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Purpose: Almost 40 years after its development, in this article, we reexamine the relevance and validity of the ubiquitously used Revised Speech Perception in Noise (R-SPiN) sentence corpus. The R-SPiN corpus includes “high-context” and “low-context” sentences and has been widely used in the field of hearing research to examine the benefit derived from semantic context across Englishspeaking listeners, but research investigating age differences has yielded somewhat inconsistent findings. We assess the appropriateness of the corpus for use today in different English-language cultures (i.e., British and American) as well as for older and younger adults. Method: Two hundred forty participants, including older (60–80 years) and younger (19–31 years) adult groups in the the United Kingdom and United States, completed a cloze task consisting of R-SPiN sentences with the final word removed. Cloze, as a measure of predictability, and entropy, as a measure of response uncertainty, were compared between culture and age groups. Results: Most critically, of the 200 “high-context” stimuli, only around half were assessed as highly predictable for older adults (United Kingdom: 109; United States: 107); and fewer still, for younger adults (United Kingdom: 75; United States: 81). We also found dominant responses to these “high-context” stimuli varied between cultures, with U.S. responses being more likely to match the original R-SPiN target. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the issue of incomplete transferability of corpus items across English-language cultures as well as diminished equivalency for older and younger adults. By identifying relevant items for each population, this work could facilitate the interpretation of inconsistent findings in the literature, particularly relating to age effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bell ringing in Britain has featured in sociohistorical studies, but it has never been analyzed in detail as a variety of mass spectacle. The practice takes especially interesting forms in London, a city where the ringing of church bells has been part of everyday life for centuries. Grounded in physics, economics, and human geography, ringing is a unique kind of immersive site-specific performance, whose significance is best understood through pivoting to topography and history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive and negative ions in superfluid 4 He (He II) are interesting objects of experimental and theoretical research and serve as important probes to study various aspects of superfluidity. Additionally, with the help of externally applied electric field, they can be trapped below the free surface of He II, forming pools of nearly constant areal density, suitable to study broad range of collective phenomena of classical two-dimensional (2D) physics. A rich research program of this kind, in which the author participated, was run by Joe Vinen at the University of Birmingham, UK, for more than a decade. This article reviews the main results of this program, such as investigations of various vibrational modes of response of the ion pools and interactions of the ions with ripplons, detection of the two-dimensional Coulomb crystal and studies of its physical properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reducing cost of solar and wind energy together with the UK commitments to net-zero emissions will mean that UK energy systems for 2050 and similarly those in many other countries will be dominated by variable renewable supplies. Electricity systems are expected to be very reliable but renewable energy is inherently intermittent. We explore energy storage as a solution to this problem, considering the physics of the system to gain understanding of its needs, rather than using its economics, which may lead to less adequate designs. The scale and the periodic nature of the energy storage problem are crucial to system design. There are very different physical needs for storing energy for: days, weeks and years. Therefore a range of storage technologies with their differing characteristic will be required for these different periods. A UK energy system with three types of storage is modelled to both dimension and schedule these stores in light of the physical features and the cost parameters of potential storage technologies. The scale of the UK's energy storage need is large - more than a thousand times that of current storage systems - potentially increasing the energy costs of a 2050 energy system based largely on solar and wind, by a significant amount. Though the UK is considered as an example, the methods could be used for any country that is planning an energy system with a majority of variable renewables and a net-zero carbon target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An evaluation of prospective shale gas reservoir intervals in the Bowland Shale is presented using a wireline log data set from the UK's first shale gas exploration well. Accurate identification of such intervals is crucial in determining ideal landing zones for drilling horizontal production wells, but the task is challenging due to the heterogeneous nature of mudrocks. This heterogeneity leads to stratigraphic variations in reservoir quality and mechanical properties, and leads to complex geophysical behaviour, including seismic anisotropy. We generate petrophysical logs such as mineralogy, porosity, and organic content and calibrate these to the results of core studies. If 'reservoir quality' is defined by combined cut-offs relating to these parameters, we find that over 100 m of reservoir quality shale is present in the well, located primarily within the upper section. To examine the link between geophysical signature and rock properties, an isotropic rock physics model is developed, using effective medium theories, to recreate the elastic properties of the shale and produce forward-looking templates for subsequent seismic inversion studies. We find that the mineralogical heterogeneity in the shale has a profound impact on modelled elastic properties, obscuring more discrete changes due to porosity, organic content and water saturation and that the best reservoir quality intervals of the shale bear a distinctive response on rock physics cross-plots. Finally, we consider the density of natural fractures in the shale by developing an anisotropic rock physics model to reflect high-angle fractures observed on micro-imagery logs. We invert crack density using shear wave splitting well log data and find a crack density of up to 4 per cent which correlates well with micro-imagery observations. Our work further supports previous authors' core-based studies in concluding that the Bowland Shale holds good reservoir characteristics, and we propose that there are multiple intervals within the shale that could be targeted with stacked horizontal wells, should those intervals' mechanical properties also be suitable and there be adequate stress barriers between to restrict vertical hydraulic fracture growth. Finally, our rock physics templates may provide useful tools in interpreting pre-stack seismic data sets in prospective areas of the Bowland Shale and picking the best locations for drilling wells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate whether markers of intrapartum hypoxia differ according to sex, and if this could explain the increased risk of adverse perinatal outcomes in males.Study Design: This is a retrospective observational cohort study of non-anomalous, singleton deliveries >36 completed weeks' gestation at a UK teaching hospital over a 4.5 year period. Absent or incomplete cord gas results were excluded and the remaining data were validated according to an established method. The relations between sex and both arterial pH and a composite variable, 'fetal distress' (cases in which operative delivery or caesarean section were undertaken for presumed fetal compromise), were examined using independent samples t-test and Chi-square test. Odds ratios with 95 % confidence intervals were calculated to describe the relation between fetal sex and intermediate-term adverse outcomes. Binary logistic regression was performed to generate odds ratios (with 95 % confidence intervals) adjusted for arterial pH and fetal distress. This was repeated to adjust for labor and induction of labor.Results: There were eligible 8758 cases, of which 4655 were male and 4103 female, from a total of 39,148 deliveries during the study period. Neonatal unit admission (OR 1.54, 95 % CI; 1.31-1.80), renal impairment (OR 1.63, 95 % CI; 1.15-2.32), neurological impairment (OR 1.73, 95 % CI; 1.06-2.84) and a composite adverse outcome (OR 1.73, 95 % CI; 1.29-2.33) were all more likely in males, even after adjusting for labor and induction of labor, both of which were more likely males. The mean cord arterial pH of males was lower (7.23 vs 7.24, P = 0.019) although they were not more likely to be acidemic with a pH <7.0 (males 43 (0.92 %) vs females 41 (1.00 %), P = 0.717), and males were also more likely to have fetal distress (834 (17.9 %) vs 588 (14.3 %), P = <0.001). Being male remained associated with adverse outcomes despite adjustment for arterial pH and fetal distress.Conclusion: Despite a lower mean cord arterial pH and greater incidence of fetal distress in males, intrapartum hypoxia does not account for their worse neonatal outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the social heuristics hypothesis, people intuitively cooperate or defect depending on which behavior is beneficial in their interactions. If cooperation is beneficial, people intuitively cooperate, but if defection is beneficial, they intuitively defect. However, deliberation promotes defection. Here, we tested two novel predictions regarding the role of trust in the social heuristics hypothesis. First, whether trust promotes intuitive cooperation. Second, whether preferring to think intuitively or deliberatively moderates the effect of trust on cooperation. In addition, we examined whether deciding intuitively promotes cooperation, compared to deciding deliberatively. To evaluate these predictions, we conducted a lab study in Colombia and an online study in the United Kingdom (N = 1,066; one study was pre-registered). Unexpectedly, higher trust failed to promote intuitive cooperation, though higher trust promoted cooperation. In addition, preferring to think intuitively or deliberatively failed to moderate the effect of trust on cooperation, although preferring to think intuitively increased cooperation. Moreover, deciding intuitively failed to promote cooperation, and equivalence testing confirmed that this null result was explained by the absence of an effect, rather than a lack of statistical power (equivalence bounds: d = -0.26 and 0.26). An intuitive cooperation effect emerged when non-compliant participants were excluded, but this effect could be due to selection biases. Taken together, most results failed to support the social heuristics hypothesis. We conclude by discussing implications, future directions, and limitations. The materials, data, and code are available on the Open Science Framework (). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies examining the religiosity of academic scientists have often focused on comparisons with the general population, overlooking dynamics that could lead to religiosity differences within the scientist population. Expanding this literature, we present data from a survey of religiosity among scientists in the United Kingdom. We compare biologists and physicists employed at elite and nonelite departments, as past research has suggested that disciplinary and status divisions could be salient in understanding differences in scientists' religiosity. We find that biologists in the United Kingdom are more likely than physicists to say they never attend religious services. Similarly, U.K. scientists in elite departments are more likely than those in nonelite departments to say they never attend religious services. We do not find significant differences between disciplines or status types for more private measures of religion. We argue that these patterns could result from perceived conflicts between public religious practice and meeting professional norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether subject-specific admission tests may allow Swedish higher education institutions to admit better-performing students. The performance of students admitted via a mathematics and physics aptitude test was reviewed with a focus on activity, retention, and credits earned, and the results were compared with students admitted in traditional ways, such as secondary school grade point averages (GPA). The results show that the students admitted in the test quota show a higher activity rate as well as a higher retention rate than most other students, but that they are not as successful as the GPA quota students in acquiring their intended credits. It is concluded that subject-specific admission tests seem to entail higher student motivation and that they therefore may be a valuable instrument to supplement traditional admission instruments. The observed differences in the study have generated a number of hypotheses that would need further study to fully understand the merits of different admission instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Wrist-worn accelerometers are emerging as the most common instrument for measuring physical activity in large-scale epidemiological studies, though little is known about the relationship between wrist acceleration and physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE). Methods: 1695 UK adults wore two devices simultaneously for six days; a combined sensor and a wrist accelerometer. The combined sensor measured heart rate and trunk acceleration, which was combined with a treadmill test to yield a signal of individually-calibrated PAEE. Multi-level regression models were used to characterise the relationship between the two time-series, and their estimations were evaluated in an independent holdout sample. Finally, the relationship between PAEE and BMI was described separately for each source of PAEE estimate (wrist acceleration models and combined-sensing). Results: Wrist acceleration explained 44–47% between-individual variance in PAEE, with RMSE between 34–39 J•min-1•kg-1. Estimations agreed well with PAEE in cross-validation (mean bias [95% limits of agreement]: 0.07 [-70.6:70.7]) but overestimated in women by 3% and underestimated in men by 4%. Estimation error was inversely related to age (-2.3 J•min-1•kg-1 per 10y) and BMI (-0.3 J•min-1•kg-1 per kg/m2). Associations with BMI were similar for all PAEE estimates (approximately -0.08 kg/m2 per J•min-1•kg-1). Conclusions: A strong relationship exists between wrist acceleration and PAEE in free-living adults, such that irrespective of the objective method of PAEE assessment, a strong inverse association between PAEE and BMI was observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the significance of popular astronomy lectures in British theatres during the first half of the nineteenth century. The popular astronomy lecturing trade inherited from Enlightenment natural philosophy discourses. A ‘theatrical turn’ developed in the late eighteenth century and became extensive by the 1820s. Lecturers moved astronomy displays into theatres and used theatrical facilities, which resulted in a distinct type of show blending scientific instruction with sensational amusement. Lent was especially high season for this business in a metropolitan entertainment market. Pre–eminent cases of private entrepreneurs in this trade included William Walker, Deane Franklin Walker, George Bartley, and C. H. Adams. By exploring astronomy lectures in theatres, this paper also shows the spatial influence of the site on the format and style of the performance: the benefits and constraints of a theatre made a theatrical astronomy lecture distinct from others at a formal institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there have been concerns in the UK regarding the uptake of particular subjects in post-compulsory education. Whilst entries for Advanced level (A-level) subjects such as media studies have experienced considerable growth, entries for A-level physics have, until recently, been declining, prompting fears of a skills crisis in future generations. This study applied an established psychological theory, the theory of planned behaviour, to explore the drivers behind students’ subject choice at A-level, specifically focusing on students’ intentions to study physics and media studies. Multiple regression analyses supported the predictive validity of the theory in this context, with the three predictor variables (attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control) accounting for 66% of the variance in students’ intentions to study physics and 68% of the variance in students’ intentions to study media studies. Furthermore, for both subjects, attitude and subjective norm were found to be significant predictors of intentions. Hence, students with higher intentions to study physics or media studies exhibited a more positive attitude towards choosing this subject and perceived greater social pressure from significant others. Analysis of the beliefs underlying students’ subject choices suggested that the influence of parents was particularly important to students, as were beliefs about the positive outcomes of choosing physics or media studies in terms of student’s future career and education prospects. This suggests that initiatives aimed at increasing the uptake of subjects such as physics in the future might be best targeted in these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On October 8, 2013, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science announced that the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2013 would go to Peter W. Higgs (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom) and François Englert (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium). Forty-nine years ago, these two scientists developed a theory to explain the origin of mass in the universe, and it forms the basis for our understanding of particles. Their theory sparked a decades-long experimentalist search for confirmation, which culminated on July 4, 2012, when the discovery of a fundamental particle at the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN was announced. The discovered particle shared a substantial number of properties with Higgs and Englert’s predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the shifting relationship between the academic disciplines of physics and electrical engineering in Britain c.1900, focusing on their shared engagement with new electrical technologies of lighting, power, and telecommunications. It examines these disciplines’ common cultures of patenting before the Great War, showing how “electricians” in these intersecting domains used patents to secure financial support and protection for their innovations. However, this common culture was put under strain by the attempts of physicists such as Oliver Lodge, to decouple their electrical researches from technological matters in order to pursue an agenda of so-called “pure science.” This campaign was made especially difficult by the strategic focus on “applied science” that emerged during the Great War. We show how a newly legitimized programme of state funding for electrical research both during and after the war led to academic physics and electrical engineering dropping their reliance on patenting by the 1920s, and in the process becoming autonomous sciences—each erasing stories of their former collaboration from disciplinary memories. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents awards and grants, international news, and abstracts of articles from other journals, in the field of international serials and electronic resource management. SAGE has awarded its 2012 library travel grant to Stephen Buck. In international news, a new European Library website, www.theeuropeanlibrary.org, was launched; a new Institute of Physics (IOP) Publishing office is opened in Munich, Germany and Kōtui; and a shared library management and resource discovery service, will now be available in 13 public libraries by 2012 end. Abstracts of articles including Kevin Ashely's "Research Data and Libraries: Who Does What," Martyn Jansen's "Flexible Licensing," and Eun-Ja Shin's "Scholarly Journal Publishing and Open Access in South Korea" are also presented.

This paper explores the legacy of the great French experimental physicist Victor Regnault through the example of Gabriel Lippmann, whose engagement with electrical standardization during the early 1880s was guided by Regnault's methodological precept to measure ‘directly’. Lippmann's education reveals that the theoretical practice of ‘direct’ measurement entailed eliminating extraneous physical effects through the experimental design, rather than, like physicists in Britain and Germany, making numerical ‘corrections’ to measured values. It also provides, paradoxically, exemplars of the qualitative theoretical practices that sustained Regnault's misguided ambition to avoid theory. By considering the largely negative reactions to Lippmann's proposals for selecting suitable electrical units and methods of measuring the ohm, this paper associates these theoretical practices with the ineffectual rhetorical strategies employed by Lippmann to promote his work, and thereby indicates that the practice of direct measurement was limited to French experimental physics. Whilst this result aligns readily with the existence of divergent nineteenth century British and German cultures of precision, it emerges from a very different disciplinary context in which the practice of precision electrical measurement developed independently of submarine telegraphy. This is because, as this paper illustrates, telegraphic engineering and experimental physics remained separate professions in France. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Sir William Bruce's lifetime, the relationship between architecture and natural, experimental and mechanical philosophies - the so-called 'new sciences' - was a fundamental one.1 It was reflected in the presence of major architects in important European scientific institutions in the period: groups such as the Royal Society of London and the Académie des sciences in Paris.2 These organisations could count among their members Sir Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, François Blondel and Claude Perrault, all of whom practised architecture alongside other intellectual pursuits that we would now identify as science. In Scotland, the situation was somewhat different due to the fact that the new science was never institutionalised here, as it was in England and France. Nonetheless, as this article will demonstrate, many of Scotland's more prominent late seventeenth-century intellectuals counted architecture among their interests. Additionally, proposals were made in Scotland for scientific groups that, had they got off the ground, would have almost certainly promoted architecture as an intellectual subject in their meetings. What follows is an attempt to reconstruct how Scottish intellectuals in this period conceived of architecture as an intellectual discipline and as a practice. Ultimately, this paper will conclude that their approach to architecture tended to differ from their English counterparts. Just as they conceived of the new sciences in a much more straightforwardly Baconian way than the London Royal Society, so too was their attitude to architecture informed by the general climate of utility and improvement in Scotland at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A striking omission in the scholarship on the reception of the chymical philosophy of Jan Baptista van Helmont in England in the seventeenth century is the work of the mid-seventeenth-century natural philosopher Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. In her Philosophical Letters (1664), Cavendish offers an extended critique of Van Helmont's work (whose Ortus Medicinae had recently been translated into English by John Sadler). In this paper, I compare Cavendish's criticisms with those of Robert Boyle in his Sceptical Chymist (1661). Both Boyle and Cavendish attacked Van Helmont for the obscurity of his chymical vocabulary and concepts, and attacked his seminalism. Although their critiques had much in common, they diverged in their attitudes to Van Helmont's experiments. As an opponent of the experimental philosophy, Cavendish had little interest in the quality of Van Helmont's experimental claims, whereas Boyle was critical of their unreplicability. I also try to show that the two writers had very different polemical agendas, with Boyle defending his vision of chymistry based on a corpuscularian natural philosophy, and Cavendish being as much concerned with establishing her religious orthodoxy as with defending the truth claims of her own materialist vitalism. For Cavendish, Van Helmont was an example of the dangers of mingling theology and natural philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the 18th-century book on social conduct, "The Female Spectator," by Eliza Haywood. Haywood's recommendations of the practice of natural philosophy as contained within "The Female Spectator" are examined, noting that they were written in response to correspondence attributed to a reader identified as "Philo-Naturæ." The importance of natural philosophy within the realm of women's education in Great Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries is noted, mentioning that it was seen as a way that women could be edified and entertained while simultaneously fulfilling their duties as women.

Particle Physics: LHC switch-on inspires pupils Science Fair: Science takes centre stage in Spain Conference: Czech and Slovak physicists get together Curriculum: UK needs independent curriculum body Conference: Edmonton enjoys a physics-show treat [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Van Helmont's work was of major importance in seventeenth-century medicine, chymistry and natural philosophy. His work was a source of inspiration and mystery and an authoritas. His oeuvre was, together with that of many others, the culminating point of an ongoing process, starting in the Middle Ages, of turning medicine into a scientific discipline. In this essay, the appropriation, that is, the process of assimilation of an author's work by other scholars, of Van Helmont's oeuvre in England will be studied among chymists, physicians and natural philosophers (the distinctions between these three groups is primarily conceptual, but in practice hard to distinguish). Appropriation reminds us that the process of assimilating ideas of an author by contemporaries or later generations is not a passive activity, for scholars actively adapt and interpret them in new ways not initially envisaged by its original author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between the 1860s and the 1910s, British acoustics was transformed from an area of empirical research into a mathematically organized field. Musical motives - improving musical scales and temperaments, making better musical instruments, and understanding the nature of musical tones - were among the major driving forces of acoustical researchers in nineteenth-century Britain. The German acoustician, Helmholtz, had a major impact on British acousticians who also had extensive interactions with American and French acousticians. Rayleigh's acoustics, reflecting all these features, bore remarkable fruit in his treatise The Theory of Sound, which successfully subjected empirical acoustics to analytical mathematics. His accomplishments made British acoustics a subfield of physics, thus distinguishing it from the 'new acoustics' in early twentieth-century America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intermetallic compounds, or 'intermetallics' for short, have received extensive attention in recent years because of their technological promise as high-temperature structural materials. This technical research has been accompanied by a programme of curiosity-driven research which has uncovered a number of novel physical features, beginning with a major burst of research on vacant lattice sites in certain intermetallics, and continuing with such phenomena as dislocation injection across phase boundaries, structural aspects of Laves phases and the use of an intermetallic to separate hydrogen isotopes. Some of these recent developments are surveyed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the decreasing numbers of British young people who want to study physics in higher education. Response of students to the question of why they do not want to study physics, in a survey by the Institute of Physics in Great Britain; The perception of physics as dull and irrelevant; Falling applications for undergraduate courses; Statistics; Comparison of the United States to Great Britain on the issue. INSETS: Bright prospects and high salaries;Exciting times at the interface with other disciplines;Modelling makes the money go round;Job search starts here

Relates an experience on the history of physics in Great Britain as of 1915 to 1975. Views on the activities of academic scientists in teaching and research; Discussions on the re-discovery of the planet Neptune; Opinions on nuclear physics.

The phenomenon of radon in houses and its possible health effects are reviewed with special reference to homes in the UK. The role of physics in our understanding of radon, from its behaviour in room air to its radiation dosimetry, is explained. The evidence linking domestic radon exposure to the incidence of certain cancers in the general population is described in terms of the possible role played by natural -irradiation in the induction of some cancers in man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, one in two people will develop cancer during their lifetimes and radiotherapy (RT) plays a key role in effective treatment. High energy proton beam therapy commenced in the UK National Health Service in 2018. Heavier charged particles have potential advantages over protons by delivering more dose in the Bragg peak, with a sharper penumbra, lower oxygen dependence and increased biological effectiveness. However, they also require more costly equipment including larger gantries to deliver the treatment. There are significant uncertainties in the modelling of relative biological effectiveness and the effects of the fragmentation tail which can deliver dose beyond the Bragg peak. These effects need to be carefully considered especially in relation to long-term outcomes. In 2019, a group of clinicians, clinical scientists, engineers, physical and life scientists from academia and industry, together with funding agency stakeholders, met to consider how the UK should address new technologies for RT, especially the use of heavier charged particles such as helium and carbon and new modes of delivery such as FLASH and spatially fractionated radiotherapy (SFRT). There was unanimous agreement that the UK should develop a facility for heavier charged particle therapy, perhaps constituting a new National Ion Research Centre to enable research using protons and heavier charged particles. Discussion followed on the scale and features, including which ions should be included, from protons through helium, boron, and lithium to carbon, and even oxygen. The consensus view was that any facility intended to treat patients must be located in a hospital setting while providing dedicated research space for physics, preclinical biology and clinical research with beam lines designed for both in vitro and in vivo research. The facility should to be able to investigate and deliver both ultra-high dose rate FLASH RT and SFRT (GRID, minibeams etc.). Discussion included a number of accelerator design options and whether gantries were required. Other potential collaborations might be exploited, including with space agencies, electronics and global communications industries and the nuclear industry. In preparation for clinical delivery, there may be opportunities to send patients overseas (for 12C or 4He ion therapy) using the model of the National Health Service (NHS) Proton Overseas Programme and to look at potential national clinical trials which include heavier ions, FLASH or SFRT. This could be accomplished under the auspices of NCRI CTRad (National Cancer Research Institute, Clinical and Translational Radiotherapy Research Working Group). The initiative should be a community approach, involving all interested parties with a vision that combines discovery science, a translational research capability and a clinical treatment facility. Barriers to the project and ways to overcome them were discussed. Finally, a set of different scenarios of features with different costs and timelines was constructed, with consideration given to the funding environment (prer-Covid-19) and need for cross-funder collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the aspects of 20th century British astronomy that may be significant for future astronomical research. Topics discussed include the factors that influence astronomical research in the 20th century, the challenges of archiving and maintaining research study results related to astronomy and the factors that should be considered in determining which results should be kept and how to preserve them.

Reports on the contribution of scientist Victor Ronald Saunders in the field of molecular physics in Great Britain. Expertise in Gaussian integral evaluation that led him to offer summer schools about the topic; Development of a direct minimization approach to the solution of the SCF equations based on conjugate gradient method; Efforts made to produce electronic structure computer programs that would be available to all users.

In this work, we apply digital rock physics (DRP) to characterise the pore geometries of the Brae Formation sandstones. Core plugs used for image acquisition, subsampled from standard ~15 cm wide core to 5mm diameter plugs, pertain to two different wells located in the Brae-Miller fields complex (North Sea, UK). Using micro-CT scans at two resolutions, we calculate the porosity, permeability and generate pore network models to assess pore shape characteristics and heterogeneity. The images are filtered and segmented to separate the porosity from grain/matrix. The pore space images are then further processed to calculate the proportion of effective porosity before pore network modelling and the simulation of absolute permeability. The samples display a range in total porosities from 5% to 15% with the connected proportions of the pore space showing only a slight decrease. Pore network model results indicate that the samples have median pore and throat radii ranging from 6 um to 17 um and 6 um to 13 um respectively. The throat length of all samples has a median value ranging between 36 um and 82 um. Absolute permeability simulations highlight that there is anisotropic permeability in all samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deals with the increase in science and education budget in Great Britain. Expected growth in the funding by 2005-2006; Extra fund to be received by main physics funding agencies Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council; Statement given by the Treasury in its announcement of the budget hike.

Reveals that research in physics and astronomy in Great Britain is at the very highest level worldwide, according to an international panel. Praise on the nuclear physics community; Panel's strongest recommendation; Comments from University of Bristol physicist Michael Springford.

Reports the cuts that the United Kingdom's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has planned for physics, as well as marine technology. The lack of enough innovative ideas and enough links with industry to justify funding physics; Physicists' concern that the EPSRC understand that the way that physics contributes to wealth creation is not through an industry, but by underpinning developments across many industries.