Professor Jan Sykulski led a strong ECS presence at the IET International Conference on Computation in Electromagnetics.

The seventh conference in this annual international series was held in Brighton from 7 and 10 April. Professor Jan Sykulski, Head of the School's Electrical Power Engineering research group, chairs the IET's Electromagnetics Network and opened and closed the conference, as well as delivering a review lecture on optimisation. Three other members of the EPE group attended the conference, including Dr Igor Golosnoy (pictured here, presenting a paper co-authored with Professor Sykulski). In all EPE contributed 10 papers to the conference. All papers were presented in interaction presentations as posters with scene-setting lectures.

New Semantic Web technology which will enable more effective teaching in hospital scenarios is being developed at ECS.

Dr Mark Weal of ECS is designing a software solution which will make it possible for nursing students to receive annotated video-captured feedback immediately after their participation in simulated practice events.

The project, known locally as Big Sister, looks at using semantic annotation to enhance skills-based learning for healthcare.

‘From the student perspective, one of the most important components of simulation is the quality of feedback on their performance,’ said Dr Weal. ‘Practical considerations limit the potential use of video in debriefing students immediately after simulation. It may only be possible to video replay the whole simulation or skip to segments of interest, requiring the facilitator to have a near perfect memory of events.’

Professor David De Roure at ECS and his team in conjunction with colleagues in the School of Nursing and Midwifery are using Semantic Web technologies to annotate video in real time for rapid editing and playback so that educationalists can click on areas of interest and annotate relevant sections with text and 'bookmarking'.

The project is based around scenario-driven skills-based learning in hospital ward simulations located within teaching facilities. Students participate in simulator-based scenarios in groups of three or four and are presented with a patient with a range of symptoms which require them to perform as they would in a hospital environment. Each scenario session is followed by a debriefing session involving the participating students, the observers and the mentors who facilitated the session.

‘The aims of this project are to take this existing setup and through the use of semantic annotation augment the learning process to provide more focused debriefing and better personal reflection by the students of the process they have been through,’ said Dr Weal. ‘It will also provide a rich source of information to inform the teaching practices of the mentor involved.’

ECSWomen were VIP guests of Google London this week when they were invited to the groundbreaking technology company’s showcase UK headquarters.

Understanding how hi-tech companies operate is an essential skill for today’s graduates. This opportunity for face-to-face discussions is just one example of the opportunities which ECS is providing for our important minority of top quality female students. 'We all had such a great time,' said MEng Software Engineering student and ECSWomen committee member Despina Zenonos.

The meeting was hosted by Eleanor Mulligan and Vicky Greaves from Google. Eight students from across a range of ECS computing and electronics degrees participated. The meeting was set up by Dr Su White who has special responsibility for the graduate employability agenda in ECS. This is just one of the many ways in which ECSWomen is providing informal support and networking opportunities in the school. ECSWomen is currently led by postgrad student Reena Pau. 'ECSwomen is an brilliant initiative,' commented Dr White. 'Like our Student Society the achievements of ECSWomen show how students themselves can establish really effective support networks which can contribute to academic and personal objectives. There is really heavy competition to get jobs with Google, but we already have ECS graduates working there; and we are keen to encourage current undergrads to apply for internships.'

ECSwomen will be working to build an ongoing relationship with Google. The current term-time programme includes scheduled evening talks and informal lunchtime support meetings. They are also talking with Girl Geek Dinners to establish a local meeting to provide students with even more networking opportunities.

ECSWomen are on Facebook

Developers from ECS, Southampton, and Oxford University won a $5000 challenge competition which took place at the OR08 Open Repositories international conference.

Dave Tarrant, Tim Brody (Southampton) and Ben O'Steen (Oxford), beat a large field of contenders, including finalists from the USA and Australia, by demonstrating that digital data can be moved easily between storage sites running different software while remaining accessible to users (watch video). This approach has important implications for data management and preservation on the Web.

Repository sites have become a global phenomenon in higher education and research as a growing number of institutions collect digital information and make it accessible on the Web. There are now over 1000 repositories worldwide.

However, with the growth of institutional repositories alongside subject-based repositories, and in cases where multiple-authors of a paper belong to different institutions, it is important to be able to share and copy content between repositories.

Meanwhile the repository space has become characterised by many types of repository software - DSpace, EPrints and Fedora are the most widely used open source repository software - containing many different types of content, including texts, multimedia and interactive teaching materials. So although sharing content and making it widely available (interoperability) has always been a driver for repository development, actually moving content on a large scale between repositories and providing access from all sources is not easy.

The OR08 challenge, set by the Common Repository Interfaces Group (CRIG), had just one rule for the competition: the prototype created had to utilise two different 'repository' platforms.

The winning demonstrator showed data being copied simply from an EPrints repository to a Fedora repository, and then moved back in the other direction. What was striking is that among repository softwares, EPrints and Fedora are seen as being quite different in the way they handle data, so the approach used is likely to be just as useful with other repository softwarel.

This data transfer was achieved using an emerging framework known as Object Reuse and Exchange (ORE), a topic that attracted one of the highest attendances at OR08. ORE is yet to appear in beta form, but specifications are being developed that allow distributed repositories to exchange information about their digital contents.

According to Dave Tarrant, ‘Interoperability is the innovation. We think it is a bad idea to reinvent the wheel so with the availability and support for ORE growing, this provides a very suitable technology to provide interoperability between repositories.’

The winning team are past and present members of the JISC Preserv 2 project that is investigating the provision of preservation services for institutional repositories, and will take this work forward in the project.

A new book by two ECS academics considers the changes in our private and public lives that have been caused by pervasive computing and the Web.

In the book,'The Spy in the Coffee Machine (The end of privacy as we know it), the authors Dr Kieron O'Hara and Professor Nigel Shadbolt of ECS consider our new state of global hypersurveillance. They suggest that as we increasingly resort to technology for our work and play, our electronic activity leaves behind digital footprints that can be used to track our movements. In our cars, telephones, even our coffee machines, tiny computers communicating wirelessly via the Internet can serve as miniature witnesses, forming powerful networks whose emergent behaviour can be very complex, intelligent, and invasive. The question is: how much of an infringement on privacy are they?

Exposing the invasion of our privacy from CCTVs to blogs, Dr O'Hara and Professor Shadbolt explore what — if anything — we can do to prevent it from disappearing forever in the digital age.

The book is published by Oneworld Publications.

A technical seminar from Williams F1 was the highlight of this year's IEEE student branch calendar.

Stuart O'Neill, from the Electronics Department at the Williams Formula 1 team, gave an interesting and interactive talk on the history, state-of-the art, and future of electronics in the motor sport. He brought along a number of items including steering wheels and chassis computers from F1 cars (with some historical items from the early days of the sport) which students were invited to handle during and after the talk.

Stuart has been with Williams for seven years and has worked on projects including the steering wheel, sub-dash, and embedded software design. He gave an informal history of electronics in F1, and spoke about the implications of the 2008 Concorde agreement and the development of Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems which will make an appearance in 2009. He also shared a number of anecdotes about the design of cars and the politics of the sport.

This well attended talk continues the success of the University of Southampton IEEE student branch, which has recently received accolades for its website and membership growth. The branch runs a full calendar of technical and careers seminars, along with site visits and other events throughout the year. Run by students from the School of Electronics and Computer Science, it carries out an important role in connecting students with employers and encouraging professional development.

Joan Irwin, Project Manager of Simply Health, visited the School at the invitation of ECSWomen.

Joan gave an entertaining and inspiratational talk on her career in IT, focusing on the changes and developments in the industry, her career development as a woman in the industry,and passing on some really valuable lessons learned.

'Hearing from a woman with sustained senior-level experience in IT was really beneficial,' said Kathryn Macarthur. 'It provided a role model for an industry which is perceived to be predominantly male.'

This talk was something of a new departure for ECSWomen, which has up to now heard mostly technical presentations. ECSWomen was formed earlier in this academic year with the aim of promoting and encouraging women to follow technology-related careers. Speakers have included Rachel Burnett, President of the British Computer Society, and Professor Lillian Edwards of the University of Southampton School of Law.

ECSS - The Electronics and Computer Science Society - won first prize for their web site and publicity at the Students' Union EVA awards.

The EVAs - Excellence in Volunteering Awards - are given annually on a competitive basis to the student societies affiliated to the University's Students' Union.

This year's awards ceremony was held at Southampton Guildhall, and ECSS was awarded first prize for the best web site and publicity, beating the other shortlisted societies, which were the University Concert Band, the Investment Society, Showstoppers and Wessex Films.

'This is the first time ECSS has won an award,' said James Snowdon, an ECSS committee member. 'It's obviously a fantastic achievement for the Society and we are all very proud.'

A new ‘artificial’ airway being developed in a test tube by ECS researchers could help develop better therapies for asthma and allergy sufferers and reduce the need for animal testing.

This development will benefit people with asthma, whose airways (breathing passages) are sensitive to pollen, dust, animal fur and viruses which cause them to be inflamed, making it hard to breathe.

Academics at the University of Southampton are working with the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) on this project.

Principal Investigator on the project, Donna Davies, Professor of Respiratory, Cell and Molecular Biology in the University’s Infection, Inflammation and Repair division, is working with Professor Hywel Morgan of the University's School of Electronics and Computer Science to construct the artificial airways.

NC3Rs provides a UK focus for the promotion, development and implementation of the 3Rs in animal research and testing. The airways, which are being developed over a two and a half year period, will be made using tissue engineering. Layers of the cells that make up the airway tissue will be grown inside a micro-fluidic device. The cells will be grown on a tiny membrane that will allow access to both sides (the air and blood) of the cells. The device will allow researchers to fully understand how lung function is affected by air particles and allergens and to test their effects without animal testing.

'This new model will allow us to measure the transport of materials and the challenges the airways are presented with,' said Professor Hywel Morgan. The new Mountbatten Building at the University, due for completion later this year will make it possible to develop the microfluidic devices needed to take this research forward.

Fifteen years ago (30 April 1993) CERN announced that the Web could be used free by anyone. To mark the anniversary three ECS professor comment for the BBC on the Web's future.

Today, 30 April 2008, in a commemorative article on BBC's Technology web site, three ECS professors: Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Professor Wendy Hall and Professor Nigel Shadbolt comment on their hopes for the Web's future.

The three professors, who are all members of the School's Intelligence, Agents and Multimedia research group, are founder directors of the Web Science Research Initiative, a long-term research collaboration between ECS at Southampton and CSAIL at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Tim Berners-Lee comments: 'What's exciting is that people are building new social systems, new systems of review, new systems of governance. My hope is that those will produce... new ways of working together effectively and fairly which we can use globally to manage ourselves as a planet.'