The MyExperiment social networking site for scientists is the subject of a new video from JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee), which explains the background to the project and key features which have already contributed to its success.

The new video is one of a series from JISC featuring the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) programme, which is trying to find ways to connect people and speed up research projects across disciplines.

MyExperiment, directed by Professor David De Roure of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton and Professor Carole Goble of the University of Manchester, enables scientists to share scientific data and know-how, and to build on results already achieved and available on the site. By providing scientists with the opportunity to exchange scientific workflows, the MyExperiment researchers aim to provide them also with the means to achieve new scientific results.

In the JISC video the researchers explain the importance of building the user base at the same time as the data, and the crucial need to create an environment in which scientists feel comfortable in using the data.

‘It’s a radical new idea,’ says Duncan Hull, User Advocate from the University of Manchester. ‘We’re changing the culture in e-science.’

The next phase of myExperiment has already begun, with the aim challenging traditional ideas of academic publishing. The myExperiment Enhancement project will integrate myExperiment with the established EPrints research repository in Southampton and Manchester’s new e-Scholar institutional repository.

‘We are investigating the collision of Science 2.0 and traditional ideas of repositories,’ said Professor Carole Goble. ‘myExperiment paves the way for the next generation of researchers to do new research using new research methods.’ In its first year, the myExperiment.org website has attracted thousands of users worldwide and established the largest public collection of its kind.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453

The Southampton Nanofabrication Centre, which holds its first Open Day on 9 September, will make smaller, more powerful nano- and bio-nanotechnologies possible and save industry time and money.

A key feature of the Centre, which is housed in the University of Southampton’s new Mountbatten Building and is one of Europe's leading multidisciplinary and state-of-the-art clean room complexes, is the new Focused Ion Beam (FIB) system from Zeiss which will make it possible to repair faulty chip circuits.

According to Dr Harold Chong from the Nano Group at the University's School of Electronics and Computer Science, the FIB will make it possible for researchers to view cross sections of materials in fine detail, thus enabling repair of chip circuits in microscopic dimensions.

'This will save a great deal of project management time,' said Dr Chong. 'There is great potential to work with universities and industry to fabricate micro-nano device and possibly salvage damaged circuits. One potential use of the FIB is to carry out fast prototyping and to develop smaller, faster and more powerful single electron devices.’

The Centre which will hold its first open day in September is a key element in maintaining the University's global reputation for world-leading research in nanotechnology and photonics.

The new building and clean room facility will also provide a venue for industrial partners to have training on the research and fabrication equipment.

'We now have the capacity to work with materials 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair,' said Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science. ‘Not only can the FIB cut extremely fine lines, it can analyse atom by atom the material removed.

‘We have an outstanding building in the Mountbatten Building and our clean rooms are now fitted out with around £50M of equipment which gives us unique capabilities for the future. We look forward to welcoming our guests, including research collaborators from universities and industry around the world, to see what we can offer them as research partners in the future.’ For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel. +44(0)23 8059 5453

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS), a world leader in software and IP for semiconductor design, verification and manufacturing, has awarded this year's Charles Babbage Grant to the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), making the University of Southampton the first in Europe to receive this award.

Through the grant ECS will receive licences of Synopsys' comprehensive electronic design automation (EDA) software and intellectual property. The grant will also enable the University to set up a brand new laboratory for virtual learning. The Virtual Learning Environment will focus on integrated circuit design and will also involve a new range of courses on advanced system-on-chip (SoC) design, with support and professor training from Synopsys. The grant has also enabled ECS to install new computer hardware in the virtual learning laboratory to support 15-20 students.

Synopsys software provides students and researchers with the opportunity to utilise industrial tools for logic and physical synthesis, circuit simulation, nanometre device modelling and fabrication process modelling. Synopsys software serves as the foundation for an industry design flow where students get real-world, hands-on experience of building and testing their designs.

'The School of Electronics and Computer Science is the largest of its kind in the UK with a long tradition of research in electronic engineering and computer science. This grant enables us to continue that tradition with the latest leading-edge commercial tools,' said Dr Matt Swabey, Electronics Teaching Fellow at ECS. 'We can now give our students real quantitative experience in modelling SoCs, enabling them to modify and try out designs to achieve defined goals. This ability will be enormously valuable to our students.'

Access to commercial grade design tools for advanced research and microelectronic design is a common issue facing universities today. Synopsys helps solve this challenge through initiatives like the Charles Babbage Grant and its Worldwide University Program, which provide select universities with design software for modern electronic design flows and leading IC fabrication processes.

John Chilton, Senior Vice President of Marketing & Strategic Development at Synopsys, attended a ceremony in ECS to formally open the lab and meet with students and faculty.

'Synopsys selected the University of Southampton because of its global reputation for leading-edge research and its academic focus on engineering and computer science,' commented John Chilton. 'Through this grant, Synopsys enables the University, through the School of Electronics and Computer Science, to further its reputation as a leading academic institution and to give its students access to the latest tools and equipment, supporting their educational experience and preparing them for future roles in industry, academia or government.'

Dr David Flynn, Fellow in Research and Development at ARM Ltd and Visiting Professor in the Pervasive Systems Centre in ECS, commented: 'Building on a long-term research relationship with Synopsys Inc, I am delighted to see this valuable award presented back to the UK where Charles Babbage was born. ARM has benefited from many good graduates recruited over the years from the University of Southampton and I am confident that access to the latest system-on-chip implementation and verification EDA tools will benefit teaching and research projects as well as equipping students with valuable and relevant hands-on tools experience in the future.'

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel. +44(0)23 8059 5453

Hundreds of visitors will be welcomed to the School of Electronics and Computer Science during the University Open Days on Friday 4 and Saturday 5 September.

The School is holding two days of tours, presentations, demonstrations and drop-in sessions, highlighting the opportunities available on our degree programmes, and emphasizing the unique character of the School. Visitors will have the chance to see all our undergraduate labs, and to meet past and current students, as well as to find out about our students' excellent career prospects.

Presentations begin at 10 am with a welcome from the Deputy Head of School (Education), Professor Alun Vaughan; there will then be separate tours and presentations for Computer Science & Software Engineering; Electrical & Electromechanical Engineering; Electronic Engineering; and Information Technology in Organisations. These presentations and tours are repeated at 11 am, 2 pm, and 3 pm.

Between 12 noon and 2 pm the School will be holding a drop-in session in the Mountbatten Building, where visitors can see demonstrations, tour the labs with our students, see videos of our Careers Fair and student project work, watch our swarm robots in action, and find out more from ECS Admissions Tutors. Refreshments will be available; there is no need to book for this part of the event.

'Visiting universities is extremely important in enabling students to find the best place for their study,' said Professor Alun Vaughan. 'There are many factors which make a difference to the kind of educational experience that will suit a particular student and we urge prospective students to take advantage of these visit days to find out as much as they can about what we can offer them.'

ECS Open Day Hotline: +44(0)23 8059 4506

Places can be booked on the University Open Day web site.

View our Introduction to ECS Open Days by Professor Alun Vaughan.

A hand-held device which could offer point-of-care blood cell analysis in doctors’ surgeries is being developed by University of Southampton researchers led by Professor Hywel Morgan of ECS.

The research team, which is based in the School of Electronics and Computer Science's Nano Research Group and involves collaboration with Professor Donna Davies and Dr Judith Holloway of the School of Medicine, has developed a microfluidic single-cell impedance cytometer that performs a white cell differential count. The system was developed in collaboration with Philips Research.

The device is described in a paper in Advance Articles in Lab on a Chip this month.

The chip within the device uses microfluidics – a set of technologies that control the flow of minute amounts of liquids – to measure a number of different cells in the blood.

According to Dr David Holmes of ECS, lead author of the paper, the microfluidic set-up uses miniaturised electrodes inside a small channel. The electrical properties of each blood cell are measured as the blood flows through the device. From these measurements it is possible to distinguish and count the different types of cell, providing information used in the diagnosis of numerous diseases.

The system, which can identify the three main types of white blood cells - T lymphocytes, monocytes and neutrophils, is faster and cheaper than current methods.

‘At the moment if an individual goes to the doctor complaining of feeling unwell, a blood test will be taken which will need to be sent away to the lab while the patient awaits the results,' said Professor Morgan. 'Our new prototype device may allow point-of-care cell analysis which aids the GP in diagnosing acute diseases while the patient is with the GP, so a treatment strategy may be devised immediately. Our method provides more control and accuracy than what is currently on the market for GP testing.

The next step for the team is to integrate the red blood cell and platelet counting into the device. Their ultimate aim is to set up a company to produce a handheld device which would be available for about £1,000 and which could use disposable chips costing just a few pence each.

Devices such as these will be fabricated in the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre, which opens on 9 September and will make smaller, more powerful nano- and bio-nanotechnologies possible and save industry time and money.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453

Computer scientists in ECS are using social networking tools to explore if individuals can enhance their personal and social wellbeing over time if they quickly share how they feel about issues such as their busy-ness, enjoyment, health and stress via these networks.

dr mc schraefel, who is passionate about ‘geek fitness’ and keeps kettlebells in her office to run fitness classes for academics at lunchtimes, has set up healthii, an application to examine new ways for individuals in groups to communicate with one another. She is working with ECS PhD student Paul André on the project.

‘We want to find out if we made it easy to convey richer status in say, Twitter, first will people use it, and second, will they find value in it?,' says dr schraefel. 'For instance, if I can tell people “I am reading an interesting paperâ€? and add a compressed version of my wellbeing at that time, with a code like “#healthii(3321)â€?, then I am not only saying what I am doing, but adding a rich context around that activity. In this case, the code says I am busy, enjoying what I am doing, not too stressed, but feeling under the weather.

'In our test application we have mechanisms to make selections easily rather than having to remember numbers. We are interested in understanding what dimensions and how best to convey them are most effective.’

A study of the healthii prototype will run until the end of August. It can be used via Facebook or desktop application, both of which can input from and output to Twitter. ‘We want to see if writing and observing this richer status affects our behaviour. If we see that most of our colleagues are coming down with a cold, perhaps we'll stay at home, or perhaps reach out and give them a hug,’ said Paul André. ‘Already we’ve seen examples where participants are using the application for self-reflection and group awareness. One person finally has the evidence that they have been working non-stop for a week and needed to take a break.

‘We also hope to see how trends may be used to understand group dynamics: if one group of friends or colleagues seems to be enjoying themselves and working hard, and another group is working hard but not enjoying themselves, what is going on? Ultimately we’re hoping that tuning applications to support this kind of awareness will contribute to improved personal and social wellbeing.’

The researchers will report on results of the study by the end of September.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453

The University of Southampton’s Southampton Nanofabrication Centre, which opens next week (9 September), will make it possible to manufacture high-speed and non-volatile ‘universal memory’ devices for industry within 5 years.

According to Dr Yoshishige Tsuchiya from the Nano Group at the University's School of Electronics and Computer Science, the Nano electromechanical systems (NEMS) available within the new clean room will make high-speed, non-volatile and low-power computer memory a reality.

'This high-speed, non-volatile and low-power NEMS memory will be suitable for pen drive devices for PCs and mobile applications and will mean that computers will warm up immediately when switched on and will have a ‘sleep’ switch to conserve energy,’ said Dr Tsuchiya.

Working with Professor Hiroshi Mizuta in the Nano Group, Dr Tsuchiya will combine conventional silicon technology with the NEMS concept.

‘In the clean room, we will have both conventional equipment and new nanofabrication facilities such as Electron Beam Lithography and Focused Ion Beam, which we will use to fabricate the new memory devices,’ Dr Tsuchiya added. The academics also plan to use the new equipment to do what they call “More than Mooreâ€? and “Beyond CMOSâ€? (Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor).

The former involves integrating NEMS into conventional electronic devices to create advanced switch, memory and sensor devices, while the latter involves working on quantum information devices based on single-electron and single-spin device technology which could realize massively-parallel information processing.

‘I believe that if we adopt unique properties of well-controlled silicon nanostructures and co-integration with other emerging technologies such as NEMS, nanophotonics and nanospintronics, we can develop extremely functional information processing devices, faster than anything we could ever have imagined with just conventional technologies,’ Professor Mizuta said.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis: tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453

Professor David De Roure of ECS is one of two British academics embarking on a visit to the US next week to establish changing practice in e-Science.

Professor De Roure, who directs e-Research activities at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) and Professor Malcolm Atkinson, UK e-Science Envoy, are to spend 8 to 30 September on a fact-finding tour of the some of the US’s major institutions.

‘The US has major initiatives dealing with huge amounts of data, much bigger than we would normally see in the UK, so our trip will provide us with some good case-study material,’ said Professor De Roure. ‘This is an opportunity to find out how e-Science research is being done in the US and how it will be done in the future.’

Among the institutions to be visited by the academics are: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, University of Illinois at Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, University of New Mexico, Microsoft, Stanford, University of California, Irvine, University of California, San Diego, and Johns Hopkins University.

The academics will address topics such as: W3C web standards, public research data, cloud computing, collaboration and social science research, medical data, data-intensive workflows, global atmospheric data and national research data strategy.

By the end of their visit they plan to be able to recommend a strategy for researchers, data and service providers and research funders in e-Science research in the UK and to identify future research challenges. ‘There is a lot happening in e-Science research at the University of Southampton and I bring a Web 2.0 and social science perspective which may have led to Malcolm choosing me to join him on this mission,’ said Professor De Roure. ‘I believe that we will complement each other well, with me blogging and tweeting and with him writing the documents!’

For further information contact: Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453

Professor Dame Wendy Hall, FRS, FREng, Web pioneer and leading campaigner for women in science, is to receive the 19th Duncan Davies Medal from the Research and Development Society for her outstanding contribution toward making the UK the best-performing research and development environment in the world.

Professor Dame Wendy Hall is the recipient of the 2009 Duncan Davies Medal awarded by the Research and Development Society. Dame Wendy will accept the medal at a lecture she will give to the R&D Society on the evening of 12 October 2009 at the Royal Society, London.

The Duncan Davies Medal is awarded annually to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution toward making the UK the best-performing research and development environment in the world.

Dr David Kingham, Chair of the R&D Society, commented, "Dame Wendy is a leading academic researcher who is passionate about business, maintaining links and providing expertise to innovative companies large and small. Her work as a role model and advocate of fair opportunities for women in science and engineering careers is benefiting UK R&D well beyond her own subject area of Web technology. She’s been an inspiration to both men and women in the UK, and we’re pleased to award Dame Wendy our highest honour."

On hearing of the award, Dame Wendy commented: “I’m deeply flattered by the offer of this award – I can’t believe the company I find myself in when I look at the list of previous recipients. I am pleased that this award recognises my commitment to attracting more women into computer science. I believe my research area of the Semantic Web will open up a whole new wave of businesses, applications, services and R&D processes in the future, which the UK could lead, if it takes advantage of the talents of the very best men and women. I look forward to discussing this at the R&D Society event in October.â€?

Dr Duncan Davies was the third President of the R&D Society, and began his presidency in 1982, shortly after retiring as Chief Scientist and Engineer at the Department of Trade and Industry. Passionately concerned about R&D in the UK, he took a very active interest in the work of the Society. His sudden demise in 1986 came as a harsh blow to the Society and to UK R&D. To acknowledge the debt that it owed to Duncan Davies's leadership, the Society decided to establish a medal in his memory. Dame Wendy joins an esteemed list of recipients including Sir David King, Sir Robin Saxby, Lord Kumar Bhattacharya, Dame Bridget Ogilvie and Lord Sainsbury.

Dame Wendy will speak on “Research 2.0: The Age of Networksâ€? on 12 October 2009 at 6.30pm, where she will discuss the development of Web Science, the opportunities and challenges posed by the increasing need for interdisciplinary research, and how this may drive universities to radically change.

For further information contact: Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453

A new paper by ECS academics proposes a new way for engineers to use the Semantic Web.

Dr Richard Crowder at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) and co-authors received the 2009 Richard E. Fulton SEIKM (Systems, Engineering, Information and Knowledge Management) Best Paper Award last week at the CIE (Computers and Information in Engineering)Conference held in San Diego, California. The award recognises original research and/or implementation and technology application contributions to the fields covered by the Systems Engineering, Information and Knowledge Management Technical Committee.

The paper 'Navigation Over a Large Ontology for Industrial Web Applications', on which Dr Crowder was lead author, considered the fact that Semantic Web searches for industrial applications are often very large and unearth a large pool of technical terminology. With this in mind, he and the co-authors of the paper developed three approaches to ontology presentations to limit the amount of information presented to the user at any one time.

‘In this paper, we looked at the problem of ontology simplification for presentation in web applications,’ said Dr Crowder. ‘The ontology needed for web applications in technical domains are often very large. This is because of the vastness and complexity of the technical data captured in the ontology.’

The researchers implemented two of the proposed methods – an autocompletion text box which attempts to anticipate users’ intentions and completes their input using vocabulary from a predefined dictionary of words, and drop-down lists that allow users to choose one value from a list.

Both of these methods were made available to engineers and received positive and valuable feedback.

Co-authors on the paper were Dr Max Wilson, Dr David Fowler, Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Dr Gary Wills and Dr Sylvia Wong, all from ECS.

The work was part of the recently completed IPAS (Integrated Products and Services) project funded by the Technology Strategy Board and Rolls Royce.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel. +44(0)23 8059 5453