October 28, 2022, by Lisa Chin
Graduate School Bulletin, November 2022
Nucleus Issue 07/22 (43)
The needs of the postgraduate and early career researcher community are at the heart of what we do at the Graduate School.
Read on for all the latest news from us.
News and guidance
Winners announced: Postgraduate Showcase 2022
Our Postgraduate Showcase is an annual poster competition for our postgraduate research students to showcase their research and further highlight the importance and impact of their work to a wider audience.
This year, the competition was held in-person on Wednesday 19 October 2022 in the Great Hall. 27 of our postgraduate research students from a range of disciplines presented their research to a live audience.
We would like to once again give commendation to the efforts of all participants and further congratulate the success of the winners.
Winner
Mohammad Zandie
Mohammad Zandie
Department of Mechanical, Materials & Manufacturing Engineering
Zandie won with his poster presentation titled Can diesel-biodiesel-gasoline mixtures control greenhouse gases and climate change?. His presentation elucidated his research on analysing the viability of using diesel-biodiesel-gasoline mixtures in engines as an alternative fuelling system. He developed a multi-component kinetic mechanism and calculated the physicochemical properties for the respective fuels, with both validated against experimental data. He conducted 2D and 3D simulations under different blending ratio and ambient conditions, and proved that diesel-biodiesel-gasoline ternary blending could effectively suppress emissions and improve the combustion characteristics compared to conventional fuels. His results authenticated the suitability of this transformative fuelling strategy to be considered as promising solution to prevent greenhouse gases and climate change.
1st Runner Up
Choo Kam Kitt
Choo Kam Kitt
School of Psychology
Kam Kitt emerged as the 1st Runner Up with his poster presentation titled Bilingual contexts associated with increased cognitive efficiency. Kam Kitt delved into the cognitive effects of multilingualism, specifically demonstrating how bilingual contexts were able to adaptively enhance executive functioning – a term used to describe the complex cognitive processes that are the foundation for our behaviours, compared to monolingual contexts in a cognitive experiment. His presented work belongs to a successive chain of experiments using state-of-the-art methodologies like Eye Tracking and Electroencephalography (EEG) to triangulate the timing of the multilingual advantage in the cognitive processing pipeline. He envisioned that the outcome of his work could inform future clinical practitioners on the possibility of using language learning as a form of complementary intervention for patients with Executive Dysfunction disorders.
2nd Runner Up
Chung Shei Li
Chung Shei Li
Department of Mechanical, Materials & Manufacturing Engineering
Shei Li emerged as the 2nd Runner Up with her poster presentation Silencing the silent killer. In her presentation, Shei Li highlighted the limitations of current pancreatic cancer treatment and described her research on providing a platform combining two different therapies, chemotherapy and gene therapy, as a more effective treatment. Her work involves study on synthesising a nano-sized drug carrier which is made up of silica and has hexagonal structured pores i.e. mesoporous silica nanoparticles, to carry both chemo-drug and siRNA (small interfering RNA) to synergistically kill the cancer cells. She envisioned the outcome of this study potentially provide a more efficient, less toxic, time-saving and effective treatment option for pancreatic cancer patients
Events and activities
Research Supervisor Series
The University is committed to developing and maintaining the highest standards in doctoral supervision. This series of seminars and talks is aimed at University staff involved in research supervision of masters and doctoral students. They cover topics that are essential for Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) requirements* and also have been highlighted by supervisors as areas where they would like more advice and practice-sharing opportunities.
*All postgraduate research (PGR) supervisors (main and co) are expected to attend at least two supervisory training offered by the Graduate School.
Contemporary issues in supervising research students: Open Science
Friday 25 November 2022, 10am – 12nn
Online via MS Teams
by Professor Steve Janssen, Head of School of Psychology
This session will introduce research supervisors to the Replication Crisis, pre-registration, Registered Reports and Open Science, explain why it might be beneficial for their research students to adopt open science practices in their work, and provide resources to make their research more reproducible.
Guest Speaker Series
From acclaimed academics to renowned industrial experts and leaders, we bring them to you through lectures, seminars, talks and a variety of other forums. They provide invaluable real-world insights into critical topic areas that are of interest to our postgraduate and research communities.
Conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses: an introduction
Thursday 8 December 2022, 9.30am – 4.30pm
Cognitive Science Lab (CSL), B1A24
by Dr Alessio Bellato, Assistant Professor at the School of Psychology
Being able to conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses is a research skill that is highly valuable and expendable on the academic job market. In this introductory workshop, Dr Bellato will teach postgraduates about the main differences between a systematic review and a meta-analysis, and the main steps for these to be conducted and reported. Attendees will also work on a real dataset and will be guided and supervised in conducting a meta-analysis in R.
Seats are limited and on a first-come-first-served basis. Registration will open in the first week of November so keep a lookout for our invitation email.
Training and development
Find out more about our training and development provision for postgraduate students.
Researcher Development Programme (RDP)
Preparing for your annual review
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Tuesday 1 November 2022, 2pm – 4pm, H1B13
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This course will discuss the elements of the annual review process and consider the possible structures of an annual review report.
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Sign up
Structuring your thesis
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Thursday 3 November 2022, 10am – 12nn, H1B13
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This course will consider ways of structuring a thesis and further facilitate you in working on your thesis structure.
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Sign up
Introduction to ORIS for new postgraduates
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Monday 7 November 2022, 10am – 12nn, GD14
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This course will introduce the use of information sources in our library and develop the skill sets and knowledge in information searching.
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Sign up
Understanding how to use Endnote
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Wednesday 9 November 2022, 10am – 12nn, GD14
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This course will inform students on how to create, populate and use Endnote, a bibliographical manager in organising their literature review.
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Sign up
Understanding how to use Mendeley
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Thursday 10 November 2022, 10am – 12nn, GD14
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This course will inform students on how to create, populate and use Mendeley, a bibliographical manager in organising their literature review.
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Sign up
Community
On other platform
How to write your PhD thesis (without going insane)
In this lecture by James Hayton, PhD, find out the key aspects of writing to help you communicate clearly and confidently, write a better thesis, and maybe even enjoy the process.
Empowering your postgraduate and research ambition
#unmgraduateschool
Look out for our next issue of newsletter next month!
Don’t forget you can get in touch with us via Facebook or by email at graduateschool@nottingham.edu.my.
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