LJMU

The ProAccel platform provides a cost and risk free solution for enhancing the productivity of UK-based businesses. The platform offers a unique business-centric and community-driven environment to de-risk the business case for adopting improvements and agile developments. Users can freely undertake tailored and business-orientated investigations into adopting productivity changes, in a safe and risk-free manner. This is achieved by using intelligent impact forecasting and collating up-to-date information on known successful productivity improvements. To achieve this, the modular cloud-based platform is underpinned by the latest computer science research, where advanced machine learning and gamification techniques play a role in revolutionising the way information is shared and productivity enhancements are tested. By using these techniques, ProAccel will provide a leading, state of the art tool for cultivating planning, research, implementation and evaluation. The inspiration for ProAccel arises directly from successful research previously undertaken in the Department of Computer Science at Liverpool John Moores University. The Department has a track record of delivering popular cloud-based modular platforms and composite service platforms; for example, the European-funded ECENTRE and the EU-FP7 European-funded ANIKETOS projects.

Refining the Cepheid distance scale

Many people now work at unusual hours of the day. Shift-work is no longer restricted to heavy industry but is now more common in E-commerce and telesales occupations to meet the need for 24-hour services. Shift-work is associated with greater health problems (e.g. chronic fatigue, gastro-intestinal and cardiovascular problems) than normal 9am-5pm day-work. It is unclear whether these problems are due to disturbances of the body clock and/or a decreased opportunity to adopt the desired amount and timing of lifestyle and social factors. With more than 20 years experience in researching this area, the possession of new facilities in our shift-work simulation unit, as well as a history of field-based research, the Chronobiology Research Group at Liverpool John Moores University will address these gaps in knowledge. We will explore such questions as, how does shift-work interfere with physical activity and eating habits? How does prior exercise influence metabolic responses and performance during a night-shift? What are the longer-term acceptability and the health consequences of a physical activity/dietary intervention programme? A qualitative component to the project ensures that shift-workers inform the research process throughout. Research findings will be disseminated, as they emerge, to employers and individual shift-workers.

The New Robotic Telescope, like the Liverpool Telescope before it, will automatically construct it's own observing programme based on a scheduling algorithm. This algorithm will account for factors such as science priority, weather and target altitude in order to maximise the productivity of the facility. The purpose of this project is to develop the robotic scheduling model for the NRT, accounting for the new science priorities of the coming decades and the specific project goals of the telescope. We will use the 15+ year observing history of the LT as a resource to develop machine learning models to optimise the approach, and towards the end of the project we will use the current telescope as a testbed to validate the software products.

Doctoral Training Partnerships: a range of postgraduate training is funded by the Research Councils. For information on current funding routes, see the common terminology at www.rcuk.ac.uk/StudentshipTerminology. Training grants may be to one organisation or to a consortia of research organisations. This portal will show the lead organisation only.