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Home » Research Topics – Ideas and Examples

Research Topics – Ideas and Examples

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Research Topic

Definition:

Research topic is a specific subject or area of interest that a researcher wants to investigate or explore in-depth through research. It is the overarching theme or question that guides a research project and helps to focus the research activities towards a clear objective.

How to Choose Research Topic

You can Choose a Research Topic by following the below guide:

Identify your Interests

One of the most important factors to consider when choosing a research topic is your personal interest. This is because you will be spending a considerable amount of time researching and writing about the topic, so it’s essential that you are genuinely interested and passionate about it. Start by brainstorming a list of potential research topics based on your interests, hobbies, or areas of expertise. You can also consider the courses that you’ve enjoyed the most or the topics that have stood out to you in your readings.

Review the Literature

Before deciding on a research topic, you need to understand what has already been written about it. Conducting a preliminary review of the existing literature in your field can help you identify gaps in knowledge, inconsistencies in findings, or unanswered questions that you can explore further. You can do this by reading academic articles, books, and other relevant sources in your field. Make notes of the themes or topics that emerge and use this information to guide your research question.

Consult with your Advisor

Your academic advisor or a mentor in your field can provide you with valuable insights and guidance on choosing a research topic. They can help you identify areas of interest, suggest potential research questions, and provide feedback on the feasibility of your research proposal. They can also direct you towards relevant literature and resources that can help you develop your research further.

Consider the Scope and Feasibility

The research topic you choose should be manageable within the time and resource constraints of your project. Be mindful of the scope of your research and ensure that you are not trying to tackle a topic that is too broad or too narrow. If your topic is too broad, you may find it challenging to conduct a comprehensive analysis, while if it’s too narrow, you may struggle to find enough material to support your research.

Brainstorm with Peers

Discussing potential research topics with your peers or colleagues can help you generate new ideas and perspectives. They may have insights or expertise that you haven’t considered, and their feedback can help you refine your research question. You can also join academic groups or attend conferences in your field to network with other researchers and get inspiration for your research.

Consider the Relevance

Choose a research topic that is relevant to your field of study and has the potential to contribute to the existing knowledge. You can consider the latest trends and emerging issues in your field to identify topics that are both relevant and interesting. Conducting research on a topic that is timely and relevant can also increase the likelihood of getting published or presenting your research at conferences.

Keep an Open Mind

While it’s essential to choose a research topic that aligns with your interests and expertise, you should also be open to exploring new ideas or topics that may be outside of your comfort zone. Consider researching a topic that challenges your assumptions or introduces new perspectives that you haven’t considered before. You may discover new insights or perspectives that can enrich your research and contribute to your growth as a researcher.

Components of Research Topic

A research topic typically consists of several components that help to define and clarify the subject matter of the research project. These components include:

• Research problem or question: This is the central issue or inquiry that the research seeks to address. It should be well-defined and focused, with clear boundaries that limit the scope of the research.
• Background and context: This component provides the necessary background information and context for the research topic. It explains why the research problem or question is important, relevant, and timely. It may also include a literature review that summarizes the existing research on the topic.
• Objectives or goals : This component outlines the specific objectives or goals that the research seeks to achieve. It should be clear and concise, and should align with the research problem or question.
• Methodology : This component describes the research methods and techniques that will be used to collect and analyze data. It should be detailed enough to provide a clear understanding of how the research will be conducted, including the sampling method, data collection tools, and statistical analyses.
• Significance or contribution : This component explains the significance or contribution of the research topic. It should demonstrate how the research will add to the existing knowledge in the field, and how it will benefit practitioners, policymakers, or society at large.
• Limitations: This component outlines the limitations of the research, including any potential biases, assumptions, or constraints. It should be transparent and honest about the potential shortcomings of the research, and how these limitations will be addressed.
• Expected outcomes or findings : This component provides an overview of the expected outcomes or findings of the research project. It should be realistic and based on the research objectives and methodology.

Purpose of Research Topic

The purpose of a research topic is to identify a specific area of inquiry that the researcher wants to explore and investigate. A research topic is typically a broad area of interest that requires further exploration and refinement through the research process. It provides a clear focus and direction for the research project, and helps to define the research questions and objectives. A well-defined research topic also helps to ensure that the research is relevant and useful, and can contribute to the existing body of knowledge in the field. Ultimately, the purpose of a research topic is to generate new insights, knowledge, and understanding about a particular phenomenon, issue, or problem.

Characteristics of Research Topic

some common characteristics of a well-defined research topic include:

• Relevance : A research topic should be relevant and significant to the field of study and address a current issue, problem, or gap in knowledge.
• Specificity : A research topic should be specific enough to allow for a focused investigation and clear understanding of the research question.
• Feasibility : A research topic should be feasible, meaning it should be possible to carry out the research within the given constraints of time, resources, and expertise.
• Novelty : A research topic should add to the existing body of knowledge by introducing new ideas, concepts, or theories.
• Clarity : A research topic should be clearly articulated and easy to understand, both for the researcher and for potential readers of the research.
• Importance : A research topic should be important and have practical implications for the field or society as a whole.
• Significance : A research topic should be significant and have the potential to generate new insights and understanding in the field.

Examples of Research Topics

Here are some examples of research topics that are currently relevant and in-demand in various fields:

• The impact of social media on mental health: With the rise of social media use, this topic has gained significant attention in recent years. Researchers could investigate how social media affects self-esteem, body image, and other mental health concerns.
• The use of artificial intelligence in healthcare: As healthcare becomes increasingly digitalized, researchers could explore the use of AI algorithms to predict and prevent disease, optimize treatment plans, and improve patient outcomes.
• Renewable energy and sustainable development: As the world seeks to reduce its carbon footprint, researchers could investigate the potential of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, and how these technologies can be integrated into existing infrastructure.
• The impact of workplace diversity and inclusion on employee productivity: With an increasing focus on diversity and inclusion in the workplace, researchers could investigate how these factors affect employee morale, productivity, and retention.
• Cybersecurity and data privacy: As data breaches and cyber attacks become more common, researchers could explore new methods of protecting sensitive information and preventing malicious attacks.
• T he impact of mindfulness and meditation on stress reduction: As stress-related health issues become more prevalent, researchers could investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness and meditation practices on reducing stress and improving overall well-being.

Research Topics Ideas

Here are some Research Topics Ideas from different fields:

• The impact of social media on mental health and well-being.
• The effectiveness of various teaching methods in improving academic performance in high schools.
• The role of AI and machine learning in healthcare: current applications and future potentials.
• The impact of climate change on wildlife habitats and conservation efforts.
• The effects of video game violence on aggressive behavior in young adults.
• The effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques in reducing anxiety and depression.
• The impact of technology on human relationships and social interactions.
• The role of exercise in promoting physical and mental health in older adults.
• The causes and consequences of income inequality in developed and developing countries.
• The effects of cultural diversity in the workplace on job satisfaction and productivity.
• The impact of remote work on employee productivity and work-life balance.
• The relationship between sleep patterns and cognitive functioning.
• The effectiveness of online learning versus traditional classroom learning.
• The role of government policies in promoting renewable energy adoption.
• The effects of childhood trauma on mental health in adulthood.
• The impact of social media on political participation and civic engagement.
• The effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy in treating anxiety disorders.
• The relationship between nutrition and cognitive functioning.
• The impact of gentrification on urban communities.
• The effects of music on mood and emotional regulation.
• The impact of microplastics on marine ecosystems and food webs.
• The role of artificial intelligence in detecting and preventing cyberattacks.
• The effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in managing chronic pain.
• The relationship between personality traits and job satisfaction.
• The effects of social isolation on mental and physical health in older adults.
• The impact of cultural and linguistic diversity on healthcare access and outcomes.
• The effectiveness of psychotherapy in treating depression and anxiety in adolescents.
• The relationship between exercise and cognitive aging.
• The effects of social media on body image and self-esteem.
• The role of corporate social responsibility in promoting sustainable business practices.
• The impact of mindfulness meditation on attention and focus in children.
• The relationship between political polarization and media consumption habits.
• The effects of urbanization on mental health and well-being.
• The role of social support in managing chronic illness.
• The impact of social media on romantic relationships and dating behaviors.
• The effectiveness of behavioral interventions in promoting physical activity in sedentary adults.
• The relationship between sleep quality and immune function.
• The effects of workplace diversity and inclusion programs on employee retention.
• The impact of climate change on global food security.
• The role of music therapy in improving communication and social skills in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.
• The impact of cultural values on the development of mental health stigma.
• The effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques in reducing burnout in healthcare professionals.
• The relationship between social media use and body dissatisfaction among adolescents.
• The effects of nature exposure on cognitive functioning and well-being.
• The role of peer mentoring in promoting academic success in underrepresented student populations.
• The impact of neighborhood characteristics on physical activity and obesity.
• The effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation interventions in improving cognitive functioning in individuals with traumatic brain injury.
• The relationship between organizational culture and employee job satisfaction.
• The effects of cultural immersion experiences on intercultural competence development.
• The role of assistive technology in promoting independence and quality of life for individuals with disabilities.
• The impact of workplace design on employee productivity and well-being.
• The impact of digital technologies on the music industry and artist revenues.
• The effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy in treating insomnia.
• The relationship between social media use and body weight perception among young adults.
• The effects of green spaces on mental health and well-being in urban areas.
• The role of mindfulness-based interventions in reducing substance use disorders.
• The impact of workplace bullying on employee turnover and job satisfaction.
• The effectiveness of animal-assisted therapy in treating mental health disorders.
• The relationship between teacher-student relationships and academic achievement.
• The effects of social support on resilience in individuals experiencing adversity.
• The role of cognitive aging in driving safety and mobility.
• The effectiveness of psychotherapy in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• The relationship between social media use and sleep quality.
• The effects of cultural competency training on healthcare providers’ attitudes and behaviors towards diverse patient populations.
• The role of exercise in preventing chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
• The impact of the gig economy on job security and worker rights.
• The effectiveness of art therapy in promoting emotional regulation and coping skills in children and adolescents.
• The relationship between parenting styles and child academic achievement.
• The effects of social comparison on well-being and self-esteem.
• The role of nutrition in promoting healthy aging and longevity.
• The impact of gender diversity in leadership on organizational performance.
• The effectiveness of family-based interventions in treating eating disorders.
• The relationship between social media use and perceived loneliness among older adults.
• The effects of mindfulness-based interventions on pain management in chronic pain patients.
• The role of physical activity in preventing and treating depression.
• The impact of cultural differences on communication and conflict resolution in international business.
• The effectiveness of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) in treating anxiety disorders.
• The relationship between student engagement and academic success in higher education.
• The effects of discrimination on mental health outcomes in minority populations.
• The role of virtual reality in enhancing learning experiences.
• The impact of social media influencers on consumer behavior and brand loyalty.
• The effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) in treating chronic pain.
• The relationship between social media use and body image dissatisfaction among men.
• The effects of exposure to nature on cognitive functioning and creativity.
• The role of spirituality in coping with illness and disability.
• The impact of automation on employment and job displacement.
• The effectiveness of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) in treating borderline personality disorder.
• The relationship between teacher-student relationships and school attendance.
• The effects of mindfulness-based interventions on workplace stress and burnout.
• The role of exercise in promoting cognitive functioning and brain health in older adults.
• The impact of diversity and inclusion initiatives on organizational innovation and creativity.
• The effectiveness of cognitive remediation therapy in treating schizophrenia.
• The relationship between social media use and body dissatisfaction among women.
• The effects of exposure to natural light on mood and sleep quality.
• The role of spirituality in enhancing well-being and resilience in military personnel.
• The impact of artificial intelligence on job training and skill development.
• The effectiveness of interpersonal therapy (IPT) in treating depression.
• The relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement among low-income students.
• The effects of mindfulness-based interventions on emotional regulation and coping skills in trauma survivors.
• The role of nutrition in preventing and treating mental health disorders.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Selecting a Research Topic: Overview

• Refine your topic
• Background information & facts
• Writing help

Here are some resources to refer to when selecting a topic and preparing to write a paper:

• MIT Writing and Communication Center "Providing free professional advice about all types of writing and speaking to all members of the MIT community."
• Search Our Collections Find books about writing. Search by subject for: english language grammar; report writing handbooks; technical writing handbooks
• Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation Online version of the book that provides examples and tips on grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and other writing rules.
• Select a topic

Choosing an interesting research topic is your first challenge. Here are some tips:

• Choose a topic that you are interested in! The research process is more relevant if you care about your topic.
• If your topic is too broad, you will find too much information and not be able to focus.
• Background reading can help you choose and limit the scope of your topic. 
• Review the guidelines on topic selection outlined in your assignment.  Ask your professor or TA for suggestions.
• Refer to lecture notes and required texts to refresh your knowledge of the course and assignment.
• Talk about research ideas with a friend.  S/he may be able to help focus your topic by discussing issues that didn't occur to you at first.
• WHY did you choose the topic?  What interests you about it?  Do you have an opinion about the issues involved?
• WHO are the information providers on this topic?  Who might publish information about it?  Who is affected by the topic?  Do you know of organizations or institutions affiliated with the topic?
• WHAT are the major questions for this topic?  Is there a debate about the topic?  Are there a range of issues and viewpoints to consider?
• WHERE is your topic important: at the local, national or international level?  Are there specific places affected by the topic?
• WHEN is/was your topic important?  Is it a current event or an historical issue?  Do you want to compare your topic by time periods?

Table of contents

• Broaden your topic
• Information Navigator home
• Sources for facts - general
• Sources for facts - specific subjects

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• Next: Refine your topic >>
• Last Updated: Jul 30, 2021 2:50 PM
• URL: https://libguides.mit.edu/select-topic

How To Choose A Research Topic

Step-By-Step Tutorial With Examples + Free Topic Evaluator

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | April 2024

Choosing the right research topic is likely the  most important decision you’ll make on your dissertation or thesis journey. To make the right choice, you need to take a systematic approach and evaluate each of your candidate ideas across a consistent set of criteria. In this tutorial, we’ll unpack five essential criteria that will help you evaluate your prospective research ideas and choose a winner.

Overview: The “Big 5” Key Criteria

• Topic originality or novelty
• Value and significance
• Access to data and equipment
• Time limitations and implications
• Ethical requirements and constraints

Criterion #1: Originality & Novelty

As we’ve discussed extensively on this blog, originality in a research topic is essential. In other words, you need a clear research gap . The uniqueness of your topic determines its contribution to the field and its potential to stand out in the academic community. So, for each of your prospective topics, ask yourself the following questions:

• What research gap and research problem am I filling?
• Does my topic offer new insights?
• Am I combining existing ideas in a unique way?
• Am I taking a unique methodological approach?

To objectively evaluate the originality of each of your topic candidates, rate them on these aspects. This process will not only help in choosing a topic that stands out, but also one that can capture the interest of your audience and possibly contribute significantly to the field of study – which brings us to our next criterion.

Criterion #2: Value & Significance

Next, you’ll need to assess the value and significance of each prospective topic. To do this, you’ll need to ask some hard questions.

• Why is it important to explore these research questions?
• Who stands to benefit from this study?
• How will they benefit, specifically?

By clearly understanding and outlining the significance of each potential topic, you’ll not only be justifying your final choice – you’ll essentially be laying the groundwork for a persuasive research proposal , which is equally important.

Criterion #3: Access to Data & Equipment

Naturally, access to relevant data and equipment is crucial for the success of your research project. So, for each of your prospective topic ideas, you’ll need to evaluate whether you have the necessary resources to collect data and conduct your study.

Here are some questions to ask for each potential topic:

• Will I be able to access the sample of interest (e.g., people, animals, etc.)?
• Do I have (or can I get) access to the required equipment, at the time that I need it?
• Are there costs associated with any of this? If so, what are they?

Keep in mind that getting access to certain types of data may also require special permissions and legalities, especially if your topic involves vulnerable groups (patients, youths, etc.). You may also need to adhere to specific data protection laws, depending on the country. So, be sure to evaluate these aspects thoroughly for each topic. Overlooking any of these can lead to significant complications down the line.

Criterion #4: Time Requirements & Implications

Naturally, having a realistic timeline for each potential research idea is crucial. So, consider the scope of each potential topic and estimate how long each phase of the research will take — from literature review to data collection and analysis, to writing and revisions. Underestimating the time needed for a research project is extremely common , so it’s important to include buffer time for unforeseen delays.

Remember, efficient time management is not just about the duration but also about the timing . For example, if your research involves fieldwork, there may specific times of the year when this is most doable (or not doable at all).  So, be sure to consider both time and timing for each of your prospective topics.

Criterion #5: Ethical Compliance

Failing to adhere to your university’s research ethics policy is a surefire way to get your proposal rejected . So, you’ll need to evaluate each topic for potential ethical issues, especially if your research involves human subjects, sensitive data, or has any potential environmental impact.

Remember that ethical compliance is not just a formality – it’s a responsibility to ensure the integrity and social responsibility of your research. Topics that pose significant ethical challenges are typically the first to be rejected, so you need to take this seriously. It’s also useful to keep in mind that some topics are more “ethically sensitive” than others , which usually means that they’ll require multiple levels of approval. Ideally, you want to avoid this additional admin, so mark down any prospective topics that fall into an ethical “grey zone”.

If you’re unsure about the details of your university’s ethics policy, ask for a copy or speak directly to your course coordinator. Don’t make any assumptions when it comes to research ethics!

Key Takeaways

In this post, we’ve explored how to choose a research topic using a systematic approach. To recap, the “Big 5” assessment criteria include:

• Topic originality and novelty
• Time requirements
• Ethical compliance

Be sure to grab a copy of our free research topic evaluator sheet here to fast-track your topic selection process. If you need hands-on help finding and refining a high-quality research topic for your dissertation or thesis, you can also check out our private coaching service .

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How to Identify and Develop a Topic: .

How to identify and develop a topic.

It is difficult to define a topic with much specificity before starting your research. But until you define your topic, you won't know where to begin your search for information and you won't know what to look for. With a well-defined topic, you can focus your search strategies to find lots of relevant information without also finding a lot of useless stuff.

Selecting a topic to research is not a one-step task. Identifying and developing your topic is an ongoing process that does not end until you have finished your research project. Start with an idea you are interested in. Find and read some background information to get a better understanding of the topic, then use what you have learned to search for more specific information. Refine (broaden, narrow, refocus, or change) your topic, and try another search.  

Find a Topic

If you weren't assigned a specific topic and can't think of one:

• talk with your class instructor (who is, after all, the reason you are doing this project in the first place)
• find something interesting in the course reading assignments
• look at the entries and index of a subject encyclopedia
• ask a librarian to help you figure out a topic  

Narrow Your Topic

The initial idea for a research topic is often too broad. If your first searches for resources are so general that you find more information than you can click a mouse at or deal with in a reasonable amount of time (i.e. before the research project is due), focus on one of the following:

• a specific period of time
• a specific geographic location
• specific individuals or groups
• a specific aspect of the subject
• the viewpoint of a specific discipline  

Make it a Question

It is often helpful to state your topic in the form of a question. Treat the research project as an attempt to find a specific answer for a specific question.  

List Main Concepts

Pull out ideas and key terms that describe your topic. You can get a better idea of these by looking up your topic in an encyclopedia or other appropriate reference work. This will give you a better understanding of your topic, which will help you figure out what sources you will need and where you will need to look to find them.  

Analyze Your Topic

Where should you look for information? From what subject or discipline perspective are you looking at this topic? Do you need scholarly or popular sources? Will you need books, articles, sound recordings, primary sources, etc.?  

Select Appropriate Tools

Which tools do you need to find the type of information you want, (e.g. the library catalog for books, subject specific indexes for journal articles, etc.) See the library's guide to How to Find and Evaluate Sources for more.  

Initial Results

After you do an initial search, you can tell some things just from the number and type of sources you find. If you get a million or so hits, you probably need to narrow your topic. If you get only a few, broaden it. If the hits seem to be irrelevant to your topic, search using different terms. Do another search and see if you get what seems to be an appropriate amount of appropriate sources. Keep refining your search until you are satisfied with your results. Then go read them.  

After reading through some of the sources you find, you will get a better understanding of the topic you are researching. With this better understanding, you can revise your initial topic and its corresponding question for which you are so diligently seeking an answer. You can also refine your search strategy: the databases you search in, the keywords or subject terms you search for, etc. Go back and try another search using your revisions. Repeat as necessary until you have done enough research to know what to ask and how to answer it.

• Last Updated: Oct 20, 2020 8:13 PM
• URL: https://libguides.wesleyan.edu/topic

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Defining the research topic

• Improving reading and writing skills
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• Publishing during graduate studies
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Conceptualizing your research topic

Conceptualizing a research topic entails formulating a “defensible and researchable” research question . Conducting a literature search as one of the first steps in a graduate degree is often quite helpful as published peer-reviewed research articles are key to identify knowledge gaps in current literature. Thus, students can design and phrase their research projects to aim to address these research gaps.

Elements of a good research topic

• Interesting: topic represents an area of deep interest for the researcher
• Original : for PhD students, the topic can produce an original contribution to knowledge
• Manageable: research question could be answered within the degree’s recommended time frame (see time limitation ).

At McGill, PhD students are usually expected to have a sufficiently defined research topic by the time of the comprehensive exam .

Seminar presentations can help with topic definition and project planning

Many experienced supervisors and successful PhD students suggest that preparing a research proposal for presentation at a seminar within six months of commencement helps with focusing on the topic. Here are some suggested questions:

• What is it that you want to find answers for?
• Why is it important that this be researched?
• What impact will this research have?
• How will you go about researching this?

Read critically to identify gaps in the field and understand different research methods

Critical reading involves developing an understanding of the knowledge and gaps in the field and being able to critique different research methods, methodologies and epistemologies.

Try concept mapping to visualize and organize links between ideas

Concept mapping: a practical strategy for students and researchers starting a project. It helps to identify areas of importance as well as possibilities for the exploration and analysis of such areas.

Concept maps are helpful as a means of focusing discussion on the topic or research question because they offer a visual approach to creating relationships among concepts . More information about concept mapping can be found at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition's page on Constructing your first concept map .

• A concept map showing the main components of a concept map , from Novak & Canas (2008) .

If the student makes a concept map, this can form the basis of different discussions between the student and supervisor.

How important is motivation for topic selection?

Most graduate students have a general idea about what they would like to research. Depending on supervisors and disciplines, a student may be "given" a specific research topic or a list of topics to choose from or be asked to generate a topic based on her or his prior knowledge and experience. In either situation, it is a good idea to talk with others – supervisors, students, colleagues, peers, even friends and family – about possible choices, since a research topic is something most students will commit to for the rest of their degree.

Point to reflect on

• What questions, topics or methodologies are you passionate about? Why are you passionate about them (e.g., personal interest or curiosity, potential applications to help others or the environment)?
• Is it possible to answer your desired question within the time frame of a graduate degree? If not, is it possible to choose a portion of this topic to investigate during your graduate studies?
• Do you get more motivated from knowing exactly what you’re going to do, or from the excitement of unexpected discoveries or research trajectories? How can you select a topic and plan your project to better suit your sources of motivation See  Staying motivated  for additional resources

Steps to refine the research focus

• Identify the boundaries of the research areas and the gaps in the field .
• Make a list of possible research ideas within a topic.
• Discuss these ideas with others (e.g., peers, colleagues, professors, mentors). This can provide opportunities for receiving advice based on past experiences, additional ideas, or opportunities for collaboration.
• Reduce the list to two ideas : a first choice and a backup. Having a backup is useful in the event that the first choice is found to be inappropriate for the time restriction, require unattainable resources, or be otherwise not feasible.
• Brainstorm as many ideas, questions, possible problems, and any other thoughts relevant to the first choice.
• Narrow down these ideas into a more precise focus by considering feasibility (e.g., time, requires resources), interest, and significance. The resulting idea should complete the sentence “The purpose of this project is…”
• Refer back to the brainstorming and remove anything not relevant to the purpose statement. Add any new relevant ideas. Use these ideas as well as the purpose statement to create a list of researchable questions . Be sure to define key terms and consider required resources, including the characteristics of the participants if applicable.
• Create a project outline. Consider what information or data will be needed and how it can be obtained.

Adapted from Wisker (2005, p. 83) and Bell & Waters (2014)

Bell, J., & Waters, S. (2014). Doing your research project: A guide for first-time researchers . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

Novak, J. D., & Cañas, A. J. (2008). The theory underlying concept maps and how to construct and use them. Institute for Human and Machine Cognition . Retrieved from http://cmap.ihmc.us/docs/theory-of-concept-maps

Wisker, G. (2005). The good supervisor: Supervising postgraduate and undergraduate research for doctoral theses and dissertations . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License . Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, McGill University .

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What is Research? – Purpose of Research

• By DiscoverPhDs
• September 10, 2020

The purpose of research is to enhance society by advancing knowledge through the development of scientific theories, concepts and ideas. A research purpose is met through forming hypotheses, collecting data, analysing results, forming conclusions, implementing findings into real-life applications and forming new research questions.

What is Research

Simply put, research is the process of discovering new knowledge. This knowledge can be either the development of new concepts or the advancement of existing knowledge and theories, leading to a new understanding that was not previously known.

As a more formal definition of research, the following has been extracted from the Code of Federal Regulations :

While research can be carried out by anyone and in any field, most research is usually done to broaden knowledge in the physical, biological, and social worlds. This can range from learning why certain materials behave the way they do, to asking why certain people are more resilient than others when faced with the same challenges.

The use of ‘systematic investigation’ in the formal definition represents how research is normally conducted – a hypothesis is formed, appropriate research methods are designed, data is collected and analysed, and research results are summarised into one or more ‘research conclusions’. These research conclusions are then shared with the rest of the scientific community to add to the existing knowledge and serve as evidence to form additional questions that can be investigated. It is this cyclical process that enables scientific research to make continuous progress over the years; the true purpose of research.

What is the Purpose of Research

From weather forecasts to the discovery of antibiotics, researchers are constantly trying to find new ways to understand the world and how things work – with the ultimate goal of improving our lives.

The purpose of research is therefore to find out what is known, what is not and what we can develop further. In this way, scientists can develop new theories, ideas and products that shape our society and our everyday lives.

Although research can take many forms, there are three main purposes of research:

• Exploratory: Exploratory research is the first research to be conducted around a problem that has not yet been clearly defined. Exploration research therefore aims to gain a better understanding of the exact nature of the problem and not to provide a conclusive answer to the problem itself. This enables us to conduct more in-depth research later on.
• Descriptive: Descriptive research expands knowledge of a research problem or phenomenon by describing it according to its characteristics and population. Descriptive research focuses on the ‘how’ and ‘what’, but not on the ‘why’.
• Explanatory: Explanatory research, also referred to as casual research, is conducted to determine how variables interact, i.e. to identify cause-and-effect relationships. Explanatory research deals with the ‘why’ of research questions and is therefore often based on experiments.

Characteristics of Research

There are 8 core characteristics that all research projects should have. These are:

• Empirical  – based on proven scientific methods derived from real-life observations and experiments.
• Logical  – follows sequential procedures based on valid principles.
• Cyclic  – research begins with a question and ends with a question, i.e. research should lead to a new line of questioning.
• Controlled  – vigorous measures put into place to keep all variables constant, except those under investigation.
• Hypothesis-based  – the research design generates data that sufficiently meets the research objectives and can prove or disprove the hypothesis. It makes the research study repeatable and gives credibility to the results.
• Analytical  – data is generated, recorded and analysed using proven techniques to ensure high accuracy and repeatability while minimising potential errors and anomalies.
• Objective  – sound judgement is used by the researcher to ensure that the research findings are valid.
• Statistical treatment  – statistical treatment is used to transform the available data into something more meaningful from which knowledge can be gained.

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Types of Research

Research can be divided into two main types: basic research (also known as pure research) and applied research.

Basic Research

Basic research, also known as pure research, is an original investigation into the reasons behind a process, phenomenon or particular event. It focuses on generating knowledge around existing basic principles.

Basic research is generally considered ‘non-commercial research’ because it does not focus on solving practical problems, and has no immediate benefit or ways it can be applied.

While basic research may not have direct applications, it usually provides new insights that can later be used in applied research.

Applied Research

Applied research investigates well-known theories and principles in order to enhance knowledge around a practical aim. Because of this, applied research focuses on solving real-life problems by deriving knowledge which has an immediate application.

Methods of Research

Research methods for data collection fall into one of two categories: inductive methods or deductive methods.

Inductive research methods focus on the analysis of an observation and are usually associated with qualitative research. Deductive research methods focus on the verification of an observation and are typically associated with quantitative research.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a method that enables non-numerical data collection through open-ended methods such as interviews, case studies and focus groups .

It enables researchers to collect data on personal experiences, feelings or behaviours, as well as the reasons behind them. Because of this, qualitative research is often used in fields such as social science, psychology and philosophy and other areas where it is useful to know the connection between what has occurred and why it has occurred.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is a method that collects and analyses numerical data through statistical analysis.

It allows us to quantify variables, uncover relationships, and make generalisations across a larger population. As a result, quantitative research is often used in the natural and physical sciences such as engineering, biology, chemistry, physics, computer science, finance, and medical research, etc.

What does Research Involve?

Research often follows a systematic approach known as a Scientific Method, which is carried out using an hourglass model.

A research project first starts with a problem statement, or rather, the research purpose for engaging in the study. This can take the form of the ‘ scope of the study ’ or ‘ aims and objectives ’ of your research topic.

Subsequently, a literature review is carried out and a hypothesis is formed. The researcher then creates a research methodology and collects the data.

The data is then analysed using various statistical methods and the null hypothesis is either accepted or rejected.

In both cases, the study and its conclusion are officially written up as a report or research paper, and the researcher may also recommend lines of further questioning. The report or research paper is then shared with the wider research community, and the cycle begins all over again.

Although these steps outline the overall research process, keep in mind that research projects are highly dynamic and are therefore considered an iterative process with continued refinements and not a series of fixed stages.

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The purpose of research is to enhance society by advancing knowledge through developing scientific theories, concepts and ideas – find out more on what this involves.

The scope of the study is defined at the start of the study. It is used by researchers to set the boundaries and limitations within which the research study will be performed.

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In Finland, all new PhD holders are given a traditional Doctoral Hat and Doctoral Sword during a Conferment Ceremony, symbolising the freedom of research.

In the UK, a dissertation, usually around 20,000 words is written by undergraduate and Master’s students, whilst a thesis, around 80,000 words, is written as part of a PhD.

Dr Hooper gained his PhD in evolutionary biology from the the University of Sheffield. He is now a journalist and writer (last book called Superhuman) and podcast editor at New Scientist.

Ellie is a final year PhD student at the University of Hertfordshire, investigating a protein which is implicated in pancreatic cancer; this work can improve the efficacy of cancer drug treatments.

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Research: Why We Choose the Hard Way to Do Tedious Tasks

• Alicea Lieberman

And how to stop getting stuck in ruts.

In life and at work, we often get stuck persisting in unpleasant activities even when more enjoyable and equally effective alternatives exist. Research shows this happens due to “entrenchment,” where repeating an activity blocks consideration of better options and makes you more likely to keep doing it. The author’s research focuses on enhancing well-being by limiting over-persistence in these tasks and suggests solutions that include reducing repetition, dividing attention, and alternating tasks to break the cycle of entrenchment. By adopting strategies to prevent entrenchment, individuals and organizations can increase employee satisfaction and efficiency.

We often find ourselves mired in unpleasant tasks. And the longer we do an unpleasant task, the more stuck we become — persisting even if there are opportunities to switch to more enjoyable alternatives that would achieve the same goal. For instance, think about the last time you struggled to type a long email on your phone rather than switch to your nearby computer, where you could complete the task more comfortably. Or consider the last time you painstakingly formatted a document by hand rather than using a readily available software that could automate the process. Or even reflect on the last time you had an hour to pass and spent it watching an unenjoyable TV show rather than going outside for a pleasant stroll.

• AL Alicea Lieberman , PhD, MPH is an Assistant Professor in Marketing and Behavioral Decision Making at The UCLA Anderson School of Management. Her primary research focuses on judgment and decision making with an emphasis on self-control, motivation, and behavior change. She uses lab and field experiments and is committed to harnessing social and behavioral research to impact policy and improve societal health and well-being.

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Gene variants foretell the biology of future breast cancers in Stanford Medicine study

In a finding that vastly expands the understanding of tumor evolution, researchers discover genetic biomarkers that can predict the breast cancer subtype a patient is likely to develop.

May 30, 2024 - By Krista Conger

Stanford Medicine researchers found that inherited gene sequences can predict what type of breast cancer a patient is likely to develop, along with how aggressive that cancer may be.   Emily Moskal

A Stanford Medicine study of thousands of breast cancers has found that the gene sequences we inherit at conception are powerful predictors of the breast cancer type we might develop decades later and how deadly it might be.

The study challenges the dogma that most cancers arise as the result of random mutations that accumulate during our lifetimes. Instead, it points to the active involvement of gene sequences we inherit from our parents — what’s known as your germline genome — in determining whether cells bearing potential cancer-causing mutations are recognized and eliminated by the immune system or skitter under the radar to become nascent cancers. 

“Apart from a few highly penetrant genes that confer significant cancer risk, the role of hereditary factors remains poorly understood, and most malignancies are assumed to result from random errors during cell division or bad luck,” said Christina Curtis , PhD, the RZ Cao Professor of Medicine and a professor of genetics and of biomedical data science. “This would imply that tumor initiation is random, but that is not what we observe. Rather, we find that the path to tumor development is constrained by hereditary factors and immunity. This new result unearths a new class of biomarkers to forecast tumor progression and an entirely new way of understanding breast cancer origins.”

Curtis is the senior author of the study, which will be published May 31 in Science . Postdoctoral scholar Kathleen Houlahan , PhD, is the lead author of the research.

“Back in 2015, we had posited that some tumors are ‘born to be bad’ — meaning that their malignant and even metastatic potential is determined early in the disease course,” Curtis said. “We and others have since corroborated this finding across multiple tumors, but these findings cast a whole new light on just how early this happens.”

A new take on cancer’s origin

The study, which gives a nuanced and powerful new understanding of the interplay between newly arisen cancer cells and the immune system, is likely to help researchers and clinicians better predict and combat breast tumors.

Currently, only a few high-profile cancer-associated mutations in genes are regularly used to predict cancers, but these account for a small minority of cases. Those include BRCA1 and BRCA2, which occur in about one of every 500 women and confer an increased risk of breast or ovarian cancer, and rarer mutations in a gene called TP53 that causes a disease called Li Fraumeni syndrome, which predisposes to childhood and adult-onset tumors.

Christina Curtis

The findings suggest there are tens or hundreds of additional gene variants — identifiable in healthy people — that through interactions with the immune system pull the strings that determine why some people remain cancer-free throughout their lives.

“Our findings not only explain which subtype of breast cancer an individual is likely to develop,” Houlahan said, “but they also hint at how aggressive and prone to metastasizing that subtype will be. Beyond that, we speculate that these inherited variants may influence a person’s risk of developing breast cancer. However, future studies will be needed to examine this.”  

The genes we inherit from our parents are known as our germline genome. They’re mirrors of our parents’ genetic makeup, and they can vary among people in small ways that give some of us blue eyes, brown hair or type O blood. Some inherited genes include mutations that confer increased cancer risk from the get-go, such as BRCA1, BRCA2 and TP53.

In contrast, most cancer-associated genes are part of what’s known as our somatic genome. As we live our lives, our cells divide and die in the tens of millions. Each time the DNA in a cell is copied, mistakes happen and mutations can accumulate. DNA in tumors is often compared with the germline genomes in blood or normal tissues in an individual to pinpoint which changes likely led to the cell’s cancerous transformation.

Classifying breast cancers

In 2012, Curtis began a deep dive — assisted by machine learning — into the types of somatic mutations that occur in thousands of breast cancers. She was eventually able to categorize the disease into 11 subtypes with varying prognoses and risk of recurrence, finding that four of the 11 groups were significantly more likely to recur even 10 or 20 years after diagnosis — critical information for clinicians making treatment decisions and discussing long-term prognoses with their patients.

Prior studies had shown that people with inherited BRCA1 mutations tend to develop a subtype of breast cancer known as triple negative breast cancer. This correlation implies some behind-the-scenes shenanigans by the germline genome that affects what subtype of breast cancer someone might develop.

“We wanted to understand how inherited DNA might sculpt how a tumor evolves,” Houlahan said. To do so, they took a close look at the immune system.

It’s a quirk of biology that even healthy cells routinely decorate their outer membranes with small chunks of the proteins they have bobbing in their cytoplasm — an outward display that reflects their inner style.

Kathleen Houlahan

The foundations for this display are what’s known as HLA proteins, and they are highly variable among individuals. Like fashion police, immune cells called T cells prowl the body looking for any suspicious or overly flashy bling (called epitopes) that might signal something is amiss inside the cell. A cell infected with a virus will display bits of viral proteins; a sick or cancerous cell will adorn itself with abnormal proteins. These faux pas trigger the T cells to destroy the offenders.

Houlahan and Curtis decided to focus on oncogenes, normal genes that, when mutated, can free a cell from regulatory pathways meant to keep it on the straight and narrow. Often, these mutations take the form of multiple copies of the normal gene, arranged nose to tail along the DNA — the result of a kind of genomic stutter called amplification. Amplifications in specific oncogenes drive different cancer pathways and were used to differentiate one breast cancer subtype from another in Curtis’ original studies.

The importance of bling

The researchers wondered whether highly recognizable epitopes would be more likely to attract T cells’ attention than other, more modest displays (think golf-ball-sized, dangly turquoise earrings versus a simple silver stud). If so, a cell that had inherited a flashy version of an oncogene might be less able to pull off its amplification without alerting the immune system than a cell with a more modest version of the same gene. (One pair of overly gaudy turquoise earrings can be excused; five pairs might cause a patrolling fashionista T cell to switch from tutting to terminating.)

The researchers studied nearly 6,000 breast tumors spanning various stages of disease to learn whether the subtype of each tumor correlated with the patients’ germline oncogene sequences. They found that people who had inherited an oncogene with a high germline epitope burden (read: lots of bling) — and an HLA type that can display that epitope prominently — were significantly less likely to develop breast cancer subtypes in which that oncogene is amplified.

There was a surprise, though. The researchers found that cancers with a large germline epitope burden that manage to escape the roving immune cells early in their development tended to be more aggressive and have a poorer prognosis than their more subdued peers.

“At the early, pre-invasive stage, a high germline epitope burden is protective against cancer,” Houlahan said. “But once it’s been forced to wrestle with the immune system and come up with mechanisms to overcome it, tumors with high germline epitope burden are more aggressive and prone to metastasis. The pattern flips during tumor progression.”

“Basically, there is a tug of war between tumor and immune cells,” Curtis said. “In the preinvasive setting, the nascent tumor may initially be more susceptible to immune surveillance and destruction. Indeed, many tumors are likely eliminated in this manner and go unnoticed. However, the immune system does not always win. Some tumor cells may not be eliminated and those that persist develop ways to evade immune recognition and destruction. Our findings shed light on this opaque process and may inform the optimal timing of therapeutic intervention, as well as how to make an immunologically cold tumor become hot, rendering it more sensitive to therapy.”

The researchers envision a future when the germline genome is used to further stratify the 11 breast cancer subtypes identified by Curtis to guide treatment decisions and improve prognoses and monitoring for recurrence. The study’s findings may also give additional clues in the hunt for personalized cancer immunotherapies and may enable clinicians to one day predict a healthy person’s risk of developing an invasive breast cancer from a simple blood sample.

“We started with a bold hypothesis,” Curtis said. “The field had not thought about tumor origins and evolution in this way. We’re examining other cancers through this new lens of hereditary and acquired factors and tumor-immune co-evolution.”

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grants DP1-CA238296 and U54CA261719), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub.

About Stanford Medicine

Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. For more information, please visit med.stanford.edu .

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• Israeli Views of the Israel-Hamas War

Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis see the war very differently

Table of contents.

• Views of the Israeli military response against Hamas
• Attitudes toward Israel’s war cabinet
• Current concerns about the war
• Confidence in Biden
• Views of how Biden is handling the Israel-Hamas war
• Who is Biden favoring in the conflict, or is he striking the right balance?
• Views of the U.S.
• Who Israelis want to play a role in diplomatically resolving the war
• Success against Hamas
• Israel’s future national security
• The future of Gaza
• Views of Palestinian leaders
• Palestinian statehood and coexistence
• Acknowledgments
• Methodology

This Pew Research Center analysis covers Israeli attitudes on the Israel-Hamas war, including opinions on how it’s being conducted, the country’s future, Israeli political leaders and the United States’ role in the conflict.

The data is from a survey of 1,001 Israeli adults conducted face-to-face from March 3 to April 4, 2024. Interviews were conducted in Hebrew and Arabic, and the survey is representative of the adult population ages 18 and older, excluding those in East Jerusalem and non-sanctioned outposts. (The survey also did not cover the West Bank or Gaza.) The survey included an oversample of Arabs in Israel. It was subsequently weighted to be representative of the Israeli adult population with the following variables: gender by ethnicity, age by ethnicity, education, region, urbanicity and probability of selection of respondent.

Here are the questions used for the report, along with responses, and the survey methodology .

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that 39% of Israelis say Israel’s military response against Hamas in Gaza has been about right, while 34% say it has not gone far enough and 19% think it has gone too far.

According to the survey, conducted in March and early April, roughly two-thirds of Israelis are also confident that Israel will either probably (27%) or definitely (40%) achieve its goals in the war against Hamas. Still, majorities of Israeli adults are worried about aspects of the ongoing war: 

• 61% say they are extremely or very concerned about the war expanding into other countries in the region.
• 68% say they are extremely or very concerned about the war going on for a long time.

When it comes to what should happen after the war, there is less consensus. A 40% plurality of Israelis think Israel should govern the Gaza Strip. Smaller shares think Gazans should decide who governs (14%) or would like to see a Palestinian Authority national unity government either with (6%) or without (12%) President Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) in leadership.

Separately, 26% of Israelis think a way can be found for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully with each other – down from  35% who said the same last year , prior to the war, and about half as many as took that position when the question was first asked in 2013.

Research in the West Bank and Gaza

Pew Research Center has polled the Palestinian territories in previous years, but we were unable to conduct fieldwork in Gaza or the West Bank for our March/April 2024 survey due to security concerns. We are actively investigating possibilities for both qualitative and quantitative research on public opinion in the region and hope to be able to provide more data in the coming months.

These are among the key findings of a new survey of 1,001 Israelis, conducted via face-to-face interviews from March 3 to April 4, 2024.

The survey also asked Israelis about the U.S. role in the conflict. (It was conducted before U.S. President Joe Biden took a tougher stance toward Israel in the wake of an Israeli airstrike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers. And it predates Biden’s declaration that the U.S. would not provide offensive weapons to Israel in the event of a Rafah invasion as well as the subsequent Israeli strikes in Rafah .)

The survey shows:

• 60% of Israelis disapprove of the way Biden is handling the Israel-Hamas war.
• 41% think Biden is striking the right balance between Israelis and Palestinians. Still, 27% of Israelis say he is favoring Israelis too much, while roughly the same share (25%) say he favors Palestinians too much.
• Most Israelis express confidence in Biden to handle world affairs and have a favorable view of the U.S. But ratings of both Biden and the U.S. have fallen at least 10 percentage points since last year. (For more on this, read “How Israelis and Americans view one another and the U.S. role in the Israel-Hamas war.” )

Nonetheless, a large majority (72%) still want the U.S. to play a major role in diplomatically resolving the war – more than say the same about any of the other countries or organizations asked about, including Egypt (45%), Saudi Arabia (29%), Qatar (27%) and the United Nations (24%).

Arab and Jewish Israelis

People across Israeli society perceive the war in vastly different ways, depending on their views of the current leadership, how they identify ideologically, their religious backgrounds and other factors. One of the starkest divides is between Arab and Jewish Israelis:

• Arab Israelis are less likely than Jewish Israelis to think Israel will succeed in achieving its war aims (38% vs. 76%) and less optimistic when thinking about the future of the country’s national security (21% vs. 63%).
• Israeli Arabs are much more likely than Jews to say the country’s military response has gone too far (74% vs. 4%).
• Almost no Israeli Arabs (3%) want Israel to govern the Gaza Strip after the war, while half of Israeli Jews think it should do so. A plurality of Arabs would like the people who live in Gaza to decide who governs (37%), while only 8% of Jews prefer this outcome.
• Arab Israelis have much less favorable views of the U.S. than Jewish Israelis do (29% vs. 90%), as well as less confidence in Biden (21% vs. 66%). They are also much more likely to disapprove of Biden’s handling of the war (86% vs. 53%) and to think he favors Israelis too much (86% vs. 11%).
• Although a majority of Arabs (63%) want the U.S. to play a major role in diplomatically resolving the war between Israel and Hamas, an even greater share of Jewish Israelis (74%) want this. And roughly two-thirds of Arabs are open to Qatar and Egypt playing a major role, while only about four-in-ten Jews or fewer say the same.
• Roughly nine-in-ten Arabs (92%) have a negative view of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, compared with around half of Jews (48%). Views of the two other war cabinet members , Benny Gantz and Yoav Gallant, are also divided along ethnic lines. (The survey was conducted before Gantz threatened to leave the war cabinet .)

In many cases, there are also large ideological differences, with Israelis who describe themselves as being on the left generally more critical of Israel’s war response, less optimistic about its success and more critical of the U.S. than those on the right. There also tend to be differences among Israeli Jews based on how religiously observant they are. For more on how we looked at these differences, refer to the box below.

Jewish religious groups in Israel: Haredim, Datiim, Masortim and Hilonim

Nearly all Israeli Jews identify as either Haredi (commonly translated as “ultra-Orthodox”), Dati (“religious”), Masorti (“traditional”) or Hiloni (“secular”). The spectrum of religious observance in Israel – on which Haredim are generally the most religious and Hilonim the least – does not always line up perfectly with Israel’s political spectrum. On some issues, including those pertaining to religion in public life, there is a clear overlap: Haredim are furthest to the right, and Hilonim are furthest to the left, with Datiim and Masortim in between. But on other political issues, including those related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and views of the United States, differences between religious groups do not always mirror those between people at different points on the ideological spectrum. Because of sample size considerations, we combine Haredim and Datiim for analysis in this report.

For more information on the different views of these religious groups, read the Center’s 2016 deep dive on the topic, “Israel’s Religiously Divided Society.”

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How Americans and Israelis view one another and the U.S. role in the Israel-Hamas war

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ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

© 2024 Pew Research Center

Flow research on the outskirts of space

Experiments in weightlessness isolate classic diffusion phenomenon.

For years, various models have been developed to describe an important class of mixing effects that occur, for example, in the flow in a chemical reactor. Experimental validation, however, has lagged far behind due to the superimposition of gravity effects. A European research team involving the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and partners at the University of Szeged (Hungary) and Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB, Belgium) has now closed this gap with experiments conducted under weightlessness. The researchers recently published their results in the Nature journal npj Microgravity .

So-called reaction-diffusion fronts occur when two chemicals react with one another and at the same time spread out. Scientists can use this effect to model and better understand problems in chemistry and physics as well as in completely different areas like the financial world or linguistics as the underlying mathematical equations have the same characteristics. It gets more complicated when researchers combine these reactions with flows. Processes of this kind are important for technological applications relating to combustion processes, geology, the production of specific materials and storing carbon dioxide. Despite the plethora of applications, essential parts of these systems are not yet fully understood.

"Up to now, experiments to verify models of such processes have been distorted by buoyancy effects caused by density differences between the reaction solutions. In order to isolate this problem, we conducted experiments using weightlessness on board of a sounding rocket. Our partners did parallel numerical simulations to show the importance of the two-dimensional effects that can't be taken into account in simple one-dimensional models," says Dr. Karin Schwarzenberger of HZDR's Institute of Fluid Dynamics, outlining the work of her team.

Rocket take-off at the Arctic Circle

The experiment took place on 1 October 2022 -- on board of the sounding rocket TEXUS-57 that was launched from the Esrange Space Center, 40 kilometers east of Kiruna in Sweden. The collaborative project involving Airbus Defense & Space, the European Space Agency ESA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) transported, among other things, the Schwarzenberger team's experimental model to the outskirts of space. The module had three reactors of different sizes consisting of glass plates stacked on top of each other at differing proximity. The rocket reached a height of 240 kilometers, achieving a state of almost complete weightlessness for nearly six minutes. During this period, the researchers were able to run their experiments automatically -- experiments that resulted from several years of meticulous planning. The reaction was triggered when the weightlessness set in. Three high-resolution cameras filmed the reaction fronts that spread between two flowing liquids. It was these images that were the focus of all the team's efforts: with their help, the researchers can now separate a very specific mixing effect from other flow phenomena.

Flow physics in weightlessness

Flows in liquid channels exhibit uneven velocity distribution due to friction with the walls, which subsequently influences the transport of dissolved substances and diffusing reactants in the liquid. This diffusion effect is known as Taylor-Aris dispersion, named for the two researchers who laid the foundations for understanding it back in the 1950s. In the past, theoretical studies proposed models of varying complexity to describe the interplay of Taylor-Aris dispersion and chemical reactions.

With regard to applications, however, it is important to assess the preconditions under which the various models can be used. This meant conducting experiments to isolate Taylor-Aris dispersion from other flow phenomena. On Earth, Taylor-Aris dispersion is essentially superimposed by buoyancy effects caused by gravity. Up to now, researchers have tried minimizing the buoyancy effects by using shallow reactors -- but it never worked completely because a certain range of reactor heights and flow velocities still needed to be covered in order to take in many application fields. But the larger the flow system, the stronger the gravity. The researchers have now been able to overcome these limitations in zero gravity.

A comparison with the reference experiments on the ground revealed that significantly less reaction product was generated at greater reactor heights under weightlessness. Even more important were the image data of the reaction fronts that were not distorted by the buoyancy effects. The Brussels partners were thus able to replicate the development of the front in various theoretical models. Joint evaluation showed that in very shallow reactors with slow flow, simple one-dimensional models can be used. However, in the case of larger reactors or faster flow, two-dimensional models using Taylor-Aris dispersion are required.

Within these validity range the corresponding correlations can now be employed to predict product formation. This can be used to design innovative reactors, for the targeted synthesis of particles and fluid transport in geological layers, but also to supply space stations, where gravitational conditions differ from those on Earth.

• Nature of Water
• Quantum Physics
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Albert Einstein
• Nuclear Energy
• Nitrous oxide
• Sound effect
• Chemical bond
• Breaking wave
• Oscillation

Story Source:

Materials provided by Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Yorgos Stergiou, Darío M. Escala, Paszkál Papp, Dezső Horváth, Marcus J. B. Hauser, Fabian Brau, Anne De Wit, Ágota Tóth, Kerstin Eckert, Karin Schwarzenberger. Unraveling dispersion and buoyancy dynamics around radial A + B → C reaction fronts: microgravity experiments and numerical simulations . npj Microgravity , 2024; 10 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41526-024-00390-8

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• The Education Gradebook

USF picked as HQ for international virus, pandemic research network

• Divya Kumar Times staff

The University of South Florida will be the new headquarters of the Global Virus Network, a coalition of more than 80 virology research centers in 40 countries, as well as home to its co-founder: Robert Gallo, who is credited as one of the co-discoverers of HIV.

At an event announcing the partnership Wednesday, Charles Lockwood, vice president for USF Health, said he saw the partnership as a way to “expand the role of the university in solving some of society’s most pressing health issues.”

Lockwood said the partnership would “dramatically increase our ability to collaborate with experts” as well as host seminars, conferences and translate research to practical applications. The Global Virus Network also focuses on public health education and solutions.

Joining Gallo — who is among the most cited scientists in the world with more than 1,300 publications — will be three research development companies and more virologists. Lockwood saw it as an opportunity to build out a medical district in Channelside — which already includes USF’s Heart Institute, College of Medicine, College of Pharmacy and a Tampa General Hospital clinic — and create a “research triangle” of sorts between Moffitt, the main USF campus and the medical campus downtown.

“We think it will become a really dominant force in the world to combat pandemics to foreign disease,” he said.

Brett Giroir, executive chair of the network’s board, said he volunteered to serve on the board after his time as assistant secretary of health and acting Food and Drug Administration commissioner under former President Donald Trump.

“I understand the critically important role that the GVN can play in national policy in global science and keeping the world bio-safe,” he said. “We are interested in healthcare and public health innovations and practical implementations that help people today, tomorrow, our children and of course those in the future.”

Giroir said he worked with Florida officials on a daily basis during his time with the Trump administration, and said it was a collaborative partnership.

Though Lockwood and USF’s health team were involved in the governor’s response, with the governor appearing near Lockwood to roll out vaccines, Florida’s surgeon general Joseph Ladapo has since called for an end to mRNA-vaccines, and Gov. Ron DeSantis has banned vaccine or mask mandates in schools.

The network’s president, Yale-based pediatrician Stan Vermund, said they were aware USF is a state-funded school in Florida, but that the network, registered in Delaware, was independent.

“We will be independent voices for science,” he said.

That said, Vermund said, it’s important to acknowledge not everything about virology and vaccinology is known.

“We will welcome debate and discussion, other points of view being expressed,” he said. “We will take those into account, and we will give our point of view, but we are not afraid of open debate and discussion.”

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He added that vaccines have been “a great gift” as a pediatrician.

“We’ve been able to knock down disease incidence and mortality for many vaccine-preventable diseases by 99.99% in our country, but one has to acknowledge that vaccines have side effects,” Vermund said. “One needs a thoughtful cost benefit analysis and needs to work with the FDA and vaccine manufacturers to make vaccines as safe and effective as they could possibly be.”

Gallo is expected to start in July.

He will develop and lead a center for virology at USF and serve as program leader for Infectious Agents and Oncogenesis at the Tampa General Hospital Cancer Institute, senior scientific advisor to the USF Microbiomes Institute and senior scientific advisor to the Office of the Director of the TGH Cancer Institute.

Gallo is celebrated for his early-’80s work that established HIV as a cause for AIDS, and in the decades since has since helped develop new HIV testing and treatment procedures. He is also credited with the discovery of retroviruses and their association with cancer.

Divya Kumar is the higher education reporter. Reach her at [email protected].

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Physicists create five-lane superhighway for electrons

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MIT physicists and colleagues have created a five-lane superhighway for electrons that could allow ultra-efficient electronics and more. 

The work, reported in the May 10 issue of Science , is one of several important discoveries by the same team over the past year involving a material that is a unique form of graphene .

“This discovery has direct implications for low-power electronic devices because no energy is lost during the propagation of electrons, which is not the case in regular materials where the electrons are scattered,” says Long Ju, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and corresponding author of the Science paper.

The phenomenon is akin to cars traveling down an open turnpike as opposed to those moving through neighborhoods. The neighborhood cars can be stopped or slowed by other drivers making abrupt stops or U-turns that disrupt an otherwise smooth commute.

A new material

The material behind this work, known as rhombohedral pentalayer graphene, was discovered two years ago by physicists led by Ju. “We found a goldmine, and every scoop is revealing something new,” says Ju, who is also affiliated with MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory.

In a Nature Nanotechnology paper last October, Ju and colleagues reported the discovery of three important properties arising from rhombohedral graphene. For example, they showed that it could be topological, or allow the unimpeded movement of electrons around the edge of the material but not through the middle. That resulted in a superhighway, but required the application of a large magnetic field some tens of thousands times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field.

In the current work, the team reports creating the superhighway without any magnetic field.

Tonghang Han, an MIT graduate student in physics, is a co-first author of the paper. “We are not the first to discover this general phenomenon, but we did so in a very different system. And compared to previous systems, ours is simpler and also supports more electron channels.” Explains Ju, “other materials can only support one lane of traffic on the edge of the material. We suddenly bumped it up to five.”

Additional co-first authors of the paper who contributed equally to the work are Zhengguang Lu and Yuxuan Yao. Lu is a postdoc in the Materials Research Laboratory. Yao conducted the work as a visiting undergraduate student from Tsinghua University. Other authors are MIT professor of physics Liang Fu; Jixiang Yang and Junseok Seo, both MIT graduate students in physics; Chiho Yoon and Fan Zhang of the University of Texas at Dallas; and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi of the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan.

How it works

Graphite, the primary component of pencil lead, is composed of many layers of graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in hexagons resembling a honeycomb structure. Rhombohedral graphene is composed of five layers of graphene stacked in a specific overlapping order.

Ju and colleagues isolated rhombohedral graphene thanks to a novel microscope Ju built at MIT in 2021 that can quickly and relatively inexpensively determine a variety of important characteristics of a material at the nanoscale. Pentalayer rhombohedral stacked graphene is only a few billionths of a meter thick.

In the current work, the team tinkered with the original system, adding a layer of tungsten disulfide (WS 2 ). “The interaction between the WS 2  and the pentalayer rhombohedral graphene resulted in this five-lane superhighway that operates at zero magnetic field,” says Ju.

Comparison to superconductivity

The phenomenon that the Ju group discovered in rhombohedral graphene that allows electrons to travel with no resistance at zero magnetic field is known as the quantum anomalous Hall effect. Most people are more familiar with superconductivity, a completely different phenomenon that does the same thing but happens in very different materials.

Ju notes that although superconductors were discovered in the 1910s, it took some 100 years of research to coax the system to work at the higher temperatures necessary for applications. “And the world record is still well below room temperature,” he notes.

Similarly, the rhombohedral graphene superhighway currently operates at about 2 kelvins, or -456 degrees Fahrenheit. “It will take a lot of effort to elevate the temperature, but as physicists, our job is to provide the insight; a different way for realizing this [phenomenon],” Ju says.

Very exciting

The discoveries involving rhombohedral graphene came as a result of painstaking research that wasn’t guaranteed to work. “We tried many recipes over many months,” says Han, “so it was very exciting when we cooled the system to a very low temperature and [a five-lane superhighway operating at zero magnetic field] just popped out.”

Says Ju, “it’s very exciting to be the first to discover a phenomenon in a new system, especially in a material that we uncovered.”

This work was supported by a Sloan Fellowship; the U.S. National Science Foundation; the U.S. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering; the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI; and the World Premier International Research Initiative of Japan.

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