CHAMP is a proposed training partnership between Dr Adam Standring, Professor Jonathan Davies and the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity (CURA) at De Montfort University (DMU), Leicester, UK. The rise of political values contrary to the aims of the European project is one of the great challenges of our time. The proposed Fellowship would be the first of its kind in examining the way morals construct and mediate political demands, from where moral critiques emanate and how they are legitimized. By exploring the moral foundations of critique, the Fellowship will develop novel perspectives on how European goals of social inclusion and sustainable societies can be achieved. Building on Dr Standring's work on anti- politics and Professor Davies' research on urban austerity, this project constructs an innovative interdisciplinary analytical framework. This framework is applied to a specific policy area especially suited to a moral critique - housing - in three countries producing different responses to austerity - the UK, Ireland and Portugal. As urban areas become sites of political contestation, fundamental in the implementation and resistance to austerity, broader political issues such as intergenerational justice, redistribution, solidarity, citizenship and community resilience are distilled into concrete conflicts. In delivering this project, the Fellow will benefit from De Montfort University's outstanding research training programme, and the field leading expertise of Professor Jonathan Davies and the CURA team. The project is closely aligned with the DMU strategic priority for researching 21st century urban living. It complements UN Sustainable Development goals and contributes to meeting EU Societal Challenges, especially ""Europe in a changing world: inclusive, innovative and reflective societies"". If successful, the Fellow will emerge from the programme as a fully independent scholar of international standing and as a credit to the MSCF programme.

3D point clouds are receiving increased attention due to their potential for many important applications, such as real-time 3D immersive telepresence. Compared to traditional video technology, 3D point cloud systems allow free viewpoint rendering, as well as mixing of natural and synthetic objects. However, this improved user experience comes at the cost of increased storage and bandwidth requirements as point clouds are typically represented by the geometry and colour of millions up to billions of 3D points. For this reason, major efforts are being made to develop efficient point cloud compression schemes. The task, however, is very challenging due to the irregular structure of point clouds. To standardize these efforts, the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) launched in January 2017 a call for proposals for 3D point cloud compression technology. In October 2017, the responses were evaluated and the first test model for lossy compression of dynamic point clouds (TMC2) was established. This test model defines a first “common core” algorithm for collaborative work towards the final standard. The aim of OPT-PCC is to contribute to these efforts by developing algorithms that optimize the rate-distortion performance of the test model. OPT-PCC’s objectives are to: 1. O1: build analytical models that accurately describe the effect of the geometry and colour quantization of a 3D point cloud on the bit rate and distortion; 2. O2: develop fast search algorithms that optimize the allocation of the available bit budget between the geometry information and colour information; 3. O3: implement a compression scheme for dynamic 3D point clouds that outperforms the state-of-the-art in terms of rate-distortion performance. The target is to reduce the bit rate by at least 20% for the same reconstruction quality; 4. O4: provide multi-disciplinary training to the researcher in algorithm design, metaheuristic optimisation, computer graphics, and leadership and management skills.

The project examines the pioneering era of photomechanical printing as a fundamental part of history of photography, art, science and modern visual culture. It focuses on the first three decades of development of photomechanical technologies, i.e. the era between the introduction of photography in the late 1830s and the outset of industrial mass-production of photography-based images in the 1860s. It centres on the UK, France and the Austrian Empire, as countries which played leading parts in the photomechanical research and practice from the 1840s onwards. Considering the state of the art of existing scholarship, as well as the amount and variety of preserved sources, the research will comprise collection and archival surveys, visual, material and contextual analysis and interpretation of original objects (prints and matrices), as well as close reading of correspondence, manuscripts and period publications. In order to understand the circumstances and cultural contexts in which different photomechanical technologies emerged and developed, the project will also look at social structures and networks of inventors, supporters, critics, and users. Great attention will be paid to theoretical period discussions on potential and the future of photomechanical printing. More elaborate knowledge of these phenomena will help to understand not only history of photography, but also history of art and science, and to consider more carefully different perspectives on development of photography-based technology and its interpretation. Through close collaboration with the supervisor and the partner institutions, the fellow will be able to extend her research beyond history of photography, and to enhance her complex research capacities, inter-sectoral collaboration, networking, leadership, managerial and publication skills. Advanced training through research, dissemination and communication activities will contribute significantly to the fellow’s professional and career development.

UVMICROCAT uses an innovative catalytic mesh assisted by a combination of UV and microwave technology for fast and effective treatment of large volumes of wastewater for water re-use. The project proposes an environmentally-friendly, totally innovative method for the treatment of toxic and recalcitrant contaminants in wastewater by enhancing the rate of a novel heterogeneous catalytic treatment process using microwave energy and ultraviolet radiation. The modified PAN catalysts developed at DMU has eliminated the need for iron removal post treatment and has broadened the pH range of application, whilst enabling continuous flow processes favoured by industry. In recent years, several reports have demonstrated the use of microwave and ultraviolet radiation to promote the oxidative degradation of bio-refractory wastes due to their advantages of speeding up the reaction, high-efficiency with no pollution to the environment. Nevertheless the use of microwaves in catalysis and in the water and wastewater industry remains at laboratory scale and therefore requires further in depth research. The major challenges in the water/wastewater industries are centered on the poor penetration depth of microwaves. In the project, we propose to design a UV and microwave assisted reactor which overcomes this scale-up problem. The design of the scalable microwave reactor will not only add new knowledge to the sector but open up new areas of industrial application for microwaves.