Edilson Arruda, University of Southampton
Partner: NHS Southwest Regional Paediatric Neuroscience Centre at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children
Children and young people who sustain severe acquired brain injury often present to hospital in coma. Generally, they experience stages of reduced awareness up to full recovery. Some of them, however, develop a Prolonged Disorder of Consciousness (PDOC). Currently, inability to predict the outcome of individual patients hinders the early use of novel pharmacological and surgical treatments aimed at improving neuronal connectivity, which have been proposed for patients with PDOC. This project will develop the necessary predictive capacity to allow early identification of patients who could benefit from PDOC treatments, to enable targeted intervention via personalised care.
“This call is an amazing opportunity to leverage collaboration with key stakeholders to effectively tackle relevant societal problems. The fact that the process is smooth and much less bureaucratic than the traditional funding streams is also a plus. If you have an idea to improve society and know the key stakeholders who could help you achieve it, I strongly recommend that you apply.” – Edilson Arruda
Chris Dent, University of Edinburgh
Partner: Global Power System Transformation Consortium
Decarbonising the energy system, while maintaining resilience against a changing climate, is a major challenge facing society. The mathematical sciences have a vital role in addressing this, due to a more complex system with large numbers of local resources, management of uncertain renewable generation and time-shifting energy through storage, and planning with limited data on extremes of weather. This project will work with the Global Power System Transformation Consortium, an international collaboration of electricity system operators, on their decarbonisation agenda, and connect more broadly the mathematical science community to challenges associated with future energy supply.
“The KE Catalyst grant has enabled me to work directly with the Global Power System Transformation Consortium on specific topics such as risks of future electricity supply shortfalls, and more widely to develop new links between the international energy networks community and the mathematical sciences – watch this space for news of successor projects!” – Chris Dent
Lisa Kreusser, University of Bath
Partner: Met Office
Accurate weather forecasts are of great importance for predicting the occurrence of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, heat waves, cold snaps, and hurricanes, as these events can have a massive socio-economic impact on agriculture, transport, and energy use and production. While models based on physical laws have been used for decades for weather prediction, the use of machine learning has exploded in recent years. This led to a significant interest in the effectiveness of data-driven in addition to model-based methods for weather forecasts. This research aims to combine model-driven forecasts with weather data for accurate weather forecasts.
“The ICMS KE Catalyst has accelerated my research and its impacts on society enormously. This unique opportunity allowed me to initiate new research projects at the interface of mathematics, machine learning and climate science in collaboration with the Met Office, and to establish and strengthen my collaborations with several Met Office teams. In particular, the ICMS funding allowed me to engage significantly with the Met Office and to develop a long-term interdisciplinary research programme, with lots of potential future projects beyond the ICMS funding, and I am very grateful to the ICMS for making this possible.” – Lisa Kreusser
Lisa McFetridge, Queen’s University Belfast
Partner: Intensive Care Medicine, Royal Victoria Hospital Belfast
Patients on mechanical ventilation are at risk of serious complications, with early intervention key to improving their prognosis. By leveraging a new intensive care unit (ICU) database within the Belfast Health & Social Care Trust, this project will adapt previously developed robust joint models to enable them to be used practically as an early warning system for serious adverse events. This has the potential to create a vital resource to aid ICU staff and, as the adaption of statistical models to real-time use is applicable in a wide range of applications, lead to engaging dissemination events.
“The ICMS KE Catalyst funding has accelerated my research and its ability to make real world impacts. This unique opportunity provided me with valuable time to work closely with partners in the Belfast Health & Social Care Trust to create an early warning system based on advanced statistical algorithms which has the potential to improve the prognosis of critically ill ICU patients. The work for this is still ongoing but it’s great to see the progress made so far and how much potential the system has to be further developed and expanded to other departments and hospitals across the UK.” – Lisa McFetridge
Alberto Paganini, University of Leicester
Partner: The Alan Nuttall Partnership Ltd
This new knowledge exchange partnership between the University of Leicester and Flexeserve (a brand of The Alan Nuttall Partnership Limited) will demonstrate how state-of-the-art shape optimization techniques and software can be applied to inform manufacturing design. Flexeserve manufactures hot food cabinets in the UK. In this project, we will embed new knowledge and capabilities into Flexeserve’s Research & Development team to accelerate the design cycle and reduce its costs. The resulting new methodology will be applied to inform the design of a new generation of sustainable and energy efficient heating cabinets.
“The ICMS KE Catalyst fellowship allowed me to start a new industrial collaboration, engage in knowledge exchange, and deliver impact. Having the time and funding to meet regularly and collaborate closely with the industrial partner proved incredibly valuable, and I am very grateful to the ICMS for making this possible.” – Alberto Paganini
Bernd Schulze, Lancaster University
Partner: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
In collaboration with William Baker, Cameron Millar and Toby Mitchell from the architectural and engineering firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), this project aims to develop new design tools for light-weight, long-span structures, such as gridshell roofs and cable net structures, using mathematical methods from Geometric Rigidity Theory and Graphic Statics.
“The ICMS KE funding has allowed me to significantly expand my collaboration with the structural engineering company SOM, which has opened up a number of exciting new research directions. It’s been great to see how useful methods and results from “pure” mathematics can be to provide insights into real-world problems. There was tremendous interest in the KE workshop we organised as part of the project. It brought together leading experts in structural rigidity from academia and industry and will hopefully lead to rich interactions between the two communities in the future.” – Bernd Schulze
Diwei Zhou, Loughborough University
Partner: Caterpillar
In engineering, the life of machinery is very important and engine oil plays a vital role in conserving its working life. Lubricating oil is analogous to the blood in a body, the life support of the engine. The main functions of lubricant are to cool engine components, seals and cleans the engine subsystems and lubricate surface in relative motion for both friction reduction and wear inhibition. There are many different components that make up engine oil, including a combination of base oils as well as additives, contaminants, and oil chemical evolution by-products. It can be a challenge to determine the trace concentrations of these ingredients when additives and base oil are present. The main aim of this project is to develop and assess oil evolution models using statistical methods.
“Being a KE Catalyst through the ICMS has been an empowering journey, where I’ve witnessed firsthand the transformative impact of knowledge exchange. It’s inspiring to see how collaboration and innovation, fostered by the ICMS, can drive positive change. I’m proud to be a part of this dynamic community.” – Diwei Zhou
