July already, and another round of finals examinations ends successfully! I

look forward to announcing the names of STMS graduands in the Canterbury

and Rochester cathedrals at the Degree Ceremonies on 15th/16th/17th July.

Well done and congratulations to all! In this issue, as usual, we highlight

developments within the Faculty, not least the first in a series of inaugural

lectures by STMS Professors. We aim to host 3 of these each year which will be open to

the public. Darren Griffin kicked us off on 20th May with his stimulating talk on Designer

Babies—watch this space for forthcoming events as part of the new Sciences@Kent

Lecture Series. Also worth noting, is the agreement by the University to re-name the

Faculty. From the 1st August 2009, we will be the more simpler ‘Faculty of Sciences’ to

reflect the range of activities at the University which involves scientists, engineers,

medical practitioners and technologists, all working together under the banner of

‘Sciences@Kent’. Like many of you, we will be taking a holiday in August, so the next

bumper issue will appear at the beginning of October.

Until then, best wishes!

Peter

V i e w f r o m t h e D e a n ’ s O f f i c e

J u l y 2 0 0 9

V o l u m e 2 , i s s u e 8

In this Issue:

Bright Ideas

page 4

Living on an academic diet

page 4

A Glimpse of the Universe 2

Award of FIET 2

4th Annual CBMI Symposium 3

Winners of Kent Innovation Competition

4

Dr Andy Hone on Study Leave 4

Mozilla and UK Mirror Service 5

Pigbreeders Conference 5

17th Annual Biosciences Postgraduate Symposium

6

Academic Practice Matters 7

Online Seminar information 7

Published Papers 8

Grants 10

CAPS 11

Space School 11

F i r s t S c i e n c e s @ K e n t I n a u g u r a l L e c t u r e o n D e s i g n e r B a b i e s

The Faculty has initiated a series of

inaugural lectures by new Professors.

We intend to schedule 3 such

lectures each year in a format open

to the general public.

The first of these happened in May

when Professor Darren Griffin from

the Department of Biosciences gave

his inaugural lecture in Woolf

College, talking about human

genetics and his work in pre-

implantation genetic diagnosis, to an

Below: Darren Griffin (right) holding court with the Dean

appreciative public audience. Darren concluded by advising

on the best way to create designer babies and provided to

the audience evidence for his own efforts in this regard

(see left). A drinks reception followed with images and

posters on display from the Griffin lab and the

Department’s Artist in Residence, Annie Halliday.

Professor Darren Griffin joined the Department of

Biosciences in 2004. His main interests are in the study of

chromosomes, principal ly in humans (from

spermatogenesis to pre-implantation development) and

birds. In 2007 he became a BBSRC (Biotechnology and

Biological Sciences Research Council) Career Development

Fellow with a remit to exploit microarray technology for

studies of copy number variation in birds and humans.

The Centre for Astrophysics and Planetary Science (CAPS) has

launched the ‘Kent SEPnet Astrodome’. This state-of-the-art

mobile planetarium allows researchers from the University to

travel out to schools throughout the county to give students an

exciting taste of astronomy without having to use a telescope

in the middle of the night!

The mobile astrodome, which is one of the most sophisticated

in the country, uses a high-definition digital projector to

provide a fully immersive cinema experience which can be used

to explain concepts in space science and explore the universe.

A series of talks and shows have been prepared which we hope

will give students a fascinating insight into astronomy and

space science as well as complementing classroom-based

lessons following the national curriculum. The astrodome can

accommodate 30 students at a time and can be inflated in a

school hall in about 30 minutes.

The astrodome has been purchased as part of the University’s

‘International Year of Astronomy 2009’ celebrations which mark

400 years since Galileo’s first glimpses through a telescope and

the birth of modern astronomy (for more information see

http://www.astronomy2009.org/ ). The dome will be used for

a series of space science shows over the summer including the

P r e s t i g i o u s F e l l o w s h i p A w a r d e d t o D r F a r z i n D e r a v i

Dr Farzin Deravi, Reader in Information

Engineering in the Department of Electronics, has

been awarded the Fellowship of the Institution of

Engineering and Technology (FIET).

Farzin obtained his first degree in Engineering

and Economics from the University of Oxford in

1981 and his M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering from

Imperial College, University of London in 1982.

From 1983 to 1987 he worked as a research

assistant at the University of Wales, Swansea

where he obtained his Ph.D. In 1987 he joined

the academic staff at Swansea where he was

active in teaching and research in the department

Dr Farzin Deravi, FIET

Page 2 V o l u m e 2 , i s s u e 8

A G l i m p s e o f t h e U n i v e r s e f r o m t h e S c h o o l H a l l

University’s Space School event held in August.

The astrodome has been bought with funds from the South East

Physics Network (SEPnet) which aims to secure and promote physics

as a strategically important scientific discipline within the South East

of England.

The astrodome was officially opened by Kent University Vice-

Chancellor, Professor Julia Goodfellow at 1.30pm on Thursday 25 June

2009 in Eliot College Hall where students from St Steven’s Primary

school received the inaugural astrodome talk.

For more information please contact:

Professor Michael Smith m.d.smith@kent.ac.uk 01227 827654 or

Dr David Wilson david@davidmwilson.net 07968 702396)

The Centre for Astrophysics and Planetary Science

of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. In 1998

he joined the Department of Electronics. His

current research interests include shape and

texture recognition, fractal coding, integrated

audio-visual processing and biometric systems.

Farzin is a Member of the Institute of Electrical

and Electronic Engineers and the British

Machine Vision Association. He was the

founding chair of the IET Professional Network

on Visual Information Engineering and is

currently Editor-in-Chief of the IET Image

Processing journal. He also serves on BSI and

ISO committees on Biometric Standardisation.

The astrodome can seat up to 30 school pupils

An image created by the high-definition digital projector

On Thursday 28th May 2009, the Centre

for BioMedical Informatics (CBMI) held its

fourth Annual Symposium at the University

of Kent on the theme of 'Making Sense of

Biological Data', designed to address one

of the current problems facing researchers,

which is how to make sense of the large

amount of biological and medical data

being produced by an ever increasing

number of scientific studies.

Eminent scientists working in the field of

biomedical informatics from around the UK

descended on the Kent campus to talk

about their experiences using various

computational methods within their own

specialisms. Central to the symposium was

the subject of medical genetics and human

health.

Dr. Colin Johnson, Director of the CBMI

and Senior Lecturer in the Computing

Laboratory, opened the proceedings.

Colin, who is involved in a wide variety of

research activities at the interface between

Page 3 V o l u m e 2 , i s s u e 8

4 t h A n n u a l S y m p o s i u m f o r t h e C e n t r e f o r B i o M e d i c a l I n f o r m a t i c s

computing and the biomedical sciences,

said:

"I am pleased that we have been able to

get researchers from around the country

to meet at Kent for an afternoon of talks

and discussions in this exciting and

important area of science. "

A poster competition for research students

and post-doctoral research staff was

judged by members of the CBMI

committee, and prizes donated by the

Dean, Professor Jeffries and the Pro-Vice-

Chancellor for Research, Professor John

Baldock who made the presentations.

Speakers from left: Dr Araxi Urrutia-

University of Bath, Professor David Wild-

University of Warwick, Professor Mark

Girolami-University of Glasgow, Professor

Chris Holmes-University of Oxford,

Professor Stephen Muggleton-Imperial

College London and Dr Alfred Kume-Kent.

T h e s t o r y b e h i n d t h e w i n n i n g p o s t e r

Mohammad’s winning poster

Below: Ben Skinner & Martin Völker from

the Department of Biosciences were

awarded second prize by the Pro-Vice-

Chancellor, Professor John Baldock

My full name is Mohammad-Reza Nasiri-

Avanaki, shortened to Mohammad,

although my friends call me Kamran. I

received my BEng and MSc degrees, both

with Honours, in Electronic Engineering, in

2002 and 2006, respectively from Iran.

Whilst I had the intention of continuing my

studies for a PhD abroad, I was offered a

position as an academic in the Electronics

department of Shahid Rajaei University in

2007. I then went to the Electronics

department in Azad University of Karaj

(AUK), where I established a robotics

group and also, for the first time, a radio

control airplane group (RCA). In 2008 I

was presented with an award from AUK for

success in lecturing. I decided to focus on

a branch of electronics which met my

interest in medical science, hence my

research began in image processing and I

looked for an appropriate PhD position and

was offered a place at Kent on a very

interesting research project. I received an

offer from the medical image computing

group under the supervision of Dr Ali Hojjat

and Professor Adrian Podoleanu for a project

using image processing in skin cancer

diagnosis. In this project, skin cancer, which

traditionally has been diagnosed by cutting

out the suspicious skin and sending it to a

pathologist, is characterized by optical

coherence tomography (OCT) that can

produce a three-dimensional image from the

microstructure compartments of skin. We

extract optical properties of skin

compartments using three-dimensional

image processing algorithms and, by finding

a certain range of optical properties for

normal skin, we detect the abnormal skin.

In the future I would like to implement my

idea to diagnose malignant melanoma, the

most dangerous skin cancer, and also

transferring my little knowledge to students

via lecturing.

I guess now I am in the right position to

make my dreams come true.

Left: Mohammed-Reza Nasiri-Avanaki,

from the Department of Biosciences,

winner of the first prize, received his

certificate and prize of £75 from the Pro-

Vice-Chancellor.

Above: Michael Hughes from the School of

Physical Sciences is awarded third prize.

A team of three undergraduate students from the Computing

Laboratory are the winners of the University of Kent Student

Innovation 2009 competition. Their winning idea was to create

a dynamic web-based service, called 1st Eat, to give local

restaurants the opportunity to promote their business. The

team was awarded a prize of £200 with each member also

receiving a certificate. Team members, Pritesh Patel, Rishi

Ghose and Antony Chia, plan to launch the company in

Canterbury later this year.

Their novel idea is to build an online community of users who

are interested in food through the use of a suite of web-based

collaborative tools. Users will not only be able to access

information, they will be able to add content too, for example,

recipes and reviews. The service will enable local restaurants to

reduce the cost of their advertising. Customers will benefit

through access to a broad range of food-related information

about restaurants in their local area.

The competition, launched in March 2009, forms part of the

student innovation zone, which was successful in generating a

wide range of ideas from students from different academic

backgrounds. The entrants were asked to submit a brief

summary of their idea, followed by a presentation to judges.

All entries were celebrated at an awards ceremony on 18 May,

attended by Carole Barron, Director of Innovation and

Enterprise for the University and Darryl Watts of award-winning

renewable energy company Oil Drum Ltd. Mr. Watts spoke on

the key requirements for developing an innovative idea, as well

as giving an excellent demonstration of the one minute pitch

and presenting the awards.

Page 4 V o l u m e 2 , i s s u e 8

C o m p u t i n g s t u d e n t s w i n K e n t I n n o v a t i o n 2 0 0 9 c o m p e t i t i o n

The team said:

" We feel that the Ideas Competition has helped move from an idea

we had in the pub after lectures one evening to a well thought out

plan of how to implement the business. We are excited about getting

started over the summer and are thankful to all the support we

received throughout the competition from Kent Innovation and

Enterprise.

We would like to give a special thank you to Tracy Crowther, David

Butler and Carol Baron. "

Dr Andy Hone, left, enjoying a break in Dorset.

S t u d y L e a v e — i t ’ s n o t j u s t a b o u t r e a d i n g t e x t b o o k s !

Reader in Applied Mathematics, Dr Andy

Hone is currently on study leave. One

might imaging imagine a quiet existence,

with an academic pouring over piles of text

books. However, this is not always the

case as Andy is finding out. Andy is a

Visiting Fellow at the Isaac Newton

Institute, Cambridge where he has been

taking part in the Programme on Discrete

Integrable Systems running from January-

July this year. In March he organized the

first workshop in the Programme, on

Quantum Discrete Integrable Systems,

which concluded with a special one-day

meeting on Discrete Aspects of Space &

Time, with talks by the Fields medallist,

Sergei Novikov and Nobel Prize physicist,

Gerard t'Hooft.

During his period of study leave so far, he

has attended various other scientific

meetings, including invited talks at

workshops both abroad in Italy and UK.

But study leave is not all work and no play,

as shown here on Andy’s camping holiday

in Dorset last month.

Winning team (left to right): Pritesh Patel, Rishi Ghose,

Antony Chia

Page 5 V o l u m e 2 , i s s u e 8

M o z i l l a h e l p s U K M i r r o r S e r v i c e a c h i e v e d o u b l e r e c o r d b r e a k i n g m o n t h

When the Computer Laboratory’s UK Mirror Service became a

primary mirror for Mozilla in April, it wasn’t expected to be a

record breaking event. However, records were broken when the

largest number of simultaneous connections and the highest

monthly bandwidth were both achieved during the month.

The records were achieved largely due to two Mozilla Firefox web

browser releases, Fedora Linux Core 11 Preview and the Ubuntu

9.04 Linux release. The number of simultaneous connections to

the service topped 10,000 and the month's bandwidth reached a

whopping 213.5 Tebibytes (TiB).

A third record was only just missed - 24th April saw a bandwidth

of 10.3 TiB in a single day, only just missing last year’s record of

10.9 TiB. However, the UK Mirror Service looks well on the way to

topping the yearly bandwidth record which was set last year at 2

PiB.

The UK Mirror Service provides access to copies of freely available

electronically stored information from all over the world and

currently holds over 11 TiB of data. The contents include both

popular and specialist software for most computer platforms as

well as web pages, electronic text, scientific data, audio material,

and static and moving pictures. The service operates by taking

copies of the information from the origin sites (mirrors) on a daily

basis so that the UK Mirror Service is always current. It is also the

official SourceForge site for the UK as well as being an official

mirror site for many other origin sites.

The UK Mirror Service represents the continuation of the mirroring

research and operations that have been performed at the

Computer Laboratory since the late 1980s. The service also

includes technologies developed by the University of Lancaster

during the joint operation of the Service in previous years.

Darren Griffin (Centre) with

Biosciences staff and pigbreeders

For the second year running, the

Department of Biosciences hosted the Pig

Breeders’ Round Table (PBRT). PBRT is an

international forum for discussion of the

use of technology for the advancement of

pig breeding. Over 50 delegates

descended on the campus presenting talks

from a range of genetic, immunological

and infectious disease-related topics.

The conference was hosted by Darren

Griffin, who was aided and abetted by PhD

students Kate Fowler and Emma

Hutchinson.

B i o s c i e n c e s P l a y s H o s t t o P i g b r e e d e r s ’ C o n f e r e n c e

Page 6 V o l u m e 2 , i s s u e 8

1 7 t h A n n u a l B i o s c i e n c e s P o s t g r a d u a t e S y m p o s i u m

The 17th Annual Biosciences Postgraduate

Symposium will take place on the 9th and

10th of July 2009 in Marlowe Lecture

Theatre 1. Year 3 Postgraduate students

will give presentations on their work, while

year 2 PhD and all Masters’ students will

present posters, which will be on display in

Architecture Studio 1. Judging and

presentation of prizes for best posters will

be at 16:50, just prior to the lecture.

This year’s guest speaker will be Professor

Steve Oliver, Director of Cambridge

Systems Biology Centre who specialises in

‘functional genomics, systems biology and

genetic medicine’. Professor Oliver will

deliver his lecture entitled ‘Systems

Biology: A science in flux’ from 17:00 –

18:00 in Marlowe LT1 on Thursday 9 July.

Everyone is welcome to attend.

Steve Oliver’s lab is dedicated to

unravelling the workings of the yeast cell,

using both top-down and bottom-up

systems biology strategies. His lab is also

concerned with developing yeasts as

systems to both understand and combat

human diseases, including through the use

of automated ‘Robot Scientist’ methods.

Systems Biology aims at a comprehensive

and integrative view of any unit of biological

organisation through experiment and the

use of computer models with both

predictive and explanatory power. This

approach is applicable to any level of

biological organisation from an individual

metabolic pathway or signal transduction

cascade to a cell, tissue, organ, organism,

population, or ecosystem. This breadth of

applicability means that Systems Biology

will come to permeate all branches of

biology, just as molecular biology has

done over the last fifty years.

The availability of complete genome

sequences for an increasing number of

organisms has revolutionised biology. This

has not only provided inventories of the

‘working parts’ (protein and RNA

molecules) of organisms, but has also

stimulated the development of

technologies that allow the more or less

comprehensive analysis of gene

transcripts, proteins, and metabolites in a

given cell type under a given set of

conditions. It is the availability of these

comprehensive data sets that has given

birth to Systems Biology. However,

Systems Biology is not so much concerned

with inventories of parts but, rather, with

how those parts interact to produce

working units of biological organisation

whose properties are much greater than

the sum of their parts.

The complexity of biological systems is

such that systems biologists need to

represent them in formal models. These

may be either logical models or

mathematical models, but their size and

complexity demands the use of computers

to manipulate them. Metabolic Control

Analysis (MCA) is a conceptual and

mathematical formalism that models the

relative contributions of individual effectors

in a pathway to both the flux through the

pathway and the concentrations of

individual intermediates within it. To

exploit MCA in an initial Systems Biology

analysis of the eukaryotic cell, two

categories of experiments are required. In

category 1 experiments, flux is changed

and the impact on the levels of the direct

and indirect products of gene action is

measured. In category 2 experiments, the

levels of individual gene products are

altered, and the impact on the flux is

measured. Steve has have used

competition analyses between the

complete set of heterozygous yeast

deletion mutants to reveal genes encoding

proteins with high flux control coefficients.

These genes may be exploited, in a top-

down analysis, to build a coarse-grained

model of the eukaryotic cell, as

exemplified by yeast. More detailed

modelling requires that ‘natural’ biological

systems be identified using a combination

of flux balance analysis with genetics and

metabolomics. In all, there is much to do

to achieve the ultimate aim of building a

comprehensive model of the eukaryotic

cell that has both predictive and

explanatory power. Success will require

the interaction of both human and robot

scientists.

Professor Steve Oliver, Director of

Cambridge System Biology Centre

Tests in different media show that gene interactions are context-

dependent (Harrison et al. PNAS 104, 2307-2312, 2007)

Please allow me to introduce myself to you

in this forum as providing the formal UELT

link role for the STMS Faculty and to

advertise a specific opportunity. UELT's

Academic Practice Team runs a module, as

an option within its Postgraduate

Certificate in Higher Education (PGCHE)

programme,

UN813: Developing as a Research Degree

Supervisor. The module is available to

those who are currently, or who have prior

experience of, undertaking research

Page 7 V o l u m e 2 , i s s u e 8

A c a d e m i c P r a c t i c e M a t t e r s : R e s e a r c h S u p e r v i s i o n

student supervision, or who are actively

involved in a supervisory team in their

department, specifically in the context of

research degree programmes. For 2009

-10 we are actively encouraging such

staff not registered on the programme to

join the module activities for purposes of

t he i r c on t i nu i ng p ro fe s s i ona l

development. The module is open to

research staff as well as lecturing staff in

this role.

Research supervision is a form of

teaching. If you are new to teaching, or

have not studied teaching in higher

education formally, then we strongly

advise you to register for the PGCHE or

ATAP programme and obtain an

introduction to teaching more

generally:http://www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/

academic-practice

This module provides participants with

the opportunity to develop and enhance

the essential skills required for the

adequate training and support of

research students. In addition, this

course provides a safe, supportive forum

for the recognition, discussion and

resolution of problems encountered

during supervision. Indicative topics for

discussion include types of research

degree, the training and skills agendas,

the supervisory relationship, academic

and pastoral support for a diverse

student body, assessment and the

examination process, and variations

across the sector in practice under these

Dr Martin Gough, UN813 Module

Convenor

Lecturer in Higher Education and

Academic Practice

UELT Building, x7419

topics.

There is a briefing session which those

interested in participating should attend, 1-

2pm, Weds. 30 September 2009, in UELT

Seminar Room (please await confirmation of

session going ahead).

For the course proper, there will be five class

sessions between 10am-1pm (with a break,

the typical format for the programme

modules) in consecutive weeks in the

summer term 2010. The sessions will be

largely participatory, forums for sharing

experience and practice. The emphasis for

each will differ, such that it will be possible to

miss one and still be able to attend the

next. It is important, for effective

engagement, that participants do some

preparatory reading set in advance of each

session.

Participants will then be encouraged to

review in context their current practice in

preparation for submitting a piece of work

reflecting critically upon their work and their

environment. This is the assessed

assignment for participants seeking credits

for the programme award and optional for

others, on which they will receive feedback.

Those interested in participating should reply

to me by 28 September 2009 by email:

a.m.gough@kent.ac.uk with the following

details:

Name, School, Post, contact details, duration

of supervisory experience, with different

levels of experience respectively, and

supervisory duties this year.

O n l i n e S e m i n a r s b y W o r l d L e a d i n g E x p e r t s A v a i l a b l e

The University of Kent has an institution wide subscription to The Biomedical & Life Sciences Collection providing immediate access to

over 1,000 talks each specially commissioned from leading world experts.

The collection is regularly expanded and updated. For further information, please contact:

Lea Yaskulka

Manager, Support Centre,

The Biomedical and Life Sciences Collection, Henry Stewart Talks, Russell House, 28/30 Little Russell Street London WC1A 2HN

www.hstalks.com <http://www.hstalks.com>

Tel: +44 (0)8702 360 361 ext 106

*New series and talks include:*

Series—The Cell Division Cycle: controlling when and where cells divide and differentiate:

1. START control in yeast -*Prof. Curt Wittenberg* - The Scripps Research Institute, USA

2. The pRB/E2F pathway - *Prof. Jacqueline Lees* - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

3. Cell cycle control by the ubiquitin system in mammals - *Prof. Michele Pagano* - Department of Pathology, NYU Cancer Institute,

USA

R e c e n t P u b l i s h e d P a p e r s

Page 8 V o l u m e 2 , i s s u e 8

C o m p u t i n g L a b o r a t o r y

Pappa GL, Freitas AA. (2009) "Evolving rule induction algorithms with multi-objective grammar-based genetic programming".

Knowledge and Information Systems, 19; 283-309.

Stepney A, Polack F, Welch P, editors. (2008) "Proceedings of the 2008 Workshop on Complex Systems Modelling and Simulation,

York, UK, September 2008".

Sampson AT, Bjørndalen JM, Andrews PS. (2009) "Birds on the Wall: Distributing a Process-Oriented Simulation". 2009 IEEE Congress

on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2009), 225--231.

Polack FAC, Andrews PS, Sampson AT. (2009) "The engineering of concurrent simulations of complex systems". 2009 IEEE Congress

on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2009), 217--224.

Andrews PS, Polack F, Sampson AT, Scott L, Coles M. (2008) "Simulating biology: towards understanding what the simulation shows".

Proceedings of the 2008 Workshop on Complex Systems Modelling and Simulation, York, UK, September 2008, 93--123.

Simpson J, Jacobsen CL. (2008) "Visual Process-oriented Programming for Robotics". Communicating Process Architectures 2008,

66; 365--380.

Brown NCC, Smith ML. (2008) "Representation and Implementation of CSP and VCR Traces". Communicating Process Architectures

2008, 66, 329--345.

Brown NCC. (2008) "Communicating Haskell Processes: Composable Explicit Concurrency Using Monads". Communicating Process

Architectures 2008, 66, 67--83.

Bjørndalen JM, Sampson AT. (2008) "Process-Oriented Collective Operations". Communicating Process Architectures 2008, 66, 309--

328.

Bonnici E, Welch PH. (2009) "Mobile Processes, Mobile Channels and Dynamic Systems". 2009 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary

Computation (CEC 2009), 232--239.

Polack FAC, Hoverd T, Sampson AT, Stepney S, Timmis J. (2008) "Complex systems models: engineering simulations". Artificial Life

XI: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, 482--489.

Sampson AT. (2008) "Two-Way Protocols for occam-pi". Communicating Process Architectures, 66; 85--97.

Okasha A, Johnson C. (2009) "Agent-Based Computational Economics: Studying the Effect of Different Levels of Rationality on

Inflation and Unemployment". IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence for Financial Engineering(CIFEr 2009), 20-28.

Pappa GL, Freitas AA. (2009) "Automatically evolving rule induction algorithms tailored to the prediction of postsynaptic activity in

proteins". Intelligent Data Analysis, 13, 243-259.

Silla CN, Kaestner CAA, Koerich AL. (2006) "Time-Space Ensemble Strategies for Automatic Music Genre Classification". Advances in

Artificial Intelligence - IBERAMIA-SBIA 2006, 4140; 339-348.

Silla CN, Kaestner CAA, Koerich AL. (2006) "Automatic Genre Classification of Latin Music Using Ensemble of Classifiers". Anais do

XXVI Congresso da Sociedade Brasileira de Computação - XXXIII Seminário Integrado de Software e Hardware, 7.

Strunk J, Silla CN, Kaestner CAA. (2006) "A Comparative Evaluation of a New Unsupervised Sentence Boundary Detection Approach on

Documents in English and Portuguese". Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing, 3878; 132--143.

Silla CN, Kaestner CAA, Koerich AL. (2007) "The Latin Music Database: Uma Base de Dados Para a Classificacao Automatica de

Generos Musicais". 11th Brazilian Symposium on Computer Music, 167--174.

Silla CN, Koerich AL, Kaestner CAA. (2008) "Feature Selection in Automatic Music Genre Classification". Tenth IEEE International

Symposium on Multimedia, 39--44.

Otero FEB, Freitas AA, Johnson CG. (2009) "Handling continuous attributes in ant colony classification algorithms". Proc. of the 2009

IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Data Mining (CIDM 2009), 225-231.

King A. (2008) "Relations, Constraints and Abstractions: Using the Tools of Logic Programming in the Security Industry". Proceedings

on Logic-Based Methods in Programming Environments, 1--7.

T h e S c h o o l o f P h y s i c a l S c i e n c e s

Knauth P, Chadwick AV, Lippens PE, Auer G, 2009, “EXAFS Study of Dopant Ions with Different Charges in Nanocrystalline Anatase:

Evidence for Space-Charge Segregation of Acceptor Ions”, ChemPhysChem, 10; 1238-1246.

West MJ, Went MJ, 2009, “The spectroscopic detection of drugs of abuse on textile fibres after recovery with adhesive lifters”, Forensic

Science International, 189; 100-103.

Afify ND, Dalba G, Rocca F, 2009, “XRD and EXAFS studies on the structure of Er3+-doped SiO2-HfO2 glass-ceramic waveguides: Er3+-

activated HfO2 nanocrystals” Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 42; 115416-115427.

R e c e n t P u b l i s h e d P a p e r s

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Lottierzo M, Tse Sum Bui B,, Leech HK, Warren MJ, Marquet A, Rigby SEJ. (2009). “Iron-sulfur cluster dynamics in biotin synthase:

A new [2FE-2S] 1+ cluster. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communication 381; 487-490.

Payne AM, Stephenson JE, Morris WB, Tempest HG, .Mileham A, Griffin DK. (2009) “The use of an e-learning constructivist solution

in workplace learning”. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 39; 548-553.

Jenkins DC, Pearson DS, Harvey A, Slyvester ID, Geeves MA, Pinheiro TJT. (2009). “Rapid folding of the prion protein captured by

pressure-jump” European Biophysical Journal 38; 625-635.

Innocenti A, Winum JY, Hall RA, Mühlschlegel FA, Scozzafava A, Supuran CT. (2009). “Carbonic anhydrase inhibitors. Inhibition for

the fungal β-carbonic anhydrases from Candida albicansand Crytococcus neoformans with boronic acids”. Bioorganic & Medicinal

Chemistry Letters 19; 2642-2645.

Cottier F, Mühlschlegel FA. (2009). “Sensing the environment: Response of Candida albicans to the X factor”. Federation of

European Microbiological Societies; 295; 1-9.

Rowe ML, Ruddock LW, Kelly G, Schmidt JM, Williamson RA, Howard MJ. (2009) “Solution structure and dynamics of ERp18, a small

endoplasmic reticulum resident Oxidoreductase”. Biochemistry, 48; 4596-4606.

D e p a r t m e n t o f B i o s c i e n c e s

R e c e n t G r a n t s A w a r d e d

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D e p a r t m e n t o f B i o s c i e n c e s

D e p a r t m e n t o f E l e c t r o n i c s

Professor Martin Warren has been awarded £1,440 for a vacation studentship for Vitoria Thompson by the Wellcome Trust.

Professor Alistair Mathie has been awarded £41,725 for a Fellowship for Dr Ziaoju Shi by the Daphne Jackson Trust.

Mrs Funmi Oduniyi has been awarded £39,891 for an impact assessment of a community pharmacy based weight management service

by the City and Hackney Primary Care Trust.

M e d w a y S c h o o l o f P h a r m a c y

Professor Yong Yan and Dr Gang Lu have been awarded £169,067 for research entitled ‘Oxyfuel combustion: academic programme for

the UK’ by the EPSRC Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council via the University of Leeds.

Professor David Chadwick has been awarded £25,000 for a Review of Open Access by the University of Edinburgh (JISC).

David Soud (Kent IT clinic) has been awarded £9,965 for creation of software interface for the Trixbox system by PhoneCoach Ltd.

David Soud (Kent IT clinic) has been awarded £2,400 for KITC support by P De Jager and Sons Ltd.

David Soud (Kent IT clinic) has been awarded £1,400 for the Implementation of the design of an information distribution website by

Philip Wicker Ltd.

David Soud (Kent IT clinic) has been awarded £2,085 for a project entitled ‘Taxi Booking’ by Allport Cars.

David Soud (Kent IT clinic) has been awarded £940 for Telephone and computer remote support only by Amacsports Ltd.

David Soud (Kent IT clinic) has been awarded £1,200 for the redesign of the website by Professional Investment Tools Ltd.

David Soud (Kent IT clinic) has been awarded £975 for a project entitled ‘Development of Community Adult Living Program (CALP) by

The Royal School for Deaf Children Margate.

David Soud (Kent IT clinic) has been awarded £2,660 for Blackberry configuration from the East Kent Hospitals Trust.

C o m p u t i n g L a b o r a t o r y

I n s t i t u t e o f M a t h e m a t i c s , S t a t i s t i c s a n d A c t u a r i a l S c i e n c e

Dr Andy Hone has been awarded £2,500 for a vacation bursary in Mathematical Biology by the BBSRC Biotechnology and Biological

Sciences Research Council.

Dr Gavin Brown and O Kedzierski have been awarded £750 for research entitled ‘Quotient Singularities and Teid’s Orbifold plurigenus

formula by the British Council.

Dr James Shank has been awarded £950 for research entitled ‘On the ring of invariants of the third symmetric power representation of

SL(2,p) by the Royal Society.

T h e S c h o o l o f P h y s i c a l S c i e n c e s

Dr Dirk Froebrich has been awarded £1,980 for research entitled ‘Narrow-band imaging survey of the inner galactic plane by the

Science and Facilities Technology Council.

Editor— Joanna Walpole University of Kent Marlowe Building Canterbury Kent CT2 7NR

For further information contact: J.L.Walpole@kent.ac.uk 01227 82 7833 For back issues follow the link:-

www . k e n t . a c . u k

Page 11 V o l u m e 2 , i s s u e 8

H o r s e h e a d N e b u l a

Although clouds are rapidly altering complex structures, the

human imagination wastes little time in finding a

corresponding pattern within our memory banks. Interstellar

clouds can take millions of years before their appearance is

altered. In fact, the background lighting might change first.

Hence various animal shapes can be found more or less

permanently in outer space but none are quite so spectacular

as the Horsehead Nebula shown here. Although it might

appear to more closely resemble the Loch Ness Monster, it is

in fact, an extremely dense cloud lying in front of warm

ionized hydrogen gas that provides the pink glow in this

image. It is the closest cloud to the Sun which has been

sculpted by the intense light from massive stars almost to the

shape of a pillar. The Star Formation group in the Centre for

Astrophysics and Planetary Science is understanding the

evolution of such clouds through computer simulations such as

those presented by Dr. Jingqi Miao in the Astrophysical

Journal, Volume 692, Issue 1, pp. 382-401 (2009).

(see also http://astro.kent.ac.uk/toppagef i les/

astroresearch.htm ). (image: Nigel Sharp/NOAO).

Professor Michael Smith, Professor of Astronomy.

School of Physical Sciences

Newsletter online: http://www.kent.ac.uk/stms/newsletters/index.html

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