A Southampton ECS student is celebrating after winning the best student paper award at an international conference for his research into the problem of energy poverty in remote communities.

Muddasser Alam received the accolade at the recent Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems (AAMAS) conference, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, for his paper Cooperative Energy Exchange for the Efficient Use of Energy and Resources in Remote Communities.

His research presented a new approach to sharing resources in an electricity grid in remote rural communities in places like Africa and Asia. Homes that have little or no access to electricity are increasingly being equipped with some form of micro-generation such as a solar panel or wind turbine that can power basic lighting, cooking or heating. These micro-generators require costly batteries.

Muddasser, a PhD student the Agents, Interaction, and Complexity Group, supervised by Dr. Alex Rogers and Dr. Sarvapali Ramchurn, explored ways in which the use of these batteries could be minimised including interconnecting homes to exchange unused or stored energy.

Muddasser explained: “By introducing this mechanism they can avoid charging the battery too many times and avoid the inefficiencies associated with storing energy in a battery. This research will allow smart electricity grids to be evolved from the ground up.

“AAMAS is the top conference in my field and winning a renowned award early in my career means a lot for my future.”

Muddasser received a $1,000 prize and certificate for his award.

His co-supervisor Dr Sarvapali Ramchurn said: “Muddasser’s work will hopefully help materialise the vision of developing smart grids from the ground up that we see as a real game changer in terms of eradicating poverty around the world.”

Mudasser’s research was carried out as part of the ORCHID project, based in ECS, that investigates how human and software agents can work effectively together in various settings including Smart Grids and emergency response.

AAMAS is the largest and most influential conference in the area of agents and multi-agent systems. It aims to bring together researchers and practitioners to provide a single, high-profile, internationally renowned forum for research in the theory and practice of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems.

Many congratulations to over 200 students who received University of Southampton degrees this week gained in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science.

The new graduates were joined by family and friends from around the world on Monday 22 July to celebrate their outstanding achievements. The ECS Graduation ceremonies took place in the Nuffield Theatre and the Turner Sims Concert Hall, followed by Graduation receptions.

Many of the graduates had already started work, with popular destinations for ECS graduates including J P Morgan, ARM, Bloomberg, Factset, and Imagination Technologies. A significant number of graduates will also be embarking on PhD degrees at Southampton and other universities.

Addressing the graduates, Professor Michael Butler, Professor Mark Zwolinski and Senior Tutor Eric Cooke paid tribute to their hard work and to their contribution to the ECS community.

Amongst the prizes awarded for academic and project work was a new prize – the Captec Award for Entrepreneurial Industrial Innovation, awarded to MEng Computer Science graduate Andrei Petre, and to members of the Group Design Project for Scotia Gas: James Helm, Samuel Hipkin, Thomas Scarsbrook, and Matthew Warnes, for their project: ‘Down Hole Wireless Water Detector and Level Sensor’.

Head of School Prizes for exceptional contributions to the ECS and University communities were awarded to Thomas Scarsbrook, MEng Electronic Engineering with Mobile and Secure Systems, and to Chris Smith, MEng Computer Science.

‘I have loved every minute of being at Uni,’ said Chris, ‘and really enjoyed helping out with the ECS Society as well as the open days, careers fairs, alumni events and all other ECS events at which I have had the privilege to represent the University.This has been the best experience of my life so far and is mainly down to ECS as a department and the people within.

'ECS has allowed me to achieve a great degree as well as providing some amazing opportunities and the combination of the Careers Hub and the efforts of our student societies means that ECS not only provides a great environment within which to study, but also brilliant opportunities for networking with world-leading companies and obtaining graduate opportunities. ‘ECS has surpassed my expectations - I am glad that I have been a part of ECS for the last four years and that I have been able to give something back to the department in terms of helping out at events, obtaining company interest/sponsorship for the Society and organising a range of events for the students.’

Coincidentally, both Chris and Thomas are now working for Imagination Technologies!

All ECS graduates can keep in touch with alumni events and opportunities by maintaining their contact details with the University Alumni Office, and by joining the ECS LinkedIn group: ‘ECS Alumni, University of Southampton’.

For further information on this story contact Joyce Lewis; tel.023 8059 5453.

Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi, Associate Dean Research in Physical Sciences and Engineering at the University of Southampton, has been elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering for his contribution to low-power design and test of mobile computing systems. Fellows of the Academy comprise the country’s most eminent and distinguished engineers and are recognised for their excellence in the science, art and practice of engineering.

Bashir said: "I am delighted to receive this prestigious honour. I would like to pay tribute to my past and present PhD students and Postdoctoral Researchers, and my industrial collaborators without whom none of these achievements would have been possible”.

Bashir is the founder and director of the Pervasive Systems Research Centre in Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton. He also has a long association with the innovative microelectronics group ARM, which sponsors his professorial chair and for whom he is the co-director of the ARM-ECS research centre.

He has conducted extensive research into methods, algorithms and design automation tools for low-power design and test of microelectronic and embedded computing systems.

In an industrial and academic career spanning 25 years, Bashir has authored 270 publications; and authored, co-authored and edited five research books in topics ranging from electronic circuits simulation to low-power test of integrated circuits, system-on-chip to energy-efficient embedded systems. He is very proud of the career development of his students - successfully supervising 30 PhD theses - many of whom now hold senior positions in industry and academia worldwide.

He has a worldwide reputation for research into energy-efficient, reliable and testable digital hardware and has a strong track record of innovation in system-level power management and power-constrained testing of systems-on-chip used in handheld devices. He has recently become the project leader for a £5.6 million EPSRC programme called PRiME that brings together four UK universities to investigate the design and implementation of future high-performance energy-efficient and dependable embedded systems with many-core processors.

Dean of Physical Sciences and Engineering Professor Dame Wendy Hall welcomed the news. She said: “Bashir’s election as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering is excellent news and reflects and recognises his leading research and the contribution he has made to the technological development of low power mobile devices.”

Bashir is one of 60 new Fellows elected to the Royal Academy in 2013. Sir John Parker GBE FREng, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: "We warmly welcome our new Fellows to the Academy. With their expertise, knowledge and vision we will continue to strengthen our ambition of providing authoritative, impartial, and expert engineering advice to government and to develop the Academy's growing impact and influence on a global stage."

ECS Alumnus (PhD,1973) Dr Richard Greaves, Technical Director of the Meggitt group of companies, was also elected a Fellow of the Academy. Richard Greaves joined the Meggitt group with the takeover of his company Vibro-Meter, and has served as the Chief Executive of both the Aerospace Systems Division and the more recently-formed Sensing Systems Division. From a background in the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Winfrith, Dr Greaves was instrumental in the development of piezoelectric transducers and other kinds of sensors used in condition monitoring systems for complex equipment such as aero-engines; these are now finding application across a range of business and industry in monitoring diverse high-value assets. Dr Greaves is a member of the ECS Industrial Advisory Board.

As the most active academic High Voltage laboratory in Europe, the TDHVL has a big presence in the major international conferences regarding all aspects in high voltage engineering. This summer has been no exception, starting with Insucon held in Birmingham, UK, then the IEEE 2013 Electrical Insulation Conference Ottawa, Canada, rapidly followed by the IEEE 2013 International Conference on Solid Dielectrics Bologna, Italy.

The international Electrical Insulation Conference (INSUCON) is held in Europe at intervals of 3 or 4 years, and in 2013 was held in the UK. This year’s plenary lecture was given by Professor Paul Lewin on the subject of future condition monitoring of high voltage power networks. Held biennially, the Electrical Insulation Conference (EIC) focuses on the practical applications of electrical insulating systems and materials, the associated diagnostics, including field use. This is predominantly an industry based conference, providing an excellent opportunity for the TDHVL to showcase its work to the power industry. With 4 Oral Presentations and 1 Poster the TDHVL was the largest research group at the conference.

The International Conference on Solid Dielectrics (ICSD) is an interdisciplinary forum which provides a unique opportunity for researchers from industry, academia and research centres to come together to review their collective progress, consider the latest developments and discuss the future challenges in the area of solid dielectrics. This year ICSD was held in Italy and TDHVL contributed 21 papers, which represented approximately 10% of the conference.

The TDHVL has currently 18 members of academic and research staff, 30 PhD students and is currently working on over twenty industrially funded Projects. This year will see over 60 internal conference contribution from the Laboratory as well as a large number of publications in international refereed academic and professional journals. For a full list of publications see Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory website.

The new Southampton Chapter of RoboGals has been out and about introducing engineering to local school students.

Earlier this month five of the Robogals team took part in a survival-themed activities week with Year 9 students at Oaklands Catholic School and Sixth Form College.

The ECS students (pictured left to right), Yusra Hussain, Emily Barnes, Devangini Patel, Michael Robert, and Simon Kueh, worked with five classes of 30 students at a time, running five hour-long sessions.

‘We explained to the students what engineers do,’ said Emily Barnes. ‘We were able to show them the NXT robots and how to program them, and then set series of flexible challenges for the students to attempt. By the end of the session, most students had written a basic program that allowed the robots to navigate a small assault course by using basic directional instructions or sensing obstacles, sounds or colours.’

The Southampton Chapter of RoboGals was set up by ECS students earlier this year. The core aim of the organization is to introduce girls to the concept of engineering, and encourage them to consider a future STEM career. Volunteer university students visit schools to present talks and run robotic workshops, conveying what engineers do and the difference they can make in society. Robogals has chapters in Australia, the UK, USA and Japan.

Robogals Southampton Chapter is based at at the University, and is run from the ECS department. ‘ECS has a powerful female presence,’ said Yusra Hussain, ‘and we hope to use this to highlight the importance of women in engineering.’

In a significant boost to the global movement for Open Access to research publications, the University of California has announced the adoption of an Open Access Policy.

Research articles authored by faculty at all 10 campuses of the University of California will in future be available to the public without charge in tandem with their publication in scholarly journals.

The adoption of the policy comes after six years of formal review and revision, but as the largest public research university in the world, receiving around 8 per cent of all research funding in the United States, the scale of the University’s commitment to public accessibility of research has been welcomed by campaigners for global Open Access (OA).

The University of California has adopted a ‘green’ open access policy meaning that faculty members make their research available, free for all on the Web.

Professor Stevan Harnad, one of the leading figures in the global OA movement, and Professor in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, commented: “The adoption of a Green Open Access Mandate by the University of California, one of the biggest universities in the US - actually 10 universities - follows on the heels of the directive by President Obama to the 20 biggest federal research funding councils to mandate Green OA.

“This is a welcome and timely counterweight to the recent retrograde steps by Research Councils UK toward squandering scarce UK research funds on paying instead for Gold OA publishing. Fortunately, HEFCE's proposed Green OA mandate for eligibility for REF 2020, if adopted, will again put the UK back in the worldwide lead in the OA sweepstakes.”

The University of California commented: “The adoption of this policy across the UC system also signals to scholarly publishers that open access, in terms defined by faculty and not by publishers, must be part of any future scholarly publishing system. The faculty remains committed to working with publishers to transform the publishing landscape in ways that are sustainable and beneficial to both the University and the public.”

ECS designed and adopted the world’s first Green OA self-archiving mandate for its published research in 2001. Its EPrints software is the world’s first and most powerful repository software, used in libraries and research institutions around the world.

Global internet outage, a virus outbreak and global warming are just some of the hypothetical disaster scenarios set to be created by an unusual collaboration between researchers at the University of Southampton and newly-appointed Leverhulme artists-in-residence.

The ORCHID programme, based in Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University, investigates how human and software agents can effectively work together to collect the best possible information from a disaster environment. The team have been exploring the use of unmanned autonomous systems (UAS) fitted with audio-visual equipment that can improve the response of emergency services and populations to disaster management.

Now the research group has been awarded funding to appoint two new artists-in-residence – Steve Beard and Victoria Halford – who will challenge the researchers to imagine new disaster scenarios that UAS technology may have to respond to.

The money to fund the artists’ work has been awarded by the Leverhulme Trust, which was established in 1925 under the Will of the First Viscount Leverhulme to provide resources to support scholarships for the purposes of research and education. The Trust provides funding for research projects, fellowships, studentships, bursaries and prizes across all academic disciplines. It aims to support talented individuals as they realise their personal vision in research and professional training.

Head of ORCHID at Southampton, Professor Nick Jennings said:

“We are delighted to have Steve and Victoria on board to help us expand our outlook with regards to our research into the use of computer-driven UAS in managing disaster environments. By offering a creative perspective and striving to make the previously unknown visible, Steve and Victoria will challenge us to think the unthinkable and explore the effects on our research of many different kinds of alternative futures.

“Some of the scenarios that emerge may go beyond the expected to take in what at the present time appears science-fictional.”

The team has already considered a range of scenarios – some hypothetical, such as the London 2012 Olympic Games being disrupted by fire or floods, and some real-life situations, such as the Haiti earthquake and the Fukishima nuclear disaster – but is keen to expand on these to help shape awareness of the conditions in which UAS may have to operate.

“Steve and Victoria will provoke us to explore what the future may look like and the likely changes of operating computer-driven UAS within it. By mobilising the imagination of artists, we intend to gain access to novel scenarios that will help future-proof the development of our research,” said Professor Jennings.

Steve and Victoria have previously worked collaboratively to make art films about accidents. They challenge explanations that emerge from scientific accident investigation with alternative narratives. By merging fact and fiction, with alternative histories and projections into the future they create visually compelling, intellectually rich works of art that have been described as documentary fiction and cine-essay.

At the end of the project the pair will create a film sequence modelling hypothetical disaster management narratives generated by the disaster scenarios. Using an off-the-shelf UAS, the film sequences will be the first example of ORCHID’s research being disseminated in an unconventional and engaging way.

This visual work will be part of a public event staged by the John Hansard Gallery, based at the University of Southampton, at the end of the artists’ residency.

The project will also involve collaboration with colleagues at the University’s Winchester School of Art who will mentor the artists.

Fifty students from over 40 schools around the UK took part in a Computing and Microelectronics course at ECS last week, organized by educational charity The Smallpeice Trust.

The five-day residential course enabled students from Years 11 and 12 to build and programme a substantial autonomous robot. The final day of the course was devoted to a competitive challenge in which the robots had to manoeuvre a testing course, demonstrating their manoeuvrability and ‘intelligence’, as a result of the students’ inventiveness in design and programming. The course was sponsored by ARM, and delivered by the Student Robotics team in Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), under the direction of David Oakley, ECS Labs Manager.

During the design and build of their robots the students worked in teams in the high-spec undergraduate Electronics and Computer labs at ECS. The students learned about the design, fabrication and testing of devices, circuits, microprocessors and systems, while exploring the exciting and wide-ranging theory and practice of computing and electronic engineering. The course also gave them the opportunity to find out more about life at university and also to improve their skills in team-building, communication, time management, planning and presentations.

Harry Grassom of Maidstone Grammar School commented: ‘I came on this course because I want to do engineering at university and I liked the idea of constructing and building some kind of device. Building robots has been great fun. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.’

Lizzie Speddings from Wallington High School for Girls said that she had found the whole experience valuable: ‘I learned a lot during the week about teamwork and a lot of technical things about programming and building robots. It’s been a really great experience.’

‘I definitely want to do engineering at university,’ she added, ‘and now I’ll be thinking about whether it’s going to be Electronics or Computing.’ Student Robotics is a student-run organization, based in ECS, which runs an annual challenge for sixth-form students in schools and colleges around the UK. Over a period of six months, led and mentored by engineering students at the University of Southampton, participating teams design, build and test their autonomous robot creations and then put them through their paces in a final challenge held in April each year. Students on the Smallpeice Computing and Microelectronics course had only four days to design and build their robots but they were every bit as inventive and successful as those which are produced over the longer time-frame.

The Student Robotics team was led by Andy Busse, who graduated from ECS with an MEng Electronic Engineering degree in 2012 and now works at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. ‘The standard of the students was really excellent,’ he said, ‘and by the end of the week there was no doubt that they had caught the engineering bug! They were thinking about design but also thinking about programming, building robots and electronics as well. It’s what engineering is all about.’

In Autumn 2013 Electronics and Computer Science will run its first MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). This will enable anyone to study online, for free, wherever they are in the world a leading subject from ECS, in conjunction with our partner FutureLearn - part of the Open University.

A MOOC is a free study programme which is designed to be studied online by large numbers of participants. In addition to traditional course materials - online video lectures, reading material, coursework and tests - MOOCs provide interactive forums that help students and tutors build an online community around areas of interest.

The University of Southampton has been busy working with the Centre for Innovation in Technologies and Education (CITE) and other teams across the University to develop our first MOOC which will be delivered on the newly launched FutureLearn platform alongside other Universities and content providers like the British Library and the British Council. These exciting opportunities can be taken as a taster for further study or just to learn more about a subject of interest from a potentially massive international audience.

The aim is to give people access to education without the need for prior subject knowledge, just enthusiasm and a willingness to engage around topic areas that interest them or may help them develop their skills.

Courses will cover a range of topics, each requiring two to three hours of study per week. Participants can either choose to complete the whole programme, or elect to dip into particular topics of interest as and when time allows.

The University plans to launch its first few MOOCs in leading subject areas including a major archaeological dig and an emerging Computer Science discipline we are pioneering in ECS, drawing on our world-leading expertise in the field.

If you would like to know more about our MOOCs, FutureLearn and what course we will be launching first, register your interest and select the option "Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths".

The importance of research software engineers is the focus of a feature in this week’s Times Higher Education.

The article focuses on a campaign by the Software Sustainability Institute, a national facility for building better software including experts from Southampton, who are committed to cultivating world-class research through software.

Simon Hettrick, the Institute’s Policy and communications lead who is based in Electronics and Computer Science, says: “Software is a fundamental part of research, and research software engineers are fundamental to good software. Despite this, the role is not well understood in the research community. This is something the Software Sustainability Institute is campaigning to change.”

If you would like to know more, you can read the full article in this week's magazine or online.

Next month, the Institute is holding a workshop for research software engineers on 11 September at the Oxford eResearch Centre. The aim is to bring research software engineers together to talk about new tools and interesting work, to share ideas with people who do the same work, and to discuss how to overcome the problems that are faced by all research software engineers - like gaining recognition and reward for their work.

If you would like more information or to register for the workshop visit; http://www.software.ac.uk/workshop-research-software-engineers