- Funding:
- EUFP7
The PHOTOSENS project aims to develop a low-cost, mass-manufacturable, nano-structured, large-area multi-parameter sensor array using Photonic Crystal (PC) and enhanced Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) methodologies for environmental and pharmaceutical applications. Integrating the PC and SERS based sensors with integrated optics coupling structures within a single sensor platform allows the implementation of a high-performance multi-parameter sensor. Currently, utilization of multi-parameter sensing is hindered by the lack of low-cost and, highly reproducibility fabrication methods for nano-structured surfaces.
PHOTOSENS addresses these challenges by developing new roll-to-roll nanoimprinting manufacturing methods. Scientific work includes development of the multilayer nanophotonic sensor structure, nanoimprint materials for large-area fabrication, functionalized molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) and mass-manufacturing methods including Roll-to-Roll (R2R) nanoimprint processes for nano-texturing of large-area plastic films. PHOTOSENS will greatly increase understanding of photonic and plasmonic dispersion and field localization effects in periodic nanostructures, such as Photonic Crystals, and their applicability to sensing purposes. PHOTOSENS demonstrates a multi-parameter large-area sensor platform for environmental and pharmaceutical sensing.
Associated research group
- Nano Research Group
- Date:
- 2012-2013
- Theme:
- Digital Libraries
- Funding:
- JISC
Deposit more content in real repositories. Follows on from the JISC DepositMO Project (June 2010 to January 2012), which aimed to change the Modus Operandi (MO) of deposit processes in institutional repositories by developing new deposit tools to exploit the SWORD v2 protocol. DepositMOre will seek to apply and adapt these tools to demonstrate and measure if they can result in more content being deposited in target repositories within partner institutions. In addition, the project will work with partners to identify third-party content sources and develop simple discovery and upload tools to copy relevant institutional content from those sources to selected repositories. Example sources with repository include EasyChair, Microsoft Academic Search, and YouTube.
Primary investigator
Secondary investigators
- sh94r
- tdb2
Partners
- University of the Creative Arts
- University of Leeds
- University of Glasgow
Associated research group
- Web and Internet Science
- Date:
- 2012-2016
- Themes:
- Marine Energy, Environmental modelling
At present, the export cables connecting wind farms back to shore are sized based on a continuous current rating, as is common practice with cables on land. However, the generation profile of the wind farm will certainly not match this steady state assumption due to its dependence on weather conditions. While there will be times when the wind farm is generating rated output, the total duration of such events is likely to be a small percentage of the asset life. Given the thermal capacitance within the cable system and its environment, the conductor temperature may rarely come close to its rated maximum.
The inevitable consequence of taking the steady state rating approach is that the size of the cable is determined by an overly worst case set of assumptions. This has the potential to lead to the cable system being over-sized, forcing up the cost of the export cable system considerably. In some, near shore, cases where ac transmission is still possible, this can lead to more cables being laid than is strictly necessary to deliver energy to shore with the required reliability. This acts to force up the cost of connection and hence the cost of the energy when sold in the power market, reducing the economic viability of some projects while increasing the cost of energy for consumers.
To tackle this problem, this project will develop statistical rating techniques suitable for application to ac, and eventually HVDC, wind farm export cable systems. All thermal sections of the cable will be considered, including examples of: ââ¬Â¢ Burial at sea ââ¬Â¢ Land falls with and without horizontal directional drills ââ¬Â¢ Land cable sections ââ¬Â¢ J-tube installations
In each case, appropriate thermal models will be designed either based on existing algorithms or using techniques such as finite element analysis. Through a synergy with an existing HubNet funded PhD programme, improved models of the subsea environment will be incorporated based on typical UK coastal shelf sediments.
Having created suitable dynamic thermal models for each cable section, the models will be solved to obtain a temperature profile for multiple model-years, based on an input of actual wind farm output levels. This data will be supplied from existing offshore wind sites, plus shorter term predictions of wind farm output. Once typical levels of cable system capacity utilisation are known, the project will examine statistical methods for rating the system. This will allow the cable system to be sized based on the likelihood of needing transmit certain levels of power for certain time intervals, rather than simply taking the steady state approximation. A brief economic review will then be undertaken to determine whether or not the cable size, or number of cables, could be reduced and the likely cost benefit to the wind farm operator as a result.
Primary investigators
- jp2
- Paul Lewin
Secondary investigator
- spp1g10
Associated research group
- Electronics and Electrical Engineering
- Date:
- 2012-2014
- Theme:
- Pervasive Computing and Networks
- Funding:
- EUFP7
This Future Internet Research Experiment will address an important emerging class of distributed applications for the Future Internet known as Real-Time Online Interactive Applications (ROIA). These include multi-player online computer games, advanced simulation-based e-Learning and training platforms, and other applications dependent upon synchronised bidirectional media distribution. These applications must process user inputs and generate responses in real time, so they are computationally intensive and typically cloud-hosted, and they place heavy demands on the network. The loads are also highly variable, depending on the popularity of an application (with the number and intensity of users changing rapidly when a new application is released), and also the behaviour of participants (which can change the way load is distributed across the application).
An earlier FP6 project (Edutain@Grid) showed that it is possible to use SLA-based management of cloud hosting across multiple data centres to scale and load balance applications dynamically and securely, while reducing start-up costs. However, the project also highlighted that although computational load and cost can be managed, network bottlenecks are introduced which limit the scalability and quality of experience.
OFERTIE aims to enhance and use the OFELIA Testbed for OpenFlow Programmable Networking to run experiments to establish how programmable networks can be used to support technical solutions such as multicast and managed QoS, and what business models and value chains would be able to use these solutions in an economically sustainable fashion.
Primary investigators
- Tim Chown
- Paul Walland
- Martin Hall-May
Secondary investigator
Partners
- University of Muenster
- i2CAT Foundation
- Spinor
- Sobee
- Turk Telekom
- Interoute
Associated research group
- Web and Internet Science
- Date:
- 2012-2015
- Themes:
- High Voltage Engineering, Marine Energy, Environmental modelling
- Funding:
- EPSRC, National Grid plc
HV subsea cables are frequently laid in trenches at the seabed and buried within local seabed materials, with little consideration of the thermal regime they will either enter or generate. The changing nature of the burial environment will have significant implications for cable performance; the thermal rating of these cables is limited by the ability to balance their heat generation from electrical losses with transfer to the surroundings. Excessive temperatures distort the electric field in DC cable and prematurely degrade insulation and other components leading to early failure. The stability of the installed cable is dependent on the geotechnical properties of the seabed and these may change significantly both during installation and post-installation operation.
With the external cable temperatures approaching 60ðC or higher, the host seawater-saturated sediments will endure thermal conditions at 1 to 2 m depth typically only experienced following ~2 to 3 km of burial at normal geothermal gradients. In the short term this could result in porewater convection and subsequent reduction of bed shear stresses and hence the erodibility of the burial material whilst in the medium to long term they could promote diagenetic reactions between the sediment and porewaters such as mineral recrystallization, significant compaction, and partial induration.
This project will utilise existing and new field data for HV cable routes (high resolution seismic, core logs and attendant geotechnical measurements, CPT information and direct time series of thermal measurements) to understand spatial and temporal variability of the pre- and post-installation physical environment along cable routes on the UK shelf.
Primary investigators
- sgs
- jp2
Secondary investigators
- Justin Dix
- Tim Henstock
- Tom Gernon
Partner
- National Grid
Associated research group
- Electronics and Electrical Engineering
- Date:
- 2012-2015
- Themes:
- Healthcare in ECS, Bionanotechnology and Biosensors, Nanoelectronics
- Funding:
- EP/K502327/1, Technology Strategy Board
The aim of this TSB/EPSRC project is to develop a point-of-care (PoC) nanowire diagnostic system to measure inflammatory biomarkers found in a small droplet of blood, and builds on results from EPSRC Nanotechnology for Healthcare project EP/6061696/1 (Silicon Nanowire Arrays for Viral Infection Markers). The project will develop a low-cost nanowire platform technology with integrated sample processing. Nanowire fabrication will use a novel top-down process and temperatures low enough for large scale manufacture on inexpensive glass or polymer substrates.
Our target application is the diagnosis and management of respiratory diseases, including COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and asthma, that are often exacerbated by viral infections. Using a translational approach, we will focus on the detection of a number of clinically relevant protein biomarkers of viral infection and treatment.
*more information to be added*
Primary investigators
- Hywel Morgan
- pa
- Maurits De Planque
- Harold Chong
- Prof. Donna Davies
- Prof. Peter Howarth
- Prof. Peter Roach
Secondary investigators
- Dr Sun Kai
- Dr Ioannis Zeimpekis
- Dr Chunxiao Hu
- Mr Jack Ditshego
Partners
- Sharp UK
- OIPT
- Aptamer Solutions
Associated research groups
- Nano Research Group
- Southampton Nanofabrication Centre
- Date:
- 2012-2017
SOCIAM - Social Machines - will research into pioneering methods of supporting purposeful human interaction on the World Wide Web, of the kind exemplified by phenomena such as Wikipedia and Galaxy Zoo. These collaborations are empowering, as communities identify and solve their own problems, harnessing their commitment, local knowledge and embedded skills, without having to rely on remote experts or governments.
Such interaction is characterised by a new kind of emergent, collective problem solving, in which we see (i) problems solved by very large scale human participation via the Web, (ii) access to, or the ability to generate, large amounts of relevant data using open data standards, (iii) confidence in the quality of the data and (iv) intuitive interfaces.
"Machines" used to be programmed by programmers and used by users. The Web, and the massive participation in it, has dissolved this boundary: we now see configurations of people interacting with content and each other, typified by social web sites. Rather than dividing between the human and machine parts of the collaboration (as computer science has traditionally done), we should draw a line around them and treat each such assembly as a machine in its own right comprising digital and human components - a Social Machine. This crucial transition in thinking acknowledges the reality of today's sociotechnical systems. This view is of an ecosystem not of humans and computers but of co-evolving Social Machines.
The ambition of SOCIAM is to enable us to build social machines that solve the routine tasks of daily life as well as the emergencies. Its aim is to develop the theory and practice so that we can create the next generation of decentralised, data intensive, social machines. Understanding the attributes of the current generation of successful social machines will help us build the next.
The research undertakes four necessary tasks. First, we need to discover how social computing can emerge given that society has to undertake much of the burden of identifying problems, designing solutions and dealing with the complexity of the problem solving. Online scaleable algorithms need to be put to the service of the users. This leads us to the second task, providing seamless access to a Web of Data including user generated data. Third, we need to understand how to make social machines accountable and to build the trust essential to their operation. Fourth, we need to design the interactions between all elements of social machines: between machine and human, between humans mediated by machines, and between machines, humans and the data they use and generate. SOCIAM's work will be empirically grounded by a Social Machines Observatory to track, monitor and classify existing social machines and new ones as they evolve, and act as an early warning facility for disruptive new social machines.
These lines of interlinked research will initially be tested and evaluated in the context of real-world applications in health, transport, policing and the drive towards open data cities (where all public data across an urban area is linked together) in collaboration with SOCIAM's partners. Putting research ideas into the field to encounter unvarnished reality provides a check as to their utility and durability. For example the Open City application will seek to harness citywide participation in shared problems (e.g. with health, transport and policing) exploiting common open data resources.
SOCIAM will undertake a breadth of integrated research, engaging with real application contexts, including the use of our observatory for longitudinal studies, to provide cutting edge theory and practice for social computation and social machines. It will support fundamental research; the creation of a multidisciplinary team; collaboration with industry and government in realization of the research; promote growth and innovation - most importantly - impact in changing the direction of ICT.
Primary investigators
Secondary investigators
Associated research group
- Web and Internet Science
- Date:
- 2012-2015
- Themes:
- Condition monitoring, High Voltage Engineering
- Funding:
- EPSRC
Large-scale investment in transmission and distribution networks are planned over the next 10-15 years to meet future demand and changes in power generation. However, it is important that existing assets continue to operate reliably and their health maintained. A research project is considering the increased use of simulation models that could provide accurate prognostics, targeting maintenance and reduce in service failures. Such models could be further refined with parameters obtained from on-line measurements at the asset. It is also important to consider the future development of the research agenda for condition monitoring of power networks and with colleagues from National Grid, PPA Energy and the Universities of Manchester and Strathclyde, the research team are preparing a Position Paper on this subject.
Primary investigators
- Paul Lewin
- jp2
- sc10g09
Partners
- National Grid
- PPA Energy
- University of Manchester
- University of Strathclyde
Associated research group
- Electronics and Computer Science
- Date:
- 2012-2015
- Themes:
- Environmental modelling, Modelling and Simulation, Marine Energy
- Funding:
- EPSRC
The power transfer capability of high voltage subsea cable systems is limited by thermal considerations, as excessive core temperatures can lead to premature cable failure. Heat generated by the cables must be effectively dissipated away to the ambient environment to prevent potentially damaging elevated temperatures and lower the risks of an expensive asset failure. As interconnector power ratings increase, the importance of understanding the subsea thermal environment also grows, yet direct real time cable temperature measurements are often impossible.
This project will develop models for the evolving thermal environment experienced by buried transmission cables installed in a range of realistic seafloor substrates. We will identify environments of greatest thermal risk and seek to improve cable installation procedures as a result. Benefits will be realised worldwide by enabling better planning and operational management of the subsea interconnectors that will prove vital in realising the MegaGrid.
Primary investigators
- jp2
- Tim Henstock
- Justin Dix
- Tom Gernon
Secondary investigator
- Tim Hughes
Partner
- HubNet
Associated research group
- Electronics and Electrical Engineering