Current Projects
Psychological difficulties of AIDS orphans
Virtually nothing is known about how children's whose parents have died of AIDS cope psychologically, although a recent study from South Africa suggests that the stigma of AIDS and the trauma associated with AIDS in the family places an additional psychological burden on young people who are already very vulnerable. This research aims to modify measures used in the West so that they are appropriate for the Ghanaian context. We are hoping that his research will give some crucial insight into the psychological functioning of some of the world's vulnerable children.
Location, location, location
Cell division, differentiation and movement are regulated by the interaction of chemical messages at specific sites (or receptors) on the cell surface. This triggers the production of chemical signals within the cell. The spatial organisation of these signals inside the cell is key to producing the physiological response. The focus of this research is to understand the importance of one chemical signal, phosphatidic acid, in targeting certain proteins to particular sites within the cell. A combination of molecular, biochemical and cell biological techniques is being used to define the effect of phosphatidic acid on the location and regulation of phosphodiesterase type 4 and sphingosine kinase. Inhibitors of these proteins have a potential therapeutic benefit in the treatment of major diseases such as asthma and cancer, respectively. However, interfering with the location of these proteins within cells provides novel therapeutic opportunities.
Supplying the Nation
Although there is certainly an awareness within the education sector of the unique challenges encountered by overseas-trained teachers working in UK schools, surprisingly few studies in the current body of educational research engage specifically with the experiences and perceptions of this particular group of the teaching workforce in the UK, or on how educational policy and procedure impact on the career patterns of a cross-section of overseas-trained teachers. Those studies that have focused on overseas teachers have tended to frame whatever qualitative data has been collected in terms of regional and national supply and demand dynamics, thereby failing for the most part to identify the various individual motivations of overseas teachers to seek work outside of their home countries or indeed the wider impact of this movement of teachers on education. This research addresses the issue of teacher migration and teacher professional identity in context of the ’internationalisation’ of schools and universities and aims to re-cast current debates around the purposes of education and the nature of teachers’ work under conditions of globalisation, rather than factors of supply and demand.
Numerical Modelling of coupled behaviour in unsaturated soils
Recently, the interest for understanding the behaviour of unsaturated soils and for improving the knowledge of them has considerably increased. Reasons for that may be found by the fact that the unsaturated condition is observed in many engineering problems: construction of embankments, constructions near the ground surface and a wide range of geo-environmental problems. Moreover, the recently observed variability of climate, mainly in terms of dry-wet seasons (rainfalls, flooding, drought periods followed by wet season, etc.) may lead to the need of a better understanding of unsaturated soil behaviour.
The proposed project will involve numerical implementation of a new constitutive model currently under development at Glasgow University within a Finite Element programme. The revised code will then be used to simulate a number of fictitious boundary problems, first with a conventional constitutive model for unsaturated soils and then with the new model. This will enable the significance of coupling between the hydraulic and the mechanical behaviour to be investigated and demonstrated for a range of problems of practical interest. Finally the revised code will be used in the numerical simulation of a well-instrumented full-scale case of study. Access to this case study will be provided by MUSE Research Training Network.