Cross Disciplinary Feasibility Account: Warwick Centre for Fusion Space and Astrophysics.
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: Physics
Abstract
A central idea that we wish to pursue is the dynamic response of real world complex systems to 'shock or surprise'. Both the brain and financial systems (meaning markets, individual companies or sectors), are functionally comprised of many interacting elements which propagate and process information. A highly topical question is whether it is possible to quantify from available data when the response of a system to a 'shock' will be within normal bounds (normal response time to a neurological test task, a fluctuation in price) or will be highly correlated and catastrophic (a seizure, a stock market crash or company failure). Understanding this would lead to paradigm shifting insights into both brain function and financial system dynamics. Researchers within Warwick's interdisciplinary EPSRC and STFC funded Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics (CFSA) have pioneered techniques to analyse 'real world' data from laboratory experiments for Magnetic Confinement Fusion and from astrophysical plasmas. These plasma systems can exhibit rather unpredictable 'bursty' behaviour and can self organise, that is, show large scale transitions from disordered to highly ordered, correlated behaviour. We propose to apply these ideas to focus on two cross-disciplinary 'grand challenges': brain function, and market dynamics, as captured by Magnetoencephalography (MEG) measurements of the brain, and by financial and other company data. This implies a high degree of cross- disciplinary working, between plasma physicists within CFSA, Warwick, neurologists within the MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, and strategists within the Warwick Business School.In the framework of the physical sciences there is a direct and well understood mapping between quantifying such systems and modelling them. An open question that we will address is how such a mapping can be rigorously and usefully applied in the wider context. By building bridges between traditionally segregated disciplines (neuroscience, econometrics and plasma physics) we can tackle substantive interdisciplinary questions, for example, in what sense is a market crash like an epileptic seizure in the brain? Addressing such questions in a quantitative and predictive manner has the potential for far reaching impact in both clinical neuroscience and econometrics. This radical approach will enable physical models to be extended beyond their now mature application to contribute, and perhaps create, a far broader interface with the wider social sciences.
Planned Impact
The nature of the work being undertaken is highly speculative but has potential for far reaching impact. Clearly, any advance in our understanding of the response of financial markets and systems to 'shocks', or a diagnostic of neurological health based on non-invasive MEG technology will have the potential to make significant contributions to EPSRC's priority themes of security of energy supply and living with environmental change, and next generation healthcare. Who will benefit from the research and how will they benefit from this research? Development of new quantitative tools to assess how brain systems process information in healthy and disordered states will be of considerable interest to clinical neuroscience and psychiatry. Ultimately, quantitative insights into how MEG data relate to human brain function would lead to methods to diagnose cognitive function and disorders, with particular application to epilepsy and schizophrenia. The economic and social costs of brain disorders associated with impaired cognitive function and poor occupational performance are substantial. The annual costs of schizophrenia alone are estimated to be in the order of 7bn annually in the UK, of which about 2bn is due to direct healthcare costs. In tackling these disorders therapeutically, a key objective is to develop better models for how distributed brain systems normally process information and how pathological disruption of these systems can lead to impairment. The development of quantitative approaches to MEG that we propose would ensure that full scientific value is obtained from the major recent investments in neuroimaging infrastructure and it will potentially provide new diagnostic and predictive biomarkers of cognitive impairment that could be used to improve patient care and to support development of new pro-cognitive drugs. The importance of the proposed research from this perspective is that it includes data on well-established cognitive testing paradigms in healthy volunteers and people with schizophrenia. This means that the results will be immediately of interest to academic and industrial neuroscientists with potential for major impact on how cognitive disorders are understood theoretically and approached therapeutically. Quantifying the likely impact of news or events on markets and companies again has clear application to their monitoring and management. The current instability has cost some 475bn globally according to the IMF. Clearly any successful mitigation techniques would be valuable to business strategists and organisations from single investors to Governments (eg Risk Analysts, Company Director mentors, Financial strategists and Central Banks). There is also potentially a significant feedback to plasma physics based challenges in particular space weather applications and to understanding enhanced confinement modes of MCF with relevance to ITER operating regimes. What will be done to ensure that they benefit from this research? Cognitive researchers are typically also practicing clinicians, and business strategists in academia work closely with companies. Results and ideas flowing from this research would therefore quickly flow into potential applications where appropriate. We will also present and promote our results more formally at workshops open to practicing clinicians and to practicing business strategists. We will engage the wider community and press where appropriate. Warwick Ventures have a strategy and procedure in place to effect licensing and dissemination to the wider business community. There is also direct benefit to the training of young researchers and enhancement of interdisciplinary activity. We will provide training and introduction to patents, licensing and spin- out companies to the researchers supported on this grant.
Organisations
Publications
Gingell P
(2013)
Plasma heating by ion gyro-scale blobs in the kinetic and fluid regimes
in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
Pascoe D
(2013)
Fast magnetoacoustic wave trains in magnetic funnels of the solar corona
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Leonardis E
(2013)
Identification of intermittent multifractal turbulence in fully kinetic simulations of magnetic reconnection.
in Physical review letters
Perrone D
(2013)
Nonclassical Transport and Particle-Field Coupling: from Laboratory Plasmas to the Solar Wind
in Space Science Reviews
Wu P
(2013)
INTERMITTENT HEATING IN SOLAR WIND AND KINETIC SIMULATIONS
in The Astrophysical Journal
Zhu H
(2013)
Robustness of predator-prey models for confinement regime transitions in fusion plasmas
in Physics of Plasmas
Karimabadi H
(2013)
Coherent structures, intermittent turbulence, and dissipation in high-temperature plasmas
in Physics of Plasmas
Dendy R
(2013)
Modelling the measured local time evolution of strongly nonlinear heat pulses in the Large Helical Device
in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
Cook J
(2013)
Particle-in-cell simulations of the magnetoacoustic cyclotron instability of fusion-born alpha-particles in tokamak plasmas
in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
Lai W
(2013)
Self-consistent nonlinear kinetic simulations of the anomalous Doppler instability of suprathermal electrons in plasmas
in Physics of Plasmas
Foullon C
(2013)
KELVIN-HELMHOLTZ INSTABILITY OF THE CME RECONNECTION OUTFLOW LAYER IN THE LOW CORONA
in The Astrophysical Journal
Rekaa V
(2013)
Perpendicular shock reformation and multi-ion species acceleration in astrophysical plasmas
in 40th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics, EPS 2013
Anfinogentov S
(2013)
Decay-less kink oscillations in coronal loops
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Nisticò G
(2013)
Decaying and decayless transverse oscillations of a coronal loop
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Zhu H
(2014)
Transitions to improved confinement regimes induced by changes in heating in zero-dimensional models for tokamak plasmas
in Physics of Plasmas
Osman K
(2014)
Magnetic Reconnection and Intermittent Turbulence in the Solar Wind
in Physical Review Letters
Rekaa V
(2014)
ION PRE-ACCELERATION IN FULLY SELF-CONSISTENT PARTICLE-IN-CELL SIMULATIONS OF SUPERCRITICAL PERPENDICULAR REFORMING SHOCKS IN MULTIPLE ION SPECIES PLASMAS
in The Astrophysical Journal
Webster A
(2014)
Time-resonant tokamak plasma edge instabilities?
in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
Osman K
(2014)
ANISOTROPIC INTERMITTENCY OF MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC TURBULENCE
in The Astrophysical Journal
Chapman S
(2014)
Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET
in Physics of Plasmas
Carbajal L
(2014)
Linear and nonlinear physics of the magnetoacoustic cyclotron instability of fusion-born ions in relation to ion cyclotron emission
in Physics of Plasmas
Servidio S
(2014)
PROTON KINETIC EFFECTS IN VLASOV AND SOLAR WIND TURBULENCE
in The Astrophysical Journal
Gingell P
(2014)
Plasma blob formation by ion kinetic Kelvin-Helmholtz and interchange instabilities
in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
Matthaeus W
(2014)
NONLINEAR AND LINEAR TIMESCALES NEAR KINETIC SCALES IN SOLAR WIND TURBULENCE
in The Astrophysical Journal
Chapman S.C.
(2014)
An apparent relation between ELM occurrence times and the prior phase
in 41st EPS Conference on Plasma Physics
Chapman S
(2015)
Limits to the quantification of local climate change
in Environmental Research Letters
Dods J
(2015)
Network analysis of geomagnetic substorms using the SuperMAG database of ground-based magnetometer stations
in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Lai W
(2015)
Velocity space evolution of a minority energetic electron population undergoing the anomalous Doppler instability
in Physics of Plasmas
Zhu H
(2015)
A quantitative model for heat pulse propagation across large helical device plasmas
in Physics of Plasmas
Hush P
(2015)
Robust statistical properties of the size of large burst events in AE
in Geophysical Research Letters
Freethy SJ
(2015)
Electron kinetics inferred from observations of microwave bursts during edge localized modes in the mega-amp spherical tokamak.
in Physical review letters
Romanelli F
(2015)
Overview of the JET results
in Nuclear Fusion
McClements K
(2015)
Fast particle-driven ion cyclotron emission (ICE) in tokamak plasmas and the case for an ICE diagnostic in ITER
in Nuclear Fusion
Kiyani K
(2015)
Dissipation and heating in solar wind turbulence: from the macro to the micro and back again
in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
Watkins N
(2015)
Erratum to: 25 Years of Self-organized Criticality: Concepts and Controversies
in Space Science Reviews
Osman K
(2015)
MULTI-SPACECRAFT MEASUREMENT OF TURBULENCE WITHIN A MAGNETIC RECONNECTION JET
in The Astrophysical Journal
Watkins N
(2015)
25 Years of Self-organized Criticality: Concepts and Controversies
in Space Science Reviews
Chapman S
(2015)
The global build-up to intrinsic edge localized mode bursts seen in divertor full flux loops in JET
in Physics of Plasmas
Meyrand R
(2016)
Direct Evidence of the Transition from Weak to Strong Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence.
in Physical review letters
McMillan B
(2016)
A very general electromagnetic gyrokinetic formalism
in Physics of Plasmas
Tindale E
(2016)
Solar cycle variation of the statistical distribution of the solar wind e parameter and its constituent variables
in Geophysical Research Letters
Chapman S
(2017)
The global build-up to intrinsic ELM bursts and comparison with pellet triggered ELMs seen in JET
in Nuclear Fusion
Dods J
(2017)
Characterizing the ionospheric current pattern response to southward and northward IMF turnings with dynamical SuperMAG correlation networks
in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Cook JWS
(2017)
Stimulated Emission of Fast Alfvén Waves within Magnetically Confined Fusion Plasmas.
in Physical review letters
Meyer H
(2017)
Overview of progress in European medium sized tokamaks towards an integrated plasma-edge/wall solution a
in Nuclear Fusion
Carbajal L
(2017)
Quantifying Fusion Born Ion Populations in Magnetically Confined Plasmas using Ion Cyclotron Emission.
in Physical review letters
Kirk A
(2017)
Overview of recent physics results from MAST
in Nuclear Fusion
Tindale E
(2017)
Solar Wind Plasma Parameter Variability Across Solar Cycles 23 and 24: From Turbulence to Extremes
in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Srivastava AK
(2017)
High-frequency torsional Alfvén waves as an energy source for coronal heating.
in Scientific reports
Chapman B
(2017)
Sub-microsecond temporal evolution of edge density during edge localized modes in KSTAR tokamak plasmas inferred from ion cyclotron emission
in Nuclear Fusion
Description | please see the relevant research papers |
Exploitation Route | please see the relevant research papers and grants |
Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Environment,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy,Healthcare |
Description | please see the relevant research papers |
First Year Of Impact | 2013 |
Sector | Energy,Environment,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy |
Impact Types | Economic |
Description | AFOSR |
Amount | $100,000 (USD) |
Funding ID | FA9550-17-1-0054 |
Organisation | Airforce Office of Scientific Research |
Sector | Public |
Country | United States |
Start | 03/2017 |
End | 03/2018 |
Description | Fulbright-Lloyd's of London Scholarship 2017/18 |
Amount | $60,000 (USD) |
Organisation | US-UK Fulbright Commission |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 10/2017 |
End | 09/2018 |
Description | NORKLIMA |
Amount | kr 900,000 (NOK) |
Organisation | Research Council of Norway |
Sector | Public |
Country | Norway |
Start | 01/2014 |
End | 01/2016 |
Description | Newton-CONICYT |
Amount | $1,438,000 (CLP) |
Organisation | Newton Fund |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 03/2015 |
End | 10/2016 |