Previous seminars

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• Seminars
• Previous seminars

Each series covers a range of topics and presentations by internal and guest speakers.

Biomedical, Life and Health Sciences Research Centre Seminar Series

Seminar Title: Virulence potential of Enterobacteriaceae isolated from neonatal enteral feeding tubes.
Speaker: Aldukali Alkeskas, NTU.
Date: 16 March 2012
Host: Steve Forsythe.

Seminar Title: Central circuits and stress related behaviours.
Speaker: Professor Richard Apps, Sensory and Motor Systems Group,School of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Bristol.
Date: 9 March 2012
Host: Chris Tinsley.

Seminar Title: Influenza – a continuing threat to veterinary and public health.
Speaker: Professor Ian Brown, Head of Avian Virology and Mammalian Influenza, Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA).
Date: 1 March 2012
Host: Alan McNally.

Seminar Title: Benefit by sharing your research data - how, what, why, when and where.
Speaker: Professor Anthony Brookes, Department of Genetics, University of Leicester.
Date: 24 February 2012
Host: David Hughes.

Seminar Title: Effects of Buffering Agents on High-Intensity Exercise Performance and Capacity.
Speaker: Bryan Saunders, NTU.
Date: 17 February 2012
Host: Caroline Sunderland.

Seminar Title: The Human Connectome: Organization and characterization of hierarchical brain networks.
Speaker: Dr Marcus Kaiser, School of Computing Science, Newcastle University
Date: 10 February 2012
Host: Jonathan Crofts.

Seminar Title: The effects of inspiratory muscle training on blood-borne inflammatory markers and breathing mechanics.
Speaker: Dean Mills, NTU.
Date: 3 December 2012
Host: Graham Sharpe.

Seminar Title: Statistical detection of Gene-Gene interactions using human genome-wide data and its application in Psychiatric Genetics.
Speaker: Dr Valentina Moskvina, MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics & Genomics, Cardiff University.
Date: 27 January 2012
Host: Nadia Chuzhanova.

Seminar Title: A journey through the hearing brain: From basic neuroscience to clinical practice.
Speaker: Professor Deborah Hall, Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience Division of Psychology School of Social Sciences, NTU.
Date: 20 Janury 2012
Host: David Hughes.

Seminar Title: Investigating the evolution of pathogenesis is Campylobacter jejuni using hyperinvasive strains as model organisms.
Speaker: Abiyad Baig, NTU
Date: 13 January 2012
Host: Georgina Manning.

Seminar Title: Characterisation of Surface Structures of Cronobacter Sakazakii with Relevance to Biofilm Formation and Host Cell Attachment and Invasion.
Speaker: Nasreddin Rhouma, NTU
Date: Friday 9 December 2011
Time: 1.10 pm - 2 pm
Host: Steve Forsythe

Seminar Title: The Effect of Sheep Dip Pesticide on the Freshwater Shrimp Gammarus Pulex.
Speaker: Salem Elwahaishi, NTU
Date: Friday 2 December 2011
Time: 1.10 pm - 2pm
Host: Chris Lloyd Mills

Seminar Title: Monoamine oxidase-A and β-amyloid: direct or indirect contributors to Alzheimer disease-related pathology? 
Speaker: Dr Darrell Mousseau, University of Saskatchewan , Canada.
Date: Friday 25 November 2011
Time: 1.10 - 2 pm
Host: Ellen Billet

Seminar Title: Developing Therapeutic Agents for the Treatment of Bleeding.
Speaker: Professor Alison Goodall, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leicester.
Date: Friday 18 November 2011
Time: 1.10 - 2pm
Host: Eli Verderio-Edwards

Seminar Title: Genetic Dissection of Zebrafish Sarcomere Assembly.
Speaker: Dr Derek Stemple, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.
Date: Friday 4 November 2011
Time: 1.10 pm - 2 pm
Host: David Hughes

Seminar Title: Science, Technology, Society: In Search of a Civil Partnership.
Speaker: Professor Robert Dingwall, NTU
Date: Friday 28 October 2011
Time: 1.10 pm - 2 pm
Host: Ellen Billet

Seminar Title: Histology and Embriology.
Speaker: Prof Berthold Huppertz. Institute of Cell Biology, Histology and Embriology, Graz, Austria.
Date: Friday 21 October 2011
Time: 1.10 pm - 2 pm
Host: Shiva Sivaubramaniam

If you have any queries or questions about our Biomedical, Life and Health Sciences Research Centre Series Seminar Series please contact John Dickenson or Eli Verderio-Edwards.

Physical Sciences, Engineering and Computing Research Centre Seminar Series

Wednesdays, 1 pm - 2 pm.

Seminar Title: Fuzzy Rule-Based Systems for Developing Intelligent Agents.
Speaker: Dr Tomoharu Nakashima, Osaka University, Japan.
Date: 7 March 2012
Host: Taha Osman

Abstract:

Fuzzy systems based on fuzzy if-then rules have been shown to be
effective especially in the field of control and classification. Fuzzy
systems can be constructed by various modes of learning such as
supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement leaning.
The main difference between fuzzy and non-fuzzy rule-based
classification is that fuzzy systems can produce non-linear
classification while non-fuzzy ones are not able to do so. Thus the
fuzzy systems are able to accomplish complex tasks. In this
presentation, three fuzzy rule-based systems are shown that are used for
the decision making of the following intelligent agents: a virtual
futures trader, an autonomous car controller, and a robotic footballer.
Experimental results for these application domains are shown with movie
demonstrations.

Seminar Title: Enantiopure Homoallylic Alcohols as Building Blocks in Stereoselective Synthesis.
Speaker: Professor Andrei Malkov, University of Loughborough.
Date: 29 February 2012
Host: John Wallis

Seminar Title: Computer Modelling of Hierarchichal Self-Assembly.
Speaker: Doug Cleaver, Sheffield Hallam University.
Date: 22 February 2012
Host: Christopher Castleton.

Seminar Title: Trusted Content-Based Publish/Subscribe Trees.
Speaker: Dr Stephen Naicken, University of Sussex.
Date: 15 February 2012
Host: John Robinson.

Abstract:

Content-based publish/subscribe systems typically assume that publishers, subscribers and brokers implicitly trust each other and correctly implement both the matching and routing functions, however these assumptions are unsuitable for some applications, such as publish/subscribe Internet routing. I will present an approach where the publish/subscribe event dissemination tree (PST) is constructed and re-configured with respect to the trust preferences of the publisher and subscribers such that the tree maximises trust within some communication overhead budget.

The talk will focus on: the trust metric for PSTs, which borrows heavily from social welfare theory in order to derive a trust value for a PST from the individual trust preferences of the PST's publisher and subscribers; the Tabu search based algorithm used to find the most trusted PST within some communication overhead budget (the PST trust maximisation with overhead budget problem) and that is shown to provide good approximation solutions; future work, such as the monitoring of the publish/subscribe system for malicious and selfish behaviour.

Seminar Title: Bio-inspired Materials for Regenerative Medicine and Biosensing.
Speaker: Professor Molly Stevens.
Date: 8 February 2012
Host: Professor Carole Perry.

Abstract:
This talk will provide an overview of our recent developments in bio-inspired nanomaterials for tissue regeneration and sensing. Bio-responsive nanomaterials are of growing importance with potential applications including drug delivery, diagnostics and tissue engineering1. DNA-, protein- or peptide-functionalised nanoparticle (NP) aggregates are particularly useful systems since triggered changes in their aggregation states may be readily monitored. Our recent simple conceptually novel approaches to real-time monitoring of protease, lipase and kinase enzyme action using modular peptide functionalized NPs will be presented2,3,4.

The highly interdisciplinary field of Tissue Engineering (TE) can also benefit from advances in the design of bio-responsive nanomaterials. TE involves the development of artificial scaffold structures on which new cells are encouraged to grow. The ability to control topography and chemistry at the nanoscale offers exciting possibilities for stimulating growth of new tissue through the development of novel nanostructured scaffolds that mimic the nanostructure of the tissues in the body1,5. Recent developments in this context will be discussed as well as novel approaches to in vivo tissue regeneration of large volumes of highly vascularised and hierarchically organized tissue6,7,8.

References
1. M. M. Stevens, J. George. Science. 310, 1135 – 1138. (2005)
2. A. Laromaine, L. Koh, M. Murugesan, R.V. Ulijn, and M. M. Stevens. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 129:4156-4157 (2007)
3. J. Ghadiali, M. M. Stevens. Advanced Materials. 20:4359-4363. (2008); J. Ghadiali et al. ACS Nano. 4:4915-4919 (2010)
4. D. Aili, M. Mager, M. M. Stevens. Nano Letters. In press (2010)
5. E. Place, N. D. Evans, M. M. Stevens, Nature Materials, 8(6): 457-470 (2009)
6. M. M. Stevens et. al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 102, 11450 – 11455 (2005)
7. E. Gentleman et al, Nature Materials, 8,9;763-770. (2009)
8. C. Gentilini et al, in preparation.

Short Biography:
Molly Stevens is Professor of Biomedical Materials and Regenerative Medicine and the Research Director for Biomedical Material Sciences in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London. She joined ICL after Postdoctoral training in tissue engineering with Professor Langer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was awarded a PhD in Biophysics and Surface Analysis from the University of Nottingham. She has received numerous awards including the Jean Leray Award from the European Society for Biomaterials. Her group’s research focuses on designing bioactive materials for regenerative medicine and biosensing applications. She is the main founder of spin-out RepRegen

Seminar Title: Mechanical Atom Manipulation:Towards a Matter Compiler?
Speaker: Philip Moriarty, University of Nottingham.
Date: 1 February 2012
Host: David Fairhurst.

Abstract:

Can we design and construct a matter compiler? That is, is it possible to conceive of a scheme whereby the fundamental atomic/molecular building blocks of matter can be autonomously and intelligently manipulated via software to form a nanoscopic, microscopic, or even macroscopic product? This is the essence of the highly controversial “molecular manufacturing” concept put forward by K. Eric Drexler in the eighties [1] (and which was originally inspired by Feynman’s musings [2] on the ultimate limits of miniaturisation in 1959). In this talk I shall first reappraise Drexler’s matter compilation scheme in the context of the latest developments in (sub)atomic resolution scanning probe microscopy (SPM) before describing some of our recent work in three areas of key relevance to the matter compilation concept:
• Atom switching and manipulation driven purely by the making and breaking of a single chemical bond [3,4]
• Probe engineering – tuning the atomic structure of a scanning probe microscope tip by controlled pick-up and reorientation of a C60 molecule
• Automated probe microscopy via evolutionary optimization at the atomic scale [5].
[1] Nanosystems, K Eric Drexler, Wiley-Interscience (New York), 1992
[2] There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom, RP Feynman, 1959
[3] A. Sweetman et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 136101 (2011)
[4] A. Sweetman et al., Phys. Rev. B 84, 085426 (2011)
[5] RAJ Woolley et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 253104 (2011)

Seminar Title: Fun with Boron (not Boring) Chemistry.
Speaker: Dr John Spencer, University of Greenwich.
Date: 25 January 2012
Host: John Wallis.

Seminar Title: Kinetics of spreading over a hydrophobic and porous subtrates.
Speaker: Professor Victor Starov (FRS), University of Loughborough.
Date: 18 January 2012
Host: David Fairhurst

Seminar Title: Application of Optical Coherence Tomography to examination of artwork.
Speaker: Piotr Targowski, Institute of Physics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland.
Date: 17 January 2012
Host: Christopher Castleton.

Seminar Title: Wobbly drops and plastic photonics.
Speaker: James Sharp, University of Nottingham.
Date: 11 January 2012
Host: David Fairhurst.

Seminar Title: Low Field NMR in Industrial Analytics.
Speaker: Dr Nikolaus Nestle, BASF.
Date: 23 November 2011
Hosts: Christopher Castleton/Martin Bencsik.

Seminar Title: The Griess Lecture: Tuning Carbon Materials for Catalytic and Energy Related Applications.
Speaker: Professor B Etzold, Erlangen University.
Date: Tuesday 8 November 2011
Host: Carole Perry

Seminar Title: SPINACH - An Efficient NMR Simulation Package.
Speaker: Dr Matthew Krzystyniak, NTU
Date: 2 November 2011
Host: Christopher Castleton

Seminar Title: Fuzzy Based Systems for Developing Intelligent Agents.
Speaker: Dr Tomoharu Nakashima, University of Osaka.
Date: 26 October 2011
Host: Taha Osman

Seminar Title: Solid State NMR.
Speaker: Dr Melinda Duer, University of Cambridge.
Date: 12 October 2011
Host: Carole Perry

Seminar Title: Phosphorus in All States: From Synthesis to Biological Applications.
Speaker: Professor Paul Alain Jaffres, Universite de Brest, France.
Date: 21 September 2011
Host: Gary Hix

If you have any queries or questions about our Physical Sciences, Engineering and Computing Research Centre Seminar Series, please contact email Fengge Gao, Taha Osman or Chris Castleton.