Computer Science Research Evaluation 2001–2005 Department of Computer Science Fredrik Bajers Vej 7E DK 9220 Aalborg Ø Denmark Aalborg University Computer Science, Aalborg University—Research Evaluation 2001–2005 Edited by Josva Kleist Cover design by Jens Lindberg Printed by UNI.PRINT Copyright c 2006 by Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University. All rights reserved. Preface It is the policy of the Faculty of Engineering and Science at Aalborg University that its research units are to be evaluated every five years. Following that policy, the present report documents the fourth research evaluation of the Department of Computer Science and covers the period 2001–2005. According to the Faculty’s guidelines, the objectives of the evaluation are three- fold. The first is to assess whether there is a satisfactory agreement between allo- cated internal and external research resources and the research accomplished. The second is to determine whether the Department’s actual research efforts are consis- tent with its goals and plans for the period, as they are expressed in the long-term research plans of the Faculty of Engineering and Science. As the third objective, the evaluation is intended to aid the Department in planning its future research efforts. Realizing that a research evaluation itself is a learning experience that pro- vides an opportunity to rise above the daily routine and reflect upon research, we agreed upon an additional objective. Within the Department, the evaluation—the process as well as the final report—should constructively aid the staff members in evaluating and improving their effectiveness as researchers, as group leaders, and as administrators of research at the departmental level. In particular, the evalua- tion presents an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of departmental policy in promoting high quality research. The research evaluation process that has led to the production of this document began in Early 2005, when the Department’s research leaders (professors Christian S. Jensen, Finn V. Jensen, and Kim G. Larsen and associate professor Jan Stage) and the head of department (Peter A. Nielsen) initiated discussions on the struc- ture of the process. Among the early, important tasks, a five-member evaluation committee was appointed. Professor Christian S. Jensen accepted to be the local member of the committee (being local, he would be without a vote). The Department was delighted when Professor Stefan Arnborg (KTH, Swe- den), Director Keith Jeffery (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK), Professor Tho- mas Sinkjær (Center for Sensory-Motoer Interaction, AAU, Denmark), and Pro- fessor Ian Sommerville (Lancaster University, UK) agreed to be on the committee. We felt that this committee of recognized and experienced senior scientists and re- search leaders would be able to cover all the rather diverse research areas in the Department and provide an insightful and wide-ranging evaluation. (Short curric- ula vitae of the members of the evaluation committee may be found in Chapter 2.) Next, the general structure of the evaluation process and of this report were agreed upon. The structure of the evaluation report was based on that of its pre- decessor, the main novelty being that the printed report does not include all the background material provided to the committee by the research groups. The contributions by the Department’s research groups to the evaluation report i ii went through discussions within the department. This process was useful, as it in- variably raised questions about the research approaches, results, and organization of the research groups that were not addressed at first. The contributions that re- sulted from this process were then collected in a preliminary evaluation report. I was given the responsibility of steering the process, coordinating with Christian S. Jensen when appropriate, and of editing the report. Each research group appointed an editor responsible for providing the group’s contribution. By early December 2005, a 347-page preliminary report (on which Part II of this report is based) was completed and sent to the evaluation committee members. In January 2006, a two-day research evaluation seminar was held at a confer- ence facility. All research staff, including Ph.D. students, long-term visitors, and technical and administrative staff from the Department were invited. On the first day, the Department’s research groups gave oral presentations of their research, allowing the committee and other attendees to ask questions on both the presen- tations and the preliminary report. During the afternoon of the first day, and part of the morning of the second, the evaluation committee worked separately (apart from a discussion with the research group leaders during which the overall orga- nization of the Department was clarified to the committee), and the attendees took part in various activities related to the general theme of research evaluation. At the end of the seminar, the committee presented its evaluation to the Department and answered questions. Following the seminar, the evaluation committee finalized its written evalua- tion, which forms Chapter 3 of this document. In parallel, the research units pro- duced final versions of their contributions. It is those slightly updated descriptions that, possibly subjected to some minor editing, appear in Part II of this report. Part I of this report contains the actual evaluation of the Department’s research. It provides a brief description of the formal context of the evaluation, short cur- ricula vitae of the members of the committee, and then presents the committee’s evaluation. Part II has a chapter for the Department in general and one for each research group. It covers the background and organizational context of the Department and the overall organization of the Department’s research. Finally, it evaluates the overall administration and organization of research and presents a plan for the period 2006–2010. In their chapter, each research group provides an overview of its profile, summarizes the research goals, and present the activities and results for the period. Finally, a self-evaluation and plans for the next period are given. Detailed descriptions of activities and results and descriptions of organization and staff, Ph.D. projects, research collaborations, service and other research-related activities, and a bibliography then follow in an appendix. Part III provides a brief summary in Danish of the report. Designing the research evaluation and producing this report was intrinsically a consensual and collective effort involving to varying degrees all the researchers in the Department. I thank them all for their assistance and support. However, the editor for each group: Linas Bukauskas, Hans Huttel,¨ Manfred Jaeger, and Jesper iii Kjeldskov deserve special thanks for their work as editors of the contributions by the research groups. Luca Aceto, who edited the previous evaluation report, made my editorial work much easier by providing the LATEX files used for the previous report. The cover page of the report was designed by Jens Lindberg. Any infelicity in this report is solely the editor’s responsibility. Aalborg, Denmark JOSVA KLEIST March, 2006 iv Contents I The Evaluation and its Framework 1 1 Evaluation Guidelines 3 2 The Evaluation Committee 5 3 Evaluation Report 9 3.1 Summary . 9 3.2 Introduction . 9 3.3 The Research groups . 10 3.3.1 Database and Programming Technologies . 11 3.3.2 Distributed Systems and Semantics . 12 3.3.3 Information Systems . 12 3.3.4 Machine Intelligence . 14 3.4 Growth and expansion . 15 3.5 Organisational structure . 16 3.6 The review process . 16 3.7 Conclusions . 17 II The Department’s Research Report 19 4 The Department of Computer Science 21 4.1 Introduction . 21 4.2 Background, Conditions, and Funding . 21 4.2.1 Computer Science at Aalborg University . 21 4.2.2 A Brief History of the Department . 22 4.2.3 Research Funding . 23 4.3 The Department’s Organisation . 24 4.3.1 Research Groups . 24 4.3.2 Research-Based Education . 25 4.3.3 Ph.D. studies . 26 4.3.4 Collaboration with IT Industry: Nouhauz . 27 4.4 Own Evaluation of the Department . 27 4.4.1 Strategy . 28 4.4.2 New Leadership . 30 4.4.3 New Initiatives . 31 v vi Contents 5 Database and Programming Technologies 33 5.1 Excecutive Summary . 33 5.2 Profile of the Group . 33 5.2.1 Research Profile . 33 5.2.2 Staff . 34 5.3 Research Goals 2001–05 . 36 5.4 Activities and Results . 37 5.4.1 Mobile Internet Services . 37 5.4.2 Additional, Planned Research Areas . 39 5.4.3 New Research Initiatives . 41 5.5 The Group’s Own Evaluation . 42 5.6 Research Plan 2006–2010 . 48 5.6.1 General Considerations . 48 5.6.2 Focus Areas . 49 5.7 Detailed Description of Activities and Results . 55 5.7.1 Funded Projects . 55 5.7.2 Specific Projects . 65 5.8 Organization and Staff . 67 5.9 Ph.D. Projects . 79 5.9.1 Project Descriptions . 79 5.10 Collaboration . 98 5.10.1 Collaborations with Academia . 98 5.10.2 Collaborations with State Agencies . 100 5.10.3 Industry Collaboration . 100 5.10.4 Visits at Other Institutions . 102 5.10.5 Industry Collaboration Through Student Projects . 102 5.11 Services . 103 5.11.1 Program Committees . 103 5.11.2 Conference Related Services . 111 5.11.3 Invited Talks . 112 5.11.4 Editorial Services . 118 5.11.5 Reviews . 118 5.11.6 Evaluation Committees . 123 5.11.7 Consulting . 127 5.11.8 Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards and Committees 127 5.11.9 General . 128 5.12 Bibliography . 129 5.12.1 Coverage . 129 5.12.2 Refereeing and Acceptance Rates . 130 5.12.3 Notes Concerning Citations . 130 5.12.4 Edited Books .