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This article presents information regarding a workshop organized by the Information Processing in Medical Imaging (IPMI), in 2003. IPMI occupies an important position in the scientific calendar. Every two years it brings together leading researchers in medical image formation, analysis and interpretation, for an international workshop that allows extensive, in-depth discussion of new ideas. IPMI 2003 was held over five days in July 2003 at St Martin' s College, Ambleside-in the heart of the English Lake District. Full papers were invited on any aspect of information processing in medical imaging, with particular emphasis on exploring generic mathematical or computational principles.

In Part I of this paper we have introduced the closed-form conditions for guaranteeing regional frequency stability in a power system. Here we propose a methodology to represent these conditions in the form of linear constraints and demonstrate their applicability by implementing them in a generation-scheduling model. This model simultaneously optimises energy production and ancillary services for maintaining frequency stability in the event of a generation outage, by solving a frequency-secured Stochastic Unit Commitment (SUC). We consider the Great Britain system, characterised by two regions that create a non-uniform distribution of inertia: England in the South, where most of the load is located, and Scotland in the North, containing significant wind resources. Through several case studies, it is shown that inertia and frequency response cannot be considered as system-wide magnitudes in power systems that exhibit inter-area oscillations in frequency, as their location in a particular region is key to guarantee stability. In addition, securing against a medium-sized loss in the low-inertia region proves to cause significant wind curtailment, which could be alleviated through reinforced transmission corridors. In this context, the proposed constraints allow to find the optimal volume of ancillary services to be procured in each region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power system planning is essential for ensuring development of a safe and stable power system. Articles on power system planning have been published in recent decades. In this paper, bibliometric analysis is applied to power system planning to identify its basic characteristics, and to summarize the research hotspots and trends. A total of 4562 publications were obtained from the Web of Science during 1971–2020. The 4562 publications cover 8136 keywords, 1526 journals, 107 countries/territories, and 2519 institutions. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems is the key journal in power system planning; USA, China, and England are the countries that dominate publication production. Research hotspots and trends were analyzed using author-keyword co-occurrence analysis and keyword burst detection. Four clusters were identified and topics from Cluster I (central nodes as power system stability and transient stability) and Cluster IV (central nodes as power system simulation and economics) are important for power system planning research. However, their relative popularities have declined over the past two decades. This indicates that Cluster II (central nodes as renewable energy, wind power, and energy storage) and Cluster III (central nodes as distributed generation and smart grids) will be the focus of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information about the 36th European Microwave Conference that was held at the International Conference Center in Manchester, England on September 10-15, 2006. The event has become truly international event with papers submitted from 52 countries. During the event, all the meetings were well attended with the most popular sessions in the field of metamaterials.

This paper describes the application of an interactive theorem-proving assistant and specification support tool called mural in the specification and verification of a small VDM development. The paper's intention is to give a feel for how mural works and of mural's applicability as a tool in specifying and verifying software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the message of the chairman of the COMPUMAG 2003 Committee. The author states that he is glad to present the selected papers presented at the COMPUMAG Saratoga Springs conference. Those papers are published in the March 2004 issue of the journal "IEEE Transactions of Magnetics." The author also states that the first COMPUMAG conference was held in 1976 in Oxford, England. Since then the society and its conferences have continued to grow in numbers, in significance, in international renown and respect. The author is honored to carry on the tradition of presenting the leading research and thought in the area of computational electromagnetics.

Very short-term load forecasting predicts the loads in electric power system one hour into the future in 5-min steps in a moving window manner. To quantify forecasting accuracy in real-time, the prediction interval estimates should also be produced online. Effective predictions with good prediction intervals are important for resource dispatch and area generation control, and help power market participants make prudent decisions. We previously presented a two level wavelet neural network method based on back propagation without estimating prediction intervals. This paper extends the previous work by using hybrid Kalman filters to produce forecasting with prediction interval estimates online. Based on data analysis, a neural network trained by an extended Kalman filter is used for the low-low frequency component to capture the near-linear relationship between the input load component and the output measurement, while neural networks trained by unscented Kalman filters are used for low-high and high frequency components to capture their nonlinear relationships. The overall variance estimate is then derived and evaluated for prediction interval estimation. Testing results demonstrate the effectiveness of hybrid Kalman filters for capturing different features of load components, and the accuracy of the overall variance estimate derived based on a data set from ISO New England. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an empirical model for the statistical prediction of site diversity gain on earth space propagation paths. A modelling approach is described which incorporates 46 months of Nimrod rain radar data recorded in South England. The dual site diversity (SD) gain is developed as a function of several parameters, including time percentage of average year, site separation, baseline orientation, link frequency and path elevation angle. The model performs with an overall root mean square error of 1.87 dB computed over a wide variety of link configurations with elevation angles ranging from 10^\circ to 50^\circ and transmission frequencies from 16 to 50 GHz. The performance of the new model is checked against satellite beacon measurements as well as the empirical and physical models recommended by ITU-R. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cybernetics is a broad subject, encompassing many aspects of electrical, electronic, and computer engineering, which suffers from a lack of understanding on the part of potential applicants and teachers when recruiting students. However, once the engineering values, fascinating science, and pathways to rewarding, diverse careers are communicated, appropriate students can be very interested in enrolling. At the University of Reading, Reading, U.K., a key route for outreach to prospective students has been achieved through the use of robots in interactive talks at schools, competitions (often funded by Public Understanding of Science projects), a collectable fortnightly magazine, exhibitions in museums, open days at the University, and appearances in the media. This paper identifies the interactive engagement, anthropomorphic acceptability, and inspirational nature of robots as being key to their successful use in outreach activities. The statistical results presented show that the continued popularity of degrees at Reading in cybernetics, electronic engineering, and robotics over the last 20 years is in part due to the outreach activities to schools and the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a novel adaptive battery model based on a remapped variant of the well-known Randles' lead-acid model. Remapping of the model is shown to allow improved modeling capabilities and accurate estimates of dynamic circuit parameters when used with subspace parameter-estimation techniques. The performance of the proposed methodology is demonstrated by application to batteries for an all-electric personal rapid transit vehicle from the Urban Light TRAnsport (ULTRA) program, which is designated for use at Heathrow Airport, U.K. The advantages of the proposed model over the Randles' circuit are demonstrated by comparisons with alternative observer/estimator techniques, such as the basic Utkin observer and the Kalman estimator. These techniques correctly identify and converge on voltages associated with the battery state-of-charge (SoC), despite erroneous initial conditions, thereby overcoming problems attributed to SoC drift (incurred by Coulomb-counting methods due to overcharging or ambient temperature fluctuations). Observation of these voltages, as well as online monitoring of the degradation of the estimated dynamic model parameters, allows battery aging (state-of-health) to also be assessed and, thereby, cell failure to be predicted. Due to the adaptive nature of the proposed algorithms, the techniques are suitable for applications over a wide range of operating environments, including large ambient temperature variations. Moreover, alternative battery topologies may also be accommodated by the automatic adjustment of the underlying state-space models used in both the parameter-estimation and observer/estimator stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) isa particle physics experiment based on the International Space Station (ISS). At the heart of the detector is a large superconducting magnet, cooled to a temperature of 1.8 K by superfluid helium. The magnet and cryogenic system have been designed and built by Scientific Magnetics (formerly Space Cryomagnetics) of Culham, England. This paper describes the results from magnet testing, and the final assembly of the magnet and flight cryostat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the utility of different parameters from polarimetric interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data for the identification of ground pixels in a woodland area to enable accurate digital terrain model (DTM) generation from the InSAR height of the selected ground hit pixels. The parameters assessed include radar backscatter, interferometric coherence, surface scattering proportion (based on Freeman-Durden decomposition), and standard deviation of the interferometric height. The method is applied to Monks Wood, a small seminatural deciduous woodland in Cambridgeshire, U.K., using airborne E-SAR data collected in June 2000. The 1428 variations of SAR-derived terrain models are validated with theodolite data and a light detection and ranging-derived DTM. The results show that increasing the amount of data used in the DTM creation does not necessarily increase the accuracy of the final DTM. The most accurate method, for the whole wood, was a fixed-window minimum-filtering algorithm, followed by a mean filter. However, for a spatial subset of the area using the v3 backscattering coefficient to identify ground pixels outperforms the minimum filtering method. The findings suggest that backscatter information may often be undervalued in estimating terrain height under forest canopies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wide-slot UWB antenna is presented for intended use in the detection scheme being developed at the University of Bristol, based on the principle of synthetically focused UWB radar using a fully populated static array. The antenna's measured and simulated, input and radiation characteristics are presented and compared to an existing, stacked patch antenna that has been designed for the same purpose. The results of this study show that the wide-slot antenna has excellent performance across the required frequency range. Compared to the stacked-patch antenna used in our previous array, the wide-slot antenna can be 3 times smaller (in terms of front surface). The compact nature of the slot antenna means that the detection array can be densely populated. Additionally, this new antenna offers better radiation coverage of the breast. For angles up to 60° away from bore-sight radiated pulses are almost identical (fidelity >95%), whereas for the patch antenna fidelity falls to 58% at the angular extremes. This uniform radiation into the breast should result in focused images with low levels of clutter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design and construction of STARFISH, a series of compact pulsed-power generators to drive advanced Z-pinch experiments, for applications such as soft X-ray generation and as a high-density plasma diagnostic, is being developed in Oxford. The design for these machines is based on the use of many very low impedance distributed pulse-forming lines (PFLs) or discrete pulse-forming networks, which are connected in parallel, dc charged, and switched simultaneously on to a load which may be a wire or laser-preionized channel. This generator avoids the use of very high voltage Marx generators, liquid-insulated PFLs, and magnetically insulated transmission lines that are usually used in machines driving large Z-pinch experiments. Consequently, the generator is far more compact than conventional designs and should be operable at much higher repetition rates if laser preionization is used. The idea is to build a series of generators that can be operated routinely on a day-to-day basis, with pulse characteristics that can be "tailor-made" for specific loads, and be both efficient and reliable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a genetic algorithm-based economic contracting strategy for optimal selection of tenders in the England and Wales standing reserve market. Aim of the contracting strategy; Factors which affect the cost of providing reserve services in England and Wales; Features of the proposed algorithm.

An advanced model-based control technique for regulating the blood glucose for patients with Type 1 diabetes is presented. The optimal insulin delivery rate is obtained off-line as an explicit function of the current blood glucose concentration of the patient by using novel parametric programming algorithms, developed at Imperial College London. The implementation of the optimal insulin delivery rate, therefore, requires simple function evaluation and minimal on-line computations. The proposed framework also addresses the uncertainty in the model due to interpatient and intrapatient variability by identifying the model parameters which ensure that a feasible control law can be obtained. The developments reported in this paper are expected to simplify the insulin delivery mechanism, thereby enhancing the quality of life of the patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on a study which outlined details of the work that started in University of Southampton, England in September 1996 to design, build and test a small high temperature superconducting demonstrator transformer. Background of the study; Some design considerations; Description of the cooling system; Results and conclusion.

This article is a slightly amended and extended verison of a talk given by the writer at Dieletrics 2009, organized by the Dieletrics Group of the Institute of Physics (IOP), London UK and held at the University of Reading 15-17 April 2009. It gives a breif history of the Dieletrics Discussion Group (1968-1974) and the Dieletrics Society(1974-2001) in the United Kingdom and summarizes some of the major advances in studies of dynamics of polymeric materials that occured during that period and subsequently using broadband dieletric spectroscopy (BDS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthworks such as embankments and cuttings are integral to road and rail networks but can be prone to instability, necessitating rigorous and continual monitoring. To date, the potential of remote sensing for earthwork hazard assessment has been largely overlooked. However, techniques such as airborne laser scanning (ALS) are now ripe for addressing these challenges. This research presents the development of a novel hazard assessment strategy, combining high-resolution remote sensing with a numerical modeling approach. The research was implemented at a railway test site located in northern England, U.K.; ALS data and multispectral aerial imagery facilitated the determination of key slope stability variables, which were then used to parameterize a coupled hydrological-geotechnical model, in order to simulate slope behavior under current and future climates. A software toolset was developed to integrate the core elements of the methodology and determine resultant slope failure hazard which could then be mapped and queried within a geographical information system environment. Results indicate that the earthworks are largely stable, which is in broad agreement with the management company's slope hazard grading data, and in terms of morphological analysis, the remote methodology was able to correctly identify 99% of earthworks classed as embankments and 100% of cuttings. The developed approach provides an effective and practicable method for remotely quantifying slope failure hazard at fine spatial scales (0.5 m) and for prioritizing and reducing on-site inspection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study examines how the lean ideas behind the Toyota production system can be applied to software project management. It is a detailed investigation of the performance of a nine-person software development team employed by BBC Worldwide based in London. The data collected in 2009 involved direct observations of the development team, the kanban boards, the daily stand-up meetings, semistructured interviews with a wide variety of staff, and statistical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A final design of a 'coreless' 100 kW HTS synchronous generator, to be built at the University of Southampton is under way. The new generator will use the same conventional 2-pole, 3 phase stator used by for the `iron cored' generator. The new HTS rotor has no central core and the rotor winding is built with 15 double pancake coils. Each coil has 38 turns of BiPb2223 superconducting tape, with nominal current of 180 A at 77 K. In this design, only two flux diverters are used at the top and bottom of the winding to help shape the magnetic field. The coils are located on the inner wall of the cryostat. The construction of the cryostat poses our greatest mechanical challenge. Although we have avoided problems with differential thermal contractions by making the cryostat entirely from stainless steel, the cryostat requires considerable reinforcements. Additional support and stiffening ribs must be welded to the thin-walled structure. Distortion/rippling during welding must be eliminated to ensure the final welds to the ring flanges can be made. The pole-pieces, which help to improve the waveform characteristics of the machine, are located in the warm space between the cold flange of the cryostat and the inner wall of the vacuum vessel. Unfortunately, the overall magnetic performance has been affected by the parallel stacking of the coils. Some suggestions for altering the current stator have been presented which show that improvements to the voltage waveforms can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When business strategists use option-like thinking to inform investments in physical infrastructure, developers need to operationalize leaving the options open at project implementation. This study defines safeguard as the design and physical development work for ensuring, or enhancing, the embedment of an option in the project outcome. Safeguards account for design changes stemming from option exercising if the environmental uncertainties resolve favorably in the future. They range from a design effort to secure space in a master plan (passive) to the construction of an integral component (active). A multiple-case study on the expansion of Heathrow airport shows how the confluence of two contingencies underscores decisions to safeguard under a limited budget. Safeguarding is more attractive when: 1) the assumed uncertainty that the option will get in the money is low because the outlay sunk on safeguards is more likely to pay off; and 2) the infrastructure architecture is modular because only the interfaces between components may require safeguarding. Irreversible investments on safeguards increase the option cost and reduce the exercising costs in the future. Safeguards therefore play out as a control point for strategic option-like thinking at project implementation. The empirical findings are summarized in a conceptual framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote sensing is a major source of land-cover information. Commonly, interest focuses on a single land-cover class. Although a conventional multiclass classifier may be used to provide a map depicting the class of interest, the analysis is not focused on that class and may be suboptimal in terms of the accuracy of its classification. With a conventional classifier, considerable effort is directed on the classes that are not of interest. Here, it is suggested that a one-class-classification approach could be appropriate when interest focuses on a specific class. This is illustrated with the classification of fenland, a habitat of considerable conservation value, from Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus imagery. A range of one-class classifiers is evaluated, but attention focuses on the support-vector data description (SVDD). The SVDD was used to classify fenland with an accuracy of 97.5% and 93.6% from the user's and producer's perspectives, respectively. This classification was trained upon only the fenland class and was substantially more accurate in fen classification than a conventional multiclass maximum-likelihood classification provided with the same amount of training data, which classified fen with an accuracy of 90.0% and 72.0% from the user's and producer's perspectives, respectively. The results highlight the ability to classify a single class using only training data for that class. With a one-class classification, the analysis focuses tightly on the class of interest, with resources and effort not directed on other classes, and there are opportunities to derive highly accurate classifications from small training sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the structure and characteristics of the software engineering (SE) curriculum at Open University, Milton Keynes, England. It relates that the SE curriculum in an open university system is designed to cater to information technology professionals who intend to undergo further studies for the advancement of their careers. It as well discusses the structure and levels of program offerings in terms of accreditation for students in part-time, open or distance learning. The program allows students to develop coursework assignments and projects around their work experience. Furthermore, it stresses that its curriculum is on constant academy scrutiny and is very dynamic as it adjusts to the needs of its geographically distributed student body.

A small high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet has been produced as part of a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion unit to power a model boat. The magnet is wound from 6 pancake coils of Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O HTS tape (BSCCO-2223), and is conduction cooled using an onboard ‘thermal battery’, containing 3 liters of solid nitrogen. The magnet is racetrack shaped, and aluminum electrodes are placed along the straights of the magnet to pass an electric current through the saltwater, perpendicular to the magnetic field. Power for the magnet and the electrodes is provided by onboard sealed lead acid batteries, resulting in a fully ‘stand-alone’ magnet system, capable of up to 1.25 hours of continuous operation on one battery pack. This system was integrated into a model boat hull (approx. 1.2 m long × 0.6 m wide), which was successfully launched on 29th March 2004 at the Culham Science Centre in Abingdon, England. A top speed of ∼30 mm/sec was reached during the first trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the medical imaging research activities at Guy's Hospital, King's College in London, England. Image-guided interventions; Automated image registration based on Voxel similarity; Importance of the joint histogram or joint probability distribution of image intensities; Ability to align three-dimensional models to X-ray and optical images acquired during an intervention.

Explains the principles underlying the New Electricity Trading Arrangements (NETA) in England and Wales and how it fared in its first year of implementation in 2003. Background on the development of NETA; Assessment of whether NETA should be the blueprint for wholesale electricity trading arrangements; Liquidity and transparency of the wholesale markets upon the implementation of NETA.

Describes the upgrading and re-equipping of the Clarendon Laboratory, a high field magnet facility in Oxford, England. Conversion of the space occupied by the old generator; Acquisition of a superconducting magnet; Development of high critical temperature insert coils; Development of pulsed magnets and cryogenic technology.

The operation of cellular network infrastructure incurs significant electrical energy consumption. From the perspective of cellular network operators, reducing this consumption is not only a matter of showing environmental responsibility, but also of substantially reducing their operational expenditure. We discuss how dynamic operation of cellular base stations, in which redundant base stations are switched off during periods of low traffic such as at night, can provide significant energy savings. We quantitatively estimate these potential savings through a first-order analysis based on real cellular traffic traces and information regarding base station locations in a part of Manchester, United Kingdom. We also discuss a number of open issues pertinent to implementing such energy- efficient dynamic base station operation schemes, such as various approaches to ensure coverage, and interoperator coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article describes the research work of Boris Motik, a research associate at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory in Oxford, England. Motik's research focuses on problems concerning the development of ontology languages and tools for ontology-based applications. During his PhD, Motik developed several reasoning algorithms, that allow the application of optimization techniques from deductive databases to Web Ontology Language (OWL) reasoning. Along with other collaborators, he also developed another OWL reasoning algorithm based on the theorem-proving calculus, hypertableau.