Singapore researchers develop assistive robot to prevent falls and assist in physiotherapy for the elderly

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NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

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IMAGE: DEVELOPED BY NTU SINGAPORE AND TTSH, MRBA IS A WEARABLE ASSISTIVE ROBOT THAT CAN DETECT AND PREVENT A FALL BEFORE IT HAPPENS, REDUCING THE USER’S RISK OF SUSTAINING INJURIES. view more 

CREDIT: NTU SINGAPORE

JOINT NEWS RELEASE

Singapore, 7th September 2022

Researchers at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) have developed a wearable assistive robot that can detect and prevent a fall before it happens, reducing the user’s risk of sustaining injuries.

The development of the robot, which can also be used to aid patients’ rehabilitation from their injuries, was catalysed by the National Robotics Programme, a multi-agency national programme that looks at the end-to-end development of differentiating robotics enablers and solutions in Singapore, from funding R&D to facilitating partnerships for translation and adoption to maximise socio-economic impact.

Called the Mobile Robotic Balance Assistant or MRBA (pronounced ‘Mister-Bah’), the robot uses its inbuilt sensors to instantaneously detect a loss of balance and catches the user with its attached safety harness which is worn around the user’s hips.

The device would also help users who have difficulty in walking and balancing to stand up safely from a seated position, and to sit down safely from a standing position. It also uses a depth-sensing camera to observe the user’s movements, while its machine-learning algorithms estimate the balance state of the user in real time to better predict any future imbalances or falls.

The human balance control system degenerates with age. This is exacerbated by conditions such as neurological diseases and injuries, musculoskeletal problems like ankle sprains, scoliosis, or missing limbs, as well as vertigo. This loss of balance control often results in falls, especially in the elderly.

According to the World Health Organisation, falls are the second leading cause of death from accidental or unintentional injuries worldwide[1]. In Singapore, falls account for 40 per cent of injury-related deaths[2].

Intended for use with minimal caregiver help in both institutional and home settings, it can assist people with limited or reduced mobility in day-to-day tasks, such as entering and exiting elevators, opening doors, getting dressed, performing simple kitchen chores and tasks such as watering plants.

MRBA was co-developed by a team of researchers, engineers, and data specialists at the Rehabilitation Research Institute of Singapore (RRIS), alongside clinicians and researchers at TTSH. RRIS, which is hosted at NTU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, was founded in 2016 by NTU Singapore, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and the National Healthcare Group (NHG).

In clinical trials involving 29 participants, including patients who suffered from stroke, traumatic brain injuries, and spinal cord injuries, the researchers found that MRBA was successful in aiding them with sitting, standing, and walking, as well as assisting in tasks like fetching water. No falls were recorded in the trials, which spanned three days per participant.

The technology presents an improved tool to help in the care of Singapore’s ageing population, reflecting both NTU's and TTSH’s commitment to using technology and innovation to respond to the needs and challenges of healthy living and ageing, which is one of four humanity’s grand challenges that the University seeks to address through its NTU 2025 strategic plan.

Associate Professor Ang Wei Tech, Executive Director of RRIS, who supervised the project’s development, said: “MRBA could prove to be an invaluable resource for older adult users, and help promote independent living and aging. The development of the robot was as result of a fruitful collaboration with TTSH, blending our expertise in engineering and machine learning with their strengths in rehabilitation and medicine.” Assoc Prof Ang is also from NTU’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

Adjunct Associate Professor at NTU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine Karen Chua, and Senior Consultant at TTSH’s Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, one of the co-leads of the MRBA’s development said: “One of TTSH’s key strategies is to empower patients with greater access to innovative robotic rehabilitation. We want to make robotics therapies more sustainable and accessible in the community where our patients can lead healthier and happier lives. The RRIS team’s innovative spirit and clear understanding of clinical needs have made them wonderful partners in developing this technology to support more people to live independently. In the near future, we look forward to seeing the MRBA improved to an industrial prototype with a software data platform that prepares it for commercialisation.”

MRBA’s success in the clinical setting has resulted in interest from Ninkatec and Home Instead, two Singapore home-care providers. The research team has also filed four patents for the technology with NTUitive, NTU’s innovation and enterprise company.

An everyday robotic assistant with a myriad of uses

MRBA comes in three models. The first model caters to users that weigh up to 80 kilograms, while the second assists those who weigh up to 120 kilograms. The third version, the Agile model, supports more dextrous movements.

In addition to assisting users in daily living, the robot can also support physiotherapy consultations by assisting those recovering from injuries to carry out key rehabilitation exercises, such as side stepping, balancing on a rocker board, and standing on one leg. In providing such balance support, users feel more confident in going about their daily activities, including sports, such as bouncing and throwing a basketball, kicking a soccer ball, and even playing badminton.

The research team hopes to expand the study and recruit 71 more participants from day rehabilitation centres to further build the use case for the robot in home and community settings.

The RRIS team is also working with industry partners to commercialise the MRBA within the next year, for the robot to serve people who require such balance and assistive solutions.

(L-R) Associate Professor Ang Wei Tech from NTU’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, who is also Executive Director, Rehabilitation Research Institute of Singapore, and Adjunct Associate Professor at NTU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine Karen Chua, who is also Senior Consultant at TTSH’s Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, posing with MRBA.

CREDIT

NTU Singapore

*** END ***

 

About Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Engineering, Business, Science, Medicine, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and Graduate colleges.

NTU is also home to world-renowned autonomous institutes – the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering – and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI) and Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N).

Under the NTU Smart Campus vision, the University harnesses the power of digital technology and tech-enabled solutions to support better learning and living experiences, the discovery of new knowledge, and the sustainability of resources.

Ranked amongst the world’s top universities, the University’s main campus is also frequently listed among the world’s most beautiful. Known for its sustainability, over 95% of its building projects are certified Green Mark Platinum. Apart from its main campus, NTU also has a medical campus in Novena, Singapore’s healthcare district.

For more information, visit www.ntu.edu.sg

 

About the Rehabilitation Research Institute of Singapore

RRIS was founded in 2016 by NTU Singapore, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and the National Healthcare Group (NHG).

RRIS aims to develop data-driven and patient-centric health solutions to prioritise the quality of care for Singapore’s rapidly ageing population, which is vulnerable to immobilising diseases and disabilities like stroke and knee osteoarthritis.

 

About Tan Tock Seng Hospital

Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) is the flagship hospital of the National Healthcare Group and part of Singapore’s Public Healthcare System. As a pioneering hospital with strong roots in the community for over 178 years, TTSH is recognised as the People’s Hospital, serving a resident population of 1.4 million living in Central Singapore. Together with 70 community partners and 80 community health posts, it brings care beyond the hospital into the community as an integrated care organisation – Central Health.

As one of the largest multi-disciplinary hospitals in Singapore, TTSH operates more than 1,700 beds with centres of excellence including the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID), Institute for Geriatrics & Active Ageing (IGA), NHG Eye Institute (NHGEI), and TTSH Rehabilitation Centre.

 

About National Robotics Programme

NRP is a programme that was established in 2016 as part of our RIE (Research, Innovation and Enterprise) initiative. It aims to catalyse differentiated robotics capabilities in Singapore through the funding of use-inspired research and use-driven development.  NRP also leverages the projects it funds to grow our robotics talent pool and nurture a vibrant local ecosystem.

For more information, visit the NRP website or the NRP LinkedIn page.

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[1] World Health Organisation. Falls (2019).

[2] Singapore Medical Journal. Approach to falls among the elderly in the community (2020).

SPECULOOS discovers a potentially habitable super-Earth

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF LIEGE

 

IMAGE: COMPARISON BETWEEN THE LP 890-9 SYSTEM AND THE INNER SOLAR SYSTEM. THE LP 890-9 SYSTEM IS MUCH MORE COMPACT: ITS TWO PLANETS COULD EASILY FIT INSIDE THE ORBIT OF MERCURY, THE INNERMOST PLANET OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM. view more 

CREDIT: @ADELINE DEWARD

An international team of scientists, led by Laetitia Delrez, astrophysicist at the University of Liège (Belgium), has just announced the discovery of two 'super-Earth' type planets orbiting LP 890-9.  Also known as TOI-4306 or SPECULOOS-2, this small, cool star located about 100 light-years from our Earth is the second coolest star around which planets have been detected, after the famous TRAPPIST-1. This important discovery is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

A first planet, LP 890-9b (or TOI-4306b), the innermost in the system, was initially identified by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a space mission dedicated to the search for exoplanets orbiting nearby stars. This planet, which is about 30% larger than the Earth, completes an orbit around the star in just 2.7 days. The ULiège researchers used their ground-based SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) telescopes to confirm and characterise this planet, and also to probe the system in depth for other planets that might have been 'missed' by TESS.

"TESS searches for exoplanets using the transit method, by monitoring the brightness of thousands of stars simultaneously, looking for slight dimmings that could be caused by planets passing in front of their stars," explains Laetitia Delrez, FNRS Postdoctoral Researcher in the Astrobiology and STAR (Faculty of Sciences) research units at ULiège, and lead author of the article. "However, a follow-up with ground-based telescopes is often necessary to confirm the planetary nature of the detected candidates and to refine the measurements of their sizes and orbital properties.” This follow-up is particularly important in the case of very cold stars, such as LP 890-9, which emit most of their light in the near-infrared and for which TESS has a rather limited sensitivity.

In contrast, the telescopes of the SPECULOOS consortium, led by ULiège and installed at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Paranal, Chile (SPECULOOS South) and at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife (SPECULOOS North), are optimised to observe this type of star with high precision, thanks to cameras that are very sensitive in the near infrared. "The goal of SPECULOOS is to search for potentially habitable terrestrial planets transiting the smallest and coolest stars in the solar neighbourhood, such as the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system, which we discovered in 2016 thanks to a pilot project with our TRAPPIST-South telescope," recalls Michaël Gillon, FNRS Senior Research Associate, co-director of the Astrobiology research unit at ULiège and principal investigator of the SPECULOOS project. "This strategy is motivated by the fact that such planets are particularly well suited to detailed studies of their atmospheres and the search for possible chemical traces of life with large observatories, such as the JWST.”

The observations of LP 890-9 obtained by SPECULOOS have proved fruitful, as they have not only helped to confirm the first planet, but have also made it possible to detect a second, previously unknown one. This second planet, LP 890-9c (renamed SPECULOOS-2c by the ULiège researchers), is similar in size to the first one (about 40% larger than the Earth) but has a longer orbital period of about 8.5 days. This orbital period, later confirmed with the MuSCAT3 instrument in Hawaii, places the planet in the so-called 'habitable zone' around its star. "Although this planet orbits very close to its star, at a distance about 10 times shorter than that of Mercury around our Sun, the amount of stellar irradiation it receives is still low, and could allow the presence of liquid water on the planet's surface, provided it has a sufficient atmosphere," explains Francisco J. Pozuelos, researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Astrobiology and STAR research units at ULiège and one of the main co-authors of the paper. "This is because the star LP 890-9 is about 6.5 times smaller than the Sun and has a surface temperature half that of our star. This explains why LP 890-9c, despite being much closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun, could still have conditions that are suitable for life.

The research team will then study the atmosphere of this planet, for example with the JWST, for which LP 890-9c appears to be the second most favourable target among the potentially habitable terrestrial planets currently known, surpassed only by the TRAPPIST-1 planets. “This comparison does not, however, consider the fact that LP 890-9c is located close to the inner boundary of the habitable zone and could therefore have an atmosphere that is particularly rich in water vapour, which would then boost its atmospheric signals," explains Laetitia Delrez. "Moreover, models often differ as to the exact position of this inner boundary of the habitable zone depending on the characteristics of the star. The discovery of LP 890-9c therefore offers a unique opportunity to better understand and constrain the habitability conditions around the smallest and coolest stars in our solar neighbourhood", concludes the researcher.

About SPECULOOS

SPECULOOS is a project led by the University of Liège (principal investigator: Michaël Gillon) in partnership with the University of Cambridge, the University of Birmingham, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Bern, the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). SPECULOOS is based on a network of robotic telescopes distributed over two main observatories,  SPECULOOS-South at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile (4 telescopes) and  SPECULOOS-North in Tenerife (currently 1 telescope), complemented by the SAINT-EX (1 telescope in Mexico) and TRAPPIST (2 telescopes, 1 in Chile, 1 in Morocco) telescopes.

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JOURNAL

Astronomy and Astrophysics

DOI

10.1051/0004-6361/202244041 

ARTICLE TITLE

Two temperate super-Earths transiting a nearby late-type M dwarf

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Sep-2022

Birmingham telescope discovers 

two new temperate rocky worlds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

 

IMAGE: ARTIST’S VIEW SHOWING THE RED STAR AND ITS TWO PLANETS, TOGETHER WITH SOME OF THE TELESCOPES USED FOR THE DISCOVERY. THE DATA THAT LED TO THE DISCOVERY IS DEPICTED ON THE SOLAR PANELS OF THE TESS SATELLITE. view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM / AMANDA J. SMITH

An international research team including astronomers at the University of Birmingham, has just announced the discovery of two "super-Earth" planets orbiting LP 890-9, a small, cool star located about 100 light-years from Earth.

The star, also called TOI-4306 or SPECULOOS-2, is the second-coolest star found to host planets, after the famous TRAPPIST-1. This rare discovery is the subject of a forthcoming publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The system's inner planet, called LP 890-9b, is about 30% larger than Earth and completes an orbit around the star in just 2.7 days. This first planet was initially identified as a possible planet candidate by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a space mission searching for exoplanets orbiting nearby stars. This candidate was confirmed and characterized by the SPECULOOS telescopes (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars), one of which is operated by the University of Birmingham. SPECULOOS researchers then used their telescopes to seek additional transiting planets in the system that would have been missed by TESS.

"TESS searches for exoplanets using the transit method, by monitoring the brightness of thousands of stars simultaneously, looking for slight dimmings that might be caused by planets passing in front of their stars," explains Laetitia Delrez, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Liège, and the lead author of the article.

"However, a follow-up with ground-based telescopes is often necessary to confirm the planetary nature of the detected candidates and to refine the measurements of their sizes and orbital properties.”

This follow-up is particularly important in the case of very cold stars, such as LP 890-9, which emit most of their light in the near-infrared and for which TESS has a rather limited sensitivity.

The telescopes of the SPECULOOS project, installed at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile and on the island of Tenerife, are optimised to observe this type of star with high precision, thanks to cameras that are very sensitive in the near-infrared.

"The goal of SPECULOOS is to search for potentially habitable terrestrial planets transiting some of the smallest and coolest stars in the solar neighbourhood, such as the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system, which we discovered in 2016", recalls Michaël Gillon, from the University of Liège, and the principal investigator of the SPECULOOS project. "This strategy is motivated by the fact that such planets are particularly well suited to detailed studies of their atmospheres and to the search for possible chemical traces of life with large observatories, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).”

The observations of LP 890-9 gathered by SPECULOOS proved fruitful as they not only confirmed the first planet, but they were critical for the detection of a second, previously unknown planet. This second planet, LP 890-9c (renamed SPECULOOS-2c by the SPECULOOS researchers), is similar in size to the first (about 40% larger than Earth) but has a longer orbital period of about 8.5 days. This orbital period, later confirmed with the MuSCAT3 instrument in Hawaii, places the planet in the so-called “habitable zone” around its star.

“The habitable zone is a concept under which a planet with similar geological and atmospheric conditions as Earth, would have a surface temperature allowing water to remain liquid for billions of years” explains Amaury Triaud, a professor of Exoplanetology at University Birmingham and the leader of the SPECULOOS working group that scheduled the observations leading to the discovery of the second planet. “This gives us a license to observe more and find out whether the planet has an atmosphere, and if so, to study its content and assess its habitability.”

The next step will be to study the atmosphere of this planet, for example with the JWST, for which LP 890-9c appears to be the second-most favourable target among the potentially habitable terrestrial planets known so far, surpassed only by the TRAPPIST-1 planets (for which Professor Triaud was also co-discoverer).

“It is important to detect as many temperate terrestrial worlds as possible to study the diversity of exoplanet climates, and eventually to be in a position to measure how frequently biology has emerged in the Cosmos,” added Professor Triaud.

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JOURNAL

Astronomy and Astrophysics

DOI

10.1051/0004-6361/202244041 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Two temperate super-Earths transiting a nearby late-type M dwarf

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Sep-2022

Measuring wastewater coronavirus accurately

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG

 

IMAGE: HELÉNE NORDER, SAHLGRENSKA ACADEMY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY ELIN LINDSTRÖM.

Monitoring of viruses in wastewater enables the course of a pandemic and its burdens on various parts of the health-care sector to be predicted, independently from official public testing capacity and scope for infection tracking. This has been established in a study from the University of Gothenburg.

The measurements and analyses of coronavirus levels in the wastewater of Gothenburg attracted a great deal of attention during the pandemic. The weekly reports have shown both how widespread SARS-CoV-2 infection is in the community and its distribution among variants of the virus.

Beginning in February 2020, the virus measurements taken in the monitoring rapidly became a useful indicator for forecasting load peaks in health care. High concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater were followed by rising numbers of people with COVID-19 needing hospitalization.

The association emerges with striking precision in the study now published in the scientific journal iScience. Each of the four pandemic waves in 2020–2022 exhibits a pattern in which, within a couple of weeks after SARS-CoV-2 peaked in the wastewater, a rise in the number of newly admitted hospital patients with COVID-19 ensued.

Increased pressure on 1177 Vårdguiden

The virus peaks in the wastewater were followed not only by heavier burdens on inpatient care, but also by predictable increases in pressure on the 1177 Vårdguiden e-service. One to two weeks after a wastewater virus peak, more calls were coming in about acute breathlessness in adults.

“The study shows that virus monitoring in wastewater can predict how a pandemic is going to develop and its burden on several parts of the health system,” says Hao Wang, postdoctoral researcher at Sahlgrenska Academy’s Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Gothenburg, and the study's first author.

The study provides an account of the degree of testing capacity in Sweden during various phases of the pandemic. The scientists say that the national statistics on the number of confirmed cases did not reflect the actual spread of infection.

However, even when their symptoms were mild, all those infected had the virus in their urine and feces. This enabled detection of the virus in wastewater, in the form of RNA (genetic material). The weekly reports were based on daily samples of wastewater collected by Gryaab, the municipal water treatment company in Gothenburg.

Lasting benefit to community

Heléne Norder, research leader at the University of Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska Academy and the last author of the study, sees the results as proof of how virus surveillance during the pandemic has benefited the community. She also identifies the distinct advantages of the method used.

“The method we use in Gothenburg also enables monitoring of other viruses, which gives us unique scope for quickly spotting ongoing outbreaks. In the area, besides SARS-CoV-2, we’ve also been able to demonstrate the presence of viruses that spread through food or water and are excreted in the feces. Some of those caused outbreaks — norovirus, the ‘winter vomiting bug’, and astrovirus among children, for instance — during the pandemic.

“So, during that time,” she continues, “we found changes in the virus levels that were directly relatable to the number of people infected in Gothenburg. Our research group intends to keep analyzing different viruses in the wastewater as long as we have research funding for it.”

The planning also includes further development of the technique to enable its adoption by all the laboratories that wish to carry out continuous virus monitoring.

“This might result in monitoring of more viruses in more regions for rapid identification of future outbreaks and efficient, proactive nationwide surveillance of ongoing ones,” Norder concludes.

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JOURNAL

iScience

DOI

10.1016/j.isci.2022.105000 

ARTICLE TITLE

The amount of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater relates to the development of the pandemic and its burden on the health system

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for WASTEWATER 

Key advance in physics research could help enable super-efficient electrical power

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Today, an international team of researchers led by Séamus Davis, Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and University College Cork, has announced results that reveal the atomic mechanism behind high-temperature superconductors. The findings are published in PNAS.

Superconductors are materials that can conduct electricity with zero resistance, so that an electric current can persist indefinitely. These are already used in various applications, including MRI scanners and high-speed maglev trains, however superconductivity typically requires extremely low temperatures, limiting their widespread use. A major goal within physics research is to develop super conductors that work at ambient temperatures, which could revolutionise energy transport and storage.

Certain copper oxide materials demonstrate superconductivity at higher temperatures than conventional superconductors, however the mechanism behind this has remained unknown since their discovery in 1987.

To investigate this, an international team involving scientists in Oxford, Cork in Ireland, the USA, Japan, and Germany, developed two new microscopy techniques. The first of these measured the difference in energy between the copper and oxygen atom orbitals, as a function of their location. The second method measured the amplitude of the electron-pair wave function (the strength of the superconductivity) at every oxygen atom and at every copper atom.

‘By visualising the strength of the superconductivity as a function of differences between orbital energies, for the first time ever we were able to measure precisely the relationship required to validate or invalidate one of the leading theories of high-temperature superconductivity, at the atomic scale’ said Professor Davis.

As predicted by the theory, the results showed a quantitative, inverse relationship between the charge-transfer energy difference between adjacent oxygen and copper atoms and the strength of the superconductivity.

According to the research team, this discovery could prove a historic step towards developing room-temperature superconductors. Ultimately, these could have far-reaching applications ranging from maglev trains, nuclear fusion reactors, quantum computers, and high-energy particle accelerators, not to mention super-efficient energy transfer and storage.

In superconductor materials, electrical resistance is minimised because the electrons that carry the current are bound together in stable ‘Copper pairs.’ In low-temperature superconductors, Copper pairs are held together by thermal vibrations, but at higher temperatures these become too unstable. These new results demonstrate that, in high-temperature superconductors, the Copper pairs are instead held together by magnetic interactions, with the electron pairs binding together via a quantum mechanical communication through the intervening oxygen atom.

Professor Davis added: ‘This has been one of the Holy Grails of problems in physics research for nearly 40 years. Many people believe that cheap, readily available room-temperature superconductors would be as revolutionary for the human civilization as the introduction of electricity itself.’

Notes to editors:

Media contact: Elizabeth Indaco, Head of Communications, Department of Physics, University of Oxford: elizabeth.indaco@physics.ox.ac.uk

The paper On the Electron Pairing Mechanism of Copper-Oxide High Temperature Superconductivity has been published in PNAS : https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207449119.

Besides the University of Oxford, this research involved the University College Cork, Ireland; Cornell University, USA; the Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan; the University of Tokyo, Japan; and the Max-Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Germany.

About Oxford University

Oxford University has been placed number one in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the sixth year running, and second in the QS World Rankings 2022. At the heart of this success is our ground-breaking research and innovation.

Oxford is world-famous for research excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.

The Department of Physics at the University of Oxford plays a leading role in physics nationally and internationally and uses its expertise to contribute to society's future through conducting cutting-edge research and by teaching and developing the careers of the next generation of physicists. The department is home to a suite of specialist equipment, facilities, and services and our world-leading physicists collaborate on pioneering projects and facilities around the globe.

About University College Cork

Established in 1845 University College Cork (UCC) has a long and proud history. George Boole, who laid the foundations of the information age, became its first Professor of Mathematics in 1849, while Mary Ryan was appointed the first female Professor in Ireland and the UK in 1925. With over 22,500 students UCC is today regarded and ranked as Ireland's leading university in the area of sustainability. UCC is a research-intensive university and is home to many of Ireland's leading research centres including APC Microbiome Ireland, the Tyndall National Institute, MaREI and INFANT. Discover more at ucc.ie

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2207449119 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

On the electron pairing mechanism of copper-oxide high temperature superconductivity