Every year ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton employs a number of its own students to work as interns over the summer vacation, participating in research projects and affiliated to one of the ECS research groups.

Over the summer months, Stuart Barrow (MEng Electronic Engineering Part 4) has made a valuable contribution to a pioneering EPSRC-funded energy harvesting project. Stuart has been developing an ultra low-power system that analyses vibrations and transmits them wirelessly. This is useful for machinery condition monitoring, since sensors can be installed on pieces of equipment to provide early detection of problems (so that maintenance can be carried out). The photo shows Stuart testing his system on a car engine – the hardware on the engine is detecting vibrations, processing them, and transmitting them wirelessly to a laptop computer.

Dr Geoff Merrett commented: “These opportunities for summer internships are great for the students, as it allows them to apply the things that they have learnt to real electronics projects in a research environment, and great for the University as interns make very real and valuable contributions. This has been the second year that I have employed Stuart on an internship, and the skills and knowledge that he has developed during his degree have made him a very valuable part of the research teams.â€?

Stuart has been working for three months under the EPSRC-funded Next Generation Energy-Harvesting Electronics - Holistic Approach project, which is directed by ECS Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi. The project is developing efficient vibration energy harvesters, power conditioning electronics, and computation circuits. The system Stuart has developed will soon be self-powered (being powered by vibrations as well as sensing them).

The Holistic project joins up three different research fields, including energy harvesting and MEMS processing methods, low-power embedded computing systems, and electronic design automation. The project is focussing on three interlinked themes (microgenerator design, computation circuits, and system optimisation), and involves over 25 people at four academic institutions.

Eight ECS students spent the summer working with some of the UK’s leading electronics employers after winning scholarships from the UK Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF).

The UKESF is a collaboration between industry, universities and the public sector, which aims to promote the future of the UK electronics sector by addressing the threat of diminishing skills capability and specifically by securing a sustainable supply of high-quality industry-prepared students. The UKESF works at both school and university level to provide summer schools and a high-level scholarship programme that offers bursaries, mentoring and work placements.

The first scholarships were awarded earlier this year to students at the seven universities that are founding members of the UKESF, and ECS students did particularly well, with eight successful in the programme. This year the UKESF is extending its scholarships scheme with more bursaries and work placements on offer. The closing date for applications is 31 October 2011.

The ECS students who were awarded scholarships and work placements are: James Imber (Imagination Technologies); Matt Lokes (Imagination Technologies); Fergus Macgarry (Imagination Technologies); Adam Malpass (Dialog Semiconductor); Samuel Hipkin (ARM Ltd); Yannik Hopke (ARM Ltd); Matthew Warnes (ARM Ltd); and Thomas Dell (Aptina Imaging). The UKESF scholars also took part in a summer school (see photo).

Founding University partners of UKESF are: Southampton, Bristol, Cardiff, Imperial College London, Edinburgh, Surrey, and York.

Find out more about the Scholarship Scheme at http://www.ukesf.org/scholarship-scheme

Read Adam Malpass’s blog to find out about his summer in Japan: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/blogs/adam_malpass.php

Read about Adam Malpass, Matt Lokes and Tom Dell on the UKESF website: http://www.ukesf.org/scholarship-scheme/scholars-profiles

“We fully support the aims of the UK Electronics Skills Foundation and value highly the opportunities created for students,â€? says Professor Neil White, Head of ECS-Electronics and Computer Science. “ECS has a long history of engagement and collaboration with UK industry and we are very pleased, not only that our students have done so well in the UKESF Scholarships programme, but also that we have the UK’s highest employability rating* for graduate employment of electronics students.â€?

*Unistats 2011: http://unistats.direct.gov.uk

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

The complicated network of trails – which can be traced backwards and forwards in time and space – are the subject of Professor Luc Moreau’s inaugural lecture next Wednesday (19 October).

Professor Moreau, of the Web and Internet Science research group in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, is a leading expert in Provenance, an important area of computer science which makes a crucial contribution to issues of trust in computer-generated data by helping users understand the origins of data. Provenance is important in many fields – for example in forensic analysis of computer trails of information (surrounding issues of financial affairs and fraud), in health and medicine (the health and history of organs for transplantation), in science (the reliability of scientific data and the reproducibility of experimental results and observations), and in art, which has long been familiar with the idea of provenance, but which is now just as reliant on computer information for the history of objects, their previous ownership and validation.

Professor Moreau is co-chair of the Provenance Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). He initiated the successful Provenance Challenge series, which saw the involvement of over 20 institutions investigating provenance inter-operability in three successive challenges, and which resulted in the specification of the community Open Provenance Model (OPM).

Previously, he led the development of provenance technology in the FP6 Provenance project and the Provenance Aware Service Oriented Architecture (PASOA) project. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience. He is currently co-investigator of the Orchid, PATINA (Personal Architectonics Through Interactions with Artifacts), and e-stats projects.

“Understanding where data comes from will enable users to decide if it is trustworthy,â€? says Professor Moreau. “This will also lead to a new generation of services over the Web, capable of producing trusted information.â€?

Professor Luc Moreau will deliver his inaugural lecture on Wednesday 19 October on the subject: ‘Research in trails – a trail of my research’. The lecture takes place in Nightingale Building (67) on the University’s Highfield Campus at 5 pm, with refreshments available from 4.30 pm. The lecture is open to the public (no tickets required) and all are welcome.

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

Read the Lecture Abstract

Prizewinners for academic performance in Parts 1, 2, and 3, of degree programmes in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science attended a lunch in the Mountbatten Building to receive their prizes.

New prizes awarded this year were the Winton Capital Management Prize awarded to Liam De Valmency, for best performance in Part 1 Computer Science, and the Barclays Capital Prize, awarded to Doug Moore, for best performance in Part 1 Information Technology in Organisations.

The full list of prizewinners was:

Part I Electronic Engineering EE Zepler Prize: Aditya Tandon GD Sims Prize: Toan Nguyen Quoc

Part II Electronic Engineering EE Zepler Prize: James Imber GD Sims Prize: Matthew Brejza Eddy Herman Memorial Prize: Matthew Brejza

Part I Computer Science and Software Engineering Winton Capital Management Prize: Liam De Valmency

Part II Computer Science and Software Engineering Detica Prize: Robert Streeting Adam Rutherford Memorial Prize: Darie Patulescu IBM group software engineering project Prizes: Dexter Lowe, Emem Adegbola, Christopher Kirkham, Antonio Bernardo Best individual contributions: Andrei Petre, Nicholas Hatter

Part I Electrical and Electromechanical Engineering EE Zepler Prize: Wei Chin

Part II Electrical and Electromechanical Engineering The National Grid Company Prize: Xinnan Wang

Part I Information Technology in Organisations Barclays Capital Prize: Douglas Moore

Part II Information Technology in Organisations Zepler Prize: Manol Dimitrov

Part III Electronics and Digital Systems Engineering Zepler Prize: Yannik Hopke GD Sims Prize: Adam Malpass John Betts Communications Prize: Yannik Hopke

Part III Computer Science and Software Engineering NDS Prize: Stephen Tuttlebee Netcraft Prizes Stephen Tuttlebee Alexander Davenport Raymond Mo Jonathan Harrison Elliot Salisbury Joshua England Sam Lewis Ali Al Marhubi David Monks Andrew Baker

Part III Project Prizes

Hursley Computer Prize: Sukhjinder Plaha David Barron Prize: Peter Wesson NATS Project Prize: Neil Howarth Zepler Project prizes: Yannik Hopke, Raymond Mo, Elliot Salisbury Siemens Prizes: Neil Howarth, Peter Wesson, Yannik Hopke

Winners of the UKESF (UK Electronics Skills Foundation) Scholarships also attended the lunch and received a small gift from ECS for their achievement: James Imber; Matt Lokes; Fergus Macgarry; Adam Malpass; Samuel Hipkin; Yannik Hopke; Matthew Warnes; and Thomas Dell.

Special mention should also be made of Neil Howarth, who was the only Southampton student to reach the final of the European SET Awards this year for his project: ‘Telemetry for electric vehicles’, supervised by Dr Peter Wilson of the Electronics and Electrical Engineering group in ECS.

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

Open Data logged another step in its progress to make the world more transparent, when hundreds of public servants, NGOs, journalists and developers gathered in a former factory building in Warsaw this week for be the world’s biggest ever open data event.

Over 40 countries around the world were represented at the camp, from city level projects in Manchester, Montreal or Munich to national initiatives like data.gov, as well as supranational institutions like the European Commission and the World Bank.

Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Head of the Web and Internet Science research group in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science, commented: “Open Government Data creates social and economic value, improves public services, makes Governments more efficient, transparent and accountable. This Conference was about ensuring that more people understand how to make this work, more people can tackle the challenges and obstacles that arise, and more people are inspired to continue the work.â€?

Professor Shadbolt sits on the UK Government’s Public Sector Transparency Board.

Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission and Digital Agenda Commissioner, commented at the event: “I am thrilled to see so much open data innovation going on in Europe. There is tremendous potential in this area - from enabling next generation public services, to creating jobs in the digital single market. This year's Open Government Data Camp in Warsaw will enable key stakeholders from across Europe to exchange ideas and expertise.â€?

Chris Taggart, Founder of OpenCorporates.com, commented: “Despite the successes of the past few years, the open data community faces considerable obstacles, from proprietary web services to governments who see open data as a threat. Open Government Data Camp will connect people who are serious about overcoming these issues and using open data to help to solve some of the world’s pressing problems.â€?

Professor Dame Wendy Hall received an ‘Internet and Society Award’ from the Oxford Internet Institute as part of its tenth anniversary celebrations which culminated this month.

The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) has become a major centre for the study of the dramatic societal implications of the Internet. The 10th anniversary celebrations provided the OII with an opportunity to recognize the individuals and organizations that have shaped the development of both the Internet and the Institute, and to look to the future. The Awards were presented to individuals and organizations ‘who have developed the Internet for the public good in Britain’.

Professor Hall received her award as being one of the first computer scientists to undertake serious research into Web Science. She was a founding director of the Web Science Research Initiative (now Web Science Trust), alongside Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web, and Professor Nigel Shadbolt.

Also honoured were Vint Cerf, Google’s ‘Chief Internet Evangelist’, widely recognized as ‘father of the Internet’; Professor Manuel Castells, of the Open University of Catalonia; Joi Ito, of the Mozilla Foundation; Dr David Clark of MIT, Chief Protocol Architect of the Internet; and Niklas Zennstrom of Skype, Internet entrepreneur.

The Oxford Internet Institute is a part of the Web Science Trust Network of research labs (WSTNet), which links research institutes around the world which are involved in many different aspects of Web Science.

Photographed (standing l-r): Professor Eli Noam, Professor William Dutton (OII), Manuel Castells, Wendy Hall, Vint Cert; (seated) Dame Stephen Shirley, Andrew Graham (Balliol College, Oxford)

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

Two ECS students have been nominated as finalists for the prestigious title of ‘Scholar of the Year’ by the UK Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF).

Tom Dell and Adam Malpass, both in the final year of the MEng degree programme in Electronics at ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, were awarded scholarships earlier this year by UKESF, an organization set up to promote the importance and value of electronic engineering as a university discipline and to help provide a strong supply of electronic engineers for UK industry and manufacturing in the future.

The UKESF scholarships include summer placements with some of the country’s leading manufacturers, as well as providing scholarship funds and a place at a high-level summer school. Tom spent his summer working for Aptina Imaging, and Adam worked for Dialog Semiconductor – both companies are affiliated to the UKESF.

A number of ECS students received scholarships and placements this year, including James Imber (Imagination Technologies); Matt Lokes (Imagination Technologies); Fergus Macgarry (Imagination Technologies); Samuel Hipkin (ARM Ltd); Yannik Hopke (ARM Ltd); and Matthew Warnes (ARM Ltd).

The award for Scholar of the Year will be announced at the annual Gala Dinner of the National Microelectronics Institute, being held in London on Thursday 3 November.

"We are very proud of all our students who have done so well in the inaugural Scholarship event of the UKESF", said Professor Neil White, Head of ECS. "Tom and Adam, as finalists in the competition, provide an excellent indication of the strength of our education in Electronic Engineering at the University of Southampton. Along with all the other ECS students awarded Scholarships this year, they have contributed a great deal to ECS, but also to helping ensure a good supply of electronics students in the future. We know that they will also make a strong contribution to industry after they have graduated."

The next event in the Distinguished Lecture series at the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences goes inside the mind of Watson, the IBM computer which took part in the well-knownn US tv quiz show, Jeopardy! and won ...

Watson is a computer system (devised and built by IBM engineers) which is capable of answering rich natural language questions and estimating its confidence in those answers at a level rivalling the best humans at the task. The intriguing and historic contest took place in February this year when Watson triumphed over the best Jeopardy! players of all time. In this lecture Chris Welty, Research Scientist at IBM's T J Watson Research Center in New York, will discuss how Watson works at a high level with examples from the show.

Chris Welty taught Computer Science at Vassar College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute before moving to industrial research. His principal area of research is Knowledge Representation, specifically ontologies and the Semantic Web, and he spends most of his time applying this technology to Natural Language Question Answering as a member of the DeepQA/Watson team.

The Lecture takes place on Thursday 1 December at 5 pm in the Turner Sims Concert Hall on the Highfield Campus of the University of Southampton. No tickets are required and all are welcome.

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

The Open Data initiative took another huge step forward yesterday (Thursday 3 November) with the launch of a new initiative that will enable consumers to gain unprecedented access to personal data from banks, utilities, telecoms providers and a range of other companies.

Speaking at the launch of the Midata scheme in London, Professor Nigel Shadbolt, of ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, and Government Open Data Adviser, told the BBC: “This is about getting the information that companies hold about me and you back to you in a form you can use."

Twenty-six companies, including Google, British Gas and MasterCard, have already joined the scheme, which enables customers to access ‘personal data inventories’. Consumers will be able to have better insights into their personal consumption and spending patterns which should lead to better informed choices of products and services. The companies are committed to developing common approaches to data access, and to set protocols on privacy, data security and consumer protection.

Professor Shadbolt has been advising the Government on the release of open data for the last two years, a move that takes advantage of the potential of technologies such as apps to link data in a way that provides new insights into information and to make comparisons.

"By making this information available customers will be able to make better-informed decisions,’ said Professor Shadbolt. ‘It's a movement that's already happening: at the moment we’re used to seeing our buying preferences from online bookstores recommend books back to us and we can share our preferences with friends and social networks – this kind of facility is going to happen everywhere.

"But the Government also holds large amounts of information about us, and I’d like to see us move to a situation where our health, education and tax information is just as accessible.â€?

Adam Malpass, final-year student in Electronic Engineering at ECS-Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, was last night awarded the first annual Scholar of the Year award by the United Kingdom Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF).

The award was sponsored by IC Group and announced at the NMI’s annual awards ceremony held in London. Speaking at the event Neil Dickens, a director at IC Group, said: “It’s vital for the UK industry’s future growth that we attract, support and retain as many talented young individuals, such as Adam, as possible.

“In a very competitive year Adam stood out from the crowd, especially for his infectious enthusiasm, outstanding contributions to Dialog and his encouragement of younger students to take up electronics.â€?

During his three-month summer placement with Dialog Semiconductor, the sponsor of his UKESF Scholarship, Adam produced a new design for use in its range of flagship products and delivered a research report to help facilitate a move into a new line of business.

To help inspire younger students to take up electronics Adam has been involved in many activities with his former school, and through his university. These include talking to students of all ages about the exciting, varied opportunities in electronics, in addition to his blog on the ECS pages, which relates his experiences as an electronics undergraduate.

On winning his award Adam commented: "I'm really delighted to have won this award as I know the competition was strong, especially from my fellow Southampton University and UKESF scholar Tom Dell. The UKESF scholarship has provided me with development opportunities that a student wouldn't normally have, such as working internationally with a world-class company, meeting industry leaders and receiving training in the softer, professional skills that aren't taught at university"

Dr Derek Boyd, NMI’s CEO, said: “As a founding partner of UKESF we have been delighted by the quality of the undergraduate students within the scholarship scheme. Adam is just one of an exceptional group of younger people and I expect to see him contribute greatly to our sector in the future.â€?

Rebecca Whatley-Stokes, Global Head of Learning and Development at Dialog Semiconductor, commented: “Adam has been fantastic during his time at Dialog, he’s a real credit to young engineers and will do very well in future. The UKESF has given us a great opportunity to spot the most talented individuals, such as Adam, earlier than our competition.â€?

Professor Neil White, Head of ECS-Electronics and Computer Science, commented: 'Many congratulations to Adam on this very prestigious award, and also to Tom, the other finalist in the competition. We are immensely proud of our students' abilities and their enthusiasm as they look forward to contributing to the electronics industry. The fact that Southampton provided the two finalists in this inaugural Award underlines the environment in ECS, which is very much geared to producing the kinds of students that industry wants and needs in the future."

UKESF was founded in 2010 by collaboration of public bodies, private companies and UK universities to address the threat of a diminishing skills base in the UK electronics sector. Its principal aims are to increase and sustain the supply of industry ready graduate engineers and boost career take up in the industry, worth £23 billion per year to the UK economy.

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