Beekeepers’ preferences for flowers in the UK
Millie Charmoy

Last summer, I was lucky enough to be accepted onto a UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunity Placement) project looking into beekeepers’ preferences for flowers. The work, hosted by a PhD student, worked towards giving a voice to beekeepers in Europe. Due to the rising costs of beekeeping, honeybee numbers have stagnated and their essential role as pollinators for both crops and wild plants is threatened. Increasing floral diversity in the landscape could begin to ease this pressure but we first need to find out which plants beekeepers want to see in the landscape.

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Assessing miscibility of drug-polymer combinations using FBRM
Laura Taramova

Over the summer, before progressing successfully into the third year of my BSc Pharmacology degree at Reading University, I have completed a research project with UROP scheme (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme). For the 6-week project I have worked alongside my supervisor, Dr Hisham Al-Obaidi, and his research group at the Chemistry labs.

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How do autophagic-lysosomal dysfunction and protein aggregation impact on the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease?

Janelle Blades

I have recently completed a 6 week placement in the University of Reading Health and Life Sciences Laboratories as part of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (UROP). During the summer, between the second and third year of my Biomedical Sciences degree at Reading, I worked alongside Dr Susanna Cogo; shadowing her work, learning how to perform experiments independently and completing my own research. Whilst in the labs I also worked alongside PhD students and attended weekly meeting with scientists and PhD students in Reading and London to discuss their progress with research and collaborate ideas to enhance research further.

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Infodemic: The dissemination of misinformation online

Robert Hogge

This research considers how both automated systems and Americans themselves disseminate false information, relevant to political America, online through social media. The project is based off a 2018 MIT investigation that found misinformation is spread much faster and much further than factual information.

The process of the online distribution of false information keeps shifting in reaction to the nature of events that become prevalent subjects of misinformation. These seismic shifts include major political events, particularly the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections and the subsequent 2021 Capitol insurrection. As mainstream social media sites have sought to mute or label misinformation, the users spreading it have been migrating to less mainstream websites that are less prone to censorship. As an example of these shifts, amongst conservatives, former president Donald Trump’s dismissal from social media has sped up this process. Many users disseminate misinformation much faster and more frequently on these more niche sites. Simultaneously however, they share their most popular content on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to reach more people.

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Exploring the experiences of students with Mental Health Conditions, Specific Learning Difficulties and Autism Spectrum Disorders

Bryony Banham, Charis Winter, Michelle James

Over the past six weeks we have completed three linked UROP projects. These projects explored the experiences of students with Mental Health Conditions (MHC), Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD). These were three separate projects however, as there was lots of overlap between the three projects, we worked closely together on the research process. This project took place during the Coronavirus pandemic so it was conducted virtually using platforms such as Microsoft Teams.

To begin our projects, we each conducted individual literature reviews into our topic areas. These highlighted key issues in current support within Higher Education Institutions (HEI). The numbers of students enrolling at university with these diagnoses/symptoms is on the increase, increasing the need for more research to improve the support available.

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