Rapid diagnostic test for Covid-19 of University of South Wales is rated as world-leading research, Swansea University’s with preventing coronavirus suicide risk is also very useful…
Universities in Wales are of world-class quality. Four out of eight schools here are among the top 500 universities in the world. According to the Research Excellence Frame (REF 2014), Welsh universities have the highest proportion of 'world-leading' research in the UK. Here are some of the latest research activities currently being pioneered at Welsh universities.
Surgical and Prosthetic Design
The Surgical and Prosthetic Design Team at PDR at Cardiff Met University enabled the production of devices for use in facial reconstructive surgery in 2015 Cardiff Metropolitan University was awarded prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize for this research work.
Pioneering work has enabled the rapid production of devices for use in surgical procedures. This has produced direct benefit in the making of prosthetics for individual patients and major advances in surgical training through improved accuracy in the use of simulation on surgery training and other educational applications.
In addition, during the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Cardiff Metropolitan University also has a number of outstanding studies such as using the latest robotics technology to pilot a system for identifying virus symptoms to slow the spread of Covid-19 (coronavirus) and PPE device scarcity as well as longer-term research and innovation efforts range from monitoring the societal impact of the pandemic to providing specialist support to the food industry and developing a productivity research programme to support Welsh firms in the post-Covid recovery.
A way of predicting the size of plastics different animals can eat
The research was published in Nature Communications on 27 March. A team of scientists at Cardiff University has, for the first time, developed a way of predicting the size of plastics different animals are likely to ingest. The researchers reported that an animal's length could be used to estimate the largest piece of plastic it could eat. This is about 5 per cent of the size of the animal.
The researchers said that as the plastic pollution problem escalates, it is vital to be able to quickly assess the risk of plastics to different species around the world. This work could also help scientists measure the risk of plastic pollution to ecosystems and food supplies – and ultimately the risk to human health.
Above all, Cardiff University as well as other Welsh universities make significant investments every year to develop research strategies, improve facilities and create opportunities for students to promote their research strengths.
The Cardiff Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (CUROP) offers students work experience, paid on an hourly rate basis, for up to eight weeks – to take part in a summer placement within any of Academic Schools, working with supervision on research projects. Those projects provide unique opportunities for you to sample live research, enhance your academic skills and make a more informed decision on furthering your research at postgraduate level.
The study of sharing disproportionate amount of Covid-19 disinformation on social media
Not out of the race to find solutions to improve the quality of health and life ... during Covid-19 pandemic, scientists from the University of Cardiff examine the aspect of human behavior at the time of the pandemic.
Professor Kate Daunt, who led the analysis, said: 'Our research provides insights into the factors that make a person more likely to share disinformation about Covid-19, as well as the central role social media plays in people’s lives.'
The team has identified a group they label as 'super-sharers', who amount to 6 per cent of social media users and were much more likely to have shared Covid-19 disinformation. The fact that fake news is super shared on social media affects trust in scientists, experts and health policies 'to a great extent'.
Rapid diagnostic test for Covid-19
Back in April 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic was only just starting to become a global crisis, USW academics were already working hard on developing new tools to help stem the spread of the virus by creating a rapid diagnostic test for Covid-19, to detect whether people are actively infected with the underlying SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The scope and scale of the rapid test is an affordable, simple-to-use point of care device capable of running the underlying molecular reaction, and suitable for use by healthcare professionals to diagnose or screen for COVID-19.
Ms. Llinos Spargo, University of South Wales’s representative said 'We are working with local manufacturing partners to ensure that the product is available at scale and have the capacity to produce an unlimited number of devices and thousands of tests per week. We are currently in the process of creating a technical file of our scientific and clinical data which will be used to submit our device for MHRA approval and CE marking'.
Preventing coronovirus suicide risk
This research was conducted by scientists at Swansea University. Professor Ann John, Deputy Head of Swansea University Medical School, and 42 academics from around the world have formed the International COVID-19 Suicide Prevention Research Collaboration. Writing in The Lancet Psychiatry, they say an increase in suicides is not inevitable - provided preventive action is taken imminently.
'Those actions range from supporting those who are lonely and vulnerable including those on the frontline, young people and the bereaved to responsible media reporting and economic policy.', Professor Ann John shares.
The authors also say examples of interventions include developing clear care pathways for people who are suicidal, remote or digital assessments for people under mental health care, staff training to support new ways of working, support for helplines, providing easily accessible help for those who have lost a loved one to the virus, the provision of financial safety nets and labour market programmes, and dissemination of evidence-based online interventions.
In addition, Swansea University has various outstanding research. In 2014 Swansea University, climb to 26th place in the UK in the Research Excellence Framework with over 90 per cent of their research being classed as world-leading or internationally excellent.
Swansea University’s representative, Mr. Yeng Ho, Head of International Marketing and Communications shares that 'In pursuit of excellence, we are committed to fostering a stimulating, thriving, inclusive, and ambitious research environment and research culture that will enable all of our research community to perform to the best of their ability and excel in their careers'.
Research about the effectiveness of alcohol warning labels
Bangor Business School has research strength in three themes namely: Methodological Advances and Innovations, Communications, Regulations and Governance. The research about the effectiveness of alcohol warning labels, which has been conducted by Prof. Louise Hassan, Professor of Consumer Psychology and Prof. Edward, Professor of Marketing since 2019 is among those outstanding research.
The researchers in this group identified 15 articles (dated 2000–2015) that empirically assessed the effectiveness and/or design of alcohol warning labels. They identified a number of issues that make it difficult to provide an answer as to whether or not alcohol warning labels work.
Firstly, most of the reported research assessed the USA warning that is not targeted at moderating or reducing alcohol consumption.
Secondly, studies reported in the literature used diverse research approaches and measures that were not directly comparable.
The results have not been published yet but the research team are working on writing up the results. They undertook a number of focus groups, a concept mapping exercise, and a number of experiments to assess whether or not different types of messages across messages themes (health versus social) would encourage students to consume alcohol in line with government low risk drinking guidelines. Therefore, this was a large study with multiple phases and is expected to come to effective solutions.
Nhat Le
