‘Choose the Earth’, is the message of James Dyke’s latest headline article in The Conversation, ‘not because it is easy, but because it is hard.’

Dr Dyke is a Lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation, and a member of the Agents, Interaction and Complexity research group in ECS (Electronics and Computer Science). He developed and leads the teaching of the multidisciplinary Global Challenges undergraduate module at the University of Southampton.

Contrasting the scientific and technical challenges posed by climate change and human impact on the environment with the huge achievement of US scientists who successfully landed American astronauts on the Moon in 1969 - less than 10 years after President Kennedy made this a national goal, Dr Dyke sets out the scale of the effort that could ensure the sustainability of our planet.

Reducing carbon emissions, providing new means of power generation, and building smartgrids are some of the technological problems to be faced; halting deforestation and ensuring better and more sustainable use of the Earth’s resources will require concerted global efforts. In addition to this, Dr Dyke also calls for changes to governance and political institutions: ‘Rather than top down, imposed solutions that don’t work, get people involved in processes and issues that matter to them. Connect them with others and have them feel invested in these projects and collectively build consensus and power from the bottom up.’

However, the major challenge is even more radical, he says: ‘Hyper-consumerism and the demand for growth is simply not compatible with the finite resources of our planet, and the use of Gross Domestic Product as the only measure that counts needs to be addressed, so that natural resources and human lives are defined by more than monetary values.’

The full article is available in The Conversation, Wednesday 27 November.

Three Professors in Electronics and Computer Science were named in the prestigious UKTech Top 50, published last week in Computer Weekly.

Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Chairman of the Open Data Institute, was named 11th, Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web and director of the Open Data Institute was named 19th, and Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Director of the Web Science Trust and Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering at the University of Southampton was named 25th in the list.

Described by Computer Weekly as the ‘definitive list of the movers and shakers in UK IT [...] driving the role of technology in the UK economy’, the list is published annually, and judged by a panel of experts as well as a public vote from the magazine’s readers. Its aim, according to Computer Weekly, is ‘to determine who holds the most influence over the future of the UK IT sector in the next 12 months – and hence the future of IT professionals across the country’.

Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Chairman, Open Data Institute Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Southampton. He is chairman and co-founder, with Sir Tim Berners-Lee of the Open Data Institute (ODI). Launched in December 2012, the ODI focuses on unlocking supply and stimulating demand for open data. Shadbolt is also an advisor to the UK government on how to transform public access to government information, including the Data.gov.uk site. He sits on the Public Sector Transparency Board responsible for setting open data strategy across the public sector.

Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web inventor; President, Open Data Institute Undoubtedly the most famous UK computer scientist, Berners-Lee boosted his profile with an appearance in the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics, to widespread geek joy. As well as his evangelising of the web, he advises the government on open data as a director of the Open Data Institute. He has become an increasingly outspoken critic of government internet surveillance policies.

Dame Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science at University of Southampton Wendy Hall is one of the most respected computer science academics in the UK. She is founding director, along with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, of the Web Science Research Initiative, which was launched in 2006 as long-term research collaboration between the University of Southampton and MIT.

‘It is an extraordinary reflection of the influence of Computer Science at the University of Southampton that three of our professors are included in this distinguished list,’ said Professor Neil White, Head of Electronics and Computer Science. ‘All three continue to make outstanding contributions to their discipline, particularly to our understanding and exploitation of the Web, and in fact they are working closely with many of the other distinguished leaders on this list. The year began with the announcement of the award of the Regius Chair of Computer Science to the University of Southampton, and we are delighted to see another affirmation of the influence of the department in the UKTech50 2013.’

The Head of School Fund for ECS has this year enabled students to take part in academic, research, educational and development activities around the world.

Assessing the effects of climate change on Icelandic glaciers, spreading the excitement of student enterprise competitions in Romania and Slovenia, and developing an electrical hub for a remote village in Cameroon were just some of the activities that our students were able to undertake this summer as a result of support from The Head of School Fund for ECS.

The Fund enables students in Electronics and Computer Science (ECS ) at the University of Southampton to undertake activities which enhance their personal development – these might be voluntary service, charitable or educational, or any initiative of value to the broader community, for which additional funding is required to achieve success.

The Fund is provided through the generosity of ECS alumni, in response to the annual telephone campaign and through other personal donations. In 2013, as a result of grants made from the Fund, ECS students were able to attend leading academic conferences across Europe, spend the summer on the prestigious Study China programme, and intern for Student Robotics.

Reporting on their experiences our students commented:

‘I found it moving to see how electricity makes such a difference to the lives of those in the village in Cameroon,’ said Oladipo Phillips, who along with ECS student Jarrod Zancanella took part in the University’s Cameroon Catalyst project for the Mosame Trust. ‘I was able to utilise the skills and knowledge that I picked up on my course and found the experience rewarding and exciting.’

‘Without the Fund I wouldn’t have been able to attend the conference or gain experience speaking in front of an audience on an academic subject,’ said Marc De Vos, who developed the world’s first screen-printed watch on fabric for his third-year project. As a result he was asked to attend the Smart Textiles Salon in Ghent, Belgium, for which the Fund provided the finance.

Three students used their funding for start-up competitions: Alejandro Saucedo organized the lively Startup Weekend held in Southampton, while Izidor Flajsman and Vlad Velici organized highly successful events in their home towns of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Timisoara, Romania, respectively. All three events helped spread the word about ECS to potential future undergraduate students. Vlad commented: ‘I learned a lot from organizing this, as I mostly did it myself- from building a website and doing the marketing to getting a venue and judges – not to mention planning and running the event!’ ‘The funding enabled me to organise a creative, technology focused 54 hours, non-stop event in Slovenia, Its aim was simple: to show Slovenian students that the world is a small place and that they have the power to build new things and change the environment around them through entrepreneurship,’ said Izidor. Chris Baines was able to attend DebConf in Switzerland, finding out ore about Debian, Ikiwiki and novel software such as GPG. He was also able to attend the OpenStreetMap conference in Birmingham. Edward Seabrook attended the 87th meeting of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) in Berlin and was able to observe the process of the production, peer review an dpublication of standards that regulate the Internet. ‘This trip enabled me to gain an insight into the IETF that would not have been possible without attending the meeting. I am very thankful to ECS for providing me with this opportunity.’

Arinze Ekwosimba, President of the IEEE Student Chapter at ECS 2012-13, was able to take up an invitation to attend the 2nd IEEE Central European Student Branch Congress held in Opole, Poland, in May. The Congress brought together 80 engineering students and young professionals from Central Europe and neighbouring regions to discuss present and future engineering challenges, develop new skills and share experiences. ‘It was a plus for ECS to have one of its most active societies participating at an international event, helping to boost its global reputation and presence.’

Alexander Ally interned on the long-standing GLACSWEB programme, tracking the effect of climate change on glaciers. 'On the internship I was tasked with creating an interactive data visualisation tool which would enable researchers to view data more quickly and easily than they otherwise could have. The data was being used to track the movements of glaciers in Iceland. This was of great interest to me as I could see my work being used in a practical sense for real word data. To enable people to use such a tool without installing extra software on their computer I used the World Wide Web as my platform. This meant I had to hone my skills in working with technologies such as JavaScript and SVG. Technologies which are the driving force of modern application development, especially on the web. The internship gave me valuable experience in developing for real-world applications and very much helped me improve my skills for developing on the Web.

Robin Johnson had a starring role in the University Theatre Group’s production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe: ‘Ultimately, the Fringe left me with a deep desire to attain the standards that, through their shows, other performers demonstrated to me in terms of their motivational determination, absolute dedication and awe-inspiring imagination. Regardless of which avenue this may be in, I left Edinburgh wanting to make my mark on the world, too.'

'We are grateful to ECS alumni for enabling our students to pursue these challenges', said Professor Neil White, Head of Electronics and Computer Science. In their grant applications our students stressed that financial support of this kind was fundamental to their ability to undertake these ambitious and often life-changing activities.'

Gifts from alumni and friends are making a real difference to ECS students.To find out how you can support ECS students, please visit http://www.southampton.ac.uk/supportus or email annualgiving@southampton.ac.uk

ECS students performed outstandingly well in this year’s global IEEEXtreme event, gaining the top four positions in the UK and the 21st place worldwide.

IEEEXtreme is a global challenge held annually over an intensive 24-hour period. This year’s event involved over 2000 teams worldwide and began just after midnight on Saturday 26 October. Throughout that time eight teams from the University of Southampton worked in Zepler Computer Labs, with their performance invigilated by ECS staff members of the IEEE.

Twenty-one students from Southampton took part, tackling questions based on algorithms, cryptography, and assembly. A total of 23 questions were released throughout the duration of the competition, and could be solved in a set of different programming languages, including C, C#, C++, Python, Java, Ruby, PHP, and Perl. Teams gained marks for providing correct solutions to the problems and for their ingenuity in approaching the solutions. ‘The 24-hour competition was undoubtedly challenging and hectic, but all of the teams showed pure dedication, determination and hard work,’ said Abdul Sharif, IEEE Competitions Officer.

The top result in the UK was achieved by Dragos Ristache and Ioana Tamas, first-year Computer Science students in ECS. Six out of the top ten positions in the UK were held by ECS students and the two top-placed teams from Southampton also came in the world top 30. This was an outstanding result by ECS students, taking part in the competition only for the second time. Last year’s results for ECS saw students ranked third in the UK and 115th in the world, so the significant improvement this year shows excellent promise for the future!

The event was organized by the IEEE Committee, led by Competitions Officer, Abdul Sharif, who commented: “This was only the second time the University of Southampton has participated in the IEEEXtreme. Our teams secured all the podium positions in the UK and are now approaching the top positions in the world ranking. There has been a great improvement from last year and I am expecting that next year University of Southampton teams will be the ones to look out in the top world rankings.

'What is astounding is that our top team consisted of first year students! This just shows the quality of students currently enrolled in ECS.

'The whole IEEE SB committee was also present throughout the 24 hours, ensuring that the atmosphere was suitable for the teams, making sure they were having proper rest and food. I would like to thank everyone who took part – especially the lecturers for their continued support and engagement in our IEEE events, the staff whose involvement and recognition make our events not only possible but outstanding, and everyone else involved, including our sponsors Dialog Semiconductors and G Research.â€?

Third year MEng Mechanical Engineering student Erik Kovalan is part of a team which has won its way through to the final of a national competition.

With fellow students from Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, Erik has designed an innovative helmet that monitors soldiers’ heartbeat and temperature along with other factors such as their body position.

The contest, organised by Thales involved the use of its Arduino open-source prototyping platform. ECS students worked on the microprocessing circuits while Erik used the University’s 3D printing facilities to create a robust casing for the technology. The teams in the internal contest had two weeks to work on their design and produce a video showcasing their invention.

“We were asked to come up with an idea that reflected Thales work. The company is a big defence contractor so we thought a multi-purpose helmet would be worth developing,â€? says Erik.

m.c. schraefel, a professor in computer science and human performance design from the University of Southampton has helped to design a smart bra that can detect changes in mood, with the hope of preventing emotionally-triggered overeating in women. The prototype contains removable sensors that monitor heart and skin activity. The data collected is processed via a model to determine the emotional state and the intervention is sent to the wearer via a smartphone app. These physical symptoms are supposed to indicate mood, which a woman can track in order to highlight when ‘emotional eating’ is likely to occur. The bra is a result of a study called ‘Food and Mood: Just-in-Time Support for Emotional Eating,’ authored by researchers from the University of Southampton, Microsoft Research and the University of Rochester, US. The study set out to develop an intervention which is triggered before someone reaches for food as a means of emotional support. It suggested the smart bra and matching apps as possible solutions. The apps had the user log their emotions and what they had eaten every hour – suggesting calming breathing exercises when the user was stressed. The smart bra took the idea one step further by adding physical data to the emotions so they can be detected without prompting the user to log every hour.

The wearable technology monitored electrodermal activity or EMA (a measure of sweat gland activity), electrocardiogram or EKG (heart rate and respiration) data, and movement from an accelerometer and gyroscope integrated in removable conducive pads to provide an idea of the user's mood. The study found that the prototype could identify emotions with accuracy “significantly better than chanceâ€? and “at par with other affect recognition systems.â€?

Co-author Professor m.c. schraefel, from Electronics and Computer Science and who leads the human performance design lab at the University of Southampton, says: “Emotional state, habitual practices, like snacking in front of the TV or grabbing a cookie when stressed, often go undetected by us – that’s the nature of habits – but they have real effects on our wellbeing. Our work in this project, while early, shows that there is potential to design interactive technologies to work with us, to help us develop both awareness of our state, and offer options we’ve decided we’d rather take, to build new practices and support our wellbeing.â€?

As 2013 draws to a close we look back on a year which saw a series of prestigious awards, research success and high-profile events in ECS.

January

The year began in terrific style with two Royal announcements: firstly that the University was to receive a prestigious Regius Chair of Computer Science – the only one in the UK – one of 12 Regius Chairs bestowed by HM The Queen to mark her Diamond Jubilee. Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences and former Head of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), said: “This is a fantastic honour for us. It pays tribute to the many people who have supported the development of Computer Science at Southampton over the years and students who have contributed so much to enable us to obtain the world-leading position we are in today.“

The second announcement was the Knighthood awarded in the Queen’s New Year Honours List to David Payne, Professor in ECS and Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre, for services to photonics, the science and application of light and electronics. Vice-Chancellor Professor Don Nutbeam commented: “The erbium-doped fibre amplifier is a crucial invention that has made possible the global information superhighway and high-speed telecommunication networks, which are so important to us all in the 21st century. I am delighted that the unique contribution David has made through his research is being recognised with this prestigious honour.â€?

February

In February, our annual Careers Fair was bigger than ever before, with companies attending from across the technology industries, transport, energy, media, finance, gaming, retail, security and communications. “The Fair is a great endorsement of the high regard that the UK’s leading technology companies have for Southampton students,â€? said Careers Fair Director Joyce Lewis. “We had 78 companies attending this year – a significant increase from last year, and it was fantastic to hear the buzz in the hall and to see the great interactions taking place between the company representatives – many of whom were Southampton alumni – and students across all years and many subject areas.â€?

Technology company Imagination Technologies were delighted with the results obtained by our final-year students in the Group Design Project. Imagination asked the students to produce a Home Recommender system which would analyse Web traffic on a home network and, based on the webpages visited, suggest new relevant webpages of interest. The students used Imagination’s latest Minimorph and FlowWorld technologies, along with the accompanying software. They were also able to experience producing a real-world system, using technology deployed in millions of shipped products. The students, Jack Andrew, James Justin, Peter Halles, Rajan Soni and Aljay Massiah, describe the process in the project video.

March

Representatives from ECS and the University celebrated the formal opening of the University of Southampton Malaysia Campus along with special guests from Malaysia’s Ministry of Higher Education, the Iskandar Regional Development Agency and Iskandar Investment Berhad for the ceremony at the EduCity@Iskandar, in South Johor. ECS is now offering a new degree of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) in Malaysia which recruited its first students to begin studying in October 2013. The students will spend two years at USMC before coming to Southampton to complete their degree programmes.

Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a leading academic in Web and Internet Science at the University of Southampton, was one of five joint winners of the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, given by The Royal Academy of Engineering. It honoured Tim for inventing the World Wide Web along with Marc Andreessen, who was honoured for his work in inventing the Mosaic browser, and Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn and Louis Pouzin, who were honoured for their work in developing the internet. April

Erica the interactive rhino got ready to hit the streets of Southampton as part of a project involving the University of Southampton and Marwell Zoo. Students and staff from ECS adopted the life-sized model rhino from Marwell Zoo as part of the zoo’s Go! Rhino scheme to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Erica was brought to life by equipping her with a range of digital features enabling interaction with passers-by and a presence on social media. She spent the summer in the Marlands shopping centre in Southampton, where ECS Outreach Co-ordinator Dr Reena Pau also organized weekly workshops for local schoolchildren to explore the technology behind Erica.

May

A major research award was announced, bringing together a national collaboration of electronic engineers and computer scientists to develop the next generation of energy-efficient computing systems. PRiME: Power-efficient, Reliable, Many-core Embedded systems, brings together four world-leading research groups from the Universities of Southampton, Imperial College, Manchester and Newcastle. The five-year £5.6m Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded project is directed by ECS Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi, and will undertake creative research into the design and implementation of energy-efficient and dependable embedded systems with many-core processors.

Over 280 ECS graduates attended the annual alumni reception in London at the Institute of Engineering and Technology. ‘One of the great things about ECS that everyone comments on is the strength of the community,’ Professor White told guests. ‘We are very proud of our students and we take great pleasure in the success and influence that our graduates achieve in the world after ECS and the University of Southampton. We are delighted to have your support to help us continue to build the strength of the ECS community in the future.’

Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) was recognised for its work tackling the problem of gender inequality in science with an Athena SWAN Bronze Award. The national achievement recognises work in ECS to ensure women are encouraged into an area that historically has been dominated by males. Professor Michael Butler, Chair of the ECS Athena SWAN Team, said: "Applying for Athena SWAN was a team effort. We appreciate that this is only the start and we still have a long way to go. We have drawn up a plan of action detailing how we will continue our efforts to tackle this problem, how we aim to play a leading role in equality at University level, and how we can share our experiences with other science and engineering departments at Southampton.�

A new climate-controlled facility joined the Salt-Fog chamber and Faraday Cage as part of the continuing programme to enhance facilities in the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory. The temperature and humidity chamber has a temperature range of up to 50°C with relative humidity variation from 10% to 80% making it capable of simulating a great majority of climates. It will be used commercially for sample pre-conditioning, thermal resistance tests and safety clothing testing. The working space area of 3.6m2 in combination with the versatile feedthrough panel allows electrical tests to be conducted under strict environmental conditions.

June

Professor Nigel Shadbolt, co-founder and Director of the Open Data Institute (ODI), was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to science and engineering. In a career spanning some 30 years, Professor Shadbolt has over 400 publications to his credit in topics ranging from cognitive psychology to computational neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence to the Semantic Web. In 2009 the Prime Minister appointed Sir Nigel and Sir Tim Berners-Lee as Information Advisors to transform access to Public Sector Information. This work led to the highly acclaimed data.gov.uk site that now provides a portal to thousands of datasets.

Marc de Vos, a third-year student in ECS developed the world’s first screen-printed digital watch on fabric for his Part III Individual Project. Marc, who completed his BEng degree in Electromechanical Engineering, commented: “The project gave me the chance to put the theory learnt over the last three years into practice and led to my involvement in the brand new field of printed smart fabrics.â€? Marc’s project is a continuation of the development of smart fabrics as part of the successful EU FP7 “MICROFLEXâ€? project which was successfully completed recently within the department.

July

Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi, Associate Dean Research in Physical Sciences and Engineering at the University of Southampton, was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering for his contribution to low-power design and test of mobile computing systems. Dean of Physical Sciences and Engineering Professor Dame Wendy Hall commented:“Bashir’s election as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering is excellent news and reflects and recognises his leading research and the contribution he has made to the technological development of low power mobile devices.â€?

ECS PhD student Muddasser Alam won the best student paper award at the prestigious Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems (AAMAS) conference, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, for his paper ‘Cooperative Energy Exchange for the Efficient Use of Energy and Resources in Remote Communities’. His research presented a new approach to sharing resources in an electricity grid in remote rural communities in places such as Africa and Asia.

August

The University announced that it would be running its first MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) in Web Science, enabling anyone to study online, for free, wherever they are in the world in conjunction with our partner FutureLearn - part of the Open University.

Fifty students from over 40 schools around the UK took part in a highly successful Computing and Microelectronics course at ECS, organized by educational charity The Smallpeice Trust. The five-day residential course enabled students from Years 11 and 12 to build and programme a substantial autonomous robot. The final day of the course was devoted to a competitive challenge in which the robots had to manoeuvre a testing course, demonstrating their manoeuvrability and ‘intelligence’, as a result of the students’ inventiveness in design and programming. The course was sponsored by ARM, and delivered by the Student Robotics team in Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), under the direction of David Oakley, ECS Labs Manager.

September

A pioneering project from ECS which aims to improve energy efficiency in the home won the British Gas Connecting Homes Startup Competition. Dr Reuben Wilcock and Professor Alex Rogers, won first prize for MyJoulo at an event which saw 25 companies from around the world pitching innovative products and services in the home energy sector. Dr Wilcock said: “What was clear about MyJoulo was the elegant and simple concept and the careful attention to satisfy every stakeholder, from the supplier to the customer. MyJoulo is given to households free of charge by their energy supplier and in three easy steps gives them personalised advice about what new energy technologies they could benefit from in their home.â€?

For over two decades of contributions to global Open Access, Stevan Harnad, Professor of Computer Science in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Liège in Belgium. In 2003, the Head of ECS, Wendy Hall, adopted the world's first OA self-archiving mandate, requiring that all ECS article output be self-archived in the ECS OA repository.

October

Two ECS students won an international award for their research developing a smartphone app to search for a rare insect in the New Forest, UK. Davide Zilli and Oliver Parson received the award for Outstanding Student Paper in the Artificial Intelligence and Computational Sustainability special track at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI). The award was in recognition of their work developing the app that is helping to rediscover the rare New Forest cicada (Cicadetta montana) – the only cicada native to the UK.

Senior academic staff in ECS were among a distinguished list of researchers who gained prestigious Fellowships from major funding organization. Professor Lajos Hanzo, Hywel Morgan and James Wilkinson all received funding with the support of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering Future Academic and Research Leaders Mentoring Network, chaired by Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi. “Securing so many fellowships is a reflection of the outstanding quality of our academics and researchers and the relevance of the problems their research is addressing,â€? he said.

November

For the second time in three years, an ECS student won the title ‘Scholar of the Year’ awarded by the UKESF (UK Electronic Skills Foundation). Ashley Robinson, final-year student on the MEng programme, Electronic Engineering with Artificial Intelligence, received the award at the National Microelectronics Institute annual dinner, held in London. Southampton’s success in the UKESF Scholar of the Year title can be gauged from the fact that of the eight finalists in the competition over the last three years, four are from ECS: Adam Malpass (Dialog Semiconductor), Tom Dell (McLaren Electronics), Sam Hipkin (ARM), and Ashley Robinson. In 2013 Adam returned to the NMI dinner to win the title ‘Young Engineer of the Year’.

Researchers from the University of Southampton, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Quebec and Montreal, have developed a new microsystem for more efficient testing of pharmaceutical drugs to treat diseases such as cystic fibrosis, MG (myasthenia gravis) and epilepsy. “By putting the ion channel into an artificial membrane, we only have one type of channel, no living cells and a relatively inexpensive method for testing for several of these types of channels at once,â€? said lead author of the study Dr Maurits de Planque of the Nano Research Group in ECS. The research is funded by the EPSRC.

The University of Southampton launched the Web Science Institute to investigate how the World Wide Web is changing the world and the world is changing the Web. Professor Dame Wendy Hall says: “There is a ‘perfect storm’ brewing which combines open data, open education and open research, so this is a very exciting time to be launching the Web Science Institute.â€?

December

ECS students performed outstandingly well in this year’s global IEEEXtreme event, gaining the top four positions in the UK and the 21st place worldwide. IEEEXtreme is a global challenge held annually over an intensive 24-hour period. Twenty-one students from Southampton took part, tackling questions based on algorithms, cryptography, and assembly. The top result in the UK was achieved by Dragos Ristache and Ioana Tamas, first-year Computer Science students in ECS. Six out of the top ten positions in the UK were held by ECS students and the two top-placed teams from Southampton also came in the world top 30.

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"These are an outstanding range of achievements across our research groups and our undergraduate and postgraduate teaching," said Professor Neil White, Head of ECS. "Not only can we celebrate a year of distinguished achievement and personal recognition of our leading academics, but the success of our students in international and national events demonstrates the ambition and diversity of the ECS community. This is only a small snapshot of what has taken place in ECS over the last year and as we look forward to 2014 we are already planning many new activities along with our partners in the research and business communities that will have significant impact on our education, research and enterprise agendas."

Researchers in Electronics and Computer Science are part of an international collaboration that has been awarded $891,000 of funding to develop a culturally specific Arabic symbol dictionary.

The Qatar National Research Fund has awarded the grant to Dr Mike Wald and his Access Technologies Team in the Web and Internet Science Research Group, at the University of Southampton; the Rumailah Hopital, in Qatar; and Mada – the Qatar Assistive Technology Centre, in Doha; to produce the dictionary.

The collaboration will be combining expertise to create the symbol dictionary that will take into account the diverse nature of the language and how it is used in difference social situations.

Language dictionaries supported by symbols and pictures are widely available in American and British English with many thousands of images representing vocabulary, but currently there is no freely available culturally specific Arabic symbol dictionary.

Dr Mike Wald, the project’s Principal Investigator, said: “We are delighted to be part of this international team that will be pulling together resources from across the globe to develop a new Arabic symbol dictionary.

“The ability to communicate is very important and requires skills that are not always available to everyone due to disability, lack of literacy and lack of language skills when travelling. A person visiting an Arabic-speaking nation without access to the language or knowledge of the alphabet may find it hard to communicate without help.

“We hope that our research will use crowdsourcing to identify appropriate imagery to build a symbol dictionary of frequently-used words based on Modern Standard Arabic,â€? added Mike.

Maha Al Mansouri, Deputy CEO of Mada, said: “Access to technology for Arabic speaking people with disabilities is largely hindered by the lack of availability of tools and resources in the Arabic language. That is why we have made it an absolute priority to work with our partners to create the necessary tools to empower people with different disabilities throughout Arabic speaking communities all around world. “Having the opportunity to work with researchers at the University of Southampton on a project that is funded by the Qatar National Research Fund is exactly the kind of partnership we envision going forward, and is reflective of the high standards that we strive to maintain throughout all of our research and development work.â€?

Postgraduate training at the University of Southampton in engineering and scientific fields, important to the UK’s economy, has received a major funding boost through three new Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs). Two of the new CDTs involving Southampton were announced by Universities and Science Minister, David Willetts at the launch of 19 new CDTs by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Mr Willetts said: “The Government will be investing in a further 900 students through an additional 19 Centres for Doctoral Training, bringing our total investment in CDTs to £390 million. “In addition, universities, industry and other charitable partners will be adding a further £174 million to support the training of tomorrow’s scientists and engineers. The combined public and private investment amounts to £764 million.â€? Southampton’s new CDTs come on top of the 72 Centres unveiled by the EPSRC in November 2013, when three new CDTs involving Southampton were announced. The University is leading the CDT in Web Science Innovation, which will train 65 students (13 students per year over five years) to innovate in the shaping of Web growth, Web practices and Web policy to lead UK industry and government to reap the maximum economic and social value from its emerging digital economy. Professor Les Carr, who is one of the directors of the CDT in Web Science Innovation, says: “Web Science offers the insights necessary to understand the flow of data and knowledge around the globe, and the social and technical processes that can turn gigabytes and terabytes of raw data and into valuable new applications or evidence-based policy. It also helps us appreciate the threats to our online identities but also the opportunities of allowing our personal digital avatars to participate in new kinds of online businesses, online politics and online social engagements.â€? Southampton has also established a ground-breaking CDT in Energy Storage and its Applications in collaboration with the University of Sheffield. The CDT will recruit 60 students (12 students per year over five years) to continue the UK’s prominent position in this sector, bringing together world leading research and training expertise in the fields of: • Electrochemical energy storage (e.g. batteries, supercapacitors, flow cells) • Thermal storage (e.g. phase change, cryogenic) • Superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) • Mechanical energy storage (e.g. flywheels, compressed air)

Professor Andy Cruden who is leading the CDT at the University of Southampton says: “Energy storage is a rapidly developing topic that will be essential in the delivery of a global low carbon economy, and will directly impact key sectors such as our national grid system, renewable energy generation and will be integral in ‘greening’ our transport system through hybrid and more electric drivetrains.â€? Professor Judith Petts, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) at the University of Southampton, says: “We are delighted to be leading these two new Centres for Doctoral Training. Both of these cover areas of research that are vital to our country's future and we are very pleased to be so directly involved in providing the highly skilled scientists and engineers that are crucial to the UK economy.â€?

This year’s Group Design Project culminated in a showcase day last Wednesday 8 January at which 29 final-year student groups presented the results of their project-work to their clients and to fellow students in ECS.

The 29 projects undertaken this year involved over 150 students working in small groups during an intensive three-month period between October and December. Clients included Cobham, DSTL, Snowflake Software, BAE Systems Detica, Imagination Technologies, National Instruments, Captec, Siemens, Heathrow Airport, and KBR, as well as research groups and academics across the University of Southampton.

The Group Design Project is a major part of the final (fourth year) of the undergraduate Masters degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology in Organisations, Electronics, and Electrical and Electromechanical Engineering. Over a short timeframe of 10 weeks, the final-year students undertake a project which tests their ability to work as a group, organizing their time and approach, and to come up with a solution to a problem, which might involve a system or a device. The students also have to write a 25,000 word report.

‘This is our finalists’ chance to demonstrate their technical ability as a group, rather than as individuals,’ said Dr Gary Wills of the Electronic and Software Systems group. ‘The students go out to industry, working as a team, under pressure to do a lot of work in a short time. It teaches the students teamwork, using their skills to best advantage for a real customer and working under time pressure. These are very important skills to develop in the real world.’

The student group working with Cobham were asked to integrate sensor inputs and map information. The project, supervised by Dr Rob Maunder of ECS, involved conducting research and developing algorithms to take in information from low-power sensors and provide navigational information to match on to digital mapping. The students involved, Kenneth Payne, Arinze Ekwosimba, Andrew Cowan, John Alton and Thomas Payne, demonstrated the effectiveness of their device during the presentation when its orientation was displayed on screen (see image).

“Here at Cobham we were immediately impressed with the quality of the students we were working with,â€? said Nigel Hanson, Firmware Engineer at Cobham TCS, Whiteley. “They demonstrated a mix of skills and delegation of work which played to the strengths of each team member and very quickly came up with a professional and very well thought-out design.

“By the end of the 10 weeks of the project they had a fully working unit able to communicate wirelessly in real-time to a host system demonstrating the orientation of the unit. We have been very pleased with this project and hope it leads to further collaboration and closer links with the University of Southampton, in particular the Electronics and Computer Science department, in future.â€?

Companies who wish to suggest a project for the 2014 Group Design Project can register their interest with Joyce Lewis, ECS Senior Fellow (j.k.lewis@ecs.soton.ac.uk). Project proposals should be received by 31 May 2014 to be undertaken between October and December of this year. The ECS Group Design Project is directed by Dr Tom Kazmierski.