Independent Research

The national Aristotelian Award was launched following the success of last year’s Perse Research Essay competition, which had been aimed at pupils in Cambridgeshire.

With the goal of inspiring young people to develop independent research skills, the Aristotelian Award offered a wide variety of essay titles across a broad range of subjects.

Split into two categories of arts/humanities and sciences, the winners of each section received £70 while the four highly commended pupils in each section were awarded £20. The sciences category was won by Royal Grammar School, Newcastle pupil Krishen Kashyap, who investigated the most important factors affecting the spread of zoonotic diseases. Highly commended were Ollie Sanders, Darell D’Cunha (both St Bede’s Inter-Church School, Cambridge), Cheyoon Kim and Hercules Voultsos (both The Perse).

Cobham Hall pupil Martha Hyde won the arts/humanities category with her reflections on whether history always repeats itself. Sophia Das, Benjamin Shaw (both St Bede’s), Nisna Malviya (RGS Newcastle) and Colin Chung (Ipswich School) were highly commended.

Students participating in the Rouse Award had supervisions with a subject specialist teacher guiding them through the research process. Their submissions were then assessed by the award panel based on the intellectual curiosity, depth and quality of research that had been undertaken.

The latest winners were announced in September 2021, with four students taking the overall honours. On top of this, 45 gained Distinctions, 50 were highly commended, 27 were commended and seven received awards.

For her project, Lucy took on the task of writing a short story in the narrative vein of the early-19th Century novelist after delving into her classic novels Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility to pull out the key styles and themes used.

Lucy noted Austen regularly employed irony and free indirect discourse, where a character’s thoughts are conveyed through the narration, but also her “revolutionary” use of the narrator in other ways to create her unique form of writing.

A keen creative writer, Lucy took just a single weekend to compose her untitled 10,000-word work, featuring a panicky mother trying to marry off her daughters.

He decided to evaluate which changes to patient care had been the most instrumental in improving survival rates for injured services personnel in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014, when the International Security Assistance Force ceased combat operations.

Much of Charlie’s research came from reviewing journals of both military and civilian medicine, especially in relation to air medical evacuations and specific treatments for those injured. He also spoke to several doctors at Addenbrooke’s Hospital who had come from a services background.

Charlie found that even simple treatments, such as the reintroduction of the use of tourniquets, had made a big difference in helping stricken soldiers.

However, he felt there was a combination of factors in their increased survival rate, including the speed of air medical evacuations and the pace at which military medics adapted to the situation.

The schemes began while the Asian nation was under Dutch rule in the early 20th Century as a means of moving people from densely populated areas to other parts of the country.

Elizabeth outlined that there had been issues with city slum dwellers moving to rural areas on other Indonesian islands to work as farmers without having the necessary skills, as well as the land they had been given being unsuitable for long-term farming, leading to some transmigrants moving into the illegal logging industry to make ends meet.

In looking to find a way of making the resettlement initiative more effective, Elizabeth devised a model evaluating the suitability of different rural islands around Indonesia based largely on socio-economic and environmental factors.

She also created a table highlighting previous problems and provided possible solutions, such as training people in farming techniques before heading to a new environment.

However, she admitted a major flaw remained the communication between newcomers and natives with more than 700 languages being spoken across the country.

His investigation looked into how an effective use of smart cat’s eyes could reduce the risk of road traffic accidents in developing countries.

He decided to try to come up with a solution having seen problems with road safety first hand while visiting family near to the Indonesian city of Bandung.

Having found the dimensions for regular cat’s eyes, Tom sketched his design and built it using a 3D printer before programming in the necessary code to bring his creation to fruition.

As with passive road studs, Tom’s design had a retroreflective strip, but also included censors picking up on sound, temperature and light and LEDs to convey information to drivers on hazardous driving conditions.

Meanwhile, 112 Year 7 pupils successfully completed the Perse Research Skills Qualification (PRSQ). The PRSQ allows them to learn key research skills, assessed via online quizzes after each module, so they are better equipped to tackle an independent PPQ project in Year 8. The skills are invaluable in helping them be smarter in the way they search for information, read sources and make notes.

The motivation behind choosing this topic for my HPQ lies in my longstanding passion for psychology, since I have always found it fascinating to learn more about the nature of the human mind and behaviour, as well as to be able to understand more about myself and everyone around us.

After doing some initial introductory research into emotional intelligence, I decided I specifically wanted to learn more about what effect it could have on us and discovered some intriguing studies showing a strong correlation between having a high emotional intelligence and better health, compelling me to start researching that area of the subject further.

I used a variety of resources for my research, including websites and YouTube videos to begin with, followed by more specialised sources such as books, TED talks and journal articles.

When exploring my topic, I found multiple arguments against the proposition, including a particularly striking one on the effect of emotional intelligence on financial health. It appeared that those with a higher-level job title, such as CEOs, in fact had a lower emotional quotient on average than those with lower-level jobs, such as supervisors and managers. However, there were many persuasive studies and overwhelming amounts of evidence to support the ‘for’ argument, so I concluded that high emotional intelligence is indeed a predictor of good physical, mental and social health. This research project was an intellectually stimulating and engaging opportunity for me in which I gained a number of new skills, such as improved time management, organisation, studying independently, confidence in presenting and evaluative skills. Overall, I found the HPQ to be an enjoyable and enriching process and I am glad that I have been able to learn so much from this opportunity.

I chose this topic because I find space exploration interesting and it may potentially be relevant to the success of our species in the future. Hypothetically, we may exhaust all the provisions of Earth and need to look elsewhere for survival. Mars’ environment may be adapted to support human life. In the further future, it could also potentially serve as a checkpoint in interplanetary travel due to it being a nearby planet with adaptable characteristics.

I focused my research on reviewing reliable and informative sources, particularly online, including the NASA website, Digitrends.com, Imagineeringezine.com and BBC News, as well as reading other sources, such as Andy Weir’s novel The Martian, for background information. The answer is to survive on Mars, humans would need breathable air, water, food and shelter in order of their importance. However, obtaining these on Mars using sustainable methods is much more complex.

• To obtain breathable air on Mars, we would need instruments to create oxygen and isolate nitrogen. There are some options already in development.

• To obtain water, we would need to locate and melt natural ice on Mars and process it to make it drinkable.

• To get food on Mars, we would create shelters where we could grow crops, along with using insect farms and cellular agriculture.

• Humans would stay in either tent-like above-ground shelters, or underground tunnels dug by tunnel bores.

This project gave me new skills, including finding and assessing the value and reliability of sources and information, producing detailed written notes and documenting each stage of my research journey.

I enjoyed looking into the potential for space exploration, learning more about Mars, its environment and how it might be adapted to support human life. I also gained an appreciation of how efficiently and thoroughly Earth meets our human requirements to survive and thrive.

At the time of my source collection, there were numerous media commentaries on the attempted takeover of Newcastle United by the Saudi Sovereign Fund which referenced the term sportswashing.

On further reading, I discovered sportswashing actually spans many very interesting concepts as a form of soft power and is used in different ways by many entities often for specific purposes. Sportswashing is changing rapidly with the emergence of new nation states as superpowers on the global stage and the media revolution of the past 30 years. As a keen sports fan, I realised I could name many examples of sportswashing, but would not have used the term to define them as such. Similarly, these sorts of topics had sparked much debate among my family and friends and was an issue that was both interesting and original. The HPQ provided a good opportunity to explore it further.

This was the first time I had attempted to carry out independent research and write a report on it. I found it helpful to map out the tasks as the topic is broad, so I set a series of objectives to achieve my aim, as well as considering my methods for gathering and analysing data prospectively.

My HPQ enabled me to achieve the objectives which were:

• Determining the meaning of the word sportswashing

• Identifying different forms of sportswashing and providing relevant examples

• Examining the ways in which sportswashing has changed over time

• Describing the factors influencing the change in sportswashing

• Concluding the extent to which sportswashing has changed

I gained a lot from completing the HPQ and, if I were to do it again, I would have dedicated more time to developing the discussion of the concept and the purpose of gathering the information in the first place. I found the project challenging but manageable and enjoyed developing new skills in addition to gaining new knowledge.

I have always wanted to know more and hence I am passionate about research. My personal research has led me to realise a multidisciplinary approach is the most efficient way to arrive at a more holistic, inclusive truth or solution to a problem or question.

This idea was instrumental in my choice of question for my HPQ research. While the question of how one finds a drug for a specific ailment is in itself truly fascinating, whether artificial intelligence (AI), a fast-evolving field of computer science, can be used to find better cures, perhaps faster, became a more pertinent and exciting question. Rational drug discovery and design is a slow, labour-intensive process. A simple hypothesis is that AI and machine learning protocols can be used to accelerate optimised drug discovery.

Neural networks are the ‘brains’ of any AI model. They produce sensible outputs from many possible inputs. Semantic networks describe links between relevant discrete variables, referred to as nodes. The richness of the relationship data in semantic networks is greatly important in processing large volumes of knowledge to allow the identification of target biomolecules and link them to specific diseases. Graph neural networks (GNN) can analyse the features of semantic networks to produce a matrix of viable optimal outputs.

I concluded that the richness of information presented in semantic networks can be handled efficiently by GNNs. These can be used for the relatively rapid identification of drug targets and molecules that can be synthesised to influence the activities of biological targets - the way of future drug discovery.

The HPQ research journey was very enjoyable and satisfying for me. Among the transferrable skills I acquired were strategies of time management and organisation and prioritisation of research materials. Importantly, I learned that open-ended questions allow greater knowledge generation and are necessary to identify multitudinous questions more specific for further research.

After some initial research, I chose to look into prevention as opposed to potential treatments, since there is still no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Reading Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep inspired me to delve deeper into the relationship between lifestyle and Alzheimer’s disease as it discussed how sleep disruption may be correlated with the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. I decided to research three lifestyle factors thought to be relevant in the prevention of the disease - diet, sleep and exercise.

My research mostly involved reading and making notes on journal articles from a range of sources. During the earlier stages of the project, I also made use of books and websites to help me understand the complex language of scientific articles. While researching, I completed a critical analysis grid to assess the credibility of each source I read and identify bias.

In my essay, I discussed how each lifestyle factor is linked to Alzheimer’s disease by considering a range of mechanisms, followed by an evaluation of the potential of each lifestyle factor to prevent the development of the disease.

I found there was strong evidence for modifications to whole dietary patterns as an approach to prevention. I noticed that there was a strong bi-directional relationship between sleep deprivation and Alzheimer’s disease pathology, suggesting that it is likely to contribute to the development of the disease. Despite inconsistent evidence surrounding exercise, I found it is correlated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease, however more research is required to confirm the mechanisms mediating this.

I also looked at multi-domain interventions, which target a range of factors simultaneously. I concluded these are most likely to be effective at preventing Alzheimer’s disease since there are a number of lifestyle factors that are associated with the condition. Therefore, modifying one factor alone is unlikely to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

At the end of my essay, I also discussed ideas for future directions for research in this field, proposing that more randomised controlled trials with longer intervention and follow-up periods are required.

After a brief mention in the GCSE geography course on methods of reconstructing climate, I sought the opportunity in my EPQ to investigate this further.

Dendroclimatology is the science behind tree rings and the inferences of climate that can be made based on their formation. The size of tree rings produced every year will change depending on the surrounding environmental conditions. As trees of the same species are ultimately subject to the same mechanical understanding, a chronology consisting of many trees can then be assembled to create a reconstruction of climate over the last few thousand years.

The aim of the project was to question the usefulness of dendroclimatology in producing climate reconstructions, learn about the fundamental principles of the field and to identify potential sources of error and assess their likely significance. Once familiar with the key concepts through discussions with subject specialists alongside the examination of the wider scientific literature, I focused on the methodological and fundamental issues that affect the reconstructions produced.

Measurements from dendroclimatology come (mostly) in the form of annual ring widths, which contain both climatic and non-climatic inferences that influence their widths. During the reconstruction process, methods are used to remove these effects. However, they are often fraught with issues and controversy. Error in this regard is numerous and somewhat inevitable, yet is generally well understood and can be controlled with experimental design and peer review.

However, fundamental and yet unsolved challenges facing dendroclimatology threaten the foundations on which the field relies, representing the biggest challenges in reconstructing climate.

Since the latter half of the 20th Century, there has been an increasing inability for trees to track modern changes in warmer climate which has been dubbed the ‘divergence problem’, with exact reasons behind this inconsistency being largely inconclusive. The significance of this is there is no way of knowing if the significant decrease in correlation may have happened in the past, before the calibration with instrumental data.

While this problem is likely due to anthropogenic influences, it represents a major weakness in the reputability of tree ring sciences. Yet, much to the dislike of constitutive reductionists, reconstructions are never more than ‘best guesses’ of climate in the past, therefore, expecting absolute reputability is unrealistic.

In short, dendroclimatology produces unique and highly valuable reconstructions of past climate. However, as with all scientific disciplines, it has limitations that one needs to be mindful of when applying its findings.