The University of Southampton

Published: 8 November 2013
Illustration

The University of Southampton is launching the new Web Science Institute today (11th November) to investigate how the World Wide Web is changing the world and the world is changing the Web.

The Web is the largest information system ever constructed and a social and technical phenomenon that has transformed the world and continues to do so in innovative and unexpected ways that will shape our future. We can’t predict how the Web will change our society, but Southampton has taken a lead in developing new forms of economic, social, political, technological and cultural resources based on a deep understanding of the Web's technologies and social construction.

The Web Science Institute (WSI) will act as a focal point, co-ordinating and putting into practice education, research and enterprise initiatives on web-related developments at the University of Southampton. Its aim is to secure a sustainable future for multi-disciplinary research across the University that has Web Science at its core by:

• focusing on interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships; • demonstrating clear ambition, adaptability and innovation; • leveraging the visionary leadership and outstanding staff and student expertise across the University; • providing a platform for significant investment by Government and external partners; • showcasing unique and creative education programmes that set new standards internationally.

The Institute will be directed by a multi-disciplinary team drawn from across the University and led by Web Science pioneers Professor Dame Wendy Hall and Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt.

Professor Dame Wendy Hall says: “There is a ‘perfect storm’ brewing which combines open data, open education and open research, so this is a very exciting time to be launching the Web Science Institute.”

Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt says: “The open data movement is one example of how the web is evolving, empowering individuals and communities to achieve phenomenal ends. The Web Science Institute will help us to understand this evolution.”

The other WSI Directors are Professor Leslie Carr from the Web Science DTC; Dr Graeme Earl from Humanities; Professor Susan Halford from Social and Human Sciences; and Dr Lisa Harris from Business and Law.

Web Science is the subject of the University’s first ever Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), which starts today. The Web Science MOOC, developed by WSI members in partnership with the Centre for Innovation in Technologies and Education (CITE) and Future Learn, will examine the origins and evolution of the Web, and consider key questions of security, democracy, networks and economy from both computational and social science perspective.

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 15 November 2013
Illustration

Ashley Robinson, final year student on the MEng programme, Electronic Engineering with Artificial Intelligence, has been named as one of four finalists in the competition for this year’s Scholar of the Year, organized by the UK Electronic Skills Foundation.

The winner will be announced at the National Microelectronics Institute annual dinner in London on Thursday 21 November.

Ashley has held a UKESF Scholarship since 2012 and has undertaken two work placements with Cambridge Silicon Radio as part of the programme, working on Near Field Communication with the company’s digital team.

He is positive about the opportunities created by the UKESF programme: ‘It has been of great benefit in terms of consolidating professional skills in the work placements, and helping develop soft skills as well as technical skills in the summer schools’, he said. ‘Also it has been very good to meet engineers from different backgrounds.’

Ashley is currently working intensively on the final-year Group Design Project. His group’s client, Captec, is a leading manufacturer of ruggedized computers, owned and managed by ECS alumnus and Visiting Professor Max Toti. The project aims to provide better monitoring inside the PCs through the incorporation of a UEFI custom application.

Ashley is the third ECS student to reach the final of the Scholar of the Year competition since it was instituted in 2012. In that year ECS student Adam Malpass was named winner, and in 2013 Samuel Hipkin was runner-up. ‘We are very proud of our students’ achievements in UKESF,’ said Professor Neil White, Head of ECS.

‘They have an excellent record in achieving Scholarships, but to have three students reach the finals of Scholar of the Year is outstanding recognition of their ability to transfer their skills from the classroom to the industrial context.’

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 20 November 2013
Illustration

Jonathon Hare recently returned from the international MediaEval workshop in Barcelona- the concluding meeting of the 2013 international MediaEval multimedia benchmarking challenges on which teams have been working hard on over the last few months.

The team led by Jonathon was up against some of the best multimedia information retrieval and data-mining groups from around the world. Not only did they enter more of the challenges than any of the other teams, of the five challenges entered, they came first in three (social event detection, search diversity and crowdsourcing (working together with Elena Simper and the SOCIAM project of which is the University of Southampton is a founding partner).

Yet the accolades did not stop there, with a team comprised of undergraduates as well as research fellows hard work paid off and they also came second in another challenge (geo-placing) and 4th in the other (search and hyperlinking of video).

Jonathon said, "This was the first year we took part in the MediaEval evaluation, and after a very intense summer working on our entries, it was very pleasing that the performance of our techniques was so good. Our undergraduate interns started with very little practical experience of multimedia analysis, and worked incredibly hard to learn and develop a broad set of techniques to help us achieve the final results."

This was a most impressive set of results and by far the best all round team performance from among the 84 submissions from the 66 teams present. This once again demonstrates the talent that is nurtured across all levels of study in Electronics and Computer Science.

The team was as follows for the placing, hyperlinking, search diversity and event detection tasks: Dr Jonathon Hare (Senior Research Fellow) Dr David Dupplaw (Senior Research Fellow) Dr Sina Samangooei (Research Fellow) Neha Jain (1st year MEng Software Engineering [now in 2nd year]) Jamie Davies (2nd year MEng Computer Science [now in 3rd year]) John Preston (2nd year MEng Computer Science with Mobile and Secure Systems [now in 3rd year])

For the crowdsourcing task: Dr Jonathon Hare (Senior Research Fellow) Dr Elena Simperl (Senior Lecturer) Dr David Dupplaw (Senior Research Fellow) Dr Sina Samangooei (Research Fellow) Maribel Acosta (PhD student at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany) Anna Weston (just finished BSc Information Technology in Organisations; now iPhD in Web Science)

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 22 November 2013

The University of Southampton is to share in a £350 million fund, which will be used to train over 3,500 post graduate students in engineering and physical sciences, announced today by Universities and Science Minister, David Willetts. This is the UK's largest investment in post graduate training in engineering and physical sciences. It will fund over 70 new Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs), spread across 24 UK universities. The University of Southampton is involved in three new CDTs – The CDT in Next Generation Computational Modelling (CDT NGCM): Computational modelling is a critically important driver for new technology (from the Airbus 380 to MRI scans), new science (from climate change to drug design), and new policy (from infrastructure to finance). The CDT NGCM, which is led by Professor Hans Fangohr from the Computational Modelling Group at the University of Southampton, will work with world-leading industrial partners to train and support at least 11 PhD students per year. The NGCM’s four-year PhD programme will train students to exploit cutting edge new hardware technology and develop innovative simulation methods, which go beyond the state-of-the-art in order to address the most pressing scientific and engineering challenges of the 21st century. For more information on the NGCM, see: www.ngcm.soton.ac.uk and follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/NGCM_Soton. The CDT in New and Sustainable Photovoltaics (PV): This CDT will support the transformation of PV in the UK that will in turn aid the country to achieve its renewable energy obligations, and will generate jobs in the technology sectors as well as local manufacturing and installation. The CDT is a multicentre team of seven institutions – Southampton (represented by Professor Pavlos Lagoudakis from the University’s Hybrid Photonics group), Liverpool, Bath, Sheffield, Oxford, Loughborough and Cambridge – that will train highly-skilled students capable of transforming state-of-the-art research and development across the sustainable energy and PV sectors and, in so doing, contribute to the production and implementation of improved PV products and systems. Professor Philip Nelson, Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Southampton, says: “We are delighted to be participating in three of the Centres for Doctoral Training announced so far. All of these cover areas of research that are vital to our country's future and we are very pleased to be so directly involved in providing the highly skilled scientists and engineers that are crucial to the UK economy.” The funding, targeted at areas vital to economic growth, has been allocated by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Science Minister David Willetts said: “Scientists and engineers are vital to our economy and society. It is their talent and imagination, as well as their knowledge and skills, that inspire innovation and drive growth across a range of sectors, from manufacturing to financial services. “I am particularly pleased to see strong partnerships between universities, industry and business among the new centres announced today. This type of collaboration is a key element of our industrial strategy and will continue to keep us at the forefront of the global science race.” A total of 1000 partners will be involved in the Centres, leveraging in around £250 million worth of support. Many of the Centres will involve research that connects to key industries and important technologies which will aid innovation and growth. EPSRC may announce a further group of Centres if more resource can be secured. Paul Golby, EPSRC’s Chair, said: “Centres for Doctoral Training have already proved to be a great success and the model is popular with students, business and industry. These new centres will give the country the highly trained scientists and engineers it needs and they will be equipped with skills to move on in their careers. The standard of applications for Centres was very high and more could have been funded if we had the capacity.”

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 22 November 2013
Illustration

For the second time in three years, an ECS student has won the title ‘Scholar of the Year’ awarded by the UKESF (UK Electronic Skills Foundation).

Ashley Robinson, final-year student on the MEng programme, Electronic Engineering with Artificial Intelligence, received the award at the National Microelectronics Institute annual dinner, held last night (21 November) in London.

It was a double success for Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, since Adam Malpass, ECS Electronics graduate from 2012, was named Young Engineer of the Year. Adam, who now works for Dialog Semiconductor, was the first winner of the 'Scholar of the Year' title in 2011.

The UK Electronic Skills Foundation is a collaboration between public bodies, private companies and universities. In addition to connecting employers with students in schools and universities, it runs an annual scholarship programme in which ECS students have been outstandingly successful. The scholarships also include work placement opportunities with leading companies, as well as high-level summer schools with industry participation.

Ashley has held a UKESF Scholarship since 2012 and has undertaken two work placements with Cambridge Silicon Radio, where he has been actively involved in developing NFC chips and LCD controllers. Ashley has also been engaging A-level students at his former school in Hampshire in order to encourage them to experiment with electronics at home. As part of this Ashley has organised lectures for sixth form students, participated in their studies and provided electronics hardware that had been developed at the University of Southampton for them to use.

On winning the award Ashley said: “The scholarship has been a great addition to my academic life, and my experience with CSR and the UKESF professional development workshop will prove invaluable as I start my career when I graduate next year. Through the scholarship I've been able to connect with industry and with other like-minded engineers, so I appreciate the level of competition I was up against to get this award, it's a great honour.”

The accolade of ‘Young Engineer of the Year’ awarded to Adam Malpass is the second award he has received in recent weeks, following his commendation at the 2013 British Engineering Excellence Awards for the title of ‘Young Design Engineer of the Year'. Adam visited ECS earlier this week when he was part of the Dialog team that presented a session on an LED-lit future to the IEEE Student Branch.

Southampton’s success in the UKESF Scholar of the Year title can be gauged from the fact that of the eight finalists in the competition over the last three years, four are from ECS: Adam Malpass (Dialog Semiconductor), Tom Dell (McLaren Electronics), Sam Hipkin (ARM), and Ashley Robinson.

‘We are extremely proud of our students’ success,’ said Professor Neil White, Head of Electronics and Computer Science. ‘In our research and our teaching we are committed to making advances of fundamental importance and value to the UK’s electronics industry, and we are delighted to see our students keen to apply the skills they have learned at Southampton with some of the world’s leading electronics companies.’

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 26 November 2013

Researchers from the University of Southampton, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Quebec and Montreal, have developed a new microsystem for more efficient testing of pharmaceutical drugs to treat diseases such as cystic fibrosis, MG (myasthenia gravis) and epilepsy. A large percentage of pharmaceutical drugs target ion channels, which are proteins found in a cell’s membrane, that play a pivotal role in these serious disorders and that are used to test the effectiveness of new drugs. Ion channels create tiny openings in the membrane for specific ions (atoms that are positively or negatively charged) to pass through. Currently researchers use electrophysiology, which measures an electric current through ion channel proteins, to evaluate the effectiveness of drugs on ion channels. However, this can be a slow and expensive process as it is typically carried out using ion channels in living cell membranes. Now, Southampton researchers have been able to produce an ion channel without using cells, which is possible with so-called cell-free expression mixtures, and to insert the channels in a stable artificial cell membrane which should enable faster, less expensive drug testing. The key is that the cell-free expression mixture, which is known to destabilise these membranes, can actually help with incorporating the produced channels into a membrane between two microdroplets. This combination of molecular biology and microtechnology transformed the conventional multi-day, multi-step single ion-channel electrophysiology method into a quick and economical process. “By putting the ion channel into an artificial membrane, we only have one type of channel, no living cells and a relatively inexpensive method for testing for several of these types of channels at once,” says lead author of the study Dr Maurits de Planque of the Nano Research Group in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. “Researchers have experimented with cell-free mixtures before, but they found that this method was not economical due to the amount of expensive biochemicals required,” adds Dr de Planque. “Our proposal to develop a new platform, which uses a couple of microlitres instead of millilitres, will be a very cost-effective way of doing this, particularly when the produced channel is directly inserted in a membrane for drug testing.” Study co-author, Biological Sciences lecturer Dr Philip Williamson, from the University’s Institute for Life Sciences, says: “This new technology opens up avenues for drug screening, identifying new leads and identifying off target effects. Off target effects are a major complication in the development of new drugs, and many are withdrawn from late stage clinical trials due to cardiotoxic effects arising from the inhibition of the hERG voltage gated ion channel in the heart. The hERG channel coordinates cardiac rhythm and the availability of cheap and reliable assays to identify these interactions early will help streamline the drug discovery process.” The study ‘Single-channel electrophysiology of cell-free expressed ion channels by direct incorporation in lipid bilayers’, which appears in the RSC journal Analyst, is in collaboration with biological scientists in the University’s Institute for Life Sciences. The research has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 27 November 2013
Illustration

Dr Jonathon Hare and his colleague Dr Sina Samangooei from the University of Southampton’s Web and Internet Science Group have been 3D printing model heads of some well-known people based on obsolete technology.

Sina managed to acquire a number of floppy disks containing 3D scans of people’s heads that were made in the late 80s/early 90s by his dad, who worked for a start-up company doing 3D scanning. These disks and data were in an obscure format that can't be used on today’s computers, so Jon and Sina have been doing a bit of digital archaeology to try and recover the data.

This has been challenging as they had to find various bits of hardware, like floppy drives, that aren't common anymore and also do a lot of digging to understand the format of the disks. They started with no more knowledge than that they came from a 3D scanner in the 1980's and that the format was highly non-standard.

They have now however managed to recover some of the data and get it into a modern format that they can work with and have now managed to print a number of models on a homemade, kit-built, 3D printer. There are 51 scans, of which 27 are complete’ and they’ve printed six unique models so far. Some of the famous people they have modelled include:

Maggie Philbin – British TV presenter; for an episode of Tomorrow’s World Mohammad-Reza Shajarian – Internationally renowned Persian Singer Hussein bin Talal – past King of Jordan Hassan Kassai – Iconic master of Persian classical music

There was also a scan of a sculpture of Grigoris Afxentiou – who is considered a national hero in Cyprus.

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 27 November 2013
Illustration

‘Choose the Earth’, is the message of James Dyke’s latest headline article in The Conversation, ‘not because it is easy, but because it is hard.’

Dr Dyke is a Lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation, and a member of the Agents, Interaction and Complexity research group in ECS (Electronics and Computer Science). He developed and leads the teaching of the multidisciplinary Global Challenges undergraduate module at the University of Southampton.

Contrasting the scientific and technical challenges posed by climate change and human impact on the environment with the huge achievement of US scientists who successfully landed American astronauts on the Moon in 1969 - less than 10 years after President Kennedy made this a national goal, Dr Dyke sets out the scale of the effort that could ensure the sustainability of our planet.

Reducing carbon emissions, providing new means of power generation, and building smartgrids are some of the technological problems to be faced; halting deforestation and ensuring better and more sustainable use of the Earth’s resources will require concerted global efforts. In addition to this, Dr Dyke also calls for changes to governance and political institutions: ‘Rather than top down, imposed solutions that don’t work, get people involved in processes and issues that matter to them. Connect them with others and have them feel invested in these projects and collectively build consensus and power from the bottom up.’

However, the major challenge is even more radical, he says: ‘Hyper-consumerism and the demand for growth is simply not compatible with the finite resources of our planet, and the use of Gross Domestic Product as the only measure that counts needs to be addressed, so that natural resources and human lives are defined by more than monetary values.’

The full article is available in The Conversation, Wednesday 27 November.

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 9 December 2013
Illustration

Three Professors in Electronics and Computer Science were named in the prestigious UKTech Top 50, published last week in Computer Weekly.

Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Chairman of the Open Data Institute, was named 11th, Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web and director of the Open Data Institute was named 19th, and Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Director of the Web Science Trust and Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering at the University of Southampton was named 25th in the list.

Described by Computer Weekly as the ‘definitive list of the movers and shakers in UK IT [...] driving the role of technology in the UK economy’, the list is published annually, and judged by a panel of experts as well as a public vote from the magazine’s readers. Its aim, according to Computer Weekly, is ‘to determine who holds the most influence over the future of the UK IT sector in the next 12 months – and hence the future of IT professionals across the country’.

Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Chairman, Open Data Institute Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Southampton. He is chairman and co-founder, with Sir Tim Berners-Lee of the Open Data Institute (ODI). Launched in December 2012, the ODI focuses on unlocking supply and stimulating demand for open data. Shadbolt is also an advisor to the UK government on how to transform public access to government information, including the Data.gov.uk site. He sits on the Public Sector Transparency Board responsible for setting open data strategy across the public sector.

Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web inventor; President, Open Data Institute Undoubtedly the most famous UK computer scientist, Berners-Lee boosted his profile with an appearance in the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics, to widespread geek joy. As well as his evangelising of the web, he advises the government on open data as a director of the Open Data Institute. He has become an increasingly outspoken critic of government internet surveillance policies.

Dame Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science at University of Southampton Wendy Hall is one of the most respected computer science academics in the UK. She is founding director, along with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, of the Web Science Research Initiative, which was launched in 2006 as long-term research collaboration between the University of Southampton and MIT.

‘It is an extraordinary reflection of the influence of Computer Science at the University of Southampton that three of our professors are included in this distinguished list,’ said Professor Neil White, Head of Electronics and Computer Science. ‘All three continue to make outstanding contributions to their discipline, particularly to our understanding and exploitation of the Web, and in fact they are working closely with many of the other distinguished leaders on this list. The year began with the announcement of the award of the Regius Chair of Computer Science to the University of Southampton, and we are delighted to see another affirmation of the influence of the department in the UKTech50 2013.’

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 10 December 2013
Illustration

The Head of School Fund for ECS has this year enabled students to take part in academic, research, educational and development activities around the world.

Assessing the effects of climate change on Icelandic glaciers, spreading the excitement of student enterprise competitions in Romania and Slovenia, and developing an electrical hub for a remote village in Cameroon were just some of the activities that our students were able to undertake this summer as a result of support from The Head of School Fund for ECS.

The Fund enables students in Electronics and Computer Science (ECS ) at the University of Southampton to undertake activities which enhance their personal development – these might be voluntary service, charitable or educational, or any initiative of value to the broader community, for which additional funding is required to achieve success.

The Fund is provided through the generosity of ECS alumni, in response to the annual telephone campaign and through other personal donations. In 2013, as a result of grants made from the Fund, ECS students were able to attend leading academic conferences across Europe, spend the summer on the prestigious Study China programme, and intern for Student Robotics.

Reporting on their experiences our students commented:

‘I found it moving to see how electricity makes such a difference to the lives of those in the village in Cameroon,’ said Oladipo Phillips, who along with ECS student Jarrod Zancanella took part in the University’s Cameroon Catalyst project for the Mosame Trust. ‘I was able to utilise the skills and knowledge that I picked up on my course and found the experience rewarding and exciting.’

‘Without the Fund I wouldn’t have been able to attend the conference or gain experience speaking in front of an audience on an academic subject,’ said Marc De Vos, who developed the world’s first screen-printed watch on fabric for his third-year project. As a result he was asked to attend the Smart Textiles Salon in Ghent, Belgium, for which the Fund provided the finance.

Three students used their funding for start-up competitions: Alejandro Saucedo organized the lively Startup Weekend held in Southampton, while Izidor Flajsman and Vlad Velici organized highly successful events in their home towns of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Timisoara, Romania, respectively. All three events helped spread the word about ECS to potential future undergraduate students. Vlad commented: ‘I learned a lot from organizing this, as I mostly did it myself- from building a website and doing the marketing to getting a venue and judges – not to mention planning and running the event!’ ‘The funding enabled me to organise a creative, technology focused 54 hours, non-stop event in Slovenia, Its aim was simple: to show Slovenian students that the world is a small place and that they have the power to build new things and change the environment around them through entrepreneurship,’ said Izidor. Chris Baines was able to attend DebConf in Switzerland, finding out ore about Debian, Ikiwiki and novel software such as GPG. He was also able to attend the OpenStreetMap conference in Birmingham. Edward Seabrook attended the 87th meeting of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) in Berlin and was able to observe the process of the production, peer review an dpublication of standards that regulate the Internet. ‘This trip enabled me to gain an insight into the IETF that would not have been possible without attending the meeting. I am very thankful to ECS for providing me with this opportunity.’

Arinze Ekwosimba, President of the IEEE Student Chapter at ECS 2012-13, was able to take up an invitation to attend the 2nd IEEE Central European Student Branch Congress held in Opole, Poland, in May. The Congress brought together 80 engineering students and young professionals from Central Europe and neighbouring regions to discuss present and future engineering challenges, develop new skills and share experiences. ‘It was a plus for ECS to have one of its most active societies participating at an international event, helping to boost its global reputation and presence.’

Alexander Ally interned on the long-standing GLACSWEB programme, tracking the effect of climate change on glaciers. 'On the internship I was tasked with creating an interactive data visualisation tool which would enable researchers to view data more quickly and easily than they otherwise could have. The data was being used to track the movements of glaciers in Iceland. This was of great interest to me as I could see my work being used in a practical sense for real word data. To enable people to use such a tool without installing extra software on their computer I used the World Wide Web as my platform. This meant I had to hone my skills in working with technologies such as JavaScript and SVG. Technologies which are the driving force of modern application development, especially on the web. The internship gave me valuable experience in developing for real-world applications and very much helped me improve my skills for developing on the Web.

Robin Johnson had a starring role in the University Theatre Group’s production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe: ‘Ultimately, the Fringe left me with a deep desire to attain the standards that, through their shows, other performers demonstrated to me in terms of their motivational determination, absolute dedication and awe-inspiring imagination. Regardless of which avenue this may be in, I left Edinburgh wanting to make my mark on the world, too.'

'We are grateful to ECS alumni for enabling our students to pursue these challenges', said Professor Neil White, Head of Electronics and Computer Science. In their grant applications our students stressed that financial support of this kind was fundamental to their ability to undertake these ambitious and often life-changing activities.'

Gifts from alumni and friends are making a real difference to ECS students.To find out how you can support ECS students, please visit http://www.southampton.ac.uk/supportus or email annualgiving@southampton.ac.uk

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Pages