SouthWest engineering technology reveals secrets of Roman coins
Computer rendered image of the coins extracted from the CT scan data of the complete pot from the Selby Area Hoard’ Credit: University of Southampton.
Engineers from the University of Southampton are collaborating with the British Museum to examine buried Roman coins using the latest X-ray imaging technology.
The powerful scanning equipment at Southampton’s µ-VIS Centre for Computed Tomography is being used to examine Roman coins buried in three archaeological artefacts from three UK hoards.
The centre’s equipment can scan inside objects – rotating 360 degrees whilst taking thousands of 2D images, which are then used to build detailed 3D images. In the case of the coins, the exceptionally high energy/high resolution combination of the Southampton facilities allows them to be examined in intricate detail without the need for physical excavation or cleaning. For those recently scanned at Southampton, it has been possible to use 3D computer visualisation capabilities to read inscriptions and identify depictions of emperors on the faces of the coins – for example on some, the heads of Claudius II and Tetricus I have been revealed.
“Excavating and cleaning just a single coin can take hours or even days, but this technology gives us the opportunity to examine and identify them quickly and without the need for conservation treatment at this stage. It also has potential for examining many other archaeological objects,” said University of Southampton archaeologist, Dr Graeme Earl. “The University’s Archaeological Computing Research Group can then take this one step further – producing accurate, high resolution CGI visualisations based on scan data. This gives archaeologists and conservators around the world the opportunity to virtually examine, excavate and ‘clean’ objects.”
The scanning technique is already yielding some fascinating results and the possibility of identifying a hoard of coins in a pot, without removing them, is very exciting, says Dr Roger Bland, Head of Portable Antiquities and Treasure at the British Museum.
The three objects examined at Southampton are:
- A cremation urn containing nine coins, dating from AD282, found in the Cotswolds. This item in particular would take months to excavate – with archaeologists needing to carefully examine bone fragments and remains to extract more information about its past.
- An estimated 30,000 Roman coins discovered in Bath, dating to around AD270 and concreted together in a large block weighing over 100 kilograms (radiograph image only).
- A small pot dating to the 2nd century found in the Selby area of East Riding in Yorkshire.
“Our centre examines a wide variety of objects from the layup of individual carbon fibres in aircraft wing components, to the delicate roots of growing plants, and now ancient Roman coins. It is our integration of state-of-the-art imaging hardware, world-class computing and image processing expertise, which allows us to break new ground,” said Professor Ian Sinclair, director of the µ-VIS Centre for Computed Tomography. “We have recently formed an inter-disciplinary research group for Computationally Intensive Imaging, which brings together a broad spectrum of world-class imaging activities from disciplines across the University – of which this project is an excellent example.”
The University of Southampton and the owners of the artefacts have plans to share the scan data with the public, hopefully through future exhibitions and online.
Related articles
New creative sector hub for Bristol
Bristol is host to one of four new Knowledge Exchange Hubs for the Creative Economy launched today by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
The Research and Enterprise in the Arts and Creative Technologies – REACT – centre is led by UWE Bristol with a consortium that includes the Universities of Bristol, Exeter, Bath and Cardiff and the Watershed Arts Trust.
REACT will also work closely with creative businesses, including SMEs, arts and culture organisations and other agencies.
REACT is directed by Professor Jon Dovey and based in Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio.
Creative sector hub set up in Bristol.
Related articles
Altran Praxis relocates Bath office
Insider News South West – Altran Praxis relocates office to the Southgate Centre in Bath
Venturefest Bristol 2012 announced
Wednesday 7th November 2012
New venue: UWE Exhibition and Conference Centre
Venturefest Bristol is back for a second year to showcase the latest new technology business ideas and innovations.
The venue moves from the Bristol & Bath Science Park to the Exhibition Centre at UWE, bringing together technology businesses at all stages, from pre-commercial to established organisations. Venturefest Bristol 2012 aims to offers opportunities to businesses regardless of their size, sector or location within the UK.
Last year’s event attracted more than 700 attendees and this year promises to be even bigger. Venturefest is aimed at anyone who has an early-stage technology business idea and is looking for support and advice to get that idea off the ground. Attendees can listen to other entrepreneurs’ stories, get IP and funding advice and to network with like-minded people.
http://www.sciencecitybristol.com/pages/2-venturefest-bristol
Related articles
Swindon cellular technology leader breaks 50,000 unit barrier
Swindon-based developer of 3G and LTE intelligent small cells Ubiquisys has its technology shipping in over 50,000 public access small cells commercially deployed by operators in several countries.
The company also announced that it has completed the first deployments of its new G7 indoor small cell hotspot, featuring its ActiveCell technology, with two operators in Asia after successful field trials in extremely-challenging public environments.
The Asian G7 deployments have tested extremes of data and signalling traffic, including hotspots experiencing 10,000 users moving in and out every day, with each user typically running HSPA data for over 25% of the time. Indoor public spaces such as cafes, stores, malls and airports are ideal environments for small cells – as operators face rapidly increasing data usage and have abundant fixed broadband available for backhaul.
“We are seeing rapid growth in demand for our public access small cells solutions, particularly in the demanding Asian market,” said Will Franks, CTO and co-founder of Ubiquisys. “These deployment scenarios represent significant technical challenges, but our adaptive technology was designed to run in open-access mode from the outset. We’ve built a substantial base of public access small cell deployments over the past two years and this real-world experience led to the development of ActiveCell technology.”
The Ubiquisys G7 range of 3G/LTE/WiFi public access small cells feature new ActiveCell technology developed on the back of years of experience in deploying small cells in public environments. ActiveCell complements Ubiquisys’ globally proven ActiveRadio and ActiveSON systems for small cell self-management and self-organising clusters. It extends these capabilities to provide carrier grade symbiotic interworking with the macro network, in particular to manage interference effects, whilst retaining the advantages of simple installation and commodity IP backhaul. ActiveCellconsists of groups of software-encapsulated techniques:
* Automatic cell sizing: preserves the target quality of service in hotspots.
* Loaded cell adaptive radio resource management: continuous monitoring of the radio environment even while serving active users.
* Hotspot robustness: ensures the best possible quality of service during high spikes of transient users.
* Edge processing of smartphone signalling to significantly reduce the load on the core network.
The challenges facing public access small cells arise from the sheer volume and unpredictability of traffic, the particular demands of smartphones, and the need to adaptively complement neighbouring cells. Current small cell solutions fail to convince on one of two counts:
* Traditional solutions such as picocells require manual planning and lack adaptive behaviour in operation, which makes them both prohibitively expensive and unsuitable for dense hotspot deployment.
* Small cells created by simply renaming residential femtocell technology are designed for relatively benign closed-mode operation, and are not robust enough to cope with the traffic demands of a public access hotspot environment.
Small cells running Ubiquisys ActiveCell technology combine low operational costs with the ability to deal with the real-world requirements of mobile users in public spaces. They have been field proven to meet the demanding network performance metrics of the macro networks they complement.
Related articles
South West researchers develop first medical technology to use Kinect for stroke patients
Researchers at the University of Southampton and Roke Manor Researchhave used Xbox computer technology to help stroke patients recover manual agility at home. The team is now looking to use the medical technology, which measures hand joint movement, to develop games to help the patients recovery.
The Xbox Kinect works by monitoring whole limb movements allowing controller-free gaming; the gamer becomes the game. However, the University team has taken it a step further to create an algorithm that tracks and measures hand joint angles and the fine dexterity of individual finger movements. The ultimate aim is to capture the data while the patients follow exercises on a TV screen.
Roke Manor, based outside Bournemouth, has been designing complex electronic systems for decodes and is a key design house in the region.
The project aims to help people recovering from a stroke to do more regular and precise exercises so that they recover faster. The data collected will be fed back to the therapists caring for the patient so they can continually monitor progress, reducing the need for frequent hospital visits.
This new system has been developed to complement the home-based physiotherapy care already offered to patients in the UK, and follows a recent Stroke Association report which highlighted that stroke survivors are being denied the chance to make their best recovery because of a lack of post-hospital care.
“Recovering from a stroke can be a daunting and distressing time for patients and their families. Through our research we know that many people recovering from a stroke find their at-home exercises repetitive and often demotivating,” said Health Sciences academic Dr Cheryl Metcalf, at the University of Southampton who is supervising the project. “If they are already finding it difficult and frustrating to move their hands, they need something to encourage them to try harder. We wanted to create a more engaging way to help them recover faster. Using the Kinect we have been able to take a commercially available product and develop a highly novel tool that aims to be both cost effective and clinically applicable.”
The next objective is to create a series of computer games to make the rehabilitation process more interesting for the patient. The games will adapt to each individual’s ability and help motivate them to reach rehabilitation goals by feeding back higher scores if their joint movements improve.
“Strokes are the largest single cause of severe disability in the UK and it is estimated that every year half of the 100,000 stroke patients experience upper limb problems. This project could make a significant difference to the wellbeing of those affected,” said Simon Wickes, Healthcare Business Sector Manager at Roke. “As Roke has a strong R&D pedigree in mobile and e-health devices, we were able to provide the technical guidance and support to help the students realise this exciting and valuable project. Not only is it a cost effective out-of-the-box solution, by reducing patient recovery times it could also have a positive impact on the £2.5 billion which the care and rehabilitation of stroke patients cost the UK health and social care system each year.”
Using the Microsoft Kinect to help stroke patients recover
Related articles
SouthWest startup to launch novel satellite system at Farnborough Air Show
SouthWest startup Phasor Solutions is to launch a novel low cost phased array antenna system for broadband satellite communications at the Farnborough Air Show next month.
Phasor, based in Ledbury, Herefordshire, has developed a system that allows moving vehicles such as aircraft, ships or trucks to communicate with stationary satellites, or antennas that track moving satellites, in real time with no moving parts. It had originally developed the antenna system to provide broadband connections on trains, and is now targeting the multi-billion dollar satellite communications and radar market with a unique, ground breaking design that it says provides order of magnitude improvements over competing solutions.
Phasor Solutions was founded by Ledbury venture capital firm Anglo Scientific and circuit designer Richard Mayo in 2005 to develop flat, high gain antennas to fit on the roof of moving vehicles. Since then, Phasor has raised venture capital funding through a pool of investors and has built a strong team from the South West UK. Mayo was a member of the founding team of Microcosm Communications in Bristol that developed more cost effective optical components using CMOS and BiCMOS silicon and was sold to Conexant Systems. Chief Operating Officer Tim Esparon was VP of Manufacturing Operations at Microcosm spin out Phyworks in Bristol.
The Phasor chips include all the radio frequency functions (amplifiers, oscillators) and phase shifting circuits, as well as the logic and data modulation/demodulation required. This approach to phased array technology aims to reduce costs by over 10x and provide added value such as a flat design (less than 1 inch high), conformal to any surface, modular approach, and high reliability as there are no moving parts. One of Phasor’s initial targets is wireless internet access on trains, an estimated available market of over 500 million users worldwide. However airborne satcoms and other Comms-On-The-Move (COTM) applications are likely to be larger markets.
“Phasor is carving the way for the next decades of phased arrays by providing a paradigm shift in satellite communications. It took the industry over 40 years to develop phased arrays which are typically expensive to buy and to operate. But now, with the invaluable support of our partners, and in particular TowerJazz, we have been able to deliver semiconductors which provide an order of magnitude reduction in costs compared to current solutions,” said David Garrood, Managing Director at Phasor Solutions. “Phasor has been able to achieve this milestone with the support of the TowerJazz team and relying on the stability and performance of its SBC18HX process.”
The chips use a 155GHz silicon germanium (SiGe) technology from Californian chip foundry TowerJazz, rather than the more traditional and more expensive gallium arsenide technology. This allows more features to be added to the chips and makes the system dramatically cheaper
“Our advanced SiGe BiCMOS technology provides higher integration at lower cost than GaAs solutions, allowing cost-effective satellite communications on the move to be realized,” said Dr. Marco Racanelli, Senior Vice President and General Manager for the RF & High Performance Analog and Aerospace & Defense Business Groups at TowerJazz. “Together, we have begun volume manufacturing to enable a high gain antenna, which consists of 20,000 chips. In addition, we continue to invest in advanced SiGe and recently announced our latest process, SBC18H3, which supports devices with speeds of 270GHz and offers a path for further performance, power, and noise improvement in next-generation products.”
Related articles
Finnish identity software startup sets up in Bristol
Finnish open source software startup ForgeRock is opening its UK headquarters in Bristol next week for the development of software around identity management.
The company recently raised $7 million in its first round of funding from global venture capital firm Accel Partners which also backed the developer of the Angry Birds app. “We were looking for investors with a track record of backing companies which subsequently come to define their category.” said Lasse Andresen, ForgeRock Founder and CEO. “In Accel, we believe we have found the right partner to help ForgeRock define the Identity technology category globally. We will use the funds to build further on the market traction and dramatic global growth we have demonstrated over the past 2 years”.
ForgeRock offers a unique, open platform approach to Identity software with its I³ Open Platform. This provides a unified approach for identity management from Authentication, Access Management, and User Entitlements, to Identity lifecycle management and provisioning. The open source approach can be use on in-house, private or public cloud infrastructure.
“We think identity management is a crucial issue for most businesses as they struggle to deliver appropriate information and application support to employees, partners, and customers via a combination of datacentres, the cloud, PCs, and mobile devices. Customers and channel partners repeatedly referred to the exceptional breadth, scalability and reliability of ForgeRock’s products as well as the expertise and responsiveness of the management team. We believe ForgeRock is well positioned to deliver the easiest to deploy and highest performance identity management software suite in the market and is unique in being able to address the needs of the largest global businesses, as well as small to mid-size companies,” said Bruce Golden, Partner, at Accel Partners.
Related articles
Bristol software firm develops first anti-virus protection for TVs
Televisions are increasingly becoming ‘smart’ and connecting to the Internet, but protecting your TV against threats such as malware and viruses has been lacking. Ocean Blue software, a Bristol-based TV software developer that works with TV and set top box makers around the world has developed the first anti-virus protection for your TV using cloud technology.
It has partnered with IT security leader Sophos to develop a cloud-based antivirus solution that can be shipped either as part of the Ocean Blue middleware or as a stand-alone client for solutions with their own middleware.
According to Futuresource Consulting, by 2015 over 80 percent of new televisions and set-top boxes will be Internet-ready. As many of these products will be based on either Linux or Android, they will be capable of downloading and running remote applications. While this connectivity brings many new features, it also exposes these devices to potential viruses and other malware, making antivirus protection essential.
Anti-virus software for your TV
The new Ocean Blue software was a joint effort based on the combined forces of SophosLabs advanced antivirus expertise and the category-leading Ocean Blue Software Television and Set top Box middleware. The end result protects against the maximum number of threats, with the lowest demand on system resources.
“Almost all new connected TV products are at risk from malware” says Ken Helps, founder and CEO of Ocean Blue Software. “This partnership with Sophos will allow us to provide manufacturers with middleware already prepared to defend their products against attack.”
“Most consumers don’t realize that Smart TVs are just as vulnerable to threats as other devices,” said Michael Rogers, Vice president, global alliances and OEM at Sophos. “This partnership with Ocean Blue Software provides tremendous opportunity to allow consumers to take advantage of the features Smart TVs offer, while ensuring their home networks remain secure.”
Related articles
Bristol Heart Institute to trial new tool to combat high blood pressure
Doctors at the Bristol Heart Institute (BHI) are the first in the South West to offer patients with high blood pressure the opportunity to control their condition with a new type of treatment.
The research study is being undertaken at the Bristol Heart Institute and hopes to add to the body of research around a treatment called renal denervation. The team comprises doctors and researchers from the Bristol Heart Institute, Dr Angus Nightingale and Dr Andreas Baumbach; the University of Bristol, ProfessorJulian Paton and the Richard Bright Renal Unit, Professor Steven Harper.
High blood pressure (hypertension) is a condition where the force that blood is exerting on the walls of the arteries of the body is higher than desirable. When left untreated this can significantly increase the patient’s risk of stroke, heart failure and chronic kidney disease.
High blood pressure afflicts one billion people worldwide and its prevalence increases with age, obesity and sedentary lifestyles. Around 10- 20 per cent of patients with the condition are unable to reach their target blood pressure even though they have been prescribed drug treatments. For these patients renal denervation may help.
The procedure involves severing the nerves that connect the kidneys to the brain and carry signals to control blood pressure. A wire is passed into the patient’s blood vessels feeding the kidney and the tip of the wire is heated to burn the nerves running along the outside of the vessel. The tiny burns are done in a spiral pattern around the blood vessels until the connections are severed.
Dr Andreas Baumbach, consultant cardiologist at the BHI and Tutor in Cardiac, Anaesthetic and Radiological Sciences in the School of Clinical Sciences, said: “This is a fascinating new way of dealing with hypertension. Research results published in The Lancet show that patients who had the procedure saw their blood pressure drop by around 20 per cent and blood pressure seems to fall continuously even after two years. We are very keen to further develop this intervention and find out, in which patients it works best and how to predict a successful treatment.”
Dr Angus Nightingale, consultant cardiologist at the BHI, said: “Recent results presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting, suggest that this treatment may be an effective way of reducing blood pressure in a group of people that we have found hard to treat in the past.
“The research we are doing brings together doctors from across Bristol including GPs and specialists. This is a great example of doctors from the Bristol Heart Institute and scientists from Bristol University are making available cutting edge technology to people in the South West.”
New £3.8m Industrial Doctoral Centre for New Materials in Bristol
The University of Bristol is to set up a new Industrial Doctorate Centre to provide the composites manufacturing industry with elite research engineers of the future.
The £3.8m IDC will be based at the National Composites Centre, a research centre led by the University of Bristol and industry to provide the composites manufacturing industry with engineers equipped with the necessary advanced technical and leadership skills required for effective adoption of new knowledge and technologies in composites manufacture.
The IDC is integral to the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Composites EPSRC Centre and will support over 30 EngD programmes, each over four years, where selected research engineers will undertake specialist training and conduct an industrially focused research project, spending 75 per cent of their time at a company. The IDC will have access to a complete range of equipment and techniques required for composites manufacturing research. It is open to all UK industry and academia and will eventually offer wide access to its bespoke taught modules.
Ivana Partridge, Director of the IDC, explained that the project demonstrates an urgent and growing need in the UK polymer composites manufacturing sector for greater numbers of technically qualified individuals. She said: “The new IDC fills an existing gap in the provision of industrially focused higher level education in the UK.”The research engineers are expected to encourage joint industry and academia collaboration to a much greater extent than is usual in classical PhD training.”
Professor Michael Wisnom, Director of the University’s Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science ACCIS, said “The new IDC based at the NCC and in industry will focus on applied research at technology readiness level 3-5, and will be highly complementary to the Bristol ACCIS Doctoral Training Centre, where PhD students work on more fundamental research topics at TRL 1-3.”
The IDC is now looking for industrial projects and supervisors to run innovative composites manufacturing projects, providing a commitment of cash support for research engineer training and stipend top-up. Eligible research engineers with an engineering/science background and an interest in industrially focused composites manufacturing research should apply through idc@epsrc-cimc.ac.uk, for a position with a tax-free stipend of £20k pa.
Science fair boost in Bath this weekend
Over 800 local school pupils will be getting to grips with science in unusual ways in a two-day hands-on science fair opening at the University of Bath on Friday 9 March.
The Bath Taps into Science fair provides school children and their families with the opportunity to discover science at a fun, hands-on fair. Everything from making a special type of ’slime’ with very odd properties, trying out lego robotics, finding out about the life of a bee, magical mathematics, digging up dinosaur bones to astronomy, and liquid nitrogen will all feature in this two-day science fair. Stalls will be run by staff and students from the University of Bath, Bath Spa University, Bristol University and the University West of England (UWE) and other colleges. Some stalls are also run by school children from local schools and societies like the Galenicals.
Day two of the Science Fair (Saturday 10 March) is held for the public in the city centre, with lots of families coming year after year. Based in Green Park Station, the venue is smaller with fewer stalls but this year will feature a brand new event – a maths and Morris dancing workshop from 2.30pm.
Mathematics professor Chris Budd said: “This year we are bigger than ever, with many schools coming and presenting, a team of science communications experts from Ireland and even a Morris Dancing Group. We will truly be dancing with science.”
The Bath Taps into Science event opens with a bang with a showcase lecture by Professor Budd on Wednesday 7 March. Titled Maths in and out of the zoo, Professor Budd will challenge guests to use their imagination and follow him as he takes a tour of a zoo in order to look at mathematics from a completely different perspective. The lecture will take place at the University of Bath Claverton campus in the University Hall and starts at 7pm. It is aimed at families and young people.
The fair is organised, run and supported by hundreds of volunteers from the University of Bath, Bath Spa University, Bristol University and the City of Bath College together with Keele University Earth Sciences Education Unit and organisations including the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, The Ethical Property Group, B&NES Waste Services, the Herschel Society, Wessex Setpoint, the Propioception Trust and Science City Bristol.
On Friday 9 March the fair will be held at the University of Bath’s Founders’ Sports Hall (10.30am to 3pm). The second day will take place at Green Park Station on Saturday 10 March (10am to 4pm). The event is funded by the University of Bath’s Widening Participation and HE STEM Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programmes.
SouthWest startup Xsilon launches in Barcelona
A startup from Bath has launched its technology to the world at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona aiming to connect up all the different bits of electronics in the home.
Xsilon’s HANADU “Whole Home, Every Home” technology is aimed at service operators and equipment makers and can handle any communications link whether it is wireless or wired, with low cost and low power. It is initially aiming at smart meter connections in the home as s well as in difficult building deployments, in-home energy management solutions, appliance monitoring and maintenance applications, and telemedicine services.
A lot of wireless links struggle to reach devices that are located inside homes, as external wireless networks struggle to penetrate the shell of the building and internal wireless networks continue to face challenges with the obstacles, clutter and coverage deadspots within a typical home environment.
HANADU plus into the growth of machine-to-machine, or M2M, technology where machines in the home all talk to each other and so is low cost enough to work in your fridge or washing machine as well as with your phone or iPad. The key is that it reaches within the home to every point where M2M connectivity might be needed, and overcomes the deadspots and range problems typically associated with previous inhome deployments. Unlike equivalent wireless offerings, costly but underused repeater points are not needed.
All sorts of different ‘ad hoc’ approaches are supported with auto-discovery routing algorithms where the system looks around for waht avaiable and then connects to it automatically, and the bandwidth scales to support many dozens of connected endpoints within a single home.
HANADU comes with a radically lower power consumption than legacy approaches and state-of-the-art network security keeps householders’ privacy fully secure.
Xsilon’s experienced technology team in the South West has created HANADU using more than two man-centuries of communications technology development and product experience. Other communications technologies deployed in the home were originally designed for other areas, and compromises in performance or connectivity have inevitably been encountered during deployment as an In-Home M2M offering. Rather than accepting such compromises, the Xsilon team designed HANADU using a cleansheet approach with three design goals in mind: superior performance within the home environment; direct relevance to the needs of in-home M2M applications; and, compatibility with all
legacy in-home technologies.
Xsilon has generated its own intellectual property in designing HANADU, and it will be opening the technology up to standardisation activities in the near future. The first products will allow vendors and service providers to evaluate the connectivity advantages of HANADU technology, followed by connectivity modules for integration into equipment.
Related articles
- The Wireless Sensor Network Market – A Sea of Small Volume Opportunities (pr.com)
- M2M predictions 2012 (slideshare.net)
- Why Adopt A Wireless Standard In The M2M Industry? (wirelessnetworkblog.wordpress.com)
- Would an Internet of Things Threaten of the Internet of People? (readwriteweb.com)
Experts warn of catastrophe risks of GPS system
Safety critical experts are calling for an alternative network for timing alongside the GPS satellite network to avoid catastrophic system failures.
“Many organisations declare they have no dependence on GPS and hence no need for backup. They are wrong,” said Prof Martyn Thomas, visiting professor at Bristol University and one of the founders of consultancy Praxis, now Altran Praxis, in Bath, speaking to the industry at the Safety Critical Systems Club symposium in Bristol. “Ideally we need a global, diverse source of timing,” he said. “The safety community needs to watch out for accidental systems and I believe they are more common than we currently realise.”
GPS is used as a timing system for lots of systems, and if it were to fail, be jammed or hacked would have catastrophic consequences for transport and mobile networks. These would range from errors in navigation to complete system failure (see links below) and could be triggered by a huge solar flare called a Carrington event which is increasingly probable. “We have never really had a massive coronal event in the era of satellites so we just don’t know what the effect would be,” he said. The risk of such a storm in the next decade is over 12% (see more links below).
One possible solution would be eLoran, a land-based, low frequency, high power alternative wireless timing signal that would be difficult to jam and cheap to run, he said. “It would cost just £1m to £2m a year to maintain the system across Europe, it’s a no-brainer but the question is who would pay for it,” he said.
Related articles
- There’s a 1-in-8 Chance of a Catastrophic Solar Megastorm by 2020 [Space] (gizmodo.com)
- Will GPS Jamming Cause Future Shipping Accidents? (spectrum.ieee.org)
- THIS DOESN’T SOUND SO GOOD: 1 in 8 Chance of Catastrophic Solar Megastorm by 2020. At the time o… (pjmedia.com)
- GPS Signals Are Routinely Jammed (blogs.wsj.com)
- Bristol hosts key security and safety conference (swinnovation.co.uk)
- GPS jamming rife, could PARALYSE Blighty, say usual suspects (go.theregister.com)
Bristol hospitals team with NPL to make breast cancer detection more reliable
Initial tests show promising results for new ultrasonic screening technique
The main hospitals in Bristol are working with the National Physical Laboratory on a initial trial of a new, potentially more reliable, technique for screening breast cancer using ultrasound. The team at NPL are now looking to develop the technique into a clinical device.
“Our initial results are very promising. Whilst it’s early days, we’re very excited about its potential and with the right funding, support and industry partners, we may well have something here which could have a huge and positive impact on cancer diagnosis and the lives of many thousands of women,” said Dr Bajram Zeqiri, who leads the project at NPL.
The project was funded by the research arm of the NHS, the National Institute of Health Research, under its Invention for Innovation funding stream and co-funded by the NPL Strategic Research Programme. University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust is a leading UK centre in breast screening using ultrasound and partnered with NPL on the initial tests. They are now working on a demonstrator and will look to work with a manufacturer to commercialise the technology.
Around 46,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK every year, mostly using breast screening based on X-ray mammography. Only about 30% of suspicious lesions turn out to be malignant. Each lesion must be confirmed by invasive biopsies, estimated to cost the NHS £35 million per year. Ionising radiation also has the potential to cause cancer, which limits the use of X-rays to single screenings of at risk groups, such as women over 50 through the National Breast Screening Programme.
There is a compelling need to develop improved, ideally non-ionising, methods of detecting breast lesions and solid masses. Improved diagnosis would reduce unnecessary biopsies and consequent patient trauma from being wrongly diagnosed.
Ultrasound ticks many of the boxes: it is safe, low cost, and already extensively used in trusted applications such as foetal scanning. However the quality of the images is not yet good enough for reliable diagnoses.
Part of the problem lies with the current detectors used. Different biological tissues have different sound speeds, and this affects the time taken for sound waves to arrive at the detector. This can distort the arriving waves, in extreme cases causing cancellation them to cancel each other out. This results in imaging errors, such as suggesting abnormal inclusions where there may be none.
The new method works by detecting the intensity of ultrasonic waves. Intensity is converted to heat that is then sensed by a thin membrane of pyroelectric film, which generates a voltage output dependant on the temperature rise. Imaging detectors based on this new principle should be much less susceptible to the effects caused by the uneven sound speed in tissues.
This technique, when used in a Computed Tomography (CT) configuration, should produce more accurate images of tissue properties and so provide better identification of breast tissue abnormalities. The aim of tomography is to produce a cross-section map of the tissue, which describes how the acoustic properties vary across the tissue. Using this map, it is possible to identify abnormal inclusions.
An initial feasibility project has proved the concept by testing single detectors using purpose-built artefacts. These artefacts were designed to include well-defined structures, enabling the new imaging method to be compared with more conventional techniques. The results confirmed that the new detectors generated more reliable maps of the internal structure of the artefacts than existing techniques.
NPL is now seeking funding to develop the work further. They hope to produce a demonstrator using a full array of 20 sensors, which should allow more rapid scanning and move the idea towards a system which might eventually be used clinically. It is hoped that this will provide both a suitable resolution and fast enough scanning to become a viable replacement for current clinical scanners.
Related articles
- Breast cancer screening benefits are oversold and harms could be greater than thought (dailymail.co.uk)
- What Is Breast Thermography? (everydayhealth.com)
- Breast Cancer Diagnosis (everydayhealth.com)
- Ultrasound for Breast Cancer Detection (everydayhealth.com)
New Airbus research professor takes off in February
Professor Jonathan Cooper, formerly Professor of Aerostructures and Aeroelasticity at the University of Liverpool, is to take over as the new Airbus Sir George White Chair in Bristol this February.
“Aerospace engineering at Bristol is one of the leading aerospace research and teaching departments in the UK, with strong industrial links benefiting both students and researchers,” said Professor Nishan Canagarajah, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bristol. “Professor Cooper has an outstanding reputation for his research and we are delighted that he will be joining colleagues who are internationally recognised for their groundbreaking research.”
Prof Jonathan Cooper, the new Airbus Sir George White Chair
Bringing extensive experience in aeroelasticity, loads and structural dynamics, Professor Cooper will be leading the Bristol University Aeroelasticity and Aerostructures activities in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. The joint Bristol University and Airbus position commemorates Sir George White who founded the Bristol Aeroplane Company in 1910, one of the forerunners to BAE SYSTEMS and Airbus in the UK.
This new appointment will benefit the aerospace industry, as it will play a key role in linking Airbus into academia. Additionally, it will also benefit the University, with a strong industrial input into the University research programme.
“In our ever demanding and challenging role in aerospace engineering, it is essential to maximise the combined strengths of both industry and academia, and this role is an important step in that direction,” said Neil Scott, Vice President of Engineering and Head of Landing Gear Centre of Competence.
Originally from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Professor Jonathan Cooper graduated with a BSc in Engineering Mathematics and a PhD in Aeronautical Engineering from Queen Mary College, University of London. He then worked at the Royal Aerospace Establishment in Farnborough and spent 18 years at the University of Manchester lecturing on the Aerospace Engineering courses and researching in the fields of vibration and aeroelasticity.
Agent-based modelling helps simulate the spread of diseases
Demonstrating the value of working across disciplines, researchers at Bristol University’s Civil Engineering department have developed computer models that could help with managing the spread of diseases.
They have developed models that provide accurate simulations of how crowds behave can be used to identify health and safety issues at mass gatherings and could be adapted to simulate the spread of infections and to test the potential of public health interventions to disrupt or prevent an outbreak, and have published the results in the medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Dr Anders Johansson from the Department of Civil Engineering and colleagues reviewed how crowd behaviour can be sensed, analysed, and modelled, and used this to manage environments in which mass gatherings take place to improve safety and security and lessen the risks of injury or death.
Large crowd disasters such as stampedes are major causes of death and injury at such gatherings, the inevitable result of extreme crowding. In 2010, ineffective crowd control and a poorly designed venue (the site was designed for 250 000 participants, but had 1.4 million) resulted in a stampede in a narrow tunnel during the Love Parade music festival in Germany, in which 21 people were crushed to death and 500 injured.
The authors observe that although the objective of mass gatherings is to bring people together, crowd management strategies aim to keep people separated (in time and space). To resolve this paradox requires environmental management to guide the appropriate movement and emotion of the crowd.
Agent-based computer models use fine-scale data from actual movements of individuals obtained by techniques such as detailed video recordings, Global Positioning System (GPS), or mobile phone tracking to identify points of congestion and overcrowding that are useful for crowd management. Such models have already been used for the Notting Hill Carnival to simulate the ways crowds interact and disperse under different conditions of movement and congestion, and to assess alternative routes to reduce the number of accidents, delays in treatment, and public order offences.
Johansson and colleagues also describe how models of crowd movement can be adapted to take into account other scenarios, for example, how individuals in confined spaces might spread disease through their proximity.
This new modelling approach to the spread of epidemics incorporates population-level features typically used in epidemiological models, while also taking into account individual-level behaviour and features that could prevent the spread of disease such as immunisation, screening, and quarantine.
“Such models would allow us to test various interventions on a virtual population with a computer and measure their success rates before testing them on real populations, possibly saving both resources and life,” said Johansson.
Bath chip maker bought for $75m | Silicon South West
Bath-based chip designer Picochip is to be acquired by US company Mindspeed Technologies for $51.8m with a potential further $25m over the next year
Mindspeed to buy Picochip for $75m | Silicon South West.
Chip industry is talking itself into a recession | Silicon South West
The chip industry is in danger of talking itself into a recession, said a leading technology and market analyst in Bristol recently.
Analyst warns of ‘reckless pessimism’ in semiconductor startups | Silicon South West.
Bristol hosts key security and safety conference
Next month Bristol hosts a key conference on safety critical systems at the Marriott Royal Hotel from 7th to the 9th Feb.
The region is hosting expert speakers from around the world on a wide range of issues from the Fukushima nuclear accident and train security to cyber security and the vulnerabilities of the GPS navigation system.
SSS ’12 – Celebrating the accidents that haven’t happened – covers the vulnerabilities in global navigation satellite systems; safety culture and community; transport safety; cyber-attacks on safety-critical systems; improving our approach to systems safety; accidents; assessment, validation and testing; to safety standards and safety levels.
Alongside the conference, now in its 20th year, will be an exhibition and tools and services fair. SSS ’12 is organized by the Safety-Critical Systems Club, and is the must-attend forum for all those working on safety-critical systems in industry and academia.
In the opening keynote address, Martyn Thomas will highlight vulnerabilities in GPS and other global navigation satellite systems, demonstrating the impact on safety of many general purpose systems. Other keynotes include Roger Rivett looking at the challenge of technological change in the automotive industry, Chris Johnson looking at cyber-attacks on safety-critical systems, Peter Ladkin on the accident to the nuclear reactors at Fukushima, and Jens Braband presenting a risk-based approach to assessing potential safety deficiencies. The final keynote, by John McDermid and Andrew Rae, focuses on goal-based safety standards. Like all the previous symposia the proceedings will be available from Springer.
More details are on the SCSC website at www.scsc.org.uk/sss.
Contact: Joan Atkinson, on 0191 221 2222 and joan.atkinson@newcastle.ac.uk.
Sponsors
Sponsorship opportunities here
