Tag: Defining

  • Defining the value of the UK’s international research partnerships

    Defining the value of the UK’s international research partnerships

    It might not be news that the UK research sector is strikingly international, but the scale of our global collaboration is striking – and it’s growing.

    Over 60 per cent of Russell Group academics’ publications involved an international co-author in 2023, 16 per cent higher than in 2019, and in 2022 this proportion was higher for UK academics than any of our global competitors. Pooling ideas and talent makes for better research and more innovation, so supporting them to do more matters deeply to researchers – as our universities are well aware, given their own longstanding global connections.

    International collaboration matters for the UK at large too, helping us tackle shared challenges and forming a large part of our global contribution. In a more uncertain world, protecting and growing research collaborations is becoming more important – complementing the government’s efforts to deepen links with the EU, protect ties with the US, and build relationships in India.

    These initiatives are bound up with both security and growth. This is no accident: a strong economy is the route to creating jobs and supporting public services. We have always argued that international university partnerships should be part of the wider offer to global investors and trade partners, but we need to find new ways to demonstrate their value.

    To that end, Jisc has done new analysis for the Russell Group looking at the scale and value of international research partnerships. Jisc’s unique data-matching analysis of UK, US and EU patent data held by the European Patents Office covers over 30 years of international collaboration in patent applications. The data identifies partnerships that UK institutions hold with both international companies and universities.

    It’s booming

    So what did we learn? Jisc’s analysis shows the proportion of patents co-filed by UK universities and an international partner grew from 12 per cent in 2000 to 22 per cent in 2022. It also found a remarkably high share of collaborations with international businesses, not just fellow academics: 43 per cent of co-filings since 2018 were with an overseas company and 36 per cent with a university abroad.

    Since 2018, the data shows UK universities filed over 100 EU, US and UK patents with international partners every year. The analysis also allows us to see individual patents, not just numbers, so we can understand how impactful this work is not just to academic excellence, but to society. For example:

    • the world’s first gene therapy for adults with severe haemophilia A, from pioneering research between University College London and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in the US
    • a new type of gene therapy from Newcastle University and the University of Heidelberg in Germany, which can help to protect and strengthen muscles in people with muscular dystrophy
    • improvements to machine-learning models by the University of Edinburgh and University of Manchester with Toyota in Japan – refining the ability to interpret images, a step on the way to driverless cars.

    These projects, and many more of their kind, demonstrate the cutting-edge R&D that can underpin the government’s growth mission, industrial strategy and NHS ambitions. Jisc’s analysis therefore suggests that to make the most of universities’ strengths, and secure a global advantage for the UK, support for both home-grown innovation and high-value overseas collaborations will be crucial.

    Potential for even more

    This includes additional support for the work universities do with and for businesses, in sectors like clean energy and advanced manufacturing. Academics and innovators can do much of this themselves, but government can help by working with us to deliver a stable platform to build on including reliable funding streams, improved incentives for SME-university collaboration and a long-term strategy for industrial renewal.

    We also need a strategic focus on higher education’s financial sustainability, so universities can maximise the impact of the £86bn government is committing to R&D over the next few years and support plans for economic growth and public service improvement.

    It also means maintaining a supportive, stable and cost-effective visa system for staff and students – further expanding the commitments already made on building global talent pathways – so UK universities can attract and educate our future academics, innovators and collaborators, as well as securing important cross-subsidies for research and teaching. A strategic approach to skills and infrastructure across the UK would complement this, ensuring all nations and regions can benefit.

    Finally, building the right platform for international collaboration means backing stable, flexible routes for academics and innovators to work together. UKRI’s work to develop lead agency agreements with counterparts in other countries has been a positive and warmly-welcomed example. Above all, however, our relationship with the world’s largest international collaborative programme for R&D – Horizon Europe, and its successor Framework Programme 10 – will be vital.

    We’re currently awaiting the European Commission’s official “first draft” for FP10. We know it will be a standalone programme with a research and innovation focus, which is very reassuring. At the moment, Horizon Europe is providing more collaborative research opportunities than any one country can alone, as well as helping UK universities attract top researchers. Universities are working hard to boost Horizon participation, taking the lead in European Research Council Advanced Grant wins in 2024, and nurturing the encouraging green shoots in the collaborative Pillar II. Keeping this going is vital for global collaborations which contribute so much to our, and our partners’, economic and societal progress.

    Researchers need certainty so they can rely on a shared long-term framework when building collaborations. The more open FP10 is to like-minded countries, and the more positive the UK is about association early on, the more confidence academics can be in continuing – and indeed expanding – invaluable international partnerships.

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  • More states adopt laws defining ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ adding to Title IX divide

    More states adopt laws defining ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ adding to Title IX divide

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    Dive Brief:

    • More states are defining what it means to be a man and woman in state law, with Texas poised to become the 14th Republican-leaning state to do so since 2023. The state’s sex definition bill was approved last week and now awaits Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature. 
    • Two additional states — Nebraska and Indiana — regulate the definition of sex through state executive orders, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit that tracks legislation related to LGBTQ+ issues. 
    • While the impact of these laws may vary from state to state, they set the stage to prevent transgender students from accessing facilities and joining athletic teams aligning with their gender identities.

    Dive Insight:

    Proponents of sex definition legislation say it protects women and girls from sex discrimination based on “immutable biological differences” that can be seen before or at birth. Advocates have used the same argument in recent years to interpret Title IX, the federal civil rights law preventing sex discrimination in education programs, to separate transgender students from girls and women athletic teams and spaces.

    The Texas legislation, for example, says “biological differences between the sexes mean that only females are able to get pregnant, give birth, and breastfeed children” and that “males are, on average, bigger, stronger, and faster than females.” These differences, it says, “are enduring and may, in some circumstances, warrant the creation of separate social, educational, athletic, or other spaces in order to ensure individuals’ safety and allow members of each sex to succeed and thrive.”

    The language closely mirrors an executive order issued by President Donald Trump upon his return to the Oval Office in January. That order established that “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.” The order said “these sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” and that the concept of “gender identity” is “disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum.”

    The language was also reflected in a draft resolution agreement proposed to the Maine Department of Education by the U.S. Department of Education after a short, one-month investigation by the federal agency’s Office for Civil Rights found the state was violating Title IX in its policy allowing transgender students to participate in girls’ and women’s sports teams.

    The agreement, which Maine refused to sign, would have had the state department and public schools define “females” and “males” in their policies and require the state to publicize the definitions on its website.

    The Maine agency would have been required to notify schools that “there are only two sexes (female and male) because there are only two types of gametes (eggs and sperm); and the sex of a human — female or male — is determined genetically at conception (fertilization), observable before birth, and unchangeable.”

    “Gender” would be the same as “sex” under the agreement.

    The case is currently pending with the U.S. Department of Justice, which took over enforcement of the investigation and its findings after the state refused to sign the agreement.

    The agreement would have also required the state to change its records to erase transgender girls’ athletic accomplishments on girls’ sports teams, which is also a potential side effect of the legislation in 13 states defining sex.

    Those opposing recent sex definition laws say they are transphobic, as they don’t recognize transgender people’s gender identity. 

    “These laws could have dangerous implications for transgender people when it comes to bathrooms, identity documents, and other areas of law or policy,” MAP said, “but because these government gender regulation laws are often vaguely written, the actual impact of these laws remains to be seen in each state.”

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  • Article 45 Defining Maxwells Equation in terms of the physical properties of space time

    Article 45 Defining Maxwells Equation in terms of the physical properties of space time

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    Einstein’s Explanation of the Unexplainable

    In Maxwell’s mathematical formulation of electromagnetism, he defined light as a propagating electromagnetic wave created by the interaction of its electric and magnetic fields

    While Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity defined the forces associated with gravity in terms of a geometric curvature or spatial displacement in space-time caused by its energy density.

    Additionally, he showed that it was directed along the radius of the curvature in the two-dimensional plane that was parallel to it.

    Therefore, to explain how Maxwells equations can be defined in terms of a space-time environment one must show how both the observable and mathematical properties of an electromagnetic: such as why its wave properties are created by the interaction of its electric and magnetic fields and why polarized light has a perpendicular orientation in terms of the geometry of space time.

    Additionally, one must also show why its electrical and magnetic components are in phase, it’s the only form of energy that can move at the speed of light along with the defining the reason why it always appears as a photon when observed or interacts with its environment in terms of that same geometry.

    As was just mentioned gravity’s force vector is along the radius of one of dimensional plains of three-dimensional space.  However, that does not mean the other two plains of three-dimensional space cannot contribute to energy content of space.

    The fact that light is polarized supports that assumption because it allows one to understand the mechanism responsible for its perpendicular orientation in terms light waves moving on the different dimensional plains that are perpendicular to each other.

    However, one ALSO allow one to explain both the observations and Maxwell equations in terms of the dimensional prosperity of space if one assumes the electrical and magnetic are components of light are propagated by spatial displacements created by an energy wave moving on the surface of one of those two-dimensional plains.

    (This assumption is supported by Einstein suggestion that spatial displacements in one of the three-dimensional plains of three-dimensional space is responsible for gravitational energy.

    One can understand the mechanism responsible by using the analogy of how a wave on the two-dimensional surface of water causes a point on that surface to become displaced or rise above or below the equilibrium point that existed before the wave was present.

    The science of wave mechanics tells us a force would be developed by those displacements which would result in the elevated and depressed portions of the water moving towards or becoming “attracted” to each other and the surface of the water.

    Similarly, an energy wave on the “surface” on one of the two spatial dimensions that are perpendicular to the axis of gravitational forces would cause a point on that “surface” to become displaced or rise above and below the equilibrium point that existed before the wave was present.

    Therefore, classical wave mechanics, if extrapolated to the properties of two of the three spatial dimensions of our universe that are perpendicular the one responsible for gravity tells us a force will be developed by the differential displacements of energy wave which will result in its elevated and depressed portions moving towards or become “attracted” to each other as the wave moves through space.

    This would define the causality of the attractive electrical fields associated with an electromagnetic wave in terms of a force caused by the alternating displacements of a wave moving with respect to time on a “surface” of the two spatial dimensions which are perpendicular to the axis of gravitational forces.

    However, it also provides a classical mechanism for understanding why similar electrical fields repel each other.  This is because observations of waves show there is a direct relationship between the magnitude of a displacement in its “surface” to the magnitude of the force resisting that displacement.

    Similarly, the magnitude of multiple displacements in a “surface” of a two-dimensional plain in space-time will be greater than that caused by a single one.  Therefore, they will repel each other because the magnitude of the force resisting the displacement will be greater than it would be for a single one.

    One can also derive the magnetic component of an electromagnetic wave in terms of the horizontal force developed along the axis that is perpendicular to the displacement caused by its peaks and troughs associated with the electric fields.

    This would be analogous to how the perpendicular displacement of a mountain generates a horizontal force on the surface of the earth, which pulls matter horizontally towards the apex of that displacement.

    This also explain why the electrical and magnetic fields of an electromagnetic wave are in phase or maximum at the same time in terms of the geometric properties of space time defined by Einstein

    However, it also provides an explanation for why electromagnetic waves can transmit energy through space at the speed of light.

    The observations and the science of wave mechanics tell us waves move energy through water, causing it to move in a circular motion therefore it does not actually travel with waves.  In other words, waves transmit energy, not water, across the ocean and if not obstructed by anything, they have the potential to travel across an entire ocean basin.

    Similarly, an electromagnetic wave will cause the geometry of space time to move in a circular motion and therefore the geometric components of space Einstein associated with mass do not move with respect to its velocity vector.  Additionally, if not obstructed by anything, they have the potential to travel across an entire universe to the velocity of light.

    As was just shown the speed of a wave on water is defined in part by the rate at which its particles interact.

    Therefore, the speed of light would depend on the rate at which the electrical and magnetic components interact.

    Therefore, its velocity is constant in free space with no obstacles to its motion because the rate at which its electrical and magnetic components interact is constant.

    However, to understand how and why an electromagnetic wave evolves into photon one must connect its evolution to that environment.

    One can accomplish this by using the science of wave mechanics and the properties of space-time as define by Einstein.

    For example, an electromagnetic wave is observed to move continuously through space and time unless it is prevented from doing so by someone or something interacting with it.  This would result in its energy being confined to three-dimensional space.  The science of wave mechanics tells us the three-dimensional “walls” of this confinement will result in its energy being reflected back on itself thereby creating a resonant or standing wave in three-dimensional space.  This would cause its wave energy to be concentrated at the point in space were a particle would be found.

    Additionally, wave mechanics also tells us the energy of a resonant system, such as a standing wave can only take on the discrete or quantized values associated with its fundamental or a harmonic of its fundamental frequency.

    This explains why an electromagnetic wave if it is prevented from moving through space-time either by being observed or encountering an object is reduced or “Collapses” to a form a standing wave that would define the quantized energy Quantum Mechanics associates with a particle.

    However, this also provides a Classical mechanism in terms of Einstein theories for defining one of the core principals Quantum Mechanics in that when field properties light and all other forms of energy are prevented from moving through space either by being observed or encountering an object that energy will become quantized in the form of a particle.

    This shows how one can define all of the mathematical of Maxwells equation in terms of the physical properties of space time

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