This is a higher education student and staff mobility project, please consult the website of the organisation to obtain additional details.

Children with speech difficulties form the largest group of those referred to children?s speech and language therapy departments. Though some children grow out of their difficulties, others have persistent problems that can affect their educational progress and social development. Previous research into children?s speech impairments has been unable to agree on the percentage of the population who are affected by this. In addition, a number of factors such as intelligence and family factors have been found to be associated with speech impairment though there is no conclusive agreement on which factors are most important. Similarly, the degree to which educational and social development is affected is in dispute. Some speech impairments are associated with anatomical or neurological impairments such as cleft palate or cerebral palsy, but for a large number of children, there is no identifiable cause. Research has suggested many possibilities and it is also thought that different subgroups may exist. Some of the research on speech impairments is now outdated and uses definitions of speech impairment that are no longer accepted. With the more recent studies, there has been a tendency to use small samples of children, in some instances just one or two cases. There is therefore an urgent need for population-based research. The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) is a large scale study of children?s development which has collected information on children?s speech development at ages 2, 5 and 8. This provides a unique opportunity to investigate some of the questions surrounding speech impairment. The proposed study will identify the percentage of children aged 5 and 8 years who have speech impairments, what factors predict persistent problems and what factors are associated with a good prognosis . It will identify outcomes for children with speech impairments and investigate the existence of any subgroups. The researcher team have considerable expertise in the field of children?s speech impairment as well as being familiar with the data collected in the ALSPAC study. Findings from this study will support the early identification of children at risk of persisting speech impairments and help to identify interventions which may prevent long term negative outcomes. In addition, a clear understanding of the numbers affected by these difficulty together with information on the factors which are associated with it, will enable services to be planned more effectively and resources targeted where they are most needed.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a disease that can be disabling as a result of painful, swollen joints, joint deformity, fatigue, and unpredictable inflammation. The condition is commonly diagnosed between 30 and 50 years, and can impact severely on home and work life. Assessment of the effectiveness of treatments for RA is dominated by doctors‘ and nurses‘ opinions, and the patients‘ perspective is minimal. The research aims to ensure that changes which are important to patients are routinely assessed in research and clinical settings. In rheumatology, there is limited research on the effect of cultural issues on health care for RA. The new study will begin to address this by examining the different socio-cultural perceptions of RA in Punjabi speaking patients, and how these may impact on their health care, with a long-term view of conducting a large cross-cultural study with different ethnic minority groups. The researcher was trained in the social sciences and uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. Two patients will collaborate in the research team meetings. Through engagement with the media and policy makers, the research outcomes will lead to an improvement in health professionals‘ understanding of patients‘ priorities in RA, and in patients‘ decisions about treatment options.

Despite international legislation outlining the importance of healthcare provisions, the reproductive rights of some individuals have always been more policed than the reproductive rights of others. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the severely compromised sexual and reproductive wellbeing of irregular migrant women residing in the UK (CEDAW Art. 14.2(b), Art. 12.2; ICESCR Art 12.1). These women are more likely to experience birth trauma, premature delivery and maternal mortality, and less likely to access HIV treatment (Higginbottom et al., 2019; National AIDs Trust, 2012; Shortall et al., 2015). The significant disparity in reproductive care and health outcomes for migrant women in the UK indicates that hostile environment policies undermine the legal provision for the highest attainable standard of healthcare for all persons, regardless of race, gender or citizenship. Formalised through the 2014 and 2016 Immigration Acts, the 'hostile environment'(1) refers to a collection of policies and practices aiming to make the lives of those residing in the UK without documentation as difficult as possible, thereby motivating their 'voluntary emigration'(Button et al., 2020; Goodfellow, 2020; Jones et al., 2017; Oommen, 2020; Yuval-Davis et al.,2018). While attempts to control various populations through access to NHS care are not new, the introduction of the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations (2017) brought the issue back into the public eye. NHS charging and data-sharing practices have caused access to medical support for undocumented migrants to be the exception, rather than the rule (Jones, Finnerty & Richardson, 2019). This is evident in the unjust policies concerning access to sexual and reproductive rights (SRR), with such care being unaffordable and individuals running the risk of detection and deportation if they attempt to exercise these rights (Greenfield, 2019; Maternity Action, 2017). This inequality is further exacerbated by gender, with women facing greater barriers to healthcare and often requiring more support, as a result of pregnancy and their increased risk of sexual violence. Evidently, UK healthcarepolicies are punitive of sexuality, mobility and race, especially when exhibited by irregular migrant women (Barclay, 2020). Despite a steady rise in the migration of young women, the UK's policies concerning their SRR remain unchanged, establishing a need for additional research on the topic (De Jong et al.,2017). While literature concerning the effects of the hostile environment of vulnerable persons is somewhat extensive, my proposed ethnographic research with ProjectMAMA, adds a new narrative to this existing body of work, due to its grounding in mobility studies (Coddington, 2020; Hiam, Steele & McKee, 2018; Nellums et al., 2021; Weller et al., 2019). My research aims to make largely ignored and marginalised groups visible, by giving them a voice and capturing their experience through ethnographic methods, while contextualising this through an analysis of the legal framework and bureaucracies that undermine migrant women's rights. Research Questions: 1) How do the UK's 'hostile environment' policies restrict practical access to the sexual and reproductive rights that are upheld in international legislation? 2) What impact does the restriction of SRR have on the wellbeing, empowerment and autonomy of undocumented cis- and transgender women?

Imperative utilization of biosensors has acquired paramount importance in the field of drug discovery, biomedicine, food safety standards, defense, security, and environmental monitoring. This has led to the invention of precise and powerful analytical tools using biological sensing element as biosensor. PhyChip has demonstrated an effective and practical technology for using the slime mould Physarum polycephalum as a living transducer in mechanical, optical and chemical sensors. The slime mould maps a wide range of volatile chemicals, tactile stimuli and light of various wavelengths into unique combinations of frequency and amplitude of oscillations of extracellular electrical potential. Given an unknown stimulus one can infer about nature of the stimulus from the frequency and amplitude of the electrical potential oscillations. PhySense will transform the “lab based” techniques of the slime mould hybrid sensors into `everyday’ use in a cost effective and user friendly format by designing, manufacturing and selling the bio-sensors to research centres, universities, schools and laymen enthusiasts. In addition to making the technology accessible to both the general public and non-specialists this transformative project will establish an online portal capable of collecting and sharing millions of measurements. Recent work by our group has already developed a working prototype --- based on low cost electronics and bespoke software --- which demonstrate the paradigm shift which this project offers. Citizen participation will be used to leapfrog years of traditional research catapulting Europe in the driving seat of this exciting new scientific frontier of living technologies in sensing and computing.