An update on 2010
Our brief update on last year's research review stories.
Adapting to climate change: an interdisciplinary initiative to tackle global climate change
The cross-campus Sussex Climate Change Network has now been firmly established as a virtual centre for interdisciplinary research into climate change. Research highlights related to African climate change include the start of a three-and-a-half year NERC-funded programme 'Fennec: The Saharan Climate System', led by Professor Martin Todd, and the publication of an edited book by Dr Dominic Kniveton on climate change and variability in Africa.
Revolutionising fingerprint analysis: applying the Electric Potential Sensor at a microscopic level
Our work on the Electric Potential Sensor (EPS) has taken a considerable step forward this year with the announcement of a collaboration between the University of Sussex and Plessey Semiconductors. And our novel method for the detection of fingerprints on plastics has recently been published in a major forensic science journal.
The horrible gift of freedom: re-evaluating visual representations of Atlantic slavery and emancipation
Professor Wood has been working closely with performance and installation artist Hetal Chudasama, exploring the chasm separating the meaning of the ancient Vedic Swastika in India from the post-Nazi aura of the swastika in Europe. They have collaborated on a variety of performances and installations in Europe, which superscribed the Indian Swastika in key sites and spaces, which had formerly been appropriated by the Nazis during the occupation.
Unravelling the mystery of consciousness: taking a unique, integrated scientific approach to study conscious experience
Research in the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science has developed in several directions. Adam Barrett and Anil Seth (Informatics) have published new research showing how to measure 'integrated information' for a wide range of systems, providing a potential new measure of consciousness. Ryan Scott (Psychology) has developed a novel method for detecting awareness in severely brain-injured patients, using simple skin-conductance measurements. His method is now being tested in several hospitals. The Centre is also developing new line of research directed at understanding 'conscious presence', the sense of subjective reality that is sometimes lost in psychiatric conditions such as depersonalization disorder.
Closing the carbon cycle: chemical strategies to provide a sustainable environmental and economic global transformation
In the past year, the team has successfully completed each of the individual steps in the catalytic reaction to convert CO into methanol driven by the uranium complex, a key reaction in the risk mitigation of peak oil and climate change. The original uranium system continues to generate new and important 'green' results: an additional spin-out from the methanol conversion is the generation of isocyanate, NCO, from CO and NO with the same reactive uranium system. Isocyanate is a key intermediate in NOx conversion in catalytic converters in cars.
A quantum leap forward: developing the first large-scale, super-fast quantum computer
The Ion Quantum Technology group has made significant breakthroughs in the fabrication of very advanced microchips that will eventually host a large-scale quantum computer and in the theory of optimal ion trap structures. We have commissioned a new experiment that will host even more advanced quantum computing architectures. We have been successful in attracting €2 million to start a new experimental programme for the realisation of quantum hybrid systems, a novel quantum computing technology
Making the future: 'blue skies' research - Review 2010 archive
