Staff Magazine for the University of Oxford | October 2015
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blueprint Staff magazine for the University of Oxford | October 2015 Family support in africa | Arboretum opportunities | Inflammation excellence News in brief u The Bodleian’s rich collections of digitised help address the systemic failings of the food books, manuscripts, maps, art and other system, which have resulted in about one materials can now be explored through a single billion people being hungry, two billion lacking website, digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. The online sufficient nutrients, and over two billion being portal contains more than 100,000 digitised overweight or obese. items and images, ranging from Victorian playbills and board games to the medieval u A new set of University security policies Gough Map, which is believed to be the earliest has been approved by Council. Available at map of the UK. The publicly accessible site, www.admin.ox.ac.uk/ouss, the policies set which brings together the Bodleian’s digital out how different aspects of security will be collections under a single interface, allows users managed across the University and provide to download images for non-commercial use, guidance on how the University aims to ensure Alves Gaspar Alves share images on social media and make private the security of its staff and students, its estate notes and annotations. and information. The Security Services website also provides advice on keeping yourself and u A University spin-out developing new ways your belongings safe, as well as information of controlling disease-carrying insects and pests on building security plans and emergency Robotics Alcock / Ed Aldebaran is to be sold to a major US corporation for action plans. $160m. In a deal worth £9m to the University, Intrexon Corporation has agreed to acquire u Do you have any ideas about innovative Oxitec, which was founded in 2002 by two ways in which the University can reduce its Zoology researchers, Luke Alphey and David carbon footprint? If so, take part in the Carbon Kelly. The company uses a genetic modification Innovation Programme, which is being run technique they invented to design strains of by the Environmental Sustainability team insects which are incapable of reproducing in conjunction with academic departments effectively. The technology has implications for including the Environmental Change Institute the control of disease-carrying mosquitoes. and New Energy Systems Thinkers. The programme is designed to support staff u The Oxford Graduate Scholarship Matched and students in producing a business case Fund has been extended by a further £20m. for a carbon reduction project. A judging Launched in 2012 to build an endowment panel will review the proposals and funding that will fully fund over 165 graduate students will be allocated to the best projects for at any one time for the expected duration of implementation. Email sustainability@admin. their courses, the fund now supports over 120 ox.ac.uk for details. new scholarships each year. Including top-ups in July 2014 and February 2015, this new u Did you know that you can save tax and release of matched funding will double the national insurance on your childcare costs by initial allocation of funds, producing a total using the workplace salary-sacrifice scheme or iStockphoto/mediaphotos endowment of £200m for graduate scholarships. childcare vouchers? The salary-sacrifice scheme is for those who use University nurseries, while u The Environmental Change Institute has childcare vouchers can be used towards fees From top: digital delights; control that launched a training programme for graduate for private nurseries, childminders, nannies, pest; food for thought students to improve understanding of the food holiday play schemes and breakfast and after- system. Run in partnership with four other school clubs. Information about both schemes, UK universities and with core funding from together with an overview of the new tax-free HEFCE, the Innovative Food Systems Teaching childcare scheme that is being introduced in blueprint Staff magazine for the University of Oxford and Learning programme is designed to equip 2017, is available at www.admin.ox.ac.uk/ | October 2015 FAMILY SUPPORT IN AFRICA | ARBORETUM OPPORTUNITIES | INFLAMMATION students with the knowledge and skills to childcare. EXCELLENCE u Getting help and support for IT has become easier with the advent of a single phone number for the central IT Service Desk. Simply call 12345 (01865 612345 from an external line) for any queries relating to central IT support. Existing methods of contact for specialist IT support teams will continue to operate. These include DARS, Financials, Student Systems, HRIS, NSMS and ITS3. Central IT support will continue to be Credit:Botanic Garden Call 12345 provided in partnership with departmental or Cover: seasonal splendour at the college IT support staff. harcourt arboretum (see pp14–15) 2 | BLUEPRINT October 2015 www.ox.ac.uk/blueprint Research round up - u Large crystals of graphene can now be produced in minutes, not hours, using a new technique developed in the Department of Materials. The carbon-based material is attractive because of its high strength, impressive flexibility and low weight – but it is currently difficult to produce in large iStockphoto/MartinMcCarthy quantities at low cost. The new method, developed in Professor Nicole Grobert’s laboratory, uses a layer of liquid platinum silicide to smooth the surface of platinum foil. When methane gas touches that surface, the smooth layer encourages it to form large flakes of graphene. The resulting crystals are 30 times bigger than those produced using existing techniques, of equal quality, and can be made in 15 minutes rather than 19 hours. The research appears in Nature Communications. Graphene can be Grown more quickly u Penalties don’t really work; people only obey norms if they feel the rules are applied audio recordings of simple words in modern disorders are potentially responsible for up fairly and accord with their own moral Indo-European languages to regenerate to a fifth of violent reoffending by former code – and that is likely to go for bankers audible spoken forms from earlier points in male prisoners and two-fifths by female too. That’s the conclusion of Christopher the evolutionary tree.’ In 2013 the project ex-prisoners. ‘One in seven prisoners have Hodges, Oxford’s Professor of Justice reconstructed the pronunciation of spoken a psychotic illness or major depression and Systems, who has researched corporate Latin words for numbers. Professor Coleman around one in five enter prison with clinically behaviour, looking at theories of deterrence, now has an AHRC grant to extend this to significant substance abuse disorders,’ says behavioural psychology and what regulators Germanic languages like English, German Seena Fazel, Professor of Forensic Psychiatry. and companies do to achieve compliance. dialects and Dutch, as well as Modern Greek. ‘As these disorders are common and mostly He found that cultures based on blaming treatable, better screening and mental health people for doing the wrong thing do not u Nearly half of all edits to articles about services before and after release are essential foster an environment where people volunteer places on Wikipedia were made by people to prevent future violence and improve information to allow the performance in the UK, US, France, Germany and Italy, both public health and safety.’ He adds: management system to operate. That has according to Oxford Internet Institute ‘It underscores the importance of treating been convincingly shown in the aviation researchers who geocoded Wikipedia edit alcohol and drug misuse actively and with industry where a ‘no-blame’ culture keeps entries on articles mentioning places. They evidence-based therapies.’ planes flying safely in the sky, he says, adding also found there were more editors in the that his research shows every other sector Netherlands than all of Africa combined. It is and regulatory system needs to apply the assumed that Wikipedia, the world’s largest same approach. and most used repository of user-generated u An Oxford project is using scientific content, offers a platform for ‘local voices’. methods to investigate what ancient words However, this study maps where Wikipedia spoken in Europe and Asia over 6,000 editors live and finds that local voices rarely years ago actually sounded like. Professor represent and define their own country. iStockphoto/caracterdesign John Coleman, Principal Investigator of Digital connectivity is only one factor, it the Ancient Sounds project in the Faculty concludes, with the network effects of the of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, internet crowding out less ‘visible’ parts of presented his findings to the British Science the world. Festival in Bradford last month. ‘We are taking a revolutionary new approach which u Ex-prisoners with common psychiatric combines acoustic phonetics, statistics and disorders such as bipolar disorder and alcohol comparative philology,’ he said. ‘Rather and drug abuse are substantially more likely than reconstructing written forms of ancient to commit a violent crime after release than words, we are developing methods to other prisoners. A study of almost 48,000 ex- triangulate backwards from contemporary prisoners suggests that diagnosed psychiatric For more information, visit www.ox.ac.uk/news and www.ox.ac.uk/staffnews better screening and mental health services could help prisoners avoid reoffending www.ox.ac.uk/blueprint October 2015 BLUEPRINT | 3 People and prizes Royal society Professor Sir Tony Luciano Floridi, Professor recognition Atkinson of the Institute of of Philosophy and Ethics New Economic Thinking at of Information, Director The achievements of several Oxford the Oxford Martin School of Research at the Oxford scientists have been recognised by Royal has won the Outstanding Internet Institute and Fellow Society medals and awards. Contribution Award of of St Cross, has received the Prestigious the European Investment Copernicus Scientist award for his work on the Royal Medals have Bank for research on the foundations of the philosophy of information.