PhD findings from Warwickshire – and a glass of Pi

Continuing our series to spotlight speakers at the event in April (register here if you haven’t already 😉

Speaker spotlights –

Lucy Jobbins is a PhD student at the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute in Oxford – Experimental and Clinical Sleep Medicine, led by Professor Russell Foster MBE and supported by prestigious organizations such as the National Institute of Health Research and the Dr. Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation.

Lucy will share initial results from her research with another one of our speakers, Ed Russell of WCS Care on links between light and sleep.

Lucy’s focus on dementia is part of the team’s wider remit to consider sleep as a transdiagnostic process across the lifespan, considering sleep health and improvement as central mediators of physical, emotional, and cognitive wellbeing.  Lucy’s fascinating research is not only relevant to residential care but has implications for supporting people with other neurological conditions including Huntington’s Disease and muscular sclerosis.

With thanks to our sponsors Chromaviso, Commercial Lighting, Nobi, and Circadacare, and our media partners darc media, Designing Lighting, the Lighting Industry Association, The Light Review and the Society of Light and Lighting.

Lessons from the front line 

Ed Russell, awarded an OBE for Services to Care Home Residents in the King’s Birthday Honours in 2024, is our second speaker spotlight this week.

Ed will reveal the findings from a pioneering circadian lighting installation at WCS Care, currently being studied by Oxford University PhD student Lucy Jobbins.

Ed and his team had already installed a circadian system several years ago. The improvements in resident and staff health were so significant that they were determined to find the money to extend the upgrade to other facilities. But when Ed had finally secured the funding to retrofit a 1960’s building, he was dismayed to discover that the original supplier had gone bust.

That was the start of a long fight to make sure that all his residents could experience the benefits of circadian lighting. WCS Trustees funded a PhD with Russell Foster’s team in Oxford and Ed engaged lighting designer John Bullock and the Commercial Lighting and Casambi teams to design the installation and create custom fittings and controls.

Ed will explain how, together, worked through technical challenges, from designing domestic-style luminaires that deliver enough light for circadian effects without glare, choosing kinetic switches that needed no wiring and installation within a busy operational environment, with each room taking less than an hour.

By January 2024, WCS Care had successfully retrofitted one room at the Sycamores in Leamington Spa. 14 months later, all three floors are running circadian curves and I can’t wait to hear what Ed has to say about what has worked – and some of the challenges along the way.

This is a rare chance to learn from this true pioneer in care home innovation and ask questions yourself.  Please use this link to register.

With thanks to our sponsors and media partners.

It’s International Pi day! 

I hated maths at school – but love the way it shows up in everyday things like caustics – patterns of light formed when rays are reflected or refracted by a curved surface.

Here’s what you need –

• A cylindrical glass
• A light source (e.g., a smartphone flashlight)
• A flat, light-colored surface

Then…

1. Fill the glass about halfway with water.
2. Place it on a flat, light-colored surface.
3. Shine the light source directly down into the mug.
4. Look at the pattern of light formed on the surface around the glass.

What you’ll see:

A heart-shaped pattern of light will appear on the surface. This shape is actually a mathematical curve called a cardioid, which is closely related to Pi.

What’s going on…

1. The cylindrical shape of the mug causes the light rays to reflect and refract in a specific way
2. These light rays converge to form a caustic curve on the surface
3.  The resulting shape is a cardioid – the equations that define the shape involve cosine and sine functions – or angles within a circle, which are inherently related to Pi. 

The cardioid equation in polar coordinates is: r = a(1 + cos(θ))

Here, ‘r’ is the distance from the center, ‘a’ is a constant that determines the size of the cardioid, and θ (theta) is the angle. The cosine function in this equation is defined using the unit circle, which brings Pi into play.

When we trace this equation, we get our heart shape. The presence of the cosine function means that as we go around the circle (that’s our θ), we’re essentially using fractions of Pi to determine the shape’s outline.

This is a beautiful way to link this fundamental constant, Pi, with light – and impress your friends – what’s not to like!