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Highlights from the IET NorCal seminars on September 12th.

John Manville gave a very insightful talk into how IoT is really becoming the IoE, the Internet of Everything . Covering the estimates of future growth of connected devices and the problems that an ultra-connected world presents, such as bandwidth, connectivity, security, and privacy issues. Everyone knows the story of the online fridge that knows when to order milk but John showed that towns and cities are using ubiquitous connectivity to make a positive change for their inhabitants. The city of Barcelona has made multi-million dollar savings in power and water user – yeah! – and made much more from its parking meters by knowing who is there and for how long L . The talk triggered a very lively Q&A session and featured a 3D printer and a drone! Allan Casey talked about the plans for the NIF…

Allan Casey
The Next IET NorCal Seminar: Making Smartphones Smarter

Hi all, The next seminar will be a talk titled "Making Smartphones Smarter" presented by Dr Ronjon Nag Abstract : Smartphones are now ubiquitous. Everyone has one. Often considered a recent phenomenon, actually current smartphones are the result of accumulated innovations since the first mobile phone was shipped some 30 years ago. This talk will review how innovations have built upon each other to create modern devices and the role of app ecosystems in creating more engineers and companies. Will discuss how mobiles may become smarter in the future, discussing what defines intelligence in the context of a machine, and explaining the latest trends in artificial intelligence as they pertain to mobile devices. We will see new user interfaces, machine learning techniques such as deep learning and…

Allan Casey
Driverless Cars - are we ready?

I was reading a report this week in E&T magazine which questions whether we are ready for driverless cars. We are all probably aware by now of Google's promise that by 2020 self-driving cars will be common, and quite rightly one of the main concerns is safety. Did you know that Google actually publish monthly reports on their accidents, and it seems that of the 12 relatively minor accidents that have occured since the project began, not one was caused by the driverless car itself? There is a fascinating report in the article in E&T magazine about what it is like to ride in a self driving car Don't forget you can still view the presentations from the Control & Automation TPN's full day seminar on Autonomous Vehicles on IET.tv:

Joanne Longton
An Intro To Our New Chair- Tom Gray

Tom Gray, Group CTO of digital solutions company Kainos , has been appointed as Chairman of the Northern Ireland network of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). One of the main aims of the IET over the next year will be to inspire and nurture the next generation of engineering talent, something he has done as vice-chair and in his role at Kainos. Gray’s year at the helm will start with the Chairman’s lecture on October 2, where Space Shuttle Endeavour pilot Greg Johnson will kick off UN Space Week. A mechanical engineer, Johnson will talk about how his engineering experience led to piloting the last flight of the iconic craft. Commenting on his appointment, Gray said: "The mission of the IET is one of fundamental importance throughout the UK and especially in Northern Ireland…

Caron Malone
Donald Davies and DVB broadcasting

Today's Radio 4 Computing Britain programme (which aired at 13:45, Thursday September the 17th) was entitled "Connected Thinking" and described part of Donald Davies' career, ranging from his early work with Alan Turing through to his invention of packet switching, and its effect on data (and thus multimedia) communications. What the programme did not mention at all was that following his work on packet switching his interests moved into cryptology and cryptography. He worked in this area towards the end of his Civil Service career at the National Physical Laboratory and then carried on as an independent consultant. The security of pay television systems was one of the areas he worked in (another was banking security). One aspect where he made a major contribution to digital television was…

Graham Turner
IET London All Volunteers Evening 14-Sep-2015

Many of the active volunteers from the London Network had an enjoyable and informative evening at The Phoenix Victoria, Mon 14th Sep 2015. We said thank you to our outgoing Chair, Davy Thielens, for all his hard work and great leadership, as he handed the baton over to Femi Olushola, with his vice-chair, Xenophon Christodoulou. We look forward to their shared leadership over the next three years. Governance For The Future (G4F): As it is such an important and somewhat controversial subject, we heard different views on the proposed change from: Dr. Peter Bonfield, IET Vice President, for the IET Trustees Prof. Ali Hessami, for the petitioners (GRT) This should help us all to decide how to cast our imminent vote for or against a Special General Meeting (SGM) to establish a Task Force that would…

David Tabor
CREST In Wales - Be Part Of Something New!

The Welsh government recently confirmed 3 years of funding for CREST Awards in Wales, making the Awards totally free for Welsh students. CREST is a UK award scheme that recognises success, and enables students to build their skills and demonstrate personal achievement in project work. As part of the funding, they are developing two new CREST Discovery challenges, based around Welsh 'Innovation and Industry', and 'Heritage and Culture'. That's where you come in: they'd love to connect to what you are doing in Wales, and get your input on the new challenges. Join them for a fun and interactive workshop. It'll be a fantastic opportunity to meet others working across the industry, heritage and education sectors in Wales, and shape 2 new Welsh CREST challenges. Feel free to invite colleagues who…

Former Community Member
Some thoughts on IBC 2015

IBC was its usual, large, busy self, with an extensive variety of exhibitors and a huge number of visitors from all over the world. As someone who has attended the majority of IBCs over the last 25 years, it is impressive how much the badge collection facilities have improved! Although there was a very long queue when I arrived on Friday morning, it moved very quickly and I soon found myself waiting for the exhibition to open. From my own observations, both before and during the exhibition, and my discussions at IBC, it seems clear that this is a time of consolidation, and that perhaps the rate of technological change has slowed slightly. The emphasis now is on trying to move some of the new concepts, such as IP working and delivery, ultra HD (whether in the 4k first phase, or subsequently…

Graham Turner
Use Of Dynamic Simulation In The Development Of Control Systems

On 3rd September an audience of more than 30 people got together in Teacher Building, Glasgow to hear Dr Andy Clegg and Professor Mike Grimble deliver presentations on the " Use of dynamic simulation in the development of control systems ". It was an excellent event, with a very engaged audience, if the number of questions at the end was any measure! The audience learnt that design, development and deployment of control systems can often be challenging; especially in time, cost or safety critical applications, such as in oil & gas, maritime or nuclear industries and how the use of dynamic simulation of plant/control systems can help. Dr. Andy Clegg from Industrial Systems and Control Ltd talked about his experiences with developing and using simulations within the design and deployment for…

Joanne Longton
The Friendly Face Of Robots

On 8th September, as part of TAROS 2015, Professor Tony Belpaeme of Plymouth University gave the IET Public Lecture. Professor Belpaeme delivered a fantastic presentation on the friendly face of robots and he shared with the audience an insight into research that is working towards robots that are social and can provide support in healthcare, therapeutic settings and education. Included were examples of friendly robots that have helped children with diabetes learn more about their condition and how to cope with it and a case where Riccardo the robot helped a young child who had suffered a stroke with his physiotherapy. All very fascinating and thought provoking. There's a great article online that reports on the sucess of robots and computers in schools and care home environments. Part of the…

Joanne Longton
Campaign Launched That Calls For A Ban On The Development Of Robots That Can Be Used For Sex

Yesterday I was reading a news report that highlighted a campaign that has been recently launched which calls for a ban on the development of robots that can be used for sex. It's quite an emotive subject and the relationship between humans and robots, already complex, will become more complex in the future as robots get ever more sophisticated. Could such relationships have a detrimental effect on human relationships? Dr Kathleen Richardson is leading the campaign, and this subject featured in the presentation that she gave back in June for the IET Robotics & Mechatronics Robot Ethics event. You can see Kathleens presentation here as well as presentations from Alan Winfield and Tony Prescott According to the report , Dr Richardson, wants to raise awareness of the issue and persuade those developing…

Joanne Longton
IET Technical Networks: Disseminating essential engineering intelligence

The IET's Technical and Professional Networks (TPNs) cover a wide range of areas - from aerospace to robotics to healthcare technologies. TPNs are made up of senior engineers and technologists as well as academics and are crucial to the IET's strategy of producing expert technical content that is relevant to the engineering community. Much of this sharing of knowledge takes place at physical events organised by the TPNs. These can be global conferences with hundreds of delegates to small very focused seminars with only a handful of participants in the audience. And most of the events are free of charge. To find the TPN that suits your interests please go to our TPN index page . A new innovation for our TPNs is the IET TechBite series. These are bitesize technical insight documents coming out…

Former Community Member
The IET YWE Awards -

Five young female engineers working on projects ranging from the next generation of sports venues and stadiums to sound systems in cars have all been shortlisted for the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards 2015. Register now to join us at the ceremony in December!

Former Community Member
Turbo Machinery Remote Monitoring & Diagnostic – Oil & Gas Application

Technical Talk, 21st March 2015, Petaling Jaya Turbo machinery Remote Monitoring & Diagnostic – Oil & Gas Application By Ir. Amir Farid Abdul Majid PEng MIET. GE Oil & Gas Turbo machinery and peripheral equipment for oil and gas applications must operate within specified parameters in order to achieve desired performance, production targets and cost control. Traditional monitoring methods require on-site personnel and analysis, with periodic OEM engineering support. Remote Monitoring & Diagnostic (RM&D) service offers the superior alternative of continuous monitoring by expert engineers with significantly enhanced response times. Diagnostics engineers evaluates actual and target statistics, as well as interrelationships between components, to continuously monitor the performance and safety…

Julie
Students Talk with Scientists

A free online event where school students meet and interact with scientists. It’s an X Factor-style competition between scientists, where the students are the judges. Students challenge the scientists over fast-paced online text-based live CHAT s. They ASK the scientists anything they want, and VOTE for their favourite scientist to win a prize of £500 to communicate their work with the public. If you have a background in physics, whether at undergraduate level or A-Level, and have moved on to a career outside of doing academic research, I'm a Scientist want to hear from you. Apply now by emailing antony@gallomanor.com stating your physics background and include a short two line summary of your work. The deadline to apply is Sunday 27th September. Read more at imascientist.org.uk/scientists…

Former Community Member
New Courses In November

In addition to the introduction of our new online webinars and e-classes , we have three new professional development and skills courses available in November and, as an added bonus, there is an early bird booking discount available until 24 September for these courses. Commercial awareness for technical people The aim of this practical one day course is give anyone in a technical role or with a technical background an understanding of how they fit into a larger picture, why they may be asked to undertake tasks that may not appear to be technical and the impact their interactions have within the commercial context. CDM Regulations This collaborative one day course is for anyone in the procurement, planning design or implementation of construction work (including building maintenance). Whether…

Kathryn Bain
Space UK Conference 2015 Videos

At the recent Space UK Conference, the Satellite Systems and Applications Network took the opportunity to film some short videos which may be of interest to Aerospace community members. These can now be viewed on our YouTube channel. Click here to access the playlist.

Deborah-Claire McKenzie
2015 Best PhD & MSc Best Paper Prize Winners Announced

Please join us in congratulating Dr Vibhav Vineet and Toby Frankau, winners of the 2015 Vision & Imaging PhD and MSc Best Paper Prizes. Dr. Vibhav Vineet of Stanford University, California, won the PhD prize for his thesis paper “Recognition, Reorganisation, Reconstruction and Reinteraction for Scene Understanding", supervised by Prof. Philip Torr, University of Oxford. The best MSc paper prize was awarded to Toby Frankau, Durham University, for his paper "A Light-Weight Monocular Vision Approach for Autonomous Vehicle Navigation", Supervised by Dr. Toby Breckon, Durham University. The award ceremony took place at the 6 th Imaging for Crime Detection & Prevention (ICDP-15) at Queen Mary University, London and was attended by Toby and Vibhav was able to join us from California via Skype. Professor…

Former Staff Member
IET Data Center Power System Design Philosophy

Synopsis In today’s computing world and with the increased acceptance of cloud computing, any failure in a Data Centre can cause major economic and financial losses. Therefore, it is critical to have a reliable electrical supply infrastructure for Data Centres. A recent breakdown of a financial institution due to the failure of the electrical supply system in the hosting data centre has caused much discussions on this subject. This technical talk will discuss the Data Centre Power Systems Design Philosophy covering the Telecommunications Industry Association’s Standard, Singapore Code of Practice and the sharing of case studies on common failure scenarios. The topics include: 1. Different tier levels to co mply with different types of Data Centre. 2. Selection of a design based on the Data…

Former Community Member
Routes to professional registration 7 February 2015

Colin Sellers, IET’s Manager, for Registrations and Standards started the day’s events by speaking about how to get professionally registered as a professional engineer on Saturday 7th February 2015 at the Armada Hotel, Petaling Jaya. He clarified many aspects of this professional registration and the various routes to gaining professional recognition. Being a Professionally registered engineer demonstrates to our peers and employers that we have made a commitment to maintaining, developing the knowledge, skill set and competence required to meet the engineering and technological needs of the modern world. Colin is an MBA-qualified Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the IET. Colin achieved his Chartered status before he was 30 and became a Fellow when aged 38. He has held senior management and…

Julie
Instrument Development And Professional Registration

Steps to Increase Effectiveness in Instrument Development (Especially in Meeting Regulatory Requirements for the Health Care Market) Chai Meng Fee There are so many options in technology, tools and resources which are available to us to develop new products today. So where do we start? Chai Meng Fee, who is currently the President for Agilent Malaysia and with close to 30- years of working experience in various industries and different fields, firmly believes that a set of “good practice” guidelines that complies to the appropriate requirements should be the guiding light. Clearly this can help to lower overall development cost, reduce technical risk, as well the potential to shorten project schedule too. This is especially important when launching instrument product for the health care market…

Julie
Thanks To All For Making this Such A Wonderful Day...

We had a great fun-packed day, tasting some wonderful delights before heading off to the Hallwilersee, which is famous for being the Swiss Lake where Malcolm Campbell set a world speed record back in 1938. Attaching a couple of pictures...

Jeff Hunter
Getting To The Special Event: Combined Networking / Malcolm Campbell Day

http://www.boniswil.ch/documents/Waldhuette_Boniswil_Plan.pdf Coming by Train is quite easy - just head to Lenzburg, walk out of the station, cross the road and board the little inter-village commuter train waiting for you. Jump off at Hallwil train station and then we'll walk some approx 10 minutes to the hut. Alternatively feel free to drive there, but please don't block the road. Check out the nice map ( click on the http link, not the map above). Finally, here's some nice walking links: Route Waldhütte ï ð Wasserschloss: https://goo.gl/maps/D36jN Route Wasserschloss ï ð Seengen SGH Steg: https://goo.gl/maps/nrDJj Route Seengen SGN Steg ï ð Meisterschwanden: https://goo.gl/maps/Tdju8

Jeff Hunter
Aerospace Network - Young Professionals Group

The IET Aerospace Network is pioneering knowledge exchange and networking with peers. It is more important than ever to have Young Professionals ready to lead the way and ensure that the Aerospace Network is the go-to place for knowledge and expertise. We would like to invite you to be part of the first IET Aerospace Young Professionals' Group where you will have the opportunity to: -expand your network -support aerospace events -promote engineering to young people To find out more or to apply as a volunteer, please email us here . Please also help us to promote our recruitment campaign by circulating this flyer and our video .

Deborah-Claire McKenzie

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