The University of Southampton

Published: 12 June 2014

Dr Koushik Maharatna from Electronics and Computer Science is appearing today on the BBC Radio 4 programme, Inside Science.

Koushik will be talking about an EU-wide project looking at "cyborg plants" which allow plants to "talk" to scientists, giving updates on water and nitrogen levels.

The project - 'PLEASED' - brings together the University of Southampton with researchers from Spain and Italy to develop a way to monitor the effect of climate change and pollution on the environment, by creating a special kind of plant which has in-built sensors. Once inside the plant, the micro-sensors collect the plant's signals, analyse them, combine them with those of other plants nearby, and produce a clear analysis of the environment around it. In other words, the plant will tell you how it feels and why.

Talking plants, known as "cyborg plants" react to various elements such as acid, ozone or salt. Dr Maharatna and the PLEASED team aim to create prototypes from low-cost, readily-available components in the hope that everyone, from nature-lovers to farmers, will be able to make their own plant sensors. Anyone would then be able, for instance, to determine if a plant needed more or less sun and water, or how a specific fertilizer was affecting its health. And since the solution is wifi-based, even monitoring your garden from your living room could be possible.

Further details on t he project are at pleased-fp7.eu

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Published: 23 June 2014
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ECS alumna Shirin Dehghan visited ECS today (Monday 23 June – National Women in Engineering Day).

Shirin graduated from the University of Southampton in 1992 with an MEng degree in Electronics, and began her career by working for MAC (Multiple Access Communications) with Professor Ray Steele at Chilworth Science Park. Shirin developed radio propagation products and became the manager of the consultancy division of the business, leading projects involving major operators and manufacturers.

She then became research engineer at Vodafone Group and was responsible for the development of WCDMA simulation and business modelling. She was part of Vodafone UK's UMTS auction team, where she acted as technical expert on systems and technology issues, providing technical liaison to the UK board. In 2002 she founded her own business Arieso, with the vision of enabling self-optimizing networks. Under her management and guidance the company achieved great success and was sold last year to US mobile technology group JDSU.

Shirin is the author of several technical publications and has been a speaker in numerous technical conferences. She has also won a string of awards for her contribution to business and enterprise.

Today's visit to ECS was hosted by Professor Michael Butler and the Athena Swan group, and the audience included a school-group, visiting ECS for an outreach event led by Dr Reena Pau, who were able to hear Shirin’s inspiring talk – ‘Women Lead Technology Businesses’.

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Published: 27 June 2014

As part of the University of Southampton’s Reunion Experience 2014, we're welcoming back alumni to a special engineering showcase on Saurday 12 July from 10am to 1pm.

Alumni from the years 1954, 1964, 1974, 1984, 1994 and 2004 are warmly invited back to celebrate the anniversary of their graduation. There will be the opportunity to tour our world-class facilities, find out more about our current research, share memories and catch-up with old friends. Refreshments will be available.

Register for the Reunion Experience 2014

Cutting-edge facilities

Facilities from across the two engineering faculties will be on display: our interdisciplinary Cleanroom Complex; the wind tunnel; Erica the rhino; the μ-Vis and X-Ray Imaging Centre; and the anechoic and reverberation chambers.

The Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory will also be open for tours on the day, but these must be pre-booked separately.

Pioneering researchers

Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of Physical Sciences and Engineering will be taking part in the evening dinner, organised by the University's Alumni Office.

There will also be a rare opportunity to hear from two pioneering researchers: Dr Reuben Wilcock and Professor Sir David Payne.

Dr Reuben Wilcock of the ARM-ECS Research Center is an award-winning academic and engaging speaker. His most recent enterprise MyJoulo, won the British Gas Connecting Homes Startup Competition 2013.

Professor Sir David Payne is one of the UK's most eminent scientists. His discoveries in the 1970s and 1980s directly underpin today's Internet infrastructure, and his work continues to help ensure its long-term stability.

Venue:

  • Highfield Campus, University of Southampton

Contact for more information:

  • Name: Alumni Office
  • Phone: +44 (0)23 8059 2747
  • E-mail: ARevents@southampton.ac.uk

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Published: 3 July 2014
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Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of Physical Sciences and Engineering at the University of Southampton, has been named as the most influential woman in UK IT by a national computing website.

Computer Weekly recognised Dame Wendy as being number one in the top 25 women who have had a major impact on UK IT.

The winners were announced at a special event in London this afternoon and were selected by a judging panel of employers and IT leaders from across industry, as well as readers of the digital magazine that is the leading provider news, analysis, opinion, information and services for the UK IT community.

Dame Wendy joined 24 other women who Computer Weekly acknowledges represent role models that will be important to the future diversity and success of the UK’s high-tech economy.

“I'm delighted and flattered to have been named as the most influential woman in UK IT, alongside such distinguished names. I applaud Computer Weekly for their efforts to highlight the vital role of women in IT in the UK, which is far more significant than is often realised,” said Dame Wendy.

“Such publicity will encourage others to consider careers in an industry that is one of the most exciting and important to be in today,” she added.

Dame Wendy has held many leadership roles in addition to her academic research in computer science, in the development of the World Wide Web and, more recently, in establishing and developing the new discipline of Web Science.

With Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt, Dame Wendy co-founded the Web Science Research Initiative in 2006. She is currently a Director of the Web Science Trust, which has a global mission to support the development of research, education and thought leadership in Web Science. Dame Wendy is also a Director of the University’s recently launched Web Science Institute, which brings together world-leading multidisciplinary expertise to tackle the most pressing global challenges facing the World Wide Web and wider society today.

She was President of the British Computer Society; the first non-North American to lead the Association of Computing Machinery, the world's largest organisation for computer professionals; a member of the Prime Ministers Council for Science and Technology; Senior Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering; and a member of the Research Council of the European Research Council.

Dame Wendy became a Dame Commander of the British Empire in the 2009 UK New Year’s Honours list and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 2009.

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Published: 7 July 2014

The fourth annual, and biggest ever, UKESF (UK Electronics Skills Foundation), summer school is being hosted by the University of Southampton this week (7 to 11 July).

The UKESF Summer Schools provide prospective electrical and electronic engineering (EEE) students first-hand electronics experience. Students have been recruited as part of the EDT Headstart programme, which runs science and engineering university taster courses at universities across the UK.

The five-day course will consist of practical lab work and lectures from academics from UKESF university partners (Cardiff, Edinburgh, Imperial, Manchester, Nottingham, and York) as well as academics from the University of Southampton. There will also be field trips to course sponsors Thales and the Science and Technology Facilities Council; offering students the opportunity to gain practical insights into the lives of working electronic engineers across a range of disciplines including aerospace, defence, security, transport, particle physics and space technology.

The course will be supported by UKESF scholarship students currently studying at the University of Southampton, and will feature presentations from previous UKESF scholarship students who will talk about their experience of working in the industry.

“These courses are a fantastic way for school students to learn about electronics and to encourage them into degrees valued by an industry that has a range of rewarding careers to offer,” said Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi, Associate Dean for Research at the University of Southampton’s Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering. “Since UKESF started, over 30 of our students have been part of the scholarship scheme, undertaking valuable work experience that has informed their career decisions,” he adds.

The event is being sponsored by a number of world-leading companies that create or rely on electronic systems including, ARM, Broadcom Foundation, CSR, Dialog Semiconductor, Imagination Technologies, Jaguar Land Rover, and Thales.

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Published: 18 July 2014
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Researchers from the University of Southampton have helped to develop a new web application for gathering evidence during natural disasters, which will enable more effective emergency response.

Accurate information can be life-saving in extreme situations, such as earthquakes and tsunamis. However, finding out the accuracy of that information from the vast amount of contradictory material that is posted on social media channels is becoming increasingly difficult. While such channels are useful for identifying and sharing content, they are not the right tools for verification, which requires searching for evidence rather than liking or retweeting.

Verily (www.veri.ly) has been designed by researchers from the University of Southampton, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in the UAE and Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) to rapidly crowdsource the verification of information during disasters.

To test whether the platform would be effective, researchers designed the Verily Challenge to prove the feasibility of timely verification.

Various questions were posted to www.veri.ly/crisis/1 and users were invited to submit evidence justifying their answer. A user could not simply submit a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for an answer. Instead, they had to verify their position by providing evidence either in the form of an image or video or as text.

For example, a photo of a street was posted with the question: Is this street in Rome. The photo was taken from a personal archive and was actually in the Italian town of Caltagirone in Sicily. The question was answered correctly within four hours by a user who submitted another picture of the same street.

A variety of other techniques and platforms were used to collect evidence: - Foto Forensics helped ascertain the location of a skyscraper. - Google Earth confirmed a Greek lake photo. - Personal memory or extreme searching skill helped determine the location of this window display. - The location of a concrete robot with a heart was identified through a creative Google query.

The success of the challenge confirmed the feasibility of rapid evidence collection. The next step is to deploy Verily for evidence collection during a humanitarian disaster.

Victor Naroditskiy, a research fellow in Electronics and Computer Science at the University, who helped to create Verily, says: “The lack of verifiability of content posted on social media is the main reason preventing humanitarian and news organisations from making a wider use of it.

“The rationale for Verily is that the collective effort of people searching for the truth will be fruitful. Examples of the tremendous power of collective effort can be seen in projects like Wikipedia, and closer to home in experiments like the DARPA Red Balloon Challenge. In this 2009 challenge, 10 red weather balloons moored at secret locations throughout the US were discovered within nine hours through a mass mobilisation over social media channels.”

Verily was invented by Carlos Castillo (QCRI), Patrick Meier (QCRI), Victor Naroditskiy (Southampton) and Iyad Rahwan (Masdar). The technical development of the platform was by Masters students Luis Arenal Mijares, Alex Greenland and Dimitrios Papamiliosin from the Web Technology MSc programme at the University of Southampton led by Enrico Costanza and Victor Naroditskiy. Justine Mackinnon (QCRI) together with the Southampton team organised the public trial of the platform.

Victor and Enrico research crowdsourcing in the context of ORCHID, a multidisciplinary EPSRC-funded project developing the science and technologies for human-agent collectives, with disaster response as a key application area.

You can follow Verily on Twitter @VeriDotLy

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Published: 21 July 2014
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The fourth annual, and biggest ever, UKESF (UK Electronics Skills Foundation), summer school was hosted by the University of Southampton this month (7 to 11 July).

The UKESF Summer Schools provided prospective electrical and electronic engineering (EEE) students first-hand electronics experience. The five-day course consisted of practical lab work and lectures from academics from UKESF university partners (Cardiff, Edinburgh, Imperial, Manchester, Nottingham, and York) as well as academics from the University of Southampton. There were also field trips to course sponsors Thales and the Science and Technology Facilities Council; offering students the opportunity to gain practical insights into the lives of working electronic engineers across a range of disciplines including aerospace, defence, security, transport, particle physics and space technology.

James Fitzpatrick, 16, from Bournemouth School, said: “I’ve really enjoyed using the lab equipment, which we don’t normally get access to at school. I want to study computer science so it was great to see how the University works and experience going to lectures and halls of residence.”

Mary Bennett, 16, from Peter Symonds College, said: “It’s been an awesome few days and I’ve met lots of new people and made some new friends. I knew that I wanted to study engineering at the University of Southampton and after this week, I now know that I want to do electronic engineering.”

“These courses are a fantastic way for school students to learn about electronics and to encourage them into degrees valued by an industry that has a range of rewarding careers to offer,” said Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi, Associate Dean for Research at the University of Southampton’s Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering. “Since UKESF started, over 30 of our students have been part of the scholarship scheme, undertaking valuable work experience that has informed their career decisions,” he adds.

The event was sponsored by a number of world-leading companies that create or rely on electronic systems including ARM, Broadcom Foundation, CSR, Dialog Semiconductor, Imagination Technologies, Jaguar Land Rover, and Thales.

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Published: 21 July 2014

The University of Southampton is part of a research programme that has been awarded £6.4 million to develop lighter, safer, and more fuel efficient aircraft.

The HARNet (Harmonised Antennas, Radios and Networks) strategic research programme has been awarded the funding from the Aerospace Growth Partnership (AGP).

The project is led by Thales working with industry partner Cobham, who will invest an additional £5.2 million into the research. The programme will be aided and supported by the research of the universities of Southampton and Bradford and Queen Mary University of London.

The partnership will develop the radio techniques and technologies required to produce an Integrated Modular Communications (IMC) system for civil aircraft.

As the IMC is smaller, lighter, and offers more flexible capability, it will mean less equipment will need to be installed on new aircraft, freeing up critical space and reducing fuel burn, noise and CO² emissions. An IMC would also offer higher reliability, safety and security.

The University of Southampton is contributing innovative approaches to data networking for the IMC, which will allow aircraft to seamlessly exchange data with each other and the ground. This will allow the aircraft and their passengers to remain connected to the world, regardless of whether they are parked at an airport, taking off or landing, flying over populated areas, or flying over the ocean. Dr Rob Maunder from Electronics and Computer Science says: “This research draws upon the University's expertise in wireless communication and networking, within Electronics and Computer Science. We are very excited to be involved in this ambitious project - it offers us a fantastic opportunity for extending the reach, impact and profile of our research.”

Peter Hitchcock, Vice President – Avionics, Thales UK, says: “This investment will help bring to fruition the technologies and products that will tackle some of the big issues facing the aviation industry. It will also help retain valuable skills, expertise and technologies within the UK. We welcome this investment from the AGP and look forward to working with industry and academia to advance communications systems for civil aircraft.”

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Published: 25 July 2014
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Many congratulations to over 200 new graduates of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) who received University of Southampton degrees this week.

The new graduates were joined by family and friends from around the world on Wednesday 23 July to celebrate their outstanding achievements. The ECS Graduation ceremonies for new BSc, MEng, and PhD graduates took place in the Nuffield Theatre and the Turner Sims Concert Hall, followed by Graduation receptions.

Many of the graduates had already started work, with popular destinations for ECS graduates including J P Morgan, ARM, Bloomberg, Factset, Imagination Technologies, and Micro Focus. A significant number of graduates will also be embarking on PhD degrees at Southampton and other universities in the UK and US.

Addressing the graduates, Professor Michael Butler, Professor Neil White and Senior Tutor Eric Cooke paid tribute to their excellent degree results and to their contribution to the ECS community. “It has been hard work, but having seen the impressive list of companies you are joining as you embark on your career, I am sure you will agree that it was worth it,” said Professor White. “The skills you have gained will remain key to future technology and business success, and you leave ECS with a very strong reputation for the breadth and depth of your knowledge, as well as your ability to use technology rigorously and imaginatively.”

In addition to the Zepler and Winton Capital Management prizes for outstanding academic achievements, Head of School Prizes for exceptional contributions to the ECS and University communities were awarded to Alejandro Saucedo Mora (Computer Science), and to Yusra Hussain and Arinze Ekwosimba (Electronic Engineering).

“ECS gave us more than just an excellent education,” said Yusra. “It gave us the opportunity to innovate, start societies and seek our potential. I will miss my time at ECS thoroughly. ECS has given me the opportunity to begin new things, network with so many different people, and take things to different levels. It has given me the confidence to enter the world with a good set of skills, ready to take on new challenges.”

All ECS graduates can keep in touch with alumni events and opportunities by maintaining their contact details with the University Alumni Office, and by joining the ECS LinkedIn group: ‘ECS Alumni, University of Southampton’.

Graduation photos are available on the ECS Flickr site.

For further information on this story contact Joyce Lewis; tel.023 8059 5453.

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Published: 4 August 2014
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Over the last two years, the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory (TDHVL), with support from a large number of staff across the University have been developing their systems, structure and working practices to ensure that the laboratory is compliant to three key standards:

Following a successful audit by SGS United Kingdom Ltd Systems and Services Certification, the laboratory has been certified as meeting the requirements of all three standards until April 2017 for the activities of development, product type testing and consultancy services related to high voltage plant and accessories. TDHVL is the first UK University high voltage laboratory to achieve this and the decision to seek certification was not taken lightly. “The laboratory was losing its traditional customers to overseas high voltage facilities because we did not meet their requirements to become approved suppliers of research or testing services”, said Neil Palmer, Laboratory Manager, “fortunately as it became known that we were pursuing certification, demand for our research and testing services has grown and now we have never been busier”. The same systems and structures are in place for all research activities across the Laboratory and already there are some clear benefits. “We have improved our processes for equipment calibration and maintenance, which in turn has an impact on the quality of our experimental research”, said Prof Paul Lewin, Head of the Laboratory, “to be honest at first I was sceptical about the benefits, but now we have everything in place, we are working more effectively and efficiently as a research laboratory and commercial testing house”. Recently the Laboratory has successfully submitted and won tenders for two large research/testing projects and it is clear that in the future more industrially funded research will be let via a tender process. “Having certification ensures that we not only meet the basic entry requirements for tendering for research services but also greatly reduces subsequent audit processes before the tender is awarded and during the programme of work itself”, added Paul.

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