In February we held a seminar for around 50 staff and students to learn how to utilise MATLAB software for their research. We invited MathWorks to the university, to give an overview of MATLAB and some of its key features and tools. Bulat Khusainov gave a really useful insight, covering parallelisation, processing on multiple cores and the various Toolboxes for use in tasks such as image or signal processing. There was also mention of MATLAB online that can be accessed via a web browser, which is useful for doing work in the field; and Cody coursework, where students can submit code and get instant feedback on it. We were also pleased to launch the MATLAB Academy Online Training Suite – a series of online courses purchased by the university for use by staff and students.
Rebecca deRafael, MathWorks
We were fortunate to have three University of Birmingham speakers invited to share details of their research and how they have used MATLAB to work with their data.
Michal Kocvara, Professor in Mathematical Optimization, explored the use of PENLAB, a free open source software package software he has co-authored. This is implemented in MATLAB for nonlinear optimization, linear and nonlinear semidefinite optimization.
Melissa Oum, PhD student from Chemical Engineering, explained her research into hydrogen vehicles and the use of steel in fuel cells. She uses MATLAB to model this, defining and solving problems.
Dr Mark Ward, Senior Lecturer in the School of Metallurgy and Materials, outlined his use of parallel computing to simulate heat transfer during additive manufacturing. He makes use of simulation within MATLAB and finds the flexibility of plotting to be good.
Prof. Michal Kocvara
As the MATLAB Special Interest Group becomes more active, we will be updating our online content and holding more seminar type sessions.
If you are interested in using MATLAB for free, or are an existing user who would like some further details, we have a range of information and support material, including the MATLAB Academy Online Training Suite of online courses, video tutorials, a Canvas course, and explanation of how to use MATLAB on the BlueBEAR High Performance Computing system.
UoB has a site licence for MATLAB; information on how to install it can be found on the ServiceDesk website. There is also a mailing list to become a part of the MATLAB community, so please join us!
https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/collaboration/hpc-research/matlab/index.aspx