iSLI welcomes another top engineer, Anna Maria Ksiezopolska, a Polish student who achieved a First Class Honours Master of Engineering (MEng) degree from the University of Edinburgh in July 2010.

She is now carrying out an industrial placement with Artilium UK Ltd, based in Dunfermline, a provider of software delivery platforms for mobile network operators, where the project work is being conducted whilst carrying out her EngD studies.

Previously, Anna Maria had completed a Master of Engineering project at Artilium, for which she was awarded the Ewart Farvis Project Prize for best industrially orientated Honours project. During the project, research focussed upon methods of processing cellular Call Detail Records in order to reveal valuable information about mobile subscribers.

During her EngD project, Anna Maria will continue working with mobile subscriber data (such as location,call records and mobile web search data) and develop processing algorithms to build subscriber profiles.

The outputs will be stored in relational databases. Further processing will then be applied to these databases in order to match relevant content (such as services and advertising) to relevant subscribers in real time. This will involve applying machine learning, data mining and information retrieval techniques, which she will learn by working closely with the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics throughout the programme.

The ultimate gain is to ensure better mobile subscriber experience by enabling network operators to provide relevant, context-aware and individually tailored services to their customers.

Anna Maria is the 3rd prize winner in a Mobile Future Forward Student Paper competition, which she entered in the second week of her EngD Programme. The task was to “imagine new technologies, new experiences, new applications and services, new use cases, new business models of the mobile future” – the topic related to her EngD research area.

Through completion of the iSLI EngD course, Anna Maria hopes to develop expertise in modelling user behaviour through data mining and become an experienced analyst of complex data.

iSLI poster day sees MSc candidates present their ideas to academics

Thursday, August 26th saw iSLI’s latest group of graduating MSc students showcasing their work to an audience of leading academics at Heriot-Watt University.

A core component of  the Institute for System Level Integration (iSLI) run MSc course, the annual poster day event allows students to demonstrate their most recent work to a distinguished guest list.  The result of four months hard work at the end of an intensive year of study, participants are allowed to choose their projects from a  list of academic and industrial sponsored projects covering the field of system level integration.

As expected from a group of electronic engineering, computer science and physics graduates about to be awarded a joint degree from iSLI’s partner universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot Watt and Strathclyde, the standard of work on display was particularly high this year.

Congratulations must go to MSc student Bruno Izern whose work on Design and Implementation of a Store & Forward version of a Quarc Network-on-Chip scooped a monetary award sponsored by iSLI and presented by our Chairman Mr Michael Kay.

Nazish formed a hi-tech start-up company called Jevot Limited at the start of April this year after identifying a potential market gap in the otherwise overly-crowded online marketing and advertising industry. The product Jevot is a novel online application (website), permitting unique methods of marketing in a very efficient and cost effective manner.

In essence, Jevot allows businesses and organisations to reach their target audience with up to the minute announcements, whilst the technology helps to level the playing field between small and large companies. Organisations can reach individual postcodes, streets, areas, cities and/or counties with customised messages and announcements. Unlike current internet uses present today, the messages will only be seen on the Jevot site by those who are in those physical locations. Jevot permits organisations to place messages which are short lived and real-time i.e. they reach the target audience immediately, with zero lead-time. An easy to use interface has been created to allow quick announcement creation, as and when the need arises.

Members of the public (end-users) are not required to register or fill in any forms – Jevot appears essentially like a search engine. The application can automatically detect where they are, and show only the information that is relevant and directly applies to them.

The system created is based on some novel algorithms which are currently patent pending.

Teaming up with co-founder and an ex-colleague of the EngD sponsoring company Spiral Gateway, Nazish developed and brought the product to the market and all going well, will have a prototype product ready for launch in Edinburgh and surrounding areas by September. Thereafter, research and development work will continue on the product to create a scalable system fit for nationwide deployment.

It is noteworthy to cite that the EngD must be recognised as the motivating factor which provided Nazish with the courage and preparation to take on such an enormous challenge and start her own business. Having been sponsored by a startup, this lent Nazish the experience of managing many of the aspects of running a small business directly, as well as developing skills to tackle new engineering problems, to think innovatively and be able to conduct research and development work independently. From the experiences gained during the EngD, Nazish was comfortable making difficult decisions that led her to identify how and where to embark on her next adventure with Jevot Limited, a fact that should not be ignored.

Part of a multi-million pound project and through FPGA technologies, the project hopes to revolutionise the development of mission-critical applications and help deal with the massive processing requirements needed in areas such as drug design, defence, seismology, medical imaging and mobile telecoms.

The Commission’s Fellowship programmes, established in 1891, have greatly benefited recipients of the award in the past, with 12 winners going on to receive Nobel prizes. Only four of these fellowships are awarded annually to students enrolled for EngD degrees. This is the second consecutive year that the Institute has hosted an EngD Industry Fellowship from the Royal Commission. In 2009, Matthew Robbetts, sponsored by Wolfson Microelectronics and supervised by Dr Stephan Weiss of the University of Strathclyde, was also selected for an award for his research into acoustic noise-cancellation techniques for mobile phone applications.

Presenting the Fellowship to Tom Perry, Mr Nigel Williams-Commission Secretary stated: “The 1851 Royal Commission is delighted to work with EngD Centres to identify top students as candidates for its Industrial Fellowship programme, which shares similar aims to support research excellence for the benefit of productive industry.”

“I am truly honoured to receive such a prestigious award and be placed alongside the 1851 Commission’s previous fellows. The fellowship will present new opportunities in my work including a generous travel allowance that will allow me to travel to Xilinx Research Laboratories company HQ in San Jose, where my research project is likely to depend heavily on the research conducted there and will help me achieve the very best in my EngD at iSLI. I am delighted,” said Thomas Perry.

Fellowships and grants from the Royal Commission are only awarded to research students in science and engineering, applied research in industry, industrial design and other projects supporting the development of science and technology. The Commission decided to develop an idea to exclusively support students registered for the EngD degree in the UK. The Institute for System Level Integration is the only UK establishment providing the Engineering Doctorate in System Level Integration and is extremely pleased that Thomas, one of their second year research students and a graduate from the University of Cambridge, is the second consecutive iSLI student to be selected for the Fellowship.

Siân Williams, EngD Centre Manager at iSLI, comments on the Royal Commission Fellowship, “The Institute is thrilled for Thomas and extremely proud that his research with Xilinx Inc and the Scottish Enterprise-backed FHPCA programme is being recognised by this truly historic body. The Royal Commission’s legacy of supporting engineering, stretching back to the middle of the 19th century, is remarkable; we are very grateful for the Commission’s continued encouragement of UK engineering excellence and its championing of young British engineering talent”.

Thomas’s Fellowship will begin in September for three years, offering an enhanced stipend to the student, as well as extending benefits to the sponsoring organisation, Scottish Enterprise and the University of Edinburgh, where Thomas’s academic supervisors Dr Khaled Benkrid and Dr Mark Parsons are based; including an honorarium of £10,000 to the university once the programme is completed.

The Industrial Fellowship awards inspire graduate engineers, enabling them to carry out further research in industry that can lead to a higher degree. The aim of the Commission president is to encourage innovation and creativity in British industry. The current president is HRH Duke of Edinburgh.

About iSLI

Founded in 1998, iSLI (the Institute for System Level Integration) provides postgraduate education, professional training and research in system level integration incorporating cross over technologies such as hardware, embedded software, MNT/MEMS.

A collaboration of the computing science, informatics and electronic engineering departments of the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde, and Scottish Enterprise, the Institute is the first centre of excellence in system level integration to be established worldwide. Its aim is to support the development of electronics systems design worldwide and to encourage the exploration of new technologies through research.

iSLI’s operations are underpinned by funding from Scottish Enterprise, UK Central Research and HE funding agencies, and substantial sponsorship funding, including “expert in-kind support” from companies in the microelectronics industry.

Family and friends attended the ceremony in the University of Glasgow’s Bute Hall to watch Paul McKechnie and Graeme Stewart formally awarded their EngD degrees, jointly awarded by the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde. The new Doctors of Engineering, who will both now move on to research and development roles in the electronics industry, bring to 27 the number of students now to have graduated from the advanced four year course.

“I am delighted to congratulate Paul and Graeme on their doctorates. The EngD is one of the most demanding qualifications the engineering sector has to offer and they join a select group of iSLI alumni currently blazing a wide trail through the electronics industry. In addition to working on many of the most exciting new products to hit shop shelves for the past five years our graduates have been named Electronics Weekly Student Engineer of the Year for the last three years running, and we expect both to enjoy great success in their future careers,” said Siân Williams, EngD Centre Manager at ISLI.

The Engineering Doctorate (EngD) is a four-year research degree, academically equivalent to a PhD but placing emphasis on research within an industrial context. Known as Research Engineers, students combine a research project with accredited technical and business training in a programme designed to appeal to ambitious and able graduates who aspire to managerial positions in industry.

The institute’s graduates, who have gone on to employment with a range of international companies such as Xilinx, Thales Optronics, ARM and Agilent, have won a litany of academic industry prizes in the past. In addition to winning the prestigious Student Engineer of the Year award in 2007, 2008 and 2009, last year’s Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Industrial Fellowship was also carried off by an iSLI Research Engineer.

Founded in 1998, iSLI supports the development of electronics systems design worldwide and encourages the exploration of new technologies through research. By producing highly skilled design engineers and researchers the institute is helping to meet the needs of the rapidly changing global electronics industry. Scientists and engineers contribute significantly to the economic health of a nation and the organisation aims to attract the brightest and most creative minds to maintain the supply of highly skilled science and engineering students to the global electronics industry.

Experts from the Institute for System Level Integration (iSLI) are to tell delegates attending next week’s Scottish Technology Showcase event at the SECC in Glasgow how investing in bespoke technology can deliver major benefits to growing companies. The team will show attendees how, with the help of experienced expert partners, businesses can profit by using the latest research from Scotland’s universities to develop new commercial products and services. They will show, also, how a range of enabling technologies can transform the appeal and value of a product in the market.

“Scotland has some of the finest university laboratories in the world, but until recently we’ve not proved particularly adept at taking the technologies produced by these labs and turning them into viable products,” said iSLI Director Dr Mark Begbie.

In addition to running a stand at the event, senior staff from iSLI will also participate in the conference’s Opportunity Zone, where exhibitors will promote opportunities to fulfil unmet business needs and delegates will be able to explore potential collaboration opportunities. Team members will host a series of short sessions discussing the opportunities to be found in the growing fields of wireless sensors, intellectual property management and low carbon emissions.
As revealed last year, engineers from iSLI are already working on the development stage of a £3.3millon project to develop a wireless sensor system set to become a basis for systems in the next generation of commercial aircraft. The project, which will enable the real-time monitoring of the aircraft during flight and could make a vital contribution to improved air safety, is joint funded by the UK Technology Strategy Board and some of the aerospace industry’s leading companies.

“Something we’ve been able to demonstrate very clearly in the past is that there are many opportunities to take the latest technologies and use them as the basis of innovative and exciting business opportunities,” added Dr Begbie.

The Scottish Technology Showcase 2010 is at Glasgow SECC, Hall 3 on 26th May 2010. Find iSLI at stand B24.

Postgraduate student Mohamed Saleh on why he left Egypt to study for a Masters (MSc) at iSLI in Scotland. Having completed the one year course, he explains what it is like to live, work and have fun at the Institute.

As iSLI Director, Dr Mark Begbie adherents, there then seems to be a link to this and the Toyota engineers not building in a fail safe whereby hitting the brake kills the throttle whatever.   So, you can get into a situation where a bug in the firmware makes the throttle run away, and no other bit of the software will go in and kill it.  If true, Dr Begbie argues that this would be a prime example of underestimating the complexity, criticality and value of historical experience in developing embedded software systems.

The solution to the problem according to Toyota is a precision-cut steel reinforcement bar that will be installed into the friction assembly reducing the surface tension between the two surfaces of the device, eliminating excess friction that can cause the pedal to stick.  Toyota says that it has confirmed the effectiveness of the new reinforced pedal assemblies through rigorous testing of pedals that were prone to stick before.

At the time the recall and sales suspension was announced Toyota stated, “Toyota has investigated isolated reports of sticking accelerator pedal mechanisms in certain vehicles without the presence of floor mats.  There is a possibility that certain accelerator pedal mechanisms may, in rare instances, mechanically stick in a partially depressed position or return slowly to the idle position.”

Making this unique opportunity possible is the collaboration of four of the UK’s leading universitites, comprising Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde, awarding the prestigious MSc jointly.

What is more, this creates opportunities for overseas students in particular as two thirds of the on-campus students are from countries outwith the UK.  Therefore creating opportunites for cross-cultural and interdisciplinary interaction through iSLI’s new multi-million pound, purpose-built Postgraduate Centre.  Whilst also the possibility of  industrial project placements through the strong links established with industry, resulting in the ability to secure access to leading edge design tools, state of the art IP, industrial design platforms and development systems.

The course – Start-up Creation in the field of Microsystems – is designed to give students, engineers and business owners a thorough introduction to the realities of developing and marketing new electronics applications and devices. Detailing the steps required to develop new projects and position them in the value chain, the session will also teach attendees how to evaluate their project’s financial potential and provide guidelines on negotiating with prospective financial and industrial partners.

“The rapid growth of the market for microsystems applications is throwing up a huge range of opportunities for entrepreneurial small companies and start-ups, but entering the field is a complex matter. We know from experience that developing the technology itself is only part of the picture, and so the course will also focus on every issue – from business planning to intellectual property – that small firms will encounter as they strive to turn cutting-edge ideas into real world products,” said Mark Begbie, Director of the Institute for System Level Integration (iSLI).

“We are delighted to bring this highly respected course to Scotland.”

Tutored by Jean-Christophe Eloy, General Manager of Yole Development at Lyon, France, the course will run participants through the possibilities and pitfalls of start-up creation in the field of microsystems. During the session ten real case studies detailing the experiences of the major European and US microsystems start-ups will also be presented and analysed.

While open to all, the course will be particularly useful to start-up project leaders, R&D engineers, technology transfer managers at universities and research institutes, executives of already established microsystems start-ups, business development managers of companies interested in the microsystems fields and marketing managers.

Start-up Creation in the field of Microsystems, by The Swiss Foundation for Research in Microtechnology (FSRM) will take place on March 29, 2010 at the Institute for System Level Integration in Edinburgh, GB. For further information, details of how to book click here.