Staff Magazine for the University of Oxford | March 2014

blueprint Staff magazine for the University of Oxford | March 2014 Mr Selden’S map AnSwering aung San Suu Kyi Engaging with cancer News in brief u Each year at Encaenia the University u Keep up to date with major IT projects awards honorary degrees to a number of and service developments through News distinguished men and women. This year’s from IT Services, the termly e-newsletter honorands include the composer Harrison from IT Services. The first issue, available Birtwistle and the sculptor Anish Kapoor. at www.it.ox.ac.uk/about/newsletter/ Nominations are now being sought for issue1, includes overviews of the Service 2015. Members of Congregation are invited Desk Consolidation Project, which to propose individuals who have achieved will bring together the service desks distinction in academia, the arts, business, across IT Services, and the Integrated industry or public life. Nominations should Communications Project, which will be submitted by 9 May. Details at replace the University’s telephone system www.ox.ac.uk/staff/news/nominations.html. by 2017. Sign up to receive an email alert when a new issue is published by sending a John Cairns u Two University innovation centres will blank email to it-services-news-subscribe@ benefit from £15.2m of government funding maillist.ox.ac.uk. as part of the Oxfordshire City Deal. £4.2m will go towards building an Innovation u Do you know how you can store your Accelerator at Begbroke Science Park to help research data securely, and are you aware science start-up businesses take their projects what resources are available to help you Aldebaran Robotics Alcock Aldebaran / Ed to market and to provide facilities for manage your data? Visit researchdata. University researchers to develop innovative ox.ac.uk for advice about managing data products and technologies; £11m will go on a day-to-day basis as well as storing it towards the Oxford BioEscalator at the Old securely in the longer term. The website Road Campus, which will accelerate the describes funder requirements for data and creation of new bioscience companies and how you can meet them, provides links to Greg Smolonski Greg help them grow and move on to larger science tools and services to help you manage your parks in the region. The government funding research data, and outlines what training is will be matched by £17m from the University. available. u The project to refresh the design and u The Oxford English Dictionary needs structure of the top-level pages of the you! To commemorate the centenary of University website is now in the build phase, the start of the First World War, the OED with the first sites due to launch at the start is seeking earlier or additional evidence of Trinity term. Known as oxweb, the pages for a host of WW1-related vocabulary, provide information to audiences ranging including ‘shell shock’, ‘demob’ and from prospective students to current staff. ‘skive’. While newspapers and magazines The main University homepage, together act as the source for many of the terms with Undergraduate Admissions and the coined during the war, the OED team is Student Gateway, will go live on 23 April. aware there may well be earlier but less The refreshed Staff Gateway will launch on easily accessible sources such as private Oxfordshire History Centre / Oxford University Images 11 August, followed by Graduate Admissions letters and diaries. Visit oed.com/appeals on 8 September. Details at www.ox.ac.uk/ and submit your evidence in the From top: The ChanCellor aT enCaenia; The staff/news/university_website_1.html. comments field. oTher ChanCellor visiTs BegBroke; WW1 Workers aT kelmsCott Farm blueprint Staff magazine for the University of Oxford u The University is consulting all staff on possible revisions to Statute XII. The Cover: | March 2014 M statute governs major aspects of the employment of academic and academic-related spring r Selden’S map AnSwering aung San Suu C Kyi staff, and relates to the procedures for redundancy, dismissal, disciplinary action, aT The ancer education appeals and grievances. Those covered by the statute include professors, readers and UniversiTy’s associate professors; research staff and professional, technical and administrative BoTaniC staff employed at grade 6 or above. garden The consultation, which runs until 4 June, focuses on four main areas: reviewing who is covered by the statute; simplifying the procedures under the statute; clarifying the statute’s provisions; and revising the procedure for addressing grievances by strengthening settlement routes at local level. This is an initial consultation, which seeks views on the desirability of possible revisions to the statute. If there is support for change, there will be a second consultation on the detail of any proposals. Further information at www.ox.ac.uk/ statuteXII. Photo by Greg Smolonski/ Oxford University Images 2 | BLUEPRINT March 2014 www.ox.ac.uk/blueprint Research round up - u The genetic impacts of the Mongol Empire, the Arab slave trade and European trade on the Silk Road have been revealed for the first time on a new interactive map produced by researchers from Oxford and UCL. The online map details genetic mixing between 95 populations across Europe, Africa, Asia and South America over the last four millennia, using sophisticated statistical methods of DNA analysis. Dr Simon Myers of Oxford’s Department of Statistics and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, co-senior author of the study, explains: ‘Many of our genetic observations match historical events, and we also see evidence of previously unrecorded genetic mixing. For example, the DNA of the Tu people in modern China suggests that in around 1200CE, Europeans similar to modern Greeks mixed with an otherwise Chinese- like population. Plausibly, the source of this European-like DNA might be merchants travelling the nearby Silk Road.’ BUT hoW mUCh Will hUmanoid roBoT nao learn aBoUT yoU? Robotics Alcock / Ed Aldebaran u People’s racial prejudices are influenced the lower risk of death from heart disease when an anonymous private collector in by where they live, according to Oxford remains. Dr Sarah Floud and colleagues at London approached Dr Obbink, of the psychologists. The research team found that the Cancer Epidemiology Unit suggest that Faculty of Classics, with a piece of papyrus levels of racial prejudice among white people one explanation could be that the spouses of fragment. According to Dr Obbink, the drop significantly when they live in mixed married women may encourage them to seek poems are ‘indubitably’ by Sappho, a lyric communities. Even the most prejudiced early medical treatment for symptoms, but poet born on the island of Lesbos. One poem people who did not mix at all with ethnic there may be other reasons. is a substantially complete work about her minorities became more tolerant over time brothers, while another is a fragmentary when they lived in areas where others were u Within the next decade ‘sociable’ piece about unrequited love. Dr Obbink’s mixing. The researchers have called this robots could have a role as companions ‘Ancient Lives’ initiative was launched in positive effect ‘passive tolerance’, likening or assistants in our daily lives, and that 2011 and has been asking volunteers for it to the negative effect of ‘passive smoking’ raises privacy concerns, said Dr Ian Brown, their help in decoding hundreds of thousands (where a smoky environment can increase Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford of online images of Greek papyri fragments. your risk of lung cancer, even if you do not Internet Institute and Associate Director A related project entitled ‘Proteus: capturing smoke yourself). ‘If two white people with of the University’s Cyber Security Centre, the big data problem of ancient literary identical views went to live in different describing his research at this year’s Oxford fragments’ has just been awarded funding by postcodes for a year, the person in the London Lecture on 18 March. The issue is the AHRC. neighbourhood with more mixing between around how much information is gleaned ethnic groups would likely leave more and stored by the robots, as these human- tolerant,’ says Professor Miles Hewstone of seeming devices could lead to people being the Department of Experimental Psychology. less guarded about what they reveal. Dr Brown, with Oxford colleague Dr Joss u Married women or those living with a Wright, is involved in an ESRC-funded partner are 28% less likely to die from heart project, ‘Being there: humans and robots disease than unmarried women – despite the in public spaces’, which explore ways of fact that marriage makes no difference to ensuring that people maintain some control women’s chances of developing heart disease over the personal information stored about in the first place. The results come from them while still being able to enjoy the the latest analysis of data from the Million potential benefits of robotic technology. Women Study, a large UK study of women’s health run by Oxford researchers. The u Two hitherto unknown works by the study takes many factors into account that ancient Greek poet Sappho are to be could have influenced the results, such as discussed in a paper by Oxford papyrologist age, socio-economic status and lifestyle, but Dr Dirk Obbink. The poems came to light Egypt Exploration Society and Imaging Papyri Project, Oxford volUnTeers are helping To deCode ThoUsands oF For more information, visit www.ox.ac.uk/news greek papyri FragmenTs, sUCh as This snippeT oF a ◢ and www.ox.ac.uk/staffnews losT gospel From The oxyrhynChUs Collection www.ox.ac.uk/blueprint March 2014 BLUEPRINT | 3 People and prizes Dame Jocelyn Bell Dr Joanna Dunkley, University Lecturer in fostering academic collaboration between Burnell, Visiting Astrophysics, has been awarded the Fowler Romania and the UK and in promoting Professor of Prize in Astronomy by the Royal Astronomical Romania’s image abroad.

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