A team of three researchers from the School of Electronics and Computer Science defeated agents designed by researchers from Princeton University, Brown University, Rutgers University, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Michigan to win the inaugural Lemonade Game Tournament, contested on the Web earlier this month and run by Yahoo! researcher Martin Zinkevich.

The ECS researchers, Enrique Munoz de Cote, Archie Chapman and Adam Sykulski, are based in the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia research group. The game is set on Lemonade Island, and the aim is to set up your lemonade stall as far from the other players as possible. But the island is circular ... The task is to design an agent that could recognise a collaborator in a repeated three-player zero-sum game (the Lemonade Game). In the rules of the game, the agent must cooperate with the collaborator in order to defeat the unlucky third player. However, the agents are not able to communicate directly with one another, so they must indicate their willingness to collaborate by signalling, using the actions that they play in the game.

The approach taken by the ECS researchers was to classify the style of behaviour that other agents in the game are playing, and to use this to rank their potential as collaborators. Then, using game—theoretic reasoning, the agent would play a combination of actions that would hopefully indicate to the highest ranked agent that it would like to cooperate with it. The technique proved successful, and the researchers are improving their agent for the next running of the tournament.

Enrique, Archie and Adam all investigate problems arising at the intersection between multiagent systems, game theory, optimization and machine learning. Enrique has developed algorithms for solving stochasitc and extensive form games, Archie has investigated game-theoretic models of optimization problems and algorithms for solving them, while Adam has examined policies for learning in finite multi-armed bandits and noisy games.

A new series beginning on BBC2 on Saturday 30 January features ECS Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee in an exploration of how the Web has reshaped our lives over the last 20 years.

Professor Nigel Shadbolt, who has been working with Sir Tim Berners-Lee over the last seven months advising the UK Government on the release of public data, has been a consultant to the new four-part series, Virtual Revolution.

The series charts two decades of profound change since the invention of the World Wide Web, weighing up the huge benefits and the unforeseen downsides, and is presented by Aleks Krotoski. The first episode ‘The Great Levelling’ is shown on Saturday 30 January at 8.30 pm on BBC2 and then repeated at 11.20 pm on Monday 1 February, again on BBC2.

Virtual Revolution was an open and collaborative production, which encouraged the Web audience and developers to get involved in helping shape the series. In the early production stage, the BBC team attended a WebFest in ECS which involved a large number of researchers in a day of exploration and innovation on the Web.

The series covers the rise of social media, the effects of the Web on state power and influence, new business models arising from the opportunities on the Web, and the impact of the Web on the way we think, behave and relate to each other.

Speaking today (2 February), the Prime Minster, Gordon Brown hailed the work of ECS Professors Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt for the transformation they have brought to government processes.

In a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research outlining plans for reform of the voting system, the Prime Minister referred to the work on freeing up access to public data led since June 2009 by Professor Berners-Lee and Professor Shadbolt. This has already resulted in the launch of the official data.gov.uk site, which the Prime Minster said 'is just the start of creating new, more transparent public services and public sector bodies'.

Referring to the achievement of data.gov.uk, the Prime Minister said: 'Already as a result of the Berners Lee /Shadbolt initiative a transformation is at work. A myriad of applications are being developed on the web by citizens for citizens - new websites on health, education, crime and local communities - that inform, enrich and enliven our democracy. It is truly direct democracy in action.'

The Government plans to release more information over coming months, making it easier to link datasets that will enable greater information about public services. In a parallel initiative Professor Shadbolt has also been asked to work with local government to ensure greater access to data held by councils and local government agencies. This work will continue over the next year.

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

Rashik Parmar, IBM Chief Technology Officer for North-East Europe, will be visiting ECS on Friday 12 February to present a lecture on 'Global Technology Outlook: IBM Research’s Vision of the Future for IT'.

The IBM Global Technology Outlook is IBM Research’s vision of the future for IT and its impact on industries that use IT. It highlights emerging software, hardware, and services technology trends that are expected to significantly impact the IT sector in the next 3-7 years, enabling new uses and capabilities for IT. In particular, it identifies technologies that may be disruptive to an existing business, have the potential to create new opportunity and can provide new business value to customers. In the presentation, Rashik will provide an overview of the themes from the GTO and provide some insights into how IBM creates and uses this information.

During 35 years at IBM, Rashik has worked for financial, retail and manufacturing clients on projects of all sizes. Overall, he specializes in ensuring the technical success of complex IT projects.

ALL WELCOME

This lecture takes place at 3 pm on Friday 12 February, in the Nightingale Lecture Theatre, and is part of the Pervasive Systems Centre programme; there will be refreshments after the lecture.

Forty-one companies and organizations attended this year's ECS Careers Fair, offering a wide range of graduate jobs and internship opportunities.

Over 900 students visited the Fair, which took place in the University's Garden Court exhibition area on the Highfield Campus. The companies exhibiting ranged from multinational household names to small hi-tech start-ups, but they all shared a common interest in recruiting students from the School of Electronics and Computer Science. This was the third Fair to have been held by the School and it forms an integral part of our collaboration with employers. Companies have many opportunities to work with the School; these are detailed in the Business Collaboration information, linked from our Business pages. For further information about working with ECS, contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

As one of the UK's leading research schools, ECS offers a wide range of opportunities for postgraduate research. Our PhD Open Afternoon on Wednesday 24 February will provide an overview of research in the School as well as a guide through the application process.

The event starts at 2 pm in the Nightingale Lecture Theatre (Bdg 67), with a short welcome by Dr Alex Rogers from the ECS Graduate School, followed by presentations by all the School's research groups, and the two Doctoral Training Centres (DTC). Research in ECS is organized around the School's research groups, and all postgraduate research students belong to one of these groups. Presentations will run in the following order and will include at 3 pm, a short guide to the application process:

2.00 Web Science DTC; 2.10 Pervasive Systems Centre; 2.20 Dependable Systems and Software Engineering; 2.30 Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia; 2.40 Learning Societies Lab; 2.50 Complex Systems Simulation DTC; 3.00 Guide to the Application Process; 3.10 Nano; 3.20 Electronic Systems and Devices; 3.30 Information: Signals, Images, Systems; 3.40 Communications; 3.50 Electrical Power Engineering; 4.00 Science and Engineering of Natural Systems (SeNSE)

From 4.15 pm there will be refreshments available in the Mountbatten Building Seminar Room (level 4) where there will also be a drop-in session running until 5.30 where each of the groups will be represented with staff available to talk informally about research in their groups.

All students interested in finding out more about PhDs in the School are encouraged to attend.

For further information see the School's Research Brochure: Future Technologies for our Future World, available in the School or on the website (pdf).

"Until and unless universal Open Access prevails on the planet, my words are better dubbed profitless than prophetic," responds Professor Stevan Harnad, University of Southampton's impatient archivangelist, to being dubbed "A Prophet Whose Time Has Come" in Information Today's February cover story, an interview by the chronicler of the Open Access movement, Richard Poynder.

"And without the boundless talent and resourcefulness of the School of Electronics and Computer Science and its EPrints team (led by Dr Les Carr), the words would also have been empty," continued Professor Harnad.

Among the Open Access highlights for 2009 Information Today lists:

(1) The Houghton Report for JISC demonstrated the substantial benefits of Open Access for the UK economy as well as globally.

(2) With the reintroduction of the US Federal Research Public Access Act to mandate Open Access to federally funded research, President Obama has launched a public consultation on public access policies for US federal science and technology funding agencies.

(3) The German National Parliament (Bundestag) has likewise been petitioned to mandate OA.

Prior to all this, the UK Parliamentary Select Committee had already recommended mandating OA in 2004, and mandates have already been adopted by all the UK research funding councils in 2006-7. It can be fairly said that Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science - the first in the world to mandate OA (2003) and the provider of the world's first OA repository software (EPrints, 2000) - was a significant factor in the UK's lead in OA.

Southampton continues to help shape OA policy worldwide, in its role in two mose of Information Today's 2009 highlights:

(4) The Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook (OASIS), a new portal for educational materials on the “concept, principles, advantages, approaches and means to achieving Open Accessâ€?

and

(5) Enabling Open Scholarship (EOS), an international information service and a forum committed to “opening up of scholarship and researchâ€? conformant with “the growing open access, open education, open science and open innovation movements.â€?

These were both created by Dr Alma Swan of the University of Southampton and Key Perspectives, in collaboration with the Rector of the University of Liege, Professor Bernard Rentier.

Southampton's ROARMAP, the global registry of OA mandates by universities and research funders, continues to grow, with over 100 university mandates and over 40 funder mandates worldwide. Although there is still a long way to go - as the ROAR registry (created by Southampon's Dr Tim Brody) of over 1500 repositories shows -- Harnad writes: "Once we have mandates at the top 750 to 1,500 institutions, we’re safely past the tipping point; the others [10,000] will all follow suit soon enough."

Southampton is also working to complement the Houghton report on the economic benefits of OA with evidence of the benefits of OA to the research community in particular, to give them further incentive to mandate OA. Southampton's Dr Steve Hitchcock maintains a widely used bibliography of the growing number of studies on the effect of open access and downloads ('hits') on citation impact, to which Southampton has made many of the fundamental contributions, the latest of which has shown that - contrary to what anti-OA lobbyists have argued - the widely reported increase in downloads and citations associated with OA is not merely an artifact of authors selectively making their better papers OA: The OA impact Advantage remains just as high for mandated OA as it is for self-selected OA.

If any more evidence was needed that OA should be mandated universally as soon as possible, Southampton has now provided that evidence too.

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

Two new appointments at the University of Southampton's Nano Research Group will drive research into a whole new range of nano and bio-nano technologies and lead to global industrial research collaborations.

Professor Peter Ashburn, who has led the Nano Research Group at the University’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) for a number of years, has become Director of the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre, a state-of-the-art building fitted out with £50m of the latest nanofabrication technologies.

“I look forward to developing our new Centre,â€? said Professor Ashburn. “We anticipate that all of our partners will be able to benefit from our unique multidisciplinary capability and our wide-ranging nanofabrication expertise.â€?

Professor Hiroshi Mizuta has become Head of the Nano Research Group, which carries out research focusing on fabrication and engineering at the nanometre-length scale in order to produce a wide range of novel devices and integrated systems; much of this research will be realised in the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre. "In my new role, I will have excellent opportunities to combine a range of different technologies to take us in new directions,â€? said Professor Mizuta. “The equipment in the new clean rooms means that we are now capable of fabricating down to one nanometre and can view nanostructures in far more detail. This will result in more interesting collaborations with industry."

Both academics have a strong industry background.

After starting his career at the Philips Research Labs in 1974, where he gained valuable experience of silicon bipolar and MOS technology and electron beam lithography, Professor Ashburn joined the University of Southampton and since then has published over 250 papers and made many research breakthroughs in nanoelectronics technology, particularly in the field of silicon bipolar technology. In 2006, he devised a method to make bipolar transistors twice as fast as current devices; more recent research involves the development of new nanoelectronics technology for healthcare applications, including blood-testing kits which can be mass produced using nanowires.

Professor Mizuta joined ECS from Hitachi. He set up the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory in Tokyo in 1985 and in 1989 he moved to Cambridge where he set up a new Hitachi laboratory and started to liaise with academics at the University of Cambridge with a view to developing ultra small devices which operate by controlling the motion of individual electrons and spins; he has just received a £1M grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to make further groundbreaking advances in this field. His mission is to develop new types of silicon-based devices which create advanced functionalities at nanoscale so that future ICT technology such as mobile phones and computers will be even lighter, more functional and more economical.

Commenting on these new appointments, Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of ECS, said: “Peter and Hiroshi will be leading the management and research directions of our truly world-leading new centre. We have a range of fabrication and characterisation facilities which can be found nowhere else. In a few years time, the latest electronic gadget in your pocket will contain devices invented here by these two and their co-workers.â€?

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

A conference which will discuss emerging silicon-based nanotechnologies for advanced information and communication devices which mean that mobile phones and computers will be even lighter, more functional and more economical, will be held at the University of Southampton next month.

Professor Hiroshi Mizuta, Head of the Nano Research Group at the University’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), whose research interest is in the development of novel nanoelectronic devices, will host the 2010 International Symposium on Atom-scale Silicon Hybrid Nanotechnologies for ‘More-than-Moore’ and ‘Beyond CMOS’ era on 1 and 2 March 2010 at the University.

For the ‘More than Moore’ era, the researchers are trying to co-integrate conventional electronic devices with other heterogeneous nanotechnologies such as nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS), nanophotonic and nanospintronic devices to meet challenging specifications for advanced applications such as high-performance, extremely low-power and even more functional switch, memory and sensor devices. On the theme of ‘Beyond CMOS’ the researchers will discuss work on atom-scale silicon nanotechnologies which could control individual dopant (impurities in silicon) atoms, charge and spin rates of single-electrons and NEMS states of silicon nanostructures. These extreme silicon nanotechnologies will result in a breakthrough to the next generation digital economy by providing a unique solution to massively-parallel and highly-secure information processing technology and extremely high-density information storage beyond the multi-Tetra-bit/inch2 era.

Eight sessions delivered by eminent academics and industry representatives will address key aspects of the symposium theme which include atomically-controlled nanostructure fabrication, hybrid NEMS technology, single-dopant devices and single-spin technology. These emerging silicon-based nanotechnologies will provide us with a breakthrough to overcome the limits of present ICT systems.

Commenting on the significance of the symposium, Professor Mizuta said: “This event will illustrate that if we adopt unique properties of atomically-controlled nanostructures and heterogeneous co-integration with other emerging technologies such as NEMS, nanophotonics and nanospintronics, we can develop extremely functional information processing devices, faster than anything we could ever have imagined with just conventional technologies.â€?

The 2010 International Symposium on Atom-scale Silicon Hybrid Nanotechnologies for ‘More-than-Moore’ and ‘Beyond CMOS’ will be held at Garden Court, University of Southampton on 1-2 March 2010, sponsored by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST).

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

The Web Science Trust has been granted charitable status, in a move which will enable greater focused, global development of the discipline.

Established in November 2009, the Web Science Trust (WST) was developed to advance education, research and thought leadership in the new discipline of Web Science.

The announcement of its charitable status by the UK Charity Commissioners now enables it to undertake its own independent fundraising and provides it with a greater degree of self-determination.

Launched as a discipline in 2006, under the aegis of the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI), Web Science brings together researchers and educators from many disciplines to coordinate and support the study of the decentralised information system that is the World Wide Web and to research its impact on society.

With the concept of Web Science now widely disseminated and established as an important area of activity, the Founding Directors of WSRI took the decision last year to establish a charitable body – the Web Science Trust – to take the work forward.

The key people in the Trust, which is chaired by Sir John Taylor, are Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Professor Noshir Contractor, Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Professor James Hendler, Rosemary Leith, Professor Nigel Shadbolt, and Daniel J Weitzner.

‘The establishment of the Web Science Trust and the granting of charitable status marks a significant stage in the global development of the discipline,’ said Professor Wendy Hall. ‘It is a hugely important development for the community - in fact it feels like Web Science is “coming of ageâ€?.’

‘We are now firmly focussed on our goal of encouraging the widest participation in the development of Web Science,’ said Professor James Hendler.

Recent months have provided a number of illustrations of the growing influence of Web Science, from the UK Government’s endorsement of open data, to the growing network of Web Science research laboratories around the world.

The BBC is currently showing a four-part series, Virtual Revolution, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Web, for which Professor Nigel Shadbolt has acted as Series Consultant. Professor Tim Berners-Lee features prominently in the series, along with other leaders of the World Wide Web community.

On Monday 8 March the Web Science Trust will be supporting a panel discussion on ‘Why Study the Web?’, to be held at the Royal Society in Carlton House Terrace. The event is free and open to the public and organized by the Web Science Doctoral Training Centre at the University of Southampton.

In April 2010 the second conference on Web Science (WebSci10) will be held at Raleigh, North Carolina, co-located with the World Wide Web Conference.

WST is working with the World Wide Web Foundation. The Foundation has a mission to advance the Web and empower people via the Web. The Trust and the Foundation have a common commitment to advance the new discipline of Web Science, and will work together on projects that improve our understanding of the Web and promote the Web's positive impact on society.

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