The project "Compressive Imaging in Radio Interferometry" (CIRI) aims to bring new advances for interferometric imaging with next-generation radio telescopes, together with theoretical and algorithmic evolutions in generic compressive imaging. Radio Interferometry (RI) allows observations of the sky at otherwise inaccessible angular resolutions and sensitivities, providing unique information for astrophysics and cosmology. New telescopes are being designed, such as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), whose science goals range from astrobiology and strong field gravity, to the probe of early epochs in the Universe when the first stars formed. These instruments will target orders of magnitudes of improvement in resolution and sensitivity. In this context, they will have to cope with extremely large data sets. Associated imaging techniques thus literally need to be re-invented over the next few years. The emerging theory of compressive sampling (CS) represents a significant evolution in sampling theory. It demonstrates that signals with sparse representations may be recovered from sub-Nyquist sampling through adequate iterative algorithms. CIRI will build on the theoretical and algorithmic versatility of CS and leverage new advanced sparsity and sampling concepts to define, from acquisition to reconstruction, next-generation CS techniques for ultra-high resolution wide-band RI imaging and calibration techniques. The new techniques, and the associated fast algorithms capable of handling extremely large data sets on multi-core computing architectures, will be validated on simulated and real data. Astronomical imaging is not only a target, but also an essential means to trigger novel generic developments in signal processing. CIRI indeed aims to provide significant advances for compressive imaging thereby reinforcing the CS revolution, which finds applications all over science and technology, in particular in biomedical imaging. CIRI is thus expected to impact science, economy, and society by developing new imaging technologies essential to support forthcoming challenges in astronomy, and by delivering a new class of compressive imaging algorithms that can in turn be transferred to many applications, starting with biomedical imaging.

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is a virus that is linked to the development of a type of cancer known as Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) in individuals with compromised immune systems. KS is one of the top 10 cancers identified in men, women and children in South Africa, where it is the third most common cancer in African men. Despite this, there are no specific or effective treatments for KS that target the KSHV virus directly. As KS is an AIDS-defining disease, controlling HIV/AIDS and improving immune function using antiretroviral agents has been investigated as a possible treatment for KS. However, this is not always effective as many patients with well-controlled HIV infection still develop KS, and some individuals can experience life-threatening side-effects once they start antiretroviral therapy. Consequently, focused, specific and effective anti-KSHV therapies are urgently needed. KSHV is a member of the herpesvirus family and has two distinct life cycles in cells, a persistent life-long infection where the virus is mainly dormant (known as latency) and an infectious cycle that produces new viruses from the host cells (known as lytic replication). Uniquely for KSHV, both the latent and lytic replication cycles contribute to the development of KSHV-associated cancers. Therefore, it is essential to study the virus-host cell interactions which regulate both latent and lytic phases to fully understand KSHV-related disease. Moreover, inhibiting either or both phases may provide an opportunity to develop novel antiviral strategies to inhibit KS formation. This project focuses on a family of proteins found in host cells known as molecular chaperones. Molecular chaperones are needed for KSHV to undergo both latent and lytic replication cycles, acting as broad host cell factors for viral function. Molecular chaperones are themselves regulated by a family of host proteins known as co-chaperones, which are accessory proteins that fine-tune the function of chaperone systems. We have exciting preliminary data implicating the host co-chaperone STIP1 in multiple aspects of KSHV biology. This proposal will investigate how STIP1 functions during the KSHV latent and lytic phases and develop new ways to inhibit STIP1's function for use as KSHV-targeted therapeutics. We will apply a combination of molecular virology and drug discovery to describe in detail the viral and human cell processes controlled by STIP1 during KSHV latency and lytic replication. We will then use that information to design molecules capable of inhibiting STIP1 function in KSHV, which could subsequently be developed into KSHV-specific antivirals in future.

Where: SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), U (university), CoE (Centre of Excellence), CSES(Complex Social-Ecological System) & landscape/catchment/watershed: synonymous. The "Water for African SDGs" project will establish & develop the ARUA Water CoE as an effective, high-performance, hub & network of 8 African Universities' researchers & post graduate students. CoE research development will be based on understanding humans living on earth as the intricate coupling of society with the natural world - CSESs. We will forefront community engagement & knowledge sharing for sustainability. We will use research to catalyse change towards social and ecological justice and sustainability, paying attention to African community water and sanitation needs. The Water CoE has developed a systemic image of the SDGs as a planning, practice & evaluation tool. The image has SDG 6, Clean water & sanitation, at the centre, linking two primary water cycles: i) Water in a Catchment (rainfall, run-off, ground water recharge, evapo-transpiration, evaporation); & ii) Water Services - supply & sanitation (raw water from the natural resource, often in dams, pipes & pumps to water treatment works, treated potable water to households, waste water to treatment works & discharge into the natural resource). Several nodes place their water research in a climate change context (SDG 13), and acknowledge that water is integral to SDG 15 (life on land), 11 (sustainable cities & communities), & 12 (responsible consumption & production), Effective water resource management, supply and sanitation requires good water governance by strong institutions (SDG 16). The Water CoE itself embodies SDGs 17 (partnerships to reach goals), 4 (quality education) & 5 (gender equality). Each CoE node has strengths in different parts of these cycles. This project brings together strengths, so nodes can flexibly link & respond innovatively to research funding calls, & effectively apply research. Capacity-building, exchanges and mentorship will mainly be addressed through the development & delivery of a 3-day course by each node, to 14 participants from 3-5 other nodes. Participants will be doctoral students, early-, mid-career & established researchers. Nodes will host a course on their primary strength, nodes will co-develop courses out of secondary strengths. In Year 1, the hub (Rhodes U), will deliver a core foundation course to 3 delegates from each node (total 21), on Adaptive Integrated Water Resources Management (A-IWRM), including the CSES concept, transdisciplinarity and water governance. Node courses will run over Years 1 & 2, and an early identification of course areas is: Landscape restoration & catchment water use (Addis Ababa U, Ethiopia), hydrology, geohydrology & hydraulic regimes for IWRM (U Dar es Salaam, Tanzania), optimising benefit from dams (Cheikh Anta Dio U, Senegal), biodiversity, natural resource management, water-energy-food nexus (U Rwanda), urban water pollution (U Lagos, Nigeria), urban water quality design (U Cape Town, South Africa), & water in future cities (Makarere U, Uganda). Course days will include time to work on research proposals. In Year 3, activities will focus on grant applications and a Water CoE delegation attending a relevant international conference to present the outcomes of the whole project. Over the 3-year period, each node will have one opportunity to invite/visit an international specialist, & by the end of year 3 at least 3 collaborative research projects will be running, each progressing an SDG challenge-area. Spin-off companies in water & sanitation could be emerging, and each node will have community-based water and/or sanitation impact successes. At least 24 early career researchers and 24 doctoral students will be mentored through the CoE. We will demonstrate the clear emergence of an African water research cohort, addressing water-related SDGs, with positive outcomes and impact.

Biodiversity change directly threatens the livelihoods, food security, and cultural and ecological in-tegrity of rural subsistence-oriented households across the developing world. People will be forced to respond to it in ways that either mitigate loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services or that ex-acerbate losses. An unprecedented extinction of species is underway, and climate change is af-fecting species' range and phenology, leading to new species configurations that affect ecosystem services in unpredictable ways. With climate change and continued habitat alteration entailed in human population growth, 'novel' ecosystems will become even more prevalent. In the UN Interna-tional Year of Biodiversity, scientists and policy makers must recognise that humans, biodiversity, and ecosystems must co-evolve and co-adapt. However, Human Adaptation to Biodiversity Change is not considered as theme in any international, regional, or national science or policy for-ums. There is a dearth of scientific research about HABC, so scientists and policy makers lack mandates, conceptual frameworks, knowledge, and tools to project or predict human responses and their actual or potential outcomes, synergies, and feedbacks. Indeed, 'A significant new re-search effort is required to encourage decision makers to consider biodiversity, climate change and human livelihoods together' (Royal Society 2007). At the same time, there is a call for a 'para-digm shift' in adaptation thinking away from top-down planning and toward supporting local adapta-tion. Local adaptation efforts go unnoticed, uncoordinated, and unaided by outsiders and, unless policy makers become aware of the importance and extent of autonomous adaptation processes and understand what influences their outcomes, adaptation and mitigation policies may be ineffec-tive or counter-productive. This project's aim is to kickstart the development of appropriate conceptual frameworks, methods and integrated models for understanding human adaptation to change in biodiversity and related ecosystem services that can eventually be used to predict outcomes for biodiversity, eco-system services and human well-being in highly biodiversity dependent societies, and provide evi-dence for the utility of these outputs to a new network of researchers and policy makers. The build-ing blocks for development of concepts, methods, tools and models are a) local information or knowledge systems and monitoring capacity, b) local valuation of biodiversity and related ecosys-tem services; c) integrating biological resources and ecosystem services into an understanding of livelihood processes, d) assessing perceptions, risks, needs, and ability to respond, and e) under-standing biological and welfare outcomes and feedbacks. The project joins partners from anthro-pology, economics and ecology/biology at Oxford, Kent and SOAS, with partners from South Africa and India. Partners will jointly elaborate the conceptual framework in a first intensive workshop us-ing a scenario building protocol. Then, teams incrementally develop and evaluate research proto-cols and methods and collect primary data in a field research site in the Western Ghats, and re-sults are initially modeled. A second workshop revises the scenarios and prepares a second field data collection phase. This iteration permits further grounding of the conceptual framework and methods, and development and testing of a stronger, less aggregative model based on much bet-ter decisions about how different variables interact. After the second field research phase, scenar-ios are revised and integrated analysis and modelling of the data is done, and variables, variable sets, or system state indicators that are useful for monitoring biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being with biodiversity/ecosystem change are identified. A science-policy network is kickstarted (see impact plan).