C.V for Dr Mark Nicholson (17/3/2011)

·         Department of Computer Science, University of York, York, U.K.

·         1991 - present

·         Coordinator Safety Critical Systems MSc’s

·         Previous posts: Research Associate Hard Real-Time Systems Group (1991-1998), Research and Teaching Fellow (1998 – 2005)

·         Qualifications: BA (Ebor) in Economics and Statistics (1986), MSc (Soton) in Operational Research (1988), Dphil (Ebor) titled "Selecting a Topology for Safety-Critical Real-Time Systems" (1998), Postgraduate Certificate for Academic Practice Ebor, 2003).

·         Memberships: Associate member of BCS (ABCS 2009- present), Associate member of Safety and Reliability Society (ASaRS, 2005 – present), Member of Safety-Critical Systems Club (2000 – present), Fellow of Higher Education Academy (2003 – present).

·         PhD Supervisor(s): Prof. Alan Burns


Teaching

Safety Critical Systems Engineering (SCSE) Masters level teaching to Continued Professional Development (CPD) students:

·        I am responsible for the following module: System Safety Assessment (SSA). I set and first mark the assessment for this module.

·        I lecture on the following modules: FSE, HRA, SSA, CAS, TLS

·        I demonstrate on the following modules: FSE, HRA, SSA, CAS, OMM, HRM, SCM, SWR

·        I second mark FSE, HRA, HRM, TLS

 

Gas Turbine Control (GTC) Masters level teaching to CPD students:

·         I am responsible for the following module: Introduction to System Safety (SSG). I set and first mark the assessment for the SSG module.

·         I lecture on the following modules: GS1, GS2, SSG.

·         I demonstrate on the following modules: GS1, GS2, SSG, SWR.

 

External tailored CPD courses:

·         I have taught on nearly 200 tailored CPD courses for industry in the U.K., U.S., Australia, Saudi Arabia. Many of these courses were commissioned to bring staff up to speed relating to specific projects or changes.

·         In 2007 for instance  I lectured and demonstrated on 10 such courses for industry including for Airbus, BAE SYSTEMS, and Lockheed Martin (Railway). The two most important courses were for the Royal Saudi Airforce (I acted as course leader for this trip to Saudi Arabia) and a set of courses to inspectors on the introduction of Safety Management Systems for the CAA.

·         I have also lectured, demonstrated and set the assessment on one external academic course for the Australian National University Canberra. This was a Masters level module.

 

Staff Development Teaching

·         I provided a session on CPD for the YCAP programme at the University of York (2004 – 2007)

 

Student feedback on these courses is available for 2006.and 2007. In 2007 I contributed 110 lectures at an average score of 3.94 (against an overall average for the programme of 3.88 on a scale of 1-5). Previous feedback is also available, as well as YCAP teaching portfolio for 2002 – 2003 which indicates development of taught material and improvement activities.


Research & Industrial Interaction / Consultancy

Most of the research projects I have undertaken over the last 15 years have been projects involving collaboration with industrial partners and address the requirements of those partners. So I have a range of experience of collaborating with companies in the Aerospace, military and automotive sectors.

 

I have also undertaken a range of consultancy activities over the years related to development of safety critical systems, system safety engineering and hard real-time systems. In 2007 for instance I worked with a company selling a product developed for the civil market into a military environment. In 2008 I worked with a military company that was producing a hazard log for a logistics information system. In 2009 I helped a company respond to a rejected ALARP case. I hope to extend this portfolio in the future.

Research Interests / skills

I have extensive research and consultancy activities in the field of Hard-real Time and Safety Critical Systems. Research interests include:

·         Operational Safety

·         Configuration and reconfiguration on failure of safety critical systems including avionics

·         Data rich environments and the impact on safety assessment

·         Quantitative versus qualitative safety analysis

·         Safety process issues relating to Integrated Modular Avionics

·         Safety Management Systems

·         Tool qualification for Safety-critical Systems.

·         Design contracts and safety case contracts for safety critical systems

·         Common cause analysis techniques

·         ALARP cases

 

Skills include:

·         Safety Management Systems

·         Zonal Hazard Analysis (aka Zonal Safety Analysis)

·         Risk analysis

·         Hazard analysis (SHARD and HAZOP)

·         System Safety analysis (Fault Tree Analysis, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis)

·         Schedulability analysis

·         Allocation of hard-real time systems

·         Development of GSN safety case arguments

·         Systems safety processes

Publications

Books and Reports

1.      SAE, ARP4754A: Guidelines for Development of Civil Aircraft and Systems, SAE, December 2010

2.      CSE International Ltd "Preliminary Assessment of Linux for Safety-Related Systems" HSE Research Report 011, 2002 

3.      CAA “Assessment of an Operating System”, Origin Consulting 2003

 

Articles in journals

1.      Burns, N. Zhang and M. Nicholson, "Pipelined Processors and Worst Case Execution Times,"Real-Time System Journal, 5, pp 319-343 Oct. 1993 

2.      P. Fenelon, J. A. McDermid, M. Nicholson and D. J. Pumfrey, "Towards Integrated Safety Analysis and Design,"  ACM Applied Computing Review, pp 1-14, Aug. 1994 

Papers published in refereed conference proceedings

A.    Burns, M. Nicholson, K. Tindall and N.Zhang, "Allocating and Scheduling Hard Real-Time Tasks on a Point-to-Point Distributed System," Proceedings of the Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Real-Time Systems, Newport Beach, California, USA, pp 11-17, Apr 1993

1.      JA McDermid, M Nicholson, P Fenelon and D J Pumfrey, (1995),   in COMPASS '95: Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference on Computer Assurance, Gaithersburg, MD, pp. 37-48, IEEE, ISBN 0-7803-2680-2. 

2.      M. Nicholson and D. Prasad, "Design Synthesis Using Adaptive Search Techniques and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis," presented at 2nd ICECCS, Hilton Hotel, Montreal, Canada, 1996 

3.      M. Nicholson, P. Hollow and J. A. McDermid, "Approaches to Certification of Reconfigurable IMA Systems", INCOSE 2000, Minneapolis, USA, 17-20 July 2000 

4.      M. Nicholson, P. Conmy, I. Bate and J. McDermid, "Generating and maintaining a Safety Argument for Integrated Modular Systems" 5th AustralianWorkshop on Safety Critical Systems and Software, Institution of Engineers Australia, 21 Bedford Street, North Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA 24 November 2000,  31 - 41 

5.      M. Nicholson "Supporting design Synthesis for Safety-Critical Systems" GECCO03, Chicago, USA, July 03 

6.      P. Conmy, M. Nicholson, Y. Purwantoro, J.A.  Mcdermid J.A.  "Safety Analysis and Certification of Open Distributed Systems", ICCS 2002 

7.      J.A. McDermid and M. Nicholson "Extending PSSA for Complex Systems", ISSC Ottawa, August 2003 

8.      P. Conmy, M. Nicholson "Identifying Safety Dependencies in Modular Computer Systems", ISSC Ottawa, August 2003 

9.      R. Pierce, M. Nicholson, A. Faulkner "Assessing Operating Systems for Safety Related Applications", ISSC Ottawa August 2003 

10.  P.Conmy, M. Nicholson, J. McDermid, "Safety Assurance Contracts for Integrated Modular Avionics", 8th Australian Workshop on Safety Critical Systems and Software, Canberra, CRPIT Vol 33, pp 69-78, October 2003.

11.  G. Jolliffe and M. Nicholson "Exploring the Possibilities Towards a Preliminary Saftey Case for IMA Blueprints", System Safety Symposium, Southampton, February, Springer-verlag, 2005

12.  M. Nicholson, "Health Monitoring for Reconfigurable Integrated Control Systems" System Safety Symposium, Southampton, Springer-verlag, February 2005

13.  G. Jolliffe and M. Nicholson "Exploring the Possibilities Towards a Preliminary Saftey Case for IMA Blueprints", Proceedings Of The 23rd International System Safety Conference, San Diego U.S.A., August 22-26 2005

14.  Zoë Stephenson, Mark Nicholson, John McDermid "Product-Line Technology Recommendations for Integrated Modular Systems", Proceedings Of The 23rd International System Safety Conference, San Diego U.S.A., August 22-26 2005

15.  Zoë Stephenson, Mark Nicholson, John McDermid "Flexibility and Manageability of IMS Projects", Proceedings Of The 24th International System Safety Conference, U.S.A., August 2006

16.  Andrew Evans and Mark Nicholson, “Safety Assessment and Certification for UAS”, 22nd International UAV Systems Conference, 16 – 18 April 2007 

17.  Adrian Hill and Mark Nicholson, “Safety tactics for Reconfigurable Process Control Devices”, IET conference October 2009

18.  Andrew Rae and Mark Nicholson, “Operational ALARP is Always Out of Reach”, IET conference October 2009

19.  Andrew Rae, Mark Nicholson and Robert Alexander, “Matching Research Goals and Methods in System Safety Engineering”, 5th IET International System Safety Conference. Manchester, UK, October 2010. The Institution of Engineering and Technology

20.  Robert Alexander, Andrew Rae and Mark Nicholson “”The state of practice in system safety research evaluation,”, 5th IET International System Safety Conference. Manchester, UK, October 2010. The Institution of Engineering and Technology.

 

 

PhD Students

Technical Supervisor: 3 students

Official Supervisor: 2 students

 

MSc Students Projects [ all by industrial students]

 

MSc SCSE Projects completed by students since 2000              25

 

1.      S. D. Nucci  [2000] Software Safety and Supportability Analysis

2.      G. Jolliffe  [2004] Exploring the Possibilities Towards a Preliminary Safety Case for IMA Blueprints

3.      R. Barraclough [2005] Human Factors Contracts for Safety Critical Systems

4.      K. Moore [2005] The Move to Performance based standards - managing uncertainty

5.      D. Huw Morgan [2005] Integration Modelling of Process Industry Safety Initiatives

6.      A. Eaton [2005] Evaluating safety related image integrity over visual communication systems

7.      D. H. Gower [2006] Assessing the Use of a Safety and Support Questionnaire in Support of a Service Modification Process

8.      A. Evans [2006] The Hazards of Unmanned Air Vehicle Integration into Unsegregated Airspace

9.      E. Pittaway [2006] Extension in Current Safety Assessment Process to Incorporate System Induced Human Failures

10.  M. Salter [2006] Managing Operational Safety Case in High-Risk Systems

11.  D. J. Pritchard [2007] Tool Qualification, A Generic Argument for safe application of tools to a Safety Critical Software Project

12.  A. Hill  [2008] Safety Tactics for Reconfigurable Process Control Devices

13.  C. J. Hodson [2008] Civil Airworthiness for a UAV Control Station

14.  C. Hollinshead [2008] Using Safety Contracts to Identify Regression Tests for Modular Systems

15.  A.Wake [2008] Safety of Data in Real-Time Distributed Systems

16.  A. Scott [2009] Environmental and Human Health Risk Management: A preliminary investigation into tools to aid conflict identification and management

17.  A. Armstrong [2009] Development of a Methodology for Deriving Safety Metrics for UAV Operational Safety Performance Measurement

18.  R. Boyd [2009] Software Lifecycle Model Selection Criteria for Safety-Critical Software

19.  M. Remnant [2009] The Application of Sneak Analysis To Safety Critical FPGAs

20.  J. Beer [2010] The True Significance of Common Cause Failures in Accidents

21.  S. Collins [2010] A Behavioural Assessment Process for the Substantiation of Practitioner Competency Claims in Safety Arguments

22.  J. Palmer [2010] Interface Contracts between Safety Management Systems

23.  D. Sexton [2010] A Process for the Evaluation of V & V Workflows for Ensuring that Automatically Generated Code Matches the Input from Model Based Design

 

MSC GTC projects

1.      Mohammed Ahmed [2010] Selecting a Technology for a Computing Core in an Aerospace Electronic Engine Controller

2.      J. Tullett [2020] Lessons Learnt Approaches used in Gas Turbine Control Applications

 

All students who attend a “taster” module, and/or undertake the assessment attached to a module, on the CPD MSc’s in the Department are supervised by myself.

 


Industrial collaboration

 

Consultancy and Advice:

 

·         Advice to a UAV company 2009

·         Advice to company providing an information system for logistic support to UK MOD (2008)

·         Advice to Automotive company selling vehicles to the UK MoD (2007)

·         Advice to IAWG group looking at introduction of Modular Safety Cases on issues such as real-time blueprints (2006)

·         Member (Secretary) of WG63 looking at rewriting ARP 4754 / ARP 4761 (ED-79/ ED-135) on “Complex Aircraft Systems” which forms the basis of the approved means of compliance process for the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787 projects, (2003 – present, 2008-present)

·         System mappings and system blueprints for Integrated Modular Systems. BAE SYSTEMS (2004)

·         Extending PSSA for ATC environments, Eurocontrol (2004)

·         PAMELA and VICTORIA projects looking at safety aspects of introduction of modular avionics (2000 – 2004)

·         CAA / MoD / HSE funded projects into assessment of off the shelf operating systems for use in safety-critical systems (2001 - 2003)

·         Airbus work on modular avionics for the A380 (2000 to 2004)

·         DTI and EPSRC funded research work with industrial partners into hard-real time and safety critical systems. (1991 to 1998)

 


Administration and Management

1.     Departmental administrative posts

·         Co-ordinator MSc in Safety Critical Systems (2004 – present)

·         Admissions Tutor MSc in Safety Critical Systems (2004 – present)

·         Coordinator of the Continuing Professional Development MSc’s (2005 – 2007)

·         Member of Masters Teaching Committee in the Department of Computer Science

·         Member of BoS and BoE

 

This is administration of a CPD part-time masters programme with all students being from industry. Administrative overheads are high due to the non-standard nature of the course. Co-ordination of content is made complex by the rapidly changing nature of the field and the short-fat intensive teaching style of the course.

 

·         Co-ordinator of MSc in Gas Turbine Control (2005- 2007)

·         Admission Tutor of MSc in Gas Turbine Control (2005 – 2007)

 

Administrative issues with the Gas Turbine Control MSc revolve around the liaison with the sponsoring companies (Rolls-Royce and Goodrich) and the coordination activities with the University of Sheffield, who provide a number of modules on this course. The overheads were higher than expected and the CPD administration has now been split out between two academics.

2.     University administrative posts

·         Secretary of the University of York CPD forum (2003 – 2007)

 

Founding member of the forum. Keeping minutes of meetings and keeping the web site up to date. The forum and University were successful in obtaining grant money for a full time CPD officer. She has now taken over running the forum.

 

Other Departmental Responsibilities

1.      Holder of First Aid at Work Certificate and listed as a First Aider in the Department (2002 – present)

2.      Designated fire-warden for part of the building

3.      Co-organiser of the Departments “tea-club” which currently spends £10,000p.a.

 

Leisure Activities

 

1.      Technical Theatre work for Paradise Green Promotions at the Edinburgh fringe (2000 to present). I was there staffing and safety director from 2001 to 2005 hiring 14 staff to build and dismantle 4 temporary theatres and 42 staff per week to run them. Also providing accommodation for the staff. Turnover of the company is £80,000 in the month of August. I am still involved with the company (although not as a director) for instance helping to build a new permanent theatre in 2007 and as a stage manager during the weeks shows run. 

2.      Technical Theatre and stage management for York Light Opera Company (1999 to present). I have been involved in shows at the Theatre Royal, Rowntrees theatre, Kirkgate Theatre in York. Shows worked on are Barnum, Orpheus in the underworld, Mack and Mabel, Annie, Scrooge, Me & My Girl, Jesus Christ Superstar, Anything Goes, Godspell, Witches of Eastwick, Show Boat, Red Hot and Cole, Thoroughly modern Millie, My fair lady and 42nd street. The budget for each year’s main show is in excess of £100,000.

3.      Travelling abroad is fun so I have done lots of it. Since 2000 I have been to France, Austria, Switzerland, Malta, Germany, Jersey, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Luxembourg, Greece, Netherlands, Russia, Brazil etc

4.      I also like staying in old houses so have stayed in a number of Landmark Trust houses.

5.      Whenever possible I try to do cycling, swimming and Yoga. Of course as time goes by it is less than I would like.

 

Page updated 17/3/11