A more human approach to computing

Researchers at the School of Computer Science say they are exploring granular computing, based on looking at groups or sets of information, dubbed information granules, rather than the detail at which data is currently processed. Professor Andrzej Bargiela, director of computer science, says that by looking at data in this way, new patterns and relationships emerge that could enable new types of computer modelling in process control and optimisation, resource scheduling and bioinformatics. “Creating abstractions from detailed information is essential to human knowledge, interaction and reasoning,” says Prof Bargiela. “The human brain filters the flood of information and distils knowledge subconsciously. We process a huge amount of information: if we were aware of every single thing, our minds would be overloaded.” Several PhD projects are currently underway, with applications ranging from job scheduling to timetabling and protein classification. “Technology allows us to capture an enormous amount of information, but making most of that information represents a significant challenge,” says Prof Bargiela. “It is extremely exciting to see that the age-old paradigm of human information processing only just starts to be formalised as a well-founded method in computer science.”