A research team at the University of Southampton has been awarded over £400,000 to develop future applications of nanomaterials in silicon-based devices.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has awarded a prestigious Platform Grant to Professor Peter Ashburn, Dr Darren Bagnall and Dr Kees de Groot of the Nanoscale Systems Integration Group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) to enable them to explore new device applications of silicon-based nanomaterials.

Professor Ashburn commented: 'Devices are getting smaller all the time and are reaching sizes where new nanomaterials concepts can increasingly be applied. As silicon technology approaches the nanometer era, remarkable opportunities will exist to combine nanomaterials, quantum phenomena and microelectronics technology in creative ways to produce new types of silicon devices for a wide range of applications. We look forward to exploring these further.'

EPSRC Platform Grants are intended to help maintain and develop a strong UK science base. They provide world-leading groups with continuity for key staff in order to undertake longer term research with enhanced national and international networking.

Professor Ashburn has a strong track record in high-frequency silicon-based devices for wireless applications; Dr Bagnall, who has undertaken considerable research into planar chiral nanostructures, has just been appointed Senior Lecturer; and Dr de Groot holds a Research Lectureship at the University in the field of spintronic devices. This is a unique combination of experience in silicon devices and nanotechnology and a major factor in the award of the grant.

The Platform Grant runs for a five-year period, and enables experienced Research Fellows to carry out feasibility studies on new research ideas, and then, if successful, to apply for further funding to develop the ideas into new devices. Intended areas of research at Southampton are metal catalyst-free growth of carbon nanotubes for electronic devices, and integration of self assembled optical and magnetic dots with Si processing for on-chip lasers and non volatile memory storage.

A chip has been developed which will measure the levels and types of algae in the sea.

Professor Hywel Morgan and his team at the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton have developed a sensor which, when dropped into the sea, can record information about the types and quantities of algae present, providing valuable information for climate studies.

Algae flow through the device one at a time and at high speed. When the device shines light at the algae, they will respond by emitting light at different wavelengths, allowing them to be characterised. The device also records data about the electrical properties of the algae.

Professor Morgan commented: 'There is very little known about the electrical properties of algae and it is these properties which tell us about the size of particles and the types of membranes. As they go through the chip, one by one, at high speed, these properties can be recorded.'

The ECS team is working with Professor Peter Burkill, Head of the George Deacon Division (GDD) at the Southampton Oceanography Centre, whose mission is to gain a better understanding of the key issues concerning the ocean and climate change. This chip will help Professor Burkill and his team in their quest to identify the algal populations in the sea. Professor Burkill commented: 'Algae are now known to influence the climate in various ways. All algae use carbon dioxide (a major climatically active gas): while some lock up this gas in their calcified skeletons, others do not do so. Other groups of algae produce compounds such as dimethyl sulphonioproprionate (DMSP) that can become climatically active. To understand this we need to be able to differentiate the different algal types and enumerate them using equipment that is precise but cheap enough that very many can be used. That is the real strength of this development.'

The chip also has applications in DNA identification and diagnostics. Its development to date has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the University's Life Sciences Interface. Ends

The future of intelligent sensor networks will be a key theme for University of Southampton researchers when they deliver papers at Nanotech 2005 next month.

Seven researchers from the University’s School of Electronics & Computer Science have been invited to present at this, the largest international nanotechnology conference and trade show in the world, which will take place at the Anaheim Marriott & Convention Centre, Anaheim from 8-12 May 2005 and will bring together specialists from a wide range of fields of science, technology and business and over 2,500 attendees.

Intelligent sensors and the challenges posed by incorporating them into sensor networks will be the theme of Professor Neil White’s plenary lecture on Intelligent Sensors: Systems or Components. The theme of wireless sensor networks will be continued with a paper from Geoff Merrett on the subject; Dr Nick Harris will present on Modelling of microfluidic ultrasonic separators, Dr Peter Boltryk on Optimal signal extraction from smart sensors, Hamza Rouabah on Design and modelling of novel micropumps , and Daniele Malleo on Design of an electrostatic MEMS actuator.

Dr Michael Kraft is also presenting an invited talk on Higher-order Sigma-Delta Modulator Interfaces for MEMS.

Professor Wendy Hall CBE, FREng, Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, will give the sixth annual Athena Lecture at Imperial College London, on Wednesday 4 May. In her lecture, Professor Hall will draw on her own experience and her personal research journey, to emphasize the powerful role that networks can play, both in computing, but also in tackling issues and problems in research and academic life more generally. Professor Hall comments: ‘The Semantic Web is Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the next generation of the Web. In this talk I plan to describe my personal research journey, from my early days of hypermedia and multimedia research, through Web-based link services, to the Semantic Web technologies we are building today, in the context of my career as a woman in engineering. ‘As we design and build complex knowledge-based systems to help us make sense of the vast amounts of information available to us on an everyday basis via the WWW, I am constantly aware of how we increasingly use networks of machines, systems and people to solve the research problems that face us. ‘I have found in my career that the power of networks is the best way to overcome some of the issues that arise from the still overwhelming gender imbalance in SET. I will conclude the lecture with a look to the future, using my current research interests at the interface of computer science and the life sciences to paint a picture of a world in which there are as many women computer scientists as there are men.’ Professor Wendy Hall is one of the world’s leading computer scientists. She is a member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology, immediate Past President of the British Computer Society, and the only UK council member of the US Association for Computing Machinery.

Southampton inaugurals to address advances in photonics

The ‘magical’ qualities of technology and its potential to transform our lives will be addressed this month at the University of Southampton.

Inaugural lectures by Professor Greg Parker and Professor James Wilkinson from the University’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) and Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), which will take place on Wednesday 18 May, will address how technological advances in the worlds of photonics and nanoscale systems are making far-reaching new developments possible.

Professor James Wilkinson will deliver a lecture entitled Photonics in Transition, during which he will describe how, following the transformation of information and communications technologies by optical devices over the past 20 years, photonics is now making rapid advances in other fields including biology.

Professor Wilkinson commented: ‘Photonics is now playing a key analytical role in the life sciences and the knowledge gained is leading to new chemical and biologically-inspired techniques to provide low-cost devices for future telecommunications systems.’

In his lecture entitled Indistinguishable from Magic, Greg Parker who is Professor of Photonics at the University, will describe advances in the study of light, optical instruments, optical micro-devices and photography. He will also demystify current technology in terms of how it deals with fractals, chaos, complexity and symmetry.

Professor Parker commented: ‘One of the main aims of this lecture is to show how current technology, much of which we take very much for granted, comes pretty close to what you might consider “magicalâ€? when you realise what’s going on under the lid of the box. There are other themes that tangle and interweave and the final outcome, if I have been successful, is to make you question that indefinable thing we call reality.’

The lectures take place in the Turner Sims Concert Hall, at 3.30 pm and 5 pm, on Wednesday 18 May.

Researchers at the University of Southampton have produced an interim report on agent technology on which they are inviting feedback from industry.

The AgentLink III consultation document, which is available from Professor Michael Luck at the University’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), co-ordinator of the initiative, sets out a roadmap which aims to put Europe at the leading edge of international competitiveness in agent technology. AgentLink’s role is to promote research, development and deployment of autonomous, problem-solving computational entities across industry and academia.

The document describes current research initiatives and deployment of agent technologies and presents the challenges posed by new Grid computing and web technologies.

Professor Luck commented: ‘One of our goals in this interim report is to predict the future of agent technologies. This document is only the first stage in the process of developing AgentLink’s 2005 roadmap. Its purpose is twofold: first as a marker, laying down the preliminary findings of the initial work undertaken on the roadmap, and second as a call to the wider community to engage in the process of developing the content of the final, more substantial document.’

The public consultation and content solicitation period ends on 31 May 2005.

Professor Tony Hey is to join Microsoft Corporation as a corporate vice president to co-ordinate their Technical Computing Initiative. He will work across the company to co-ordinate Microsoft’s efforts to collaborate with the scientific community worldwide. Currently Director of the UK’s e-Science Programme, Tony Hey has been a member of staff of the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) since 1986, and was Head of School from 1994 to 1999. He played a critical role in building the School into one of the UK’s leading academic departments, and has retained his Chair in the School throughout his period of secondment to UK e-Science. ‘This is wonderful news,’ said Professor Wendy Hall, Head of ECS, ‘and I am delighted to send our warmest congratulations to Tony on behalf of the School. His energy, vision, and sheer ability to make things happen will be of huge benefit to Microsoft and to future collaboration with researchers worldwide. At Southampton we are very glad that Tony will be retaining his Chair in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, and his strong links with the School and the University.’ Professor Hey is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the British Computer Society, the Institution of Electrical Engineers and a member of the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. In the New Year Honours List (2005) he received the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for his services to science. ‘Today computation plays a critical role in advancing research across almost every field of science, yet far too often scientists must build all their own programming infrastructures and research their own algorithms to help advance their research effort,’ said Professor Hey. ‘By collaborating with the scientific community, I am confident that some of Microsoft’s advanced technologies can be used to accelerate their rate of discover.’ He has worked in the field of parallel and distributed computing since the early 1980s and was instrumental in the development of the MPI message-passing standard and in the Genesis Distributed Memory Parallel Benchmark suite. In 1991, he founded the Southampton Parallel Applications Centre (now the IT Innovation Centre), which has played a leading technology transfer role in Europe and the UK in collaborative industrial projects. His personal research interests are concerned with performance engineering for Grid applications but he also retains an interest in experimental explorations of quantum computing and quantum information theory.

Museum curators and researchers will soon be able to investigate and study works of art in multiple museums and galleries without leaving their desks.

This development is made possible by the SCULPTEUR project, which was completed this month. The project, which is the first of its kind, has unlocked the digital potential of the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery in London, the Uffizi Gallery in Italy, the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musees de France and the Musee de Cherbourg.

Over a three-year period, computer scientists from the University of Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science and IT Innovation Centre worked in conjunction with other project partners, to find new ways for the associated museums and galleries to search, explore and share their rich multimedia collections.

The drive for museums to broaden their online services and to share their digital collections has meant that there is a new desire to unlock their internal repositories and make them more accessible to others.

Dr Matthew Addis of IT Innovation commented: 'There is a wealth of new opportunities for museums and galleries to make extended use of their digital collections and to provide new online services to the community. However, many barriers exist due to immaturity of technology, lack of standards and best practice and difficulties in combining information from multiple sources within a museum or when distributed across the Web.'

SCULPTEUR has used Semantic Web technology to apply a combination of knowledge engineering, content-based analysis and digital library interoperability, which means that rich sources of information on cultural heritage can be easily found within multiple distributed collections. Dr Kirk Martinez of the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia (IAM) group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, added: 'Users of museum collections don't always know how to describe exactly what they are looking for, or instead they might want to explore a particular topic, for example how different materials and techniques have been used by a group of artists. Up until now, there has been no way to search museum collections by content such as 3D shape, or navigate by concepts. The work we have done on this project will help them search and browse in new ways.'

According to James Stevenson, Photographic Manager at the Victoria and Albert Museum: 'SCULPTEUR gives those searching digital archives new techniques that enrich the creativity of both the visitor and the museum professional. The traditional way for digital librarians to search image databases by text is often restricting and frustrating. SCULPTEUR liberates these restrictions.'

UKUUG (UK Unix and Open Systems User Group) has made its 2005 Award to Christopher Gutteridge of the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, for his work on the Open Archive Software: GNU EPrints.

Christopher, who has been a systems programmer and web developer since 1997, has been developing and supporting GNU EPrints 2 package over the last four years. The package is now used worldwide in universities and research institutions to enable researchers to share their research effectively, via the web, and to provide accessibility to scientific findings.

‘EPrints is both a practical tool and the crystallization of a philosophy,’ said Christopher. ‘It enables research to be accessible to all, and provides the foundation for all academic institutions to create their own research repositories.’

The School of Electronics and Computer Science has been one of the prime movers in the global movement towards open access publishing. The University of Southampton is the first UK university to announce that it would be establishing its own institutional repository and requiring all its academic staff to self-archive their research.

The UKUUG awards an annual prize to give particular recognition to the development of free and open source software in the UK. As part of his prize Christopher wins a trip to the Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon.

The UKUUG judges also noted as 'highly commended' Dr Thomas Leonard, also of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, for his work as primary author of the free software projects ROX Desktop (a graphical desktop for Linux and Unix type system, which he created to combine the elegance of the filer-centric RISC OS with the power of Linux and Zero Install.

The development of the Semantic Grid will be addressed at an international conference next week, highlighting its progress towards a high degree of easy-to-use and seamless automation which will enable flexible collaborations and computations on a global scale.

In his invited talk on The Semantic Grid: Past, Present and Future at the 2nd European Semantic Web Conference in Heraklion, Greece, on Wednesday 1 June, Professor David De Roure, Head of Grid and Pervasive Computing at the School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS) will describe his vision of a large-scale, self-managing, collaborative Grid and the advances that are being made towards its realisation.

He will trace the development of Grid computing from recognition of its potential role in the need for a common IT infrastructure in 2001 - which resulted in the e-Science programme, through the realisation that in order to be effective in this scenario it would need to be merged with Semantic Web technologies, leading ultimately to the creation of the Semantic Grid. Professor De Roure will highlight some key indicators of success including: the innovative application of five new technologies which include web services, metadata, ontologies and reasoning, semantic web services and software agents; Semantic Grid projects in every continent and 16,000 hits for the term “Semantic Gridâ€? on Google.

Professor De Roure commented: ‘Semantic Grid computing has allowed us to bring resources together to achieve something that was not previously possible. We now look forward to working on some of the remaining challenges, which include for example the intersection between the grid and the physical world through pervasive computing devices and the self-management, self-optimisation and self-healing (so called ‘autonomic’ behaviour) necessary for large scale distributed computing.’

A summary of Professor De Roure’s talk is available.