The NHS-HE Forum

This paper discusses the formation of the NHS-HE Forum by Professor Roland Rosner in 2001. It looks at the aims and objectives of the Forum and maps current progress. The second part of the paper looks particularly at the NHS-HE Procurement Group and the later JISC NHS-HE Procurement Group, which are part of the Forum. These groupings have been partially successful in conducting joint procurement activity across the NHS and HE sectors. The publication of Dr Ian Gibson?s Parliamentary Report Scientific Publications: Free for All? is seminal in progressing this joint activity. As of 1 February 2006, joint membership of the Public Library of Science has been achieved, but one joint procurement activity of commercial content has failed. Further joint procurement is planned, along with a mapping study of procurement activities and work on an Athens Account Linking Project. The library and informatics research components are coming to the fore with the use of a community-wide survey to establish the current situation and future plans for NHS-HE network connectivity and similarly the Mapping Study of Procurement Practices in the NHS and HE for content such as e-journals. This is moving to a more systematic approach than previously. The attempted joint procurement of selected journals has two joint aims: to support both research and clinical practice in the NHS and HE. This paper discusses the formation of the NHS-HE Forum by Professor Roland Rosner in 2001. It looks at the aims and objectives of the Forum and maps current progress. The second part of the paper looks particularly at the NHS-HE Procurement Group and the later JISC NHS-HE Procurement Group, which are part of the Forum. These groupings have been partially successful in conducting joint procurement activity across the NHS and HE sectors. The publication of Dr Ian Gibson?s Parliamentary Report Scientific Publications: Free for All? is seminal in progressing this joint activity. As of 1 February 2006, joint membership of the Public Library of Science has been achieved, but one joint procurement activity of commercial content has failed. Further joint procurement is planned, along with a mapping study of procurement activities and work on an Athens Account Linking Project. The library and informatics research components are coming to the fore with the use of a community-wide survey to establish the current situation and future plans for NHS-HE network connectivity and similarly the Mapping Study of Procurement Practices in the NHS and HE for content such as e-journals. This is moving to a more systematic approach than previously. The attempted joint procurement of selected journals has two joint aims: to support both research and clinical practice in the NHS and HE

The DART-Europe project: towards developing a European theses portal

This paper will report on the new European theses project DART-Europe. The purpose of this project is to align institutional and national e-theses developments across Europe with the wider open archives movement by the construction of a European portal for research theses, thus enabling a global view of European institutional research assets. This project is driven through an innovative partnership between an information provider and an international body of university libraries and open access consortia. The project’s goal is to explore the creation of a European model for the deposit, discovery, use and long-term care of research theses in an open access environment. The paper will outline the projected outcomes of DART-Europe, which is an active group of institutions in addition to a technical service. To this end, DART-Europe is engaged with disciplines and institutions that are widening the definition of research by redefining the formats of theses. For institutions and countries without a repository infrastructure, DART-Europe will enable the creation of a depository. Institutions and countries with a repository infrastructure can engage with DART-Europe to deliver their e-theses. DART-Europe acts as a technology bridge for researchers between those who have existing infrastructures and those who do not. The DART-Europe architecture assumes free at point of use access to full text theses, whether held on the DART-Europe server or by institutional repositories. This paper will provide session attendees with the current progress of this initiative, including a report on the 5 strands of the project, including: architecture; creation of a management tool kit; content acquisition; digital preservation and an investigation of business models

Open Access in UCL: a new paradigm for London's Global University in research support

Open Access provides an opportunity for researchers to disseminate their research globally, but it comes with challenges. This article looks at the various ways in which UCL (University College London) has addressed those challenges, by investing in Open Access activities at the university

Meteorological Controls on Local and Regional Volcanic Ash Dispersal

Volcanic ash has the capacity to impact human health, livestock, crops and infrastructure, including international air traffic. For recent major eruptions, information on the volcanic ash plume has been combined with relatively coarse-resolution meteorological model output to provide simulations of regional ash dispersal, with reasonable success on the scale of hundreds of kilometres. However, to predict and mitigate these impacts locally, significant improvements in modelling capability are required. Here, we present results from a dynamic meteorological-ash-dispersion model configured with sufficient resolution to represent local topographic and convectively-forced flows. We focus on an archetypal volcanic setting, Soufrière, St Vincent, and use the exceptional historical records of the 1902 and 1979 eruptions to challenge our simulations. We find that the evolution and characteristics of ash deposition on St Vincent and nearby islands can be accurately simulated when the wind shear associated with the trade wind inversion and topographically-forced flows are represented. The wind shear plays a primary role and topographic flows a secondary role on ash distribution on local to regional scales. We propose a new explanation for the downwind ash deposition maxima, commonly observed in volcanic eruptions, as resulting from the detailed forcing of mesoscale meteorology on the ash plume

A novel apparatus for the simulation of eruptive gas-rock interactions

The chemical interactions between hot volcanic gases and co-erupted magmatic and lithic particles within eruption plumes and pyroclastic flows are increasingly investigated for their relevance to the impacts of ash emission on natural and human environments. Laboratory experiments are critical to our understanding of high-temperature gas-ash interactions, but previous studies are yet to replicate the chemical composition of the high-temperature volcanic gases involved. Here, we present a unique apparatus, the Advanced Gas-Ash Reactor, capable of generating an atmosphere of H2O, CO2, SO2 and HCl at temperatures ranging from 200 to 900 °C, under variable heating and cooling rates. Experiments utilising the reactor can inform investigations of a range of topics, from subsurface gas-rock interaction and in-plume gas adsorption processes, to the effect of ash surface chemistry on marine nutrient loadings and atmospheric chemistry. Our results demonstrate the differences in hightemperature gas uptake by volcanic glass powders under both hydrous and anhydrous atmospheres and, accordingly, demonstrate the utility of the new reactor