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Xia, Lee, Bengio and Bareinboim recently formalized the Causal-Neural Connection in spirit of previously existing work (e.g. Kocaoglu et al. 2017, Ke et al. 2020). This talk will start with an introduction to this arguably new research direction of interest: Neuro-Causality. Thinking of pure Causality as formalized by Judea Pearl in his seminal work, it can be described in terms of a Structural Causal Model (SCM) that carries information on the variables of interest and their mechanistic relations. For most processes of interest the underlying SCM will only be partially observable, thus causal inference tries to leverage any exposed information. Most recently, Zečević, Dhami, Veličković, and Kersting considered the special network type known as Graph Neural Networks (GNN), which act as universal approximators on structured input, for causal learning – thereby suggesting a tighter integration with SCM. For said work, starting from first principles the talk will examine key theoretical results. Finally, the talk will conclude with a perspective on interesting future research directions for neuro-causality.

Please note 9am start time.

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*Theme: Beyond the Neuron: glia, vascular and immune cells*

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The LHCb detector offers unique opportunities to explore QCD and EW physics, owing to its high precision coverage of the forward region at the LHC. I will report on LHCb measurements using W and Z bosons. I will discuss in detail the recent measurement of the W boson mass (mW) at LHCb. LHCb has a critical role in LHC measurements of mW, since important theoretical uncertainties on mW are known to be anti-correlated between LHCb and the other LHC experiments: LHCb results are expected to significantly improve the LHC-wide mW average. I will also set out plans in this programme for the next decade and beyond. LHCb is currently being upgraded for higher intensity proton collisions, with a further upgrade proposed for around 2030.

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The finite element method (FEM) is one of the great triumphs of applied mathematics, numerical analysis and software development. Recent developments in sensor and signalling technologies enable the phenomenological study of systems. The connection between sensor data and FEM is restricted to solving inverse problems placing unwarranted faith in the fidelity of the mathematical description of the system. If one concedes mis-specification between generative reality and the FEM then a framework to systematically characterise this uncertainty is required. This talk will present a statistical construction of the FEM which systematically blends mathematical description with observations.

An introduction to the Research Group, Division and Department.

*The seminar will take place via Zoom “here”:https://maths-cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/95215212460?pwd=TWN5cjJ3azErSUYremw5UWRKL0NKUT09.*

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Deployment of tracking devices has revolutionised our understanding of seabird movements and behaviour in recent decades. The talk will describe insights into the key drivers of intra- and inter-specific variation in habitat use provided by the diverse range of devices used in recent decades, including GPS, immersion, accelerometer, time-depth and radar-detecting tags. Seabirds are more threatened than any other group of birds, and for many species, particularly albatrosses and petrels, the main problem is incidental mortality (bycatch) in longline or trawl fisheries. The talk will therefore also illustrate how tracking data can be used to better determine when and where particular species, sexes, age classes or individuals are at greatest risk.

Deployment of tracking devices has revolutionised our understanding of seabird movements and behaviour in recent decades. The talk will describe insights into the key drivers of intra- and inter-specific variation in habitat use provided by the diverse range of devices used in recent decades, including GPS, immersion, accelerometer, time-depth and radar-detecting tags. Seabirds are more threatened than any other group of birds, and for many species, particularly albatrosses and petrels, the main problem is incidental mortality (bycatch) in longline or trawl fisheries. The talk will therefore also illustrate how tracking data can be used to better determine when and where particular species, sexes, age classes or individuals are at greatest risk.

Theme: *Beyond the Neuron: glia, vascular and immune cells*

*Biography:* Ragnhildur Thóra Káradóttir, currently the director of the MS Society Cambridge Centre for Myelin Repair, did her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Iceland. For her postgraduate training, she entered the Wellcome Trust 4 year PhD Programme in Neuroscience, at UCL, where she did her PhD with Prof. David Attwell. Immediately, after her PhD she was awarded a Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship of the Royal Society, and in 2011 she was awarded a Wellcome Trust Career Development Research Fellowship.

Since establishing her lab she has been awarded a number of awards, most recently the Lister Institute Research Prize (one of 5 in the UK), the Allen Distinguished Investigator Award (one of 5 worldwide, first time given outside of USA) and an ERC consolidator award. In 2015 she was elected to the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence (one of 20 in Europe) and in 2017 awarded the Fabiane Carvalho Miranda International Prize for the best paper published in the years 2015-2017 in myelin biology and MS related research.

Her main research interest is to understand how neuronal activity can regulate oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) differentiation and myelin plasticity in health and disease. Her new line of research interest is to determine the changes in myelin and myelin repair throughout the lifespan.

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Today many quantum chemists are inspired by tasks such as overcoming the complexity of the electronic structure problem or bypassing DFT/wavefunction-based computations by leveraging machine learning (ML) techniques. Reported applications span from simple atomization energies to complex mathematical objects, such as the many body wavefunction. This talk discusses our strategies exploiting the interplay between quantum chemistry and statistical learning techniques.[1-4] We will discuss a ML workflow specifically adapted to predict the primary output of quantum chemical computations (e.g., ρ(r), particle- hole densities, on-top pair density, etc.) from which many properties could be derived. These properties range from the electrostatic potential of a protein to a real-space indicator of electron correlation.[2-4] Emphasis will also be placed on the importance of the quantum chemical metrics chosen for the regression.[1] Finally and if time remains, we will discussed atomistic ML models aiming at more efficiently learning challenging energetic properties (e.g., the enantiomeric excess).

[1] Briling, K. R.; Fabrizio, A.; Corminboeuf, C. J. Chem. Phys. 2021, 155, 024107. [2] Vela, S.; Fabrizio, A.; Briling, K. R.; Corminboeuf, C. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2021, 12, 5957. [3] Fabrizio, A.; Briling K. R.; Girardier, D. D.; Corminboeuf, C. J. Chem. Phys. 2020, 153, 204111. [4] Fabrizio, A.; Grisafi, A.; Meyer, B.; Ceriotti, M.; Corminboeuf, C. Chem. Sci. 2019, 10, 9424.

*Abstract*
The ventral pallidum is a brain area which is critically important for assessing hedonic value of reward and encoding motivational drive. Classically, the VP is considered an inhibitory ‘relay’ between the nucleus accumbens and midbrain structures. Our recent work challenges this model of information flow in the basal ganglia. We characterize two non-canonical populations of ventral pallidal neurons: 1) ventral pallidal glutamatergic neurons which follow canonical output pathways, but exert opposing excitatory drive on downstream structures, and 2) arkypallidal neurons, which robustly innervate and inhibit the nucleus accumbens in a value-dependent manner. We show that these populations are critical for constraining reward seeking in the face of aversive consequences, and encoding reward palatability to promote consumption, respectively. We discuss how adaptations in these pathways undergo adaptations that contribute to symptoms of impaired reward processing in the context of substance use disorders, and how harnessing this cellular heterogeneity may lead to cell-type specific neuromodulation therapies for these disorders.

*Biography*
Dr Meaghan Creed obtained her HBSc and PhD in Pharmacology at the University of Toronto in Canada, then moved to Geneva Switzerland for post-doctoral training. Throughout her career, she has focused on understanding and optimizing deep brain stimulation (DBS) applied to the basal ganglia for neurological and psychiatric disorders. Now an assistant professor at the WashU Pain center, she and her team are working to develop new neuromodulation therapies to treat symptoms at the interface of chronic pain, addiction and mood disorders. For detailed biography of Dr Creed, please visit: https://www.creedlab.org/meaghan-creed.html

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Reversible and irreversible phase transitions are key to the operation and eventual degradation of many nanoscale materials and devices. Operando imaging of such phase transitions at the nanoscale currently requires sophisticated synchrotron X-ray or electron microscopy techniques, which do not lend themselves to high-throughput material screening. In this talk I will introduce our recent work to develop simple lab-based optical scattering microscopies to track phase transitions under operating conditions. For instance, in the archetypal Li-ion battery cathode material LixCoO2, we visualize the insulator-to-metal, solid solution and lithium ordering phase transitions directly and determine rates of lithium diffusion at the single-particle level, identifying different mechanisms on charge and discharge. We are also able to capture the dynamic formation of domain boundaries between different crystal orientations associated with the monoclinic lattice distortion at the Li0.5CoO2 composition [1]. I will discuss how such methods might be applied to other systems such memristors and bio-electronic circuits.

[1] “Operando optical tracking of single-particle ion dynamics and phase transitions in battery electrodes”, Alice J. Merryweather, Christoph Schnedermann, Quentin Jacquet, Clare P. Grey, Akshay Rao, Nature, 594, 522–528, (2021).

TBA

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The honeybee (Apis mellifera) dance communication system is a marvel of collective behaviour, but the added value it brings to colony foraging efficiency is poorly understood. In temperate environments, preventing communication of foraging locations rarely decreases colony food intake, potentially because simultaneous transmission of olfactory information plays an overwhelmingly dominant role in foraging. This has led to the understanding that recruitment to food through dancing is a novel but rarely useful phenomenon outside the tropical environments where Apis evolved. Here, I will first show how social network analyses can be used to disentangle the contributions of multiple information networks to the spread of a behaviour, identifying the contexts in which dance communication truly matters amid a complex system full of redundancy. I will then show how the decoding the dance communication system can be used to quantify the resources offered to pollinators in modern-day agricultural environments that pose major conservation challenges. The honeybee waggle dance is an evolutionary marvel that is not only useful to bees, but also to those who seek to conserve both managed and wild pollinators in modern-day landscapes that are becoming increasingly barren for insect life.

Cold atom interferometers are sensitive to the signatures of gravitational waves, ultra-light dark matter and other fundamental physics phenomena. The development of this new class of quantum detectors will complement traditional detection methods and extend measurement capabilities in the fields of cosmology, high energy and astroparticle physics.

Seven UK institutions have embarked on developing the Atom Interferometer Observatory and Network (AION) [1], a series of differential atom interferometers using strontium with baselines (corresponding to the separation between the atom clouds in the differential measurement) between 10 m and 1 km. The initial prototyping stage will focus on technology development to support the detection goals of these devices as they increase in baseline and sensitivity. The AION project will build upon existing partnerships with the UK National Technology Hub in Sensors and Timing, the MAGIS collaboration in the US, and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. I will outline the scientific goals and describe the experimental implementation of the AION detector, exploring the ways that fundamental physics phenomena interact with ultracold atoms and allow us to apply the latest techniques in quantum technologies to a new set of challenging problems.

[1] L. Badurina et al. “AION: An Atom Interferometer Observatory and Network”, Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 5, 011 (2020).

*Theme: Brains and Machines*

Tile: _In vitro_ bioelectronic models of the gut-brain axis

Abstract: The human gut microbiome has emerged as a key player in the bidirectional communication of the gut-brain axis, affecting various aspects of homeostasis and pathophysiology. Until recently, the majority of studies that seek to explore the mechanisms underlying the microbiome-gut-brain axis cross-talk relied almost exclusively on animal models, and particularly gnotobiotic mice. Despite the great progress made with these models, various limitations, including ethical considerations and interspecies differences that limit the translatability of data to human systems, pushed researchers to seek for alternatives. Over the past decades, the field of in vitro modelling of tissues has experienced tremendous growth, thanks to advances in 3D cell biology, materials, science and bioengineering, pushing further the borders of our ability to more faithfully emulate the in vivo situation. Organ-on-chip technology and bioengineered tissues have emerged as highly promising alternatives to animal models for a wide range of applications. In this talk I’ll discuss our progress towards generating a complete platform of the human microbiota-gut-brain axis with integrated monitoring and sensing capabilities. Bringing together principles of materials science, tissue engineering, 3D cell biology and bioelectronics, we are building advanced models of the GI and the BBB/NVU, with real-time and label-free monitoring units adapted in the model architecture, towards a robust and more physiologically relevant human in vitro model, aiming to i) elucidate the role of microbiota in the gut-brain axis communication, ii) to study how diet and impaired microbiota profiles affect various (patho-)physiologies, and iii) to test personalised medicine approaches for disease modelling and drug testing.

Biography: Professor Róisín M. Owens is a Multidisciplinary Scientist working at the interface of Biology and Electronic Engineering.

Professor Róisín M. Owens is a University Lecturer at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology in the University of Cambridge. She received her BA in Natural Sciences (Mod. Biochemistry) at Trinity College Dublin, and her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Southampton University. She carried out two postdoc fellowships at Cornell University, on host-pathogen interactions of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the department of Microbiology and Immunology with Prof David Russell, and on rhinovirus therapeutics in the department of Biomedical Engineering with Professor Moonsoo Jin. From 2009-2017 Professor Owens was a group leader in the department of bioelectronics at Ecole des Mines de St. Etienne, on the microelectronics campus in Provence. She is author of over 70 articles and a 2019 laureate of the Suffrage Science Award. Her work has been covered on many news outlets, including the BBC who featured her “human organs on chip” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99s1K0Ph3g4.

Research Interests
Her current research centres on application of electronic materials for monitoring biological systems in vitro, with a specific interest in studying the gut-brain-microbiome axis. Her work on 3D biomimetic electrodes for hosting and monitoring human tissues was recently published in Science Advances. (https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/10/eaat4253) A second major research area focuses on integration of cell membranes with transparent conducting polymer electrodes to study drug and pathogen interactions. A recent publication validated the ability of novel antimicrobial molecules to penetrate membranes (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adma.201803130)

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*Abstract*
Developing cost-effective interventions for youth mental health in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is an urgent public health priority. Over the past years, our multicultural team has developed and tested interventions for adolescent depression and anxiety symptoms. Our intervention development approach was informed by the belief that youth mental health interventions in low-resource communities may benefit from including empirically supported elements, using stigma-free content, and using trained lay-providers.
We developed Shamiri—a 4-week, lay-provider-delivered group intervention that teaches growth mindset, gratitude, and value affirmation—for adolescent depression and anxiety. The content is delivered by recent high school graduates (ages 18 – 22) trained as lay-providers. Participants meet in school once-a-week in groups of 9-12 youths (average group size 10).
In a 2018 pilot RCT (N = 51), we found that compared to an active control, Shamiri produced greater reductions in adolescent depression symptoms (p = .038; d = .32) and anxiety symptoms (p = .039; d = .54) from baseline to four-week follow-up, and greater improvements in academic performance (p = .034; d = .32) from the school-term before versus after the intervention. This was the first report that a brief, lay-provider delivered, community-based intervention may reduce internalizing symptoms and improve academic outcomes in high-symptom adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In a 2019 high-powered pre-registered and gold-standard RCT (N = 413), Shamiri showed greater reductions in depressive symptoms at post-treatment (Cohen d=0.35 [95%CI 0.09-0.60]), 2-weeks (Cohen d =0.28 [95%CI 0.04-0.54]), and 7-months (Cohen d=0.45 [95%CI 0.19-0.71]), and greater reductions in anxiety symptoms at post-treatment (Cohen d=0.37, [95%CI 0.11-0.63]), 2-weeks (Cohen d=0.26 [95%CI -0.01-0.53]), and 7-months (Cohen d=0.44 [95%CI 0.18-0.71]). These findings confirmed that this kind of intervention may prove useful in other global settings where limited resources, mental illness stigma, or a shortage of professionals limit access to mental health care.
Overall, our work in Kenya has shown that simple psychological interventions that focus on positive human attributes rather than psychopathology, are delivered by lay-providers, and are developed through multicultural collaboration may reduce depression and anxiety symptoms and should be considered for use in low-resource settings.

*Biography*
Tom Osborn is the founder and Executive Director of Shamiri Institute, a data-driven public benefit organization that combines social science research with a deep contextual knowledge of local communities to develop and scale mental health care to young people across Sub-Saharan Africa and especially Kenya, where 45 percent of young people report clinical depression. Shamiri Institute currently provides mental healthcare to 7,5000 Kenyan youths.
Born and raised in poverty — receiving >$300,000 in academic scholarships — Tom has developed a reputation as a community mobilizer, entrepreneur, and global mental health researcher. At 18, he co-founded GreenChar, a social enterprise that provided homes and institutions in rural Kenya and urban slums with clean energy. For his work and leadership at GreenChar, he was the youngest recipient of Echoing Green Fellowship – an award for the world’s best social entrepreneurs. At 19, he was named on the Forbes’ 30 under 30 list in Social Entrepreneurship, the second youngest person to receive the honor. He has also been awarded the Women Deliver Social Entrepreneur Award in 2016, the Anzisha Prize Energy Award and many other awards. Salt Magazine has also listed him as 30 under 30 social entrepreneur.
Tom is a 2021TED Fellow—given to doers who have shown unusual accomplishment, exceptional courage, and are creating positive change around the world—and an Acumen Fellow. Tom graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor’s in Psychology (High Honors). For more information about Tom Osborn, please visit https://www.shamiri.institute/co-founders/tom-osborn

In this talk, I will discuss various experimental and theoretical results that we obtained recently in our team on the transport of water and ions in ultra-confinement. I will in particular focus on the odd properties of the water-carbon couple, which highlights a variety of exotic transport properties that we will discuss and rationalize, such as ultra-low friction and quantum friction [1,2], specific charge adsorption, strongly non-linear transport and mechano-sensitivity [3,4], …

I will show how these specificities can be used as building blocks to build a ionic machinery, from ion pumps to artificial neuromorphic behavior [5] and the development of elementary ion-based computing.

References

[1] “Massive radius-dependent flow slippage in single carbon nanotubes” E. Secchi, S. Marbach, A. Niguès, D. Stein, A. Siria and L. Bocquet, Nature 537 210 (2016)

[2] “Fluctuation-induced quantum friction in nanoscale water flows”, N. Kavokine, M.-L. Bocquet and L. Bocquet, under review (2021)

[3] “Molecular streaming and voltage-gated response in Angström scale channels” T. Mouterde, A. Keerthi, A. Poggioli, S. Dar, A. Siria, A.K. Geim, L Bocquet and R. Boya, Nature 567 87 (2019).

[4] “Mechanically activated ionic transport across single digit carbon nanotubes”, A. Marcotte, T. Mouterde, A. Nigues, A. Siria and L. Bocquet, Nature Materials 19 1057 (2020)

[5] “Modeling of emergent memory and voltage spiking in ionic transport through angström-scale slits”, P. Robin, N. Kavokine, and L. Bocquet, Science, 373, 687–691 (2021

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