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.

W5, Northern Ireland's award winning science and discovery centre, is passionate about engaging young people and the public with science, technology, engineering and maths in all their guises. Our mission is to: fire the spirit of discovery, and in order inspire the next generation of scientists, innovators and explorers, we plan to deliver a schools and public engagement programme using our StarDome mobile planetarium and promote links with local industry and researchers. The aims of this programme are: 1. To show the relevance and application of STEM to the space sector in Northern Ireland and also to everyday life 2. To engage young people with STEM, and as a result encourage the study of STEM subjects to key stage 4 and beyond; 3. To promote the wide range of global STEM careers available within this sector and the opportunities that these present. 4. To showcase and promote STFC technology such as the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) through StarDome Planetarium shows 5. To use the StarDome to engage the public with Space Technology, Astronomy and Astrophysics in an innovative and accessible way.

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.

In this project 'Radiation and Us: Making the Invisible Visible' we will develop interactive exhibits and shows to be situated in Northern Ireland's premier interactive science centre, W5. This will be done through a partnership of researchers into the medical uses of radiation from Queen's University and science communications experts from W5. The title of the project has a double meaning: radiation is often used to make visible of our insides which would otherwise remain invisible. Additionally, in this project, through the interactive simulations we will make the detailed behaviour of the invisible radiation visible to all.People generally have a negative view of radiation, considering it to be a mysterious entity. It is usually associated with negative things like bodily harm, destruction, danger and nuclear war. These negative associations can be a barrier to people's understanding and learning. However radiation has many interesting and positive uses including medical applications.Radiation is invaluable for medical diagnosis techniques ranging from the X-rays we all know from the dentist to more sophisticated ways of making three dimensional images of the insides of our bodies. Radiation is also invaluable in the treatment of cancer, being the second most common form of therapy after surgery. By illustrating the science behind these positive uses of radiation we hope to engage the audience and encourage some of the pupils to study the relevant sciences further.Because of radiation's invisibility and the safety concerns associated with it, it is not possible for school pupils or members of the general public to learn by doing activities involving radiation directly. However researchers into its medical uses have sophisticated computer simulations which show how the radiation travels through our bodies either for making X-ray images or for the treatment of cancer.We will use some of these simulations to develop an interactive exhibit to be situated in Northern Ireland's premier interactive science centre, W5 supported by shows covering the same topic. The interactive simulations will also be distributed using the World Wide Web and CD ROMs.These simulations will be designed to have an educational benefit for pupils from 12 years upwards but also to be of interest to the general public. They will present the user with challenges such as making a radiotherapy plan, avoiding a patient's sensitive organs with the radiation while getting enough of it into the patient's tumour. Radiation tracks will be displayed to demonstrate the science of radiation as well as its medical applications. The user will be presented with a scientifically accurate view of the creation and stopping of some of the X-rays and particles as it would occur inside a patient's body. This will take the form of an ever-changing animated display of the tracks created by the particles. The users will be able to interact with the simulations by sending in radiation from different directions and see how the X-rays and particles interact differently with different parts of the body. For example the bones stop more of the X-rays as we all know from X-ray photographs but in these simulations we can all see it happening before our eyes, making the behaviour of the invisible radiation visible.

"I remarked that all that occurs objectively can be described in science; on the one hand the temporal sequence of events is described in physics; and, on the other hand, the peculiarities of man's experiences with respect to time, including his different attitude towards past, present, and future, can be described and (in principle) explained in psychology." (Rudolf Carnap, philosopher and logician, reporting a conversation with Albert Einstein) Carnap's words describe a general idea that has recently once again moved to the forefront of debates about time in philosophy: that the understanding of time that modern science (in particular physics) provides us with differs radically from how we ordinarily think about time. The idea is that in our everyday understanding, we think of time as 'passing' or 'flowing', and in distinguishing between past, present and future events, we take ourselves to be describing a difference in the nature of those events themselves. By contrast, scientists typically operate with a picture of reality in which the idea of time passing or flowing does not figure, and which treats past, present, and future events exactly the same. Given this, many philosophers, just like Carnap, believe that our everyday understanding of time rests on a profound mistake about the nature of reality. However, Carnap's words also indicate a crucial role for psychology to play in informing philosophical debates about this claim. By helping properly describe and explain how we ordinarily think about time, research in psychology can contribute to a better understanding of how deep the gulf between the everyday and the scientific notions of time actually runs, and what is responsible for it. Yet, so far, there is very little by way of research on time that genuinely crosses the boundaries between philosophy and psychology in this way. Philosophers rarely consult actual empirical research to back up their claims about core features of our everyday thinking about time, and psychologists studying time have not typically taken their task to be to unpack the basic commitments of our everyday understanding of time that are the subject of philosophical debate. This project will be the first to provide a genuinely interdisciplinary investigation of our everyday understanding of time and its diverse aspects. It will ask as yet underexplored questions under three main themes: 1. How does an understanding of time develop in children, and how should we characterize any developmental changes in this understanding? To what extent does young children's understanding of time already involve ideas such as that time 'passes' or that past, present, and future are different from one another in their nature? 2. How should we interpret the results of research in psychology that indicate close connections, on the cognitive level, between time and space? Might such research point to aspects of the way people think about or experience time that are actually more in line with how time is conceived of in the sciences, where time is often assimilated to space? 3. Does research in psychology bear out the idea of fundamental differences in people's attitudes toward the past, the present and the future, and should such differences be interpreted as indicating implicit commitments about the nature of time itself? Is it possible to construe such differences as rational, and if it is not, what might explain them? In addressing these questions, the project will provide a completely new agenda for conducting interdisciplinary research on time, one that will pave the way for innovative future directions of research in both philosophy and psychology.