PRELUDIUM 15: grants for doctoral students

PRELUDIUM is a competition of the National Science Centre for research projects carried out by scientists at the onset of their career who do net yet have the PhD title. Within the fifteenth PRELUDIUM event, two representatives of the UPWr: Katarzyna Godlewska from the Faculty of Life Sciences and Technology and Grzegorz Bury from the Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Geodesy have received the NSC grants.

Katarzyna Godlewska is going to carry out a project called: “Mechanism of action of innovative plant extracts and their influence on the resistance to stress Arabidopsis thalian”, under the supervision of professor Anita Biesiada from the Department of Horticulture and Izabela Michalak PhD from the Department of Advanced Material Technologies of the Wrocław University of Technology. She will use 210 thousand PLN on applying higher plants for the production of biostimulators for crop plants.

- Meeting nutrition needs of human population is presently one of the greatest social and scientific problems. The population has been rising steadily and according to the UN forecasts it will have reached 11 billion people by the year 2100. Efforts should focus on two main aims: producing enough food in order to minimize malnutrition and limiting harmful side effects on the environment. At the same time, it should be food without pesticide remains and of high biological value – says the doctoral student. – One of the solutions could be the use of biostimulators which revive plants’ vitality in adverse environmental conditions, increase their crop and positively influence their chemical composition, including their vitamin and polyphenol content as well as that of other biologically active substances important for our health.

The main goal of Katarzyna Godlewska’s research will be to evaluate the possibility of applying natural plant materials to create biostimulators and to learn about the mechanisms of their functioning. In order to create them, she will use ecological solvents and various extraction methods. She is going to come up with preparations which will have positive influence on plants’ growth, development, biological value and resistance to stress conditions.

Grzegorz Bury received 196 thousand PLN for “Calculating precise orbits of GNSS satellites on the basis of combined laser and microwave solutions.”

- In the days when global and regional satellite navigation systems are developing, there are new possibilities of using signals coming from different systems, such as GPS, GLONASS or Galileo. Apart from civil applications, such as navigation, precise farming or extreme weather early warning systems, the main application of the GNSS systems is in the creation of the International Earth Reference System – explains the PhD student of the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics. –Satellites of particular systems differ significantly in terms of construction and materials they are made of. Hence, they also differ in their sensitivity to the influence of non-gravitational forces perturbating their movement on the low Earth orbit. And correct positioning of satellite orbits of particular systems is necessary for determining geodesic parameters and creating a global reference system.

For positioning orbits, GNSS data are used as standard. In addition, Grzegorz Bury has created a technology of positioning orbits with an independent SLR laser technology. In his project, for which he received funding from the National Science Centre, he will analyse measurement errors with both techniques, in order to propose one solution for both types of observation.

- Positioning precise orbits of artificial satellites is an indispensable element in Earth research, because precision in determining the trajectory of satellites’ movement significantly impacts the precision of parameters gained during the analysis of satellite observations. The combination of two independent techniques on board the GNSS satellites will not only allow us to precisely position orbits, but will also provide a connection between two independent techniques and will significantly improve cohesion between them – summarizes Grzegorz Bury.