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This research has profoundly influenced the practice of pharmacoepidemiology in 2008-13. The self-controlled case series (SCCS) method is particularly well-suited for working with computerised databases, which are increasingly used in epidemiology. The method has been recommended by international agencies (WHO, ECDC) and is now widely used by health practitioners within national public health agencies, including the CDC (USA), Public Health England (UK) and many other national and regional public health bodies. It has influenced practice within the private sector (notably the pharmaceutical and the healthcare industries). Use of the SCCS method has impacted on health by reducing costs, improving timeliness and improving the quality of evidence upon which policy decisions are based.
Research at the University of Bristol's Interface Analysis Centre has been used to make storage of uranium and uranium carbide safer.
Our research into uranium corrosion has been used to predict the state of uranium present in `intolerable' legacy wastes at Sellafield and has shaped the way that Sellafield Ltd intends to safely recover and repackage it for prolonged storage. Our research has also similarly influenced the operations of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in relation to improving the safety of stored materials. Our research has also been used to implement treatment processes for uranium carbide wastes arising at CERN.
In the early years of the nuclear industry, numerous different fuels, materials and reactor concepts were tried and tested, building a legacy of varied wastes that have subsequently proven difficult to treat, store and dispose of. This is especially the case for Sellafield in Cumbria, a site home to an extraordinary accumulation of hazardous waste from the UK and abroad requiring treatment. Much of this waste is stored in outdated nuclear facilities. Bristol's research into the corrosion and reactivity of uranium and associated compounds within different storage, treatment and environmental systems, has resulted in the reduction of operational safety risk at Sellafield, CERN and the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) through the alteration of protocols for the storage, retrieval and treatment of uranium and uranium carbide.
Reliable estimates of the size of natural populations are required by national and regional governments for management and conservation, by international commissions that manage natural resources, and by NGOs. Distance sampling, in which distances of animals from a line or point are sampled, is the most widely-applicable technique for obtaining such estimates. Statisticians at St Andrews are the acknowledged world-leaders in the development and dissemination of distance sampling survey methods. Their software Distance is the industry standard and has over 30,000 registered users from around 115 countries. The methodological developments and associated software have allowed better-informed decisions to be made in the management and conservation of populations as diverse as whales, seals, fish, elephants, apes, deer, birds, ants, trees and flowering plants.