Professor Simon Lavington
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Email
lavis@essex.ac.uk -
Location
Colchester Campus
Profile
Biography
I graduated in Electrical Engineering from Manchester University in 1962. After obtaining a Ph.D. for automatic speech recognition using the Atlas computer, I became a member of Tom Kilburn’s MU5 high-performance design team. The computers built at Manchester in the 1960s and 70s achieved several world firsts. From 1986 I was a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Essex, specialising in Systems Architectures. My research interests focussed on the hardware and software for parallel information processing. One of my projects at Essex, the Intelligent File Store (IFS), attracted over £1 million in research grants and was awarded a British Computer Society Silver Medal for Technical Achievement. The IFS project was completed in 1996, after which I worked on parallel techniques for Knowledge Discovery in Databases ('data mining') and interactive video over congested IP networks. I retired in July 2002. I now pursue research into computer history, particularly early British computers built during the period 1945 – 1970
Publications
Journal articles (28)
Lavington, SH., (2022). Early Days of Computing at Manchester: Max Newman's Royal Society Project, 1946–1951. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 44 (2), 20-32
Lavington, S., (2017). Reflections on the Hoot. Resurrection, the Journal of the Computer Conservation Society. Spring 2017 (77), 17-24
Newton, R., Landy, S., Bull, G., Lavington, S., Moreton, R. and Leigh, D., (2015). Fifty Not Out. ITNOW. 57 (2), 46-51
Lavington, S., (2012). A Synopsis of the Book Alan Turing and his Contemporaries: Building the World's First Computers. The Computer Journal. 55 (7), 779-787
Lavington, S., (2009). An Appreciation of Dina St Johnston (1930-2007) Founder of the UK's First Software House. The Computer Journal. 52 (3), 378-387
Lavington, S., (2006). In the Footsteps of Colossus: A Description of Oedipus. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 28 (2), 44-55
Wilkins, E., (2002). Belief Functions and the Possible Worlds Paradigm. Journal of Logic and Computation. 12 (3), 475-495
Lavington, S., (2001). Tom Kilburn (1921–2001). Nature. 409 (6823), 996-996
Lavington, S., Dewhurst, N. and Ghanbari, M., (2001). The performance of layered video over an IP network. Signal Processing: Image Communication. 16 (8), 785-794
Lavington, S., Dewhurst, N., Wilkins, E. and Freitas, A., (1999). Interfacing knowledge discovery algorithms to large database management systems. Information and Software Technology. 41 (9), 605-617
Kasabov, NK., Lavington, SH., Lin, S. and Wang, C., (1995). Model for exploiting associative matching in AI production systems. Knowledge-Based Systems. 8 (1), 14-20
Lavington, SH., (1993). Manchester computer architectures, 1948-75. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 15 (3), 44-54
Lavington, SH., (1993). A novel architecture for handling persistent objects. Microprocessors and Microsystems. 17 (3), 131-138
Wang, J., Marsh, A. and Lavington, S., (1992). Non-WAM models of logic programming and their support by novel parallel hardware. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). 590 LNCS, 253-269
Waite, M., Giddings, B. and Lavington, S., (1992). Parallel associative combinator evaluation II. Future Generation Computer Systems. 8 (4), 303-319
Waite, M., Giddings, B. and Lavington, S., (1991). Parallel associative combinator evaluation. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). 506 LNCS, 349-366
Lavington, S., (1991). Parallel associative processing for knowledge bases. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). 503 LNCS, 112-123
Lavington, S., (1990). Packing quite a punch. Nature. 344 (6269), 896-896
Lavington, SH., (1988). Technical overview of the intelligent file store. Knowledge-Based Systems. 1 (3), 166-172
Lavington, S., (1983). Intelligent steps. Nature. 306 (5939), 129-130
Lavington, S., (1981). Conference report. IFIP-80, eighth world computer congress. IEE Proceedings E Computers and Digital Techniques. 128 (1), 35-35
Lavington, SH., (1979). The early days of British computers — 2. Electronics and Power. 25 (1), 40-40
Lavington, SH., (1978). Problems faced by a computer science department in a developing country. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin. 10 (1), 128-131
Lavington, SH., (1978). The Manchester Mark I and atlas. Communications of the ACM. 21 (1), 4-12
Gosling, JB., Lavington, SH. and Kelley, JM., (1978). Special Feature Extending Register-Transfer Technology to Teach Computer Architecture. Computer. 11 (1), 76-80
Lavington, SH., Thomas, G. and Edwards, DBG., (1977). The MU5 Multicomputer Communication System. IEEE Transactions on Computers. C-26 (1), 19-28
Lavington, SH. and Knowles, AE., (1977). ASSESSING THE POWER OF AN ORDER CODE., 477-480
Carpenter, BE. and Lavington, SH., (1973). The influence of human factors on the performance of a real-time speech recognition system. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 53 (1), 42-45
Books (1)
Lavington, S., (2012). Alan Turing and His Contemporaries Building the World's First Computers. BCS, The Chartered Institute. 1780171056. 9781780171050
Conferences (14)
Lavington, S., (2019). Early Ferranti computers and UK defence applications
Lavington, S., (2011). Swords and Ploughshares: Connections between Computer Projects for War and Peace, 1945 – 55
Dewhurst, N. and Lavington, S., (1998). Knowledge discovery from client-server databases
Freitas, AA. and Lavington, SH., (1996). Speeding up knowledge discovery in large relational databases by means of a new discretization algorithm
Freitas, AA. and Lavington, SH., (1996). Parallel data mining for very large relational databases
WANG, JW., MARSH, A. and LAVINGTON, S., (1992). NON-WAM MODELS OF LOGIC PROGRAMMING AND THEIR SUPPORT BY NOVEL PARALLEL HARDWARE
Lavington, SH., Waite, ME., Robinson, J. and Dewhurst, NEJ., (1992). Exploiting parallelism in primitive operations on bulk data types
LAVINGTON, S., (1991). PARALLEL ASSOCIATIVE PROCESSING FOR KNOWLEDGE BASES
WAITE, M., GIDDINGS, B. and LAVINGTON, S., (1991). PARALLEL ASSOCIATIVE COMBINATOR EVALUATION
Robinson, J. and Lavington, S., (1990). A transitive closure and magic functions machine
Lavington, SH. and Robinson, J., (1990). Active memory for structure manipulation
Lavington, SH., Standring, M., Jiang, YJ., Wang, CJ. and Waite, ME., (1987). Hardware memory management for large knowledge bases
Azmoodeh, M., Lavington, SH. and Standring, M., (1984). SEMANTIC BINARY RELATIONSHIP MODEL OF INFORMATION.
Lavington, SH., (1978). Problems faced by a computer science department in a developing country
