Preeclampsia is the most common of the serious complications of pregnancy. It is caused by a defect in the placenta and is symptomless in the early stages. It is currently only detectable by regular antenatal checks on the mother s blood pressure and urine. In its widest forms, preeclampsia affects about 1 in 10 pregnancies overall and 1 in 50 pregnancies severely. It is potentially life-threatening to mother and baby if allowed to develop and progress undetected. Preeclampsia is curable only by delivery, which puts some babies at risk if they have to be delivered prematurely. Recently, scientists have identified chemicals in the blood (anti-angiogenic factors) that appear to be associated with the onset of preeclampsia. However, it is not known what regulate these anti-angiogenic factors. If we can identify novel mechanisms to inhibit these factors, we could provide preventative treatment.

Breaking Boundaries: A Critical Analysis of Nigerian Legal Mechanisms in Alignment with International Human Rights Law to Ensure Access to Justice and Education for Women Affected by Armed Conflict In the context of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, women's right to education, have been systematically violated through abductions, school displacement, sexual violence, forced marriage. (Bertoni, 2019:5-6).Simultaneously, women who seek for justice encounter obstacles due to displacement and a weakened state justice system (Campbell, 2016:129). Despite court resumption, slow prosecution persists, along with financial burdens and enduring stigma. This highlights the Nigerian government's failure to uphold women's rights under international human rights law(IHRL). By ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),Nigeria assumes an obligation to address and provide remedies for women's rights violations proportionate with harm severity (Eide, 1989:35). Remedies, including reparations and accountability measures, are essential for a holistic post-conflict response, encompassing socio-economic factors, school reconstruction, scholarships, and prioritisation of reparations for victims' well-being (Torres, 2021). Notably, granting amnesty to Boko Haram members without proper redress contradicts transitional justice principles, risking further violence against women (Omonobi,2021). Additionally, the lack of incorporation of CEDAW into Nigeria's national legislation poses a challenge to enforcing women's rights to education and justice domestically. The research seeks to address the following questions: 1. What gender biases manifest in Nigeria's legal mechanisms regulating women's rights and to what extent, they undermine access to justice and education? 2. Does Nigeria's legal framework for women abide by international law standards and if they don't, how can international law be mobilised to challenge biased legislation that undermines women's access to education and justice? 3. To what extent have accountability mechanisms, including legal proceedings been employed in Nigeria to hold both state and non-state actors responsible for the violations of women's rights and what challenges hinder their implementation? The study will use doctrinal methodology to analyse legal rules, relationships between international and domestic laws, areas of difficulty and potential developments (McConville & Chui, 2007). Primary sources include CEDAW and other IHRL instruments addressing women's rights such as the ICESCR, as well as the case-law of judicial and semi-judicial bodies including African human rights bodies (Torres, 2021: 935-961). At the domestic level, the research will focus on the Nigerian constitution, statutes and case law by domestic courts. Secondary sources encompass textbooks, journal, articles (Torres, 2021; Campbell, 2019), government archives, and publications(Amnesty International). The research will apply critical feminist legal theory, to deconstruct potential gender biases that manifest in Nigeria's legal mechanisms regulating women's rights and how they undermine their access to justice and education. This theory contends that male-dominated legal systems require centering women's experiences to challenge purported objectivity of legal principles perpetuating discrimination and injustice against women. (Hartanto, 2019: 351). This research contributes to IHRL discourse by providing a novel understanding of how gender biases operate within Nigeria's legal mechanisms, offering a fresh perspective on the intricacies of women's access to justice and education. Its findings will directly influence policy formulation, providing evidence-based recommendations for legal reforms to protect women's rights in conflict and post-conflict scenarios, women empowerment and peace building aligning with IHRL principles.

Clinical and industrial applications of a novel numerical method for modelling the interaction between platelets and red blood cells: a step-change in predicting blood clots

The immune system protects the individual from a large range of infections. Although the immune response is highly efficient, this can result in some damage to surrounding areas. For the majority of organs this does not present a problem. However, in certain organs any significant immune mediated damage could threaten the survival of the individual. For these organs the immune response is carefully controlled and they are described as having immune privilege. The eye is a well studied example of an organ with immune privilege. It is clear that when inflammation occurs in the eye (uveitis) this contradicts the immune privileged status, with some patients suffering severe sight-threatening disease. The aim of our research is to identify the way in which the immune response is altered in uveitis. We wish to study the changes that occur in a specific immune cell, the dendritic cell, which acts as a co-ordinator of immune responses. By identifying the changes that occur in these cells in patients with uveitis we aim to identify new therapeutic options for this potentially blinding disease.

Overview: Flooding affects more people globally than any other natural hazard and the number of events is increasing with the recent 20 year period (2000-2019) recording more than double the number of flood event than the previous 20 years. Within India, the frequency of extreme storms have increased three-fold during the last 70 years with the storm magnitudes and occurrence of flooding increasing too. When combined with population growth, rapid urban expansion and the value of assets exposed to the risk of flooding, the social-economic impacts of flooding have increased dramatically over recent decades with this only set to worsen under climate change. Improved flood (risk) forecasting has been identified as a key priority for increasing flood resilience and supporting effective flood risk management in India. The international research community and research agencies have been moving towards Impact- based Forecasting approaches that not only forecast the hazard but also the potential impact of the hazard to help with decision making - as recommended by the World Meteorological Agency. Key challenges are how to account for uncertainty in the hydro-meteorological forecasts, and how to develop and evaluated the IbF end-to-end system to ensure the outputs are actionable by users. Use of ensemble hydro-meteorological hazard forecasts are a fundamental component but there are open research questions as to how best to form these ensemble forecasts and how to evaluated them. Secondly, evaluating and communicating the skill in Impact-based Forecasts is a new and emerging research area that requires novel techniques. A particular hotspot for flooding in India is the south west coastal state of Kerala that has the mountainous Western Ghats and catchments draining westward to the Arabian sea. During the monsoon season (June-September), heavy rainfall can produce serious flooding with recent events in 2018, 2019 and 2020 causing major impacts. The supervising team have been collaborating with the UK Met Office and operational partners NCMRWF (National Centre of Medium Range Weather Forecasting) and IMD (Indian Meteorological Department) to develop a prototype IbF system for Kerala that will form the basis for the research and provide an exciting opportunity to work with national Meteorological Agencies and for the research to have real-world benefits. Methodology: The Flood Hazard Impact Model for India (FHIM-India), co-developed by the supervising team and Indian partners, will provide the framework for the research. It uses the Grid-to-Grid (G2G) distributed hydrological model configured at ~1km scale over southern India and combined with the high-resolution (<30m) HiPIMS (High-Performance Integrated hydrodynamic Modelling System) to model city-scale flood inundation. The resulting estimates of water depth and velocity can be linked directly to receptors in the calculation of impact severity. The Flood Risk Matrix framework combines uncertainty from ensemble rainfall forecasts, such as NEPS-R (NCMRWF Regional Ensemble Prediction System), together with the severity of flooding forecast. The risk is then summarises at appropriate levels of integration in space (e.g. Ward or Village area) and time (e.g. forecast horizon). The research will explore and evaluate alternative ensemble forecasting methods and develop novel verification approaches for IbF outputs. Use of HPC environments (e.g. JASMIN or BEAR at Birmingham) will be required.