As of 3.30pm today (Wednesday February 8), there have been 1055 votes cast in the most popular election category. London Student understands this is the Vice-Presidential election. Following Ian Drummond’s resignation, there are three candidates remaining in this category: Abs Hassanali, Daniel Cooper and Ross Speer.

The figure represents an increase of 75% in the total number of votes cast since yesterday.

You can read all the candidates’ manifestos and cast your vote here. Voting closes at 6pm tomorrow (Thursday February 9).

As of 4.40pm today (Tuesday February 7), there have been 640 votes cast in the most popular election category. London Student understands this is the Vice-Presidential election. Following Ian Drummond’s resignation, there are three candidates remaining in this category: Abs Hassanali, Daniel Cooper and Ross Speer.

The low turnout means candidates are engaged in a hard battle for the votes that are there and is likely to result in close election results, particularly in the Vice-Presidential election and that for London Student editor, where there are five candidates.

You can read all the candidates’ manifestos and cast your vote here.

I loved maths since I was a kid, and the idea of being able to write equations that could predict reality really appealed. Then I discovered that computers could do maths better than I could!
I started off writing simple computer games, with simple built in physics equations using a Sinclair ZX81. My ideas became real on the screen. Later, I advanced to writing simulation programmes for magnets, and optics.
Computers gave me the opportunity to create new ways of exploring, as my career progressed I became more interested in understanding the human brain. After degrees in psychology and medical physics I’m now in a computer science department trying to understand how our brains work mathematically, and using these insights to build smarter technologies, like robots.

What is your research focus?

I coordinate a big EU robotics project, building socially aware companion robots. We use ideas from biology all the time – the biological world has had millions of years of evolution to come up with really good solutions to hard problems – and we should use these where we can.
In the past I’ve been able to use maths to predict new types of optical illusions – nature’s magic tricks – and as a hobby magician I loved that. I also spend a lot of my time trying to inspire school children about the excitement of research in science maths and computing, through my projects like computer science for fun and the magic based illusioneering project.

How do you think ICT should be taught?

Computing is a relatively new subject, so it’s not surprising we are having some teaching troubles… I’ve been involved in [the curriculum review] behind the scenes; the problem with some ICT classes is that they can make computing dull – it’s about using existing tools rather than the wonderful creative skills of being able to build new and better software.

We should be allowing our next generation the chance to meet those moments in their lives where they too can discover how to create something new. The reality is far more complex, where will the teachers come from with the skills to do this? How do we ensure the best and important parts of ICT are not lost?

What advances do you imagine in computer science in the next ten years?

Computer science will continue to be the main driving force in new products and underpin advances in science and medicine, it will also allow the creation of new forms of art and entertainment. The importance of understanding the human user’s experience, rather than just writing good code, will become more important.

The next 100 years?

Always hard to predict, my best shot will be that we will see more computing devices built into our homes, cars, clothes, and even our bodies. Humanity will link and then blend with artificial intelligence. In the same way as we look back on history and wonder how we lived without glasses, penicillin, telephones and the printing press, in 100 years we will wonder how we lived without personally customised medicines, smart clothes with built in sensors, and adaptive smart buildings to minimise energy use.

In total, there are twelve candidates running across the four different categories. Current ULU Sabbatical Officer Sean Rillo Raczka is the only candidate for President; there are four candidates for the Vice-President position that Rillo Raczka will vacate; five candidates for the role of London Student Editor; and just two candidates running for the four Trustee positions.

This year ‘campaigning on the record’ is permitted, meaning candidates can freely associate with, criticise or compliment each other. The issue has been a contentious one in ULU elections in recent years.

The Returning Officer, Rob Park, who is tasked with overseeing the elections said: “We never want to suspend candidates from elections. We want to see fair, positive campaigning.

“Over the years many candidates have been thrown out of elections directly as a result of comments made relating to other candidates. Now that campaigning on the record is allowed, we hope that will change. Manifestos have been retracted or unpublished and hustings – the questions for candidates has been an aseptic non committal experience, with no candidate allowed even to comment on their rivals for good or bad.”

The election period lasts for a week, starting from Thursday February 2. All University of London students who have not chosen to opt-out of ULU are eligible to vote at the ULU elections.

Emails will be sent out to students via their College email accounts over the next fortnight instructing students on how to vote.

The President, Vice-President and London Student editor positions are all sabbatical positions that last for one year, whilst the Student Trustees carry out their duties part-time alongside their studies.

Over the coming months, students at institutions across London will go to the polls to elect their representatives for the next academic year.

This is in response to widespread criticism and the highly publicized blackout of wikipedia, reddit, tumblr and many other websites.

The coordinated blackout on January 18, in which over 115,000 websites participated, was a determining factor in congress’ decision to withdraw SOPA.

On the day, over 162 million people attempted to visit Wikipedia and were consequently redirected to a page that explained the purpose of the protest. Google, long-time opponents of the proposed legislation, provided a petition that over 7 million people signed.  Opposition for the proposed laws was based on fears that their content could damage online freedom of speech.

However, the decision to shelve SOPA and PIPA did not sit well with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Its chairman, Chris Dodd, has spoken out against the government’s decision, labeling it a “failure to act”.

In an interview on Fox News, Dodd said, “Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake”. This continued rhetoric indicates that the withdrawal of SOPA and PIPA does not mark the end of American efforts to prevent and punish piracy.

Since the blackout, the US Federal Government has taken other steps in their war on piracy.

The FBI seized megaupload.com , the popular file-sharing site, on January 19 and its founder and chief executives have been arrested in New Zealand.

Following this development, hacktivist collective, Anonymous, launched a denial-of-services attack on the organizations that they held responsible for this latest measure. Anonymous successfully shut down several websites, including that of the US Department of Justice, the MPAA and the FBI; albeit for about 70 minutes.

Last week’s raid on megaupload.com has frightened several other file-sharing sites, including Filesonic and Fileserve, into closing down their own operations.

These conflicts come on the heels of news that a British Student, Richard O’Dwyer founder of streaming search engine TVShack.cc , could be extradited to the United States.

The question emerging from the flurry of recent activity is who should police the Internet and how you introduce legality to the digital frontier. The response from the online community is that of outrage.  The New York Times, suggests that the hacktivists recent efforts mark a “a political coming of age for the tech industry”.

LSE’s long-run growth strategy is being put forward by Professors Larry Summers of Harvard University and Steve Nickell of Oxford University, who will give evidence on how to improve the growth performance of the UK economy in the medium to long term.

Professor Summers was an economic policy adviser in the administrations of both President Clinton and President Obama, and Professor Nickell is a member of the Office for Budget Responsibility and former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).

Co-chair of the Comission and former MPC member Professor Tim Besley, LSE, said: “Even in times of slow growth and protracted economic turbulence, it is essential to stay focused on the key drivers of prosperity over the long term.”

He continued: “The LSE Growth Commission will use frontier research and ideas to provide a framework for policy and policy-making in the UK to support sustainable growth.”

Director of the Centre for Economic Performance and Commission co-chair John Van Reenen, added: “The scope of the Commission is broad, looking at, among other things, the role of green technologies, the creation and deployment of skills, the provision of infrastructure, the role of macroeconomic stability, the system of innovation, public sector productivity, trade and the tax and regulatory regime.”

“A unique feature of our approach will be to consider what structures of government are needed to support an effective growth strategy,” he continued.

Today’s launch event is the first of a series of sessions, drawing evidence from academics in business and policy. The LSE Growth Commission will produce a report on policy changes to support growth in the UK by the end of 2012. The proceedings of the evidence sessions are to be put on permanent public record.

The importance of this event is explained by Sarah Guise, Head of UCL Equalities and Diversity. “Diversity month recognises that our differences are to be respected and promoted… During February 2012, an exciting programme of events has been scheduled to both celebrate diversity and examine the on-going and evolving challenges some groups face in education, work and wider society.”

The events touch on a wide variety of disciplines and there are several notable participants: Matthew Todd, Editor of Attitude magazine, takes part in a panel debate on gay men and body image issues; Dr Katrina Scior, Academic Director & Senior Lecturer, UCL Psychology,  discusses how different cultural communities respond to mental illnesses and intellectual disabilities. There will also be an LGBT volunteering fair for all interested in helping out in this area.

This year’s theme is based on the UCL Grand Challenge of Human Wellbeing. In conjunction with this month’s celebration, a week of talks and workshop will be held in February to explore the nature of being human and consider the topic of wellbeing. This includes a public discussion on the controversial topic of extended lifespan.

All events are open to UCL students and the public alike.

Every second of on-screen action and sound is directed, produced, shot, lit, edited and designed by the MA Filmmaking students. The films range in length from 9.42 minutes to 19 minutes. In total, the films last just over an hour, covering creativity in turmoil; a showdown between good and evil; the domestic lives of assassins; and the search for undying love.

In preparation for the event, the students released synopses of their work: “Unfinished” centres on Charlotte McKay, a successful crime novelist suffering from a crippling case of writers’ block at a crucial point in her latest book. Unable to kill off her main character as planned, Charlotte seeks the help of her therapist to uncover why writing this particular death is proving so difficult.

In “Intra”, the last days of three assassins Bruno, Sophie and The Girl are told. These three lonely souls coexist in their isolation where the search for love is the only remedy. Set in an unspecified future and structured as a long flashback, the film takes place during the week prior to the team’s last job. In their shared apartment, tension mounts as the three characters come to conclusions about their dead end lives.

In “True Love”, Adam’s relationship with his girlfriend is being soured by doubt and mistrust. But when he meets an old man, he learns the secret of how to make true love last forever.  Lastly, in “Wild Dan”, Cowboy Dan embarks on a journey leading him to become a real hero.

Gerry McCulloch, Lecturer in Film Practice at Goldsmiths, said: “This year we have a particularly talented cohort of students who have worked tirelessly to produce these highly original films. We are delighted with the scope and ambition of the projects and are especially pleased to be presenting the first ever Western made at Goldsmiths. Our annual screening to a packed house at BAFTA is the start of the life of these films on the International Film Festival circuit; a journey which has delivered awards to Goldsmiths filmmakers in the previous two years.”

The MA Filmmaking course has been running at Goldsmiths since 2006. The work done by the teams of students is a major component of the students’ MA and it involves collaborations with the Institute of Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths, as well as external collaborations with institutions such as the Royal College of Music and the Central School of Speech and Drama.

The films are made from the winning scripts of the Goldsmiths Best Short Script Competition, which is open to all Goldsmiths students. Entries are now open for the 2012 competition.

The low turnout is disappointing given that the period immediately after the start of voting is usually one of the most active.

However, last year’s explosive start was largely due to unique factors, such as a particularly polarising presidential race and an intensely debated year for students.

A clearer indication of voter turnout will emerge on Monday, when students will have been at the polls for four days. During the first four days of last year’s election, over 1000 students voted.

You can view London Student‘s video interviews with candidates here. To read all the manifestos and cast your vote, click here.