News from the BIPM laboratories—2021

In order to fulfil its mission to ensure and promote the global comparability of measurements, the BIPM operates laboratories in the fields of physical metrology, time, ionizing radiation and chemistry. These laboratories act as centres for scientific and technical collaboration between Member States providing capabilities for international measurement comparisons on a shared cost basis. They coordinate international comparisons of national measurement standards agreed to be of the highest priority, and they establish and maintain appropriate reference standards for use as the basis of key international comparisons at the highest level and provide selected calibrations from them.

COVID-19 and Children’s Well-Being: A Rapid Research Agenda

Purpose Understanding the full impact of COVID-19 on U.S. children, families, and communities is critical to (a) document the scope of the problem, (b) identify solutions to mitigate harm, and (c) build more resilient response systems. We sought to develop a research agenda to understand the short- and long-term mechanisms and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s healthy development, with the goal of devising and ultimately testing interventions to respond to urgent needs and prepare for future pandemics. Description The Life Course Intervention Research Network facilitated a series of virtual meetings that included members of 10 Maternal and Child Health (MCH) research programs, their research and implementation partners, as well as family and community representatives, to develop an MCH COVID-19 Research Agenda. Stakeholders from academia, clinical practice, nonprofit organizations, and family advocates participated in four meetings, with 30–35 participants at each meeting. Assessment Investigating the impacts of COVID-19 on children’s mental health and ways to address them emerged as the highest research priority, followed by studying resilience at individual and community levels; identifying and mitigating the disparate negative effects of the pandemic on children and families of color, prioritizing community-based research partnerships, and strengthening local, state and national measurement systems to monitor children’s well-being during a national crisis. Conclusion Enacting this research agenda will require engaging the community, especially youth, as equal partners in research co-design processes; centering anti-racist perspectives; adopting a “strengths-based” approach; and integrating young researchers who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). New collaborative funding models and investments in data infrastructure are also needed.

Capturing the Gender Gap in the Scope of Parenting Related Leave Policies Across Nations

This article contributes to the conceptual and technical development of cross-national measurement and analysis of the gender gap in the scope of parenting related leave entitlements. That there is a gender gap in the scope of leave benefits is widely acknowledged, but it is rarely quantified. The nomenclature in use around leave policies is diverse and so a first step is to standardise categories and develop a unit of parenting related leave. There is considerable cross-national variation in the configuration of the scope of leave policies. As such, a second step is to consider how best to include the different dimensions of this scope (e.g., duration, payment level, individual parent versus family design) in an estimate of the gender gap in entitlement. Using data collated by the International Network on Leave Policies and Research, a gender gap indicator is created to contribute to our understanding of the inclusiveness of parenting related leave for men as compared to women. This indicator highlights that only two (Iceland and Norway) of 45 countries included in this analysis had achieved a zero-gender gap in terms of entitlement to ‘well-paid,’ individual parenting related leave during the first 18 months of a child’s life. The average gender gap for the countries in the analysis is between two to three months. Only seven countries offered more than two months leave to fathers as an individual entitlement. This is likely to be part of the explanation in many countries for lower leave taking practice by men compared to women.

Infra-AUV project: Metrology for low-frequency sound and vibration

<p>Infra-AUV is a new EU project that will establish primary measurements standards for low frequency phenomena across the fields of airborne and underwater acoustics and vibration (seismology). Combining expertise from the national measurement institutes and geophysical monitoring station operators, it will develop both high-precision laboratory-based methods of calibration and methods suitable for field use. Infra-AUV will also address requirements for reference sensors that link laboratory calibration capabilities to field requirements for measurement traceability.</p><p>To establish standards in the three technical areas, a variety of calibration principles will be employed, including extension of existing techniques such as reciprocity and optical interferometry, and development of new methods. There will also be an investigation of the potential for in-situ calibration methods, including use of both artificially generated and naturally occurring stimuli such as microseisms and microbaroms. The influence of calibration uncertainties on the determination of the measurands required by the monitoring networks will also be studied.</p><p>The project was strongly motivated by the CTBTO strategy to drive new metrology capability to underpin IMS data. The intention is to maintain interaction with stakeholders, not only in connection with the IMS, but with the broad range of users of low frequency acoustic and vibration data. </p>

The question of metrological traceability of COOMET reference materials. Pt. 2. Reference materials characterization

The concept of reference materials metrological traceability establishment within the framework of Euro-Asian Cooperation of National Metrological Institutions (COOMET) Technical Committee 1.12 “Reference Materials” (TC 1.12) is overviewed. Particular cases of COOMET Reference Materials development are provided. The authors considered approaches to demonstrate a metrological traceability of reference materials with different types of their characterisation, e. g., appliance of national measurement standards, or performance of interlaboratory comparison testing, or usage of primary reference measurement procedure for reference materials characterisation if a state measurement standard for units is absent.

Analysis on the significance of optimizing the measurement standard management system in power industry

Measurement standard management is an important link to ensure the unity of national measurement unit system and the consistency and accuracy of value transfer. The establishment of measurement standard management system aims to provide technical support for traceability of social measurement. On the basis of ensuring the unity of national measurement unit system and the accuracy and reliability of measurement value, it undertakes the task of legal measurement. Its management level, technical ability and service quality not only directly determine the correctness of the measurement results, but also have a crucial impact on the social activities related to the measurement results. Based on the analysis of the current situation of measurement standard management in power industry, this paper expounds the significance of continuous optimization of measurement standard management system and the results achieved.

Metrology of solid materials and substances porosity and permeability

The monograph is dedicated to current problem which is the development of appliance of centralised system of characterising the solid materials and substances porosity and permeability unit’s realisation and transfer methodology. The monograph considered the mix of means and methods allowing to increase the measurement validity and accuracy, to maintain a possibility of measuring equipment refreshing with more accomplished instruments, as well as to expand national measurement and calibration capabilities of the highest accuracy. The monograph is intended for metrologists, scientific workers, engineers, pre- and post-graduate students of oil & gas qualifications, as well as experts whose studies are to develop, test, verify and use the means of measurement of gas specific adsorption, specific surface and specific volume of pores, pore size, effective porosity and gas permeability coefficient for solid materials and substances.

Measuring Success from Below: The Social Legitimacy of the United Nations among Populations Exposed to its Peacekeeping Operations

The success of peacekeeping forces is both a topic of heated debate and a central theme in the literature on international peacekeeping. Most existing answers to this question rely on one- dimensional macro-measures of effectiveness, such as battle fatalities. This paper proposes another perspective that is based on the point of view of local residents in countries that host United Nations peacekeepers. It argues that their support is an indicator of success, since they evaluate the institutional effectiveness of the peacekeepers they are exposed to. Using an aggregation of longitudinal data from the World Values Survey (N=25,196), and original data on the exposure to peacekeepers collected from the United Nations archives, we offer a unique, systematic and cross- national measurement of the local legitimacy of peacekeeping forces. Results from a multilevel, mixed-effects, linear model show significantly lower levels of confidence in the United Nations and higher levels of demand for the accountability of its forces in countries with an active peacekeeping operation. The level of confidence has a strong and negative correlation with the size of the mission, even when controlled for varied ideological explanations and for confidence extrapolation. The paper contributes to an ongoing debate on international peacekeeping and to research on the legitimacy of international organizations.

From Characterisation to Validation: A Journey through Master’s Level Analytical Chemistry

The master’s degree in Applied Analytical Chemistry at University College London (UCL) includes valuable teaching input from the UK National Measurement Laboratory for Chemical and Bio-Measurement hosted at LGC. The course starts by introducing accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, trueness, and precision for validating analytical chemistry measurement methods. The principles of proficiency tests, quality control, ruggedness, and associated statistics are practiced using a wide variety of case studies.