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 Five brief presentations from a selection students who held competitive awards for a diverse range of projects or expeditions undertaken during the summer months and reflecting the broad range of academic interests across the University.

Wednesday 17 November, 5.30-7.15pm in the Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Building

Five presentations from students who have undertaken a diverse range of projects and expeditions during the summer, which reflect the broad range of academic interests across the University.

Exploring how sight and sound interact

Anna Goodson

We know from everyday experience that what we see affects how we hear speech. For example, the strong interaction between vision and hearing explains why the moving lips of the ventriloquist’s dummy capture the sound of the operator’s voice. Similarly, focusing on the speaker’s lips helps make the spoken words sound more intelligible in a noisy room. It is not clear to what extent such cross-sensory interactions also occur for non speech sounds; for instance, does visual information change our perception of non-speech sounds? Several experiments with human participants will be conducted to address this critical question.

Newcastle University Expedition 2010 to Maranhão State, Brazil: Developing a method to quantify black carbon in Amazonian soils

Greta Dargie

Black carbon (BC), the term used for highly recalcitrant carbon compounds formed during the burning of biomass, is believed to remain in the soil for thousands of years and so can be considered of great value as a long term carbon sink. BC has also been found to improve nutrient retention and so has great potential for use in areas where soil fertility is extremely low, such as Maranhão state, which is one of the most degraded and poorest regions of Brazil and also one where slash-and-burn agriculture is one of the dominant land uses. Further research into BC is potentially of enormous benefit to such regions. However, the study of BC has been hindered by the lack of an accurate, low cost method to quantify it. For her MSc in Agricultural and Environmental Science, Greta Dargie spent over two months at the Universidade Estadual Do Maranhão, establishing the use of hydrogen peroxide oxidation as a cheap, but effective method of quantifying BC in Amazonian soils. The method appears to have been successful and it is anticipated that it will be used in future research examining BC. 

A comparative study of how sculpture evolved and developed in the pre-Viking 8^th century and post-Viking 9^th and 10^th centuries, between the (Scandinavian) North of England, and (Wessex) South of England

Chloe Parker

In my project I will be using the collections of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian sculpture at the Great North Museum, the Yorkshire Museum, and Winchester City Museum, as well as individual pieces from other museums, along with examples of sculpture that is in situ, to create a comparative study between the different types and styles of sculpture in the North of England, and in the South.  At the end of the project I will hope to answer the key questions of: how does Scandinavian influence manifest itself in Northern sculpture? What influences can be seen in Wessex sculpture?  And what role does sculpture play in the society of both religions?

Newcastle University Icelandic Jökulhlaup Expedition 2010

Rupert Bainbridge, Kate Bazeley, Adam Trueman and Milly Matthews-Mulroy

Jökulhlaups are large and often sudden floods of meltwater from glaciers. They are generated by volcanic eruptions under glaciers and icecaps or the breach of a glacial ice dam holding back meltwater. Jökulhlaups affect most glaciated regions around the world and can have serious implications for surrounding populated regions; endangering the lives of residents and livestock, damaging infrastructure and significantly modifying the landscape. This expedition consisted of three inter-related projects which examined the influence of these large floods on landscape evolution, reconstructed past flood events, and examined the use of satellite imagery to monitor glacier movement. Expedition leader Rupert Bainbridge (Geography MPhil) focused on landscape impacts and reconstructing flood size for the relatively unstudied, pre-historic lava occupied Djúpá River Valley. Katherine Bazeley (Geography MPhil) examined controls on the impacts of jökulhlaups since 1996 on the River Súla on Skeiðarársandur, the largest glacial outwash plain in Europe. Milly Matthews-Mulroy (Geography BSc) surveyed Skeiðarársandur in order to monitor recent glacier recession of the nearby Skeiðarár Glacier using satellite imagery. Adam Trueman (who recently graduated with Geography BSc and is now a Geography MPhil student) provided essential support for all three projects throughout the 5 week expedition. 

Lego Mindstorm Robot Football

Stephen Bowles

Funded by EPSRC, the project revolved around the programming of a team of robots to compete in a football match against a team of human-controlled robots. Using a ‘Lego Mindstorms’ robotics kit, available from many outlets, in conjunction with a relatively common piece of software, (‘Labview’, by National Instruments), a series of programs were produced that enabled the robots to perform many of the complex manoeuvres necessary to simulate a game of football. The research can help in developing innovative, cost-effective, teaching methods within mechatronics, as well as provide a valuable contribution towards research into artificial intelligence.