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Scotland's foundations:wealth, grantmaking, and the public good
No full textThis report uses publicly available data to address key questions about Scotland’s charitable grantmaking foundations, including how many there are, where they are located, how much wealth they hold, and what is known about the public good that they contribute to. Grantmaking foundations are defined as those charities that are registered with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR), are financially active, and which make grants to other organisations but do not operate their own programmes in at least one year. These foundations are of three types: 1) investors, who hold publicly listed investments; 2) income-based, who do not hold publicly listed investments; and 3) lotteries, whose primary source of income is from operating a lottery. There are 199 investor foundations, holding £3,672 million in net funds carried forward, of which £3,045 million is held in publicly listed investments, and who generate £1,758 in income. From this, they granted as much as £249 million in their most recent fiscal years. Investor foundations, and the assets they hold, are concentrated in Edinburgh and Glasgow, but with some distribution across much of Scotland. Their granting activities are most often at a scale larger than the council that they are located in, and many of them address multiple charitable purposes through their granting. Investors increase granting by £0.23 for a year over year increase of £1 in trading income and £19.68 for a year over year increase of £1 in investing income. Investing income only includes interest and dividends, not unrealised gains in investments. Investor grantmaking does not change with economic conditions, but their revenue sources do change with the economy, which indirectly affects granting. There are 96 income-based foundations, holding £219 million in net funds carried forward, who generate £148 million in income, and who granted as much as £130 million in their most recent fiscal years. Income-based foundations are more concentrated than investor foundations in the larger cities, which may reflect a need for a larger population to support their fundraising efforts. For income-based grantmaking foundations, a £1 year over year increase in donation revenue increases granting by £0.93 and a £1 increase in charitable activities income (fees for service) increases granting by £0.54. The effect of the economy is not direct, and changes in granting are in response to changes in revenue, not changes in economic conditions. There are 20 lotteries, with 18 in Edinburgh and 2 in Glasgow. They hold £92 million in net funds carried forward, raise £707 million in income, and granted up to £221 million in their most recent fiscal years. For lotteries, a year over year £1.00 increase in trading income (likely lottery ticket sales) increases granting by £0.23 year over year. The potential of minimum disbursements to uplift granting in Scotland was tested, and the results were mixed. Essentially, a poorly designed minimum disbursement policy could unintentionally decrease overall granting by up to £215 million because the significant number of grantmaking foundations under a minimum disbursement rule are under-granting by less than the value of over-granting by foundations who are above the minimum. For government, the recommendations coming from this report are to focus on updating the regulatory environment for grantmaking foundations with special attention paid to the Scottish context. For OSCR, the regulator, recommendations focus on improving the data available on grantmaking foundations and charities to enable government, researchers, donors, and the public to understand the complete financial picture of grantmaking foundations and how this picture changes over time. For grantmaking foundations, to focus on coordinating with each other and government to match grantmaking with community needs. Finally, for grantseekers, to focus on pragmatism in approaching grantmaking foundations for support
A database of databases for Common Era paleoclimate applications
No full textWe present a merged database of five curated databases (DoD2k version 2.0.0) developed for Common Era (1–2000 A.D.) paleoclimate research. A toolkit to create the database is also provided and leverages codebases developed by individual database developers and the paleoclimate data informatics communities over the past decade. It includes Python notebooks for (1) loading each database from its public repository, using a common, compact set of terms for metadata and data management; (2) their merger using that common set of dictionary terms; (3) a multistage algorithm to identify candidate duplicates; (4) an operator-supervised, semiautomated decisionmaking procedure, checking against a common set of metadata and comparison metrics; and (5) creation and checking of the finalized, duplicate-free database across 22 dictionary terms. Each of the curated databases, which arise from individual, community and PAGES (Past Global Changes) 2k working groups, represent a range of development approaches, from single archive, single observation datasets with a range of reported environmental responses, to multiarchive-multiobservation collections which target a specific climate response. The resulting DoD2k spans 13 archive types, 37 data types, and 4781 records within the Common Era. We illustrate the value of the DoD2k with two applications. In the first, we extract the moisture (M) and temperature (T) sensitive subset of records and perform an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis on the resulting multi-archive, multi-observation MT-sensitive dataset. In the second, we show that calcite speleothem oxygen isotopic composition is consistent with that simulated using simple models of this proxy system. DoD2k may also be useful for paleoclimatic detection and attribution analysis using proxy system modeling, data assimilation, and deep learning for the development and testing of improved proxy system models. The database can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.25921/sptp-g618 (Evans et al., 2025). The toolkit can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15676255 (Luecke et al., 2026)
Climate impacts of forced equatorial superrotation in an idealized GCM
No full textWhile it is expected that the large-scale tropical circulation should undergo some changes in a warmer climate, it remains an open question whether its characteristic features, such as the Hadley cell, the intertropical convergence zone, or the weak surface easterlies, could take a completely different shape. As an example, it has been hypothesized that Earth’s atmosphere may have experienced equatorial superrotation—i.e., westerly winds at the equator—during its history. The possibility of equatorial superrotation has been studied in a range of planetary atmospheres, including Earth-like ones, with the objective of understanding the underlying dynamical processes. However, the broader impact that this dramatic circulation change would have on the climate system is practically unexplored. This is the question we address here. We perform idealized GCM simulations with an imposed equatorial torque to investigate how a forced superrotating atmosphere affects surface temperature and the water cycle. We show that these effects are quite large and directly related to the global circulation changes, which extend beyond the tropical atmosphere. Using tools including a forcing/feedback analysis and a moist energy balance model, we argue that the dominant mechanism is changes in atmospheric energy transport, driven in particular by the collapse of the meridional overturning circulation, and to a smaller extent by the appearance of an equatorial jet, and the concomitant redistribution of moisture in the tropics, leading to a much weaker relative humidity gradient which has strong radiative effects
MWCNTs growth and low-carbon H2 synthesis in the catalytic CH4 decomposition reaction
No full textIn this study, hydrogen and MWCNTs were co-produced via the catalytic methane decomposition (CMD) using Ni-based catalysts. A comparison of catalytic activity was conducted using four catalysts: 15 wt% Ni/Al2O3, 40 wt% Ni/Al2O3, 15 wt% Ni-Co (9:1)/MgO, and 50 wt% Ni/MgO, in CMD experiments performed in a quartz reactor. The 40 wt% Ni/Al2O3 catalyst achieved the highest carbon yield (90%) prior to purification, whereas the 15 wt% Ni-Co (9:1)/MgO catalyst exhibited the highest and stable H2 production, attributed to the synergistic effect of active metals, Ni and Co. After purification, the carbon content of the tested 40 wt% Ni/Al2O3, 50 wt% Ni/MgO, and 15 wt% Ni-Co/MgO catalysts exceeded 95%, comparable to high-purity MWCNTs reported in the literature. The MgO-supported catalyst demonstrated easier purification and metal recovery, making it a promising candidate for CMD applications. Accordingly, a kinetic study of 15 wt% Ni-Co/MgO at 575-650 °C gave an activation energy of 42.9 kJ mol−1, lower than literature values, indicating enhanced catalytic efficiency
Antitelic essences in Spinoza’s “mystical atheism”
No full textThis paper defends Brook Ziporyn’s interpretation of Spinoza as a “mystical atheist”, taken here to mean a philosopher who believes not only that there is no inherent purpose in the cosmos but also that this cosmic purposelessness should serve as a model for human life. I argue that Spinoza does indeed hold this view, but that a potential objection arises from his essentialism. Spinoza’s Ethics seems to imply that humans, along with all other particular things, must strive to pursue a limited inherent purpose, defined by their essence. This would be at odds with the mystical atheist recommendation to emulate the cosmic purposelessness. I argue that this objection can be overcome by recognising that essences in Spinoza are very different from essences in the Western philosophical tradition. Essences are antitelic in Spinoza. Each thing essentially strives to be and act in as many different ways as possible. Things only actually strive in particular limited ways due to being thwarted in the full exercise of their power by external things. At the essential level, not only humans but all things strive fundamentally to emulate the purposelessness of the cosmos, in line with the mystical atheist vision
Evidence for representation of pretend objects by Kanzi, a language trained bonobo
No full textSecondary representations enable our minds to depart from the here-and-now and generate imaginary, hypothetical, or alternate possibilities that are decoupled from reality, supporting many of our richest cognitive capacities, such as mental-state attribution, simulation of possible futures, and pretense. We present experimental evidence that a nonhuman primate can represent pretend objects. Kanzi, a lexigram-trained bonobo, correctly identified the location of pretend objects (e.g., “juice” poured between empty containers), in response to verbal prompts in scaffolded pretense interactions. Across three experiments, we conceptually replicated this finding and excluded key alternative explanations. Our findings suggest that the capacity to form secondary representations of pretend objects is within the cognitive potential of, at least, an enculturated ape, and likely dates back 6 to 9 million years, to our common evolutionary ancestors
Multiplex immunofluorescence and histopathology dataset of cell‐cycle related proteins in renal cell carcinoma
No full textClear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) accounts for the majority of kidney cancer diagnoses and exhibits widely variable clinical behaviour. The dataset described here was generated to support the discovery of robust biomarkers of tumour cell-cycle arrest and to inform the risk-stratified management of ccRCC. We assembled four independent cohorts including 480 patients from the UK arm of the SORCE adjuvant trial, 300 patients from a surgically treated series in Korea, 120 patients from a retrospective Scottish cohort, and a paired primary–metastatic cohort comprising 62 patients. Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded nephrectomy specimens were processed for routine hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) histology, and for multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF). The mIF panels detect the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21CDKN1a, the DNA replication licencing factor MCM2, endoglin/CD105, Lamin B1 and nuclear DNA (Hoechst). Whole-slide images (WSIs) were acquired at high resolution, and artificial-intelligence pipelines were used to segment nuclei, classify individual cells into arrested phenotypes, and calculate the fraction of cells. Accompanying metadata include demographics, tumour stage, grade, Leibovich score, treatment arm (sorafenib/placebo), relapse events, and disease-free survival. All images and derived tables are released under a CC0 licence via the BioImage Archive, ensuring unrestricted reuse. This multi-cohort dataset provides a rich resource for studying cell-cycle arrest and proliferation markers, training image-analysis algorithms, and developing prognostic signatures in RCC
Sobolev and quasiconformal distortion of intermediate dimension with applications to conformal dimension
No full textWe study the distortion of intermediate dimension under supercritical Sobolev mappings and also under quasiconformal or quasisymmetric homeomorphisms. In particular, we extend to the setting of intermediate dimensions both the Gehring–Väisälä theorem on dilatation-dependent quasiconformal distortion of dimension and Kovalev's theorem on the nonexistence of metric spaces with conformal dimension strictly between zero and one. Applications include new contributions to the quasiconformal classification of Euclidean sets and a new sufficient condition for the vanishing of conformal box-counting dimension. We illustrate our conclusions with specific consequences for Bedford–McMullen carpets, samples of Mandelbrot percolation, and product sets containing a polynomially convergent sequence factor
The figure-sculpture of Haughmond Abbey
No full textHaughmond Abbey, an Augustinian house just outside Shrewsbury, offers a modest but positive contribution to the history of English Gothic figure-sculpture. While most of the church and claustral complex has been destroyed, archaeology has recovered several valuable sculptural fragments, including a Virgin and Child image made c. 1200 of unusual purpose and form. There are also ten stone sculptures of saints remaining in situ on the jambs of a processional doorway that led into the nave from the north cloister walk and the chapter-house façade. These jamb-sculptures, carved in the 14th century, are peculiar for having been sculpted in relief onto existing Romanesque quoins, a method (and economy) which is hard to parallel. Most of this sculpture has been noticed in previous publications, and the essay offered here rehearses the findings of this work where necessary. But it tries to go beyond received ideas by identifying aspects of the sculpture and its context that will support further attention in light of available evidence
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