Doctoral Training Partnerships: a range of postgraduate training is funded by the Research Councils. For information on current funding routes, see the common terminology at https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/how-we-fund-studentships/. Training grants may be to one organisation or to a consortia of research organisations. This portal will show the lead organisation only.

Supply chain optimisation has become an integral part of any global company with complex manufacturing and distribution network. For many companies, inefficient distribution plan can make a significant difference on the bottom line. Regulation changes, volatile energy prices, political events, such as Brexit, are just few of the factors that needs to be considered in the ever-changing global trade. Faster company can adopt their distribution plan to the new changes, less impact it has on their profit margins as they can make the necessary changes before their competitors. For instance, sudden shipping port closure can cause delays and decrease the customer satisfaction levels and hence create a loss or distrust in the company overall. Modelling a complete distribution network from the initial materials to the delivery to the customer is very computationally intensive and can take several days. If this process can be accelerated, it has the potential to create significant savings. During my placement, Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) has proven to be well suited for the distribution network optimisation. However, current implementations of ACO focuses only on CPUs. This project would research various hardware ACO implementations and their performance for various accelerators - Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) or coprocessor solutions, such as Intel Xeon Phi family. Furthermore, this project would also explore various ACO implementations in FPGAs in order to find the best performing distribution network in the shortest time. Once the core hardware implementation has proven to be faster than the CPU while producing the same quality of solution, it would be useful to have a simple framework that can be adopted for any company's specific network structure and objectives. This framework would allow users without in-depth programming or hardware knowledge to create simple scripts in order to specify their company's restrictions and objectives. Scripts would then be compiled into the corresponding hardware automatically and create the corresponding assembly files. Such framework would have the potential to become a standalone product that could benefit many global companies

1.The key/objective aims of the research. The key objective of this research project is to develop a quantum resistant distributed ledger by making the current signature scheme resistant to quantum algorithms. This research project will make the current signature scheme resistant to quantum algorithms by developing a novel signature scheme. The novel signature scheme will be based on a newly developed encryption system. Further objectives: Develop a new encryption system. Test the security performance of the encryption system against already existing systems in use. Implement the encryption system into distributed ledger technology. 2. What questions does the project intend to answer? How susceptible are current distributed ledgers to quantum algorithms? What are the practical and theoretical implications of quantum cyber-attack on distributed ledgers? How does our novel encryption system compare to existing encryption systems. What are the existing attacks on the digital signature used in distributed ledgers. How was fast are quantum algorithms developing? What is the long-term outlook on distributed ledgers? 3. The novel physical sciences/engineering methodology that will be carried out during the course of the project. This research will give novel theoretically proof of our encryption system. Furthermore, the research will include practical implementation of the new encryption system, which will be quantitatively and theoretically analysed, in terms of security performance, against existing used cryptosystems. This analysis will include using standard classical cryptographic analysis, as well as using new and/or recently developed quantum algorithm simulators. 4. Add some potential applications or context describing the value of the research. Using distributed ledgers many practical applications in industry and government. For example, distributed ledgers are vital in the use of cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin) and are currently being used in governments (such as the Estonian government which has experimented with a form of distributed ledger technology). The practical implementation of this research project on distributed ledgers is that it will secure the digital signature used, as well as potentially using the new encryption system for other practical applications. The key message of the practical implementation is that, the need for a quantum resistant distributed ledger is necessary for the continued long-term security and use of any distributed ledger technology, such as cryptocurrencies, manufacturing and government infrastructure.

Doctoral Training Partnerships: a range of postgraduate training is funded by the Research Councils. For information on current funding routes, see the common terminology at https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/how-we-fund-studentships/. Training grants may be to one organisation or to a consortia of research organisations. This portal will show the lead organisation only.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.