Lightning Talk Abstracts

Sleep and mental health: regulating emotions in a virtual world 

Emma Sullivan

Posdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Psychology

Personal webpage

Numerous studies demonstrate that a lack of sleep increases next-day anxiety levels. However, we know very little about how a lack of sleep influences anxiety as it unfolds over time. During this talk, I will introduce you to a virtual world that I developed to investigate how a night of sleep deprivation (vs a night of sleep) influences anxiety as it unfolds during an unpredictably threatening immersive world. Moreover, I will show that certain individual differences, such as heart rate variability, may help protect against the effects of sleep loss on anxiety.

Sustainable approach to digital heritage management in Africa: Insights from the MAEASaM project. 

Akinbowale Akintayo

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Archaeology

In the past twenty years, several projects have been developed to create digital repositories of heritage sites around the globe. Most of these projects are based in the Global North, where conspicuous funding from supra-national bodies and established digital infrastructures exist. However, leveraging on the capabilities of GIS and remote sensing techniques, projects that create open-access repositories of heritage sites in Africa and Asia are starting to emerge. One of such projects is Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments (MAEASaM). The goal of the project is to create a digital database of archaeological/heritage sites in Africa using GIS and remote sensing techniques. In this talk, I will introduce the project and its achievement till date and talk about a tested digital approach (ODK) employed for archaeological field recording. Finally, I will highlight how MAEASaM has helped museums transit from analogue to digital methods of field recording and heritage management. 

Guarantee correctness and performance of probabilistic algorithms

Kangfeng Ye

Research Associate, Department of Computer Science

Personal Webpage

Probabilistic algorithms have been widely applied in many areas such as distributed

systems, security and cryptography, sorting, number theory, data structuring, and robotics to simplify algorithms and improve performance. Probabilistic programming makes probabilistic modelling and learning of such algorithms more accessible, enabling effective reasoning under uncertainty while hiding the complexity of inference algorithms.

Formal verification brings mathematics into computer science to use software to automate the check if a program or model satisfies its requirements or specifications by exhaustively examining the whole state space (model-checking) or mathematical proofs (theorem proving). The verification of non-probabilistic programs is normally based on set theory and logic. The verification of probabilistic programs, however, is much more challenging because we need to deal with wide mathematical theories on computers such as topology, calculus, real analysis, linear algebra, probability theory, measure theory etc. in addition to set theory and logics. My research aims to develop theories and tools for probabilistic programs to make them suitable for automation and accessible to engineers and researchers using both model-checking and theorem-proving.

In this talk, I will present recent work to support the automated verification of UML graphical notations and prove probabilistic programs.

Spaghetti Bowls and Neurons: New Explanations for Dementia  

Alex Roof

Research Technician, Department of Biology

Neuronal axons are long, cable-like structures that electrically wire the body. They can be up to a metre long and need to survive our entire lifespan. The backbone of axons is formed by long, cylindrical structures called microtubules that are arranged in parallel bundles like a bunch of dry spaghetti. Making sure microtubules retain their shape is crucial for survival of nerve cells. 

We found that a biological catalyst called Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3β (GSK-3β) is a key regulator of microtubules and that its activity needs to be tightly regulated. Both, too much and too little activity leads to unbundling of microtubules where they take on a more disorganised appearance resembling a bowl of cooked spaghetti. GSK-3β over-activity is linked to Dementia and we therefore propose that this is a new explanation for neuronal death in Alzheimer’s Disease. We are currently developing cutting-edge imaging tools to study this further.

Decolonising global development research: A podcast series

Joseph Gascoigne 

Research Associate, Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre 

This project will develop a series of three high-quality, 25-30-minute podcasts that explore and explain methods for decolonising global development research. The podcasts, each accompanied by an 800-word blog and social media posts, will support academics at York and globally to develop research practices that respond to histories of coloniality and epistemic injustice. They will be centred around first-hand accounts from those who have experience of these approaches. This project builds on IGDC’s mission to decolonise global development research, as set out in its 2022 Guide to Good Practice for Inclusive Research. This project is developed in partnership with colleagues from UFBA (Brazil), with whom the IGDC hosted workshops on decolonising research in May and October 2023. The podcasts and blogs will be hosted on IGDC and partners’ websites, with subtitles in Portuguese and relevant languages. A social media campaign will reach a worldwide audience of academics and development professionals.

Stepping Through: how we can use participatory and interactive media to explore shared experiences of mental health

Simona Manni

Postdoctoral fellow, Institute of Mental Health Research (Department of Health Sciences)

In this talk I will explore how non-linear storytelling, that is stories where multiple viewpoints and perspectives co-exist and that is typical of interactive media, can be co-created with people who have lived experience of mental illness to generate personalised accounts of their experiences, especially when those experiences are complex and nuanced. 

These creative possibilities will be illustrated through the case study of an interactive poetic documentary called Stepping Through, written, directed, and produced by five men who experienced mental illnesses. The film explores multiple perspectives on recovery where viewers can choose resonant feelings to explore participants’ experiences while also reflecting on their own wellbeing. Stepping Through was evaluated by audiences with different levels of mental health awareness and showed potential for this type of storytelling to be applied to support and therapy, to mental health training, to service evaluation, and to campaign for stigma reduction in general audiences.

Recruiting Young Adults Who Have Committed Offences to a Randomised Controlled Trial: Barriers, Attempted Solutions and Learnings

Alex Mitchell

Postdoctoral fellow, York Trials Unit (Department of Health Sciences)

Young adults who commit minor offences frequently have health related problems. We attempted a randomised controlled trial examining whether a conditional caution consisting of an out-of-court, police-led, multi-agency intervention called Gateway improved the health and wellbeing of young adults compared to the usual process used by police officers. Key elements of a randomised controlled trial are obtaining full informed consent and collecting data, but this was not an easy to reach population. We had to split the consent process over two stages, with a police officer carrying out the first stage inside the police station, and a researcher, reliant on a correct phone number for the participant being provided to the police officer, carrying out the second stage via telephone. In this talk, I’ll discuss this and other barriers we encountered and our attempts to find solutions, highlighting what we learned along the way.

Technically Speaking

Sofia Skott

Research Technician in Ancient DNA/Palaeoproteomics,  BioArch (Department of Archaeology)

If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a technician working on ancient DNA and palaeoproteomics here in York - that's what my talk will focus on. I will present a summary of things I usually work on and what it means to be a technician in my role and in our department of Archaeology! 

The study of archaeological rats at Palaeohub

Eleanor Green

Postdoctoral Research Associate,  Palaeohub (Department of Archaeology)

For the last few centuries, rats have been seen as a menace to our society, and that reputation does not seem to be wavering. Historical documents described the recent colonisation of Rattus norvegicus into Europe, but when they arrived they were not the only rat in town. Rattus rattus is estimated to have been in Europe for around a millennium. RATTUS is a project led by Dr David Orton which will track the spread of both species of rats into Europe from their native ranges in Asia using archaeological science. When did they arrive? What routes did they take? How was this movement facilitated by human regimes? What impact did rats have on the spread of the Black Death? And what impact did the Black Death have on the rats? We are working to answer all of these questions and more in this UKRI-funded, ERC-selected, 5-year project.  

How random is my quantum random number generator?

Tom Hebdige

Research Associate, Department of Mathematics

Random numbers are vital for applications including secure communications, scientific modelling, and gambling. Traditional methods of generating random numbers include physical systems (e.g. dice, coin flips) or algorithms. However, if the initial conditions and process used to generate the randomness are known, the outputs are in principle predictable. In use-cases where unpredictability is paramount, especially cryptography and lotteries, this presents a problem. Quantum mechanics provides a solution to this problem, providing processes that are fundamentally unpredictable, thereby offering security guaranteed by the laws of physics. In partnership with the National Physical Laboratory and various industrial partners, we have been developing a new assurance scheme for quantum random number generators that builds trust in this new technology, and quantifies how random these devices truly are.

Improving waiting lists and accessibility for young people with depression in mental health services: a randomised controlled trial 

Emma Standley

Research Fellow, York Trials Unit, Department of Health Sciences

Mental health conditions in children and adolescents in the UK are soaring; with 3758 urgent referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in January 2024 alone. This rise in demand has exacerbated service provision, which remains challenged and under resourced.

Behavioural activation is a proven therapy for adults with low mood, which encourages the individual to schedule activities and tasks they enjoy or need to do (e.g. spending time with friends, homework, showering). By encouraging the individual to start doing things to feel better, behavioural activation aims to break the depression cycle.

A novel version of behavioural activation for adolescents has been developed. This version can be delivered by NHS junior therapists, using an online digital platform accessed during therapy sessions or at home. We are running the BAY randomised controlled trial to examine effectiveness of our behavioural activation compared to usual support, in improving depression symptoms in adolescents. 

Clean and Green: Rethinking Chemistry

Krishna Sharma

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence, Department of Chemistry

York Webpage | LinkedIn | Research Journey

Current methods for the synthesis of medicines heavily rely on the use of toxic non-renewable petroleum solvents. Many of these solvents are carcinogenic, reproductive hazards, and neurotoxins, posing significant risks to both human health and the environment. For instance, 1 tonne of the solvent Dichloromethane, a known carcinogen, has an environmental impact equivalent to releasing 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. The annual production of petroleum solvents is estimated to be around 20 million metric tonnes. Hence, the development of sustainable protocols for the synthesis of medicines is of utmost importance for achieving a net-zero society.

In this talk, I will discuss my research journey's transition toward sustainable chemistry and how we have replaced toxic petroleum solvents with nature’s solvent—water—as an environmentally benign reaction medium to enable the sustainable synthesis of pharmaceutically important molecules.