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89 Projects

  • Canada
  • UK Research and Innovation
  • 2022

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: EP/V043811/1
    Funder Contribution: 497,214 GBP

    Coronaviruses are transmitted from an infectious individual through large respiratory droplets generated by coughing, sneezing or speaking. These infectious droplets are then transmitted to the mucosal surfaces of a recipient through inhalation of the aerosol or by contact with contaminated fomites such as surfaces or other objects. In healthcare settings, personal protective equipment (PPE) plays a crucial role in interrupting the transmission of highly communicable diseases such as COVID19 from patients to healthcare workers (HCWs). However, research has shown that PPE can also act as a fomite during the donning and doffing process as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can survive on these surfaces for up to three days. This creates a need for more effective PPE materials that can provide antiviral protection. In this proposal we aim to develop a dual action antiviral/antifouling coating to lower the risk of transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 to HCWs from COVID19 patients. This project will deliver antiviral/antifouling coatings that can be readily applied to PPE surfaces such as faceshields that are likely to encounter a high level of viral load and would be of great benefit to the health of clinical staff. Furthermore, this project has embedded into its planning a rapid pathway for optimisation, translation, and upscaling of manufacture to deliver a low-cost technology within a short timescale.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: EP/V000683/1
    Funder Contribution: 42,298 GBP

    A central goal of this Overseas Travel Grant proposal is the establishment of a network of leading researchers with expertise in bone and tooth formation who share the believe that a comprehensive understanding of the nanoscale organization of both mineral and organic phase is at the heart of the development of new approaches for medical treatments. The proposed methodology is making use of the advancement of high-resolution electron imaging and spectroscopy to gain insights into the 3D structure and composition on the nanoscale. This approach is of great importance for a full understanding of the mechanisms behind structure formation and potential failure mechanisms in bones and teeth. In a recent publication (Reznikov et al., Science 2018) we were able to identify 12 levels of organisation in bone from the nano- to the macroscopic scale with a self-similar organisation pattern emerging across the different length-scales. These findings indicate the importance to understand the structure of mineralised tissue on the nanoscale. Based on this work I aim to explore the application of nanoscale imaging using advanced electron microscopy and spectroscopy to mineralised tissue such as bone cells and teeth. In both cases it is highly exciting to gain a full image of the mineral/organic assembly in healthy and disease affected tissues. The complex interplay between the mineral and the organic phases in bones and teeth appears to strongly affect the properties of the resulting biomineral with significant effects of disruptions on the nanoscale due to mineralisation affecting diseases (e.g. osteogenesis imperfecta or amelogenesis imperfecta, osteoporosis, arthritis). Hence, this work will provide a platform for future collaboration with leading life scientists and clinicians and will enable to link the high-resolution information gained by the chosen approaches with diagnostic observations. Both hosts at McGill University in Montreal and University of Connecticut in Hartford provide ideal conditions for both training and research since they have an excellent international reputation on health related materials research and provide access to an outstanding set of experimental techniques to achieve the goals of this proposal.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V019856/1
    Funder Contribution: 12,298 GBP

    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.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V020471/1
    Funder Contribution: 12,390 GBP

    ESRC : Emily MacLeod : ES/P000592/1. This exchange provides me with the opportunity to develop my existing expertise within science identities research, and make links within the field of teacher education and teaching identities research. There is a critical shortage of teachers globally; an ongoing issue which has far-reaching and negative consequences for schools and their students. The teacher shortage in the UK, where I am conducting my PhD and where I myself was a teacher, is particularly acute. Government teacher recruitment targets in England have been missed for the last seven years. However, this shortage is not evenly spread, and raises significant social justice concerns. For example, it has been estimated that schools in England would need an additional 68,000 Black and minority ethnic teachers for the workforce to reflect the population it teaches. Science especially faces some of the worst teacher shortages. But incentives to attract more people into science teaching have so far failed to make a significant impact on this shortage, and have tended to be financial; based upon the assumption that science graduates can earn considerably more outside of the relatively low-paid role of teaching. Unlike the well-documented shortage of teachers in England, there is currently very little research into the scale of the teacher shortage in Canada, partly due to differences in governance and contexts across the different provinces. However, in contrast to the surplus of teachers seen in recent years, there are now signs of an increasing shortage of teachers. This summer in Québec, where I intend to complete this exchange, the government reported that there were over 250 empty teacher vacancies in the province, and there are concerns that Covid-19 is likely to make things worse. As in England, there is also a severe and growing underrepresentation of people of colour in Canada's teaching workforce. This is particularly worrying within the context of an increasingly diverse Canadian population. Also as in England, this shortage is not spread evenly. Science teachers are some of the most needed. However, unlike in England, teacher salaries across Canada are amongst the highest of the OECD community, and subject-specific incentives have yet to be used. The shortage of science teachers especially, seen in both England and Canada, is of particular concern given that there is a globally-recognised STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills shortage, likely to increase due to Covid-19. This growing demand for more young people studying and working in STEM will not be met without enough qualified science teachers. Yet in order to improve this situation, we need to better understand science teacher supply patterns. To date, research into teacher supply in science (and other disciplines) has been conducted by specialists in teacher education. From this we know that science teachers report becoming teachers not because they always wanted to, but after having had positive teaching-like experiences. We also know from existing science identities research from both the host and home supervisors that social and cultural influences work to influence whether and how people see different sciences roles as 'for me' or not. This exchange will help me to develop my research and communication skills whilst conducting comparative research to develop understandings of who does, and importantly who does not, want to become a science teacher in the UK and Canada, and why. I will build upon my existing expertise in science identity development amongst young people, and learn from the expertise of Dr Gonsalves and her colleagues in science teacher identities, and how teaching-like experiences can affect these identities. Combining these fields will help me to contribute to understandings of how people's identities shape how they feel about becoming science teachers.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V010131/1
    Funder Contribution: 7,776 GBP

    NERC: Jennifer Watts: NE/S007504/1

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: EP/S016570/1
    Funder Contribution: 6,604,390 GBP

    Given the unprecedented demand for mobile capacity beyond that available from the RF spectrum, it is natural to consider the infrared and visible light spectrum for future terrestrial wireless systems. Wireless systems using these parts of the electromagnetic spectrum could be classified as nmWave wireless communications system in relation to mmWave radio systems and both are being standardised in current 5G systems. TOWS, therefore, will provide a technically logical pathway to ensure that wireless systems are future-proof and that they can deliver the capacities that future data intensive services such as high definition (HD) video streaming, augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality will demand. Light based wireless communication systems will not be in competition with RF communications, but instead these systems follow a trend that has been witnessed in cellular communications over the last 30 years. Light based wireless communications simply adds new capacity - the available spectrum is 2600 times the RF spectrum. 6G and beyond promise increased wireless capacity to accommodate this growth in traffic in an increasingly congested spectrum, however action is required now to ensure UK leadership of the fast moving 6G field. Optical wireless (OW) opens new spectral bands with a bandwidth exceeding 540 THz using simple sources and detectors and can be simpler than cellular and WiFi with a significantly larger spectrum. It is the best choice of spectrum beyond millimetre waves, where unlike the THz spectrum (the other possible choice), OW avoids complex sources and detectors and has good indoor channel conditions. Optical signals, when used indoors, are confined to the environment in which they originate, which offers added security at the physical layer and the ability to re-use wavelengths in adjacent rooms, thus radically increasing capacity. Our vision is to develop and experimentally demonstrate multiuser Terabit/s optical wireless systems that offer capacities at least two orders of magnitude higher than the current planned 5G optical and radio wireless systems, with a roadmap to wireless systems that can offer up to four orders of magnitude higher capacity. There are four features of the proposed system which make possible such unprecedented capacities to enable this disruptive advance. Firstly, unlike visible light communications (VLC), we will exploit the infrared spectrum, this providing a solution to the light dimming problem associated with VLC, eliminating uplink VLC glare and thus supporting bidirectional communications. Secondly, to make possible much greater transmission capacities and multi-user, multi-cell operation, we will introduce a new type of LED-like steerable laser diode array, which does not suffer from the speckle impairments of conventional laser diodes while ensuring ultrahigh speed performance. Thirdly, with the added capacity, we will develop native OW multi-user systems to share the resources, these being adaptively directional to allow full coverage with reduced user and inter-cell interference and finally incorporate RF systems to allow seamless transition and facilitate overall network control, in essence to introduce software defined radio to optical wireless. This means that OW multi-user systems can readily be designed to allow very high aggregate capacities as beams can be controlled in a compact manner. We will develop advanced inter-cell coding and handover for our optical multi-user systems, this also allowing seamless handover with radio systems when required such as for resilience. We believe that this work, though challenging, is feasible as it will leverage existing skills and research within the consortium, which includes excellence in OW link design, advanced coding and modulation, optimised algorithms for front-haul and back-haul networking, expertise in surface emitting laser design and single photon avalanche detectors for ultra-sensitive detection.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V010034/1
    Funder Contribution: 9,100 GBP

    NERC : Zoe Melvin : NE/L002604/1 Global wildlife is increasingly subject to human-induced disturbance, such as habitat loss and land-use changes. Some species are able to cope with these changes while others are not, leading to species declines and extinctions. One of the most important ways that animals cope with human disturbance is by using flexible coping strategies in new situations created by disturbance. Social grouping is one strategy that animals adapt according to the situation that they are in. The goal for any animal is to maximise the amount of food you eat while reducing your risk of death so that you can pass on your genes to the next generation. Group-living animals can reduce their risk of death by sharing the time spent looking for danger, but they also need to share food with other group members. Being flexible in the size of your group would allow you to maximise the benefits and minimise the costs of group-living given your situation. For example, animals could group together in areas with many predators to allow them to eat while sharing the time spent looking for danger and split apart in areas of low risk to reduce competition for food with other group members. Similarly, animals could group together more at times of the day or the year when their chances of encountering a predator is higher. As more and more habitat is lost or degraded, animals are forced to feed in areas that present a higher risk of encountering human predators, such a farmland. Being able to group together flexibly in risky habitats and split up in low-risk habitats may allow species to cope better with human induced-change. In this project, we aim to investigate the effect that grouping together has on where and when animals choose to feed. I will address this question using 18 female elk in one herd in Manitoba that lives in a mostly agricultural landscape. These elk wear Global Positioning System (GPS) collars that have been collecting data on their locations at regular intervals for two years. I will use a combination of tests to investigate what is driving elk to choose certain habitats and whether the distance between each animal and its closest neighbour changes in more in risky areas (i.e. agricultural land) and more risky times of day (i.e. hunting season and daytime when humans are more active). This research will give us a better understanding of how animals cope with habitat disturbance and the potential for social grouping to be used as a coping strategy. Elk populations in Manitoba are generally in decline which could have negative impacts on livelihoods of people that depend on the hunting industry. The information gained in this study will help local stakeholders to make decisions about land-use changes and hunting quotas in their area to promote the sustainable population growth of elk and support local livelihoods.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V02115X/1
    Funder Contribution: 6,953 GBP

    AHRC : Alexander Hutterer : AH/R012709/1 Society and technology today face several information processing challenges. Human lives and digital technology become ever closer intertwined. Hence, we need to become better at understanding our own information processing practices. And we need to become more effective at using technology to aid and supplement our information processing activities. Philosophy plays a key role in explicating the meaning of the most fundamental concepts. Specifically, the sub-discipline of epistemology aims to help us understand what we mean when we say that we "believe," "know," or "understand" something. This can help us both with better understanding our contemporary socio-technological challenges and with finding solutions for them. For instance, one major challenge in the development of artificial intelligence is making it "understandable" to humans. This requires a clear picture of what it means for humans to understand something in the first place. Another example is the spreading of "fake news" via social media. Current solutions for this problem, like fact-checking, are insufficient. Part of the problem with this particular solution is that the implied aim is too ambitious, namely to "prove facts," a goal that even science does not necessarily reach. By better understanding these epistemic aims and practices, philosophy can help with the development of new, more effective solutions to challenges like the "post-truth" problem or AI development. The values and practices of today's science-powered society are frequently thought to stem from the enlightenment period. The enlightenment took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and coincided with significant improvements of human life, including the ascent of science and the beginnings of the industrial revolution. It was in the later stages of this period that Immanuel Kant wrote his ground-breaking "Critique of Pure Reason." In anglophone secondary literature on this book, Kant is usually understood as providing a new theory of how and what sort of "a priori knowledge," i.e., knowledge before experience, is attainable for humans. However, several recent papers in Kant scholarship cast doubt on this dominant interpretation. Instead, it is argued, Kant was not talking about knowledge at all. Specifically, he was talking about the German term "Erkenntnis" rather than knowledge. There is no clear translation for the term "Erkenntnis." The goal of my PhD is partly to figure out what precisely Kant meant by "Erkenntnis." If "Erkenntnis" really differs radically from "knowledge," this would radically affect Kant scholarship. Moreover, the implications go beyond the narrow confines of Kant exegesis. To be precise, Kant and his contemporaries seem to have used an entirely different epistemic category, namely "Erkenntnis," in addition to the categories used in philosophy today. Moreover, since Kant deemed "Erkenntnis" to be philosophically more significant than "knowledge," which is at the centre of contemporary epistemology, he quite probably also had different conceptions of the aims of our epistemic practices. During the proposed placement, I aim to find out whether Kant's immediate intellectual successor - the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte - distinguished "Erkenntnis" from knowledge in an analogous way to Kant. Moreover, I intend to find out how Fichte's thoughts about the aims of epistemology differ from Kant's. Finally, I want to explore how Fichte's thoughts on this topic could be applied to both contemporary philosophy and some of society's current information processing challenges. The project will thereby contribute to a better understanding of why knowledge, truth and other epistemic practices are valuable and how we can promote these values. Moreover, it will contribute to filling a crucial gap in research on German Idealism.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V009982/1
    Funder Contribution: 8,150 GBP

    Throughout Earth's geological history, hydrothermal systems have provided habitats for the most ancient forms of life known on Earth. The warm water in these systems reacts with the local rocks and accelerates chemical reactions. As a result, different chemical compounds are released and can be exploited by microorganisms that utilize chemicals from the bedrock for metabolic energy to form a viable habitat. The geological record of Mars suggests that sulphur-rich hydrothermal systems were widespread during the Hesperian Period, around 3.8 billion years ago and possibly could have supported life as we know it on Earth. This happened shortly after the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB), when Mars was exposed to extensive impact events. The study of the habitability of these environments is done by researching Mars analogues on Earth. The predominant heat supply of these environments on Earth comes from a magmatic source, either from a volcanic eruption or through a magmatic intrusion into the local rock. On extraterrestrial bodies such as Mars, impacts are the main heat source. The chemical difference between these hydrothermal systems are dependent on the original bedrock and the newly introduced magmatic material. The chemical potential to support microbial life and form a viable habitat between the two different environments will be studied. This will be done by studying relic hydrothermal environments, through analysing rock samples from the sulphur-rich Haughton impact crater in the high Arctic, Canada, and comparing them to magmatic intrusions from the San Raphael Swell, USA. The samples will be collected along a reaction path of unaltered rock to altered rock and analysed for their different mineralogy and chemistry. This will then be used to make a thermodynamic chemical model to understand the reaction path forming the altered rock and the past fluid composition. From the modelled data, the free energy released from the reduction-oxidation reactions will be used to evaluate the different potential of each environment to support microbial life through time and space.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/T014326/1
    Funder Contribution: 9,182 GBP

    BBSRC : Laura May Murray : BB/T508330/1 Antibiotics are used to treat infections caused by bacteria. However, bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics, meaning they are still able to grow in the presence of antibiotics. For this reason, infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria are becoming more difficult to treat. Infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria are also extremely costly, for example, due to increased length of stay in hospital. Overuse and misuse of antibiotics is driving the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria, and it has been predicted that by 2050, someone will die every three seconds from an antibiotic resistant infection. However, there is also evidence that other antimicrobial compounds can result in the evolution of antibiotic resistance. Antimicrobials are chemicals or compounds that kill bacteria, but cannot be used for treatment of infections in humans or animals because they are too toxic. Furthermore, there is new research indicating that other chemicals, which are not used as antimicrobials (for example, human medicines) may also lead to the development of antibiotic resistance. How mixtures of antibiotics, antimicrobials and other chemicals may interact and drive the evolution of antibiotic resistance is poorly understood. Antibiotics are not just used to treat and prevent infections in humans and animals; they are also applied to agricultural soils as plant protection products (PPPs). PPPs are used globally to increase crop yields. There are many types of PPPs currently in use, such as herbicides (used to prevent growth of unwanted plants) or insecticides (used to kill pest insects). No research to date has investigated if non-antibiotic PPPs can drive evolution of antibiotic resistance. This research placement will complement work being undertaken in the BBSRC/AstraZeneca iCASE PhD studentship entitled "Investigating selection and co-selection for antimicrobial resistance by non-antibiotic drugs and plant protection products". Laboratory experiments and a variety of culture based and molecular microbiology methods will be used to determine if exposing soil bacterial communities to non-antibiotic PPPs results in increased levels of antibiotic resistance. This placement provides a unique opportunity to study exposure to PPPs in well-established experiment field plots, which are treated with PPPs annually. This will aid interpretation of laboratory experiments and provide an environmentally realistic aspect to the PhD research. The findings from this novel research may be useful for influencing regulation of PPPs, food safety policy and human health risk assessment of exposure to antibiotic resistant bacteria from environmental sources.

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89 Projects
  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: EP/V043811/1
    Funder Contribution: 497,214 GBP

    Coronaviruses are transmitted from an infectious individual through large respiratory droplets generated by coughing, sneezing or speaking. These infectious droplets are then transmitted to the mucosal surfaces of a recipient through inhalation of the aerosol or by contact with contaminated fomites such as surfaces or other objects. In healthcare settings, personal protective equipment (PPE) plays a crucial role in interrupting the transmission of highly communicable diseases such as COVID19 from patients to healthcare workers (HCWs). However, research has shown that PPE can also act as a fomite during the donning and doffing process as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can survive on these surfaces for up to three days. This creates a need for more effective PPE materials that can provide antiviral protection. In this proposal we aim to develop a dual action antiviral/antifouling coating to lower the risk of transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 to HCWs from COVID19 patients. This project will deliver antiviral/antifouling coatings that can be readily applied to PPE surfaces such as faceshields that are likely to encounter a high level of viral load and would be of great benefit to the health of clinical staff. Furthermore, this project has embedded into its planning a rapid pathway for optimisation, translation, and upscaling of manufacture to deliver a low-cost technology within a short timescale.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: EP/V000683/1
    Funder Contribution: 42,298 GBP

    A central goal of this Overseas Travel Grant proposal is the establishment of a network of leading researchers with expertise in bone and tooth formation who share the believe that a comprehensive understanding of the nanoscale organization of both mineral and organic phase is at the heart of the development of new approaches for medical treatments. The proposed methodology is making use of the advancement of high-resolution electron imaging and spectroscopy to gain insights into the 3D structure and composition on the nanoscale. This approach is of great importance for a full understanding of the mechanisms behind structure formation and potential failure mechanisms in bones and teeth. In a recent publication (Reznikov et al., Science 2018) we were able to identify 12 levels of organisation in bone from the nano- to the macroscopic scale with a self-similar organisation pattern emerging across the different length-scales. These findings indicate the importance to understand the structure of mineralised tissue on the nanoscale. Based on this work I aim to explore the application of nanoscale imaging using advanced electron microscopy and spectroscopy to mineralised tissue such as bone cells and teeth. In both cases it is highly exciting to gain a full image of the mineral/organic assembly in healthy and disease affected tissues. The complex interplay between the mineral and the organic phases in bones and teeth appears to strongly affect the properties of the resulting biomineral with significant effects of disruptions on the nanoscale due to mineralisation affecting diseases (e.g. osteogenesis imperfecta or amelogenesis imperfecta, osteoporosis, arthritis). Hence, this work will provide a platform for future collaboration with leading life scientists and clinicians and will enable to link the high-resolution information gained by the chosen approaches with diagnostic observations. Both hosts at McGill University in Montreal and University of Connecticut in Hartford provide ideal conditions for both training and research since they have an excellent international reputation on health related materials research and provide access to an outstanding set of experimental techniques to achieve the goals of this proposal.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V019856/1
    Funder Contribution: 12,298 GBP

    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.

    more_vert
  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V020471/1
    Funder Contribution: 12,390 GBP

    ESRC : Emily MacLeod : ES/P000592/1. This exchange provides me with the opportunity to develop my existing expertise within science identities research, and make links within the field of teacher education and teaching identities research. There is a critical shortage of teachers globally; an ongoing issue which has far-reaching and negative consequences for schools and their students. The teacher shortage in the UK, where I am conducting my PhD and where I myself was a teacher, is particularly acute. Government teacher recruitment targets in England have been missed for the last seven years. However, this shortage is not evenly spread, and raises significant social justice concerns. For example, it has been estimated that schools in England would need an additional 68,000 Black and minority ethnic teachers for the workforce to reflect the population it teaches. Science especially faces some of the worst teacher shortages. But incentives to attract more people into science teaching have so far failed to make a significant impact on this shortage, and have tended to be financial; based upon the assumption that science graduates can earn considerably more outside of the relatively low-paid role of teaching. Unlike the well-documented shortage of teachers in England, there is currently very little research into the scale of the teacher shortage in Canada, partly due to differences in governance and contexts across the different provinces. However, in contrast to the surplus of teachers seen in recent years, there are now signs of an increasing shortage of teachers. This summer in Québec, where I intend to complete this exchange, the government reported that there were over 250 empty teacher vacancies in the province, and there are concerns that Covid-19 is likely to make things worse. As in England, there is also a severe and growing underrepresentation of people of colour in Canada's teaching workforce. This is particularly worrying within the context of an increasingly diverse Canadian population. Also as in England, this shortage is not spread evenly. Science teachers are some of the most needed. However, unlike in England, teacher salaries across Canada are amongst the highest of the OECD community, and subject-specific incentives have yet to be used. The shortage of science teachers especially, seen in both England and Canada, is of particular concern given that there is a globally-recognised STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills shortage, likely to increase due to Covid-19. This growing demand for more young people studying and working in STEM will not be met without enough qualified science teachers. Yet in order to improve this situation, we need to better understand science teacher supply patterns. To date, research into teacher supply in science (and other disciplines) has been conducted by specialists in teacher education. From this we know that science teachers report becoming teachers not because they always wanted to, but after having had positive teaching-like experiences. We also know from existing science identities research from both the host and home supervisors that social and cultural influences work to influence whether and how people see different sciences roles as 'for me' or not. This exchange will help me to develop my research and communication skills whilst conducting comparative research to develop understandings of who does, and importantly who does not, want to become a science teacher in the UK and Canada, and why. I will build upon my existing expertise in science identity development amongst young people, and learn from the expertise of Dr Gonsalves and her colleagues in science teacher identities, and how teaching-like experiences can affect these identities. Combining these fields will help me to contribute to understandings of how people's identities shape how they feel about becoming science teachers.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V010131/1
    Funder Contribution: 7,776 GBP

    NERC: Jennifer Watts: NE/S007504/1

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: EP/S016570/1
    Funder Contribution: 6,604,390 GBP

    Given the unprecedented demand for mobile capacity beyond that available from the RF spectrum, it is natural to consider the infrared and visible light spectrum for future terrestrial wireless systems. Wireless systems using these parts of the electromagnetic spectrum could be classified as nmWave wireless communications system in relation to mmWave radio systems and both are being standardised in current 5G systems. TOWS, therefore, will provide a technically logical pathway to ensure that wireless systems are future-proof and that they can deliver the capacities that future data intensive services such as high definition (HD) video streaming, augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality will demand. Light based wireless communication systems will not be in competition with RF communications, but instead these systems follow a trend that has been witnessed in cellular communications over the last 30 years. Light based wireless communications simply adds new capacity - the available spectrum is 2600 times the RF spectrum. 6G and beyond promise increased wireless capacity to accommodate this growth in traffic in an increasingly congested spectrum, however action is required now to ensure UK leadership of the fast moving 6G field. Optical wireless (OW) opens new spectral bands with a bandwidth exceeding 540 THz using simple sources and detectors and can be simpler than cellular and WiFi with a significantly larger spectrum. It is the best choice of spectrum beyond millimetre waves, where unlike the THz spectrum (the other possible choice), OW avoids complex sources and detectors and has good indoor channel conditions. Optical signals, when used indoors, are confined to the environment in which they originate, which offers added security at the physical layer and the ability to re-use wavelengths in adjacent rooms, thus radically increasing capacity. Our vision is to develop and experimentally demonstrate multiuser Terabit/s optical wireless systems that offer capacities at least two orders of magnitude higher than the current planned 5G optical and radio wireless systems, with a roadmap to wireless systems that can offer up to four orders of magnitude higher capacity. There are four features of the proposed system which make possible such unprecedented capacities to enable this disruptive advance. Firstly, unlike visible light communications (VLC), we will exploit the infrared spectrum, this providing a solution to the light dimming problem associated with VLC, eliminating uplink VLC glare and thus supporting bidirectional communications. Secondly, to make possible much greater transmission capacities and multi-user, multi-cell operation, we will introduce a new type of LED-like steerable laser diode array, which does not suffer from the speckle impairments of conventional laser diodes while ensuring ultrahigh speed performance. Thirdly, with the added capacity, we will develop native OW multi-user systems to share the resources, these being adaptively directional to allow full coverage with reduced user and inter-cell interference and finally incorporate RF systems to allow seamless transition and facilitate overall network control, in essence to introduce software defined radio to optical wireless. This means that OW multi-user systems can readily be designed to allow very high aggregate capacities as beams can be controlled in a compact manner. We will develop advanced inter-cell coding and handover for our optical multi-user systems, this also allowing seamless handover with radio systems when required such as for resilience. We believe that this work, though challenging, is feasible as it will leverage existing skills and research within the consortium, which includes excellence in OW link design, advanced coding and modulation, optimised algorithms for front-haul and back-haul networking, expertise in surface emitting laser design and single photon avalanche detectors for ultra-sensitive detection.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V010034/1
    Funder Contribution: 9,100 GBP

    NERC : Zoe Melvin : NE/L002604/1 Global wildlife is increasingly subject to human-induced disturbance, such as habitat loss and land-use changes. Some species are able to cope with these changes while others are not, leading to species declines and extinctions. One of the most important ways that animals cope with human disturbance is by using flexible coping strategies in new situations created by disturbance. Social grouping is one strategy that animals adapt according to the situation that they are in. The goal for any animal is to maximise the amount of food you eat while reducing your risk of death so that you can pass on your genes to the next generation. Group-living animals can reduce their risk of death by sharing the time spent looking for danger, but they also need to share food with other group members. Being flexible in the size of your group would allow you to maximise the benefits and minimise the costs of group-living given your situation. For example, animals could group together in areas with many predators to allow them to eat while sharing the time spent looking for danger and split apart in areas of low risk to reduce competition for food with other group members. Similarly, animals could group together more at times of the day or the year when their chances of encountering a predator is higher. As more and more habitat is lost or degraded, animals are forced to feed in areas that present a higher risk of encountering human predators, such a farmland. Being able to group together flexibly in risky habitats and split up in low-risk habitats may allow species to cope better with human induced-change. In this project, we aim to investigate the effect that grouping together has on where and when animals choose to feed. I will address this question using 18 female elk in one herd in Manitoba that lives in a mostly agricultural landscape. These elk wear Global Positioning System (GPS) collars that have been collecting data on their locations at regular intervals for two years. I will use a combination of tests to investigate what is driving elk to choose certain habitats and whether the distance between each animal and its closest neighbour changes in more in risky areas (i.e. agricultural land) and more risky times of day (i.e. hunting season and daytime when humans are more active). This research will give us a better understanding of how animals cope with habitat disturbance and the potential for social grouping to be used as a coping strategy. Elk populations in Manitoba are generally in decline which could have negative impacts on livelihoods of people that depend on the hunting industry. The information gained in this study will help local stakeholders to make decisions about land-use changes and hunting quotas in their area to promote the sustainable population growth of elk and support local livelihoods.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V02115X/1
    Funder Contribution: 6,953 GBP

    AHRC : Alexander Hutterer : AH/R012709/1 Society and technology today face several information processing challenges. Human lives and digital technology become ever closer intertwined. Hence, we need to become better at understanding our own information processing practices. And we need to become more effective at using technology to aid and supplement our information processing activities. Philosophy plays a key role in explicating the meaning of the most fundamental concepts. Specifically, the sub-discipline of epistemology aims to help us understand what we mean when we say that we "believe," "know," or "understand" something. This can help us both with better understanding our contemporary socio-technological challenges and with finding solutions for them. For instance, one major challenge in the development of artificial intelligence is making it "understandable" to humans. This requires a clear picture of what it means for humans to understand something in the first place. Another example is the spreading of "fake news" via social media. Current solutions for this problem, like fact-checking, are insufficient. Part of the problem with this particular solution is that the implied aim is too ambitious, namely to "prove facts," a goal that even science does not necessarily reach. By better understanding these epistemic aims and practices, philosophy can help with the development of new, more effective solutions to challenges like the "post-truth" problem or AI development. The values and practices of today's science-powered society are frequently thought to stem from the enlightenment period. The enlightenment took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and coincided with significant improvements of human life, including the ascent of science and the beginnings of the industrial revolution. It was in the later stages of this period that Immanuel Kant wrote his ground-breaking "Critique of Pure Reason." In anglophone secondary literature on this book, Kant is usually understood as providing a new theory of how and what sort of "a priori knowledge," i.e., knowledge before experience, is attainable for humans. However, several recent papers in Kant scholarship cast doubt on this dominant interpretation. Instead, it is argued, Kant was not talking about knowledge at all. Specifically, he was talking about the German term "Erkenntnis" rather than knowledge. There is no clear translation for the term "Erkenntnis." The goal of my PhD is partly to figure out what precisely Kant meant by "Erkenntnis." If "Erkenntnis" really differs radically from "knowledge," this would radically affect Kant scholarship. Moreover, the implications go beyond the narrow confines of Kant exegesis. To be precise, Kant and his contemporaries seem to have used an entirely different epistemic category, namely "Erkenntnis," in addition to the categories used in philosophy today. Moreover, since Kant deemed "Erkenntnis" to be philosophically more significant than "knowledge," which is at the centre of contemporary epistemology, he quite probably also had different conceptions of the aims of our epistemic practices. During the proposed placement, I aim to find out whether Kant's immediate intellectual successor - the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte - distinguished "Erkenntnis" from knowledge in an analogous way to Kant. Moreover, I intend to find out how Fichte's thoughts about the aims of epistemology differ from Kant's. Finally, I want to explore how Fichte's thoughts on this topic could be applied to both contemporary philosophy and some of society's current information processing challenges. The project will thereby contribute to a better understanding of why knowledge, truth and other epistemic practices are valuable and how we can promote these values. Moreover, it will contribute to filling a crucial gap in research on German Idealism.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/V009982/1
    Funder Contribution: 8,150 GBP

    Throughout Earth's geological history, hydrothermal systems have provided habitats for the most ancient forms of life known on Earth. The warm water in these systems reacts with the local rocks and accelerates chemical reactions. As a result, different chemical compounds are released and can be exploited by microorganisms that utilize chemicals from the bedrock for metabolic energy to form a viable habitat. The geological record of Mars suggests that sulphur-rich hydrothermal systems were widespread during the Hesperian Period, around 3.8 billion years ago and possibly could have supported life as we know it on Earth. This happened shortly after the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB), when Mars was exposed to extensive impact events. The study of the habitability of these environments is done by researching Mars analogues on Earth. The predominant heat supply of these environments on Earth comes from a magmatic source, either from a volcanic eruption or through a magmatic intrusion into the local rock. On extraterrestrial bodies such as Mars, impacts are the main heat source. The chemical difference between these hydrothermal systems are dependent on the original bedrock and the newly introduced magmatic material. The chemical potential to support microbial life and form a viable habitat between the two different environments will be studied. This will be done by studying relic hydrothermal environments, through analysing rock samples from the sulphur-rich Haughton impact crater in the high Arctic, Canada, and comparing them to magmatic intrusions from the San Raphael Swell, USA. The samples will be collected along a reaction path of unaltered rock to altered rock and analysed for their different mineralogy and chemistry. This will then be used to make a thermodynamic chemical model to understand the reaction path forming the altered rock and the past fluid composition. From the modelled data, the free energy released from the reduction-oxidation reactions will be used to evaluate the different potential of each environment to support microbial life through time and space.

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  • Funder: UKRI Project Code: NE/T014326/1
    Funder Contribution: 9,182 GBP

    BBSRC : Laura May Murray : BB/T508330/1 Antibiotics are used to treat infections caused by bacteria. However, bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics, meaning they are still able to grow in the presence of antibiotics. For this reason, infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria are becoming more difficult to treat. Infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria are also extremely costly, for example, due to increased length of stay in hospital. Overuse and misuse of antibiotics is driving the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria, and it has been predicted that by 2050, someone will die every three seconds from an antibiotic resistant infection. However, there is also evidence that other antimicrobial compounds can result in the evolution of antibiotic resistance. Antimicrobials are chemicals or compounds that kill bacteria, but cannot be used for treatment of infections in humans or animals because they are too toxic. Furthermore, there is new research indicating that other chemicals, which are not used as antimicrobials (for example, human medicines) may also lead to the development of antibiotic resistance. How mixtures of antibiotics, antimicrobials and other chemicals may interact and drive the evolution of antibiotic resistance is poorly understood. Antibiotics are not just used to treat and prevent infections in humans and animals; they are also applied to agricultural soils as plant protection products (PPPs). PPPs are used globally to increase crop yields. There are many types of PPPs currently in use, such as herbicides (used to prevent growth of unwanted plants) or insecticides (used to kill pest insects). No research to date has investigated if non-antibiotic PPPs can drive evolution of antibiotic resistance. This research placement will complement work being undertaken in the BBSRC/AstraZeneca iCASE PhD studentship entitled "Investigating selection and co-selection for antimicrobial resistance by non-antibiotic drugs and plant protection products". Laboratory experiments and a variety of culture based and molecular microbiology methods will be used to determine if exposing soil bacterial communities to non-antibiotic PPPs results in increased levels of antibiotic resistance. This placement provides a unique opportunity to study exposure to PPPs in well-established experiment field plots, which are treated with PPPs annually. This will aid interpretation of laboratory experiments and provide an environmentally realistic aspect to the PhD research. The findings from this novel research may be useful for influencing regulation of PPPs, food safety policy and human health risk assessment of exposure to antibiotic resistant bacteria from environmental sources.

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