Painting the road to Research Data Management at the RCA

This presentation formed part of an event hosted by the Digital Curation Centre which explored the challenges and opportunities surrounding Research Data Management (RDM) in the arts with a focus on what RDM means in relation to practice research. Over the past year the RCA has been working to develop a Research Data Management service and associated policy. This presentation outlined the work that has already taken place, whilst also exploring plans for the future development and rollout of the service

Phytochrome A mediates blue-light enhancement of second-positive phototropism in Arabidopsis

Hypocotyl phototropism of etiolated Arabidopsis seedlings is primarily mediated by the blue-light receptor kinase phototropin 1 (phot1). Phot1-mediated curvature to continuous unilateral blue light irradiation (0.5 µmol m-2 s-1) is enhanced by overhead pre-treatment with red light (20 µmol m-2 s-1 for 15 min) through the action of phytochrome (phyA). Here, we show that pre-treatment with blue light is equally as effective in eliciting phototropic enhancement and is dependent on phyA. Although blue pre-treatment was sufficient to activate early phot1 signalling events, phot1 autophosphorylation in vivo was not found to be saturated, as assessed by subsequently measuring phot1 kinase activity in vitro. However, enhancement effects to red and blue pre-treatment were not observed at higher intensities of phototropic stimulation (10 µmol m-2 s-1). Phototropic enhancement to red and blue pre-treatments to 0.5 µmol m-2 s-1 unilateral blue light irradiation was also lacking in transgenic Arabidopsis where PHOT1 expression was restricted to the epidermis. Together, these findings indicate that phyA-mediated effects on phot1 signalling are restricted to low intensities of phototropic stimulation and originate from tissues other than the epidermis

Rapid virological surveillance of community influenza infection in general practice

No abstract available

Studies of some aliphatic constituents of shellac

The application of various chromatographic technique to the mixed esters prepared from shellac has led to the discovery of ether-linked polymer fragments in shellac and the isolation and identification of a number of hitherto unrecognised aliphatic acids including saturated and unsaturated non-hydroxy acids, 6-keto-tetr'adecanoic acid, 6-hydroxytetradecanoic acid, 10-hydroxyhexadec-9-enoic acid, 16-hydroxyhexadecanoic acid, threo 9,10-dihydroxytetradecanoic acid. Appendix Lipolytic Studies of some Seed Oils containing Sterculic Acid. The sterculic acid containing seed oils, Eombacopsis glabra, Sterculia parviflora and Sterculia macrophylla, were examined and subjected to hydrolysis with pancreatic lipase

Distinguishing between Rooted and Rootless Detachments: A Case Study from the Mormon Mountains of Southeastern Nevada

Rooted detachment faults and detachments beneath rootless slide blocks exhibit many similar structural characteristics. However, while rooted detachments are thought to penetrate into the midcrust and to accommodate significant crustal extension, rootless detachments break to the surface downdip and are not directly involved in such extension. Distinguishing between these two mechanically different kinds of structure is central to the assessment of extension magnitude. Here we examine deformation along the Mormon Peak detachment, a feature that has been cited as an example of both a rooted and a rootless structure. Located in the Mormon Mountains of southeastern Nevada, this detachment has been interpreted as one of three low‐angle normal faults of regional scale that together are thought to have accommodated more than 50 km of Basin and Range extension. For the most part, however, the Mormon Peak detachment is expressed as a series of isolated exposures where Paleozoic rocks are in brittle fault contact with nonmylonitized underlying rocks. Individual blocks contain high‐angle normal faults that terminate downward at their respective detachment surfaces, yielding a geometry common to both modes of emplacement. In order to test between these competing interpretations, we studied deformational characteristics close to the detachment surface, reasoning that a seismogenic fault ought to differ fundamentally from a surficial slide block, particularly if the slide block was emplaced in a single event rather than by protracted or episodic creep. An examination of the contact mapped as the Mormon Peak detachment reveals that the character of deformation is indistinguishable from that of known gravity‐driven slide blocks and is fundamentally different from that associated with seismically cycled faults. Moreover, the orientation of kinematic indicators observed at detachment surfaces is consistently close to the downdip direction, which in many places diverges strongly from the expected direction of movement in the rooted detachment model. We conclude that outcrops of the inferred upper plate of the Mormon Peak detachment represent an assemblage of individual rootless gravity‐driven slide blocks and not the erosional remnants of a formerly contiguous extensional allochthon. If similar misidentifications have been made elsewhere in the Basin and Range Province, total Cenozoic extension may have been significantly overestimated. Implications for the interpretation of extensional geology in general are far‐reaching

Royal College of Art - Research Data Management Policy

This policy presents the principles of good research data management (RDM) within the Royal College of Art (RCA), as well as outlining the roles and responsibilities of the RCA and its staff and students in this respect. Research data is an asset and the RCA recognises its benefit and impact for wider society, the research community, the RCA and its individual researchers. Effective management of research data allows for extension of the value of data beyond the life of any research project, through data openness and sharing, and is an important part of good research conduct. Well managed data leads to higher quality research, increased research visibility and enhanced research collaboration opportunities. RDM is important in light of increasingly collaborative nature of research, where researchers need to share data across platforms and thus need effective systems and processes for storing, accessing and sharing data securely across multi-institutional research teams

Observations from the Basin and Range Province (Western United States) Pertinent to the Interpretation of Regional Detachment Faults

This paper summarizes the results of completed and ongoing research in three areas of the Basin and Range Province of the western United States that casts doubt on the interpretation of specific regional detachment faults and the large extensional strains with which such faults are commonly associated. Given that these examples were influential in the development of ideas about low-angle normal faults, and particularly in making the case for frictional slip at dips of appreciably less than the 30° lock-up angle for μ ≈ 0.6 (where μ is the coefficient of friction), we advocate a critical re-examination of interpreted detachments elsewhere in the Basin and Range Province and in other extensional and passive margin settings. The Sevier Desert ‘detachment’ of west-central Utah is reinterpreted as a Palaeogene unconformity that has been traced to depth west of the northern Sevier Desert basin along an unrelated seismic reflection (most probably a splay of the Cretaceous-age Pavant thrust). The absence of evidence in well cuttings and cores for either brittle deformation (above) or ductile deformation (below) is inconsistent with the existence of a fault with as much as 40 km of displacement. The Pavant thrust and the structurally higher Canyon Range thrust are erosionally truncated at the western margin of the southern Sevier Desert basin, and are not offset by the ‘detachment’ in the manner assumed by those inferring large extension across the basin. The Mormon Peak detachment of SE Nevada is reinterpreted as a series of slide blocks on the basis of detachment characteristics and spatially variable kinematic indicators that are more closely aligned with the modern dip direction than the inferred regional extension direction. A particularly distinctive feature of the detachment is a basal layer of up to several tens of centimetres of polymictic conglomerate that was demonstrably involved in the deformation, with clastic dykes of the same material extending for several metres into overlying rocks in a manner remarkably similar to that observed at rapidly emplaced slide blocks. The Castle Cliff detachment in the nearby Beaver Dam Mountains of SW Utah is similarly regarded as a surficial feature, as originally interpreted, and consistent with its conspicuous absence in seismic reflection profiles from the adjacent sedimentary basin. The middle Miocene Eagle Mountain Formation of eastern California, interpreted on the basis of facies evidence and distinctive clast provenance to have been moved tectonically more than 80 km ESE from a location close to the Jurassic-age Hunter Mountain batholith of the Cottonwood Mountains, is reinterpreted as having accumulated in a fluvial–lacustrine rather than alluvial fan–lacustrine setting, with no bearing on either the amount or direction of tectonic transport. The conglomeratic rocks upon which the provenance argument was based are pervasively channelized, with erosional relief of less than 1 m to as much as 15 m, fining-upwards successions at the same scale and abundant trough cross-stratification – all characteristic features of fluvial sedimentation and not of alluvial fans. The interpretation of the Eagle Mountain Formation as having been deposited within a few kilometres of the Hunter Mountain batholith, which depends strongly on assumptions about the dimensions of alluvial fans, is therefore not required. The result is important because the Eagle Mountain offset has been viewed as representing the strongest evidence for extreme extension in this part of California, and for the existence of detachment faults of regional dimensions

Notes of ARMA UKRI Open Access Policy on Books Meeting 08 September 2021

No abstract available

Making a Net Zero Society - Follow the Social Science. Summary report

The Economic and Social Research Council-funded ACCESS network drew together an independent task force of experts to consider the role of social science in UK net zero policy. The task force, which ran for one year between 2023-2024, reviewed a range of social science perspectives, analysed examples of government net zero plans and built understanding from case studies of societal change. We now call upon government to make more consistent and effective use of social science in delivering UK net zero ambitions. Our work shows the huge opportunities, and wide range of benefits, that can be delivered through sustained action to reduce demand for energy. To achieve net zero we need actors from across society to be engaged. Actors that work at the mid-level, between scales, silos and sectors, are especially important. Engaging citizens in meaningful debate about change and generating positive visions of a net zero future will also be essential. We recommend that government establish a Net Zero Social Science Advisory Committee in the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)Leverhulme Trus

Conducting retrospective impact analysis to inform a medical research charity’s funding strategies: The case of Asthma UK

© 2013 Hanney et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.BACKGROUND: Debate is intensifying about how to assess the full range of impacts from medical research. Complexity increases when assessing the diverse funding streams of funders such as Asthma UK, a charitable patient organisation supporting medical research to benefit people with asthma. This paper aims to describe the various impacts identified from a range of Asthma UK research, and explore how Asthma UK utilised the characteristics of successful funding approaches to inform future research strategies. METHODS: We adapted the Payback Framework, using it both in a survey and to help structure interviews, documentary analysis, and case studies. We sent surveys to 153 lead researchers of projects, plus 10 past research fellows, and also conducted 14 detailed case studies. These covered nine projects and two fellowships, in addition to the innovative case studies on the professorial chairs (funded since 1988) and the MRC-Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma (the ‘Centre’) which together facilitated a comprehensive analysis of the whole funding portfolio. We organised each case study to capture whatever academic and wider societal impacts (or payback) might have arisen given the diverse timescales, size of funding involved, and extent to which Asthma UK funding contributed to the impacts. RESULTS: Projects recorded an average of four peer-reviewed journal articles. Together the chairs reported over 500 papers. All streams of funding attracted follow-on funding. Each of the various categories of societal impacts arose from only a minority of individual projects and fellowships. Some of the research portfolio is influencing asthma-related clinical guidelines, and some contributing to product development. The latter includes potentially major breakthroughs in asthma therapies (in immunotherapy, and new inhaled drugs) trialled by university spin-out companies. Such research-informed guidelines and medicines can, in turn, contribute to health improvements. The role of the chairs and the pioneering collaborative Centre is shown as being particularly important. CONCLUSIONS: We systematically demonstrate that all types of Asthma UK’s research funding assessed are making impacts at different levels, but the main societal impacts from projects and fellowships come from a minority of those funded. Asthma UK used the study’s findings, especially in relation to the Centre, to inform research funding strategies to promote the achievement of impact.This study was funded by Asthma UK