De Beers the Diamond Trading Company
Management and Business Development
The University of Leicester has been selected as the Higher Education Partner for De Beers and the Diamond Trading Company (DTC) to provide a new Graduate Certificate Programme for DTC employees.
Jelson Ltd
Archaeological and Heritage Services
Development presents particular challenges to protecting the historic environment – both above and below ground. Inevitably new development may often have an impact on both the built environment and buried archaeological remains. Early assessment, however using a combination of documentary research and trial trenching enables historic buildings to be identified and a picture of the depth and significance of surviving archaeological deposits to be built up and to identify any areas of previous disturbance. Sometimes design solutions, for example piling, can be reached which protects buried archaeology. Elsewhere a programme of excavation before development may be needed to ensure that deposits are adequately investigated and recorded for the benefit of future generations.
Minelco Specialities
Sustainable Waste Management
Analytical support over and above the range of techniques available in the Company’s own laboratories
Northamptonshire Police
Forensic Services
Academic expertise has been applied to the issue of crime through a joint initiative with the Scientific Support Department of Northamptonshire Police. The aim of this partnership is to channel the skills and knowledge derived from research at the University of Leicester into enhancing the use of police forensic science to detect crime.
Northbridge Motorsport
Advanced Microscopy
The collaboration between Northbridge Motorsport and the University of Leicester Advanced Microscopy Centre consisted of careful examination of thread roots that had been rolled under different conditions of temperature and load. Fatigue failures in fasteners often initiate from thread roots where there is a high stress concentration factor and high stress in the application. Northbridge were developing new fasteners in a new high strength alloy and needed to understand the relationship between their rolling parameters and the quality of the thread root produced. Thread roots from different rolling conditions were examined using scanning electron microscopy which is ideal for this purpose owing to the high magnification and high depth of field that is available. Northbridge were able to use the images of the thread roots to optimise their thread rolling process and thus optimise the fatigue performance of their fasteners in this new alloy.
Systems Biology Laboratory UK
Transgenic Facilities
SBL required a genetically modified mouse containing the deletion of a chosen gene region, mimicking an evolutionary mutation found in humans. This mutation means that a particular molecule is found only in tumour cells in humans. This provides a novel target for cancer therapy that can now be tested in an appropriate model.
United Utilities
Until recently, there has been little consistency in accounting standards across the globe. This lack of an international ‘standard’ has made it very difficult to compare financial data originating from one country to the next. In turn, this has caused problems for investors in obtaining true projections and investment details as interpretation differs from location to location. The implementation of the new International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) protocol has begun to tackle this problem by harmonising data across the financial sector.
IAS39 (Financial Instrument: Recognition and Measurement) deals with the issues of ‘fair value’ and ‘hedging’, both of which require use of regression analysis and other high-level financial mathematics not routinely used by accountants. As users of the recently-revised IAS39 protocol, United Utilities required training in the mathematical principles underlying this important reporting standard.