Research into ear biometrics by Professor Mark Nixon of ECS-Electronics and Computer Science has raised new potential for security systems.

The research is currently profiled on the leading website, All Analytics, where Mark is featured explaining the potential uses of his pioneering work into ear identification.

A Professor of Computer Vision in the ECS Communications, Signal Processing and Control research group, Mark believes that using photos of individual ears matched against a comparative database could be as distinctive a form of identification as fingerprints.

He said: “Using ears for identification has clear advantages over other kinds of biometric identification, as, once developed, the ear changes little throughout a person’s life. This provides a cradle-to-grave method of identification.â€?

Mark and his research colleagues believe that this form of non-contact identification could have a possible application in security systems.

“During walk-throughs at security checkpoints cameras could digitally photograph passers-by comparing their ears against others in a database. Used in combination with face recognition, ear recognition offers a second point of comparison in cases where all or part of a face might be obstructed, for example, by make-up,â€? he said.

“Keeping images of ears, as opposed to faces, might also raise fewer privacy concerns,â€? he added.

Read the All Analytics article.

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

The Cyber Security Research Centre, led by Professor Vladimiro Sassone of ECS-Electronics and Computer Science, has been awarded ‘Academic Centre of Excellence’ status by the British intelligence agency GCHQ.

The Centre is one of just eight at UK universities, which have been identified to help make the UK government, businesses and consumers more resilient to cyber-attack by extending knowledge through original research and providing top-quality graduates in the field of cyber security.

The Centre of Excellence status was awarded by GCHQ as part of the Government's national cyber security strategy in partnership with Research Council UK's Global Uncertainties Programme and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Each Centre will receive a £50,000 capital investment and will benefit from closer collaboration with GCHQ, the UK cyber community and industry. The research conducted will support the drive for better cyber protection for the UK government and enable businesses and consumers to safely benefit from the huge opportunities offered in cyberspace.

"We are very pleased to have our world-leading research in cyber security recognised through the awarding of this 'Centre of Excellence' status," said Professor Vladimiro Sassone, Director of the Centre. "Our well-integrated research portfolio links together aspects of internet privacy and trust, super-identity and access control, and secure hardware devices in one full circle.

"This places us in a unique position. Online activities underpin a growing range of day-to-day activities and there is a real need to ensure that users are supported in their online transactions and behaviours. Issues span the robustness of our national security and economic processes, to the security of digital information held by government and public bodies, and recognise the technical, legal, ethical and social responsibilities around our own personal privacy," he added.

Minister for Cyber Security Francis Maude said that promoting academic excellence is at the heart of the Government's Security Strategy. "We want to make the UK one of the most secure places in the world to do business, by investing in the best expertise to keep pace with technological change," he emphasised. "These first eight Centres will play a vital role in boosting research, expanding our cyber skills base and fostering innovation in the field."

Universities and Science Minister David Willetts added: "Britain has one of the largest online economies in the world and a growing cyber security sector. Supporting universities to carry out more research and training skilled graduates to work in the cyber-security industry will help build further confidence in doing business online. There was strong competition among universities to be selected as a Centre of Excellence in cyber security research and I congratulate those who have been successful."

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

Second-year Electronics students in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science had a fittingly Olympic theme for this year’s D4 design exercise, traditionally a very competitive culmination to the series of testing exercises that runs throughout the Electronic Systems Design Module.

This year’s D4, sponsored as in past years by BAE Systems Detica, set the student teams the challenge of building an intelligent robot capable of playing football without human input to take part in the fictional ‘Robot Olympics’. The students had only three weeks to design, build, test, and demonstrate a complete electronic system. To test their entrepreneurial ability as well as their electronic skills, they were also asked to create a video commercial for their robot and pitch it to judges as a commercial product.

“Teams were named after countries, with my team being Team France,â€? said Arinze Ekwosimba, studying MEng Electronic Engineering with Wireless Communications. “We had effectively two weeks to design and implement our prototype – it was undoubtedly the most stressful, challenging, draining and demanding part of my degree thus far!â€?

Pressure on the students was intense as they worked round the clock to design their intelligent robots. Against a set of tough specifications, the students worked in groups, partitioning a large task amongst the individual team members. The students were expected to show initiative, creativity and innovation, to deploy good time management and trouble-shooting skills, and to undertake technical and market research, costing and budget analysis.

“The D4 design exercise is the culmination of two years of hands-on lab experience, requiring students to apply all of the skills and knowledge that they have learnt to solve a complex design problem,â€? said Dr Geoff Merrett, lecturer and coordinator of first-year labs.

During the final judging session, Dr Matt Sacker of BAE Systems Detica congratulated the students on the quality of what they had achieved. "The D4 design exercise provides students with a real-world experience of electronic system design. The exercise matches a product's development from requirements capture through to prototype development�, he said.

“This provides Electronics students with valuable practical experience that gives them a head-start when applying for jobs and working in industry". The winning team members were: Bryony Howard, Zachary Jelley, Henry Lovett, Thomas Smith, James Cooke, and Lewis Russell. Each received £100 from BAE Systems Detica as their prize. The exercise was run by Dr Geoff Merrett, Professor Steve Gunn and Dr Rob Maunder, with support from Dave Oakley, Jeff Hooker and David Kemmish.

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

University of Southampton Open Days for prospective students take place this year on Friday 6 and Saturday 7 July.

Prospective students are able to visit Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) throughout the two days, with tours and presentations demonstrating the unique opportunities available at the University of Southampton. Visitors will also be able to meet past and current students, visit our undergraduate labs and learn about ECS students’ excellent careers prospects.

Open Day presentations will include 'Robotics and Rehabilitation', '21st Century Computing' and 'The ECS Science Community'. Visitors will be able to tour the Nano and Photonic cleanrooms, the ECS computer labs and the electronic teaching labs. Careers talks, student showcase events and drop-in sessions will also be running throughout the two days. The University of Southampton’s Open Day website provides further information as well as booking opportunities (Saturday 7 July is already fully booked).

"Visiting universities is extremely important in enabling students to find the best place for their study," says ECS Professor Alun Vaughan. "There are many factors which make a difference to the kind of educational experience that will suit a particular student and we urge prospective students to take advantage of these visit days to find out as much as they can about what we can offer them."

Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Southampton is currently ranked 1st and 2nd in subject league tables (The Guardian University Guide 2013/The Times University Guide 2013), while Computer Science and IT is currently ranked 3rd and 8th in the same league tables.

There are further University of Southampton Open Days on Thursday 4 and Friday 5 September - the University of Southampton’s Open Day website provides more information.

To celebrate its 60th anniversary, 60 of the University of Southampton's leading research successes have been chosen to illustrate the variety of research activities taking place across its Faculties, institutes and academic departments.

"60@60" successes from the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences include:

Improving coordination in a crisis. Professor Nick Jennings, who leads the University's Agents, Interactions and Complexity research group, has pioneered research into the use of agent technology in decentralized information systems, such as disaster scenarios. “Computers are much better than people at collecting and analysing large amounts of information,â€? says Professor Jennings, which is why he aims to produce systems where computers work together, negotiate priorities, and share information. Professor Jennings is currently leading the ORCHID project, which aims to advance research in the area of human-agent collectives. Exploring deep space. The LOFAR (low frequency array) telescope in Chilbolton, Hampshire is part of a Europe-wide network of telescopes using low-frequency radio waves to generate high-resolution images of space. Professor Rob Fender (Astronomy), who is leading the development of the UK telescope, says: "The quality of the images produced by LOFAR will help scientists to understand the fundamentals of astrophysics - the birth and life-cycle of stars and galaxies and the ultimate end points of stars and black holes."

Innovative research into dielectric materials. The Tony Davis High Voltage Laboratory is a unique facility that undertakes research in power engineering. “Elements of our work have been used internationally, and we have been invited to work with leading laboratories in Europe and China,â€? says Professor Paul Lewin, Director of the Lab. Research carried out in the Lab contributes to the maintenance of electrical infrastructure; helps to avoid costly equipment failures and develops more efficient ways to distribute power from renewable sources. Intelligent insulation that changes colour under high voltage is also being researched at the University of Southampton, as well as nanodielectrics and liquid dielectrics.

Advancing our knowledge of the oceans. As part of a long-standing collaboration between ECS and the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS), new technology has been developed in research projects led by Professor Hywel Morgan and Dr Matt Mowlem, including tiny sensors that can perform operations traditionally performed in a laboratory. These sensors can measure salinity, dissolved oxygen levels, temperature, chemicals, nutrients and pollutions, meaning that they can help scientists to collect important information about the complex ocean environment. These ‘lab-on-a-chip’ sensors are being developed for use commercially, and could be used to monitor pollution in lakes and rivers.

Opening up government data. Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt of ECS have been working with the UK government to create data.gov.uk - a website designed to make government information freely available to the public. Information about education, traffic, taxes and crime is available, and can be used to create new software tools. Professor Shadbolt says: "Open data allows people to hold governments to account and improve public services. It is exciting to see Southampton taking a lead in the higher education sector."

Driving global advances in communication. Phototonics research, led by Professor David Payne of the Optoelectronics Research Centre is driving global advances in communications. “The whole global internet relies on our invention of erbium-doped fibre amplifiers that amplify optical signals to allow fast telecommunications,â€? says Professor Payne. The ORC has developed special optical fibres for a range of uses – from high-powered lasers for machining to the Moon Rover.

The University will be celebrating these achievements on Saturday 30th June, with a Community Open Day on the Highfield Campus from 10.30 am to 4 pm.

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

A PhD student from ECS-Electronics and Computer Science is celebrating after scooping an international award for his paper at a large technical conference in the USA.

Jatin Mistry beat off fellow researchers from around the world to claim the award for best Technical Paper at the Synopsys Users Group (SNUG) conference in Silicon Valley.

Synopsys is a world leader in electronic design automation (EDA) and every year holds a forum in San Francisco featuring exceptional technical presentations from designers and engineers at the cutting edge of electronic product design and manufacturing. This year the conference attracted more than 2,300 delegates.

Jatin’s paper, written in collaboration with James Myers and David Flynn (ARM), was awarded the Technical Committee Award - the first time that this award has been given for research work that has been carried out in academia.

The paper details Jatin's research progress on reducing the energy consumed by digital electronics powered by energy harvested from the environment.

“It was fantastic to get the award which shows recognition for the quality of the work that I am doing. It is a very strong industry and, because SNUG is an industrial conference, this award will hopefully encourage others to submit academic research-related papers to conferences like this where you are face to face with leaders in the electronics industry.

“It gives more exposure to your work and also promotes strong industrial partnerships such as we have in ECS with ARM at Cambridge,â€? said Jatin.

Jatin is working on his PhD, funded by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) as part of the Holistic Energy Harvesting project in collaboration with ARM. He recently spent a three-month internship at ARM evaluating the energy-saving methods for embedded processors used in mobile devices which are described in his winning paper.

Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi, Jatin's PhD supervisor and Associate Dean for Research in Physical and Applied Sciences, said: “This award is another example of the relevance of the cutting-edge research that our researchers and the Pervasive Systems Centre are carrying out in energy-efficient embedded systems and in collaboration with our long-term industrial partner ARM.â€?

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

Undergraduate students in Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) are embarking on adventures across the globe this summer with financial support from ECS alumni.

The donations from alumni to the ECS Student Development Fund are enabling students to follow their interests across a wide range of activities. Grants from the Fund were open to application from all undergraduate students, and were awarded on the criteria of activities that are charitable or educational, that advance personal development, or will be of value to the broader community.

One of the most ambitious activities is the Mongolia Charity Rally. A team of seven students, from ECS and Geophysics, were granted an award towards a 10,000-mile journey this summer, from Southampton to Ulaanbaatar. The students left Southampton on Saturday 7 July and will travel through 22 countries to deliver two ambulances to the people of Mongolia. When they arrive in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital, they will donate the ambulances and other medical equipment to Go Help, a charity which works with local communities in Central Asia to improve access to education and healthcare facilities.

“Useful patient transport in Mongolia is in incredibly short supply," says Alex Forward, one of the students in this team, "made worse by the country’s poor road conditions. We are working directly with the charity Go Help to ensure the vehicles are put to immediate use after we deliver them.â€? The students' progress can be tracked on their website.

Electrical Engineering student Alex Coleman Cole has received £500 towards an expedition to the Fiji Islands. While there, Alex aims to help members of the local community by volunteering at a local school to teach English. He will also assist with construction projects on a primary school and water tanks. He also hopes to learn about the sea turtle conservation programme and swim with sharks and manta rays.

A group of four students will be cycling from London to Budapest in August. The journey of over 1200 miles takes in eight countries, and the team aims to complete the ride in 25 days.

Students have also been granted awards to provide backstage support for University of Southampton productions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; to volunteer at the Game Developers’ Conference in Germany, and to teach at a mission in the Philippines. A computer science student has also received funding to help set up an online support network for Libyan students in the UK.

Professor Neil White, Head of ECS, commented: “These are fantastic opportunities for our students, and I wish them the best of luck with their different endeavours. ECS and our students are very grateful to ECS alumni for their support which has made a significant difference to our students' abilities to undertake these challenging activities."

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

See also: ECS Alumni Network on LinkedIn

An innovative activity to encourage girls to consider careers in computer science has been designed at ECS (Electronics and Computer Science) for an event held this week at IBM, Hursley. The ECS activity was part of Think.IT, a two-day event organised by IBM and designed to encourage secondary school girls to continue studying computing, engineering, technology, and science, and to consider careers in the IT industry. The girls, aged 11 to 14, were drawn from 10 different schools in Hampshire and surrounding counties. A team from ECS, led by Dr Reena Pau and Dr Yvonne Howard, organised a drama-based activity which enabled the girls to learn about leading figures in the development of computer science. The girls were challenged to create short plays about famous female computer scientists – including Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Mandy Chessell, and Professor Dame Wendy Hall (ECS).

The girls were also asked to outline their vision of the future of computer science and technology, including new inventions they would love to have. These ideas included hologram people, a super-watch, and a way for thoughts to appear on paper without writing.

The girls’ responses to the activity were enthusiastic: “I’m really glad I came,â€? “It was great fun,â€? and “I really enjoyed it," were just some of the comments made on the day.

Dr Reena Pau, who devised the activity theme, commented: “The girls loved it because it brought women’s contributions to technology alive.â€?

Both IBM and ECS are committed to encouraging girls to choose STEM subjects for careers, and to increasing the number of girls studying STEM subjects at university.

A team of academics from the University of Southampton is set to take on the rest of the English Fantasy Football League when the new Barclays Premier League season kicks off next month. Dr Sarvapali Ramchurn, Lecturer in Computer Science; PhD student Tim Matthews; and George Chalkiadakis, visiting researcher at the University of Southampton, have developed an artificial soccer manager that in tests has ranked, on average, in the top one per cent of the 2.5 million players in the official English Fantasy Football League, run by the Barclays Premier League. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) software uses an extensive series of algorithms to analyse players’ performances and statistics before picking its football team each week. It goes into much more depth than any dedicated fantasy football player and so far its performance has been shown to be a runaway success. The team, based in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, developed the software as part of Tim’s dissertation for his Master of Artificial Intelligence degree in 2011. A paper based on Tim’s work was subsequently accepted to be presented at a major Artificial Intelligence conference (AAAI, 2012) in Toronto later this month. The team have already tested their software by running a controlled experiment seeing how it would have performed in last year’s Premier League Fantasy Football League and at one point it managed to finish in the top 500 players. However, this year they are planning to enter it for real to see how it fares against its human competitors, but also in collaboration with human players. Until now the team have just used the AI software-controlled machine, but this year they will introduce a human element in the hope of improving their record still further. “Our previous tests have shown that a machine working on its own will perform better than millions of humans. But a machine can’t take into consideration if a player is injured (and still plays), has low morale or has personal issues and may not perform at his best,â€? says Dr Ramchurn. “So this time we will be using humans and the machine working together as a team so that the humans can add this subtle information into the system and, together with the software’s extensive analysis, it will hopefully improve the machine’s success rate, though in some cases, this could also potentially make it perform worse if humans put in inaccurate information,â€? he adds. The team are currently working on a web application that will allow next season’s players to get advice from the artificial manager and to play against it.

Over 200 students will attend Graduation ceremonies on Thursday 19 July to receive University of Southampton degrees gained in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science.

The students will graduate at two ceremonies to be held in the Turner Sims Concert Hall: at 9.30 am for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Electronic Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electromechanical Engineering; and at 4.45 pm for degrees in Computer Science, Software Engineering and Information Technology in Organisations. The ceremonies will be followed at around 11 am and 6 pm by Graduation Receptions for graduates and their guests, to be held in the University's Reception Marquee, which is situated in front of the Students' Union.

Professor Neil White, Head of ECS, will welcome the new graduates to the community of ECS Alumni, and will say: "All of us who know ECS know that it is a unique place and that it is the members of our community who make it so. For the last three or four years you have been an integral part of that community as much as any of the researchers and teachers whose work contributes to our international reputation." Graduates can keep in touch with ECS by joining the LinkedIn group 'ECS Alumni, University of Southampton' and though the University of Southampton alumni database.

The majority of students graduating from ECS have already found excellent graduate jobs in the technology industry. Impressive employability figures for ECS graduates were a strong contributing factor in ECS's outstanding league table results this year (Electronics and Electrical Engineering is ranked 1st and 2nd in the UK in recent league tables (The Guardian and The Times May/June 2010) and Computer Science and IT is ranked 3th and 7th), and with many companies already booking for the next ECS Careers Fair on 12 February 2013, prospects for future graduates also look excellent.

Many congratulations to all new ECS graduates!

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