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The spin-out company CSM Ltd. was set up in 1991 to commercially develop Durham research on program transformation. Up until 1999, this company (which in the mid-90's became Durham Software Engineering Ltd. and subsequently Software Migrations Ltd.) and researchers at Durham University developed the FermaT Workbench: an industrial-strength assembler re-engineering workbench for program comprehension, migration and re-engineering. In 1999, Software Migrations Ltd. relocated to St. Albans and now has an extensive list of national and international clients. All its products (software and services) are built on the FermaT Workbench and has generated considerable revenue with this revenue strongly expected to rise steeply in the near future.
The success of the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) has been due in large part to the technologies built around it for constraining, querying, styling and otherwise processing XML documents. Research carried out at Edinburgh has been instrumental in the creation and/or design of many of these core XML technologies, including XSLT, XML Schema, XInclude, XQuery and XProc. Edinburgh staff played key roles in bringing these technologies into widespread use in both the private and public sectors through participation in standards development work.
Research into the operational characteristics and applicability of biological reaction networks, carried out at the university in collaboration with groups at Caltech and Sony Systems, revealed the pressing need for a standard format that could be used for storage and exchange of mathematical models of such systems. Hertfordshire researchers played a crucial role in the initial design, dissemination and early exploitation of the Systems Biology Markup Language, SBML, now recognised as the de facto standard format for this purpose. Several major scientific publishers operating across academic boundaries require their authors to use SBML, and 254 software tools, including MATLAB and Mathematica, are now SBML-compliant. Online forums testify to a sizeable, international user-developer community that encompasses engineers, biologists, mathematicians and software developers.
In 1997 Professor David MacKay of the University of Cambridge Department of Physics developed Dasher, a software accessibility tool for entering text by zooming through letters displayed on a screen. Dasher has since transformed computing for tens of thousands of individuals unable to use a normal keyboard, and is recommended by many charities involved in assistive technologies, such as the European Platform for Rehabilitation network. Since 2008, Dasher has been downloaded over 75,000 times and has been ported to smart phones, making use of input devices such as tilt sensors and joysticks. Linking Dasher's information-efficient text generation from gestures or gaze direction to text-to-speech or real-time-text output channels has made Dasher an ideal component of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems which address digital exclusion.
Graph-theoretic and mathematically rigorous algorithmic methods developed at the University of Hertfordshire have improved the applicability of compiler technology and parallel processing. A compiler developed in the course of a ten-year research programme at the university has been successfully applied to a number of commercial problems by re-purposing the research tool. NAG Ltd has adapted the tool into a commercial product [text removed for publication]. Numerous applications of the mathematical methods (such as type-flow graphs used conjointly for correctness and optimisation) have been deployed by industry (including SAP, SCCH, German Waterways Board) working closely with the university.
In 2011, a leading role was given to Peter Coveney in UCL's Department of Chemistry in defining the future strategy for the UK's e-infrastructure, based on the department's expertise and research in this field. This appointment led to the publication of the Strategy for the UK Research Computing Ecosystem document, which has since stimulated debate amongst policy makers and informed government policy. On the basis of its recommendations, the government has set up an advisory E-Infrastructure Leadership Council and allocated £354 million to improving the UK's high-performance computing capabilities and wider e-infrastructure, a move that is having wide-ranging industrial and economic impact in the UK. Most recently, in June 2013 the Strategy document stimulated further debate about the UK's e-infrastructure at the House of Lords.