The University of Southampton

Published: 1 February 2013
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Students at the Universities of Southampton, Trondheim and Kaiserslautern are taking part in the EMECS-thon 48-hour Embedded Systems Marathon competition this weekend.

The three universities are all part of the prestigious European Masters programme in Embedded Computer Systems. The participating teams of up to three students have 48 hours to develop an embedded systems project from scratch. Each team has the flexibility to choose a project topic of their own interest.

The event takes place simultaneously in the fully-equipped laboratories of each university, with the Southampton event taking place in the Zepler Building computer lab. The students think, build, and even 'eat' embedded systems - since all meals are provided to enable innovation to take place uninterrupted!

Sponsors of this year's event are: ARM, Xilinx, Fachschaft EIT, the Electronics and Computer Science Society at Southampton, and the University Consortium.

The final gala event with prizegiving takes place across Europe on Sunday 3 December at 5 pm (UK time).

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Published: 4 February 2013

A new initiative is aiming to increase the well-being and physical activity of staff and students at the University of Southampton.

The GofIT challenge, which has been developed by Electronics and Computer Science’s new Human Performance Design Lab, Sport and Wellbeing, the Faculty of Medicine, Students’ Union and Vice Chancellor’s office, proposes to increase mobility and activity options on campus. The initiative is also planned for trials later this spring with both Imperial College and schools across the region.

Following a successful trial in October last year, the 12-week challenge starts from 5 February for teams to sign up and 18 February for the trial to start. Teams of five to eight people can sign up to a web-based challenge site, where the goal is simply to increase minutes of physical activity each week. Participants have weekly minute targets to increase physical activity and wellbeing, which can be as simple and as easy as taking the stairs instead of the lift or getting off at a further bus stop and walking a bit more into work. To make achieving those targets a little more fun, teams will easily be able to compete with each other over the weeks.

Teams can sign up now at https://gofit.soton.ac.uk/

Professor mc schraefel from Electronics and Computer Science, who designed GofIT based on MIT’s successful 12 week team challenge, says: “There are sufficient studies now to show that more active, mobile knowledge workers like our students and staff perform better academically and professionally, and are ill less often. Therefore, helping our students and the whole University community get and stay more mobile is an important goal.”

Another aspect of the GoFit13 Challenge says Professor schraefel will be building knowledge about health practices. “Working with Sport and Wellbeing, we have experts contributing their knowledge to resources for participants. Being a place of science and learning, we’re also including “Experiments in a box” where participants can – if they wish – test for themselves how certain healthy activities affect wellbeing. The green box experiment, for instance, is about exploring the effect of eating more greens; the black box experiment is about exploring sleep, and there’s a white box experiment about the testing the effects of starchy carbs, like breads and pasta and potatoes. We’re all a little different, so each of these two-week self-experiments is designed to self-test how these practices affect our weight, our daily energy, our sense of well being when combined with our movement minutes.”

The GofIT challenge takes a dual physical and digital approach over a 24-month project with four phases, including capturing reusable health information about the area.

“We’re keen to build a health map of the area, so that people who find a great place to run that’s safe or super place to grab a healthy salad will be able to share these resources,” adds Professor schraefel.

The final phase will look to develop physical fit stations on campus and integration of digital and physical infrastructure. Professor schraefel says:“Imagine being at a pull up station on campus and simply by bringing up the GoFIT app, you’ll see how many pull ups were last done at the station, what the daily record is, how often your team has been there, and of course, how many minutes you’ve spent moving there.”

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Published: 5 February 2013
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ECS students produced a Home Recommender system for webpages, sponsored by Imagination Technologies, as part of this year’s Group Design Project.

The Group Design Project comprises the first half of the final-year of the Master of Engineering degree in Electronics and Computer Science. Working intensively in groups of four of five, the students aim to produce a working system for their industrial sponsor. This year Imagination Technologies asked their group to produce a Home Recommender system which would analyse Web traffic on a home network and, based on the webpages visited, suggest new relevant webpages that people might be interested in (similar to Amazon’s ‘Customers who bought this item also bought’ system).

The students were able to use Imagination’s latest Minimorph and FlowWorld technologies, along with the accompanying software. They were also able to experience producing a real-world system, using technology that has been deployed in millions of shipped products.

The Minimorph ran an HTTP proxy server that performed word-frequency analysis on the webpages accessed by the users on the home network. The output of the analysis was then sent to an external server which trawled websites like BBC and Wikipedia, and performed word-frequency analysis on the webpages found. The word-frequency results from the Minimorph were then compared against the results from the trawled websites to find the top matching webpages. These URLs were put on to FlowWorld which was then accessed by the Minimorph and the links displayed back to the user.

The students, Jack Andrew, James Justin, Peter Halles, Rajan Soni and Aljay Massiah, describe the process in the project video.

Imagination Technologies have sponsored a Group Design Project for a number of years, with students working on audio fingerprinting, JPEG encoding or decoding, and motion JPEG. Imagination Technologies were very pleased with the success of the project, and the fact that the students were able to produce a fully working system. The project was supervised in ECS by Dr Denis Nicole.

More information about the project, and about the Minimorph and FlowWorld technologies, is available on Imagination Technologies website.

The Group Design Project runs from October to December each year. Initial expressions of interest in sponsoring a project should be made by the end of May and companies interested in sponsoring a project can contact Joyce Lewis for more information.

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Published: 5 February 2013

Researchers in ECS are among a team from the University of Southampton involved in a national project that is transforming the way gas, electric, water and telecommunications pipes and cables are laid, repaired and replaced in the UK.

Academics from the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory, and Electronics and Electrical Engineering, join a team from the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR), to work with colleagues from the Universities of Birmingham, Bath, Leeds and Sheffield on the Mapping the Underworld project.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council-funded scheme is looking to develop a multi-sensor platform that can locate, map in 3-D and record the position of all buried utility assets without excavation.

Currently it is estimated four million holes are dug each year to lay, repair or remove buried pipes and cables, however, if utility companies are not certain where they are, excavations can result in serious problems such as burst water mains and major disruption to services.

The Mapping the Underworld project aims to come up with new ways to accurately track the exact location of buried pipes and cables using ground penetrating radar, low frequency electro magnetics, vibro-acoustics and magnetic field technologies.

The multi-disciplinary research has already received interest from a number of utility companies and is coming to the end of its second four year phase. The team, led by Professor Chris Rogers from the University of Birmingham, now hopes to secure further funding to extend their work to assess the condition of buried pipes and cables so that utility companies will know which may need replacing without digging them up.

For more information on Mapping the Underworld go to www.mappingtheunderworld.ac.uk

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Published: 12 February 2013
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Professor Dame Wendy Hall and Dame Helen Alexander head a list of luminaries from the University of Southampton to be named as part of the BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour ‘Power List’.

Dame Wendy, Dean of Physical and Applied Sciences, and Dame Helen, the University’s Chancellor, are joined on the list by Southampton alumni Justine Greening MP, Secretary of State for International Development; Clare Foges, Speechwriter to the Prime Minister; and Rosemary Squire OBE, Joint Chief-Executive of the Ambassador Theatre Group; and honorary graduate Shami Chakrabarti, Director of the human rights organisation Liberty. The Woman’s Hour Power List celebrates the achievements of British women across public life, focusing on the top female politicians, business women and leaders in their field from areas as diverse as finance, education, health, engineering and the arts. A Woman’s Hour judging panel sought to name the women who have the biggest impact in society who also have the ability to inspire change as a role model or thinker.

Only last November, Dame Wendy was named to Computer Weekly’s ‘UKtech50’ list of top CIOs, industry executives, public servants and business leaders driving the role of technology in the UK economy. Earlier last year, she was also named as the second most influential woman in UK IT, also awarded by Computer Weekly.

Dame Wendy says: “I'm delighted to have made the list. I love the way it highlights the increasingly significant role women play in every walk of life in the UK and I'm flattered to have been included in such distinguished company.”

For the full ‘Power List’ visit the BBC website.

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Published: 14 February 2013
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This year’s Engineering and Technology Careers Fair was a resounding success with more than 1,000 students attending to find out more about career options from 80 of the UK’s leading companies.

The Fair attracted major employers across the technology industries, transport, energy, media, finance, gaming, retail, security and communications.

The annual Careers Fair is the centrepiece of the careers and employability activity in Physical and Applied Sciences, and has been running since 2008. The first event attracted 23 companies and it has grown year on year – an excellent indication of the continuing strong demand for Southampton graduates.

Many companies attend every year, but new companies attending the Fair for the first time this year included industry leaders such as Amazon, Gazprom, Hawk-Eye, Huddle, Lockheed Martin, Meggitt, NVIDIA, and notonthehighstreet.com.

“The Fair is a great endorsement of the high regard that the UK’s leading technology companies have for Southampton students,” said Careers Fair Director Joyce Lewis. “We had 80 companies attending this year – a significant increase from last year, and it was fantastic to hear the buzz in both venues and to see the great interactions taking place between the company representatives – many of whom were Southampton alumni – and students across all years and many subject areas.

“We’ve had excellent feedback from the companies, who are already looking forward to returning for next year’s event.”

Other careers and employability activities organised by FPAS throughout the year include the Careers Hub website ,conferences, employer presentations and mentoring programmes, designed to ensure students are aware of all the opportunities open to them and are best prepared to gain the position they want.

For further information about the ECS Careers Hub and 2014 Fair (11 February 2014), contact Joyce Lewis.

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Published: 15 February 2013

A new initiative is aiming to increase the well-being and physical activity of staff and students at the University of Southampton.

The GofIT challenge proposes to increase mobility and activity options on campus. The initiative is also planned for trials later this spring with both Imperial College and schools across the region.

Following a successful trial in October last year, the 12-week challenge starts from 5 February for teams to sign up and 18 February for the trial to start. Teams of five to eight people can sign up to a web-based challenge site, where the goal is simply to increase minutes of physical activity each week. Participants have weekly minute targets to increase physical activity and wellbeing, which can be as simple and as easy as taking the stairs instead of the lift or getting off at a further bus stop and walking a bit more into work. To make achieving those targets a little more fun, teams will easily be able to compete with each other over the weeks.

Teams can sign up now at https://gofit.soton.ac.uk/auth/login

Professor mc schraefel from Electronics and Computer Science, who designed GofIT based on MIT’s successful 12 week team challenge, says: “There are sufficient studies now to show that more active, mobile knowledge workers like our students and staff perform better academically and professionally, and are ill less often. Therefore, helping our students and the whole University community get and stay more mobile is an important goal.”

Another aspect of the GoFit13 Challenge says Professor schraefel will be building knowledge about health practices. “Working with Sport and Wellbeing, we have experts contributing their knowledge to resources for participants. Being a place of science and learning, we’re also including “Experiments in a box” where participants can – if they wish – test for themselves how certain healthy activities affect wellbeing. The green box experiment, for instance, is about exploring the effect of eating more greens; the black box experiment is about exploring sleep, and there’s a white box experiment about the testing the effects of starchy carbs, like breads and pasta and potatoes. We’re all a little different, so each of these two-week self-experiments is designed to self-test how these practices affect our weight, our daily energy, our sense of well being when combined with our movement minutes.”

The GofIT challenge takes a dual physical and digital approach over a 24-month project with four phases, including capturing reusable health information about the area.

“We’re keen to build a health map of the area, so that people who find a great place to run that’s safe or super place to grab a healthy salad will be able to share these resources,” adds Professor schraefel.

The final phase will look to develop physical fit stations on campus and integration of digital and physical infrastructure. Professor schraefel says:“Imagine being at a pull up station on campus and simply by bringing up the GoFIT app, you’ll see how many pull ups were last done at the station, what the daily record is, how often your team has been there, and of course, how many minutes you’ve spent moving there.”

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Published: 21 February 2013
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Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) is throwing open its doors to potential postgraduate taught students at our MSc Open Day in March.

This is an opportunity for interested students to come and explore the campus, see the excellent facilities that ECS has to offer and find out about our range of one year postgraduate Master of Science courses.

This year’s MSc Open Day takes place on Wednesday, 20 March, at the Highfield Campus, and visitors will get the chance to hear academics talk about the variety of MSc programmes in ECS, learn about what studying an MSc involves and find out about developing a research career. Current MSc students will also be on hand to chat about their experiences and there will be opportunities to ask questions of our world-leading academics at the cutting edge of their disciplines.

The day starts at 10.30am and runs until 4.30pm and includes tours of some of ECS’s outstanding facilities including the high voltage electrical labs, computing suites, award-winning clean rooms and electronics labs, as well as a look at the accommodation available for postgraduate students.

“Deciding to study for an MSc is a big step. By coming to our Open Day you can hear about all our programmes, talk to current students and get the information you need to make the right decision,” said Head of ECS Professor Neil White.

To book a place on the ECS MSc Open Day go to www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/postgraduatetaught/openday_booking

To find out more about the postgraduate taught courses go to www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/postgraduatetaught

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Published: 26 February 2013
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An academic from ECS was part of a team of researchers that developed a system for examining some of the world’s most important historical documents in intricate detail.

Dr Kirk Martinez, from the Web and Internet Science Research Group, worked with Dr Graeme Earl, from the University of Southampton’s Archaeological Computing Research Group, to develop the Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) System for Ancient Documentary Artefacts.

The system, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council in a collaboration with the University of Oxford, allows a researcher to move a virtual light source across the surface of a digital image of an artefact and use the difference between light and shadow to highlight never-seen-before details.

It comprises of a dome with 76 lights inside and a camera positioned at the top. A manuscript is placed in the centre of the dome and then 76 photos are taken each with one of the 76 light individually lit. In post-processing the images are joined and a light moved across the surface of the digital image to reveal the hidden details.

Kirk said: “We aimed to make a modern, fast, but not too expensive version of this imaging system, and it’s great to see we succeeded in making something that is producing valuable data for humanities researchers.”

The system was recently used on objects held in the vaults of the Louvre Museum in Paris and images have now been made available online for free public access on the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative website.

Among these documents are manuscripts written in the so-called proto-Elamite writing system used in ancient Iran from 3200 to 3000BC and is the oldest undeciphered writing system currently known.

By viewing the extremely high quality images of these documents and sharing them with a community of scholars worldwide, a team from the University of Oxford hope to crack the code once and for all.

Dr Jacob Dahl, co-leader of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative and a member of the University of Oxford’s Faculty of Oriental Studies, said: “I have spent the last 10 years trying to decipher the proto-Elamite writing system and, with this new technology, I think we are finally on the point of making a breakthrough.

“The quality of the images captured is incredible and it is important to remember that you cannot decipher a writing system without having reliable images because you will, for example, overlook differences barely visible to the naked eye that may have meaning.”

He believes the writing system he is examining may be even more interesting than previously thought.

“Looking at contemporary and later writing systems, we would expect to see proto-Elamite use only symbols to represent things, but we think they also used a syllabary – for example ‘cat’ would not be represented by a symbol depicting the animal but by symbols for the otherwise unrelated words ‘ca’ and ‘at’.

“Half of the signs used in this way seem to have been invented ex novo for the sounds they represent. If this turns out to be the case it would transform fundamentally how we understand early writing where phoneticism is believed to have been developed through the so-called rebus principle (a modern example would be for example ‘I see you’, written with the three signs ‘eye’, the ‘sea’, and a ‘ewe’).”

For more information visit our website

To find out more about the Archaeological Computing Research Group go to their website, the Web and Internet Science Group go to and the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford go to their website

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Published: 28 February 2013
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Three current ECS students and one graduate gave inspiring accounts of their experience of internships at a conference held yesterday (27 February) for first- and second-year students in ECS and Physics and Astronomy.

The event was part of the ECS Careers Hub annual programme and was held for the first time this session. ‘Summer internships are a really great way for our students to experience the working environment and to help inform their future career choice,’ said Joyce Lewis, ECS Senior Fellow. ‘It's really valuable for them to hear from fellow students and recent graduates about internships in different companies, and to learn what they might expect in these roles, as well as how to handle some of the logistical issues, such as accommodation.’

Keynote speaker Ash Browning, who joined FactSet after graduating with an MEng Computer Science degree last summer, talked about the value of the internship experience, particularly in providing the opportunity to be part of a company ethos and to experience the working environment. Ash did a summer internship with FactSet, working in the City of London, after his third year at ECS, and was offered a permanent position with the company before he returned to ECS for his final year.

Emily Rigby, who graduates this summer with a BSc Computer Science, did internships with Ericsson Television and with Bloomberg, and will be joining Bloomberg’s graduate training programme this year. Alex Forward did a 12-month placement with Thales Security between his second and third years, as well as doing an internship last summer with STI. He is joining Halma when he completes his MEng Electronic Engineering degree this year. Thomas Scarsbrook, who is also in the final year of the MEng Electronic Engineering course, gained an internship with Imagination Technologies as part of his UK Electronic Skills Foundation Scholarship, and will join the company in the summer. All the students spoke of the benefits of being able to experience project roles that were very different from their student activities and of the confidence they were able to bring back to their studies and project work through successfully tackling new challenges.

Diana Fitch of University Career Destinations also gave a valuable session on how to prepare and apply for internships, including CVs, applications, and interviews.

All ECS students are encouraged to apply for summer internships during their degree programmes and there are many opportunities offered by the companies which support the ECS Careers Hub activities and the Careers Fair.

"Use the summer break to prepare yourself for your future career,’ says Ash Browning. ‘You can use that time to gain more experience, either through an internship or another project that will stand you in good stead in the future. Building up your experience will make finding the right full-time job a lot easier at the end of your degree."

Ash Browning talks about his internship experience (video)

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