For the first time in the modern age we have the opportunity to study at first hand the environmental impact of a flood basalt (>1 km3 fissure eruption). Flood basalt eruptions are one of the most hazardous volcanic scenarios in Iceland and have had enormous societal and economic consequences across the northern hemisphere. A flood basalt eruption was included in the UK National Risk Register in 2012 as one of the highest priority risks. The Holuhraun eruption reached the flood basalt size sometime after 20 October 2014. It is now the largest flood basalt in Iceland since the Laki eruption in 1783-84, which caused the deaths of >20% of the Icelandic population by environmental pollution and famine and likely increased European levels of mortality through air pollution by sulfur-bearing gas and aerosol. The pollution from Holuhraun has been intensifying over the last few weeks, reaching a "Dangerous" level for the first time in Iceland on 26 October (as defined by the World Health Organisation). During 18-22 September, SO2 fluxes reached 45 kt/day, a rate of outgassing rarely observed during sustained eruptions, suggesting that the sulfur loading per kg of erupted magma (we estimate >0.35 wt%) exceeds both that of other recent eruptions in Iceland and perhaps also other historic basaltic eruptions globally, raising questions regarding the origin of these prodigious quantities of sulfur. A lack of data concerning conversion rates of SO2 gas into aerosol, the residence times of aerosol in the plume and the dependence of these on meteorological factors is limiting our confidence in the ability of atmospheric models to forecast gas and aerosol concentrations in the near- and far-field from Icelandic flood basalt eruptions. Preliminary study of the erupted products highlights two extraordinary features: (1) matrix glasses contain up to 1000 ppm sulfur (<100 ppm is expected for degassed melt) and are extremely heterogeneous and (2) abundant sulfide liquid globules in the matrix glass are "caught in the act" of breaking down on quenching, suggesting that sulfur is not only supplied by the melt, but also by the breakdown of sulfide liquid during degassing. These observations highlight a previously overlooked but potentially very large reservoir of sulfur that leaves little petrological record. These results might go some way towards understanding the extremely high sulfur yield of this eruption and have implications for assessing the environmental impact. This project combines the expertise of a large group of researchers to understand better the sulfur and chalcophile metal budget of the Holuhraun eruption. We will follow the formation of sulfide liquids, through to their breakdown on degassing, to the outgassing of SO2 gas and conversion to aerosol. The entire pathway is not well understood, particularly given complexities related to the rapid magma ascent rates postulated for the Holuhraun magmas and the lack of ash in the plume, both of which we hypothesise impose kinetic constraints on sulfur processing in different parts of the system. We will carry out detailed petrological, geochemical measurements of lavas and plume chemistry to understand the sulfur budget and to feed into models of plume chemistry and dispersion, which are essential for hazard monitoring.

Digital technologies and services are shaping our lives. Work, education, finance, health, politics and society are all affected. They also raise concomitant and complex challenges relating to the security of and trust in systems and data. TIPS (Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security) issues thus lie at the heart of our adoption of new technologies and are critical to our economic prosperity and the well-being of our citizens. Identifying and addressing such issues requires a coherent, coordinated, multi-disciplinary approach, with strong stakeholder relationships at the centre. SPRITE+ is a vehicle for communication, engagement, and collaboration for people involved in research, practice, and policy relevant to TIPS in digital contexts. Since launching in 2019, we have established ourselves as the go-to point of contact to engage with the broadest UK network of interdisciplinary, cross-sector digital TIPS experts. The second phase of SPRITE+ ('SPRITE+2') will continue to build our membership, whilst expanding the breadth and depth of our innovation, and deepen our impact through proactive engagement. SPRITE+2 will have the following objectives: 1. Expand our TIPS community, harnessing the expertise and collaborative potential of the national and international TIPS communities 2. Identify and prioritise future TIPS research challenges 3. Explore and develop priority research areas to enhance our collective understanding of future global TIPS challenges 4. Stimulate innovative research through sandpits, industry led calls, and horizon scanning 5. Deepen engagement with TIPS research end users across sectors to accelerate knowledge Exchange 6. Understand, inform, and influence policy making and practice at regional, national and international level These will be delivered through four work packages and two cross cutting activities. All work packages will be led by the PI (Elliot) to ensure that connections are made and synergies exploited. Each sub-work package will be led by a member of the Management Team and supported by our Expert Fellows and Project Partners. WP1 Develop the Network We will deliver a set of activities designed to expand, broaden, and engage the network, from expert meetings and workshops to student bootcamps and international conferences. WP2 Engage stakeholders to enhance knowledge exchange and deliver impact. We will be greatly enhancing our purposive engagement activity in SPRITE+2. This activity will include a new business intelligence function and PP engagement grants, designed to enhance mutual understanding between researchers and stakeholders. WP3 Identify, prioritise, and explore future TIPS challenges We will select and then investigate priority areas of future TIPS. Two areas are pre-scoped based on the work we have done so far in SPRITE+ (TIPS in digital cities; trustworthy digital identities) with a further two be identified during the lead up to SPRITE+2. WP4 Drive innovation in research This WP concerns the initiation and production of high-quality impactful research. Through horizon scanning, sandpits and industry-led calls, we will steer ideas through an innovation pipeline ensuring SPRITE+2 is future focused. Cross cutting activities The first cross-cutting activity will accelerate the translation of TIPS research into policy and practice for public and private sector end uses. The second focuses on mechanisms to facilitate communication within our community. The experiences of SPRITE+ and the other DE Network+s demonstrate that it takes years of consistent and considerable effort for a new network to grow membership and develop productive relationships with stakeholders. In SPRITE+2 grant we would hit the ground running and maximise the impact of four additional years of funding. A successful track record, a well-established team, and a raft of ambitious new plans provide a solid foundation for strong delivery in 2023-27.

Since 9-11 and 7-7, terrorism has been a major public concern. To ensure public safety and to protect the UK economy, research is needed that offers new methods to foil attacks before they are executed, to identify people and networks who might be preparing for or undertaking an attack, and to provide clear evidence that can be used to justify questioning, arrests and prosecutions. In this study, we will investigate whether deception can be identified and proved from 'scent trails', that is, coherent accounts of suspects' activities over time compiled from tracking their movements, communications and behaviours. We will develop software to derive inferences about what activities are consistent with suspects' scent trails and what are ruled out. These inferences will allow investigators to challenge suspects, both in real time (e.g., to encourage suspects to abandon an ongoing attack) and during interviews (e.g., to point out inconsistencies between a suspect's account and scent trail evidence that might change the course of an interview). The project will investigate scent trails in the context of people undertaking deceptive activities to gain advantage in adversarial 'treasure hunt'-type games. The games will be developed in consultation with stakeholders to provide a non-sensitive analogy to counter-terrorism contexts. Players, typically undergraduate students paid for participation, will be monitored during games via positional and communication data obtained from mobile devices enabled with geospatial positioning devices. Novel software for integrating these data will be developed to build up scent trails of players' activities during game play. Methods of artificial intelligence will be combined to derive inferences from the scent trails about what kinds of activity are possible and impossible given a player's location, trajectory, activities and links with others. We envision games with 3 teams: Team A represent the adversary, Team B the police or general public, and Team C the intelligence services. Team A scores points by visiting target locations within a time limit under a set of game rules that they must violate if they are to win. They must try to hide rule violations from Team B, who score points by preventing or identifying Team A's deceptions successfully. Team C can challenge Team A by sending them indications of the scent trails that are held or can feed Team B intelligence information. Moreover, the inferences from scent trails will support Team C in deciding how best to prove or falsify a suspicion during an interview with Team A players at key points during the games. By conducting observation of players during games, we can investigate how people change their behaviours when they are confronted with evidence that reveals their deceptions. We will also interview players at key points during games as a simulation of interviews with suspects, eliciting from players accounts of their activities before presenting them with challenges based on their own scent trails that are either consistent or inconsistent with legal game playing. This will allow interview and analysis techniques to be improved and will provide clues as to how people subsequently change their behaviour after they have been confronted with their deception. The results will also allow us to test between hypotheses deriving from forensic psychology as to how best to detect deception. The research also allows us to explore public awareness of, and response to, monitoring and surveillance in counter-terrorism. With an advisory panel of stakeholders and subject specialists representing key public and academic bodies, we will identify ethical and legal issues associated with collecting and using data on peoples' movements through public spaces. We will also conduct questionnaire studies with game players and others not involved in the games, to measure attitudes to monitoring and surveillance in game-playing and other contexts.

The way in which individuals interact with technology is rapidly evolving, as users increasingly expect fast, reliable and accurate information. In order to deliver systems capable of meeting these expectation both businesses and government departments alike are turning to conversational agents (or chatbots). These conversational agents are capable of interacting and engaging with users, answering user queries and even providing advice and guidance as required. This research considers how this technology can be optimised to provide a more effective method of communication, while also focusing on the implicit trust that a user has with a conversational agent. As part of this research we will investigate the nature of sensitive information and how the context of the information can play a role in its perceived sensitivity. This will be achieved using a range of experiments to better understand the public's perceptions of personal information, and how those perceptions relate to the classification of the information. In order to fully understand the use of conversational agents it is essential to properly understand the nature of personal, sensitive information and also their perceived trustworthiness. We will examine how different facets of a conversational agent's humanity, personality and appearance can be used to affect an individual's perceptions and trust in that agent. We will focus on the use of conversational agents across three key sectors: healthcare, defence and security and technology. These three areas have been selected as they are significant users of conversational agents and all deal with potentially sensitive and personal information, as well as being areas of significant public spending. Our research will understand how these interactions between humans and computers can be optimised to deliver a bespoke conversational agent tailored to meet the expectations and needs of the individual. This in turn will increase the trust and confidence in these digital services.

This study asks how leading countries are organising and using national and regional diagnostic testing systems for Covid19 ('testing systems') in order to reduce Covid-19 mortality per capita in their populations, to avoid or shorten 'lock-downs', and reduce economic impacts from the pandemic. We will explain how testing systems have been shaped during the pandemic, and how challenges related to testing are overcome. The research will span North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia as well as the UK. The project builds on an established Covid-19 UK research and knowledge exchange hub at the University of Sussex that has been facilitating rapid dialogue and dissemination of research on Covid-19 diagnostic testing between the international research team and policy makers in the UK and beyond. The hub has a track-record of reporting results that have been widely welcomed and valued by the UK civil service and reported widely to public audiences in the media. As the pandemic continues, understanding the use of testing systems remains vital to optimise the Covid-19 response and save lives. With innovation and learning continuing (e.g. around the UK government's ambitious mass-testing programme), we propose to undertake further comparative research to share lessons across contexts. In order to support Covid-19 responses internationally, we will engage with governments and share deliverables from the early months of this 15-month project. Additionally, to inform preparations for future outbreaks and pandemics, we will contribute to national and international fora seeking to learn lessons from the current crisis.