Physics Department News

Congratulations to Dr Nick D'Ambrumenil being selected among the 142 Outstanding Referees of the Physical Review and Physical Review Letters journals, as chosen by the journal editors for 2015.

Initiated in 2008, the Outstanding Referee program expresses appreciation for the essential work that anonymous peer reviewers do for our journals. Each year a small percentage of our 65,000 active referees are selected and honored with the Outstanding Referee designation. Selections are made based on the number, quality, and timeliness of referee reports as collected in a database over the last 30 years. The program will recognize about 150 referees each year, although larger groups were selected in 2008 and 2009. A full listing and further details on the program are available here:http://publish.aps.org/OutstandingReferees.

Jack has developed a wireless device that detects and uses detailed 3D movements in your fingertips to interact with a computer. It has huge potential in the multi-billion pound gaming industry and other niche markets such as remotely operated machinery.

It works by combining information from cameras and wireless sensors, and in the future this technology could even replace traditional computer keyboards and mice to enable people to create and manipulate digital information with their hands in a free and natural way. It could also enable people to perform new tasks that would previously have been too complex or intricate, such as sorting and processing large and disparate data.

Its accuracy and affordability make it stand out from other consumer technologies on the market, and it could be a key enabler in bringing augmented and virtual reality technologies into the mainstream. The device is currently in prototyping and is expected to reach the market in the next few years.

You can see a video of his work here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckhyMxF8lOQ

Congratulations to David Dossett and Tom Latham as their paper has been selected to appear in the New Journal of Physics “Highlights of 2014” collection. This collection is a special showcase of articles that have been chosen to represent the breadth of interest and excellence of the work published in the journal last year.

To view the entire collection online please go to:

http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/page/highlights-of-2014_

Intense computing at the Hartree Centre has enabled researchers from Aston University and the University of Warwick to test pioneering simulation software that could improve fibre optic cable performance.