Department of CS newsletter

It has been nice to see so many of our new students around campus this week. Many thanks to everyone across our academic and PS teams who have been so heavily involved in planning and running the activities and events that have taken place around Welcome Week for our UG and PG programmes. I know the students and PGRs really appreciate it.

Our first departmental meeting of the semester and the social event after both seemed to be a great success. I suspect that this will be the model we adopt going forwards. The Owls appeared happy too.

Steve Furber is Retiring

September 30th will mark the retirement of Steve Furber after 30+ years at the University of Manchester. Steve’s contributions to the world of computing, in general, and to our own department, in particular, are immeasurable. To mark his retirement, we’d like to invite you all to an informal leaving bash for Steve on September 27th at 3PM in the Common Room where we will be serving the finest chocolate cakes available to humanity (or, at least, to University catering). If you know of anyone no longer in the department who would like to attend Steve’s leaving ‘do’, please invite them!

The link to Steve’s card is here: https://viing.com/v/steve-furbers-retirement

We’ve also opened a collection for Steve’s nominated charity, Hope for Justice, which you can donate to here: https://hopeforjustice.org/donate/

Additionally, on January 12th we will be holding a Festschrift for Steve. I am sure it will be an interesting and enjoyable event celebrating Steve’s legacy. Many thanks to Gavin for leading on this. Please mark it in you diaries.

Congratulations to Alex Frangi

Many congratulations to Alex who is one of 73 new Fellows in the field of engineering and technology elected by the Royal Academy of Engineering at its AGM on 19 September.

The group consists of 60 Fellows, eight International Fellows and five Honorary Fellows, each of whom has made exceptional contributions to their own sector, pioneering new innovations, leading progress in business or academia, providing high-level advice to government, or promoting wider understanding of engineering and technology.

 

Medical Image Analysis. A six-year community effort published by Academic Press, edited by Prof Alejandro Frangi (with a chapter contributed by Prof Tim Cootes) puts a concise, updated, and progressive syllabus on medical image analysis targeting advanced undergraduate and introductory to intermediate graduate courses. Edited with Prof Jerry L Prince (Johns Hopkins) and Prof Milan Sonka (The University of Iowa) alongside a stellar cadre of Section Editors and authors that put together a unique resource. Key elements of the Front Matters can be downloaded here https://zenodo.org/record/8331497, and further details at Elsevier’s https://shop.elsevier.com/books/medical-image-analysis/frangi/978-0-12-813657-7.

Professor Frangi pioneered computational medicine with internationally leading contributions to fundamental and translational medical imaging and image-based computational medicine. He developed image analysis and modelling algorithms based on statistical shape modelling, machine learning, and deep learning to (i) deal with the analysis of large-scale complex and multimodal data where imaging plays a central role, and (ii) integrate mechanistic and phenomenological imaging-linked models. He contributed novel statistical analysis methods to the fields of population imaging (UK Biobank) and in silico clinical trials. His highly interdisciplinary work has been translated to cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and neurological diseases areas, accounting for over 40% of the NHS expenditure.

The “Frangi filter” (1998) to detect and highlight tubular structures in medical imagery is a classical tool in image processing with impact across many imaging manufacturers (e.g., Phillips, Siemens, GE), software companies (e.g., Perspectum Diagnostics) and widely available across multiple open-source libraries. More recently, his work in hemorrhagic stroke combining digital twins and regulatory science culminated in the first in silico trial of a Medtronic flow diversion device for treating intracranial aneurysms, showed the possibility of replicating and expanding findings in three randomised controlled trials or international registries for a fraction of their cost and increased thoroughness testing effectiveness and safety.

Two spin-offs have emerged from his group’s research: GalgoMedical (2013) and adsilico (2022). GalgoMedical, for instance, commercialises adas3d through Circle Cardiovascular Imaging to visualise fibrosis, wall thickness, and anatomical structures during electrophysiology procedures. Mentice recently purchased from GalgoMedical Ankyras, a product for personalised predictive planning of braided stent treatment of intracranial aneurysms for precise and safe implantation.

Prof Frangi is also engaged in government policy and regulations. He advises the Office of Life Sciences (OLS) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the areas of AI in medicine and new approaches to non-animal alternatives to generate regulatory evidence. He initiated and led the InSilicoUK Pro-Innovation Regulations Network, a community think tank with about 2000 members from industry, academia, NHS, regulators, and funders. He led the UK landscape report on in silico regulatory evidence and the first UK economic impact assessment of these technologies.

His contributions have received various accolades, including an ERC Advanced Grant (2023), the NC3R Honourable Mention 2023, IEEE EMBS Technical Achievement Award (2021), and the IEEE EMBS Early Career Award (2006), to name a few. He holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies with joint appointments in the Faculties of Science and Engineering, and Biology, Medicine, and Health.

Alex's Introductory Lecture will be held on the 3rd October 2023 at 11am, in the Michael Smith Lecture Theatre, followed by a buffet lunch.

Please register here to attend https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/717047647817?aff=oddtdtcreator.

 

In addition to the email circulated earlier this week (below) and following an email exchange with the Government Department for Energy Security & Net Zero yesterday, I was informed that they recognise there are opportunities the Euratom R&T programme offers for fission research including collaboration on European level projects.  DESNZ informed us that they are currently working very closely with colleagues in UKRI to ensure that there is a mechanism in place to enable UK organisations to participate in Euratom calls going forward as a Third Country.   It is expected that this will operate in a similar manner to the Horizon Guarantee Scheme which covered the previous Euratom call. 

 

We expect the DESNZ/UKRI to issue guidance on the new mechanism shortly, this is still very much at the discussion stage. 

 

We have been advised that researchers should be encouraged to continue working with their networks/consortium partners on proposals, and certainly existing networks should not be compromised at this time.  However, until we have the full UK position let me know if you have any PIs wanting to participate in Euratom calls and I will try to get further information/clarifiction on each call in case the UK is not going to be eligible for other reasons.

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Following the decision of the UK not to associate to Euratom R&T the government announced on Thursday 7^th September that it plans to put in place an ambitious and cutting-edge suite of new, alternative, R&D programmes to support the UK’s flourishing fusion sector and strengthen international collaboration, in support of the UK Fusion Strategy.

To deliver this package the government plans to invest up to £650 million until 2027, subject to business case approvals.  This is in addition to the £126 million announced in November 2022 to support UK fusion R&D programmes.  Further details on the alternative programmes will be set out later in the Autumn.

The UK remains open to collaboration with the EU and other international partners and this will form a key part of this new programme of work.

The new alternative fusion R&D package will include:

·         new facilities, specifically to grow new fusion fuel cycle capabilities and support innovation

·         a new fusion skills package, to ensure that we develop the skills and capability needed to deliver on our fusion strategy

·         further support to strengthen international collaborative projects

·         other measures to accelerate the commercialisation of fusion including boosting our world leading Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production programme

Given delays to association this alternative approach gives the UK the best opportunity to deliver a fusion strategy driving job creation, investment and growth.  This ambitious domestic programme fully aligns with the core principle of international collaboration in the UK fusion strategy, the UK remains open to such collaboration including with the EU and ITER (the large international fusion experiment being built in France).  However, it was decided that the UK can be of most use to the global fusion mission outside the Euratom R&T framework.

Planning on the new package is well advanced and further details will be announced in due course.

Liz Fay

EU Funding and Development Manager