March 2015 - London Metropolitan University
Transcription
March 2015 - London Metropolitan University
Faculty of Life Sciences and Computing Issue 27 March 2015 Edited by Preeti Patel FLSC FLSC would like to announce the recent successful validation with our newest International Partner, Western International College (WINC), United Arab Emirates. We join GFBL in working with WINC who validated a number of programmes in the summer of 2014. Western International College (WINC) was established in 2008 and is licensed by the Government of Ras Al Khaimah through the Free Trade Zone and offers Foundation, Undergraduate and Post Graduate degree programmes in collaboration with its academic partners in the United Kingdom. The programmes we have validated are: MSc Information Technology (DL); BEng Software Engineering (top-up) DL in a synchronous online mode with live interactive delivery akin to traditional delivery mode. There is a global demand for flexible online courses especially in the UAE, where there are many migrant workers who may want to do either an undergraduate or postgraduate degree but due to the nature of their work are unable to attend a physical campus. rom L-R: Andrew Stone (Chair), Vince Hargy (FLSC), Angelo D’Souza (WINC), Michael Ghebru (SoC), Sudhir Kartha (WINC), Habib Rahman (QEU), Anthony Greenwood (external), Raj Nambiar (WINC) For your Calendar The Infinity Lecture Series: An Astronaut in Structure Space Dr Kevin Devine 13th April 2015 TG-30 6pm 5G mobile— evolution or revolution? Dr Mike Short CBE, VP Telefonica Europe 23rd April 2015 GC1-08 1-2pm Editor’s Note Contributions are welcome from all areas of the Faculty—please send to me by the middle of the month. Preeti Patel p.patel@londonmet.ac.uk College students treated to a Chemistry Masterclass The Molecular and Pharmaceutical Science Cluster, School of Human Sciences, recently held a Chemistry Masterclass in conjunction with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). Upwards of twenty AS-Level students from several local colleges attended London Met and worked in the Superlab, performing one of the 1st year undergraduate practicals “The isolation of Trimyristin” which is a natural product extracted from Nutmeg. After they isolated their pure products they analysed them via 1H NMR spectroscopy and Infra-Red spectroscopy whilst being given an introduction to further analytical techniques such as Mass Spectrometry. Prizes were then awarded according to the purity of the Trimyristin produced and answers to some associated questions. Feedback received was extremely positive and Renzo Veschini (LMU Widening Participation Officer) said “It was a great event in association with The Royal Society of Chemistry, hopefully the first of many”. Dr Sykes would like to thank everyone that was involved in the event including the technical staff and student representatives, particularly Zainab Rassoul who was instrumental in making sure the event ran so well. Upward Bound Dr Daniel Sykes, Senior Lecturer in SHS, was involved in running the laboratory classes for the Upward Bound initiative which recently came runner up in the Guardian University awards for Diversity. Upward Bound is a collaborative project, run in conjunction with the London Borough of Islington school improvement service, aimed at raising the educational attainments and future aspirations of borderline pupils predicted C/D in their GCSEs. The project supports students from backgrounds underrepresented in higher education or with no family history of university attendance. Classes are held at London Met on Saturdays. They help make sure that students complete their secondary education with a minimum of five GCSEs at A*-C and can continue on to further and higher education. The sessions are run by specialist teaching staff as well as group leaders and undergraduate students from London Met. There is a high level of pastoral support to address the complex issues underlying the underachievement presented in school. Directly from: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/mar/19/student-diversity-category-award-winner-and-runners-up 2 Working in an Ebola lab: a report from the field Many London Met alumni have pursued great careers and Cristina Leggio is certainly one of them. After she completed her BSc Biomedical Science degree a couple of years ago she started working for Public Health England (PHE), and has recently visited London Met to share her success story and inspire future scientists. In November 2014 Cristina volunteered to be deployed as part of the UK response to the current Ebola Outbreak in order to set up the 3rd PHE Ebola Diagnostic Laboratory in Makeni, Sierra Leone. This lab like all the other PHE labs in Sierra Leone is built within the Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC) and it was designed to process samples both from the ETC and the local community hospitals. Cristina worked in a team, which was responsible for putting the lab together (equipment & stock) and then providing the diagnostic service required to identify and isolate suspected Ebola patients. Cristina’s talk was very educational and drew a great crowd of people, it explained the biology of the Ebola Virus Disease and its life cycle, key interventions to contain the outbreak and her daily tasks in Sierra Leone, including handling Ebola samples with three pairs of gloves! When Cristina arrived to Sierra Leone she had to spend the first few weeks putting the lab together with her colleagues. “We were lucky we didn’t have to pay the bricks for the lab, but that is almost the only thing we didn’t do,” said Cristina. Many things have changed since the outbreak: there are restrictions to population movement (eg. public gatherings are banned), schools and universities have been closed, international companies have left the country, road blocks and temperature check points are in place. “Despite the various restrictions and constraints, my team members were very resilient and positive, we supported each other,” shared Cristina. Reported by Gabriele Butkute, event organiser. 3 Another KTP with a Diamond grinding machines manufacturing company London Met’s new KTP was recently approved in partnership with Coborn engineering company based in Romford. Anglia Ruskin and Hertfordshire universities were also candidates for the partnership but Coborn believes, based on the business case, that London Met is the most likely institution to help the company to achieve their strategic goals and create an innovative culture within the company. Coborn engineering supplies equipment for the diamond tool industry. They design and manufacture industrial precision diamond grinding machines, specifically for the manufacture of diamond tipped tools. They also produce associated machines such as Laser Dicing machines, Planetary Lapping machines, Balancing machines and Scaive spindles for gem polishing. The KTP programme aims to maximise the benefit from the new ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system to improve all aspects of Coborn business which includes stock management. From Right to Left: Prof. Karim Ouazzane (KTP Director), Steven Westlake (Coborn Managing Director), Mark Holland (Research Associate), Dr Qicheng Yu (Knowledge base Supervisor) Interviews for appointing a KTP research Associate took place last January and Mark Holland, a current student on MSc Software Development course was the successful candidate. Prof. Karim Ouazzane said, “Here at London Met we do not offer employment opportunities for young graduates only but also for those who want to change their career path, in later life, through getting involved in some of our courses.” The Guildhall Faculty of Business and Law at London Met will also contribute to the programme by bringing their expertise in Marketing communication. 4 Horizon Student Experience Conference 2015 Gabriele Butkute reports on the second annual FLSC Student Horizon Conference organised by Peter Chalk which celebrates the student experience at London Met. The conference was chaired by Shara Lochun, learning and teaching coordinator, as well as, Jekaterina Rogaten and Amara Anyogu, academic mentors and our alumnae. Several students shared their experiences, which included, internships, volunteering, running student societies and coming back to the university as a mature student. Jack Jackson, 2nd year BSc Computer Science student, spoke about how to get an internship as a student. He was the only second year student invited for an interview and that became his advantage, as he showed his ambition and willingness to learn which got him the job. While most students go to a university straight after school, some decide to retrain later in life. Louise Usher, Science Extended Degree student shared her experience of managing studies and family as a mature student. “I wanted to become a dietician since I was a kid but I was discouraged at school, and in the end didn’t do A levels. I worked in the hospitality business for a long time, however, after having children I decided to go back to the university and follow my dream of becoming a dietician. If there was no Science Extended Degree, I wouldn’t have been able to come back to higher education,” said Louise. Even though the studies take the majority of the time, being at university is more than attending lectures. 3rd year BSc Psychology students Messiah Aissa Korte and Monica Pereira spoke about their volunteering experiences and how that has complemented their studies and given them a wider understanding of their subject. “Volunteering with autistic children gave me an insight into different social backgrounds and developed my skills greatly, which will help me get on a Postgraduate Degree later,” said Messiah. 5 Horizon Student Experience Conference 2015 continued....... Lauren Shepherd, 3rd year BSc Sports Therapy student and the winner of the first FLSC Student Enterprise and Employability Competition, shared her business idea of providing healthy food to gym-goers. Lauren was able to develop her entrepreneurial skills through a Business Developments in Sport module. Jason Krumm, 2nd year, Business IT student, contributed to the idea that students should be involved in more activities than just studying by stressing the importance of networking with organisations outside the university. He has recently founded the Computing Society, which is affiliated with the British Computer Society, the Chartered Institute for IT. Listening to our students is always very inspiring, and the talk by Tolga Karatas, 1st year, BSc Business Information Technology was no exception. Tolga is visually impaired, therefore he uses various computer programmes and Braille to help him study. His dream is to work a software developer and create more assistive technology for blind people. The Student Horizon conference has become a wonderful tradition that not only showcases the talent and ambition we have at FLSC but also inspires fellow students and staff to work even harder to improve the student experience. Other speakers were Andrea Janosi, Ayush Sood, Deppita Mostafi, Joel Amoako-Gyapon, Maren Hentschel, Rand Turki, Alexia Xanthaki and Richard Day. 6 Career crossroads from Evotec VP TheMolecular and Pharmaceutical Science students had an exciting networking event on 13th March 2015. Senior Vice President of Evotec (Pharmaceutical product Development Company) Prof Ian M. Hunneyball gave a talk on the company Evotec and their involvement in drug discovery and development. He also gave a snapshot of skills he had developed over the years. He has faced various crossroads during his career and the decisions have taken him down several different paths, some of them unexpected. One student’s words reflect the feelings of all the participants: “Prof Hunneyball’s career history is a great evidence that with willpower and hard work, no matter how humble beginnings a researcher may have, it is possible to reach to the stars (become a VP). Thank you very much for inspiring us with your precious ideas and reinforcing the limitless motivation and encouragement to our lives academically and professionally. It is gratefully appreciated.” 7 The Computer Society launches The Computer Society recently formed at London Metropolitan University with the aims of connecting students to the industry and organising events for students to promote professionalism in IT, learn more about the industry and to encourage networking with the industry. The society was formed by students, Jason Kumm (Chairman), Bushra Nalbant (Secretary), Adebisi Olaitan Michael (Treasurer) and Mauleshkumar Jasubahai Patel (Publicist). We hosted our first event on Wednesday 18th February called “The Future of IT Security”, with industry expert speakers, Jonathan Care, Research Director, Payment & Fraud at Gartner and Amar Singh, founder of Give01Day and Chairman of the ISACA UK, security advisory group. The event was introduced by Professor Karim Ouazzane from London Metropolitan University, who gave an inspiring speech to guests and encouraged professional development in IT, the benefits of being involved in a society and extra curriculum activities related to IT to enhance a student’s skills while studying. The committee members, Jason, Adebisi and Maulesh then introduced themselves to the audience and their roles as committee members for the society. Followed on by Olivia Tan from The BCS Charted Institute of IT, Olivia is the student member coordinator at the BCS and is the organiser of the Student Chapters, which is a new incentive to encourage computing students to get involved with the industry and other computing societies. Olivia explained the key benefits of the Personnel Development Tool, which allows BCS members to record their activities and goals and keeps track of personal development. Jonathan Care presented his talk “How to live a happy life: 30 years breaking systems, chasing bad guys, and teaching people about Internet Security”. He discussed his history in the industry and how he become a Research Director, Payment & Fraud at Gartner. Jonathan gave key advice to students on how to develop skills in IT security and how to avoid the common mistakes made in the industry. He discussed some real life scenarios he has dealt with in the past and gave advice on how to prepare for security breaches. His advice was to always prepare for this and to consider security as an essential part of design for a system. Amar Singh presented the final talk “Now or Never - Why Information Security matters to everyone and why we need to ensure we get it right this time, or else…” Amar discussed the future of Computing and the “Internet of Things (IoT), or as he preferred to call “things on the internet”, including the rapid growth of connected devices from cars to household appliances and the need to secure these devices; it is expected that by 2020 there will be over 50 Billion connected devices. The industry does not have enough people who are knowledgeable to support that amount of devices, this gave encouraging news for emerging students looking to find work in this industry. After the talk, guests were invited to the Rocket for a social networking session and refreshments, this enabled students form various courses to connect and build professional relations and discuss current issues. 8 Royal Institution—Masterclasses in Engineering The Communications Technology Academic Group (School of Computing) recently hosted three masterclasses organised by the Royal Institution for selected students from schools across London. The masterclasses ran on three consecutive Saturdays in January/February. The classes are designed to show the young students how relevant, important and fun engineering is and to motivate and inspire them to pursue a career in Engineering. The three workshops covered the following themes: ‘Communications Engineering-Making a Radio”, “Programming Robots” and “Computer Networking”. The benefits of the masterclasses include: Building our reputation as delivering the best quality teaching using hands-on workshops Promoting Engineering and STEM subjects in general - inspiring young students to become engineers in particular ‘women in engineering’ An opportunity for the academic staff to develop a “different challenge” by delivering a complex topic which is not part of the schools normal curriculum. Ensuring that students will talk to their friends/relatives about their experience and choose London Met as one of their choices of study. Staff involved in the design and presentation of the workshops included: Dr. Saeed Taghizadeh (Academic Group Leader), Dr. H. Nabijou, Mr. M. Onadim, Mr. James King, Mr. Tarik Molalign and Mr. Harry Benetatos. 9 Communications Technology for Aerospace Radio frequency (RF) technology plays a key role in aerospace delivering critical connectivity as well as sensing functions. The urgent requirements for increased performance, such as bandwidth, dynamic range and resolution, are driving rapid technological developments reflecting in significant engineering challenges and market opportunities. To highlight recent research and innovations as well as challenges and opportunities in this rapidly developing field Prof. Bal Virdee (Centre of Communications Technology, SoC) helped to organise and participate in the IET Enterprise Workshop on RF technology for Aerospace: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities. Keynote speakers were Dr Giuseppe Codispoti (Italian Space Agency) and Professor Vincent Fusco (Queen’s University Belfast). The event took place at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, on 6th March 2015, and attracted delegates from both industry and universities. L-R: Professor George Goussetis (HeriotWatt University); Dr Kafil Ahmed (Pera Technologies); Professor Bal Virdee (London Metropolitan University); Dr Giuseppe Codispoti (Italian Space Agency); Professor Vincent Fusco (Queen’s University Belfast); Dr Chris Mann (ThruVision) Best at RSS One of the most accessed papers in 2014 in a Royal Statistical Society journal was "Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape" (GAMLSS) authored by R.A.Rigby and D.M.Stasinopoulos, who are members of staff in STORM, the Statistics, Operational Research and Mathematics research centre, within the School of Computing. The research centre has a notable interest in statistical software development, involved in the past with the GLIM package of the Royal Statistical Society and currently with the GAMLSS software (an R package). 10 Freshers Fair: Destination London Met The School of Human Sciences hosted the first fair for preparatory year students, called “Freshers Fair: Destination London Met”. The event showcased all the academic departments within the school, such as, Applied Biology, Sports, Molecular and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Dietetics, Food and Nutrition, Biomedical Science, as well as, research carried out by our staff. In addition to the academic areas being presented to the preparatory year students, the event also included support services available to students, such as, Library Services, Student Services and Alumni Office. Ruth Eyob, a training coordinator at the Science Centre, was very pleased with the event and used this opportunity to tell students more about the new work placement scheme. “This is a great chance for students to get crucial experience of working in a lab, and not have to take time off studies. The work placement is a one year programme that carries 15 credits and runs throughout the year alongside studies. We understand that students have many commitments so we try and work according to their timetables,” says Ruth. The fair was organised by the preparatory year staff, and led by Jennifer Jacoby. “We wanted to show the students that we have a strong community and work together to provide them with the best university experience possible”. “I am very impressed with everybody doing an excellent job in representing their departments and making this event such a success, we are already thinking of running it again next year!” added Jennifer. 11 Institute of Engineering and Technology accreditation The IET accreditation visit took place on 26th and 27th February 2015. The members of the accreditation panel consist of three academics and three from Industries across the UK. Our overall score was 4 out of 5 in terms of our standard since the last visit in 2010. The panel commended the group for the high standard of teaching and student satisfaction, excellent student support (specifically PAT and the MET2020 mentoring initiative), workshop resources and our involvement with industry through Cisco Academy and our Industrial Liaison Group. The preparation of the documentation for this submission started over a year ago which could not have been possible without the genuine support of all our colleagues across all academic groups, faculty and university. Dr. Saeed Taghizadeh (Academic Group Leader) would like to sincerely thank all colleagues for their support. Accredited courses BEng (Hons) Electronic and Communications Engineering IET (Institute of Engineering and Technology) Accredited : Partial Chartered Engineering (Partial CEng) BEng (Hons) Telecommunications and Network Engineering IET (Institute of Engineering and Technology) Accredited : Partial Chartered Engineering (Partial CEng) BEng (Hons) Computer Networking IET (Institute of Engineering and Technology) Accredited : Partial Chartered Engineering (Partial CEng) BCS (British Computer Society) Accredited BEng (Hons) Computer Systems Engineering IET (Institute of Engineering and Technology) Accredited : Incorporated Engineer (IEng) MSc Mobile & Satellite Communications IET (Institute of Engineering and Technology) Accredited : Partial Chartered Engineering (Partial CEng) 12 IT Security seminars Professor Hassan Kazemian, Director, Intelligent Systems Research Centre (ISRC) recently hosted two research seminars on IT security. The first seminar ”Individual and group activities simulation in a constrained 3D microworld for capturing behavioural patterns” was presented by a PhD student Pavel Gasiorovsky. Prof. Karim Ouazzane, Paval Gasiorovsky, Dr Vassil Vassilev It described the methodology of 3D simulation of individual and group behaviour in a closed world - from problem formulation through the development of human behavioural representation model to behavioural pattern analysis. Pavel discussed the process of design and implementation of a 3D simulator, which utilizes concepts, theories and existing solutions known from visual analytics and computer games for capturing relevant data for behaviour pattern analysis. Pavel’s research can be applied to security (e.g. detecting suspicious behaviour), as well as, market research, evacuation planning and many more areas. The second seminar was presented by Dr Shafi Ahmed, and titled “Using machine learning to detect malicious webpages”. Modern web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and others detect malicious webpages by checking whether they are on ‘black lists’ that have been created by trusted organisations and volunteers. However, the lists are ineffective because of the frequent-changing nature of webpage. The research provides an alternative approach to these black lists and shows how to use various machine learning algorithms, both supervised and Dr Shafi Ahmed and Prof. Hassan Kazemian unsupervised to categorise webpages based on their features such as content, URL information, URL links and screenshots of webpages. The features can be fed into the machine learning models to detect whether a webpage is malicious or not. Prototype tools have been developed to compare and analyse the efficiency of these machine learning techniques with accuracies of up to 98%. 13 Shadow Auditing The Safe and Local Supplier Approval (SALSA) is an accreditation scheme which verifies food manufacturers’ food safety and quality management systems to provide assurance that these businesses make consistent, safe and legally compliant food and drink. Gaining SALSA accreditation is an opportunity for small and micro food manufacturers, who are some of the most innovative businesses in the sector to trade with the largest food retailers (Sainsbury’s Waitrose and Asda) and food service companies (Bookers, 3663 and Elior) in the UK. Companies are audited to ensure they are complaint with the SALSA standard annually. The audits are conducted by food professionals who have to be members of the Institute of Food Science & Technology’s Professional Register of Food Auditors and Mentors. Simon Doff, Food Auditor in the School of Human Sciences, recently gave students on MSc Food Science the opportunity to shadow him on audits. Simon says that “shadowing a food auditor working in industry, provides students on the course with the opportunity to observe food safety and quality management systems in practice which adds greatly to their understanding because they are seeing theory put into practice. MSc Food Science students Lara Gil, Gheorghe Nicorici and Ayse Kirca found the shadowing opportunity extremely valuable: I was really pleased to assist on one of the food audits I wish they would have done it more frequently along the year and I really hope they consider it as part of the formative course, because students can see how all that theory, reports and investigations done during the year and practical cases learnt in the lectures are applied in real life. Some students have not had the chance to work in the food industry before and this is really good for your CV. Actually, I am now working in the quality department of food company and apart from all the qualifications, I have been told that this visit to the bakery shadowing Simon Doff was a key for the position and I am very thankful for that. I have been working in the catering industry for a while and been audited myself few times by a third party. Now, shadowing Simon and seeing the picture from the other side, it has given me an even better insight, and realised even more the importance of the food safety, and how much I actually enjoy it. This has made me decide to embark and focus on the jurisprudence of food safety and microbiology, hoping to become a food auditor myself in the future. I really enjoyed my auditing experience at the Simply Lunch company with Simon. I think it was great for me because I am thinking about doing health and safety inspection in government bodies. I would recommend others to visit companies with Simon, if they want to be an auditor, to see how it all actually works. 14 Dream Team The NBA/Cisco Networking Academy Dream Team Program has become a valued and enjoyable annual event in the calendar for Computer Networking specialists. This year’s event was held at the O2, where a dream team of 4 top students had been selected to gain real world experience setting up massive networks at high profile events such as the NBA. Dr Shahram Salekzamankhani, Cisco Academy Manager, School of Computing, stresses the importance of attending these events as students have the opportunity to work closely with Cisco engineers to deploy a real production network. Students Abdullah Mohammed (BEng Telecommunications and Network Engineering)and Molina Fabio Andres (MSc Computer Networking and Security with Work experience) were encouraged by Shahram to participate in the event. Abdullah said “Going to the NBA Global Game London Dream Team which is sponsored by Cisco was a very good experience. This gave me the feeling of how to work under pressure and as a team. Also, the main experience gained was on using Cisco products, such as Meraki, switches and Access Points Devices. I would like to thank Cisco, Octagon and Dr. Shahram Salek for this great opportunity, which will be unforgettable.” L-R: Astrit Krasniqi (Cisco Instructor), Molina Fabio Andres, NBA member, Abdullah Mohammed, NBA member. 15 Student Enterprise Nick Gardiner (Principal Lecturer, Faculty Student Enterprise Coordinator) London Met FUTURE events... You can follow London Met FUTURE on Facebook and Twitter. The latest seminars organised by London Met FUTURE have attracted numerous students and received very positive feedback. On 16th February we hosted Dr Bin Umino, who gave a talk “Composing dance using 3D motion data”, which was of special interest to BSc Games Modelling, Animation and Effects students who might be interested in pursuing a research career. Automatic composition software for dance which uses 3D motion data that is captured from performances of professional dancers, has been developed. In the initial stage of this research, the targeted users are elementary-level dance learners. It can generate short choreographic works in three genres of dance: classical ballet, hip-hop dance, and contemporary dance. The automatic composed movements are instantly simulated as an animation. All of which results in an exciting software application, which allows the user to select body parts, and the application chooses the movements. This research can significantly contribute to the education of contemporary dance choreography and help students discover new moves, refine dance sequences and create their own original artistic dance. We thank Maureen Kendal and Nigel Medhurst for their help with organising this talk. How to become a business psychologist It is always inspiring to invite our alumni back to share their experiences and successes with current students. Nick Clench, MSc Business Psychology graduate, is now an associate business psychologist and an executive coach. Nick has worked as an accountant, however, that didn't fulfil his career aspirations, which led him applying for an MSc course and becoming a psychologist. "As a former ACMA qualified accountant in the corporate world, I understand both the pressures faced by professionals today, and the organisational and commercial context of the modern business world," explained Nick. During his talk, Nick discussed the differences between being a business and an occupational psychologist, different career options, business psychology applications and many more useful ideas for our psychology students. Nick stressed the importance of networking and work experience: "Volunteering for such organisations as The Association for Business Psychology can expose to you interesting people to network with and give you work experience which will make you stand out during your job search". Read Nick's blog for more information on business psychology, leadership and coaching. 16 Faculty Enterprise Development Associate Professor Yanguo Jing (Academic Leader Faculty Enterprise Development) reports: FDM Group visits the Faculty The FDM Group is an international IT services company and its recruitment consultant - Tim Brown introduced the FDM graduate scheme to over 20 WOWBiz students on 25th February 2015. Tim very thoroughly explained the benefits of applying for the FDM graduate scheme and how graduates on the programme would be able to develop their career. This was followed by a highly interactive Q&A session. A large proportion of the students have expressed an interest in applying for the scheme. Tim is very keen to make it a regular event to come to the university and recruit students directly from the faculty. London Met students at Metro Bank On 26th February 2015, Associate Professor Yanguo Jing took 14 WOW agency and WOWBiz students to visit Metro Bank in central London. The students met a team of five staff from the bank including the Head of IT - David Nudelman. Students were able to discuss what they have learned from their courses and WOW projects during the group discussion. All students have been strongly encouraged to send their CVs to the bank to apply for their graduate vacancies. This connection has been established by a workbased MSc student of the faculty who works at Metro Bank. 17