• Canada

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.