Software systems are heterogeneous, combining components developed by independent teams. Software developers rely on third-party libraries to cut development time and cost. The synergy between these components is crucial for the overall maintainability and health of the software system. Unfortunately, popular libraries are typically fast-moving and grow rapidly in size while catering to a diversity of client software. As libraries evolve and grow in size, developers tend to defer upgrades despite clear upgrade directives from the libraries, citing the cost of upgrade in both time and money. To build large and sustainable software systems, it is crucial that independently evolving software systems are synchronised automatically. Multi-Modal Software Evolution (MUSE) is a transformative step towards autonomous software maintenance where directives in software documentation for human developers will guide automated software upgrade. In MUSE, we will develop a novel approach to software upgrade that integrates upgrade directives for human developers into formal frameworks for program synthesis, generation and repair. We will include directives in documentation for libraries as first class objects in frameworks for reasoning and transformation of software. We will produce hybrid statistical-formal reasoning frameworks which will make human-to-human communication the main driver in automatic program transformation. Working closely with stakeholders through engagement events, we will develop both the theory and the tooling for automatic software upgrade to use newer versions of libraries. We will demonstrate the tools by upgrading client software that relies on fast-moving libraries and distribute the tools that we develop in multiple forms for developers at all skills levels, from enthusiasts to experienced developers, making our outputs widely accessible.

There are a wide range of natural hazards that impact communities living within, and at the edge of the Himalayan mountains; these are dominated by earthquakes, landslides and floods. In order to reduce the risk from landslides and floods, communities have developed early warning systems to downstream villages and towns, enabling pre-planned responses. Early warning systems require local authorities to be aware of potential dangers. For example, a steep hillslope that is known to be unstable with evidence of past landslides should be monitored, particularly during periods of heavy rainfall. However, in order for the local District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMAs) to know where to monitor, medium-term forecasts of the likely risk from different hazards need to be known. For example, certain areas are more prone to earthquakes, and others to landslides and flashfloods. If these risks from different hazards remain constant through time, then the forecasts and monitoring for each community remains steady. However, hazards do not act in isolation, but form cascades, each event triggering another. As a result, the risk from multiple hazards is not stable, but dynamic, and changes in response to upstream triggers. For example a landslide, that leads to a dam that breaks out to form a debris flow that then increases subsequent risk to floods due to choking of river channels with sand and gravel. This project aims to provide the first fully quantitative forecasts of multihazard cascades using a range of new modelling techniques constrained by a history of field observations from the Garwhal Himalaya, Uttarakhand. This area has been devastated by recent landslides and flashfloods such as the Kedarnath disaster in 2013 and the Chomli landslide in 2021. Thick accumulations of sediment in these steep mountain valleys are known as 'sediment bombs' as they pose a danger to downstream communities; such sediment bombs may form where glaciers retreat or where landslides block valleys. In this project, the Indian and UK teams will combine to integrate new methodologies from digital topography, remote sensing, computer models and field monitoring to understand how sediment yield from glaciers and landslides initiate sediment bombs, and how these accumulations are then mobilised to form debris flows, flash floods and downstream flooding. Through understanding the distribution and rates involved in these processes, we will generate medium term forecasts that feed into early warning systems developed in the communities of the Alaknanda Valley. The approach as outlined above suggests that the physical science models will be the sole input into consideration of dynamic risk; but it can't be as simple as that. The communities that live with this risk, and the DDMAs that manage the early warning systems have to be involved in the generation and iteration of the scientific methodology. Consequently, we are working with social scientists in the UK and India who have experience working with communities in the Himalaya through workshops and interviews that respect the diverse cultural, ethnic and gender-based perspectives. By the end of the project, we will have generated a decisional workflow for district authorities that integrates dynamic risk into their medium term forecasts in response to cascading hazards. Having demonstrated this process in the Garwhal Himalaya, we intend to work with the National Disaster Management Authorities in India and Nepal to promote national strategies for dynamic risk assessment.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Malaria is a vector-borne disease that currently threatens half of the world population. Anopheles mosquitoes transmit malaria, and many tools have been developed to prevent mosquito bites, such as mosquito repellents and insecticide-treated bed nets. Despite the huge reductions in malaria since the millennium, present control methods have stalled, partly due to emerging insecticide resistance in malaria mosquito vectors. In addition, mosquitoes invade new regions of the world, thus increasing the risk of malaria to people. Better understanding of mosquito biology and ecology could lead to the development of novel methods of mosquito vector control. Here we will focus on two species/species complexes of Anopheles mosquitoes, and will study how a class of chemical compounds that is found on their bodies helps mosquitoes to recognize mating partners and to colonize new areas. These compounds are cuticular hydrocarbons, and they form a waxy layer on the mosquito cuticle - their analogue of skin. In other insects, cuticular hydrocarbons are known to have two roles. They prevent water loss - desiccation, which is likely to occur in hot tropical environments where mosquitoes live. They are also used as an attractive perfume for recognizing appropriate mating partners. However, the role of cuticular hydrocarbons in malaria mosquitoes is not well known, and this project sets out to test it. We will focus on the two Anopheles species that we selected because of the special interest that they present. The first species, Anopheles stephensi, are native to India, but have in the past 10 years invaded the Horn of Africa. Upon migration from India, these mosquitoes had to adapt to and survive in dry and hot climate of the Arabian peninsula and East Africa. Thus, any adaptations to different environmental conditions must also be extremely recent and are happening very rapidly. We have a chance now to study this unique biological process as it occurs, and we predict that changes in cuticular hydrocarbons help these mosquitoes in their invasion of Africa. In addition, An.stephensi also have to distinguish their potential mating partners from the native African Anopheles species. This means that their attractive perfumes, if they use them at all, might have been modified - this again brings us to study cuticular hydrocarbons. The second species of interest, Anopheles farauti, inhabits northern Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon islands and Vanuatu. In fact, this is not one species but a complex of 8 closely related species, some of which occur at the same locations, and some live on islands in isolation from their relatives. We so far have studied 1 of the 8 species that inhabits Northern Australia. We found that cuticular hydrocarbons of the males and females of this species are very different. This exciting finding implies that they may indeed use cuticular hydrocarbons as the perfume to select their mates as it has been shown in many other insect species. We now want to extend our study to the other sibling species, and see whether their cuticular hydrocarbons are different between males and females. We predict that they are, but are modified slightly when the relatives of the mosquitoes live at the same location. The finding that An.farauti and/or An.stephensi use chemical compounds to find their mates will have profound implications for other mosquito species and mosquito control strategies. Mosquito genes and proteins, responsible for production and perception of cuticular hydrocarbons, may then be targeted in a variety of ways, leading to novel methods of malaria vector control that we urgently need. In addition, if we find evidence that rapidly changing cuticular hydrocarbons helps mosquitoes adapt to changing climate, this will help the scientists predict how mosquito populations may migrate and invade around the world in the future. This may guide prevention strategies that will save millions of human lives.

Definition of the performance of photovoltaics is normally reduced to the efficiency alone. However, this number contains no indication of key issues such as system component reliability, module stability or appropriate balance of system design -- all of which play a crucial role in determining the performance in terms of usability. The key indicator is the levelised cost of energy (LCOE). The main influences on this, and thus the viability of photovoltaic technologies, are not only in material science but also in the way systems behave in the long term, and the uncertainty in predicting their behaviour. The link between laboratory-based materials science and the LCOE is poorly understood, revealing gaps in scientific knowledge which will be filled by this project. The key outcome is improved understanding of the potential for deploying photovoltaics in different climatic zones. The biggest unknowns in the LCOE are: understanding of the stability and long-term performance of photovoltaic modules; how a holistic system performance can be described; and the uncertainty in life-time energy yield prediction. This is crucial, especially for newer thin film technologies, which have been shown to be more variable in degradation and often suffer inappropriate balance of system components. Close collaboration with manufacturers of thin film as well as crystalline silicon devices will ensure that these aspects are appropriately covered. Novel measurement and modelling approaches for the prediction of life-time energy yield of the modules will be developed and validated against realistic data in collected in different climatic zones. This will result in the development of accelerated test procedures. Uncertainty calculations will enable identification and minimisation of this, and thus reduce the LCOE. A holistic systems approach is taken, specifically looking at the effects of different inverters in different climates and the effects of the existing network infrastructure on energy performance. At the heart of this project is the development of models and their validation, all focused on predicting the lifetime energy yield. A measurement campaign will be undertaken using novel techniques to better monitor the long-term behaviour of modules. Detailed, spatially-resolved techniques will be developed and linked to finite element-based models. This then allows the development of improved accelerated tests to be linked to real environments. These models will be validated against modules measured in a variety of realistic deployments. Using a geographical information system, maps of environmental strains and expected degradation rates per year for the different technologies will be developed.The feedback from the grid is an often underestimated effect on photovoltaic system performance. Typically, the grid and power conditioning cause 5-10% losses in otherwise appropriately installed systems; in unfortunate cases this can rise to 60%. The underlying reasons need to be better understood, so specific models for the interaction with the grid and different control strategies will be developed with the overall aim to minimise these loss effects.This project will be crucial for both the UK and India to translate their ambitious installation plans into reality as it will deliver the tools required to plan the viability of installations via geographical information systems, underpinned by a robust science base. This will aid decisions on the use of appropriate photovoltaic technology for a given site, to include both the modules themselves and other system components, to maximise cost-effectiveness and reliability.