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Publications

My publications are available from the University of Kent's Academic Repository.

Research Interests

I belong to the following research groups:

• Programming Languages and Systems Group
• Security Group

Although I teach artificial intelligent, logic programming and constraint solving, my interests are much more diverse than that, ranging from high-level declarative programming to low-level assembly code. A reoccurring theme of my work is abstract interpretation in which all paths through a program are systematically examined so as automatically derive information for optimising a program for, say, time or energy. Abstract interpretation is also increasingly used to search a program for bugs, such as security holes, which another interest of mine. Recently I have been working on geometric algorithms, reverse engineering and the automatic synthesis of transfer functions.

Software

• A (zipp'ed) distribution for the Minisat code that accompanies the paper Existential Quantification as Incremental SAT which explains how existentially quantified variables can be eliminated from a CNF formula using SAT.
• A (uuencod'ed and tar'ed) demo of a simple polynomial groundness analysis.
• A (zipp'ed and tar'ed) distribution of an argument size analyser.
• Super Monaco benchmarks courtesy of Bart Massey and Evan Tick.
• Control generation examples.
• SICStus Prolog convex hull code for a programming pearl.
• A suspension analyser demonstrator
• A determinacy inferencer demonstrator
• Crossword compiling via SAT solving by Colin Pigden

PhD Studentships in Computer Science

Fully funded PhD studentships are available in the Computing Laboratory at the University of Kent on the topics given below. To apply, the applicant must have at least an upper second in computer science or mathematics, or ideally, a first or masters degree. Informal enquires are extremely welcome. Applications from across Europe, as well as the UK, are encouraged.

• Discovering Invariants by Solving Constraints
• Reverse Engineering for Security
• Automatically Finding Security Vulnerabilities
• Tools for Logic Programming
• Running Programs in Reverse by Program Transformation

Grants

• EPSRC GR/K79642 Detecting and Exploiting Determinacy (finished)
• EPSRC GR/MO8769 Semantic Support for CLP (finished and ranked outstanding)
• EPSRC EP/C015517 Back-to-Bits (finished and ranked outstanding)
• EPSRC EP/D078342 LACE: Lifetime-Aware Collection (1 August 2006 -- 31 July 2009)
• EPSRC EP/E033105 VIP: Verification with Integer Polyhedra (1 June 2007 -- 31 May 2010)
• EPSRC EP/F012896 Industrial Secondment to Portcullis Computer Security Ltd (1 October 2007 -- 30 June 2008)
• Royal Society Joint Project (1 May 2006 -- 31 August 2008)
• Royal Society Industrial Fellowship (1 October 2008 -- 30 September 2012)
• Royal Society Joint Project (15 June 2011 -- 14 June 2013)
• EPSRC EP/K032585/1 Se-Ma-Match: Semantic Malware Matching (1 September 2013 -- 31 August 2016)
• EPSRC EP/K031929/1 Compositional Security Analysis for Binaries (1 September 2013 -- 31 August 2016)

Professional activities

• Co-organiser for the Workshop on Constraint Programming for Reasoning about Programming in Leeds (CPP'97).
• Programme committee for the International Conference on Logic Programming in New Mexico (ICLP'1999).
• Programme committee for the International Workshop on Logic-based Program Synthesis and Transformation in Madrid (LOPSTR'2002).
• Programme committee for the International Conference on Logic Programming in Bombay (ICLP'2003).
• Programme committee for the International Symposium on Logic-based Program Synthesis and Transformation in Uppsala (LOPSTR'2003).
• Programme committee for the Tenth International Static Analysis Symposium in San Diego (SAS'2003).
• Programme committee for the International Conference on Logic Programming in Saint-Malo (ICLP'2004)
• Programme committee for the Twelth International Static Analysis Symposium in London (SAS'2005).
• Programme committee for the International Symposium on Logic-based Program Synthesis and Transformation on the island of Isola di San Servolo within the Venetian Lagoon (LOPSTR'2006).
• Programme committee for Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming on the island of Isola di San Servolo within the Venetian Lagoon (PPDP'2006).
• Programme committee for Workshop on Constraints in Software Testing, Verification and Analysis at Nantes, France (CTSVA'2006).
• Programme chair for the International Symposium on Logic-based Program Synthesis and Transformation (LOPSTR'2007)
• Programme committee for the International Conference on Logic Programming in Udine (ICLP'2008) (not to be confused with the International Conference on Lightning Protection)
• Programme committee for the International Symposium on Logic-based Program Synthesis and Transformation in Valencia (LOPSTR'2008).
• Programme committee for the International Conference on Logic Programming in Pasadena, California (ICLP'2009)
• Programme committee for the International Symposium on Logic-based Program Synthesis and Transformation in Coimbra, Portugal (LOPSTR'2009).
• Programme committee for the Second International Workshop on Numeric and Symbolic Abstract Domains in Perpignan, France (NSAD'2010).
• Programme committee for the Fifth International Workshop on Systems Software Verification in Vancouver, Canada (SSV'2010).
• Programme committee for the Twelfth International Symposium on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages in Madrid, Spain (PADL'2010).
• Programme committee for the Joint Workshop on Implementation of Constraint Logic Programming Systems and Logic-based Methods in Programming Environments in Edinburgh, Scotland (CICLOPS-WLPE'2010).
• Programme committee for the International Symposium on Logic-based Program Synthesis and Transformation in Hagenberg, Austria (LOPSTR'2010).
• Programme committee for the International ACM Symposium on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming in Hagenberg, Austria (PPDP'2010).
• Programme committee for the Fifteenth International Workshop on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems in Antwerp, Belgium (FMICS'2010).
• Programme committee for the Third International Workshop on Numeric and Symbolic Abstract Domains in Venice, Italy (NSAD'2011).
• Programme committee for the International Conference on Logic Programming in Lexington, Kentucky (ICLP'2011)
• Programme committee for the Sixth International Workshop on Systems Software Verification (SSV'2011).
• Programme committee for the Workshop on Logic-based methods in Programming Environments in Lexington, Kentucky (WLPE'2011)
• Programme committee for the International Symposium on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming in Odense, Denmark (PPDP'2011)
• Programme committee for the Eleventh International Symposium on Functional and Logic Programming in Kobe, Japan (FLOPS'2012)
• Programme chair for the International Symposium on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming in Leuven, Belgium (PPDP'2012)
• Programme committee for the European Symposium on Programming in Rome, Italy (ESOP'2013)
• Programme committee for the Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation in Rome, Italy (VMCAI'2013)
• Programme committee for the Second Program Protection and Reverse Engineering Workshop in Rome, Italy (PPREW'2013)
• Editorial Advisor for the journal Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (formally known as The Journal of Logic Programming).
• Associate Editor for the journal Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation (formally published by Kluwer but now published by Springer)
• Treasurer for the Association of Logic Programming (ALP)

Bibliography servers

• H-index
• Google Scholar Profile
• My publications as tracked by the Trier server (incomplete)
• My publications as tracked by the Bibfinder (some repetition)
• My co-authors as tracked by the Trier server (reasonably complete)

Alter egos

Quite apart from being an academic, I am also a footballer, a shadow of a man, an artist, a windsurfer, a car restorer, a chronicler of fourteenth century society, a kart racer, a baroque singer, a party organiser, an Internet usability czar, and a saavy cook. Some further personal effects.