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In this research programme, it is proposed to investigate the effect of texturing the surface of insulating materials on their performance under applied high voltage and outdoor weather conditions. This follows a Cardiff patent for insulating structures having anti-dry band properties and initial experimental work which proved the concept. It is proposed to investigate surfaces having protuberances in the shape of hemispheres arranged in such a way that both the total surface area and the creepage path of the resulting insulation surface are increased significantly. Such texturing can also have the added benefit of improving the hydrophobicity of the surface. Modelling work using analytical and numerical computation techniques will be used to assess the performance of various shapes of texturing with dimensions in the mm and cm ranges. This modelling work will then be used to shortlist candidate textures for experimental work. A vacuum casting facility will be used to prepare flat and insulator samples that will be tested in inclined-plane and pollution-chamber test environments. Various characterisation laboratory tasks, including long term pollution exposure and ageing investigations, will be undertaken in order to classify the various textures. This will involve synchronising visual, electrical and thermal measurements. It is, then, proposed to use the order of merit from the flat samples investigations to select two or three geometries for fabrication of complete insulators. The allter will be used to conduct a comparative test and modelling programme which will demonstrate/assess the superior properties of the textured surface insulator, particularly under polluted conditions. Furthermore, this programme includes investigation tests at an outdoor pollution test station and collaboration with both a UK manufacturer and an overseas academic group.

In England, approximately 110,000 patients suffer a stroke each year, and at least 300,000 people live with moderate to severe disabilities as a result. The direct cost to the NHS of stroke is estimated to be 2.8 billion per year, with additional costs of informal care around 2.4 billion. Stroke accounts for about 11% of deaths, and around half of the survivors depend on others for everyday activities. Further research to reduce the incidence and long-term consequences of strokes on patients' lives is clearly called for. The brain requires a constant supply of blood to ensure that sufficient oxygen and nutrients are always available, and waste products produced by active cells are rapidly removed. A complex control system that dilates and constricts small arteries in the brain achieves this efficiently in healthy humans. This system, which is still poorly understood, responds to changing blood pressure (e.g. during exercise or when standing up), changes in breathing pattern, and variations in brain activity (e.g. waking / sleeping or responding to sensory stimuli). If the control system fails (e.g. following trauma or in premature babies), the subject may suffer from insufficient or excessive blood flow, either of which can lead to temporary or permanent brain damage, provoking strokes or aggravating their consequences. It is important to detect impairment of the control system early, in order to ensure appropriate care for the patient, such as keeping their blood pressure constant to avoid further brain damage. However, it is very difficult to measure whether a patient's blood flow is adequately regulated. Techniques that are currently used may require the patients' blood pressure to be changed quite considerably, but this cannot be done safely in vulnerable subjects. Procedures used are often uncomfortable and results not very reliable.We are proposing new experimental methods that are less aggressive and therefore might in the future be used in a wider group of patients. These methods use a variety of repeated small random changes in blood pressure (and also inhaled carbon dioxide concentrations), rather than larger swings. Extending previous work carried out by our teams in Southampton, Leicester and Norwich, we will simultaneously record blood pressure (using non-invasive methods) and blood flow in two arteries in the brain (using Doppler ultrasound applied on the outside of the head over the temples), together with CO2 in breathed air. From the small fluctuations in the prolonged recordings of these signals, we will estimate the characteristics of the system controlling blood flow, and in particular whether it is operating adequately, or is impaired. We will only carry out the experiments on healthy adult volunteers, and will provoke temporary impairment of the control system, by inhalation of air with increased levels of CO2, a procedure that is quite safe in the controlled laboratory conditions.In addition to developing new experimental methods, we will also develop and apply novel mathematical and computational techniques for signal-data analysis, which we believe will be more effective for the data we are investigating. Advanced statistical methods will be used to analyse results, and distinguish the known random variations between subjects (and also in repeated test in the same subject), from significant changes. In this joint project, we will be able to compare a number of different experimental methods and data processing techniques, in order to identify the ones with the best performance.In summary, the aims of the project are to investigate and develop new experimental protocols and data analysis methods, in order to provide new techniques that can be used to assess patients' brain blood flow control. We also expect this work to help understand better, how the control system works in healthy human subjects. As outcome we expect to recommend one or more new methods for future use in hospitals.

This proposal is based on two premises: that (1) increased autonomy is essential for future space exploration; (2) that existing programming methods are tedious to apply to autonomous components that have to handle an environment with continuous state variables. For well defined discrete-event environments the above rational agent approach is well developed; for a continuous environment, however, perception processes need to be linked with abstractions forming the basis of behaviour. As the environment changes, the abstracted models may also change. Hence, agents are needed that can use these abstractions to aid their decision making processes, use these in the predictive modelling of a continuous world, and connect these abstractions to both planning and goal achievement within rational agents.This project also intends to replace the current complex programming techniques, used for autonomous spacecraftcontrol, with simpler declarative programming. High-level, declarative agent programming languages have been investigated at Liverpool and such theories and languages will be developed further for agents that require predictive modelling capabilities. The Southampton team is experienced both in the formal handling of analytical and empirical models for control and prediction, and in developing control software for real satellites. The merging of these themes is very promising. Although the results will be transferable to ground vehicles and robots, this project will particularly illustrate the new methods in space applications, both in simulation and laboratory hardware demonstrations.

The challengeHuman error and systemic failure lead to unnecessary harm and suffering for patients, including permanent impairment and loss of life. Research indicates that in up to 10% of all hospitals admissions some kind of adverse incident occurs, more than half of which are believed to be avoidable. The effect on staff and the 2billion+ consequential costs further increase the need to improve all aspects of patient safety. A significant contributory factor is that healthcare processes have undergone many revisions in recent years, while the design of much non-surgical equipment remains largely unchanged. Modern healthcare involves a combination of processes and procedures supported by a broad range of equipment and products that have to co-exist within the 'patient cubicle' or ward treatment space. Few of these have been designed to ensure safe integration within the context of use, be it ward, theatre, or community, nor is this a purchasing requirement within NHS Trusts. In short, current treatments are not properly and effectively supported by available equipment. Research aimsThe outcomes of this research will be both patient and system aware. The aims are to enhance patient safety in hospital by designing out medical error, to ensure that medical products and equipment are fit for purpose, and to contain risks associated with the introduction of new designs into a system of great complexity. The Chief Medical Officer recognises the potential of a design-led approach to patient safety and wishes to see it adopted more widely across the NHS. To design out medical error it is necessary to: (i) understand healthcare process demands with regard to diagnostic, monitoring and treatment routines, in particular in terms of the consistency and usability of interfaces and other features, and in light of the progressive introduction of 'smart' products and equipment; (ii) translate that understanding into a knowledge base for the design of medical products and equipment that support safer and more effective healthcare processes; (iii) establish a best-practice, evidence-based approach to the design, equivalent to that underpinning the development of treatments, procedures and medication regimes in modern medicine. Research approachWe will use both global and candidate approaches in the project. The global approach will follow a systematic methodology to capture the broader system of healthcare process and ensure there are no gaps in our understanding of the patients/system interactions. In addition, we identified from our clinical observations and design perspective, three candidates that require detailed attention in the project: (i) the communication process in the ward; (ii) the patient local environment personal cubicle and (iii) the ward clinical activity.In order to address the broader challenge of equipment and products in use on the hospital ward, a Consultant Surgeon and Clinical Reader at Imperial, Mr George Hanna, who has research interest in ergonomics, instrument design and surgical safety will lead the clinical side of the programme. Professor Charles Vincent will lead on healthcare process and patient safety aspects, and PhDs will be attached to each of these strands to build up a cadre of young researchers in the field.DeliverablesThe project will have the following deliverables (i) a thorough map of healthcare processes both on a ward and within the broader context of the patient journey (ii) comprehensive knowledge of the design requirements for ward equipment; (iii) design proposals for a ward communication system, (iv) design proposals for a ward treatment space or 'patient cubicle' and (v) guidelines for safe ward activities and staffing levels.

Over the past several years, there has been a growing international recognition that security and risk issues of marine systems such as container line supply chains (CLSCs) need to be reviewed urgently. Serious accidents such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the lock-out of the American West Coast Ports in 2002, the blast on the Madrid commuter trains in 2004 and the blast on the London commuter buses and underground trains in 2005 have shocked the whole international shipping and logistics supply industries and prompted this urgency. CLSCs, with many complex physical and information flows, have not only contributed to economic prosperity but also rendered themselves uniquely vulnerable to many risks ranging from delay of cargo delivery to environmental pollution and from terrorist attacks to damage of economic stability. Security is becoming one of the most important criteria for measuring the performance of the design, control and management of marine systems. The term security may in general be defined as freedom from vulnerability which is an exposure to serious disturbances arising from threats. In this research, risks associated with threats will be referred to as security risks. Whilst conventional hazard-based risk is a combination of the probability of occurrence of an undesirable event and the degree of its possible consequences, security risks are different from hazard-based risks and need to be modelled differently. As a result, security and risk assessment is a process of analysing both threats and hazards in a system and making respective decisions on suitable strategies against the potential vulnerability of the system. Previous research in this and related areas has greatly increased our understanding of vulnerability, risks, threats and hazards. However, few studies have generated appropriate supporting tools for security and risk studies in CLSCs from both the engineering and managerial viewpoints. This project is aimed at developing a security and risk-based framework and also assessment models suitable for marine operations. To achieve this aim, several challenging research questions need to be investigated. First of all, most relationships among different security and risk variables may emerge at a variety of spatial, temporal or functional scales, which might be better represented if each relationship were described at or between the dynamic and interactive levels of detail, rather than treating static and steady scale processes identically. In this project, a novel hybrid reasoning network combining Bayesian networks, fuzzy sets and evidential reasoning, referred to as the ER-RN model, will be developed in order to estimate the occurrence likelihoods of threats and hazards in CLSCs. Secondly, information for security and risk assessment in CLSCs is inherently uncertain, caused by imperfect understanding of the domain of a CLSC, incomplete knowledge about the state of the domain, randomness in the mechanisms governing the behaviour of the domain, or a combination of them. It is therefore a great challenge to handle such uncertain information. In this project, a novel belief rule based (BRB) system approach will be investigated in order to use such uncertain information for estimating risks associated with both threats and hazards by modelling the damage capability, recall difficulty and damage probability of threats as well as the possible consequences of hazards. Thirdly, the assessment of security and risk control measures (SRCMs) requires the simultaneous consideration of multiple criteria such as system risk, the costs of implementing a SRCM and the benefits from reduced risk and cargo transfer delay. In this research, a multiple attribute decision-making method will be developed, which can process various types of information with uncertainty generated from the proposed ER-RN and BRB models. Case studies will be conducted to demonstrate the proposed network, models and analysis methods.

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.

Technologies associated with looking at the microworld are extremely mature, and include a wide variety of microscopies. By contrast little work has been done to extend our sense of hearing into the micro-world. The purpose of this grant is to develop a basic technology for listening to the micro world, in as sense a micro ear.Just like our own ears, most sound detectors respond to changes in pressure, creating small acoustic forces and corresponding displacement of a sensor. One extremely sensitive way of measuring force is to compare it against the momentum of a light beam. Tightly focused laser beams are now routinely used to form optical tweezers, which can trap micron-sized beads, overcoming both the thermal and gravitation forces. These tweezers systems are typically built around a microscope and manipulate samples suspended in a fluid medium / such that the technology is highly compatible with biological systems. Using a microscope to observe the bead position allows the measurement of piconewton forces and the corresponding displacement of a few nanometres. The subtle movements of these optically trapped beads will form the basis of our micro-ear. We plan to develop, demonstrate and test a number of different micro-ear approaches. All imaging systems based upon focusing are restricted to scales of a wavelength or so. Even in water, acoustic wavelengths are 100s mm, making the concept of focussing irrelevant to microscopic systems. However, as evident by most wind instruments or antique hearing aids, sub wavelength horns still work. In this proposal we plan to use microfabrication techniques to produce structures that channel the fluid flow from the emitting object to the sensor bead, providing a method of guiding the pressure wave, and if necessary amplifying it (e.g. in a flared channel). We will use the optically trapped beads as sensors to measure these forces (as described above). However, it is important to consider that, at the microscale, the movements of the beads due to an acoustic response may be masked by Brownian motion / and hence distinguishing the real signal from this thermal background will be a major challenge challenge.The key to overcoming the Brownian background will be the use of high-speed cameras to measure the position of many beads simultaneously. Rather than the signal being derived from one bead, it is the correlated motion of the beads that distinguishes the sensor response from the uncorrelated background. We envisage two basic configurations. In the first, simplest case, the beads will be positioned at the ends of defined flared microfluidic structures to measure molecular interactions resulting from mechanical biological systems (molecular motors). Alternatively, we will create a circular array around the test object and measure the radial breathing of the ring. In this latter configuration there is the possibility of being able to make new and exciting biological measurements in a non-contact mode, where we will determine both short and long range interactions between cells and surfaces.

The first phase of the SUE Programme has focused necessarily on the present, assessing current solutions and their application in the near future, thus providing a strong empirical base on which to build. There now exist both the need and a sufficient body of work to extrapolate the findings to establish and test alternative urban futures: to create a variety of scenarios, building on prior and new work, and predicated on different fundamental assumptions and priorities; to assess those scenarios in terms of design, engineering implementation and measurement of performance; to refine them, in terms of mitigation and adaptation measures, incorporating novel solutions; and ultimately to provide alternative solutions with an associated evidence base and strategies for their implementation. This bid seeks to integrate the outputs of three current SUE consortia (Birmingham Eastside, VivaCity 2020 and WaND) and complementary research on the use of trees to mitigate the effects of atmospheric pollution. The team will work across disciplines to envision and establish alternative futures (using extensive literature on this subject and prior WaND consortium work) and construct scenarios that might flow from each alternative future. The various work packages will then focus on testing specific dimensions of each alternative future vis a vis their design, implementation and performance in the context of case history sites. Each project will engage an expert panel of influential stakeholders who will meet six-monthly to test and help shape new ideas, the chairs of each of the expert panels forming the higher level project steering committee. Panel consultation will be followed by interviews of stakeholders on motivations and the decision-making process, and specific empirical research and modelling. The following high level questions will be addressed via this process: - How does the ab initio conceptualization of sustainability influence design outcomes (e.g. form, density)? How would outcomes change if urban renewal were predicated on either environmental or social or economic overriding drivers? - How does development impact on its environs, and vice versa (e.g. is a 'sustainable' site good for the city / region / country and, if so, in what ways?) and is there an optimum development size to yield optimally sustainable outcomes? - Push versus pull to achieve sustainable outcomes. Much of what is done is thought good (for individuals, society, the environment), what might be wanted (push). Thus decisions are made and people must decide whether or not to take ownership. Might more sustainable outcomes follow if those who must take ownership dictate what is created (pull)? Birmingham Eastside will be used both to develop sustainability ideas and to test them on sites at various stages of planning and development (the research team has unparalleled access via its partnerships with key stakeholders involved in Eastside). Lancaster (with Morecambe, population 96k) and Worcester (94k) will be used to test the outcomes at the scale of smaller urban areas (e.g. market towns) but no attempt will be made to build comprehensive databases as at Eastside. Several other UK and international urban areas (including Sao Paulo, Singapore and an urban area in India) will be used to test a sub-set of the project's findings to assess the transferability of the scenarios to a variety of contexts and thus their general applicability.

Germanium, in at the birth of the electronics revolution, is experiencing a renaissance as a semiconductor material - possibly even rivalling silicon, and is attracting huge interest as the silicon end-game hots up. It is perceived, audaciously but by many, as a potential candidate to maintain silicon-like technology and associated devices well beyond the envisaged end of silicon development (around 2020) and also take the technology into exciting new areas and performance regimes. This proposal sets out to explore some of the intriguing aspects and consequences of the fundamental electronic structure of Ge not previously examined. There are good theoretical arguments to suggest that some critical performance parameters can be dramatically enhanced if carriers travel in non-conventional crystallographic directions and when the germanium is under strain. We will investigate how these new environments affect the velocity/mobility and effective mass of the carriers (electrons and holes) and the processes that impede their motion (scattering).The project will be conducted by three UK university groups uniquely positioned to undertake this research and with international reputations for epitaxial growth of strained Ge (Warwick), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) for structural characterization on the nanoscale (Sheffield) and carrier transport modelling (Glasgow). The industrial standard CVD growth system at Warwick puts us in a unique position to contribute to this field of research, with good prospects of the high quality Ge structures being available early in the programme. Participation of IMEC, the leading European nano-processing laboratory, will give us unparalleled access to tools not available in the UK. Our intellectual property will be fully protected and could be exploited by numerous companies in the UK.The principal objective is to study 2D carrier transport in these largely untried orientations and to look for significant enhancements in carrier mobility compared to the conventional (100) orientation. Similar investigations are currently underway in silicon and it is opportune to now explore this in Ge. It is particularly timely in the light of IMEC's recent progress in Ge device fabrication using essentially silicon processing techniques.The programme consists of three integrated workpackages:WP1 - Growth and processing of strained Ge channel structures: Epitaxial processes will be developed, structural characterisation performed including high resolution TEM, and simple structures processed for electrical measurement.WP2 - Modulation doped buried channel structures: Initial assessment and screening of orientation and strain influences on hole and electron transport, quickly targeting optimised structures and specifically avoiding any perturbing effects of processing that may be detrimental to electron transport. Results from the measurements will be used by the Glasgow Device Modelling Group to develop/refine basic scattering and mobility models for this materials system and provide pointers to final choice of structures.WP3 - Surface-channel device structures: Structures containing a gate electrode to modulate the carrier population and make it an active device. The gate is separated from the channel by a very thin layer of a new (high-k) dielectric material, which will also scatter the carriers. Transport measurements down to very low temperatures will allow us to appraise the full device potential offered by Ge.By the end of the project we would expect to have a thorough understanding of the practical and theoretical aspects of 2D carrier transport in the full matrix of Ge surface orientations, channel directions and strain. Such knowledge can then be used to great advantage in helping realise new generations of highly performing devices that are needed in the nanoelectronics and the futuristic spintronics era.

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.