In an increasingly multicultural society, many infants frequently hear foreign-accented speech alongside the native community accent. How does this impact on early language acquisition? During the first year infants learn the sound categories of their native language, knowledge that is crucial for further language development. The infants? environment plays a critical role in this development, yet previous research has assumed uniformity in infants? linguistic environments, ignoring the variation between sub-populations within the community. The proposed project focuses foreign-accented speech, which is characterised by transfer of acoustic elements from the native language into the target language, as a source of infants? linguistic input. Adults emphasise relevant, language-specific acoustic cues when talking to infants, and the acoustic properties emphasised in infant-directed, foreign-accented speech will be examined. This is the first investigation into the influence of foreign-accented speech on infant language acquisition. Combining insights from phonetics, psycholinguistics and language acquisition, it approaches the issue from the perspective of both adults and infants, by looking at acoustic characteristics of foreign-accented infant-directed speech and how infants respond to these cues. A longitudinal element addresses the role of variability by examining how infants? differential weighting of ?home? vs. ?community? accent cues develops over time.

The number of females (re)entering the justice system has grown considerably over the past few years. This generates significant costs: for society, victims, offenders and for the children of these women. However, very little is known about the mechanisms that may lead women to desist from offending. This study will focus on factors distinguishing between desisting and persisting female offenders. Analyses on quantitative population data, complemented with data from in-depth qualitative interviews, will be carried out to unravel the mechanisms underlying desistance and persistence. The findings will be critical for tailored interventions for females.

Dinitrogen, N2, makes up 78% of the air around us, and is exceptionally unreactive. It can be transformed into the more chemically versatile ammonia in nature using nitrogenase enzymes, and industrially by the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process, both of which rely on transition metals as the source of reactivity. The goal of this research is to sequester dinitrogen using non-metal systems, and use it as a nitrogen source for the generation of industrially relevant products. I propose to use photochemically generated phenyl cations as reactive yet chemoselective Lewis acids in combination with phosphines (and subsequently alternative main-group bases such as amines and carbenes) to activate and trap the dinitrogen molecule. The resulting azo-phosphonium salt can also be synthesised by the interaction of a phosphine with the corresponding diazonium salt, and this alternative synthetic pathway will allow us to rapidly screen a variety of reaction conditions and permutations, and assess the thermodynamic stabilities of different substituent patterns. Moreover, the azo-phosphonium salts that are generated are structurally related to commercially available dyes. The colours and stabilities of the dyes will be readily tuneable by varying the substituents and counter-anion. The base can be further varied: the use of secondary phosphines followed by deprotonation will afford neutral azo-phosphines, and it will be interesting to explore the possibility of these systems undergoing photo-isomerisation (by analogy with azobenzene), and potentially being used as photo-switches within molecular machines. Primary phosphines, followed by double deprotonation, would give rise to anionic P,N ligands with flexible binding modes. The products will be initially assessed using the diazonium route, and once stable species have been identified we will target them using the dinitrogen activation pathway. The true goal is to combine the concepts and generate industrially relevant products from N2 in a sustainable manner.

With Positron Emission Tomography (PET), researchers use radioactive molecules (tracers) and a scanner to look into a patient’s body in order to detect and study diseases. However, methods for synthesizing the tracers are still limited, meaning that certain diseases cannot yet be imaged. This research project aims to address this issue by developing new synthesis strategies for PET tracers with a short-lived radionuclide, oxygen-15.

Modern agricultural approaches have perturbed the soil ecosystem. Given the essential role of soil in sequestering carbon and safeguarding our food and water supplies, there is an urgent need to stop soil degradation. Unfortunately, reversing this trend remains a challenge. The soil is a complex system made out of minerals, water, air, and organic matter. Most studies on the decomposition of organic matter are focused on plants. However, the decomposition of fungi and insects, organisms that are largely composed of chitin, is less studied. Chitin is a highly abundant carbon-rich polymer, but the ecology of chitin turnover is poorly understood. I have discovered that the soil-dwelling Streptomyces bacteria can consume dead insects and grow on their chitin-based exoskeletons. Furthermore, Streptomyces bacteria that grow on chitin and insects alter their secondary metabolism with exciting potential for biotechnological application. These discoveries show the intimate relationship between Streptomyces and chitin, emphasizing their plausible impact on the soil environment. Therefore, my objective is to decode the genetic and chemical pathways that lead to the colonization and decomposition of insects by Streptomyces to better understand their impact on the chitin dynamics in the soil.