A large team of ECS students, ran a very successful electronics and computing activity area at the University's Science Family Day on Saturday 10 March.

Hundreds of visitors took part in the activities provided by ECS for Science Family Day, experiencing virtual reality, building electronic devices such as lie detectors and electronic bagpipes, and making their own computer and video games.

The ECS stand attracted a huge crowd of visitors all day long, and ECS frisbees were among the most popular give-aways of the day!

Dr Steve Gunn and Dr Denis Nicole were also on hand to assist the electronics engineers of the future.

Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee's inaugural lecture at ECS on Wednesday 14 March will be webcast live to the world at 5 pm GMT. The lecture will be webcast by ECS-TV, and further details are on the ECS-TV web site. The lecture is entitled 'The World Wide Web: Looking back, looking forward'. Tim Berners-Lee is the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, Senior Research Scientist and holder of the 3Com Founders Chair at the Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL)at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he leads the Decentralized Information Group (DIG), and Professor of Computer Science in the School of Electronics and Computer Science. He is a Founding Director of the Web Science Research Initiative,launched in November 2006. This provides a global forum for scientists and scholars to collaborate on the first multidisciplinary scientific research effort specifically designed to study the Web at all scales of size and complexity, and to develop a new discipline of Web Science for future generations of researchers. Admission to the lecture is by ticket only. For further information contact Joyce Lewis (tel.023 8059 5453); email j.k.lewis@ecs.soton.ac.uk. The lecture will be available afterwards as a video podcast.

Innovative sensor technologies which will enable major advances in the understanding of marine ecosystems are being developed by researchers at the School of Electronics and Computer Science.

Professor Hywel Morgan (School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS)) and Dr Matt Mowlem (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS)) and colleagues from across the University have received a grant of £1.75M from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to continue their work in developing sensors to measure marine environments.

They are to develop Laboratory on a Chip (LOAC) Technology and fabricate a new generation of integrated micro-devices and sensors capable of operating in harsh environments, without bulky, expensive and power hungry support systems.

According to Professor Morgan, marine environmental sensing has reached a bottle-neck where further advances in knowledge and understanding of ecosystems can only be obtained if a new generation of sensors is brought into being.

The proposal has two strands: to develop lab-on-a-chip chemical and biochemical analyser to detect nutrients and pollutants at the ultra low concentrations found in the ocean, and to develop small chips to identify individual phytoplankton in the oceans. The sensing packages will be deployed by strapping them to vehicles including profiling (ARGO) floats that already give detailed information on the temperature and salinity of the oceans.

The development of these biogeochemical sensors over the next four years will provide a new technology platform for marine scientists and have applications for many allied activities such as those undertaken by the water industry, in environmental impact assessments and in monitoring ship ballast water.

‘We believe that the co-ordinated development of microfabricated devices across this broad front in marine sensing will be a world first,’ said Professor Morgan.

A grant awarded this month could develop atom chip devices which could bring quantum computing closer to a reality.

Dr Michael Kraft at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS) and Professor Edward Hinds at Imperial College, London, have been awarded a £1.2 million Basic Technology Translation Grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to develop atom chip devices.

Their task is to take the toolbox of basic atom chip building blocks which they have developed over the past four years and integrate them on a single chip so that they can be developed into systems robust enough to perform useful functions.

The researchers have found that atom chips have potential uses in a variety of futuristic technologies. For example: sensors with unprecedented accuracy and sensitivity; quantum computing, which harnesses physical phenomenon unique to quantum mechanics to realise a new mode of information processing, and atom interferometers, instruments that exploit the wave characters of atoms.

Specific atom chip devices to be explored in this new research include atomic clocks, accelerometers, interferometers, magnetometers, single photon sources, quantum information processors and molecule traps.

‘Over the past four years, we have done the fundamental research into atom chips,’ said Dr Kraft. ‘Now it’s time to make application-orientated devices.’

According to Dr Kraft, although other international research groups have worked on atom chips, there are not yet any atom chip devices. He believes that this is a development which will be of benefit to industry and the wider community in the longer term.

‘There is a growing need for unprecedented accuracy in accelerometers and gyroscopes,’ he said. ‘Quantum information processors are potentially leading to quantum computers and atom chip devices will facilitate this process.’

The research which begins this month for a four-year period is a natural sequel to the Basic Technology Atom Chips project, on which Dr Kraft and Professor Hinds worked for the past four years, and it is the necessary step to allow the new basic technology to make contact with the commercial world.

Pervasive computing technology which can monitor the welfare of the elderly will be made available within the next 18 months.

The technology is to be developed by the University of Southampton's new Pervasive Systems Centre which is being launched this month.

The Centre, co-directed by Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi and Professor David De Roure, both from the University's School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS) brings together multidisciplinary expertise from across the school's research groups, ranging from sensors and wireless communications to computer science theory and practice.

This combined expertise will make it possible for them to develop a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) which can operate in homes to monitor the health of the elderly.

According to Stephen Spikings, a PhD student under the supervision of Professors De Roure and Al-Hashimi, statistics show that due to the 1960s baby boom, by 2031 almost a quarter of the population will be over state pension age.

In order to make it possible for such individuals to live independently, the researchers are developing low-cost sensor networks to monitor their environment so that changes in health can be detected.

For example a weight sensor positioned under the bed could detect the individual's movements throughout the night. A sensor in the bathroom could monitor use of toilet facilities to pick up signs of digestive problems, and body imaging and temperature sensors could highlight areas of the body that are painful.

'If we image the body and then attach temperature sensors, say, to a chair, the parts of the body that are in pain will radiate infra-red and will be picked up by the sensor,' said Professor De Roure.

The new Pervasive Systems Centre will also use pervasive computing technology to implement a demonstration WSN to monitor people and activity in the new Mountbatten Clean room. A prototype will be available within 12 months.

'It isn't just our broad range of key skills that make the Pervasive Systems Centre unique, but having them in one place enables the collaborative working and codesign that is essential in tackling the engineering and operation of future computerised systems through their entire design lifecycle,' said Professor De Roure. 'Our methodology involves designing and building real systems and deploying them "in the wild", not just in the lab.'

Two first year Computer Science undergraduates, Jason Allen and Stephen Jenkins won the best programming team in an inter-university challenge held in London yesterday. Teams from Southampton, Kent, Leeds and Durham competed in a challenge sponsored by the Higher Education Academy and Sun Microsystems.

Three paired programming teams from each university completed a series of one hour tasks set by their fellow competitors. The competition was devised from academics from the four universities who are working together to develop teaching methods specifically designed to extend our more advanced students. Seven students from Southampton devised one of the challenges which students from Kent, Durham and Leeds attempted. They then worked in paired teams to take on the other universities’ challenges themselves.

Dr Su White of the ECS Learning Societies Lab who led the recruitment and participation of the University of Southampton competitors said 'Every year we have a significant number of very able students who begin their studies with significant previous programming experience. All of the seven students who competed from Southampton are top notch, and we have many more able students who did not compete. Our academic teaching teams continuously refine the ways in which we introduce and develop programming activities during the first year. It's vital that every student has a chance to learn programming at a pace which is appropriate for their prior experience. All of Jason and Stephen’s work was consistently scored high, and we are thrilled that they came out as top team.'

The competition was staged at Central Hall Westminster during a Sun Tech Day. The team challenge prize was won by students from the University of Kent. Team Pair Prizes and Hosting were sponsored by Sun. Planning travel and challenge prizes were sponsored by HEA-ICS, the Higher Education Academy for Information and Computer Science as part of the TOPS project.

Participating academics were Su White, University of Southampton, Janet Carter, University of Kent, Stephan Jamieson, University of Durham, and Nick Efford and Tony Jenkins from the University of Leeds.

'The project was run on a shoestring this year,' said Dr White, 'but has been such a success that the group will be looking for further sponsorship to make this a regular event in the computer science undergraduates’ calendar.'

Researchers in ECS led by Dr Michael Kraft are involved in research that aims to develop new radiation sources suitable for the treatment of cancers and thedetection of hidden explosives.

The £4.5 million Basic Technology research project funded by Research Councils UK (RCUK) aims to exploit properties of laser-irradiated matter so that new radiation sources with diverse medical, industrial and security applications can be developed.

The radiation that is emitted is in the form of beams of ions, protons, neutrons, electrons, gamma and x-rays, depending on the energy and duration of the laser and the material being irradiated.

Dr Michael Kraft at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS) will work on developing a mechanism to inject the targets into the laser chamber at high repeat intervals.

‘We will work on novel injection systems exploiting electrostatic levitation based on advanced MEMS technology,’ he said. ‘This is effectively a ‘MEMS gun’ where small particles are levitated and propelled by using electrostatic forces. This can be used in combination with optical trapping techniques developed by Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, one of our consortium partners.’ Of the possible radiation beams that can be produced, the researchers have identified protons, ions, and gamma rays specifically as the products of laser-energised sources with the greatest potential. They envisage a wide range of applications for such ion beams.

For instance, laser-energised bursts of proton and light ions have the potential to substantially reduce the high equipment costs of proton and ion radiotherapy of cancer, which have so far precluded their routine use in the treatment of cancers in the UK. Compared to the use of X-rays, ion beam therapy promises more effective cancer control and improved quality of life in cancer patients.

Other applications lie in science and industry where ions may be useful in engineering diagnostics and quality control of semiconductor electronics devices.

Radiation beams could also have applications in security. A penetrating beam could be used in rapid imaging detection of hidden materials and explosives in large packages and freight containers using gamma-ray tomography to give better resolution and clarity than is currently possible.

The project is being carried out by researchers at the University of Southampton Queen's University Belfast, Central Laser Facility at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Imperial College London, and the Universities of Surrey, Birmingham, Paisley, and Strathclyde and the National Physical Laboratory

Professor Deborah Estrin of the University of California, Los Angeles, will give the 4th Campbell Lecture on Tuesday 1 May. This year’s lecture is sponsored by WiSET - Women in Science, Engineering and Technology, and the School of Electronics and Computer Science.

Professor Estrin’s lecture is entitled ‘Wireless Sensing Systems: From ecosystems to human systems’, and will focus on the way that sensing, computation and wireless communications have been combined in integrated, low-power devices, and networks of these devices embedded in the physical world. ‘Looking back over the past few years we have made significant progress towards the vision of programmable, multi-modal, multi-scale, and multi-use observatories,’ she says. ‘We have made our greatest strides in these applications using judicious application of server-side and in situ processing, mobility at multiple scales, and multi-scale data and models as context for in situ measurements.’

Professor Estrin will consider how these lessons and new technologies are now being applied to humans as well as natural systems, in particular by exploring use of the installed base of image and acoustic sensors that we all carry around with us – our mobile phones.

The lecture takes place at 3.30 pm in Bdg 67 lecture theatre, and will be followed by a reception in the level 4 coffee room of Bdg 32.

Tea will be available in Bdg 67 from 3 pm.

Professor Deborah Estrin holds the Jon Postel Chair in Computer Networks at UCLA and is Founding Director of the NSF-funded Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS). She has recently been awarded a 2007 Woman of Vision Award by the Anita Borg Institute.

Tickets are not required for this lecture and all are welcome.

The Campbell Lecture is an annual lecture which showcases successful international women scientists. The lecture is named in honour of Ishbell Campbell (1906-1997) who was one of the founding academics of the University of Southampton, a research chemist who was a committed teacher and inspiration for women in science.

The WiSET group, launched in 2002, has also been involved in a review of the promotion of women, including the funding of an Action Learning Set, a childcare survey and the development of mentoring networks. The Campbell Lecture represents a key part of a visibility project to show the high quality of women scientists both internationally and at Southampton at all stages of their careers.

An energy harvester designed by an ECS professor and manufactured by an ECS spin-out company is powering the world's first low-cost industrial wireless condition monitoring system.

Perpetuum’s energy harvesters power the world’s first low cost industrial wireless condition monitoring system at Prüftechnik’s stand D16, hall 24, at the Hannover Fair. PMG17-100 energy harvesting microgenerator converts machine and plant vibration into useful electricity, enabling wireless sensors to transmit large amounts of critical data. Perpetuum’s microgenerators can be used to power condition monitoring systems enabling end-users to continually monitor plant and equipment allowing them to make significant cost savings.

PMG17-100 operates on vibration from plant or machinery running on mains frequency at 50Hz. It transforms the kinetic energy of vibration into an electrical current, producing ample power, for a wireless transmitter to send 6 Kbytes of data (i.e. a vibration spectrum), every few minutes, or smaller amounts of data several times a second. Installation is easy, efficient and virtually instantaneous: it is simply placed on the piece of equipment without the need for a timely and costly plant shut-down.

Perpetuum’s technology enables wireless sensing nodes to monitor plant, processes and machinery, remotely, wirelessly and without any batteries. It eliminates the need for cables, costly installation and time consuming maintenance.

Perpetuum has been working with partners, including leading European condition monitoring provider, Prüftechnik, and wireless solutions provider, Nanotron, to develop this commercial solution for condition monitoring applications.

“We are delighted to have worked with Prüftechnik and Nanotron to bring this wireless condition monitoring solution to market,â€? says Roy Freeland, CEO Perpetuum. “The result of this collaboration will allow plant operators and managers to improve efficiency through timely and accurate management of plant assets.â€?

The PMG17-100 is the latest offering from Perpetuum, whose other product developments include microgenerators for transportation, medical and aerospace industries.

The original research behind the Perpetuum products was carried out in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, by Professor Neil White and colleagues.

For further information contact: Perpetuum Ltd., Epsilon House, Southampton Science Park, Southampton SO16 7NS. Tel : +44 (0)23 8076 5888. email : info@perpetuum.co.uk

Advances in telecommunications and the issue of whether they are moving fast enough to service the emerging wireless Internet will be addressed by Professor Lajos Hanzo in a lecture to the Royal Academy of Engineering on Tuesday 1 May.

Professor Hanzo, Chair of Telecommunications at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS) will deliver 'Genetics and Evolution in Wireless Multimedia Communications: A one-to-one with anyone – or the dawn of the “world wide wait"'?

In his lecture, the fifth in a series in Mobile Telecommunications & Networks, supported by VODAFONE, Professor Hanzo, who has established a reputation as one of the world’s leading authorities on adaptive wireless communication systems, will begin with a light-hearted historical perspective on the generations of wireless systems and contrast some of them with the practical constraints imposed on state-of-the-art multimedia communicators.

He will go on to examine the research challenges which will need to be met if the wireless Internet is to become a reality.

He will claim that, in the face of adverse wireless channel conditions, it is unrealistic to expect that any fixed-mode wireless system remains capable of maintaining a constant quality-of-service. This motivates the design of cutting-edge near-instantaneously adaptive wireless transceivers which offer capabilities beyond those of currently operational systems. For example, ‘roaming’ base stations in trains or buses would not only provide better service to users on public transport, but would also provide radio coverage to surrounding cars and pedestrians, in a traffic jam, for example.

‘These advances can be further augmented by quantifying the benefits of sophisticated adaptive antenna arrays, before demonstrating their system-level benefits – for example, their ability to circumvent the threat of the “world-wide waitâ€? in the emerging wireless Internet …,’ he will say.