Imaging center funded in Scotland
The University of Glasgow (Glasgow, UK) has been awarded 10m GBP of funding over five years from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) to create a sensor and imaging systems center.
The Innovation Centre – Sensor and Imaging Systems (IC-SIS) will deliver 150 collaborative research and development projects and bring new products to market over the course of its initial funding period. Eleven other Scottish universities and 22 industry partners are supporting IC-SIS from the outset.
The center will build on the University of Glasgow's existing expertise in the field, and will advance the work of the Scottish Sensor Systems Centre (S3C), a collaborative program funded by SFC and led by the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, to support small-scale collaborative projects between academia and industry in sensors and sensor systems.
IC-SIS has received industrial support from large multinationals including Freescale, Texas Instruments, IBM, SELEX ES, ST Microelectronics, Thales Optronics, BAE Systems, BP, and FMC Technologies.
Other confirmed industry partners include Scottish and Southern Energy, and Scottish Water, as well as globally leading companies Optos and Toshiba Medical, and high-technology Scottish SMEs Gas Sensing Solutions Ltd.
IC-SIS will employ 12 staff by the end of the first year of its operation, reaching 27 after five years, excluding academic staff.
Recent developments from Scotland that you might also find of interest.
1. Sign language translated into text
Technabling, a spin-off of the University of Aberdeen (both of Aberdeen, Scotland), has developed software that can translate sign language into text. Computer scientists at the company claim that the software is the first of its kind that can be used on portable devices.
2. Huge image datasets on line for the first time
Glencoe Software (Dundee, Scotland), a company founded by Dundee University's Professor Jason Swedlow, has produced a new update to the Journal of Cell Biology (JCB) DataViewer, the world's first system for sharing and archiving published scientific image data.
3. Spectroscopy sniffs out fake spirits
Researchers at St. Andrew’s University (St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland) are using a microfluidic device coupled with a laser-based near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy system to characterize whiskies and identify fakes.
-- Dave Wilson, Senior Editor, Vision Systems Design