often as a way to generate new musical material. This proposal is open to a variety of final year projects, including but not limited to: music composition utilizing evolutionary algorithms, sound synthesis methods using evolutionary algorithms, software package for non-technical musicians, or an original suggestion by a student.

Project Tags: application developmentcomputer assisted learningdigital audio production/technologyelectroacoustic music composition/musicologyreal-time media performance/practicesound artsound synthesis

Neural networks can be applied to a variety of musical tasks, from sound design to music composition to computer "improvisation." This proposal is open to a variety of final year projects, including but not limited to: music composition utilizing neural networks, sound synthesis methods using neural networks, software package for musical neural networks designed for non-technical musicians, or an original suggestion by a student.

Project Tags: application developmentartificial intelligencecomputer assisted learningdigital audio production/technologydigital signal processingelectroacoustic music composition/musicologyreal-time media performance/practicesound artsound synthesis

In 1998, researchers in CSIS at UL developed a dance floor that we called LiteFoot. See http://www.ul.ie/~pal/litefoot/ Since then, common hardware interfaces have changed and new software platforms have emerged. This project will cover: a) developing an Arduino application that can interface between the massively parallel opto-electronic sensor system and USB. (http://www.arduino.cc/) b) developing a PD Extra Object that can preprocess the data from the LiteFoot floor via a USB port. (http://puredata.info/) Environment: LiteFoot floor, Arduino, Pure Data, Xcode, Apple OS X.

Project Tags: interaction designhuman computer interactionsound artcomputer graphicsdigital interfaces

The are endless ways in which to interface with and control digital systems during performance. You should design a number of prototype control surfaces for interfacing with digital systems of your preference. These should be tested against their success during real-time performance.

Project Tags: digital interfacescomputer networkshuman computer interactioninteraction designreal-time media performance/practice

The design & comparison of systems enabling the participant control the narrative of an artwork. This is also a study in the practise of producing art that is to be presented in a non-linear, open-ended manner.

Project Tags: game developmentdigital video art/productioninteraction designreal-time media performance/practice

This project will look at scraping information off open source tools like bugzilla to automatically detect the type of maintenance activity being requested and performed in successful Open Source projects. This work will thus revisit Leintz and Swanson's characterization of maintenance in an open source context for the twenty first century.

Project Tags:

The new focus on environmental issues will result in mass deployment of environmental sensors that transmit data on a continuous basis to a home server. This requires a paradigm shift to support the processing requirements for the volumes of data generated. Nvidia have developed the CUDA paradigm as a means of processing large data volumes across a farm of graphic devices based on a parallel programming paradigm. You are required to profile the performance gains from using such a paradigm across a target set of image processing applications such as edge detectors and Fourier Transforms.

Project Tags: software engineeringimage processing

The project will consist of running a series of experiments examining the accuracy of human location of moving sound objects. The experiments will be run in an anechoic chamber and concert hall environment.

Project Tags: auditory display

Develop an easy to install virtual hard drive sitting on top of a plethora of computing devices, a personal cloud if you will. The reasons are endless, especially for the technophobe who has the misfortune to share a dwelling with a want to be hacker. The alternative is iCloud, MobileMe, Google, etc. Some costs money, and some do not support all platforms. Have you tried to sync with Google calendar on Samsung F480? Neither have I. Also, there are some photos that might be best kept grounded, such as when one was not looking their best. Likewise for documents that failed to convey one's hidden genius, or that all encompassing p.xls file - passwords for those of you not in the know.

Project Tags: software engineering

The advisor will allow users to browse through an oil database. It will assist users who wish to create their own oil blends by identifying compatible oils. It will assist users who wish to create their own essential oil perfumes by identifying compatible oils with the appropriate scent notes (i.e. Top, Middle, Base). For a given ailment it will suggest oil remedies. To achieve a given effect it will suggest appropriate recipes. It will warn of possible dangers when any oil is chosen for a blend. We have already created a web page version and a PC based version of this project. This project will attempt to rewrite or port the existing PC based version to the Pocket PC. The target operating system will be Windows Mobile 6.1.

Project Tags: application developmentdatabase technology

Prediction models are widely used for software estimation. Such models use statistical, AI and other approaches. The aim of this project is to use one of these approaches to validate a set of software metrics for software change. The metrics can be easily extracted from the code using the Understand suite of source-code analysis tools.

Project Tags: software qualityvalidation/verificationsoftware engineering

Prediction models are widely used for software estimation. Such models use statistical, AI and other approaches. The aim of this project is to use one of these approaches to validate a set of software metrics for software faults. In other words, the metrics are examined to determine if they are useful to determine where faults occur in the system. The metrics can be easily extracted from the code using the Understand suite of source-code analysis tools.

Project Tags: software engineering

The Jackson approach to program design separates the algorithm architecture from the executable program statements. This idea can be used to produce a web-based system that allows us to create useful programming tutorials. In this tutorial system the lecturer provides a working program, the program test data, the expected results, and the program specification. The student is shown the program specification and the randomized executable statements and is then tasked with reordering them so as to produce a working program that produces the correct results. The system will accept the students reordered statements, submit them to the console based COBOL (or other) compiler for compilation, linking and running and, assuming that the reordered program compiles, will then compare the actual results with the expected results. The usual administrative and user functionality that such a system might entail will also have to be provided.

Project Tags: web application developmentcomputer assisted learning

Since the 20th century, composers such as Iannis Xenakis have developed random and stochastic processes, their generation, and their implementation into music. This project proposes to research and analyze the history and current practices in these methods. A significant component to this proposal will be an original electroacoustic composition utilizing random or stochastic methods.

Project Tags: cultural studieselectroacoustic music composition/musicologyreal-time media performance/practicesound artsound synthesis

The plugin should allow users to analyse the readability of Word documents. Users of Word can already request readability statistics but this project will offer a far more sophisticated analysis. Users of the readability plugin should be able to specify a style model suitable for their target audience. The readability program should analyse the Word document, produce a style diagram and various readability indices, and should identify sentences that don't fit the style model. The project will be based on an application produced many years ago by Scandinavian Systems. The manual for that application will form the functional specification for the project. The specification may be modified by any applicable modern research. Advanced students wishing to attract a high grade for the project should make it possible for users to define new style models. This could be achieved by feeding the program with documents written by an author upon whose style the model is to be based. The program could create the new style model by analysing the writing style used in the documents. References: Readability Program for the IBM PC, XT and AT - Scandinavian Systems PC - Manual.

Project Tags: application development

COBOL does not have any way of evaluating regular expressions. In certain situations, such as validating user input, regular expressions would greatly simplify coding. To rectify this omission this project will create a set of external sub-programs for COBOL for COBOL that can be used to evaluate regular expressions. In addition a wrapping OO-Class must be created to allow the regular expression functionality to be used in OO-COBOL programs.

Project Tags: software engineeringsoftware re-engineering

The player would enter a world populated with different types of Stakeholders and would navigate through a series of encounters and meetings to elicit a target set of requirements for a target system. The target system will be one invented by the game designer and have some unpredictable but logically coherent aspects, such that they cannot be guessed by the player. The idea of the game is to illustrate the relationship between goals, requirements, constraints, business rules, and other sources of requirements. It could be implemented as a single-player game enhanced with some suitable multi-media aspects, or for the very ambitious student, a multiple role player game where players have to cooperate as well as compete.

Project Tags: game developmentrequirements engineeringcomputer assisted learning

Use Grammatical Evolution to evolve control programs for simulated robots.

Project Tags: evolutionary computationrobotics

How to navigate safely home from a night in Limerick city centre while remaining (un)observed by the network of CCTV cameras. This project involves some graph traversing algorithms but more importantly the creating of the graph of the necessary network of streets.

Project Tags: application development

Algorithms should be designed to generate digital art from the input of real-time information or predetermined information. Such algorithms should be developed and judged on both a functional & aesthetic level. This can be an exploration in the media of sound, vision or both.

Project Tags: computer graphicsdata visualization

In order for an autonomous intelligent mobile robot to build a map based on sensory data from incoming perceptual channels, the agent must know where it is in the model that represents the current environment. This problem is referred to as self localisation, and has been traditionally resolved using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs). You are required to use statistical techniques that model odometry error as an alternative to the computationally intensive HMM approach. The platform will be a Pioneer 3 using the Aria control system.

Project Tags: roboticsartificial intelligence

The goal of this project is to develop an online flash game as well as a highly interactive website which will allow user registration and will also maintain a top score list. The game might be an arcade game but this can be changed by the student. The emphasis in this project is on the graphical design which should be of very high standard. This project will involve not only flash development but also the development of the website that contains the game and the supporting database.

Project Tags: database technologygame developmentweb application development

This project aims at the research and development of a 2D browser for very large social networks of hierarchical nature. The whole network cannot be displayed at once, thus a specific method for browsing should be implemented. It should allow the user to navigate the network easily and identify the important people in it. This will be a research and C++/Java programming project. Web-interface can also be developed.

Project Tags: application developmentdata visualizationhuman computer interaction

Starting in 1996, we developed the concept of Sonic Browsing at the Interaction Design Centre in CSIS at the University of Limerick. A number of iterations on various platforms were explored and evaluated. This FYP entails designing and implementing the Sonic Browser concepts in Adobe Flash, to enable people to browse, explore and access audio content on the web faster and easier. For inspiration see: http://www.softday.ie/txtultr/kakaphonizer.html http://www.idc.ul.ie/data/publications/9_fernstro.pdf http://www.idc.ul.ie/data/publications/14_17_EoinBrazil.pdf Environment: Adobe Flash, Adobe Flash Media Server.

Project Tags: interaction designsound artcomputer graphicsdigital audio production/technologysound spatialisationdigital signal processing

This project can be done at different levels of difficulty, depending on level of integration. Ideally, design and implement a plugin for a spreadsheet package (Excel, Numbers, OpenOffice, etc) that connects to Pure Data (PD), and design a number of PD-patches that can parametrically be controlled by data from the spreadsheet. For inspiration, think of the "wizard-like" feature most spreadsheet packages have for visual graphs, but in this project it is about having a number of template sonifications that the user can modify and adapt. Levels of difficulty a) Full integration. When data is selected in the spreadsheet, or when it's recalculated due to change of an equation or variable, it is immediately sonified. b) Connection via .csv file. A .csv is exported, then imported and parsed by PD, then sonified. For inspiration, see for example Sonification Sandbox, http://sonify.psych.gatech.edu/research/sonification_sandbox/sandbox.html The Sandbox only uses MIDI and traditional music instrument timbres and pitches. In this FYP, it is envisaged to go beyond this limitation and use anything from granular to formant to additive, subtractive, etc., synthesis, with flexible mapping of parameters to enable users to sonically explore the data set from different "perspectives". Environment: Spreadsheet program of your choice, PD, (Xcode), Apple OS X.

Project Tags: auditory displaysound artinteraction designhuman computer interactiondigital audio production/technology

In the Sounding Object project (http:// www.soundobject.org/), we investigated novel ideas about sound in ubiquitous computing. This FYP entails to design and evaluate a number of sound object models of "everyday sounds", ideally chosen from the categories in our Ecological Sounds library (http:// www.idc.ul.ie/mikael/sounds/ecosound.zip). In particular the Sound Object models should be parametrically controlled. For inspiration: http://www.soundobject.org/papers/sob.pdf http://www.soundobject.org/SObBook/SObBook_JUL03.pdf

Project Tags: sound synthesisauditory displayhuman computer interaction

Design and develop a music application, which enables sonic browsing (i.e. the act of browsing computer files (audio loops) by means of the auditory system) and dynamic loop layering for real-time compositions. The physical interface consists of a sensor-augmented ball, through which the retrieval of its orientation data serves as main control device.

Project Tags: application developmentdatabase technologyinteraction design

Student Monitoring System "Here's an interesting idea. The Mainichi Daily News is reporting that Japan's Aoyama Gakuin University has distributed 550 iPhone 3Gs to staff and students so that they can use the phone's GPS capabilities to monitor class attendance. In fact, the school will cover the basic charges so that the students aren't required to absorb the extra financial burden. That seems like an awfully expensive way to accomplish what my sixth grade teacher, Sr. Dolores, did by shouting, "Caolo!" and waiting for my "Here!", but a major university has different needs (and budgets) than a tiny elementary school in Scranton." - Teachers: Monitor school attendance with iPhone 3G by Dave Caolo on May 19th 2009. http://www.tuaw.com/2009/05/19/teachers-monitor-school-attendance-with-iphone-3g/ Depending on the size of a class, manually taking an attendance list or scanning ID cards can be a time consuming task. This project will design, code, test and evaluate a system that will allow students to respond to a question(s) using SMS messaging (during a session) from which the tutor can gain some insight into how well his/her students have engaged with the material during the session and also monitor attendance at sessions. If you are interested in this project please have a read of these two articles before arranging to meet with me. http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~dge/LectureFeedback/FeedbackProj.pdf http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/rlos/elliman/

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Artists often use social issues as a creative device. This practise should be explored, using direct and indirect approaches in creating art that has meaning on many levels. The media of sound and vision should both be used, both separately and in unison.

Project Tags: cultural studiesdigital video art/productionsound art

Multi-sensory art is to be created to explore the difference between the suggestions of the individual parts and those of the whole work. Syncronisity, masking, layering, multiple structures, the macro versus the micro, motiff versus the massive. All stimuli are open to exploration, such as sound, light, touch, heat etc..

Project Tags: data visualizationdigital interfacesdigital video art/production

A task faced by anybody trying to find a person in a large database to perform some task is to find the most suitable person for the job. This is often trickier than it first appears because the keywords used to describe a person's skills will not always match the keywords that describe the task. Design (and implement) a strategy for ranking people in a database according to a set of (possible different) criteria. This problem has lots of commercial application potential.

Project Tags: information extraction/retrievallanguage processingapplication development

Create an audio-visual response to the themes of time, liminality and/or failure. The completed work should be a quality example of filmic art yet should give considered and balanced consideration to both sonic and visual elements. The final product should be presented as a high quality film in surround sound suitable for theatre presentation.

Project Tags: digital video art/productionelectroacoustic music composition/musicology

The idea here is to mimic the success of 'Twitter' where composers can send small musical pieces/segments to each other via a lightweight notation in text messages on their mobile phone. The student will need to choose a musical notation that maximizes ease of use and musical content in a small 128 character message. This musical notation should be accompanied by software that allows creation and playback, ideally based on a mobile phone.

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This project will develop a simulation of traffic around the UL campus. It will allow various simulations to occur so that traffic flow based on change could be monitored: Typical examples would be: · User should be able to change junction types (e.g. roundabout substituted for t-junction); · Flexitime introduced into the University; · Extra roads / buildings built, · Constructing a flow system so that no user would be more than a specific length of time in traffic. I expect students to analyse current traffic flows around the UL campus, to develop an interactive front-end interface, to provide output information upon which people can make decisions about traffic flow. Variation on this project: The UL campus is interesting in that it is an enclosed area and there are traffic problems. However, if you are interested in taking another section of road and simulating this, then I would also be interested in talking to you.

Project Tags: application developmentcomputer graphicsdatabase technologyweb application development

Within the University of Limerick the UL Women’s Forum is a voluntary group who have a number of subcommittees and who run various events throughout the year. We would like to have a web presence which would include our terms of reference, a content manager system which allows us to update easily with news and to announce events which happen on a regular basis. The student who takes on this project will be expected to gather the user requirements from the committee members and chairs of the sub-committees. They will collate these requirements and work actively with the user group to ensure that they produce a working system.

Project Tags: application developmentdatabase technologyweb application development

Develop an interactive ‘point and click’ style mystery/adventure game based on the UL campus including real (and artistically modified) footage of the campus (in the Myst genre), together with cinematographic inserts. Additionally, provide a google earth ‘street view’ style rendition of some of the walkways/paths for further immersion. An atmospheric sound track should also be created as part of the production.

Project Tags: game developmentdigital video art/productionsound art

Use the Unreal World Editor to recreate (part of) the University and populate with an interacting mix of students, academics, and others. Develop strategies for survival/ character development based on techniques from the computational intelligence field.

Project Tags: artificial intelligencegame development

In-depth evaluation of usability of small-scale touch screen displays that are becoming more common these days, in devices such as iPhones, satellite navigators, video cameras, etc. Testing and analysis of results on a variety of interfaces, to highlight shortcomings; selection of one interfaces for re-design, and creation of a prototype to run on a small touch-screen for evaluation.

Project Tags: human computer interactiondigital interfacesresearch methods

Video is often used in user testing in usability evaluations. The idea behind this FYP is to use Flash video (.flv) and to design a web based tool for multiple evaluators to annotate video with pointers, markers and comments, and for such evaluation data to be amalgamated and exported for further analysis. For inspiration: Try to annotate a clip (of your own) on YouTube. Consider if the annotations could be exported/downloaded, with their hyperlink properties to the video and timecode they came from retained. Environment: Adobe Flash, Adobe Flash Media Server.

Project Tags: interaction designhuman computer interactionsoftware engineeringdigital video technology

A local charity seeks your assistance in developing a website to support their activities. This project will involve identifying the requirements of the proposed system as well as designing, coding, testing and evaluating it. You will also be required to produce a short video of their facilities which will be accessible for the proposed website.

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Inspired by BIAIT - Business Information Analysis and Integration Technique (Carlson 1979), a technique used for characterising business systems with a view to automating them, this updated version could be used to kick-start the process of developing Web-based business systems. BIAIT essentially used 7 questions to characterise the business: 1. Does the supplier bill the customer, or does the customer pay cash? 2. Does the supplier deliver the product at some time in the future, or does the customer take the order with him? 3. Does the supplier keep a profile of the customer, or is every transaction a surprise? 4. Is the price negotiated or fixed? 5. Is the product rented or purchased? 6. Does the supplier keep track of the product after it is sold or not? 7. Is the product made to order or provided from stock? The answers to these questions helped to identify the business processes that needed to be supported by the eventual system. For WIAIT, you would first thoroughly research the area of online selling, then devise a set of analogous questions that would guide the Web developer in the design of Web-based online shops, and develop some quick prototypes to validate the usefulness of your approach. Reference: Carlson, W.M. (1979). The new horizon in business information analysis. Data Base 10(4) 3-9.

Project Tags: web application developmentrequirements engineeringsoftware engineeringapplication development