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  • Clouds gather on the Horizon

    What does the Horizon scandal say about software testing, standards and accountability? Could it happen again or are we now better prepared and guarded against such human frailty? It isn’t often a TV drama strikes at the national consciousness and changes the law. A famous example would be the BBC’s ‘Cathy Come Home’ in 1966. Now we have ‘ Mr Bates v The Post Office ’. The drama starring Toby Jones, describes the campaign by a sub-postmaster to clear his name and that of hundreds of others convicted of an array of offences from fraud to theft to false accounting. The common factor was the evidence provided by an online accounting system built by Fujitsu. The scandal has gone down as the largest miscarriage of justice in British legal history. The background is this : in 1999 the Post…

  • Innovative infectious disease Professor awarded top Engineering Research Prize

    A researcher leading a new generation of tools and technologies for infectious disease surveillance, testing and care has been awarded our top A F Harvey Engineering Research Prize worth £350,000. Rachel McKendry is Professor of Biomedical Nanoscience at University College London and Director of the i-sense EPSRC IRC in Early Warning Sensing Systems for Infectious Diseases. Her research lies at the cutting edge of quantum technologies, deep learning and telecommunications for infectious diseases and public health. McKendry led the i-sense team to help tackle a range of infections from HIV to the global response to COVID-19, developing new diagnostics and analysing data for public health surveillance. She is also working to transform the ability to accurately interpret HIV results with the…

  • Machine Learning in Medical Imaging and Computer Vision

    Congratulations to Book Editors, Amita Nandal, Liang Zhou, Arvind Dhaka, Todor Ganchev and Farid Nait-Abdesselam and to all of their chapter contributors on the publication of this new IET Book: Machine Learning in Medical Imaging and Computer Vision About the Book Medical images can highlight differences between healthy tissue and unhealthy tissue and these images can then be assessed by a healthcare professional to identify the stage and spread of a disease so a treatment path can be established. With machine learning techniques becoming more prevalent in healthcare, algorithms can be trained to identify healthy or unhealthy tissues and quickly differentiate between the two. Statistical models can be used to process numerous images of the same type in a fraction of the time it would take…

  • Engaging with our Young Professionals Committee

    Our Young Professionals Committee (YPC) recently gathered in Glasgow for its inaugural in-person meeting of this current session. Our 13 committee members are dedicated volunteers from all around the globe, all sharing a common enthusiasm, expertise and determination to enhance the appeal of the engineering and technology sector for aspiring professionals. As the Young Professionals Coordinator and Secretary for the Committee, it was my responsibility to bring together our committee members for a productive weekend. The planning started many months beforehand. Once the location had been decided by the staff team, I researched suitable meeting venues and hotels in the city and managed all of the logistics that comes with bringing together a group of volunteers and colleagues…

  • Radio TechCon, a conference for the UK Radio Community, held at the IET

    Simply Unique. There are several media conferences in the UK each year, but most follow the money, focussing on TV and streaming services. There’s one notable exception, held at the IET in London each year, Radio TechCon. This event isn’t just unique because it focusses on radio, but also because of the values it embodies. Topics covered aren’t only technical, the overlap between technology, social issues and accessibility are regularly covered, and 10% of tickets are offered free to those who would otherwise be unable to attend. It doesn’t exist to make money, it’s there because the organisers believe there should be a conference for those working in radio engineering, and it should be accessible to all. The talks are not just for engineers, they are intended to be useful to everyone with…

  • The Artistic Application of Extraordinary Engineering (IET Central London Christmas Lecture)

    The Artistic Application of Extraordinary Engineering (IET Central London Christmas Lecture) "To understand your present, you must understand the past" explained Mark Dakin, Principal of TAIT, at IET Savoy Place, hosted by the IET Central London Network at their Christmas 2023 evening lecture. The evening was introduced and had opening remarks from Mamta Singhal MBE BEng MSc MBA CEng FIET and IET Trustee. His talk covered how from the Greeks to the modern day, all eras utilised technology in theatre productions. He presented a chronological order (1958 to 2020) of how different technologies were used by the most popular musicians of the day and how mega events fueled the need for technology innovations, whether that be from the technical milestones of 1958 that used electronic lighting…

    Rimesh Patel
    Rimesh Patel

  • Medical Imaging Informatics: Machine learning, deep learning and big data analytics

    Congratulations to Book Editors, Mamoon Rashid, Vishal Goyal, Ali Kashif Bashir and Saqib Hakak and to all of their chapter contributors on the publication of this new IET Book: Medical Imaging Informatics: Machine learning, deep learning and big data analytics About the Book Medical imaging informatics play an important role in the effectiveness of present-day healthcare systems. Advancement of artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and internet of things technologies contribute greatly to various healthcare applications. Artificial intelligence techniques are contributing to improvements with traditionally human-based systems and ensuring that the accuracy of prediction and diagnosis is being continually enhanced. The development of reliable and accurate healthcare models is becoming…

  • 20 ideas for gifts for Engineers!

    'Tis the season to be jolly, and nothing spreads more joy than the perfect Christmas gift. So, how do you choose the perfect gift for an Engineer? And, if you're an Engineer yourself, which of the gift suggestions in our list of '20 ideas for gifts for Engineers' would you love to receive? Let us know in the comments! DIY Electronics Kits : building circuits, gadgets, or small robots. Multitool Pen: A pen that doubles as a screwdriver, ruler, stylus, and more. 3D Printing Pen: create 3D drawings and structures by hand. Engineering Books : technical reads or books exploring the history of engineering. Coffee Mug Warmer: For those late-night design sessions. Puzzle or Brain Teasers: mechanical puzzles or Rubik's cubes to engage problem-solving skills. Subscription to Tech Magazines…

  • Volunteering and you, volunteering and me

    Hi, my name's Julie Hudson and I'm a Local Network Manager in our Communities team. I've been with the IET for over 16 years now, working with volunteers for all that time. I love my job and supporting local network volunteers in the UK with their aims and objectives. Volunteering is such an important part of the IET - we simply couldn't be without you! So, I've written this blog to explain how important volunteering can be for your own self-benefit. We want to make sure you get as much out of volunteering as you put into it. That’s why we can support you in your role by offering a dedicated member of staff to support and advise you and a suite of online tools to help you fulfil our objectives. What are the benefits of volunteering? Volunteering for the IET offers numerous benefits, both…

  • Meet Shinu Yohannan

    Shinu Yohannan works for Turbo Power Systems as a Principal Engineer, which focuses on rolling stock product development. “My role looks at product development, testing, validation, technical documentation and customer support.” Becoming a Chartered Engineer (CEng) Shinu tells us about how he was inspired to become an engineer by his father, who served in Airwork Vinnell (Middle East) for the US Air Force. As a child, Shinu was attracted to all things science and maths, so his father encouraged him to pursue engineering. “During my engineering studies, I recognised that Professional Registration is the highest recognition in the engineering profession globally.” The next step in his career was to become Professionally Registered, as he tells us how he believes that engineers should…

  • Gasping for breath, when a city almost asphyxiated

    On this day in (engineering) history… The Great London Smog, December 5, 1952 Step outdoors on the evening of December 5, 1952 and you will be met by a fog; a sickly, yellow brown fog so thick that in places, such as east London’s Isle of Dogs, people couldn’t see their feet. Over the coming days, it is so dark, you spot policemen using flares to see around them and provide a point of reference for traffic and pedestrians. Soon, you feel your eyes, throat and lungs develop a burning sensation. You start coughing and struggle to breathe. The next day is the same, and the next. The smog will remain stuck over large swathes of London for the next four days. The winter of 1952 was particularly cold . This day opened with a chill bite in the air, clear skies, light winds and moist air at ground…

  • Mission to Mars – Disappointingly Successful

    On this day in (engineering) history… Stephen Phillips November 28, 2023 Mariner 4 blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, bound for Mars It is a fine winter morning at Launch Complex 12 on Cape Canaveral, Florida. Perhaps it is too cold for NASA’s mission controllers to sweat, while they nervously wait for the two-stage rocket sitting on the pad to lift off. Today is November 28 th , 1964, the vehicle is carrying Mariner 4, and at 9:22AM local time, the engines will ignite and (hopefully) send the space craft on its 228 day voyage to Mars. Up to now, there have been six failed attempts to send a probe to Mars, five by the USSR and Nasa’s failed Mariner 3. Mariner 4 now carries the hopes of everyone in the space agency. Mariner 3 made it to earth orbit only for a metal fairing…

    Former Staff Member
    Former Staff Member

  • Hyperloop Edinburgh (HYPED) events - talk & visit report

    The SESAME ( South East Scotland Afternoon Meetings and Events) 2023 events programme continued with a talk given by five members of the Hyperloop Edinburgh (HYPED) team in October with a follow up Visit to the HYPED facilities at the University of Edinburgh School of Engineering at the King’s Buildings campus in November. Both events were organised by our Secretary Ian Smith who also provided the event report below. HYPED is an interdisciplinary student team dedicated to progressing the concept of the Hyperloop transportation system by producing pod prototypes, conducting full-scale research, expanding the Hyperloop community and raising awareness of STEM. The project has been running since 2015 with a team of up to 150 undergraduates of different STEM disciplines, working in collaboration…

  • New IET report explores neurodiversity within engineering and technology

    The results of a new IET report published this week reveals there is an urgent need to make engineering and technology more inclusive for neurodivergent people – and provides practical guidance to employers, managers and colleagues of neurodiverse professionals and external partners on how to build a more inclusive profession. In 2022, the IET conducted a survey within our volunteer community and, of those who responded, 19% identified as definitely or possibly neurodivergent. As a continuation to this survey, we carried out further qualitative research, as well as a series of 10 focus groups with neurodiverse engineers and technicians to better understand and increase awareness of the lived experiences of neurodivergent people within the engineering and technology sectors. The report found…

  • Decarbonising the high seas in two visions

    Challenged by new climate change rules, maritime shipping seeks inspiration in upgrading the past, while boating’s future is charged with lightning… Maritime transport is the backbone of world trade, carrying some 80% of international trade in goods, producing approximately 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions - more than aviation. The eventual cost of reaching net-zero in this sector is expected to be between $2tn and $3tn, $2billion of which would be needed by the UK’s maritime sector. Fuelled by the continued expansion of international trade, the volume of goods shipped by sea is projected to triple by 2050. Under a business-as-usual scenario, shipping’s climate footprint could increase by as much as 250% by mid-century. Special measures To encourage the use of renewable and low…

  • In defence of the supracrepidarian; or, what Thompson did on his holidays

    By Anne Locker The electrical engineer and physicist Silvanus Phillips Thompson had an impressive and varied professional career. He became a professor at the University of Bristol in 1878 in his late twenties. He was the first Principal of Finsbury Technical College , where he also worked as Professor of Physics alongside William Ayrton. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1891 and was President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1889, the same year it elected its first woman member. Thompson was well known for his publications, including Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnetism (1881), Dynamo-Electric Machinery (1888) and Calculus Made Easy (1910) – the last book is still in print. What makes him a likeable as well as impressive figure is that he took the…

  • Nothing in modern life is possible without fuel

    Fossil fuels have both created modern civilisation and risk destroying it. What to do? Decarbonising the power we use to drive our societies is a critical part of the response to climate change and the requirement to reduce our collective carbon footprint. The most visible aspect of this is in transport and what fuels it. Removing the carbon from our power can be done (amongst other technologies) with electric batteries, hydrogen as a fuel, hydrogen fuel cells, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Hydrogen poses a host of research challenges Hydrogen is a key choice for decarbonising large vehicles (the IET’s ‘Destination Net Zero’ report has more detail on this), offering as it does advantages across land- based and maritime transport, with a longer-term potential for aviation. It could…

  • A flight of fancy - 25 minutes that changed humanity

    On this day in (engineering) history… It is a winter’s afternoon in Paris. The sun is shining, there isn’t a breath of wind in the air. These are significant, because of what is about to take place. The date is 21 November, 1783, and at 2PM Jean-François Pilatre de Rozier and François Laurent, the marquis d’ Arlandes will become the first people to fly. De Rozier, a doctor and the Marquis, an aristocratic military officer will rise some 3,000ft (910 metres) and cover five and a half miles in 25 minutes of floating through the air. The landing spot was just outside Paris, at Butte-aux-Cailles. The Brothers Montgolfier The main focus of the story isn’t De Rozier and Laurent, but two brothers who made their living by manufacturing paper. Jacques-Étienne and Joseph-Michel Montgolfier were…

    EngX Editorial
    EngX Editorial

  • Removing carbon from buildings, easier said than done but not impossible

    Building carbon out of the built environment requires a huge shift in culture and perspective. But, like so much else, it is an engineering problem with an engineering answer. Buildings don’t immediately spring to mind when we think of the carbon in our atmosphere. They may not have engines, but the structures that make our built environment create vast volumes of carbon. Achieving net-zero carbon will be very difficult without including the built environment in our calculations. Net-zero is the idea any or all greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted during the activities of an organisation should be balanced by removing a similar volume of carbon from the atmosphere. It is a huge challenge, yet if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change, achieving net zero will be vital. Construction…

  • Hydrogen, hybrids, batteries, and beyond: renewing flight with renewable power

    Powered flight has relied on fossil fuels for 120 years. Changing to renewable energy is not easy…but possible Aircraft have been a vital part of our lives and economy for decades. Because of climate change many of the things we have come to take for granted in the last 60 years are up for grabs. While aviation is not the largest contributor to the atmospheric carbon load, it is growing as demand for air travel increases. Applying renewable power sources to aircraft is tricky. Consequently, there needs to be considerably further development and more variety in the types of drive used to get an aircraft into the sky. One solution would be electricity provided by batteries. The catch is that any aircraft must be weight conscious, but batteries are, and remain, heavy. Nor do they last long…

  • The voice of the nation clears its throat

    The BBC’s beginning was cramped and crowded, with few people hearing it. That wouldn’t last long… On this day in (engineering) history… By Stephen Phillips The year is 1922 and sometime this afternoon, November 14 th , a small group of people will climb the stairs to the top floor of London’s Marconi House . Waiting at the top is a small box room containing a desk, microphone and piano. History hasn’t counted the steps, but will mark what these people are about to do. At 6pm, Arthur Burrows will read the news followed by a weather forecast, after which the broadcast will end, to return the same time tomorrow. This will mark the first broadcast of a London radio station called 2LO, known today as the British Broadcasting Corporation. Let’s rewind to 1894, when British physicist Oliver…

  • Silicon Retinas to Realistic Display Tech - turns out that measuring the human experience is also the difficult part

    I'm assuming that many people in the audience were in the same boat I was at the start of Professor Maria Martini's talk. Expecting a deep talk that started with the hardware replicating the way that the eye and brain see and moving onto the application and display technology that made use of the output from those sensors. Instead our, or at least my, expectation was completely flipped. Not to say that Prof Martini's talk didn't cover the expected topics, but that it dived deep into the unexpected as well. The talk started off with the a brief history of cameras (camera obscura of Leonardo da Vinci) and moving pictures (Zoopraxiscope of Eadweard Muybridge), then moving quickly into a top level, but quite detailed review of the biology behind human vision. It then jumped quickly into the initial…

  • One operating system to rule them all… From nervous beginnings to world domination with one system

    On this day in (engineering) history… by Stephen Phillips It is the evening of November 10, 1983, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. A young man of 28, although he speaks and dresses considerably older, is addressing a product launch event that, eventually, will profoundly change the way people work and interact with computers. The Plaza was playing host to the unveiling of Microsoft’s Windows 1.0. Like so many stories, this one doesn’t have its roots in that wintery New York night. It goes back to the comfortable warmth of Nevada in November, when Gates visited COMDEX, a major trade show held in Las Vegas. Whilst there, he saw Visi On , a software produced by VisiCorp. What caught Gates’ eye was the something we don’t even think about now; a ‘windowed’ user interface. It was a…

  • What is the IET doing around AI?

    Even though there has been a seemingly dramatic rise in people talking about AI and it being reported in the news, AI has been around for a long time and already underpins much of what we do day to day, from household gadgets to helping us send emails. Our latest research shows that the surge in AI has left a third of people fearing the unknown, yet the reality is that we already have three times as many daily interactions with AI than we realise. To give people a better understanding, we’ve exposed the daily hidden touch points with AI that many of us aren’t aware of. With the potential to help people with improved healthcare, safer transport systems and tailored, cheaper and longer-lasting products and services, the opportunities AI represents are profound, across sectors and industries…

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