CMS Robot wows University VC and others (Dec 11)

Robot holding iPad

On 1st December senior University staff and other officials attended the first fund raising event hosted by our new VC. Each School was asked to present an object to highlight the school's activities in teaching and/or research. The exhibit needed to have an immediate visual impact, be assimilated on a short viewing and be self-illuminating.

CMS technicians, Guy Penwill and Peter Durling, produced an autonomous robot built from Meccano and "Mindstorm" kits that are used in teaching. The robot tracks a viewer's movements and rotates accordingly by using ultrasound sensors to send signals to a series of controllers which have been programmed using Java. The iPad displayed work by CMS students on programmes such as Film & TV Production and Games & Multimedia. It also showed research models from the Fire Safety Engineering Group.
Information about CMS programmes using 'Mindstorm' products in teaching .

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CMS research group (FSEG) reaches final of THE Awards 2011 (Nov 11)

Professor Ed Galea and his team

The Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG) of CMS, lead by Professor Ed Galea, were finalists in the 'THE 2011 Awards' in the category of 'Outstanding Engineering Research Team of the Year'. The award ceremony was held on the 24 November 2011 at the Grosvenor House Hotel. FSEG submitted their work on the design of the futuristic Blended Wing Body (BWB) aircraft which was part of the European Union Framework 6 project NACRE. FSEGs role on project NACRE was to determine whether more than 1,000 passengers and crew could evacuate quickly and safely in the event of a post crash fire and, if so, how?

To address the problem, FSEG combined their fire simulation and passenger evacuation models, SMARTFIRE and airEXODUS. Their analysis took into account how people are likely to behave in an emergency evacuation situation and how fire, smoke and toxic gases would spread throughout this uniquely shaped aircraft. Using the results from their software, the university team worked with Airbus engineers to modify the cavernous aircraft interior in an iterative manner, going through many possible cabin layouts until a viable configuration was found.

FSEG also carried out a 'live' exercise, involving a large-scale mock-up of part of the BWB, in which more than 700 volunteers were evacuated from the aircraft. The evacuation trials verified that the software predictions were realistic and accurate. This work has demonstrated that the BWB 'super plane' concept is viable from a passenger evacuation safety view point, bringing the revolutionary concept one step closer to reality.
More information about FSEG

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CMS student created new CMS comic strip (Nov 11)

Comic Strip Logo

First year BSc Digital Animation and Production student, Shanique Donaldson, has created a brand new CMS comic strip. She hopes that students and staff will find her comics entertaining as well as helping students to understand more about life at university.

She discussed her idea with members of staff who thought that these might help give prospective students an insight into what it was like to study in the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at the Univesrity of Greenwich.
Episode 1: Harvard Referencing

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CMS team help restore Medway Queen to former glory (Nov 11)

Medway Queen

Experts in computational mechanics from the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences are developing computer models of the Medway Queen, which will play a vital part in her restoration.

The historic paddle steamer earned her place in history as the most famous of the "Little Ships" that helped rescue some 7,000 Allied troops during the Dunkirk evacuations in 1940.

The University team is led by Professor Chris Bailey, Head of the Computational Mechanics & Reliability Group. Professor Bailey says: "It is a wonderful challenge to be playing our part in helping this famous vessel return to its former glory. The University's involvement means that the ship's restoration will be a virtual one, as well as physical. Our digital models will be used to predict where the stresses and strains will occur once the ship is actually at sea, and to test how structurally sound it will be under different sea and loading conditions. Engineers will be able to tell at a glance where problems could arise, and this knowledge will be a key part of the overall restoration."

In an earlier project, this award-winning team at Greenwich created digital models of the Cutty Sark, which helped with the ship's conservation and rebuilding.
Official Medway Queen website - More details on University of Greewich website

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CMS Royal Institution Masterclasses (Oct 11)

Computer Model of Cutty Sark

CMS is pleased to announce once again a following series of mathematics masterclasses for sixth formers. The classes are organised by the Royal Institution and will take place at the Greenwich campus on Saturday mornings in early 2012. The provisional programme is as follows:

• 21 January: Paul Hall, Easy Problems - Hard Maths
• 28 January: Tony Mann - Mathematicians Behaving Badly: Greenwich's Place in the History of Mathematics
• 4 February: Graham Hoare - Fibonacci, Prime, Fermat, Perfect and Mersenne Numbers
• 25 February: Terry Heard - Ellipses & Orbits
• 3 March: Chris Bailey - Saving the Cutty Sark: Mathematics and a National Treasure
• 10 March: Kevin Parrott - Maths and the City - financial mathematics

All masterclasses run from 10am -12.30pm in King William Court, room 315 (KW315) - the Burnside Lecture Theatre. If you would like to attend, please contact Tony Mann (a.mann@gre.ac.uk). Please note that attendees are expected to come to every class in the series.
Directions to Greenwich Campus - The Royal Institution

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Maths and Computing in top ten for Teaching Excellence (Sep 11)

'Greenwich's picture postcard location.'

The latest university league tables, published in the Sunday Times on 11 September, has rated the Mathematical Sciences department as fourth and Computer Science as seventh in the UK for teaching excellence.

Liz Bacon (Dean of CMS) says: 'We are delighted once again that the quality of our teaching has been rated so highly by the Sunday Times. I am very proud of the excellent teachers we have here and the outstanding achievement of our students. It is wonderful to be rated the best University in London for teaching quality.'

The University as a whole came top in the capital for teaching quality putting Greenwich ahead of 20 other universities including the London School of Economics, University College London and Imperial College. The Sunday Times concluded: 'Greenwich's picture postcard location offers the perfect place for study.'

The table is based on the National Student Survey, which asks all final year students to rate their institutions on a variety of topics, including the quality of teaching, academic support, assessment and feedback. [Note: as the Sunday Times now uses a paywall, the guide is only available to subscribers.]
Sunday Times University Guide (requires subscription)

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CMS student run society wins website award (Sep 11)

Liz Bacon and Mona Gassemian with students from IEEEGreen.

CMS students, under the watchful eye of Senior Lecturer Dr Mona Ghassemian, have set up and now run a student branch of the IEEE called IEEEGreen. At the end of July they won one of thre prizes in the IEEE Region 8 website award and will now go through to the global competition.

Mona Ghassemian is also to be congratulated on being nominated for the Outstanding Branch Counselor and Advisor Recognition Programme. Her nomination has also been put forward to the global competition.

Finally the society has been named as one of the 'Highly Active' student branches in IEEE UK & RI. More details can be seen on page 11 of the IEEE Webzine.
More details of the award and nomination.

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CMS academic Matt Prichard takes the Yellow Jersey in the University's cycle team (Jul 11)

Matt Prichard

40 members of staff at the University of Greenwich have been taking part in the TFL Cycle Challenge this year. The challenge is now over and the University of Greenwich team has clocked up an impressive 8,454 miles! This is the equivalent of burning 422,700 calories or 1,409 cupcakes and an estimated carbon dioxide saving of 4.227 tonnes

There were some outstanding individual efforts but all 40 members of staff who logged their miles can be proud to have made a significant contribution to the total score and amassing an average of 211 miles per person! In the 11-50 members category the University of Greenwich finished in 11th position out of 152 teams.

The top four riders in the University of Greenwich Team were:
1st Yellow Jersey (General Classification) Winner: Matt Prichard from CMS - 672 miles
2nd Green Jersey (Sprint Points) Winner: Tom Barnes Deputy Vice Chancellor - 604 miles
3rd Polka-dot Jersey (Queen of the Mountains) Winner: Kat Thorne from Sustainability - 573 miles
4th White Jersey (Best young rider!) Winner: Neil Garrod Deputy Vice Chancellor - 512 miles
More details on the Green Greenwich blog - Details of the TFL Cycle Challenge 2011

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Congratulations to the class of 2011 (Jul 11)

CMS Graduation July 2011

Friday 22nd of July (which just so happened to be Pi Approximation Day) was a glorious day for graduation ceremonies. There were four ceremonies for the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences in all and it was wonderful seeing our graduands receive their awards and then spending time celebrating with them afterwards. Even the weather seemed to be joining in the celebrations. Students, staff and guests were welcomed to the ceremonies by Deputy Vice-Chancellor Tom Barnes who also conferred the awards. Addresses were given by The Chancellor The Rt Hon the Lord Hart of Chilton.

Congratulations to all those who received awards yesterday and to those who, for whatever reason, were unable to attend the ceremony. Good luck to you all and we hope you stay in touch with us through the Alumni Association

Graduation Procession

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CMS student wins National Student Employee of the Year Award (Jul 11)

Mark Graham at the University of Greenwich

CMS student Mark Graham (BSc Computer Science) has been named as the National Student Employee of the Year by the National Association of Student Employment Services and Endsleigh Insurance, who recognise the outstanding contributions of students who combine their studies with paid work for their universities.

Mark works as a student ambassador at the university, encouraging others to come into higher education. He has often been involved in our CMS open days and taster days. He also won a second award in the national On Campus Student Employee of the Year category, having already been the regional winner for the London area.

Mark, who says he has previously struggled in education and work, has recently been diagnosed with a number of disabilities on the autistic spectrum, found studying at Greenwich extremely beneficial. He says: 'I feel proud to be studying and working as a student ambassador at the University of Greenwich and want to tell anyone with disabilities like mine that they can do well in life.'

Liz Bacon (Dean of CMS) commented 'This is a wonderful achievement for Mark; we value the work that our Ambassadors do - it is a great opportunity for gaining the interpersonal skills that employers are looking for.'
More details on the University of Greenwich website - Details of the SEOTY awards

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CMS lecturers' work published in Nature (Jul 11)

Essays by two Maths lecturers from University of Greenwich have been published in Nature, the prestigious international journal for science. The pair, Tony Mann and Noel-Ann Bradshaw have each explained an example of mathematics which has found a valuable application which was not initially anticipated.

Tony Mann jointly authored a piece on quaternions, a 19th Century algebraic construction which was thought for 150 years to have little practical use but which has turned out to be central to computer games programming. The current holder of the Times Higher Education Award for Most Innovative Teacher of the Year, Tony is also a National Teaching Fellow. His co-author for this paper was Mark McCartney, from the University of Ulster.

Noel-Ann Bradshaw co-authored an article with the physicist Juan Parrondo from the University of Madrid. Parrondo's Paradox was first constructed to model a quantum-theoretical effect. It shows how given two gambling games, each with a higher probability of losing than winning, it is possible to construct a winning strategy by playing the games alternately. Now, it is used to model the way in which a virus can cause disease and to control volatility in share portfolios.

This series on this unplanned impact of mathematics was commissioned by Peter Rowlett, from the National HE STEM Programme, for the British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM).
Nature magazine - Nature Podcast - Details of BSHM project

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CMS student profiled in industry magazine (Jul 11)

animation of glass shattering

Shafiullah Nizamdeen (Shaefy), a CMS student about to graduate from BSc Digital Animation and Production who recently returned from a work placement at Sony Entertainment, will soon have his work profiled in a industry-recognised magazine. Imagine Magazine will publish an Educational Issue (in July), in which Shaefy's work will feature. His work was part of an undergraduate project and included extensive research into shattering effects in the visual effect industry in which he was able to establish industry-working practices, develop case studies and produce a series CGI effects.

Nigel Newbutt, programme leader for BSc Digital Animation and Production, commented: "the way in which the project has developed in CMS allows for a much more practice-based research approach. What this means is that students can focus on research (in context) and then produce a practical element that is informed by their research. Shaefy's work is a great example of this".
BSc Digital Animation & Production - Examples & video - Imagine Magazine

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CMS lecturer wins HEFCE / UnLtd award (Jun 11)

A CMS lecturer, Nigel Newbutt, has won the prestigious award of Outstanding Academic Social Entrepreneur of the year in recognition for his work with children on the autism spectrum and innovative use of virtual world technology. The award was presented at a national conference "Dare to be Different" in Sheffield, where the panel said that they were particularly impressed with Nigel's remarkable passion and commitment shown in developing the venture.

Nigel commented: "It was an honour receiving this award in recognition of my work. The project considers the use of virtual worlds to engage children on the autism spectrum, and to help their social communication ability. I have also been able to develop my social enterprise skills."
HEFCE / UnLtd awards - HEFCE / UnLtd conference

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Student work on show at National Film Theatre (Jun 11)

On July 14 the British Film Institute (BFI) Southbank, formerly the National Film Theatre, will be exhibiting three of the best CMS student films, two postgraduate (from MSc Cinematography and Post Production) and one undergraduate (from BSc Film & Television Production), at a British Kinematograph Sound & Television Society (BKSTS) screening event for the film industry.

There are twenty five seats reserved for CMS staff or students at the event, which runs 1 - 5pm, and anyone who wishes to attend should email Dr Chris Woollard, programme leader for MSc Cinematography & Post Production, as soon as possible.
MSc Cinematography & Post Production - BSc Film & Television Production - BFI Southbank

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CMS staff win social entrepreneurship funding (Jun 11)

Two CMS lecturers have won grants under a scheme, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and UnLtd (a charity supporting social enterprise), to provide support for university staff and students who want to develop entrepreneurial solutions to social problems. Nigel Newbutt was awarded a grant to develop a virtual world for teaching socialisation skills to young people on the autism spectrum whilst Mona Ghassemian has been funded to develop a remote monitoring system for elderly and vulnerable people living on their own.

Nigel's work in particular has already achieved recognition: he has given an interview about it to CBS Television (USA), due to feature on the programme '60 minutes' in September, and has also been shortlisted for the HEFCE UnLtd Outstanding Social Entrepreneur Award - Teaching Staff, winners due to be announced at a conference later in June.
HEFCE / UnLtd awards - HEFCE / UnLtd conference

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CMS undergraduate wins bursary to RUSI conference (Jun 11)

A CMS student, Massamba Cisse, has won a bursary to present a paper at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) conference on Science and Technology for Security, 2011. The conference focuses on emerging technologies and how they can be applied to security.

Massamba is his final year studying BSc Computer Systems & Networking. His final year project was an investigation of a program he wrote, called Snitch, which allows a remote user to take total control over any number of victim machines within a network. He attends the conference with Dr Diane Gan, his project supervisor and a Director of the Computer Security Audit & Forensics Education (C-SAFE) Centre.
C-SAFE website - RUSI conference - BSc Computer Systems & Networking

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Digital Freeform - the CMS Digital Media Degree Show (May 11)

This year's digital media degree show, Digital Freeform, will showcase work created by students graduating from CMS's suite of digital media, games and film degrees.

The show starts on Thursday 2nd June (6 - 8pm) and is open on Friday 3rd & Saturday 4th (12 to 4pm) in King William Court. Please take time to come and wander around the exhibits including creative websites, e-learning products, digital video, 3D animation and computer games as well as, for the first time this year, a series of showreels from our newly emerging Film and TV students.
Digital Freeform website

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CMS students win Employment & Business awards (May 11)

CMS students have come away with a clutch of awards in recent ceremonies. At the University's Student Employee of the Year (SEOTY) awards, at which student contribution is recognised, Mark Graham won the NASES (National Association of Student Employment Services) On-Campus Student Employee of the Year Award for the University and subsequently went on to win the NASES regional award, for all student employees in London and the south-east, in the same category.

Also at the SEOTY awards Jakob Urban won first prize in the JobShop/GET Creativity and Enterprise category and Nora Kelmendi won second prize in the JobShop/GET Professional Practice Category.

Meanwhile, Shabeer Hussain won the University of Greenwich Business Plan Competition for the idea of a game development company (Desert Monkey). This competition award was the conclusion of a year-long contest in which 9 finalists (out of 220 entrants) pitched their business plans to a panel of judges.

Tony Mann, CMS Director of Resources, commented: "This is a wonderful achievement for Mark, and all the students nominated deserve the highest praise. We can, again, be very proud of our students."
Student Employee of the Year awards - Business Plan Competition

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CMS collaborative centre wins Queen's Award (May 11)

City of London College, a CMS collaborative centre delivering final year top-up degrees in BSc Business Information Technology and BSc Computing, has been awarded the Queens Award for Enterprise - International Trade 2011. The Queen's Awards for Enterprise are highly prestigious awards for outstanding achievement by UK businesses and are presented annually by HM The Queen.

Dr Shazad Yousuf, Director of Studies at the College, wrote to the CMS collaborations team: "I take this opportunity to thank the team at the University of Greenwich who have made it possible for the City of London College to make this happen."
City of London College - The Queen's Awards - CMS Collaborations

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Postgraduate wins runner up prize for best project thesis (May 11)

Moonga Mumba, a postgraduate studying MSc Computer Security Forensics & Risk Management, has won the Runner Up prize for the best IT Audit project thesis in the UK. His dissertation, comparing IT audit approaches in HMRC and the Zambia Revenue Authority, was announced as a winner of the ISACA (Information Systems Audit & Control Association) Thesis Competition at the InfoSec Exhibition, Earls Court in April. Mooga wins a thousand pounds, the opportunity to have his project available on the ISACA (London) website and the chance to have a paper published in an ISACA journal.

Dave Chadwick, Moogna's project supervisor and Director of the Computer Security Audit & Forensics Education (C-SAFE) Centre, commented: "I entered his MSc project for consideration as it was one of the best auditing projects our students had produced. This is an initiative of C-SAFE which is committed to enhancing work based skills and employability of security students."
C-SAFE website - ISACA (London) Thesis Competition - MSc Computer Forensics & Security Management (the new name for MSc Computer Security Forensics & Risk Management)

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Fire Safety article wins Best Paper award (Apr 11)

Members of the Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG) have won an award from the Royal Aeronautical Society for the best paper to appear in their peer reviewed journal, "The Aeronautical Journal" in 2010. The paper, entitled "Fire and Evacuation Analysis in BWB aircraft configurations: computer simulations and large-scale evacuation experiment", described work undertaken by the authors, Prof. E. R. Galea, L. Filippidis, Dr Z. Wang, and Dr J.Ewer..

Professor Ed Galea, Director of FSEG, commented: "I am very proud of all of you. This was an excellent piece of work which brought together both sides of FSEG, the fire modelling and the evacuation modelling teams. It resulted from a large EU funded project we recently completed called NACRE."
Fire Safety Engineering Group website - The Aeronautical Journal

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CMS student wins award for Best Fiction film (Apr 11)

Françoise Ellong, a CMS student studying MSc Cinematography and Post Production, has won an award for Best Fiction in the "Mis Me Binga" (Eyes of Women) Film Festival in Yaoundé-Cameroon, 2011.

NEK is "a short film about the first confession of a particular man to a priest who comes from a great distance, especially for him". Shot in France in June 2010, the film first got a honorific mention in a script contest the same year, before going on to win at Mis Me Binga. The film is currently being distributed by two American VOD (Video On Demand) distributors: ClickFlick and Dream TV.
MSc Cinematography and Post Production - Mis Me Binga festival

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CMS lecturer in round-Britain yacht race (Mar 11)

RBIC yachts

Jesmond Lewis, a CMS lecturer and the programme leader of BSc Digital Television & Interactive Media, is taking part in the Round Britain and Ireland Challenge (RBIC), a unique yacht race which takes around 28 days to circumnavigate Great Britain and Ireland, covering around 2,500 miles. Jesmond is also using the opportunity to help raise money for the Mental Health Foundation to "continue with their great work providing support and advice for those with mental illness and raising awareness of a subject many find difficult to confront".

If all goes to schedule, she is due to pass by the Greenwich Campus on Tuesday 19th April on the way to St Katherine's Dock and back past the other way on the 20th.
Fundraising page - Round Britain and Ireland Challenge - Jesmond Lewis

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Maths Cafe awarded development grant (Mar 11)

The CMS Maths Cafe has been awarded a grant of £5,000 by the Mathematical Sciences HE Curriculum Innovation Project - National HE STEM Programme to purchse equipment, provide training for staff and set up a website.

The Maths Cafe was established in September 2010, with financial support from the University, to enhance the support of mathematics students, particularly at the transition between school or college and university. It provides a venue for mathematical discussions and problem solving, with a range of mathematical stategy games and puzzles available, and weekly puzzles contributing to a termly competition. Information about the Maths Cafe project and other similar initiatives will be discussed and disseminated at a Maths, Stats & OR (MSOR) workshop on July 1st, 2011, at the University of Greenwich.
Mathematical Sciences HE Curriculum Innovation Project - MSOR Workshop

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Maths department rated top in the UK for student satisfaction (Mar 11)

The latest league tables from the Sunday Times University Guide (2011) have rated the Mathematics Department as top in the UK for student satisfaction.

Published annually, the Sunday Times Guide is compiled from the latest data available and ranks universities and departments according to marks scored in a number of key performance areas. [Note: as the Sunday Times now uses a paywall, the guide is only available to subscribers.]
Department of Mathematical Sciences - Sunday Times University Guide (requires subscription)

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CMS student has film shown at Imperial War Museum (Mar 11)

A short film entitled Memories of War - Male Experience, filmed and edited by CMS student Tatiana Biktimirova, has been shown in the Imperial War Museum Annual Film Festival. The film contains interviews with Second World War veterans about their experiences, together with archive footage from the museum and still images.

Tatiana, currently studying BSc Film & Television Production, commented "What I found so fascinating was the personal experiences of those involved in wartime. Also how some identified with their enemies and even felt sorry for them."
BSc Film & Television Production - Imperial War Museum Annual Film Festival

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CMS Royal Institution Masterclasses (Jan 11)

CMS is pleased to announce the following a series of mathematics masterclasses for sixth formers. The classes are organised by the Royal Institution and will take place at the Greenwich campus on Saturday mornings in early 2011.

• 29 January: Graham Hoare - Fibonacci, Prime, Fermat, Perfect and Mersenne numbers
• 5 February: Paul Hall - Easy Problems, Hard Maths
• 12 February: Terry Heard - Conics
• 5 March: Chris Bailey - Saving the Cutty Sark: Mathematics to the rescue a national treasure
• 12 March: Chris Walshaw - How Google Works: The wonderful world of networks, graphs and the power method
• 19 March: Tony Mann - Mathematicians behaving badly: historical skullduggery at Greenwich

All masterclasses run from 10am-12.30pm in King William Court, room 315 (KW315) - the Burnside Lecture Theatre. If you would like to attend, please contact Mr Tony Mann (note that you should aim to attend the whole series, rather than selecting one or two).
Directions to Greenwich Campus - The Royal Institution

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CMS student wins two bronze medals at European Championships (Jan 11)

Husayn Rosowsky at the championships in Moscow

First year maths student, Husayn Rosowsky, has won two bronze medals for fencing.

Husayn travelled to Moscow to represent Great Britain in the European Under-20 Fencing Championships. He won bronze medals in both the individual foil and in the team foil.
News item at BritishFencing.com

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Software Engineers have best jobs says Wall Street Journal (Jan 11)

Software Engineers have the best jobs according to a survey reported in the Wall Street Journal. The survey, published by CareerCast.com, rated 200 jobs based on income, working environment, stress, physical demands and outlook. It also has Mathematicians, Actuaries, Statisticians and Computer Systems Analysts in the second, third, fourth and fifth places.
Wall Street Journal table - Original CareerCast report - CMS degrees (including Software Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Systems & Networking)

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Visit the news archive 2010 for older CMS news stories.