FOUR Oxfordshire companies at the cutting edge of the technological revolution have won valuable Government awards.

The winners get cash from the Department of Trade and Industry to research and develop innovative ideas.

Imaging Associates, of Thame, has been singled out for a £36,500 grant to develop a pathology decision support system to test breast tissue for cancer.

Project manager Paul Sheppard said clinical pathologists looking at specimens under a microscope would be able to compare them to a series of example images stored in the system.

He added: "The Smart award is vital in helping us to develop the results of our feasibility study into marketable software, teaching materials and hardware recom- mendations."

Oxford Semiconductor, of Abingdon, a former Oxfordshire Business of the Year, was given £134,000 to develop a system to link new high-speed computer systems with older, standard equipment.

Company chairman Nick Cross said: "What we are trying to do is design such an adapter to enable the latest computers to communicate with printers, disc drives and CD-Roms designed to older, slower standards." He said the Smart money had enabled the firm to undertake the project by reducing the risk involved.

Abingdon software firm Simulus won £45,000 to develop a program to plan large organisations' future computer needs. Peter Colaluca, of Simulus, said: "Without the Smart award Simulus would not have started this project until well into 2000."

An Oxford University spin-out company, Kindbrisk of Eynsham, also won £45,000 for equipment to weigh and analyse atoms.

Managing director Prof George Smith said: "There are six million atoms on the head of a pin, end-to-end. These can be magnified six million times with the use of a very powerful microscope.

"Working in collaboration with Oxford University, we have already developed equipment to remove individual atoms."

Story date: Tuesday 20 April

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.