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ESRC : Hester Hockin-Boyers : ES/P000762/1 The Mitacs Globalink UK-Canada doctoral exchange scheme would enable PhD student Hester Hockin-Boyers (Durham University) to spend 12-weeks working with Dr Norman and Professor Vertinsky in the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia (UBC), from September-December 2020. The proposed research will explore how Canadian women's interactions with health and fitness content on Instagram impacts upon physical activity participation. This research is sorely needed because, while social media is increasingly pertinent to the formation of everyday health practices, this dimension is seldom explored. In addition, this project will pilot a novel method, developed by Hockin-Boyers, called 'screenshot elicitation', which seeks to capture the fast, dynamic, mobile and everyday nature of interactions with digital content. Whilst Hockin-Boyers has already begun to develop this technique as part of her PhD research, the Mitacs Globalink project will provide the space and resources to pilot and advance this methodology. The findings resulting from this project have the potential to enhance Canadian women's quality of life, health and wellbeing, by informing digital platform design, social media pedagogies, and public policy in Canada. Furthermore, by providing Hockin-Boyers access to the variety of expertise in Digital Health at UBC, new knowledge and methodological techniques will be brought back to the UK, thus enhancing capacity for further research and innovation

The human mouth contains many different types of microorganisms that are often found attached to oral surfaces in 'sticky' communities called biofilms. These microorganisms are held in close proximity and will therefore likely influence the behaviour of each other. The effects of this could result in increased microbial growth, the displacement of some microorganisms to other sites, the alteration of gene expression and potentially, the enabling of microorganisms to cause infection. A PhD research project being done by Ms Megan Williams at the School of Dentistry, Cardiff University has been exploring how a fungus called Candida albicans can interact both with acrylic surfaces (used to manufacture dentures) and also with bacterial species often found alongside Candida albicans. To date, the work has indicated that colonisation of acrylic coated with different fluids, including those generated from tobacco smoking, may change the way Candida albicans grows. Candida albicans can grow as round cells called yeast, or as filamentous forms called hyphae. It is the hyphal forms that are often considered more damaging to human tissue surfaces during infection. In addition, the research shows that when certain bacteria are grown on acrylic surfaces with Candida albicans, hyphal development is also triggered. This is important, as it may mean that occurrence of infection by Candida albicans is at least in part determined by the community composition of the bacteria present alongside Candida. To date, the methods used to study these effects have included fluorescent microscopy, where the Candida is stained to fluoresce a different colour to bacteria and the surface of attachment. Whilst this approach allows quantification of attachment and imaging of the different growth forms, it cannot determine strength of cell-cell-surface interactions. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is a method that provides images through measuring forces acting between a moving probe and a surface. It is possible to attach different molecules and even whole bacteria to the AFM probe, and in doing so, we can measure interactions occurring between bacteria, and either Candida yeast or hyphae serving as the substrate. Dr Laurent Bozec and his team at the University of Toronto are experts in use of AFM, which is not available in the School of dentistry, Cardiff. The exchange therefore offers the PhD student the opportunity to learn a new experimental technique, generate important data for the PhD and benefit from unique networking experiences. The results generated from this proposal will greatly enhance the research output and complement existing findings of the PhD. Ultimately, this could help determine how bacteria physically interact with Candida albicans and trigger the development of hyphal filaments to facilitate infection.

This project will quantify the effect of surface generated melt-water fluctuations on ice motion at the margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). More specifically, it will provide data that will enable ice-sheet modellers to improve their predictions of the future contribution of the GrIS to sea level rise in response to a warming world. To achieve this aim requires a dedicated field campaign to the GrIS to investigate seasonal ice flow dynamics and runoff processes along flow parallel transects extending from the ice sheet margin to the equilibrium line altitude (ELA) at both tidewater and land-terminating glaciers. The greatest store of fresh water in the northern hemisphere - equivalent to 7m of eustatic sea level rise - is held within the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS), and yet its present and future contribution to sea level is poorly constrained (IPCC, 2007). Recent observations suggest that mass loss near the margin of the GrIS is accelerating through a combination of increased surface melting (e.g. Steffen et al, 2004) and dynamic thinning (e.g. Rignot and Kanagaratnam, 2006). However, the key processes controlling dynamic thinning have yet to be identified (Alley et al, 2005), and in consequence, are not incorporated in the ice-sheet models which form the basis of the IPCC sea level projections. This in part reflects the fact that the satellite data that has revealed the widespread speed-up of glaciers cannot be acquired at the temporal resolution needed to resolve the causal mechanisms. Our present understanding of GrIS mass balance is especially complicated by uncertainties in the sensitivity of ice-marginal dynamics to changes in melt-water induced lubrication resulting from penetration of supraglacial melt-waters to the glacier bed (Zwally et al, 2002). Recent observations on the GrIS Shepherd et al, in review) reveal, over a five day period in July, a strong and direct coupling between surface hydrology and dynamics where diurnal fluctuations in velocity of >100% occur and where maximum daily velocities scale with temperature. Such observations confirm the need to acquire hydrological and dynamic data at high temporal (sub-hourly) and spatial resolution throughout the year to parameterise the coupling between ice melting and flow. This project will collect data at the necessary resolution to quantify the relationship between melt-water production and ice sheet dynamics thereby enabling ice-sheet modellers to improve predictions of the GrIS's response to climate change. We will conduct ground based experiments along two flow-parallel transects at the western margin of the GrIS in adjacent land and marine terminating drainage basins to address the following objectives: 1. Is there a temporal and spatial pattern to any hydrology-dynamic link associated with the seasonal evolution of the supraglacial drainage system (including supraglacial lakes)? 2. Over what area does surface generated meltwater penetrate to the base of the ice sheet? 3. Is there a relationship between the volume of meltwater input at the glacier surface and the magnitude of the dynamic response? 4. Do tidewater and land-terminating glaciers behave differently during the course of a melt-season? Field campaigns will be undertaken during 2008 and 2009 to determine: 1) The rate, extent and duration of melt. 2) The temporal and spatial variations in water volumes stored in and released from supraglacial lakes and delivered to freely draining moulins. 3) The seasonal, diurnal and hourly variations in ice dynamics. 4) The variations in proglacial discharge and water chemistry (at Russell Glacier). As a result of our work, it will be possible to determine whether ice dynamics at the margin of the GrIS is significantly affected by lubrication of the glacier bed following the drainage of surface derived meltwaters. Our results will be delivered to ice sheet modellers to help them constrain predictions for the future of the GrIS

This proposal builds on - and extends to new audiences and user communities - our NDA funded research project (2009-2012) entitled Ages and Stages: The Place of Theatre in Representations and Recollections of Ageing. It aims to develop some of the activities and research-led learning from that project and, in so doing, reach out to - and bring together - user communities who may not traditionally have worked with drama in the ways proposed here. This will be achieved through the following connected programme of drama-related activities: 1) The formation of an intergenerational theatre company at the New Vic Theatre. Through a regular series of workshops, the company will bring older and younger people together in creative, drama-based activities to enhance understanding between the generations and support the continued social engagement of both groups. 2) A touring performance. The IG company will create a touring piece(s) which can be taken out to audiences within, and beyond, North Staffordshire. We anticipate that these audiences might include local councils; primary as well as secondary schools; residential homes/housing developments for older people; community groups and higher education institutions providing professional training courses (for teachers, social workers and doctors/nurses). 3) An inter-professional training course and training materials/resources, which will aim to develop practice capabilities and age awareness amongst teachers, health and social care professionals, arts practitioners and others interested in learning about and including intergenerational theatre/drama in their practice. The IG company will act as an important resource by contributing to the development and delivery of the training sessions and providing feedback to participants. 4) A scoping exercise for a wider 'Creative Age Festival', which could leave a concrete community legacy from Ages & Stages. The project will continue to be overseen by the existing 'Ages and Stages' Advisory Group, which includes experts in drama, intergenerational practice, policy and gerontology. The group will also be refreshed by new members, including younger members of the intergenerational theatre company (aged 16-18) . The activities we propose are timely for the following reasons. First, there is a notable groundswell of interest in the arts in general and theatre/drama in particular, not simply as a cultural activity but as one which has the potential to impact positively on the well-being of older and younger people. Second, in times of scarce resources, it is important to capitalise on activities which bring people together rather than those which might pit the generations against each other. Third, there is a role for practitioners in facilitating and enabling these kinds of activities but rarely, to our knowledge, have there been opportunities for professionals from differing arenas to work together as is proposed here. Finally, it is important to make best use of existing knowledge - not just that generated from our own work but also that of colleagues. We will be drawing strongly from our collaborators, including our linked Canadian project (about the impact of theatre on health ageing, which runs until 2013), and will also remain part of the New Dynamics of Ageing programme and will benefit from the knowledge exchanges this offers.

Extensive unexploited resources of heavy oil and bitumen exist, for example in Canada and Venezuela, as well as heavier deposits under the North Sea UK, which could potentially be utilized as the production of conventional light crude declines. Heavy oil and bitumen are more difficult to recover than conventional crude, requiring mining or specialized in-situ recovery techniques followed by upgrading to make them suitable for use as a fuel. Toe to heel air injection (THAITM) is an in-situ combustion and upgrading process in which air is injected to a horizontal well to feed combustion of a small fraction of the oil (up to 15 %). The heat generated causes the oil to flow along the well, where thermal upgrading reactions occur, leading to upgrading of the oil (by 4-6 API). CAPRI is a catalytic add-on to THAI in which catalyst is packed around the well to effect further catalytic upgrading reactions, such as hydrotreatment, however previous studies showed that the catalyst lifetime and process effectiveness are limited by coke deposition upon the catalyst. Additionally the costs and challenges of packing the well with pelleted catalyst prior to starting up also make the CAPRI process less economically attractive. The current proposal seeks to develop cheap, effective nanoparticulate catalysts which could be conveyed into the well by air or as slurry during operation, thereby avoiding the requirement for packing the well with catalyst prior to start up and to reduce the amount of deactivation and bed blockage that occurs by coke deposition upon pelleted catalysts. Initially, readily available iron oxide nanoparticles will be tested as a base-case. Nanoparticulate catalysts will also be prepared by supporting the metal upon bacteria, using a method in which metal containing solution is reduced in the presence of a bacterial culture, followed by centrifuge and drying which kills the live bacteria. The method has the advantages of being able to utilize scrap metal solutions and thus facilitate recycling of metals from waste sources, and it may be tuned to engineer nanoparticles of desired size and properties (e.g. crystal structures). Here we seek to develop, test and scale up the production of biogenic Fe catalysts for the upgrading of oil in the THAI process. Furthermore, waste road dusts contain deposits of catalytic metals from the exhaust of vehicular catalytic converters and these will be converted into cheap mixed metal catalysts by economically proven biohydrometallurgical methods for testing in the THAI process. Key to the effectiveness of utilizing nanoparticle catalysts will be the ability to contact them with oil in the mobile oil zone and flame front of the well, where the reaction is taking place. Studies of the rock void structure will be carried out using techniques such as X-Ray microtomography. Monte Carlo and Lattice Boltzmann simulations will be used to study the pneumatic conveying of particles into the reservoir and to study penetration and distribution of particles within the void space of the rocks. Conveying of slurry catalysts and process performance will be modeled using STARS reservoir simulation software. Evaluation of the different catalysts will be performed experimentally under real conditions using a rig developed under a previous project. The effect of variables such as gas:oil ratio, temperature, pressure and gas composition will be studied experimentally, in order to select the best catalyst and understand the conditions required for maximum upgrading. The experiments will also indicate whether catalyst deactivation occurs during use and enable conditions to be tuned to avoid deactivation.

Northern sea ice levels are at an historical and millennial low, and nowhere are the effects of contemporary climate change more pronounced and destructive than in the Arctic. The Western Arctic rim of North America is considered the climate change "miners canary", with temperatures increasing at twice the global average. In the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (Y-K Delta), Western Alaska, the indigenous Yup'ik Eskimos are facing life-altering decisions in an uncertain future, as rising temperatures, melting permafrost and coastal erosion threaten traditional subsistence lifeways, livelihoods and settlements - the Yup'ik face becoming "the world's first climate change refugees" (The Guardian 2008). For the Yup'ik, however - whose relationship to the total environment is central to their worldview - coping with global climate change entails far more than adapting to new physical and ecological conditions. This is reflected in the holistic incorporation of both natural and social phenomena embodied in the use of the Yup'ik word ella, (variably translating as "weather", "world", "universe", "awareness"), which is understood in intensely social as well as physical terms. Ella reflects the relationship Yup'ik society has with the natural world. As changing environmental conditions jeopardise traditional subsistence practices in the Arctic, their deep-rooted dependency and social connection to the land is also threatened - further severing their ecological ties and compromising their cultural adaptive capacity that has defined Yup'ik community and identity for thousands of years. Rapid climatic change is by no means a uniquely modern phenomenon and the indigenous cultures of this region have faced such life-changing situations before. In fact, Western Alaska has experienced pronounced climatic variations within the last millennia, with the forebears of the Yup'ik being similarly challenged by regime shifts that would have influenced the availability of important subsistence resources, much the same as their descendants face today. The ELLA project will use both the products and processes of archaeological research to understand how Yup'ik Eskimos adapted to rapid climate change in the late prehistoric past (AD 1350-1700), and to inform and empower descendant Yup'ik communities struggling with contemporary global warming today. Taking full advantage of the spectacular but critically endangered archaeological resource now emerging from melting permafrost along the Bering Sea coast, this community-based project will illuminate the adaptive capacity of the precontact Yup'ik; build sustainable frameworks for the documenting of local sites under threat; and reinforce Yup'ik cultural resilience by providing new contexts for encountering and documenting their past.

Modern marine ecosystems were established during the early Palaeozoic radiations of animals, first the 'Cambrian Explosion' and then, some 50 million years later, in the 'Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.' By tracking the details of diversification through this critical interval, it should be possible to reconstruct not only the dynamics early animal evolution, but also the underlying effects of accruing ecological novelty. Unfortunately, the conventional fossil record represents only a fraction of ancient diversity, while famous 'soft-bodied' biotas such as the Burgess Shale are too rare to provide larger-scale patterns. I propose to circumvent these problems by exploiting a new, largely untapped source of palaeontological data: Burgess Shale-type microfossils. Like their macroscopic counterparts these fossils record the presence of non-biomineralizing organisms, but they also extend the view to include previously unrecorded forms and fine features. More significantly, they are proving to be quite common - to the extent that they can begin to be used to test macroevolutionary hypotheses. Systematic analysis of Burgess Shale-type microfossils through the Middle to Late Cambrian will shed fundamental new light on early evolutionary patterns, not least the poorly known interval between the Cambrian and Ordovician radiations. By integrating this enhanced fossil record with the principles of biological oceanography and macroecology, this study will also provide a unique, evolutionary view of how modern marine ecosystems function. This study will focus on the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, which contains one of the largest, best preserved and most extensively sampled sequences of early Palaeozoic rocks on Earth. In addition to famously fossiliferous units exposed in the Rocky Mountain Fold and Thrust Belt - including the Burgess Shale itself - strata extend eastwards for over 1000 km in the subsurface, where they have been penetrated by hundreds of petroleum exploration boreholes. These subsurface materials are housed in state-of-the-art storage facilities in Calgary, Alberta and Regina, Saskatchewan and offer a unique opportunity to sample systematically through the whole of the Middle-Late Cambrian, and across an expansive shallow-water platform into continental-margin environments exposed in the Rocky Mountains. Preliminary work in both subsurface and outcrop occurrences has identified an exquisite range of Burgess Shale-type microfossils. More comprehensive sampling and analysis will substantially advance our understanding of early Palaeozoic diversity, macroevolutionary patterns, and the co-evolution of ecosystem function and environments.

This is an application for a Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) from the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester in Advanced Metallic Systems which will be directed by Prof Panos Tsakiropoulos and Prof Phil Prangnell. The proposed DTC is in response to recent reviews by the EPSRC and government/industrial bodies which have indentified the serious impact of an increasing shortage of personnel, with Doctorate level training in metallic materials, on the global competitiveness of the UK's manufacturing and defence capability. Furthermore, future applications of materials are increasingly being seen as systems that incorporate several material classes and engineered surfaces into single components, to increase performance.The primary goal of the DTC is to address these issues head on by supplying the next generation of metallics research specialists desperately needed by UK plc. We plan to attract talented students from a diverse range of physical science and engineering backgrounds and involve them with highly motivated academic staff in a variety of innovative teaching and industrial-based research activities. The programme aims to prepare graduates for global challenges in competitiveness, through an enhanced PhD programme that will:1. Challenge students and promote independent problem solving and interdiscpilnarity,2. Expose them to industrial innovation, exciting new science and the international research community, 3. Increase their fundamental skills, and broaden them as individuals in preparation for future management and leadership roles.The DTC will be aligned with major multidisciplinary research centres and with the strong involvement of NAMTEC (the National Metals Technology Centre) and over twenty companies across many sectors. Learning will be up to date and industrially relevant, as well as benefitting from access to 30M of state-of-the art research facilities.Research projects will be targeted at high value UK strategic technology sectors, such as aerospace, automotive, power generation, renewables, and defence and aim to:1. Provide a multidisciplinary approach to the whole product life cycle; from raw material, to semi finished products to forming, joining, surface engineering/coating, in service performance and recycling via the wide skill base of the combined academic team and industrial collaborators.2. Improve the basic understanding of how nano-, micro- and meso-scale physical processes control material microstructures and thereby properties, in order to radically improve industrial processes, and advance techniques of modelling and process simulation.3. Develop new innovative processes and processing routes, i.e. disruptive or transformative technologies.4. Address challenges in energy by the development of advanced metallic solutions and manufacturing technologies for nuclear power, reduced CO2 emissions, and renewable energy. 5. Study issues and develop techniques for interfacing metallic materials into advanced hybrid structures with polymers, laminates, foams and composites etc. 6. Develop novel coatings and surface treatments to protect new light alloys and hybrid structures, in hostile environments, reduce environmental impact of chemical treatments and add value and increase functionality. 7. Reduce environmental impact through reductions in process energy costs and concurrently develop new materials that address the environmental challenges in weight saving and recyclability technologies. This we believe will produce PhD graduates with a superior skills base enabling problem solving and leadership expertise well beyond a conventional PhD project, i.e. a DTC with a structured programme and stimulating methods of engagement, will produce internationally competitive doctoral graduates that can engage with today's diverse metallurgical issues and contribute to the development of a high level knowledge-based UK manufacturing sector.

AHRC : Jessica Robins : AH/R504671/1 "Breaking Eggs" is an exciting project sharing knowledge between the UK and Canada. The project invites residents of Guelph, Wellington to take part in a series of hands-on workshops responding to the beginning of Our Food Future project, a city wide, 5-year project that aims to use technological innovation to make the region a sustainable food hub for Canada. Our Food Future is a multi-million-dollar project that will use technology to radically change the way food is grown, distributed and consumed. The project will make Guelph the world's first circular food city, using technology to make sure everyone has enough to eat and waste is eliminated, while restoring natural systems. The workshops will use creative methods to help local community members explore the wider project and examine avenues for their engagement. It will look at what opportunities' residents could take advantage of, and what challenges communities could face during this transition. Breaking Eggs will take place in the first year of the Our Food Future project so will give residents of different local communities a chance to be involved in shaping the project. The workshops will invite people from all parts of Guelph and Wellington County to take part in sharing ideas and creating a new future for the region. The lessons learned through the project will be brought back to the UK and the knowledge gathered will be shared so that other communities can look at ways they can engage in more sustainable food systems for their region.

Following the polar amplification of global warming in recent decades, we have witnessed unprecedented changes in the coverage and seasonality of Arctic sea ice, enhanced freshwater storage within the Arctic seas, and greater nutrient demand from pelagic primary producers as the annual duration of open-ocean increases. These processes have the potential to change the phenology, species composition, productivity, and nutritional value of Arctic sea ice algal blooms, with far-reaching implications for trophic functioning and carbon cycling in the marine system. As the environmental conditions of the Arctic continue to change, the habitat for ice algae will become increasingly disrupted. Ice algal blooms, which are predominantly species of diatom, provide a concentrated food source for aquatic grazers while phytoplankton growth in the water column is limited, and can contribute up to half of annual Arctic marine primary production. Conventionally ice algae have been studied as a single community, without discriminating between individual species. However, the composition of species can vary widely between regions, and over the course of the spring, as a function of local environmental forcing. Consequently, current approaches for estimating Arctic-wide marine productivity and predicting the impact of climate warming on ice algal communities are likely inaccurate because they overlook the autecological (species-specific) responses of sea ice algae to changing ice habitat conditions. Diatom-ARCTIC will mark a new chapter in the study of sea ice algae and their production in the Arctic. Our project goes beyond others by integrating the results derived from field observations of community composition, and innovative laboratory experiments targeted at single-species of ice algae, directly into a predictive biogeochemical model. The use of a Remotely-Operated Vehicle during in situ field sampling gives us a unique opportunity to examine the spatio-temporal environmental controls on algal speciation in natural sea ice. Diatom-ARCTIC field observations will steer laboratory experiments to identify photophysiological responses of individual diatom species over a range of key growth conditions: light, salinity and nutrient availability. Additional experiments will characterise algal lipid composition as a function of growth conditions - quantifying food resource quality as a function of species composition. Furthermore, novel analytical tools, such as gas chromatography mass spectrometry and compound specific isotope analysis will be combined to better catalogue the types of lipid present in ice algae. Field and laboratory results will then be incorporated into the state-of-the-art BFM-SI biogeochemical model for ice algae, to enable accurate simulations of gross and net production in sea ice based on directly observed autecological responses. The model will be used to characterise algal productivity in different sea ice growth habitats present in the contemporary Arctic. By applying future climate scenarios to the model, we will also forecast ice algal productivity over the coming decades as sea ice habitats transform in an evolving Arctic. Our project targets a major research gap in Phase I of the CAO programme: the specific contribution of sea ice habitats to ecosystem structure and biogeochemical functioning within the Arctic Ocean. In doing so, Diatom-ARCTIC brings together and links the activities of ARCTIC-Prize and DIAPOD, while further building new collaborations between UK and German partners leading up to the 2019/20 MOSAiC campaign.