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Fusion power could be one of a few sustainable options in a portfolio required to replace fossil fuels as the world's primary energy source. The attractive properties of fusion combined with the imperative to address climate change has resulted in a burgeoning interest in the field with a dramatic growth in privately funded fusion ventures in recent years. Historically, fusion has been developed by governments globally, including through ITER, the largest scientific collaborative project ever undertaken. The result is that the majority of people working in fusion today as well as most of the intellectual property reside within the public sector. However, there is equally a recognition that the private sector plays a vital role in delivering large-scale infrastructure projects, especially at the pace and agility required in the case of fusion and because it is the private sector that ultimately will deliver a fleet of fusion plants. Therefore, many countries are increasingly pursuing variants of public–private partnerships in the delivery of fusion. In this paper, we provide the perspective of expedient delivery of fusion through public–private partnership as presently intended in the UK fusion program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been rapid growth in demand for precision grade micro-electromechanical system microphones (MEMSMs). While new applications are increasingly demanding in terms of MEMSM performance, research and development of the technology is thus far keeping pace. To calibrate all these new MEMSMs, a reliable and cost-efficient method for bulk calibration of MEMSMs is urgently required. This paper describes a pilot version of such a method, carried out at the United Kingdom's National Physical Laboratory. The method was intended for use by MEMSM manufacturers themselves for bulk calibration. It may also be usable by manufacturers of devices that incorporate multiple MEMSMs for bulk calibration of these MEMSMs, provided that they are detachable from the devices' circuit-boards. The uncertainty of the method has been compared to that of the coupler comparison calibration which is a technique for acoustic pressure calibration of precision microphones. It is concluded that the pilot method is promising as the basis of a method for the bulk calibration of precision MEMSMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the design and operation of the Polaris time-of-flight powder neutron diffractometer at the ISIS pulsed spallation neutron source, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK. Following a major upgrade to the diffractometer in 2010–2011, its detector provision now comprises five large ZnS scintillator-based banks, covering an angular range of 6° ≤ 2θ ≤ 168°, with only minimal gaps between each bank. These detectors have a substantially increased solid angle coverage (Ω ∼ 5.67 sr) compared to the previous instrument (Ω ∼ 0.82 sr), resulting in increases in count rate of between 2× and 10×, depending on 2θ angle. The benefits arising from the high count rates achieved are illustrated using selected examples of experiments studying small sample volumes and performing rapid, time-resolved investigations. In addition, the enhanced capabilities of the diffractometer in the areas of in situ studies (which are facilitated by the installation of a novel design of radial collimator around the sample position and by a complementary programme of advanced sample environment developments) and in total scattering studies (to probe the nature of short-range atomic correlations within disordered crystalline solids) are demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A seminal contribution in the domain of physiologically relevant biological structure and function determination was by Keith Moffat, of Cornell and latterly of the University of Chicago proposing that synchrotrons should offer the option of a Laue method data collection mode. I enthusiastically joined in supporting this initiative. This proposal needed detailed methods development though; theoretical, experimental and software development. This work was added to the broad research and development program of synchrotron radiation at the UK's SRS. This whole program led to knowledge transfer from the UK's SRS to the ESRF as well as for neutron Laue protein crystallography to the reactor spallation sources and later to spallation neutron sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a large scale, detailed acoustic survey of 42 open plan classrooms of varying design in the UK each of which contained between 2 and 14 teaching areas or classbases. The objective survey procedure, which was designed specifically for use in open plan classrooms, is described. The acoustic measurements relating to speech intelligibility within a classbase, including ambient noise level, intrusive noise level, speech to noise ratio, speech transmission index, and reverberation time, are presented. The effects on speech intelligibility of critical physical design variables, such as the number of classbases within an open plan unit and the selection of acoustic finishes for control of reverberation, are examined. This analysis enables limitations of open plan classrooms to be discussed and acoustic design guidelines to be developed to ensure good listening conditions. The types of teaching activity to provide adequate acoustic conditions, plus the speech intelligibility requirements of younger children, are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to this work no structured mechanism existed in the UK to evaluate the tranquillity of open spaces with respect to the characteristics of both acoustic and visual stimuli. This is largely due to the fact that within the context of “tranquil” environments, little is known about the interaction of the audio-visual modalities and how they combine to lead to the perception of tranquillity. This paper presents the findings of a study in which visual and acoustic data, captured from 11 English rural and urban landscapes, were used by 44 volunteers to make subjective assessments of both their perceived tranquillity of a location, and the loudness of five generic soundscape components. The results were then analyzed alongside objective measurements taken in the laboratory. It was found that the maximum sound pressure level (LAmax) and the percentage of natural features present at a location were the key factors influencing tranquillity. Engineering formulas for the tranquillity as a function of the noise level and proportion of the natural features are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing monkeypox outbreak that began in the UK has currently spread to every continent. Here, we use ordinary differential equations to build a nine-compartmental mathematical model to examine the dynamics of monkeypox transmission. The basic reproduction number for both humans ( R 0 h) and animals ( R 0 a) is obtained using the next-generation matrix technique. Depending on the values of R 0 h and R 0 a , we discovered that there are three equilibria. The current study also looks at the stability of all equilibria. We discovered that the model experiences transcritical bifurcation at R 0 a = 1 for any value of R 0 h and at R 0 h = 1 for R 0 a < 1. This is the first study that, to the best of our knowledge, has constructed and solved an optimal monkeypox control strategy while taking vaccination and treatment controls into consideration. The infected averted ratio and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio were calculated to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of all viable control methods. Using the sensitivity index technique, the parameters used in the formulation of R 0 h and R 0 a are scaled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy storage plays a crucial role in the safe and stable operation of power systems under high renewable energy penetration. Unlike conventional energy sources, the special physical characteristics of battery energy storage make it challenging to apply in practice. Some countries have been developing battery energy storage for a long time, and it is worthwhile to learn from the policies and market mechanisms for the development of battery energy storage to clear the obstacles for large-scale development and participation in the power market. This study focuses on the current status of battery energy storage, development policies, and key mechanisms for participating in the market and summarizes the practical experiences of the US, China, Australia, and the UK in terms of policies and market mechanisms. Then, the challenges of the current development of battery energy storage are analyzed, and suggestions are made in terms of policies and market mechanisms, so as to provide a reference for the development of battery energy storage in other countries or regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research quantifies the influence of source type and the presence of audible vibration-induced rattle on annoyance caused by vibration in residential environments. The sources of vibration considered are railway and the construction of a light rail system. Data were measured in the United Kingdom using a socio-vibration survey (N=1281). These data are analyzed using ordinal logit models to produce exposure-response relationships describing community annoyance as a function of vibration exposure. The influence of source type and the presence of audible vibration-induced rattle on annoyance are investigated using dummy variable analysis, and quantified using odds-ratios and community tolerance levels. It is concluded that the sample population is more likely to express higher levels of annoyance if the vibration source is construction compared to railway, and if vibration-induced rattle is audible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an in-vacuum mechanical chopper running at high speed and integrated into a magnetic levitating motor for modulating optical beams up to 200 kHz. The compact chopper rotor allows fast acceleration (10 kHz s−1 as standard) for rapid tuning of the modulation frequency, while 1 mm diameter slots provide high optical throughput for larger infrared beams. The modulation performances are assessed using a reference visible laser and the high brightness, broadband, infrared (IR) beam of synchrotron radiation at the MIRIAM beamline B22 at Diamond Light Source, UK. For our application of IR nanospectroscopy, minimizing the temporal jitter on the modulated beam due to chopper manufacturing and control tolerances is essential to limit the noise level in measurements via lock-in detection, while high modulation frequencies are needed to achieve high spatial resolution in photothermal nanospectroscopy. When reaching the maximum chopping frequency of 200 kHz, the jitter was found to be 0.9% peak-to-peak. The described chopper now replaces the standard ball-bearing chopper in our synchrotron-based FTIR photothermal nanospectroscopy system, and we demonstrate improved spectroscopy results on a 200 nm thickness polymer film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) results in over 100 000 hospital attendances per year in the UK alone and is a leading cause for the post-marketing withdrawal of new drugs, leading to significant financial losses. MicroRNA-122 (miR-122) has been proposed as a sensitive DILI marker although no commercial applications are available yet. Extracellular blood microRNAs (miRNAs) are promising clinical biomarkers but their measurement at point of care remains time-consuming, technically challenging, and expensive. For circulating miRNA to have an impact on healthcare, a key challenge to overcome is the development of rapid and reliable low-cost sample preparation. There is an acknowledged issue with miRNA stability in the presence of hemolysis and platelet activation, and no solution has been demonstrated for fast and robust extraction at the site of blood draw. Here, we report a novel microfluidic platform for the extraction of circulating miR-122 from blood enabled by a vertical approach and gravity-based bubble mixing. The performance of this disposable cartridge was verified by standard quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis on extracted miR-122. The cartridge performed equivalently or better than standard bench extraction kits. The extraction cartridge was combined with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to detect miR-122 as an initial proof-of-concept toward an application in point-of-care detection. This platform enables the standardization of sample preparation and the detection of miRNAs at the point of blood draw and in resource limited settings and could aid the introduction of miRNA-based assays into routine clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns, road traffic volumes reduced significantly leading to reduced pollutant concentrations and noise levels. Noise and the air pollution data during the lockdown period and loosening of restrictions through five phases in 2021 are examined for a school site in the United Kingdom. Hourly and daily average noise level as well as the average over each phase, correlations between noise and air pollutants, variations between pollutants, and underlying reasons explaining the temporal variations are explored. Some strong linear correlations were identified between a number of traffic-sourced air pollutants, especially between the differently sized particulates PM1, PM2.5, and PM10 (0.70 < r <0.98) in all phases and an expected inverse correlation between nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ground-level ozone (O3) (–0.68 < r < –0.78) as NO2 is a precursor of O3. Noise levels exhibit a weak correlation with the measured air pollutants and moderate correlation with meteorological factors, including wind direction, temperature, and relative humidity. There was a consistent and significant increase in noise levels (p < 0.01) of up to 3 dB with initial easing, and this was maintained through the remaining phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex network analyses have provided clues to improve power-grid stability with the help of numerical models. The high computational cost of numerical simulations, however, has inhibited the approach, especially when it deals with the dynamic properties of power grids such as frequency synchronization. In this study, we investigate machine learning techniques to estimate the stability of power-grid synchronization. We test three different machine learning algorithms—random forest, support vector machine, and artificial neural network—training them with two different types of synthetic power grids consisting of homogeneous and heterogeneous input-power distribution, respectively. We find that the three machine learning models better predict the synchronization stability of power-grid nodes when they are trained with the heterogeneous input-power distribution rather than the homogeneous one. With the real-world power grids of Great Britain, Spain, France, and Germany, we also demonstrate that the machine learning algorithms trained on synthetic power grids are transferable to the stability prediction of the real-world power grids, which implies the prospective applicability of machine learning techniques on power-grid studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ORION laser facility is one of the UK's premier laser facilities which became operational at AWE in 2010. Its primary mission is one of stockpile stewardship, ORION will extend the UK's experimental plasma physics capability to the high temperature, high density regime relevant to Atomic Weapons Establishment's (AWE) program. The ORION laser combines ten laser beams operating in the ns regime with two sub ps short pulse chirped pulse amplification beams. This gives the UK a unique combined long pulse/short pulse laser capability which is not only available to AWE personnel but also gives access to our international partners and visiting UK academia. The ORION laser facility is equipped with a comprehensive suite of some 45 diagnostics covering optical, particle, and x-ray diagnostics all able to image the laser target interaction point. This paper focuses on a small selection of these diagnostics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archeological artifacts can be analyzed after neutron irradiation at the pulsed ISIS neutron and muon source, UK, using a newly installed high purity germanium gamma ray spectrometer to perform neutron activation analysis. In this work, the details of the measurement methods and data analysis are presented. In particular, it is explained how Monte Carlo calculations are necessary to evaluate the detection efficiency, taking into account self-shielding effects. The results for two certified bronze standards are presented. The good agreement between expected and measured compositions is promising for the use of this technique for archeological artifacts where the elemental concentration is often unknown. As an example, the analysis of a Chinese sword from the first or second century BC is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harvesting wind energy resources is a major part of the UK strategy to diversify the power supply portfolio and mitigate environmental degradation. Based on wind speed data for the period 1981–2018, collected at 38 surface observation stations, this study presents a comprehensive assessment of wind speed characteristics by means of statistical analysis using the Weibull distribution function. The estimated Weibull parameters are used to evaluate wind power density at both station and regional levels and important, turbine-specific wind energy assessment parameters. It is shown that the Weibull distribution function provides satisfactory modeling of the probability distribution of daily mean wind speeds, with the correlation coefficient generally exceeding 0.9. Site-to-site variability in wind power density and other essential parameters is apparent. The Weibull scale parameter lies in the range between 4.96 m/s and 12.06 m/s, and the shape parameter ranges from 1.63 to 2.97. The estimated wind power density ranges from 125 W/m2 to 1407 W/m2. Statistically significant long-term trends in annual mean wind speed are identified for only 15 of the 38 stations and three of the 11 geographical regions. The seasonal variability of Weibull parameters and wind power density is confirmed and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and Small-Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) are two key tools to probe the dynamic and static structure factors, respectively, in soft matter. Usually, DLS and SANS measurements are performed separately, in different laboratories, on different samples, and at different times. However, this methodology has particular disadvantages for a large variety of soft materials, which exhibit a high sensitivity to small changes in fundamental parameters, such as waiting times, concentration, pH, and ionic strength. Here, we report on a new portable DLS-SANS apparatus that allows one to simultaneously measure both the microscopic dynamics (through DLS) and the static structure (through SANS) on the same sample. The apparatus has been constructed as a collaboration between two laboratories, each an expert in one of the scattering methods, and was commissioned on the LOQ and ZOOM SANS instruments at the ISIS Pulsed Neutron and Muon Source, U.K. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we study the impact that the withdrawal of institutions from the United Kingdom caused by BREXIT has on the European research collaboration networks. To this aim, we consider BREXIT as a targeted attack to those graphs composed by the European institutions that have collaborated in research projects belonging to the three main H2020 programs (Excellent Science, Industrial Leadership, and Societal Challenges). The consequences of this attack are analyzed at the global, mesoscopic, and local scales and compared with the changes suffered by the same collaboration networks when a similar quantity of nodes is randomly removed from the network. Our results suggest that changes depend on the specific program, with Excellent Science being the most affected by BREXIT perturbation. However, the structure of the integrated collaboration network is not significantly affected by BREXIT compared to the variations observed after the random removal of institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the calibration of the Orion High-Resolution X-ray (OHREX) imaging crystal spectrometer at the EBIT-I electron beam ion trap at Livermore. Two such instruments, dubbed OHREX-1 and OHREX-2, are fielded for plasma diagnostics at the Orion laser facility in the United Kingdom. The OHREX spectrometer can simultaneously house two spherically bent crystals with a radius of curvature of r = 67.2 cm. The focusing properties of the spectrometer allow both for larger distance to the source due to the increase in collected light and for observation of extended sources. OHREX is designed to cover a 2.5°-3° spectral range at Bragg angles around 51.3°. The typically high resolving powers at these large Bragg angles are ideally suited for line shape diagnostics. For instance, the nominal resolving power of the instrument (>10 000) is much higher than the effective resolving power associated with the Doppler broadening due to the temperature of the trapped ions in EBIT-I. The effective resolving power is only around 3000 at typical EBIT-I conditions, which nevertheless is sufficient to set up and test the instrument's spectral characteristics.We have calibrated the spectral range for a number of crystals using well known reference lines in the first and second order and derived the ion temperatures from these lines. We have also made use of the 50 μm size of the EBIT-I source width to characterize the spatial focusing of the spectrometer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design and testing of a new large volume Inconel pressure cell for the in situ study of supercritical hydrothermal syntheses using time-resolved neutron diffraction is introduced for the first time. The commissioning of this new cell is demonstrated by the measurement of the time-of-flight neutron diffraction pattern for TiO2 (Anatase) in supercritical D2O on the POLARIS diffractometer at the United Kingdom's pulsed spallation neutron source, ISIS, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The sample can be studied over a wide range of temperatures (25-450 °C) and pressures (1-355 bar). This novel apparatus will now enable us to study the kinetics and mechanisms of chemical syntheses under extreme environments such as supercritical water, and in particular to study the crystallization of a variety of technologically important inorganic materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A front end is currently under construction consisting of a H- Penning ion source (65 keV, 60 mA), low energy beam transport (LEBT), and radio frequency quadrupole (3 MeV output energy) with a medium energy beam transport suitable for high power proton applications. Diagnostics can be divided either in destructive techniques such as beam profile monitor, pepperpot, slit-slit emittance scanner (preferably used during commissioning) or nondestructive, permanently installed devices such as photodetachment-based techniques. Another way to determine beam distributions is a scintillator with charge-coupled device camera. First experiments have been performed to control the beam injection into the LEBT. The influence of beam parameters such as particle energy and space-charge compensation on the two-dimensional distribution and profiles will be presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews several patents related to acoustics. A patent for a resonance method for measuring thickness was filed in Japan in September 2003. A patent for a speaker for vehicle and mounting structure of the speaker was also filed in Japan in November 2001. A patent was filed in Canada in August 2001 for an electromagnetic piezoelectric acoustic sensor. A patent filed in Great Britain in September 2001 describes loudspeaker systems with a pancake arrangement in which tubes are nested in a spiral configuration.