i++ School Newsletter

Week commencing 9 March 2009

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Results of IET Anglian Coastal Southern PATW

On 4 March 2009, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Anglian Coastal Network held the Southern Heat of its “Present Around The World” (PATW) regional competition here in the University.  This is the Institutions presentation competition for Younger Members. 

Competitors are asked to give a presentation for 10 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of questions from judges and peers. 

Hon. Sec. David Higgins presenting 2nd Prize to Alex Harris

Six entrants competed for a 1st prize of £150 and a 2nd prize of £75, covering diverse range of topics.  After deliberation the panel of three judges awarded 1st prize to Adam Hill for his presentation on “Low Frequency Optimization in Small/Medium Sized Listening Rooms” and 2nd prize to Alex Harris for his presentation on “Modern Cryptography – The Magic Bullet of Computer Security?”. The prizes were presented by David Higgins, Honorary Secretary for IET Anglian Coastal Local Network.

Hon. Sec. David Higgins presenting 1st Prize to Adam Hill

The judges in summing up commended all entrants on both exceedingly high standard of presentation and the diverse and interesting selection of topics chosen.  The winner will be recommended to go forwards to the International Final at the end of the year for which the prize is the chance to present in a number of locations around the world with all expenses paid.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology is one of the world’s leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community. The IET has more than 150,000 members in 127 countries and has offices in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. The Institution provides a global knowledge network to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas and promotes the positive role of Science, Engineering and Technology in the world.  The Anglian Coastal Local Network covers the Norfolk, Suffolk and North Essex region.

CSEE Undergraduate finds placement with Frontrunners

Adriana Alexandru, First Year BEng Computer Networks, has taken up a placement as Project Officer within the Academic Section of the University, thanks to the Frontrunners scheme developed by the Learning and Teaching Unit.
 
In her placement Adriana is helping to create a new Graduate School WebPage for Research Students. She is in charge of undertaking research into what PGR students want from the Graduate School WebPage and of creating a design brief for the new and improved WebPages. Her duties also include holding focus group meetings with a number of key stakeholders in the project in order to gain general information about what is expected from the WebPages.
 
Adriana is enthusiastic about her placement and the impact she hopes it will have on her future career plans; “I believe it is very important not to wait until the final years to start work experience. Improving skills in order to compete in the job market is probably the most essential activity one should carry out while studying at university.” Adriana feels that “because my work requires me to gather information from many stakeholders and work closely with my supervisor I gain some deeper understanding of what working as a team means, helping me develop an essential skill that employers are looking for.”
 
She has found that the placement has also aided her personal development as a student; “It helps improve my communication skills, my understanding of how a research project should be conducted (and) my ability to use the outcome of a research project.”
 
The Frontrunner scheme is a unique programme which takes an innovative approach to embedding employability, enterprise and commercial awareness within the student experience.  It explicitly links the identification of skills gaps to the acquisition and development of employability skills via paid work placements in the university and a supporting skills programme.  It also supports students in developing their ability to reflect on and articulate the skills they have acquired by using the University’s personal development planning tool: myLife
 
For more information on the Frontrunners project click here.

Paper Published

Alejandro Foullon-Perez and Simon M. Lucas, Orientational Features with the SNT-Grid, International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN) 2009
 
Abstract - The Scanning N-Tuple Grid (SNT-Grid) has been demonstrated to be a fast classifier for 2-dimensional images. The high speed is accomplished by scanning separately along rows and columns to extract features and can process thousands of pre-segmented characters per second in training and recognition. This paper proposes the use of orientational features within the SNT-Grid and makes a comparison in performance with features previously reported in literature.  In terms of training the classifier, it explores cross entropy training and concludes that it outperforms more conventional maximum likelihood training. Finally, zoned orientational features offer a better implementation with  an additional cost in computational time for training and recognition. The best accuracy reported has reduced the error rate of the system by 70% on the same dataset.

Paper Accepted

Yevgeniya Kovalchuk, Maria Fasli, A Demand-Driven Approach for a Multi-Agent System in Supply Chain Management, Eleventh International Workshop on Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce (AMEC) at the Eighth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS-2009), Budapest, Hungary, May 12, 2009.