Category / Technology & Design

Guest Talk “Machine Learning and Computer Vision for Intelligent Surveillance”, 11am 06Feb TAG32

Fusion

I would like to invite you to a research presentation by Prof. Bailing Zhang, from Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University. We are hosting Prof. Zhang here for a week under the support of BU Fusion Funding. Please feel free to forward this invitation to your colleagues and PhD students if it is of their interests.

 

Title: Machine Learning and Computer Vision for Intelligent Surveillance

Time: 11:00-12:00

Date: Friday, 06 Feb 2015

Room: TAG32 (Talbot Campus)

 

Abstract:

The aim of intelligent video surveillance is to develop a way to provide reliable real-time alarms and situation awareness from existing surveillance networks without the enormous cost of intensive human monitoring. The tasks of video surveillance often include the detection of  the presence of people and vehicle and tracking them, and the subsequent analysis of their activities. Such research projects have broad implications for Homeland Security, law enforcement and many other types of military applications. There are many challenges to analyse a vast number of video streams in real-time to detect a range of events relevant to security needs. Computer vision and machine learning are the two interwove technologies for most of the modeling issues in video surveillance, for example, recognizing human behaviors. In this seminar, Dr. Bailing Zhang will briefly outline the ongoing projects with his group at XJTLU and discuss some relevant issues.

 

Biography:

Bailing Zhang received the Master’s degree in Communication and Electronic System from the South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China, and Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer engineering from the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia, in 1987 and 1999, respectively. He is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China. He had been a Lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Mathematics in the Victoria University, Australia since 2003. His research interest includes machine learning and computer vision, with applications in surveillance and biometrics. Bailing Zhang has over 100 referred papers published.

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Dr. Xiaosong Yang

Senior Lecturer in Computer Animation National Centre for Computer Animation
Faculty of Media and Communication
Bournemouth University
Email: xyang@bournemouth.ac.uk
http://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/xyang

£1 million available to help UK manufacturing firms develop skills to maximise value of innovation

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, Knowledge Transfer

 

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) has launched a new competition challenging manufacturing firms to maximise the value of innovation.

Manufacturing firms have been invited to bid for a share of £1 million to boost UK innovation. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), launching the ‘Skills for Innovation in Manufacturing’ competition , challenges firms to come up with new ways of developing the skills and business practices needed to maximise the value of innovation to the UK economy.

In recent years, the UK has risen up the Global Innovation Index, moving from 14th in 2010 to second place in 2014. However, a government assessment of the UK’s science and innovation system, undertaken for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in 2014, identified planning, recruiting, training, retention, progression and performance management as weak parts of the system, with worrying deficiencies in basic skills, STEM skills and management. Businesses’ skills, workplace practices, and management are critical to ensuring the value of innovation is maximised.

Paul McKelvie OBE, a Commissioner at the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), which is running the competition, commented:

“It is fantastic that the UK is ranked as a front-runner in terms of innovation, second only globally to Switzerland. However, we need to do more to capitalise on this if we want to reap the economic reward and remain competitive. To do this effectively, we need to explore the ‘human factor’ in innovation. This means understanding how to better manage innovations; both in the way processes work and how any innovation is taken to market. It is the development of these skills that we want businesses to focus on when responding to our invitation.

“This competition is a great opportunity for businesses in the manufacturing sector to come together and come up with ideas and solutions that they want to trial and develop to better maximise the value of innovation. By running this competition, I hope that a range of insights will be drawn from the projects we support to improve future business practice and public policy.”

The UK Futures Programme competition invites employer-led proposals from businesses of all sizes in the manufacturing sector to run initiatives lasting 12 months, that focus specifically on the skills required to manage an innovation process and exploit innovative products or services for commercial value. Proposals must be joint investments with employers investing in cash, in kind or both alongside a maximum government contribution of £150,000 per project.

The competition closes at midday on Wednesday 11 March 2015. For more information or to apply visit the competition page.

Cyber Security Seminar: Persuasive Technology for Information Security – Today, 4pm

REF Subjects

Our next Interdisciplinary Cyber Security Seminar will take place TODAY (Tuesday, 27th January) at 4pm. The seminar will take place at Poole House in P335 LT, and will be free and open to all.

Our speaker will be Marc Busch. Marc is scientist at the AIT – Austrian Institute of Technology and is active at the intersection of persuasive technology and usable privacy and security. Furthermore, he is specialized in advanced quantitative and qualitative usability and user experience methodology, research methods and statistics in Human-computer interaction. Marc is involved in several international and national research and industrial projects, such as MUSES – Multiplatform Usable Endpoint Security. Before joining AIT, Marc was at CURE – Center for Usability Research & Engineering, where he focused on user experience and usability.

Abstract: Persuasive Technology is a vibrant field of research and practice, aiming to change the attitude or behavior of people. Persuasive technology has various different application areas, e.g. games motivating physical activity. An emerging application area is persuasive technology to increase information security and to engage people to protect their privacy. In the seminar, participants will hear about design principles for persuasive technology for promoting information security and also about methods to evaluate persuasive technology. Concrete examples and “best practices” will be given from a recent research project, in which persuasive technology is used in organizations to make employees comply with information security policies.

Start-up and innovation opportunities in next generation mobile

Business Engagement

The next generation of mobile communications technology, 5G, will be a flexible infrastructure capable of handling our ever increasing demand for mobile data and providing connectivity for a wide range of future technologies, from the Internet of Things to digital healthcare, and from advanced gaming to driverless cars. 5G’s short and fast network response times will unleash a new wave of exciting and disruptive applications and with experts predicting deployment from as early as 2020, this evening’s speakers will consider the opportunities for smart start-ups and innovators and share their thoughts on how entrepreneurs can seize this opportunity to create new, world-class businesses.

Register to attend the event of February 5 2015.

Confirmed Speakers:

  • Chair: Keith Robson, COO, 5G Innovation Centre
  • Professor Stephen Temple, Technical Secretary to the Technical Advisory Board, 5G Innovation Centre
  • Dr Mike Short CBE FREng FIET, Vice President, Telefonica Europe and Director, Enterprise M3
  • Gerry Foster, 5G Systems architect & Innovation Gateway Senior Technical Project Manager

Speaker biographies.

Find out more

Top tips for completing business and knowledge exchange funding applications

Guidance, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

For those involved in business and business planning some of  this information would not necessarily be new, however very important when completing any funding application or competition where Innovate UK are the main funder.  Innovate UK is the new name for the Technology Strategy Board and  fund, support and connect innovative businesses to accelerate sustainable economic growth.

A short guide to  to help make clear what an assessor for Innovate UK competitions is looking for has been produced. All of the Innovate UK funding programmes follow a similar pattern and you should bear in mind that the questions are designed to help rather than trip you up. It is important that you answer the questions asked and cover all aspects the Guidance for Applicants describes.
 
Try and  use the language they are looking for: the easier you make it for the assessor to understand and check off the information they seek, the more likely the proposal will score highly. The guidance is noted under 10 headings as follows :
  1. Business opportunity
  2. The market
  3. Exploitation
  4. Benefits,
  5. Project plan
  6. Innovation
  7. Risks
  8. Skills/ Project Consortium
  9. Finances
  10. Additionality

This is a user friendly document and worth reading to assist with  applications for funding large or small!

Transdisciplinary Arts Practice: Moving Sideways to Move Forward

Transdisciplinary Arts Practice: Moving Sideways to Move ForwardWe would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre.

 

Speaker: Bill Thompson (Video & Sound Artist, Lecturer in Music and Audio Technology, Bournemouth University)

Title: Transdisciplinary Arts Practice: Moving Sideways to Move Forward

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 14th January 2015

Room: P335, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

I’ll be discussing recent collaborative work with choreographer Ian Spink involving transdiciplinary practice across several projects in Scotland, as well as past work with choreographer Claire Pencak and archaeologists Antonia Thomas and Dan Lee at the Ness of Brodgar site in Orkney. I’ll also discuss  some of my work with / against technology in my solo and sound art practice as well my experience leading collaborative arts practice workshops with Ian Spink ( fast + Dirty ) and individually ( Fail Again, Fail Better ) at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and elsewhere.

We hope to see you there.

 

£9.5m funding – Integrated supply chains for Energy systems

 

Innovate UK has launched a funding competition with up to £9.5m available to address the need for a diverse mix of energy sources and systems.

The aim of this competition is to encourage cross-sector supply chains that can deliver integrated energy solutions to meet the many energy systems challenges of achieving a low-carbon economy by 2050.Projects should focus on both the demand and supply side across the energy networks of electricity, heat and combustible gases. 

 This is a two-stage competition with a first stage of feasibility studies. Up to three projects will then be chosen for follow-on collaborative research and development (R&D) following a collaboration workshop on conclusion of the feasibility stage. At each stage, projects must be led by a business. 
 

Open for registration – Up to £2m funding for feasibility studies available

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities

Innovate UK  has launched a funding competition for feasibility studies with up to two million pounds funding available.

The competition is open only to small and micro companies (click here for eligibility) across the following technology sectors:

Advanced materials
Biosciences 
Electronics, Sensors & Photonics
Information & Communications Technology 

A briefing event for this competition was held on 25 November.  You can view the webinar recording here. 

For any queries on this competition, please contact support@innovateuk.org.

Fusion Investment Fund 2014/15: Upskilling the Engineering Workforce

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion

We were delighted to hear that we have just received funding from the Fusion Investment Fund for a project which we hope will allow us to strengthen strategic partnerships with local/national engineering companies.  This will build on the work already carried out within the Department of Design and Engineering to develop an innovate flexible learning MEng Engineering degree for those currently in employment which has attracted over 40 students from local and national industries since its introduction.  The numbers entering the degree is expected to accelerate over the next few years with 300 engineering apprentices currently studying at Bournemouth and Poole College coming through the system.

The aim of this project is to collaborate with current BU engineering students, and engineering employers to develop, launch and establish a Professional Registration Mentoring Scheme.  The scheme will be developed to enable students who are studying on the flexible learning MEng Engineering degree to achieve professional registration (Incorporated or Chartered Engineer) status and for companies wishing to gain professional registration for a suitable group of their employees.

This scheme is timely as EngineeringUK has recently highlighted the need to double the number of annual graduate recruits into engineering by 2020 to meet demand.  The report also highlights it is estimated only 36% of engineers in the UK are registered as professional engineers.  However, professional engineers are vital for the growth of the UK economy.

A future goal, once established regionally, is to secure recognition for the scheme from an appropriate professional body.  This will then provide the credibility to expand the scheme nationally

Please do feel free to get in touch with us if you would like further information and we look forward to reporting on the outcome once the project is completed at the end of July.

Dr Philip Sewell (Principal Investigator) – Design and Engineering Framework Leader –psewell@bournemouth.ac.uk

Dr Tania Humphries-Smith – Head of Design and Engineering Department – thumphri@bournemouth.ac.uk

Showcasing Undergraduate Research Excellence – SUREBU 2015: call for submissions

Fusion, student research

SUREBU is a Fusion funded project aimed at showcasing the best of BU’s undergraduate research.  Research is broadly defined and could include work towards an undergraduate essay or dissertation, work carried out as part of a volunteer or work placement, or activities for an academic society.  Not only are research skills a central part of undergraduate study and academic life, but they are also vital skills for any future career.  By encouraging undergraduate students to think critically and develop their skills, research will help to enhance their student experience and increase their employability upon graduation.

The call for submissions is now open, and all BU undergraduate students – from all schools and courses – are eligible to apply.  Examples of research could be anything from preparing for a dissertation or an essay to work carried out during a placement year to volunteering or work with academic societies.   The main criteria is that evidence of the student’s own critical thinking can be demonstrated.  As well as developing new skills, this is a good opportunity to enhance their CVs through a conference presentation, publication of abstract or even being the winner of awards and prizes.

To get involved, register on SUREBU’s website and submit an abstract.  Abstracts should be a maximum of 300 words, with a title no longer than 150 characters.  The deadline for submission is 5th January 2015.  If you know of a student or recent graduate who would be eligible to submit, do encourage them to apply!

Digital Business Briefing – December 2014

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

 

Now available for December, the Digital Business Briefing is compiled by the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) in partnership with Innovate UK, Catapults, Tech City, Nesta, and Horizon2020. The briefing highlights funding, support, events and training relevant to those working in the digital industries.

Sign up to receive regular updates “Join the creative industries community”

BU at the THE Awards 2014

PG research

 

The Bournemouth University and Poole Hospital research team who developed a medical device to make epidurals safer and more effective, were celebrating being shortlisted for the THE Awards 2014 in London last night.

The project was nominated for Outstanding ICT initiative of the Year and – although pipped to the post by the Open University – being shortlisted for an award of this calibre is an incredible achievement and honour.

BU’s Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation Professor John Fletcher was at the ceremony. He said: “Congratulations to the NHS-BU team for being shortlisted. We were very worthy contestants.  I felt privileged and proud to share the evening with such a successful team.”

The nominated team at the awards ceremonyThe clinical project was initially proposed by the senior consultant anesthetist at Poole Hospital, Professor Mike Wee. The device was developed by Dr Neil Vaughan for his PhD, supervised by Professor Wee and Dr Venky Dubey. Dr Richard Isaacs – now at Southampton General Hospital – was also part of the research team. All four, pictured here, were at the awards ceremony, along with colleagues from across the university who have supported this innovative and important project.

Comedian Jack Dee hosted proceedings, sharing his unique and entertaining take on the Higher Education sector!

A full list of categories and winners can be viewed on the THE website. The event organisers also took over £9000 in donations for the Institute of International Education’s ‘Scholar Rescue Fund’; a charity that has led global efforts to rescue threatened scholars and students.

Congratulations to all nominees and winners and thank you to THE for such organising such a fabulous evening!

Image: (Top left clockwise) Dr Venky Dubey, Dr Neil Vaughan, Dr Richard Isaacs, Professor Mike Wee.

Developing ViRETS – A Virtual Reality Eye-Tracking System

PG research

We would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre that will be delivered by Chris Ramsey.

 

Title: Developing ViRETS – A Virtual Reality Eye-Tracking System

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 3rd December 2014

Room: P335, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

This research project aims to develop a Virtual Reality Eye-Tracking System (VIRETS), capable of displaying naturalistic viewing conditions with high ecological validity and large field of view (FOV) in order to investigate the effects on human gaze behaviour (including head movement) and how this could be advantageous when looking at methods for visual cognition experiments. Static, lab-based eye trackers (head-mounted or desk-mounted) are accurate and easy to calibrate. However, they have traditionally made use of single screen setups with a FOV which doesn’t provide realistic viewing conditions. Furthermore, the head of a participant often has to be restricted using a chin rest and/or bite bar, or, in the case of head-mounted eye-trackers, restricted to small movements, which prohibits naturalistic head movements.

While mobile eye-trackers bring eye-tracking research to real world scenarios, allowing for naturalistic head and eye movements and allowing for naturalistic viewing conditions, the method presents a number of limitations, such as lower frequencies and the possibility of dropped frames. Although video footage can be layered with gaze behaviour to show saccadic eye-movement in real scenes, data analysis has to be carried out offline and can be time consuming: Specifically, video footage must be inspected frame by frame, labelled and described in order to analyse what objects in the scene participants attend to. Furthermore using real-world scenarios make it difficult to control all the stimuli presented, making the interpretation of cause and effect relationships difficult.

ViRETS aims to address these concerns by combining realistic and immersive VR, head-mounted eye-tracking, motion tracking and the freedom of naturalistic head movement. By these means we’ll investigate how an increased FOV affects gaze behaviour, head movements and performance specifically in the context of visual search and navigation.       

We hope to see you there.

Funding Call Scoping Workshop: Invitation to inform the content of an upcoming Innovate UK UX and Data Competition

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

 

The Knowledge Transfer Network are running  an information day and workshop around User Experience and Data technology innovation.  This event will bring together businesses, academics and researchers working within UX and data to contribute to a discussion on the scoping of a Spring 2015 funding competition. 

Innovate UK (formally Technology Strategy Board) will be running three funding competitions in areas relating to User Experience (UX). This event is an opportunity to learn more about these funding calls, how to apply as well as influencing future activities in UX.

There are two themes to these UX related competitions: 

1. Utilising personal data to improve a user’s experience of a product or service: This competition is a feasibility study and is due to launch in March 2015. There will be an opportunity to influence the scope of this call so that it correctly addresses the issues that are affecting the UX industry.

2. Innovative technology & software to improved the interaction between human and machine: This will focus on novel approaches to UX with an innovative software element to them, essentially how to let people and machines interact better, moving beyond the traditional keyboard, mouse and screen.  

There are two competions in this theme: a feasibility study and a  Knowledge Transfer Parnership. (KTP).

Date: Tuesday, 02 December 2014

Time: 10:30 – 16:30

Venue: Barbican Centre, London

Register now to attend