Picturing Research 2023

Picturing Research’

MANTIS Sputter Coating Facility

Plasma generation inside the MANTIS vacuum chamber

MANTIS sputter coating machine that was used for preparing the h-BN coated quartz scintillator samples, part of the Innovate UK: FEUD – Field Emission Ultraviolet Device research project

Epidemic! David

Gilbert

This image is a visualisation of a Coloured Petri net model of the Covid epidemic, using an SIR model, in a population of different ages. It bears a resemblance to the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself (which causes the Covid disease), although this is entirely fortuitous.

This output was generated by the Snoopy software (editor and simulator for Petri nets), using Snoopy's FMMM graphical layout algorithm.

Splendid isolation? Christina Victor

This picture of a single boat moored on the Uxbridge canal neatly illustrates the challenge of distinguishing solitude and aloneness, two different experiences of being alone.

Is the boat owner in this picture actively seeking solitude or is this isolation or unsought for aloneness?

Seeding Compassionate Leadership in UK Higher Education Haleh Hashemi Toroghi

The Higher Education landscape has shifted to a global atmosphere of competitiveness and complexity. Many factors have contributed to an increase in mental health issues like anxiety, burnout, and depression among academic staff.  Universities, however, should be and can be compassionate care-giving institutions for all academic members and students. It is time to seed compassionate leadership in Higher Education.

Ivan Reid, Peter Hobson, Jane Wilton & Akram Khan

5G and beyond to shape a bright future for developing countries Inas Sawad

Nanotechnology, mobile robotics, VR and AR, smart homes, and eLearning are terms that people in developing countries know nothing about; they may only have heard the words. People, and in particular women, in developing countries lag behind in digitalization. While women's lives in developed countries have improved dramatically, women in developing countries still struggle to secure the basic life requirements for their families.

The big difference between the lady on the left of the picture and the one on the right, and the fact that "the seeds of success in every nation on Earth are best planted in women and children," did motivate us to study and investigate the major obstacles that these countries face to cope with the rest of the world in terms of technology.

The main focus of the research is on their legacy terrestrial infrastructures in order to find a proper solution to encourage developers, deplorers, and providers to invest in 5G technology.

Beauty and the mask Vicky MacBean

Working with young children is, as most people know, a challenge; when it comes to unpleasant physiological testing the challenge steps up a gear. In this study we were measuring breathing muscle strength in healthy children under the age of six, which requires participants to wear a tight face mask and make breathing efforts against a closed valve for about thirty seconds. This effectively feels like a transient suffocation so we have to work hard to put children at ease during the testing. Peter came to the testing session accompanied by his Belle doll, so Belle had plenty of practice with the mask alongside Peter's testing to reassure him that the measurements were no cause for concern. The difference this makes is huge. It may mean that ten minutes of data acquisition requires half an hour or more in the lab, but it turns the whole experience into a positive one.

Despite the unpleasantness of the manoeuvres most children leave our lab happy, keen to come back for more!

NRF2 as a therapeutic target for Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA)

Sara Anjomani Virmouni

Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA) usually present in early childhood with difficulty in walking due to poor coordination or “ataxia”. The condition progressively deteriorates, leading to the development of debilitating musculoskeletal deformities and immobility, while the majority die in early adulthood due to heart failure or associated complications.

Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA) and control fibroblast cell lines were labelled with anti-NRF2 polyclonal antibody and Alexa Fluor 488 secondary antibody coupled with DAPI. Fluorescence intensity was determined using confocal fluorescence microscopy.

Promoting Brunel when we are on our travels! Christina Victor

Disseminating our work is an important part of the research process and sometimes this requires us to visit a range of different countries and it is always important to promote Brunel when we are on our travels!

This picture was taken during a visit to Xi'an (China) to put together a research proposal looking at ageing in China and the UK and regular coffee was an essential part of the process!

Journeying

Emma Wainwright, Anne Chappell and Ellen McHugh

This research considered the journeying through ‘inbetween’ times and spaces experienced by university commuter students. Drawing on the geographies of students and geographical mobilities literatures, we explored the embodied and affective processes of journeying between home and university, and the impact of this on university engagement.

Journeying is marked by both students’ assertions of agency and socio-economic position which shape their practices and strategies for engaging with university. The research was based on questionnaires with 117 commuter and 98 noncommuter students, depth-interviews with ten commuter students, and completed journey photo diaries.

Our stories of journeying are mediated by the particular local geography of Brunel's campusbased university and demonstrate the reproduction of social class advantage for non-commuting students.

through in-between times and spaces: exploring commuter students’ practices of, and strategies for, university engagement.

This Camera Trap does not Exist Benjamin Evans

This image is created by an AI model trained to generate Camera Trap imagery. Camera Traps are automatically triggering cameras (often passive infrared or timer) used by ecologists to monitor species occupancy and behavioural dynamics. We're interested in detecting animals in these images to assist in labelling incoming imagery but are limited by the imagery publicly available or from our collaborators, representing a limited number of species.

Utilising image generation, we aim to train models with a generalisable concept of what an animal may look like to improve the probability of detecting previously unseen species.

Journeying through in-between times and spaces: exploring commuter students’ practices of, and strategies for, university engagement.

Emma Wainwright, Anne Chappell and Ellen McHugh

Cells in motion Paola Vagnarelli

These images are frames from videos of human cell diving. The top shown a cell that divide correctly and give rise to two normal cells and the bottom is a cell that divides incorrectly.

In red is shown the DNA and the green the mitotic spindle, the structure that supports the division of cells.

The number in each frame shows the time as hours : minutes : seconds.

Idea Cloud Is Better Charity Aienobe-Asekharen

In one of our group meetings, I and my participants were discussing a piece they had drawn. The picture shows my participants laughing as they suggested a better name (than what I gave it) for the piece they had made. I had called it the fourlevel messages, but they agreed the name “Idea Cloud” is better.

The picture was taken during fieldwork in a private school in Southern Nigeria. All participants agreed for photos to be taken with faces shown

Consent To Record Charity Aienobe Asekharen

In working with a group of young people, generating conversation comes in different forms but all are tied to ongoing consent. The picture shows how we negotiated to gain consent for the participants’ choice of video or audio recording. While some groups I worked with were comfortable with video recording, others opted for audio. On that particular day, I had only one audio recorder with me. This meant that at certain points I had to extend the recorder by hand to ensure that what was said was well captured. This ensured that I didn’t go back after a day of working with my participants with poor recording or worse, an empty audio recorder. In accommodating their preference, I was able to verbally capture their thoughts while we found some fun in the process of speaking into the recorder like celebs being interviewed.

The picture was taken during fieldwork in a public school in southern Nigeria. All participants in the picture consented to pictures being taken without exposing their faces.

Rhapsody in Blue

Shona Koren Paterson

Rhapsody in Blue shows a glass wave artefact created by the Catching a Wave consortium. The image of a copepod has been screen-printed in the glass. The glass wave is a capture of an actual wave from the Outer Banks, North Carolina and represents a moment in time, highlighting both the enormity of the ocean as well as its fragility.

The Cell Cycle  Paola Vagnarelli

From conception, cells divide millions of times to give rise to organisms and then again to maintain and repair the damaged parts. Here it is represented the cycle of a cell and the steps that take place to generate 2 cells forma single one.

Microscopy images of cells during their division steps. In blue is the DNA and in green are the microtubules.

3D printing of pharmaceutical pill Bin Zhang

3D printing attracts increasing attention in the pharmaceutical science community due to its potential for flexibility and customizability in personalised medicine compared to traditional pharmaceutical manufacturing techniques. It offers the possibility of small batch manufacturing at the point of care for patients who may benefit from combipill treatments.

The CMS Experiment at LHC

THE CMS COLLABORATION HAS OBSERVED A NEW PRODUCTION

MECHANISM OF TOP QUARKS

A candidate collision from the LHC in which a top quark is produced in association with a Z boson. The tZq state is characterised by three leptons (in this case two electrons and one muon), a jet produced from decay of a bottom quark, and a forward jet that is close to the LHC beam direction.

A 100 metres underground, cathedralsized cavern that houses the 14 000tonne CMS detector - one of the two experiments that discovered the Higgs boson! The detector is located in the 27km subterranean tunnel that contains the LHC - the world's largest scientific instrument!

Akram Khan, Jo Cole & Paul Kyberd

Fluorescent Lichen Alimah Bhatti

Xanthoria parietina is a nitrogen loving, foliose lichen and under visible light, it is easily spotted by its characteristic yellow/orange to greenish yellow lobes that are commonly spotted in urban locations on wayside trees and rocks. However, under Ultraviolet light, the lobes fluoresce, exhibiting vivid colours of pink and red.

My study aimed to determine the diversity of lichen in London and how location and other key factors influencing microclimates within London impacts growth and species richness. I took this picture in the early stages of my research to identify the different species I encountered throughout the course of the project.

Big Business Devanshi Chanchani

A ‘dry waste collection centre’ that gets a dedicated supply of city waste from the municipal corporation provides an important livelihood opportunity for the entrepreneur running it, and for the workers they employ.

Recyclable material, or ‘dry waste’ is carefully segregated by hand into numerous categories, a process indispensable to make recycling possible.

Civil society organisations have worked to raise the status of workers at the bottom of the informal recycling chain, and many workers now recognise their work as being that of ‘ecowarriors’ who play a critical role in protecting the health of the planet.

Airfoil Turbulence Generation using Vortex Generators Clinton Naicker

Wind tunnel experiments are limited by the inflow velocity and size of the test section. Therefore, to test the effectiveness of noise reduction mechanisms, lower speed experiments use "tripping" to force the transition of laminar flow to turbulent flow.

In order to make a like-for-like comparison with experiments carried out at the Brunel Aeroacoustics lab, CFD analysis was carried out at a Reynolds number of 200,000 on an airfoil section making use of a "zigzag" type trip.

The picture shows the turbulent structures for both the clean and tripped airfoil.

Adapting to local customs Christina Victor

Disseminating our work at international conferences is an important part of the research process.

This, of course, requires us to adapt to local cultural norms as illustrated by the gun carrying rules that were to be observed at the 2019 Gerontological Society of America Conference In November 2019.

There is only one Uxbridge?

Christina Victor

Brunel University London is fortunate to be situated in Uxbridge which probably dates back to the 7th century.

When flying to Toronto for a conference we went over the town of Uxbridge (Ontario) about 60 km north east of Toronto. It was founded in 1854, the year Isambard Kingdom Brunel devised a pre-fabricated hospital for use in the Crimean war. Uxbridge (Ontario) is famous for trail walking but could be the ideal location for an overseas Brunel campus.

Immersed #01 Vanja Garaj

The photograph shows a research participant taking part in a user study to evaluate the accessibility of Virtual Reality for disabled and older users.

The study was carried out within the project Inclusive Immersion, led by Brunel Digital Design Lab and funded by EPSRC.

Immersed #06 Vanja Garaj

The photograph shows a research participant taking part in a user study to evaluate the accessibility of Virtual Reality for disabled and older users. The study was carried out within the project Immersive Broadcast Content Experience for Inclusive Audiences, led by Brunel Digital Design Lab and funded by Innovate UK.

Passing on the BORG baton Anna Liddle

The Brunel Older people's Reference Group (BORG) has been helping Brunel staff and students with research projects since 2009.

In July 2022 one of the founders and original academic lead, Eleanor van den Heuvel, retired and passed on the 'care' of the Group to Elmar Kal. funded by Innovate UK

Research is a piece of cake

Anna Liddle

To celebrate and thank the Brunel Older people's reference Group (BORG) for all their hard work and engagement with Brunel and our research work, Eleanor van den Heuvel made a special celebration cake.

You are never too young Anna Liddle

Just some of our Brunel Older people's Reference Group (BORG) members and staff who have benefited from their help with research projects get together to celebrate our work and to say goodbye to the original academic lead, Eleanor van den Heuvel. funded by

Thank you

Research Engagement Team