Images of Research Competition 2022

To characterise soft tissue surrogate membranes, samples are subjected to mechanical deformation. This image shows the deformation of disc shaped samples during testing.

This is the joyful moment when Rose received a sheep. The image was taken during my PhD research examining how social enterprise projects impact women's health in rural Uganda. Rose belongs to an indigenous women's group who farm, dance, and sing together. I researched how their performances are used to sensitise the community to issues such as gender-based violence. When a lamb is born, it is gifted to a chosen member of the group. This communitarian ethos, based on Afrocentric values of relationality and reciprocity, can help benefit health and wellbeing through shared knowledge and farming practices. The project not only provides women with a safe space, but it also helps them grow food to share, which in turn enables those affected by HIV to take medication. Rose explains, "We are happy ladies and happy friends. Women can provide so we ask men less and so there is less violence."

characterisation as "hostes humani generis" - enemies of all mankind. My research connects past and present by establishing how the historic international outlawry of piracy influences and informs prosecutions of serious modern day international crimes, such as genocide or war crimes. Here, a pirate ship sails over a text on International Law and the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court. The image suggests pirates' disregard for such mechanisms as they rule the watery expanse of the seas. Yet their role here is also formative, given that our response to piracy in bygone centuries has facilitated the development these globally applicable legal standards. In the background the painting "The Capture of The Pirate Blackbeard" (1920) colourfully depicts the battle between organised Statehood and larcenous rebellion while capturing the derring-do that pirates represent today. Let battle commence!

When you think of Vincent van Gogh you think of bright, intense colours. He used to say to his brother that “Colour expresses something in itself. One can’t do without it; one must make use of it. What looks beautiful, really beautiful – is also right”. What better demonstration to intense colours in science could be if not the plasmonic effect; the natural resonance of a metal’s free electrons that induces a great pallet of colours depending on the metal (usually Au or Ag), the size and the distance between the nanoparticles. Here we demonstrate the amazing capability of a facile way to create these colours by transforming a thin metal film into nanoparticles via laser processing at a super-fast manner (25 ns). The selectivity of the process is illustrated here by a recreation of the famous van Gogh painting “Starry Night”.

On 16 July 1945, the Manhattan Project culminated with the detonation of the first atomic bomb at the Trinity Test in the New Mexico desert. It was brighter than anything seen by human eyes before; it was hotter than the sun’s surface. A few weeks later, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, profoundly changing the world and how people understood the relations between humanity, technology and the planet. I research nuclear culture and, in the book I’m currently writing, I explore the many representations of the Manhattan Project in literature, film and music. This picture merges a public domain image of the Trinity Test (US Dept of Energy) with photos of novels and plays depicting it. These literary retellings are important: as energy from the atom was released, so too were diverse narratives, origin stories for the nuclear age that shape how its hopes and fears are understood.

Absence is a relational aspect that comes forward in different ways in Burgess Park and the Aylesbury Estate (South London), ranging from the encounter with traces and fragments of the industrial past and the densely populated urban fabric that has given way to Burgess Park’s open green spaces, to the emptying and demolition of the Aylesbury and the displacement and dispossession implied in the decanting of its residents. The demolition of the Aylesbury Estate has not yet finished. Its regeneration involves the revamp of Burgess Park, which sits nearby and was intermittently built over the last 6 decades on a partially effaced industrial setting that still bears traces of its former configuration: a form of absence that stimulates the perception of the site’s memory whilst echoing the looming absence of the Aylesbury as well as the homes cleared away to build the park. The research is a visual inquiry into urban memory and critique of unsustainable modes of city making. This image forms part of the monograph I am preparing thanks to the NTU Research Talent Fund Grant.

The research project funded by Nottingham Trent University was aimed at digitally re-creating Nottingham's historical Market Wall, The Malt Cross and Ducking Stool in the Old Market Square using location-based technology (Augmented Reality and Geo-referencing) to reveal 700 years of division between the Norman borough and the Anglo-Saxon borough. Researchers designed an AR App for citizens and tourists to easily visualise these three historic items including the Ducking Stool (as illustrated in the photo), a tool to punish mainly women for scolding or backbiting by bonding them to a chair fixed on a pole so that they could be immersed in a pond that was originally located where the fountain in the Old Market square now is. Augmented Reality on smartphones and tablets are extending the concept of museum and exhibition into a new space-time dimension. Bridging reality with the virtuality, each City can be a museum of Intangible Heritage, ready to be experienced across past, present, and future.

Broken Deal is an image that portrays those involved in drug-dealing who are often labelled as criminals, dangerous and notorious. These are youngsters who mature to become illegal entrepreneurs, though the reality is unseen. They are survivors of exploitation and the drug-culture, with adverse childhood experiences. These individuals have been failed by the system and rejected from early years with lack of opportunities. Having worked in children services and in numerous anti-slavery projects for almost a decade, has enabled me to understand young dealers who are trapped in a vicious yet glamourised lifestyle, where drug dealing is normalised as an authentic job to attain independence, status, income, security and basic needs. My research focuses on investigating the lived experiences of drug offenders and their entrepreneurial skills, mindsets and behaviours that enable them to mimic real businesses to thrive in the drug market, whilst revealing the hidden reality of their broken environment.

When most people think of deserts, a hostile, uninhabitable landscape of nothing more than sand comes to mind. However, there is much more to be found than meets the eye in the north-western Namib desert. Herds of elephants make their home in the ephemeral riverbeds, brown hyaena thrive at the coast, and if you're lucky, you might just come across some of Namibia's last desert lions roaming the dunes. Deserts, and consequently desert-adapted wildlife, are often forgotten about in conservation and ecological research in favour of more productive ecosystems. My research aims to change this narrative by exposing just how much life truly exists in deserts by looking at carnivore densities, interactions and diets. We must understand more about these unique environments and the species that survive within them before its too late to implement conservation strategies, and we lose sights such as this forever.

Magnifying the lack of disclosure of self-generated intangible assets in corporate accounts is one of the greatest challenges for corporate governance. A revitalised modern sustainable economy increasingly relies on ownership and control of a large variety of intangible corporate assets with sparse information consigned to footnotes in the accounts. The main types of intangibles are goodwill, brand equity, intellectual property rights and licensing. The larger the corporate group, the more intangible assets they own and control that must be reported. Fortunately, the 2022 COP27 UN Climate Change Conference has shone a brighter light on the need for new critical discussions regarding the private sector and impact of companies' activities on the planet. As a result of new sustainability discourse, stakeholders seek a better understanding of how this burgeoning intangibles asset class contributes to the bottom line, innovation, technology, revenue generation, rational corporate growth and commercial stability.

Caregivers spend 49% of their time in corridors (Dilani, 2010). They spend only 16% of their time with patients, which is an alarmingly low proportion. Evidence suggests that improving access and people circulation in hospitals can: improve staff performance and productivity; enhance patients’ safety, privacy and rate of recovery; minimise the risk of cross-infection; reduce the delay time of external service delivery; create a more welcoming environment for visitors; and reduce the evacuation time in emergency situations. Consequently, the need to design hospital layouts that maximise the effectiveness of patient cannot be over-emphasised. My research focuses on different types of hospital designs over one hundred and fifty years ago, together with their circulation patterns, to identify and/or optimise the most productive layout for nursing teams (including head nurse, nurse and nurse assistant).

Offshore wind energy can reduce carbon-based energy sources as the world transitions to renewable energy, which is regarded as a key energy source, and this has become the future of energy generation. This image depicts a model of a 15 MW offshore wind turbine, which is the largest power capacity of an offshore wind turbine in operation. The finite element analysis prediction of stress evolution for different wind loads, wave loads and uniform corrosion effects is presented in this image of its support structure in a novel study. This study establishes the foundation for predicting corrosion fatigue damage in large-diameter existing and newly constructed offshore wind turbines in deep oceans when coupled with fatigue models, sensors and machine learning to predict the lifetime of the structure.

A Geographical Indication (GI) is a sign or symbol used to identify origin-linked products which rights are collectively owned by all the people in the community in which the product originated. Although GIs were developed as an intellectual property right to protect agricultural products, recently they are being suggested as a protective tool against commercial misappropriation for other traditional cultural expressions such as textiles, paintings, jewellery and baskets. Majority of these non-agricultural products are from African countries and as such GI protection will help boost trade of these products on the African continent and beyond. GI protection contributes to the increased sustainability of the production system of the products by promoting the development of a high- quality product which is linked to its origin and for which consumers are willing to pay a premium price. The image shows the Kente textile and Bolga Baskets from Ghana as representations of African cultural expressions which are eligible for GI protection.

The major cause of dementia is Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Neurofibrillary protein aggregates containing Tau are one of the major hallmarks AD. In normal cells, Tau stabilizes axonal microtubules, while in AD Tau becomes abnormally phosphorylated and aggregates into paired helical filaments eventually losing their ability to maintain the microtubule tracks. Since there is evidence in the dysregulation of Insulin signaling pathways linked to Tau pathology, we are focusing on the action of Insulin sensitive drugs on Tau protein in neuronal cells. The image shows Immuno stained Tau protein (Green) in neuroblastoma cell line SY5Y and nucleus (Blue) after treatment with Insulin sensitive drug. The intensity of the Tau protein in the cells, with relation to the neuronal extensions, are studied after drug treatment.

Switching the gaze of the Western city on Muslim women to the Muslim woman’s gaze on the Western city, this project explores the ontology of the postcolonial flâneuse. Existing literature on the flâneur, flâneuse, and postcolonial flâneur fails to identify religious identity and the miscellaneous city experiences of Muslim women living in the West, especially at a time when Islamophobia has become rampant. Refocusing the discussion of the visibility and invisibility of Muslim women in the urban city, this project revaluates both Muslim women’s agency and ability to casually stroll in the Western metropolitan city. Focusing on the inclusion and exclusion of the female Muslim body in public spaces, this project compares literary representation of Muslim women’s experiences through literary critical, poetic, and participant interviews with anonymised accounts taken from interviews and focus groups with British, French, and Turkish Muslim women between May and September 2022.

The eye is the window to our mind. This is true because we tend to look at what we think / talk about. My collaborators and I have used this eye-and-mind link intensively using "eye-tracking" technology to understand: - why people sometimes struggle to comprehend simple sentences in reading, - how children as young as 5 years use grammatical information they hear to distinguish pictures, - and how the syntactic form of what we want to say guides our gaze when describing images. For example, the blue lines and numbers on the text "Leaving no child behind:..." indicate where eye was moving and when it remained static. As might be expected, the eye moved largely in zigzags from left to right and downwards. More interestingly, the eye doesn't move smoothly but in jerky movements evenly distributed over the text, and sometimes back and forth between words and lines.

This image depicts an immersed researcher/beginner skateboarder attempting a relatively simple trick: a shuv-it. The attempt is a poor one; the skateboarder barely leaves the board yet becomes entirely unbalanced and is soon on their way to examine more closely the smooth surface of the study site. The image itself, however, reflects our research in many ways. Evoking feelings of anxiety, anticipation, and failure, along with the potential for an alternative of elation, celebration or more serious injury, it encapsulates many of the themes in our interview data. Participants discussed highs and lows, successes and injuries as an integral part of their skateboarding experiences -here presented visually. The image also draws attention to the reality of immersive research, and highlights that no research path is smooth; that there are instances where things don’t quite go to plan; and that we get back up and try again.

The sun sets against the gathering storm clouds of Hurricane Elsa as Havana is declared in the ‘Alarm’ Phase of the country’s natural disaster management system. During this phase everyone to stay at home or in shelters to which they have been evacuated. Cuba is particularly susceptible to extreme weather conditions and since 1963 the island has developed strategies to minimize lives lost to natural disasters and climate change through comprehensive collaboration with its allies against the backdrop of Cold War tensions. The response system it has developed has become an international beacon of best practice. The strategies developed focus on mass mobilization across schemes that focus on preparation, innovation, resilience, inclusion, and education. At the heart of all of this is the value placed on the human life, the power of community, and collective culture. My research explores Cuba’s Cold War allies and the tensions within their complex relationships.

Why we did the research is a part of a research comic I created for the Under the Double Rainbow project, a collaborative project conducted with the Young Disabled LGBT+ Researchers Group exploring the lived experiences of young people who are autistic and LGBT+. It was an attempt at making dissemination clear and accessible. The comic represents the discussions we had when considering why to conduct the research. The Group felt that they faced a struggle to reclaim what autism means as ‘scientists’ (represented by the men in white coats), had decided on their behalf. The comic shows how the young people worked to be heard, but their voices are silenced. They felt that the people wanted to fix them rather than understand that they are different and not deficient.

The image shows a still from a dwelling affected by the 2010 earthquake in Zúñiga, Chile, rendered from the data captured on-site with a 3D-laser-scanner. The inherent transparency of the 3D point-cloud renders an impossible view: the interior domesticity from an outside perspective. Both the building and its inhabitant are merged into one three-dimensional record, with the light of the scanner illuminating its interior, damaged by the earthquake yet still inhabited. This damaged historical house is at risk of more destruction in forthcoming earthquakes, but the millimetric 3D record obtained could help to retrofit and repair it to mitigate further damage. This is part of the project: 'Sustainable approaches for the conservation of built heritage at risk based on advanced recording technologies', funded the NTU Sustainable Futures Research Talent Fund. Thanks to F.Vargas and F.Carter who help me in the on-site data capture, with equipment lent by D. Ramirez.

The window tax was introduced in England in 1696 by William III and eventually repealed in 1851. The goal was to tax the wealthy, under the assumption that the wealthier someone was, the more windows they had. Many found imaginative ways around avoiding the tax and as a result government expanded the definition of a window – treating it as any hole in a wall. There were many unintended architectural changes, including bricked over windows, fewer windows, and false painted windows. Fake windows became so fashionable that new construction included them for stylistic purposes. ‘Ghost windows’ or ‘blind windows’ can still be found in new buildings today. My research focuses around the historic market town of Newark and how these accidental, beautiful abstract works of art populate the local area – is it an exercise in deception, a desire for uniformity or an effort to avoid tax?

Visiting the zoo provides an opportunity to see rare and amazing animals up close. These animals are born and sustainably bred in zoos, but they always provoke curious questions such as "what are they thinking?", "how do they feel?" and "I wonder if they are looking at me?". My research investigates the implications of people (visitors and staff) on zoo animals and whether these interactions influence animal behaviour and wellbeing. Measuring the behaviour and stress levels of animals in zoos allows us to understand what they really think of visitors, how they feel on a day-to-day basis and ultimately ensure that we can provide better captive environments for them to live and ensure sustainable captive populations; and yes, research shows that they very likely are 'lookin' at you kid'.

This image shows a primary school child 'reading' a rhyming book to her toys. My work centres on the importance of establishing early reading practices and skills for later reading attainment, and the importance of speech rhythm in particular. Reading begins in the early years, and shared storybook reading is the single most important thing that you can do with your child. It builds their vocabulary and introduces children to print and narratives. It motivates children to engage with books. It models expressive reading to children, developing comprehension and fluency. Parents model reading practices to their children, and this image represents how children absorb these home learning environment practices and incorporate them into their play as a way of rehearsing them, and seeding a motivation to read and establishing cultural practices around sharing books with non-readers.

As the effects of global climate change become more apparent, a greater number of species and environments will become increasingly affected extremes of both high and low temperatures. This leads to a pressing need to understand animal stress responses at climatic extremes. My research aims to understand how animals cope under extreme conditions to improve the future welfare and health of animals as the impacts of climate change become more apparent. Understanding their behaviour, physiology, ecology, and endocrinology. This image is of a juvenile vervet monkey in the arid, Karoo region, South Africa, who is experiencing one of their first rain showers and the relief of some ground water to finally drink. It brings to light the harsh realities of living under such environmental extremes which will become more common with climate change and emphasizes the need to understand how animals, and we, can cope and survive in such conditions.

This image shows immunohistochemical staining of a protein I study in the brain which is thought to be important for regulating body weight (magenta) and a marker for specialised cells called tanycytes that line a leaky part of the brain and project into the hypothalamus (green), creating this “Christmas tree” illusion. This image is an important part of my research as I map where these proteins are expressed in the brain to help understand their function and how they interact with other structures and proteins. Mapping protein expression in the brain like this helps me understand how the brain controls behaviours like eating and burning energy through metabolism and exercise.

The use of advanced materials in tissue/cell culture is a versatile tool in the investigation of basic scientific and translation research questions. Cell Morphology is essential in identifying the shape, structure, form, and size of cells. Basically, cells are stained to enhance visualization of certain cellular components under a microscope. Cells may also be stained to highlight certain processes including metabolic, migration, proliferation, morphology, or to differentiate between healthy, live, or dead cells in a sample. The use of fluorescent stains to visually investigate cell morphology on various substrates is an integral part of modern cell biology. We have used fluorescent stains to visually investigate morphological changes in cells grown on various surfaces, with or without treatments. The dye enables evaluation of cell population homogeneity, morphology, shape, size, and transformation in the population. This beautiful image shows green dye-stained skin cells cultured on plastic for 48 hours.

Mesenchymal stromal cells are unique human adult cells that help the repair process and modify the immune system response within injured tissues. In some diseases, the functions of these cells can be improved by delivering specific biological molecules. In this study, Dr Jehan El-Jawhari (Bioscience department), collaborating with Dr Dmitry Volodkin (Chemistry and forensic department), aim to investigate the delivery of biological molecules to stromal cells using small capsules. The image prepared and captured by Sheeba Shakoor (MRes student) shows the stromal cells in a brightfield image (black and white) or fluorescence image (nuclei stained by blue DAPI dye) and microcapsules adherent to cells (shiny white spheres in brightfield) and (stained green-FITC in fluorescence image). Such research will potentially introduce a new, improved cell therapy for several degenerative diseases.

This photograph was taken while conducting research for my PhD project. The GoPro camera, modelled here by Misty the horse, captures horses' eyes blinking as they learn to solve a series of cognitive challenges. Spontaneous blinking is thought to occur when the reward hormone, dopamine, is released in the brain. Dopamine tells the brain when reward occurs, and this helps with learning habits. Horses are excellent participants in this research, as they are particularly good at learning behavioural responses as part of their relationships with humans. In order to promote more effective and ethical horse training, it is important that we understand how horses learn, and how they may experience feelings of reward and/or frustration during training. I chose this photograph because it illustrates a key theme of my research: how technology can be used in novel ways to improve our understanding of equine learning, behaviour and welfare.

I recently spotted this miniature guillotine at the flea market in Saint Ouen, Paris. Guillotine cigar cutters were often made by convicts sent to the penal colony in French Guiana. This one is marked ‘Iles du Salut’ [also known as the Salvation Islands] which include the notorious Devil’s Island. Despite popular iconography such as this, executions were actually quite rare in the penal colony. As part of my research on heritage linked to France’s former overseas penal colonies, I have explored the role the convict-executioner plays in popular mythology. He is usually depicted as monstruous, featuring heavily in macabre stories told about the penal colony. Drawing on correspondence from French Guiana’s most notorious convict-executioner, Isadore Hespel (known as the Jackal), my research seeks to deconstruct these existing representations. Indeed, his letters reveal a misunderstood and alienated figure struggling with the hatred he receives from other convicts and the administration alike.

Almost 600 years ago, scholars and craftspeople worked together to create this most incredible feat: all the known history of their world, written on just the one chronicle roll, charting history from Adam and Eve in the garden to poor, troubled king Henry VI. My PhD research concerns this king and the genealogies produced in his honour. At over 40ft in length, London, Society of Antiquaries, MS 501 proved far too large to be studied in the Society’s library at Burlington House. A fundraising drive fulfilled by the library’s generous supporters allowed this roll to be brought to Nottingham Trent University where the ISAAC Lab analysed and digitised the roll in full. Due to its enormous size, the Lab cleverly constructed a rounded ‘wall’ to hold the roll, allowing for it to be unrolled in its full majesty for the first time in years.

Jade’s hands. For groups marginalised by society, a combination of discrimination, prejudice, socio-economic deprivation, stigma and life circumstances, increase the risk of poor health. Focused on participatory activities in the museum, this project probes the museum’s potential to make a difference. Art Power at Mansfield Museum offers creative workshops to vulnerable women with the aim of improving well-being. Our participants are referred from services including Women’s Aid and social prescribers; most have survived domestic abuse and all have experienced trauma. Museum objects and artworks spark artistic activities which can engender a flow state, a sensation of being in the zone, which dispels intrusive thoughts. Peer-to-peer support is developing naturally within groups as participants grow in confidence and share experiences, friendship and advice. Some are delivering workshops themselves, disseminating skills and building self-esteem. A triangulated methodology includes a quantitative well-being survey, qualitative peer conversations and documentation via photography and film.