UK Scientists Research Articles

History of Tribology in Finland 1881 – 2023 and the Finnish Society for Tribology 1977 - 2023

The field of Tribology defined as the “science and technology of interacting surfaces in relative motion, that is friction, lubrication and wear” was introduced to the scientific community in a UK governmental report 1966. UK experts and scientists introduced this new approach to solve industrial problems in engineering design, material technology and lubricant chemistry to Finnish colleagues in the late 1970s. The foundation of the Finnish Society for Tribology 1977 boosted academic and technological activities in the area. Tribology as a topic was introduced in the Finnish universities. Investments were made in collaborative research activities with universities, research centers and industry involved. The international collaboration expanded and the Finnish tribologists initiated and started the 1st NORDTRIB regional tribology conference series in Tampere 1984 and hosted the worldwide 5th EUROTRIB International Tribology Congress in Helsinki 1989. The Finnish Journal of Tribology was established 1982. Large joint research activities were generated especially with the Nordic and European countries, Soviet Union and China. Internationally recognized top research groups were initiated and flourished in Tampere and Helsinki on the topics of abrasive, slurry-erosion and fretting wear; engineering ceramics; thin coating tribology; biotribology; computational modelling in tribology; and calculations on global economic and environmental impact of tribology. This article is modified from the report which the Finnish Society for Tribology contributed to the project “History of Science in Finland” by The Federation of the Finnish Learned Societies (Tieteellisten Seurain Valtuuskunta, TSV).

There Is a Lot More to Transplantation Surgery Than the Surgery Itself: The "Other" Sir Peter John Morris, AC, FRS.

There Is a Lot More to Transplantation Surgery Than the Surgery Itself: The "Other" Sir Peter John Morris, AC, FRS.

History of EISCAT – Part 6: the participation of Japan in the EISCAT Scientific Association

Abstract. In Sect. 1, the original planning of Japanese Svalbard IS (incoherent scatter) radar with phased-array antennas is described. In 1988, this plan was proposed as one of the major projects for the forthcoming Solar–Terrestrial Environment Laboratory, Nagoya University, Japan, to be reorganized by the Research Institute of Atmospherics at Nagoya University. On the other hand, in 1989, UK scientists proposed a plan of polar cap radar with parabolic dish antennas in Longyearbyen to the EISCAT (European incoherent scatter) Council. In Sect. 2, the circumstances leading to Japan's participation in the EISCAT Scientific Association, with details of its processes with strong collaborations with Norwegian scientists and the EISCAT Scientific Association are described. In 1995, Japan participated EISCAT Scientific Association as the seventh member country with funds contributing to the second dish antenna of the EISCAT Svalbard Radar. In Sect. 3, a summary of the EISCAT-related achievement by Japanese scientists is described, where major interests are the lower thermosphere wind dynamics, the magnetosphere–ionosphere–thermosphere coupling, characteristics, and driving mechanisms of ion upflow, electrodynamics of current, electric field and particles, characteristics and production mechanisms of auroras, such as pulsating aurora, and aurora tomography. In Sect. 4, a summary of the scientific collaborations between Japan and Europe, particularly those between Japan and Norway, and hopes for the forthcoming EISCAT_3D and further collaboration with EISCAT community are described.

Effectiveness of a parenting programme to reduce violence in a cash transfer system in the Philippines: RCT with follow-up.

BackgroundParenting interventions and conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes are promising strategies to reduce the risk of violence against children, but evidence of the effectiveness of combining such programmes is lacking for families in low- and middle-income countries with children over two years of age. This study examined the effectiveness of a locally adapted parenting programme delivered as part of a government CCT system to low-income families with children aged two to six years in Metro Manila, Philippines.MethodsParticipants were randomly assigned (1:1) to either a 12-session group-based parenting programme or treatment-as-usual services (N = 120). Participation in either service was required among the conditions for receiving cash grants. Baseline assessments were conducted in July 2017 with one-month post-intervention assessments in January-February 2018 and 12-month follow-up in January-February 2019. All assessments were parent-report (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03205449).FindingsOne-month post-intervention assessments indicated moderate intervention effects for primary outcomes of reduced overall child maltreatment (d = -0.50 [-0.86, -0.13]), emotional abuse (d = -0.59 [-0.95; -0.22]), physical abuse (IRR = 0.51 [0.27; 0.74]), and neglect (IRR = 0.52 [0.18; 0.85]). There were also significant effects for reduced dysfunctional parenting, child behaviour problems, and intimate partner violence, and increased parental efficacy and positive parenting. Reduced overall maltreatment, emotional abuse, and neglect effects were sustained at one-year follow-up.InterpretationFindings suggest that a culturally adapted parenting intervention delivered as part of a CCT programme may be effective in sustaining reductions in violence against children in low- and middle-income countries.FundingThis research was supported by UBS Optimus Foundation and UNICEF Philippines, and by the Complexity and Relationships in Health Improvement Programmes of the Medical Research Council MRC UK and Chief Scientist Office (Grant: MC_UU_00022/1 and CSO SPHSU16, MC_UU_00022/3 and CSO SPHSU18).

Effectiveness of a Parenting Programme Delivered Within a Conditional Cash Transfer System to Reduce Violence Against Children in the Philippines: Results From a Randomised Controlled Trial With 1-Year Follow-Up

Background: Parenting interventions and conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes are promising strategies to reduce the risk of violence against children, but evidence of the effectiveness of combining such programmes is lacking for families in low- and middle-income countries with children over 2 years of age. This study examined the effectiveness of a locally-adapted parenting programme delivered as part of a government CCT system to low-income families with children aged 2 to 6 years in Metro Manila, Philippines. Methods: Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to either a 12-session group-based parenting programme or a control group receiving usual family services ( N = 120). Participation in either service was required among the conditions for receiving cash grants. Baseline assessments were conducted in July 2017 with 1-month post-intervention assessments in January 2018 and 12-month follow-up in January 2019. Findings: One-month post-intervention assessments indicated moderate intervention effects for primary outcomes of reduced overall child maltreatment (d = -0·50 [-0·86, -0·13]), emotional abuse (d = -0·59 [-0·95; -0·22]), physical abuse (IRR = 0·51 [0·27; 0·74]), and neglect (IRR = 0·52 [0·18; 0·85]). There were also significant effects for reduced dysfunctional parenting, child behaviour problems, and intimate partner violence, and increased parental efficacy and positive parenting. Reduced overall maltreatment, emotional abuse, and neglect effects were sustained at 1-year follow-up. Interpretation: Findings suggest that a culturally-adapted parenting intervention delivered as part of a CCT programme may be effective in sustaining reductions in violence against children in low- and middle-income countries. Clinical Trial Registration Details: All assessments were parent-report (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03205449). Funding Information: This research was supported by UBS Optimus Foundation and UNICEF Philippines, and by the Complexity and Relationships in Health Improvement Programmes of the Medical Research Council MRC UK and Chief Scientist Office (Grant: MC_UU_12017/14 and CSO SPHSUU14, MC_UU_1201711 and CSO SPHSU11). Declaration of Interests: Dr. Ward reports grants from UBS Optimus Foundation, grants from UNICEF Philippines, during the conduct of the study; Dr. Hutchings reports I received grant funding to contribute to the design of the trial and supervision of group leaders; Lachman is the co-developer of a non-profit parenting program with the World Health Organization ‘Parenting for Lifelong Health’, under a creative commons license, and receives fees as a trainer for this; Dr. Alampay reports that she led the team that culturally-adapted the parenting program that is being evaluated in the study; Dr. GARDNER reports grants from WHO VIOLENCE PREVENTION, grants from UNICEF Thailand, grants from UBS Optimus Foundation, outside the submitted work; and I am a co developer of the programme, PLH, tested in the trial. PLH material are open access, under a creative commons licence, and I receive no fees, royalties or other compensation as a result of its testing or implementation; all other authors have nothing to disclose. Ethics Approval Statement: Ethical procedures were approved by the University of Oxford Central University Research Ethics Committee (Reference: R43041/RE001), the Ateneo de Manila University Research Ethics Committee (Reference: AdMUREC_16_014PA), and the University of Cape Town Department of Psychology Research Ethics Committee (Reference: PSY2016-041).

Science Versus Public Sentiment: "Covid-19 is not a Bioweapon Created in a Laboratory, Say UK Scientists", "Nope, Don't Believe It", Say UK Public.

Science Versus Public Sentiment: "Covid-19 is not a Bioweapon Created in a Laboratory, Say UK Scientists", "Nope, Don't Believe It", Say UK Public.

India’s contribution to mitigating the impacts of climate change through vegetation management

The changes in natural ecosystems provide opportunity to increase vegetation carbon sink capacity and thereby contribute to mitigation of climate change impacts. The Indian tropics and the large ecological variation within the country afford the advantage of diverse niches and offer opportunities to reveal the role of biotic factors at different levels of organization from populations to ecosystems. The last 4 decades of research and development in the Indian space science community has been primarily application driven in response to the government space programme for national development. The expenditure in R&D over next 5 year suggest that scientific research is higher on the country's agenda. The Indo-UK Terrestrial Carbon Group (IUTCG) comprising both Indian and UK scientists, funded jointly by the Department of Science and Technology, India and the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills organised a workshop to explore ways in which Earth observation data can be effectively utilised in mitigating the impacts of climate change through vegetation management. Effective integration of field observations, collected through various monitoring networks, and satellite sensor data has been proposed to provide country-wide monitoring.

Can Neurotrophic Factor Be Neuroprotective in Parkinson's Disease? Despite Some Doubts, UK Scientists Push for a Phase 3 Study for Answers

Can Neurotrophic Factor Be Neuroprotective in Parkinson's Disease? Despite Some Doubts, UK Scientists Push for a Phase 3 Study for Answers

Most UK scientists who publish extremely highly-cited papers do not secure funding from major public and charity funders: A descriptive analysis.

The UK is one of the largest funders of health research in the world, but little is known about how health funding is spent. Our study explores whether major UK public and charitable health research funders support the research of UK-based scientists producing the most highly-cited research. To address this question, we searched for UK-based authors of peer-reviewed papers that were published between January 2006 and February 2018 and received over 1000 citations in Scopus. We explored whether these authors have held a grant from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Wellcome Trust and compared the results with UK-based researchers who serve currently on the boards of these bodies. From the 1,370 papers relevant to medical, biomedical, life and health sciences with more than 1000 citations in the period examined, we identified 223 individuals from a UK institution at the time of publication who were either first/last or single authors. Of those, 164 are still in UK academic institutions, while 59 are not currently in UK academia (have left the country, are retired, or work in other sectors). Of the 164 individuals, only 59 (36%; 95% CI: 29–43%) currently hold an active grant from one of the three funders. Only 79 (48%; 95% CI: 41–56%) have held an active grant from any of the three funders between 2006–2017. Conversely, 457 of the 664 board members of MRC, Wellcome Trust, and NIHR (69%; 95% CI: 65–72%) have held an active grant in the same period by any of these funders. Only 7 out of 655 board members (1.1%) were first, last or single authors of an extremely highly-cited paper. There are many reasons why the majority of the most influential UK authors do not hold a grant from the country’s major public and charitable funding bodies. Nevertheless, the results are worrisome and subscribe to similar patterns shown in the US. We discuss possible implications and suggest ways forward.

Co-development of a seasonal rainfall forecast service: Supporting flood risk management for the Yangtze River basin

The Yangtze River Basin in China is subject to high inter- and intra-annual variability in its rainfall, leading to challenges in flood protection and for the high-value agricultural activity and large urban populations and infrastructure along its banks. As part of the Climate Science for Services Partnership in China, Chinese and UK scientists, along with key decision makers in this region, are working closely together to understand the needs for climate information, co-develop a seasonal rainfall forecast service aiming to help meet these needs, and evaluate the value or usefulness of this service in supporting decision making to manage risk in the lower Yangtze Basin. We find that there is a range of users reliant on such a service, and that the current service contributes strongly to decision-making for many users. Through close co-operation between providers and users of the service, we also gain a good understanding of the limitations of the current service and outline developments needed to enhance its utility.

How UK Scientists Legitimize Religion and Science Through Boundary Work

AbstractResearch on the religious lives of scientists focuses mainly on U.S. scientists. Drawing on 115 interviews with UK biologists and physicists collected between 2011 and 2014, we move beyond to examine how UK scientists understand religion, a context that is seemingly more secular than the United States. Findings show that scientists maintain the legitimacy of science through boundary work with religion, and under certain conditions religion may actually gain legitimacy from these tight boundaries. When religion violates this tight boundary by making claims that conflict with science, particularly in the form of creationist claims, scientists consider religion illegitimate and irrational, engaging in critical boundary work. Yet, when they see religion as adaptable to science, flexible rather than dogmatic, scientists believe religion may be beneficial and engage in more conciliatory boundary work. This article shows how scientists react to religion and use it in ways that protect science’s epistemological and institutional authority.

ELIXIR-UK role in bioinformatics training at the national level and across ELIXIR

ELIXIR-UK is the UK node of ELIXIR, the European infrastructure for life science data. Since its foundation in 2014, ELIXIR-UK has played a leading role in training both within the UK and in the ELIXIR Training Platform, which coordinates and delivers training across all ELIXIR members. ELIXIR-UK contributes to the Training Platform’s coordination and supports the development of training to address key skill gaps amongst UK scientists. As part of this work it acts as a conduit for nationally-important bioinformatics training resources to promote their activities to the ELIXIR community. ELIXIR-UK also leads ELIXIR’s flagship Training Portal, TeSS, which collects information about a diverse range of training and makes it easily accessible to the community. ELIXIR-UK also works with others to provide key digital skills training, partnering with the Software Sustainability Institute to provide Software Carpentry training to the ELIXIR community and to establish the Data Carpentry initiative, and taking a lead role amongst national stakeholders to deliver the StaTS project – a coordinated effort to drive engagement with training in statistics.

ELIXIR-UK role in bioinformatics training at the national level and across ELIXIR.

ELIXIR-UK is the UK node of ELIXIR, the European infrastructure for life science data. Since its foundation in 2014, ELIXIR-UK has played a leading role in training both within the UK and in the ELIXIR Training Platform, which coordinates and delivers training across all ELIXIR members. ELIXIR-UK contributes to the Training Platform's coordination and supports the development of training to address key skill gaps amongst UK scientists. As part of this work it acts as a conduit for nationally-important bioinformatics training resources to promote their activities to the ELIXIR community. ELIXIR-UK also leads ELIXIR's flagship Training Portal, TeSS, which collects information about a diverse range of training and makes it easily accessible to the community. ELIXIR-UK also works with others to provide key digital skills training, partnering with the Software Sustainability Institute to provide Software Carpentry training to the ELIXIR community and to establish the Data Carpentry initiative, and taking a lead role amongst national stakeholders to deliver the StaTS project - a coordinated effort to drive engagement with training in statistics.

Society, politics, and the realm of physics

Day replies: Robert Orr’s belief that immigration was not the biggest reason leave voters favored Brexit is supported by an opinion poll conducted soon after the referendum.11. Lord Ashcroft Polls, 24 June 2016, http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why. Almost half of leave voters cited sovereignty as their main concern. But immigration came in second; it was the main concern of one-third of leave voters. What’s more, the UK Home Office reported a surge in racially or religiously motivated hate crimes in the month after the vote.22. M. Weaver, Guardian, “Hate crimes soared after EU referendum, Home Office figures confirm,” 13 October 2016. Hate crimes also rose in the US after the election of Donald Trump as president.33. M. Eversley, USA Today, “Post-election spate of hate crimes worse than post-9/11, experts say,” 12 November 2016.As for sticking to physics, this magazine has never done that. Our mission remains to report on physics, on the impact of physics on the wider world, and on the wider world’s impact on physics. The Brexit vote will affect physicists, so Physics Today covered it. (See “Brexit vote rattles UK and European scientists,” June 2016, Physics Today online.)It’s also part of Physics Today’s mission to serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas—which is why I welcome Orr’s letter.ReferencesSection:ChooseTop of pageReferences <<1. Lord Ashcroft Polls, 24 June 2016, http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why. Google Scholar2. M. Weaver, Guardian, “Hate crimes soared after EU referendum, Home Office figures confirm,” 13 October 2016. Google Scholar3. M. Eversley, USA Today, “Post-election spate of hate crimes worse than post-9/11, experts say,” 12 November 2016. Google Scholar© 2017 American Institute of Physics.

Brexit: A view from the BSI

Brexit: A view from the BSI

Tumour Takedown.

Developed by Cancer Research UK scientists in collaboration with Centre of the Cell team at Queen Mary University of London, this app helps users learn how some cancer treatments destroy the disease.

Resilient British science will withstand Brexit.

UK scientists have had to fight to stay international before, and they must not stop now, says Ehsan Masood.

Brexit vote rattles UK and European scientists

The UK’s decision to leave the European Union leads to concerns over funding and collaboration.

Motivational recipes and research performance: A fuzzy set analysis of the motivational profile of high performing research scientists

Recent research identifies internal self-concept motivation and instrumental motivation as having positive and negative effects, respectively, on the performance of research scientists. However, the majority of research examining the work motivations of research scientists employs bad research practices. The current study presents an alternative view of the relations between work motivations and research performance through the examination of causal recipes of research performance. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of a random sample of 300 UK scientists identifies recipes of work motivations that effectively foster high levels of research performance. Contrary to prior liner examinations of the relations between motivation and performance, results show that no unique combination of antecedent work motivations yield higher levels of research performance. This finding suggests that several combinations of work motivations can successfully drive high levels of research performance.

Providing scientific guidance on DNA to the judiciary

A series of short documents have been written in response to a request from the UK Judiciary for explanations of research that was commissioned in response to questions they had raised. These related principally to the potential impact of primer binding site mutation (PBSM) but it became clear at an early stage that it was necessary to explain related issues. The three scientific guidance papers (SGPs) that have been prepared thus far are presented in their entirety so that UK scientists may be aware of what has been presented to judges.Suggestions for further work, including possible communication to jurors are discussed.