Population Health USRG: Mind the gap, EUPHA’s 7th European Public Health Conference

April 29, 2014
by Frances Clarke

The European Public Health Association’s 7th European Public Health Conference will be held in Glasgow this year from 19 to 22 November.

 The following speakers are confirmed as either keynote speakers, panellists or moderators:

• Raj Bhopal, UK

• Vesna Bjegovic-Mikanovic, ASPHER (moderator)

• Marine Buissonniere, OSI

• Simon Capewell, UK

• Josep Figueras, European Observatory (moderator)

• Anders Foldspang, Denmark (panelist)

• Abdul Ghaffar, WHO

• Zsuzsana Jakab, WHO Europe

• Alastair Leyland, Chair of the 7th European Public Health Conference

• Johan Mackenbach, The Netherlands

• Jose Martin-Moreno, Spain (moderator)

• Margaret McCartney, UK

• Martin McKee, UK (moderator)

• Jacqueline Müller-Nordhorn, Germany (panelist)

• Iveta Nagyova, Slovakia (panelist)

• Walter Ricciardi, EUPHA

• Carlo Signorelli, Chair of the 8th European Public Health Conference 2015

• Marc Sprenger, ECDC

• Louise Stjernberg, Sweden (panelist)

• Aura Timen, The Netherlands (panelist)

Abstract and workshop submissions

Submissions are open

until May 1^st at http://www.eupha.org/site/upcoming_conference.php?conference_page=398

This is a great opportunity to present your work to the largest public health audience in Europe. The EUPHA website www.eupha.org/glasgow2014 has regularly updated information.

Population Health USRG: Public Health and Adapting to Climate Change in Cape Town

April 24, 2014
by Frances Clarke

The moment we arrived in Cape Town we were immersed in the challenges of Public Health and Adapting to Climate Change – the theme of this year’s WUN conference. Those who chose to join the field trip to the Goedgedacht Trading company saw a response to climate change, and the fruits – in this case olives –  of a farm project that encourages the growing of produce that is not water hungry. Those who visited the Rocklands Urban Abundance Centre saw at first hand the challenges of food security through the lens of food production in the area. Those who visited Graveyard Pond and Sweet Home, two communities on Cape Flats, met representatives from the communities and saw the resourceful actions demonstrated and required by the community leaders and their teams as they continue to tackle the challenges caused by having dwellings in an area prone to flooding.

Narrow ‘streets’ in Graveyard Pond.

After these day-long trips, delegates convened in the evening to hear Professor Max Price, Vice-Chancellor of Cape Town University, and Professor John Hearn, Executive Director of WUN, giving a warm welcome. Sir David King, the main speaker, received a rousing introduction from the British High Commissioner to South Africa, Judith MacGregor.

Here is a  flavour of the next two, thought provoking, inspiring, mentally exhilarating, crammed days.

The  keynote was given by Professor Jonathan Crush at 08.30 the next day. 

Jonathan Crush on migration: ‘If all (migrants) were the inhabitants of one country, it would be the 5^th largest population in the world… they have an economic significance which has not been adequately quantified…’

One of Professor Mark Hanson ‘s slides showed the UN Declaration, which has recently, after lobbying by WUN, been altered to include the Lifecourse approach to NCDs in its high level policy.

Duncan Matheka of NCD Child, advocated working directly with the young, as partners, to ensure dissemination of the Lifecourse approach. Nigel Rollins of the World Health Organisation reminded us that achieving scientific research goals depends on people getting on well together. Professor Don Nutbeam said that he learned from his time working in Government, that things go wrong, policy-wise, if researchers are answering questions that governments didn’t ask. Solomon Asfaw, from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation asked: what intervention could create a willingness to forgo a short term benefit in favour of a long term benefit? He said that making the case is key.

In lively Q & A sessions and break-out groups the delegates strove energetically to hammer out formulations to arrive at the right questions to ask. Questions like:-

What are the questions that the World Universities Network as a network, could answer, better, than each researcher on their own or each university as a single organisation?

As a network, could WUN produce an audit of all the creative, non-paternalistic responses to the challenges posed by food security and climate change, at civil society level?

A typical conference break-out group discussion was between research experts from Public Health, Food Production, EcoSystems and Climate Change and included representatives from either WHO, NCD Child or FAO.

The conference, as is only appropriate, given its subject, had a great way to enhance our health and wellbeing too. If, on Day 2, you got up in time, there was an optional, pre-breakfast ‘hike’ on the Lion’s Head – a mountain next to Table Mountain. By ‘hike’ I soon began to see that they meant ‘extremely dangerous and foolhardy mountaineering’. A large party of us set off, most wearing unsuitable clothes and footwear. It was brilliant – tremendous.

I confess to being overcome with vertigo eventually and making a life preserving decision to begin to scramble back down. I was helped by friendly fellow mountaineers who leapt nimbly from crag to crag oblivious to the ghastly drop, inches to our right. It was terrifying  (not to the others, I hasten to add) but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything, AND we were back in time for breakfast. I duly added it to my GoFit minutes for the week.

 There go my intrepid fellow delegates

‘Why policymakers ignore evidence’

September 17, 2013
by Gerry Stoker

Director of Public Policy@Southampton Professor Gerry Stoker is often asked ‘Why policymakers ignore evidence’.   In his new blog, Gerry offers 12 explanations about how this process can be best understood…

Speak to many University colleagues and they will report what appears to be a common experience: evidence carefully collected and assembled about significant societal concerns, and what to do about them, are presented to policy makers and then promptly ignored.   How can this frustrating process best be understood?  The dozen explanations I offer are less to do with the political process being corrupt and have more to do with its complexities which academics from all disciplines need to understand and respect.

One common rationalization offered by those that suffer the experience of being de facto ignored (notwithstanding some lip service that might be paid to the importance of evidence especially if the work is commissioned by policy makers) is that policy makers, especially politicians are driven by perverse incentives that lead them to embrace ignorance rather than the insight offered by the knowledge and wisdom of my University colleagues.  Politicians, I am told, have short-term desires to get re-elected and advance their careers, so evidence matters little save what it delivers on those fronts.  Explanation number 1 is often shortly followed by a second disparaging swipe.  Politicians are beholden to powerful interests that can substitute their self-serving claims into the policy process, washing away the impact of more rigorously and transparently scrutinised evidence produced within academia.

There are times when these two cynical traits are in play and explain the “listening but listening policymakers” phenomena. But I want to argue there are other factors more often at work that reflect less the perversity of politics and more its complexity. The good news is that these factors can be ameliorated to some degree by the way that academics behave.  For that reason fatalism about politics in response to the experience of appearing to be ignored should be tempered by a better understanding of how politics works.  There are 10 movable obstacles (MOs let’s call them) to add to the two more depressing blockages usually identified, giving me my dozen factors.

MO1:  A primary question for the policymaker is: why should I pay attention to this issue rather than many others?  When academics enter the policy process they naturally assume that process started when they entered but of course it didn’t.  There are only limited windows of opportunity when an issue become sufficiently pressing to encourage a focus on it.  Understanding the rhythms of policy making around manifestos, big speeches, set piece agenda setting opportunities around the budget or the Queen’s Speech or other much more low-key developments can help with getting the timing of the intervention right.  Part of the art of having an impact is being in the right place at the right time and then, of course, being able to go when the opportunity presents itself.  

MO2: Policymakers will sometimes say and often think: bring me solutions not just problems.  Academic research is often more focused on identifying an issue of concern and its dynamics rather than focusing on potential actions or interventions (they may get mentioned in the last paragraph of a report).  Explanation of what is plainly central to what we do but academics could perhaps do more to take on the challenge of designing solutions.  There remains an issue still in that academics often couch their arguments in terms of the limits of the evidence and policymakers might in turn seek a more definitive position.  Again this concern is not an insurmountable and one response is for the academic to take the position of “honest broker” laying out options and choices for the policy maker.  For some good reflections on this point see (http://cstpr.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2518-2007.15.pdf)

MO3: If an intervention is identified that should work it is still subject to challenge about its administrative, financial and political feasibility?  The question for policymakers is not can it be done but rather can it be done by government?  Showing that a policy response proposed   is right (a solution to the identified problem) is only half that battle, if that.  For the policymaker it’s not what works that matters; it’s what’s feasible that matters.  Can the challenges of administration, resourcing and political support and ownership be met?  When academics step into the world of policymaking they should be sensitive and as informed as possible about these challenges; avoid giving the appearance of naivety, this is not a strong selling point when trying to persuade.  

MO4: The question for the policymaker is not simply-do I support this policy- but rather how much energy and political capital would I have to expend to make the policy win through against opposition from other sources?  Policymakers know that there are only a limited number of things they can realistically achieve and they may have other more pressing priorities.  Picking the policymaker both able and willing to run with a policy is by no means easy but academics need to be aware of this factor in the policymaking process and think clearly about how to make the policy appear doable.

MO5:  Let’s say that a cadre of policymakers buy the idea of doing something but their enthusiasm then gets tested in the wider arena of policymaking.  They have to show not only that the policy will beat the problem, that it is feasible and doable but that it can also win in response to the “opportunity costs” question?  The policymaker will be asked: if we spend time, money and effort on this proposal what are we not going to be doing that we should have already been doing?  Policy is a competition for time in a very time poor environment.  There are many issues and so little time; academics know that about their research activities so need to remember that it applies with even more force in the world of policy.  

MO6:  Networks matter in research and they matter in policymaking as well.  It’s not normal for ideas from an unknown source to be easily embraced and this is true for many areas of life.  Politicians and policymakers, in particular, have survived in their careers by being suspicious to some degree.  They will always ask in their heads at least:  are you selling me a pup?  Policymaking does rely to a large extent on trust in source and status in network so academics need to build both their trust and status if they want to be taken seriously.  Years or decades even of non-engagement, followed by a sudden step on to the policy stage proclaiming solutions, is an unlikely formula for success.   

MO7:  In some ways the point is so obvious that it’s amazing how often it gets overlooked: politicians and other policymakers believe in things.  They have preferences, philosophical positions (some more coherent than others) and even ideologies about what the world should be and how it should be changed: that is both ends and means are political choices.  Therefore values matter in the policy process alongside evidence.  The “what works” rhetoric can imply that choices are entirely technical but nothing could be further from reality in democratic policymaking.  Choice is about whether a policy matches the chooser’s desired means and goals and understanding that is essential for all academics and democrats.  Moreover academics are not immune from having values, preferences and ideologies and though we try to guard against their impact on our research there is no denying that they can have an impact especially on what we choose to research and the manner in which that research is presented.

MO8:  Nothing is certain and a policy can be killed by fear of unintended consequences.  The probabilities suggest- the language of much scientific discourse- may not be strong enough to stop a wave of fear about unintended consequences. Academics rightly want to be clear about the limits of the evidence but they should also be keen to pre-identify and try to undermine spurious objections to their findings.  Opponents of any measure tend to frame their arguments along standard lines: it will not achieve the desired effect or worse it will have perverse effects or worse still it will jeopardised much cherished other gains.  Understanding how interventions are going to be challenged should be something that academics should be aware of when they engage.  

MO9: If you have got this far in the blog you might be feeling a little depressed. Here is my attempt to cheer you up.  All the previously mentioned obstacles can be overcome and your research could indeed lead to a policy intervention; only for    implementation failure to undermine it.  OK maybe I need to work on my skills for relieving depression but the key point is that the implementation concern is one that if addressed can be met as well.  But it needs to be addressed.  The forces of opposition to a policy do not stop once it’s adopted.

MO10:  “Events, dear boy, events” is an alleged explanation that former British PM Harold Macmillan offered as to why achieving anything in politics is so difficult.  The unpredictable, sudden crisis can blow a carefully evidenced and prepared policy process of course.  Just as in nature where we learning that changes in woods/forests, for example, are driven by as much by major events as slow environmental change so it is in politics that all that appeared solid and definite can suddenly melt and become an arena of uncertainty.  There are many coping strategies to deal with this phenomenon but they all boil down to: if at first you do not succeed then try and try again.

Well that’s the dozen reasons for the gaping hole that often exists between evidence from academia and the policy process.  Let’s make it a baker’s dozen by reminding ourselves that occasionally the problem is that academics communicate their insights with such a level of jargon, complexity and extreme length that no policymaker, even the most willing, could be persuaded to take the ideas seriously.  I hope that I have avoided unclear terminology but I am aware this post has taking up a lot of space. And that seems a good point at which to stop.       

Professor Gerry Stoker is a Professor of Governance, Director of the Centre for Citizenship, Globalization and Governance and Director of Public Policy@Southampton.

Follow Gerry’s Director Blogs at http://publicpolicy.southampton.ac.uk/  

Tweet to Gerry @ProfStoker @PublicPolicyUoS @C2G2

MDR Vacation Bursary Project: Automated Extraction of Multi-band X-ray Spectra

August 16, 2013
by Benjamin Tunbridge

By Ben Tunbridge, undergraduate student (MPhys Physics with Astronomy), Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering.

I am a student of the School of Physics & Astronomy preparing to commence my fourth and final year on the Physics with Astronomy (MPhys) here at the University of Southampton. For the year ahead, I will be heading out to the U.S. for my year abroad part of my degree.

Galaxy clusters are some of the largest gravitationally bound structures in the universe and can interact on extremely large timescales. Studies of these massive and vast structures can teach us much of the large scale world and the mysteries of the Universe. From our Earthly snapshot views we can determine important features of these clusters including large scale radio relics, shock waves and temperature jumps in the structures medium; remnants of the clusters history such as past inter-cluster mergers.

Currently this process requires several interactions which can take considerable human time. Working under the supervision of Dr Anna Scaife, the aim of this project is to remove the need for lengthy human input by developing a pipeline program to automatically process this data. Key interfering processes which must be considered and dealt in the development of scientific standard quality images include such analysis techniques as the removal of interfering solar flares from data sets and cross-correlating data from the four (3 soft and 1 hard X ray) detectors on board the Suzaku satellite to determine common events. This could improve the effectiveness of data analysis and therefore the science we wish to investigate.

During the summer I will be working through this procedure step by step on particular galaxy clusters starting with one known as A2256 (or more imaginatively the toothbrush cluster) and as I go I will be developing the pipeline program using python programming language along with wrapped C++ library routines to investigate and process this data into workable scientific images ready with minimal human input.

Extra galactic studies is an ever improving field in astronomy and with the development of observational power, reaching further out into the universe and with much more detail than before it is a very exciting time to be part of the astrophysical community and certainly an area I would like to explore further in my academic path.

Supervisor: Dr Anna Scaife

Visit: The School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Southampton.

MDR Vacation Bursary blog series available at: http://blog.soton.ac.uk/multidisciplinary/tag/vacation-bursary/

MDR Vacation Bursary Project: Modelling Co-evolution of Transport and Land Use

July 30, 2013
by Rory Devonport

By Rory Devonport, undergraduate student (MEng Civil Engineering), Faculty of Engineering and the Environment.

As a third year civil engineering student, I am well aware of the major, on-going projects within the UK specific to the improvement of transportation networks (for example Crossrail and HS2). Whilst it is expected and observed that such projects spur economic growth, there is a lack of quantitative approaches which directly allow the prediction of the impact of transportation improvements on urban development and of urban land use on transportation networks simultaneously.

There is of course a profound relationship between functional land use (and land development), and the capability and geometry of the connecting transportation links. Strong transportation links supporting an area can facilitate growth through increasing the attractiveness of the land, providing incentives for further investment in transportation, resulting in a strong positive feedback loop. Furthermore, the converse is also true, where poor transport links or a reduction in land use or resources will result in a loop of negative growth for developed urban land.

The principle goal of this project is therefore to create a model which demonstrates and is able to provide understanding of this co-dependent relationship. The land use model will take the form of an array, each cell representing an area of discreet land use type (variants of residential, commercial, industrial are expected) which provide an influence over the land use of local cell to replicate the formation of land use clusters replicating real urban areas (CBD, Suburbs, Sub-centres etc.) These will be facilitated by and exert demand on an overlaying transportation network which, in adapting in parallel to support the land-use requirements, provides means for further growth and expansion of the land use clusters and the developed urban area.

In order to achieve this, relationships between areas of both differing and similar land use must be established to determine their spatial and transport requirements. This may be obtained from the rich array of existing literature dating back more than half a century, which establishes these relationships and provide quantitative procedures, such as those finding the accessibility of land use zones. The key difference between many of these previous models and approaches however is the attempt of this project to implement the co-evolution of the land-use transport system.

Naturally, the computational model produced from this project will provide a foundation for future projects contemplating and addressing specific questions and ideas which can be represented within the developed model. By creating the model as a framework to understand the consequences of the co-evolution, the model can then be continually improved through further research for example in either improved calibration of attraction-repulsion relationships between different land use types, the impact of physical constraints (e.g. a coastal city) on the co-evolution or long term consequences of the transport policies and investment decisions of the city authorities.

Supervisor: Dr Ben Waterson

MDR Vacation Bursary blog series available at: http://blog.soton.ac.uk/multidisciplinary/tag/vacation-bursary/

MDR Vacation Bursary Project: Modelling forest growth to determine future sustainable forest harvest rates in Southern Malawi

July 25, 2013
by Luke Goater

By Emma Green, undergraduate student (Master of Environmental Science), Faculty of Engineering and the Environment.

I am about to start the fourth year of my degree in Masters of Environmental Science: Sustainable Management pathway. I have really enjoyed the multidisciplinary approach that my degree course has offered me so far and to further my experience I have always wanted to go abroad to carry out research for my dissertation in order to experience a different culture, whilst using GIS (Geographical Information Systems) as a mapping tool. I was fortunate to gain this opportunity in collaboration with the ESPA’s (Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation) ASSETS (Attaining Sustainable Services from Ecosystems through Trade-off Scenarios) project which currently has research bases in Malawi, Columbia and Peru focussing on poverty – environment interactions and food security. I have chosen to carry out research into forest growth rates in Malawi, as this affects many aspects of people’s livelihoods.

With a team of seven other Southampton students, I recently spent a month in Zomba, situated in Southern Malawi. I collected forest, settlement, cropland and grassland plot data within four villages across the region to gain a better understanding of the type and number of trees that occur in different land uses. I also undertook individual and group interviews with members of local communities, focussing on the management practices that occur and will support this with secondary data gained from household surveys.

This will provide me with the information I need to model the current and future growth and off-take rates of trees in the region, using three forest growth rate models – LPJ GUESS, SYMFOR and MYRLIN. I am then hoping to map the tree cover across the four villages and finally combining all of my findings to determine if the current off-take rates are sustainable.

I now have until May next year to insert the data I have collected into forest growth models in order to attain if the current rate of wood off-take is sustainable. I am hoping that my research will enable the villagers to manage their resources in a more sustainable way, which will improve their livelihoods in the future.  I have really enjoyed the experience of researching in another country and hopefully the experience I have gained will help me with whatever I would like to do after I have completed my degree!

Supervisor: Simon Willcock.

MDR Vacation Bursary blog series available at: http://blog.soton.ac.uk/multidisciplinary/tag/vacation-bursary/

Further details about Ecosystem Services research carried out by the University of Southampton can be found on the Sustainability Science at Southampton website: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/sustainability_science

MDR Vacation Bursary Project: Graphene Oxide – Gold Nanoparticle Assemblies for Use in Plasmonic Solar Cells

July 24, 2013
by Liam Kiessling

By Liam Kiessling, undergraduate student (Physics (MPhys)), Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering.

As a third year physicist, learning to work in a chemistry lab and all the techniques involved in this environment is a challenge but an enjoyable one. What I find most appealing about research into nanotechnology is the ability to take new materials from concepts, to synthesis and eventually into applications for these new materials. Most things in this area are thought up by a physicist, made by a chemist and used by a biologist or doctor. When given the opportunity to work in such a hot area of research, I had to take it.

I will be working with a graphene derivative, graphene oxide, as the base for nanoscale assemblies of DNA and gold nanoparticles. Once we have confirmed that we have created these structures, with UV-Vis spectroscopy and TEM imaging, we will send samples off to get them blended into a solar cell, with the hope that the combination of all three things will increase the energy conversion efficiency over a cell without these structures. If successful, we could see these solar cells in use in mobile phones and other portable electronics so that they would require little or no charging from mains power sources; easing our dependence on fossil fuels for electricity generation.

I will be continuing this project into my master’s year where I will be looking to make ever more complex structures. Future structures could include: sandwiches of graphene with nanospheres between; paired nanospheres attached to the graphene; exchanging the nanospheres for other shapes (nanorods, nanostars, etc.); and possibly exchanging the gold for other materials (platinum, copper selenide, iron oxide, etc.). We will be running multiple tests on these structures as well to see if there are other potential applications for these which may include: biosensors, batteries, capacitors or display devices.

Supervisor: Dr. Antonios Kanaras.

MDR Vacation Bursary blog series available at: http://blog.soton.ac.uk/multidisciplinary/tag/vacation-bursary/

MDR Vacation Bursary Project: Assessing the cultural values of land uses in Malawi: An ecosystem services approach.

July 23, 2013
by Luke Goater

By Sophie Van Eetvelt, undergraduate student (Master of Environmental Science), Faculty of Engineering and the Environment.

I’m just about to start the fourth and final year of a Master of Environmental Science in the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment. I’ve chosen the sustainable management pathway and enjoy the breadth of topics that my degree covers, however I never thought I’d end up researching cultural ecosystem services! Ecosystem services are a rapidly emerging area of research and it’s exciting to be part of such a new and dynamic field. I’d already decided that I wanted to conduct my dissertation research broadly around poverty-environment interactions and then the opportunity to work with ESPA’s (Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation) ASSETS (Attaining Sustainable Services from Ecosystems through Trade-off Scenarios) project in Malawi came up.

Working with a field team of six other Southampton students, I’ve spent a month in the Zomba region of southern Malawi. I conducted group interviews and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) exercises in four villages in order to gain a better understanding of cultural ecosystem services, a generally neglected part of ecosystem service research.  I am looking to understand the spatial distribution of such services, their current status and how they have changed in the past and may change in the future, and finally to critically analyse the methodology behind assessing cultural ecosystem services. I’m particularly interested in critiquing the use of a rapid appraisal approach for such a qualitative and spatially variable subject.

I now have just under a year to compile my data and produce a journal article-style dissertation. I’ve really enjoyed working in the field conducting PRA’s and it has definitely made me more aware of the possibilities for further research in this area after graduation. ESPA ASSETS has established research bases in Malawi, Colombia and now Peru – so who knows where this area of expertise will take me in the future!

Supervisors: Kate Schrekenberg, Kelvin Peh, Simon Willcock.

MDR Vacation Bursary blog series available at: http://blog.soton.ac.uk/multidisciplinary/tag/vacation-bursary/

Further details about Ecosystem Services research carried out by the University of Southampton can be found on the Sustainability Science at Southampton website: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/sustainability_science

MDR Vacation Bursary Project: Investigating visual search behaviour during the monitoring of heat maps

July 18, 2013
by Florence Greber

By Florence Greber, undergraduate student (BSc Psychology), School of Psychology, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences.

After being a Volunteer Research Assistant during my second year in the field of eye tracking and visual cognition, I am now working on a project linking Ship Science with this area of Psychology. Eye tracking is a method of measuring eye movements, which consist of fixations and saccades. Fixation locations and durations can be measured using an eye tracker which uses a video camera to measure the movements of the eye while participants are engaged with a visual task. The data gathered can tell us about how we process visual scenes, especially during visual tasks. I will be using a specific type of task, called visual search, to study behaviour. Visual search typically involves asking participants to search for a specific target amongst a set of non-target objects.

Control centres in ships and nuclear power stations create the need for humans to monitor and respond to a vast number of changing dials and control boards which are in a state of constant change. Within my interdisciplinary project, I will be examining eye movements made during a visual search task that is designed to mimic these types of complex monitoring environments. The key question that I will be addressing is how do we choose where to look and when to shift our gaze when engaged with complex monitoring tasks?

We are unable to process the visual information from all of the control panels simultaneously, so we make eye movements to focus on specific segments within them. These eye movements differ in duration and location. In a task where the displays are constantly changing and need to be monitored, a balance needs to be struck between spending time in one area monitoring the information without missing important information being presented elsewhere. This is vitally important in control centres as failing to notice a change or warning could have serious consequences.

I will be using a simplified version of these complex displays in my experiment. I will be presenting participants with a ‘heat map’ display. They will be asked to imagine they are in a power station control room, and that they must keep the system cool. The heat map will change in temperature over time, and participants will be asked to locate and click on hotspots to cool them down. Their eye movements will be measured while they complete the task. The key variables that will be manipulated experimentally will be the rate of change in the displays and the number of targets presented.

In the future, the heat map paradigm will be developed to explore the influences of individual differences and anxiety on visual search behaviour. A new PhD student will begin in the School of Psychology in October 2013 using this paradigm so a large number of experiments will follow the foundational work conducted as part of this bursary.

This Vacation Bursary project is supervised by Dr. Hayward Godwin.

MDR Vacation Bursary blog series available at: http://blog.soton.ac.uk/multidisciplinary/tag/vacation-bursary/

MDR Vacation Bursary Project: Heterogeneous catalysts

July 18, 2013
by Jamie Purkis

Design of single-site, heterogeneous catalysts for the energy efficient production of nylon precursors from renewable and biomass sources

By Jamie Purkis, undergraduate student, Chemistry, Faculty of Natural and the Environmental Sciences

I am a second year chemistry student currently studying for a Master of Science in Chemistry (MSc); part of which involves weekly undergraduate laboratory practicals.

After completing a practical on the synthesis of an ‘aluminophosphate’ catalyst (solid-state materials that can increase the rate of chemical reactions), I researched the field further and decided to apply for a summer project in the synthesis and characterisation of these materials.

Working under the supervision of Dr. Robert Raja and his research group, the project involves the careful design and testing of porous, heterogeneous catalysts made from aluminium and phosphorous precursors. Creating a reaction of these in water under high temperature and pressure, aluminophosphate catalysts can be synthesised. By subtly changing the composition of this reaction, the ratios of aluminium and phosphorous or even new elements, like cobalt and magnesium, can be incorporated into the catalyst framework, changing its properties.

Catalysts are then used in a variety of chemical transformations; for example, conversion of crude oil into petrol and diesel. Of particular interest to this project, however, is the industrial production of nylon, a very common polymer with a range of everyday applications (clothing, for example).

Traditionally, the production of nylon involves energy-intensive processes and environmentally-damaging reagents, some of which are harmful and can contribute to the emission of carbon dioxide by using lots of energy. The by-products from nylon production can also end up in landfill; not at all a ‘green’ process.

Nylon can be synthesised via intermediate chemicals, which can ultimately be derived from renewable plant sugars, like glucose and fructose. By designing and testing these catalysts, we aim to optimise its production from a range of possible renewable sources – so-called “green chemistry”. Using chemicals from plants obviously makes the process more renewable, and less energy-intensive, requiring less harmful reagents (the catalysis can even be done using oxygen from the air). Fewer non-renewable waste chemicals are produced and liberation of greenhouse gases can be mitigated.

Reducing waste and using less energy is clearly desirable for industry, making this area an ever-expanding field with a wide scope for development on the research done on this project. The synthesis, characterisation and screening of a range of aluminophosphate catalysts may also be developed further, with each one being tested for the efficiency of transformation processes. Therefore, industrial catalysis represents a possible avenue for my final year project or even a PhD research project.

MDR Vacation Bursary blog series available at: http://blog.soton.ac.uk/multidisciplinary/tag/vacation-bursary/