Research Project Grants

Changing patterns of UK television news content 1975-2009
In a world where all the talk is of convergence, super-fast broadband, an information revolution and the online society, it is easy to lose sight of the power and significance of traditional media in people’s everyday lives. While it is certainly true that newspaper circulation is in rapid decline, both television and radio remain as popular as ever. Read full article

Representations of crowd behaviour in the management of mass emergencies
Studies have consistently shown that mass emergency behaviour is orderly and cooperative. However, there are various popular representations of such events – called ‘disaster myths’ – which include mass panic, social pathology, disorder and chaos. These myths suggest that crowds in emergencies are psychologically vulnerable and in need of top-down expert care and control. Read full article

Intramolecular Acylal Cyclisations (IAC) Towards the Synthesis of Natural Products
Compounds derived from nature that contain small carbon ring systems incorporating nitrogen atoms, display a wide array of biological activities from antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties through to anticancer effects. However, these molecules are often structurally complex and unavailable in sufficient quantity from the natural source for their biological properties to be fully investigated. Read full article

Facilitating meaningful play for disabled children through participatory design
Recent moves towards inclusive education have greatly increased the number of disabled children attending mainstream schools. Yet inclusive education is about more than just ‘integrating’ disabled children into mainstream schools it is also about ensuring that schools and classrooms become truly ‘inclusive’ environments with associated values and ethos. Read full article

How soft drinks attack our teeth
Soft drinks produce two main damages to our teeth. Their sugar content is metabolised by plaque microorganisms to give tooth decay and the acid in the drink directly attacks the teeth’s surface. This later process, called dental erosion, is a serious health concern as these beverages are consumed by many here in the UK and elsewhere. Read full article

Peopling the desert
This project concerns the detailed mapping from remote-sensing imagery of numerous abandoned but well-preserved towns and villages (dating c.500 BC – AD 1800) in Libya’s Saharan province of Fazzan (1000km south of Tripoli). Due to a modern-day retreat of oasis cultivation in this area, ancient and medieval settlement landscapes can be mapped in detail, permitting demographic modelling. Read full article

Corporate ownership and control in nineteenth-century Britain
Although the traditional view of financial capitalism is usually characterised by corporations which have many small diffuse owners and managers who are not major owners of the corporation, recent research has suggested that such a view is only applicable to the Anglo-Saxon world. Read full article

The Jewish calendar in early Islamic sources
The social and cultural importance of calendars was recognized by all faiths in the Middle Ages, and this explains why medieval scholars became interested in the calendars of faiths other than their own. Islamic scientists and chronographers from the 9th-11th centuries wrote extensively about the Jewish calendar, which similarly to theirs was lunar. Read full article