Staff Profile:

Name:

Professor Kecheng Liu

Job Title:

Professor, Director of IRC

Responsibilities:

Director of MSc Informatics Programmes.

Deputy Director of Technologies for Sustainable Built Environments (TSBE).

PhD supervision with more than 10 completions and on-going projects in various subject fields:

• semiotic methods for organisational analysis
• modelling business processes with norms
• adaptive information systems architecture
• business intelligence for decision support
• context-aware modelling for collaborative work
• requirements articulation and web service composition
• service integration using pragmatic web
• intelligent pervasive spaces for living and working
• semantic processing of imagery and sensory data in healthcare
• agent technology for smart homes
• performance assessment for intelligent and green buildings
• interoperable services in e-government systems
• dynamic agility of inter-organisational value chains

 

Programme Director of MSc Applied Informatics, MSc Informatics by Research, MSc Informatics (delivered in Beijing)

PhD supervision with more than 10 completions and on-going projects in various subject fields: 

• semiotic methods for organisational analysis 
• modelling business processes with norms
• adaptive information systems architecture
• business intelligence for decision support
• context-aware modelling for collaborative work
• requirements articulation and web service composition
• service integration using pragmatic web 
• intelligent pervasive spaces for living and working
• semantic processing of imagery and sensory data in healthcare
• agent technology for smart homes
• performance assessment for intelligent and green buildings 
• interoperable services in e-government systems 
• dynamic agility of inter-organisational value chains

Areas of Interest:

organisational semiotics, informatics in business organisations, adaptive information systems, enterprise information systems,information architecture for adaptive organisations; pervasive intelligent spaces, pervasive informatics, requirements engineering, business and IT strategy alignment

Research groups / Centres:

• Informatics Research Centre (www.irc.reading.ac.uk)

• Intelligent Buildings Research Group (www.ibrg.reading.ac.uk)

• Informatics Research Group, School of Systems Engineering (www.irg.reading.ac.uk)

• Technologies for Sustainable Built Environments (TSBE) (www.reading.ac.uk/tsbe)

Publications:

Books

• Liu, K (2004) (eds) Virtual, Distributed and Flexible Organisations - Studies in Organisational Semiotics, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, ISBN: 1402021615
• Liu, K., R. Clarke, P. Anderson, R. Stamper (eds) with El-Sayed Abou-Zeid (2002a) Organizational Semiotics: evolving a science of information systems, Proceedings of IFIP WG8.1 Working Conference, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, ISBN: 1402071892
• Liu, K., R. Clarke, P. Anderson, R. Stamper (eds) (2002b) Coordination and Communication using Signs: Studies in Organisational Semiotics - 2, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, ISBN: 0792375092
• Liu, K., R. Clarke, R. Stamper, P. Anderson (eds) (2001) Information, Organisation and Technology: Studies in Organisational Semiotics - 1, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, ISBN: 0792372581
• Liu, K. (2000) Semiotics in Information Systems Engineering. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (ISBN 0521 593352), reprinted by Tsinghua University Press (2005, ISBN 7302 099626).
• Liu, K. (1993) Semiotics Applied to Information Systems Development, PhD thesis, University of Twente, Enschede, ISBN: 90-9006076-6

Journal Papers

• Kecheng Liu, Lily Sun and Yan Fu (2008) Ontological Modelling of Content Management for Information Provision, J. of Information and Software Technology, 50(2008) 1155-1164. (Available from ScienceDirect www.sciencedirect.com ) 
• A. Taleb-Bendiab, Kecheng Liu, Philip Miseldine1, S. Furlong, Wenge Rong, Process-Aware E-Government Services Management: Reconciling Citizen, Business and Technology Dynamics, Journal of Cases on Electronic Commerce. Vol. 3, No. 3, 2007
• Wenge Rong and Kecheng Liu (2006) A Multi-agent Architecture for CSCW Systems: From Organizational Semiotics Perspective. In Zhong-Zhi Shi, Ramakoti Sadananda (eds), Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Vol 4088/2006): Agent Computing and Multi-Agent Systems, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, ISSN: 0302-9743
• Liu, K., L. Sun, S. Tan (2006) Modelling Complex Systems for Project Planning – A Semiotics Motivated Method, The International Journal of General Systems (IJGS), 35(3): 313 – 327.
• Liu, K. and L. Sun (2006) Determining Information Requirements for e-Business Systems – from activity space to information space, Journal of International Technology and Information Management, (selected as the keynote paper of the issue), 1(15): 1 – 18.
• Liu, K. (2005) Requirements Reengineering from Legacy Information Systems Using Semiotic Techniques, Systems, Signs and Actions – The International Journal on Communication, Information Technology and Work, 1(1): 36-61.
• Chan M.T. and K. Liu (2005) Applying Semiotic Analysis to the Design and Modeling of Distributed Multimedia Systems, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 3168: 437-447.
• Davis, D.N., Y. Luo and K. Liu (2003) Combining KADS with Zeus to Develop a Multi-Agent E-Commerce Application, International Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, Kluwer, 3(3-4):315-335.
• Liu, K., L. Sun, J. Barjis, J.L.G. Dietz (2003) Modelling Dynamic Behaviour of Business Organisations: extension of DEMO from a semiotic perspective, Knowledge-Based Systems Journal, 16(2): 101–111, ISSN: 09507051
• Liu, K., L. Sun, K. Bennett (2002) Co-Design of Business and IT Systems, Journal of Information Systems Frontiers, 4(3): 251-256.
• Barjis, J., S. Chong, J.L.G. Dietz and K. Liu (2002) Development of Agent-Based E-Commerce Systems using the Semiotic Approach and the DEMO Transaction Concept, International Journal of Information Technology and Decision Making, 1(3): 491-510, ISSN: 0219-6220

For a complete list of publications, plese click here.

Qualifications:

• BSc in Computer Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences Staff University, 1982
• MSc in Decision Support Systems, International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (ITC), the Netherlands. 1989
• PhD in Information Management, Department of Information Management, School of Management Studies, University of Twente, the Netherlands, 1993

Affiliations:

• Fellow of British Computer Society (Jan 2000 - ) • Member of BCS (October 1994 - )
• Chartered Engineer, British Engineering Council (16 November 1994 - )
• Member of ACM (June 1995 - )
• Member of UK Academy of Information Systems (January 1996 - )
• Member of IEEE (April 1997 - ) • Member of IFIP (The International Federation of Information Processing) Working Group 8.1 (1999 - )

Current Research Grants and Projects:

• February 2007 – June 2008 Co-investigator (PI – Dr. Yinshan Tang) for a research grant (Euro73,078) from European Union (PASR 222 900) for the project of The Pedestrian Police Office (EuroCop).
• 2006 – 2008 PI for a research grant (£113K) from EPSRC (GR/T04878/01) on the project of Intelligent Buildings for Personalisation, within the programme of Sustainability for the Urban Environment.
• November 2005- January 2008 Lead academic and co-investigator (PI – Chris Guy) for a research project grant (£160k) from DTI Research (CHB/003/00044C) on the Coordinated Management of Intelligent Pervasive Spaces (CMIPS).

Past Research Grants and Projects:

• October 2003 – May 2007 PI for a grant (£115k) from EPSRC (H1407800) for two PhD projects on Autonomic Computing – creating self-evolving software systems (ACCESS).
• June 2002 – September 2005 PI for a grant (£431,440) from EPSRC (GR/S04840/01) for a research team working on Semiotic Enterprise Design for IT Applications (SEDITA).
• November 2004 – October 2007 Co-investigator (PI – Professor Z Irani, Brunel University) for a grant (£58011) from EPSRC (GR/T27020/01) on the Network for e-Government Integration and Systems Evaluation (e-GISE).
• 2004 – 2006 Co-investigator (PI – Prof. N. Gu) for a grant (RMB200K) from the Chinese National Science Foundation, for a joint research award with Fudan University on Semiotically Motivated Grid Infrastructure for Collaborative Work.
• September 2003 PI for a grant (£7000) from EPSRC (GR/S17710/01) to support the 6th International Workshop of Organisational Semiotics – a new discipline for information systems work.
• May 1997 – June 2000 PI for a grant (£101,904) from EPSRC (GR/L43473) for a research fellow working on a project of legacy systems reengineering (AMBOLS).
• 2003 Recipient of a grant (£1000) from British Council's Treaty of Windsor Programme (LIS/992/2) for a joint research project "Normative Approach to Information Systems Modelling", equivalent support received by the partner from Portuguese Council of Polytechnics.
• August 2003 Recipient of a grant from KC Wong Foundation (ref. 20021115114337) for joint research project on “image semantics” with Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
• January – May 2002 PI for a project grant (£15,000) from Northampton Health Authority for the project of “Proof of Concept of IntelliCare” to prepare an EU framework 5 project.
• August 2000 PI for a grant (£6000) from British Council/HK Research Grants Council for a joint research project “Object-Oriented Requirements Engineering” (Grant No. 9050145).
• 2000 Recipient of an award for "Distinguished Scientist" from "Hua Ying" Foundation, for working as a specially invited expert at Department of Computer Science of Nanjin University (second best computer science department in China) where I delivered a series of research seminars and lectures.
• August 2000 Recipient of support of £1000 from the Royal Society, for presenting a paper at the 16th IFIP World Computer Congress, Beijing.
• 1998 PI for a grant (HK$79,500, eq. £7,000) from British Council/HK Research Grants Council (Grant No. 9050101) for a joint research project in “Modelling Behaviour of Agents in CSCW” systems for South-western China.