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Research by Professor John Thuburn and his group at the University of Exeter has made several key contributions to the formulation and development of ENDGame, the new dynamical core of the Met Office weather and climate prediction model. ENDGame has been shown to deliver improved accuracy and better computational performance at high processor counts compared to the current operational dynamical core, directly impacting the technological tools available to the Met Office. These improvements will benefit users when ENDGame becomes operational in early 2014: the economic value to the UK of the weather forecasts produced by the Met Office has been estimated to be in excess of £600M pa, while climate change projections inform policy decisions on mitigation and adaptation with huge economic implications.
Loudness is the subjective magnitude of a sound as perceived by human listeners and it plays an important role in many human activities. It is determined jointly by the physical characteristics of a sound and by characteristics of the human auditory system. A model for predicting the loudness of sounds from their physical spectra was developed in the laboratory of Professor Brian Moore with support from an MRC programme grant.
The model formed the basis for an American National Standard and is currently being prepared for adoption as a standard by the International Organization for Standardisation (ISO). In addition, the model has been widely used in industry worldwide for prediction of the loudness of sounds, for example: noise from heating, ventilation and air-conditioning; inside and outside cars, and from aircraft; and from domestic appliances and machinery.
The School of Mathematics at Cardiff University has developed important statistical and mathematical models for forecasting consumer buying behaviour. Enhancements to classical models, inspired by extensively studying their statistical properties, have allowed us to exploit their vast potential to benefit the sales and marketing strategies of manufacturing and retail organisations. The research has been endorsed and applied by Nielsen, the #1 global market research organisation that provides services to clients in 100 countries. Nielsen has utilised the models to augment profits and retain their globally leading corporate position. This has led to a US$30 million investment and been used to benefit major consumer goods manufacturers such as Pepsi, Kraft, Unilever, Nestlé and Procter & Gamble. Therefore the impact claimed is financial. Moreover, impact is also measurable in terms of public engagement since the work has been disseminated at a wide range of national and international corporate events and conferences. Beneficiaries include Tesco, Sainsbury's, GlaxoSmithKline and Mindshare WW.
The Hydro-environmental Research Centre (HRC) at Cardiff University has developed a widely used hydro-environmental numerical model, called DIVAST (Depth Integrated Velocities And Solute Transport). DIVAST addresses the need for more accurate models to predict flood risk and water quality levels for a range of extreme events. The model has been implemented in commercial codes, marketed by CH2M HILL (previously Halcrow), and used in design studies, for example, undertaken by Buro Happold. The impacts of the research are marked environmental, health, economic and industrial benefits. It is used by major organisations around the world on large-scale projects and, in particular, for mitigation planning against national and international risks associated with floods and water quality.
Pratt & Whitney (one of the world's largest makers of aircraft engines) has developed a process, "Design for Variation" (DFV), that uses Bayesian methods developed at Sheffield for analysing uncertainty in computer model predictions within the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines. The DFV process significantly improves cost efficiency by increasing the time an engine stays operational on the wing of an aircraft, so reducing the time that the aircraft is unavailable due to engine maintenance. DFV also saves costs by identifying design and process features that have little impact on engine performance, but are expensive to maintain. Pratt & Whitney estimate the DFV process to generate savings, for a large fleet of military aircraft, of [text removed for publication].
The UK Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) has used these methods in their risk analyses, for example in assessing risks of exposure to pesticides.
This impact case study is based on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) between the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Kent and KROHNE Ltd, a world leading manufacturer of industrial measuring instruments. These precision instruments (typically flow meters and density meters) need to be calibrated accurately before being used and this is an expensive and time-consuming process.
The purpose of the KTP was to use Bayesian methodology developed by Kent statisticians to establish a novel calibration procedure that improves on the existing procedure by incorporating historical records from calibration of previous instruments of the same type. This reduces substantially the number of test runs needed to calibrate a new instrument and will increase capacity by up to 50%.
The impact of the KTP, which was graded as `Outstanding', has been to change the knowledge and capability of the Company, so that they can improve the performance of their manufacturing process by implementing this novel calibration method. This has been achieved by adapting the underpinning Kent research to the specific context of the calibration problem, by running many calibrations to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in practice, and by supporting the implementation of the new calibration method within the Company's core software.
Moreover, the project has changed the Company's thinking on fundamental science, particularly industrial mathematics. The value of historical data, and the usefulness of Bayesian methods, is now widely appreciated and training for staff in Bayesian Statistics is being introduced. Thus the project has not only changed the protocols of the Company, it has also changed their practice.
The safe operation of ships is a high priority task in order to protect the ship, the personnel, the cargo and the wider environment. Research undertaken by Professor Alexander Korobkin in the School of Mathematics at UEA has led to a methodology for the rational and reliable assessment of the structural integrity and thus safety of ships and their cargos in severe sea conditions. Central to this impact is a set of mathematical models, the conditions of their use, and the links between them, which were designed to improve the quality of shipping and enhance the safety of ships. The models, together with the methodology of their use, are utilised by the ship certification industry bringing benefits through recognised quality assurance systems and certification.
Data assimilation is playing an ever increasing role in weather forecasting. Implementing four- dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVAR) is part of the long term strategy of the UK Met Office.
In this case study, an idealised 4DVAR scheme, developed by a team from the Universities of Surrey and Reading working with the UK Met Office, based on the integration of Hamiltonian dynamics and nonlinearity into data assimilation, has now been taken up by the Met Office. It is being used to evaluate options for improving operational 4DVAR. The simplicity of the scheme developed by this team has facilitated careful analyses of some generic problems with the operational model. The outcome includes direct impact on the environment and indirect impact on the economy, both through improvements in weather forecasting.
Ocean circulation accounts for much of the energy that drives weather and climate systems; errors in the representation of the ocean circulation in computational models affect the validity of forecasts of the dynamics of the ocean and atmosphere on daily, seasonal and decadal time scales. Research undertaken by the University of Reading investigated systematic model errors that resulted from data assimilation schemes embedded in the key processes used to predict ocean circulation. The researchers developed a new bias correction technique for use in ocean data assimilation that alleviates these errors. This has led to significant improvements in the accuracy of the forecasts of ocean dynamics. The technique has been implemented by the Met Office and by the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) in their forecasting systems, resulting in major improvements to the prediction of the weather and climate from oceanic and atmospheric models. The assimilation technique is also leading to better use of expensively acquired satellite and in-situ data and improving ocean and atmosphere forecasts used by shipping and civil aviation, energy providers, insurance companies, the agriculture and fishing communities, food suppliers and the general public. The impact of the correction procedure is also important for anticipating and mitigating hazardous weather conditions and the effects of long-term climate change.
Research conducted at the Geoenvironmental Research Centre (GRC), supported by the European Commission via its EURATOM programme, has been instrumental in addressing the long standing global problem of high level nuclear waste disposal. The pioneering development of a sophisticated coupled thermal/hydraulic/chemical/mechanical model of clay behaviour has provided new understanding of the performance of engineered barriers proposed for use in nuclear waste repositories. This has, in an unprecedented development, directly enabled the design of numerous nuclear waste repositories to proceed. The repositories in Sweden and Finland are currently at "Licence application" and "Construction" phases, respectively. Therefore the impacts claimed during the REF period are: significant impact on engineering design, leading to improved environmental conditions; considerable economic investment and marked impact on public policy and services.