Doctoral Training Partnerships: a range of postgraduate training is funded by the Research Councils. For information on current funding routes, see the common terminology at https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/how-we-fund-studentships/. Training grants may be to one organisation or to a consortia of research organisations. This portal will show the lead organisation only.

Many people now work at unusual hours of the day. Shift-work is no longer restricted to heavy industry but is now more common in E-commerce and telesales occupations to meet the need for 24-hour services. Shift-work is associated with greater health problems (e.g. chronic fatigue, gastro-intestinal and cardiovascular problems) than normal 9am-5pm day-work. It is unclear whether these problems are due to disturbances of the body clock and/or a decreased opportunity to adopt the desired amount and timing of lifestyle and social factors. With more than 20 years experience in researching this area, the possession of new facilities in our shift-work simulation unit, as well as a history of field-based research, the Chronobiology Research Group at Liverpool John Moores University will address these gaps in knowledge. We will explore such questions as, how does shift-work interfere with physical activity and eating habits? How does prior exercise influence metabolic responses and performance during a night-shift? What are the longer-term acceptability and the health consequences of a physical activity/dietary intervention programme? A qualitative component to the project ensures that shift-workers inform the research process throughout. Research findings will be disseminated, as they emerge, to employers and individual shift-workers.

The New Robotic Telescope, like the Liverpool Telescope before it, will automatically construct it's own observing programme based on a scheduling algorithm. This algorithm will account for factors such as science priority, weather and target altitude in order to maximise the productivity of the facility. The purpose of this project is to develop the robotic scheduling model for the NRT, accounting for the new science priorities of the coming decades and the specific project goals of the telescope. We will use the 15+ year observing history of the LT as a resource to develop machine learning models to optimise the approach, and towards the end of the project we will use the current telescope as a testbed to validate the software products.

This project will examine the connection between a galaxy's merger history and the structure of its disc, and will take advantage of GECKOS, a new VLT/MUSE survey of 35 nearby edge-on galaxies. To recover merger histories, a range of techniques exist (see for instance Martig et al 2021, Boecker et al 2020, Zhu et al 2022). The technique presented in Martig et al (2021) is based on the idea that for a given age, accreted stars are more metal-poor than those formed in situ. This technique needs to be tested and refined, and it will be the first step of the project: to use simulations to assess how well we can recover past merger events based on the age-metallicity relation: which mergers can be identified that way? How much can we trust mass ratio and merger time derived? We will use the ARTEMIS simulations for this project, and will create mock GECKOS-like observations to test the method. The second step will be to use what we have learnt, and characterize the merger histories of all GECKOS galaxies (we will also produce maps of where accreted stars currently lie). The final step will be to gather all the results obtained within the course of the survey on the structure of discs (mass in thin and thick discs, age-velocity relation, scale-heights of mono-age populations, flaring in the outer disc, radial age gradients). Can we link merger events with particular signatures such as jumps in velocity dispersion at a given age, or increased scale-height? Which mergers produce massive thick discs? Do we confirm results from Garcia de la Cruz et al (2021) on the influence of mergers on flaring and age gradients? Are there thick discs that seem to have formed in the absence of mergers?

To develop state-of-the-art graphics and augmented reality to enhance the conservatory, orangery, sunroom and other home improvement design software, with regard to realistic augmented reality shadows and live blending of 3D models into an image reflecting the real world.