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Knowledge of the three-dimensional structures of macromolecules is a prerequisite for understanding their function at the atomic level, an essential component of modern drug development. Most structures are determined by X-ray crystallography: the majority using molecular replacement (MR, which exploits known structures of related proteins), and about half of the remainder using single-wavelength anomalous diffraction (SAD). The Phaser crystallographic software, developed by Read and colleagues, implements powerful new likelihood-based methods for MR and SAD phasing and has made a large impact, accelerating over the period 2008-2013. At the pharma giant, AstraZeneca, Phaser is considered the "tool of choice" for solving structures by MR.
OxCal is the most popular software package world-wide for calibrating and analysing dates within the carbon dating process, enabling the accurate dating of objects from the past. The brainchild of Prof. Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), OxCal is based on chronologies refined by the use of Bayesian statistical methods, and provides users with access to high-quality calibration of chronological data, now the basis for global chronologies. It is available online and free to download, and has played a highly significant role in establishing the ORAU as one of the pre-eminent international radiocarbon dating facilities. Funded by the NERC, and used widely within professional archaeology as well as other disciplines, OxCal has also played a key role in research projects (within Oxford and beyond) brought to the attention of the general public by the media.
Research at Lancaster led to a novel approach to detect the source of cases of campylobacteriosis (a bacterial foodborne disease). The application of this method to data from New Zealand pin- pointed that New-Zealand's high rate of cases was linked to the eating of contaminated poultry. These results were a key part of the evidence used by New Zealand's Food Safety Authority to introduce a new code of practice for the poultry industry. The impact of this code of practice has been a halving of the number of reported cases of campylobacteriosis in New Zealand (from around 16,000 cases in 2006 to less than 7,000 in 2008). With notification rates estimated as 1 in 10, this corresponds to around 90,000 fewer actual cases per year. The saving for the New Zealand economy during the REF census period has been independently estimated as between £100M and £150M.
The work described here has impacted on European policy and standards concerning energy efficiency in Building Services.
The impact arises from two Welsh School of Architecture led and European Commission funded projects, HARMONAC (focussed on inspection of air-conditioning systems) and iSERV (focussed on automatic system monitoring and feedback). These pan-European projects demonstrate achieved energy savings of up to 33% of total building electricity use in individual buildings, and potential savings up to €60Bn. These projects demonstrably impacted the recast European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and the revision of EU Standards (European Committee for Standardisation (CEN)).
Nearly every large-vocabulary speech recognition system in current use employs outputs from fundamental research carried out in the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering (DoEng) on adaptation of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs). One example of the commercial application of these outputs is their use on the Microsoft Windows desktop for both the command and control functions and the dictation functions. Approximately one billion copies of Windows have been shipped since 2008. Other examples show the outputs used in the automatic transcription of a wide range of types of data. [text removed for publication]
The largest investment banks in London each have thousands of servers largely devoted to Monte Carlo simulations, and to quantify their risks and satisfy regulatory demands they need to be able to calculate huge numbers of sensitivities (defined below) known collectively as "Greeks". An adjoint technique developed by Professor Mike Giles in 2006 greatly reduced the computational complexity of these calculations. The technique is used extensively by Credit Suisse and other major banks, reducing their computing costs and energy consumption. It has also led to the Numerical Algorithms Group developing new software to support the banks in exploiting this new adjoint approach to computing sensitivities.
In the UK and the rest of Europe, public bodies and policymakers have struggled to quantify migration and make accurate population forecasts because of inconsistent data from a variety of disparate sources. The University of Southampton has demonstrated how, via the use of statistical modelling, conceptual frameworks and migration modelling, policymakers can radically improve the information they glean from the data sources at their disposal. The team successfully guided the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in overhauling their methodologies, finally making them compliant with European Union (EU) regulations. The wider impact of accurate numbers is significant for public service provision, planning, and the UK economy. Furthermore, ONS data feeds into numerous areas of public policy, hence the provision of accurate estimates by Southampton researchers has significant reach and impact on such policies.
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The underpinning research was exploited to design an exceptionally efficient Real-Time Operating System (RTOS), used in automotive Electronic Control Units (ECUs), and its associated schedulability analysis tools. Since 2008, the RTOS has been deployed in 50 to 55 million new ECUs each year. The RTOS has been standardised upon (used by default in all ECUs) by [text removed for publication]. ([text removed for publication] in terms of world-wide automotive powertrain systems suppliers. [text removed for publication] all rank in the top [text removed for publication] world-wide for chassis electronics). The RTOS is used in cars produced by [text removed for publication] as well as many others. Revenues from the RTOS exceed [text removed for publication] per year.
Mathematical models recently developed in York have improved our understanding of the dynamics of marine ecosystems. They underpin paradigm-changing proposals to orient fisheries policy towards a "balanced harvest" and away from the traditional selective harvesting of species and sizes. These proposals have:
A new design methodology which enhances the quality and accuracy of information derived from non-market valuation surveys is now the instrument of choice for many consultancy projects worldwide. The approach — known as Sequential Efficient Bayesian (SEB) design — enhances the decision-making process and the efficiency of service providers and is now available in major commercial software such as JMP from SAS (the integrated statistical software package created by SAS Corp and used by many businesses and academic institutions around the world). The methodology is routinely used in the design of surveys to analyse consumer and public choices in relation to willingness to pay for health, transport and environmental services. The research team's external affiliation since 2012 with the business consultancy CENSOC Sydney helps to provide tailored SEB designs to commercial clients, including several international, blue-chip corporations listed on the CENSOC site:http://www.censoc.uts.edu.au/about/members/external.html