Older autistic people with learning disabilities are not having their human rights met. There are inequalities in health and social care provision. Autistic people with learning disabilities are rarely involved with the design of services, but rather, services which are designed for non-autistic people are offered. Autistic people are increasingly using a range of media to have their views heard. There is a growing movement which rejects the medical/deficit model of autism, a model which suggests that the autistic person requires 'fixing' or 'training' to meet the 'typical' norm. This can lead to the autistic person being labelled as abnormal, stigmatised, and potentially excluded from society. Models are evolving such as human rights-based models focusing on inclusive practices and understanding the lived experience of the autistic person to design and develop services. Human rights implementation is a process and does not occur overnight. Part of that process will be to ensure that autistic people with learning disability are part of the decision-making process regarding service provision as they age and their lived experiences can direct and shape health and social care so that they can age well. The project aims to use film and art to support autistic people with learning disabilities direct the discussion in relation to planning and designing care provision as they age. By using these creative methods, we aim to support autistic people with learning disabilities to direct a discussion around what happy and health ageing looks like for them, to understand the impact of these discussions on others, and to raise awareness and support discussion with providers and the wider public. The project will have three main activities. The first will be to create a documentary film which will be led by a team of autistic filmmakers. Autistic people with learning disabilities (aged 55+) will be interviewed by the autistic interviewer on the experience of ageing in supported living services. Adapted and individualised interview methods will be used, allowing for a focus on visual cues and alternative means of communication. The second activity will involve showing the film within supported workshops. One will be online, and one will be face to face. The film will be used to help initiate a dialogue around ageing, aspirations, concerns, and care provision for older autistic adults in supported living arrangements. Autistic adults with learning disabilities and care providers will be asked to contribute. There will be a "wall" /canvas similar to a graffiti wall upon which participants can add to the dialogue. Participants can contribute directly to the "wall" themselves or can be supported to contribute by an artist. To allow all contributors time to process the discussions, there will be the facility to send in contributions after the event (e.g. by sending in a comment, photograph, or drawing). These will be collated by the research team, and the artist will add these to the visual record. The third activity will involve sharing the film and artwork across Scotland in a range of venues both online and in person with service providers, policy makers and the wider public. We aim to understand the impact of engaging with the project and the activities on communities through a process of monitoring and evaluation. For instance, service providers and policy makers may desire to adapt their services and service provision, and the wider public may become more aware, and knowledgeable about older autistic people with learning disabilities and their aspirations for ageing well. We will communicate the findings of the project through the documentary film, the artwork, as well as a film which will document the process of creating the documentary film (like an "out-takes" film). We will produce academic journal articles and present the findings to relevant communities including academic, health and social care, and policy makers.

Freshwater ecosystems are among the most threatened ecosystems worldwide with habitat loss and environmental stressors- factors that alter the fitness, homeostasis and functioning of an organism, population or community - such as pollution, climate change and invasive species as leading causes of threat to freshwater biota and biodiversity loss. Mini wetlands, such as ponds, pools, wet woodlands, and marshes, are some of the most endangered ecosystems worldwide. These distinctive habitats sustain remarkably high biodiversity; however, 30-50% of wetland species are estimated to be threatened. These wetlands are especially vital for freshwater molluscs, which are facing significant global declines due to human activities. Freshwater molluscs represent the most diverse group of freshwater taxa, yet they are also the most threatened, with around 50% of species at risk, compared to 37% of fish and 23% of amphibians. There is an urgent need to understand how the combination of environmentally relevant stressors will interact and influence the freshwater snail population. This will provide valuable information for mitigating stressor impacts, promoting the resilience of snail populations and informing conservation strategies needed to promote mini-wetland biodiversity. This project aims to investigate the impacts of environmentally relevant environmental stressor combinations on freshwater snails inhabiting mini-wetlands.

"Faithful and Interpretable Knowledge Grounded Systems" is timely given recent developments in LLMs and their "hallucinations". The self-reflection approach proposed appears to have merit and will be relevant to other work in the CDT on conversational agents.

To be added

Digital images inform decisions that have a major impact on the economy, society, and the environment. Illustrative examples include decisions in medical practice, disaster recovery, agriculture, forestry, climate action, quality control, pollution monitoring, and defence. Such images are predominantly generated by using specialised devices (e.g., medical scanners, telescopes, and radars), which leverage decades of progress on sensor technology and instrumentation engineering. In addition to state-of-the-art hardware, modern imaging devices also rely strongly on sophisticated mathematical techniques and computational algorithms in order to transform the acquired data into high-quality images and extract useful information from them. Whereas most of us utilise photographic images as visual reminders or for social reasons, the images acquired for the aforementioned purposes are often used in a quantitative manner, as measurements of high-dimensional physical quantities of interest, so-called "quantitative imaging" (e.g., a satellite image measuring a vegetation index that is used to calculate water deficit for forest fire forecasting). Quantitative images are used as evidence in decision making or as scientific evidence, and are therefore subject to high accuracy and robustness requirements. This fellowship proposal focuses on advancing the mathematical and computational foundations that will underpin future quantitative imaging technologies. A major challenge facing quantitative imaging sciences is that the analysed data does not contain enough information to accurately determine the exact value of the images (the data is corrupted by measurement noise and has limited resolution). The last decades have witnessed remarkable progress in quantitative estimation accuracy. However, in addition to accurate solutions, decision-making and scientific research also require a precise characterisation of the uncertainty in the delivered solutions (e.g., the degree of certainty or "error bars" attached to the water stress predictions that underpin the potential for forest fires). Unfortunately, even the most sophisticated quantitative imaging methods currently available are unable to accurately quantify the uncertainty in their solutions. This critical limitation severely hinders the value of quantitative images as evidence for decision-making and science.