All Hands on DEC - January 2008
This Months Stories:
- PD Graduate in Final of E.ON Competition
- Bid Success for Smart Technology Research Centre
- PhD Congratulations
- IMechE Award for Dr Khan
- DEC Graduate becomes Author
- Proof of Concept Approved for Pressure Ulcer Project
- GWR research grant success - Smart Technology Research Centre
- How to submit future stories
- Next Newsletter
PD Graduate in Final of E.ON Competition
Product Design graduate Harry Ward has made it through to the final of the national E.ON EnergyLab competition. The competition is a national talent search seeking out Britain 's best new energy saving innovations. Harry designed his invention the Orb for his final year project and displayed it at the Festival of Design & Innovation. The Orb is an energy management device which monitors energy consumption in the home.
After competing against stiff competition in the regional final in Cambridge , Harry now has time to further develop the Orb before the final at London 's Tate Modern on 13 March. Harry and the other finalists will pitch their ideas against the clock to be the winner of the LIFE-IC Technology Award. The winner will receive £5,000 and support from world class business accelerator LIFE-IC to help develop their idea and get it into production.
E.ON EnergyLab judging panel Chairman Oliver Heath, designer and ITV's Dream Homes presenter said: The standard of entries we reviewed at the Cambridge heat was extremely high and we had a tough job deciding which inventions should go through to the national final. Harry and his invention really stood out for us and we look forward to seeing him again in London for what promises to be a very exciting final.
Since graduating last year, Harry has been working for Sky News as a 3D Visual Effects Producer, using his graphic design skills to make the 3D explainers for the daily news broadcast.
Bid Success for Smart Technology Research Centre
Dr Martin Teal's successful Proof of Concept bid will see DEC working with T.M. Safety Signs, a specialist in the design and manufacture of remote controlled temporary road signs. A significant benefit of using remote controlled road signs is that they take away the need for men to cross live carriageways to activate and de-activate the signs.
This project will focus on the development of the Smart Flow System, which will use GRPS traffic signs and AI to control traffic flow automatically. Benefits of the system will be lower carbon emissions, as workmen will not need to travel to the signs, as well as safer and more efficient travel.
PhD Congratulations
Congratulations to Silvia Riedel who has successfully defended her PhD Thesis on Forecast Combination in Revenue Management Demand Forecasting.
The thesis, which has been well defended and complimented by both examiners, has been a culmination of one of the collaborative projects between the Smart Technology Research Centre and Lufthansa Systems Berlin.
The work carried out in the project extended a portfolio of a theoretical body of work related to the combination of forecasts and multiple classifier and prediction systems, which in the first instance attracted such a large company as LSB to the research performed in this area within the Smart Technology Research Centre, while illustrating the benefits of the developed forecast combination approaches through successful knowledge transfer and implementations in the industry leading Lufthansa Systems software products like ProfitLine/Yield.
For more information about the above please contact Prof Bogdan Gabrys at bgabrys@bournemouth.ac.uk
IMechE Award for Dr Khan
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Educational Prizes and Award Committee has awarded Dr. Zulfiqar Khan the prestigious Thomas Andrew Grants' award. Dr Khan is a member of the IMechE and co-director of the Sustainable Design Research Centre (SDRC), focusing on studies of surface wear mechanisms and integration of sustainable development issues within advanced engineering components and systems. Dr Khan has published extensively on the application of rolling contact bearing elements and residual stress measurements.
DEC Graduate becomes Author
After a year of hard work Philip Robinson's first book will be published in March. Philip has written the UK edition of the successful Inventing for Dummies title, which covers topics such as evaluating new ideas, setting up a business, market research, raising finance, prototyping, manufacturing and negotiating licenses.
Philip is currently working at the Centre for Research and Knowledge Transfer assisting Geoff Bell with product design commercialisation.
Proof of Concept Approved for Pressure Ulcer Project
Dr Glyn Hadley has received approval for his Proof of Concept project entitled The development of a sensor for the early detection of pressure ulcers. Currently pressure ulcers (also known as pressure sores) cost the National Health Service 4% of its budget totalling a massive £2.1 billion per annum. Early detection of tissue that is at risk of damage may enable intervention that would prevent ulcers from developing. This is just one of the projects related to developing smart sensing technologies actively pursued within the Smart Technology Research Centre.
GWR research grant success - Smart Technology Research Centre
Prof Bogdan Gabrys from the Smart Technology Research Centre, Bournemouth University together with Dr Dymitr Ruta and Ms Kate Ellis from British Telecommunication and Prof Trevor Martin from Bristol University have been awarded a research grant from Great Western Research for a project entitled Probabilistic modelling of customer behaviour using nature-inspired hybrid optimisation techniques.
This project will build on our existing collaboration and on-going work with BT Intelligent Systems Research Centre and establish new regional links with the Artificial Intelligence Research Group from Bristol University and BT Consumer Repair Call Centre in Exeter .
The subject of the project is both very challenging from the scientific point of view and potentially of great importance for the company working in a very competitive telecommunication industry.
In the telecommunication industry, customers are increasingly becoming the consumers of converged automated services run on demand over the IP network. Companies are set to run most of their business processes automatically in an online distributed environment whereas customers form networked communities and continuously consume and exchange information. In such an environment of apparent e-revolution massive amounts of time-stamped data sequences are generated, yet only a very small part of it is used for the benefit of customers and the service provider.
The aim of the project will be to explore, identify, configure and test a family of novel predictive models that given historical sequence of customer behaviour would be capable of delivering a range of soft probabilistic predictions related to the future evolution of the sequence. The predictive accuracy and the wider impact on BT and its customers will be assessed in the BT's Exeter Call Centre in a real-time operational trial.
For more information about the above please contact Prof Bogdan Gabrys at bgabrys@bournemouth.ac.uk
How to submit future stories
If you have a story you would like included in the next issue of all hands on DEC please send it to Emma Bennett . Each month the next deadline will be found at the bottom of the newsletter and a document can be found in the I drive (I:\DEC\Private\Marketing\All Hands on DEC) with all copy/story deadlines for the rest of the year.
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Next Newsletter
Story deadline is: 15 February 2008
Newsletter will be sent out: 29 February 2008
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