Professor William Redman-White of Electronics and Computer Science has been elected a Fellow of the IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) in recognition of his significant contributions to integrated circuit and system design for communications.

Professor Redman-White joins an elite group from around the world of those recognised by the IEEE for their unusual distinction in the world of electrical and electronic technology. The IEEE is the world’s leading professional association for the advancement of technology in areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics. Elevation to Fellowship status follows a rigorous evaluation procedure. The formal presentation was made by the President of the IEEE in San Francisco at the International Solid State Circuits Conference. This is the leading technical event for the IC design community in both industry and academia, and Professor Redman-White served as the analogue committee chair for many years.

Unusually, while maintaining an active academic position in Southampton, Professor Redman-White has spent the great majority of his career in industry, and the recognition as a Fellow is primarily for his contributions in Integrated Circuit (IC) architecture and design during 21 years of working with Philips Semiconductors (latterly NXP), in Southampton, France and California. As one of just a handful of senior Engineering Fellows within the company, he provided technical leadership for engineers and management in many IC product areas including cellular telecoms, wireless LAN, optical storage and TV.

Professor Redman-White is convinced that such joint positions are of great benefit to academic engineering staff who specialise in the more applied areas: ‘Many Masters and PhD projects with direct industrial relevance have been fostered,’ he says - ‘for example, filter circuits developed in a PhD with Philips are now widely used in most mobile phone and WiFi ICs’. In addition to these very near-market projects, Professor Redman-White has also led more academic research into design issues specific to Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology, and has made a significant contribution to device characterisation and CAD modelling. His current academic work also includes power management, and he continues to work actively in industry in the area of high-speed communications.

‘The industrial experience has also proved to be of great benefit to the content and relevance of University courses,’ he adds. ‘Students attending my analogue and wireless courses are frequently reminded that cost and manufacturability are critical factors, even at the design stage.' These courses have also been made accessible to industry, and scores of delegates have taken advantage.

Come face-to-face with an interactive rhino, marvel at the wonders of the Universe, make your own robot, crack a code, explore gravitational waves, or build a bridge out of paper and sticky tape and see how many chocolate bars it can hold.

Take part in these and other exciting activities when you visit the University of Southampton’s stand at this year’s Big Bang Fair.

The Fair takes place at the NEC in Birmingham, from March 13 to 16, and a team from the University of Southampton will be on hand to challenge you in a range of interactive demonstrations exploring the innovative research taking place at the University:

Get up close to Erica the Rhino – 13-16 March She grunts and snorts and even responds to tweets. Erica the Rhino is an almost lifesize, fibreglass rhino that can react to the environment around her. Adapted by Electronics and Computer Science students, Erica is powered by Raspberry Pis, sensors, LEDs and sound output. Visit our stand to find out how we brought Erica to life.

Build a robot –14-15 March Ever wondered what it is like to build your own robot? Come along and get an interactive engineering and computing experience and find out how to make and control robots using hands-on demos and Raspberry Pis.

Explore the world of nanotechnology – 14-15 March Investigate engineering at a very small scale. Nanotechnology looks at materials that are smaller than a strand of hair. Experiments have to be carried out in clean rooms where no extra particles of dust and germs can contaminate the process. Head over to our stand to take part in a range of real experiments and experience what it is like to work in a clean room environment.

Marvel at the wonders of the skies –13-16 March Explore the secrets our Universe has to offer by stepping inside our mobile planetarium – the Soton Astrodome. Southampton students will guide you through the wonders of the night sky and explain more about the pioneering astrophysics research being carried out at the University.

Leading the way with laser technology – 16 March Be dazzled with our hands-on activities demonstrating how telephone, video and messaged data is sent around the world using lasers. Play with mirrors, lenses and transistors and learn more about our world-leading research into particle physics.

Constructing Bridges – 13 March Use four pieces of paper and a metre of sticky tape to construct your own bridge to span a 40cm gap. How many Mars bars will your construction take? Can you beat the record? Our exhibit helps demonstrate the fundamental principles of construction faced by civil engineers in their day-to-day roles.

Signal and Noise - 13-16 March How do we use mathematics to find patterns in the world? The world is full of information, but can we ignore the ‘noise’ we don't want and find the ‘signal’ that is hidden underneath?

• Can mathematics help us find out other people's secrets, and keep our own? Become an amateur mathematical James Bond and have a go at cracking a code. • Using only jelly beans, a kebab stick, and a small amount of sticky tape, we demonstrate how gravity is transmitted in the form of a wave. • Could you use statistics to win a million? Take part in various games of chance and see if you can find the pattern that allows you to predict the world, and win your first million.

To find out more about the world-leading research being carried out at the University of Southampton visit www.southampton.ac.uk.

A wireless network of sensors that is set to revolutionise soil-based salinity measuring is being developed by a University of Southampton researcher and a team of Australian academics.

Dr Nick Harris, from Electronics and Electrical Engineering, worked with a group of professors from the University of Western Australia (UWA) to produce the revolutionary sensor that can carry out non-destructive testing of soil samples.

The sensor is capable of measuring the chloride (salt) in the soil moisture and linking up with other sensors to create a wireless network that can collate and relay the measurement readings. The network can also control the time intervals at which measurements are taken.

The sensor is placed in the soil and measures the chloride levels in the soil moisture in a non-destructive way. These chloride levels make up a high proportion of the overall soil salinity.

“Traditionally soil-based measurements involve taking samples and transporting them to the laboratory for analysis,â€? said Nick. “This is very labour and cost intensive and therefore it usually means spot checks only with samples being taken every two to three months. It also doesn’t differentiate between chloride in crystallised form and chloride in dissolved form. This can be an important difference as plants only ‘see’ chloride in the soil moisture.

“The removal of a soil sample from its natural environment also means that the same sample can only be measured once, so the traditional (destructive) method is not suited to measuring changes at a point over a period of time.â€?

The new sensors are connected to a small unit and can be ‘planted’ in the ground and left to their own devices. The limiting factor for lifetime is usually the sensor. However, these sensors are expected to have a lifetime in excess of one year. The battery-powered unit can transmit data and information by short range radio, Bluetooth, satellite or mobile phone network as well as allowing data to be logged to a memory card to be collected later.

The novel device allows up to seven sensors to be connected at a time to a single transmitter allowing multi-point measurements to be simply taken.

“These soil-based chloride sensors can benefit a wide range of applications. Large parts of the world have problems with salt causing agricultural land to be unusable but the new sensors allow the level of salt to be measured in real time, rather than once every few months as was previously the case,â€? said Nick.

“At plant level probes can be positioned at continuous levels of depth to determine the salt concentration to which roots are exposed and whether this concentration changes with the depth of the soil or in different weather conditions. We can also measure how well a plant performs at a particular concentration and change the salt content for a few days and observe the effects.

“On a bigger scale, sensors could be placed at different locations at catchment scale to observe any changes in the level of salinity within a field over time, having a direct impact on irrigation strategies. We have already been able to make some interesting observations on real world chloride concentration changes over just 24 hour periods, illustrating the dangers of relying on single point, single time measurements,â€? added Nick.

Nick’s sabbatical at UWA was supported with £2,000 of funding from the World University Network with the sensor development work supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

He worked on the research project with Dr Andy Cranny, in ECS; and professors Keith Smettem, Neil Coles, Ed Barrett-Lennard and Mark Rivers from UWA.

Three students from Electronics and Computer Science were invited to attend the annual dinner for the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), held this year at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.

In an excellent result for ECS, Tom Smith, Dominic Bull and Robbie Nimmo won three of the four national prizes awarded for the IET Power Academy Essay Competition this year. The subject of the essay was the future of the UK energy network, and in addition to attending the dinner, held in London last month, the students have been invited to take part in the Third Annual Renewable Power Generation Conference in Naples, Italy, taking place in September.

Tom Smith graduates this year from the MEng course in Electronic Engineering with Power Systems, and Dominic Bull graduates from the MEng in Electrical Engineering. Robbie Nimmo is in the third year of the MEng in Electrical Engineering. All three have held IET Power Academy Scholarships, which provide financial bursaries, mentoring support from industry partners, and opportunities for summer work placements.

Tom commented: “The Power Academy has built my confidence as an engineer. There is so much more to the profession than just the technical stuff learnt at university. I learnt some key skills in project management and working with people that I have used in my degree course to great success, especially in group tasks. Working in industry puts our studies into context - no longer am I just learning control theory or thermodynamic cycles to pass an exam, I can see how these ideas are practically applied to solve real-world issues.â€?

“The IET Power Academy is a fantastic scheme that helps fast-track Southampton students into a successful career,â€? said Dr Chris Freeman, of the Electronics and Electrical Engineering research group in ECS. “It provides both financial support and valuable experience within the UK energy sector, with students receiving paid summer work placements, a bursary, a company mentor and fantastic networking opportunities. The Power Academy is perhaps the most generous and high profile sponsorship scheme available and I would urge every eligible student to apply!â€?

The Power Academy is a unique partnership between industry and academia, established to address the looming skills shortage in power engineering through a combination of financial support and workplace mentoring for students. You can find out more about the opportunities for scholarships and industrial engagement on their website.

Dr. Long Tran-Thanh, a research fellow at University of Southampton, hailing from Hue, Vietnam (but grew up in Budapest, Hungary), is attending Parliament to present his science to a range of politicians and a panel of expert judges, as part of "SET for Britain" on Monday 17 March.

Long’s poster on research about budget-limited multi-armed bandits will be judged against dozens of other mathematicians’ research in the only national competition of its kind.

Long was shortlisted from hundreds of applicants to appear in Parliament.

On presenting his research in Parliament, he said, “As a theoretical research scientist, I believe it is very important to communicate scientific results and their applicability to everyday life to a wider audience. As such, I am very excited about this event as it gives us, research scientists, a fantastic opportunity to convey the message about the importance of science to the decision makers in the governmentâ€?.

Andrew Miller MP, Chairman of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, said, “This annual competition is an important date in the parliamentary calendar because it gives MPs an opportunity to speak to a wide range of the country’s best young researchers. “These early career engineers, mathematicians and scientists are the architects of our future and SET for Britain is politicians’ best opportunity to meet them and understand their work.â€?

Long’s research has been entered into the Mathematics session of the competition, which will end in a gold, silver and bronze prize-giving ceremony.

Judged by leading academics, the gold medalist receives £3,000, while silver and bronze receive £2,000 and £1,000 respectively.

Professor Nicholas Woodhouse, President of the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI), sponsors of the Gold Mathematical Sciences award, said, “CMI is delighted to support the inaugural SET for Britain Mathematical Sciences exhibition. The Institute is dedicated to increasing and disseminating mathematical knowledge and supports the work of leading researchers throughout the world at various stages of their careers. The future of mathematics in the UK is both challenging and exciting and we believe it is essential to nurture the best technical talentâ€?.

Sir Adrian Smith, Chair, the Council for the Mathematical Sciences (CMS) said: “The CMS is delighted that the mathematical sciences have been involved in this prestigious event for the very first time; it is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the importance of the mathematical sciences to a wider audience. It is paramount to encourage early-career research scientists, engineers, technologists and mathematicians and the SET for Britain event is a very effective way of doing this. We have been encouraged by the enthusiastic response from early-career researchers in the mathematical sciences and feel sure this will this continue in the futureâ€?.

The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee run the event in collaboration with the Council for Mathematical Sciences, the Institute of Physics, The Physiological Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Society of Biology and the Society of Chemical Industry, with financial support from BP, the Clay Mathematics Institute, Essar, INEOS, Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), Germains Seed Technology, Boeing, the Bank of England and the Institute of Biomedical Science.

Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton is delighted to announce that leading investment management firm Winton Capital Management has agreed to support academic prizes for students in Computer Science over the next three years.

Winton is renewing a commitment made in 2010, recognizing both the quality of student achievement in ECS, but also the importance of prizes such as this in building strong recruitment to the subject area and also to the University of Southampton.

ECS is the UK’s largest and most successful integrated department of Computer Science and Electronics and has a world-leading reputation for its education and research which draws students to the University from around the world. Over the last 20 years ECS has made fundamental contributions to the development of the Web, the establishment of agent technologies, to Open Access publishing and digital libraries, and to a range of other technologies at the forefront of Computer Science.

Winton Capital Management’s philanthropic support will continue three prizes: for the top student in Computer Science Year 1; the top final-year student on the four-year MEng programme in Computer Science; and the top student on the one-year postgraduate MSc in Software Engineering.

‘Being awarded a prize from a notable company for successful academic work at one of the top universities for Computer Science holds considerable value in many ways,’ said Robert Streeting, who received a Winton Prize in July 2013. ‘Receiving one for the top aggregate mark at the end of my degree only enhances this effect; having this prize on my CV gives me great employability and great freedom in pursuing the career that I want.’

Matthew Beddall, CIO at Winton Capital and a Southampton graduate (Maths/Computer Science 2001), commented: ‘As a Southampton graduate myself, I am well aware of the quality of the education and research at the University. We are very pleased to continue our support for ECS and especially for Computer Science students, which we believe is a great encouragement and inspiration for their hard work.’

‘We are very pleased to acknowledge the continued generosity of Winton Capital Management in making these awards,’ said Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering.

‘It is well known that our courses are intensive and challenging and our students work extremely hard. These Prizes will be a great recognition of their effort, and will improve our ability to recruit the best and brightest students from around the world. ‘We very much look forward to working with Winton Capital Management over the next three years and to welcoming the company to ECS to meet our students.’

It’s been one year since the University of Southampton Malaysia Campus celebrated its official opening and it is reflecting on an amazing year of achievement. The Campus, at the EduCity@Iskandar in Johor represents a major strategic development for the University.

The future looks exciting for the Malaysia Campus, with industries across Electrical and Electronic Engineering, as well as Mechanical Engineering, confirming the great need within Asia of very high quality engineering graduates. Global engineering firms are keen to work in partnership with the Campus to achieve this.

While the first Southampton students arrived to study in September 2012, the official opening ceremony on 21 March 2013 gave the University an opportunity to commemorate its first overseas Campus with support from star Formula One graduate Adrian Newey as guest VIP. Newey earned a First Class honours degree from the University in 1980. He is now the Chief Technical Officer of the Infiniti Red Bull Racing Formula One team and has won more Formula One Constructors’ Championships than any other designer in the sport’s history. “It is my great pleasure to support the University of Southampton for the formal opening of its Malaysia Campus,â€? said Newey. “My degree from Southampton has certainly assisted me in my career and helped me develop, which I believe will also be true for Southampton’s future graduates in Malaysia and the UK."

Southampton’s Malaysia Campus portfolio has grown in recent months to include the first intake of students in Malaysia to study for the University’s world-class degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Over this period, high profile academics from ECS have joined a successful programme of guest lectures in Malaysia including web science pioneer Professor Dame Wendy Hall and noted cybersecurity expert Professor Mark Nixon.

The strength of the University’s current students has been recognised including the award of the scholarships by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation for the top students progressing on their course. This year will also see the first ‘James Dyson Foundation Engineering Scholarship’ Award to one student progressing to the third year who can best demonstrate his or her passion for engineering design. “We have been particularly impressed by the very high quality of the students studying with us in Malaysia who have to achieve the same A-level grades and equivalent qualifications to those students who join us in the UK,â€? said John McBride, Chief Executive of Southampton’s Malaysia Campus. “The students have taken the same assessments and exams on the same day as the rest of the cohort in Southampton and have performed very well.â€?

The students have enjoyed their education experience so far, and can now also enjoy state of the art sports facilities too. The construction of the 21.5-acre Stadium & Sports Complex with a seating capacity of 14,000 was completed last year and is now officially open catering to all the students and staff of EduCity@Iskandar. The facilities at the Stadium & Sports Complex include a sports stadium with a soccer-cum-rugby field and an International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) standard 400-metre athletic track, an aquatic complex with an Olympic-sized swimming pool and diving pools which meet International Swimming Federation standards for water polo and synchronised swimming.

Southampton’s reputation as a research-focused university has also been underlined in Malaysia with the receipt of seven government-sponsored funding awards in recent months. The awards will support projects to be completed by academic colleagues and students in Malaysia and reflect areas of the University’s international expertise in microsystems and mechanical engineering.

“We’re particularly proud of our worldwide reputation for research which has been echoed in the unprecedented number of funding awards we’ve been granted in relatively short time in Malaysia,â€? said Professor Mark Spearing, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) . “This is truly remarkable given the very short time we’ve had to establish ourselves in the country but reflective of the quality and calibre of the academic staff we’ve attracted to join us in Malaysia and share our vision for world-changing research.

“As we look forward to the first students from the Malaysia Campus progressing to the UK for their third year in September 2014, we wish them an exciting and enjoyable year.â€?

ECS students Dan Palmer and Elliot Hughes were among the prizewinners at this year’s National Hack the Government event held in London earlier this month.

Dan and Elliot, both final-year MEng Computer Science students, won the prize for their analysis of the quality of open data released by Government departments, a crucial factor in the building of successful apps which rely on Government information.

"We wrote our analysis over the weekend," said Dan, "and were able to show that a significant amount of the data being released by Government departments is not sufficiently accurate to be used in building apps.

"There were some significant failings, including links to files that weren’t there, and links to websites rather than data files," said Dan. "We realize that a couple of years ago the data didn’t exist or couldn’t be found, so it’s a positive development that the Government is promoting the provision of Open Data now. However, we wanted to show that much of the data released by the Government is of low quality and needs to be improved for it to be really useful."

National Hack the Government 2014 was organized by Rewired State. The annual event is aimed at improving transparency, open data and relationships between the Government and active hacking citizens.

Slides from Dan's and Elliot's talk are available here: https://speakerdeck.com/danpalmer/open-data-quality-dashboard-nhtg14

A University of Southampton student is hoping to end the frustration that commuters experience waiting for trains by providing them with real-time rail updates through his mobile phone application, Realtime Trains.

Electronics and Computer Science student Tom Cairns has recently launched an app for the iPhone and iPad that provides users with real-time information on delays, departures and arrivals, as well as other details such as platform numbers, to make rail journeys run more smoothly.

Tom originally launched Realtime Trains as a website two years ago. The site now has around 350,000 real-time requests a day and over 100,000 individual UK users per month.

He had the idea for the service partially as a result of the lack of information available on his daily commute to university. Tom said: “I was quite frustrated with what existed and thought it could be done better. I wanted a real-time system that showed what was actually happening on the network at any time.â€?

Realtime Trains notifies users of when their train is approaching the station, arriving at the platform and boarding passengers. It also provides the platform information before it’s announced on the station boards.

Unlike others on the market, Tom’s app only uses open data from Network Rail. “The information I’m using effectively represents past events. I’ve had to develop algorithms to adapt this data so that I can build accurate predictions of the future,â€? said Tom.

Now in the final year of his Master of Engineering degree in Computer Science, Tom is planning to incorporate a journey planner in the near future and eventually expand the service into a one-stop shop for all public transport enquiries, including buses.

He said: “Public transport should be wide out in the open. Any information that can be made available can be formulated so that it becomes helpful to passengers. People should know where their train or bus is and what it will cost, or if it’s delayed and for how long.â€?

The Realtime Trains app is now available to buy from the iOS App Store or as an Android app from Google Play and the service is freely available at www.realtimetrains.co.uk.

The University of Southampton is pleased to announce that Nick Jennings, Professor of Computer Science and a Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government, has been appointed as its first Regius Professor in Computer Science.

The prestigious title of Regius Professorship was awarded to the University, and 11 other institutions, by HM The Queen last year to mark her Diamond Jubilee. A Regius Professorship is a rare privilege – before the recent awards, only two had been created in the past century. They reflect the exceptionally high-quality of teaching and research at an institution; this is the only Regius Professorship in computer science.

Professor Jennings is an internationally-recognised authority in the areas of agent-based computing and intelligent systems. His research covers both the science and the engineering of these systems. Specifically, he has undertaken fundamental research on automated bargaining, auctions, mechanism design, trust and reputation, coalition formation and decentralised control. He has also pioneered the application of multi-agent technology; developing some of the first real-world systems (in domains such as business process management, energy systems/smart grid, sensor networks, disaster response, telecommunications, and eDefence) and generally advocating the area of agent-oriented software engineering.

Professor Jennings also leads the ORCHID programme, which investigates how people can work in partnership with highly inter-connected computational components (agents) as ‘human agent collectives’ (HACs) to manage the response to a disaster.

Professor Jennings says: “It’s great to see such recognition for the department and the discipline of computing more generally. I am delighted and honoured to be the country’s first Regius Professor of Computer Science.â€?

Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, says: “The award of a Regius Professorship is an honour for the University, the Faculty and Computer Science at Southampton. It represents years of hard work by a world-leading team of people. We are delighted that Professor Jennings is to be the first holder of the post. He is an exceptional scientist and will bring tremendous prestige to the role.â€?

During the last 26 years, Computer Science at the University of Southampton has grown in scale and global eminence, attracting students and researchers from around the world, providing academic leadership and continuing to define and develop new leading-edge technologies and approaches.

Southampton’s world-leading achievements in Computer Science include the development of pioneering hypermedia systems in the late 1980s, laying the foundations of agent-based computing and intelligent systems since the late 1990s and work on web science since 2000.