Researchers from the Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, joined by colleagues from Newcastle University and the University of York, led the first successful trial of an end-to-end verifiable e-voting system for polling station voting in Gateshead, Newcastle during the local elections on 2 May 2019. This trial was supported by the electoral service officials at the Gateshead council and was approved by the University of Warwick’s research ethics committee.

This is the first trial of a fully electronic voting system with end-to-end (E2E) verifiability for polling station voting in the UK. Being E2E verifiable, the system allows voters to independently verify if their votes are cast-as-intended, recorded-as-cast and tallied-as-recorded while preserving their privacy. By contrast, with paper ballots, voters must trust other people to record and tally their votes correctly, but they cannot verify this by themselves. The trialled e-voting system is the research outcome of an ERC starting grant, led by Professor Feng Hao from the Department of Computer Science. The prototype was developed under the support by Innovate UK and the trial was sponsored by the Royal Society.

On the election day, voters went to the Gateshead civic centre polling station to vote on paper ballots as usual. Upon exit from the polling station, they were invited to try a touch-screen based e-voting system for a mock election involving a set of dummy candidates. Voters were then provided with an anonymous survey form to indicate based on their voting experience, which of the two voting systems did they prefer. Nearly half of the voters at the Gateshead civic center polling station participated in this trial and provided many useful feedbacks. From the survey results, voters generally found the trialed e-voting system easy to use, and preferred it to paper ballots.

From Gateshead Council News, this is "a new system that could completely revolutionise the elections system". The Gateshead trial is also covered in the BBC News, University Press Releases, Webroots democracy, Government Business, Gizmodo, and ChronicalLive. A video demonstration of the trialled e-voting system is available on YouTube.

It is with great pleasure that we announce that the inaugural Department
of Statistics Teaching Prize is awarded jointly to Paul Jenkins and
Zorana Lazic. Pier Guarniero was also shortlisted for the award and his
teaching contribution was also commended.

The Warwick Photoemission Facility and the Departments of Chemistry & Physics have recently contributed to a study to "upconvert" cellulosic waste in an effort to develop new carbon-neutral biofuels.

Warwick colleagues select some of the most important elements to them from the Periodic Table, an idea first presented by Russian chemist Dmitrii Mendeleev 150 years ago this month.

On Thursday 13 June, the School of Life Sciences and Warwick Medical School Athena SWAN committees will jointly be hosting an event on 'Raising Awareness on Bullying and Harassment'.

Please, register for this FREE event.

If you have any queries, please contact asevent2019@warwick.ac.uk

Engineering Professor to chair prestigious conference at Warwick.

WMG, at the University of Warwick, has worked with partners, to create a new design of incredibly lightweight Very Light Rail (VLR) vehicle frame which is weaved, or braided, from carbon fibre composites into a series of tubes to create a first prototype demonstrator frame. Parliamentary Under Secretary of State and Minister for Business and Industry Andrew Stephenson became one of the very first people to see the new design, outside of the research partnership, on a visit to WMG on 16^th May.

Working with the lightweight structural composite components company Far, and Transport Design International Ltd in Stratford upon Avon the demonstrator can be easily assembled by adhesive and simple welding.

Dr Darren Hughes Associate Professor in Materials and Manufacturing at WMG at the University of Warwick said:

“Our BRAINSTORM VLR research partnership has achieved significant weight-saving, allowing VLR services to accommodate more passengers while reducing the energy required to propel the vehicle and the weight stress it will place on its rails and road surface.”

“The technology also ensures that the vehicle is tough for a long life in service, easily repairable when accidents happen and strong enough to protect the passengers on board.”

The innovative highly efficient very light weight approach consists of an underlying tubular spaceframe chassis which provides the body shell. In the first demonstrator frame the partners have produced they were able to keep the beams the same outside diameter but their wall thickness is tailored to give the optimum performance depending on where it will be used. This keeps the tooling costs low and allows for all the joining to be standardised through a combination of welding and adhesive bonding.

If any significant damage is caused to any individual beam through an accidental impact each damaged beam can simply be entirely replaced with a new one. Best of all the thermoplastic material is inherently recyclable.

The whole moulding cycle has been shown to be capable of being reduced to less than five minutes, demonstrating the potential of this affordable process for high-volume applications. The braiding process is highly automated and with rates of over a mile a day of braided tubing.

This braiding method also allows for a wide range of materials to be used. Almost any fibres (carbon, glass and aramid) can be combined with a huge range of thermoplastics, from low cost Polypropylene to high end Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) to create a material that suits the given application

Lyndon Sanders Director and General Manager of Nottingham based lightweight structural composite components company Far said:

“The BRAINSTORM Project feels like a real step forward to the team at Far Composites. Being able to tap into the industry experience of TDI to hone the principle of a new type of body structure for mass transit applications was great. Add to that the collaborative working with Composites Braiding and WMG to turn that thinking into a physical demonstrator to show what it would be like in practice was really powerful. Now it’s more than a good idea, now it’s an eye opener for industry players who can see it, touch it and even pick it up.”

ENDS

20 MAY 2019

Note for Editors:

High-res images available, please credit The University of Warwick:

The design of the frame with some other sections attached

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/communications/medialibrary/images/april2019/frame-cb1-2.jpg

Dr Darren Hughes (right) showing Lyndon Sanders Director and General Manager of Far (left of picture) the braiding pattern on the frame

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/communications/medialibrary/images/april2019/train_2_jpeg.jpg

Dr Darren Hughes Associate Professor in Materials and Manufacturing at WMG at the University of Warwick (left) showing Parliamentary Under Secretary of State and Minister for Business and Industry Andrew Stephenson (right of picture) all the design stages of the VLR vehicle

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/communications/medialibrary/images/may2019/brainstorm_pic.jpg

The frame with less attached

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/communications/medialibrary/images/april2019/frame-cb5-1.jpg

Another view

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/communications/medialibrary/images/april2019/frame-cb2-1.jpg

A further view

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/communications/medialibrary/images/april2019/frame-cb9-1.jpg

The Full list of partners on the project are: WMG at the University of Warwick, the UK's Governments innovation agency Innovate UK, Far composites, Composite Braiding ,and Transport Design International Ltd in Stratford upon Avon

For further information please contact:

Alice Scott
Media Relations Manager – Science
University of Warwick
Tel: +44 (0) 2476 574 255 or +44 (0) 7920 531 221
E-mail: alice.j.scott@warwick.ac.uk

We announce with regret that Dr Jack Cohen died on 6th May 2019 at the age of 85. Jack was a joint Consultant to the Mathematics Institute and Ecosystems Analysis and Epidemiology Unit in the Biology Department of Warwick University from 1996-2000, and an Honorary Professor in the Mathematics Department.

Congratulations to Raquel Nunes on her recent promotion to Senior Research Fellow which will be effective from 1 June 2019.

In the Sleep and Health third year undergraduate module groups of students are asked to produce a 5-min educational video introducing a sleep-related topic to the general public.

The following groups have been selected as the winners for this year:

• PS362 Video Assignment (2018-2019): Overall Winner
  Wake Up! A Short Introduction to Sleep Inertia (https://youtu.be/AcuHpiu3dhc)
  Jess Sogi, Florence Coventry, Rosie Oldham
• PS362 Video Assignment (2018-2019): Highly Commended
  A 5-Minute Introduction to the Research behind Sugar and Sleep: Sweet Dreams- “A Mocumentary” (https://youtu.be/QBcpetd_afo)
  Natalie Atkinson, Amy Mitchell-Meades, Chloe Davis
• PS362 Video Assignment (2018-2019): Highly Commended
  The Relationship between Sleep and Obesity: A Short but Creative Introduction (https://youtu.be/EOYhqbYa-lY)
  Sian McGowan, Emily Edwards, Melissa Garton, Rosie Robbins

Well done everyone!