Events

For sixty years, railways have been supplied with power by transformers connected to the public electricity supply. However, the Trans-Pennine Route Upgrade has followed a different approach, with Static Frequency Converters connecting and electronically controlling power flow.

Railway Systems Integration is a critical aspect of delivering functional, reliable railway systems.

Hear stories of Science and adventure and how Andrew ended up as part of a ransom deal with the secret police in Libya.

For human space missions that extend beyond one or two years, resupply of large volumes and masses of food, water, and atmospheric gases becomes unrealistic. Therefore, long-duration future habitation of space will require bioregenerative life-support systems in which plants could play key roles, including atmosphere regeneration, wastewater recycling and food production. The use of in situ regolith as a seed germination and plant growth substrate may have several advantages over hydroponic systems, such as the immediate bioavailability of plant essential ions, low-tech mechanical support for plants, and easy access to in situ materials once on the surface. Since plants may play several key roles in long-term life support systems on the Moon or Mars, it is crucial to know how plant seeds should be stored and transported across space before being germinated and grown in such systems.

This talk will cover the decision to offer a smart meter to every household in Great Britain and explain the technology behind the meters, why sethe cond generation is behind schedule and issues related to data privacy and cyber security.

In his role as Principal surveyor for the RNLI, Gary Venning is responsible for the three Channel Island lifeboat stations in Alderney, Guernsey and Jersey along with leading a team of 15 surveyors around the UK and Ireland maintain the RNLI lifeboat fleet and other associated assets.

Dina St Johnston was founder of the UK's first Software House. Dina left school at 16, studied for a Mathematics degree part-time and joined Elliott-Automation in 1953. She left Elliott-Automation in 1958 to start her own company, Vaughan Programming Services. In this talk we will illustrate some of Dina's projects and set her life in the context of about 50 other women pioneers who started work as computer programmers between 1949 and 1959.

The Case for Carbon is about carbon capture and storage and then carbon utilisation and release of energy. All this is presented using concepts in school science and, incredibly, it benefits those who live in parts of the world where food and water are scarce.