The cooling of young oceanic crust is the main physical process responsible for removing heat from the solid Earth to the hydrosphere. Close to the mid-ocean ridge rapid cooling is dominated by hydrothermal circulation of seawater through the porous and fractured basalt crust. This hydrothermal fluid is then discharged into the ocean mainly along the ridge. In this interdisciplinary project we will investigate the effects of this heat loss and hydrothermal circulation in both the solid Earth and the ocean. We will, for the first time, derive an integrated model which will be constrained by geophysical, geological and physical oceanography data that includes pathways in both the solid Earth and the ocean including fluxes through seabed. The most rapid heat exchange occurs close to the fast-spreading ridges, where there are little or no sediments, driven by hydrothermal flow. Cold ocean water enters the fractured basalt in areas on the ridge flanks and flows through the permeable crust becoming super-heated in the proximity of the axial magma chamber. This highly buoyant water ascends rapidly and escapes into the oceans along the ridge axis and is known to form distinct vents called black smokers. Once in the ocean the hot water mixes with the ambient cold water through entrainment and forms a plume that rises to its point of neutral density. The entrainment process may increase the volume of the water in the plume by several orders of magnitude thereby providing a mechanism to heat and lift the densest waters away from the bottom boundary layer. These waters are then more readily available for further mixing and heating as part of the global thermohaline circulation system. The intensity of the hydrothermal fluid flow in the crust decays with distance from the ridge axis because of clogging of the pathways by geochemical alteration products which changes the geophysical properties of the crust and with age, pelagic sediments isolate the fractured basaltic upper crust from the overlaying water preventing direct water exchange. Here conductive heat loss is determined by the thickness and structure of this layer of sediment. The project will acquire an interdisciplinary dataset which integrates physical oceanography and geophysics into a single data acquisition cruise. Using these data we will build and parameterise new integrated models that will provide valuable insight and new constraints of the thermal processes close to ocean ridges that includes a permeable seabed. These data and resultant models will set a new benchmark for integrated multi-physics experiments and will result in a new understanding of the fluid and heat fluxes at ocean ridges and, as importantly a better understanding of what geophysical and oceanographic data actually resolve in the context in an oceanic axial ridge setting, and a predictive model that can be applied to similar ocean ridge systems world-wide.

The air we breathe is teaming with microorganisms, with air currents transporting microbes globally. The earliest efforts to describe the distribution of airborne microbes were carried out by the founding father of microbiology, Louis Pasteur, over 125 years ago; but since then airborne microbes have been largely ignored. One reasons for this is that there are significant technical challenges in collecting airborne microorganisms,and thus microbial ecologists have focused on the low hanging fruit of soil and waterborne microorganisms. Even when efforts have been made to study airborne microorganisms, the research has been largely focused at a local/national level, but air pollution does not respect national boarders. Therefore, we have assembled a new network of world-leading experts in bioaerosols biomonitoring to take a global perspective on the ecology and human and environmental health effects of airborne microorganisms. Collectively, airborne microorganisms are referred to as bioaerosols, which is simply the fraction of air particles that are from a biological origin. Exposure to poor air quality is a major global driver of poor health, killing 1 in 8 people. Pollen is probably the best known example of a bioaerosol, which as an allogen, has a direct impact on public health. However, live bacteria, fungi, and viruses in the air pose a significant health risk through infectious respiratory diseases such as Legionellosis and Aspergillosis. The negative public health risks in themselves makes research into bioaerosols worthwhile. However, bioaerosols also play central roles in the life cycles of microorganisms, global ecology, and climate patterns. Analysis of bioaerosols at landscape scales has shown that even marine and terrestrial environments are connected over vast distances by exchange of bioaerosols. Indeed, it is well known that bioaerosols can be transported between continents on 'microbial motorways' in the sky (e.g. Saharan dust). Further to this, bioaerosols influence the climate by acting as nucleation forming particles and promoting precipitation. Due to the vast distances involved it is not possible to get the full picture from studies carried out at a local or national level, instead a global perspective is required to study these processes. A major recent methodological advancement in microbial ecology is the application of 'next generation sequencing' technology. Isolation of DNA from the environment and its analysis with high throughput sequencing has been a key tool in revolutionizing our understanding of the ecology of microbes from soil and water environments. Due to the lower concentrations of microorganisms in air samples this is technically challenging for bioaerosols. Consequently molecular methods are underutilised in bioaerosols research. Nevertheless a number of research groups across the globe have developed methods for molecular (DNA based) analysis of bioaerosols. However, a lack of standardisation between these methods makes it challenging to compare results and draw conclusions from combined datasets. This new network brings these experts together for the first time in order to standardise and further improve these methods. However, a key objective of this network is to make these methods more widely available. The largest burden of air pollution is in lower and middle income countries, where access to advanced molecular methods is limited. Through the network, researchers in lower and middle income countries can access these tools, pushing research forward where the need is greatest.

Through our research and innovation this project will deliver a toolkit of embedded interventions and methodologies which will deliver a significant measurable difference to equality, diversity and inclusion in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM). Our vision is to:- Contribute to achieving the combinations of talent that Engineering & Physical Sciences need to meet the sector and subject challenges of the 21st century and then using ourselves and our partners and collaborators as a test bed, develop (i) changed processes (ii) changes in culture and (iii) a significant change in behaviours to achieve a strategic diversity in STEMM. Ultimately we will widen the opportunities for entry and career development for groups typically under-represented in STEMM both in academia and industry. We will deliver 6 specific and measurable interventions which are described in detail within the proposal.

Ecological restrictions in many parts of the world are demanding the elimination of lead (Pb) from all consumer items, an important environmental context that underlies this research programme. This prohibitive trend places the ceramics industry in a precarious position as it is entirely dependent on Pb-based materials for piezoelectric applications. Piezoelectric materials are widely used in sensors, actuators and other electronic devices. The most popular materials to date are those based on the perovskite PbZrxTi1-xO3 (PZT), in use in over 90% of the piezoelectricity market. There is an urgent need to find alternatives to PZT for piezoelectric applications and in recent years, a number of materials such as Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) and its solid-solutions with BaTiO3 (NBT-BT) or K0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT-KBT), K0.5Na0.5NbO3 (KNN) and its solid solution with LiTaO3 (KNN-LT) have been researched as possible replacements. The newer lead-free materials are united with PZT in that they exhibit a region in their phase diagrams where there appears to be a sudden change in crystal structure, typically from a rhombohedral to a tetragonal phase. This region has been termed the Morphotropic Phase Boundary (MPB) and appears to coincide with the maximum piezo-response of these materials. It is the aim of this programme to obtain a unified scientific understanding of the morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) region and its impact upon piezoelectric properties in lead-free piezoelectric materials, taking as our example the Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 - BaTiO3 (NBT-BT) solid solution. We aim to investigate the MPB in NBT-BT from the nano-scale science to the macroscopic physical properties thus exploring this material's full potential as a functioning lead-free alternative and providing the most thorough description and understanding of an MPB in a lead-free system to date. To put this aim in context, there is currently much research world-wide addressing the full and proper description of the archetypal MPB system PZT itself, for which several key questions remain unanswered. In particular, is the MPB region truly a new monoclinic crystalline phase (as has generally accepted since the breakthrough crystallographic studies of of Noheda et al in 1999)? Or does it consist of adaptive nano-domains of tetragonal/rhombohedral symmetry? Or should it be explained through the growth and diminution of short-range order driven by correlated atomic displacements? These and further questions about the nature of the MPB must be answered URGENTLY and DIRECTLY in lead-free MPB systems themselves both for a fundamental understanding of the processes that promote high piezoelectric properties and to engineer effective new functional materials. In this materials-worldwide-network (MWN) programme, which combines leading researchers from three continents, we will apply the new and advanced experimental methodologies that have been developed to address the nano-science of the MPB to the lead-free material, NBT/BT, which is the ultimate goal of this proposal. The principal aims can be summarised as:1 To identify the nanoscale domain structure and characterize its piezoelectric response; 2 To determine the structural mechanism (transformational sequences) by which high piezoelectricity is achieved in non-Pb materials, and identify similarities and differences between MPBs in non-Pb and Pb-based systems; 3 To use this understanding to improve piezoelectric properties in NBT-BT and non-Pb systems.4 To provide an enhanced research education/experience for PhD and early-career scientists via UK/US collaborations and exchanges.Total Resource Request by each Organisation: Warwick 489,758 (EPSRC contribution 403,174): Oxford 65,183 (EPSRC contribution 52,147)Total UK resources: 554,941 (455,321 EPSRC contribution)

Infectious disease is the main thing that kills people. Some of the greatest improvements to human health have involved improvements in our understanding and control of germs - from John Snow's pioneering work on cholera in the 19th century to the eradication of smallpox in the 20th century. The 21st century sees a new set of challenges in the understanding and control of infections - while the eradication of polio progresses, we see new influenza strains causing or threatening pandemics, the continued progression of HIV and a massive health burden of often simply but expensively preventable diseases in the developing world.Epidemiology - the science of looking for significant patterns in cases of disease - has always been at the heart of controlling infectious diseases, and mathematics has always been central epidemiology.This project applies advanced mathematics to the science of epidemiology, making use of the large datasets and modern computational resources that are available. New insights about the structure of complex systems offer the promise of making massive advances in this field, through enhanced understanding of transmission routes of infection, risk factors and changes in the disease over time. These insights can in turn be combined with mathematical methods to design optimised interventions against infection so that diseases can be controlled in the most effective way.