A key role of the UK government is to address causes of premature fatality. In the UK, air pollution leads to the loss of 340,000 years of life each year and workplace cancers led to the loss of over 140,000 years of life in 2010. Government policies can address the many causes of premature fatality, but these policies need to be evaluated to ensure they make the best use of public money. The question then becomes: what is the value of increasing a person's life expectancy? To address this question, researchers have introduced the concept of the Value Of a Life Year (VOLY). This VOLY is used in government policy evaluations as a measure of the benefits of policies including air pollution mitigation and workplace safety regulation, and thus it is crucial it is measured accurately. The VOLY is estimated using surveys of members of the public, in which people state how much they would pay for a given reduction in their risk of dying, or for a given increase in their life expectancy. The benefits being valued occur in the future. Crucially then, a key component of the VOLY is the effect of timing. Put simply, the further in the future something is, the less we tend to care about it. So a reduction in our risk of dying this year might be more valuable than a reduction in our risk of dying in the future, even if the effect on our overall life expectancy is the same. Unless we understand the influence of this 'discounting' for changes in life expectancy, we cannot accurately disentangle it from the true VOLY. This is the problem we aim to solve with our research. To solve it, our team of experimental economists will use an innovative mixture of experiments and surveys. Participants will play experimental games designed to include simplified models of the air pollution policies, so our team can learn the best ways to describe and measure discounting as it relates to delayed changes in risk. The survey will use the insights from the experiment and elicit individuals' preferences for reductions in their risks at different points in the future. Taken together, the experiments and survey will provide the first major investigation into how people discount their future life expectancy in the context of the VOLY. Our results will be important for policymakers in two ways. First, unless we can account for the effects of discounting on the VOLY, then policy estimates of the VOLY taken from current surveys might be wrong. If these incorrect estimates are used in the evaluation of policies aimed at improving life expectancy, then the value of the policies will be over- or under-estimated, which means public money is likely to be spent on the wrong policies. Second, when the government is evaluating policies where improvements in life expectancy happen in the future, as is the case for air pollution policies, they have to apply discounting to the value of the benefits. Our research will provide evidence about how governments should discount future gains in life expectancy, to make sure that public preferences are reflected in policymaking. Our research is also academically cutting-edge. It combines models from economics with insights from psychology to generate new methodological and empirical evidence about how discounting influences preferences for changes in risk, both for money outcomes (in the experiments) and for fatality risks (in the surveys). It also forges a new methodological agenda, which is the incorporation of incentivised experiments into policy-driven research projects. Overall, our research aims to provide the basis for changing the VOLY used in government policy, challenge existing guidance for discounting fatality risk reductions, and ultimately change how government money is spent, so that the policies implemented are those that improve the wellbeing of society.

Birth weight reflects intrauterine growth and wellbeing and is recognised globally as an indicator of perinatal and infant health. A number of studies have suggested that occupation, air pollution and chlorination by-products in drinking water may be associated with low birth weight/intra uterine growth retardation (Nieuwenhuijsen et al 2000, Sram et al 2005, Farrow et al 1998, Chia et al 2004, Rylander and Kallen 2005), but the evidence is inconclusive, partly as a result of limited exposure assessments in the epidemiological studies that have been conducted. A large prospective birth cohort study is required to provide conclusive evidence about the link between occupation, chlorination by-products and air pollution on birth weight. The overall aim of this study is to bring together a multi-disciplinary team of physicians, epidemiologists, geneticists, environmental scientists, social scientists and statistical modellers to build capacity and lay the ground work for further studies to investigate the relationship, if any, between occupational factors, traffic related air pollution and chlorination disinfection by-products (DBPs) in drinking water and intra uterine growth retardation/low birth weight, taking into account known potential confounders such as smoking and ethnicity in the Born in Bradford study of 10,000 pregancies. The main focus of the work is the collection of information for the validation of exposure estimates, together with the initiation of data collection for the exposure modelling and preparing a strategy for linking them to health data.

What are we trying to do ?Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) comprise collections of sensor modules that communicate measurements taken in their vicinity to a host processor. The present proposal seeks to invigorate efforts in the UK towards the application of WSN to industrial processes. This is to be realised through :Technical objective : realise a demonstrator targeted at storage and granular flow in hoppers.Outreach objective : establish a UK Network in WSN for Industrial Processes. The demonstrator will deliver small sensor units that can be tossed into a hopper to interrogate the contents using on-board sensors. Measurements are targeted, in the first instance, at temperature and surface moisture. Radio communication techniques at microwave frequencies will be used to determine position and to communicate data back to the host computer. An on-line picture of the environment in the hopper will be deduced from the collective data.Why?Ultimately, the investigators are enthusiastic to use the project to champion this important and exciting technology for industrial processes and to establish a leading presence for the benefit of UK Plc.More specifically, WSN have the potential to overcome some of the present limitations for process imaging, in particular : Limited measurement capability; Process compliance; Portability; Spatial resolution of techniques such as electrical tomography; cost. By addressing these issues the use of WSN will fuel opportunities for increased plant agility, reduced raw materials uptake, reduced energy usage, reduced environmental impact, reduced waste generation and reduced occupational exposure via improved knowledge of the process.What are the challenges ?Applying WSN to industrial processes suggests demanding long-term challenges : Communication in a hostile environment: Ad Hoc networking; Powerful computing platforms; Process imaging; Sensing; Miniaturisation; Compliance; Micro-Electromechanical Systems; Power Harvesting. The present proposal will make significant progress with many of these areas.How are we trying to do it ?Technical objective : Demonstrator on Storage and Granular Flow in Hoppers We aim to develop a demonstrator for on-site mapping of flow patterns within storage hoppers. This is well-suited to address many of the generic long-term WSN research challenges identified above whilst also delivering a specific diagnostic tool for flow monitoring, safety investigation and process plant design in a relatively short time-scale. The objectives are described in the relevant section of this form.Outreach objective : To establish a UK Network in WSN for Industrial ProcessesWho are we ?The proposal is submitted by 6 academic investigators from the University of Manchester. Five of the team are from two research groups in the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering : Microwave and Communication Systems and Sensing, Imaging and Signal Processing . They provide skills in all of the key technical areas that are necessary to deliver the wireless sensor network, principally : RF Communications; Embedded Systems; Sensing; Process Imaging; Electronic Systems. The 6th member, Professor Colin Webb, heads the Satake Centre for Grain Process Engineering in the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science and will provide invaluable guidance and expertise on the demonstrator application. The constitution of the team has been strongly influenced by expertise and enthusiasm.3 research assistants will be employed to deliver the demonstrator. In addition 2 research students will explore the areas of Process Imaging and Granular Flow in Hoppers . 4 support staff will contribute about 3 years of effort to the project.We will collaborate with the Health & Safety Laboratory and Satake Corporation and are progressing other emerging opportunities.

Noise exposure is the main cause of preventable hearing loss worldwide. Noise exposure occurs in the workplace, such as in noisy factories, and recreationally, through the use of personal music players and attendance at nightclubs and live music events. Hearing loss is usually diagnosed using pure tone audiometry, which measures the sensitivity of the ear to quiet sounds by determining the levels of tones that can just be heard at several test frequencies. Until recently, it had been assumed that hearing loss results mainly from damage to the sensory hair cells in the cochlea, the part of the ear that converts acoustic vibrations into electrical impulses in the auditory nerve. However, recent results from animal studies suggest that moderate noise exposure can cause substantial damage to the auditory nerve, even when the hair cells are unaffected. Crucially, the results suggest that such damage does not affect sensitivity to quiet sounds, and hence is not detectable by pure tone audiometry. Hearing loss that is not detectable by conventional audiometry is sometimes called "hidden" hearing loss. Auditory nerve damage degrades the information that is carried by the nerve from the ear to the brain. Some studies suggest that people with a history of noise exposure, but with normal hearing sensitivity as measured by pure tone audiometry, have problems with sound discrimination, including understanding speech in noisy environments. However, to date no direct link has been made between the physiological results and the perceptual deficits. It is also possible that damage to the auditory nerve leads to tinnitus (perception of sound in the absence of external sound: "ringing in the ear") and hyperacusis (diminished tolerance of moderate-to-high level sounds). Hidden hearing loss is potentially a huge problem. Substantial numbers of people, probably millions in the UK alone, are routinely exposed to occupational and/or recreational noise levels similar to, or greater than, those used in the animal studies. A large UK study found that one in seven adults aged 17-30 reported "great difficulty" hearing speech in noisy backgrounds, while only one in fifty had impaired sensitivity as measured by pure tone audiometry. Hidden loss leads to a reduction in quality of life, and is likely to be predictive of more severe hearing loss in old age. Hence, hidden hearing loss is a major public health issue, which demands a comprehensive investigation. Our programme is far-reaching and ambitious, involving three internationally renowned institutions across the UK and US, and a wide range of scientific methodologies. These include physiological and perceptual measures on both animals and humans. Our approach is to use overlapping methodologies across the animal and human studies so that we can understand the perceptual deficits experienced by humans in terms of the underlying physiological mechanisms. We will estimate the prevalence of hidden loss in young adults, and the impact of hidden loss on everyday tasks such as speech and music perception. We will also determine how hidden loss is related to tinnitus and hyperacusis. Finally, we will use our results to develop a sensitive diagnostic test that can be used to detect hidden loss, hence allowing the detection of hearing loss that is undetected by current clinical procedures. Our research is expected to lead to a number of benefits. A diagnostic test for hidden loss in the clinic, and for monitoring the hearing of workers, will allow identification of at-risk individuals, and provision of personalised healthcare advice, regarding, for example, ways to reduce noise exposure. Our research could also result in a reduction in legal noise exposure limits. These measures will help prevent hidden loss, improve patient outcomes, and reduce usage of healthcare resources. Longer-term, there may be the possibility of reversing auditory nerve damage by replacing lost nerve fibres using stem cells.

Hearing loss is the most common sensory deficit and the third leading cause of long-term disability, higher than diabetes and dementia. Yet just 0.6% of UK health research spending is on hearing health. Noise exposure is the main cause of preventable hearing loss worldwide. In particular, there is much concern in the academic and clinical communities, and in the popular media, that young people are damaging their hearing by exposure to intense recreational noise, through the use of personal music players and attendance at nightclubs and live music events. In the clinic, hearing loss is diagnosed using pure tone audiometry, which measures the sensitivity of the ear by determining the softest tones that can be heard at several test frequencies, plotted as an audiogram. However, pure tone audiometry is relatively insensitive to the earliest effects of noise damage: damage to the hair cells in the inner ear can occur without affecting the audiogram; hearing loss may occur at high frequencies, beyond the standard range that is tested in the clinic; and evidence from experiments in rodents and monkeys suggest that noise exposure can disconnect the nerve fibres that carry information from the ear to the brain, again without affecting sensitivity to quiet sounds. It is important that we understand the full effects of recreational noise exposure, beyond the pure tone audiogram, because: 1. "Sub-clinical" deficits may contribute to listening difficulties, such as understanding speech in noisy environments, and may be a cause of tinnitus ("ringing in the ear"). 2. These deficits will likely be exacerbated by the effects of age, which is also associated with hair cell and nerve deficits. Hence, noise damage in early life, even if it doesn't cause listening difficulties at the time, may contribute to listening difficulties in later years, affecting employability, reducing quality of life, and possibly increasing the risk of dementia. 3. The presence of sub-clinical deficits may be an early warning that continued exposure will lead to future, more substantial, clinical hearing loss and chronic tinnitus. In this five-year grant we aim to determine the true impact of recreational noise exposure on hearing health. We will test a large cohort of teenagers before and after their first years of exposure to potentially harmful recreational noise, using advanced tests sensitive to subtle hair cell and neural deficits. We will also investigate listening habits and relation to hearing ability and tinnitus in a large number of young adults using an internet survey, and we will investigate the factors affecting temporary hearing loss in a laboratory-based study, in particular whether ears can be "toughened" by prior noise exposure. We will use these results to determine the early signs of noise damage and the risk factors involved. Finally, we will use advanced brain imaging and electrophysiological techniques to help detect sub-clinical damage to the auditory nervous system in younger and older adults. We will determine the relative contributions of the sub-clinical and clinical deficits to listening ability. Our research has a number of potential benefits. Being able to detect the early signs of noise damage, and characterise the circumstances and individual characteristics that are associated with damage, will help identify young people who are at risk, and provide targeted healthcare advice to prevent further hearing loss. Understanding the true impact of noise exposure will also inform noise exposure regulations, particularly in recreational situations for which current regulations are weak. For people experiencing listening difficulties, our results may lead to more sensitive clinical tests that will improve management options, such as fitting characteristics for hearing aids and behavioural changes. Overall, our findings will help to reduce the huge societal burden of hearing loss and tinnitus.