Artificial Audience Interaction
Time: from 3.30pm
Site: Engineering building
Researchers: Professor Pat Healey, Arash Eshghi
Interact with an audience of life-size avatars.
Building on work on street performance carried out by IMC we will create an artificial "audience" of life-size avatars that respond directly to participant behaviour. We will use this to illustrate the effects of mass interaction and 'emotional contagion'; in particular, how people react to being observed by audiences who respond to their movements with patterns of behaviour designed to accentuate and potentially subvert those responses.
Chat Tool
Time: from 3.30pm
Site: Engineering building
Researchers: Professor Pat Healey, Christine Howes, Arash Eshghi
Test your communication skill.
We will demonstrate an experimental instant-messaging chat tool that (unknown to you) changes and manipulates what you say as you type it. This tool, developed by IMC, makes it possible, for the first time, to carry out systematic, experimental manipulations of live, open-ended dialogue. People will use the tool to chat with each other, while we carry out selective manipulations that aim to enhance or impede people's communication while testing whether they can spot the artificial interventions.
Wheel of Fortune
Time: from 3.30pm
Site: Engineering building
Researchers: Matthew Purver, Stuart Battersby
Track your emotions in real time on Twitter.
A social media game/experiment allowing people to use Twitter to contribute to a discussion around a given theme. The results will be automatically analysed for the themes and opinions which emerge, the emotional content, agreement/disagreement etc, and visualised on a public screen.
Physiological measurements
Time: from 3.30pm
Site: Human Performance Lab, Bancroft Road
Researchers: Dr Dylan Morrissey, Stephanie Hemmings & Richard Twycross
Assessments of human performance and
health-related fitness tests with the Human Performance Laboratory.
Walk in the shoes of an Olympic sports person: experience tests
undergone by the Olympians such as pulmonary gas exchange etc.
Sodarace
Time: from 3.30pm
Site: Engineering building
Researchers: Professor Peter W. McOwan
Explore Artificial Intelligence research as you complete and co-operate with the machine to build the best virtual races to win the game using a BAFTA winning project.
Computer Science Magic Show
Time: from 3.30pm
Site: ArtsTwo foyer
Researchers: Professor Peter W. McOwan
Explore behind the scenes of some amazing magic tricks and discover the computer science that makes them work. See how the ideas that can fool the audience can also help researchers build safer software for hospitals.
To the beat of their own drum
Time: 4 - 4.30pm
Site: Library Square
Researchers: Sylvan Baker
Experience the energizing and inspirational power of the arts as you learn drumming skills from a group of young people.
30 mins drumming performance
from Peoples Palace Projects.
Transforming Lives
Time: 5 - 5.45pm
Site: Pinter Studio, ArtsOne
Researchers: Professor Paul Heritage
Come and get involved in a mash up of arts, cutting edge technology and real life experiences of the young video jockeys who perform.
30 mins 'open workshop Lab style' by Lawnmowers Encounters group
Embodied Emotions
Time: from 3.30pm
Site: ArtsTwo studio
Researchers: Senior Lecturer Ali Campbell
Presentation as part of the Beyond Text programme
(Films) led by schoolchildren, bringing together historians, performers, educators, and children to investigate how bodily movements mediate between inward feelings and the outside world.
LEGO Universe
Time: from 3.30pm
Site: ArtsTwo front foyer
Researchers: Dr Ben Still and other members of the Particle Physics Research Centre
From the initial soup of particles at the beginning of time, we use LEGO blocks to explore the history of the universe. Starting with blocks representing the most basic particles - quarks - build protons and neutrons, then use the fusion techniques within stars to create different types of atoms, as we guide you through the process of building a universe. As the fair goes on, help us create more and more elements. After this, explore planet formation by helping to build a planet, before travelling to the end of the universe, to decide how it all ends...
Facility Tour of the Media Arts Technology Studio
Time: from 3.30pm
Site: Media Arts Technology Studio
Researchers: Professor Pat Healey
Part of a strategic initiative, funded by Research Councils UK for interaction design and digital media processing, production and recording techniques and optional specialist modules ranging from Digital Audio Effects through Digital Rights Management to Contemporary Performance.
Facility Tour of the Antenna Measurement Labs
Time: from 4pm
Site: Media Arts Technology Studio
Researchers:Akram Alomainy
The Group's philosophy in antenna design has always been high quality electromagnetic modeling supported by high quality measurements and over its 40 year history it has built an extensive Antenna Measurement laboratory (AML) which now covers the frequency band 500MHz to 345 GHz. Supported by three full-time technical staff: Dr. Dubrovka (CAD/CAM Antenna Engineering Manager, Mr. Dupuy (Lab Manager) and Mr. Tony Stone (workshop Manager), the facility is arguably one of the most comprehensive in a European University.
Cooperative Wireless Sensor Network for Healthcare and Performance Monitoring
Time: from 4pm
Site: Media Arts Technology Studio
Researchers:Raffaele Di Bari and Max Munoz
The demonstrated system will be aware of the surrounding environment and neighbouring units and thus provide efficient and low power wireless connectivity for personal area network (PAN) and body area network (BAN) applications. The network will couple body parameter data such as ECG with the user's activity detection to provide a better understanding of the changes in health patterns and clear recommendations.
What can studying Animal vocalisations tell us about human Communication?
Time: 4.15 - 5pm
Site: ArtsOne Lecture Theatre
Researchers: Dr. Alan McElligott, Biological and Experimental Psychology Group
A 30 minute talk about how studying vocal communication in mammals can lead us to a better understanding of vocal communication and language evolution in humans. This presentation will give a deeper insight into what is happening when an animal utters a call, and outline the similarities with what humans do.
Developing Cells
Time: 3.30pm - 8pm
Site: The Fogg Building
Researchers: Rachel Ashworth and Caroline Brennan
Zebrafish embryos are transparent making it easier to follow the development of cells and organs using a microscope. This workshop will allow you to see (in amazing detail) the various stages of embryonic fish development. You will also have the opportunity to discuss some of the research going on in this area.
SUDOKU
Time: 4 - 4.30pm
Site: Mathematics Lecture Theatre, Mathematical Sciences Building
Researchers: Professor Peter Cameron, School of Mathematical Sciences
Like them or loathe them, Sudoku puzzles are everywhere. But are they mathematics or are they just "logic and reasoning" as one national British newspaper suggested? All the ingredients of Sudoku had been developed by mathematical scientists long before the puzzle made its official appearance in 1979.This lecture will look at the mathematical origins of Sudoku.
Fairness in Networks
Time: 4.30 - 5pm
Site: Mathematics Lecture theatre, Mathematical Sciences Building
Researchers: Dr. Rui Carvalho, School of Mathematical Sciences
How do you share resources fairly across a network of people, companies or countries? Transportation or energy networks carry the flow of information, energy or goods using routing rules that aim to be efficient and avoid congestion. What makes a good network, and how can we minimize problems such as congestion?
Listen to your Heart
Time: from 3.30pm
Site: ArtsOne Hitchcock Studio
Researchers: Fabrizio Smeraldi
Put on the headphones and listen to your own heartbeat. The familiar lub-dub-transmitted as vibrations through your body – is amplified by the sensor, digitized and displayed as waves while you listen. Like all digital sound, your heartbeat can be encoded as an mp3 file.
The Real Matrix: How to Make Self-Replicating Machines that Can Take Over the World
Time: 7 - 8pm
Site: ArtsTwo Lecture Theatre
Researchers: Dr. Chrisantha Fernando, Lecturer in Computer Science
Humans have been trying to make artificial self-replicating machines now for 60 years. Together we'll look at some of these machines. Some of them are just made of wood or plastic magnetic pucks on an air-hockey table, others are complex robots. We are still a long way from self-replicating machines that can find their own food, and can evolve by Darwinian natural selection, i.e./e/ survival of the fittest machines. The major limitation will be their dependency on us for their raw materials; in this sense they will be like viruses that utilise the metabolism of the cell for their own selfish ends. Do such machines already interact with our brains to encourage us to help them replicate. Do such machines already exist? What is certainly the case is that an important evolutionary step for self-replicating machines will be to break away from their dependency on human will, but this isn't likely to happen for some time. For now, all we have to do is switch them off at the mains.
