Research Presentations 2023

Incels (involuntary celibates), a subgroup of the so-called ‘manosphere’, have become an increasing security concern for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners following their association with several violent attacks. With the proliferation of the internet, male supremacist groups such as incels have new ways to reproduce real-world harm and gender-based violence (GBV) against women. Once mostly contained on niche men’s forums, redpilled and blackpilled communities and theories are gaining prominence on mainstream social media platforms. However, while incel harms have been assessed through the prism of extreme mass violence and technology-facilitated violence towards women, the generative harms resulting from incel ideologies on mainstream media have not yet been assessed. The present paper examines the incel presence on TikTok to understand the role mainstream social media platforms play in the diffusion and ‘normiefication’ of incel ideology, discourse, and gendered-directed hateful speech. The analysis of the visual and textual data found that the presumed nefarious nature of women and perceived male oppression converge to explain, excuse, and legitimise violence against women. Through this analysis, we uncover how incel ideologies and tropes protrude mainstream discourse and how these align with and expose wider structural misogyny and sexist beliefs extending beyond fringe online communities. 

Background: Police officers in the UK follow the 'Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceedings' guidelines. This good-practice protocol recommends that police officers use Truth-Lies Discussions (TLDs), at the end of the rapport-building phase of interviews, with child witnesses, to (i) gauge children's understanding of truths and lies and, (ii) remind children of the importance of telling the truth. However, there is limited evidence to support the effectiveness of TLDs in promoting honesty in child witnesses.

Method: Participants, aged 7 - 10 years, first played interactive games with a confederate, then witnessed the confederate commit a mock theft of money from a wallet and they were asked to keep this transgression a secret. Following this ‘event’, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. One group listened to a neutral story, a second group listened to a story about another child’s transgression, and the final group watched a video recording of the transgression. All participants then answered questions that gauged their conceptual understanding of truths and lies and were then asked interview questions about what they had witnessed. 

Results: We did not find any differences in children's truth-telling behaviour, nor in their understanding of truths and lies, across the three conditions. In addition, children’s conceptual understanding of truths and lies did not predict their subsequent truth/lie-telling behaviour. 

Conclusion: Children’s understanding of truths and lies cannot be used to predict their trustworthiness in Court.

Plastic pollution is a global environmental issue causing great threat to the Earth’s ecosystem. Just 10% of plastic waste produced so far has been recycled, with approximately 5-13 metric tonnes is estimated to enter the ocean annually, and no significant observation of environmental biodegradation. Current recycling approaches are linear, with eventual disposal in landfill and subsequent environmental contamination inevitable. However, a circular approach has been discovered in recent years, allowing true recycling of plastics to virgin-quality products that can be used continuously and repeatedly. This novel approach uses enzymes capable of breaking down plastic polymers into their monomeric building blocks. These enzymes are found in microbes within our environment and have naturally developed the capability to break down plastic polymers in order to utilise the carbon within them as an energy source. This research aims to explore the environment to discover new microbes which have this extraordinary capability, particularly for harder-to-breakdown plastics such as polyethylene or polystyrene. This can be done through strategic sampling of promising environmental sites, isolation and screening of samples, characterisation of samples using taxonomic methods such as 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and whole-genome sequencing to investigate the genes that may confer such abilities.

This presentation utilises data from my PhD research to represent both challenges and reflections I encountered whilst conducting semi-structured interviews in Egypt.  Qualitative research in the Egyptian context is believed to be challenging (Burke & El-Kot, 2010; Darrag et al., 2010; El-Kot & Leat, 2008; Evans & Mohammad, 2017; Leat & El-kot, 2007; Mousa, 2022; Mousa & Alas, 2016). Aiming to expand knowledge of Perceptions of Organisation Support (POS), the research study explored participants’ viewpoints regarding what is provided by universities that is perceived to be supportive for upward career mobility and promotions of academic women. Data was collected from twelve Human Resources (HR) personnel, four first-line managers, and twenty-three academic women. Qualitative researchers (Braun & Clarke, 2022) support the need to constantly reflect on the data collection and analysis phases to increase their understanding and maintain their positionality in their research. This presentation describes reflections on the challenges prevalent in the data collection phase. These challenges are identified to stem from relying on publicly available data, method preference, and fear of sensitivity of the topic. The presentation will then move to reflect on the researcher’s position as an insider researcher, and reflections on researching researchers.

Why are we interested in the effect of alternate climate scenarios on concrete carbonation? Reinforced concrete corrosion is around 3-4% of industrialised nations’ annual GDP spend (Fuhaid and Niaz, 2022). In the UK and similar climates, most of this is caused by carbonation, a function of CO2, temperature, and relative humidity. Hence, future climate scenarios matter hugely to the projected lifespans and maintenance requirements of UK infrastructure.

This presentation will look briefly at the carbonation process, how measurement and repair take place, localisation to asset level of CO¬2 levels, air temperature and RH, mitigation measures, current numerical models and projections for the UK based on the culmination of these aspects, and a short discussion of limitations in these projections.

Expect to discover why the difficulties in predicting concrete carbonation are similar to those when investigating UFOs, why sleeping on concrete carbonation is a terrible idea, and how research from disparate disciplines has been amalgamated in addressing this issue.

The General Dental Council (GDC) regulate the dental profession. A dentist may be mandated to attend ‘a fitness to practice panel’ (FtP). A dentist attending FtP is described as a “dentist in difficulty” (DiD). Coaching and mentoring is recommended to help fulfil the conditions within an FtP so they can continue to be as a registered dentist. Qualitative research methods are being used to explore the lived in experiences of coach mentor and reasons for becoming a coach mentor. Thematic analysis of interviews identified 5 themes and 22 sub-themes.

I would like to share my experience as a mature autistic student with the student cohort and why I chose to research maritime security in Africa. My presentation will therefore focus on some the key challenges of the last 6 years - personal and academic. 

As I have before on the University website and brochure, I will not shy away from sharing the real difficulties I have encountered to finish this PhD journey. I will also share my passion for the ocean and for making a difference with my research. 

Being part of the Portsmouth University research community has been an amazing experience; I am so grateful for the support I have received. My time here has literally changed my life and I feel ready to embrace new challenges.

Ocean environments face a plethora of pressures, from over-exploitation and increased commercialization to the ‘ground zero’ impacts of climate change and ocean acidification. Global policy such as the High Level Ocean Panel, IPCC and IBPES advocate for a transformational change in ocean governance as a remedy to these pressures. This research has explored the concept of transformational change and how it can be applied to ocean governance through a multi-phase, reflexive and iterative approach. This meant constantly refining and testing the findings of the previous approach, before ultimately proposing a model of transformation in ocean governance. Using a systematic literature review, semi-structured interviews with experts in ocean governance, and two national case studies analysing government level change towards the blue economy, transformation can be understood as a complex and plural process. Multiple distinct interpretations exist, which provides challenges for accountability and trust in those who pursue transformative change. The resultant model of change identified included radical and incremental change that relied on a tangle of intersecting leverage points and actions, which were different depending on individual country contexts. The role of trust, leadership and capacity to embrace innovative change were identified as key enablers of change.