School of Advanced Study

Abstract The grand challenges of contemporary fundamental physics—dark matter, dark energy, vacuum energy, inflation and early universe cosmology, singularities and the hierarchy problem—all involve gravity as a key component. And of all gravitational phenomena, black holes stand out in their elegant simplicity, while harbouring some of the most remarkable predictions of General Relativity: event horizons, singularities and ergoregions. The hitherto invisible landscape of the gravitational Universe is being unveiled before our eyes: the historical direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration marks the dawn of a new era of scientific exploration. Gravitational-wave astronomy will allow us to test models of black hole formation, growth and evolution, as well as models of gravitational-wave generation and propagation. It will provide evidence for event horizons and ergoregions, test the theory of General Relativity itself, and may reveal the existence of new fundamental fields. The synthesis of these results has the potential to radically reshape our understanding of the cosmos and of the laws of Nature. The purpose of this work is to present a concise, yet comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the relevant fields of research, summarize important open problems, and lay out a roadmap for future progress. This write-up is an initiative taken within the framework of the European Action on ‘Black holes, Gravitational waves and Fundamental Physics’.

BACKGROUND: Olfactory dysfunction is an increasingly recognised condition, associated with reduced quality of life and major health outcomes such as neurodegeneration and death. However, translational research in this field is limited by heterogeneity in methodological approach, including definitions of impairment, improvement and appropriate assessment techniques. Accordingly, effective treatments for smell loss are limited. In an effort to encourage high quality and comparable work in this field, among others, we propose the following ideas and recommendations. Whilst the full set of recommendations are outlined in the main document, points include the following: - Patients with suspected olfactory loss should undergo a full examination of the head and neck, including rigid nasal endoscopy with small diameter endoscopes. - Subjective olfactory assessment should not be undertaken in isolation, given its poor reliability. - Psychophysical assessment tools used in clinical and research settings should include reliable and validated tests of odour threshold, and/or one of odour identification or discrimination. - Comprehensive chemosensory assessment should include gustatory screening. - Smell training can be helpful in patients with olfactory loss of several aetiologies. CONCLUSIONS: We hope the current manuscript will encourage clinicians and researchers to adopt a common language, and in so doing, increase the methodological quality, consistency and generalisability of work in this field.

Recent anecdotal and scientific reports have provided evidence of a link between COVID-19 and chemosensory impairments, such as anosmia. However, these reports have downplayed or failed to distinguish potential effects on taste, ignored chemesthesis, and generally lacked quantitative measurements. Here, we report the development, implementation, and initial results of a multilingual, international questionnaire to assess self-reported quantity and quality of perception in 3 distinct chemosensory modalities (smell, taste, and chemesthesis) before and during COVID-19. In the first 11 days after questionnaire launch, 4039 participants (2913 women, 1118 men, and 8 others, aged 19-79) reported a COVID-19 diagnosis either via laboratory tests or clinical assessment. Importantly, smell, taste, and chemesthetic function were each significantly reduced compared to their status before the disease. Difference scores (maximum possible change ±100) revealed a mean reduction of smell (-79.7 ± 28.7, mean ± standard deviation), taste (-69.0 ± 32.6), and chemesthetic (-37.3 ± 36.2) function during COVID-19. Qualitative changes in olfactory ability (parosmia and phantosmia) were relatively rare and correlated with smell loss. Importantly, perceived nasal obstruction did not account for smell loss. Furthermore, chemosensory impairments were similar between participants in the laboratory test and clinical assessment groups. These results show that COVID-19-associated chemosensory impairment is not limited to smell but also affects taste and chemesthesis. The multimodal impact of COVID-19 and the lack of perceived nasal obstruction suggest that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus strain 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection may disrupt sensory-neural mechanisms.

Cities can be characterized and modelled through different urban measures. Consistency within these observables is crucial in order to advance towards a science of cities. Bettencourt et al. have proposed that many of these urban measures can be predicted through universal scaling laws. We develop a framework to consistently define cities, using commuting to work and population density thresholds, and construct thousands of realizations of systems of cities with different boundaries for England and Wales. These serve as a laboratory for the scaling analysis of a large set of urban indicators. The analysis shows that population size alone does not provide us enough information to describe or predict the state of a city as previously proposed, indicating that the expected scaling laws are not corroborated. We found that most urban indicators scale linearly with city size, regardless of the definition of the urban boundaries. However, when nonlinear correlations are present, the exponent fluctuates considerably.

Is the self already relational in its very bodily foundations? The question of whether our mental life is initially and primarily shaped by embodied dimensions of the individual or by interpersonal relations is debated in many fields, including psychology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and more recently, cognitive neuroscience. In this interdisciplinary target article, we put forward the radical claim that even some of the most minimal aspects of selfhood, namely the feeling qualities associated with being an embodied subject, are fundamentally shaped by embodied interactions with other people in early infancy and beyond. Such embodied interactions allow the developing organism to mentalize its homeostatic regulation. In other words, embodied interactions contribute directly to the building of mental models of the infant’s physiological states, given the need to maintain such states within a given dynamic range despite internal or external perturbations. Specifically, our position rests on the following three propositions: (1) the progressive integration and organization of sensory and motor signals constitutes the foundations of the minimal self, a process which we have linked to contemporary, computational models of brain function and named “embodied mentalization”; (2) interactions with other people are motivated and constrained by the same principles that govern the “mentalization” of sensorimotor signals in the individual – and hence the mentalization of one’s body can include signals from other bodies in physical proximity and interaction, especially in interaction with particular bodies. (3) Crucially, given the dependency of humans in early infancy, there is a “homeostatically necessary” plethora of such embodied “proximal” interactions, especially as regards interoception. Collectively, such experiences of proximal intercorporeality “sculpt” the mentalization process and hence the constitution of the minimal self, including the progressive sophistication of mental distinctions between “subject-object,” “self-other” and even “pleasure-pain.” Finally, we explore notions of cardiac and more broadly interoceptive awareness as later, cognitive acquisitions that allow us to progressively solidify such distinctions, as well as understand and empathise with other people.

OBJECTIVE: To model the impacts of the bicycle sharing system in London on the health of its users. DESIGN: Health impact modelling and evaluation, using a stochastic simulation model. SETTING: Central and inner London, England. DATA SOURCES: Total population operational registration and usage data for the London cycle hire scheme (collected April 2011-March 2012), surveys of cycle hire users (collected 2011), and London data on travel, physical activity, road traffic collisions, and particulate air pollution (PM2.5, (collected 2005-12). PARTICIPANTS: 578,607 users of the London cycle hire scheme, aged 14 years and over, with an estimated 78% of travel time accounted for by users younger than 45 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Change in lifelong disability adjusted life years (DALYs) based on one year impacts on incidence of disease and injury, modelled through medium term changes in physical activity, road traffic injuries, and exposure to air pollution. RESULTS: Over the year examined the users made 7.4 million cycle hire trips (estimated 71% of cycling time by men). These trips would mostly otherwise have been made on foot (31%) or by public transport (47%). To date there has been a trend towards fewer fatalities and injuries than expected on cycle hire bicycles. Using these observed injury rates, the population benefits from the cycle hire scheme substantially outweighed harms (net change -72 DALYs (95% credible interval -110 to -43) among men using cycle hire per accounting year; -15 (-42 to -6) among women; note that negative DALYs represent a health benefit). When we modelled cycle hire injury rates as being equal to background rates for all cycling in central London, these benefits were smaller and there was no evidence of a benefit among women (change -49 DALYs (-88 to -17) among men; -1 DALY (-27 to 12) among women). This sex difference largely reflected higher road collision fatality rates for female cyclists. At older ages the modelled benefits of cycling were much larger than the harms. Using background injury rates in the youngest age group (15 to 29 years), the medium term benefits and harms were both comparatively small and potentially negative. CONCLUSION: London's bicycle sharing system has positive health impacts overall, but these benefits are clearer for men than for women and for older users than for younger users. The potential benefits of cycling may not currently apply to all groups in all settings.

When people observe one another, behavioural alignment can be detected at many levels, from the physical to the mental. Likewise, when people process the same highly complex stimulus sequences, such as films and stories, alignment is detected in the elicited brain activity. In early sensory areas, shared neural patterns are coupled to the low-level properties of the stimulus (shape, motion, volume, etc.), while in high-order brain areas, shared neural patterns are coupled to high-levels aspects of the stimulus, such as meaning. Successful social interactions require such alignments (both behavioural and neural), as communication cannot occur without shared understanding. However, we need to go beyond simple, symmetric (mirror) alignment once we start interacting. Interactions are dynamic processes, which involve continuous mutual adaptation, development of complementary behaviour and division of labour such as leader-follower roles. Here, we argue that interacting individuals are dynamically coupled rather than simply aligned. This broader framework for understanding interactions can encompass both processes by which behaviour and brain activity mirror each other (neural alignment), and situations in which behaviour and brain activity in one participant are coupled (but not mirrored) to the dynamics in the other participant. To apply these more sophisticated accounts of social interactions to the study of the underlying neural processes we need to develop new experimental paradigms and novel methods of data analysis.

Luminescent platinum complexes have attractive chemical and photophysical properties such as high stability, emission in the visible region, high emission quantum yields and long excited state lifetimes. However the absorption spectrum of the compounds in the UV region, preventing their excitation in the harmless visible/red region, as well as the strong quenching of the luminescent triplet state, caused by dioxygen in water and biological fluids, reduces their possible applications for imaging. Therefore a possible solution to these drawbacks is to take advantage of the high tendency of such square planar compounds to self-assemble in supramolecular structures. The assemblies can be considered new chemical species with enhanced and tunable properties. Furthermore the assembly and disassembly process can be explored as a tool to obtain dynamic labels that can be applied in biomedicine. The change in color, the turn on and off of luminescence but also of the reactivity, the protection from quenching and environmental degradation are some of the attractive properties connected to the aggregation of the complexes.

Methods for systematic reviews are well developed for trials, but not for non-experimental or qualitative research. This paper describes the methods developed for reviewing research on people's perspectives and experiences ("views" studies) alongside trials within a series of reviews on young people's mental health, physical activity, and healthy eating. Reports of views studies were difficult to locate; could not easily be classified as "qualitative" or "quantitative"; and often failed to meet seven basic methodological reporting standards used in a newly developed quality assessment tool. Synthesising views studies required the adaptation of qualitative analysis techniques. The benefits of bringing together views studies in a systematic way included gaining a greater breadth of perspectives and a deeper understanding of public health issues from the point of view of those targeted by interventions. A systematic approach also aided reflection on study methods that may distort, misrepresent, or fail to pick up people's views. This methodology is likely to create greater opportunities for people's own perspectives and experiences to inform policies to promote their health.

Theories of New Regionalism represents the first systematic attempt to bring together leading theories of new regionalism. Major theorists from around the world develop their own distinctive theoretic

Auditory distance perception plays a major role in spatial awareness, enabling location of objects and avoidance of obstacles in the environment. However, it remains under-researched relative to studies of the directional aspect of sound localization. This review focuses on the following four aspects of auditory distance perception: cue processing, development, consequences of visual and auditory loss, and neurological bases. The several auditory distance cues vary in their effective ranges in peripersonal and extrapersonal space. The primary cues are sound level, reverberation, and frequency. Nonperceptual factors, including the importance of the auditory event to the listener, also can affect perceived distance. Basic internal representations of auditory distance emerge at approximately 6 months of age in humans. Although visual information plays an important role in calibrating auditory space, sensorimotor contingencies can be used for calibration when vision is unavailable. Blind individuals often manifest supranormal abilities to judge relative distance but show a deficit in absolute distance judgments. Following hearing loss, the use of auditory level as a distance cue remains robust, while the reverberation cue becomes less effective. Previous studies have not found evidence that hearing-aid processing affects perceived auditory distance. Studies investigating the brain areas involved in processing different acoustic distance cues are described. Finally, suggestions are given for further research on auditory distance perception, including broader investigation of how background noise and multiple sound sources affect perceived auditory distance for those with sensory loss.

Modernist Writers and the Marketplace is a new research-level collection devoted to an exciting area in the history of the book. Focusing on Henry James, W.B. Yeats, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, Virg

Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = -0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics.

A number of health and agricultural organizations have been encouraging Westerners to integrate insects into their diet, without success. Appealing to consumer's reason and responsibility, as they do, is likely to reinforce a dilemma in the mind of consumers: many know that they can, in principle, eat insects, and perhaps that they should eat some, but very few are willing to eat them. Here we argue that current strategies are on the wrong track in identifying the key obstacle to overcome as a question of the negative representation of insects. Decades of laboratory research, as well as years of experience in gastronomy, suggest that people's food choices are relatively immune to rational changes of representation, and instead tend to be driven by taste preferences and exposure. Here we suggest an alternative sensorially-driven strategy, which stands a much greater chance of making people eat insects on a regular basis. The turn – or better said return – to entomophagy in this sense, needs to be driven by a psychologically realistic motivation and gastronomic interest.

A spatial multi-objective land use optimization model defined by the acronym ‘NSGA-II-MOLU’ or the ‘non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II for multi-objective optimization of land use’ is proposed for searching for optimal land use scenarios which embrace multiple objectives and constraints extracted from the requirements of users, as well as providing support to the land use planning process. In this application, we took the MOLU model which was initially developed to integrate multiple objectives and coupled this with a revised version of the genetic algorithm NSGA-II which is based on specific crossover and mutation operators. The resulting NSGA-II-MOLU model is able to offer the possibility of efficiently searching over tens of thousands of solutions for trade-off sets which define non-dominated plans on the classical Pareto frontier. In this application, we chose the example of Tongzhou New Town, China, to demonstrate how the model could be employed to meet three conflicting objectives based on minimizing conversion costs, maximizing accessibility, and maximizing compatibilities between land uses. Our case study clearly shows the ability of the model to generate diversified land use planning scenarios which form the core of a land use planning support system. It also demonstrates the potential of the model to consider more complicated spatial objectives and variables with open-ended characteristics. The breakthroughs in spatial optimization that this model provides lead directly to other properties of the process in which further efficiencies in the process of optimization, more vivid visualizations, and more interactive planning support are possible. These form directions for future research.

The grand challenges of contemporary fundamental physics—dark matter, dark energy, vacuum energy, inflation and early universe cosmology, singularities and the hierarchy problem—all involve gravity as a key component. And of all gravitational phenomena, black holes stand out in their elegant simplicity, while harbouring some of the most remarkable predictions of General Relativity: event horizons, singularities and ergoregions. The hitherto invisible landscape of the gravitational Universe is being unveiled before our eyes: the historical direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration marks the dawn of a new era of scientific exploration. Gravitational-wave astronomy will allow us to test models of black hole formation, growth and evolution, as well as models of gravitational-wave generation and propagation. It will provide evidence for event horizons and ergoregions, test the theory of General Relativity itself, and may reveal the existence of new fundamental fields. The synthesis of these results has the potential to radically reshape our understanding of the cosmos and of the laws of Nature. The purpose of this work is to present a concise, yet comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the relevant fields of research, summarize important open problems, and lay out a roadmap for future progress. This write-up is an initiative taken within the framework of the European Action on 'Black holes, Gravitational waves and Fundamental Physics'.

Access to a wide range of plastic materials has been rationalized by the increased demand from growing populations and the development of high-throughput production systems. Plastic materials at low costs with reliable properties have been utilized in many everyday products. Multibillion-dollar companies are established around these plastic materials, and each polymer takes years to optimize, secure intellectual property, comply with the regulatory bodies such as the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals and the Environmental Protection Agency and develop consumer confidence. Therefore, developing a fully sustainable new plastic material with even a slightly different chemical structure is a costly and long process. Hence, the production of the common plastic materials with exactly the same chemical structures that does not require any new registration processes better reflects the reality of how to address the critical future of sustainable plastics. In this review, we have highlighted the very recent examples on the synthesis of common monomers using chemicals from sustainable feedstocks that can be used as a like-for-like substitute to prepare conventional petrochemical-free thermoplastics.

Can basic tastes, such as sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and possibly also umami, be conveyed by means of colour? If so, how should we understand the relationship between colours and tastes: Is it universal or relative, innate or acquired, unidirectional or bidirectional? Here, we review the growing body of scientific research showing that people systematically associate specific colours with particular tastes. We highlight how these widely shared bidirectional crossmodal correspondences generalize across cultures and stress their difference from synaesthesia (with which they are often confused). The various explanations that have been put forward to account for such crossmodal mappings are then critically evaluated. Finally, we go on to look at some of the innovative ways in which chefs, culinary artists, designers, and marketers are taking—or could potentially push further—the latest insights from research in this area as inspiration for their own creative endeavours.

Abstract We present simulations of London's meteorology using the Met Office Unified Model with a new, sophisticated surface energy‐balance scheme to represent the urban surfaces, called MORUSES. Simulations are performed with the urban surfaces represented and with the urban surfaces replaced with grass in order to calculate the urban increment on the local meteorology. The local urban effects were moderated to some extent by the passage of an onshore flow that propagated up the Thames estuary and across the city, cooling London slightly in the afternoon. Validations of screen‐level temperature show encouraging agreement to within 1–2 K, when the urban increment is up to 5 K. The model results are then used to examine factors shaping the spatial and temporal structure of London's atmospheric boundary layer. The simulations reconcile the differences in the temporal evolution of the urban heat island (UHI) shown in various studies and demonstrate that the variation of UHI with time depends strongly on the urban fetch. The UHI at a location downwind of the city centre shows a decrease in UHI during the night, while the UHI at the city centre stays constant. Finally, the UHI at a location upwind of the city centre increases continuously. The magnitude of the UHI by the time of the evening transition increases with urban fetch. The urban increments are largest at night, when the boundary layer is shallow. The boundary layer experiences continued warming after sunset, as the heat from the urban fabric is released, and a weakly convective boundary layer develops across the city. The urban land‐use fraction is the dominant control on the spatial structure in the sensible heat flux and the resulting urban increment, although even the weak advection present in this case study is sufficient to advect the peak temperature increments downwind of the most built‐up areas. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society and British Crown Copyright, the Met Office

Abstract Supramolecular weak interactions can be used for preparing functional self-assembled architectures by powerful bottom-up approaches. In particular, when closed-shell metallophilic and π–π interactions between adjacent transition-metal complexes are established, profound changes in compounds’ properties are obtained and novel features often achieved. In this Review, the most recent advances in the field of luminescent platinum(II) complexes aggregating through Pt–Pt interactions are highlighted and their potential application in different fields presented and discussed.