The gas cell used as a plasma source. The laser arrives from the right of these images through the metal cone and enters the little cube, which is filled with gas. The laser ionizes the gas and turns it into a plasma and creates the accelerator. Researchers have used AI to control beams for the next generation of smaller, cheaper accelerators for research, medical and industrial applications. Experiments led by Imperial College London researchers, using the Science and Technology Facilities Council's Central Laser Facility (CLF), showed that an algorithm was able to tune the complex parameters involved in controlling the next generation of plasma-based particle accelerators.

The Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation (HNCDI), based at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) Daresbury Laboratory in the Liverpool City Region, will create vacancies for an additional 60 scientists and opportunities for students to gain invaluable hands-on experience. The centre – a partnership between STFC and IBM – will bring together world-leading expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing to support the application of the cutting-edge technologies in industry and the public sector. Possible industry applications of quantum computing include optimising complex logistics such as picking and packing orders in large warehouses for supermarkets; traffic routing; energy distribution; improving design and manufacturing processes across automotive sectors. The government will invest £172 million over 5 years through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), with an additional £38 million being invested by IBM. Artificial intelligence and quantum computing have the potential to revolutionise everything from the way we travel to the way we shop.

Can the tiny microbes on your leg reveal your age, or that you smoke? Or that you are menopausal? Billions of microbes live on our skin, they help maintain skin condition, they are our first line of defense from external pathogens and can impact how we respond to treatment. These microbes, which are one tenth the size of human cells, are part of the human microbiome which consists of the collective genome of microbes inhabiting the human body, including bacteria, archaea, viruses, and fungi. A better understanding of our microbiome could help improve overall health and wellbeing and accelerate the development of personalized treatments (including prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics).

IMAGE: The gas cell used as a plasma source. The laser arrives from the right of these images through the metal cone and enters the little cube, which is filled with... view more Researchers have used AI to control beams for the next generation of smaller, cheaper accelerators for research, medical and industrial applications. Experiments led by Imperial College London researchers, using the Science and Technology Facilities Council's Central Laser Facility (CLF), showed that an algorithm was able to tune the complex parameters involved in controlling the next generation of plasma-based particle accelerators. The algorithm was able to optimize the accelerator much more quickly than a human operator, and could even outperform experiments on similar laser systems. These accelerators focus the energy of the world's most powerful lasers down to a spot the size of a skin cell, producing electrons and x-rays with equipment a fraction of the size of conventional accelerators.

Researchers based at the STFC Hartree Centre worked with the Scotch Whisky Research Institute (SWRI) using data analytics to tackle counterfeiting across the sector. Without efficient data processing techniques, the time cost prevents such techniques ever becoming part of a routine authentication provision within the Scotch Whisky sector. The SWRI carries out pre-competitive fundamental research on behalf of its members, representing approximately 90% of the production capacity of the sector. SWRI offers analytical services, using traditional techniques such as GC-FID (Gas Chromatography – Flame Ionisation Detector) or GC-MS (Gas chromatography–Mass Spectrometry) to detect counterfeits. Using these methods to distinguish between different samples can be challenging given the complexity resulting from the number of different compounds present in the vapour above a whisky sample.

At SC19, Excelero announced that the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has deployed a new HPC architecture to support computationally intensive analysis including machine learning and AI-based workloads using the NVMesh elastic NVMe block storage solution. Done in partnership with Boston Limited, the deployment is enabling researchers from STFC and the Alan Turing Institute to complete machine learning training tasks that formerly took three to four days, in just one hour – and other foundational scientific computations that researchers formerly could not perform. The Science and Technology Facilities Council is a part of U.K. Research and Innovation (UKRI) and supports pioneering scientific and engineering research by over 1,700 academic researchers worldwide on space materials and life sciences, nuclear physics and much more. In benchmark testing we quickly saw that our Flash-IO Talyn systems with the Excelero NVMesh software delivered a significant performance ...

Collaboration With STFC Hartree Centre Taps into IBM Watson to Improve Patient Experience. Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust today announced a ground-breaking multi-year collaborative programme with the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) Hartree Centre, supported by IBM (NYSE: IBM), to create the United Kingdom's first'cognitive' hospital by harnessing'big data' and the power of IBM's Watson technology platform. This is the first time that Watson technology will be applied to improve patient experience in the United Kingdom. Alder Hey and the Hartree Centre believe that by applying Watson -- an innovation in computing technology -- it will enhance patient care and potentially generate savings for both the hospital and the NHS (National Health Service) as a whole. Using Watson to analyse any feedback that is voluntarily and securely provided by the patients, with appropriate consent as needed, it is anticipated that Alder Hey will be able to greatly enhance patient experience by; identifying patient anxieties and providing information and reassurance on-demand; reminding young patients and their parents about appointments and about aftercare; and providing insightful feedback to clinicians based on the tone and sentiment of these interactions.