The ALADDIN project, which uses agent-based technology to tackle natural and man-made disasters has just received the Aerospace and Defence award in this year’s Engineer Technology & Innovation Awards.

The ALADDIN (Autonomous Learning Agents For Decentralised Data and Information Networks) research programme is a multi-million pound multidisciplinary research project led by Professor Nick Jennings from the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS). It is a strategic research partnership funded by BAE Systems and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) which involves research groups in the University of Bristol, Oxford, and Imperial College London. ALADDIN focuses on developing techniques and technology to overcome the challenges facing different agencies involved in an emergency response.

At the Engineer Technology & Innovation Awards 2009 event which was held at the Royal Society on Friday 4 December the judges called ALADDIN a ‘stunning collaboration’ and one judge remarked that this project ‘truly captures engineering’.

Over a five-year period, which will end in October 2010, the ALADDIN team has used technologies ranging from computer modelling to automated robots to investigate how it can improve the understanding of constantly changing scenarios, to ensure a more effective response and improve the safety of men and women working in the 'danger zone'.

“This is highly complex research and we are delighted that its relevance has been acknowledged in this way,â€? said Professor Jennings. “ALADDIN has been an excellent example of how academics can interact with one another and with industry, in order to tackle major research challenges and see the solutions applied in a range of real-world applications. It really is the best collaboration and best project I have ever been involved with. All the parties have worked together, contributing ideas and solving really complex problems.â€?

ALADDIN previously received BAE Systems Chairman Awards for “Innovationâ€? and “Enhancing Customer Performanceâ€? (2008 & 2009) in recognition of the applications that have been built and transferred into BAE.

Speaking yesterday at No.10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced that he had asked Professor Nigel Shadbolt of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton to lead a panel of experts who will oversee the release of local public data, ensuring that it is linked effectively across relevant agencies, authorities and government departments.

The Prime Minister made the announcement in the course of a speech which launched the initiative Putting the Frontline First: Smarter Government. The aim is to streamline government by strengthening the role of citizens and realigning relationships in local and central government.

This new initiative builds on work which the Government has commissioned over the past year, in particular the advice received from Professor Shadbolt and Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who have been advising the Cabinet since June on the release and linking of significant public data sets. Huge progress has been made in this work over a very short time frame. It was announced last month that the Ordnance Survey would enable access to a large amount of their maps from April 2010.

The expert panel to be headed by Professor Shadbolt will include local government chief executives, IT experts, and entrepreneurs. The Panel will work closely with key and relevant organizations to help improve local public services and empower citizens, with its first meeting planned for January. Over a period of two years it will aim to advance understanding of why the release of local public data is important and how it can be used for the benefit of the public. The Panel will also advise on the development of the data.gov.uk site (which goes live in January 2010) for all public data.

Nigel Shadbolt commented: 'Making more public sector information and data available is crucial if we are to exploit the innovative talent available to us in this country to produce really outstanding applications that have social and economic value.'

He added: 'The commitment shown by the Prime Minister has really encouraged us to be ambitious and I am pleased to help extend this work into local government.'

Commenting on these new Government initiatives, Ian Douglas of the Daily Telegraph wrote yesterday: '...this short list of points represents a move from public data being hidden unless it can be shown that it is in the public interest for it to be released to it being public unless it can be shown that it should be hidden.'

Computing magazine drew attention to the positive effects on business of releasing data: 'The Putting the Frontline First report says, "Data can also be used in innovative ways that bring economic benefits to citizens and businesses by releasing untapped enterprise and entrepreneurship. Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt predict a significant increase in economic growth if more publicly held data are released for reuse."

The Prime Minister's speech is available on the Number10.gov.uk website.

Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee is also a Professor in the School of Electronics and Computer Science. Both he and Professor Shadbolt are Founder Directors of the Web Science initiative, which is one of the main research themes in the School.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44 (0)23 8059 5453.

The Southampton supercomputer, which will go live next month (January 2010), will enable highly complex computations in fields ranging from cancer research to climate change to socio-economic modelling.

The new supercomputer, one of the fastest in the world, built using IBM iDataPlex server technology and capable of over 74 trillion calculations per second, will enable the University’s first cohort of PhD students within the Institute for Complex Systems Simulation (ICSS) to do a whole host of simulations which have never been possible before.

This year, the ICSS welcomed its first 21 PhD students and is now in the process of recruiting its second cohort.

‘What strikes me about our students is their quality and the diversity of their interests,’ said Dr Seth Bullock from the SENSe group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, who is a Director of the ICSS.

Current students are set to use the new supercomputer to carry out simulations ranging from synthetic biology and neuroscience, through transportation and power networks, to glaciation and ocean processes, with one-third of them modelling some kind of evolutionary, ecological or environmental scenario.

The second cohort of ICSS PhD students is expected to be similarly diverse, and will tackle a newly expanded set of research domains, including socio-economic modelling of business, finance, and society.

“We want to help students tackle modelling problems with relevance to the real social world,â€? said Dr Bullock. “We are also seeing increasing interest in bionanotechnology as researchers look towards the construction of molecular machines and improved understanding of how drugs interact with living systems. The Southampton supercomputer will enable us to build and explore new models of these kinds of complex system.â€?

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi of the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) and co-authors received the Best Paper Award at the 2009 International Conference on Hardware-Software Co-design and System Synthesis (CODES-ISSS).

One of the world’s most prestigious conferences in the design of embedded systems hardware, software and tools, this year’s event was held in Grenoble, France. The award recognizes original research contributions addressing important and challenging problems in embedded computing systems which have the potential to establish new research directions.

The winning paper ‘A standby-sparing technique with low energy-overhead for fault-tolerant hard real-time systems’, by Alireza Ejlali, Bashir M Al-Hashimi, and Petru Eles, developed a hardware-redundancy fault-tolerance technique with dynamic and frequency voltage scaling and dynamic power management awareness to reduce system energy consumption.

‘It is known that hardware-redundancy fault tolerance performs better in recovering from faults than time-redundancy techniques and is often preferred in safety-critical systems. This improved fault-tolerance performance, however, comes at high energy cost,’ said Professor Al-Hashimi.

‘We looked at the problem of how to achieve a high level of protection against faults for hard real-time embedded systems with limited energy budget. We developed all the necessary theoretical foundations to work out the operating voltages of the primary unit and when to activate the spare unit of the developed technique to achieve the best possible fault-tolerance performance with minimum energy cost and meeting the imposed system deadline. ‘This demonstrated how power management and fault tolerance can be combined in optimized manner. It represents an important step towards development of the low power and reliable embedded computing systems required in emerging mobile electronics applications', said Professor Al-Hashimi. This work is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), under the EPSRC platform grant renewal (Electronics Design), awarded to Professor Al-Hashimi in 2007. This research is part of the international collaboration in Embedded Systems Design between Professor Al-Hashimi, Dr Alireza Ejlali of Sharif University, Iran, and Professor Petru Eles of the University of Linkoping, Sweden.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel. +44(0)23 8059 5453.

As the first term of the academic year comes to an end, ECS undergraduate students have given a resounding endorsement to their courses and to the quality of the student experience in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.

This year the School has more student bloggers than ever before, who have covered a wide range of subjects in the 40+ blog posts posted over the last 10 weeks. The blogs provide a great insight into the lives of ECS students and their perspectives on study and coursework, as well as on a range of events and activities.

The ECS JumpStart induction week was a major subject of comment early in the term:

"I think Jumpstart easily captured the spirit of ECS-it's bizarre but you love it. You are expected to play hard and study hard."

"JumpStart is the first thing that hits anyone arriving at ECS. While it does count a bit for one of the modules, it's not really about the module scores, more the fun that can be had."

Other observations of new experiences have included life in the UK:

"All the food items mentioned by Enid Blyton actually exist and are as tasty as she made them sound."

"Cycling paths do tend to randomly disappear."

... the atmosphere in the ECS labs:

"We have our own /16 IP block [8], and thanks to its pioneering work, there is IPv6, which means Google dances for you."

"The atmosphere here is great: if you don’t understand something or are having difficulty everyone is really nice about it.

"I seemed to have accumulated a fast quantity of free stuff – particular food...I’m not quite sure how, but I must be doing something right!"

... the activities on offer in the School and outside:

"This Wednesday I have a yellow belt Jiu Jitsu exam which I'm really looking forward to. Hopefully if I pass, I will be heading out to the Hobbit (if you come here, make sure you check this place out) to celebrate."

... And of course, the pressure of coursework, project deadlines, and exams!:

"The work has started to ramp up a bit with at least one piece of coursework due a week. Most of the courseworks are just questions sheets, with some questions more fiendish than others, but one large piece we had to do this term was to build an electric motor as a team."

"There is coursework, which in this first term has consisted of building a personal website (that balances formality, with street cred, ahem... I mean informality), and extension of a graphical library, in Java."

"Discrete Maths is the most useful model when you want to show off. What have you been doing? I have been calculating the size of infinity."

As one of the bloggers writes: "It’s been one heck of a term …"

In addition to our first-year bloggers, we also had blog posts from our ECSWomen group who were at the Grace Hopper Conference in the States, reflections from Ian Gilham on returning to ECS after a 12-month placement in Madrid, and veteran blogger James Snowdon’s progression from undergraduate to postgraduate student.

There are also blog posts on work experience and placements on our Careers Hub.

Happy Christmas to all our ECS bloggers and we look forward to more in the New Year!

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

2009 began with a splash with the news that Professor Wendy Hall had been appointed DBE in the New Year Honours List, for services to science and technology. Dame Wendy’s prestigious appointments continued during the year. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in May, and received the Duncan Davies Medal from the Research & Development Society in October.

In February ECS was visited by Lord Drayson, Minister for Science and Innovation. With a PhD in robotics, Lord Drayson was especially interested in a display of student projects on robotics, including the Formica swarm robots which were built in the School’s Biologically Inspired Robotics course, and the Student Robotics challenge, which students run in sixth form schools and colleges in Hampshire.

National Science and Engineering Week in March saw an innovative new type of event for schoolchildren, devised and organized by ECS PhD student Reena Pau. ‘Blood on the Kitchen Floor’ was a murder mystery event in which children and families solved a set of clues using University laboratory facilities to unmask the murderer of a celebrity chef. The event helped the University win the national accolade of ‘Best Engineering Event’ during the Week.

In April it was revealed that MailScanner, the email security and anti-spam system developed and managed in ECS by Julian Field, had achieved global reach by protecting email in every country in the world – ‘from the Vatican State to the United States, from North Korea to the South Pacific,’ as Julian commented.

Team Tarka, the first-ever UK entry in Solar Splash, the World Championship of Intercollegiate Solar Boating, put up a spirited challenge in June, coming away with a string of awards and a very creditable 10th place in the event. Team Tarka was led by Dr Peter Wilson of ECS and the team members in Fayetteville, Arkansas, were Dirk De Jager, Karim El-Shabrawy, and Rich Bowen.

Over 200 students from ECS received their degrees at University Graduation ceremonies in July, with the majority of them having found jobs. It was announced in June that the School’s 2008 graduates had done outstandingly well, with 95 per cent of them in graduate jobs or training within three months of graduating.

In August the University of Southampton became the first in Europe to receive the Charles Babbage Grant from Synopsys Inc. John Chilton, Senior Vice President of Marketing & Strategic Development at Synopsys, attended a ceremony in ECS to formally open a new lab for virtual learning and to meet with students and faculty.

Professor Ian Diamond, Chair of Research Councils UK, was principal guest at the first Open Day at the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre, held on 9 September. Over 200 guests from business and research were able to tour the new facilities, hear about the latest research advances in nanotechnology, and to meet staff of the Centre.

The first-ever internationally designated Open Access Week (19-23 October), provided an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research and to celebrate the successes achieved by the Open Access movement, within the global research communities and the world’s higher education institutions. It also marked the adoption of the 100th OA mandate. ECS is one of the world leaders in OA research and policy.

In November Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt briefed the UK Cabinet on their work on making government data more open and accessible. The work had begin in June at the invitation of the Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In December Nigel Shadbolt was asked to lead a panel of experts to oversee the release of local public data.

The ALADDIN project ended the year on a high-note when it received the Aerospace and Defence Award in The Engineer Technology and Innovation Awards. The judges called ALADDIN, led by Professor Nick Jennings, ‘a stunning collaboration’ with one judge remarking that the project ‘truly captures engineering’.

These successes are only a few of the 130 news stories featured on the ECS web site – you can read them all on our news pages, with some of the coverage of our news also available.

Join us again in 2010 for more coverage of the School, our students and researchers, and our achievements.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453

An iPhone application which acts as a personal assistant for University of Southampton students has received 750 downloads over the last few weeks.

iSoton, designed by ECS Electronic Engineering student Francois-Xavier Beckers, provides a personalized lecture timetable, automatically downloading individual lecture times and locations. Students also have quick access to a campus map of University buildings and lecture theatres and to the city bus schedules.

Francois, who is in his third year in the School of Electronics and Computer Science and comes from Belgium, had the objective of making the application as simple as possible and quick to use. iSoton is free to download from the App Store, and a demo is available on YouTube.

iSoton also has its own Facebook Fan Club.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

Over 100 students graduated with University of Southampton degrees at today's Graduation ceremony for the School of Electronics and Computer Science, held in the Turner Sims Concert Hall on campus.

The majority of the ECS students had taken the MSc degree over the academic year 2008-9. After the ceremony a reception was held in the Mountbatten Building for the new graduates, families and friends.

Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of School, who presented the students for their degrees, said: 'A degree from the School of Electronics and Computer Science represents a considerable achievement, involving intensive study, especially on the MSc degree, and the understanding of a wide range of technologies. We congratulate our students on their achievements and look forward to remaining in touch with them in the future.'

All today's photos are available to view and download on the School's Photo Archive.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel. +44(0)23 8059 5453.

The future of 3D television, lifelogging, the implications of the Pirate Bay judgement and augmented reality in education, are just some of the topics on the agenda at this year’s Multimedia Conference, MC10, which takes place on Saturday 9 January.

The conference is organized annually by undergraduate and MSc students taking the Multimedia Systems course in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. Planning and running the conference is an important aspect of the coursework, and the event follows the conventions of an academic conference, with submissions, reviews, conference sessions, and posters. This is the eighth conference in the series and the programme looks like being one of the most lively and ambitious so far.

The keynote address will be given by Raeeka Yassaie, Graduate Recruitment & Education Liaison Officer at Imagination Technologies, who will be talking on ‘Designing Tomorrow's Multimedia Technologies’, and providing an overview of the current market for multimedia technologies and future trends, including some that will form part of the conference agenda.

MC10 takes place in the Mountbatten Building on the Highfield Campus and opens at 11 am with presentations throughout the day until 5 pm. There are a limited number of free places available for the conference; further information is available on the Conference Registration web site.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO THE WEATHER CONDITIONS. WE HOPE TO REARRANGE IT FOR A DATE IN THE FUTURE.

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An event taking place next week at the University of Southampton brings together noted experts from public life to tackle the debate surrounding privacy and identity.

The debate is important because in our increasingly complex and connected lives, issues such as identity theft, the fragility of digital information, the availability and use of private records and the huge amount of personal information on the Web, all pose a threat to our security and wellbeing.

What can we do about this? How can our personal records be kept safe? Is the Data Protection Act adequate? What is the role of the law? How can IT security keep pace with technology? – These are just some of the questions likely to be raised by the audience next week and argued by a distinguished panel of experts, brought together by the Web Science Trust and the Bathwick Group.

Members of the public are invited to attend the event, which will follow a 'Question Time' format, on Tuesday 12 January at 5.30 pm in the University’s Nightingale Lecture Theatre, and to contribute to the discussion. Admission is free of charge and no tickets are required, but questions from the audience can be submitted in advance here.

The Panellists are:

• Simon Davies is one of the world's best known and most experienced privacy advocates. He is founder and director of Privacy International, a London-based human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations.

• Tim Kelsey is Chair of the Executive Board of Dr Foster Intelligence, the UK's leading health and social care informatics organisation. The company, a joint venture with the NHS Information Centre, is a public-private partnership committed to improving the accessibility, coverage and use of intelligent information among frontline care professionals.

• Liam Maxwell is a Councillor and the Lead Member for Policy and Performance at the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, where his brief includes Information Technology. His background is as an IT Director in Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 business service companies.

• Nigel Shadbolt is Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science. In 2009, he was appointed by the Prime Minister as a government information advisor alongside Sir Tim Berners-Lee to transform access to Government information.

In the Chair will be Jonathan Steel, Chief Executive of the Bathwick Group.

The event is part of the Bathwick Group’s ‘Connected World’ series and is held in conjunction with the Web Science Trust, NESTA, and the University of Southampton.

All are welcome.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel. +44(0) 23 8059 5453