Misplaced Pages

#106893

42-611: The British Industrial Biological Research Association was a government-run research association in the UK, and is now a private company, that investigates toxicology of commercial products. The organisation was formed in 1961 by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). The new buildings in Surrey were to cost £56,000, and would be fully open in 1962; at the time there were 52 British research associations. The site has been known as

84-420: A caesium standard based on a certain transition of the caesium-133 atom, was built by Louis Essen and Jack Parry in 1955 at NPL. Calibration of the caesium standard atomic clock was carried out by the use of the astronomical time scale ephemeris time (ET). This led to the internationally agreed definition of the latest SI second being based on atomic time. NPL has undertaken computer research since

126-728: A gateway . Concurrently, the NPL connection to the Post Office Experimental Packet Switched Service used a common host protocol in both networks. NPL research confirmed establishing a common host protocol would be more reliable and efficient. The EIN protocol helped to launch the proposed INWG standard. Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf acknowledged Davies and Scantlebury in their 1974 paper " A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication ". Derek Barber proposed an electronic mail protocol in 1979 in INWG 192 and implemented it on

168-407: A National Communications Service for On-line Data Processing . Subsequently, the NPL team, led by Roger Scantlebury , were the first to implement packet switching in the local-area NPL network in early 1969, which operated until 1986. They carried out work to analyse and simulate the performance of a wide-area packet-switched network capable of providing data communications facilities to most of

210-424: A community of bright people that were interested in new things, they were good fodder for a system like Scrapbook" and "When we had more than one Scrapbook system, hyperlinks could go across the network without the user knowing what was happening". It was decided that any commercial development of Scrapbook should be left to industry and it was licensed to Triad and then to BT who marketed it as Milepost and developed

252-890: A transaction processor as an additional feature. Various implementations were marketed on DEC , IBM and ITL machines. All NPL implementations of Scrapbook were closed down in 1984. In the early 1990s, the NPL developed three formal specifications of the MAA : one in Z , one in LOTOS , and one in VDM . The VDM specification became part of the 1992 revision of the International Standard 8731–2, and three implementations in C , Miranda , and Modula-2 . A 2020 study by researchers from Queen Mary University of London and NPL successfully used microwaves to measure blood-based molecules known to be influenced by dehydration. The National Physical Laboratory

294-723: The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park during the Second World War to decipher German encrypted messages, worked at the National Physical Laboratory from 1945 to 1947. He designed there the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine), which was one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. Clifford Hodge also worked there and was engaged in research on semiconductors. Others who have spent time at NPL include Robert Watson-Watt , generally considered

336-555: The International Network Working Group (INWG). Connecting heterogeneous computer networks creates a "basic dilemma" since a common host protocol would require restructuring the existing networks. NPL connected with the European Informatics Network (Barber directed the project and Scantlebury led the UK technical contribution) by translating between two different host protocols; that is, using

378-1040: The National Physical Laboratory from the Royal Society in 1918, the Geological Survey and Geological Museum from the Board of Education in 1919, the Road Experimental Station from the Ministry of Transport in 1933, the Laboratory of the Government Chemist (previously the Government Chemist's Department) in 1959, and the Tropical Products Institute from the Colonial Office in the same year. Some research organisations founded by

420-686: The Torry Research Station and the Water Pollution Research Laboratory. The British Museum Laboratory, established by the department in 1919, was transferred to the museum in 1930. Three food research establishments, the Pest Infestation Laboratory , Low Temperature Research Station and Ditton Laboratory , passed to the Agricultural Research Council in 1959. From 1941 to 1945 the department

462-461: The 1950s. The department was responsible for the organisation, development and encouragement of scientific and industrial research and the dissemination of its results. It worked by encouraging and supporting scientific research in universities, technical colleges and other institutions, establishing and developing its own research organisations for investigation and research relative to the advancement of trade and industry, and taking steps to further

SECTION 10

#1732854855107

504-754: The BIBRA Research Laboratories. The site mainly investigated the toxicology of food products ( additives ) and cosmetics. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visited the site on 8 June 1969. The private company was later known as BIBRA by the late 1980s. It has worked with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and MRC . The association produced the international journal Food and Chemical Toxicology and Toxicology in Vitro . The BIBRA Laboratories have worked with

546-620: The British scientific establishment. NPL is based at Bushy Park in Teddington , west London. It is operated by NPL Management Ltd, a company owned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology , and is one of the most extensive government laboratories in the United Kingdom. In the 19th century, the Kew Observatory was run by self-funded devotees of science. In the early 1850s,

588-473: The DSIR prior to its disbandment in 1965: Industrial Research And Development In The United Kingdom A Survey. National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom) The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the national measurement standards laboratory of the United Kingdom. It sets and maintains physical standards for British industry. Founded in 1900, the NPL is one of the oldest metrology institutes in

630-620: The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Act 1956, which abolished the advisory council and the Imperial Trust and vested executive power in a new Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. The council, set up on 7 November 1956, was appointed by and responsible to the Lord President of the Council and was required to comply with any directions it might receive from a committee of

672-588: The EIN. This was referenced by Jon Postel in his early work on Internet email, published in the Internet Experiment Note series. Scrapbook was an information storage and retrieval system that went live in mid-1971. It included what would now be called word processing , e-mail and hypertext , anticipating many elements of the World Wide Web . The project was managed by David Yates who said of it "We had

714-560: The President of the Board of Education was nominated as vice-president of the committee of the Privy Council, and the committee's staff and accommodation were at first provided by the board. With the increasing importance of the industrial side of research, these initial arrangements soon became inadequate. Consequently, in December 1916 a separate Department of Scientific and Industrial Research

756-468: The Privy Council for scientific and industrial research. In 1959 these functions of the lord president were transferred to the newly created Minister for Science. The department was abolished by the Science and Technology Act 1965 , which dispersed its functions over a number of government departments and other bodies. Those primarily concerned were the new Ministry of Technology , which became responsible for

798-650: The U.K. Their research and practice influenced the ARPANET in the United States, the forerunner of the Internet , and other researchers in the UK and Europe, including Louis Pouzin . NPL sponsors a gallery, opened in 2009, about the development of packet switching and "Technology of the Internet" at The National Museum of Computing . NPL internetworking research was led by Davies, Barber and Scantlebury, who were members of

840-429: The application of scientific knowledge to industry and for the majority of the department's research establishments; the Department of Education and Science, which took over responsibility for overseas scientific liaison and the general advancement of scientific knowledge; and the new Science Research Council , which was now to deal with grants for university research and awards for postgraduate students. Administered by

882-460: The civil service . It grew to fill a large selection of buildings on the Teddington site. Administration of NPL was contracted out in 1995 under a Government Owned Contractor Operated (GOCO) model, via a new operating company, NPL Management Ltd. Serco won the bid and all staff transferred to their employment. Under this regime, overhead costs halved, third-party revenues grew by 16% per annum, and

SECTION 20

#1732854855107

924-970: The department had functions defined in terms of a field of science or technology such as the Chemical Research Laboratory, the National Engineering Laboratory and the Hydraulics Research Station . Others were defined in terms of a practical objective, such as the Building Research Station, the Fire Research Station, the Forest Products Research Laboratory, the Fuel Research Station, the Radio Research Station ,

966-402: The establishment of a state-funded scientific institution for testing electrical standards. The National Physical Laboratory was established in 1900 at Bushy House in Teddington . Its purpose was "for standardising and verifying instruments, for testing materials, and for the determination of physical constants". The laboratory was run by the UK government, with members of staff being part of

1008-408: The government was little concerned with scientific enquiry. By 1914 there were a number of small governmental bodies with a specialised scientific interest, but little organised effort towards the application of discoveries made in fundamental research and no organisation concerned with the application of science to industry. The impetus to the establishment of the department was provided by the needs of

1050-570: The inventor of radar, Oswald Kubaschewski, the father of computational materials thermodynamics and the numerical analyst James Wilkinson . Metallurgist Walter Rosenhain appointed the NPL's first female scientific staff members in 1915, Marie Laura Violet Gayler and Isabel Hadfield . NPL research has contributed to physical science , materials science , computing , and bioscience . Applications have been found in ship design , aircraft development , radar , computer networking , and global positioning . The first accurate atomic clock,

1092-559: The mid-1940s. From 1945, Alan Turing led the design of the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) computer. The ACE project was overambitious and floundered, leading to Turing's departure. Donald Davies took the project over and concentrated on delivering the less ambitious Pilot ACE computer, which first worked in May 1950. Among those who worked on the project was American computer pioneer Harry Huskey . A commercial spin-off, DEUCE

1134-451: The number of peer-reviewed research papers published doubled. NPL procured a large state-of-the-art laboratory under a Private Finance Initiative contract in 1998. The construction was undertaken by John Laing . The new laboratory building, which had been maintained by Serco, was transferred back to the DTI in 2004 after the private sector companies involved made losses of over £100m. It

1176-428: The observatory began charging fees for testing meteorological instruments and other scientific equipment. As universities in the United Kingdom created and expanded physics departments, the governing committee of the observatory became increasingly dominated by paid university physicists in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. By this time, instrument-testing was the observatory's main role. Physicists sought

1218-511: The practical application of the results of research. It could make grants for the purposes of any of these functions. The department was not responsible for research undertaken primarily to meet the requirements of national defence, nor did it cover all government activity in research for civil purposes. Large areas of research were the responsibility of other bodies – aviation, atomic energy, agriculture, health and medicine, meteorology – though it might undertake specific investigations on behalf of

1260-545: The progress of the approved programme. A Scottish branch office of the department was opened in Edinburgh in September 1947, a Welsh office at Cardiff in 1953, and a Northern branch office at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1963. Late in 1954, the Lord President appointed a small committee under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Jephcott to enquire into the organisation and functioning of the department. Its recommendations were given effect in

1302-468: The responsible departments. The department encouraged and supported scientific research in universities and other institutions by means of grants for special research projects, research fellowships, studentships, grants to research associations and research contracts. The department absorbed or created a number of research organisations, which included large laboratories for special fields of work. Existing institutions for which it assumed responsibility were

British Industrial Biological Research Association - Misplaced Pages Continue

1344-512: The subjects of - Today BIBRA is situated on the A237 ; it was previously further west, on the B278. The former British Industrial Biological Research Association was in northern Surrey . 51°21′38.2″N 0°9′4.66″W  /  51.360611°N 0.1512944°W  / 51.360611; -0.1512944 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (United Kingdom) Before the twentieth century,

1386-513: The technology of quartz clocks ; the inventor Sir Barnes Wallis who did early development work on the "Bouncing Bomb" used in the "Dam Busters" wartime raids; H. J. Gough , one of the pioneers of research into metal fatigue , who worked at NPL for 19 years from 1914 to 1938; and Sydney Goldstein and Sir James Lighthill who worked in NPL's aerodynamics division during World War II researching boundary layer theory and supersonic aerodynamics respectively. Alan Turing , known for his work at

1428-645: The war effort. The initiative was taken by the President of the Board of Education who, in May 1915, presented to Parliament a white paper urging that a permanent organisation for the promotion of scientific and industrial research should be set up. By order in council of 28 July 1915 authority for such an organisation was vested in a committee of the Privy Council consisting at first of six ministers and three other privy councillors in their personal capacities. This new Committee for Scientific and Industrial Research

1470-481: The world. Research and development work at the laboratory has contributed to the advancement of many disciplines of science, including the development of early computers in the late 1940s and 1950s, construction of the first accurate atomic clock in 1955, and the invention and first implementation of packet switching in the 1960s, which is today one of the fundamental technologies of the Internet . The former heads of NPL include many individuals who were pillars of

1512-546: Was a director of research responsible to the head of the department. The director was provided with one or more research institutes or laboratories and with an advisory research board. The research boards were appointed by the lord president of the Council until 1956 and thereafter by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research . The boards were responsible for advising the council on the programme of work to be undertaken, and to watch, comment and advise, and to report annually, on

1554-502: Was announced in January 2013 for a new £25m Advanced Metrology Laboratory that will be built on the footprint of an existing unused building. NPL Management Ltd and the operation of the laboratory transferred back to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (now the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology ) on 1 January 2015. Researchers who have worked at NPL include: D. W. Dye who did important work in developing

1596-545: Was created, having its own parliamentary vote but responsible to Parliament through the Lord President of the Council . Once the full four-tier organisation of the committee of the council, the Advisory Council, the Imperial Trust and the department was established. In 1928 the committee of council was reconstituted with an entirely ministerial membership; otherwise, the organisation survived with only small changes until

1638-506: Was decided in 2012 to change the operating model for NPL from 2014 onwards to include academic partners and to establish a postgraduate teaching institute on site. The date of the changeover was later postponed for a year. The candidates for lead academic partner were the Universities of Edinburgh , Southampton , Strathclyde and Surrey with an alliance of the Universities of Strathclyde and Surrey chosen as preferred partners. Funding

1680-463: Was manufactured by English Electric Computers and became one of the best-selling machines of the 1950s. Beginning in the mid-1960s, Donald Davies invented and pioneered the implementation of packet switching , now the dominant basis for data communications in computer networks worldwide. Davies designed and proposed a national commercial data network in his 1965 Proposal for the Development of

1722-597: Was responsible for atomic energy research, in an organisation known as the Directorate of Tube Alloys . In the 1950s the department embarked on research in the human sciences in relation to the needs of industry, undertaken from 1953 to 1957 in collaboration with the Medical Research Council ; in 1958 the department's research programme was transferred from its Headquarters Office to the new Warren Spring Laboratory . The executive head of each research organisation

British Industrial Biological Research Association - Misplaced Pages Continue

1764-420: Was to be assisted by an Advisory Council, which in turn was assisted by certain advisory committees. As a first step, a scheme was devised for encouraging groups of firms to set up co-operative industrial research associations. For this purpose, a lump sum of £1 million, the 'Million Fund', was voted and an Imperial Trust was set up to administer it. Because of the close connection between education and research,

#106893