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The Beazley Archive Online Database enables large and diverse audiences to access and understand ancient art through Oxford research. It allows users around the world to ask and answer their own research questions and to learn about ancient imagery. It is principally dedicated to the study of ancient Athenian figure-decorated pottery and ancient/neo-classical engraved gems. It makes available hundreds of thousands of pictures and information-fields which can be browsed and searched in a variety of ways, according to the level and requirements of the user. The Database is the foremost academic tool for the study of ancient Greek pottery, but its demonstrable impact extends far beyond academia, to an international audience of students, educators, museums, businesses, and private researchers.
Research in Multi-spectral Imaging (MSI) of manuscripts by researchers in the University of Oxford's Faculty of Classics has led to advances in imaging technology. A series of initiatives by Dr Dirk Obbink that captured images through MSI technology have led to the decipherment of new texts that have made a substantial mark in the public sector. Equity spinout of this technology has resulted in the entry in the market of the first portable multispectral scanning unit in flat-bed desktop format. The scanner, which uses innovative patented LED technology at different levels of the light spectrum, was developed under funding from ISIS, Oxford University's technology transfer division.
Founded in York in 1996, the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) has transformed how archaeological research is communicated in the UK, and impacted digital archiving throughout the world. Without the ADS, much of the fragile digital data (often the primary record of sites now destroyed) would have been lost. Instead, they are freely available to all. This impact extends across national heritage agencies, local government, commercial archaeology, and the public. Our resources are widely used with over two million page requests per month; almost half from beyond the HE sector. A recent study has concluded that the ADS is worth £5m per annum to the UK economy (Beagrie & Houghton 2013). The ADS has helped shape the digital preservation policy of English Heritage and informed practice in the United States, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany.
The primary impact is AmbieSense Ltd., a start-up that has had up to 8 employees/consultants. The Company pioneered ambient, context-aware mobile applications and has been able to maintain its technological edge throughout. Secondary impact is through products developed and used by companies including Lonely Planet, Oslo Airport. AmbieSense Ltd. products and services have wide reach and social impact: Tourist trails; outdoor museums; educational historic trails. Customers include public sector: Aberdeen City Council. Benefits are a quality content experience delivered in a context-sensitive manner (social/economic). The significance is: information-rich touristic physical space; an enriching educational experience, connecting pupils with environments. Other technologies have also been built on the AmbieSense platform and patents have cited the underpinning work, demonstrating impact on professional services.
This case study highlights the research carried out by Plymouth researchers in developing a new product in coded railway signalling, the EBI Track 400. Through this patented product, Bombardier Transportation UK Ltd has become the world leader in coded track systems, currently making profits in excess of $6 Million per annum through worldwide sales. The innovative coding algorithms and enhanced system performance has improved railway reliability, eliminated `false positive' danger alerts, and achieved savings for train operators while improving the travelling experience. It has also secured existing jobs and increased investment at their Plymouth site.
By default, Internet traffic is vulnerable to eavesdropping and modification. TLS is a protocol that has become the de facto method for securing application-layer messages. TLS is implemented in all major web browsers and servers and is used daily by hundreds of millions of people for applications such as e-commerce, social networking and Internet banking. Royal Holloway researchers identified flaws in the way in which TLS encrypts data, resulting in practical attacks that compromised the security goals of TLS. The researchers also helped major vendors, such as Google, Microsoft and Oracle, to assess and develop countermeasures to the attacks.
The UoA research enabled a step increase in the technical and commercial capabilities of Atlantic Geomatics (UK) Ltd (AGUK, Cumbria) and the development of a postal addressing solution for the Government of Gibraltar (GoG). The beneficiaries and benefits included: AGUK who secured a contract safeguarding jobs and opening new international markets. Moreover, the GoG now have a definitive solution for legislation to replace their manual, multiple and inconsistent address lists by a spatially-based official address register (OAR) incorporating geographical information thereby enabling the people of Gibraltar to receive enhanced services (e.g. postal, emergency, utilities) from a centrally managed OAR.
Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) is a very well known, international specification for secure mobile radio and `walkie-talkie' communication, that is extensively used and relied upon by emergency and public safety services such as police, ambulance and fire services, as well as governmental and private bodies. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) began standardising TETRA in the 1990s and it is now widely used throughout the world. Foundations of its success include resilience and reliability, but security is a major feature, being underpinned by expert cryptographic design. In particular the authentication and key generation mechanisms in TETRA rely on a block cipher (HURDLE) which was designed by a team of cryptographers at Royal Holloway.
The work carried out at Royal Holloway underpins the integrity and security of TETRA safety- critical networks throughout the world to the present day. A secure design for emergency service communications minimises both the amount of disruption criminals can cause to service operations, and the amount of operational information such criminals can glean from eavesdropping, contributing to the safety and security of society as a whole as well as the economic benefits to manufacturers of TETRA-based equipment.
Mobile telecommunication networks serve nearly 7 billion users; over 90% of the world's population. The flexibility and pervasive nature of mobile networks underpin an enormous range of business and personal activities. Many systems are based on GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standards for digital cellular networks that were created by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in the 1990s to replace analogue network standards. A key factor in the success of GSM has been the ability to authenticate legitimate users and to provide privacy for wireless transmissions. A strong authentication mechanism is critical for the economic operation of mobile telephony.
The security of GSM is based on a secret key, known only to the network operator and the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM), and an authentication algorithm implemented by the SIM and the network operator. A network operator may implement its own authentication algorithm, but many adopted the example implementation (known as COMP128, or COMP128-1) suggested by the GSM Association (GSMA). COMP128-1 was later found to be flawed. Cryptographers at Royal Holloway, at the request of GSMA, designed a replacement algorithm (COMP128-2), the example implementation offered by the GSM Association (GSMA) to over 800 Mobile Network Operators (MNO) in over 200 countries. The algorithm is still regarded as robust and it and derivative algorithms are relied upon by enormous numbers of users every day.
Research examining the vulnerabilities in electronic payment systems conducted by Professor Ross Anderson and his research team at the University of Cambridge since 1995 has had profound impact on the current generation of payment systems. Research outcomes have (i) led existing businesses to redesign application programming interfaces (APIs) used by hardware security modules; (ii) created a new company, Cronto; (iii) convinced authorities to review certification systems so that products are more secure; and (iv) fuelled public awareness of, and discourse about, the security of electronic payment systems.