Nigel Shadbolt, Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, and Transparency and Open Data Adviser to UK Government, has been named as a leading Government IT Thought Leader 2010 by the influential web site Silicon.com

Silicon.com writes: "Professor Nigel Shadbolt has helped demonstrate how technology can open the doors on public information locked away in Whitehall.

"In June 2009 Shadbolt and world wide web creator Tim Berners-Lee were appointed information advisers, tasked with finding ways of harnessing tech to reuse the reams of data collected by public bodies.

"The pair's work led to the creation of data.gov.uk, a website designed to allow access to all non-personal data collected by government. The website already links to thousands of datasets, covering topics ranging from public transport routes to details about the highest earners in government.

"The public are already finding interesting new ways to use data.gov.uk's information – turning it into easy-to-digest graphics or web and smartphone apps that allow the data to be mashed up with other information to create useful new insights.

"The coalition government has retained Shadbolt's services, appointing him to the Public Sector Transparency Board, a body that is setting open data standards to make it easier for information to be shared across the public sector. He is also chairman of the Local Data Panel, which seeks to improve access to data held by local government.

"Shadbolt's spirit of openness has taken root in Whitehall - with the government setting up transparency.number10.gov.uk, a website designed to publish details of Whitehall department business plans, government spending and other information.

"Outside his public sector work, Shadbolt is professor of artificial intelligence and deputy head for research at the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.

"Shadbolt is a director of the Web Science Trust, and of the World Wide Web Foundation – organisations that seek to advance our understanding of the web and promote the web's positive impact on society.

"He is a fellow of both the Royal Academy of Engineering and BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, and has previously served as BCS president."

Other leading figures named by Silicon.com include Martha Lane-Fox, Digital Champion, UK Government; Erik Huggers, Director of Future Media and Technology, BBC; and Tom Steinberg, Founder, mySociety.org web sites. ____

Professor Nigel Shadbolt is a member of the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia research group in ECS. If you are interested in PhD research in this group you can find out more on our Postgraduate Admissions pages.

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

With the University closed due to the severe winter weather, ECS students showed their world-leading skills in snowperson-building.

The decision was taken on Thursday 2 December to close the University due to lack of support staff at work due to the severe weather, and to remain closed on Friday 3 December. It is anticipated that the University will open as normal on Monday but staff and students should await further updates which will be issued on the University web site.

The University and ECS have already said that the closure will be taken into account at what is an exceptionally busy time of year for coursework and project deadlines, and that students will not be disadvantaged.

The ECS snowperson, constructed in the Mountbatten/Zepler forecourt, followed the mysterious appearance in the undergraduate computing lab earlier this week of an exceptionally well-constructed piano-playing mechanical cat, demonstrating that even at the toughest times of the year ECS student ingenuity is in abundant supply.

See more photos of the snow on Colin Williams' (ECS PhD student) photostream on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crwilliams/

********Update*******

On Friday 3 December at 12 noon, the University issued the following statement:

University Re-opens

The University will return to normal operations on the morning of Monday 6 December.

We expect weather conditions to have improved by Saturday 4 December. For your own safety we would advise caution if you intend to travel to any of the campuses over the weekend as not all pathways will have been cleared or car parks gritted.

Over the weekend the University will be prioritising its efforts to support the student experience during the return to normal operations.

Student Halls These will be operating as normal.

Hartley Library On Highfield campus the Hartley Library will be open on Saturday at 9am as normal, although catering facilities will be limited.

Jubilee Sport Hall This facility will be closed until Monday.

Turner Sims Concert Hall The Courtney Pine performance scheduled for Friday 3 December has had to be postponed due to the severe weather. For further details please visit http://www.turnersims.co.uk/upcoming-events/2010/december/courtney-pine

Nuffield Theatre Performances are running as scheduled.

John Hansard Gallery The Gallery will be closed until Monday.

Please check the website for any updates

Heather Packer, a research student in the ECS Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia research group, won Best Student Research Paper Award at the prestigious ISWC 2010 conference, held last month in Shanghai.

Heather, who is supervised by Professor Nick Jennings and Dr Nick Gibbins, is working on the development of evolution algorithms for ontologies so that they can provide timely responses where a quick informed decision is required. The award at ISWC (International Semantic Web Conference) 2010 is the second 'best paper' she has been awarded this year, both of which relate to import aspects of her research. The first award (Best Paper), presented at IAT (Intelligent Agent Technology) 2010, held at Toronto, in September, was for a paper on a learning algorithm, which enables agents to incorporate a select set of new concepts into its ontology. The ISWC award was for a forgetting algorithm, which enables the agent to focus the domain of its ontology by removing concepts that impact the agents least.

The problem can be seen by considering an ambulance team trying to save a patient and which needs to decide what course of action to take. Consulting a large knowledge base - an ontology, can have slow response times due to various factors and does not enable the ambulance team to save the patient. Whereas, consulting a subset of the knowledge base may not yield the right results to save the patient.

The ambulance team needs to find a 'good enough' answer quickly enough so that the patient's condition doesn't deteriorate. This work is situated within RoboCup Rescue, a standard multi-agent platform that simulates the aftermath of an earthquake. Using this evolution approach agents are able to make decisions faster, save more civilians and extinguish more fires than other state-of-the-art approaches, because their ontology evolves to provide the information they need in a given timeframe. While this approach does not enable the agents to use complete knowledge, it is not necessary to know everything about concepts in a domain to make an informed decision. For example it is not important to know that your fire vehicle is "red with yellow lettering" if all you want to do is extinguish fires. According to Heather, this is a practical approach and has real impact on the success of the agents.

The papers which won the awards are available in ECS EPrints:

Packer, H. S., Gibbins, N. and Jennings, N. (2010) Collaborative learning of ontology fragments by cooperating agents. In: IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology, 1-3 September 2010, Toronto, Canada. Available at: http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21241/

Packer, H. S., Gibbins, N. and Jennings, N. R. (2010) Forgetting Fragments from Evolving Ontologies. In: International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC), 7-11th November 2010, Shanghai, China. Available at: http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21555/

ECS was well represented at ISWC 2010, with one of the conference keynotes being given by dr mc schraefel, also of the IAM group, on: "What does it look like, really? Imagining how citizens might effectively, usefully and easily find, explore, query and re-present Open/Linked data".

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If you are interested in undertaking research in the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia research group of the University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science, you can find out more information on the IAM group pages

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

ECS academic Dr Kieron O'Hara has been asked to lead a review of the impact of Transparency on Privacy to inform the UK Government's approach to the release of public data as part of the Transparency agenda.

The Transparency and Privacy Review was announced today (Tuesday 7 December) by the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude. The Review will enable Government to ensure that on-going releases of data provide maximum transparency of data consistent with the appropriate data protection safeguards.

Access to public data has been a key concern of the Government since it came to office, continuing an initiative which began in June 2009 when Gordon Brown, then Prime Minister, appointed Professor Nigel Shadbolt and Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, both of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, as Advisers on linked open data and its release in the appropriate form. Earlier this year, Professors Shadbolt and Berners-Lee were appointed as Transparency and Open Data Advisers to the current Government, and have been working closely on the development of data.gov.uk and the provision of central and local government data that contribute to the transparency agenda.

The Review to be led by Dr O'Hara will support the Government in striking the right balance between transparency and data protection safeguards, and between the interests of wider society and the individual or corporate body; it will identify the nature of the risk to privacy of the individual, in particular the potential for 'jigsaw' identification; and advise the Government on practical approaches in the future.

Dr O'Hara has widespread interests in privacy, trust and in Web Science. Last week he chaired a conference at the British Library on 'Ethics and the Web', held at the British Library. His book 'Spy in the Coffee Machine: The end of privacy as we know it', co-authored with Nigel Shadbolt, covered many aspects of the most pressing and troubling aspects of threats to privacy in our society.

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

A new service developed by an ECS researcher enables Internet users to maintain multiple online accounts using a scan of their fingerprint as a password.

The new service, FingerID, has been developed by Sara Alotaibi, who has just completed a Masters degree in Web Technology at the University of Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science.

“FingerID provides users with the facility to maintain multiple Web accounts from a single source using a fingerprint scan, and eliminates their concerns about having to remember multiple usernames and passwords,â€? said Ms Alotaibi.

In order to develop FingerID, Ms Alotaibi evaluated existing and proposed systems geared towards replacing the conventional form of authentication using a username and password on the Web, and found that little work had been undertaken in this field. After evaluating these systems against criteria such as security, accessibility and usability, she generated a concept which could fundamentally alter the entire authentication mechanism: replacing memorised passwords with fingerprint data. This laid the foundation for FingerID - a service to maintain multiple Web accounts with the user's fingerprint.

The FingerID system is programmed to request the user’s fingerprint scan for registration purposes. Following registration, the user can then gain access to multiple Web accounts under one service. The registration process of the user will only take place once, and later scans will be used to verify the user to provide access to Web accounts. The FingerID system is composed of two main parts: Web site and software (browser).

“The username/password authentication mechanism is no longer fit for purpose, so FingerID has come at a good time,â€? said Ms Alotaibi. “We propose a cost-effective, convenient and secure authentication-solution for undertaking secure dealings over the Internet. It will allow Internet users to authenticate their identity in a hassle-free manner and go about their activities in a secure environment without the fear of loss of identity and money.â€?

Ms Alotaibi is now developing her approach further in her PhD (supervised by Dr David Argles and Dr Mike Wald in the ECS Learning Societies Lab) and will look at using other aspects of authentication such as palm prints and face gestures. She is also running an online survey to help her to develop her work further; this can be found at: http://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_5haXGeNh0MHgEio.

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Sara Alotaibi is doing PhD research in the ECS Learning Societies Lab. If you are interested in research in this group you can find out more information on our Postgraduate Admissions pages.

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

2010 was another successful year in ECS, with record numbers of students, awards and accolades, and research successes. These are just some of the highlights, but a full account of the year's successes can be found in the ECS News Release Archive.

January The year began with a bang, when Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond took time out from filming in the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre (SNC) to visit the ECS Computing Lab. Hundreds of students were in the Lab waiting to greet him, and the scale and warmth of his welcome can be seen on YouTube. The presenter was visiting the School of Electronics and Computer Science to film sequences for a BBC/Discovery Channel series - "Invisible Worlds", which was aired in March.

February The Prime Minster, Gordon Brown, hailed the work of ECS Professors Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt for the transformation they had 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 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.'

March ECS hosted the sixth Photovoltaic Science Application and Technology Conference (PVSAT-6. The event showcased UK and international developments in photovoltaics and illustrated how solar energy is rapidly becoming as cost effective as grid electricity. Event organiser, Professor Darren Bagnall of the ECS Nano Research Group, said: "This is an important time for the photovoltaics industry. It has always been an excellent low-carbon method of electricity production, but now, solar energy is rapidly approaching the point where it can compete with grid electricity."

April Researchers in ECS and Geography unveiled sensor probes which can predict the onset of landslides. Dr Kirk Martinez of ECS and Professor Jane Hart of Geography were funded by the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to develop fist-sized sensors to monitor erosion rates during California’s storm season. The sensors were placed in Los Laureles Canyon in Mexico, an area which is constantly under water due to torrential rain and mud slides. “Nobody has ever tried putting radio-based sensors into slopes before,â€? said Dr Martinez. “We are very close to having a miniaturised version that measures light, conductivity and tilt.â€?

May The School of Electronics and Computer Science was ranked 2nd in the UK for Electrical and Electronic Engineering in both the Times Good University Guide and the Independent's Complete University Guide. Computer Science and IT were ranked 4th in The Times Guide and 5th in The Independent Guide. The School was ranked 1st in the UK in the Guardian Guide for Electronics and 4th for Computer Science. The subject tables are based on a number of criteria: Student Satisfaction, Research Assessment, Entry Standards, and Graduate Prospects. In Electrical & Electronic Engineering ECS scored 98/97 (out of 100) for graduate prospects, the highest score in the table for the subject.

June Team Tarka, led by Dr Peter Wilson of ECS, achieved outstanding success in Solar Splash - the World Championship of Collegiate Solar Boating. The University of Southampton boat Tarka II took second place overall and won a string of awards in the Solar Splash event held in Arkansas, USA. It was only the second year Southampton had entered the challenge and for the second year running, the team was the only UK competitor. Tarka II was designed and built by Electrical Engineering and Ship Science students from the Schools of Electronics and Computer Science and Engineering Sciences.

July Leif Isaksen, a graduate student in ECS and the Archaeological Computing Research Group in the School of Humanities, secured funding from Google to make the classics and other ancient texts easy to discover and access online. Leif is working together with Dr Elton Barker at The Open University and Dr Eric Kansa of the University of California, Berkeley, on the Google Ancient Places (GAP): Discovering historic geographical entities in the Google Books corpus project. Scholars and enthusiasts worldwide will be able to search the Google Books corpus to find books related to a geographic location and within a particular time period. The results can then be visualised on GoogleMaps or in GoogleEarth..

August ECS researchers are developing technology that may enable people to power MP3 players and other devices through their clothes and the carpets they walk on. Dr Steve Beeby and his team aim to generate energy through people’s movement, eliminating the need to change batteries on devices. In a project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Southampton team will use rapid printing processes and active printed inks to create an energy harvesting film in textiles. This film can also be printed on carpets, enabling individuals to generate energy as they walk around the home or office.

September As part of the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary celebrations a two-day discussion meeting on Web Science was held in London. The Royal Society anniversary discussion meetings addressed the major scientific questions of the 21st century, aiming to identify and map out vital subjects that will help set the agenda for future generations of scientists. ‘Web Science: A New Frontier’ was organized by Professor Nigel Shadbolt and Professor Dame Wendy Hall of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, Professor James Hendler of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Professor Bill Dutton of the University of Oxford.

October Three Professors from the School of Electronics and Computer Science featured in the list of ‘100 most important figures in British Science’ published in The Times newspaper on 7 October. The Eureka list aimed to identify the most important and interesting people in British science, ‘those pushing back the boundaries of scientific understanding, transforming our lives through innovation and changing our attitudes to science, each other and the world’, wrote The Times Editor, James Harding. It covered researchers, inventors, engineers, communicators, policymakers and practitioners. In the same month Professor Nick Jennings and Professor Sheng Chen were also listed among the world's leading researchers.

November The award-winning ALADDIN research programme came to an end after five years of groundbreaking research and applications development. The strategic research programme funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and BAE Systems, and led by Professor Nick Jennings, developed a multi-agent toolbox across a range of data and information applications, and won many awards and accolades. The new ORCHID project, announced in October, will take forward many elements of the ALADDIN research as it aims to develop true partnerships between people and computers.

December At the end of a busy and longer-than-usual first term of the year the School celebrated the graduation of around 250 MSc students from the 2009-10 cohort. This year’s MSc programme is bigger than ever with over 350 students admitted to the programme in October 2010. The programme continues to develop, which 12 different degrees being offered, including a new MScin Systems and Signal Processing available from 2011. The School also saw a record intake to its undergraduate programmes in October 2010, with over students admitted to 23 different programmes. You can read about their experiences in the ECS Student Blogs.

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

The Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory at the University of Southampton will be playing a key role in the new £4.7M HubNet project which begins this week.

HubNet, which is funded by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), aims to develop the research agenda that will overcome the problems of improving efficiency and maintaining the reliability of the UK energy supply. In addition to funding from this important programme, the Tony Davies HV Lab has also secured funding from the National HE Stem Programme to develop resources for graduate skills development within the energy industry.

Professor Paul Lewin and Professor Steve Swingler will be leading the activity of the new Hub at Southampton, which also relates to ongoing research in the Tony Davies Lab, part of the School of Electronics and Computer Science. "We will be considering how new materials - such as nano-composite insulation and ceramic composites - can be used to design power equipment that is more efficient and compact," says Professor Lewin. "In addition, the management of transition assets will be considered: while a significant amount of new network equipment will need to be installed in the coming decades, this new construction is dwarfed by the existing asset base. It is thus essential to study how the life of existing equipment can be extended under what is likely to be far more extreme conditions."

The new research is taking place against the issues posed by the decarbonisation of the UK economy while at the same time maintaining the security and reliability of the energy supply. "This will require a profound transformation of the networks used to transport energy into and within the country," says Professor Lewin. "While the need is clear, the final shape of these networks is not, and getting there requires a considerable amount of research."

The creation of the “Hubâ€? will catalyse and focus the research on energy networks in the UK. In particular, this Hub will provide research leadership through the publication of in-depth position papers written by leaders in the field and the organisation of workshops and other mechanisms for the exchange of ideas between researchers, industry and the public sector. It will also spur the development of innovative solutions by sponsoring speculative research in new areas.

Academics at Imperial College London and the Universities of Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester, Nottingham, Southampton, Strathclyde and Warwick are the contributing partners to HubNet. Other areas for consideration within the project include: The design of smart grids, in particular the application of communication technologies to the operation of electricity systems and the harnessing of the demand-side for the control and optimisation of the power system; the development of a mega-grid that will link the UK’s energy network to renewable energy sources situated off shore, across Europe and beyond; the development of new techniques to study the interaction between multiple energy vectors, and optimally coordinate the planning and operation of energy networks under uncertainty.

“The Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory has an established international reputation for its research in the areas of new insulating materials and condition monitoring of high voltage plantâ€?, says Professor Lewin. “It is very exciting that we will be making a significant contribution to the future directions of UK research in these areas, through our involvement with HubNet."

It is not just development of the new network and its effective operation that needs to be considered, but also the development of the next generation of Power Engineers who will design, implement, manage and maintain future networks. The HV Lab has a strong record and reputation for research-led teaching and this has been recognised in an award of £150K from the National HE STEM programme for graduate skills development of the energy industry.

This funding will provide electronic resources as work packages to graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) to develop the skill sets they require for a career in the energy industry. These work packages will also be made available through the Energy and Utilities Sector Skills Council National Skills Academy for Power to the current workforce as a means to up-skill recent graduates from a non-electrical engineering or non-STEM degree background.

“Working with members of the Tony Davis High Voltage Laboratory at the University of Southampton, we are planning a complete range of innovative electronic study resources using the latest technology to train the next generation of Power Engineers,â€? says Professor Averil Macdonald, Regional Director of the HE STEM Programme at the University of Southampton. “Through the HE STEM Programme we will make these resources freely available to all UK HEIs as well as to power industry professionalsâ€?.

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If you are interested in doing a PhD in the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory, you will find more information on the ECS Postgraduate Opportunity pages.

For more information about this story contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

Professor Dame Wendy Hall has been elected a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest organization for computing professionals. Dame Wendy was President of the ACM from 2008 to 2010, the first person from outside North America to hold this position in the ACM’s prestigious 60-year history. Her Fellowship was awarded ‘for contributions to the semantic web and web science and for service to ACM and the international computing community.’

In the research policy arena Dame Wendy is now chairing ISTAG – the Advisory Group for the future direction of the European Commission’s ICT research beyond Framework 7. ISTAG is mandated to provide advice on strategy, objectives and scientific and technological priorities which will shape future research programmes, and the 25 members are drawn from leading universities and communications companies across Europe.

Dame Wendy is also currently featured in an exhibition at the Royal Society, London, of photographic portraits of 47 eminent scientists who are all Fellows of the Royal Society. The exhibition coincides with the end of the Royal Society’s celebrations of its 350th anniversary year, and the portraits, by Anne Purkiss, are also published in a book. Other scientists featured include Sir David Attenborough, Sir Patrick Moore, Richard Dawkins, Lord Krebs, and James Lovelock.

‘I am very honoured to be elected a Fellow of the ACM,’ said Dame Wendy, ‘and to be recognized both for my research and my service to the international community, which is a very significant part of my work. My latest role, as chair of ISTAG, is all about bridging the gap between academia and industry to ensure that research funding that is available is used to best effect. ISTAG has a very important role to play in shaping the future of ICT research in Europe.

‘To be included in the Royal Society exhibition in the company of some of the world’s leading scientists was another great honour, especially at the end of the year in which Web Science formed a major part of the Society’s anniversary celebrations.’

The annual Multimedia Systems Conference takes place in the School on Saturday 15 January.

The Conference is run entirely by undergraduate students participating in the Interactive Multimedia Systems module in the School of Electronics and Computer Science. In addition to providing the papers for the Conference the students also have to plan the event, which is open to all students in the University, and find sponsorship. This year’s event is sponsored by Imagination Technologies, a global leader in multimedia and communications technologies.

This year the presentations will cover five prominent areas of research in the field of Interactive Multimedia Systems. This includes: computer games and interactive fiction; virtual worlds; augmented and mixed reality; emerging display technology (3D, holographic, digital paper); and novel interfaces.

All the papers are available to read on the Conference web site, which also includes registration details and the event programme. The Conference is being held in the Mountbatten Building, and runs from 10 am to 4.30 pm.

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

The first Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences Distinguished Lecture will be given on Monday 24 January by Professor David Payne, Director of the University’s Optoelectronics Research Centre.

Professor David Payne, CBE, FRS, FREng, is one of the world’s leading researchers in photonics and fibre lasers. Over the last 35 years his research has established Southampton as a global force in optical fibre communications and laser technology and he has won a string of awards recognizing his research breakthroughs which have transformed the world’s telecommunications. In this lecture, entitled ‘Photonics: The Century of Light’, he considers the continuing huge potential of optical fibres and the future opportunities this represents for the University’s new Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences.

The lecture will be chaired by Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of the Faculty, and takes place at 5 pm, in the Main Lecture Theatre of Building 32. Refreshments will be available before the lecture from 4.30 pm in the B32 Foyer, and there will be a wine reception afterwards in the B32 coffee room (level 4). All are welcome and no tickets are required.

Lecture Abstract: Powering the optical fibre internet with its huge global reach, photonics has changed our lives. Optical fibres snake across continents and oceans carrying terabits per second of data in a vast information network that brings untold human connectivity. How did this happen and is that the end of it? Capacity demand continues to grow at a startling rate, doubling every two years, while the internet is estimated as burning 4% of world energy usage. The optical internet is reaching its capacity limits. The solution to these consequences of unbridled demand is more photonics, reaching further into the network with optics to overcome the existing bottlenecks and employing next-generation optical components. The great success of optical fibres and planar circuits in telecommunications has generated numerous applications in a number of related fields, such as sensing, bio- and nano-photonics and high-power lasers. Incredibly, the same fibres that carry tiny internet signals can also generate kilowatts of power, sufficient to cut through inch-thick steel. Southampton has an enviable track record of innovation in ICT and photonics. Building new technologies and applications through harnessing the properties of new optical materials, devices and structures is a huge opportunity for our new Faculty.

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