Aske Level Project 2021 by Haberdashers' Boys' School

The Aske Level Project 2021

Foreword Welcome to the 2021 collection of prize-winning Aske Level Projects. This is the first year of this independent study programme which gives students in their Lower Sixth year the opportunity to study a question of their choosing with guidance from a supervisor in their field. There are few restrictions to where their interest and passion can take them and the process culminates in the submission of either a 3,000 to 4,000 word written piece or a production project such as a film or computer programme with supporting materials. All will have engaged in their own research and presented their views, positions, intentions and/or judgements in an academic manner. The project seeks to encourage them to be intellectually ambitious alongside developing the creativity, independent study skills and broader scholastic attributes which will allow them to thrive at the finest institutions of higher learning. After a rigorous process of external marking and viva voce interviews, the prize-winning projects presented here represent the very best of the over 250 unique submissions made by students across the Haberdashers’ Elstree Schools. They showcase the remarkable application, courage and ambition of all of the students in completing such exceptional pieces of independent work alongside their A Level subjects and many co-curricular commitments. The faculty prize winning projects were outstanding amongst this group and if you wish to see and hear them talk further about their projects, please click here: Aske Level Project Assembly 2022 We are immensely proud of the achievements of our students; the depth and range of the projects they have completed is inspiring and we are excited to share them with you.

Mrs Rose Hardy Headmistress Haberdashers’ Girls’ School

Mr Gus Lock Headmaster Haberdashers’ Boys’ School

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Humanities and Social Sciences FIRST PRIZE: Edan Gardiner (BS) (History and Economics) How far can Gerschenkron’s theory of economic backwardness be applied to non-European nations industrialising in the 20th Century?

SECOND: Elena Cormican (GS) (Geography) To what extent can Rwanda be used as a model for development in Sub-Saharan Africa?

JOINT THIRD: Solomon Summer (BS) (Classics and Medicine) How has the etymology of diabetes affected Its medical meaning?

JOINT THIRD and Riyen Karia Prize for Politics: Kellen Dubignon (BS) (Sociology) To what extent did cricket help to uphold the values of colonialism and class divide in the Caribbean? Highly Commended: Felix Zombory-Moldovan (BS) (English) Parallel autobiographies in The Rabbit Catcher and Wuthering Heights - Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes Highly Commended: Tilly Weston (GS) (Law) An evaluation of Lord Devlin’s 1956 claim that: “Trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice: it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives”

Highly Commended: Lara Clifton (GS) (Psychology) The importance of early diagnosis and interventions in children with autism

STEM FIRST: Sarina Thandi (GS) (Biology) Should gene drive technology be used to eradicate malaria?

SECOND: Yathusia Asokanathan (GS) (Medicine) How can understanding the role of genetics in influencing the susceptibility of type 2 diabetes in South Asians be used to develop effective and individualised treatment methods? THIRD: Maxim Vassiliev (BS) (Mathematics and Physics) How far can higher dimensional ideas improve our understanding of the universe? Highly Commended: STEM Tietz Prize: Ayur Pulle (BS) (Physics) The applications of loop quantum gravity to cosmology and an evaluation of its role as a scientific theory

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STEM Vogel Prize: Anna Gittleson (GS) (Chemistry) Drug discovery: How the use of artificial intelligence in chemistry can save lives

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STEM Tietz Prize: Jatin Gupta (BS) (Computer Science) Prediction of cardiovascular disease using supervised machine learning algorithms

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Creatives JOINT FIRST: Oluwademilade (Demi) Tokuta (BS) (Drama) Why do we tell stories?

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JOINT FIRST: Neeve Capaldo (GS) (Film) My Nonna's Story

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THIRD: Lizzie Roxburgh (GS) (Dance) An exploration of factors that influence emotional delivery and perception in dance

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Distinction Projects

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Humanities and Social Sciences

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First Prize Humanities and Social Sciences: History and Economics How far can Gerschenkron’s theory of economic backwardness be applied to nonEuropean nations industrialising in the 20th Century?

Edan Gardiner Boys’ School

Edan chose this topic following a cover lesson by History teacher, Dr St John that explored Marx and Rostow’s differing interpretations of economic development. This then sparked his interest in the subject area; and his favourite aspect of the research was being able to further examine an area that he otherwise would not have been able to in a quantitative manner. He plans to study Economics at university.

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How far can Gerschenkron’s theory of economic backwardness be applied to non-European nations industrialising in the 20th Century? In 1962 Alexander Gerschenkron published Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective: A Book of Essays and in doing so created a framework that modelled the development trends of several European nations. Five years later in a speech to the Economic History Association, he advised that an attempt to generalise the framework and apply his model worldwide would not result in the same success. He made that statement on the grounds that the cumulative effect of differences in society, politics, available technology and resource endowment would be sufficient to prevent the extension of his model. This essay examines whether five non-European nations conform to the same structure of development as those European nations Gerschenkron first examined. This is done with the intention of providing quantitative data to either confirm Gerschenkron’s suspicion or evidence the validity of his model with regard to predicting the path that the industrialising nations of the future will follow. The potential importance of this study cannot be understated. If Gerschenkron’s model is applicable worldwide, it could establish a methodology through which every nation in the world may be able to industrialise and ultimately lead to a global rise in living standards. In order to explain the process behind data collection and the conclusions drawn from the results, a summary of Gerschenkron’s theory is provided. Gerschenkron argued that the way in which a country industrialises and experiences its ‘great spurt’ of industrialisation is dependent upon its position of ‘backwardness’ relative to the most industrialised nation on the planet. To that end, Gerschenkron assumed that a higher degree of backwardness just prior to the beginning of industrialisation resulted in: • • • • • •

The rate of industrial output having a greater relative velocity and the subsequent period of industrialisation continuing steadily for a longer period of time than that of countries that had already industrialised; An increased stress upon the production of capital goods as opposed to consumer goods; An increased stress upon production, plant and enterprise being larger in scale; A slower and far more gradual increase in levels of consumption within the population; The banks, state or other such specialised institutions having to take a far more active role in the attempt to initiate the ‘great spurt’; and Agriculture having a significantly reduced role as both a consumer of industrial goods and as a sector of increasing labour productivity

In order to give the above context and reliability Gerschenkron (1963 p.163) proposed a means of defining the ‘great spurt’ as the moment at which there was sudden explosion in industry and a swift increase in output, which continued to proceed during a period of international recession. The latter of the two shares a very similar purpose to W.W. Rostow’s idea regarding growth ‘becoming society’s normal condition’ and is used as a way of highlighting the difference between the ‘great spurt’ and a rise in output that might stem from a particularly good harvest or juncture in the trade cycle (1990, p.36). Key to this argument was Gerschenkron’s belief that where necessary, the banks, and later the state, would play a key role in capital formation and investment within a less developed country. State and bank investment would overcome the obstacles that a country might face (for example, little resource endowment and limited trade availability) by acting as a substitute for missing components and thus place each nation in a similar position from which they would follow the same development trends. Gerschenkron’s two clearest examples of this phenomenon are the Crédit Mobilier in France and the Russian State in the 1890s. Gerschenkron also attributes great importance to these new institutions for the way in which

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they confront ‘old wealth’ and in doing so overcome the social “tension” that would otherwise halt industrialisation. On the aforementioned model, Steven. L. Barsby wrote two articles for ‘The Journal of Economic History’ in which he examined whether Gerschenkron’s model was true of reality through empirical testing and analysis. In 1969, in his first article, ‘Economic Backwardness and the Characteristics of Development’, Barsby came to the conclusion that European nations conformed to Gerschenkron’s theories on manufacturing growth rate and stress on producers’ goods but not on the rate of increase in agricultural labour productivity. Barsby then attempted to apply Gerschenkron’s thesis to non-European nations in, ‘Great Spurts and the Experience of Non-European Countries’. He concluded, “Data presented in this article suggest that Gerschenkron’s backwardness hypothesis cannot be extended successfully to nonEuropean countries”. However, given the passage of time since Barsby’s evaluation, the change in technology, increase in globalisation and industrialisation of far more nations, this essay re-addresses that second question. It attempts to test whether Gerschenkron’s model still holds for nonEuropean nations that industrialised in the 20th Century through analysis of China, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, India and their respective development trends. In order to ascertain whether non-European nations that have industrialised within the last 80 years can fit as comfortably within the mould of Gerschenkron’s thesis as the European nations that did so prior to the 20th Century, it is necessary to use the same method to establish relative backwardness as was used originally. As such the method chosen is that of Steven L. Barsby (1969 p. 453), and so too are the “specific definitions of backwardness – per capita income, share of employment in agriculture, and lateness“. The reason behind the adoption of these particular definitions is that the data obtained by Barsby, as seen in Table 1, is fairly consistent across the definitions and therefore presents a convincing argument that they generate a sufficiently accurate measure of backwardness. Table 1

Source: Steven L. Barsby cited in Economic Backwardness and the characteristics of Development p. 455 Barsby (p.454) calculated the above by comparing the economic situation within each of those countries at the point at which they were to about to start their individual ‘great spurt’ with the economic conditions that were present in England at the same time. England was chosen as the standard to which the other European countries would be compared to for three reasons: England was the most advanced nation in nearly all aspects; England experienced its spurt first and thus all other nations might be compared to it; and in the same vein, if any other nation was chosen it would mean that its own relative backwardness could not be calculated. 8|Page

Computational Method

Source: Steven L. Barsby cited in Economic Backwardness and the characteristics of Development p. 454 However, given that England no longer fits the criteria under which it was initially selected, it would serve no purpose to keep it as the standard nation. Therefore, for the purpose of calculating backwardness within the last 100 years, the United States of America will be used as the new standard in the subsequent calculations. Despite the discontinuity, this is unlikely to be an issue given that there is far less importance placed upon the standard remaining as the same country as opposed to the standard remaining as the most advanced nation in the world. This paper, as was the case with Barsby’s, will focus upon the ranking of both relative backwardness and the characteristics of development rather than the numerical value that separated them. This particular methodology is being used because Gerschenkron’s thesis focused upon rank and relativity to other nations rather than quantifiable amounts, and in addition to that the ranks should help to counteract the errors that would otherwise be introduced through the margin of error within the data. Table 2. Determination of Relative Backwardness as measured by Per Capita Income

Country

Date

China Brazil Australia South Africa India

1980 1935 1935 1916 1982

Per Capita Income (USD) (1) 194 190 452 136 266

Per Capita Income in America at The Same Date (2) 12574 574 574 457 14433

(2) / (1) X (100) 6481 302 127 336 5426

Rank 5 2 1 3 4

Sources: China: EveryCRSReport.com (June 25, 2019) - China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States. World Bank Data on GDP per Capita https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=CN Brazil: Baer, W., & Villela, A. (1973). Industrial Growth and Industrialization: Revisions in the Stages of Brazil's Economic Development. The Journal of Developing Areas, 7(2), 217-234. 9|Page

Retrieved March 21, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4189999 . Araújo, Carpena, Cunha (2008). Brazilian Business Cycles and Growth from 1850 to 2000. Appendix Table 1A. Australia: Steven Barsby citing G. D’A. Chislett, ‘Prospects for Growth in Primary Industries,’ in John Wilkes, ed., Economic Growth in Australia (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1962) Table 1, p. 77. South Africa: Steven Barsby citing Simon Kuznets, ‘Industrial Distribution of National Product and Labour Force,’ Appendix, Table 4, p. 91 citing League of Nations Statistical Yearbook and International Labour Office Yearbook of Labour statistics India: Arvind Panagariya (2003). India in the 1980s and 1990s: A Triumph of Reforms citing historian J. Bradford. DeLong (2001, pp. 5-6). World Bank Data on GDP per Capita https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=IN United States: World Bank Data on GDP per Capital https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=US US Census Bureau Data https://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf Having established the necessary computational method and definition, the aim of this paragraph is to shed light on how and where the data in Tables 2 and 3 were collected. The nations under examination can be broadly split into two categories; those that underwent their spurt after 1960 and those that did not. This is because the World Bank Databank contains the relevant information regarding GDP per Capita and share of labour in agriculture but only dating back as far as 1960. Thus, the primary source of information for India and China in this project is the World Bank Archives. For the remaining countries, where possible, official census data of population and a nation’s net GDP have been used to calculate GDP per Capita. In the event that even census data was unavailable, the information was gathered from previous articles on the area. However, given the nature of the data available, and the intrinsic difficulty of stating exactly when a country experiences its spurt, the results can only be considered estimates, representative of a period of rapid growth rather than a sharp ‘kink’ and the data is far from infallible. This point is best considered when reviewing the data regarding share of employment in agriculture, as there was often only one source for the data and an attempt to verify and corroborate the data against other works was very difficult. Table 3. Determination of Relative Backwardness as measured by Percentage of Labour Force in Agriculture

Country

Date

China Brazil Australia South Africa India

1980 1935 1935 1916 1982

Percentage of labour force employed in agriculture (1) 69% 22.9% 20.2% 64% 72%

Percentage of labour force employed in agriculture (America) (2) 3.5 19.6 19.6 28.4 3.3

(1) / (2) X (100) 1971 117 103 225 2182

Rank 4 2 1 3 5

Sources: China: World Bank Data on employment in agriculture via ‘TradingEconomics.com’ https://tradingeconomics.com/china/employment-in-agriculture-percent-of-total-employmentwb-data.html Brazil: Moore, Clarence A. “Recent Developments in Brazilian Agriculture.” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 64, no. 4, 1956, pp. 341–346. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1826080 Australia: Steven Barsby citing Colin Clark, The Conditions of Economic Progress, 3d ed. (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1957), Table IX, p. 90 South Africa: Steven Barsby citing Clark, Conditions, Table XXXIX, p. 192 10 | P a g e

India: World Bank Data on employment in agriculture via ‘TradingEconomics.com’ https://tradingeconomics.com/india/employment-in-agriculture-percent-of-total-employmentwb-data.html United States: US National Bureau of Economic Research https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c1567/c1567.pdf . Carolyn Dimitri, Anne Effland, and Neilson Conklin (2005). The 20th Century Transformation of U.S. Agriculture and Farm Policy, United States Department of Agriculture https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/44197/13566_eib3_1_.pdf Aware that there might be some who would argue that India and China began their spurt at an earlier date than that which is transcribed in Tables 2 and 3, it is important to note that the date of a nation’s ‘great spurt’ is typically later than the more well-known concept of Rostow’s ‘Take-Off’ because the spurt depends on a more widespread application of modern technologies whereas a take-off can be far patchier and confined to individual industries or geographical locations. The above has had particular influence with regard to the date given to the Chinese and Indian great spurts, because while there were certainly pockets within the countries that began industrialising in the 1960’s, they were too isolated and few in number to constitute sufficiently widespread industrialisation so as to be classed as the ‘great spurt’. Specifically, while India began industrialising in the 1960s, the 1970s was a period of very low growth and it wasn’t until there was significant reform and liberalisation in the early 1980s that noticeably larger and sustainable growth occurred. I believe the above decision is justified due to the general consistency across the three measures of backwardness, with only South Africa having a difference across measurements of more than one (as seen in Table 4). Table 4. Ranks of Relative Backwardness

China Brazil Australia South Africa India

Per Capita Income

Share of employment in agriculture

Lateness

5 2 1 3 4

4 2 1 3 5

4 3 2 1 5

Of Gerschenkron’s six hypothesis stated at the beginning of this essay, tests will be made of three of those, in order to maintain consistency with that of Steven Barsby’s testing (1973, p.459). The hypothesis examined; ‘the relative backwardness of a country is positively related to the rate of manufacturing growth and to the stress on producers’ goods industries but is negatively related to the rate in increase of agricultural labour productivity.’ The data showed in Table 5 is a comparison across countries of the above measurements; the examination is created by making the indexes of each nation at the outset of each of their respective ‘spurts’ equal to 100, before comparing them to the ten-year indexes made of the same nations. The stress on producers’ goods is measured by establishing what percentage of total output is constituted by durable goods production ten years after the ‘spurt’. If it is the case that Gerschenkron’s hypothesis could also be applied to these non-European nations, it would be expected that a greater degree of backwardness was associated with: greater rates of manufacturing growth, shallower growth rates in agricultural labour productivity and producers’ goods representing a larger percentage of total manufacturing output.

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Table 5. Indexes of Manufacturing Output and Agricultural Labour Productivity, and Producers’ Goods as a Percentage of Manufacturing Output

Country China

Spurt 1980

Brazil

1935

Australia

1935

South Africa

1916

India

1982

Manufacturing Output 463 (1980 = 100) 189 (1935 = 100) 195 (1935 = 100) 200 (1916 = 100) 139 (1982 = 100)

Agricultural Labour Productivity 311 (1980 = 100) 120 (1935 = 100) 123 (1935 = 100) 134 (1916 = 100) 124 (1982 = 100)

Producers Goods 63 32 29 13 24

Sources: China: Holz, C. A., 2014. Monthly industrial output in china 1980-2012. China Economic Review., Volume 28, pp1-16. Colby, W. Hunter & Crook, Frederick W. & Webb, Shwu-Eng H., 1992. "Agricultural Statistics of the Peoples’ Republic of China, 1949-90," Statistical Bulletin 154783, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. McMillan, John, et al. “The Impact of China's Economic Reforms on Agricultural Productivity Growth.” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 97, no. 4, 1989, pp. 781–807. Brazil: Baer, Werner, and Villela. “Industrial Growth and Industrialization: Revisions in the Stages of Brazil's Economic Development.” The Journal of Developing Areas, vol. 7, no. 2, 1973, pp. 217–234. Moore, C. (1956). Recent Developments in Brazilian Agriculture. Journal of Political Economy, 64(4), 341-346. Australia: Barsby, S. (1973). Great Spurts and the Experience of Non-European Countries. Journal of Economic Issues, 7(3), 459-474. South Africa: Barsby, S. (1973). Great Spurts and the Experience of Non-European Countries. Journal of Economic Issues, 7(3), 459-474. India: Panagariya, A. (2004). India in the 1980s and 1990s: A Triumph of Reforms. International Monetary Fund Working Papers 4(43). Jha, B., 2006. Employment, Wages and Productivity in Indian Agriculture https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254213024_Employment_wages_and_productivity _in_Indian_agriculture . World Bank Data via MacroTrends https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/manufacturing-output The relations that Gerschenkron envisaged were tested through the use of scatter diagram. If the ranks formed a positive gradient, this would indicate that they did indeed conform with Gerschenkron’s hypothesis and would lend themselves to suggest that his theory of economic backwardness could be applied to non-European nations that industrialised in the 20th Century. However, as can be seen in Figure 1, no single diagram appears to have a positive gradient and thus not one of the three definitions of relative backwardness can be said to accurately predict the way all of the non-European nations developed with regard to manufacturing growth, growth rate of labour productivity in agriculture, and the stress placed on producers’ goods. It seems that Gerschenkron was right to caution against the application of his model worldwide and was correct in his prediction that some non-European nations would not conform to the same pattern as was observed in Europe.

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Percentage of labour force employed in agriculture

Per Capita Income

Percentage of labour force employed in agriculture

Per Capita Income

Lateness

Manufacturing Growth Rate

Percentage of labour force employed in agriculture

Per Capita Income

Growth Rate of Agriculture and Labour Productivity

Lateness

Relative Backwardness as measured by

Lateness

Figure 1. Scatter Diagrams of Ranks of Three Alternative Measures of Relative Backwardness and Three Characteristics of Development

Producers’ Goods as a percentage of Manufacturing Source: Tables 2-5 In order to explain why this is the case, it is necessary to examine in greater depth which aspects these countries failed to conform to in Gerschenkron’s hypothesis, paying close attention to which predictions of development characteristics were inaccurate. That said, Barsby already addresses the South African case in his previous work so this essay does not focus on South Africa (1973, p467). India’s manufacturing growth rate rose slower than expected by all measures of relative backwardness. The explanation for this lies in the fact that India’s great spurt occurred in the 1980s because government finally introduced a large number of economic reforms; reducing tariffs on a large number of goods and somewhat deregulating, which encouraged foreign investment and made expansion easier. However, conventional industry was somewhat left behind in terms of reform, and services instead constituted a larger percentage of Indian GDP. A failure to reform industry resulted in, ‘a virtual ban on exit and retrenchment and reassignment of workers, continuing reservation of most of the labour-intensive industries for small-scale firms, the absence of effective bankruptcy laws, 13 | P a g e

and continuing high protection’, all of which stifled India’s manufacturing output. (Panagariya 2004, p.30). At a period in time when direct foreign investment played such a pivotal role in transforming a nation’s industry attention must also be drawn to the fact that India was in competition with China. As a result of India’s tighter regulation and underperformance, it is likely that investment instead went into China, which further compounded India’s problems with its manufacturing growth rate. This competition with China and other Asian nations such as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan also likely influenced India’s decision to enter into the service sector, where as a result of speaking English, it had a comparative advantage. Furthermore, India’s output of producers’ goods relative to its total manufacturing output was smaller than Gerschenkron theorised because as mentioned above the country made the shift to working predominantly in the service sector. However, it follows that producing a smaller amount of capital goods would ultimately reduce the manufacturing productive potential of an economy and this offers a further explanation as to why India’s growth rate in manufacturing output was far smaller than hypothesised. Thus, India’s rate of manufacturing growth was slower than expected because; conventional industry was in need of reform, it lost out on funding in competition with China, and its deference to services as opposed to goods production meant that its stress on producers’ goods and subsequent productive potential was limited. India’s rate of growth in agricultural productivity was far higher than predicted as well and this centred around the fact that India had a comparative advantage with regard to production in labour-intensive industries because of the size of their population and therefore the abundance of labour they possessed. China had an infinitely larger rise in labour productivity than any other nation, and a far higher rise than hypothesised in Gerschenkron’s theory, and as is the case with any such meteoric rise this was due to a plethora of reasons. China had a similar comparative advantage to India regarding labour-intensive industries and production in agriculture as explained above. Only 10% of China’s landmass is arable which meant that an increase in total production could not come from the cultivation of new lands. Instead it must be the result of increased productivity on lands already being cultivated and an increase in labour productivity. Another method of improving labour productivity was to give greater incentive to those working the land and the Chinese government adoption of household production over the previous commune system achieved just that. The freedom of farmers to grow what they wanted and a keep a portion of their own work increased productivity massively. The combination of improved productivity, increased freedoms and limited arable land meant that half of China’s agricultural force was no longer needed and over the next ten years 50 million people would move out of agriculture and into the manufacturing sector. The result was an enormous increase in production with a workforce half the size that it was previously. In the cases of both Brazil and Australia, whose developments were measured between the years 1935-45, there is no doubt that World War Two had a significant impact. It is likely that the adverse effects of WW2 almost certainly stunted growth in a number of sectors and was the primary reason behind the rate of labour productivity in agriculture rising so slowly in Brazil. Clarence Moore (1956, p341-346) believed there to be an 20% increase in agricultural labour productivity between the years 1935-40 but that there was no subsequent growth in the remaining five years of the war. Thus, it would not be too farfetched to suggest that had WW2 not occurred, Brazil and Australia would have likely had a higher rate of agricultural labour productivity growth. It is more difficult to establish the impact that the war had on total manufacturing output because it stimulated the steel and cement industries but the reduction in international trade punitively damaged others. (Baer & Villela 1973, p. 217-234). The above explanations allow a number of inferences to be made with regard to the failure of the non-European nations to conform to Gerschenkron’s hypothesis. First, it assumed that if a nation was in the position to begin its great spurt, it would already have made significant reforms, particularly within economics but also within society as a whole, and as a result, 14 | P a g e

legislation would not hold back its process of industrialisation. It fails to appreciate the possibility that a nation might begin its great spurt in a different political climate with a different attitude to economic reform, than that which was present in those initial European nations. India is the starkest example of this, having spurted in 1982 when the process of liberalisation in government had just begun and only to such a limited extent that even as of 2004 Indian industry was still in need of additional reform. Panagariya (2004). Second, Gerschenkron also assumed that a nation with a higher degree of backwardness would focus in even greater depth on the production of capital goods, in an attempt to industrialise in as rapid a manner as possible. Thus, the hypothesis also overlooks any situation where government might pursue other commercial policies. And so, whether due to different cultures, comparative advantages, political climates or circumstances not examined in this essay, some non-European countries did not stress production of capital goods to the same extent as their European counterparts. One such example of this was India’s decision to make their service sector the largest sector within their economy as opposed to conventional industry. Another example highlighted by Barsby (1973, 468) was the South African decision to promote the production of consumers’ goods. While not explicitly stated, the model also seems to suggest that labour productivity in agriculture progresses more slowly because there is significant drain on labour and capital in the agricultural sector towards the manufacturing sector. However, once again the sheer size of the Chinese and Indian populations undermines the impact of this assumption because it means that even after resources have shifted towards manufacturing there are still sufficient labourers in agriculture that progress may continue at a steady or increasing pace. This is demonstrated most clearly in China when despite half the agricultural workforce relocating, those remaining farmers managed to continue to increase the year on year output. By extension, the same assumption that makes a transfer of capital or labour resources responsible for increased/reduced growth, also tends to undervalue the importance of better organisation, incentivisation or other such method which can occur independently of additional funding. This is also the case in China where the adoption of ‘household production’ resulted in far larger returns than the previous commune system. Conclusion On the face of it, the data that has been collated and presented within this essay suggests that Gerschenkron was correct to advise against attempts to generalise his framework. It suggests that Gerschenkron’s theory about economic backwardness does not apply to nonEuropean nations that began industrialisation in the 20th Century. The degree to which a country was ‘relatively backward’ did not appear to influence its relative manufacturing growth rate, emphasis on production of producers’ goods, or rate of increase of its agricultural labour productivity. This non-conformance was because a number of assumptions made by the hypothesis were an inaccurate representation of the reality that the non-European nations faced. However, upon closer inspection the picture presented by the data is far more complicated. Some countries behaved in a way that Gerschenkron’s model would have anticipated; China’s rate of manufacturing growth and stress on producers’ goods was exactly in line with the model, and China’s inability to conform to the predictions regarding agricultural labour productivity are of limited importance given Barsby’s earlier findings that even the initial European nations failed to conform to that particular prediction. This alone suggests that there is some practical application of Gerschenkron’s hypothesis to some non-European nations, even if not to all of them. In addition, the fact that Australia and Brazil, who were so similar by all measures of backwardness, then proceeded to develop in a near identical fashion would suggest that they are to some extent following Gerschenkron’s model, even if perhaps not relative to the other nations examined. Thus, while Gerschenkron’s hypothesis might not apply 15 | P a g e

to all nations simultaneously, it might be applied with reasonable success to groups of countries that are similarly ‘backward’ and begin their ‘great spurts’ at similar times. Another issue with making such a pronounced conclusion from the limited amount of data in this essay, is that if a country does not conform it will distort the graph more than it ought to. It is hard to identify when a country is an anomaly with little other data to compare it to, and this was a big issue when analysing Indian development, which bucked the trend at almost every opportunity. While unable to do so in this essay given the word count and difficulty obtaining data, an examination of more nations would add more weight to any conclusion that was reached. The same can be said with regard to testing other aspects of Gerschenkron’s hypothesis. In the future, an ability to compare the size of plant, capital labour ratio and level of state investment within a country, would help generate a more complete verdict on Gerschenkron’s hypothesis, given that they analyse core parts of his thesis not examined in this essay. Overall, data in this essay showed that Gerschenkron’s hypothesis modelled European development better than it modelled non-European development. Yet, while some nonEuropean nations did not conform to Gerschenkron’s hypothesis because of a number of incorrect assumptions, an inability to take into account globalisation and differences in politics and culture, other non-European nations did conform to the model. For that reason, it must be said that although limited, there is some value in using relative backwardness to predict the way in which a country might develop, and relative backwardness can, to a reduced extent, be applied to non-European nations.

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Reference List: Baer, W., & Villela, A. 1973. Industrial Growth and Industrialization: Revisions in the Stages of Brazil's Economic Development. The Journal of Developing Areas, 7(2), 217-234. Barsby, S.L., 1969. Economic Backwardness and the Characteristics of Development. 1st Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association Barsby, S. L., 1973. Great Spurts and the experience of Non-European Countries. Journal of Economic Issues, 7(3), pp. 459-474. Gerschenkron, A., 1962. Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective; A Book of Essays. Cambridge Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University. Gerschenkron A., 1963. The Early Phases of Industrialization in Russia: Afterthoughts and Counterthoughts. In: Rostow W.W. (eds) The Economics of Take-Off into Sustained Growth. International Economic Association Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. Moore, C. 1956. Recent Developments in Brazilian Agriculture. Journal of Political Economy, 64(4), 341-346. Panagariya, A. 2004. India in the 1980s and 1990s: A Triumph of Reforms. International Monetary Fund Working Paper 04/43. Rostow, W. W., 1960. The stages of economic growth: A Non-Communist manifesto. Cambridge England: University Press. Wang, X. 2018. China’s 40 Years of Reform and Development: 1978–2018; China’s macroeconomics in the 40 years of reform. Australian National University Press. Sources used solely to collect data points for the tables in this essay are listed below their respective table.

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Second Prize Humanities and Social Sciences: Geography To what extent can Rwanda be used as a model for development in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Elena Cormican Girls’ School One topic which has always interested Elena as a Geographer, is development in Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa. As part of her wider reading about this topic, she read the book ‘Dead Aid’ by Dambisa Moyo. This book completely changed her perspective about development in Africa. Having previously only been exposed to very western theories and ideas about development in sub-Saharan Africa, reading a book written from the perspective of an author who had grown up in Zambia was fascinating and encouraged her to challenge her perspective. She decided to focus her project around the successes of development in Africa and this led her to research Rwanda. She thoroughly enjoyed the research for her Aske Level Project because it was an incredible opportunity to extend her knowledge beyond what is taught in the A-level curriculum. She plans to study Geography at University.

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To what extent can Rwanda be used as a model for development in SubSaharan Africa? Rwanda is a small, land-locked country in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a population of over 12 million people. The genocide of the Tutsi population in 1994 resulted in the deaths of over 800,000 people and had a devastating effect on the country’s economy and infrastructure. Despite this, since 1994 Rwanda has experienced a period of economic growth and social development (CIA World Factbook, 2021). This overall development has been significant enough for Rwanda to be dubbed ‘the Singapore of Africa’ (Polemics, 2019). Yet the sustainability of Rwanda’s development has been questioned, due to Rwanda’s political system and reliance on foreign aid. However, Rwanda can to a great extent be used as a model for development in sub-Saharan Africa because of its high levels of development in areas such as healthcare, primary school enrolment and land tenure regularisation. An indicator of the extent of development in Rwanda is the level of healthcare offered to its citizens. Rwanda has the highest health insurance enrolment rate in Sub-Saharan Africa, achieving 81.7% enrolment in its community-based health insurance (CBHI) in 2015/2016 according to the Rwandan Social Security Board (RSSB). Drobac & Naughton (2014), outline the success Rwanda has had at providing successful vaccination regimes for its population. ‘Rwanda was the first low-income country to introduce lifesaving vaccines against pneumococcus and rotavirus into the childhood immunization schedule and achieved near-universal coverage for nine vaccines’(pp.6) by 2014. The Rwandan Ministry of Health launched school-based campaigns as part of their HPV vaccination programme and successfully delivered the full vaccine to 93% of 12-year-old Rwandan girls. This is three times the percentage for the same vaccine in the USA, a significant achievement because the vaccine is difficult to administer, requiring three doses over a short time period. From the 1960s, healthcare had to be paid for in Rwanda, but immediately after the genocide, healthcare became free, as emergency care was given by the few state-run facilities to the impoverished population. The Community Based Health Insurance Scheme (CBHI) was introduced in 1995 and became fully functioning several years later. The main reason for the success of this scheme was its focus on poor communities and ensuring the most deprived citizens in the most remote geographical locations in the country could have equal access to services. In Rwanda, HIV treatment is universally accessible for those who need it and AIDS related deaths fell by 82% since 2000 (Drobac & Naughton, 2014). Infant mortality also decreased by 70.4%. Drobac & Naughton praise the successes of the healthcare and social systems in Rwanda and go as far as to say that Rwanda ‘provides a powerful example’ of a country eliminating poverty and having a successful healthcare system. Rwanda’s impressive healthcare system should be used as a model by other countries. Its focus on equity and community has prevented disparities in healthcare from arising which is critical to sustainable, maintained and equal social development across a country. There are several key governmental decisions that have contributed to the success of the CBHI. Firstly, a common problem experienced in lower income, developing countries when trying to implement community-based healthcare provision is the fragmentation and number of players in the provision of the service. Public providers, religious organisations and private companies often provide healthcare interventions, but this leads to inconsistencies in the services offered and can lead to high co-payments and varying premiums for citizens, resulting in a lower utilisation of the healthcare system (Chemouni, 2018). Rwanda experienced this before 2004, but the government made a key decision in 2004 to use tax revenue from the formal sector to subsidise healthcare. This 2004 policy (Ministry of Health,

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2004) stated that ‘a national solidarity mechanism between the formal public and private salaried sector and the rural world should be put in place’ 1(Chemouni, 2018, pp.91). This is a key example of why Rwanda is a model for other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The government oversight and subsidy of healthcare is critical for providing universal and equal healthcare to all citizens. However, this is very expensive and requires political stability and cooperation within the government. Rwanda’s western neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has attempted to implement a similar 4 – level pyramid healthcare system, with first interventions being offered in the local community, but it has had much less success than Rwanda. The political instability in the DRC has resulted in an inability to pass policies effectively and allocate funding. In the 1990s the healthcare system in the DRC was funded almost exclusively by humanitarian aid, and even in 2015, large areas of funding came from international aid (Ntembwa & Van Lerberghe, 2015). Rwanda on the other hand has been able to make decisions quickly due to the lack of opposition against its leading party and President Kagame. Rwanda spends 8.2% of its national budget on healthcare which shows commitment to its healthcare development (UNICEF, 2018). However, the government of Rwanda is rarely considered to be a sustainable aspect of their development due to its authoritarian style. Many developing countries do not have access to significant funds, and Rwanda itself has been heavily criticised for its reliance on foreign aid. Yet, despite this, Rwanda’s healthcare system can to a great extent be used as a model for other developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa because of its involvement at the community level, its low cost to citizens and use of tax revenue for funding and its effectiveness and its emphasis on equity and equality for all citizens regardless of socioeconomic background or gender. This contributes to its sustainability as a system which is critical for the continued development of Rwanda. A sustainable and effective healthcare system is imperative to the development of a country as it not only raises quality of life and human wellbeing, but healthy workers and students are more productive resulting in increased economic growth. (Gurría, 2008) A key factor contributing to Rwanda’s social and economic developmental success following the genocide has been the strict leadership style of President Kagame of the Rwandan government. President Kagame has been the de-facto ruler since 1994 and most recently he won the 2017 election with almost a 99% majority (Molt & Wahlers, 2017). However, questions have been raised as to the sustainability of the government’s regime (Naftalin, 2011). In March 2020, Anselme Mutuyimana, a member of the United Democratic Forces of Rwanda, the country’s most powerful opposition alliance, was found dead with signs of suspected strangulation. Later in 2020, a party member disappeared, and another was stabbed to death by unidentified attackers. Any government that silences the opposing party, does not allow independent media or civil society liberalisation, and uses violence against any opposition, is limiting its country’s ability to develop properly by allowing its citizens to have civil liberties. (However, it is important to take into context here the ethnic tensions unique to Rwanda. President Kagame is part of the minority ethnic group in Rwanda, the Tutsis. Part of his rejection to having an opposition party stems from fears that having a Hutu candidate would lead to voting by ethnic group and in that case the Hutu candidate would win, which could lead to violence and instability again). Whilst the ‘model developmental dictatorship’ (Molt & Wahlers, 2017, pp.55) has been a significant reason for Rwanda’s rapid and successful development, any political system that could provide effective decision making would serve the same purpose for development. Dambisa Moyo, in her book ‘Dead Aid’ speculates that the western ideals of democracy being forced into less developed African countries and treated as the solution to underdevelopment has had an extremely detrimental effect on development in some African 1 This quotation is Chemouni, B’s (2018) translation of the original French report (Ministry of Health, 2004) which is also referenced.

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countries. Moyo states that the western ideal of democracy perceived as ‘good governance’ (pp.22) by the foreign aid donor community truly ‘was a euphemism for strong and credible institutions, transparent rule of law and economies free of rampant corruption’(pp.22). Yet, the large influx of unregulated aid into some African countries created incentive for corrupt leaders to fight for democratic positions for their own financial gain, which increases corruption and economic instability. This hinders development as the money is being spent on the leader rather than the development interests of the country (Moyo, 2009). Whilst both the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda consider themselves democracies, the DRC would be an example of where a democratic government has historically not been effective at ensuring sustainable development for their country, due to corruption, ineffective decision making and war in some areas of the country, providing further evidence that a western style democratic government is not always the solution to rapid development. What can be learned from most countries in sub-Saharan Africa is that political instability and corruption maintains low levels of development. Any form of government that increases development levels can be considered a good thing, however, if the country wants to become a player on the global stage, democratic government systems are usually preferred and more respected. Whilst authoritarian rule is beneficial in the early stages of development, eventually, a democratic style of rule is preferred as it allows the issues that are most important to the citizens of the country to be dealt with and solutions are voiced by the people, creating a more sustainable manner of development tailored to the citizens. Whilst a 2006 study found that a democratic government doesn’t create economic growth or development, it has significant indirect effects which raise quality of life, as citizens are given the means to demand better public services and living conditions, which leads to increased quality of life, higher productivity and increased economic growth and development (Baum, M.A. and David, D.A 2003). In 2018 Rwanda was ranked 48th on the Corruption Perception Index (Transparency International, 2018) making it the least corrupt nation in Central and East Africa and the 4th least corrupt nation on the continent. This political system, despite its flaws, has allowed the efficient implementation of policies and rapid development of Rwanda. Whilst the intricacies of the classification of the Rwandan government system must be considered – the Rwandan government considers itself a democratic government, but other individuals criticize the regime. A true democracy with opposing parties, freedom of media and expression are viewed as the preferential political system, especially by most Western developed countries, because of the voice and power given to the citizens of the country, as well as upholding their human rights of freedom of speech and expression. However, Rwanda is moving towards a much more developed democracy. In 2018, although President Kagame’s party the Rwandan Patriotic Front won the September elections gaining 40 out of 53 elected seats, the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda gained two parliamentary seats after winning over 5% of the vote. The Democratic Green Party will be ‘the first independent voice in Rwandan parliament in several years’ (Human Rights Watch, 2018). Rwanda’s government system cannot be used as a model for development in sub-Saharan Africa. This is not because the system itself is ineffective but because the circumstances for the replication of the Rwandan system likely do not exist in other sub-Saharan African countries. The 1994 genocide provided the circumstances for the Rwandan Patriotic Front to establish their governmental system and gain political dominance. Whilst a minority of citizens in sub-Saharan African countries e.g. Kenya and Zimbabwe desire their governments to operate more like President Kagame’s, this will be difficult for them to achieve because it means putting the reduction of poverty and development above truly democratic elections (Cheeseman, 2018). This is not feasible in many sub-Saharan African countries, who pride themselves on establishing democracies and would face extreme civil unrest at the ascent of a political leader taking full control over governmental decisions without being democratically elected. For example, Rwanda’s bordering country the Democratic Republic of Congo, elected President Felix Tshisekedi in January 2019, after 21 | P a g e

elections were delayed due to violence, interference from militant groups, voter suppression and public health emergencies such as the Ebola outbreak. This presidential election was extremely significant as it was the first peaceful exchange of power in the DRC in nearly 60 years (Kowene, 2020). President Tshisekedi announced at his administration that he would ‘guarantee to each citizen the respect of the exercise of their fundamental rights’ (Human Rights watch, 2018) which he has evidenced by releasing political activists and prisoners from prison and allowing those in exile to return. Evidenced, by both Rwanda and the DRC’s steps towards a more democratic society, many sub-Saharan African countries cannot use Rwanda’s governmental model because it is no longer relevant in the 2020s. Globalisation has led to democratic values being spread across the globe via social media, the internet, film and television. This means in the 2020s, the only aspects of Rwandan government other governments of sub-Saharan African should replicate, are their low levels of corruption, their attempts to become more democratic, and most importantly, their quick and efficient policymaking and implementation as well as the Rwandan government’s intense motivation for equal and sustainable development across the country. The Rwandan political system specifically can only be used as a model to a small extent, as the circumstances for its replication do not exist in many countries in 2021 but Rwanda’s ‘model developmental dictatorship’ (Molt & Wahlers, 2017, pp.55) has been one of the most significant reasons for its rapid development evidencing that low corruption, political stability and efficient government policymaking and implementation are critical for rapid, maintained development. A main flaw in Rwanda’s development is its reliance on foreign aid. In the mid -1990s, per capita foreign assistance to Rwanda was the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa. However, in 2011, just under 50% of Rwanda’s government expenditure was financed by international aid. Between 2010 and 2015 the UK, Rwanda’s largest bilateral donor after the USA, invested 535 million dollars in Rwanda (Naftalin, 2011). Foreign aid is the main source of capital and money for financing investments in Rwanda because there are very low levels of foreign direct investment into the country. This negatively impacts Rwanda’s development as this aid will eventually run out and Rwanda must be able to support its public infrastructure and services through tax revenue and public investment returns (Ezemenari, Kebede & Lahir, 2008). Whilst aid is very beneficial in providing developing and low-income countries with enough capital to finance the upfront costs of building infrastructure and social welfare systems such as education and healthcare, the running costs of these services and future infrastructure development plans must eventually be able to be financed solely by the country’s own economy and tax revenue. Just under 50% of Rwanda’s 2019/2020 budget was financed by foreign grants and loans. Rwanda’s overreliance on foreign aid makes its development questionable and unsustainable as accepting foreign loans increases national debt and the development will not be sustainable if the flows of aid into the country stop. The more sustainable alternative to foreign aid is foreign direct investment and Rwanda is however, taking some steps to reduce its dependence on aid (Himbara, 2019). Firstly, instead of waiting for foreign investors the Rwandan government invests heavily in some of its own partially owned companies which generates economic growth in some sectors (Cheeseman, 2018). Additionally, the agricultural land reforms from 2006 to 2013 and the ongoing Land Tenure Regularisation registry, restructured rural agriculture ensuring economic growth and development through the agricultural sector (Jean de Dieu Dushimimana and Johan Zaaiman, 2018). Whilst low-income countries should be encouraged to utilise foreign aid to increase their development and Rwanda’s attempts to reduce their dependence on aid should be praised, an overreliance on aid to the same degree Rwanda is experiencing should be discouraged and is an aspect of Rwanda that other countries should not seek to model. Rwanda is one of the leading countries in sub-Saharan Africa for education. Ninety eight percent of children are enrolled in primary school. This is incredibly good primary school 22 | P a g e

enrolment, especially compared to the Democratic Republic of Congo where nearly 7 million children aged between 5 and 17 are out of school (UNICEF). The main reason for Rwanda’s primary school enrolment success, is its ‘fee-free’ basic education policy (Williams, 2016). This policy allows wider access to education and makes education easier to access for children from the most vulnerable socio-economic backgrounds. However, it is important to recognise the failings within Rwanda’s education systems. Despite high levels of enrolment, this does not equate to good learning outcomes. Classrooms in Rwanda are often overcrowded with an average of 62 students for every qualified teacher, the teaching quality is low and primary school students score low on numeracy and literacy exams, girls are more likely to drop out of school than boys and only 70% of children with disabilities are currently enrolled in school in Rwanda (UNICEF). However, Rwanda’s outcomes are significantly better than many other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the DRC, over 52.7% of girls aged 5-17 are not enrolled on school (UNICEF). Rwanda’s government investment into education is significant because it comes from the ideology that education is necessary to transform their currently subsistence farming based economy into a more knowledgebased and market-oriented economy. The Ministry of Education in Rwanda is critically important to the economic stability of the country in the future because due to Rwanda having the highest population density in Africa and limited natural resources, an agriculture or primary based industry will not be able to support the country’s growing population or economy. Therefore, the Ministry of Education holds the responsibility of educating its youngest citizens to transform its economy into a knowledge-based industry (Bridgeland, Wulsin & Mcnaught, 2009). This extra pressure is speculated to have motivated Rwanda’s commitment to investing in education. In 2005, Rwanda invested 8.4% of its GDP into education, 3.9% more than it allocated to any other public sector. It is clear that education is the key to sustainable development and economic stability, as well as reducing socioeconomic inequalities in society and therefore must be a priority for every country. In Rwanda, as in most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, children in rural areas often have lower school enrolment rates and are more likely to drop out due to their labour, and the learning of practical farming and domestic skills, being viewed as more important and useful than a formal education. Girls are also less likely to finish education because culturally, educating girls does not hold as much value as educating boys. This is because girls leave the family earlier to marry and must therefore spend time learning domestic skills, and girls will likely receive lower pay in the labour market, where women earn less than men (Neumann, 2012). However, despite these social and economic issues within the country, the Rwandan government has a high commitment to ending gender inequality, a commitment to funding education, ending gender and social inequalities in education and their cooperation with UNICEF to improve learning outcomes is commendable and therefore should be used as a model for governmental attitudes and investment towards education. One of Rwanda’s most impressive offerings as a model to other countries is its successful Land Tenure Regularisation (LTR) policies, legal framework, and efficient implementation. Rwanda is praised significantly for its implementation of its LTR by the African Development Bank who use Rwanda as a case study and example for other African countries to follow. The African Development Bank states that LTR helps land use planning as it documents the ‘availability of land resources upon which subsistence and commercial agricultural activities occur’ which is important for economic growth through agriculture (African Development Bank, 2017). In Rwanda, LTR was necessary due to large scale migration of refugees back to Rwanda after the 1994 genocide. This influx of migrants as well as rapid population growth strained the already weak land tenure and management systems the country had in place (Daley, E., Dore-Weeks, R. and Umuhoza, C. 2010). However, it is not just Rwanda that can benefit significantly from LTR. Many LTR programs have been designed to address the impacts of colonialism on land use and land claim (Bizoza, 2015). Other LTR programs focus on land use planning as this enables precise allocation and ownership of arable land which is a precious commodity in many areas of sub-Saharan Africa. As foreign public and private investors increasingly seek to acquire land in Africa this creates a significant source 23 | P a g e

of tenure insecurity. LTR gives landowners, especially many farmers who without land titles do not have the ability to negotiate effectively with foreign public and private investors, the legal framework to negotiate the terms of their own deals. Poverty is immensely reduced and economic development increases where property titles are legally introduced and upheld because more lands sales and increased access to credit boost economic growth. But introducing LTRs is difficult, e.g., in Kenya, high time and monetary costs, lack of understanding regarding the land registration system and a lack of access caused the failure of the Kenyan LTR system. More disputes were created because after the first registration program later inheritance and sales were not registered properly due to a lack of understanding regarding the system, and historic methods of solving land disputes were no longer able to be used (Baldwin, English, and Adlington, 2017). Rwanda’s first LTR registries were unsuccessful. A survey in 2012 found that only one in eight Rwandans had collected the title deeds to their land. This was because some feared tax increases, others did not understand the system, and some believed their land titles should be kept by the government for safekeeping. To combat this, the land registry launched a nationwide campaign explaining the system and the importance of keeping the land registry up to date. This campaign was incredibly successful with over seven million people collecting their titles and beginning to document transactions and inheritances. Other sub-Saharan African countries should to a great extent model Rwanda’s LTR as it was successful in explaining the system to its citizens resulting in high levels of participation in the system. These high levels of participation ensure the LTR can increase agricultural productivity through effective land use planning as well as provide landowners with the legal framework to negotiate their own land deals and negotiations. Overall, Rwanda can to a great extent be used as a model for development in sub-Saharan Africa. However, there are two aspects in which Rwanda can only to a small extent be used as a model for development. By using the Rwandan political system as a model we excuse President Kagame’s undemocratic regime in the name of rapid, sustainable socioeconomic development. Whilst the exact authoritarian style political system should not be used as a model for other countries especially seeing as in 2021 few other countries have the circumstances for a de-facto ruler to take control after a horrific event such as the Rwandan genocide. Whilst other countries in civil difficulties do exist, globalised attitudes mean a dictator or authoritarian regime would be disapproved of internationally and likely also resisted nationally. Despite this, certain ideals of Rwanda’s political systems should be modelled by other countries; their commitment to ending inequality; their political stability; effective policymaking and implementation are all commendable qualities that sub-Saharan African countries should seek to model but Rwanda’s political system can only to a small extent be used as a model for other sub-Saharan African countries. Secondly, Rwanda’s use of foreign aid should not be modelled by other countries. Rwanda has successfully used foreign aid to rapidly increase economic and social development but after 17 years a lower percentage of their national budget should come from aid for the development to be considered sustainable. However, the reason Rwanda can to a great extent be used as a model for other sub-Saharan African countries, is due to its education, healthcare and LTR systems. The LTR provides concrete legal framework for landowners and successful agricultural planning which allows the maximisation of profits through agriculture increasing economic development. The community based, centralised nature of the healthcare system and the high primary school enrolment rates evidence successful sustainable social development and these high standards of accessible social and community services should be replicated by other sub-Saharan African countries. Rwanda’s focus on equity and ending gender and social inequalities should also be modelled by other countries as these ideals increase the quality of life for many marginalised groups. In conclusion, Rwanda has been immensely successful in its development, especially in such a short time of around 17 years and has earned its title as ‘the Singapore of Africa’. Rwanda can to a great extent be used as a model for development in other sub-Saharan African countries. 24 | P a g e

Reference List: African Development Bank. (2017) 'Land tenure regularisation in Rwanda: Good practices in land reform, case study’ Baum, M.A. and David, D.A (2003) ‘The Political Economy of Growth: Democracy and Human Capital’ American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 47, (2) pp. 333 Bizoza A.R. (2015). Soil Erosion Control and Land Tenure Regularization in Rwanda: A historical Perspective. The “2015 World Bank conference on Land and Poverty” The World Bank - Washington DC, March 23-27, 2015. Bridgeland, J., Wulsin, S., McNaught, M., (2009) ‘From Genocide to Prosperity Through Education’, Rebuilding Rwanda, pp.9 Cheesman, N. (2018) ‘Why Rwanda’s development model wouldn’t work elsewhere in Africa’ [online]. [Date accessed 14th June 2021]. Available from: https://theconversation.com/whyrwandas-development-model-wouldnt-work-elsewhere-in-africa-89699 Chemouni, B., (2018) ‘The political path to universal health coverage: power, ideas and community-based health insurance in Rwanda.’ World Development, 106. pp. 87-98 CIA World Factbook (2021) ‘Rwanda’ [online] . [Date accessed 14th June 2021] Available from: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/rwanda/ Daley, E., Dore-Weeks, R. and Umuhoza, C. (2010) Ahead of the game: land tenure reform in Rwanda and the process of securing women’s land. Journal of Eastern African Studies Vol. 4(1), 131–152. Drobac, P., Naughton, B., (2014). ‘Health Equity in Rwanda: The New Rwanda, Twenty Years Later’, Harvard International Review, 35 (4), pp.1-9 Dushimimana, J.d.D. and Zaaiman. J, (2018) ‘Participants’ evaluation of the land reform programme in Rwanda’s Southern Province’ African Sociological Review / Revue Africaine de Sociologie Vol. 22, (1) pp. 117-137 Gurría. A. (2008) ‘Developing a Health Care System Benefiting All’ [online]. [Date accessed 8th June 2021]. Available from: https://www.oecd.org/health/developingahealthcaresystembenefitingall.htm Himbara, D. (2019) ‘Kagame regime falsely claimed that the 2019/20 budget proves Rwanda is achieving financial self-reliance.’ [online]. [Date accessed 14th June 2021] Available from: https://medium.com/@david.himbara_27884/kagame-regime-falsely-claimed-that-the-201920-budget-proves-rwanda-is-achieving-financial-bbc71b94ecc Human Rights Watch, (2018) ‘Rwanda, Events of 2018’ [online]. [Date accessed 13th June 2021]. Available from: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/rwanda Kowene, G. (2020) ‘Has Felix Tshisekedi tackled DR Congo’s six biggest problems?’ [online]. [Date accessed 14th June 2021]. Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worldafrica-51220974 Ministry of Health (2004). ‘Politique de Développement des Mutuelles de Santé au Rwanda.’ Kigali: Ministry of Health.

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Molt P., Wahlers G,. (2017) “Rwanda as a Model?: On the State of Development in Rwanda and the Country’s Significance as a Role Model for Africa.” Water. Power. Conflict. pp. 54–65 Moyo. D. (2009), ‘Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa’. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux pp. 22-25 Naftalin, M., (2011). ‘Rwanda: A New Rwanda?’ The World Today, 67 (7), pp. 22–24. Neumann, D., (2012) ‘Free Education in Rwanda: Just One Step towards Reducing Gender and Sibling Inequalities’, Education Research International, Volume 2012 Ntembwa, H.K., Van Lerberghe W., (2015) ‘Improving health system efficiency, Democratic republic of The Congo, Improving aid coordination in the health sector’ Health Systems Government & Financing WHO Polemics, (2019) ‘The Singapore of Africa? Analysing Rwanda’s “Economic Miracle”’ [online]. [Date accessed 14th June 2021] Available from: https://www.polemicsmagazine.com/econ/rwanda-economic-miracle RSSB, 2016, Media Weekly Report of 06/102016, viewed 9 February 2021 http://www.rssb.rw/sites/default/files/media_weekly_report_06-10-2016.pdf Transparency International, (2018) ‘Corruption Perception Index’[online]. [Date accessed 8th June 2021]. Available from: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2018/index/dnk UNICEF, ‘Education Rwanda’ [online]. [Date accessed: 22nd March 2021] Available from: <https://www.unicef.org/rwanda/education#:~:text=In%20sub%2DSaharan%20Africa%2C% 20Rwanda,children%20complete%20their%20primary%20education.> UNICEF., (2018) ‘Health Budget Brief Investing in children’s health in Rwanda 2018/2019’, pp.6 Williams, T.P, (2016) ‘Oriented towards action: The political economy of primary education in Rwanda’, Effective states and inclusive development working paper no.64, pp.3

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Joint Third Prize Humanities and Social Sciences: Classics and Medicine How has the etymology of diabetes affected its medical meaning?

Solomon Summer Boys’ School Solomon was speaking to Dr Joyce, Head of Classics, about a project he was planning to write on diabetes, when Dr Joyce told him that 'diabetes' has a very interesting etymology, coming from 'diabainw', a word which, Solomon confessed, he did not know the meaning of. Upon checking what it meant, to his surprise, he found that there were over 100 possible meanings, and that it had been used frequently by Greek authors. This led him to research the etymology of 'diabetes'. Solomon enjoyed trying to decipher classical sources, and seeing how they relate to modern medical interpretations, and to ancient medical texts from other civilisations. Solomon is planning to study Medicine or a Medicine-related degree at university.

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How has the etymology of diabetes affected its medical meaning? This study will review the meaning of diabetes to explain how the word ‘diabetes’ evolved and came to mean what it does today. It will also examine what diabetes as a disease has meant to medics and doctors since its discovery. The word, ‘diabetes’ has a complicated etymology, as the Ancient Greek word from which it comes (διαβαίνω - diabainw), is formed from two words: διά (dia), which has more than fifty different meanings, and βαίνω (bainw), which has over thirty. Medically, although diabetes, or diabetes mellitus which is its full name, was not properly understood until the mid-twentieth Century, the condition has been recognised by many ancient civilisations. There is record from as early as 1550 BCE, on an Egyptian papyrus, of a disease which makes the sufferer lose weight rapidly, and urinate regularly, which many scholars now think to be diabetes. In the Ancient Chinese Dynasty, it was widely accepted that something in the urine, making it taste sweeter than that of a healthy person, was a common cause of ailment. Not only do the elements of the word ‘διαβαίνω’ mean different things, but their combined meaning can also mean a multitude of different things, depending on which meaning is taken for each part of the word, and the combination starts to harbour extra meanings, unrelated to the original words. Taylor (2016) writes that the word ‘διά’ literally, and most commonly, means ‘through’, although, Verkerk (2014) says that when used in compound verbs, it often means ‘in different directions’ or ‘asunder’. The word ‘βαίνω’ literally means ‘I go’, which took the nuanced meaning of ‘I walk’ or ‘I step’, which is how the word ‘διαβαίνω’ came to mean ‘I walk with a large stride’, or in Alcaeus (Lyr. Supp. 7.3), ‘I stand with my legs apart’. The gerundival form of ‘βαίνω’ is ‘βήτεον’ (beteon) which is where the nominal form, ‘διαβήτης’ (diabetes), comes from. It was used by Aristophanes (Nu. 178, Av. 1003) to mean a pair of compasses so called from its outstretched legs. For a similar reason, ‘διαβήτης’ went on to mean a pair of dividers, callipers, and stonemasons’ tools, and Hero of Alexandria (Spir. 1.29) used ‘διαβήτης’ to mean ‘siphon’, due to the U-tube’s shape. Shortly after, Aretaeus of Cappadocia wrote in his Medicus (a text of all his knowledge of disease and cures – SD 2.2, dated to the mid-First Century) of ‘διαβήτης’ to refer to an ailment in which all the urine was drained out of a sufferer (just as a siphon drains out the water from a vessel). He writes: ‘Diabetes is a remarkable affliction… the patients never stop making water, but the flow is incessant, as if from the opening of aqueducts… the patient is short-lived, if the constitution of the disease be completely established; for the melting is rapid, the death speedy. Moreover, life is disgusting and painful; thirst, unquenchable; excessive drinking, which, however, is disproportionate to the large quantity of urine, for more urine is passed; and one cannot stop them either from drinking or making water.’ This is where get the modern name for the disease, first found in English in an anonymous medical text from approximately 1425 in the form ‘diabete’ (Cashin-Garbutt (2019)). However, some disagree with the explanations given above. Mandal (2019) writes that Hero did not use ‘διαβήτης’ to mean siphon because of its similar shape to a compass, but because it can mean ‘I go through’, and the water does go through the siphon. The opposing argument to this theory is that, when Hero was writing, ‘διαβήτης’ was already in common usage meaning a pair of compasses. It is unlikely that Hero invented a new meaning to an already existing word unwittingly. As Hero frequently referred to objects with already existing words, but with clever double meanings, it is more plausible that he called the siphon ‘διαβήτης’ because of its shape of outstretched legs, bearing in mind the added benefit that it also meant ‘to go through’. The full name of the disease (Allan 1953), is diabetes mellitus, coined by medic and biologist Thomas Willis (1674: S. 4, Ch. 3) when he writes: 28 | P a g e

‘Of the too much evacuation by urine and its remedy; and especially of the diabetes mellitus or pissing evil, whose theory and method of curing, is inquired into [sic].’ Mellitus is a Latin word from the Greek word ‘μέλι’ (meli) meaning honey. Mellitus literally means ‘pertaining to honey’ but has the sense of ‘tasting like honey’. This seemingly strange name for diabetes is used because having honey-like urine is one of the main symptoms of diabetes, and one of the easiest to spot, albeit in a rather unappealing manner. In a healthy person, all sugar and starch eaten will be converted into α-glucose molecules, which cells use to produce ATP (from which they release energy for growth, repair, and carrying out their designated function). Too much sugar in the blood acts as a stimulus for the cells in the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas to start secreting insulin. This insulin binds to cells in the body, altering their structure, and allowing them to take in the α-glucose molecules, without which no cell can survive. When a person has diabetes, either the pancreas produces a mutated, or incomplete insulin, or the cells are changed in form in such a way that they cannot receive the signals from the insulin. The insulin produced could also be denatured. Insulin is a globular protein, which means that it is formed of protein chains held together in a very particular shape, specific to insulin. It can only be effective if it binds the cells in the body which have receptor areas complementary in shape and structure to the insulin molecule. If the temperature or pH of the insulin’s environment is even slightly too low or too high, some of the bonds holding it in its shape will be broken, and others formed, which changes the shape and structure of the insulin, rendering it unable to bind with cells. The resultant insulin is referred to as denatured. Romanes (1981) says that much of the glucose is removed from the blood in the proximal convoluted tubules in the nephrons of the kidneys, where blood passes through a complicated system of filters and areas for diffusion to remove the protein, glucose, and excess water and salt from the blood, so that it can be released as urine. If one has diabetes, the glucose cannot be removed from the blood, and it enters the urine. A healthy person should have absolutely no glucose in their urine. However, a diabetic will have some. This makes the urine taste sweeter than a healthy person’s urine, hence the term ‘mellitus’ used to describe diabetes. Although the term ‘diabetes’ was not coined until the Common Era, the disease had been known beforehand. In 1862, a papyrus was found dating from 1550 BCE in a tomb in Thebes (south Egypt). Although the writing is anonymous, Ahmed (2002) writes that it contains descriptions of certain diseases. It describes one disease as a ‘polyureic syndrome’, or something which causes an increase in volume of urine passed (Knott 2016). This was presumed, by Egyptologist Georg Ebers, after whom the papyrus is named, to refer to diabetes, and is the first recorded mention of such a disease. While they did not necessarily make a connection to diabetes, many ancient civilisations discovered that one of the symptoms of some of their people who were ill, is that they had sweet urine. Famously, in the Ancient Chinese Dynasty, the doctors would pour their patients’ urine into the streets and would know if their patients were ill by seeing if any dogs came and started lapping up the urine. The dogs would be attracted to the sweet smell over the pungency of the urea, unlike humans, who would just smell the overpowering urea (Mandal 2019). Hippocrates, at the turn of the Fifth Century BCE, would routinely taste the urine of his patients to see if the urine had the honey-like taste. In this manner, he was able to detect diabetes in patients to a very accurate degree. It has been said (Kouba 2007) that, not only must he have had great practice, he also must have had an excellent palate, so as to overcome the intense sourness of the urea. Hippocrates also tasted other bodily fluids of his patients, namely, sweat, blood, phlegm, tears, vomit, pus, earwax, and stool, and he would have had some success in identifying diseases with some of these. However, it is believed (Ahmed 2002) that the Ancient Indians were the classical civilisation most advanced in knowledge and understanding of diabetes. In Vedic medical treatises, the link between having polyuria and having sweet urine as being one disease with two symptoms is described in detail. This link had not been made before. Moreover, the Indians understood a part of diabetes which was not grasped by the West until the Seventeenth Century: the different types of diabetes. 29 | P a g e

There are several types of diabetes (Frey 2009), but the most common are type 1 (affecting 8% of diabetes’ sufferers) and type 2 (affecting 90%). With type 1, the Islets of Langerhans’ cells in the pancreas get attacked by the body’s immune system, as it sees them as foreign entities, and treats them like hostile pathogens. This means that insulin cannot be made by the body, and so sugar cannot be stored by the body. It is not known what causes this, but most cases are genetically transmitted, and symptoms appear quickly. Type 1 can only be managed by taking insulin to control blood sugar, and currently, there is no cure. Type 2 is very different. It can be caused by not enough insulin being made by the body, but is usually caused by a mutated, incomplete, or denatured form of insulin (see above). The cause is not known, but it is understood that there are certain factors which increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. These include family history, ethnic background, age, and body mass. The symptoms appear much slower than type 1, so it is much harder to spot, but it can be managed in more ways. Medication can be used, but having a healthier lifestyle relieves symptoms. Like type 1, type 2 cannot be cured, but there are some cases where it can be prevented and put into remission. Despite types 1 and 2 being very different, the symptoms are the same, which has led to hundreds of years of Western doctors treating them as one. However, the Ancient Indians, in the Vedic Medical Treatises worked out that there were two types. One given from one’s parents, and one from one’s own actions. This is quite accurate, as type 1 is genetically transmitted, and so handed down from one’s parents, and type 2’s chances of occurring can be increased by having a bad diet or not doing enough exercise. They also described type 2 as ‘late onset’. This is almost accurate, in that it affects the elderly much more than the young, and the symptoms take much longer to become apparent than in type 1. It is important to note that the Indians treated the two types as two different diseases, unlike the West. This means that, in India, focus on preventing the disease would have been split, regarding each type separately. Until recently in the West, there was a great focus on finding a cure for all types of diabetes together, which is harder, as they behave in very different ways, and respond to different stimuli. If Western medics had known about the different types earlier, it is possible that there would be more progress curing at least one of the types than there is now. However, as Negrato (2013) writes, there are two more common types of diabetes, both of which are much rarer and harder to diagnose than types 1 and 2. The first is gestational diabetes. This affects women during gestation, which is the period from conception to birth, known as pregnancy in humans and other mammals. When a woman is pregnant, she has to provide not just for herself, but for her zygote (an egg cell having been fertilised by a sperm cell), and then her embryo, of which the cells are aggressively undergoing mitosis to reproduce. This is a process that all somatic cells – those which are not gametes – must complete to divide for growth and repair. It requires vast sums of energy, and for this, the cells need glucose. In all cells, in any living organism, energy for the cell to carry out its function, whether this is to synthesise and secrete proteins, move, repair damage, or divide rapidly, is created from aerobic respiration, in which glucose, C6H12O6, is broken down with the addition of oxygen to form carbon dioxide and water by the following equation: C6H12O6 + 6O2

6CO2 + 6H2O

It is an exothermic reaction, meaning that it releases more energy in forming the new bonds than it used up in breaking the original bonds. Therefore, overall, it releases energy stored in the glucose which can be used by the cell. In an expectant mother, all the cells of her body still need to function, but she also must support her foetus and its high energy-demanding cells. The only way a cell will take glucose in effectively, is if it has insulin bound to its glycoprotein receptors, protruding from the plasma membrane of each cell (Bernstein 2011). Even if a woman’s pancreas can produce enough insulin for her own body, it may not make enough for both her body and her foetus. This causes gestational diabetes. The symptoms include the baby to grow bigger than expected in the womb, and other birthing complications can occur, like polyhydramnios (too much amniotic fluid), premature birth, pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure giving birth), jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes of the baby), or stillbirth. 30 | P a g e

However, it is only with modern screening that it can be identified, and when it is, although a treatment has not been discovered yet, management is simple, involving strict regulation of blood sugar levels, changes in diet and exercise, and insulin injections. Most importantly, as soon as the umbilical cord is cut, the condition disappears in both the mother and the baby, and unless there were any birthing complications, they are both unaffected further. This explains why there is no classical record of gestational diabetes, as it would be too hard to spot without modern analytical techniques. Despite not discovering it, the Romans did have a part to play in naming it. Gestation comes from the frequentative form of the Latin verb ‘gerere’, literally ‘to bear or carry’ (Stevenson 2010), and in Silver-Latin, came to mean to carry in the womb. Although there are many other types of diabetes other than those already mentioned, they are often caused by other diseases and genetic conditions, where one of their side effects, or the result of direct impact, causes damage to the pancreas, thereby reducing or stopping the production of insulin. It also might interfere with the process of making insulin, causing it to be denatured. A good example of this is cystic fibrosis diabetes (Adams 2017). Cystic fibrosis is a condition which causes the lungs and other organs, including the pancreas, to produce more mucus than necessary, and mucus which is thicker and stickier than regular mucus. This can become lodged into the pancreas, making it inflamed, and, eventually, scarred. This scarring affects the ability of the pancreas to synthesise and secrete insulin, causing cystic fibrosis diabetes. The only other common type of diabetes is what is known as pre-diabetes. It occurs when a sufferer has too much sugar in the blood, but has not enough for it to be diagnosed as type 2 diabetes. This condition was known to the Ancient Chinese (Yu 2018), as ‘消渴’ or ‘xiāokě’ which literally means 消 - xiāo, meaning cancelling or nullifying, and 渴 - kě, meaning thirsty. Together, it is thought to mean ‘wasting thirst’, as written in ‘The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine’, compiled at least 2000 years ago, which is likely to refer to what we know as diabetes. However, in the aforementioned compilation, it is written that some people only have a small amount of this xiāokě, giving them only mild discomfort and symptoms. This is likely to be pre-diabetes. Most importantly, there is record of a herb, named after the condition, which could alleviate the symptoms entirely, and there is a large interest in finding this herb, if it ever existed, as, although it is not as bad as type 2 diabetes, the ailment causes the sufferer moderate discomfort, and decreases their quality of life. This herb might also help those with other types of diabetes. The Ancient Chinese believed that evil spirits in the body, making urine taste sweet, were the cause of many ailments. Unknowingly, they had diagnosed pre-diabetes. Their ideas on the evil spirits came from their beliefs on the soul. Mark (2016) writes that, in Ancient Chinese philosophy, the soul has two parts, the 魂 – ‘hun’, and 魄 – ‘po’. The ‘po’ aspect represents darkness, water, and earth, and is meant to be the cause of hauntings of specific people or places, whereas ‘hun’ represents light, fire, and heaven and is meant to be the cause of spontaneous hauntings, or hauntings for revenge. ‘Hun’ also causes illness in the body whilst living, and the reason it was thought to be sweet is because it represents such wonderful necessities, such as light and fire. It was believed that a bearer of such greatness could not have only bad characteristics, and so, as it gave light, but caused illness, the sweetness in urine of those suffering from pre-diabetes, or any other form of diabetes, was attributed to it. The reason why the Ancient Chinese discovered pre-diabetes as well as the main types, whereas it took Western doctors up to the last Century to identify it, is because of how diabetes was recognised. As the Ancient Greeks and early-modern Western medics viewed diabetes as the passing of great volumes of urine, with a side effect of it being sweet, pre-diabetes could not be diagnosed, as one who passed a little more urine than others would not be diagnosed with diabetes. However, in Ancient China, if one had prediabetes, and passed a small amount of sugar in one’s blood, it would be able to be diagnosed as a mild form of diabetes.

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Diabetes can also refer to another disease (Romanes 1981): diabetes insipidus, which, although it shares some symptoms, is not related to diabetes mellitus. It is caused by the body’s (particularly the pituitary gland in the brain’s) inability to produce sufficient quantities of anti-diuretic hormone (ADH), which regulates how much water is absorbed by the kidneys, and how much is released in the form of urine. If an inadequate supply of ADH reaches the kidneys, they assume that the body is overhydrated, and so release more water. This causes those with this condition to urinate more regularly than would be expected, and to need to drink more water. Kidd (1957) states that ‘insipidus’ literally means tasteless (directly from Latin) and is a euphemism for urine. Obviously, urine is not tasteless and, therefore, insipid in this situation must mean something else. It comes from the Latin ‘sapere’ (to have a taste) made negative by ‘in’. However, ‘sapere’ is mostly used when referring to something with a good taste, the negative of which, not having a good taste, implies having a bad taste, which is what ‘insipidus’ means here. Thus, diabetes mellitus means ‘the passing through of sweettasting [urine]’ and diabetes insipidus means ‘the passing through of bad-tasting [urine]’. Diabetes can also refer to diabetes ketoacidosis, a much more unpleasant disease, which can sometimes be caused by diabetes mellitus (Clarke 2020). When a cell runs out of glucose, whether that is due to over-exertion, fasting, or diabetes mellitus, it gets its energy by using up fats. As fats, or lipids, as they should be known correctly, are much more complicated than glucose, often having up to several hundred carbon atoms in a molecule, compared to glucose which has just six, what remains of the lipid is more complicated than what would be left of glucose when some energy is removed. With a lipid, what is left is a ketone, an acidic carboncompound with the functional group -C=O. This process can be useful, and it is utilised by the brain, as without it, the brain would shut off as soon as its cells run out of glucose, which happens to many of us as we sleep. However, if too many ketones build up, the blood can get too acidic, and the body starts shutting down, first with a coma, and then death unless treated. The term ‘ketoacidosis’ comes from ‘ketones’ which has a complex etymology (Mahoney 2021). The word has been traced back (Harper 2001) to the Latin noun ‘acetum’ meaning ‘sharpness of wit’, but in a negative sense (perhaps ‘shrewdness’, or ‘cunning’), which started to gain its negative meaning, until there was no intelligence remaining in its meaning and it meant ‘sourness of disposition’. Vinegar, coming from wine, was called ‘vinum acetum’, literally ‘sour wine’, which is from where we get the chemical names acetic acid, acetate, acetone, acetyl, and acetal. It is also from where the word for vinegar in other languages comes. In Italian, vinegar is ‘aceto’, in Corsican ‘l’acitu’, in Czech ‘ocet’, in Lithuanian, ‘actas’, and in Macedonian ‘оцет’, pronounced ‘oset’. The chemical name for the main component in vinegar (giving it its strong odour and taste) used to be acetic acid, until it was changed to a systematic name – ethanoic acid. Acetic acid is a type of carboxylic acid, and the first ketones were synthesised from carboxylic acids in Germany, in the Nineteenth Century. The German for ‘acetic’ is ‘aket’, which led to ‘Aketon’, which was later anglicised to ‘ketone’. The ‘acid’ in ‘ketoacidosis’ is also connected to ‘acetum’. Originally, before it became a noun in its own right, ‘acetum’ would have been the neuter, perfect passive participle of the verb ‘acere’ meaning ‘to be sour’, of which the fourth principal part is ‘acetus’. However, there is another theory. As there is very little available usage of Latin writing in which acere is used to mean ‘sharpness of wit’, but many uses where it means ‘to be sour’, it is possible that the verb ‘acere’ came from the noun ‘acetum’, not the other way around. Some go further, with many dictionaries not giving a fourth principal part for ‘acere’. Their logic is that, as the fourth principal part is only used for passive senses, and there is no record in any Classical Latin usage of that verb in the passive voice, it cannot have a fourth principal part. Whatever the original word, ‘acid’ comes from ‘acere’ and later was used as the adjective, meaning ‘sharptongued’ or ‘sour’, which was ‘acidus’. This came into English from French. Therefore, both ‘keto’ and ‘acid’ in ‘ketoacidosis’ come from the same word. In conclusion, diabetes is a term which has carried many meanings. As a word of complex origin, it has been understood differently by different cultures. The Ancient Greeks used it for actions, positions, descriptions, and objects, varying immensely. The reason for this, is that 32 | P a g e

they all come from the Greek word for ‘go’, a word which, with the addition of affixes, can have many different connotations. Even in English, this is the case, as words with ‘go’ as their root can have a wide range of meanings, like ‘undergo’, ‘forgone’, ‘outgo’, ‘ongoing’, or ‘going on’. Also, the particular prefix in question, ‘διά’, has different meanings depending on what the following noun’s case is. As verbs have no cases, in ’διαβαίνω’, the ‘διά’ can have all of its meanings, further widening the spectrum of things able to come under the term ‘διαβήτης’. As a disease with a complicated discovery, it presents itself in many different forms, with different types so varying in nature, that they can be considered as separate diseases. In Western medicine, the different types of diabetes were only discovered recently, as they all have similar symptoms, and the only difference between the types is the way in which they are caused. Since the cause of diabetes was only found in the last Century, the different types could only be discovered after that. However, the Ancient Indians identified two of the types, and viewed them as separate diseases, and, were Western doctors to have had that knowledge, it is likely that the different types would be known as different diseases today. Finally, as a part of medical terminology, it can refer to a wide range of illnesses, some of which are only related by sharing one symptom. This is because this one symptom is polyuria – the frequent passage of large volumes of urine and is the reason for diabetes’s original naming. Therefore, many other conditions causing polyuria were also called diabetes. As the etymology of ‘diabetes’ comes from water passing through the body like in a siphon, in Western medicine, the disease has always been connected to that, with polyuria being all which is required for a disease to be called ‘diabetes. Without this weight on polyuria, diabetes insipidus would not have been given a similar name to a disease to which it is medically unconnected. By contrast, as, in Ancient China, the focus for diabetes was on the sweetness of the urine caused by spirits, their cures, attempted cures, and ideas on it are very different. If the etymology of diabetes had come from sweetness, not only would the disease be thought of in a very different way, but also, many fewer diseases would have been given the term ‘diabetes’ in their names, leading to much less confusion, thus showing how the etymology of diabetes has affected how it has been treated and what it means to medics today and through time.

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Reference List: Adams, S., 2017. Cystic Fibrosis Diabetes [online] Available at: https://www.diabetes.org.uk/diabetes-the-basics/other-types-of-diabetes/cystic-fibrosisdiabetes, [Accessed May 2020] Ahmed, A. M., 2002. History of Diabetes Mellitus. Saudi Med J, 23, 373-378 Allan, F.N., 1953. The writings of Thomas Willis M.D. – diabetes three hundred years ago. American Diabetes Association, 2, 74-78 Bernstein, R. K., 2011. Diabetes Solution. Revised ed. New York: Little, Brown Spark Cashin-Garbutt, A., 2019. History of Diabetes [online] Available at: https://www.newsmedical.net/health/History-ofDiabetes.aspx#:~:text=The%20term%20diabetes%20was%20probably,sweet%20taste%20o f%20the%20urine, [Accessed December 2020] Clarke, C., 2020. Ketosis, Ketones and how it all works [online] Available at: https://www.ruled.me/ketosis-ketones-and-how-it-works, [Accessed May 2021] Frey, R. J., 2009. UXL Encyclopaedia of Diseases and Disorders. London: Gale Cengage Harper, D., 2001. The Etymology of Ketone [online] Available at: https://www.etymonline.com/word/ketone, [Accessed May 2021] Kidd, D. A., 1957. Collins gem – Latin dictionary. 1st ed. Glasgow: Collins Knott, L., 2016. Polyuria [online] Available at: https://patient.info/doctor/polyuria [Accessed March 2021] Kouba, E., 2007. Uroscopy by Hippocrates and Theophilus: Prognosis versus Diagnosis. The Journal of Urology, 177, 50-52 Mahoney, K., 2021. LatDict [online] Available at https://latin-dictionary.net, [Accessed May 2021] Mandal, A., 2019. History of Diabetes [online] Available at: https://www.newsmedical.net/health/History-ofDiabetes.aspx#:~:text=The%20term%20diabetes%20was%20probably,sweet%20taste%20o f%20the%20urine, [Accessed December 2020] Mark, E., 2016. Ghosts in Ancient China [online] Available at: https://www.worldhistory.org/article/892/ghosts-in-ancient-china/, [Accessed June 2020] Negrato, C. A., 2013. Diabetology and Metabolic Syndrome [online] Available at: https://dmsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1758-5996-522#:~:text=Miller%20in%201945%20reported%20the,accepted%20%5B18%E2%80%9321 %5D, [Accessed May 2021]

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Romanes, G. J., 1981. Cunningham’s textbook of anatomy. 12th ed. New York: Oxford University Press Stevenson, A., 2010. Oxford Dictionary of English. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Taylor, J., 2016. Greek to GCSE – part 1. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury publishing Verkerk, P., 2014. Eulexis-web lemmatiseur de grec ancien (version en ligne) βαίνω [online] Available at: https://outils.biblissima.fr/fr/eulexisweb/?lemma=%CE%B2%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%BD%CF%89&dict=LSJ [Accessed December 2020] Verkerk, P., 2014. Eulexis-web lemmatiseur de grec ancien (version en ligne) διά [online] Available at: https://outils.biblissima.fr/fr/eulexisweb/?lemma=%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%B1&dict=LSJ [Accessed December 2020] Verkerk, P., 2014. Eulexis-web lemmatiseur de grec ancien (version en ligne) διαβαίνω [online] Available at: https://outils.biblissima.fr/fr/eulexisweb/?lemma=%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%B2%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%BD%CF%8 9&dict=LSJ [Accessed December 2020] Verkerk, P., 2014. Eulexis-web lemmatiseur de grec ancien (version en ligne) διαβήτης [online] Available at: https://outils.biblissima.fr/fr/eulexisweb/?lemma=%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%B2%CE%B7%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%8 2&dict=LSJ [Accessed December 2020] Willis, T., 1674. An exercitation of the operations of medicines in humane bodies. Showing the signs, causes, and cures, of most distempers incident thereunto (pharmaceutice rationalis). London: The Guild Yu, A., 2018. Chinese Herbal Medicine Versus Other Interventions in the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes [online] Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6053856/#:~:text=Xiaoke%20(wasting%2Dthi rst)%20is,Emperor's%20Classic%20of%20Internal%20Medicine.&text=The%20recorded%2 0symptoms%20describe%203,%E2%80%9Cdiabetes%E2%80%9D%20in%20Western%20 medicine, [Accessed May 2020]

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Joint Third Prize and Riyen Karia Prize for Politics Humanities and Social Sciences: Sociology To what extent did cricket help to uphold the values of colonialism and class divide in the Caribbean?

Kellen Dubignon Boys’ School

Kellen enjoys playing cricket and is interested in colonial history so he looked to combine the two. His interest was sparked by watching the documentary 'Fire in Babylon' and he particularly enjoyed looking at the impact that specific players had on colonialism such as Viv Richards. Kellen plans to study History at University.

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To what extent did cricket help to uphold the values of colonialism and class divide in the Caribbean? Cricket was first introduced into the Caribbean in the early 18th Century and was bought to the region by British military officers, who initially played amongst themselves outside their respective barracks. A Century earlier, the British had begun their colonisation of the Caribbean, but following the emancipation of slaves in 1833, they faced the challenge of maintaining their power in the colonies, so turned to cricket to act as a coercive measure of control within the Caribbean. The British were keen to spread the sport to the region not only for whites to demonstrate their loyalty to the crown, but also to attempt to get the black population to adhere to British colonial values. These colonial values were centred around the concept of white superiority, where black West Indians would learn that they were inferior to their white, colonial masters; the British used cricket to help enforce these values. While class divide was certainly part of such values, I will address this issue separately to wider colonial values in this essay, which focuses on the timespan from the emancipation of slaves in 1833, to the late 20th Century, when nearly all the countries in the region had become independent from the British empire. Although initially used as a mechanism to assert British colonial rule, cricket did help the Caribbean people to actively resist and overcome colonial values, but it did not break down the rigid class divide structure, instead maintaining the distinct separation between classes. Tiffin, Manley and Stoddart suggest that cricket was used as an ideological tool which upheld and maintained the colonial values that had been present within Caribbean society since the 19th Century. Tiffin (1981) promotes the idea (p.187) that cricket was ‘a game of white privilege at the periphery of the empire’ and that ‘a black cricketer had little chance of redefining the moral assumptions behind the game,’ suggesting that cricket helped to maintain the social and racial inequality that was at the heart of Colonialism. Stoddart (1995) in particular plays on the theory that cricket was used ideologically to strengthen the influence of colonial rules, suggesting that (p.63) ‘cricket was used by colonial administrators as a means of promoting the values, norms and prejudices conducive to their rule.’ Hughson, (2009) then illustrates how Stoddart uses ideas from the Italian Marxist Philosopher Antonio Gramsci who suggested in the 1930s that ‘governing states in the west would increasingly rely upon consensual rather than coercive means to maintain rule, and this would occur via the dissemination of a dominant value system in a civil society.’ Stoddart then links this to cricket in the Caribbean, implying the British empire used cricket as an ideological tool because it ‘was central in the creation of hegemonic cultural values’ Manley (2009) focuses more on the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), suggesting that the organisation’s conservative and rigid structure, which was dominated by the upper class, helped to maintain colonial values and strict class divide, as even though cricket was a game open to all, there was still a degree of social stratification associated with it, where the upper class would dominate the key positions within the sport, a problem which colonialism exacerbated. In order to understand how cricket helped to uphold and maintain colonial values, we should look at the example of Learie Constantine. Learie Constantine was a Trinidadian cricketer who was one of the pioneers of West Indian cricket during the 1920s and 30s. Constantine was a highly successful player, with Hughson (2009) calling him a ‘dazzling virtuoso’ who had a very adaptable game that was also easy on the eye for the average spectator. Constantine’s style can be seen to be the origin of the ‘calypso cricketer’ which was a name that was given to many West Indian cricketers pre 1970s. This term suggests that the West Indians were happy to play in an exciting, aggressive manner, but they would often lose a lot of matches because they were not focused nor disciplined enough. This whole construct of the ‘calypso cricketer’ (which is what Constantine embodied in a sense) is the exact way in which cricket helped to maintain and uphold colonial values. It suggested that black West Indians were happy to lose to the white colonial masters, again reinforcing this sense of hierarchy, but also bolstered the 37 | P a g e

idea that black Caribbeans were not disciplined or intelligent enough to form their own civilised society. In this sense, the idea of a ‘black style’ introduced by Hector (2009) did not help to weaken colonial values and create a sense of distinction from the ‘oppressors’ style’ but instead the nature of the ‘black style’ actually strengthened the idea that black Caribbeans were somehow inferior to the White colonial masters and the way they played their cricket embodied the principles that underpinned many aspects of British colonialism in the Caribbean. However, it is more convincingly argued by Beckles, Hector, Lazarus and James that cricket was used as a mechanism by the Caribbean people to actively resist and then overcome the colonial values that had been imposed on the region. Hector (2009) proposes (p.73) that there was a ‘black style which was oppositional to the oppressors’ style’ and this was ‘ultimately anti-hegemonic’, promoting the idea that Cricket was used by the non-white Caribbean population to weaken the strongholds of colonial values that had been forced upon their society. When writing on James’ ‘Beyond a Boundary’ Lazarus (1995) comments (p.350) how the ‘ideological protocols of cricket were refashioned and not completely overthrown’, hinting at the idea that the ‘black style’ introduced by Hector, was certainly distinct to the ‘oppressors style’, but was still played within the laws and spirit of the game, undermining Tiffin’s argument that cricket had little chance at ‘redefining the moral assumptions behind the game’. This concept is key in understanding the argument that cricket was a mechanism to overcome colonial values – black Caribbeans could have their own distinct style, which was successful but was still underpinned by the spirit and civilised nature that were the foundations of cricket, which demonstrated that black West Indians could overcome their former colonial masters with their own method. This method was not indicative of a lack of discipline or control as Tiffin argues, but instead was civilised, successful, and most importantly distinctive to the region, allowing them to show their colonial masters that they could be independently efficacious. James (1963) himself articulates the power of cricket in raising anti-colonial sentiments when he declares (p.917) ‘cricket is an art, a means of natural expression’ and through this ‘art’ Black Caribbeans could demonstrate their distinctions from the British empire, on a global stage. For James, cricket was a way in which Black Caribbeans could demonstrate to their former colonial masters that they could be successful at a game which was once used as an ideological tool to enforce colonialism, but from the turn of the 20th Century, cricket could be used to break down the colonial constructs that had been enforced upon the region. Beckles (1998) also draws on ideas put forward by James, Lazarus and Hector, and introduces a new concept of black consciousness, suggesting (p.8) that the way West Indians played cricket was a ‘unilateral declaration of cultural freedom’. What Beckles is hinting at here is that this ‘black style’ helped to promote black consciousness as the aggressive and attacking West Indian way of playing the game was so distinct from the ‘oppressors style’ that cricket was one of the first ways for Caribbean people to distance themselves from colonialism and demonstrate to the world, that they could have their own unique way of playing which could be equally as successful and civilised as their British colonialists. Further into his studies, when taking an in depth look at Viv Richards, the great Antiguan batsmen, Beckles seems to go one step further, arguing that not only did cricket help to loosen the colonial shackles on the region, but it also invoked a sense of pan-Africanism and nationalism alongside this idea of ‘black consciousness’. Overall, it is the viewpoint of Beckles, Hector, James and Lazarus that cricket helped to loosen the shadow of colonialism that had been cast over the region since the 17th Century, as the development of a unique ‘black style’ helped to promote a sense of black consciousness and distance from colonialism within the Caribbean region. In order to understand how cricket was used to weaken colonial values, it is important to take a look at the career of Viv Richards, something which Beckles goes into great depth about when looking at cricket and anti-colonial sentiments in the Caribbean. Richards, was an Antiguan and West Indian cricketer who is regarded as one of the most memorable and successful batsmen in the history of the game, averaging an impressive 50.23. Richards was also known for embodying the ‘black style’ earlier introduced by Hector – Richards would wait 38 | P a g e

till the outgoing batsmen had left the pitch, then he would slowly strut onto the pitch, maroon cap tilted upwards (he never wore a helmet) and would aggressively mark his guard, announcing himself to the opposition. Beckles (1998) argues that (p.8) ‘Richards’ strut was not designed as part of a sterile social discourse that speaks of conceit and arrogance, but instead was an expression of a mind made up, hardened by a discarded plantation landscape that carries the mark of injustice and denial.’ What Beckles is suggesting here is that Richards was well aware of his colonial past, and the way British colonialists had commanded him and his ancestors to behave and think that black people were somehow inferior to their white counterparts, but Richards takes an alternative route and chooses to completely immerse himself in the ‘black style’ creating his own unique style, which stood up to colonialism, and said that he was the symbol of the ‘new world modernity’ in the Caribbean. This new generation would not be subjected to colonial rule and would be able to find their own inherent spirit, which could be equally, if not more successful than the that had once attempted to supress any sense of freedom and equality within the region. Beckles (1998) goes further to develop this point, suggesting (p.7) that ‘Viv’s legitimization of hitting across the line was a unilateral declaration of freedom.’ What Beckles means here is that the typical British way of batting would suggest that hitting across the line is incorrect, as it is associated with a high degree of risk, but Richards disregards this and developed his own style, which was aggressive, yet was still extremely successful. It is interesting to note that when England played the West Indies, they would often set defensive off-side fields to try and contain Richards’ method of batting, yet he continued with this tactic, and proved to be extremely successful. Perhaps for Beckles, this was a symbol of the British colonial attempt to keep ideological control over the Caribbean people by restricting the development of their own style, but Richards stood up to this and used his own methods to successfully overcome the English a nation which represented the heart of the colonial struggle for West Indians. Ultimately, it was Richards’ self-confidence and aggression which helped to demonstrate to a generation of Black Caribbeans that they could be successful in society, but more importantly, they could be successful in their own independent way, which was separate from their colonial past which had for so long tried to supress their right to freedom and equality, something which the likes of Tiffin and Stoddart fail to acknowledge when they downplay the significance of cricket’s impact on wider society. Beckles (1998) then introduces (p.7) the idea of Richards’ ‘ideological firmness’ which went wider than just cricket and helped to increase anti-colonial sentiments throughout wider society. Richards was publicly known in the 1980s for his Rastafari stance – when batting he wore a tricolour sweatband which represented the colours of Rastafarianism. The Green was for the land of Africa, the Gold for the wealth that was stripped away and the red for the blood that was shed. This example of Richards’ wristband is a prime way of how influential figures within cricket could stand up to colonialism, as in this instance, Richards is certainly acknowledging his past and the injustices that his people suffered through, but by acknowledging this, he is also identifying what he will not be – a member of the British empire who will be subjected to racial and social inequality. He pushes the argument further, saying that it is not enough to try and remove the shadow of colonialism, but instead he is perhaps suggesting that West Indians should celebrate their rich and deep history and use this to stand up to the empire, and become individually successful using their own ‘black style’ which embodied the new age of pan-Africanism and anti-colonial sentiment. Overall, while cricket was initially used as a mechanism to try and enforce colonial rule, it ultimately did help to weaken colonial values imposed on the region by the British empire. Cricket provided an opportunity for black West Indies to create their own unique ‘black style’ where they could demonstrate to their colonial masters that they could be successful at a British game using their own methods, helping to strengthen anti-colonial sentiment and invoke a sense of ‘black consciousness.’ It is argued by James and Hughson, that cricket was used as a mechanism to help overcome the rigid system of class divide that operated within the Caribbean. Both James and Hughson accepted that cricket did operate in a class system, whereby the ruling white upper class in 39 | P a g e

the Caribbean had attempted to control the lower, non-white classes through both coercive and forced measures. However, James and Hughson argue that while cricket may have appeared to reinforce class structure predicated upon wealth, race and status, it actually helped to overcome this class divide through promoting social mobility, where members of the lower classes could elevate their status within society through their on-field performances, and then use this position to push for greater equality and the breakdown of such rigid divides. James (1963) introduces (p.916) the idea of the ‘puritan ethic’ of cricket, commenting on how when he played, he ‘never jeered an opponent, never complained towards the umpire, and my defeats and disappointments I took as stoically as I could’. James’ argument here is that cricket was a way of integrating the different classes, as they all unified under the banner of sport, which helped to weaken the clear class separation that was present in 19th and 20th Century Caribbean society. Hughson (2009) expands this argument, suggesting (p.74) that because of cricket’s ‘sheer popularity within Caribbean society’, the sport not only helped to integrate the classes, but it also promoted this idea of social mobility, where a member of a lower class could elevate their status within society, and then use their newfound status to push for greater social change and the breakdown of such rigid class divides. Hughson in particular draws upon the example of Sir Frank Worrell to illustrate his argument. Overall, it is argued by James and Hughson that cricket was used to help overcome class divide within the Caribbean through helping to integrate the different classes, but also by advancing this idea of social mobility, and cricket allowing individuals to elevate their status within society. In order to consider the argument that cricket helped to overcome class divide within the Caribbean, it is necessary to look at in depth at the example of Sir Frank Worrell, as well as exploring the way the club structure worked within the Caribbean, particularly that in Barbados. Sir Frank Worrell was the former West Indian Batsmen and holds a significant place within the regions history as he was the first black man to captain West Indies, doing so on a tour of Australia in 1960. Worrell then used his position of power and cultural significance, to campaign for greater equality, campaigning for greater pay, equal rights, and an end to discrimination, within the Barbadian cricketing system, in an attempt to break down the rigid class divide predicated upon wealth, race and status that was still in place in the mid-20th Century. Hughson (2009) comments (p.74) regarded as the ‘people’s man’ by the non-white population in Barbados, whereas the cricketing elite described him as a ‘cricket Bolshevik’. Worrell is a prime example of the potential that cricket had – role models could elevate themselves within society and use their status to undermine the system and the minority upper class which had tried to maintain power within the region, ever since the emancipation of slaves in 1834. Moreover, looking at the organisation of the club system in Barbados can help us understand how cricket could promote integration within different classes. In Barbados, the biggest clubs that play in the Association competition have traditionally been separated on the basis of race and class. ‘Wanderers’ club represented the white upper class, ‘Pickwick’ the white middle class, ‘Spartan’ the black middle class, ‘Empire’ the black lower-middle class, with the rest of the black working-class population being represented through different clubs in the league competition, which was seen to be of a lower standard and status compared to the association competition. Hughson (2009) draws on the idea of class integration arguing (p.83) that ‘Cricket provided an apparent avenue for the meeting of different colour and class groups. Hughson gives examples of this commenting (p.82) how ‘empire players of the interwar years recall that at Wanderers they were always assigned to a home player and looked after, even to the point of being driven home by the wealthier white players.’ Here is a clear example of cricket being used as a mechanism to overcome class divide, and weaken the separation between classes, helping Caribbean people accept and embrace a society which is less segregated based on class. While, Hughson and James’ argument certainly does have some merit, it is important to note that the spatial variation within the region itself, with Barbados having the biggest cricket following population, with the strongest class divide compared to other nations such as Antigua and Jamaica, and these places not having as much of a segregated club structure, 40 | P a g e

but a class-based system, nonetheless. Furthermore, as will be addressed in greater depth in this essay, the example of Worrell is atypical, with his circumstances being advantageous to his cricketing success and ability to elevate his status within society. While James and Hughson argue that cricket helped to break down class divide within the Caribbean, Stoddart and other academics argue that cricket and its upper-class origins helped to maintain the class divide that operated within the Caribbean. Stoddart (1995) suggests (p.251) that cricket was central to ‘assisting the social reproduction of class hierarchies’ that operated within Victorian Britain at the time. Stoddart expands on this idea of cricket transferring the class divide from Britain into the Caribbean by introducing (p.323) the idea of ‘cultural modelling’ Barbadians placed ‘their faith in a social system predicated upon British cultural values, morality codes and concepts of social rankings’. Stoddart here is focusing on the early origins of cricket in the Caribbean, compared to James and Hughson who address the impact of cricket on class divide more into the 20th Century. Stoddart argues (p.324) that cricket was the most effective mechanism at perpetuating a system of class divide because unlike the institutions of the church and education, cricket created a ‘consensual Barbadian society’ where people would actively choose to comply with the class divide that cricket was associated with. Here is the clear clash between the two arguments. James and Hughson suggest that cricket was used to help integrate the different classes and promoted social mobility within these classes, but they fail to acknowledge that cricket played a key part in creating this class divide. By contrast, Stoddart more convincingly argues that the reason there was such a rigid class divide in the first place was because of cricket itself, which was used to perpetuate such class divide and create this ‘consensual Barbadian society’. Moreover, it also important to look in greater depth and evaluate the examples of Sir Frank Worrell and the organisation and structure of the club system within the Caribbean to help understand how cricket kept in place and maintained the class structure within the Caribbean. First let us look at Sir Frank Worrell. While his achievement was extremely significant because he was the first black man to become captain, his achievement was less substantial with regards to overcoming class divide and as Stoddart outlines (p.329) ‘ground was given on race, yet not on class’. The reason for this is because Worrell is an atypical example – Worrell is a well-educated member of the middle class, who had strong ties to England, playing club cricket there as an overseas professional, thus making the class barrier he faced a much smaller one, because he was already a member of a respected class, so had some status within society, unlike many of his non-white counterparts. Stoddart concludes (p.330) his argument on Worrell by commenting that ‘the gradual relinquishment of cricket from colonialism, rather than a radical break from the racial and class division within the sport’. It is where the main argument of this essay lies – cricket ultimately did help to uphold colonial values, but it did not help to break down the system of class divide, and in fact helped to strengthen and put in place such class separation. Further to this, while the organisation of the club system in Barbados may have helped with integration, the segregation predicated upon class and status, helped to maintain the class system late into the 20th Century, even when the islands in the Caribbean had gained independence. Due to the fact that there was such a strict class associated with each club, it helped culturally reinforce the idea that classes, separated on wealth and race, should stick together, and actively discourage social mobility as it was very difficult to move to a different club whose members were from a different class. The impact of this system can be seen when Stoddart (1995) remarks (p323) ‘By 1965 they (the clubs) retained essentially the same types of people as they had in the 1890s’. This highlights how cricket was, to an extent, operating as a barrier to breaking down these class divides because while clubs had no formal rules which excluded members from a certain class, people were more than aware of which club to join, making them consciously mindful of the class divide that operated within Caribbean society and even as these divisions began to fade in the post-colonial era, the underlying attitudes of segregation between different groups of society are still extant today. 41 | P a g e

In conclusion, cricket helped the Caribbean people overcome the values of colonialism, particularly those regarding race, but failed to break down the system of class divide within the region, and in actual fact helped to maintain such rigid separation between classes. Cricket, with regards to colonialism, helped to invoke anti-colonial sentiment among the nonwhite Caribbean population as black West Indians were able to be successful on a global stage, demonstrating to society as a whole, that the British colonialism that had been imposed on the region could in fact be overcome and replaced by a sense of pan-Africanism and ‘black consciousness’. Although, cricket was used initially to help uphold these colonial values, particularly in enforcing this idea that the whites were superior to the blacks, this argument is undermined by cricket’s success throughout the 20th Century, where the West Indies cricket team became more widely followed and had an elevated global stage, so as cricket became more popular, particularly among the non-white population, it was used as a mechanism to promote anti-colonial sentiment. There is also a complex relationship regarding class divide. Similar to colonial values, cricket did help to perpetuate a system of class divide within the region and was an effective coercive measure at doing so. However, with regards to class divide, cricket was unable to change its structure from the 19th Century, meaning that it helped to maintain a rigid separation of classes well into the late 20th Century, even though such separation in wider society was fading out.

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Reference List Beckles, H. 1998. Viv, A Sprit of Dominance: Cricket and Nationalism in the West Indies, 1, pp.7-8. Hughson, J. 2009. The middle class, colonialism and the making of sport, Sport in Society, 12:1, pp.73. James. C.L.R. 1963. Sport, Colonialism, and struggle: C.L.R. James and cricket, Sport in Society, 9:5, pp.917. Lazarus. T. 1995. Cricket and national culture in the writings of C.L.R. James, Liberation Cricket: West Indies Cricket Culture, 5:1, pp.350. Malcom. D. 2001. ‘It’s not cricket’: Colonial legacies and contemporary inequalities, Journal of historical sociology, 2, pp.14-16. Stoddart. B. 1995. Cricket, social formation, and cultural continuity in Barbados: a preliminary ethnohistory, Liberation Cricket: West Indies cricket culture, 4:1, pp.61-88. Thompson, O’Brien, L. 1989. How Cricket is West Indian Cricket? Class, racial, and colour conflict. Liberation Cricket, West Indies Cricket Culture, 4:2, pp. 165-171. Tiffin, H. 1981. Cricket, Literature and the Politics of de-colonialization. The case of C.L.R. James. Liberation Cricket, West Indies Cricket Culture, 5:2, pp.187. Yelvington, K. 2013. Cricket colonialism, and the culture of Caribbean politics. Social roles of Sport in Caribbean Societies, 2:1, pp. 32-39.

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Highly Commended Humanities and Social Sciences: English Parallel autobiographies in The Rabbit Catcher and Wuthering Heights - Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

Felix Zombory-Moldovan Boys’ School Felix has had a love for Plath's work for quite some time. On reading Plath's The Bell Jar and Jonny Panic and the Bible of Dreams it inspired him to explore her biography, a topic which struggles to escape the influence of Ted Hughes, her husband from 1956 to her death in 1963. It was this relationship, and the documentation of it in Hughes' Birthday Letters, which captured his interest. Felix found that allowing the poems to slowly tick over in his head was greatly enjoyable. Equally, having his own ideas supported and enhanced by the literary criticism that he read was rewarding. Felix is planning to study English Literature and History of Art at university.

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Parallel autobiographies in The Rabbit Catcher and Wuthering Heights - Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

‘Vivienne at her mother's grave’, Nan Goldin

In Ted Hughes’ 1998 anthology Birthday letters there is a heartfelt insight into his own coming to terms with the suicide of his wife, Sylvia Plath. Written 35 years after her death, the anthology marks Hughes’ first published redressal, and came shortly before his own death in October 1998. The poems ‘The Rabbit Catcher’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’ contained in Birthday Letters are two direct references to Sylvia Plath’s poems, whilst others, such as ‘Night-Ride on Ariel’ and ‘Sam’, pick up on ideas in Plath’s ‘Ariel’, and ‘Visit’, ’18 Ruby Street’ and ‘Fulbright Scholars’, are reminiscent of the notions of performance in Plath’s ‘Lady Lazarus’ and ‘Lesbos’. In response to Plath’s work, therefore, the poems serve a number of purposes; they are a finality in the long-standing rally of blame and guilt surrounding Plath’s death, and yet are equally an indication of Hughes’ acceptance of the need to open up a conversation about blame. As a response to Plath’s work, they highlight, and often erase, ideas presumed unshakeable, ruminating on moments throughout their relationship. They are therefore tied into (but not entirely eclipsed by) a biography, and when read with the goal of establishing historical truth, offer the other half of a story thus far told only by Plath. This reading of Hughes’ poems is limited in its scope, and equally limits the readers’ experience of the poetry. Widely critiqued, they are often painted as Hughes exercising dominance, clearing himself of a bad name – and there is certainly a feeling that this is an attempt at getting the last word, indeed present in a number of poems is a righteous certainty and sense of finality, destabilising the oppressive world painted by Plath and procuring for himself a note of sympathy.

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Discussed by Jacqueline Rose, however, there is a feeling that Hughes’ poems ‘offer their readers an account of a failure’, circling ‘round a missing centre’ (Rose, 1998); they are a vehicle of discovery, not of self-exculpation. In comparing Hughes’ Birthday Letters and Plath’s corresponding work, therefore, there is to be gained an insight into the psyches of the pair, but more significantly, an understanding of what it means to suffer, and the role that this plays in the production of art. In ‘The Rabbit Catcher’, Sylvia Plath’s poem included in her anthology Ariel (but not in the posthumously published edition in 1965), she articulates complex emotionality on a trip to the Cornish coast with Hughes. There is presented an overwhelming sense of vulnerability in the face of a world seemingly fuelled by violence and aggression. Plath offers insight into her state of being; fearful and timid and threatened by all the facets of existence. Through this she comments on her relationship with Hughes, which is presented as being equally out of the realm of her control. The poem finds itself caught between biography and fiction; there is a recount of a series of events, which are tied onto their perceived emotional significance. For Plath, nature is presented as an aggressor, with all of its intricacies promising violence, overwhelming her with its scale and vast beauty. She finds herself silenced and reduced by nature, with the wind ‘gagging (her) mouth… tearing off (her) voice’, its silencing effects leaving her feeling capable of very little but further reduction; she loses her sight via the ‘blinding… lights’ of the sea. She is deprived of her senses by the power of nature, its aggression complemented by the thoughts of death it brings (with the sea embossed by ‘the lives of the dead unreeling in it, spreading like oil’). In the ‘gorse’ there becomes a blur between what is friendly and aggressive, with its ‘great beauty…extravagant, like torture’ – what is generally admired becomes suffocating and unfriendly, opening in Plath a mixing and reinterpretation of the world around her, and producing the image of aggressor and victim, where the aggressor is prodigious in its magnitude, and the victim is raw in its open vulnerability. Plath ‘tasted the malignity of the gorse’, a phrase further suggestive of the meshing of positive and negative experience, in which the negative prevails and dominates. In adopting a biographical reading, this sense of being overwhelmed finds itself rooted, towards the end of the poem, in the tumult of Plath’s relationship with Hughes. Indeed, like her lack of a grasp over nature, for Plath, the nature of her relationship with Hughes becomes an elusive, slippery thing; separate from both of their bodies and in a form of its own, there is very little that either of them can do to influence it. The relationship owns a ‘mind like a ring sliding shut on some quick thing’, an idea offering both the sense of the relationship’s sentient independence, and equally suggesting its mortality, ‘sliding shut’ like the ‘zeros shutting on nothing’ – except this snare slides on ‘some quick thing’; the survival of the relationship and its amorphic anonymity. Here, the blending of what is positive and what is negative becomes most clear; the relationship, like the coast, once pretty in its essence, finds itself muddled with and dirtied by feelings of isolation, with ‘the constriction killing (Plath) also’. The repeated image of the ring (‘zeros’ ‘a hole in the hot day’ ‘hands round a tea mug’ ‘mind like a ring’) acts as an allusion to the ring binding a marriage, a symbol classically intended to suggest eternal unity (implying a happiness), but in Plath’s ‘hands’ (Hughes, 1998) eternity is found as a restrictive and painful promise of continuation. Her translation of the day into poetry thus drains it of its meaning; the poem is populated by things being emptied, with the ‘paths’ narrowing into the ‘hollow’ and the sense of a ‘zero’ and ‘vacancy’. There is 46 | P a g e

suggested an action to the reduction, as if the day has been un-filled of joy, and yet the hole seems to, paradoxically, occupy the day. In this, Plath suggests that the ultimate nothing is the lack of something; it is the un-doing of a relationship which is of the greatest impact. Hughes mirrored ‘The Rabbit Catcher’ with a poem of the same name in his 1998 anthology ‘Birthday Letters’. In reading Hughes’ ‘The Rabbit Catcher’, a male-driven context is given to Plath’s dictation of the events, shifting and deforming the narrative into a space existing between the two works (in this sense, the term mirroring seems appropriate – what is produced is an ineffable image of the narrative which is neither truly Plath’s nor Hughes’), and thus shifting the balance of sympathy. Hughes recasts Plath’s work, dominating the story with his ability to write outside the relationship. Produced in this in-between space is a narrative of a relationship in which neither party feels comfortable nor understood. The speaker finds ‘your’ (whilst the poem is in reference to Plath, she, and the speaker, remain unnamed) internalisation of ‘your’ grievances unreachable; ‘baffled’ he feels as ‘a fly outside on the window-pane of my own domestic drama’. There is a sense here, not of the lack of wanting to, but rather of the speaker’s inability to empathise with ‘you’, with the isolation of the pair’s sensibilities as polarised globes (‘your…thunderscape of some unworldly war’ and the speaker’s ‘nature’) emphasising their emotional incompatibility throughout the recounted narrative. The use of ‘thunderscape’ and ‘unwordly’ offer an insight into the alien nature of ‘your’ experience of the world to the speaker, with Hughes’ suggestion of ‘Nature’ lending an opinionated understanding of what is right. Hughes asserts himself onto Plath’s work, finding the reductive ‘gagging’ nature belonging to the speaker in Plath’s ‘The Rabbit Catcher’ to be the result of her own disillusionment, implying his own sanity and correctness. In this, there lies a criticism of Hughes; he attempts to control Plath’s voice, undermining and tokening it the result of ‘terrible, hypersensitive fingers’. This reading is both flawed, but equally enriched, by the presentation of ‘you’ in the poem; in a ‘dybbuk fury’ she is feared to ‘do something crazy’, criticism which reflects on both Hughes’ belittlement of Plath’s mental health in his assertion of narrative dominance but equally, in adopting a biographical reading, offers an understanding of the difficulty of Plath’s and Hughes’ relationship, and sympathy is found for Hughes. The term ‘dybbuk’ suggests a malicious spiritual possession of ‘you’, offering a sense of ‘your’ ‘torture’ being something external, internalised. This suggests ‘your’ inability to control the ‘torture’, through which there is produced a feeling of the speaker’s attempt and subsequent failure to connect with the subject of the poem. In reading Hughes’ ‘The Rabbit Catcher’ biographically, therefore, there is offered a response to Plath’s corresponding work, which, welcome or not, twists the narrative, and victimises Hughes as the subject of a ‘dybbuk fury’, largely ignored and unable to console Plath. The oppressive world produced in Plath’s work loses its magnitude and is framed as the product of a ‘tortured self’, subjecting Hughes to emotional turbulence and a feeling of a lack of control. It is, however, unjust to call on Hughes’ response as a necessarily truthful recount of his understanding of Plath; he plays on stereotypical representations of heterosexual relationships, finding the man as an impersonal and unempathetic force of oppressive emotional incompetence. He ‘trod accompanied’ and ‘carried babies’; without much emotional intelligence, the speaker becomes a simplism of Hughes’ own sensibility. In this, 47 | P a g e

the tensions between Plath and Hughes are polarised and simplified, and the grievances are reduced to misunderstanding and the inability to voice their respective feelings. One can therefore understand the poems not as truthful biographical resources, but rather fictional works offering stylised recounts of an event. This idea is discussed at the end of Hughes’ ‘The Rabbit Catcher’, in which ‘the poems, like smoking entrails, came soft into your hands’; Hughes, hypocritically, criticises Plath’s apparent reduction of their relationship into poems, highlighting that Plath’s poetry ironically both kills and is born of the relationship. There is suggested here a sense of Hughes’ belief in Plath’s misrepresentation of the relationship, offering a notion of her narrative (and thus Hughes’ as another artistic response) as biographically unreliable. A direct reference to the state of the relationship, however, this confession to fiction offers in itself a biographical insight; the relationship was controlled by its participants’ artistic responses to it. Free of the weights of biographical responsibility, however, Hughes’ poem stands up as an ‘elegiac act of remembrance’ (Gerrard, 1998), and not of gendered indignation and, indeed, merit is found in reading the work without its context, producing a heartfelt exploration into what it means to be out of control at the risk of emotional ties. Hughes’ speaker worries that his subject had ‘caught something in [him], nocturnal and unknown to [him]’, offering a sense of their anxiety surrounding their emotional embroilment with the subject; they fear that the relationship is slipping away from them with there being very little for them to do to save it. Despite its confession to fictionality, however, Hughes’ ‘The Rabbit Catcher’ produces a biographical understanding of his love for Plath. The speaker in Hughes’ ‘The Rabbit Catcher’ presents an intense love for their subject, a notion constant throughout the poem and telling not of a relationship of attrition, but rather one of care, subjected to abrasive conditions. The speaker remains loyal to the subject, following ‘beside you’, irrespective of the division in sensibilities. They ‘trod accompaniment’ waiting for ‘you to come back to nature’. The notion of ‘nature’, whilst demonstrating a division in sensibilities, equally acts to highlight the subject’s sensibility as atypical of themself; unnatural, it does not describe the subject as a whole, but rather paints the ‘dybbuk fury’ as a disposition. Equally, ‘nature’ becomes emblematic of the relationship when in a state of harmony, thus offering the understanding that, for the speaker, the relationship is of great enough significance that it becomes what is natural, and thus what is purest. The notion of love here is forgiving and faithful, and the tone of the poem follows this pattern, with a constant sense of empathy for the subject. The speaker offers reasoning for the pair’s disagreements; they do not sit calmly in the ‘eyrie hollow’ because of some unexplained prejudice, but rather because it would be ‘indolent’; the subject ‘tore up’ the ‘snare’ not to inexplicably spite the speaker, but for empathy with ‘baby-eyed strangled innocents’. The subject’s action in the poem is, whilst disagreed with, understood, casting the speaker’s voice as sympathetic to the struggles faced and willing to endure it to help. Indeed, a consequential danger is set into the poem in its second stanza, with the narrator ‘thinking she’ll do something crazy’, the effect of which is to create tension in proposing a possible ending, something against which the speaker would fight throughout. There is a care for the subject presented here which transcends notions of duty within a relationship, and instead arrives at a loyalty brought on by love. However, the speaker ultimately fails to stem the ‘bleeding’ set out at the start of the poem, losing the subject, and the feelings provoked in the ‘bleeding’, to be cemented in their 48 | P a g e

‘poems’. A fictionalised character, Hughes’ speaker is unable to make emotionally driven decisions in the face of the subject’s intense emotionality and as a result is incapacitated by inaction as a ‘fly outside on the window of [their] own domestic drama’. Whilst this certainly acts to paint Hughes as impersonal and unempathetic, criticising his domineering tone and response to Plath’s ‘The Rabbit Catcher’, there remains a sincere care for Plath, the unnamed subject of the poem. Hughes offers himself as a secondary victim to Plath’s ‘dybbuk fury’, drawing a parallel between the two of them as both being subjected to the same disposition, something external acting upon them, rather than something internal acting between them. Van Dyne comments on this in The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath (Dyne, 2006), suggesting that in Birthday Letters, Hughes responds to the self that Plath made in her poetry, and not to his own experience of her (Sugg, 2007). In this sense, the emotional simplism in Hughes’ ‘The Rabbit Catcher’ is separated from any sense of biographical truth, and becomes external to the couple, in the same way that, for Hughes, Plath’s emotional turmoil is external to her true sensibility (‘nature’). In this there is demonstrated a heartfelt love for Plath, enduring the externalised ‘dybbuk’ aggressor. In comparing both Plath’s and Hughes’ ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1961 and 1998 respectively), there is further provoked an understanding of two diverging sensibilities, with the voice of the latter taking hold of the former given the benefit of its date of publication. When read alongside each other, the poems, as in both poets’ ‘The Rabbit Catcher’, are deformed and a narrative emerges. Proposed biographical interpretation, however, lies within Hughes’ ‘Wuthering Heights’; whilst Plath explores her own emotionality with regards to the landscape around her, Hughes, in writing back to Plath, explores the mode of their relationship situated within the landscape, making claims on its nature and thus proposing historical evidence. In Hughes’ 1998 ‘Wuthering Heights’, he offers a recount of a trip to visit Brontë’s home in West Yorkshire, in which attention is predominantly drawn to Plath, and her interaction with the landscape, through which there is suggested both a fascination and love for Plath, but equally a sense of biographical interest in the absorption of the landscape into her poetry. Indeed, Hughes begins by taking in the landscape and relating it to its historical significance; the ‘sodden, raw camp of refuge’ had been ‘lit’ by those ‘poor lasses’. The land holds an importance in its heritage, one which relied on its inhabitants to be unlocked, with the ‘gamma rays and decomposing starlight’ having ‘repossessed’ the land ‘with a kind of blackening smoulder’ since the death of the Brontës. In the relation to the astrological, a sense of vast naturalness is attached to the Brontë sisters; they become an atmosphere losing grip of the land. Intertwined in this a sense of the magical to the landscape and the house; with the ‘elvish lacework’ and ‘dwarfish fairy-work shoes’ finding their places amongst the ‘legends and gossip’ about the sisters, there is proposed a mythicization of the nature of the land as fostering creation as it is translated into folklore. This acts to underscore the comparisons that Hughes makes between Plath and Brontë as they approach ‘Emily’s private Eden’ and as ‘the moor lifted and opened its dark flower for you too’. Hughes finds Plath’s closeness with the land, with the sexuality implied in the opening of the ‘dark flower’ to be rooted in notions of Christian purity; what Plath seems to be experiencing with the land is as much emotional and intellectual as it is spiritual. Hughes fixates on this closeness, finding it both beautiful and troubling. She is a ‘pendant’ of ‘globe-circling aspirations’ and a ‘brilliantly faceted … jewel’ amongst ‘burned-out … remains of failed… hopes’, ‘refracting every tint where Emily had stared like a dying prisoner’. Plath’s freshness and ‘liberties’ pull 49 | P a g e

her away from the bleakness of a landscape in which there are only ‘two trees planted for company’, and indeed a ‘poem unfurled’ from Plath like a ‘loose frond’, a notion suggesting the leaf-like fertility of her artwork, doing as ‘stern dour Emily … never did’. Plath’s ability to absorb the mythicised atmosphere of the land is found to be a thing of beauty, in which Hughes’ love for Plath is demonstrated. This closeness, however, also troubles Hughes; he finds Plath ‘breath[ing] it all in with jealous, emulous sniffings’, questioning ‘weren’t you twice as ambitious as Emily?’. There is a sense here of Hughes’ worry that Plath might, in an attempt to emulate the land’s previous inhabitants, fall short of her ‘ambition’. In exploring the poem as a biographical work, this notion is framed as Hughes’ finding of the ‘snapshot’ showing Plath ‘perched in one of the two trees’, and is thus underlined in dreadful irony; Plath ‘had all the liberties’, but fell short in her early death. Plath’s 1961 ‘Wuthering Heights’ offers her experience of the trip to the moors, one absent of Hughes’ participation and telling of the weight of the landscape on her conscience. ‘Horizons ring me like faggots’; Plath’s understanding of the landscape is quickly proposed as it being an aggressor, and she, victim. Indeed, as commented on by Lindberg-Seyersted, ‘images of landscape and animals are consistently turned into metaphors for the human intruder's feeling of being insignificant and exposed’ (Lindberg-Seyersted, 1990); the ‘black slots’ of the sheep’s ‘pupils take [her] in’, the horizons ‘dissolve’ as she ‘step[s] forward’ and she is ‘mailed into space’. In the aggression of the landscape, she feels dwarfed and reduced. There is also a notion of the weight of the literary significance of the location, with ‘the air only remember[ing] a few odd syllables… of people’; whilst possibly referencing unnamed companions, distanced by Plath’s preoccupation with the emotionality of the landscape, there is also suggested here a remembrance of the words in Brontë’s novel ‘Wuthering Heights’, brought closer to Plath by the weather’s suppression of her sensory experience. Isolated, she is subject to the ‘decomposing starlight’ of the Brontë sisters’ legacy proposed in Hughes’ 1998 ‘Wuthering Heights’. Equally, in ignoring Hughes’ presence, Plath places the historical significance of the land at the centre of her experience of it, finding intimacy with it rather than with Hughes. Plath’s poem is inward-facing, and, as she is isolated by the weather and its relation to her state of mind, is isolated from Hughes’ narratorial rendition. Between Hughes’ and Plath’s respective ‘Wuthering Heights’, there becomes an understanding of two sensibilities, one occupied with historical reflection, and the other with emotional understanding. Hughes’ poem, irrespective of its intention, dominates the narrative produced in reading the two poems, whilst Plath’s finds inward reflection without a notion of biographical geography. Hughes finds the need to write back to Plath’s poem in his 1998 anthology Birthday Letters, which is, to some extent, telling of his objective; to address what he sees as historical truth. In this there is a sense of his reflection on the moment as being a point of emotional misunderstanding, but there is ultimately proposed a sense of Hughes’ love for Plath. Equally, in writing back to Plath, he acts to silence her emotionality, with his domineering and expansively calm tone posing a friendlier alternative to her prickly concentration of feeling. There is also a sense of Hughes trying to write himself into Plath’s ‘Wuthering Heights’, where previously his presence was largely absent, controlling her narrative. His tone, however, acts as a product of style, rather than intention, and, whilst suggesting an understanding of diverging sensibilities, is ultimately overshadowed by the care for Plath presented by Hughes. Indeed, Hughes finds that the landscape responds to Plath, placing her at the centre of his experience of it, with the ‘stone reaching to touch [her] 50 | P a g e

hand’ and ‘the moor wind’ coming to ‘look at [her]’, concluding that, ‘in understanding’ it slows at the consequence of her death. In reading Plath’s and Hughes’ ‘The Rabbit Catcher’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’, therefore, there is to be gained an understanding of a relationship corroded by conditions over which neither participant had control. Whilst offering some insight, however, the works are biographically unstable; they are fictional works of poetry, a medium ultimately demonstrating emotional response. Hughes addresses two of Plath’s poems directly, and thus shapes them, producing a notion of biographical situation, but ultimately presenting a care for Plath unparalleled by any desire to re-present the feelings and experiences proposed by Plath. Indeed, Hughes spent 25 years writing Birthday Letters, and, as his first published response to criticism of him as the ‘callous husband… who drove her to suicide’ (Kakutani, 1998), demonstrates an intimate portrait of a relationship. The poems are addressed to ‘you’, a letter describing the intricacies of the relationship, Birthday Letters is made for, and of, Plath’s words, and thus, ultimately, confesses remorse, understanding and love.

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Appendix Sylvia Plath - The Rabbit Catcher It was a place of force— The wind gagging my mouth with my own blown hair, Tearing off my voice, and the sea Blinding me with its lights, the lives of the dead Unreeling in it, spreading like oil. I tasted the malignity of the gorse, Its black spikes, The extreme unction of its yellow candle-flowers. They had an efficiency, a great beauty, And were extravagant, like torture. There was only one place to get to. Simmering, perfumed, The paths narrowed into the hollow. And the snares almost effaced themselves— Zeros, shutting on nothing, Set close, like birth pangs. The absence of shrieks Made a hole in the hot day, a vacancy. The glassy light was a clear wall, The thickets quiet. I felt a still busyness, an intent. I felt hands round a tea mug, dull, blunt, Ringing the white china. How they awaited him, those little deaths! They waited like sweethearts. They excited him. And we, too, had a relationship— Tight wires between us, Pegs too deep to uproot, and a mind like a ring Sliding shut on some quick thing, The constriction killing me also.

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Ted Hughes - The Rabbit Catcher It was May. How had it started? What Had bared our edges? What quirky twist Of the moon’s blade had set us, so early in the day, Bleeding each other? What had I done? I had Somehow misunderstood. Inaccessible In your dybbuk fury, babies Hurled into the car, you drove. We surely Had been intending a day’s outing, Somewhere on the coast, an exploration— So you started driving. What I remember Is thinking: She’ll do something crazy. And I ripped The door open and jumped in beside you. So we drove West. West. Cornish lanes I remember, a simmering truce As you stared, with iron in your face, Into some remote thunderscape Of some unworldly war. I simply Trod accompaniment, carried babies, Waited for you to come back to nature. We tried to find the coast. You Raged against our English private greed Of fencing off all coastal approaches, Hiding the sea from roads, from all inland. You despised England’s grubby edges when you got there. The day belonged to the furies. I searched the map To penetrate the farms and private kingdoms. Finally a gateway. It was a fresh day, Full May. Somewhere I’d brought food. We crossed a field and came to the open Blue push of sea-wind. A gorse cliff, Brambly, oak-packed combes. We found An eyrie hollow, just under the cliff-top. It seemed perfect to me. Feeding babies, Your Germanic scowl, edged like a helmet, Would not translate itself. I sat baffled. I was a fly outside on the window-pane Of my own domestic drama. You refused to lie there

Being indolent, you hated it. That flat, draughty plate was not an ocean. You had to be away and you went. And I Trailed after like a dog, along the cliff-top field-edge, Over a wind-matted oak-wood— And I found a snare. Copper-wire gleam, brown cord, human contrivance, Sitting new-set. Without a word You tore it up and threw it into the trees. I was aghast. Faithful To my country gods—I saw The sanctity of a trapline desecrated. You saw blunt fingers, blood in the cuticles, Clamped around a blue mug. I saw Country poverty raising a penny, Filling a Sunday stewpot. You saw babyeyed Strangled innocents, I saw sacred Ancient custom. You saw snare after snare And went ahead, riving them from their roots And flinging them down the wood. I saw you Ripping up precarious, precious saplings Of my heritage, hard-won concessions From the hangings and transportations To live off the land. You cried: ‘Murderers!’ You were weeping with a rage That cared nothing for rabbits. You were locked Into some chamber gasping for oxygen Where I could not find you, or really hear you, Let alone understand you. In those snares You’d caught something. Had you caught something in me, Nocturnal and unknown to me? Or was it Your doomed self, your tortured, crying, Suffocating self? Whichever, Those terrible, hypersensitive Fingers of your verse closed round it and Felt it alive. The poems, like smoking entrails, Came soft into your hands.

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Sylvia Plath - Wuthering Heights The horizons ring me like faggots, Tilted and disparate, and always unstable. Touched by a match, they might warm me, And their fine lines singe The air to orange Before the distances they pin evaporate, Weighting the pale sky with a soldier color. But they only dissolve and dissolve Like a series of promises, as I step forward. There is no life higher than the grasstops Or the hearts of sheep, and the wind Pours by like destiny, bending Everything in one direction. I can feel it trying To funnel my heat away. If I pay the roots of the heather Too close attention, they will invite me To whiten my bones among them. The sheep know where they are, Browsing in their dirty wool-clouds,

Grey as the weather. The black slots of their pupils take me in. It is like being mailed into space, A thin, silly message. They stand about in grandmotherly disguise, All wig curls and yellow teeth And hard, marbly baas. I come to wheel ruts, and water Limpid as the solitudes That flee through my fingers. Hollow doorsteps go from grass to grass; Lintel and sill have unhinged themselves. Of people the air only Remembers a few odd syllables. It rehearses them moaningly: Black stone, black stone. The sky leans on me, me, the one upright Among the horizontals. The grass is beating its head distractedly. It is too delicate For a life in such company; Darkness terrifies it. Now, in valleys narrow And black as purses, the house lights Gleam like small change.

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Ted Hughes - Wuthering Heights Walter was guide. His mother’s cousin Inherited some Bronte soup dishes. He felt sorry for them. Writers Were pathetic people. Hiding from it And making it up. But your transatlantic elation Elated him. He effervesced Like his rhubarb wine kept a bit too long: A vintage of legends and gossip About those poor lasses. Then, After the Rectory, after the chaise longue Where Emily died, and the midget hand-made books, The elvish lacework, the dwarfish fairy-work shoes, It was the track for Stanbury. That climb A mile beyond expectation, into Emily’s private Eden. The moor Lifted and opened its dark flower For you too. That was satisfactory. Wilder, maybe, than ever Emily knew it. With wet feet and nothing on her head She truged that climbing side towards friends Probably. Dark redoubt On the skyline above. It was all Novel and exhilarating to you. The book becoming a map. Wuthering Heights Withering into perspective. We got there And it was all gaze. The open moor, Gamma rays and decomposing starlight Had repossessed it With a kind of blackening smoulder. The centuries

Of earnings off a few sickly bullocks And a scatter of crazed sheep. Being cornered Kept folk here. Was that crumble of wall Remembering a try at a garden? Two trees Planted for company, for a child to play under. And to have something to stare at. Sycamores – The girth and spread of valley twenty-year-olds. They were probably ninety. You breathed it all in With jealous, emulous sniffings. Weren’t you Twice as ambitious as Emily? Odd To watch you, such a brisk pendant Of your globe-circling aspirations. Among those burned-out, wornout remains of failed efforts, failed hopes – Iron beliefs, iron necessities, Iron bondage, already Crumbling back to the wild stone. You perched In one of the two trees Just where the snapshot shows you. Doing as Emily never did. You Had all the liberties, having life. The future had invested in you – As you might say of a jewel So brilliantly faceted, refracting Every tint, where Emily had stared Like a dying prisoner. And a poem unfurled from you Like a loose frond of hair from your nape To be clipped and kept in a book. What would stern 55 | P a g e

Of door-bolted comfort finally amounted To a forsaken quarry. The roofs’ Deadfall slabs were flaking, but mostly in place, Beam and purlins softening. So hard To imagine the life that had lit Such a sodden, raw-stone cramp of refuge. The floors were a rubble of stone and sheep droppings. Doorframes, window frames – Gone to make picnickers’ fires or evaporated. Only the stonework – black. The sky – blue. And the moor-wind flickering. The incomings The outgoings – how would you take up now The clench of that struggle? The leakage

Dour Emily have made of your frisky glances And your huge hope? Your huge Mortgage of hope. The moorwind Came with its empty eyes to look at you. And the clouds gazed sidelong, going elsewhere, The heath-grass, fidgeting in its fever, Took idiot notice of you. And the stone, Reaching to touch your hand, found you real And warm, and lucent, like that earlier one. And maybe a ghost, trying to hear your words, Peered from the broken mullions And was stilled. Or was suddenly aflame With the scorch of doubled envy. Only Gradually quenched in understanding.

Reference List: Dyne, S. I. J. G, 2006. The problem of Biography. Cambridge Companions to Literature, The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath, pp. 3-20. Gerrard, N, 1998. Observer. Hughes, T, 1998. The Rabbit Catcher, Birthday Letters. London: Faber and Faber. Kakutani, M, 1998. 'Birthday Letters': A Portrait of Plath in Poetry for Its Own Sake. Book of the Times Lindberg-Seyersted, B, 1990. Sylvia Plath's Psychic Landscapes. English Studies, pp. 509-522. Rose, J, 1998. The Happy Couple. The Guardian. Sugg, R, 2007. Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and Birthday Letters: Alchemcal Symbols of Transformation. South Atlantic Review, pp. 109-127.

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Highly Commended Humanities and Social Sciences: Law An evaluation of Lord Devlin’s 1956 claim that: “Trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice: it is the lamp that shows that freedom Lives”

Tilly Weston Girls’ School In the months prior to deciding on her topic, Tilly was fortunate enough to be able to see at first-hand the work of the law in the Crown Court during an assault trial. Watching the jury members getting sworn in and the role they played throughout the trial influenced her decision to explore their wider significance in the criminal justice process. She found the best part about researching for the Aske Level was both the breadth and depth of knowledge that was acquired during wider reading. Whilst narrowing down her topic area, she gained expertise in a wide variety of legal studies; whereas when writing her project her research was focused on a small area of study which she was able to explore in greater detail. During her research she found a transcript of the Hamlyn Lectures delivered by Lord Devlin in 1956 on his view of the salience of the jury in criminal trials, which sparked her interest about this topic, and later served as the backbone of her project. Tilly’s goal is to study Law at university at undergraduate level to aid her career ambitions of working as a commercial barrister

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An evaluation of Lord Devlin’s 1956 claim that: “Trial by Jury is More Than an Instrument of Justice: it is the Lamp that Shows that Freedom Lives.” 2 Patrick Arthur Devlin was born in 1905. He was a British judge and legal philosopher. During his life Devlin served as both a High Court Judge and as a Lord Justice of Appeal. He was a specialist in criminal and commercial cases during his time on the bench. In November 1956, Devlin delivered the eighth annual Hamlyn Lectures on the topic of his study of the English criminal law and the role of the jury within criminal trials. It was during these lectures that Devlin expressed his view that “trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice: it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives”. During a trial the jury is typically comprised of 12 laypersons sworn to give a verdict in a legal case on the basis of only the evidence submitted to them in court. This is considered to be their role as an instrument of justice. However, the jury also has a number of sources of power which over the years has enabled them to protect the individual freedom and liberty of citizens appearing before the courts. These include the concept of judicial independence, thus protecting defendants from potentially biased or prejudiced judges, the development of the perverse verdict, which allows jurors to disregard laws they consider to be unjust, and their role in maintaining the high standard of the burden of proof (“beyond all reasonable doubt”) which ensures only the most confident of convictions. This essay does not contend that the entire UK judiciary is biased and corrupt. Rather, it will argue that jury trials remove all possibility of corruption, however small, whilst fiercely protecting individual liberties, and thus can truly be regarded as the “lamp that shows that freedom lives”. Therefore the position of this essay is to defend Devlin’s assessment that a jury trial is more than simply an “instrument of justice”, but a fundamental safeguard of the “freedom” of individuals against authoritarian abuses of power by institutions including the government who make the laws and the police and judiciary who impose those laws. How Jury Systems Protect the Burden of Proof The mainstream media frequently publicises events occurring within the criminal justice system from high profile arrests of celebrities to the verdict of trials of those accused of heinous crimes. The common phrase ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ features prominently in headlines, but the true meaning of this phase is often not fully appreciated for its significance as a fundamental principal of justice in the UK. The way in which a criminal conviction is secured by the prosecution in the UK, is by the judge or jury deciding that the burden of proof has been met by the prosecution to prove their case. This occurs when the evidence given at trial, indicates, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the defendant is guilty of the crime that they are alleged of committing. This burden exists so as to maintain the quality of convictions within our justice system, and to ensure that those who receive a guilty verdict do so after a fair trial. As established in Roman law, the system that the UK law is based on, the First-Century, Emperor Antonius Pius introduced into law that, “proof lies on him who asserts, not on him who denies”, (Watson, 1998). This is one of the earliest legal accounts of the burden of proof, which refers to the legal duty that falls upon the prosecution to prove that the defendant is guilty to a level that satisfies reasonable doubt, as opposed to the defendant proving their innocence, which formed the basis for the famous, and much more well-known legal phrase ‘innocent until proven guilty’ (Pennington, 2003). When all of the ceremony of a criminal trial is stripped away, in its most simplistic form, the entire role of the prosecution, is to prove to the judge or jury that the accused is guilty, beyond all reasonable doubt. In the case of jury trials, the jury is then solely responsible for determining if the burden of proof has been met by the prosecution, and whether the defendant is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If any doubt about guilt remains, then the prosecution have failed in their task and the jury is obliged to return a not guilty verdict. There is no standardised test to determine what ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ should be, but it is likely that the burden of proof set by twelve individual jurors will be higher than that set by just one judge, which will lead to safer and more secure convictions. The higher the burden of proof, the less likely innocent individuals will be wrongfully imprisoned, thus indicating that the 2

Lord Devlin, Trial by Jury 1956

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jury does indeed represent the “lamp that shows freedom lives” within the courts. This argument is proven because in April to June 2020, the conviction rate was 4% higher in the Magistrates Court (a court with three magistrates or one district judge) than in the Crown Court, which uses the mechanism of jury trials (Statista 2020). This indicates that a jury of twelve laypersons have historically required a higher benchmark of surpassing the burden of proof by the prosecution as opposed to a panel of hardened magistrates. In January to March of 2019, 20.1% of all defendants tried in UK Crown Courts were acquitted (Statista, 2020), because the juries did not believe, ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ that the defendants had committed the crimes of which they were accused. This should be regarded as a triumph of the jury system in comparison to the Magistrates Court were only 15% of individuals were acquitted of their charges by three sitting magistrates. The jury are still fulfilling their role as an “instrument of justice”, by delivering their verdicts, yet they are also acting as the “lamp” to protect the freedoms of those who are truly innocent. This is a testament to the freedom of the jury who refuse to convict on unsubstantiated or circumstantial evidence. The day that the burden of proof is lowered to anything less than beyond all reasonable doubt, is the day that criminal convictions become easier to secure for the prosecution, and the day that many more innocent defendants are incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. The jury protects this burden of proof, and thus the quality and confidence of convictions in the UK, thus acting as the “lamp” of freedom. This idea was first codified in 1765 by Sir William Blackstone, who wrote in his book, Commentaries on the Laws of England that, “it is better than ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer”. This idea of protection of liberty has been echoed by many over the years since Blackstone’s writing including Benjamin Franklin, who paraphrased Blackstone’s ratio to say that “it is better 100 guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer”, (Franklin 1785), further emphasising the important of the role that the jury plays as the “lamp that shows that freedom lives” by protecting the individual liberty of citizens and ensuring that the police and the prosecution present a justified and airtight case to minimise the risk of wrongful convictions. These great figures of the past, along with the leaders of the government today have decided that it is better to let those who are guilty to walk free and maintain their liberty, than it is to deprive even just one innocent individual of their liberty. The jury is the “instrument of justice” that defends this right to liberty, and as such can be regarded as “the lamp that shows that freedom lives”. It is unfortunate, yet probable that some of those who were acquitted and make up these statistics from both courts actually committed the crimes of which they were accused. However, in the modern and liberal world we live in, human rights are a cornerstone of civilised society. Thus the government of the day, along with all past governments have agreed with Blackstone’s ratio to protect the liberty of the innocent, over the importance of incarcerating the guilty. Letting a small number of guilty individuals through the net of the criminal justice system is by far the better compromise of the two possible options. This is because the reoffending rate in the UK after committing a crime is 62.7% (MoJ 2020). Therefore it is improbable that even if a perpetrator slipped through the net once, that they would be able to do so again. Similarly in 2005, the Double Jeopardy Law was scrapped which allowed suspects who had previously been acquitted at trial to be re-tried if significant new evidence came to light. A key example of this is the trial of the racially motivated Stephen Lawrence killers. In 1993 the 18-year-old teenager was stabbed to death by a gang of white youths, whilst he was waiting to catch a bus in London (BBC 2018). In 1996, the Lawrence family private prosecution attempt failed against the suspects due to a lack of concrete evidence. Yet, in 2012 after the re-examination of crime scene evidence with new forensic technology, two of the suspects were re-tried and convicted of murder. Whilst this is only one example of a cold-case being closed after almost 20 years after the initial incident, it does serve as some indication that those who commit crimes will be caught eventually. Similarly in the 1920s-30s, the American gangster Al Capone was linked to at least 33 murders in the United States, yet there was insufficient evidence to convict him of any of them. Investigators finally managed to bring him to justice due to tax evasion, and Capone was imprisoned in 1931. The US legal system is based on the UK legal system and has similar standards regarding burdens of proof that have 59 | P a g e

to be met. However, even the most notorious of criminals was brought to justice in the end, without having to sacrifice any of the integrity of the justice system, or the jury that convicted Capone. This proves that justice will always prevail, without the need of infringing upon fundamental human rights. Judicial Bias The jury is an essential link between the real world and the judiciary, an entry point for the public to play their part in the justice system. But it is also acting as a structural mechanism to reduce the risk of judicial bias or corruption which could potentially impact on the lives of innocent citizens by way of false or prejudiced guilty verdicts. This is because the jury is independent from the rest of the judiciary and its members are free to exercise their independence in a courtroom, thus allowing the jury to make their own determination of innocence or guilt. Due to their constitution, they are also unable to act upon any personal biases that they may have relating to certain cases, or types of crime, as these biases or extreme views are likely to be cancelled out by the 11 other members on the jury. If the UK did not have a jury system, the sitting judge on any case would make the decision between innocence and guilt. The liberty of the defendant would be in the hands of a single individual with no-one to challenge their perspective or interpretation of the evidence given at trial. In contrast a jury trial ensures that a range of perspectives and a variety of life experiences will contribute to the task of judging whether defendants actually committed the crime they are being charged with. Judicial independence is the main way in which potential bias can be combatted by the jury in the courtroom. The precedent of a jury’s independence was established during the Bushell’s Case in 1670 (Rivlin 2015). A corrupt judge imprisoned the entire jury, of which William Bushell was foreman, after they found the defendants Penn and Mead not guilty for unlawful assembly, despite the sitting judge instructing them to return a guilty verdict (Howell 1842). As they refused to change their verdict the jury remained in prison with no food or water for three days, until the Lord Chief Justice John Vaughn ordered their release, and commented that “a judge may open the eyes of the jurors, but not lead them by the nose”, (Philips and Thompson 1986). Judges can guide the jurors to what they believe is the correct verdict according to law, but cannot legally force a jury to decide one way or another. However, members of a jury can be punished or fined if they are found to be acting outside of the powers bestowed upon them, if they break the laws of judicial conduct. The best example of this would be a jury independently researching their case outside of the trial (Langbein 1978). So just as with judges, in Crown Court cases, juries do not have absolute power. Therefore whilst jurors are free to reach any verdict they choose; they are still bound by the same laws of judicial conduct as the judges. This maintains and protects the continued honesty and integrity of the justice system that is necessary to maintain its credibility. Bushell’s case was initially of very little practical significance since up to a decade later judges were still found to be fining jurymen for their verdicts. (Langbein 1978). However what Bushell and the other members of his 1670 jury did do was to change perceptions of the deliverance of a “true verdict”, (Crosby 2013), one that was free from potential corruption or bias, and passed the responsibility to do so away from a judge to the members of a jury. So whilst a jury is indeed an “instrument of justice”, responsible for playing its part in the UK criminal justice system, it is also the light in the “lamp that shows freedom lives” because a defendant’s freedom is controlled by independent individuals. Perverse Verdicts The right of the jury to form an independent verdict, has further evolved since the Bushell’s case in 1670 to include the jury equity, otherwise known as a perverse verdict (Bethel 2008). This occurs when the members of a criminal trial jury believe that the defendant is guilty of the crime they are accused of, but decide to acquit the defendant anyway, because the jury believe 60 | P a g e

the law itself to be unjust. This was the case for Cheshire taxi driver Alan Blythe in 1998. Blythe was charged with cultivating cannabis with intent to supply, but during his trial, it emerged that he had only supplied cannabis to his terminally ill wife, Judith, as a form of palliative care (Jefferson 2009), a treatment which is legal in countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain, France and since 2018, the UK. Judith was suffering from multiple sclerosis and when all of Judith’s medication failed to take away her pain, Blythe feared that his wife may take her own life to end her suffering, and so supplied her with cannabis (Duffield W). The judge concluded that duress was not a viable defence against Blythe’s charges and instructed the jury to find Blythe guilty on both charges, possession and distribution. However, after only a short deliberation period, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on all charges other than possession (Marks 1998). Similarly, a jury exercised this right during the case of R v Ponting in 1985 (Rosenbaum 2011). Ponting worked for the Ministry of Defence and leaked confidential documents to the press that concerned the circumstances relating to the sinking of an Argentinian cruiser by a British submarine during the 1982 Falklands War. The Crown sought to prosecute Ponting under the Official Secrets Act of 1911, but the jury returned a verdict of not guilty, after Ponting successfully argued that his actions were in the public interest, the only viable defence against leaking official state secrets (Berlins and Dyer 2001). Both of these cases fall under the first and most common style of perverse verdicts in which the jury will acquit or return guilty verdicts only for minor charges and is usually motivated by a complete rejection of the moral worth of a particular law. The second type of perverse verdicts are easier to recognise. This is because they usually link to how much monetary value the jury places on certain items in property theft or robbery cases. However this has been less common occurrence since the turn of the millennium, due to improvements in valuation data. In the 19th Century, the theft of items valued any higher than 40 shillings (approximately £120 in 2020) carried the death penalty (Darbyshire, Maughan, Stewart, 2002). In cases such as these, it was common that the jury would always condemn the action of theft, but significantly reduce the value of the items stolen, and therefore save the defendant from the death penalty. The Public Prosecutions Office (the superseding organisation of the CPS) during trial would always state the true value of the items stolen. However, ultimately the jury decided whether they agreed with the PPO valuation, thus allowing them to form this second type of perverse verdicts. Most famously two £10 notes were valued at 39 shillings, instead of 40 shillings so that the defendant was not executed by the state for his crimes (Duffield, W). Both of these types of perverse verdicts are invaluable to the jury as they allow for legal notguilty verdicts to be returned when they believe the law to be unfair. This is another reason why the role of the jury is vital to our society in ensuring the fairest possible outcomes at trial, regardless of innocence or guilt. It is through the process of jury equity, that we see the truth in Lord Devlin’s words. The criminal trial that occurs, will always be part of the “instrument”, in the orchestra that makes up the UK criminal justice system, regardless of the verdict delivered by the hand of the jury, but the process of jury equity and the freedom to deliver an independent verdict, as established in 1670, is and will always be part of the lamp that shines, and “shows that freedom lives”i, and that freedom is held by those independent from the state. As this essay has demonstrated, there are three key reasons why the jury system is necessary to protect the fundamental rights and civil liberties of the UK population. Whilst this method of determining innocence and guilty may mean that some perpetrators temporarily walk free, it is more important that the innocent are protected from wrongful convictions. In our civilised society, I believe that this a price worth paying. We live in a country with a proud tradition of judicial integrity linked back to the Roman Empire and the First Century AD, which evolved through to when William Bushell established the independence of the jury and to the modern day with juries being prepared to overturn laws they see to be unjust. We as a nation have a proud tradition of upholding liberty via the role of juries in the UK. Thus the position of this essay must conclude in agreement with Lord Devlin and his famous phrase because the juries in the UK do so much more than simply perform their primary function. They truly are the “lamp that shows that freedom lives”. 61 | P a g e

Reference List: A-Level Law Review [online] September 2015, Key Cases for Jury Equity at https://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/media/Documents/magazineextras/Law%20Review/LawRev%2011_1/LawReview11_1_poster.pdf?ext=.pdf [accessed on 23rd January 2021] All Answers ltd, 'Is 'Trial by Jury' as Effective in UK?' (Lawteacher.net, January 2021) <https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/constitutional-law/is-trial-by-jury-as-effective-inuk-law-essays.php?vref=1> accessed 2 January 2021 All Answers ltd, 'The Jury System' (Lawteacher.net, January 2021) <https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/criminal-law/the-jury-system.php?vref=1> accessed 23rd January 2021 BBC, 2018, Stephen Lawrence murder: A timeline of how the story unfolded [online] at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26465916 [accessed on 20th March 2021] Berlins. M and Dyer. C (2001), Perverting the course of justice [Guardian Online] available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jan/22/law.jurytrials [accessed 8th February 2021] Bethel, Erastus-Obilo (2008), A Theory of the Perverse Verdict [online] available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1287927 [accessed 8th February 2021] Blackstone. W (1765), Commentaries on the Laws of England, book 4, chapter 27 Crosby, K (2013), Bushell’s Case and the Juror’s Soul, 33(3) Journal of Legal History, 251290 Darbyshire. P, Maughan. A, Stewart. A (2002) What Can the English Legal System Learn from Jury Research Published up to 2001, Kingston Occasional Paper Series 49 60-62 Darbyshire P (1991), The lamp that shows that freedom lives – is it worth the candle?, Criminal Law Review Devlin, P (1956), Trial by Jury, Cambridge Law Journal, Vol.15 No.2 p242, Cambridge University Press Duffield W. The Cheshire Cab Driver: Reasons of Conscience [online] at https://volteface.me/feature/jury-nullification/ [accessed on 23rd January 2021] eNotes Online Editorial 30th December 2011, What is Jury Equity? Elliff, N (1938) Notes on the Abolition of the English Grand Jury, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 29, Article 2 Hargrave, Emlyn, Salmon, Jardine, Cobbett, Howell, Jones, Bayly (1816), A complete collection of state trials: and proceedings for high treason and other crimes and misdemeanours: with notes and other illustrations, [5th ed.] London Hansard Horowitz, I.A (1988), Jury Nullification, Law of Human Behaviour 12, 439-453 Howell, T.B (1842), Howell’s State Trials, Vol.6 951-991 Jefferson (2009) Criminal Law [9th ed.] Pearson Education Limited 284-285 62 | P a g e

Kalt, C (2005), The Perfect Crime, Georgetown Law Journal 93, 2-14 Knox, P (2020), The Sun Online, PUBLIC ENEMY, Who was Al Capone, what crimes did the mobster commit, when was he in Alcatraz and why was he nicknamed Scarface? (published 17th April 2020) [online at] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5925504/al-capone-alcatraz-escape-scarface/ [accessed 23rd May 2021] Langbein, J.H (1978), The Criminal Trial Before the Lawyers, University of Chicago Law Review 263, 297-298 Leipold, A (1996) Rethinking Jury Nullification, Virginia Law Review 82, 253-324 Marks. K (1998) Jury clears man accused of growing cannabis (online) available at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/jury-clears-man-accused-of-growing-cannabis1154226.html [accessed on 8th February 2021] Ministry of Justice Online, Proven reoffending statistics quarterly bulletin, England and Wales, January 2018 to March 2018, ( published 30th January 2020) [online at] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_dat a/file/872390/bulletin_Jan_to_Mar_2018.pdf [accessed on 23rd May 2021} Pennington, K (2003), Innocent Until Proven Guilty: The Origins of a Legal Maxim, Columbus School of Law, CUA Law Scholarship Repository Phillips, J.A & Thompson (1986), T.C, Jurors v. Judges in Later Stuart England: The Penn/Mead Trial and Bushell’s Case, Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice 224- 229 Online Library of Liberty Under Magna Carta the King cannot imprison a freeman without being convicted by a trial of his peers [online] at https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/536 [accessed 23rd January 2021] Ratcliffe, S (2016), Oxford Essential Quotations, Oxford University Press (4 ed.), (Chapter 6) Rivlin, G (2015) First Steps in the Law, Oxford University Press 7th Edition (239-252) Rosenbaum. M (2011) Clive Ponting Case: where is the investigators’ report? (BBC News online) available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13430012 [accessed on 8th February 2021] Simple Studying Online, Bushell’s Case 1670, [online] at https://simplestudying.com/bushells-case-1670/ [accessed on 23rd January 2021] Statista, (2020), Conviction rate for courts in England and Wales Q2 2013-Q2 2019, [online] at https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100769/conviction-rate-in-england-and-wales/ [accessed on 20th March 2021] Watson, Alan ed. (1998), The Digest off Justinian, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press (22.3.2) Weinstein. J, Dewsbury. I, Comment on the meaning of ‘proof beyond a reasonable doubt’, Law Probability and Risk, Volume 5, Issue 2, (pages 167-173) 63 | P a g e

Wikipedia Online, Blackstone’s Ratio [online] at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio [accessed on 20th March 2021] Wikipedia Online, Burden of Proof (Law) [online] at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law)#Standard_of_proof_in_the_United_King dom [accessed on 20th March 2021] Wikipedia Online, Cannabis in the United Kingdom [online] at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_the_United_Kingdom [accessed on 25th May 2021] Wikipedia Online, Commentaries on the Laws of England [online] at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_the_Laws_of_England#Quotations [accessed on 20th March 2021] Wikipedia Online, Juries in England and Wales [online] at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juries_in_England_and_Wales [accessed on 23rd January 2021] Wikipedia Online, Jury Nullification [online] at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification [accessed on 23rd January 2021] Wikipedia Online, Legality of Cannabis [online] at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis [accessed 23rd May] Wikipedia Online, Presumption of Innocence [online} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence#cite_note-2 [accessed on 20th March 2021] Wikipedia Online, Reasonable Doubt [online] at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_doubt#United_Kingdom [accessed on 20th March 2021]

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Highly Commended Humanities and Social Sciences: Psychology The importance of early diagnosis and interventions in children with autism

Lara Clifton Girls’ School What led Lara to choose this particular topic for her research is that her brother had a speech development delay and engaged in early intervention which really helped him, so she has a personal link to the topic. While conducting her research, Lara enjoyed learning about the different diagnosis methods and interventions. Thinking about what needs to be done in the future to improve and promote early intervention inspired her. Lara is planning to study Psychology at university.

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The importance of early diagnosis and interventions in children with autism Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a lifelong developmental disorder (National Autistic Society, 2021). ASD refers to a wide array of conditions characterised by repetitive behaviours, challenges with social skills, speech and non-verbal communication (Autism Speaks, 2021). There is not just one type of autism but many subtypes which are most likely the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors. They can often be accompanied by medical issues such as gastrointestinal disorders, sensory and processing disorders and mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression. Autism is very different for everyone, the spectrum includes people with autism who are severely challenged in the way they think and communicate to people who do not need much support and can live their lives independently (Autism Speaks, 2021). In this academic paper, my main argument will be that early identification and intervention in children with autism leads to more positive outcomes than a diagnosis when the individual is older. I will explore diagnosing techniques of autism in children and the problems that arise from these along with possible intervention types. These early interventions aim to make the symptoms of autism easier to manage and hopefully improve the individual’s quality of life. It is important to note that autism is not an illness, it simply means that their brain works differently from other people’s brains. At this time, there is no actual brain scan or blood test which can make an autism diagnosis (Compart and Laake, 2009). Instead, there have been many other diagnosis methods which have been developed as I will explain later. As of yet, there is no cure for autism, and this is why I will be examining possible interventions which can help to alleviate the impact of symptoms on the individual’s daily life. As autism is something someone is born with (NHS, 2019) and develops as the child grows, I will be exploring the fact that the earlier one is able to identify autism in a child and intervene, the more positive the outcomes. ASD diagnosing methods and problems with diagnosing young children The number of children who are diagnosed as having an ASD is increasing, presumably because we are now more aware. The prevalence of ASD’s is estimated to be 5-6 per 1000 in younger children. The NIASA (National Initiative for Autism: Screening and Assessment) has used this as a base for planning services for young children (Baird, Cass and Slonims, 2003). As one would expect, parents want their children to be diagnosed as early an age as possible which, in turn, will increase the chances of positive outcomes through intervention processes designed specifically for their child. Most parents start to pick up on signals when the child is around 18 months but Baird, Cass and Slonims (2003) suggest that (p.491) “early videos taken by parents at around the first birthday may show features which discriminate the child later diagnosed as having autism from other children of the same age” such as a lack of social interaction like smiling, lack of eye contact and showing a preference for aloneness. The criterion for diagnosing autism is set out in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). A criterion that some diagnoses have is how the child acts within a group of children. However, this is not useful for very young children and only applies to those of pre-school age. To identify symptoms of autism, a practitioner will normally assess three areas. These areas include difficulties the child has in reciprocal social interaction, difficulties in communication and the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviours or interests. The DSM-IV requires that these behaviours have been observed prior to the age of 3 (Lord and Richler, 2006). When diagnosing a child with autism, clinicians tend to use diagnostic instruments, parentreport measures and child-observations. However, a majority of the instruments that they use are not well suited for the task of identifying autism in very young children. Between the ages of 4 and 5 is considered to be the time when symptoms of ASD are clearest (Lord and Richler, 2006) and much of the studies done on prevalence of autism have been carried out on this 66 | P a g e

age group (Baird, Cass and Slonims, 2003) but constant research is being done to render diagnostic instruments in younger children so that practitioners are able to plan effective intervention ahead. An autism diagnosis can be reliably made between the ages of 2 and 3. However, diagnoses of the broader autistic spectrum is less reliable (Baird, Cass and Slonims, 2003). There is evidence to suggest that a child who is diagnosed with autism between the ages of 18-36 months, has a much greater chance of living an independent life in the future (Bajko and Bazgan, 2017). It is important to note that some features of autism may be more noticeable in younger children so the prevalence which is ascertained on current behaviours, in teenage or adult life might vary (Baird, Cass and Slonims, 2003). Many problems arise when diagnosing a very young child, a main one being is that many children’s development varies. If we consider the variability within a single domain and take language development as an example, “the rate at which a child acquires new words varies across development; the typical child learns only a few words a week between the ages of 12 and 16 months (Fenson et al., 1994) but learns an average of 3.6 words per day between 30 months and 6 years” (Anglin, cited in Lord and Richler, 2006, pp.37-38). Similar variability has also been found with children diagnosed with autism. The variation in presentation is what makes autism so different. Children with autism who are most severely affected normally show signs of language delay under the age of 5 but higher functioning children usually show behaviours around the ages of 4 and 5 or show subtle social problems in later childhood (Baird, Cass and Slonims, 2003). It is worthwhile noting that those with autism progress through developmental stages just like typically developing children (Prizant, 2019). “The LENA foundation released a study by Xu et al. in 2009 which tested an automatic screening tool which could detect autism using speech signal processing technology to analyse and monitor a child’s natural language environment and the speech patterns or vocalisation of the child. The study revealed that by applying pattern recognition and machine learning approaches, they could achieve 85-90% accuracy in cross-validation tests for autism detection” (Nelson, 2014, p. 33). This technology can also pinpoint cries and screams which are non-speech sounds and is aimed to be used on 24–48-month year olds which will be able to determine many factors which many parents would want to know such as the likelihood of developing autism and/or a language delay. These technologies greatly reduce the costly time spent by practitioners and also increases accuracy by removing human error and judgement (Nelson, 2014). Additionally, the cost of early diagnosis and subsequent treatment has often been too much for parents to pay so they have waited for a public service diagnosis which is often delayed until much later in childhood when it is evident there is a problem. The technologies that I have mentioned are more cost-effective while simultaneously standardising diagnostic practices such as monitoring devices which capture hours of behavioural and vocal data for analysing the child. More research should be done into distinguishing the most effective technologies for diagnosing and treating autism. As early signs and symptoms of ASD can be challenging to recognise, the American Academy of Paediatrics recommended that this be done “within a broader framework of developmental surveillance alongside ASD-specific surveillance and screening algorithm (Armstrong, 2008) during 18- and 24-month well-child visits. This is relevant for increasing the number of children diagnosed with high-functioning autism where speech and language delay symptoms may be less obvious and therefore, the diagnosis is easily missed” (Friedan et al., cited in Eapen, 2016). A difficulty with the developmental variability of children, especially those with autism, is that it is harder to diagnose Asperger’s Syndrome or ‘higherfunctioning autism’ as the indicating signs for a diagnosis may not show until the child is exposed to more social demand such as a primary school environment and some children may be thought to be advanced because of their special interests (Baird, Cass and Slonims, 2003). This puts the child with Asperger’s Syndrome at a greater disadvantage as starting intervention at a primary school age rather than pre-school continuing through primary school 67 | P a g e

is not as effective as the child has had much more time to develop and it makes it more difficult to reverse this development. A good idea would be to do a longitudinal study. This would need a sample of children who have been diagnosed at an early age and who have begun intervention continuing for a long period of time. The researchers should then evaluate their later development a few years later and then a few after that too comparing them with a child who is diagnosed and begins intervention much later into their childhood. Of course, it is impossible for this to be a fair test as one cannot intervene, see the results and then return the child to the earlier age and record the results with no intervention. It would make a big difference if pre-school staff were trained in autism and noticing the signs that indicate a possible ASD or developmental delay in order to refer a child to a practitioner. If the three criterion that were stated earlier are showing up in a pre-school child, then this would make a diagnosis quicker, if the staff who the child spent most of the day with could pinpoint these problems. A Swiss study has said that many schools were inexperienced in teaching children with autism and were not open to the idea or did not have the financial resources to hire co-therapists to sufficiently assist students in the classroom and so the progress children made in early intervention was not enough to function in the classroom without structured and systematic teaching. However, some schools were very open and eager to learn from parents and the child’s treatment team and so these kids continued to progress within the school setting (Gundelfinger et al., 2017). Taking into account parents of children with autism, it is difficult for them to gain a perspective and remember that what they are experiencing now with their child is simply one moment in time. Many parents find it hard to imagine their child ever progressing further than the patterns of perplexing or troubling behaviours that they are currently exhibiting such as lining up stuffed animals in precise order or not displaying any interest in other children. Parents of very young children worry that their child might never develop any language or progress any further than a few phrases (Prizant, 2019). As stated previously, children with autism do go through developmental stages much like typically developing children. Early identification coupled with a shift in practitioners’ mindset from ‘watch and wait’ to early referral and intervention of those identified with a developmental risk can substantially improve outcomes (Eapen, 2016). There is also a suggestion of the importance of a parentclinician partnership. It is important to consider that not every child presenting with a developmental risk may reach a diagnostic threshold, yet early identification and intervention offer the best outcome (Eapen, 2016). “Early diagnosis is a first step towards integrating the child with autism into a therapeutic programme and implicitly to alleviate delays in developing these children” (Bajko and Bazan, 2017, p.49). Moreover, early diagnosis allows parents to provide their children with specialised therapeutic intervention and if participation is consistent, remarkable advances in child development can be observed (Bajko and Bazan, 2017). There is no doubt that the earlier a child is diagnosed with autism and the sooner they have effective intervention planned specifically for them, the greater the chances of them gaining some of their communication back and the more positive the outcomes. Different interventions for Autism There are no treatments to have yet been shown to cure ASD but there are several types of interventions. Interventions for autism may maximise the ability of the child to be able to function and participate in a group or community and may also reduce symptoms. In addition, interventions may improve the child’s cognitive ability and skills for their everyday life (CDC, 2019). The wide variety of interventions to help manage autism and associated symptoms and the number of evaluations of their effectiveness can make it challenging for physicians to determine which interventions should be implemented for individual patients (Krebs Seida et al., 2009). This is why it is important to consider that every child is different and develops at different rates, whether they have a developmental disability or not. Therefore, it is important to remember the fact that not every intervention will work for every child as all children with autism, much like typically developing children, have different strengths and 68 | P a g e

challenges (Autism Speaks, 2021). For example, Intervention A could be beneficial for Child B but could have no improvement on Child A whereas Intervention B could not be beneficial for Child B but could have huge improvements on Child A. The best treatment or intervention can vary depending on an individual’s age in addition to their challenges, their differences and also, their strengths (CDC, 2019). When creating a treatment plan for a young child with autism, regular medical exams should be included as a child with ASD can get injured or ill just like typically developing children so it might be hard to tell if the child’s behaviour is related to a separate health condition or if it is related to ASD. For example, a child banging their head could be a symptom of ASD, but it could also be a symptom of the child having a headache. Therefore, not only should the child’s symptoms related to ASD be examined, but the child’s physical and mental health should also be constantly examined (CDC, 2019). The several types of interventions come under the categories of dietary approaches, medication, complementary and alternative medicine (CDC, 2019) and of course, behaviour and communication approaches. I will first discuss the category of dietary approaches. I will not argue that this treats autism, rather it helps to manage the symptoms and allows the child to be more in control of their behaviours associated with their autism. Many parents of children with developmental delays, most commonly autism, provide their children with gluten-free and casein-free (GFCF) diets. These diet interventions are aimed at preventing gluten and casein from entering the bloodstream and thereby reducing or eliminating the symptoms of autism (Munasinghe et al., cited in Zhang, Mayton and Wheeler, 2013). A large majority of the parents using this intervention fervently describe astounding improvements that occur as soon as they removed gluten and casein from their children’s meals (Alpert, 2007). Alpert (2007) claimed that (p.19) “surveys indicate that as many as 40% of children with autism have been placed on special diets at one time or another”. Links between gastrointestinal disease and symptomatic autism have been identified (Potts and Bellows, 2006). Therefore, the assumption behind the GFCF diet is that people with autism often have gastrointestinal abnormalities which produce the ‘leaky gut syndrome’ allowing unusual amounts of digestive by-products into the body (Alpert, 2007). In one study, a 90-item online questionnaire was completed by 387 parents of a child with an ASD on the efficacy of the GFCF diet in which they reported on their child’s food allergies, suspected food sensitivities, their gastrointestinal symptoms and the length of their GFCF diet. The parental reports were then analysed, and it was found that the children of the parents who reported the presence of gastrointestinal symptoms, food allergies and suspected food sensitivities had a greater improvement when under the GFCF diet in terms of their ASD behaviours and symptoms. Parental report of strict implementation of the GFCF diet corresponded to improvements in their child’s behaviour (Penessi and Klein, 2012). Of course, not everyone will improve as another child may benefit from a completely different intervention or a combination. An issue with the initial studies into GFCF diets for autistic children is that even though six research groups produced data which showed the improvements in the behaviour and cognition in the children, they lacked control subjects (the children who continued to digest the suspect proteins) (Alpert, 2007). As a result of this, the researchers were not able to identify whether the improvements were because of the GFCF diets or simply from other therapies conducted at the same time and/or the child’s maturation. There is another popular but unproved therapy combining the GFCF diet with supplements of omega-3 fatty acids. Additionally, one should consider that adoption of the GFCF diet could have a negative impact on families, at the same time as improving the child’s behaviour. There is a higher cost for special and alternative foods as well as extra time to prepare the food and a greater risk of nutrient deficiencies meaning the possible need for additional supplements such as vitamins (Zhang, Mayton and Wheeler, 2013). However, if the diet is working well with the individual with autism, then the benefits could outweigh the costs. “Christison and Ivany (2006) summarised four overlapping biological theories that support the GFCF diet interventions: opioid excess, reduced peptidase activity, immune dysfunction autoimmunity and gastrointestinal abnormalities” (Zhang, Mayton and Wheeler, 2013, p.277). 69 | P a g e

The most popular hypothesis states that the by-products of gluten and casein disrupt brain function by altering opioid activity. The abnormal leakage of gluten and casein related metabolites with opioid agonist properties from the gut pass in the central nervous system which lead to intensified brain opioid activity and therefore, disrupted brain function (Christison, Ivany, Whiteley and Shattock, cited in Zhang, Mayton and Wheeler, 2013). “Dr Panksepp in 1980 proposed that children with autism might have elevated levels of naturally occurring opioids in their central nervous systems” (Lewis, 2011, p.6). Opioid activity is involved in social bonding as well as pain regulation (Alpert, 2007). There is another theory that “posits that the gut leakage triggers a harmful immune response” (Alpert, 2007, p.20). It is worth considering that scientists are yet to verify that people with autism have a higher incidence of gastrointestinal issues but because the aetiology of autism is poorly understood and autism varies in different ways, researchers are open to the possibility that gluten and casein might aggravate symptoms of ASD in some way in some children, maybe even by creating discomfort in their intestines. Although there is little scientific evidence to back up the GFCF diet interventions, parents constantly report that they have “witnessed dramatic improvements in their children’s behaviour by removing foods that cause harm from their children’s diets” (Mumper, cited in Lewis, 2011) suggesting that they can be an effective intervention for children with autism and “many children with autism can improve with careful attention to nutrition” (Mumper, cited in Lewis, 2011). We must still keep in mind that every child is different, a diet intervention might work on its own for one child, it might work for another child when combined with behavioural interventions or it might not work at all. I will now explore the category of medicine as an intervention approach for a child with autism. As mentioned previously, this is not a cure, but it can be best used, like other interventions to alleviate issues that can arise from having autism such as anxiety, sleep problems, hyperactivity and so on. Aggression is an impairing and frequent symptom of autism (Matson et al. and Dominick et al., cited in Frazier et al., 2010) and antipsychotic medications have been used as treatment for this such as risperidone. There is some medication which has not been approved for children under 18 even if they improve some of the symptoms an individual is experiencing (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2021) but “risperidone was approved by the FDA for the treatment of irritability in children and adolescents with autism” and “is the first atypical antipsychotic to be approved for use in children and adolescents” (Posey et al., 2008, p.6). Other atypical antipsychotics used to treat behavioural symptoms of autism include olanzapine and ziprasidone (Posey et al., 2008). Of course, with drugs, there are side effects. Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors could be used to intervene with the symptoms of autism as they reduce the frequency and intensity of repetitive behaviours, decrease aggressive behaviour and they can also improve eye contact (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2021). Tricyclics, stimulants and anti-anxiety medications can also alleviate symptoms. Almost one third of those with autism have a seizure disorder so anticonvulsants are sometimes prescribed (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2021). Frazier et al. (2010) looked into the effectiveness of medication combined with behavioural intervention, specifically for reducing aggression in youth, and concluded that behavioural treatment combined with antipsychotics was the most effective approach to reducing aggressive behaviours in youths with ASD. The mood stabilisers and sleep medications did not have an impact on reduction of aggression. As shown, there are many different medications that could possibly be used to help to manage symptoms of autism, it may be that a child does not get any help from medication. It might be best to begin with a behavioural intervention which can focus on the child and be tailored to the child’s needs. Medication could then be used on the side of this or after behavioural intervention as a way to keep an individual’s behaviour in line. Medicine can have a large impact on symptoms associated with ASD such as hyperactivity or mood. However, they have not proven to directly tackle the core features of autism (Silverman et al., 2010). Therefore, I will now move on to discuss behavioural and communication interventions for children with autism and how these can be a huge benefit if 70 | P a g e

used early. There are a wide variety of different approaches that can be used to help a child with autism from applied behavioural analysis (ABA) of which there are many subtypes that can be applied to assistive technology to speech therapy and so many more. They provide direction, organisation and structure for the child as well as family participation (CDC, 2019). Among the various interventions available, Axelrod and Rosenwasser (2001) have said “applied behaviour analysis is the best empirically evaluated” (p. 671). Lovass’ study in 1987 showed that with appropriate intervention children with autism would be able to make social and intellectual gains previously seen as impossible. His study used 40 children with two control groups and an experimental group of 19 children. The experimental group received 40 hours of one-to-one training every week whereas the control group had 10 hours or less. This showed to have a major difference in terms of outcomes. 47% of the experimental group achieved IQs exceeding 100 whereas only 2% of the control group achieved this (Axelrod and Rosenwasser, 2001). This study has shown how important it is for intervention to begin at an early age as well as being of sufficient duration in order for normal functioning to be reached and as shown in this study, has a very good chance of happening as these early ABA interventions produce language gains for the children (Axelrod and Rosenwasser, 2001). It might be that the remaining 13% need a longer duration, a mixture of different interventions or that this particular intervention just had no impact on them as every child is different. Another communication approach that has been widely used from the very many that exist is PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) developed by Bondy and Frost which includes six phases with a primary goal to teach functional communications. It can sometimes help the child develop speech by using picture symbols. PECS was first implemented with pre-school students diagnosed with autism and used specific prompting and reinforcement strategies which, in the end, led to independent communication. Errors that the children make can be corrected by the practitioners but there are no verbal prompts in order to build on the child’s initiation (Pyramid Educational Consultants, N/A). “Bond and Frost report that 59% of children with autism who are properly trained with PECS spontaneously develop independent speech” (Axelrod and Rosenwasser, 2001, p. 674). Assistive technology such as iPads can also be used with children with autism as speech generating devices (SGDs). When comparing the efficacy of PECS with an iPad on three Maltese preschool-aged children who had ASD and limited functional speech, the results suggested that both SGDs and PECS can be appropriate for teaching requesting skills to beginning communicators (Agius and Vance, 2015). Here, I have only expanded on two of the many different behavioural and communication approaches there are to help manage symptoms of ASD. To conclude, early diagnosis is essential, and intervention needs to be thoroughly considered before being implemented in order to give the child the best possible care and chance of living independently in the future. Throughout this academic paper, I have explored various diagnosing techniques, problems that can arise with these and ways to overcome them. I have expanded on only a very limited number of interventions in comparison to the wide range available. We must remember that as every child is different, every intervention needs to be specifically designed for them. The problem with research into diagnosis and interventions of young children is that you cannot rewind the child’s life to try out an intervention earlier or even a different intervention. This highlights the importance of the fact that every child is different and if presenting with possible developmental delays, a child should be enrolled in an intervention programme designed for them and monitored to ensure that they are getting the best possible outcome. A young child’s brain is far easier to influence than a child at a later stage in their development. Many of the studies discussed in this academic paper have focused on young children, highlighting the importance and need of early intervention with a child who has ASD. There is of course plenty more research to be done but it does seem evident that the best time to diagnose and intervene is before the child’s brain has fully developed.

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Reference List: Agius, M. and Vance, M., (2015). A comparison of PECS and iPad to teach requesting to preschoolers with autistic spectrum disorders. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, [ejournal] 32(1), pp.58-68. https://doi.org/10.3109/07434618.2015.1108363 Alpert, M., 2007. The autism diet. Scientific American, 296(4), pp. 19-20. Autism Speaks, 2021. What is autism? [online] https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism [Accessed 11 May 2021].

Available

Autism Speaks, 2021. Treatments for autism. [online] Available https://www.autismspeaks.org/treatments-autism [Accessed 3 June 2021].

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Axelrod, S. and Rosenwasser, B., 2001. The contributions of applied behaviour analysis to the education of people with autism. Behaviour Modification, 25(5), pp.671-677. Baird, G., Cass, H. and Slonims, V., 2003. Diagnosis of autism. British Medical Journal, 327(7413), pp.488-493. Bajko, A.-S. and Bazgan, M., 2017. The importance of early diagnosis and intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders. Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov, series VII: social sciences, 10 (59) No.2, pp.49-56. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2019. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): treatment and intervention services for autism spectrum disorder. [online] Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/treatment.html# [Accessed 16 March 2021]. Compart, P. and Laake, D., 2009. The kid friendly ADHD and autism cookbook: the ultimate guide to the gluten-free, milk-free diet. Beverly: Fair Wind Press Eapen, V., 2016. Early identification of autism spectrum disorder: do we need a paradigm shift? Australian and New Zealand journal of psychology, 50(8), pp. 718-720. Frazier, T., Youngstrom, E., Haycook, T., Sinoff, A. Dimitriou, F., Knapp, J. and Sinclair, L., 2010. Effectiveness of medication combined with intensive behavioural intervention for reducing aggression in youth with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 20(3), pp. 167-177. Gundelfinger, R., Schenker, T., Steinhausen, H.-C. and Studer, N., 2017. Implementation of early intensive behavioural intervention for children with autism in Switzerland. BMC psychiatry, 17(34), pp. 1-9. Krebbs Seida, J., Ospina, M., Karkhaneh, M., Hartling, L., Smith, V. and Clark, B., 2009. Systematic reviews of psychosocial interventions for autism: an umbrella review. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology [online] 51, pp.95-104. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/j.1469-8749.2008.03211.x [Accessed 4 June 2021]. Lewis, L., 2011. Special diets for special kids. Arlington: Future Horizons. Lord, C. and Richler, J., 2006. Early diagnosis of children with autism spectrum disorder. Social and communication development in autism spectrum disorders: early identification, diagnosis and intervention, pp.35-53. National Autistic Society, 2021. What is autism? [online]. Available at: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/what-is-autism [Accessed 11 May 2021]. 72 | P a g e

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2021. Medication treatment for autism [online]. Available at: https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/autism/conditioninfo/treatments/medicationtreatment [Accessed 3 June 2021]. Nelson, A., 2014. Emerging technologies in autism diagnosis, therapy, treatment, and teaching. Educational technology, 54(4), pp. 32-37. NHS, 2019. What is autism? [online]. Available https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/autism/what-is-autism/ [Accessed 11 May 2021].

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Penessi, C. and Klein, L., 2013. Effectiveness of the gluten-free, casein free diet for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder: based on parental report, Nutritional Neuroscience, [e-journal] 15(2), pp. 85-91. https://doi.org/10.1179/1476830512Y.0000000003 Posey, D., Stigler, K., Erickson, C. and McDougle, C., 2008. Antipsychotics in the treatment of autism. The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 118(1), pp. 6-14. Potts, M. and Bellows, B., 2006. Speaker’s corner: autism and diet. Journal of epidemiology and community healthy (1979-), 60(5), p. 375. Prizant, B., 2019. Uniquely human: a different way of seeing autism. London: Souvenir Press. Pyramid Education Consultants, N/A. What is PECS? [online]. Available at: https://pecsunitedkingdom.com/pecs/ [Accessed 3 June 2021]. Silverman, J., Yang, M., Lord, C. and Crawley, J., 2010. Behavioural phenotyping assays for mouse models of autism. Nature reviews neuroscience, [e-journal] 11(7), pp.490-502. 10.1038/nrn2851 Zhang, J., Mayton, M-R. and Wheeler, J-J., 2013. Effectiveness of gluten-free and caseinfree diets for individuals with autism spectrum disorders: an evidence-based research synthesis. Education and training in autism and developmental disabilities, 48(2), pp. 276287.

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STEM

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First Prize STEM: Biology Should gene drive technology be used to eradicate malaria?

Sarina Thandi Girls’ School Sarina chose to research gene drive mosquitoes as they are unlike any tool ever seen before and have enormous potential in the fight against malaria. Watching a documentary about the uses of CRISPR first introduced her to gene drives and inspired her to investigate further. She enjoyed learning about such an important global issue and exploring the many different arguments surrounding the use of gene drive mosquitoes. Sarina is planning to study Natural Sciences at university and this project has given her a good insight into scientific research.

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Should gene drive technology be used to eradicate malaria? Introduction ‘Every 2 minutes, a child dies from malaria’ (WHO 2019). Nearly half of the world is at risk of malaria and in 2019 alone there were 229 million cases and 409 000 malaria deaths (WHO 2020). Despite global progress in reducing malaria deaths by half between 2000 and 2015, in the past few years progress has stalled. Alarmingly, in some countries, malaria cases are on the rise. Current methods to control malaria - personal protective measures such as nets, drugs and larval control - are facing increasing threats, including mosquitoes developing new behavioural patterns, the spread of insecticide and antimalarial drug resistance, as well as a lack of funding and commitment from countries. These pose the risk of reversing progress made. Whilst malaria can be cured if diagnosed and treated quickly, it is not always possible is most developing countries where malaria is widespread. As a result of global warming and globalisation, malaria is no longer confined to tropical countries. The Plasmodium parasite will be able to survive more easily in Europe and outbreaks will become increasingly common. These challenges highlight that conventional technology has reached its limit and that new tools are urgently needed in order to control malaria. The development of gene drive technology offers enormous potential in the fight against malaria. Gene drives use CRISPR to insert and rapidly spread a genetic modification through a population. Once a gene drive, consisting of the altered gene, Cas-9 enzyme and guide RNAs, is engineered into an organism’s genome, the offspring with inherit the drive on one chromosome and a normal gene on the other. During early development Cas-9 cuts the unedited gene, exactly where the guide RNA directs it. The cut is then repaired using the drive as a template, leaving the offspring with two copies of the modified gene. This means that nearly 100% of offspring inherit the modified gene, rather than 50% under the mendelian rule of inheritance (Wyss Institute at Harvard University, 2014), as shown in figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Standard Inheritance versus Gene Drive Inheritance (Nature, 2019)

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Gene drives are unlike any tool seen before; they have the potential to genetically modify entire populations of mosquitoes, which could help eradicate malaria and save millions of lives. According to Dr Pedro Alonso, Director of the WHO Global Malaria Programme, “genetically modified mosquitoes are one of a number of promising new tools that could help speed the pace of progress against malaria and other vector-borne diseases.” However, alongside these possibilities there are a number of major social, ethical and environmental concerns which have caused much debate within the scientific community. Therefore, in this essay I will assess whether this technology should be used by carefully weighing up the potential benefits and risks. Approaches to gene drive mosquitoes There are different approaches that use gene drives which have shown promise in laboratory experiments. One approach is to suppress the population by spreading genes that cause infertility in female offspring (Hammond et al. 2016) or genes that cause mosquitoes to have predominantly male offspring, ‘driving-Y chromosome’ (Beaghton 2017), as there won’t be enough female mosquitoes to reproduce, causing the population to collapse. Another approach is population modification which makes the mosquitoes resistant to transmitting the malaria parasite by adding a new antibody gene (Gantz el al. 2015). However, a possible disadvantage the latter approach is that gene drives could cause the Plasmodium parasite to evolve and become even more harmful or find another host. It was highly probable that mutations would develop, however, a recent study by Kyrou et al. (2018) found by inserting the drive for population suppression into an essential fertility gene which is unsusceptible to mutations, called doublesex, there was no resistance to the drive. The gene-drive was 100% efficient as within 8-12 generations all of the caged female Anopheles gambiae had the modified gene causing infertility and no eggs were produced at all. As of July 2019, the team had carried out nine cage experiments and had inserted over a million drives targeting the doublesex gene and had continued to see no resistance. Now they are altering the drive to cut two places on the doublesex gene to further ensure the probability of resistance arising is extremely low. (Crisanti 2019) If this approach was implemented in the wild, the team predicted the affected species could become extinct in just one year. This presents a great deal of hope that gene drives will be successful in the wild, but such a restricted setting in a lab may not be an accurate representation of how these mosquitoes would act in the wild. There are several factors which could work against the spread of a gene drive in the wild. Firstly, from a previous release of genetically modified insects without gene drives, organisms developed in a laboratory were less likely to survive in the wild than the wild equivalent of their species meaning they would have a smaller chance to mate and spread the modified gene. Similarly, gene drives could cause genetic isolation, where gene drive mosquitoes may not mate with other wild populations which would result in some groups avoiding inheriting the modified gene. Mosquitoes are also very dispersed in the wild, so it is unclear how much they will interact with each other. Also, a mutation which causes a small difference in the base sequence of the gene targeted by the gene drive could result in the Cas-9 enzyme not recognising it, meaning the gene drive not work in that organism, however, this is not very likely in the doublesex gene. Benefits of gene drive mosquitoes Gene drive mosquitoes have the potential to eradicate malaria and save millions of lives. They also have many benefits over current tools. Firstly, it is important to emphasise that there are around 3,500 species of mosquitoes in the world, but gene-drives are able to target the specific species of mosquitoes that transmit malaria; scientists believe we could eradicate malaria by targeting just 3 species. In Africa these are Anopheles arabiensis, Anopheles coluzzii and Anopheles gambiae, which account for 90% of the world’s malaria cases (Albert, 2020). This means that, in contrast to insecticides, gene drives will leave all other insects untouched and therefore may have a lesser impact on the ecosystem. Secondly, the use of gene drive mosquitoes means there will no longer be a large variety in the equipment and medicine people have access to or are able to afford; gene drive mosquitoes provide a cost-effective solution 77 | P a g e

and will benefit everyone in society without obvious wealth, education or age-related bias. This may increase the quality of life of countries burdened by malaria and would allow public health resources could be used on other important health problems instead. Risks of gene drive mosquitoes Despite the huge gains this technology could have, there are also some very serious risks. Gene drives have the potential to permanently alter entire populations of organisms and therefore ecosystems. When developing gene drives, environmental impacts have been low priority. The lack of funding in this sector is worrying as even a small gap in scientists understanding of the habitat could disrupt the balance of the ecosystem causing irreversible ecological damage. Before certain species of mosquitoes are eradicated, the role of these mosquitoes in the ecosystem must be found in order to see how other organisms will be impacted. According to Matan Shelomi, an entomologist who is a specialist in insect microbiology, whilst mosquito larvae are eaten by a few varieties of fish, amphibians, and insects, and adult mosquitoes are eaten by birds and bats, no known species rely solely on mosquitoes to survive so they are not a key component of the food chain. In fact, most prefer other sources of food. He also says that mosquitoes don’t play a crucial role in pollination. This suggests that mosquitoes play a small role in ecosystems, and they will not collapse if mosquitoes are eradicated, as far as we know. However, there are concerns that whatever species replaces mosquitoes in the ecosystem if they are eradicated could be just as bad or even worse than mosquitoes. Although many scientists think genetically modified mosquitoes do not pose a risk to human health, there are concerns that the gene drive could spread to non-target species via hybridisation. To predict the effects of releasing gene drive mosquitoes scientists are using computer modelling. For example, a model by Eckhoff et al. (2016) and MGdrivE by Héctor et al. (2019) take into account a number of different factors such as mosquito behaviour, inheritance patterns, properties of the gene drive and environmental conditions. Modelling also considers temporal dynamics as it is harder to eliminate populations in places with strong seasonality. However, it is impossible for computer modelling to predict what’s going to happen in the future in a complex ecosystem with 100% accuracy. Release of genetically modified mosquitoes In 2019 Target Malaria, a non-profit research consortium funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, went one step further by releasing genetically modified non gene drive sterile male mosquitoes in Bana, Burkina Faso. These mosquitoes do not bite and produce no offspring, which means the gene drive is not passed on. The purpose of this first test was to acquire more knowledge on the role Anopheles mosquitoes play within the ecosystem and to increase stakeholder engagement. This keeps the local community informed which is extremely important as they will be most affected by these changes. Target Malaria released approximately 6400 genetically modified mosquitoes, without gene drives, and 8500 unmodified mosquitoes for a comparative study. After seven months of monitoring, the team came to the following conclusions: these sterile genetically modified mosquitoes were recaptured in swarms which shows that they can take part in similar swarming activities to wild mosquitoes which are important for reproduction. The sterile mosquitoes did not spread out further than the release village boundaries, however this means they are less mobile compared to the wild mosquitoes released. The team also estimated that the sterile mosquitoes did not survive as long as their unmodified equivalent (Diabaté, Target Malaria 2021). Whilst these results are promising, it will take years more of research before they have a gene drive ready to deploy against malaria. Delphine Thizy, who works closely between Target Malaria and communities in Burkina Faso, believes it will be at least five years before the process to release genetically modified mosquitoes may start in Burkina Faso and most likely around 10 years before they could be available for other countries (following the UN rejecting a gene-drive moratorium in 2018, and WHO releasing a position statement officially supporting the research of genetically modified 78 | P a g e

mosquitoes for the control of vector-borne diseases in 2020). However, she warns that the process may be slower depending on public support and that “if people reject it, it might just stop”. Target malaria plan to use gene drive mosquitoes in conjunction with current methods – pesticides, drugs and vaccines – to ensure malaria will be fully eradicated. Controlling gene drives There are concerns about the predictability and controllability of gene drives once they are let loose, therefore precautions have been put in place to halt the spread or even reverse gene drives if they are seen to have a negative impact on the environment. One method is through ‘daisy-chain’ gene drives (Smidler et al. 2016) as they are self-exhausting. They consist of a series of genetic elements where each element drives the next. The final element of the chain cannot copy and paste itself therefore is only spread to 50% of the offspring under the normal rules of inheritance. This means this element will gradually die off after several generations, causing the other elements along the chain to eventually disappear as well. By adding more elements to the chain it would allow gene drives to continue for longer in the wild. Daisy chain drives would make it possible for gene drive mosquitoes to be safely tested in the wild, but would also allow countries to use them locally without the risk of gene drives spreading beyond the target population. If these tests show no negative impacts, a more permanent drive can subsequently be released. Scientists have also developed reversal drives which are able to overwrite the changes introduced by the original drive. These kill switches would provide a safety net for if gene drives spread out of control, or the potential misuse of gene drives. However, the ecological effects may not necessarily be reversed. These methods are not without their challenges as these additional elements of control can make the whole system more susceptible to mutations. Also, daisy chain and reversal drives have not been proven to work in the actual environment, they are mostly in theoretical models, so we don’t know how they would perform and unforeseen scenarios could arise. Therefore, releasing genetically modified mosquitoes should not be based on having Anti-CRISPRs.

Figure 2: Daisy chain gene drives for the alteration of local populations (Smidler et al. 2016)

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Who should decide whether gene drive mosquitoes are released? One of the hardest questions to answer is who should decide whether gene drives are released. The decision to use gene drives to fight malaria does not belong solely to science, most scientists and politicians believe it also requires public engagement and informed consent – as these people deserve to have a say in a decision which will hugely affect them, and as they are likely to reject technology forced upon from the outside. However, to this date not enough African stakeholders who live in these areas affected by malaria have been involved in the decision making. Despite most African countries being opposed to genetically modified crops, partly due to their association with multinational companies, support for gene drive mosquitoes to eradicate malaria is high. An important reason for this is the recent collaboration between European and African scientists to develop this technology. This has created trust and helps dismiss claims that Target Malaria’s gene drives are “colonial medicine” (Khan 2020). Genetically modified mosquitoes will spread to multiple countries, even continents, which complicates the decision-making process. National and international regulations will need to be worked out before gene drives are implemented in the world. As this technology is capable to altering shared environments, Kevin Esvelt, the engineer of gene drives said, “at the end of the day, unless you have widespread public support, you can’t do it”. In turn this raises the question “If one community doesn’t want it, does that mean that the other four or five communities around it aren’t allowed to move forward?” (Kuiken 2020). At this point in time, this question remains unanswered. It is important that all countries and communities that could be affected by gene drive mosquitoes are openly informed about both the benefits and risks, however, as the size of the affected region increases it becomes harder to attain a high level of engagement. The use of daisy drives could help simplify decision-making by enabling local communities to decide whether, when, and how to alter local ecosystems only. Ethical issues CRISPR has the potential to wipe out populations of mosquitoes, however before gene drives are implemented, there are many ethical issues associated with this technology that scientists must carefully weighed up. Whilst humans have driven many species to extinction in the past, many are hesitant to promote the intentional extinction of a species. Population suppression of mosquitoes is much more controversial than population replacement as it raises ethical issues about the permissibility of eradicating an entire species. Some argue the former method is intrinsically wrong due to the sanctity of life; the belief that all life is sacred and important. However, this view is not in line with everyday practices as people regularly destroy living things for their own end. Others argue forcing a species into extinction through gene drive technology amounts to playing God, which raises the question: do humans have the right to eradicate an entire species? However, these two arguments are inconsistent with the intentional eradication of the variola virus responsible for smallpox, through vaccinations in the 20th, which is now regarded as one of modern medicine’s greatest achievements. The sanctity of century life argument cannot apply to mosquitoes but not viruses, and surely the millions of lives saved by the eradication of smallpox outweighs the moral wrong of being hubris? On the other hand, the total utilitarian view promotes the greatest amount of the pleasure or happiness for the greatest number of people. The continued existence of mosquitoes will lead to countless more deaths and suffering, therefore utilitarians can support the view that there is a stronger moral reason to eradicate mosquitoes than there is to not. Whilst none of these moral objections seem insurmountable, the debate on the ethics of using gene drive mosquitoes will go on for much longer and slow down the decision on whether to use them. Alternatives to gene drives Other methods to eradicate malaria should not be ruled out. Mareike Imken, a campaigner at the German not-for-profit organization Save Our Seeds, believes other methods at targeting malaria could in fact save more lives. “Malaria is caused by the mosquito, yes, but the suffering 80 | P a g e

and the deaths are not caused solely by this pathogen. It’s the social environment, it’s the health system, it is how quickly people can be treated, how healthy they are in general.” Using gene drives will not address these underlying issues in the healthcare systems of the developing countries affected by malaria; we should try to find solutions which will benefit other problems as well, for example investing in public health and implementing a good hygiene and sanitation policy. Conclusion Gene drive mosquitoes represent an extremely powerful tool with the potential to help eradicate malaria. The potential benefits of using gene drive mosquitoes should not be taken lightly; millions of lives could be saved which you cannot put a price on. Whilst tremendous progress has been made over the last few years, much more research is needed to overcome the many challenges and risks associated with gene drives. As with all new technology the potential consequences can never be fully understood, but scientists have never genetically modified organisms on this scale before so it is important to not rush; we must be as sure as possible that the benefits outweigh the risks. Gene drive technology also cannot be assessed based on its best possible use; it is imperative we also consider the worst-case scenario, and how likely this is to happen. Gene drive mosquitoes will not just be about malaria, they could be the spark which leads to use of gene drives in spreading bioweapons and other offensive uses. Where will we draw the line? Therefore, all other alternatives to eradicate malaria must be sufficiently explored before gene drives are implemented. Due to the near irreversibility and the ability of gene drives to spread to multiple countries, it is imperative international regulations are worked out and that there is widespread public support for the use of gene drive mosquitoes. The eventual decision to use gene drives in different countries will require careful evaluation on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the known risks, benefits and public opinions.

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Reference List: Adolfi, A et al. (2020). Efficient population modification gene-drive rescue system in the malaria mosquito Anopheles stephensi. Nature Communications. 11, 553. Albert, H. (2020). Gene Drives: A Controversial Tool to Fight Malaria. Available: https://www.labiotech.eu/crispr/gene-drives-controversy/. Last accessed 8 February 2021. Beaghton, A., Beaghton, P.J & Burt, A. (2017). Vector control with driving Y chromosomes: modelling the evolution of resistance. BMC. 16 (286) Callaway, E. (2017). Gene drives thwarted by emergence of resistant organisms. Nature. 542 (15). Creighton, J. (unknown). Gene Drives: Assessing the Benefits & Risks. Available: https://futureoflife.org/gene-drives-assessing-the-benefits-risks/. Last accessed 8 February 2021. Diabaté, A. (2021). Results from months of monitoring following the first release of non gene drive genetically modified mosquitoes in Africa.Available: https://targetmalaria.org/results-frommonths-of-monitoring-following-the-first-release-of-non-gene-drive-genetically-modifiedmosquitoes-in-africa/. Last accessed 13 June 2021. Dolgin, E. (2020). The kill-switch for CRISPR that could make gene-editing safer. Nature. 577, 308-310. Eckhoff, P et al. (2017). Impact of mosquito gene drive on malaria elimination in a computational model with explicit spatial and temporal dynamics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 114 (2), E255-E264. Gantz, V et al. (2015). Highly efficient Cas9-mediated gene drive for population modification of the malaria vector mosquito Anopheles stephensi. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 112 (49), E6736-E6743. Hammond, A & Galizi, R. (2018). Gene drives to fight malaria: current state and future directions. Taylor & Francis Online. p412-423. Héctor, M et al. (2019). MGDrivE: A modular simulation framework for the spread of gene drives through spatially-explicit mosquito populations. Available: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/350488v2.full. Last accessed 8 February 2021. Khan, J. (2020). The Gene Drive Dilemma: We Can Alter Entire Species, but Should We?. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/magazine/gene-drive-mosquitoes.html. Last accessed 13 June 2021. Kyrou, K et al. (2018). A CRISPR–Cas9 gene drive targeting doublesex causes complete population suppression in caged Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes. Nature Biotechnology. 36, 1062–1066. Le Page, M. (2016). ‘Daisy-chain’ gene drive vanishes after only a few generations. Available: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2093963-daisy-chain-gene-drive-vanishes-after-only-afew-generations/. Last accessed 22nd March 2021. Noble, C et al. (2019). Daisy-chain gene drives for the alteration of local populations. PNAS. 116 (17), 8275-8282.

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North, A., Burt, A. & Godfray, H. (2019). Modelling the potential of genetic control of malaria mosquitoes at national scale. BMC Biology. 17 (26). Pennisi, E. (2015). Gene drive turns mosquitoes into malaria fighters. Science. 350 (6264), 1014. Prabhune, M. (2019). Eradicating Malaria with CRISPR: Mosquito Gene Editing Approach. Available: https://www.synthego.com/blog/gene-drive-malaria. Last accessed 13 June 2021. Pugh, J. (2016). Driven to extinction? The ethics of eradicating mosquitoes with gene-drive technologies. Journal of Medical Ethics. 42 (9), 578-581. Scudellari, M. (2019). Self-destructing mosquitoes and sterilized rodents: the promise of gene drives. Available: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02087-5. Last accessed 8th February 2021. Smidler, A et al.. (2016). Daisy-chain gene drives for the alteration of local populations. Available: https://v3.pubpub.org/pub/daisydrives/files/main.ppub. Last accessed 13 June 2021. The Royal Society. (2018). Gene drive research: why it matters.Available: https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/Publications/2018/08-11-18-gene-drive-statement.pdf. Last accessed 13 June 2021. University of California Irvine. (2020). Researchers pioneer more effective way to block malaria transmission in mosquitoes. Available: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201103140613.htm. Last accessed 8 February 2021. World Health Organization. (2019). Malaria eradication: benefits, future scenarios and feasibility: Executive summary. Geneva: World Health Organization. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep28211?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Targ et+Malaria&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DTarget%2BMalaria%26s d%3D2019&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_solr_cloud%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastlydefault%3A70ac19653aee8da1974e1c0c5bcdd45c&seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents (Accessed: 8 February 2021) World Health Organization. (2021). WHO issues new guidance for research on genetically modified mosquitoes to fight malaria and other vector-borne diseases. Available: https://www.who.int/news/item/19-05-2021-who-issues-new-guidance-for-research-ongenetically-modified-mosquitoes-to-fight-malaria-and-other-vector-borne-diseases. Last accessed 13 June 2021. World Health Organization. (2020). WHO takes a position on genetically modified mosquitoes. Available: https://www.who.int/news/item/14-10-2020-who-takes-a-position-ongenetically-modified-mosquitoes. Last accessed 13 June 2021. World Health Organization. (2020). World Malaria Report 2019. Geneva: World Health Organization. Available at: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241565721 (Accessed 8 February 2021)

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Second Prize STEM: Medicine How can understanding the role of genetics in influencing the susceptibility of type 2 diabetes in South Asians be used to develop effective and individualised treatment methods?

Yathusia Asokanathan Girls’ School Yathusia’s research project was inspired by a resident she had been looking after whilst volunteering at her local care home. The resident was an elderly South Asian woman who suffered from type 2 diabetes (T2D), even though she did not portray any of the common characteristics associated with this chronic disease. She explained to Yathusia that many of her family members suffered from the illness, making her question whether there could be a genetic influence. After observing how the disease was both mentally and physically impacting her, Yathusia was inspired to carry out further research as to why T2D was common in her ethnicity, and whether there were any potential measures to prevent or delay the onset of the disease. Yathusia enjoyed reading specific books and articles which explained different cases in history where both environmental and genetic factors influenced the progression of a disease in a population (e.g. the Dutch famine in 1944). She also found discussing what she had researched with her friends in her Aske Level group was really helpful as they would often have different ideas and questions that contributed to her project. She is planning to study Medicine at university.

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How can understanding the role of genetics in influencing the susceptibility of type 2 diabetes in South Asians be used to develop effective and individualised treatment methods? Introduction Often referred to as having a ‘diabetes pandemic’ (Hills, et al., 2018, p. 1), South Asia is a region where Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has become a rapidly developing public health concern. The considerably high prevalence of T2D in South Asia proposes major challenges on a national level, as well as an individual level, as it forces government officials to tackle the accumulating rates of T2D with limited health-care resources. An increased consumption of calorie-dense foods and a decline in the level of physical activity (as a result of rural to urban migration) could be held accountable for the increasing prevalence of diabetes amongst South Asians. However, there are noticeable ethnic differences in susceptibility of T2D, and progression of the metabolic disorder in an individual, which suggests that the onset of this disease is not just influenced by environmental factors, but also mediated by genetic factors. This relationship between susceptibility to disease and genetics of a particular ethnic population can be further distorted by environmental factors, making it harder to identify and eliminate the underlying cause of rising T2D rates in the South Asian population. Therefore, by taking into account how genetic and environmental factors have affected susceptibility to, and progression of T2D, it can be possible to tailor prevention and treatment plans to a specific population in attempts to decrease prevalence of disease, and provide effective medicines that increase therapeutic outcome. 2.0

Synergistic effect of environmental and genetic factors

2.1

Genetically influenced subtypes of T2D

Susceptibility to T2D, and the progression of the disease in an individual is said to be determined by the ‘complex interplay’ (Hills, et al., 2018, p. 5) of genetic and environmental factors over a significant period of time. However, recent evidence implies that one factor can outweigh the effects of the other, such that the chance of the individual eventually developing the disease is entirely dependent on one particular factor. Studies carried out by Gujral et al. (2013) found that for comparative levels of BMI and lifestyle, South Asians were at significantly higher risk of developing T2D, and at an earlier age, compared to Caucasians. This gives rise to the possibility that the South Asian population possess predisposed genetic risk factors which increase susceptibility to T2D and make the outcome of the disease inevitable, regardless of whether the individual is maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle. This possibility is further supported by the identification of the two ‘subtypes’ of T2D in Indian populations: ‘type 2A’ associated with obesity and insulin resistance, and ‘type 2B’ characterised by leaner body mass and beta-cell dysfunction (Unnikrishnan, et al., 2017). Although there is a linear relationship between T2D and obesity, South Asian individuals with lower body fat percentages and smaller body masses are still developing the disease. Furthermore, even if a South Asian individual is maintaining similar BMI levels to their Caucasian counterpart, the South Asian is still at an increased risk of developing T2D. This further emphasizes the influence of pre-existing genetic factors on the outcome of the disease, suggesting that the genetic make-up of the South Asian population encompasses inbred T2D risk factors which make the occurrence of T2D in South Asians highly likely, or seemingly unavoidable. Information regarding genetic influences on the development of T2D cannot be used alone to successfully supress the surge of T2D rates in the South Asian population, as it fails to explain how these inborn factors could interfere with biological processes in the body associated with glycaemia (e.g. insulin secretion, beta-cell function and fat deposition) to increase susceptibility of T2D. In order provide South Asian individuals with effective methods of prevention and treatment, questions regarding exactly how genetic influences trigger the onset of T2D must be answered; whether genetics can influence the pathophysiology of the disease (i.e. how the disease affects the body and progresses within the individual), and whether risk factors that increase likelihood of T2D could also be mediated by genes. 85 | P a g e

2.2

The South Asian phenotype

It has been identified that for any level of BMI and body fat percentage, South Asians tend to possess a higher waist circumference and show increased adiposity compared with Caucasians (Unnikrishnan, et al., 2017), suggesting that these natural tendencies towards excessive fat deposition could be mediated by the genetics of the population. This is most commonly referred to as the ‘South Asian phenotype’ (Hills, et al. 2018), generally characterised by abnormal fat composition (i.e. excessive ectopic fat deposition despite maintaining a relatively small frame) and an increased inclination towards abdominal and visceral fat deposition. Recent studies from The Lancet amongst newly diagnosed South Asians with T2D indicated that the tendency of an individual towards abdominal, visceral or ectopic fat deposition (measured by waist-to-hip ratio) played a larger role in determining the onset of T2D, as opposed to the individual’s BMI level. This implies that it is factors mediated by genes, rather than factors that can be modified by the environment, that contribute more significantly to the increased risk of T2D in the South Asian population. Some studies indicate that subcutaneous adipocyte size determines insulin resistance and T2D in individuals (Misra and Khurana, 2010); South Asians have larger adipocytes compared with Caucasians, despite having similar levels of total body fat (Figure 1). This is an example of where a South Asian’s inherent tendencies towards greater fat deposition have increased their risk of developing T2D. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that the relationship between the genetic complexion of a particular ethnic population and the onset of the disease can be further distorted by environmental factors (Mukherjee, 2016); in other words, environmental factors can enhance or exacerbate pre-existing genetic factors, hence further increasing the risk of developing T2D. For example, the so-called ‘South Asian phenotype’, also referred to as ‘thin-fat’ or ‘metabolically obese-normal weight’ (Hills, et al., 2018, p. 1), has become increasingly prevalent in an environment where South Asian individuals are more likely to be exposed to hyper caloric diets and sedentary lifestyles. This could be as a result of lifestyle transitions due to recent socioeconomic developments and urbanisation, which include a decrease in the level of daily physical activity and energy expenditure, and an increase in the consumption of calorie dense foods (Hills, et al., 2018). Since environmental elements have some influence over how predisposed genetic factors are expressed, it can be argued that methods of prevention should be focused on modifiable risk factors (e.g. diet, lifestyle etc.), which in turn, could lessen the detrimental impacts of existing genetic factors.

Figure 1 Comparative pictures taken from histological studies show adipocytes of South Asian (left) and Caucasian (right) (Misra and Khurana, International Journal of Obesity, 2010) 2.3

Foetal malnutrition

The risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) or other chronic metabolic diseases as adolescents and/or adults can be exacerbated as a result of prenatal exposures to famine or malnutrition during foetal development (Qi, et al., 2012). Low-protein maternal diets lead to poor foetal growth and low birthweight, and subsequently, low birth weight has been linked to altered glucose metabolism, pancreatic malfunction and an increased tendency to fat deposition (James, 2002). This could be used to explain that whilst India accounts for 40% of the world’s low-birth-weight babies (Gujral, et al., 2013), it has also been deemed the ‘epicentre of the epidemic’ (Qi, et al., 2016, p. 1) of T2D. An explanation for this could be the positive selection 86 | P a g e

of thrifty genotypes, which arise as a consequence of periods of acute starvation (Qi, et al., 2016). A nutrient-starved foetus will undergo developmental and physiological changes in attempts to defend itself from nutritional stresses and significant caloric loss; this includes the development of the thrifty genotype which can alter the metabolism in order to store higher amounts of fat (Mukherjee, 2016). This gene, acting as an advantageous adaptation during occasions where the foetus experiences a severe lack of nutrition in utero, will have countereffects when the individual is exposed to a higher caloric diet and sedentary lifestyle, increasing prevalence of obesity, T2D and other metabolic disorders (Gujral, et al., 2013). Since most nutritional and environmental pressures, such as malnutrition during foetal development, are combated with adaptations that aim to slow down the metabolism or store higher amounts of fat (in attempts to protect the foetus) (James, 2002), it be can assumed that a majority of underfed foetuses would develop T2D and/or metabolic disorders later on in life. Studies in South Asia indicate that individuals who were underweight as children have a higher prevalence of obesity as adults, hence increasing risk of developing T2D (Gujral, et al., 2013). This could suggest that any current attempts to supress the surging numbers of T2D rates in South Asia (e.g. by promoting a balanced diet and active lifestyle) are being offset by the lack of nutritious and sustainable foods available in that particular region. The fact that intrauterine undernourishment has been found to result in abnormal pancreatic development, insulin resistance and an increased susceptibility of T2D (Gujral, et al., 2013) implies that in order to tackle the increasing prevalence of T2D in South Asia, the underlying problem of maternal malnourishment and lowbirth-weight babies must be addressed first. This puts forward a perfect of example of where any form of prevention and/or management - which aims to reduce the frequency of T2D in a population to level where it is no longer deemed as a major public health concern – must be tailored to facilitate the needs of that particular population (i.e. common approaches of advocating active lifestyles, balanced diets and reduced consumption of saturated fat would not be as effective if these are not the primary causes of the high prevalence of T2D in the South Asian population). 2.4

Acute periods of starvation

The fact that different ethnic populations show increased susceptibility to certain diseases (e.g. sickle-cell anaemia in those of Afro-Caribbean descent, T2D in South Asians) puts forward the question of whether ancestral or historical events – that are specific to one ethnic population only - could cause a mutation in the genotype of that population, allowing the mutation to be carried across many generations, and eventually integrated within the genetic make-up of that ethnicity. As mentioned before, it has been identified that prenatal exposures to starvation or malnutrition during foetal development will lead to poor foetal growth, and increase susceptibility to T2D and other chronic metabolic disorders (Qi, et al., 2012). On a larger scale, an acute period of starvation could have similar, if not greater, effects of increasing susceptibility to T2D (and other metabolic disorders) in an entire population. In other words, when factors that contribute to the risk of developing a particular disease are enhanced, this could subsequently enhance the outcome of the disease. After the second world war, majority of the Netherlands were subjected to a severe famine which not only resulted in short-term consequences of malnutrition and death, but was also responsible for the long-term impacts of glucose intolerance, coronary artery disease and obesity among those exposed to the famine in early gestation (Mukherjee, 2016). This could be due to the fact that acute periods of starvation can result in the positive selection for thrifty genotypes (Qi, et al., 2016), allowing the adapted gene to develop in not just those directly exposed to the famine, but also their children and grandchildren. The Dutch famine of 1944 provides us with an example of where an environmental event was able to strongly influence the genome of a population, such that any changes caused to the genome were conserved and inherited amongst generations. It also highlights the relationship between periods of severe malnutrition and the risk of developing chronic metabolic disorders; this can be used to explain why after being subjected to frequent famines throughout history (Dyson, 1991), South Asia is now considered a region where T2D has become a major public health concern (Hills, et al., 2018). The fact that such significant historical events (e.g. famines, draughts, prolonged periods of food shortage) affect the genetic disposition of an entire population, and in addition, play a somewhat prominent role in 87 | P a g e

determining the prevalence of a certain disease within that population, indicates that in order to supress the predicted rise of T2D in South Asians, further episodes of wide-spreading famine and acute starvation must be prevented first. 2.5

Rural to urban migration

Environmental factors such as diet, physical activity, exposure to drugs/alcohol or age can influence how predisposed genetic factors are expressed, hence contributing to an increased or decreased susceptibility to the disease. An example of this (mentioned previously) is when foetal malnutrition increases the likelihood of an individual developing T2D as an adult, as well as contributing to alterations in the foetal genome. Furthermore, recent transitions in lifestyle resulting from rural to urban migration (e.g. increasing energy intake from consuming more refined carbohydrates and saturated fats whilst decreasing energy outtake due to a more sedentary lifestyle), has also significantly increased the risk of T2D amongst South Asians. The prevalence of T2D in rural to urban migrants is 14.3%, which is similar to the prevalence of residents in urban regions (13.5%) and substantially higher than the prevalence of those inhabited in rural areas (6.2%) (Hills, et al., 2018). This further emphasizes the possibility that predisposed genetic risk factors could be enhanced in an increasingly obesogenic environment, and therefore, in order to supress the rise in T2D rates, lifestyle modifications must be made. 3. 0

Ethnic differences in individuals with T2D

As well as ethnic differences in prevalence of metabolic disorders such as T2D, there are also significant differences in body composition and fat deposition between South Asians and other ethnicities, which could perhaps explain the increased susceptibility to the disease. The ‘South Asian phenotype’ (as mentioned before) is most commonly characterised by insulin resistance, lower amounts of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and a high percentage of fat encompassed within a normal body weight (Hills, et al., 2018). Those who were classified under this phenotype portrayed abnormal body fat composition, with an increased tendency of fat deposition in areas such as the abdomen, despite maintaining a relatively small frame; this has often been referred to as ‘thin-fat’ or ‘metabolically obese-normal weight’ (Hills, et al., 2018, p. 966). Despite being a prominent feature of the South Asian population for a significant period of time, there has been evidence to show that the phenotype has been exacerbated in increasingly sedentary environments with exposure to hypercaloric foods (i.e. greater number of South Asian individuals with abnormal and excessive fat distribution). This puts forward an example of where external environmental factors have influenced pre-existing genetic factors, contributing to an increased risk of T2D. Recent studies amongst newly diagnosed South Asians with T2D indicated that the tendency of an individual towards abdominal, visceral or ectopic fat deposition (measured by waist-to-hip ratio) played a larger role in determining the onset of T2D as opposed to the individual’s BMI level (Hills, et al., 2018). This suggests that the risk of developing T2D in South Asians could be reduced by promoting healthy lifestyles in which individuals receive appropriate nutrition and maintain active routines, hence preventing themselves from becoming subject to the ‘South Asian Phenotype’. This also indicates that the diagnosis of T2D in an individual cannot be dependent on BMI levels alone, as this fails to account for body fat percentage or body fat distribution. Instead, measuring an individual’s waist-to-hip ratio (in order to determine their tendency towards fat deposition) can more accurately indicate whether that individual is likely to develop T2D, and hence allow for the earlier introduction of prevention, treatment or management methods. There are also substantial variations (between ethnicities) in how complications that arise as a result of the disease affect individuals. South Asians diagnosed with T2D are at an increased risk of developing serious microvascular and macrovascular complications, and often have an earlier onset of complications such as glycaemia, dyslipidaemia, diabetic nephropathy (kidney damage) and cardiovascular disease (Misra, et al., 2018). Factors that contribute to poor treatment of the disease, and hence lead to an earlier occurrence of complications, can include a lack of public awareness, delayed diagnosis of the disease, inadequate and ineffective healthcare resources and a failure to abide by recommended habits regarding nutrition and activity 88 | P a g e

levels. A population-based study indicated that only 43% of the cohort had heard of diabetes (Misra, et al., 2018), which increases the likelihood of T2D being undiagnosed, and therefore untreated for a significantly long period of time, hence leading to a rise in severe complications of the disease. This emphasizes the importance of educating the general public and increasing awareness of the disease and how it could be prevented/managed in order to decrease the high frequency of T2D in South Asians. In addition to this, South Asians often engage in cultural practices that exacerbate the disease and its complications. For example, diabetic peripheral neuropathy and diabetic foot disease can be worsened by walking barefoot (e.g. outside, in places of worship), and blood glucose levels can be further increased due to the consumption of sweets, saturated fats and oils (Misra, et al., 2018). This suggests that treatment or prevention measures should be targeted at an individual level, not just a population level, by taking into account environmental, social, cultural and economic factors that could directly or indirectly influence the onset of T2D and the progression of micro/macro vascular complications. 4.0

The influence of poor disease management

The use of numerous traditional and indigenous forms of medicine, which are rarely evidenced by science, can act as another barrier for the effective management of T2D in South Asians, hence contributing to a greater prevalence of the disease in those of South Asian descent. Although there is not much evidence supporting the use of traditional Indian medicines in Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, there are an abundance of treatment providers who promote and offer these services; it has been reported that out of those diagnosed with T2D, 67-76% use these alternative methods of ‘treatment’ available (Misra, et al., 2018). The incapability to educate the general population about prevention and management of the disease, and the failure to supress misconceptions surrounding the use of scientifically-unjustified forms of treatment can significantly hinder any progress being made in prevention, management and treatment of T2D in South Asians. Furthermore, on a more individual level, the mismanagement of the disease can further aggravate symptoms and complications of the disease, therefore decreasing quality of life and increasing the possibility of death. As well as misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis and improper management of T2D, poorly designed health care systems also hinder any progress being made in the prevention of T2D. The majority of South Asian healthcare systems were devised to target rises in communicable and infectious diseases, and therefore lack the knowledge or resources for the treatment and management of non-communicable diseases. There are also severe economic disparities between different regions within South Asia due to lack of government investment, inadequate services and poor maintenance of human resources, meaning different levels of health care is offered. For example, only 35-63% of health care centres in India have access to the most basic antihyperglycaemic drugs essential for preventing diabetes (Hills, et al., 2018). Furthermore, heavily privatised health care systems in South Asia account for over 78% of the region’s total health care costs (Hills, et al., 2018), whereas investment into public health care is low. This means that those of lower economic status are less likely to have access to any effective prevention and management methods, or appropriate treatment, despite South Asia having the secondhighest number and proportion of the world’s severe poor (Islam, Newhouse and YanezPagans, 2021). These significant disparities in health, education, affluence and availability of care (external environmental factors) could act alongside pre-existing genetic factors (mentioned previously - thrifty genotype, the South Asian phenotype etc.) to further amplify the risk of a South Asian individual developing T2D. This emphasizes the need for creating health care systems that predominantly invest into the improvement of public health care services to ensure that appropriate and effective treatment is available for all. 5.0

The role of precision medicine in the treatment and management of T2D

The fact that the majority of the South Asian community are subject to similar levels of risk of developing T2D, and experience similar symptoms and complications, gives rise to precision ‘personalised’ medicine as an effective form of treatment and management. Precision medicine uses genetic information - as well as taking into account any environmental or lifestyle factors 89 | P a g e

that could influence the disease - to provide an individualised treatment and management plan; in this case, treatment can be targeted towards a specific group of individuals (e.g. the South Asian community). As stated previously, there are specific genetic features of the South Asian community resulting from significant environmental events (e.g. foetal malnutrition) that have been evidenced to contribute to a greater risk of the individuals developing T2D and other metabolic, obesity-related disease. The possible alteration in the make-up of the genetic population (as a result of external environmental factors) can be taken into account when developing personalised methods, hence creating effective treatment methods which maximise therapeutic outcome. It has been found that investigation of T2D susceptibility genes can benefit the development of personalised medicine (Meybodi, Hasanzad and Larijani, 2017) allowing for prediction, prevention and early introduction of treatment for the disease. For example, the development of the HapMap project and improvements into genotyping technology was used to identify T2D susceptibility loci in European and South Asian populations (Qi, et al. 2016). The studies conducted incorporated samples from individuals of European and Asian descent, and were able to identify the presence of the loci which contributed to and increased risk of T2D, and how these loci influenced the pathophysiology of the disease (e.g. insulin resistance, betacell impairment). This could aid any developments being made to create individualised treatment for specific ethnic groups, by focusing on how the disease progresses and affects individuals within that group. These studies also reported that most gene variants and/or risk allele frequencies identified were specific to one ethnic population (i.e only found in individuals within that ethnicity), and any variants that were present in more than one ethnic population had a stronger effect in one ethnicity compared to the other. This further emphasizes the fact that susceptibility to, and progression of, a disease in a specific ethnic population can be heavily mediated by genetic factors. Therefore, the South Asian population would substantially benefit from the use of such gene variants to identify increased risk of T2D in an individual, and act accordingly (i.e. lifestyle modifications, other prevention/management strategies) to supress severe symptoms or further complications. 6.0

Conclusion

Identifying unique characteristics of how T2D occurs and progresses in South Asians could provide essential information to form individualised treatment, prevention and management methods. In addition to this, further technological developments that allow researchers to pinpoint and compare genetic determinants of T2D in ethnic groups would aid advancements in personalised or precision medicine. Providing treatment that takes into account the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to the risk of developing the disease in South Asian individuals can help to decrease the prevalence of T2D in the population.

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Reference List: Dyson, T. (1991). On the Demography of South Asian Famines Part I. Population Studies, 45(1), pp.5–25 Gujral, U.P., Pradeepa, R., Weber, M.B., Narayan, K.M.V. and Mohan, V. (2013). Type 2 diabetes in South Asians: similarities and differences with white Caucasian and other populations. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, [online] 1281(1), pp.51–63. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3715105/ [Accessed 10 Sep. 2019]. Hills, A.P., Arena, R., Khunti, K., Yajnik, C.S., Jayawardena, R., Henry, C.J., Street, S.J., Soares, M.J. and Misra, A. (2018). Epidemiology and determinants of type 2 diabetes in south Asia. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, [online] 6(12), pp.966–978. Available at: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587%2818%2930204-3/fulltext [Accessed 5 Nov. 2019] Hills, A.P., Misra, A., Gill, J.M.R., Byrne, N.M., Soares, M.J., Ramachandran, A., Palaniappan, L., Street, S.J., Jayawardena, R., Khunti, K. and Arena, R. (2018). Public health and health systems: implications for the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes in south Asia. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, 6(12), pp.992–1002. Islam, T.T., Newhouse, D. and Yanez-Pagans, M. (2021). International Comparisons of Poverty in South Asia. Asian Development Review, 38(1), pp.142–175 James, W.P.T. (2002). Will feeding mothers prevent the Asian metabolic syndrome epidemic? Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 11, pp.S516–S523 Meybodi, H.R.A., Hasanzad, M. and Larijani, B. (2017). Path to Personalized Medicine for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Reality and Hope. Misra, A. and Khurana, L. (2010). Obesity-related non-communicable diseases: South Asians vs White Caucasians. International Journal of Obesity, 35(2), pp.167–187 Misra, A., Sattar, N., Tandon, N., Shrivastava, U., Vikram, N.K., Khunti, K. and Hills, A.P. (2018). Clinical management of type 2 diabetes in south Asia. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, [online] 6(12), pp.979–991. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213858718301992?via%3Dihub [Accessed 9 Dec. 2019] Mukherjee, S. (2016). The gene : an intimate history. New York: Scribner. QI, Q. and HU, F.B. (2012). Genetics of type 2 diabetes in European populations. Journal of Diabetes, [online] 4(3), pp.203–212. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3422419/ [Accessed 26 Nov. 2019]. Q, Q., X, W., G, S. and T, W. (2016). Genetic Determinants of Type 2 Diabetes in Asians. International Journal of Diabetology & Vascular Disease Research, pp.1–9. Unnikrishnan, R., Pradeepa, R., Joshi, S.R. and Mohan, V. (2017). Type 2 Diabetes: Demystifying the Global Epidemic. Diabetes, [online] 66(6), pp.1432–1442. Available at: https://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/66/6/1432 [Accessed 14 Aug. 2019].

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Third Prize

STEM: Mathematics and Physics How far can higher dimensional ideas improve our understanding of the universe?

Maxim Vassiliev Boys’ School At the beginning of Year 12 Maxim was regularly reading and watching physics content talking about ideas such as Relativity, String Theory and other highly fascinating areas of modern physics, with some of his favourites including Michio Kaku's ‘Parallel Worlds’, Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time' and Richard Feynman's 'QED'. However, these books left him on something of a cliffhanger, stating lots of key conclusions and observations in theoretical physics without much mathematical reinforcement. He decided that he wanted to use his Aske Project as an opportunity to research the ideas in physics that interested him the most in a level of mathematical detail that he could not find in popular science books. He had read at a surface level about theories in physics that make use of higher dimensions in order to tackle problems that arise in existing physics. As well as this, Matt Parker's ‘Things to make and do in the Fourth Dimension’ a phenomenal book, got him interested in maths carried out in higher dimensions ever since he read it in Year 8, and introduced him to Edwin Abbott's 'Flatland', one of his favourite source materials for the project. Upon beginning his more rigorous research, he immediately realised why the mathematical backing was glossed over in many popular science books - how utterly difficult it was. He spent many days racking his brains trying to understand concepts through Leonard Susskind's ‘Theoretical Minimum’ lectures and sifting through papers with the hope that some of them might explain these ideas in a way a sixth form student could make sense. However, the times where ideas began to click and he had things to write about ended up being satisfying, and overall he thoroughly enjoyed this challenging yet rewarding process of learning. Maxim has applied to study Mathematics at university, but is hoping to take plenty of Physics modules so that one day he perhaps might understand the aspects of the research that he couldn't grasp for this project.

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How far can higher dimensional ideas improve our understanding of the universe? Introduction Ideas regarding higher spatial dimensions first came into discussion between physicists, having not been discussed even by mathematicians for very long at the time, following Theodr Kaluza and Oskar Klein’s (albeit failed) theory that attempted to unify Maxwellian electromagnetism with Einstein’s General Relativity through use of a fifth dimension (Kaku, 2006). Despite its failure, ideas from Kaluza-Klein theory regarding higher dimensions such as the ‘cylindrical condition’ were the basis of the Veneziano Model and all subsequent forms of String Theory, a candidate for the ‘Theory of Everything’ longed for by scientists worldwide. Ideas that were initially mathematical curiosities were now at the forefront of physics. However, the resounding dissonance caused by applying such an abstract idea into the empirical field of physics with little experimental basis still rouses much skepticism. For instance, Hossenfelder argues in her book “Lost in Math” that abstract concepts such as higher dimensionality ‘lead physics astray’ (Siegel, 2018). In this paper, I will examine the nature of this ‘clash’ of mathematical abstraction and scientific empiricism and explore how far higher dimensional ideas can help us in understanding the universe. Quantum Field Theory and General Relativity In order for a new idea to be introduced into physics, it has to predict empirical observations. Field theories and General Relativity are significant factors of the aforementioned ‘clash’ as adding a fourth dimension the usual way to these theories predicts patterns completely different to what we have observed very accurately. Let us begin with our observed notion of gravity; that the gravitational acceleration of a body is inversely proportional to the square of its distance from the body exerting that gravity. This was first shown by Newton, using Kepler’s laws of planetary motion (Susskind, 2009) derived from observation. Since then, this ‘inverse-square law’ has been verified within the Newtonian Limit using ultrasensitive technology down to 59μm (Tan et al., 2016). Let us first test General Relativity against this observation in 4D-spacetime. Our first given is the Schwarzschild Metric, a metric tensor that is the solution of Einstein’s Field Equations for a perfect sphere. It is given in four-dimensional spacetime with Schwarzschild coordinates (spherical coordinates with a time component; t, r, θ, φ) as, with G as Newton’s Gravitational constant, M as the mass of the sphere and c as the speed of light in vacuo (Soares, 2015),

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2𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 𝑐𝑐 2

2𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 ⎡−𝑐𝑐 2 (1 − 2 ) 0 𝑐𝑐 𝑟𝑟 ⎢ 1 ⎢ 0 𝑔𝑔𝑠𝑠 = ⎢ 2𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 1− 2 𝑐𝑐 𝑟𝑟 ⎢ ⎢ 0 0 ⎣ 0 0

𝑟𝑟 2 0

⎤ ⎥ ⎥ 0 ⎥ ⎥ ⎥ 0 𝑟𝑟 2 sin2 𝜃𝜃 ⎦ 0

(1)

is the Schwarzschild radius, 𝑟𝑟𝑠𝑠 . We can substitute to clean up a bit, 𝑟𝑟𝑠𝑠 2 0 ⎡−𝑐𝑐 (1 − 𝑟𝑟 ) ⎢ 1 ⎢ 0 𝑔𝑔𝑠𝑠 = ⎢ 𝑟𝑟 1 − 𝑟𝑟𝑠𝑠 ⎢ ⎢ 0 0 ⎣ 0 0

𝑟𝑟 2 0

⎤ ⎥ ⎥ 0 ⎥ ⎥ ⎥ 0 2 2 ⎦ 𝑟𝑟 sin 𝜃𝜃

(2)

A metric tensor gives the coefficients to the differentials of the coordinate components in the equation for the line element of a surface, the differential equation for the squared distance between two points on this surface, and this can define the curvature of a surface – for instance, if the metric tensor is the identity matrix, this simply gives the Pythagorean theorem which we know works on a Euclidean surface. Thus, the line element of a chunk of 4D-spacetime being warped by a sphere is:

𝑟𝑟𝑠𝑠 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 𝑑𝑑𝑠𝑠 2 = −𝑐𝑐 2 �1 − � 𝑑𝑑𝑡𝑡 2 + 𝑟𝑟𝑠𝑠 𝑑𝑑𝑟𝑟 + 𝑟𝑟 𝑑𝑑𝜃𝜃 + 𝑟𝑟 sin 𝜃𝜃 𝑑𝑑𝜑𝜑 𝑟𝑟 1 − 𝑟𝑟

(3)

A diagram to illustrate how line elements describe mathematical curvature – if each edge is dx or dy long, the distances between adjacent corners can vary. Image can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curvilinear_coordinates 94 | P a g e

Another premise is the relation of the time coefficient in a certain area with its gravitational potential, given by (see Rindler, 2006 p41 for the derivation of this);

2Φ

𝐴𝐴𝑐𝑐 2 𝑑𝑑𝑡𝑡 2 = 𝑒𝑒 𝑐𝑐 2 𝑐𝑐 2 𝑑𝑑𝑡𝑡 2

There exists a Newtonian gravitational potential, defined as Φ = −

(4) 𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 , 𝑟𝑟

from which we can derive 𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺

the inverse square law for the acceleration in a gravitational field 𝑔𝑔 = 𝑟𝑟2 . Thus, obtaining the Newtonian gravitational potential from Eq.3 and 4 would validate General Relativity in 4D spacetime. Because Newtonian laws work within the Newtonian limit, one of the factors of which is weak gravitational effect, the spacetime tends towards the flat spacetime defined, in Einsteinian language, by the Minkowski metric of Special Relativity. As well as this, Einstein’s Strong Principle of Equivalence, one of the axioms of General Relativity, states “in a locally-inertial frame [such as a small body in freefall towards another due to gravity in Relativity], Special Relativity applies” (Heavens, n.d). Thus, the approximation of a so-called ‘weak field’ is justified. From here we can simply do algebra,

1−

Φ=

2Φ 𝑟𝑟𝑠𝑠 = 𝑒𝑒 𝑐𝑐 2 𝑟𝑟

(5)

𝑟𝑟𝑠𝑠 𝑐𝑐 2 ln �1 − � 2 𝑟𝑟

(6)

Recall our weak field approximation; for an area undergoing Schwarzschildian curvature to be approximated as ‘flat’, r must tend to infinity.

2𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺

2 0 0 ⎡−𝑐𝑐 (1 − 𝑐𝑐 2 𝑟𝑟 ) 1 ⎢ 0 0 2𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 lim ⎢ 1− 2 𝑐𝑐 𝑟𝑟 𝑟𝑟 → ∞ ⎢ ⎢ 0 0 𝑟𝑟 2 ⎣ 0 0 0 0 −𝑐𝑐 2 0 0 1 0 0 �= η � 0 0 0 0 𝑟𝑟 2 0 0 0 𝑟𝑟 2 sin2 𝜃𝜃

⎤ ⎥ 0 ⎥= ⎥ 0 ⎥ 𝑟𝑟 2 sin2 𝜃𝜃 ⎦

(7)

2𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺

Where η is the Minkowski metric. As shown above, 2 𝑟𝑟 → 0, thus we are able to use a logarithmic 𝑐𝑐 expansion to find an expression for Φ, Φ=

𝑐𝑐 2 𝑟𝑟𝑠𝑠 𝑐𝑐 2 𝑟𝑟𝑠𝑠 𝑐𝑐 2 𝑟𝑟𝑠𝑠 2 𝑐𝑐 2 𝑟𝑟𝑠𝑠 3 ln �1 − � = − − �− � + �− � + ⋯ 2 𝑟𝑟 2𝑟𝑟 4 𝑟𝑟 6 𝑟𝑟

(8) 95 | P a g e

Substituting back from the Schwarzschild radius and simplifying, we get 2𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 2 𝑐𝑐 2 2𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 3 𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 𝑐𝑐 2 − �− 2 � + �− 2 � + ⋯ Φ=− 4 6 𝑟𝑟𝑐𝑐 𝑐𝑐 𝑟𝑟

(9)

The first term of our logarithmic expansion is equivalent to the Newtonian gravitational potential (the other terms are negligible, as they are extremely small), which we initially sought to find. Now to verify General Relativity in 5D-spacetime. The coefficient of the time differential for the Schwarzschild line element is given for an arbitrary number of dimensions as (Chang, 2008),

16𝜋𝜋𝜋𝜋𝜋𝜋 � (𝑛𝑛 + 1)𝑆𝑆𝑛𝑛+2 −𝑐𝑐 2 �1 − � 𝑐𝑐 2 𝑟𝑟 𝑛𝑛 �

(10)

Where (n+3) is the number of spacetime-dimensions and Sn is the surface ‘area’ of an n dimensional unit sphere (radius 1). In four spatial dimensions, the surface is given by 2π2r3 (Watkins, n.d), thus a unit 4D sphere has a surface area of 2π2. For five-dimensional spacetime, we want n = 2 so we can substitute this along with the surface area to get

16𝜋𝜋𝜋𝜋𝜋𝜋 � 8𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 (3)2𝜋𝜋 2 −𝑐𝑐 2 �1 − � � = −𝑐𝑐 2 �1 − 2 2 3𝜋𝜋𝑟𝑟 2 𝑐𝑐 2 𝑐𝑐 𝑟𝑟 �

(11)

We can substitute the bracketed component straight into our logarithmic expansion,

Φ=

8𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 𝑐𝑐 2 ln �1 − � 2 3𝜋𝜋𝑟𝑟 2 𝑐𝑐 2 8𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 𝑐𝑐 2 8𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 2 𝑐𝑐 2 8𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 3 𝑐𝑐 2 � − �− � + �− � = �− 2 4 6 3𝜋𝜋𝑟𝑟 2 𝑐𝑐 2 3𝜋𝜋𝑟𝑟 2 𝑐𝑐 2 3𝜋𝜋𝑟𝑟 2 𝑐𝑐 2 +⋯

(12)

This time, our gravitational potential approximates as follows,

Φ≃ −

4𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 8𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑐𝑐 2 =− 2 2 6𝜋𝜋𝑟𝑟 𝑐𝑐 3𝜋𝜋𝑟𝑟 2

(13)

If we divide by distance this time to get an equation for the gravitational field, we do not get an inverse square law but rather an inverse cube law. Thus General Relativity, our best theory of gravity, would not predict empirical observation in 5D-spacetime. 96 | P a g e

We can go even further and explore electromagnetism in the same way – in Quantum Field Theory, the electric potential of a body is given by the Yukawa potential where m is equal to zero as the mediating particle, photons, are massless (as far as we know) and with the square 𝑄𝑄 of the scaling constant, g, equal to (Booth, n.d.): 4𝜋𝜋𝜀𝜀0

ΦYukawa

𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟 ℏ

𝑔𝑔2 𝑒𝑒 − = 𝑟𝑟

Φ𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸 =

𝑄𝑄 4𝜋𝜋𝜀𝜀0 𝑟𝑟

(14)

(15)

Where Q is the charge of the body doing the work and 𝜀𝜀0 is the permittivity of a vacuum.

Electromagnetism is modelled using vector fields as the acceleration vector of an object due to exerted electromagnetic force is dependent on its position. We will use Gauss’ Law for the divergence of a vector in an electric field (Dray and Manogue, n.d.),

𝛁𝛁 ∙ 𝐄𝐄 =

𝜌𝜌 𝜀𝜀0

(16)

Where 𝜌𝜌 is the charge density. Gauss’ Law is derived from Coulomb’s Law, an inverse square law of electrical force against distance found from observation (Huray, 2009). We want to make sure that from using an empirical law we can obtain the Electric potential, making it consistent with observation. We can substitute these into the divergence theorem,

� 𝛁𝛁 ∙ 𝐄𝐄dV = � 𝐄𝐄⊥ 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑

(17)

which states that the volume integral of the divergence of the vector field E is equal to the surface area integral of the component of the vector field perpendicular to the surface, where the ‘volume’ and ‘surface’ refer to that of a randomly selected chunk of space (Susskind, 2009). We get:

�

𝜌𝜌 dV = � 𝐄𝐄⊥ 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝜀𝜀0

(18)

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Intuitively, the divergence theorem can be thought of as the fact that divergences or ‘sources’ in a given space, points from which vectors appear to come out of or point away from, contribute to a tendency for vectors to point out of the surface of this space, creating an outward ‘flux’, and that the total outward flux from the surface is equal to the flux coming into it. Likewise, Gauss’ Law simply states that the magnitude of these divergences in a given space is proportional to how much charge there is in this space. Image from https://www.khanacademy.org/math/multivariable-calculus/greens-theorem-and-stokestheorem/divergence-theorem-articles/a/2d-divergence-theorem. Electromagnetic forces are modelled as being emitted from a single point particle such as an electron. They are also exerted isotropically. Thus, if we allow our ‘randomly selected chunk of space’ to be a sphere of radius r (in other words a distance of r from the source of the electromagnetic force), the perpendicular component of our vectors will always be in the direction of the radius and hence 𝐄𝐄⊥ will always be the acceleration vector of a point r units away from the electromagnetic source.

A vector field diverging isotropically from a point (the origin). At distance R from the origin each vector has the same magnitude and is facing radially outward, thus the component perpendicular to the perimeter of the circle for each vector will be the same. Moving on, 𝜀𝜀0 is a constant and so is 𝐄𝐄⊥ as electromagnetic force acts isotropically. Thus, we can factor them out of our integrals, 98 | P a g e

1 � 𝜌𝜌dV = 𝐄𝐄⊥ � 1𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝜀𝜀0

(19)

Integrating charge density, charge per unit volume, with respect to the volume simply gives us the overall charge of the source. Likewise, integrating 1 with respect to the surface area simply gives us the entire surface area, in this case the surface area of the sphere, 𝑄𝑄 = 𝐄𝐄⊥ 4πr 2 𝜀𝜀0

(20)

𝑄𝑄 4𝜀𝜀0 πr 2

(21)

𝐄𝐄⊥ =

Hence, we have our inverse square relationship to the distance from the source. If we multiply this by the charge of the affected object, we get Coulomb’s Law describing electromagnetic force and if we multiply by distance, we get our original electric potential. In order to disprove electromagnetism acting in more than three spatial dimensions, we can simply substitute our aforementioned surface area of a 4-sphere to get

𝐄𝐄⊥ =

𝑄𝑄 2𝜀𝜀0 π2 𝑟𝑟 3

(22)

Which as before does not give the inverse square law we’re looking for. Thus, neither gravity nor electromagnetism as we know them can exist in more than three spatial dimensions. There are two conclusions that can be drawn from this – either that spacetime cannot consist of five ‘open’ dimensions, or that gravity could possibly be confined somehow to 4D-spacetime. I will explore both of these conclusions throughout the rest of the paper. String Theory and the Cylindrical Condition One of the implications in the previous sections is that spacetime cannot consist of more than three ‘open’ spatial dimensions. ‘Open’, referring to a dimension, is a term used in opposition to ‘closed’ or ‘cylindrical’. I will now explain what a cylindrical dimension is and how our laws of physics can still apply with higher dimensions existing in this way. Imagine yourself existing as a two-dimensional entity on the surface of an infinitely long spaghetto – you cannot move radially inward or outward of the spaghetto. In order for you to move around the spaghetto you have two directions in which you can move – along the length and around the circumference. Because our hypothetical spaghetto has infinite length and you can move along it indefinitely, this is comparable to our X, Y and Z directions (as far as we know), and is thus an ‘open’ dimension. However, if one goes around the circumference of the spaghetto, they will eventually end up where they started and thus this dimension is ‘cylindrical’, as it is wrapped around in itself, and thus has a finite size unlike open dimensions.

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If extra dimensions exist, they would have to be both cylindrical and extremely small. The most intuitive reasons for this are so that, assuming gravity isn’t confined to 4D-spacetime, when gravity moves some object in a higher-dimensional direction, it returns to where it originally began (i.e not trailing off in a higher ‘open’ dimension) and any discrepancy in this interaction would have to be extremely difficult to observe and be so small as to not have an observable effect on things such as the inverse square law at large scales. String Theory is currently the most prominent theory that makes use of these ideas. It is one of the leading candidates for a theory of Quantum Gravity – an extension of quantum mechanics that enables it to describe gravity as well as the other three fundamental forces it already describes and thus unify the four fundamental forces under one framework of physics. The theory centers around thinking of each fundamental particle as a quantum ‘string’ with a unique shape and vibrational state. This attributes a certain minimalism to the nature of fundamental particles, and thinking about strings rather than the point-particles of Quantum Field Theory mitigates many infinite-momentum discrepancies. As well as this, string theory predicts a spin2, massless particle which can mediate gravity in the same way that other exchange particles mediate the other fundamental forces, providing a framework to describe gravitational interactions similarly to other interactions and making String Theory such a strong contender for a theory of Quantum Gravity. These benefits are no doubt extremely strong, but in order to facilitate various forms of string theory, spacetime must be 10-dimensional, 11-dimensional or even 26-dimensional. Fortunately, String Theory predicts these extra dimensions to be cylindrical and with a size in the order of magnitude of the Planck length (~1.6e-35m) (Extra Dimensions | Why String Theory, 2021). To offer an explanation for the requirement of extra dimensions, let us look at the earliest form of string theory, bosonic string theory, that requires 26 of them. Consider an oscillating string that describes a photon. When you add a creation operator to the quantum state of this string, you add one quantum of energy which creates a plane of oscillation for this string (see Susskind, 2011 for more detail). By the energy-momentum relation equation, this results in energy being

𝐸𝐸 = 𝑚𝑚02 + 1

(23)

Where E is the relativistic energy of a photon, 𝑚𝑚0 is its rest mass and in units where c=1 for convenience. Relativistic energy relates to relativistic mass by E = mc2, and a photon must always have zero relativistic mass in order for our laws of physics to work. This would imply;

0 = 𝑚𝑚02 + 1

(24)

𝑚𝑚02 = −1

(25)

Our polarized string seems to have a squared rest mass of -1, an implication that would seemingly shut down string theory. However, upon meeting this difficulty the founding fathers of bosonic string theory remained resolute and set about figuring out how the rest mass of this string could perhaps be -1.

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As with relativistic mass and energy, rest mass corresponds with rest energy by 𝐸𝐸0 = 𝑚𝑚0 in units with c=1. We can find the rest, or ‘zero-point’ energy of the string oscillating in one plane by treating it as a quantum harmonic oscillator whose zero-point energy is

1 𝐸𝐸 = ℏ𝜔𝜔 2

(26)

Setting our units so that h = 1, we get

1 𝐸𝐸 = 𝑓𝑓 2

(27)

Where f is the frequency of the oscillator. In quantum field theory, all points in space represent a potential oscillation by the uncertainty principle and thus to find the energy of a quantum state, all of these possible contributions must be summed together (Susskind, 2011). The different potential oscillations are different modes of oscillation, whose frequency is equal to nf where n is some natural number. In Planck units, f, the fundamental frequency, is simply 1, thus our total rest energy is equal to:

𝐸𝐸𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇

∞

1 = � 𝑛𝑛 2

(28)

𝑛𝑛=1

As it turns out, the sum of all values of n is -1/12. The following is a proof first devised by Srinivasa Ramanujan to show this (Ramanujan, 1999):

𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 𝑆𝑆 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + ⋯ 4𝑆𝑆 = 4 + 8 + 12 + 16 + 20 + 24 + 28 + 32 + 36 + 40 + ⋯ −3𝑆𝑆 = 𝑆𝑆 − 4𝑆𝑆 = 1 − 2 + 3 − 4 + 5 − 6 + 7 − 8 + ⋯ 1 1 −3𝑆𝑆 = = 2 (1 + 1) 4 1 𝑆𝑆 = − 12 1 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+⋯=− 12

(29)

Thus, we have a total rest energy of,

1 1 1 𝐸𝐸𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇 = �− � = − = 𝑚𝑚02 2 12 24

(30)

However, we require 𝑚𝑚02 to be -1, but here we have only considered the rest energy on one plane of oscillation (i.e one direction). We would require 24 planes of oscillation, 24 directions, 101 | P a g e

all perpendicular to each other, to get the total energy and thus 𝑚𝑚02 = −1 that we desire. If we include the direction of travel, which is perpendicular to the rest as photons oscillate transversely, as well as time, this totals to 26 dimensions. Despite this, we cannot forget the fatal flaw of bosonic string theory that implies a quantum state with a negative squared rest mass, and naturally one might be skeptical of the mathematical trickery behind all the natural numbers summing to -1/12. Physicists were subsequently able to scrap bosonic string theory in favour of new string theories that both removed this problematic particle and managed to find that some of these dimensions could be one and the same, shrinking the number down to 10 or 11. The derivations of these new string theories are beyond the scope of this paper, and while bosonic theory was eventually scrapped it is a common starting point for studying String Theory and provides a valuable insight into the role of higher dimensions for new theories that challenge the problems in existing physical theories. Of course, there are many other theories that end up deriving higher dimensions, such as supergravity theories that attempt to use supersymmetry to explain the nature of gravity, usually deriving higher dimensions in doing so (Cremmer, Julia and Scherk, 1978), and Brane Theories, cosmological extensions of String Theory and supergravity that attempt to describe the role of higher dimensions in the expansion and evolution of the universe (Maartens and Koyama, 2010). Are we confined? What if, as alluded to previously, gravity and all of our fundamental forces are somehow ‘confined’ to 4D-spacetime? What does this say about our universe; if we imagine the universe as a book, are we stuck on one page? This is a very plausible idea, and I will call upon the example of the Victorian Novella ‘Flatland: A romance of many dimensions’ to help me explain this. ‘Flatland’ for short, (Abbott, 1884) follows the story of a 2D square enjoying his life in two dimensions until a 3D sphere passes through his house, appearing as a circle growing larger and then smaller again. Just as one would be shocked at a cube appearing out of nowhere in their bedroom, our square protagonist begins to question everything he ever learnt. The clear message of the novella is that just as our square was oblivious to the existence of a third spatial dimension, something that seems trivial for us, we could be living in ignorance of a fourth spatial dimension ourselves, which Abbott directly references as ‘extra-height’, adding onto the established notions of length, width and height.

Abbott’s Own Illustration of the sphere passing through Flatland. Notice Abbott makes a point of how 2D shapes are only able to see one-dimensional projections, just as we see two-dimensional projections of reality, and if I invite the reader to point in the direction of ‘extra-height’ just as if we asked our square above to point in the direction that the sphere was coming from, both of you would find it difficult. Thus, if we are indeed three-dimensional 102 | P a g e

entities there is no way for us to perceive nor interact with higher dimensional entities outside of projections of our plane of existence. A diagram to visualize seeing in 2D. Abbott compares this to placing a penny on a table and looking at it from the edge of the table.

The argument to be made with regards to the sciences is clear – for all we know, we could be confined to the ‘surface of a table’ just like the characters in Flatland when in reality there are countless more worlds existing on a separate ‘table’ that we will never be able to interact with or perceive. This room for speculation for worlds beyond our reach when considering higher dimensions is comparable to ideas such as simulation theory and arguably locks higher dimensional ideas within the realms of metaphysics and from a scientific point of view has little application in our understanding of the concrete universe. Even if we can verify string theory and its higher dimensional ideas, what next? What else is in these higher dimensions? Where are we in this potentially-11D-hyperspace? Moreover, our fundamental forces being ‘confined’ allows for any setup of higher dimensions beyond just cylindrical ones which opens up room for even more possibilities. Despite all of this, we must remember that in order to exist in higher dimensions, we need to have some ‘extra-height’ ourselves just as seemingly-2D writing cannot exist on a piece of paper without the thickness of the ink with which it was written. This being said, if we have a ‘thickness’ in all of the dimensions in which we exist, what exactly is confining us? Going back to Flatland, our four-sided friend was able to have a journey through 3D space after having been knocked out of Flatland by the sphere and this would only be possible if the sphere had some threedimensional mass to knock against. Surely therefore in the same way, having some ‘extraheight’ required to exist in hyperspace, we too could experience or record higher dimensional interactions? I will now go over some experiments that are either being planned or currently being done that are trying to ‘detect’ these higher dimensional interactions. Experimental verification & Brane Cosmology One of the main controversies of String Theory in particular is how difficult it is to prove or disprove it. This is due to how tiny the strings are, and it is speculated that in order to observe strings interacting we would require an LHC the size of our galaxy. However, it being one of the most prominent theories in the current world of physics we are constantly looking for proof or disproof of it and here are a few of the pieces of evidence that we have either found or are actively looking for: •

The Graviton: Of course, this particle predicted by String Theory said to solve the mystery of the nature of gravity is at the top of the hitlist for scientists worldwide. While it is incredibly difficult to detect directly, its existence can be deduced using a postulate of higherdimensional supergravity (a theory that coexists with most modern string theories anyway), 103 | P a g e

•

that gravity acts in higher dimensions, and therefore we could expect sudden drops in energy in observed interactions to perhaps be gravitons taking their energy to another dimension. Condensed Matter: in 2009 in the Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, very strange behaviour was observed from an exotic state of matter called a quark-gluon plasma, where it was a perfect fluid both at near absolute zero and at a trillion degrees Kelvin . It was found that various aspects of string theory were able to perfectly describe the behaviour of this fluid. While this does not confirm String Theory, this is an example of the common misconception that String Theory has zero experimental grounding. (Extra Dimensions | Why String Theory, 2021). Brane Cosmology: Brane Cosmology follows on quite nicely from the thinking surrounding Flatland, and postulates that just as how our world is made up of one-dimensional ‘strings’ or ‘1-branes’, our perceived 4D-world is a ‘4-brane’ that makes up part of a higher dimensional world (‘the bulk’ or ‘the multiverse’ – both are used in the top echelons of academia), made up of other 4-branes that, as reasoned earlier, we could perhaps never directly perceive. That is, if it were not for our ‘thickness’ in higher dimensional space; Brane theory, just like higher-dimensional supergravity, postulates that gravity acts between higher dimensions, and that we could potentially perceive other 4-branes through these higher dimensional interactions. The theory predicts that while low gravity objects retain the laws of General Relativity, higher-gravity objects such as black holes will ‘seep’ gravity into The Bulk and hence other 4-branes. See (Maartens and Koyama, 2010) for a paper on how these potential perturbations have been predicted and how they can be cosmologically tested.

Conclusion From all that has been said, one might think it best to finish up with an inconclusive ‘let’s wait and see’ given how much theory has circulated making use of higher dimensions since the advent of Kaluza-Klein theory compared to the fairly scarce amount of experimental testing that has happened. However, what we have come to see is that an abstract idea was taken from the realms of Mathematics in an attempt to solve many of the problems with physics, succeeded on a theoretical basis and while awaiting experimental approval, has driven forward the creativity and development of theoretical physics. This comes to show that abstract ideas have and always will aid the development of concrete ones, that there is a synergy between the two. The use of higher dimensions in modern physics is one of many examples, others include the use of Riemannian geometry in General Relativity, a branch of mathematics developed only sixty years before Einstein published his theory of General Relativity, as well as the other way round with Newton who initially derived calculus to help describe motion, but to this day it is still at the heart of both pure and applied mathematical development. One can imagine countless more examples of the synergy of the two disciplines of intellectual development and the great effect they have on each other, and higher dimensional ideas are no exception.

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Reference List: Abbott, E., [1884], 1977. Flatland. 6th ed. New York: Dover Publ. Booth, C., n.d. Yukawa Potential. [online] Cbooth.staff.shef.ac.uk. Available at: <http://www.cbooth.staff.shef.ac.uk/phy304/yukawa.html> [Accessed 29 March 2021]. Chang, J., 2008. Arbitrary Dimensional Schwarzschild-FRW Black Holes. [online] Tsinghua University, Beijing. Available at: <https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0411033.pdf> [Accessed 8 February 2021]. Cremmer, E., Julia, B. and Scherk, J., 1978. Supergravity in theory in 11 dimensions. Physics Letters B, 76(4), pp.409-412. Dray, T. and Manogue, C., n.d. Differential Form of Gauss' Law. [online] Books.physics.oregonstate.edu. Available at: <https://books.physics.oregonstate.edu/GSF/maxwell1.html> [Accessed 29 March 2021]. Heavens, A., n.d. General Relativity. [online] University of Edinburgh. Available at: <http://starwww.st-and.ac.uk/~hz4/gr/HeavensGR.pdf> [Accessed 8 February 2021]. Huray, P., 2009. Maxwell's Equations. 1st ed. John Wiley & Sons, p.57. Kaku, M., 2006. Parallel worlds. London: Penguin. Maartens, R. and Koyama, K., 2010. Brane-World Gravity. Living Reviews in Relativity, 13(1). Ramanujan Aiyangar, S., 1999. Ramanujan's notebooks. New York [u.a.]: Springer. Rindler, W., 2006. Relativity: Special, General and Cosmological. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Siegel, E., 2018. Is Theoretical Physics Wasting Our Best Living Minds on Nonsense? [online] Forbes. Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/06/12/is-theoreticalphysics-wasting-our-best-living-minds-on-nonsense/?sh=7bee08597566> [Accessed 7 February 2021]. Soares, D., 2015. From Schwarzschild to Newton. [online] Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Available at: <http://lilith.fisica.ufmg.br/~dsoares/ensino/schnew/schnew-e.pdf> [Accessed 8 February 2021]. Susskind, L., 2009. Susskind - General Relativity. [online] YouTube. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbmf0bB38h0&list=PLPPSIjDe9T-81p1CjN49_Zi_L4NQorTp> [Accessed 7 February 2021]. Susskind, L., 2011. String Theory and M Theory. [online] Theoreticalminimum.com. Available at: <https://theoreticalminimum.com/courses/string-theory/2010/fall> [Accessed 8 June 2021]. Tan, W., Yang, S., Shao, C., Li, J., Du, A., Zhan, B., Wang, Q., Luo, P., Tu, L. and Luo, J., 2016. New Test of the Gravitational Inverse-Square Law at the Submillimeter Range with Dual Modulation and Compensation. Physical Review Letters, 116(13). Watkins, T., n.d. Area-Volume Formulas for N-Dimensional Spheres and Balls. [online] San Jose State University. Available at: <https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/ndim.htm> [Accessed 8 February 2021]. 105 | P a g e

Whystringtheory.com. 2021. Extra Dimensions | Why String Theory. [online] Available at: <http://whystringtheory.com/toolbox/extra-dimensions/> [Accessed 8 June 2021].

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Highly Commended and Tietz Prize STEM: Physics The applications of loop quantum gravity to cosmology and an evaluation of its role as a scientific theory

Ayur Pulle Boys’ School Ayur read a book by the physicist Carlo Rovelli on the history of unification theories in physics, and how loop quantum gravity may be a steppingstone to formulating a theory that allows gravity to be quantized as a field. He wanted to understand more about how this theory worked and whether it was scientifically rigorous. He was most interested in the applications of this theory, and how (previously) the stuff of science fiction such as white holes can emerge organically from the axiom that space comes in discrete packets. He enjoyed researching such a niche field, as it felt like from all the papers he read that there were very few people working on it in the world, and they were all referencing each other. Ayur is planning to study Physics or Maths and Physics at university.

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The applications of loop quantum gravity to cosmology and an evaluation of its role as a scientific theory Abstract The applications of Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) to Cosmology yield a new branch of physics called Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC). The predictions of these LQC models are detailed. These predictions are varied and use different assumptions to come to their conclusions about. While the assumptions made are reasonable, there is a problem with the scientific method of LQC that must be resolved. I will attempt to explain the predicted phenomena as well as to evaluate the successes and failures of these models. Introduction In the 20th Century there was a breakthrough in physics- general relativity- that changed the way that gravity was viewed. Alongside general relativity came quantum mechanics, and a realisation that potentially everything could be reduced to particles. As part of this change came a new obsession with quantizing space itself, and even fundamental forces such as gravity. In his 1916 paper on Gravitational waves, Einstein wrote “it appears that quantum theory would have to modify not only Maxwellian electrodynamics, but also the new theory of gravitation.” (Einstein, 1916) Loop Quantum Gravity is one such attempt at quantizing space, and it theorises that spacetime can be reduced to discrete quanta made up of spin networks, (Rovelli and Smolin, 1995). The ‘loops’ make up space itself. Therefore, rather than quantizing gravity by method of a graviton, Loop Quantum Gravity emerges as a property of the quantized geometry of space. The theory of quantum gravitation originally formulated by Richard Feynman and John Dewitt was a good model for low energy systems but offered wildly inaccurate predictions when it was applied to a high energy system (Quanta Magazine, 2018). The theory has been considerably improved over the last decades, and the new theory predicts a variety of new cosmological phenomena (Bojowald, Maartens and Singh, 2004). These phenomena range from the improbable Planck star to the science fiction–esque Big Bounce. From the Big Bang to Black Holes (Hawking, 1988) The Minimum Length Problem The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is one of the most famous equations in Physics, and it is usually written as ∆x∆p≥ħ/2. Simply, this law states that the uncertainty in the position of a given particle (∆x) multiplied by the uncertainty in its momentum (∆p) must be greater than or equal to the reduced Planck’s constant (ħ) divided by 2. However, when the particle being observed moves at close to the speed of light, known as a relativistic particle, the uncertainty principle can also be written in terms of position and energy, as momentum (p) ≈ Energy (E). ħ/2 can also be written as 1 in natural units thus obtaining the equation ∆x∆E≥1. ∆x∆E≥1 ∆x≤E-1 can be obtained if the uncertainty in position is greater than the Compton wavelength of the particle. (The Compton wavelength is the wavelength of a photon with the same amount of energy as the particle) Therefore, the equation: 108 | P a g e

E-1∆E ≥ 1 Can be obtained substituting E-1 in for ∆x. This can be completed: ∆E ≥ E Showing that the uncertainty in energy of the particle is greater than the uncertainty in the energy of the particle. (Garay, 1995). This introduces a minimum wavelength for the uncertainty in energy to be less than the rest energy, which must hold true at relativistic speeds else there would be severe ramifications for the idea of a particle itself. For there to be a minimum wavelength, there would have to be a minimum length, and so the basic principle of LQG can be derived from the Uncertainty Principle. The quantization of space itself leads inevitably to a minimum possible length, an ‘absolute zero’ of distance. If space itself is made up of fundamental particles, then these particles cannot be (further) divided. Therefore, you cannot get a region of space smaller than the quantum length because space itself is made up of these quantum lengths. This may sound familiar. The Planck length (1.6x10-35m) already exists as a lower bound on the size of any distance. However, the new quanta of space are different, as these exist not as a limit of precision like the Planck length but rather a realist, independent, limit to the size of space. When this parameter is applied to the equation of quantum mechanics it is found that there also exists a finite energy density at this minimum possible area. (Dzierżak et al., 2010). This has significant consequences for the behaviour of two phenomenon that we are desperate to understand, the Big Bang and Black Holes. The Big Bang… The so-called Big Bang remains one of the most perplexing ‘events’ in physics. The theory, originally proposed by Belgian Priest George Lemaitre, suggests that the universe expanded from a single point of infinite density outwards, (Kragh, 1997). It is so widely accepted because it explains a variety of observations made, including but not limited to, Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, the expanding universe, etc. However, one point of debate has long been about the initial (time t=0) stage of the big bang. How could all the matter in the universe be packed into a single point, infinitely small, and thus of infinite energy density? Loop Quantum Cosmology LQC states that this is impossible because of the minimum length problem detailed above. What, then, is the alternative? One of the solutions of Einstein’s equations leads to a model of spacetime called Friedmann Lemaitre Robertson Walker (FLRW) spacetime. Key to this model are two assumptions, one that spacetime is homogenous, and another that it is isotropic. These assumptions combine to give a view of space that denies the specialty of any individual point of reference in space and assigns no meaning to direction or position. (Mohajan, 2013). The Hubble parameter describes the expansion of the universe, and this has been positive since the Big Bang. For certain solutions of the Friedmann equations, where, in the future, the Hubble constant flips from positive to negative, there is a ‘Big Crunch’. The expansion of the universe stops, then reverses, and the universe and all the matter within it starts to collapse in on itself. This would theoretically lead to a new singularity being formed as the matter reverts to the conditions of the big bang, an infinitely small point of infinite density. (Nemiroff and Patla, 2008)

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However, under LQG there is a way out of this return to singularity. If a 4-dimensional (3 space, 1 time) brane (a point particle of sorts) was able to move in a 5-dimensional bulk universe (4 space, 1 time), then this singularity could be resolved as a recursive bounce. As the singularity approaches the point of infinite density, LQC models replace the continuous space time with discrete quanta. This model gives a repeated process comprised of a Big Bang followed by an inflationary period, a reverse and Big Crunch, and then a Big Bang / Bounce, over and over again. Why does the Big Crunch result in a Big Bounce? In LQG, there is a new fundamental force that would result in a repulsive force similar to the strong nuclear force, (Broda, 2011). As matter reaches a point of critical density, the inward gravitational pressure would be countered and exceeded by the outward quantum gravitational pressure as quantum geometry becomes the dominant force. …To Black Holes The Big Bang is not the only singularity that needs to be resolved. Our understanding of Black Holes is very limited. The principle of the conservation of quantum information states that quantum information cannot be created nor destroyed. The total information of an isolated system remains constant. (Roncaglia, 2019). However, according to the Hawking evolution of black holes, the prior state of a black hole is unable to be determined from the state of the black hole as observed at any moment. That is because from the point of view of an observer outside a black hole, it only has 3 properties – mass, charge and spin. “Black hole evaporation should proceed in a baryon-antibaryon symmetric manner, leaving the Hawking radiation with expected baryon number 0, no matter what the baryon number of the material collapsing to form the black hole was.” (Belot, Earman, Reutsche,1999) This is a violation of the conservation of quantum information under a black hole that follows standard Hawking evolution. This problem is known as the Black Hole information paradox. This collapse into baryon number 0 also highlights the problem of Black Hole entropy, where the Second Law of Thermodynamics is broken. A star has a massive amount of entropy, given that it is full of particles bouncing around with high energy. If that star were to collapse, the black hole formed would have very little entropy, as the level of disorder has descended from trillions upon trillions of separate molecules to one homogenous black hole. This is shown by the fact that the baryon number of an average star with 1057 atoms would be in the order of 1057, a high entropy state, compared to the zero-entropy state of a black hole. The resolution of this problem comes in the Bekenstein-Hawking formula for Black Hole entropy. It shows that the entropy of a black hole is proportional to its area, (Rovelli, 1996). Rovelli has furthered this calculation into the domain of LQC, showing that the entropy is determined by “the states of the quantum gravitational field.” This gives a different value of entropy compared to the Hawking formula, but it is a potential resolution of this problem. Just as the entropy problem can be solved with LQC, so too can the Black hole information paradox. Black to White: In the current model of black holes, the evaporation of the hole would result in a black hole too small to contain the information absorbed. As in the big bang, infinite density with a positive, non-zero mass, implies an area of zero. The quantization of space seems to contradict the theory of black holes that they are points of infinite density of matter. If the minimum area is taken to be true, then there must be an alternative to the point of infinite density at the centre of the black hole. This alternative is called a white hole. 110 | P a g e

As the matter enters the black holes it does still become incredibly dense. However, at a point the pressure of quantum gravity becomes enough to counteract the weight of the matter and avoid further collapsing. The theory, states that the energy from the black hole “bounces” out at the point

(Uwinnipeg.ca, 2021)

where the black hole is. (Barrau et al., 2016). How does the singularity disappear under LQC? Leonardo Modesto (Modesto, 2004) outlines the principles of this, starting with the Schwarzschild solution. The Schwarzschild solution is used to describe the spacetime inside of the black hole. This equation can be quantized, ultimately resulting in an equation that describes the quantized spacetime near the singularity, giving the result that the singularity itself ceases to exist. From the moment the matter of a ‘black hole’ enters the singularity, there is a wave packet that forms. This packet then ‘tunnels’ and re-emerges as an expanding white hole wave, (Haggard and Rovelli, 2015). Thus a ‘black hole’ in the classical sense of a singularity/ point of infinite density is avoided. From the point of view of a distant observer there is an event horizon but in reality, there is a trapped surface beneath the event horizon that is not revealed until the black hole fully rebounds. As a black hole collapses, the density of the mass inside increases, and reaches the energy density of the Planck scale. This object is called a Planck star. Forces similar to the repulsion of the strong nuclear force acts on the collapsing matter and prevents it from reaching a singular point. The star then bounces back out. The corresponding measurable effects would be gravitational waves of length ~ 10-16 m (Rovelli, 2014). The detection of these could provide evidence that a Planck star – like object exists. However, these theories currently have no experimental evidence to back them up, but there could be an interesting reason for that. Towards the centre of a black hole, as the density of matter approaches infinity, the equations of relativity tell us that an observer inside the black hole would not experience any time passing. As explained previously, under LQC this matter never reaches a point of infinite density, but regardless the observer would experience severe time dilation due to the immense warping of spacetime due to the mass of the black hole. Although this observer may experience little time inside the black hole itself, experiencing time dilation due to the gravitational force of the black hole a distant second observer would experience billions of years passing. Thus, there may be no black hole that has yet reached the required age for the process to have reversed and for the matter to “leave” the black hole, at least from our perspective. An estimate of 14x109 years is given for the time required for a black hole to evolve. (Rovelli, 2018). The estimate of 14x109 is obtained using the assumptions stated previously, as well as disregarding Hawking radiation, as the time required for a black hole to evaporate via Hawking radiation is much longer than the time for the black hole to start tunnelling. Along with Hawking Radiation the thermic effects of the black hole are also 111 | P a g e

disregarded. This is because the entire energy of a collapsed star will not be lost through Hawking radiation. For a large black hole (Lee, n.d.). This process is assumed to be time invariant as general relativity is time invariant. These black holes should be reaching the time required for this “bounce” to be noticeable around now, as the estimated age of the universe is in the region of 14x109 years old and the estimate for the time taken for a black hole to fully rebound and be observed. Primordial black holes formed soon after the Bang are at or will soon be (on a cosmological scale soon may be millions of years) the right age to be emitting these signals. A rebounding star may emit gamma rays, gravitational waves, as well as neutrinos. However, neutrinos are notoriously difficult to detect so efforts may be concentrated on detecting gamma radiation and gravitational waves. The range of this gamma radiation is small, only 205 light years. (Barrau and Rovelli, 2014) For context, the closest star to earth is Proxima Centauri and this is 4.25 light years away. 205 light years is tiny compared to the size of the observable universe at 4.65x10^10 light years. This severely limits the number of black holes that we can feasibly detect gamma rays from, as the closest supermassive black hole to us is V616 Monocerotis, which is 3500 light years away. This severely limits the data possible to collect from a bouncing black hole, so it may be possible that even if this theory is true, it will yield no data that. Efforts should be concentrated on detecting the gravitational waves that a rebounding Planck star (and potentially a black hole) could emit. These can be detected at places such as LIGO (Laser Interferometry GravitationalWave Observatory). LIGO has detected gravitational waves from a neutron star orbit 21000 light years away, so it may also be able to detect the waves from a black hole. Loop Gravity and the Multiverse In the early 20th Century, there was a serious problem in quantum mechanics, that the process of measuring a quantum particle forced the wave function of this particle to collapse into a certain state. This solution was suggested by Von Neumann and supported by the pre-eminent Quantum Physicist of the day, Niels Bohr. However, a young physicist Hugh Everett rejected this idea and saw it as a violation of the Schrodinger equation, as the equation is violated at the point of measurement. Everett’s solution was that the wave function never collapses. At the instant of measurement, the particle is not forced down one route, but simultaneously splits into different universes, each of which is created by the different route taken by the particle. Although this may seem ridiculous, the work of John Bell later in the Century showed that either locality (a fundamental tenet of Special relativity that states that objects can only be influenced by their immediate surroundings) or a single universe, had to be rejected. (Barrett, 2009) This interpretation is called the many worlds interpretation, and Quantum Gravity may support a modified version of it. In a collapsing universe, a reverse Big Bang of sorts, space-time is non homogenous. That is, it does not stay the same under transformations in space. Non homogenous space time can fractalize over time. However, these regions of space continue to collapse, and in a model where the Big Bang is a rebound of a collapsing universe, each ‘bubble’ of space rebounds into its own separate universe, independent from one another. This happens because for each fractal of space the density reaches the Planck scale at different times, thus leading to multiple bounces. The same thing happens for a collapsing black hole. If it were to re-emerge as a white hole it would do so in a separate universe. A ‘baby’ universe emerges out of every black hole that tunnels. Over the many millions of black holes this implies the existence of many millions of universes all expanding within a larger universe. (Bojowald, 2020) However, this requires 112 | P a g e

replacing the standard model of space time with 4-dimensional Euclidian space time. In standard FRLW spacetime, there are also 4 dimensions, but these 4 dimensions are the standard 3 (x,y,z) as well as time being the 4th dimension. In 4d Euclidean space, there are 4 spatial dimensions in addition to time (think x,y,z,w) , leading to 5 total dimensions. This fifth dimension would be hidden in a tiny “pocket” of space of size anywhere from 10-16m to 10-33m in size. This potential solution is not the exact same as Everett’s initial idea. In his theory there were potentially infinite possible universes due to the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, whereas under Loop Quantum Cosmology the multiple universes would split due to a collapsing universe. Limitations of the Loop Quantum Gravity/Cosmology Models Evaluation of assumptions made: A critique of LQC is the assumption of homogeneity in the universe. The Cosmological principle also offers significant evidence that when viewed on a macroscopic scale of 250 million light years or more, the universe is statistically homogenous. Thus, the assumption of homogeneity can remain on a large scale. (Scrimgeour et al., 2012). Additionally, LQC is robust because inhomogeneities can also be accounted for under LQC with Gowdy spacetimes, showing its adaptability as a theory regardless of initial conditions. (Garay, Martín-Benito and Mena Marugán, 2010) However, the singularity can only be resolved in a universe that follows k=1 or k=0 solution of the Friedmann equations within an FLRW model of the (Hu, n.d.) universe. K=1 represents the curvature of a flat universe shown in Fig 2. However, there is also the possibility of K>1, shown as a positively curved closed spherical universe, for which there is no solution that works with a model of LQC. There is a solution for a K=0 model of FLRW space in LQC, shown as a negatively curved hyperbola. So, there are no solutions of the Friedmann equations for k>1 or for k<1 and ≠ 0, but not any other value of K. Thus, if any evidence surfaces supporting an FLRW model with a K value that is not 0 or 1, this would be a significant blow for any model of LQC. (Rovelli, 2011) Scientific method: There are also significant limitations to the scientific method of the theory that a rebounding black hole in fractalized space could produce a multiverse, originating Karl Popper’s theory of falsifiability. It postulates that for a theory to be scientific it must be falsifiable, that there must be a possibility of data being recorded that could disprove that theory. While Popper’s theory is certainly controversial, and philosophers have justifiably derided it as overly reductive, it has an application here. When Everett initially came up with the many worlds’ theory, it was not popularised partially because it could never be proven false. It was a theory that was fundamentally unfalsifiable. (Jeffrey, 1975) As Wolfgang Pauli once described an unfalsifiable theory of his student – “this is not right, it is not even wrong!”. LQC’s theory of a multiverse suffers from the same problem. As in Everett’s theory, there is no way of crossing from universe 113 | P a g e

to universe, so there is no possibility to collect any evidence for this theory to be supported, or as importantly, to be falsified. This is evident in the lack of testable predictions. Carlo Rovelli, a pioneer of both LQG and LQC, admits that “Loop gravity, as well as all other quantum theories of gravity, has so far been incapable of producing a single clear-cut prediction that could in principle put the theory under cogent empirical test.”, (Rovelli, 2012). Conclusion It is important to think about what Loop Quantum Gravity is not. Loop Quantum Gravity is not an attempt at a General Unified Theory or even a resolution of the differences between Quantum Mechanics and General relativity. It is also, when applied as LQC, not an exact formalism (Rovelli, 2018). These are not mathematical fact and should not be taken as such, but they are well reasoned models based on reasonable assumptions. In fact, the simplicity of LQG is one of its strengths, as the bulk of it relies only on the two most proven theories in physics, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. There is definitely an issue with the lack of testability of these theories but given the early nature of the field (it was established in the last 35 years) it is something that can be fixed. As space travel and other technologies advance, problems such as distance for measuring gamma radiation may remove themselves. (The challenges of finding data to support LQC seem miniscule in comparison to observing the 10/11 dimensions of String/M theory, competitors to LQG for quantum gravity) Thus, Loop Quantum Cosmology research should be furthered with an emphasis on offering testable predictions.

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Reference List: Barrau, A., Bolliet, B., Vidotto, F. and Weimer, C. (2016). Phenomenology of bouncing black holes in quantum gravity: a closer look. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2016(02), pp.022–022. [Accessed 4 Feb. 2021] Barrett, J.A. (2009). Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Compendium of Quantum Physics, [online] pp.363–367. Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-70626-7_113 [Accessed 23 Mar. 2021]. Barrau, A. and Rovelli, C. (2014). Planck star phenomenology. Physics Letters B, [online] 739, pp.405–409. Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.5821.pdf [Accessed 22 Mar. 2021]. Belot, G., Earman, J. and Reutsche, L. (1999) The Hawking Information Loss Paradox and: The Anatomy of a Controversy. Brit. J. Phil. Sci. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40072220?readnow=1&refreqid=excelsior%3Af2effc3d4cb5c6da08e3c59a102b23c2&seq=1#page_scan_tab_ contents.[Accessed 6 Feb. 2021] Bojowald, M., Maartens, R. and Singh, P. (2004). Loop quantum gravity and the cyclic universe. Physical Review D, [online] 70(8). Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/hepth/0407115.pdf.[Accessed 4 Feb. 2021] Bojowald, M., 2008. Harmonic Cosmology: How Much Can We Know about a Universe before the Big Bang? [online] jstor.org. Available at: <https://www.jstor.org/stable/41739843?readnow=1&seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents> [Accessed 2 February 2021]. Bojowald, M. (2020). Critical Evaluation of Common Claims in Loop Quantum Cosmology. Universe, [online] 6(3), p.36. Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.05703.pdf. [Accessed 22 March. 2021] Broda, B. (2011). One-Loop Quantum Gravity Repulsion in the Early Universe. Physical Review Letters, [online] 106(10). Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1011.6257.pdf. [Accessed 29 May .2021] Dzierżak, P., Jezierski, J., Law Ma Lkiewicz †, P. and Lodzimierz Piechocki, W. (2010). The minimum length problem of loop quantum cosmology. [online] . Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/0810.3172.pdf [Accessed 6 Feb. 2021]. Einstein, A (1916) Naherungsweise Integration der Feldgleichungen der Gravitation Sitzungsberichte der Kniglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin), Page 696 GARAY, L.J. (1995). QUANTUM GRAVITY AND MINIMUM LENGTH. International Journal of Modern Physics A, [online] 10(02), pp.145–165. Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/grqc/9403008.pdf [Accessed 31 Mar. 2021]. Garay, L.J., Martín-Benito, M. and Mena Marugán, G. A. (2010). Inhomogeneous loop quantum cosmology: Hybrid quantization of the Gowdy model. Physical Review D, [online] 82(4). Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1005.5654.pdf. [Accessed 1 Jun .2021] Haggard, H.M. and Rovelli, C. (2015). Quantum-gravity effects outside the horizon spark black to white hole tunneling. Physical Review D, 92(10). [Accessed 21 March. 2021] Hu, W. (n.d.). Astro 321 Set 1: FRW Cosmology. [online]. Available at: http://background.uchicago.edu/~whu/Courses/Ast321_11/ast321_1.pdf. [Accessed 21 May. 2021] 115 | P a g e

Jeffrey, R.C. (1975). Probability and Falsification: Critique of the Popper Program. Synthese, [online] 30(1/2), pp.95–117. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20115018?seq=1 [Accessed 3 Jun. 2021]. Kragh, H. and Hufbauer, K. (1997). Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Universe. Physics Today, [online] 50(9), pp.68–70. Available at: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.881918 [Accessed 1 Jun. 2021]. Lee, T. (n.d.). An Introduction to Loop Quantum Gravity and Its Application to Black Holes. [online] . Available at: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/research-centres-andgroups/theoretical-physics/msc/dissertations/2014/Tim-Lee-Dissertation.pdf [Accessed 22 Mar. 2021]. Modesto, L. (2004). Disappearance of the black hole singularity in loop quantum gravity. Physical Review D, [online] 70(12). Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/grqc/0407097.pdf [Accessed 31 Jan. 2021]. Mohajan, H. (2013). M P RA Munich Personal RePEc Archive Friedmann, Robertson-Walker (FRW) Models in Cosmology Friedmann, Robertson-Walker (FRW) Models in Cosmology. Journal of Environmental Treatment Techniques, [online] 1(3), pp.158–164. Available at: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/211610215.pdf. [Accessed 23 May .2021] Nemiroff, R.J. and Patla, B. (2008). Adventures in Friedmann cosmology: A detailed expansion of the cosmological Friedmann equations. American Journal of Physics, 76(3), pp.265–276. [Accessed 2 June 2021] Quanta Magazine. (2018). Why an Old Theory of Everything Is Gaining New Life | Quanta Magazine. [online] Available at: https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-an-old-theory-ofeverything-is-gaining-new-life20180108/#:~:text=Unlike%20the%20electromagnetic%20force%20and,is%20not%20a%20qu antum%20theory.&text=In%20the%201960s%2C%20Richard%20Feynman,quantum%20theo ry%20called%20quantum%20electrodynamics. [Accessed 30 Jan. 2021]. Roncaglia, M. (2019). On the Conservation of Information in Quantum Physics. Foundations of Physics, [online] 49(11), pp.1278–1286. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10701-019-00304-9 [Accessed 7 Feb. 2021]. Rovelli, C. (1996). Black Hole Entropy from Loop Quantum Gravity. Physical Review Letters, [online] 77(16), pp.3288–3291. Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9603063.pdf [Accessed 1 Jun. 2021]. Rovelli, C. (2011). Loop quantum gravity: the first 25 years. Classical and Quantum Gravity, [online] 28(15), p.153002. Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1012.4707.pdf. [Accessed 1 Jun. 2021]. Rovelli, C. (2018). Black Hole Evolution Traced Out with Loop Quantum Gravity. Physics, 11. [Accessed 6 Feb. 2021] Rovelli, C. and Vidotto, F. (2014) Planck Stars International Journal of Modern Physics. Available at : https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.6562 [Accessed 6 February 2021] Rovelli, C. and Smolin, L. (1995). Spin networks and quantum gravity. Physical Review D, [online] 52(10), pp.5743–5759. Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9505006.pdf [Accessed 26 May. 2021]. Scrimgeour, M.I., Davis, T., Blake, C., James, J.B., Poole, G.B., Staveley-Smith, L., Brough, S., Colless, M., Contreras, C., Couch, W., Croom, S., Croton, D., Drinkwater, M.J., Forster, K., 116 | P a g e

Gilbank, D., Gladders, M., Glazebrook, K., Jelliffe, B., Jurek, R.J. and Li, I-hui. (2012). The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: the transition to large-scale cosmic homogeneity. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 425(1), pp.116–134. [Accessed 30 Mar. 2021] Uwinnipeg.ca. (2021). Schwarzschild Metric - Part 2. [online] Available at: http://ion.uwinnipeg.ca/~vincent/4500.6-001/Cosmology/Schwarzschild_Metric2.htm [Accessed 7 Jun. 2021].

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Highly Commended STEM Vogel Prize: Chemistry Drug Discovery: How the use of Artificial Intelligence in Chemistry can save lives

Anna Gittleson Girls’ School Anna began thinking about this topic at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when there was an unprecedented urgency to develop vaccines. It made her think about how vaccines are developed, and what methods may be available to speed up the process. That quickly led her to AI and the broader question of the relationship between AI and chemistry, and how AI in chemistry can save lives through drug discovery. Anna is interested in topics that have a real-world relevance and can address major global challenges. Within the project, she was particularly interested in thinking about the balance of benefits to the AI approach but also the challenges. She enjoyed the inter-disciplinary nature of the research, as well as thinking about the AI-human interactions and how to harness the best of both to enable drug discovery. Anna is planning to study Natural Sciences at university as it has the interdisciplinarity that she enjoyed during the Aske Level Project, and it also addresses the same real-world global challenges.

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Drug Discovery: How the use of Artificial Intelligence in Chemistry can save lives Introduction By June 2021, more than 3.7 million people had died as a result of COVID-19 (WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard, 2021). As a result of the pandemic, the world has turned its attention to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in chemistry in its quest to find a cure. This literature review will consider the ways in which AI has contributed to drug discovery, with a focus on Covid-19 as a current example. It will begin with a brief review of the history of the development of AI within Chemistry and the pioneering work of Cartwright (1993) who argued for the ‘profound effect’ that AI would have on the field. It considers how organic synthesis contributes to drug discovery, and the ground-breaking potential of AI models such as the Molecular Transformer (Yang et al., 2019) to radically improve the way such synthesis is undertaken. The use of AI in the application of drug design through learning-prediction models and virtual screening to present accurate chemistry outputs has been central in allowing drug repurposing in the fight against disease (Ke et al., 2020) and has enabled work to continue despite the restrictions imposed on researchers during the pandemic. Other key ways that AI in chemistry can contribute to drug discovery, including retrosynthesis, chemical probes (McCloskey et al., 2020) and chemical engineering (Bailey, 2019) will also be considered. The literature review focuses on the role of AI in developing vaccines and treatments for Covid-19, and some of the inherent challenges with the AI approach. The final section of the review considers where the greatest developments and benefits of AI in drug discovery will be in the future. The review ends with a summary and concludes that AI and humans both play critical roles in drug discovery. Review of the History of the Development of AI within Chemistry The term AI was first defined by John McCarthy and colleagues in 1969 and was described as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines” (McCarthy et al, 1969). AI is multidisciplinary and much of the initial focus was on the use of AI in computer science and engineering to produce robots. However, from the early days there was a great deal of interest from across disciplines about the potential problems that could be addressed by AI. Despite the wide range of areas that can be helped by AI, they all share the principles of solving problems using knowledge acquisition and maintenance, knowledge representation, solution search, logic reasoning, and machine learning (Yang et al., 2019). The Oxford English Dictionary defines Machine Learning as a type of artificial intelligence in which computers use huge amounts of data to learn how to do tasks rather than being programmed to do them. Deep Learning is defined as a type of machine learning based on artificial neural networks in which multiple layers of processing are used to extract progressively higher-level features from data. As an illustration of its influence, three of the top five papers listed by Google Scholar for Nature in 2020 are related to AI. Within chemistry, Dr. Hugh Cartwright was amongst the first to realise the impact that AI could have on the field. In his ground-breaking book, he argued specifically the ‘profound effect’ AI would have on chemistry, and how AI would assume an increasingly fundamental role (Cartwright, 1993). He outlined how the emerging use of neural networks, a powerful form of AI inspired by the structure of the brain, could discover previously unknown relationships within data, finding new scientific laws. Cartwright postulated that AI could help operate a chemistry laboratory or plant, through instruction, scheduling and control. Whilst a powerful advocate, he perhaps articulated better the rationale for why AI would be so important in chemistry rather than providing a comprehensive framework to understand where such breakthroughs would occur in drug discovery. Limitations in computing power meant it took another 15 years for the first breakthrough in AI and drug discovery to be made. According to Fleming (2018), the discovery was made by a robot scientist called ‘Adam’ in 2007. The AI robot searched public databases to put forward hypotheses about which genes code for key enzymes that catalyse reactions in the 119 | P a g e

yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Independent researchers tested Adam's hypotheses and found they were 90% accurate. The research paper introducing ‘Adam’ is the most highly cited paper of all time with 47,774 citations. Since then, there has been a rapid and growing interest in the use of AI in drug discovery, with clear benefits (Fleming, 2018). The historical journey in AI in chemistry has now benefitted the search for effective drugs to prevent and treat Covid-19 today. How organic synthesis can contribute to drug discovery Organic synthesis is the making of complex molecules from more simple chemical building blocks. It is an essential part of developing new drugs for treating illness and disease. Chemists recognise that it is a very time consuming and expensive process, because combinations of chemicals often react in ways that are unexpected and the number of potential combinations that could be tried is extremely large; the number of reported molecules has reached 135 million, which whilst large still only represents a small proportion of the estimated 1060 feasible drug-like compounds. Even trained chemists will have limits on their knowledge of what potential reactions may be and they will not be aware of all existing work that has been documented. In the past two years, AI neural network tools have been developed that have dramatically improved the organic synthesis process. These emergent models work by having the neural network distil patterns of reactivity from millions of published chemical reactions contained in existing documents such as patents. One powerful example is The Molecular Transformer (Yang et al., 2019; Schwaller et al., 2019). This neural network based model has achieved 90% accuracy in predicting the correct product of unseen chemical reactions between reactants and reagents. The model also predicts the sequence of reactions and the level of uncertainty in its predictions. This compares to an accuracy of 80% for trained human chemists. Virtual screening and toxicity The early stages of developing a new drug for a particular disease involve target identification and virtual screening (Hughes et al., 2011). The target, typically a protein or enzyme, will play a critical role in the progression of the disease or illness. Virtual screening involves searching libraries of small molecules to identify those most likely to bind to the target. Researchers can then test whether the molecules have the desired outcome on the target and use this to develop more selective compounds that can form the basis of a new drug. A form of AI called natural language processing is now being used to drastically shorten the time taken to find effective targets (Liddy, 2001). The AI models utilise the enormous amounts of existing scientific literature to examine relationships between diseases and drugs and then suggest targets for researchers. AI is also used in compound synthesis, which involves analysing the properties of the small molecules such as their ability to bind, their activity and efficacy (Strubble et al., 2020). Interestingly, AI is also being trialled to predict what side effects arise as a result of the molecules interacting with other non-target proteins and chemical receptors. More broadly, AI is now being deployed in the important area of toxicity (Yang, Wang, et al., 2019). Measuring the level of toxicity is arguably one of the most important and challenging steps in the development of drugs. Traditional methods using assays are very time consuming and expensive. AI based models have been developed to predict toxicity with promising results and it is an area of increased focus in the pharmaceutical sector. Chemical probes and retrosynthesis More specific chemical discovery within drug development can also be improved on with AI models. One such example is that of chemical probes. Many new drugs are based on either inhibiting or promoting how proteins function. Chemical probes can be used to see how a system behaves with this reduced or increased protein. However, at present only 4% of human proteins have a known chemical probe available (McCloskey et al, 2020). AI models are being developed 120 | P a g e

to predict which of millions of small molecules will bind and interact with a given protein. It seems inevitable that as a direct result of AI, chemical probes will be discovered much more rapidly now with a consequential benefit in drug development. Such models seem likely to fundamentally impact the development of new drugs. Not only will they predict the properties of new molecules, but they will also propose them for chemists trying to achieve specific outcomes. Having identified the molecular structure to be achieved, AI has also started to be used for retrosynthesis (the reverse process to organic synthesis). Here the aim is to work out the underlying chemical components and steps needed to produce the desired, proposed structure. AI technology has started to be used here to determine the optimal or suitable conditions for the reactions to occur. Use of AI for predicting how drugs perform in the body in the following chemical/biological processes There are various ways in which AI can be used to predict how drugs will perform in the body following chemical/biological processes and machine learning is considered to have a central role in cheminformatics (Lo et al., 2018). Understanding how drugs will perform is important to know for health and to predict individual responses. These ways include: -

Aqueous Solubility Prediction, crucial for drugs taken orally that then need to be absorbed in intestine Permeability prediction for drugs to cross membranes in the body Absorption of drugs into bloodstream Distribution, the process by which drug molecules diffuse from the bloodstream to body tissues Drug excretion, the process of removing drug molecules from the body

The role of chemical engineering in discovering and producing drugs Chemical engineering concerns the development, production and transportation of products and materials from raw materials using chemical processes. As such it is an integral part of the pharmaceutical industry, including the production of drugs. Improvements in how chemical engineering activities are performed as a result of the deployment of new AI models have a direct impact in the research, production and distribution activities of drugs. AI is now having a significant influence in this area (Bailey, 2019). Chemical production processes are using AI models to improve the yields of raw materials and optimise performance. Chemical engineers use AI to improve decisions on when to buy and transport raw materials and products (their supply chain) needed to make the drugs, based on real time data from factories. Predictive maintenance is now commonplace; anomalies in factories are identified automatically, faults detected and diagnosed, with equipment identified for replacement before it fails. AI controlled robots have even replaced humans in undertaking work, such as with the movement of hazardous goods. Indeed, more broadly, AI controlled robots can undertake chemical experiments and the drug research processes in laboratories. The use of AI in developing vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 One of the first uses of AI was to capture in one place all the rapidly emerging scientific data and research on Covid-19 to enable those developing vaccines and therapeutic medicines access to the latest information. The Covid-19 Open Research Dataset, updated daily, was established and specifically designed so that it could be searched using AI tools so that researchers could obtain relevant information quickly and benefit from collaboration and shared learning. However, its most important use has been in developing vaccines in response to the pandemic.

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Use of AI in vaccine development Within three months of the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in China, vaccines were already being tested (Waltz, 2020). Previously, the shortest time from development to distribution of an approved vaccine was four years for the mumps. This speed of response was only possible due to the role of AI in the development of the vaccine and has revolutionised the development of vaccines more generally. A key role for AI relates to the understanding the genetic material of the virus which is encapsulated in by layers of protein. The outer membrane often has spike proteins, which enable the virus to bind to receptors on a host cell. The goal of the vaccine is to enable the human immune system to create antibodies that disable the spike protein so that the virus cannot break into the cells. There are many thousands of possible combinations of outer proteins for the immune system to recognise. One role for AI in vaccine design is to study the proteins that make up the virus, which include the spike protein. Machine-learning systems and computational analyses that are the central components of AI systems helped researchers understand the virus and its structure, and predict which of its components will create the desired immune response—which is essential in vaccine design. This was done using training data sets from other similar viruses in the past, and allowed chemists and immunologists to focus their efforts to establish which possible vaccines produce the best response. One of the earliest examples of the use of AI in Covid vaccine development was The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). Their research team used machine learning to identify a list of targets on the virus’s spike protein on the novel coronavirus to provoke an immune response. These targets, or epitopes, are components of the virus that B cells and T cells will likely recognize (Fast, Altman and Chen, 2020). Other research groups also used AI to help identify potential vaccine candidates for Covid-19 based on its viral pathogens and characteristics (Ong et al, 2020) with approaches aiming to identify existing drugs that could target the main viral proteins involved in a Covid-19 infected cell (Keshavarzi Arshadi et al, 2020). Google DeepMind introduced AlphaFold, an advanced and specialised system that forecasts the formation of 3D proteins while using their genetic sequence (HospiMedica, 2020). There are many learning tools available, and more are constantly being developed by chemists, immunologists and computational experts in the fight against Covid-19 (see Mei et al., 2020 for a review). AI has been used by all of the major vaccine companies including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Johnson and Johnson. AI was used to identify the most likely elements of potential vaccines to include and combined this chemical and biological information, with experimental data. It was also used for data quality and analysis. For example, the successful development of Pfizer’s vaccine involved using a new AI technique called Smart Data Query (SDQ) during its clinical trials for its emerging Covid-19 vaccine (Breakthroughs, 2021). Typically, when a clinical trial concludes the process of checking the data sets gathered for any errors in coding or consistency is a time consuming, labour intensive process. Pfizer trialled their AI tool, which automated the data quality process and stated that it saved them approximately one month in their development cycle. The Covid-19 vaccines could not have been developed within the time-frame without AI. The vaccines are highly effective in preventing Covid-19 symptoms and reducing hospital admissions, as evidenced by a recent study of 156,930 older adults (Lopez-Bernal et al., 2021). The role of AI in tracking Covid 19 mutations A similar approach has been developed to use AI for identifying potential vaccine designs for evolving mutations of Covid-19. The Kent mutation was responsible for the third lockdown in the UK, and at the time of writing, there is significant concern about the Indian variant. AI is used to also help scientists track the virus’s genetic mutations over time, information that will determine 122 | P a g e

any vaccine’s value in the years to come. AI systems are also used to identify components that are unlikely to mutate, to ensure that a vaccine will remain effective over time. The early promising indications are that the Pfizer Covid vaccine is able to protect against the variants (Callaway, 2021). The use of AI in diagnosis and treatment Alongside accelerating the development of new vaccines, AI has also been used to help in diagnosis and treatment plans. For example, Apostolopoulos and colleagues used a state-ofthe-art, Deep Learning method to extract information from x-rays called Mobile Net (Apostopoulos, Aznaouridis and Tzani, 2020). This method allowed Covid-19 to be detected with 99% accuracy and specificity. AI has also been used to assess whether existing drugs can be repurposed to help treat patients suffering from the more severe impacts of Covid. One example is the use of Chloroquine and its hydroxyl analogue Hydroxychloroquine which have antimalarial efficacy and they have also been shown to treat COVID-19 in vitro although there is a lot of media attention and debate around their use (Khuroo, Sofi and Khuroo, 2020). Entire AI-based drug development teams are focused on the discovery at the molecular level of new antiviral drug-like compounds and a Deep Learning-based drug-target interaction model, called Molecule Transformer-Drug Target Interaction is being used to predict potential drugs for COVID-19 (Beck et al., 2020). Challenges with the use of AI in Covid-19 vaccine and treatment It is important to note that AI is not a 100% guarantee of a successful vaccine. Local vaccines produced in France by the Pasteur Institute and in Australia both had to be abandoned as they did not produce the predicted immune response that AI had anticipated. The failure of these vaccines demonstrates the importance of testing AI in real-world situations in human beings which can only be done in randomised controlled trials which are inevitably time-consuming. Such trials produce vast amounts of data which can be collated by AI systems to allow conclusions to be drawn about key factors such as efficacy, tolerability and side-effects (Waltz, 2020). This is shown by the recent contract between the UK government’s Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority and an AI firm called Genpact to develop a specific model for analyzing reported adverse reactions to Covid vaccines and identifying any unusual patterns in the data (Healthcare IT News, 2021) Overview of role of AI in Covid-19 prevention, diagnosis and treatment Alafif and colleagues (Alafifi et al., 2021) recently summarised the role of AI in Covid-19 diagnosis and treatment. Their summary diagram is reproduced below to show the wide range of areas in which the use of AI in chemistry has had a role in saving lives due to Covid-19.

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Figure 1. A taxonomy of Alafifi et al’s survey on Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) research works towards Corona-virus 2019 (COVID-19) diagnosis and treatment.

Potential future developments The evidence suggests that AI will continue to accelerate the discovery and development of new drugs, in areas such as virtual screening, organic synthesis and chemical synthesis. New compounds will be identified, the range of chemical probes vastly expanded and the relationships between molecules and targets better understood. However, looking beyond this, it is possible to argue that there will be more fundamental breakthroughs as a direct result of the increasing sophistication and use of AI in drug discovery. Personalised medicine It is noticeable how personalised the world has become in recent years. If you search for a particular product, similar products appear to be advertised. When you open a website and are asked to accept ‘cookies’, you are accepting a personalised internet experience. Medicine and the chemistry behind it is also becoming personalised. The development of personalised medicine is based directly on an individual’s genetic code. The emergence of this personalisation is perhaps more likely to be delayed not by the speed of the AI capability, but rather the ethical issues that will arise on who holds your genetic information and what implications there are if it is known you are susceptible to or will develop a certain disease. There are also numerous political issues, first described by Hedgecoe in 2004 in his classic book ‘The politics of personalised medicine: Pharmacogenetics in the clinic’. Such issues include the rationing of healthcare and the relationship between chemical and AI researchers, regulators and companies. The importance of AI in personalised or ‘precision’ medicine has been recognised globally for several years. For example, in 2012 Duburs and colleagues set out the challenges for the use of chemistry in personalised medicine. They identified the need for interdisciplinary research to find specific biomarkers and targets for individuals requiring medical care, with chemists using AI to model and design medicines and drug delivery pathways to enable personalized therapy. 124 | P a g e

AI would be invaluable in identifying potential drug candidates from the multiple options, and also in synthesising new drugs. Autonomous drug design Autonomous drug design is a system that decides which compounds to make next to treat a given illness and is able to design, make, test and analyse without human or chemists’ input. A group of researchers led by Petra Schneider and colleagues (Schneider et al., 2020) described some of the grand challenges for the field in the application of chemistry within AI to produce ‘new chemical entities’ with the desired properties of the drug from the beginning, without the additional expensive and time-consuming input from humans. The potential to develop such drugs on the basis of data and modelling is hugely appealing, and could be viewed as complementing, rather than replacing, the skills of medicinal chemists in selecting and designing drugs. Their review paper has been accessed over 23,000 times since it was published in 2020 with over 100 citations showing the impact that it has had on the field already. They argue that considering AI as a threat to human development of drugs is unhelpful, and that partnering between people and machinery is the best way forward. They also address the concern that if drugs are autonomously designed, then issues arise as to patenting and profit, but working together in partnership can reduce those arguments. Relationship between drugs discovery and new knowledge/ laws in chemistry As a product of the work in drug discovery, it seems inevitable that these AI tools will unearth new knowledge and laws in chemistry by identifying currently unknown patterns and interrelationships in the underlying chemical activity. This new knowledge can be patented by the researchers. Patents play an important role in the chemical enterprise, both as a means for protecting the benefits of research and development from illegal use by competitors and as a major part of the academic endeavours associated with chemistry research (https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/about/governance/committees/patents/what-everychemist-knows-patents.pdf). As part of the patenting process, information is logged in searchable databases, which means that other chemists can benefit from knowledge and embark on further drug discovery research. As well as AI leading to the drug discovery that is patented, AI can also search these databases which is cheaper, faster and more reliable than manual searches conducted by humans (Akhondi et al., 2019). For example, a new compound recognition has been developed that can extract chemical compounds from patents and classify their relevance, to make the databases of patents (such as the Reaxys database) more useful and widely accessible (Akhondi et al., 2019). Summary and Conclusion AI permeates every area of life, including chemistry. Without AI, there would be no vaccine for Covid-19. The future of drug discovery to fight new and evolving diseases is dependent on AI. AI does not replace chemical researchers, but is an essential and invaluable tool that chemists working in healthcare are dependent upon to produce effective medicines to prevent, identify and treat disease. Chemistry with Computing is now a popular degree course. Modern chemistry is dependent on using computer technologies to address global challenges facing the environment and human society. Although this project has focused on drug discovery, the same principle applies to other areas that require an integration of chemistry and AI, such as global warming. AI relies on humans but humans are increasingly reliant on AI. AI brings challenges but it is necessary to overcome these to enable humans to be able to look forward to a positive and healthy future.

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Reference List Akhondi, S.A., Rey, H., Schwörer, M., Maier, M., Toomey, J., Nau, H., Ilchmann, G., Sheehan, M., Irmer, M., Bobach, C. and Doornenbal, M., 2019. Automatic identification of relevant chemical compounds from patents. Database, 2019. Alafif, T., Tehame, A.M., Bajaba, S., Barnawi, A. and Zia, S., 2021. Machine and deep learning towards COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment: survey, challenges, and future directions. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(3), p.1117. Apostolopoulos, I.D., Aznaouridis, S.I. and Tzani, M.A., 2020. Extracting possibly representative COVID-19 biomarkers from X-ray images with deep learning approach and image data related to pulmonary diseases. Journal of Medical and Biological Engineering, 40, pp.462-469. Bailey, M.P. Artificial Intelligence: A New Reality for Chemical Engineers - Chemical Engineering. [online] Available at: <https://www.chemengonline.com/artificial-intelligence-newreality-chemical-engineers/> [Accessed 5 June 2021]. Beck, B.R., Shin, B., Choi, Y., Park, S. and Kang, K., 2020. Predicting commercially available antiviral drugs that may act on the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) through a drug-target interaction deep learning model. Computational and structural biotechnology journal, 18, pp.784-790. Breakthroughs.com. 2021. How a Novel ‘Incubation Sandbox’ Helped Speed Up Data Analysis in Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine Trial | Breakthroughs. [online] Available at: <https://www.breakthroughs.com/advancing-medical-research/how-novel-incubation-sandboxhelped-speed-data-analysis-pfizers-covid-19> [Accessed 5 June 2021]. Callaway, E. (2021). Pfizer COVID vaccine protects against worrying coronavirus variants. Nature. Cartwright, H., 1993. Applications of artificial intelligence in chemistry. Oxford: University Press. Chhikara, B.S., Rathi, B., Singh, J. and Poonam, F.N.U., 2020. Corona virus SARS-CoV-2 disease COVID-19: Infection, prevention and clinical advances of the prospective chemical drug therapeutics. Chemical Biology Letters, 7(1), pp.63-72. Covid19.who.int. 2021. WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard. [online] Available at: <https://covid19.who.int> [Accessed 6 June 2021]. Fast, E., Altman, R. and Chen, B., 2020. Potential T-cell and B-cell Epitopes of 2019-nCoV. bioRxiv 2020.02.19.955484; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.19.955484 Fleming, N., 2018. How artificial intelligence is changing drug discovery. Nature, 557(7706), pp.S55-S55. Ft.com. 2021. UK plans to use AI to process adverse reactions to Covid vaccines. [online] Available at: <https://www.ft.com/content/17a306cd-be75-48b4-996e-0c2916b34797> [Accessed 22 March 2021]. Healthcare IT News. 2021. UK to use AI for COVID-19 vaccine side effects. [online] Available at: <https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/uk-use-ai-covid-19-vaccine-side-effects> [Accessed 5 June 2021]. Hedgecoe, A., 2004. The politics of personalised medicine: Pharmacogenetics in the clinic. Cambridge University Press. 126 | P a g e

HospiMedica, 2020. Scientists Use Cloud-Based Supercomputing and AI to Develop COVID-19 Treatments and Vaccine Models. Available online: https://www.hospimedica.com/covid19/articles/294784537/scientists-use-cloud-based-supercomputing-and-ai-to-develop-covid19-treatments-and-vaccine-models.html [Accessed on 15 September 2020] Hughes, J. P., Rees, S., Kalindjian, S. B., and Philpott, K. L. (2011). Principles of early drug discovery. British journal of pharmacology, 162(6), 1239-1249. Ke, Y.Y., Peng, T.T., Yeh, T.K., Huang, W.Z., Chang, S.E., Wu, S.H., Hung, H.C., Hsu, T.A., Lee, S.J., Song, J.S. and Lin, W.H., 2020. Artificial intelligence approach fighting COVID-19 with repurposing drugs. Biomedical journal, 43(4), pp.355-362 Keshavarzi Arshadi, A., Webb, J., Salem, M., Cruz, E., Calad-Thomson, S., Ghadirian, N., Collins, J., Diez-Cecilia, E., Kelly, B., Goodarzi, H. and Yuan, J.S., 2020. Artificial intelligence for COVID-19 drug discovery and vaccine development. Front. Artif. Intell, 3, p.65 Khuroo, M.S. Sofi, A.A. Khuroo, M. 2020. Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Facts, Fiction & the Hype. A Critical Appraisal. Int. J. Antimicrob. Agents, 56, 106101. Lake, F., 2019. Artificial intelligence in drug discovery: what is new, and what is next?. Available online: https://www.future-science.com/doi/full/10.4155/fdd-2019-0025 [accessed 15 September 2020] Liddy, E.D. 2001. Natural Language Processing. In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, 2nd Ed. NY. Marcel Decker, Inc. Lo, Y. C., Rensi, S. E., Torng, W., and Altman, R. B. (2018). Machine learning in chemoinformatics and drug discovery. Drug discovery today, 23(8), 1538-1546. Lopez Bernal J, Andrews N, Gower C, Robertson C, Stowe J, Tessier E et al. Effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines on covid-19 related symptoms, hospital admissions, and mortality in older adults in England: test negative case-control study BMJ 2021; 373 :n1088 doi:10.1136/bmj.n1088 McCarthy, J., Hayes, P.J., Meltzer, B. and Michie, D., (1969). Some philosophical problems from the standpoint of artificial intelligence. Machine intelligence, EUP. McCloskey, K., Sigel, E.A., Kearnes, S., Xue, L., Tian, X., Moccia, D., Gikunju, D., Bazzaz, S., Chan, B., Clark, M.A. and Cuozzo, J.W., 2020. Machine learning on DNA-encoded libraries: A new paradigm for hit finding. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 63(16), pp.8857-8866. Mei, S., Li, F., Leier, A., Marquez-Lago, T.T., Giam, K., Croft, N.P., Akutsu, T., Smith, A.I., Li, J., Rossjohn, J. and Purcell, A.W., 2020. A comprehensive review and performance evaluation of bioinformatics tools for HLA class I peptide-binding prediction. Briefings in bioinformatics, 21(4), pp.1119-1135. Ong, E., Wong, M.U., Huffman, A. and He, Y., 2020. COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine design using reverse vaccinology and machine learning. Frontiers in immunology, 11, p.1581. Chemical Engineering. 2021. Artificial Intelligence: A New Reality for Chemical Engineers Chemical Engineering. [online] Available at: <https://www.chemengonline.com/artificialintelligence-new-reality-chemical-engineers> [Accessed 22 March 2021]. Schwaller, P., Laino, T., Gaudin, T., Bolgar, P., Hunter, C.A., Bekas, C. and Lee, A.A., 2019. Molecular transformer: a model for uncertainty-calibrated chemical reaction prediction. ACS central science, 5(9), pp.1572-1583. 127 | P a g e

Schneider, P., Walters, W.P., Plowright, A.T., Sieroka, N., Listgarten, J., Goodnow, R.A., Fisher, J., Jansen, J.M., Duca, J.S., Rush, T.S. and Zentgraf, M., 2020. Rethinking drug design in the artificial intelligence era. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 19(5), pp.353-364. Struble, T.J., Alvarez, J.C., Brown, S.P., Chytil, M., Cisar, J., DesJarlais, R.L., Engkvist, O., Frank, S.A., Greve, D.R., Griffin, D.J. and Hou, X., 2020. Current and future roles of artificial intelligence in medicinal chemistry synthesis. Journal of medicinal chemistry, 63(16), pp.86678682. Yang, Q., Sresht, V., Bolgar, P., Hou, X., Klug-McLeod, J.L. and Butler, C.R., 2019. Molecular Transformer unifies reaction prediction and retrosynthesis across pharma chemical space. Chemical Communications, 55(81), pp.12152-12155. Yang, X., Wang, Y., Byrne, R., Schneider, G. and Yang, S., 2019. Concepts of Artificial Intelligence for Computer-Assisted Drug Discovery. Chemical Reviews, 119(18), pp.1052010594. Waltz, E. (2020). What AI can and can’t do in the race for a coronavirus vaccine. Available online: https://spectrum.ieee.org/artificial-intelligence/medical-ai/what-ai-can-and-cant-do-inthe-race-for-a-coronavirus-vaccine [Accessed 5 June 2021].

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Highly Commended and Tietz Prize STEM: Computer Science Prediction of cardiovascular disease using supervised machine learning algorithms

Jatin Gupta Boys’ School

Learning that early prediction of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is paramount in successful treatment of CVD, and that hospitals have huge amounts of CVD patient data available Jatin was intrigued to explore this area further. How could existing patient data (eg weight, height, blood pressures) be used to predict CVD in unseen patient data, by learning trends and patterns in patients with CVD? To explore this question further, Jatin located available CVD patient data and set out to build four machine learning (ML) models in Python. These models would be trained to learn from existing data, and thus, make early predictions of CVD in patients. Jatin’s interest was mainly sparked by the fascinating interdisciplinary ideas and concepts he was able to draw and link together from two different fields: Artificial intelligence, and healthcare. Taking healthcare data and preparing it for the ML models to train themselves on was a fantastic learning process for Jatin and he thoroughly enjoyed the intellectually stimulating process of utilising vast amounts of available healthcare data, making real life predictions. At university, Jatin is planning to study Computer Science. He plans to focus his university research on artificial intelligence (AI) and on applying AI to healthcare, improving healthcare systems and people’s health in the world.

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Prediction of cardiovascular disease using supervised machine learning algorithms Introduction Machine learning (ML) involves the creation of algorithms which can learn automatically from data available, with minimal human involvement (Awan et al., 2019). There are different kinds of learning algorithms which are capable of processing huge amounts of data, transforming this data into knowledge, which in turn can be used to make intelligent decisions (Dimopoulos et al., 2018). The term ‘cardiovascular disease’ (CVD) covers a range of diseases and are the top causes of death globally. An estimated 17.9 million lives are lost each year (31% of all deaths worldwide) due to CVDs (World Health Organisation, 2021). Thus, it is important to study heart related diseases and understand how the application of ML can transform available data into useful knowledge that can help in making significant assessments on the health of patients. In this Aske Level Project, supervised ML algorithms are implemented to identify and build an optimum predictive model on CVDs. The aim of this project is to explore and compare supervised ML algorithms to find out which predictive model is the most efficient in predicting CVDs in patients, on the basis of their healthcare history. Literature Review The number of fatalities caused by cardiovascular disease (CVD) can be reduced if physicians are able to identify and diagnose CVD in patients in the early stages of the disease. If diagnosed early then it can be treated early, avoiding complications which may appear in the advanced stages of CVD (Dinesh et al., 2018). Thus, many researchers and practitioners are experimenting and implementing machine learning techniques, such as neural networks, support vector machines, decision trees, naïve bayes, random forest, logical regression, AutoPrognosis, and gradient boosting, to anticipate cardiovascular diseases (Sen, 2017). To experiment with and implement machine learning techniques, researchers make use of different health datasets available. For example, Sen (2017) conducted an experiment using a heart dataset available with the UCI machine learning repository. The study was to identify the predictive performance of the most popular four classifiers. To compare the classification performance of the four machine learning techniques, classifiers were applied to the same data. The results of the study concluded that the naïve bayes classifier was the most efficient in comparison to the decision tree, K-nearest neighbor and support vector machine. It is interesting to note that some researchers have also considered an extensive research strategy from the literature in order to assess and explore the predictive machine learning algorithms for CVD. For example, Krittanawong et al., (2020) searched Embase, Scopus, and MEDLINE databases from their inception until 15th March 2019 to study the predictive ability of machine learning algorithms on heart failure, coronary artery disease, and stroke. The authors identified 344 total studies, 103 cohorts, and a total of 3,377,318 people, meeting the inclusion criteria set by the authors. This study was more detailed in terms of identifying a specific CVD. For example, an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.88 was noted for boosting algorithms and 0.93 AUC for custom-built algorithms for predicting coronary artery disease. In case of predicting stroke, the support vector machine was found to have pooled AUC of 0.92 and the boosting 130 | P a g e

algorithm had a pooled AUC of 0.91. However, due to the overlapping of confidence intervals between various methods, this resulted in inadequate studies for heart failure machine learning algorithms. The authors concluded that use of machine learning algorithms is promising, in particular boosting algorithms and support vector machines, in predicting CVD. Methodology: Data and its Attributes In this project, the CVD dataset was obtained from Kaggle. The dataset has 70,000 records of different patients’ case histories, and whether they have any CVDs. In this dataset, age, weight, height, gender, blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, smoking, alcohol and physical activity are the attributes. In this section, the data of the cardiovascular disease dataset is explored to gain an understanding about the variables which impacts the target feature (whether the patient had any CVDs). Supervised Machine Learning Algorithms A supervised machine learning algorithm understands the function which transforms an input to an output. It learns this function from analysing the training data, and can then produce outputs for unseen inputs. Each of the following machine learning algorithms was implemented in Python 3.7, trained on the training set, and tested on the testing set, giving an accuracy and other measures of success for the models. Decision Tree Classifier The Decision Tree Classifier (DTC) is a supervised machine learning model. It can be compared to or thought of as a flowchart, in that each node (representing one attribute) leads into two or more sub-nodes. Similar to how flowcharts assist in decision making processes through following simple statements, a DTC predicts the value of a variable through the decision rules it has learnt or inferred from the training data. In the below image the different f values represent a certain attribute of some data. Following the decision tree leads to an output (Shai and Shai, 2014). Figure 1: Decision tree classifier

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Source: Mollas et al., (2019) A DTC mainly consists of nodes (which test the value of a particular attribute), edges (connecting a node to another node), and leaf nodes (which predict the final value). There are two types of decision trees: Classification Trees and Regression Trees. Classification Trees have a discrete final output, for example ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Regression Trees have continuous final outputs which can take any value. In this project, a Regression Tree is used, which gives a probability between 0 and 1 (Song and Lu 2015). Decision Tree Classifiers are advantageous in that they are simple to implement and require minimal amounts of data preparation. However, the main disadvantage is that they can overfit the data, which is where the function runs very close to a set of data points. The model is only then useful when given the data it is trained on, and is much less accurate for other data which it can be given (Scikitlearn.org, 2021). Figure 2: Model’s fitting and overfitting

Source: Adapted from Bookdown.org, 2021 The DTC algorithm runs as follows (Chakure, 2019): 1. 2. 3.

Locate the tree root and divide the data based on the feature which results in the largest reduction in uncertainty of the final result This procedure is repeated until the samples at each leaf node are of the same class A limit must be placed on the depth of the tree to prevent overfitting of the data.

Random Forest Classifier The Random Forest Classifier (RFC) is an ensemble and supervised machine learning model used for classification and regression. RFCs use multiple Decision Trees and combine them in order to get a higher accuracy prediction (Yiu, 2019). For example, five Decision Trees, which output a 0 or a 1 based upon some data given, can be part of a Random Forest Classifier. The testing data is run on the Random Forest Classifier, and each of the five Decision Trees will give us a 0 or 1 as output. The overall prediction of the model is the value which the majority of the Decision Trees chose. So, if four decision trees 132 | P a g e

outputted 1, and one decision trees outputted 0, the Random Forest Classifier would output a 1 (Donges, 2019). A similar scenario to this: Figure 3: Random forest classifier

Source: Yiu (2019) Therefore, with a Random Forest Classifier, the chance to have the correct probability value, between 0 and 1, is greater as the trees are uncorrelated in the model.

K-Nearest Neighbors Classifier The K-Nearest-Neighbors (KNN) Classifier is a supervised machine learning model which can be used for both classification and regression. In KNNs, the output depends on whether classification or regression is being used. K is simply any integer number (Cunningham and Delany 2020). The nearest neighbor is the data point with the closest straight-line distance to the data point which an output value is needed for. Also, KNN assumes that data with similar or the same output values exist close to each other.

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If classification is being used, then the output of a particular piece of data will be the most common output of the k nearest neighbors, which is the mode of the outputs. In regression, the output value will be the mean of these k nearest neighbors (Atallah et al., 2019). As the value of k increases from 1, the predictions begin to be more accurate. However, this trend may not continue and there is usually an optimum value of k in the KNN algorithm. The KNN algorithm is advantageous in that a model does not need to be built and that the algorithm has many applications. However, the speed of the algorithm decreases as k increases (Zhang, 2017). The KNN algorithm has been trained on the above data, and similar to this project, using regression. To predict the output value of new data, the mean of the output values of the data from the k nearest points to the new data point is taken. For example, if k = 5, the output values of the five closest points to the new data point will be summed and divided by 5, and this value given as an output value to the new point added to it. Support Vector Machine The Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a supervised machine learning model which can be used for both classification and regression. The SVM algorithm determines a hyperplane (boundary) in N-dimensions that can classify the data points. Here, N = number of attributes of data. If the data has two attributes, then the hyperplane is simply a line separating the data points. If the data has three attributes, then the hyperplane is a plane separating the data points. It is hard to imagine greater than three dimensions but SVM can be used for data with more than three attributes. Therefore, data points which lie on different sides of the hyperplane would correspond to different classes (Pisner and Schnyer, 2020). When separating data points, it is possible that there are several options for a hyperplane which can be chosen. However, with SVM, it must be ensured that the plane found has the maximum distance between points of the classes. The advantages of SVM are that it is highly accurate and requires less processing power than other algorithms. Results and Discussion In this project, the decision tree classifier, random forest classifier, K-nearest neighbors classifier, and support vector machine classifier were implemented. The results for these models are presented in this section. In the following figures, the y-axis label represents a particular attribute, or feature, and the xaxis label has a 0 and a 1. The 0 represents cases in patients where there was no CVD, and the 1 represents cases in patients where there was CVD. These figures can be used to develop an understanding of the attributes and factors that are associated with CVDs in patients.

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If the diagram shows similar patterns for a particular attribute between the patients who had CVDs and the patient who did not have CVDs, it can be inferred that the particular attribute does not affect the patient’s chance of developing CVDs. The figures were generated in addition to the ML model which was built in Python 3.7. Age and Gender Variables Figure 4: Statistics of age and gender specification

The above figure details the age and gender specification, with respect to whether CVDs occur or did not occur in patients from the dataset. The diagram in the left of the figure demonstrates that the age of the patients can be significant in determining whether they have CVDs or not. Therefore, as patients’ age is growing, CVDs tend to increase in these patients. The diagram in the right of the figure demonstrates that the gender of the patient does not affect whether they have CVDs or not.

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Weight and Height Variables Figure 5: Statistics of weight and height variables

The left of the figure shows how the height attribute varies with CVDs in patients. It can be deduced that the height attribute is associated with CVDs in patients to a low extent. However, in the right of the figure, it can be seen that the weight of the patient is a significant attribute in determining whether a patient has CVDs. This represents that as the weight of a patient increases, the chances of them developing CVDs are likely to increase. Systolic Blood Pressure and Diastolic Blood Pressure Figure 6: Systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure

This figure details two diagrams. The ap_hi (systolic blood pressure of the patient) and the ap_lo (diastolic blood pressure of the patient). As per the data, the systolic blood pressure of patients is a significant attribute in determining whether they have CVDs. Figure 6 represents that as the systolic blood pressure is grows in patients, the chance of CVDs increases in these same patients. Similarly, increases in the diastolic blood pressure attributes also correlates with an increase in CVDs in patients. 136 | P a g e

Accuracy of Supervised Machine Learning Algorithms The accuracy of the predictive model shows that the decision tree classifier accuracy is 63%, the random forest classifier accuracy is 70%, the KNN classifier accuracy is 72%, and the SVM classifier accuracy is 73% . It was further found out that the SVM and KNN classifiers are performing better than other models. The researcher verified that SVM gives a better result than other models, in terms of Accuracy score, AUC score and F1 score. Conclusion In this Aske Level Project, machine learning algorithms were used to predict cardiovascular disease in patients, in Python 3.7. The 11 attributes of 70% of the records in the dataset were used in training the model. The remainder of the data was then used to test the model. The testing of the data shows that the decision tree classifier has an accuracy of 63%, the random forest classifier has an accuracy of 70%, the K-nearest neighbors classifier has an accuracy of 72%, and the support vector machine classifier has an accuracy of 73%. This shows that the support vector machine classifier and K-nearest neighbors classifiers performed better than the other models.

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Reference List: Awan, S. E., Bennamoun, M., Sohel, F., Sanfilippo, F. M. and Dwivedi, G. (2019). Machine learning-based prediction of heart failure readmission or death: implications of choosing the right model and the right metrics. ESC Heart Failure, 6(2), pp. 428–435. Bookdown.org (2021). Available at https://bookdown.org/gmli64/do_a_data_science_project_in_10_days/models-underfitting-andoverfitting.html. Accessed on 10th May 2021. Chakure, A. (2019). An introduction to Decision Tree Classifier, Available at https://medium.com/swlh/decision-tree-classification-de64fc4d5aac. Accessed on 10th May 2021. Cunningham, P. and Delany, S. J. (2020). k-Nearest neighbor classifiers: 2nd Edition. Available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.04523. Accessed on 15th May 2021. Dimopoulos, A. C., Nikolaidou, M. and Caballero, F. F. (2018). Machine learning methodologies versus cardiovascular risk scores, in predicting disease risk. BMC Medical Research Methodology 18, p. 179 Dinesh, K. G., Arumugaraj, K. D., Santhosh and Mareeswari, V. (2018). Prediction of cardiovascular disease Using Machine Learning Algorithms, International Conference on Current Trends towards Converging Technologies (ICCTCT), pp. 1-7. Donges, N. (2021). A complete guide to the random forest algorithm. Available at https://builtin.com/data-science/random-forest-algorithm. Accessed on 20th May 2021. Harrison, O. (2019). Machine learning basics with the K-Nearest Neighbors algorithm. Available at https://towardsdatascience.com/machine-learning-basics-with-the-k-nearestneighbors-algorithm-6a6e71d01761. Accessed on 15th May 2021. Krittanawong, C., Virk, H.U.H., Bangalore, S. et al (2020). Machine learning prediction in cardiovascular diseases: a meta-analysis. Scientific Reports 10, 16057. Mc Namara, K., Alzubaidi, H., & Jackson, J. K. (2019). Cardiovascular disease as a leading cause of death: how are pharmacists getting involved? Integrated Pharmacy Research and Practice, 8, pp. 1–11. Mollas, I., Tsoumakas, G. and Bassiliades, N. (2019). LionForests: Local interpretation of random forests through path selection. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-simple-decision-tree-classifier-with-4features_fig2_337413360. Accessed on 10th May 2021. Pisner, D. A. and Schnyer, D. M. (2020). Support vector machine, Editor(s): Mechelli, A. and Vieira, S. Machine Learning, pp. 101-121, Academic Press. Scikitlearn.org (2021). Available at http://scikit-learn.org/stable/modules/tree.html. Accessed on 20th May 2021. 138 | P a g e

Sen, S. K. (2017). Predicting and Diagnosing of Heart Disease Using Machine Learning Algorithms. International Journal of Engineering and Computer Science, 6(6). Shai, S. S. and Shai, B. D. (2014). 18. Decision Trees. Understanding machine learning. Cambridge University Press. Song, Y. Y. and Lu, Y. (2015). Decision tree methods: applications for classification and prediction. Shanghai Archives of Psychiatry, 27(2), pp. 130–135. World Health Organization (2021). Available at https://www.who.int/healthth topics/cardiovascular-diseases/#tab=tab_1. Accessed on 15 April 2021. Yiu, T. (2019), Understanding Random Forest, How the Algorithm Works and Why it Is So Effective, Available at https://towardsdatascience.com/understanding-random-forest58381e0602d2. Accessed on 20th May 2021.

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Creatives

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Joint First Prize Creatives: Drama Why do we tell stories?

Oluwademilade (Demi) Tokuta Boys’ School The Aske Level was the perfect project that facilitated Demi pooling together all the aspects he enjoy from his A Levels. The project’s flexibility was its greatest strength, as he was able to answer and convey the question “why do we tell stories?” in the medium that best suited him, Drama. What sparked his interest was his passion for drama. He loves the performing arts and knew that he wanted his project to emulate that. He felt that whilst writing a conventional essay would have been acceptable, it wouldn't have played to his strengths, which is performing in front of an audience. Demi hopes to study PPL (Politics, Philosophy and Law) at university.

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Why do we tell stories? Please note, my main body of work is this performance video you must watch first. The written aspect is a Logbook I have made in order to keep track of how I am progressing through the project. Performance Link: https://vimeo.com/560074480 Why do we tell stories to begin with? That is the question I continuously ask myself as a young performer, what is it about our existence that compels us to tell stories. I believe it is because since infancy, we have been taught to recognize patterns and make connections, so that we can find meaning and make sense of our world. Story telling is an art where the lines of fiction and reality are blurred, and people project their own lives and experiences on to stories so they can find a commonality that resonates with them. I believe that this commonality is truths that are revealed to them, which is vital as truth is the basis of all art. There is a duality in the world of storytelling, expressionism and naturalism, expressionism is more the use of symbolisms and how one thing can be representative of another, whilst naturalism is purer and wishes to create the illusion of reality. In 1994 there was an experiment held by F. Heider and M. Simmel which put 34 college students in a room to watch a short film that held two triangles and a circle moving across a two-dimensional surface. The only other object onscreen was a stationary rectangle, partially open on one side. Frank rose’s (2012) Art of immersion nods to this stating that “Only one of the test subjects saw this scene for what it was: geometric shapes moving across a plane. Everyone else came up with elaborate narratives to explain what the movements were about. Typically, the participants viewed the triangles as two men fighting and the circle as a woman trying to escape the bigger, bullying triangle. Instead of registering inanimate shapes, they imagined humans with vivid inner lives. The circle was "worried." The circle and the little triangle were "innocent young things." The big triangle was "blinded by rage and frustration." He goes on to explain that every person develops their own narrative in response to the film, and that this is down to people projecting their own life experiences and trying to find their own truths within them. And whilst he references the medium of film, I wish to explore the medium of monologues. I have always been fascinated by morality and the origins of human nature, personally I believe that human nature is not just a thought exercise and should acted out accordingly, so I have written my own monologue in an attempt to discover what my nature is. The word monologue is derived from the Greek word “Monologos” which means speaking alone. This device is used for when a single character wishes to express their mental thoughts, either directly to another character, or to the audience. This focused delivery establishes a close connection between the audience and facilitates a more powerful catharsis (release of repressed emotions). There are many ways to communicate an emotion to an audience, but I found myself being drawn to the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavsky and his research into the biology of emotions. Stanislavsky “moved from asking the actors, what do you feel? To asking what you do?” as noted by leading British theatre practitioner Katie Mitchell in “The directors craft a handbook for theatre “p (227). This was because he wanted actors to embody emotions as they take a “physical shape or circumstance.” Only by immersing your entire being in an emotion, can you communicate it. I had difficulty trying to find a stimulus that would invoke these emotions not only for writing but for performance, so I started off by pondering what my life and childhood has been like up until my current age of seventeen and immediately I felt things such as loss, regret, embarrassment and joy. Upon this discovery, I started playing around with various song lyrics and spoken word pieces, soon realising I was doing an impromptu critique of my childhood. After various attempts, I decided on writing a letter to my younger self; born out of frustration and hindsight, I wrote about what I wish I could have said to him, and the advice I would have given to him so my journey to the present day would be easier. I broke the piece into two sections. The first part is a voice over accompanied by a video containing photos of my younger self. The second part is a live 142 | P a g e

performance with a spoken word styled delivery, focusing on the present day and the person I am now. My monologue tackles the theme of identity, exploring it though the analogy of Mirrors. I postulated the idea that our personalities and mannerisms are reflection of our relationships, and who we are in society. What you show other people is a combination of your innate feelings and traits, and the persona you choose to put on Infront of others. Through observation of both my outside and school life, I noticed that myself and nearly all people make distinct choices on how they present themselves and it made me recall times where I imitated other people. Unbeknownst to me I started having a (minor) identity crisis because I didn’t know who I was or my “crowd” of people. I’d shown so many versions of myself that I lost what made me, me. So, this first draft for a “letter to A…” is very depreciative of my younger self, condemning him. Dear A Here’s some advice, You’re Tryna tell the world how you feel but it’s hard to explain, That’s why you step hard in the paint, Or let your demons out anytime you’re on stage, See I understand now, that you think it’s all just a game, Maybe it’s because you’re a kid, You believe what you’re told, But are not told what you believe, So, you go out imitating others, God you are so naïve, Now their words are leaving you controlled, Your mind is being deceived by what they perceive, But I’ll tell you this, Every life is like a mirror, the reflection of one's reality, People cast their image onto the world before forming their reflection, accepting an unfamiliar mentality, Their mirrors only contain what they have observed though, These images can blur without the power of the experiences that birthed them, Leaving only half-formed thoughts guided by misunderstanding, A, don’t be afraid to look into others’ mirrors, their realms and their minds, But don’t take their image, instead use their wisdom in deciding, Your own reflection so you may find what you believe. My monologue intentionally has a colloquial tone as it is an embodiment of how I speak, my idiosyncrasies, and my “truth.” Whilst writing, I found that it was impossible to put truth in my work, without talking from my own perspective of life. This first draft, whilst it had elements to keep, at times was arrhythmic and therefore lost its meaning when I was trying to lyricise my work. Upon reflection and feedback, it was very harsh and therefore failed to convey the mirror analogy. In trying to force the lyrical element, I also lost the playfulness and quirkiness that comes from an original piece of writing, so during my creative process, I thought less about lyricism and more about meaning, and writing what the thoughts were behind every line. Yes, I am embarrassed by my former self, although instead of pure anger, this reflection is coming from a place of understanding and sympathy. So, this final draft really takes on board the critiques of the first one and emulates my true feelings: Dear A You’re tryna tell the world how you feel but it’s hard to explain That’s why you step hard in the paint Or hold your tongue, instead of screaming fuck you whilst you bask in the rain. See I understand now, that you think it’s all just a game. Maybe it’s because you’re a kid You believe what you’re told, But are not told what you believe. 143 | P a g e

So, you go out imitating others, God you are so naive And now because of you those same people have got a grip on ME! What’s happening is Your mind is being deceived by what they perceive. Aright, Bet, Let me slow down, Cuz I know you mean well, it’s just hard for me to look at you when u can’t even tell: That Every life is like a mirror, the reflection of one's reality People cast that reflection onto the world What you see is their mentality But the issue is that Their mirrors only contain what they have observed though You know images can blur without the power of the experiences that birthed them Sometimes Leaving only half-baked thoughts guided by those who try steal and “immerse” them A, I’m not sayin don’t look at other people’s mirrors, But that’s their realm and their mind, instead use their wisdom in deciding Your own reflection so you may find what you believe and not be grieved by what you receive… When experimenting with how I wanted to deliver the piece, I concluded that the first half had be a voice over. This presented a unique challenge for the audience to grapple with, I wanted them to truly engage with the words and meaning behind this first section, with the focus being on my younger self. I realised that if I were to perform this section of the monologue, the meaning conveyed would be lost as an audience would have no idea what a younger version of me looked like. I didn’t want any ambiguity with this thought, I wanted it to be visually striking and clear. It also provided a nice contrast to the second half of the monologue. The second section tackles themes of acceptance and self-discovery and as it was rawer and more honest, it had a more performative tone than the first section. I was heavily inspired by the playwright Arinze Kene, “an unstoppable modern performer: his wit emanates though raps, which flow with ease and anger; his movement is impassioned, while his demeanour is personable and pretty hilarious.”-William Longman. Specifically, his one man shows misty, Kene’s performance style was exactly what I wanted to emulate and how I wish to perform the second half: It’s like DC said, I keep a smile on my face but it’s bait that they judge me, I’ll be honest the minute their eyes look away that darkness swoops down to corrupt me. See The loneliness is ugly The isolation you feel? Fuck me The best way to describe it, is if someone had a hand clutching my heart, and they kept squeezing u till I can’t breathe That’s right, I can’t breathe And whilst I was so concerned with other people’s mirrors, I never knew what kinda person I was tryna be So Who am I, What do I want? Those are the questions I have to ask Because if we want to create our own mirrors We need to first find out who we really are And For a long time, I didn’t know where to start I hated my labels, 144 | P a g e

Small black skinny They always set me apart So, I put on a facade. To shield myself from rejection and just being and outcast. Again Who am I?! What do I want?! those are the questions I have to ask. And I think I know just the place to start I take my guidance from the lord up above. I like to act, I love to dance My favourite bar is would you believe if I said I’m in love. That’s a great question lol Okay between me and you I wanna say yeah but let’s park that for another time. I’ve been called extra, and that’s probably right, I’m an over-achiever But come on, Look at me, I overcompensate for feeing small, And whilst u might think that’s peak Try being called Mosquito leg and chicken arms in front of black kids and their parents. I got mocked Like abused, Mercilessly And whilst I can laugh about it now It’s also the reason why my hands have never stopped shaking when I’m in a group of people. Everybody seems to think I love the spotlight, but that ain’t for me, Cuz whilst it’s on I’m exposed, and I never wanted you to have a clear vision of me Why have I been faking for When it’s hard enough to be in this world who we truly are, See I was so used to living wrong And I love how Jessie and Rumer put it, Cuz life really ain’t nothing more than a simple song. Now I can go on and on but how I was vs how I am now But I’ve clocked who I’m tryna be Oluwademilade Fehintolaoluwa The lord has crowned me I’m laying my back on the lord. That’s me And I appreciate I’ve heard me rant and talk a lot of shit, But self-Discovery is a never-ending journey. So yeah in a bit. I found that spoken word was the rhetoric I wanted to use, because I wished for an audience to understand the emotion that came from monologue, not necessarily the words. My aim was for the monologue to only read well if it came from me, because it was my truth, and upon hearing and understanding my truth, they could reflect on their own lives. Finally, why I choose to pursue this project. My passion for drama is rooted in my Christian beliefs and love for morality and ethics. The etymology of “drama” stems from the Greek “dran” which means “do, act.” I have always found joy in recognising performance, as it is an insight into the psyche of one’s mind and how they perceive life, however this is not limited to the stage, it can be found in political ideology and moral thinking as well. For me, one’s morality and why of thinking is not something to be purely discussed but should be put into practice as well. This project was the conduit that allowed me to analyse myself and dissect, what my bias and prejudices are, and why have become the person I am, for better or worse.

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References Mitchell. K., 2009. The directors craft a handbook for theatre. 1st ed. Abingdon. Routledge Rose. F., 2012. The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories. 1st ed. London. W. W. Norton & Co. Longman, W. (2018). Review - Arinzé Kene’s Misty at Trafalgar Studios. [online] London Theatre Guide. Available at: https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/reviews/review-arinze-kenesmisty-at-trafalgar-studios [Accessed 8 Jun. 2021].

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Joint First Prize Creatives: Film My Nonna’s Story

Neeve Capaldo Girls’ School Neeve started her project titled, “How will we tell the stories of 2020?”, whilst we were very much still in the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. This was a traumatising time for many people and sparked in her a ‘need’ to record some of what was happening to us. After researching literature and how phenomena such as this have been recorded in the past, Neeve discovered the idea of ‘fundamental truth.’ A fundamental truth is a feeling or emotion, for example, happiness, friendship, or loss, used to connect people to the story which is being told, whether that be through books, music, or films. Fundamental truths are what have allowed many famous films such as ‘Toy Story’ to reach deep into many people’s hearts across the world, as people can relate and connect to the characters and their emotions. Neeve decided that this would be the way that she would tell the story of 2020. Therefore, in the film, she uses the fundamental truth of ‘loneliness’ to emote the audience and communicate the story. However, from the story of the pandemic, there are thousands of stories to be told, and as we have seen from the past, the best way to communicate history is through personal, relatable stories. This is why she chose to tell the story of her Nonna, her dad’s mum, through one of her passions, film. At university Neeve is excited to be going on to study Geography and Film.

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My Nonna’s Story The link to the film can be found here: https://youtu.be/DXNareTV8Sc Part 1: Exploring ideas At the start of my journey thinking about what I would do for my Aske level, we were still very much in the peak of the Coronavirus pandemic. The past year, which feels like it came straight out of a dystopian film, instilled in me a need or ‘want’ to record some of what we were experiencing, particularly my family. During the first lockdown, I started filming my family doing everyday tasks, and interviewing them asking how they were feeling each day. I didn’t manage to continue this film, as after everyday being the same, it became very mundane, and no family members were interested in being filmed anymore. However, I knew that there were still so many stories that I could tell from the experience of the past year. And as a result of this, I started to explore means and ways of storytelling, how stories have been told in the past, and how we might tell stories in the future. A few months ago, I came across the Netflix Homemade Series. It is a collection of short films made by people at home during lockdown, across a variety of countries and individual stories. I found some of them extremely inspiring and beautiful. They were also definitely relatable, some were funny, and some had a slightly sadder tone. Here is a link to view some of the films that inspired me to make my feature film. https://www.netflix.com/search?q=homemade&jbv=81285512 After feeling like I needed to make something with my inspiration, I thought about the reason why this may be. I started to research into why humans love to tell stories so much, and what it is about stories that makes them hold so much power that they are able to move people in a way that not many other things can. Behind almost everything in this world is a story, every book, every film, every bit of science, therefore it was very interesting for me to do some extra reading on this subject and write a literature review. Part 2: Literature Review Why are films so powerful? The function of storytelling in film. Ever since the first film was made, the fascination of the moving screen has only continued to grow. As technology continues to advance, so do the films, and they become more powerful every year. But what makes a film have the potential to be so powerful, so moving, but often so simple? It seems that this question narrows down to one factor, a film's function to tell a story. All filmmakers seem to agree on one concept; that storytelling is a fundamental part of our lives. The entire film making industry is built on the insatiable human desire to experience, tell and see stories from one another. The sole purpose of film is creating characters which engage the audience and make us care what is happening in the story, and therefore making us care about the message the film aims to send. Duncan Wardle writes for IDEATE, ‘Why is storytelling so important? Because it’s in our DNA. Storytelling is a tool as old as mankind itself. From ancient pantomime stories shared around caveman campfires, to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, to the written word of the bible thousands of years ago, storytelling has always been the tool of choice for humans to share its biggest, brightest and more important ideas. As such, we naturally 148 | P a g e

respond to the power of story. A great story can make us laugh, cry, smile, self-reflect and so much more.” This idea that storytelling is an integral part of human nature and is therefore what gives films the power to change us as people is shared by the major film production company, Pixel. Pixel lives by the ideology that a story must connect to a fundamental truth. Pixel films are amongst the top 50 grossing box office films of all time, as well as the company being recipients of over 19 Academy Awards and 8 Golden Globes. They claim that their secret to this links to what Wardle says about storytelling being in our DNA. So many Pixel classics became top hits because of how they touched on so many fundamental truths, how they are designed to reach deep inside the viewer and find truths that resonate and bring about feeling, connecting the viewer to the story. The timeless childhood dream, the power of friendship, the fear of growing old and the pains of feeling insignificant. These are just some of the fundamental truths that Pixar use in their tetralogy of Toy Story. It is these home hitting feelings that make the audience connect with the story and is how Pixar have told some of the most loved stories from everyone’s childhood, whether that be Toy Story, Monsters Inc. or WALL-E for example. All of these films are littered with fundamental truths that captivate viewers into the world on the screen. However, is a connection with a fundamental truth an absolute must for a film to be powerful, make an impact and move the viewer? Brian Dunnigan writes for his book, ‘Storytelling and Film. Fairy Tales, Myth and Happy Endings’, “We are story telling creatures who seek to report experience, clarify tangled emotion, define and amuse ourselves through narrative: jokes, anecdotes, myth, romance, parable, folktale, history and fiction.” He too agrees with Wardle on the concept that ‘storytelling is in our DNA’ as he argues that stories inspire, heal, inform and empower. He says that we as viewers identify with the protagonist, the one who struggles at the heart of the narrative to connect our past, present and future in a casual way that bridges our experiences and hopes together, and as we watch, her struggle becomes ours to make our lives meaningful and different in some way. However, in his book he also researches the idea of ‘Anti-stories’. Dunnigan writes about the filmmaker Godard, and how his feature film, ‘Eloge de l’Amour’ is supposedly less story telling than an essay, but more a collage of image and sound, music, still photos, interviews, found footage, documentary, quotations and voice over. He suggests that whilst there is the potential of story, there is no real memory or ideology, personal or political that builds that bridge between the viewer and film, and for that you always need a story. It is a must if you want to communicate anything at all. An article titled,’ The Importance of Storytelling’ written by La Mariposa Films touches on the importance of stories in relation to giving films power. They believe that storytelling has been one of the most effectives sources of inspiration known to man, and that the value storytelling holds as a source of inspiration and as a teaching tool makes it the most important tradition for mankind to possess. Stories hold power. Every story contains a lesson to instruct the audience. Stories teach us to love, to forgive others, to be just and strive for better than what we have. The greatest stories ever told function as a reflection on the world we live in and of both the goodness and the evil present in our world. Apart from a few people making artistic interpretation of their own ideas, such as Godard, it seems to be a shared belief that storytelling is the main function of what makes films so powerful. Everyone agrees that films are able to change people’s views and perceptions like nothing other than perhaps first-hand experience itself. This is why film has become such a powerful resource for teaching in the modern day. Film has the power to educate and spread awareness on a topic 149 | P a g e

from one side of the world to the other, and infuse that passion and genuine care in viewers which spreads and could even spark global peace movements. Telling stories going on 2020 is going to be more important than ever. Finding those fundamental truths that are able to connect the future generations to what we have experienced now is going to be a vital thing to share as we must teach them what we have been taught. And as film is able to enhance those stories with vision and hearing, creating narrative with perspective and emotion, what better way to do it. Part 3: The Film In my literature review I explored the ideas of 'the fundamental truth', the relatable emotion that many films base their stories on in order to connect to the audience. I also explored the concept that stories are the way that we as humans communicate with each other, warn and teach each other. I decided that I agree with both these two things, and I personally strongly connect to many fundamental truths. When watching a film and a character dies, the fundamental truths of loss is what makes us cry, even though we never knew that person. It is also the story built around these fundamental truths that holds the power to move us and teach us. Stories are how we teach young children what is right from wrong in the beginning, and how elderly people spend their last days in the end, recounting the stories from their lives. Then I got to thinking about the events of the past year, and how it feels as if they came straight out of a story book. 2020 was filled with so many fundamental truths, loss, death, loneliness, but also friendship, love and resilience. It occurred to me that the events of 2020, the stories that it held, are going to be some of the most important stories that we will ever have to tell. We will need to tell these stories, and pass their lessons on down for generations, to teach those to come what we have been taught. However, the question is, how will we tell these stories of 2020? There are many ways in which 2020 has been recorded. Living in a digital age, and the countless lockdowns forcing everyone to resort their lives to being online, there has been a technology influx and a rise of new media platforms. The internet has been used to share information like never before as a result of this year, and as a result of that, we have become even more connected. Throughout the global pandemic, one way which we have helped each other to cope is by sharing stories. From sending memes back and forth on Instagram, to doing a livestream workout on YouTube, to watching the 2020 documentary on Netflix, social media and media stream platforms have been the most significant way that we have stayed connected and shared stories throughout the year. Moving into the future, we will have all the recorded news reports of the cases and factual information about the Pandemic to re-watch and learn from, but the news didn’t share those personal stories of peoples struggles or joys from 2020, which personally I think, are much more important when it comes to recounting the stories of 2020. When thinking about how I am going to tell my stories from 2020 to my future generations, I think about all my photographs that I took in lockdown. Whilst this shows much of the new 'lockdown culture' that was created, it doesn’t tell my stories in very much detail, and it doesn’t tell the stories of those around me either. Another thing I did in the first lockdown was sending letters back and forth to my friends. I will keep these letters forever, as a memoir of what I went through, along with my friends, and how we managed to help each other through it. However, these messages are very much private to me, and are not something I want to share with the world. Whilst they do hold fundamental truths such as my loneliness, and my long to be with my friends, I didn’t feel they were the best way to share the stories of 2020. But then I thought about my Nonna.

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My Nonna, my dad's mum, lives alone and has for over 12 years since my Nonno, her husband, passed away. Before the pandemic, she was coping fine, she had her friends, her family, and her freedom. The outbreak of the pandemic caused a lot of pain for my Nonna. For a year, she suffered from loneliness and depression, as well as fear. I thought about everything she went through, and the fundamental truths that her story holds, and I realised that they must have been the same for so many people, not just elderly but everyone living alone through the pandemic. I realised that telling the story of my Nonna would be a perfect way to communicate the story of the pandemic she lived through, but not just her story, but the story of all those who she represents too. This is why I chose to share the story of 2020 through my Nonna's perspective. Part 3: Working Titles Once I had finalised the main idea for my film, I played around with some potential titles that would suit and encompass the idea. I thought about the message I wanted to send, and here are some of the concepts I was contemplating when thinking about my literature review as well. Escapism And Art Can Art Be Medicine? Truthfulness : Fundamental Truths and Human Experience How Will We Tell These Stories Of 2020? I selected the last title, ‘How Will We Tell These Stories Of 2020?’, to be my final title as I thought it best fitted the question/message I wanted to impose on the viewers. The film I made is just one way that the thousands of stories of 2020 can be told. Part 4: Plan of Action Now that I knew what I wanted to do for the film, there were a number of components I had to organise. I decided that I didn’t want to write a script, and that instead I wanted to film my Nonna’s day as it was – raw. There also wouldn’t have been much point in writing a script as she is alone all day so there wouldn’t be any dialogue anyway. However, I did plan out some shots that I ideally wanted to get as I had a vision for them communicating parts of her story. For the rest I just followed her go about her day and filmed her. Shoot day with my Nonna was something special to me so I thought I would record my experience as a nice memoir as well as something else to add to the project. We shot this during the first lockdown, when the threat of corona virus was still very real, but it has already been something like 12 weeks of lockdown, and even longer for my Nonna, as she is venerable so had been shielding for weeks prior to the official lockdown announcement. As my Nonna lives alone and is 88 years old with medical conditions which mean she can’t drive or see very well, we were legally allowed to form a support bubble with her which meant that I could go into her house. My dad was also there doing various chores for her that she is unable to do for herself e.g. food shopping, changing lightbulbs etc. Throughout the film I had to keep reminding my Nonna to act like I wasn’t there. She kept trying to talk to me and show me things, I of course had to cut these bit out of the film, as it is meant to show her suffering with the loneliness that lockdown brought, which she did really struggle with 98% of the time. She is lucky however, that she has family around her who visit her two if not three times a week. The main purpose of this film is to raise awareness of those who are not so lucky, and to make people be aware of their neighbours or any elderly people they know that are living alone during this pandemic. But also not just through this nightmare. It is important to raise awareness for elderly people in general, as it is a serious issue that many venerable elderly people have to battle very day. Over all, my Nonna enjoyed the shoot day, as it was a nice activity for her to get out and do, and also to be entertained and spend some time with me. Although at the end when I was interviewing her, she did get very upset as although the film is just a film that we staged and 151 | P a g e

acted out together for the camera, the experience and the emotions are very very real to her, as what she is acting is what she has to fight against every day. Reflecting back on it now, the shoot day went well although I did come across some difficulties. One main issue was continuity, as it was almost like I was live documentary shooting. I had to just capture my Nonna as she was, and cut out and add bits in later, as I wanted it to be real, I didn’t want her to ‘act’. As a result of this there are a few minor issues with tea cups appearing and disappearing and other small things like that. My Nonna also kept trying to talk to me while we filmed which was very sweet but also difficult, as in the film it is supposed to show her alone, not talking to me. You can see this in the third shot of her in the doorway, she asks me, “what are you doing?” in Italian, but I had to leave some dialogue in as I needed the shot. I think it works well in some places though because it seems like she is talking to herself which makes the loneliness even more dramatic and sad, which is the effect I wanted to create. I did find shoot day very emotional, and it just further made me realise the pain my Nonna went through and is still going through. Her dementia is now worse than ever and is becoming a danger, and it just saddens me that she wasted a year of her good life locked away. However, this is even more so why I needed to find a way to share her story of 2020. Post production was the longest process, as I reviewed many different edits of the film. I knew how I wanted it to end, but I struggles for a while on how to start it. The film is beautiful without any context, and the meaning is clearly communicated, however I felt for the purposes of this project, context would be best, so I added an introduction showing a contrast of how my Nonna’s life used to look like before I showed what it looked like in 2020. Whilst I would not include this when sending out to other film platforms or festivals, I do think it is successful in this project and makes it even more impactful. Music was also a big part of post production that I had to factor in as most of the film is silent. I needed to find the write balance between the shocking silence that I wanted the viewer to experience to really make them understand what it felt like to endure my Nonna’s day, however music is a big part of inducing emotion in film, so it was also important to pick the right moments to play music to get the right emotional reaction that I would want from an audience. It was difficult to narrow down the footage in post production as I had captured so many touching moments, however I still needed to create a story arch so I created a storyboard to help me organise my thoughts and keep everything controlled whilst I was editing in post production. Here is my storyboard, however I created this before the final edit so it might be slightly different to the final film however this is good as it shows my work in progress.

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Story Board – Key moments breakdown

Opening, introducing my Nonna, photos/videos of what her life used to be like, fun, busy, full of laughter, then explain how the pandemic left her.

Cut to this shot, silent. Long shots of her lying alone in the living room.

Break the silence with this shot of her washing her hands. Then a few more shots of her doing simple tasks like watering plants, watching TV ect.

Next shots, her talking on the phone in Italian, breaking the silence but not my much.

Next, her looking out the window followed by the close up of her looking concerned/wishing to leave the house.

Strong visual of her in her mask/hold this moment for a bit, let it sink in.

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Next the shots from the park, on the bench and maybe walking alone?

This moment followed by the close up, she says something quietly under her breath

Bus stop shots and then cut to home

Making tea sequence and then shots of her in the dining room alone

Show Nonna going back to sleep, maybe repeat some of the sequences again? Showing her days are just on repeat

End with Nonna’s interview, cut some meaningful bits. Then end with my message.

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Part 5: Reflection At the very end of the process, after I had finished the final edit, I decided to do one more change where I cut out the intro and the voice over and left it raw. I did this because I felt like it was much stronger and more powerful this way. Overall, after finishing my film I am really happy with the result. This has been an ongoing process for me, and it means a lot of me to finally be able to finish it and screen it to an audience as it is a message close to my heart. I am very lucky to be able to have the change to share my story and to be able to experience the live reaction of an audience. This is a very valued experience for a film maker before they send their film out into the world as I will be able to see exactly which moments touch the audience and how they react to it. I am excited to extend my research in this idea, “How will we tell the stories of 2020” further and continue to make and share work. I would also like to enter my film into a film festival (except a shortened version) and use it to maybe partner with a campaign raising awareness for lonely elderly people like my Nonna, so whilst this is the end of this project, it is not the end of the film’s path.

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References Academy of Film, Theatre and Television, 2016. Why storytelling is so important as a film maker (online). Available at: https://www.aftt.edu.au/news/latest-news/why-storytelling-is-soimportant-as-a-film-maker IDEATE, 2019. What Pixel shows us about the power of storytelling (online). Available at: https://duncanwardle.com/the-power-of-storytelling/ Brian Dunnigan, 2011. Storytelling and film, fairy tales, myth and happy endings (online). Available at: https://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_18/section_1/artc1A.html La Mariposa Films, 2017. The Importance of Storytelling (online). Available at: https://lamariposafilms.com/the-importance-of-storytelling/ Anna Higgs, The Guardian, 2014. The importance of storytelling in a digital age (online). Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/2014/nov/17/-spstorytelling-digital-film-4

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Third Prize Creatives: Dance An exploration of factors that influence emotional delivery and perception in dance

Lizzie Roxburgh Girls’ School Lizzie chose dance as it is something she has always been passionate about and is something that has shaped her character and taught her important skills such as determination and focus. Dancing, for Lizzie, is one of her main self-regulation tools which she often uses as an outlet for her emotions. For this reason, she wanted to explore the connections between dance and emotion and maybe even discover something new about her perceptions in the process. Lizzie plans to study Mathematics at university but still intends to continue with dance through other means.

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An exploration of factors that influence emotional delivery and perception in dance The link to the dance can be found here: Lizzie Roxburgh - Aske Level Project 2021 When choreographing, performing or observing a dance, comprehensive emotional delivery and perception is paramount. In order to explore the factors that affect emotional execution in dance, I choreographed a performance consisting of multiple different emotions that experimented with many choreography styles and techniques. This was subsequently performed in front of an audience with the intention of uncovering the most important feature, if any, of a dance when it comes to the presentation and comprehension of emotions and feelings.

Research shows that dance is a natural way to communicate and represent emotions and feelings without using spoken word, Hanna JL (2017). Deciding on a concept is one of the most important aspects of a performance because it sets down the foundations to build upon. A study was conducted to investigate how the perception of emotion in a dance changed depending on whether the emotion was purely acted or induced, Burger B, Orlandatou K, Van Dyck E. (2017). The results showed that dancers more consistently portrayed the intended emotion when it was induced. For this reason, the concept chosen was one where I could personally connect to the emotions and feelings I was portraying. This performance shows the emotional journey of someone drifting away from those they love which I felt I could best represent due to my recent move overseas. After deciding on a concept, the second choice to make is the music. In a study conducted on the factors that affect a dancer’s ability to convey emotion on stage, Hargreaves J, et al. (2013), it was concluded that, when a dancer tries only to act out an emotion without feeling it, they cannot convey the emotion as well as it the emotion is induced prior to the performance. When choosing music for each of the emotions I wanted to convey, I began with an idea of my personal feelings around that emotion and how I would chose to represent it to be able to 158 | P a g e

properly connect with the emotion in stage. However, in another experiment which explored the presence of an audience, Hachimura and Shikanai (2014), it was revealed that audience in interpretation is also a key factor in how emotion is perceived in dance. For this reason, I also looked up the emotion to gather an idea for the wider more general accepted meaning behind that emotion. This allowed me to find both compelling music for an audience and music that I personally could connect to on stage. The order in which the emotions occurred throughout the performance shows the journey that the story of losing touch with those you love takes, and therefore it was important that this was something I could related to personally, Hargreaves J, et al. (2013) and Burger B, Orlandatou K, Van Dyck E. (2017). It would begin with reaching out to a friend but when unsuccessful would induce a feeling of being trapped and the contrast of these emotions side by side would also emphasise the confinement felt when trapped. This would lead to the loneliness of feeling cut off from them. Consequently, the confliction as to whether to continue reaching out or to leave them behind for personal benefit would lead to a feeling of helplessness, where you feel stuck with no way out. The first piece represents the desire to reach out to the people you are losing along with the music, ‘Tell Your Heart to Beat Again’ by Danny Gokey. The variation in the dynamics and tempo of the music emphasise the push and pull of this emotion and the lyrics portray this further. In a video explaining the use of different choreography styles, Auti Kamal. (2018), I found lyric study, a choreography technique that follows the lyrics of a song, so be best suited to this due to the emotive lyrics of the song. A study conducted to explore the communications of emotion in dance, Leman M, et al. (2017), concluded that the audience usually follows the movements of the chest to decipher emotion in a performance. Due to this I incorporated extended and exaggerated upper body movements into this piece to best show the intensity and frustration that occurs alongside the longing to reach out. The broad use of space, both outwards and upwards, and dynamic elements to this choreography creates momentum and further emphasises the exasperation and desperation that accompanies this emotion. The second piece was to represent feeling trapped and confined. I see trapped as a feeling often paired with anger so I wanted the music to reflect the passion and intensity of this feeling. For this reason I chose ‘Blood Walk’ by Cabaret Nocturne which is a sharp and striking piece of music and used an urban-contemporary style to further stress the harsh nature of feeling trapped. Staccato rhythms and movements paired with the restriction of space used during this piece build an uncomfortable atmosphere. The choreography was also confined to the percussion in the music, being retrained to both the space and music, to accentuate this emotion. Puppet-like motions represent the idea of feeling out of control and unable to escape. Loneliness was the concept behind the third piece of choreography. To encompass the feeling of abandonment that accompanies this emotion, I chose the music ‘Memories’ by Michael Ortega which is in a music box style to show the silence that is connected to being alone with your thoughts. I also consider feeling lonely to be a sad and melancholy emotion so this music is something I can connect to more when dancing, Hargreaves J, et al. (2013) and Burger B, Orlandatou K, Van Dyck E. (2017). The balletic lyrical style of dancing used portrays how simplistic, pure and innocent loneliness can be. Slow, fluid movements were used to convey the idea of being weighed down, this paired with the use of contraction helps to create a suffocating atmosphere. I used a motif throughout the represent the monotony and repetitive nature of loneliness. The fourth piece was to convey the internal conflict of this situation. I wanted to show an emotion that was different and more bold here. This emotion is one that most people would feel guilty about so I wanted to use a style of music that represents the confliction this would invoke within someone. For this reason I chose the music ‘Heart Cry’ by Drehz. The cuts and breaks in this music emphasise the push and pull of having conflicting thoughts. Furthermore, the music is relatively slow and less powerful which I felt would further show the struggle through the conflict between the rhythm and the dynamics. To reflect this in the choreography, 159 | P a g e

I used a combination of staccato and smooth alongside once another in order to convey this internal battle.

Finally, the last emotion in the performance was helplessness. Whilst others may see helplessness as a sad feeling, but I see it as very frustrating as you know there’s nothing you can do. Consequently, I used the song ‘Mad at You’ by Noah Cyrus which shows the difficulties and frustration that would be felt in this scenario. I was inspired by the style and intensity of the dancing in a section of choreography for this piece of music, Sabrina Lonis (2020). Like this video, my choreography aimed to capture the dynamics and intensity that this music creates to portray further this frustration. The motif used represents the lack to control and confinement you feel when helpless. This links back to the trapped piece whilst the music and dance style connects with the very beginning of the performance to express how our emotions are all intertwined and feed one another. The final step in the choreography journey is the performance which, in this case, was a live performance to an audience of 15 participants containing a mixed level of dance experience. The costume was all black with a minimal and simplistic style in order not to influence the audience’s perception of emotion further and limit it to movement and music alone. In response to the performance, the audience were asked a series of short questions to give insight into their perceived emotions and feeling and determine what features they used to conclude these. The majority felt that emotional delivery and expression is the most important aspect of dance in general. The response on which choreographic element they use to determine emotion was much more varied, many participants identified this as the music while the remainder were split equally between dynamics and facial expression. Since emotions are such a personal aspect of us as people, it is not surprising that we also have different forms of expression for these which is demonstrated in this response. The intended emotions were not revealed in advance and the participants were asked to identify the emotion or feeling they took from each piece. In general, the responses showed the perceived emotions to match well with the intended one. However, there were a few discrepancies that occurred. These discrepancies were consistently linked to the music choice, specifically the tempo and dynamics which is unsurprising considering that this is the main feature used to identify emotion according to those participants. As stated in ‘Dance and Emotion’ , Hanna JL. (1999), 160 | P a g e

emotions in dance are not universally understood and can be influenced by our cultural background which may have also played a factor in these differences. By considering both the discoveries made during the choreography process, the performance and the analysis of audience responses, it is clear that there is no singular factor that determines the delivery or perception of emotion in dance. I would argue, however, that some features hold more weight than others. Music choice, as identified during the audience survey, can make or break whether the intended emotion is perceived in the correct way. Furthermore, some aspects, such as facial expressions, are more easily interpreted whereas dynamics, tempo and intensity are much more subjective. Consequently, laying down strong foundations with the less subjective features allows for easier comprehension of those that leave more room for interpretation.

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Reference List Burger B, Orlandatou K, Van Dyck E. (2017). The Communication of Emotions in Dance. The Routledge Companion to Embodied Music Interaction, p. 123 – 130. Hachimura K, Shikanai N. (2014). The effects of the presence of an audience on the emotions and movements of dancers. Warsaw, Poland: Elsevier Ltd. Hanna JL. (1999). Dance and Emotion. Encyclopedia of Human Emotion, Vol. 1, p. 171 – 177. Hanna JL. (2017). Dancing to Resist, Reduce and Escape Stress. The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Wellbeing. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Hargreaves J, Leman M, Lesaffre M, Maes P, Van Dyck E. (2013). Expressing Induced Emotions Through Free Dance Movement. Journal of Nonverbal Behaviour, Vol 37, p. 175 – 190. Kamal A. (2018). How To Choreograph A Lyrical Dance With @Miss Auti. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvKiVZc_f-M (Accessed: 02/12/2020) Leman M, Lenoir M, Lesaffre M, Van Dyck E, Vansteenkiste P. (2014) Recognising Induced Emotions of Happiness and Sadness for Dance Movement. PloS one, Vol. 9, Issue 2. Lonis S. (2020). MAD AT YOU – Noah Cyrus | Contemporary Dance | Choreography Sabrina Lonis. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ophatMMLbsU (Accessed: 03/01/2021)

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Externally assessed Distinction Projects

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Gold Igla (GS)

Biology

Gene marking and eradicating Malaria

Khiloni Dodhia (GS)

Biology

Epigenetics and transgenerational trauma

Rahul George (BS)

Computer Science

Quantum computing and algorithm design

Sur Agrawal (BS)

Computer Science

Graph theory in operations research

Benjamin Hocking (BS)

Computer Science

Evolutionary Engineering

Leo Sanitt (BS)

Computer Science

Mastering Achtung Die Kurve

Zaver Dhanani (BS)

Economics

Consumer culture with the age of social media

Aaliyah Patel (GS)

Economics

China Rags to Riches

Alex Rubens (BS)

Economics

Markets, Morals and Misunderstanding of Smith

Ariella Kaplan (GS)

Economics

Covid vaccines market or government success

Vir Shah (BS)

Economics

Tragedy of the Commons and Climate

Jonny Sawday (BS)

English Literature

Western Frontier in American Literature

Talia Rubin (GS)

History

Spain and challenging the pact of silence

Shona AdebowaleDaninthe (GS)

Law

Insanity defence

Raman Venkatesh (BS)

Medicine

Lysosomal Targeting as cancer treatment

Leandro Landolina (BS)

Medicine

Stem Cells in MS treatment

Akhira Shah (GS)

Medicine

Amalgam as a dental filling

Samuel Newman (BS)

Medicine

Crisp Cas9 in Medicine

Aarnav Panda (BS)

Philosophy

Possibilities of Moral Realism

Xavier Shah (BS)

Philosophy

AI and Morality

Oscar Ellis (BS)

Physics

Aerodynamics and the efficiency of electric vehicles

George Balint (BS)

Politics

National populism a threat to European Project

Riana Bhojwani (GS)

Psychology

How differentiation between phobias and other psychological disorders affects their diagnosis and treatment

Katie Bloom (GS)

Psychology

Discussing whether mate preference and sexual attraction is due to evolution

Jonathan Levene (BS)

Spanish

Spain’s minority languages

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Aske Level Project 2021

Articles inside

JOINT FIRST: Neeve Capaldo (GS) (Film) My Nonna's Story

THIRD: Lizzie Roxburgh (GS) (Dance) An exploration of factors that influence emotional delivery and perception in dance