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Let’s Get Statted

Let’s get statted

source: www.cam.ac.uk

With more information than ever at our fingertips, statisticians are vital to innumerable fields and industries. Welcome to the world of the datarati, where humans and machines team up to crunch the numbers.

It fills hard drives, but to extract value from it, we need methods that learn patterns in the data and allow us to make predictions and intelligent decisions

Zoubin Ghahramani

“I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians, and I’m not kidding,” Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google famously observed in 2009. It seems a difficult assertion to take seriously, but six years on, there is little question that their skills are at a premium.

Indeed, we may need statisticians now more than at any time in our history. Even compared with a decade ago, we can now gather, produce and consume unimaginably large quantities of information. As Varian predicted, statisticians who can crunch these numbers are all the rage. A new discipline, ‘Data Science’, which fuses statistics and computational work, has emerged.

“People are awash in data,” reflects Zoubin Ghahramani, Professor of Information Engineering at Cambridge. “This is occurring across industry, it’s changing society as we become more digitally connected, and it’s true of the sciences as well, where fields like biology and astronomy generate vast amounts of data.”

Over the past few years, Richard Samworth, Professor of Statistics, has watched the datarati step out from the shadows. “It’s probably fair to say that statistics didn’t have the world’s best PR for quite a long time,” he says. “Since this explosion in the amount of data that we can collect and store, opportunities have arisen to answer questions we previously had no hope of being able to address. These demand an awful lot of new statistical techniques.”

‘Big data’ is most obviously relevant to the sciences, where large volumes of information are gathered to answer questions in fields such as genetics, astronomy and particle physics, but it also has more familiar applications. Transport authorities gather data from electronic ticketing systems like Oyster cards to understand more about passenger movements; supermarkets closely monitor customer transactions to react to shoppers’ predilections. As users of social media, many of us disclose data about ourselves that is as valuable to marketing as it is relevant to psychoanalytics. Increasingly, we are also ‘lifeloggers’, monitoring our own behaviour, health, diet and fitness, through smart technology.

This information, as Ghahramani points out, is no use on its own: “It fills hard drives, but to extract value from it, we need methods that learn patterns in the data and allow us to make predictions and intelligent decisions.” This is what statisticians, computer scientists and machine learning specialists bring to the party – they build algorithms, which are coded as computer software, to see patterns. At root, the datarati are interpreters.

Despite their ‘sexy’ new image, however, not enough data scientists exist to meet this rocketing demand. Could some aspects of the interpretation be automated using artificial intelligence instead, Ghahramani wondered? And so, in 2014 and with funding from Google, the first incarnation of The Automatic Statistician was launched online. Despite minimal publicity, 3,000 users uploaded datasets to it within a few months.

Once fed a dataset, the Automatic Statistician assesses it against various statistical models, interprets the data and – uniquely – translates this interpretation into a short report of readable English. It does this without human intervention, drawing on an open-ended ‘grammar’ of statistical models. It is also deliberately conservative, only basing its assessments on sound statistical methodology, and even critiquing its own approach.

Ghahramani and his team are now refining the system to cope with the messy, incomplete nature of real-world data, and also plan to develop its base of knowledge and to offer interactive reports. In the longer term, they hope that the Automatic Statistician will learn from its own work: “The idea is that it will look at a new dataset and say, ‘Ah, I’ve seen this kind of thing before, so maybe I should check the model I used last time’,” he explains.

While automated systems rely on existing models, new algorithms are needed to extract useful information from evolving and expanding datasets. Here, the role of human statisticians is vital.

To characterise the problem, Samworth presents a then-and-now comparison. During the past century, a typical statistical problem might, for instance, have been to understand the relationship between the initial speed and stopping distance of cars based on a sample size of 50.

These days, however, we can record information on a huge number of variables at once – the weather, road surface, make of car, wind direction, and so on. Although the extra information has the potential to yield better models and reduce uncertainty, in many areas, the number of features measured is so high it may even exceed the number of observations. Identifying appropriate models in this context is a serious challenge, which requires the development of new algorithms.

To resolve this, statisticians rely on a principle called ‘sparsity’; the idea that only a few bits of the dataset are really important. The statistician identifies these needles in the haystack. Various algorithms have been developed to select the important variables, so that the initial sprawl of information starts to become manageable and patterns can be extracted.

Together with his colleague Dr Rajen Shah in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, Samworth has developed a method for refining any such variable selection technique called ‘Complementary Pairs Stability Selection’. This applies the original method to random subsamples of the data instead of the whole, and does this over and over again. Eventually, the variables that appear on a high proportion of the subsamples emerge as those meriting further attention.

Scanning Google Scholar for citations of the paper in which this was proposed, Samworth finds that his algorithm has been used in numerous research projects. One looks at how to improve fundraising for disaster zones, another examines potential biomarkers for breast cancer survival, and a third identifies risk factors connected with childhood malnutrition.

How does he feel when he sees his work being applied so far and wide? “It’s funny,” he says. “My training is in mathematics and I still get a kick from proving a theorem, but it’s also rewarding to see people using your work. It’s often said that the good thing about being a statistician is that you get to play in everyone’s back yard. I suppose this demonstrates why that’s true.”

Inset image: left to right, Zoubin Ghahramani and Richard Samworth

– See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/lets-get-statted#sthash.oqytgHt8.dpuf

The Economic Roots of Independence Movements

The Economic Roots of Independence Movements

source: www.cam.ac.uk

Ivan Rajic’s interest in the economic roots of independence movements is based on his personal experience of growing up in Belgrade.

“What caused the war in Yugoslavia was the domestic elites manipulating people into hating and fearing each other, combined with a very healthy dose of Western elites engaging in divide-and-conquer imperialism.”

Ivan Rajic

In 1999, NATO bombs rained down on Belgrade, hitting various targets including a TV centre just 300 metres from Ivan Rajic’s flat.

His mother lived in fear that a neighbouring newspaper office would be next on the list. His father, meanwhile, was documenting the situation in a daily diary for a Norwegian newspaper. The series of articles was later published as a book, which Ivan has recently translated into Serbo-Croat. The diary details his father’s views on a war which he believed had much more to do with conflicts between elite groups in Kosovo, Serbia and the West, than with ethnic hatred.

Ivan’s father, Ljubisa Rajic, died two years ago, but his ideas and influence helped shape Ivan’s political views and his interest in nominally nationalist struggles in Europe today. For his PhD at Cambridge he is focusing on how different levels of regional development within countries can form the basis for independence movements. He is looking in particular at the recent referendum on Scottish independence.

Ivan [2009], who was born in Belgrade, was brought up in a house full of politics and ideas. His father, who founded the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Belgrade, was always very politically active. He was a leading member of the Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative, one of the first democratic parties after the introduction of multi-party democracy in Yugoslavia in the late 1980s.

Although he became disillusioned by party politics by the mid-1990s, he remained an outspoken public intellectual. Ivan’s mother, a retired meteorologist, shared the same views as his father.

Ivan’s father was a leftist and an atheist,  who saw the Yugoslav wars as a conflict between elites, who used nationalism and religion to further their aims. Ivan was taught not to sing nationalist songs and he refused to cross himself on school trips to  monasteries or churches of cultural importance.

The conflict in the former Yugoslavia affected him in other ways too. During primary school a refugee from Sarajevo came to live with the family. She was from an ethnically mixed marriage, and her father, an ex-army officer, had been tortured.

Having a father who was a professor and public intellectual and being surrounded at home by around 7,000 mostly non-fiction books gave Ivan a significant advantage in his education at a time when the country’s education system was suffering from economic and political turbulence. Ivan applied to study economics at the University of Belgrade.

During his studies, he came across How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor by the Norwegian economist Erik Reinert. His father had brought him the Norwegian original on one of his trips to Norway.

The book was to prove very influential in his thinking on economics. “It was critical of two things. One is the flawed notion that economic development comes spontaneously from free markets. The other is the fact that one school of thought is dominant in economics – neoclassical economics – and that it has narrowed down economics to mathematical modelling,” says Ivan. He translated the book into Serbo-Croat soon after he got it.

Ivan finished his undergraduate course in 2009 after having already started to work as a junior economist in a think tank in Belgrade. He applied to continue his studies at Cambridge and started his MPhil in Development Studies in 2009, progressing to a PhD. For both he has received the support of a Gates Cambridge Scholarship.

His first idea for his PhD was to explore some of the inefficiencies in the former Yugoslav economic system, the explanations for which he thought had been oversimplified by some as being down to the fact that it was not capitalist enough.

“If you grow up in any of the post-Yugoslav republics, you hear all the time how the economy was inefficient, how workers’ self-management was a stupid idea, how it was wrong to industrialise,” he says. “But, all that makes little sense. For starters, why is the IMF austerity programme imposed on Yugoslavia in the 1980s excluded from any analysis of Yugoslavia’s economic problems? You also hear all the time how the Yugoslav wars were about ethnicity and religion. But what caused the war was the domestic elites manipulating people into hating and fearing each other, combined with a very healthy dose of Western elites engaging in divide-and-conquer imperialism. So, you have two areas – politics and economics – that are, of course, connected, but severely misunderstood. I thought that perhaps if they were analysed in a better way, a real connection could be seen.”

Ivan’s supervisor suggested he focus on a more current topic. The Scottish referendum was just about to take place. He sees the roots of the latest move towards independence in Scotland as being economic and originating from the neoliberal slant that the UK has taken over the last several decades, which has heavily impacted most areas (Scotland included) outside of the South East.

“There are many parallels between Scotland and the UK, Catalonia and Spain, Quebec and Canada, Singapore and Malaysia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and a host of other examples,” says Ivan. “In all those cases, the trail leads back to certain similarities in the political economy of the countries in question. We need to understand how and why such moves towards independence happen. Because, as a number of examples show, the country where I was born included, things can end up in a very, very bad way.”


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– See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/the-economic-roots-of-independence-movements-0#sthash.JL5n8AFS.dpuf

Thinking Inside the Box

Thinking Inside the Box

source: www.cam.ac.uk

New research into the phenomenon of design fixation – allowing prior experience to blind us to new possibilities – may help in the development of new tools and strategies that help to stimulate the creative process without inadvertently limiting it.

Fixation can stop the creative process cold: severely limiting the way in which we see a problem and the variety of solutions we explore

Nathan Crilly

It’s a common occurrence: when faced with a problem which is similar to one which has been faced before, most people will default to what worked in the past. As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But while this approach often works, it can also limit thinking and prevent alternate, and possibly better, solutions from being considered. In psychology, this phenomenon of being ‘stuck in a rut’ or failing to ‘think outside the box’ is known as fixation, or the ‘Einstellung’ effect.

Fixation occurs in all sorts of settings, such as with the interpretations that scientists make of their data, the decisions that managers make in organisations, and in the diagnoses that physicians make. It’s is also an issue in design and engineering, where knowledge of earlier solutions can inadvertently narrow the range of answers that designers explore when responding to new problems.

Since the phenomenon of design fixation was first demonstrated in experiments over 30 years ago, researchers have worked to understand how it is influenced by the types of example solutions that designers are aware of, the design methods that they use and the interactions that they have with other team members.

“Whether designing a new toy, a new bridge, or a new piece of software, fixation can stop the creative process cold: severely limiting the way in which we see a problem and the variety of solutions we explore,” said Dr Nathan Crilly of the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “However, there is still a lack of in-depth research on fixation in the real-world settings that experimental research is meant to simulate. In particular, we have little knowledge of how fixation occurs in professional design projects that have conflicting objectives, long timescales and experienced team members.”

To address this gap in knowledge, Crilly recently conducted a qualitative study with designers working in innovation consultancies about their awareness of fixation and the strategies they use to overcome it. The study found that although various formal methods are used to promote creative thinking, reflecting on prior episodes of fixation is the most effective way of guarding against such episodes in the future. The analysis may help to build a framework for new strategies to combat design fixation – developing tools and training that help designers to avoid becoming fixated in future. The results are published in the journal Design Studies.

What causes fixation varies from person to person, and from project to project, but common factors include a commitment to initial ideas, project constraints that prevent exploration, and organisational cultures that give people ownership of their ideas, which gives them the incentive to defend them.

Common factors that prevent fixation include diverse teams, making and testing models and facilitation of the creative process by people who are familiar with fixation risks. However, experience can be a both a blessing and a curse when it comes to preventing fixation. As designers gain more experience, they learn how certain approaches succeed or fail, with the experience of failure particularly prominent in their minds. This accumulated knowledge can cause designers to become increasingly conservative, with experienced designers sticking to a restricted set of solutions that are known to work.

While experience of failure can lead to fixation, other forms of experience can help to prevent it. For example, by working on a variety of different projects, designers are exposed to the many ways in which any given problem can be solved. This experience of variety acts to remind designers that the current problem they are addressing must have multiple possible solutions too, even when they are seemingly stuck on one way of looking at it.

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, as designers accumulate design experience, they also accumulate experience of fixation, either in themselves or in those they interact with. These episodes of blindness might only be recognised in retrospect, but by reflecting on them, designers can learn to recognise their biases and learn to resist them. Over time, designers become better at identifying the situations in which fixation is a risk and better at implementing countermeasures. For example, one of the participants described their own thought process as they work: “You always think your idea’s good, there’s psychology in that … And then you push other ideas to the side, mentally. … [But] the more projects you do then the more you … self-analyse.”

Despite their awareness of the risks of fixation and the steps they take to guard against it, designers also recognise that fixation is a difficult problem to control. In the creative process of developing new products, systems or services, designers must show commitment and persistence in the face of ambiguity and repeated setbacks. This makes it difficult to maintain the levels of openness and flexibility that are required to challenge previously accepted ideas or even ideas that are only just emerging.

This tension between persistence and openness is characteristic of many creative activities, whether in the sciences, the arts or in business. According to Crilly, to tackle this conflict it is important to gain a better understanding of the various creative behaviours that people exhibit and the barriers that block that behaviour.

“By understanding the nature of fixation, we’ll be able to develop the tools and techniques that effectively address it in the contexts where it occurs, and understand how these tools should be presented to the people who will use them,” said Crilly.

The research has been funded by the UK Physical Sciences & Research Council (EPSRC).

– See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/thinking-inside-the-box#sthash.je14OHb4.dpuf

That’s Entertainment: What – and How – Will We Be Watching in 2020?

That’s Entertainment: What – and How – Will We Be Watching in 2020?

source: www.cam.ac.uk

Take unlimited creativity, add multiple platforms, throw in faster and smarter tech and you’ve got the ingredients for the biggest entertainment industry shake-up since the introduction of sound.

All the boundaries between cinema, TV, DVD and online have become blurred

Allègre Hadida

The battle lines have been drawn: consumers have broken free of traditional formats and schedules, and we now want our content wherever and whenever it suits us. It’s the biggest disruption the entertainment industry has ever seen, driven by new technology. As Senior Lecturer in Strategy and Director of the MPhil in Management at Cambridge Judge Business School (CJBS), Dr Allègre Hadida is always fascinated by what’s driving change. So she posed the question: just what will we be watching in 2020 – and what will we be watching it on?

Hadida identifies several shifts that have recently changed the way we consume audio-visual content: first, platform proliferation. “TVs have become almost obsolete in most homes,” she says. “Now we can watch on mobiles, tablets – and soon, probably, watches. This has reshuffled the chronology of media. All the boundaries between cinema, TV, DVD and online have become blurred.”

Then there are our new patterns of binge-watching, which is changing our relationships to episodic content. Take the second season of Netflix’s blockbuster House of Cards: when it became available, all at once 660,000 viewers chose to watch the entire season in the space of three days. They didn’t want to wait a week for a new episode. So Netflix ensured they didn’t have to. “Binge watching has been allowed by the availability of content online and on those mobile platforms,” Hadida points out. “But will it change the narrative structure we adopt when telling stories and the way we produce stories?”

And what of the many new platforms – Amazon Instant, Sony’s Crackle, Walmart’s Vudu – emerging to serve our insatiable desire for new stuff? “There’s an evolution in the value chain of media production,” says Hadida. “Content aggregators such as TV channels have a growing concern that they might be squeezed out of that value chain altogether, as we increasingly find our own content and watch it without their filters. There’s a growing trend of hitherto content distributors going into content production. By 2020, will Netflix still exist, for example? Will Amazon be the one-stop shop for everything content related?”

But it’s also easier for anyone with an idea and a bit of technical know-how to get their content in front of millions. Millennials now spend more time watching amateur YouTube content than they do at the cinema. The new YouTube superstars are beauty vloggers like Zoella or Minecraft movie maestro Stampy, building vast audiences with little more than a webcam and an eye for what works. The content providers know that the next generation of talent is incubating online, and that’s where they’re looking. But will this see a downturn in quality? “I see five-year-olds watching content on YouTube and getting bored if it lasts more than five minutes,” says Hadida. “We’re told quality content is key – we have HD quality – but if thousands of people are now watching very poorly filmed amateur videos, 50 times in a row, what happens to their perception of quality content then?”

So where next for filmed entertainment? How will its nature and format change over the next five years? Who will be the winners and losers? We asked three industry insiders for their insights into Hadida’s question.

Alex Gonzalez, formerly marketing co-ordinator for Disney’s international marketing department, is currently studying for an MBA at CJBS, specialising in culture, arts and media management.

Two major changes will drive what we watch. The first is data. Take Google and Netflix, two of the biggest data aggregators in the world. They know more about us than we know about ourselves, and they’re vying for our eyes to watch their content. So they’re creating content based on what they think we’ll like. House of Cards was created because Netflix looked at the actors and directors people liked. They liked Kevin Spacey and David Fincher. So why not put them together? That data-driven content creation means we’ll always have a show we’ll want to watch. But there’s a danger there: what about discovering new content? How do we get a show that we don’t know we want yet – like Breaking Bad? So finding new shows, that’s going to be a new problem to solve. We don’t want to watch the same shows week after week. We tell ourselves we do but I don’t think that’s what we really want.

And then there’s symmetry – in information, and in ability. To elaborate: there are a lot of stakeholders in the industry. You have a lot of agents who negotiate for the stars, you have unions who protect screenwriters and directors and so on. But now, there’s a lot of information coming out from behind the curtain – how to make a movie. How to finance a movie. Where to find talent. Now people are saying: if we know all this, what do we need agents for? And we also have this symmetry of ability. Kickstarter and Indiegogo have made it possible for anyone to raise the money for a film, and get it out there themselves, getting a fan base – even if it’s just a seven-second Vine. People are thinking: hey, I can do that. Who wins? The consumer. You guys can just sit back and enjoy it.

Brett Granstaff (Cambridge MBA 2012) is an actor, writer, director and producer.

It’s predicted that by 2020, China will be the world’s biggest market for movies for viewership and box office, and will surpass the US. We’ll also be seeing more big data used to craft and create not just TV shows but also films. We’re already seeing this. A lot of films are using a lot of foreign locations and stars to increase their sales. Transformers: Age of Extinction was a massive hit in China and featured a lot of Chinese locations and Chinese stars like Li Bingbing. Look at Fast Five – it used Brazilian locations, and its South American box-office was huge. Hollywood’s been forced to wake up to the importance of foreign markets. To be honest, I didn’t use to care that much about them. That’s all changed.

You’re going to see a lot more day-and-date releases – where a film is simultaneously released in cinemas and other platforms. Amazon is going into theatrical distribution. They’re going to be releasing, they say, up to 12 films a year. Ten years ago, there was a six-month window between a film being released in the cinema and getting it on DVD. It’s been shortened and shortened. Now, with Amazon’s film, it’s going to be three weeks. A lot of the theatres are saying they won’t show Amazon movies because of that. They want their window. So there’s going to be a huge fight between the theatre owners and online distribution services.

Will people still be going to the movies? Sure. But the entire theatre atmosphere is going to change. You’re going to see a lot more luxury offerings in theatres. They’re popping up here a lot in LA right now. And they are pretty much all sold out at weekends. They’re charging a premium for services such as having certain showings where kids aren’t allowed. They serve alcohol. You get a full menu and waiter service. It’s high end. It’s all about the experience. People still want that social element that the movies provide.

Suranga Chandratillake (University of Cambridge, 2000) is a General Partner at Balderton Capital. He was previously an entrepreneur and engineer. Suranga founded blinkx, the intelligent search engine for video and audio content in Cambridge in 2004. He lead the company as CEO through its journey of moving to San Francisco, becoming profitable and going public in London where it achieved a peak market capitalisation in excess of $1bn.

To start with, what are we going to be watching this stuff on? I believe that by 2020, every single screen that we have access to will be a fully networked device that knows who you are. So whether it’s your watch, your computer laptop screen, your desk monitor, your TV, tablet or phone – they will all have a high-speed internet connection and be able to deliver TV and video content. And most importantly they’ll know who you are. There’s already talk of how Apple and Google are both looking at using front-facing cameras on phones to recognise who you are.

And because it will know who we are, it will know what we’re interested in – something that’s suddenly become available that we ought to know about, whether it’s personal – like a voice message from your mum – or whether it’s larger in concept – a TV show that you might like, a relevant event. So a pervasive video environment that is personalised and aware of the individual.

Gone will be the days of having different kinds of video experiences tethered to different devices. We’ll access anything, any way, based more on when we want to consume, when we have a free minute, rather than something we’re happy to be sat in front of. Thus far, video’s been very much controlled by this cycle of adverts and hours and half hour. I think that’s going away and I think we’re going to see the birth of some really exciting new formats. I think we’ll see a lot of experimentation around that kind of thing.

But it will be hard, I think, for the guys in the middle. There is still a lot of work to be done – facilitating payment systems, helping people discover new content, finding out what’s good and what’s not so good, curating content, bundling stuff that’s relevant together. That’s not all going to be done by computers. But the organisations that have traditionally done that for us, until now, are the TV networks, film studios and music labels, I’m not sure that they’re set up to do it in this new world. Some of them will figure it out and transform themselves. Others will cling on to the old models for too long. And still others, of course, will build entirely new, huge companies. That’s going to be the really interesting shift.

Originally published on the Cambridge Judge Business School website

– See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/thats-entertainment-what-and-how-will-we-be-watching-in-2020#sthash.yyC3CmDJ.dpuf

Cyan receives Letter of Intent for US$3 million smart meter order in Western Africa

Cyan receives Letter of Intent for US$3 million smart meter order in Western Africa

Source: RNS

Cyan the integrated system and software design company delivering mesh based flexible wireless solutions for utility metering and lighting control, announces that it has received a letter of intent (“LOI”) from El Sewedy Electrometer Group EMG (“El Sewedy”) to supply Cyan’s CyLec(R) Advanced Metering Infrastructure (“AMI”) solution for a smart meter contract which El Sewedy has been awarded in Western Africa.

The LOI states that, subject to contract, El Sewedy intends to appoint Cyan to provide a full AMI solution for up to 200,000 consumers in batches over three years. If deployed in full the contract could be worth up to US$3 million to Cyan. Cyan will immediately start working towards signing a contractual order with El Sewedy for the 200,000 meters indicated, but the LOI is no guarantee of the terms or timing of any such order or if a contract will be signed.

The potential order is intended to include 865MHz RF AMI modules, 865 MHz RF In-Home Display (“IHD”) modules, Data Concentrator Units (“DCUs”), Head-End Server software licenses and a software maintenance contract. The Cyan AMI modules would be integrated into the El Sewedy electricity smart meters and the Cyan IHD modules would be integrated into El Sewedy’s IHD device. The resulting solution will provide a full bi-directional communication system from the IHD to the electricity smart meter and then through the Cyan communication network to the utility’s billing systems.

In a joint analysis that Cyan and El Sewedy prepared (and in addition to Aggregate Technical and Commercial losses) the West African utility could save over US$150M over a ten year period from the 200,000 meters by using the Cyan radio mesh communication network solution compared to a GPRS sim card based smart metering communication solution which was also evaluated. In their year-end 2012 financial report, the West African utility stated that they had over 2.5 million customers.

In July 2014, Cyan announced that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with El Sewedy Electrometer India Pvt Ltd (“El Sewedy India”) who are a wholly owned subsidiary of El Sewedy. The MOU was an agreement for El Sewedy India and Cyan to tender as part of a consortium for a number of smart metering projects in India and other target markets. Cyan and El Sewedy are also working on a number of other opportunities in India as well as other emerging markets around the globe where El Sewedy has existing facilities and utility customers.

John Cronin, Executive Chairman of Cyan, commented: “I am delighted to update shareholders on this significant LOI which has been signed by the El Sewedy Chairman following my meeting with him at the El Sewedy worldwide headquarters in Cairo last week. This is a substantial commercial opportunity for Cyan which also could accelerate entry into other key countries using El Sewedy as a channel to market to their existing and new customers.”

Sepura unveils the next generation hand-portable

Sepura unveils the next generation smart device, the SC2020
19th May 2015 – Sepura unveils the next generation hand-portable at the Critical Communications World Congress (CCW) in Barcelona.

The SC2020, the new revolutionary hand-portable by Sepura, is the first product built on the company’s future-proof next generation platform and the latest addition to its established, comprehensive and evolving portfolio. The SC2020 is the first of its kind, combining TETRA’s mission critical advanced performance with an optional second high speed data bearer: it is the first TETRA hand-portable which can claim to be LTE data ready. It features smarter menus, more intuitive operation and outstanding performance, even in the toughest environments and conditions.

Steve Barber, Head of Product Strategy for Sepura commented: “The timely launch of the SC2020 confirms our vision and plans for the future and demonstrates our ability to adapt to the fast-moving markets in which we operate. We continue to provide our global customer base with products that address their ever evolving communication needs and the operational challenges they face every day. The SC2020 is the undisputable proof that Sepura is going further in critical communications.”

The SC2020’s high resolution screen, the largest on the market today, is specifically designed to provide a richer user experience. The larger screen enables easier deployment of existing and future applications via high-speed data; it is also viewable in all light conditions, including direct sunlight.

The radio’s powerful 2W audio capability, enhanced by unique water-porting technology, allows for uncompromised audio clarity, even in continuous heavy rain. The SC2020 also boasts an IP67 environmental protection rating which means it is completely dustproof and submersible in water. Its design enables it to be rinsed, making it ideal for users from emergency services and commercial sectors, often operating in some of the most demanding environments. A new powerful Class 3 TETRA engine is paired with a new receiver that surpasses the ETSI specification, a unique combination extending operational range and stretching coverage into areas where it was not possible before.

Mark Barnby, Senior Product Manager for Sepura said: “The SC2020 is designed to meet the toughest communication challenges, now and in the future. It combines a high-speed data bearer capability with TETRA’s proven mission critical secure voice and data capabilities. Not only it is the most powerful and also the most sensitive TETRA engine we have ever designed, it can also uniquely exploit a high speed data network, such as WiFi or LTE”. Barnby concluded: “The SC2020 is more than a radio. Its powerful combination of impressive functionality and wealth of performance enhancing features, combined with Sepura’s market leading accessories, make it the solid choice today, and also in the future. The SC2020 is the most advanced product Sepura has ever brought to market.”

What research would enhance business sustainability?

What research would enhance business sustainability?

source: www.cam.ac.uk

A new project led by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership is looking at how academic research can help make businesses more sustainable. Dr Jonathan Green, one of the project leads, is looking to the public to ask the questions that may form the basis of future research, and help businesses reduce their impact on the environment.

How can we meet future needs for food, energy and water without degrading our natural environment and putting companies out of business?

Jonathan Green

The natural world is already in peril, yet demand for water, food and energy are set to rise further as the global population grows and climate change takes hold. Increased demand for one of these will alter the availability of the others. Businesses sit at the heart of this ‘nexus’ of interactions, both depending on and impacting on the environment. What academic research could help make their operations more sustainable?

Working with leading researchers from the Departments of Geography and Zoology, the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership’s (CISL) Nexus2020 project is bringing together ideas from the 6,000 alumni of our executive education programmes, business people, academics, policy-makers and members of the general public.

The project is part of the Nexus Network, an extensive network coordinated by CISL, the University of Sussex and the University of East Anglia, and supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. With its considerable outreach across business, academia and government, CISL encourages conversation and stimulates the research that is most helpful to companies.

We want to know what you think are the most important questions around business practice that, if answered by 2020, could help companies manage their dependencies and impacts upon food, energy, water and the environment.

How can we meet future needs for food, energy and water without degrading our natural environment and putting companies out of business? Can we meet increasing demand for energy without making climate change worse? How do we produce enough food and energy with less water? These are the types of questions we are looking for.

In September, we will bring together leading members of the academic and business communities to rank the submissions and identify the most important questions for research. We’ll present these at the Nexus Network annual conference in November, by which point research will be underway.

The process of gathering questions and prioritising research needs is not new: Cambridge’s Bill Sutherland identified the 100 ecological questions of high policy relevance in the UK in 2006. More recently a project led by Jules Pretty looked at the top 100 questions of importance to the future of global agriculture, and Lynn Dicks has replicated this process to look at the conservation of wild insect pollinators and the UK food system. These ranking exercises are extremely valuable and have had consequences for high-level policy, including Defra’s National Pollinator Strategy. These approaches also encouraged scientists to come together to develop workshops and led to the identification of initial priorities for programmes such as the UK’s Global Food Security Research Programme.

With the UN’s 2014 report highlighting that one-fifth of the world’s aquifers are being overexploited, how do ensure that corporate actions are alleviating water-related stresses? How do we communicate the urgency of sustainable farming methods when 10 million hectares of arable land are being eroded or degraded every year?

Whether your question is around policy, business education, rights, science, finance, or best practice, take part in this project – we want to know what you think.

– See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/what-research-would-enhance-business-sustainability#sthash.Nruqh427.dpuf

Abcodia Secures £5.25 Million to Launch New Ovarian Cancer Test

ABCODIA SECURES £5.25 MILLION TO LAUNCH NEW OVARIAN CANCER TEST

source: www.cabume.co.uk

abcodia biobank testtubesThe first cancer test based on a unique serum biobank that took samples from over 202,00 women over 10 years is set to launch following a £5.25 million fundraising round by Abcodia, the company with exclusive rights to the biobank.

The ROCA test will also be the first product to come out of Abcodia who is calling it the world’s most sensitive and specific ovarian cancer screening test.

Chief Executive of the Cambridge business, Dr Julie Barnes, said the funding would allow Abcodia to launch its ROCA test in the UK this summer and US markets later in 2015.

“This is the first cancer screening test that we are bringing to market and we are excited about its proven high performance,” said Barnes. “We feel passionately that the ROCA test will make a real difference in the lives of women at risk of developing this aggressive form of cancer. The funding will help build operations and commercial teams in the UK and establish our US presence while continuing to grow our product pipeline focused on improving early cancer diagnosis.”

The financing was co-led by Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) and Scottish Equity Partners (SEP), who join existing investors Albion Ventures and UCL Business. Dr Robert Tansley, from CIC and Jan Rutherford, from SEP have been appointed to Abcodia’s Board.

Dr Robert Tansley, Investment Director at CIC, said: “The major unmet need in early detection of ovarian cancer and the unprecedented clinical validation behind the ROCA test provided a compelling body of evidence for CIC’s investment. We are excited to support this groundbreaking test and bring it to the market so women around the world can feel empowered with more knowledge and more options.”

The ROCA test’s proven performance was reaffirmed in a study from the United Kingdom Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening(UKCTOCS) trial at UCL, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology this month. The publication showed the ROCA test could detect ovarian cancer more accurately than existing methods and before symptoms occur.

Between 2001 and 2005 over 202,600 women volunteers were enrolled into the UKCTOCS. Volunteers donated a serum sample on trial entry and 50,000 women have continued to donate serum annually for up to 10 years. Abcodia has the exclusive commercial rights to this biobank. The serum is collected to a rigorous protocol and is stored in liquid nitrogen at a commercial biobanking facility. In addition to the samples, each volunteer has also provided information about demographics, lifestyle, and disease history and morphology.

Jan Rutherford, partner at SEP, said: “Abcodia is one of the most exciting businesses involved in the early detection of cancer. Its novel data driven approach, underpinned by its unique biobank and its strategic partnership with Cancer Research UK, has the potential to materially enhance the way biomarkers are developed, allowing earlier disease diagnosis and improved patient outcomes.

“We are delighted to invest in such an innovative company and look forward to the launch of the ROCA test, initially through a number of private clinics in the UK this summer.”

Seasonal immunity: Activity of thousands of genes differs from winter to summer

Seasonal immunity: Activity of thousands of genes differs from winter to summer

source:www.cam.ac.uk

Changing of the seasons

Our immune systems vary with the seasons, according to a study led by the University of Cambridge that could help explain why certain conditions such as heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis are aggravated in winter whilst people tend to be healthier in the summer.

In some ways, it’s obvious – it helps explain why so many diseases are much worse in the winter months – but no one had appreciated the extent to which this actually occurred

John Todd

The study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, shows that the activity of almost a quarter of our genes (5,136 out of 22,822 genes tested) differs according to the time of year, with some more active in winter and others more active in summer. This seasonality also affects our immune cells and the composition of our blood and adipose tissue (fat).

Scientists have known for some time that various diseases, including cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, and psychiatric disorders, display seasonal variation, as does vitamin D metabolism. However, this is the first time that researchers have shown that this may be down to seasonal changes in how our immune systems function.

“This is a really surprising – and serendipitous – discovery as it relates to how we identify and characterise the effects of the susceptibility genes for type 1 diabetes,” says Professor John Todd, Director of the JDRF/Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory. “In some ways, it’s obvious – it helps explain why so many diseases, from heart disease to mental illness, are much worse in the winter months – but no one had appreciated the extent to which this actually occurred. The implications for how we treat disease like type 1 diabetes, and even how we plan our research studies, could be profound.”

An international team, led by researchers from the JDRF/Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory in the Department of Medical Genetics, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, examined samples from over 16,000 people living in both the northern and southern hemispheres, in countries including the UK, USA, Iceland, Australia and The Gambia. These samples included a mixture of blood samples and adipose tissue.

The researchers used a variety of techniques to study the samples, including looking at the cell types found in the blood and measuring the level of expression of the individuals’ genes – a gene is said to be ‘expressed’ when it is active in a particular cell or tissue, usually involving the generation of proteins. They found that the thousands of genes were expressed differently in blood and adipose tissue depending on what time of year the samples were taken. Similarly, they identified seasonal differences in the types of cells found in the blood.

Seasonal differences were present across mixed populations in geographically and ethnically diverse locations – but the seasonal genes displayed opposing patterns in the northern and southern hemispheres. However, the pattern of seasonal activity was not reflected as strongly in Icelandic donors. The researchers speculate that this may be due to the near-24 hour daylight during summer and near-24 hour darkness in winter.

One gene of particular interest was ARNTL, which was more active in the summer and less active in the winter. Previous studies have shown that, in mice at least, the gene suppresses inflammation, the body’s response to infection; if the gene has the same function in humans, then levels of inflammation will be higher during winter in the northern hemisphere. Inflammation is a risk factor for a range of diseases and hence in winter, those at greatest risk will likely reach the ‘threshold’ at which the disease becomes a problem much sooner. Drugs that target the mechanisms behind inflammation could offer a way of helping treat these diseases more effectively during the winter periods.

A particularly surprising finding was that a set of genes associated to an individual’s response to vaccination was more active in winter, suggesting that some vaccination programmes might be more effective if carried out during winter months when the immune system is already ‘primed’ to respond.

During European and Australian winters, they argue, the thresholds required to trigger an immune response may be lower as a direct consequence of our coevolution with infectious organisms, which tend to be more prevalent during winter. Interestingly, people from The Gambia showed distinct seasonal variation in the numbers of immune cells in the blood that correlated with the rainy season (June-October), during which time infectious diseases, particularly mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, are more rife.

“We know that humans adapt to changing environments,” says Dr Chris Wallace. “Our paper suggests that human immune systems adapt to show different seasonal variation in equatorial regions with fewer distinct seasons compared to regions at higher and lower latitudes with more pronounced differences between winter and summer.”

It is not clear yet what mechanism maintains the seasonal variation seen in the immune system, though it may be due to environmental cues such as daylight and ambient temperature. Our internal body clock – known as our circadian rhythm – is in part coordinated by changes in daylight, which explains why people in jobs that do not fit with the daily cycle, such as factory shift workers or crews on long haul flights, can be affected by poorer health.

Professor Todd adds: “Given that our immune systems appear to put us at greater risk of disease related to excessive inflammation in colder, darker months, and given the benefits we already understand from vitamin D, it is perhaps understandable that people want to head off for some ‘winter sun’ to improve their health and well-being.”

The research was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the type 1 diabetes charity JDRF and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Professor Mike Turner, Head of Infection and Immunobiology at the Wellcome Trust said: “This is an excellent study which provides real evidence supporting the popular belief that we tend to be healthier in the summer. Seasonal variation to this extent is a fascinating find – the activity of many of our genes, as well as the composition of our blood and fat tissue, varies depending on the seasons. Although we are still unclear of the mechanism that governs this variation, one possible outcome is that treatment for certain diseases could be more effective if tailored to the seasons.”

Karen Addington, Chief Executive of JDRF in the UK, said: “We have long known there are more diagnoses of type 1 diabetes in winter. This study begins to reveal why. It identifies a biological mechanism we didn’t previously know of, which leaves the body seasonally more prone to the autoimmune attack seen in type 1 diabetes.

“While we all love winter sun, flying south for the whole of each winter isn’t something anyone can practically recommend as a way of preventing type 1 diabetes. But this new insight does open new avenues of research that could help untangle the complex web of genetic and environmental factors behind a diagnosis.”

Reference
Dopico, XC et al. Widespread seasonal gene expression reveals annual differences in human immunity and physiology. Nature Communications; 12 May 2015.

– See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/seasonal-immunity-activity-of-thousands-of-genes-differs-from-winter-to-summer#sthash.50wQnJEm.dpuf

Second Cambridge FinTech StartupWeekend on 5-7 June.

Are you interested in Finance and Innovation? Do you have a business idea and want to test if it is viable? Do you want to learn from others how to put your idea into business?

 

Accelerate Cambridge in partnership with BNY Mellon invites you to join the Second Cambridge FinTech StartupWeekend on 5-7 June.

 

Startup weekends are a hands-on experience where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if their start-up ideas are viable.

This three-day intensive event will bring together finance and innovation entrepreneurs who want to address challenges in tomorrow’s banking.

 

Participants will have 54 hours to test their idea, build a team and pitch to a panel of judges. The Cambridge FinTech Startup weekend will start on Friday 5 June, when delegates will have an opportunity to pitch their best ideas and inspire others to join their teams.
Then on Saturday, 6 June, participants will work with their teams and with the support of experienced mentors will validate ideas and build minimal viable product.

 

On the last day, Sunday 7 June, the teams will pitch their concepts to a panel of expert judges – successful entrepreneurs, leading academics and venture capitalists. The winning teams will have an opportunity to take their businesses to the next level.

 

Venue: Cambridge Judge Business School, Trumpington Street, CB2 1AG

 

Check the programme details and register here

 

Registration deadline: Monday 1 June 2015

 

Find out more about our Startup weekends here

 

Read our latest blog post about the event.

 

If you have any questions please email accelerate@jbs.cam.ac.uk

 

Best wishes,

 

Accelerate Cambridge Team

Cambridge Judge Business School

Trumpington Street

Cambridge, CB2 1AG

Tel: 01223-760959

 

China Business Solutions: New FREE UK – China Internship Programme This Summer

New UK-China Internship Programme this summer

A new FREE UK China Internship program is launched by China Business Solutions to help British business successfully access the still growing Chinese market..

Commenting on the UK China Internship Programme, Lord Wei of Shoreditch says:
“I welcome the launch of the UK China Internship Programme: British businesses, especially SMEs across the UK cities can benefit from the language skills and cultural knowledge offered by talened Chinese interns. For the Chinese students, making a contribution to the British economy will be a valuable and meaningful addition to their overall experience in their UK study. I wish the programme great success” 

 

As China continues to move from a manufacturing to services to a more consumer power economy, there are still many prospects for British business. Understanding the cultural nuances and avoiding mis-communication gaining real insight and getting good advice remains essential to be successful in China.

To continue to assist British businesses and to meet the rising demand for Chinese talent, China Business Solutions has launched “The UK China Internship Program”, aimed at supporting British businesses, both large corporations and importantly SMEs, as well as offering talented Chinese students already in the UK the opportunity to gain experience in British companies, enabling them to put into practice science, engineering, IT, marketing and in business skills and knowledge gained in prestigious universities.  The working experience will not only create an impact on the résumé for the Chinese student, but will also add enormous value to the British business with timely assistance in language and cultural issues into China.

China Business Solutions has successfully been supporting UK companies for nearly 15 years, during which time the Chinese economy has enjoyed double-digit growth. “With the Chinese economy now entering into the ‘new normal’GDP is expected to be lower than before, and this brings with it sustainability and a growing need for quality offerings with heritage and good customer service”, has commented Ting Zhang, Founder & CEO of China Business Solutions. By having a talented ambitious Chinese speaking intern supporting your business is an opportunity and a real asset to be part of the sustained UK-China growth. Just as the UK Trade Minister, Lord Livingston recently said, “Chinese-speaking students can help UK businesses to overcome the linguistic and cultural barriers that could stand between them and the Chinese market”.

This “UK China Internship Programme” is a wider offering to an already successful Chinese students placement programme that China Business Solutions has operated for over six years. So we understand that taking a Chinese intern is an important step towards a successful two-way communication between China and the UK. However, we recognize that this can be time consuming and fraught with administrative difficulties. By taking part in the ‘UK China Internship Programme’, we take care of this for you, so the placement of a talented Chinese student is easy and straightforward. We take care of the logistics and formalities and the engagement, you just provide us with a job description and your needs. We do the rest and this is provided to you ‘free of charge’.

If you want to know more or take part into the program, download the programme leaflet here or e-mail us at intern@chinabusinesssolutions.com.

Be part of the UK-China growth through engaging ambitious Chinese talent.
China Business Solutions’ launch of the new UK-China Internship Programme – To provide UK businesses with Chinese interns for the summer period

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Clues Contained in 500 Million-Year-Old Brain Point to the Origin of Heads in Early Animals

Source: www.cam.ac.uk

The discovery of a 500 million-year-old fossilised brain has helped identify a point of crucial transformation in early animals, and answered some of the questions about how heads first evolved.

This is a period of crucial transformation

Javier Ortega-Hernández

A new study from the University of Cambridge has identified one of the oldest fossil brains ever discovered – more than 500 million years old – and used it to help determine how heads first evolved in early animals. The results, published today (7 May) in the journal Current Biology, identify a key point in the evolutionary transition from soft to hard bodies in early ancestors of arthropods, the group that contains modern insects, crustaceans and spiders.

The study looked at two types of arthropod ancestors – a soft-bodied trilobite and a bizarre creature resembling a submarine. It found that a hard plate, called the anterior sclerite, and eye-like features at the front of their bodies were connected through nerve traces originating from the front part of the brain, which corresponds with how vision is controlled in modern arthropods.

The new results also allowed new comparisons with anomalocaridids, a group of large swimming predators of the period, and found key similarities between the anterior sclerite and a plate on the top of the anomalocaridid head, suggesting that they had a common origin. Although it is widely agreed that anomalocaridids are early arthropod ancestors, their bodies are actually quite different. Thanks to the preserved brains in these fossils, it is now possible to recognise the anterior sclerite as a bridge between the head of anomalocaridids and that of more familiar jointed arthropods.

“The anterior sclerite has been lost in modern arthropods, as it most likely fused with other parts of the head during the evolutionary history of the group,” said Dr Javier Ortega-Hernández, a postdoctoral researcher from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, who authored the study. “What we’re seeing in these fossils is one of the major transitional steps between soft-bodied worm-like creatures and arthropods with hard exoskeletons and jointed limbs – this is a period of crucial transformation.”

Ortega-Hernández observed that bright spots at the front of the bodies, which are in fact simple photoreceptors, are embedded into the anterior sclerite. The photoreceptors are connected to the front part of the fossilised brain, very much like the arrangement in modern arthropods. In all likelihood these ancient brains processed information like in today’s arthropods, and were crucial for interacting with the environment, detecting food, and escaping from predators.

During the Cambrian Explosion, a period of rapid evolutionary innovation about 500 million years ago when most major animal groups emerge in the fossil record, arthropods with hard exoskeletons and jointed limbs first started to appear. Prior to this period, most animal life on Earth consisted of enigmatic soft-bodied creatures that resembled algae or jellyfish.

These fossils, from the collections of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, originated from the Burgess Shale in Western Canada, one of the world’s richest source of fossils from the period.

Since brains and other soft tissues are essentially made of fatty-like substances, finding them as fossils is extremely rare, which makes understanding their evolutionary history difficult. Even in the Burgess Shale, one of the rare places on Earth where conditions are just right to enable exceptionally good preservation of Cambrian fossils, finding fossilised brain tissue is very uncommon. In fact, this is the most complete brain found in a fossil from the Burgess Shale, as earlier results have been less conclusive.

“Heads have become more complex over time,” said Ortega-Hernández, who is a Fellow of Emmanuel College. “But what we’re seeing here is an answer to the question of how arthropods changed their bodies from soft to hard. It gives us an improved understanding of the origins and complex evolutionary history of this highly successful group.”

The research is supported by Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

– See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/clues-contained-in-500-million-year-old-brain-point-to-the-origin-of-heads-in-early-animals#sthash.1jUtttMw.dpuf

How Technology Can Transform Moving House

source: www.cabume.co.uk

laurel-hardy-decoratingI’ve just moved house and am still recovering from the experience. Having last moved 11 years ago I expected that technology would have changed things in the interim, but it seems that the process is still paper-based, slow and (as far as I can see) incredibly inefficient. If you ever wondered who still uses a fax machine, look no further than solicitors………

It starts so well. The front-end of house buying is now pretty much web-based. So there’s no more peering through the windows of estate agents as you can set your criteria and instantly bring up potential properties that you are interested in. In fact there could be too much information available – we took the virtual tour of our house off our details as we worried that people could be making up their minds based on that, rather than coming for a viewing. The technology used to gather these details is also pretty high tech – with drone cameras taking aerial photos for example.

However once you’ve had your offer accepted, the back office processes revert to paper – based on my experiences, here are five areas that seem ripe for digitisation:

1          Paper-based forms
Some documents, such as Land Registry files and searches, are now all online, making it much quicker to access them. But a lot more aren’t – the fixtures and fittings form is still paper-based for example, meaning it has to be posted and scanned at the other end. By mandating that all communication is electronic, the whole process could be much quicker, more environmentally friendly and less stressful.

2          Real-time communications
We wondered why we always got emails sent on behalf of our solicitor just after 4pm. Then we realised – he’d dictated them to his PA in time to get them in the post, but rather than appearing as a letter it had just been turned into an email. While this saves some time it doesn’t deliver real-time answers that people demand (and which could dramatically speed up the process).

3          Getting a mortgage
Criteria for mortgage applications have been tightened following the easy lending that preceded the banking crash. That’s understandable, but there’s no common sense in the process now. It took weeks to get a telephone appointment with our bank to go through our personal details and outgoings – and then when the mortgage rate changed we had to do the whole thing again in order to get a better deal. And we had to talk to the same advisor (who was on holiday), adding more time to the process. Being able to re-use answers you’ve already provided, within a reasonable timeframe, would be more efficient for the bank as well as avoiding customer frustration.

4          Money transfer
On completion day, it takes forever for the purchases to take place. The money from the purchaser at the bottom of the chain goes to the solicitor for the house they are buying, who then pays the next person and so on. This is all logical but is incredibly slow – in an era of online banking where you can transfer money instantly, this is another area that needs addressing as it is inefficient and time-consuming. Our buyer’s removal van was waiting outside our (old) house for the money to go through – it then took another hour to complete on our purchase.

5          Changing address
After you’ve moved you then need to update your details with everyone from your bank to HMRC. What amazes me is how difficult some people make this. In an online world you’d imagine it would be straightforward to change the address a magazine subscription is delivered to – but in many cases I’ve had to email to get details changed rather than just amending my address online. A central portal to change all your official details might sound a bit Big Brother to some people but I would prefer it to having to wade through hundreds of sites, remembering seldom-used passwords in order to tell companies I’ve moved.

As you can probably tell, the whole moving process has left me frustrated at the missed opportunities to speed things up and make it more efficient for everyone. I don’t think it is on any party manifesto, but reforming house buying would surely be a vote winner given the stresses and traumas it creates. And having moved into our lovely new house, I won’t be leaving in a hurry…………..

The Royal Society Announces Election of New Fellows 2015

source: www.cam.ac.uk

The Royal Society has announced the election of its new Fellows, including four Cambridge University academics, who join an eminent list of scientists, engineers and technologists from the UK and the Commonwealth.

The scientists elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society this year are leaders in their fields and have contributed much to the scientific endeavour

Paul Nurse, the Royal Society

The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship of many of the world’s most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering, and medicine. The Society’s fundamental purpose is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.

The Fellows elected from the University of Cambridge are:

Professor Ali Alavi – Department of Chemistry

Professor Jane Clarke – Department of Chemistry

Professor Anthony Edwards – Gonville and Caius College

Professor Zoubin Ghahramani – Department of Engineering

Dr Katen Patel – MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society, said: “Science and its application are at the core of so many aspects of our modern lives. From treating infectious diseases, to building safe bridges and tunnels, searching out life on other planets and even vacuuming our living rooms, science helps us understand ourselves better and it makes life better.

“Without scientific knowledge, we might not be able to solve some of the greatest challenges of our time: food shortages, climate change and tackling diseases.

“The scientists elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society this year are leaders in their fields and have contributed much to the scientific endeavour. We are delighted to welcome them alongside the likes of great British scientists such as Newton, Boyle and Darwin.”

View the full list of new Fellows and Foreign Members.

 

Fish Born in Larger Groups Develop More Social Skills and a Different Brain Structure

www.cam.ac.uk

New research on a highly social fish shows that those reared in larger social groups from the earliest stage of life develop increased social skills and a brain shape, or ‘neuroplasticity’, which lingers into the later life of the fish.

Fish reared in large groups showed more submissive and less aggressive behaviour to big fish in the group, social behaviour which greatly enhances the survival chances of smaller fish

Stefan Fischer

A new study shows that cichlid fish reared in larger social groups from birth display a greater and more extensive range of social interactions, which continues into the later life of the fish. Researchers say this indicates the fish develop more attuned social behaviour as a result of early environments.

The researchers also found that those fish raised in a more complex social environment have a different brain structure to those who experienced fewer group members in early life. If fish experienced the complex social environment for 2 month they had a larger hypothalamus: the area that contains most of the brain nodes of the ‘social behaviour network’. They also had a larger ‘optic tectum’, which processes visual stimuli and could be related to the need to process more visual stimuli in larger groups, say researchers.

The brains of fish with enhanced social skills were not bigger overall than those reared in small groups; however, the ‘architecture’ within the brain was different.

“Our data suggests that, during development, relative brain parts change their size in response to environmental cues without affecting overall brain size: increasing certain parts forces others to decrease concurrently. These ‘plastic’ adjustments of brain architecture were still present long after the early stages of social interaction,” said study author Dr Stefan Fischer, from Cambridge University’s Department of Zoology.

“Social animals need to develop social skills, which regulate social interactions, aggression and hierarchy formations within groups. Such skills are difficult and costly to develop, and only beneficial if the early social environment predicts a high number of social interactions continues to be critically important later in life,” he said.

For the study, published this week in the journal The American Naturalist, researchers used the Neolamprologus pulcher (N. Pulcher) breed of cichlid, primarily found in Lake Tanganyika – the great African freshwater lake that feeds into the Congo River.

N. Pulcher lives in family groups with up to 25 individuals, with one breeder pair and several helpers participating in territory defence and raising of offspring – known as ‘cooperative breeding’. To test for social skills, the researchers reared juvenile fish over two months with either three or nine adult group members, and observed all social behaviours at key experimental points.

These interactions included ‘lateral display’ – when one fish interrupts another by displaying their body side-on, sometimes as a mating ritual – as well as ramming, tail quivering, and ‘mouth fighting’: a social display in which fish lock mouths to challenge each other over everything from food to mates.

Six month after this test phase, individual fish brains were measured to investigate the long term consequences of early group size on brain morphology, revealing differences in brain architecture.

The researchers say that one of the effects on social behaviour in larger groups might be the perception of environmental risk. “In the wild, larger social groups of N. Pulcher represent a low-risk environment with enhanced juvenile survival. Being part of a larger, safer group may increase the motivation of juveniles to interact socially with siblings, enhancing the opportunities to acquire social skills,” said Fischer.

As perhaps with any social creature, Fischer points out that higher social competence and the ability to conform to social hierarchies may well stand the cichlids in good stead in later life:

“Group size for these fish stays relatively stable across the years, they have delayed dispersal. Remaining in a larger group means a better chance of survival. Fish reared in large groups showed more submissive and less aggressive behaviour to big fish in the group, social behaviour which greatly enhances the survival chances of smaller fish.”

Fischer added: “In highly social animals, such as cooperative breeders, almost all activities involve social interactions, where individuals need to adequately respond to social partners. In larger groups, these interactions are more common and individuals developing sophisticated social skills during childhood might highly benefit from them later in life.”

– See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/fish-born-in-larger-groups-develop-more-social-skills-and-a-different-brain-structure#sthash.87su0QRl.dpuf

HP sues former Autonomy leaders for $5.1bn, alleging fraud

HP sues former Autonomy leaders for $5.1bn, alleging fraud

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

HP

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is suing Autonomy co-founder Mike Lynch and former chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain for about $5.1bn (£3.4bn).

HP is suing for alleged fraud. Separately, Mr Lynch and the former management of Autonomy plans to sue HP for more than £100m, alleging “false and negligent statements”.

US-based HP bought software firm Autonomy in 2011 for $11bn.

HP later wrote down the value of its purchase by three quarters.

Industry observers suggested there may have been problems with due diligence before Autonomy was bought. HP purchased Autonomy with the aim of moving more into software.

But shortly after buying it, HP claimed it had been misled by Autonomy as to the firm’s true value.

Earlier this year, the Serious Fraud Office closed its investigation into Autonomy’s sale, saying that “on the information available to it, there is insufficient evidencefor a realistic prospect of conviction.”

It ceded legal jurisdiction to US authorities. Mr Lynch and Mr Hussain have consistently denied any allegation of impropriety.

UK claim

HP said in an emailed statement that: “HP can confirm that, on 30 March, a Claim Form was filed against Michael Lynch and Sushovan Hussain.

“The lawsuit seeks damages from them of approximately $5.1 billion. HP will not comment further until the proceedings have been served on the defendants,”

HP said it had filed its claim in London’s Chancery Division High Court.

Meanwhile, representatives for Mr Lynch and his colleagues said in a separate statement: “The former management of Autonomy announces today they will file claims against HP.

“Former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch’s claim, which is likely to be in excess of £100 million, will be filed in the UK.”

Late last summer, Autonomy filed papers in a San Francisco court accusing HP of “mismanagement” of the takeover.

Autonomy’s former chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, said then that HP wanted to “cover up its mismanagement of the Autonomy integration”.

At the time HP dismissed Mr Hussain’s complaint as “preposterous”.

St John’s Innovation Centre welcomes new Entrepreneur in Residence

St John’s Innovation Centre welcomes new Entrepreneur in Residence

 

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Soraya Jones as our new Entrepreneur in Residence. Dr Jones, who was the founder-CEO of the successful Cambridge Wireless from 2007 until March this year, will be responsible for business support for companies at the Innovation Centre.

Soraya Jones Entrepreneur in Residence at St John's Innovation CentreWe are delighted to announce the appointment of Soraya Jones as our new Entrepreneur in Residence.

Dr Jones, who was the founder-CEO of the successful Cambridge Wireless from 2007 until March this year, will be responsible for business support for companies at the Innovation Centre. Soraya will also develop key international partnerships by further enhancing the prestigious reputation of the Centre as an Innovative hotspot in the region.

Soraya commented: “I feel honoured to be working at a vibrant place like St John’s Innovation Centre. Its position in the Cambridge cluster and international standing provide strong foundations for future expansion. I am excited at the prospect of helping tenants accelerate their growth and forming partnerships with similar centres in the UK and in Europe.”

David Gill, Managing Director of St John’s Innovation Centre, says: “It’s a great advantage for us to have found someone of the calibre of Soraya. She is already well-known here because Cambridge Wireless began in our back office and remained at the Innovation Centre until it outgrew the available space in 2013.

Soraya combines a detailed understanding of the Cambridge market with the international vision and expertise the Centre needs for the future. I very much look forward to working with her.”

Born in Malaysia, Soraya holds BSc and MSc degrees from Indiana State University and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Before setting up Cambridge Wireless (which she grew to a membership of 400 companies, with 20 industry Special Interest Groups), she served as Director of Commercial Partnerships at Tribal plc and Programme Development Manager at the University of Cambridge Programme for Industry.

We look forward to working with Soraya and welcome her to the SJIC team.

Moore’s Law – Will It Make 60?

Moore’s Law – Will It Make 60?

Source: www.cabume.ac.uk

An old computer in a glass cabinetFifty years ago, engineer Gordon Moore wrote an article that has become the bedrock of computing. Moore’s Law, as first described in the article, states that the number of elements that could be fitted onto the same size piece of silicon doubles every year. It was then revised to every two years, and elements changed to transistors, but has basically held true for five decades. Essentially it means that computing power doubles every two years – and consequently gets considerably cheaper over time.

What is interesting is to look back over the last 50 years and see how completely different the IT landscape is today. Pretty much all companies that were active in the market when Moore’s Law was penned have disappeared (with IBM being a notable exception and HP staggering on). Even Intel, the company Moore co-founded, didn’t get started until after he’d written the original article.

At the same time IT has moved from a centralised mainframe world, with users interacting through dumb terminals to a more distributed model of a powerful PC on every desk. Arguably, it is now is heading back to an environment where the Cloud provides the processing power and we use PCs, tablets or phones that, while powerful, cannot come close to the speed of Cloud-based servers. This centralised model works well when you have fast connectivity but doesn’t function at all when your internet connection is down, leaving you twiddling your thumbs.

Looking around and comparing a 1960’s mainframe and today’s smartphone you can see Moore’s Law in action, but how long will it continue to work for? The law’s demise has been predicted for some time, and as chips become ever smaller the processes and fabs needed to make them become more complex and therefore more expensive.

This means that the costs have to be passed on somehow – at the moment high end smartphone users are happy to pay a premium for the latest, fastest model, but it is difficult to see this lasting for ever, particularly as the whizzier the processor the quicker batteries drain. The Internet of Things (IoT) will require chips with everything, but size and power constraints, and the fact that the majority of IoT sensors will not need huge processing power means that Moore’s Law isn’t necessary to build the smart environments of the future.

Desktop and laptop PCs used to be the biggest users of chips, and the largest beneficiaries of Moore’s Law, becoming increasingly powerful without the form factor having to be changed. But sales are slowing, as people turn to a combination of tablets/phones and the processing power of the Cloud. Devices such as Google Chromebooks can use lower spec chips as it uses the Cloud for the heavy lifting, thus making it cheaper. At the same time, the servers within the datacentres that are running these Cloud services aren’t as space constrained, so miniaturisation is less of a priority.

Taken together these factors probably mean that while Moore’s Law could theoretically carry on for a long time, the economics of a changing IT landscape could finish it off within the next 10 years. However, its death has been predicted many times before, so it would take a brave person to write its epitaph just yet.

World first for artificial pancreas team

World first for artificial pancreas team

Source: www.cam.ac.uk

The first natural birth to a mother with diabetes who has been fitted with an artificial pancreas took place this week. The device has been developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge.

The artificial pancreas is an exciting new technology that may help us to treat diabetes in pregnancy and create a group of healthier mothers and babies

Helen Murphy

Body artist Catriona Finlayson-Wilkins from Norfolk has type 1 diabetes, but used an artificial pancreas to produce insulin throughout her pregnancy. She gave birth to a boy at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital on Tuesday. She is the first mother in the world to use the device to give birth outside the main research site at Cambridge University Hospitals. Three mothers have previously given birth, but all via caesarian section.

Women who have diabetes in pregnancy face higher rates of birth defects, oversized babies, pre-term delivery and stillbirth than other pregnant women. It is estimated that up to one in twenty women giving birth in England and Wales have either pre-existing diabetes or gestational diabetes and the number with type 1 and type 2 diabetes is rising.


Body artist Catriona Finlayson-Wilkins

The technology is being trialled by the Closed Loop in Pregnancy study, based at the Metabolic Research Laboratories at the University of Cambridge The pancreas is the organ which produces insulin, which is one of the main hormones that help to regulate blood glucose levels.  In type 1 diabetes, the beta cells that produce insulin are attacked by the body’s immune system so an artificial pancreas can help to maintain insulin production, keeping the symptoms of diabetes at bay.

The artificial pancreas device system is a small, portable medical device that is being designed to carry out the function of a healthy pancreas in controlling blood glucose levels in women with Type 1 diabetes. It uses digital communication technology to automate insulin delivery. The system is worn externally on the body, and is made up of three functional components: continuous glucose monitoring, a computer algorithm (mathematical instructions which calculate the insulin dose), developed by Director of Research Dr Roman Hovorka, and an insulin pump. These three components are termed an artificial pancreas or ‘closed loop’.

Full results of the study are expected to be published later this year.  If the findings are positive, this may pave the way for the technology to become available for more women with diabetes who conceive in the future.

Dr Helen Murphy, Senior Research Associate/Honorary Consultant Physician at the Metabolic Research Laboratories and the Principal Investigator of the study, says that the first natural birth using the technology represents an exciting step forward in the treatment of diabetes in pregnancy. “The artificial pancreas is an exciting new technology that may help us to treat diabetes in pregnancy and create a group of healthier mothers and babies.”

Dr Zoe Stewart, a Gates Cambridge Scholar and Clinical Research Fellow on the study, said: “Treating diabetes in pregnancy can be particularly challenging because hormone levels are constantly changing and blood sugars can be difficult to predict. I study new treatments for diabetes in pregnancy and it’s great to see our research helping mums have healthier pregnancies.”

The research has been supported by Gates Cambridge, Diabetes UK and the National Institute for Health Research.

 

Sepura Proposed Acquisition of Teltronic

Sepura Proposed Acquisition of Teltronic

Source: RNS

Sepura plc, the Cambridge based  leading global provider of critical communications solutions, has announced that it has entered into a conditional agreement to acquire the entire issued share capital of Teltronic, S.A.U. (“Teltronic”) for EUR127.5 million.

Highlights

— Reinforces the Group’s position as a leading global provider of critical communications solutions, strengthening its position in Latin America and the US.

— Immediately enhancing Adjusted Fully Diluted EPS and significantly enhancing it in the first full year after Completion.

— Increased scale enabling the Group to deliver larger projects and provide further improved visibility of earnings.

— Continued diversification of revenues into commercial markets with the addition of significant transportation revenue streams.

— Enhances product offering and technical breadth as the analogue to digital migration accelerates.

About Teltronic

Teltronic provides complete wireless voice and data communications solutions, including infrastructure, terminals and software, principally for customers in the public safety, transportation and utility sectors. Its business covers the entire Professional Mobile Radio (“PMR”) value chain, including network infrastructure, terminals and command and control centres. The company operates in over 50 countries serving customers based primarily in Latin America, North America and the EMEA region.

About the Acquisition and the Capital Raising

Sepura has agreed to acquire the entire issued share capital of Teltronic for EUR127.5 million, to be financed by the partial draw down under its new debt facilities of EUR120 million and the net proceeds of a fully underwritten Firm Placing of 37,389,203 New Ordinary Shares at 130 pence per New Ordinary Share and Placing and Open Offer of 9,149,258 New Ordinary Shares at 130 pence per New Ordinary Share to raise GBP56.9 million, net of expenses . The net proceeds from the Capital Raising will be used to fund the Acquisition and pay the costs and expenses associated with the Capital Raising and Acquisition.

Teltronic generated revenue of EUR62.9 million and adjusted operating profit of EUR8.4 million for the year ended 31 December 2014, giving a 13.4% adjusted operating profit margin. This represented 29.7% and 59.7% year-on-year growth for revenue and adjusted operating profit respectively over the year ended 31 December 2013. Juan Ferro, currently CEO of Teltronic, will lead the enlarged systems and network business of Sepura, along with his senior team.

Gordon Watling, Chief Executive Officer of Sepura, said:

“This is a highly complementary and transformational acquisition which will be immediately earnings enhancing. It brings together two of the market’s growing players, to create a market leading digital Professional Mobile Radio company, with a broader offering and significantly enhanced capabilities.

Teltronic’s business will diversify our geographical reach, growing our footprint in Latin America and enhancing our existing presence in North America, specifically the US; expanding and diversifying our revenue streams accordingly.

As the number and scale of digital radio networks around the world increases, we will have the breadth of portfolio and financial strength to compete for significant new contracts at a high level.”

The Future of Advertising – no ads at all.

times square night 2013

source: www.cabume.co.uk

Think about it – what was the last advert you saw that you really remember or which made you take action? The likelihood is that nothing comes immediately to mind. This is ironic as we are now surrounded by more and more ads, whether on the internet, TV or billboards. And they should be increasingly better targeted given that advertisers can see our browsing history, previous searches and even what we Like on Facebook.

Why don’t we remember ads? I think there are three reasons. Firstly, we’re getting better at blanking them out ourselves. Our brains are struggling to cope with the huge amount of information around us, and are therefore becoming more ruthless and ignoring things that aren’t relevant.

Secondly, as well as giving us greater opportunities to see ads, technology is also helping us to skip them. Most of us fast forward through the ads on recorded programmes, and given that more TV is no longer watched live (or on a TV), we can save time by avoiding commercial breaks. Even if you begin watching a recording of a programme on ITV 15 minutes after it starts, you’ll catch up by the end, without missing anything but the ads. Websites are also waking up to the idea that you can offer a premium, ad free product to increase revenues. YouTube is looking at subscription model that means you don’t have to see any ads on the site, for example.

Finally, most ads aren’t actually that interesting anymore. Big budget TV ads still exist, but the vast majority are much more basic and programmatic – you do a search for a toaster, and small, mostly text-based ads then follow your round the internet for a week, appearing on every page you visit for example. The creativity is more in the algorithm that understands your intent, finds a corresponding ad and then keeps tracking you from site to site. It would be physically impossible for the advertiser to create hundreds of creative ads telling you about how their toaster will change your life – there simply isn’t the time or space to do it.

I’m sure there are wonderful long form TV ads out there, but apart from the Christmas campaigns (which have become part of the festive experience) I’m not watching them, and I don’t know who else is either. There don’t appear to be ads that tell your friends about, like the Tango, Guinness or Levis campaigns of the 1980s and 1990s. Too many TV or billboard ads are generic or ‘good enough’ in the eyes of the client, rather than pushing the boundaries. Targeting is replacing creativity as the key factor in success, so what does this mean for the advertising industry?

It could mean the end of ads as we know it. Brands are looking for different ways to engage with customers, so are putting their money into sponsorship of programmes, sports and events, content marketing and campaigns on social media. However swapping the TV ads you’ve always done for a Facebook or YouTube-based programme requires a leap of faith from marketing directors and ad planners alike. At the moment many have added the internet to their campaigns, for example sharing their ads on their own site, Facebook and YouTube and using cut down versions for internet advertising.

However I think that there’s going to be a moment when the advertising industry becomes ‘digital first’ and the swashbuckling creatives and Don Drapers will be replaced by data scientists and content marketers who can use technology to understand and reach audiences, as opposed to untargeted TV ads that may win prizes for creativity but don’t deliver ROI. In many ways this will be a shame, but shows that whatever industry you are in, digital can and will disrupt everything you do.

Listen to your heart: why your brain may give away how well you know yourself

source: www.cam.ac.uk

“Listen to your heart,” sang Swedish pop group Roxette in the late Eighties. But not everyone is able to tune into their heartbeat, according to an international team of researchers – and half of us under- or over-estimate our ability.

‘Follow your heart’ has become something of a cliché, but we know that, consciously or unconsciously, there is a relationship between our heartrate and our decisions and emotions

Tristan Bekinschtein

In research published today in the journalCerebral Cortex, a team of scientists led by the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, studied not only whether volunteers could be trained to follow their heartbeat, but whether it was possible to identify from brain activity how good they were at estimating their performance.

Dr Tristan Bekinschtein, a Wellcome Trust Fellow and lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge, says: “‘Follow your heart’ has become something of a cliché, but we know that, consciously or unconsciously, there is a relationship between our heart rate and our decisions and emotions. There may well be benefits to becoming more attuned to our heartbeat, but there’s very little in scientific literature about whether this is even technically possible.”

A recent study from Dr Bekinschtein and colleagues showed that people with ‘depersonalisation-derealisation disorder’ – in which patients repeatedly feel that they are observing themselves from outside their body or have a sense that things around them are not real – perform particularly badly at listening to their heart. Another study from the team, looking at a man with two hearts – his natural, diseased heart and a replacement artificial heart – found that he was better able to tune into the artificial heart than the diseased one.

Other studies have highlighted a possible connection between heart rate and task performance. For example, in one study, volunteers given the drug propranolol to increase their heart rate performed worse at emotional tasks than the control group. Changing heart rate is part of our automatic and unconscious ‘fight or flight’ response – being aware of the heart’s rhythm could give people more control over their behaviour, believe the researchers.

Thirty-three volunteers took part in an experiment during which scientists measured their brain activity using an electroencephalograph (EEG). First off, the volunteers were asked to tap in synchrony as they listened to a regular and then irregular heartbeat. Next, they were asked to tap out their own heartbeat in synchrony. Then, they were asked to tap out their own heartbeat whilst listening to it through a stethoscope. Finally, the stethoscopes were removed and they were once again asked to tap out their heartbeat.

During the task, when the volunteers were tapping out their heartbeat unaided, they were asked to rate their performance on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being ‘inaccurate’ and 10 ‘extremely accurate’. Once the task was completed, they were asked how much they thought they had improved from 1 (‘did not improve’) to 10 (‘improved a lot’).

“Perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that brain activity differed between people who improved at tapping out their heartbeat and those who did not,” says Andrés Canales-Johnson from the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. “But interestingly, brain activity also differed between people who knew whether or not they had improved and those people who under- or over-estimated their own performance.”

Just over four in ten (42%) of the participants showed significant improvement in their ability to accurately tap along unaided with their heartbeat. This is most likely due to the fact that listening to their heartbeat through a stethoscope had allowed them to fine tune their attention to the otherwise faint signal of their heartbeat. In those whose performance had improved, the researchers saw a stronger brain signal known as the ‘heartbeat evoked potential’ (HEP) across the brain.

The researchers found no significant differences in the HEP when grouping the participants by how well they thought they had performed – their subjective performance. This suggests that the HEP provides a marker of objective performance.

In the final part of the test – after the participants had listened to their heartbeat through the stethoscope and were once again tapping unaided – the researchers found differences in brain activity between participants. Crucially, they found an increase in ‘gamma phase synchrony’ – coordinated ‘chatter’ between different regions in the brain – in only those learners whose subjective judgement of their own performance matched their actual, objective performance. In other words, this activity was seen only in learners who knew they had performed badly or knew they had improved.

“We’ve shown that for just under half of us, training can help us listen to our hearts, but we may not be aware of our progress,” adds Dr Bekinschtein. “Some people find this task easier to do than others do. Also, some people clearly don’t know how good or bad they actually are – but their brain activity gives them away.

“There are techniques such as mindfulness that teach us to be more aware of our bodies, but it will be interesting to see whether people are able to control their emotions better or to make better decisions if they are aware of how their heart is beating.”

The research was supported by the Wellcome Trust and the MRC in the UK, and the Chilean National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development, the Argentinean National Research Council for Science and Technology, and the Argentinean Agency for National Scientific Promotion.

Undo Software and CIC Made-up Following $2M Investment

CIC-Undo-Victor Christou-Greg Law

Source: www.cabume.co.uk

A Cambridge company behind an innovative debugging tool has just raised $2m (£1.3m) in a funding round that brings long term investment company, Cambridge Innovation Capital, together with angel investors for the first time.

Undo Software helps developers make major time and cost-savings by letting them scroll back through their work in real time, a technology it’s been developing since 2007. However, it’s only recently that the company who claims its software could save the industry over £50bn a year by ‘turning back time’ to find the origins of software problems, has picked up a real head of steam having raised a six figure investment sum in 2012,$1.25m 12 months ago and now this latest round.

Co-founder, Greg Law, says the last 12 months has seen significant expansion for the company: “Until last year the company was literally five people in a garden shed. Now we have grown our international sales, with most of our customers in Silicon Valley.”

It also has CIC as a new investor, the first time the Cambridge University inspired investment body has invested alongside the Cambridge Angels syndicate since its launch 18 months ago, a move that senior investment director, Victor Christou, says could help to address the ‘funding gap’ experienced by many early stage, potentially high growth companies.

“Angel support is invaluable for early stage companies as it provides very high-risk capital, resources and access to the contacts that are essential in the formative days of an enterprise. However, many founders reach a point where they need more resources than the angels are able to provide and the company development stalls. At CIC, we aim to play a leading role guiding management and shareholders through this transition into institutional investment.

“Our investment in Undo is a perfect example. It is made alongside Cambridge Angels and has strengthened our relationship with this influential investor group. Hopefully, it will provide a template for future interactions and pave the way for many more promising Cambridge Cluster businesses to raise growth funding rounds.”

Undo Software was founded by programmers Law and Julian Smith (CEO and CTO respectively) out of frustration with the lack of a good debugging tool for Linux, the most widely used computer operating system for enterprise. Almost 50 per cent of a developer’s time is spent fixing bugs and this is particularly problematic if the issues occur after the software is released and operational on a customer site.

Undo’s core technology is a ‘black box’ that allows an application to record itself as it runs, and then save a copy of that recording. If the program crashes the recording can be sent back to the software developer and then replayed to see how and when the problem occurred without the need to recreate it.

The strength of Undo was recognised by Cambridge Angel investor, Dr Robert Brady, founder of stock market listed, commodities trading software firm, Brady PLC and then attracted other major technology and entrepreneurial figures including Robert Swann, the co-founder of Alphamosaic which sold to Broadcom for $123m, Skype co-founder, Jaan Tallinn, and Sir Peter Michael, founder of Classic FM.

Link between proteins points to possibilities for future Alzheimer’s treatments

Researchers have identified how proteins that play a key role in Alzheimer’s disease are linked in a pathway that controls its progression, and that drugs targeting this pathway may be a potential new way of treating the disease.

source: www.cam.ac.uk

This is something we can only do by looking at real human neurons

Rick Livesey

Researchers have found that the proteins that control the progression of Alzheimer’s are linked in a pathway, and that drugs targeting this pathway may be a way of treating the disease, which affects 40 million people worldwide. The findings are published today (23 April) in the journal Cell Reports.

The scientists, from the University of Cambridge, found that as a protein called amyloid precursor protein (APP) is broken down into toxic protein fragments called amyloid-beta, it affects changes in the way that another key protein, tau, behaves. Though links between these proteins have been described in earlier work, this research has identified a new association between them, and found that manipulating the rate at which APP is broken down is directly connected to levels of tau.

While it is not known exactly what causes Alzheimer’s, it is known that amyloid-beta and tau build up in the brain, forming ‘plaques’ and ‘tangles’ which disrupt the connections between neurons, eventually killing them. There are no treatments to stop or reverse the progression of the disease, although researchers are starting to understand the mechanisms which cause it to progress.

Most people who develop Alzheimer’s will first start showing symptoms in later life, typically in their sixties or seventies. However, between one and five percent of individuals with Alzheimer’s have a genetic version of the disease which is passed down through families, with onset typically occurring in their thirties or forties.

The Cambridge researchers used skin cells from individuals with the genetic form of Alzheimer’s and reprogrammed them to become induced pluripotent stem cells, which can become almost any type of cells in the body. The stem cells were then directed to become neurons with all the characteristics of Alzheimer’s.

Working with these clusters of human neurons – in essence, ‘mini brains’ – the researchers used three classes of drugs to manipulate the rate at which APP is ‘chewed up’ by inhibiting the secretase enzymes which are responsible for breaking it into amyloid-beta fragments. By using drugs to increase or decrease the rate at which APP is broken down, they observed that levels of tau can be altered as well.

Earlier research looking into the link between amyloid-beta and tau had found that once the APP gets broken down, a chunk of amyloid-beta gets outside the cell, which triggers increased production of tau. “What we’re seeing is that there’s a second pathway, and that the amyloid-beta doesn’t have to be outside the cell to change levels of tau – in essence, the cell does it to itself,” said Dr Rick Livesey of the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, who led the research.

While the researchers identified this pathway in neurons with the far rarer familial form of Alzheimer’s, they found that the same pathway exists in healthy neurons as well, pointing to the possibility that targeting the same pathway in late-onset Alzheimer’s may be a way of treating the disease.

Dr Simon Ridley, Head of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “We are pleased to see that our investment in this innovative research using stem cell technology is boosting our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease mechanisms. Alzheimer’s Research UK is committed to funding pioneering research and through our Stem Cell Research Centre at the University of Cambridge we hope to unpick the molecular changes that cause dementia, and crucially, to test new drugs that halt disease progression. With 850,000 people living with dementia in this country, investment in research to find new treatments is critical.”

The research also points to the growing importance of human stem cells in medical research. “The question is why hasn’t this pathway been identified, given that Alzheimer’s is so well-studied?” said Livesey. “The answer is that mice don’t develop Alzheimer’s disease, and they don’t respond to these drugs the way human neurons do. It’s something we can only do by looking at real human neurons.”

The research was funded by Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Wellcome Trust.

Is your Press Relations website Cambridge TV ready

Cambridge TV has every intention of promoting a very positive image of Cambridge, its universities, companies and people. You will want your company portrayed on Cambridge TV news and documentary programmes in the best possible way. In the absence of any video material, Cambridge TV will use material off of your Press Relations web area and “stock photos” of your key personnel. building, products etc. You can massively improve your image on Cambridge TV (and other video outlets) by offering a range of “Video Setting shots” in your Press Relations area. For example:- Panning shots of your head-quarters or Cambridge buildings featuring your company name or Logo Dynamic portrait videos of you key staff and staff who might be “in the news”. From a simple leaving or entering a building shot, through a working at desk , to video with the person active in their work. Product videos of packaging and product in operation A Dynamic video logo or “sting” A Logo that moves has much better impact than a static one! And finally don’t forget the rights waiver, giving Cambridge TV the rights to show the material in broadcast, recorded and on the Internet. For more does and don’ts contact Cambridge TV at info@cambridgepresents.co.uk