Loughborough Institute of Advanced Studies Podcast

Dr Anshuman Sharma - Role of human factors in microscopic traffic flow models

IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Anshuman Sharma delivers a seminar on their research -
Traffic flow models have long been driven by physics-based principles, yet the key orchestrators of traffic—human drivers—bring a layer of complexity that traditional models often oversimplify. This talk explores the crucial role of human factors in microscopic traffic flow models, emphasizing the cognitive, perceptual, and behavioral intricacies that shape driving decisions. In addition, as transportation evolves into a connected ecosystem, understanding and integrating human factors becomes even more critical to accurately mimic driver behavior. This talk will delve into modeling techniques that bridge the gap between human decision-making and computational simulations, enhancing the realism of both conventional and connected vehicle environments. By embedding human-centric intelligence into microscopic models, we move closer to creating safer, smarter, and more adaptive traffic systems.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Dr Carla Baptista - Imagining Democracy in Television: Portugal 1974-1976

IAS Residential Fellow Dr Carla Maria dos Santos Filipe Baptista delivers a seminar on their research -
The seminar presents the regime of televisuality following the military coup of April 25/1974 in Portugal. Our focus is on how the informative programs represented the repressive practices of the past, including forms of intimidation and persecution based on political dissent. By analysing selected excerpts from programs, we seek to map the political project which made RTP (the sole public channel existent in 1974) the key media to shatter the lines of interpretation formerly imposed by the dictatorship. The “coming” of revolutionary television offered new cultural repertoires and protocols for political practice and social interaction. This historical context created a grassroots television in which political actors, activists, artists and journalists activated the popular dimensions of the revolution. We emphasise the collective experience of watching television to understand the role of television in reshaping the notions of national identity, cultural memory and global citizenship.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias
#portugal #revolution #television

Dr Petr Siegl - Advances in Spectral Theory for Non-Selfadjoint Operators

IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Petr Siegl delivers a seminar on their research -
Many physical systems can be described by partial differential equations which in turn generate operators between Banach spaces. A well-known illustration of such interplay is quantum mechanics together with the spectral theory of self-adjoint operators in a Hilbert space. However, in several branches of physics like hydrodynamics, damped systems, quantum resonances, superconductivity or balanced loss/gain materials, the occurring PDEs contain non-symmetric terms and thus lead to non-self-adjoint operators. Due to the lack of powerful self-adjoint tools like the spectral theorem or variational principles, the encountered phenomena are very different from the self-adjoint case and include spectral instabilities, divergence of expansions in eigenvectors or non-reliability of approximations. In the first part of the talk, we give an introduction in the non-self-adjoint aspects of spectral theory. In the second part, we present new results on the convergence of the expansions in eigenvectors based on the local form subordination.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias
#maths #mathematics

Dr Giulia Borriello - Examining relations between patterning, cognition, and achievement in reading and mathematics

IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Giulia Borriello delivers a seminar on their research - 
This talk focuses on a meta-analytic study investigating the magnitude of associations between patterning skills and academic achievement. Patterning (the ability to detect and extend a predictable sequence like ABB-ABB or 4-8-12) is purported to be a critical indicator of academic achievement trajectories, but this claim is based on a somewhat small literature of correlational studies. Results from this meta-analysis, which examined 71 papers and over 16,000 participants, demonstrate substantial associations between patterning and achievement in math and reading, even after accounting for effects of other specific cognitive abilities. In addition to reviewing moderator analyses, I will discuss the practical and theoretical implications of these findings.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias
 

Dr Xiaoya Xun - Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Juvenile Delinquency: Comparing Moral Frameworks in China and the UK

IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Xiaoya Xun delivers a seminar on their research - 
This lecture examines the feasibility of cross-cultural comparisons in the study of juvenile delinquency, focusing on China and the United Kingdom. It explores how cultural contexts shape moral understanding and influence responses to ethical dilemmas. Drawing on data from moral questionnaires administered to adolescents in both countries, the study highlights key differences in reactions to identical moral scenarios. Furthermore, it investigates the impact of these cultural variations on the prevalence and nature of youth crime. By analysing the interplay between moral frameworks and delinquent behaviour, the lecture seeks to uncover deeper insights into the role of morality in crime prevention. The findings aim to foster cross-cultural dialogue and provide valuable perspectives for developing culturally sensitive strategies to address juvenile delinquency.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias
 

Professor Liberato Ferrara & Dr Estefania Cuenca Asensio - Forging the path to a Sustainable Built Environment: Shifting perspectives and practices in Concrete Structures

IAS Visiting Fellows Professor Liberato Ferrara & Dr Estefania Cuenca Asensio each deliver a seminar on their research, in a session fully titled “Forging the path to a Sustainable Built Environment: Shifting perspectives and practices in Concrete Structures" -
Prof Liberato Ferrara - “A holistic approach to sustainability of concrete: upgrading the perspective from material to structural design and life cycle assessment.”
The talk introduces a novel conceptual design approach for concrete structures within a holistic life cycle framework. Key to adopting material innovations in the construction industry, this conceptual design approach breaks from the traditional structural performance assessment based solely on the misleading metrics of material unit, volume, cost and environmental impact at the time of construction. This overcomes current challenges with Ultra High-Performance Concretes, often seen as extremely high strength, without considering their exceptional durability and the implications in the asset's design, construction, use and maintenance.
Dr Estefania Cuenca-Asensio - “Towards a more sustainable built environment.
Recent experiences on concrete recycling.” This seminar discusses recent experiences implementing circular economy concepts in the concrete construction industry. The research carried out ranges from the recycling of Ultra-High-Performance Concrete (UHPC), intended as construction and demolition waste using different fractions of recycled aggregate obtained from crushed concrete, in substitution of both natural aggregates and cement, to the recycling of Coal Mine Waste Geomaterials (CMWG). Recent results of the investigations that addressed the feasibility of the proposed technologies will be shown.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias
#sustainability #concrete #recycling

Dr Tanja D. Hendriks - Disasters, Duties and Dependencies: Malawian civil servants in disaster relief interventions

IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Tanja D. Hendriks delivers a seminar on their research -
Malawi is a donor-dependent country in southern Africa, at the forefront of experiencing the intensifying impacts of climate change. Its Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DODMA) is responsible for the coordination of disaster governance and relief interventions, but profoundly reliant on donor-funding to do so. Based on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai (2019), Cyclone Freddy (2023) and an El Niňo-induced drought (2024), I zoom in on different characteristics of disaster governance, to show how despite its lack of resources and actual capacity to deal with them, the state is central to relief interventions. Detailing how DODMA civil servants navigated the demands placed on them by colleagues, citizens, chiefs and (international) collaborators as they attempted to fulfil their duties, I suggest that these interventions throw the state itself into relief and render visible civil servants’ sense of duty as well as what it is up against.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias 

An introduction to Research Summits for Loughborough Academics (Dec 2024)

Recorded as part of a sandpit session for the new Research Summits, Director fo the IAS, Professor Ksenia Chmutina, outlines how the IAS can help support a week-long Research Summit, gathering international Fellows around key topics, to provide high quality legacy outcomes.
This more recent session in December 2024 has greater context, as by then we had then hosted the Africa Summit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias/programmes/africa-summit/
For more details on Research Summits and how to apply to host one, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias/opportunities/researchsummits/
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Dr Sarah Jewett & Professor Mike Wilson - Re-envisioning International Partnerships

Fulbright Scholarship Fellow Dr Sarah Jewett and their host Professor Mike Wilson (SDCA) deliver a seminar on their research -
International partnerships have often been lauded for fostering diverse perspectives and collaboration across global networks. Yet they often become best intentions embedded in signed artifacts and fixed institutional mechanisms. How can we envision and enact them as fluid sets of responsive practices that deepen both relationships and knowledge, and continuously draw on emerging priorities, aspirations and expertise? Come join Prof. Michael Wilson and Dr. Sarah Jewett as they discuss the ways they are rethinking traditional forms of institutional partnership through the launch of a new storytelling collaboration between Loughborough University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias
 

Dr Arnoud Arps - Memori Melompat: Jumping Memory, Popular Culture, and the Indonesian War of Independence

IAS Residential Fellow Dr Arnoud Arps delivers a seminar on their research -
This seminar uses Indonesian popular culture (film, historical re-enactment, and online music videos) about the Indonesian War of Independence (1945-1949) in its aim to understand ‘colonial histories’ from the decolonial non-Western perspective of the formerly colonised. In this seminar, I would like to critically scrutinise the idea that memory travels freely and discuss how a straightforward mobility of cultural memory does not apply to every local context. Memory in Indonesia travels temporarily, briefly, and not far. As a demonstrative semantic device, the Indonesian term memori melompat (jumping memory) signifies cultural memory formation beyond the West. It emphasises that Indonesian popular culture about the war is indicative of the need for a local reframing of existing memory concepts to better understand contemporary engagements with the colonial past.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias