This is the first in a series of four lectures, bringing together experts from UCL and France to share and compare perspectives on engineering for human well-being.

Through two complementary short lectures, Professor Nick Tyler (UCL Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering) and Claude Dumas (CEREMH) will discuss the work of their groups on both sides of the Channel towards improving accessibility for older people. Followed by an opportunity to ask questions, and a reception to discuss the ideas presented.

Prof Nick Tyler

Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering, Director of the CRUCIBLE Centre for Lifelong Health and Wellbeing and the Accessibility Research Group

Claude Dumas

Director-General, CEREMH, Centre de Ressources et d’Innovation Mobilité Handicap – the French National Centre of Expertise for Mobility

18.00 Monday 3rd June 2013

Location Roberts G06, Engineering Front Building, UCL, Torrington Place

Followed by a reception in the Roberts Foyer

This event is free and open to all, but registration would be appreciated to help with catering. Register online here.

Sponsored by UCL Engineering, UCL Office of the Vice-Provost (Research), and the French Embassy

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The session will present a perspective on how the next energy transition, the third industrial revolution, can be achieved, and discuss how the open innovation paradigm for the development of clean technologies can involve not only technology providers but also community groups, individuals and other, non-corporate bodies. UCL’s input into this process through groups such as the Electrochemical Innovation Lab and the Centre for CO2 Technology will be used as examples.

Agenda:

11:00  Welcome & Introduction – Dr Gabriela Salejova ( UCL Energy Technologies )

11:15  Going low carbon through open innovation – Prof Stefaan Simons ( UCL International Energy Policy Institute (IEPI), UCL Energy Technologies )

12:00 The Electrochemical Innovation Lab – a model for open innovation at UCL? – Dr Dan Brett ( UCL Energy Technologies )

Professor Stefaan Simons’ talk will give examples of how open innovation has led to community empowerment and positive impacts on low carbon behaviour, as well as the controversial topic of reducing population growth.

Dr Dan Brett will show how the Electrochemical Innovation Lab is accelerating research to market, providing a new model for innovation in university-based research and engendering a spirit of enterprise in electrochemical technology research at UCL.

Attendance is free but registration would be appreciated, and can be done easily online here.

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INSIDE THE HUMAN BODY: SEEING WITH ULTRASOUND

Professor Peter Wells CBE FRS FREng FMedSci FLSW

School of Engineering, Cardiff University

During the last century, the practice of medicine has been revolutionised by imaging –  the ability to see inside the intact human body.  Nowadays, the principal methods of clinical imaging are X-ray, radionuclide and ultrasonic techniques.  Ultrasonic imaging has a long history: it uses mechanical waves, usually with frequencies in the megahertz range.  The method can provide two- and three-dimensional anatomical images, often in real time, as well as information about tissue motion and blood flow.  Contrast agents and elasticity imaging are coming into routine clinical use, and research into computed, Doppler and photoacoustic tomography is yielding some exciting results.

The Joel Chair is the oldest established Chair in Medical Physics in the world. It is currently held by Prof. Robert Speller, Medical Physics & Bioengineering Department, UCL, who welcomes you to what we trust will become a popular and enlightening event for the Medical Physics community.

Location: Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre at UCL

Date: 31st May 2013

Time: 5pm

Attendance is free and open to all; to aid in our planning we ask that you book your ticket using this link: http://joellecture.eventbrite.co.uk

The Joel Lecture follows the UCL Medical Physics & Bioengineering Open Day from 2-5 in the North Cloisters. If you are considering attending the lecture, why not drop in beforehand and see demos and displays from the department?

//Thumbnail image by Martin Cathrae on Flickr and made available under Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike license

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Professor Hugh Griffiths of UCL Electronic and Electrical Engineering was chosen from a number of high calibre candidates from across the world to win the 2012 A F Harvey Engineering Research Prize. As part of this, he will present at the 2013 A F Harvey Prize Lecture which will be held on 23 May 2013 at Institution of Engineering and Technology London: Savoy Place.

The lecture, lasting 90 minutes, will cover bistatic radar systems – including the advantages (for example that the receivers are passive, and hence potentially undetectable) of these systems, some of the history of these systems, the properties and current developments in the subjects, as well as the prospects for the future.

Refreshments will be provided, and the lecture is free to attend. Find out more details and register on the IET AF Harvey site.

Date: Thursday 23rd May 2013

Venue: Main Lecture Theatre, IET London Savoy Place WC2R 0BL

Time: 6 – 9 pm

Contact name: Claire Thomas

//Thumbnail image by Casey Hussein Bisson on Flickr and made available under Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike licence

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The flooded Barker’s Tower in York, one of the case studies on the PARNASSUS project. Photo by Carl Spencer on Flickr

The PARNASSUS project, being carried out within the department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering at University College London, investigates the impact of extreme climate conditions, such as flood and freeze-thaw, on built heritage and archaeological sites. Key findings from the project will be presented, alongside work from keynote speakers from other European institutions working in the field.

There will be a dedicated session for anybody wishing to present their own work by poster on the day, and registration fees will be waived for authors.

INVITED SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

• Prof. May Cassar (UCL, UK)
• Dr. Nigel Blades (National Trust, UK)
• Dr. Stephen Garvin (BRE, UK)
• Dr. Stanislav Pospisil (ITAM, C. Rep.)
• Dr. Juergen Frick (MPA, Germany)
• Dr. Camilla Colla (UNIBO, Italy)

Date: 17th May 2013

Time: 9am to 5pm

Venue: Senate House, University of London

Registration Costs: £75 (Full) £25 (Student)

For more information and to register, please visit the PARNASSUS website.

Contacts:

Dr Dina D’Ayala
Dr Yasemin Aktas
Miss Victoria Stephenson

/Photo by Carl Spencer on Flickr, made available using a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

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The event will be held from 2-5pm on the 31^st May in the UCL North Cloisters : see the flyer for further details.  A detailed program of events will be available online closer to the time.

The event will provide a valuable insight into the department, both for potential collaborators as well as postgraduate students interested in the field of medical physics and bioengineering.

We hope to see you there!

Time: 2-5pm, 31st May

Location: North Cloisters ( directions and map )

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Talk abstract

The reconstruction of digital 3D models for real-world objects and environments has become a key enabling technology for a continuously expanding spectrum of applications ranging from engineering and simulation sciences to multimedia applications and entertainment. To make the process of 3D reconstruction effective and efficient, there are two major challenges that need to be addressed:

1. While in principle, a high degree of automation is desirable, fully automatic approaches can easily run into ambiguous configurations that are very difficult to resolve computationally. This often prevents algorithms from finding a plausible solution in acceptable time and usually makes a manual post-processing step necessary. In practical applications it happens often enough, that fixing the flaws in an automatically generated 3D model takes more time than creating the model manually from scratch.
2. The raw output of 3D reconstruction algorithms typically does not contain any higher level structural information which is, however, necessary for further processing such as decomposition into meaningful parts, object classification, or (interactive) shape modification. In many commercial applications, high-quality 3D models are therefore (re-) generated manually from scratch using reconstructed 3D models as a reference template only.

In this talk, I will discuss the above issues and highlight a number of approaches to address the reconstruction and model augmentation problems in the context of real-world application scenarios. This includes the reconstruction of general 3D objects and buildings from photographs as well as the computation of meaningful global patch layouts for 3D surface models.

Date: Wednesday 24^th April

Time: 4.00pm

Location: MPEB 1.03LT ( map , route finder  )

Professor Leif Kobbelt

Leif Kobbelt studied Computer Science and completed his PhD at the University of Karlsruhe in 1994. After a postdoc stay at the University of Wisconsin in Madison he joined the Computer Graphics Group at the University of Erlangen in 1996 and completed his Habilitation there in 1999. Shortly after being appointed an associate professor at MPI Informatik in Saarbrücken (1999), he received an offer for a full professorship from RWTH Aachen University and moved to Aachen in 2001 where he is now the head of the Computer Graphics Group. His research interests cover many areas of Computer Graphics and Computer Vision with a focus on Geometry Processing, 3D Reconstruction, Multiresolution- and Freeform-Modeling, 3D Model Optimization, and the efficient handling of polygonal meshes in interactive applications.

Leif is involved in diverse research collaborations in application fields ranging from CAD/CAM and medical image processing to mobile multimedia applications, simulation sciences, and psychology. He cooperates with research groups and companies in Europe, North America and Asia. Leif’s research work during the last years resulted in widely cited publications in top scientific journals and international conferences. In total he published some 250 papers. For his scientific contributions he received several renowned awards, including the Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz Award 2000 from the German Federal Government and the Outstanding Technical Contribution Award 2004 from the Eurographics Association. In 2008 he was named a Eurographics fellow.

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The UCL Engineering Summer Opportunities Fair gives students in all years the chance to meet a diverse range of organisations. Find out what opportunities companies including Transport for London, Deutsche Bank and ARM, as well as volunteering organisations and NGOs can offer you.

There will be a programme of talks from industry professionals and panels discussing different sectors and exciting opportunities, and you will also be able to chat with representatives about graduate employment, placements, internships and volunteering opportunities.

You can do so many new things this summer – here’s your chance to explore your options.

Time: 17.00  - 19.30

Location: Roberts Foyer and surrounding rooms

The event is free, but please register to help us plan numbers at http://summerengopps.eventbrite.co.uk

   Kindly sponsored by Thales

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UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering invite you to their biannual Barlow Memorial Lecture, this year given by Professor David Mackay, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), FRS, on the topic ‘Energy – 2050 Pathways’. As ever, this will be preceded by a poster session and reception.

The Speaker: Professor David Mackay, CSA, FRS

David MacKay FRS was appointed as Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on 1^st October 2009, a role responsible for ensuring that the Department’s policies and operations, and its contributions to wider Government issues, are underpinned by the best science and engineering advice available.

David MacKay studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College, and then completed a PhD in Computation and Neural Systems at Caltech. In 1992 he returned to Cambridge as a Royal Society research fellow at Darwin College, where he became a university lecturer in the Department of Physics in 1995, and was promoted in 1999 to a Readership and in 2003 to a Professorship in Natural Philosophy. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2009.

David MacKay’s research interests include reliable computation with unreliable hardware, and communication systems for the disabled. He believes that what the climate-change discussion needs is clear, simple numbers, so that we can understand just how big our challenge is, and not be conned by grand-sounding schemes that don’t actually work. His best-selling book, “Sustainable Energy – without the hot air“, has been described as “a tour de force” (The Economist), “a must-read analysis” (Science magazine), and “this year’s must-read book” (The Guardian). More on Professor MacKay.

Attendance is free, but you are asked to register here.

About the Barlow Memorial Lecture

The Barlow Lecture is held in memory of Harold Everard Monteagle Barlow (1899-1989) who was the Head of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at UCL from 1950 to 1967. He invented the H01 millimetre waveguide and is remembered for his many contributions to microwave research for which he was awarded the IEE Kelvin and J J Thompson Premiums, the Faraday Medal, the URSI Dellinger Gold Medal and the IEEE Kelly Prize.

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This roadshow hosted by the UCL-Cambridge Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Photonic Systems Development brings together the UK’s top photonics technology supplier companies, leading researchers and invited speakers for a very special one-day.

What’s going on:

• There is an exhibition of 25 companies dedicated to optics, photonics and imaging technology.
• View latest photonics applications and solutions
• See optical components, instruments & tools
• Join in a conference all about the latest techniques
• There are tutorials and educational forums being presented by these companies and industry specialists

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