Edinburgh & Lothians

Latest News for Edinburgh & Lothians

Spain's Ferrovial must sell three of the seven British airports it bought for £10bn two years ago under a tougher-than-expected ruling that it must sell off two of its three London hubs and either Glasgow or Edinburgh airport bringing its portfolio from seven down to four. It comes just two days after Ferrovial finalised a £13.3bn refinancing which included securitising revenues from its London airports.

As Inverness searches for a coastal planning officer, Edinburgh based technology company WFS is to lead a consortium to develop an underwater sensor network to monitor the impact of climate change on coastal erosion. In the US concern for beach erosion and coral damage drives a data monitoring approach by Florida-based Lindorn.

The Fringe board announced at its AGM that ministers will be invited to take part in an inquiry, along with representatives of Edinburgh City Council, Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Arts Council. An independent investigation will also seek a new computer system to replace the current one – dogged by failures and crippled ticket sales.

According to a Scotland on Sunday report, the shortcomings of the Fringe's new Liquid Box Office system from Pivotal Integration meant that telephone and counter sales were suspended on several occasions and printing problems meant that more than 150,000 tickets were only sent out at the last minute. However, the Edfringe.com website explained that the new system "was launched in June and soon after we encountered a combination of technical problems that resulted in slower than expected processing of ticket purchases".

The European Research Council (ERC) has released details of the first round of recipients of its Advanced Grants in the physical sciences and engineering fields. Some 105 of the almost 1,000 applicants from these disciplines have been allocated funding. The physical sciences and engineering grant recipients will be carrying out research in a diverse range of fields, the host institutions are located in 19 countries in the EU and countries which have signed up to the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Of the 19 UK winners, both Edinburgh and Strathclyde Universities scooped a funding award, in molecular and space engineering respectively.

Enterprise software firm ASG Software Solutions, has announced an expansion to its international presence with the opening of a new office in Edinburgh. It is one of the largest privately owned software companies in the world, with a turnover of around 0m in 2007. It already has more than 90 offices around the world, and the new Edinburgh office is located at 10 Lochside Place, Edinburgh Park.

The Edinburgh festival Fringe Office software has led the publicity circus in Edinburgh, but for all the wrong reasons. The £353,000 system put in place in early June, crashed leaving hundreds queueing for hours, and others able to buy tickets for shows that were sold out. However Fringe director John Morgan said only 10 out of 32,000 shows had been oversold, and it is still unclear exactly how may were unable to buy tickets for shows they wanted to attend.

Student returns from Scotland bringing tea tradition to classical studies read the news piece.
Gaberlunzie was delighted to learn that the culture of ttea should spread worldwide. And even more impressed that Kruse talked of High Tea. Still found occasionally in northern Scotland and owing its presence to the long summer nights, where farming work would continue late, the Hiigh Tea, is NOT to be confused with run-of-the-mill afternoon tea (mere sandwiches, pancakes, scones, biscuits & cake).

The European project called Sensopac, whose goal is to create a robotic arm, hand and brain with human-like physical and cognitive capabilities, is made up of 12 groups and has now made advances with its robot hand. The hand mimics the flexibility and sensitivity of a human hand and is controlled by a neural-network-based program modelled on the cerebellum. In the next six months Edinburgh and Lund Universities will see how well their system can control arm and hand.

The recently-published guide Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), the performance indicators for 2006/07, designed to provide reliable information on the nature and performance of the higher education sector in the UK sees Napier climb 10 places, from 11 to number one in Scotland, and 11th overall in the UK.

Researchers led by a team at the University of Edinburgh, have discovered the way avalaches are caused are are from anti-crack fractures under the surface that cause the underlying layer of snow to crumble inwardly. The crumbling inner layers cause the upper layers to slide off, creating an avalanche. Made within the framework of the TRIGS ('Triggering of instabilities in materials and geosystems') project, and usingcomplex systems analysis tools to explore the triggering mechanisms of natural catastrophes such as avalanches, earthquakes and landslides, it will, as an anti-crack itself, lead to an avalanche of further research.

The Scottish health board NHS Lothian has declared a data amnesty after a community health worker lost a USB stick containing personal information on 137 patients. It has now told its staff that anyone who has inappropriately stored sensitive information can come forward and have it safely disposed of without being subject to disciplinary procedures. The amnesty is part of a data safety campaign that the health board plans to run for its 28,000 employees following the loss of the USB stick at the end of June.

Hot on the heels of The Ministry of Defence publishing Sir Edmund Burton's report into the lost laptops of January 2008, containing the personal details of individuals who expressed interest in joining the Armed Forces, comes news that a senior hospital manager has been suspended after a laptop containing unencrypted personal data of more than 20,000 patients was stole from the NHS staff member's car in an Edinburgh carpark. And in Edinburgh, another furore as a USB memory stick has gone missing also with confidential NHS patient information.

Geberlunzie, struggling with 4-pin bank security numbers (at least two that keep getting used for the wrong card) phone banking security numbers (another couple) to say nothing of email passwords (alpha-numeric) about three, was rather less than thrilled to fall into the comfort of the local Edinburgh library and discover the bar code plastic library card is now scanned and needs another memorable pin!

Venture capital firm 3i today says it has not scaled back its investments in Scotland in the first half of the year and predicted a strong deal pipeline for the coming months. In the six months to the end of September, 3i Scotland invested a total of Â£43 million north of the Border, unchanged from the same period last year, although at 12 the number of deals was slightly lower.

Edinburgh based firm Big DNA Ltd, which is developing new methods of delivering vaccines, has been awarded a SMART award of Â£70,000. SMART Scotland gives grants to small and medium sized enterprises to help support R&D projects representing a significant technological advance for UK industry or a sector.

Braveheart, the technology commercialisation and investment management company has signed an agreement with the University of Aberdeen. it follows hot on the heels of the Perth based investment company tie-up with Edinburgh University in June 2007 creating a dedicated £25m fund having rights of first refusal to invest in all commercial investment opportunities that arise in respect of companies and intellectual property emanating from the university, other than in the field of medicine, veterinary medicine and life sciences, where it may take a co-investment position. In February 2007 a £12m funding deal for the Strathclyde Innovation Fund partnership with Strathclyde University shared 25% of its performance bonus with the university. In addition, when an investment is made, a payment will be made to the department which has sponsored the investment opportunity, encouraging university departments to participate in the commercialisation partnership.

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