Randomised controlled non-inferiority trial of primary care-based facilitated access to an alcohol reduction website: cost-effectiveness analysis

in BMJ Open (2017), 7(11),

Objectives To evaluate the 12-month costs and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained to the Italian National Health Service of facilitated access to a website for hazardous drinkers compared with a ... [more ▼]

Objectives To evaluate the 12-month costs and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained to the Italian National Health Service of facilitated access to a website for hazardous drinkers compared with a standard face-to-face brief intervention (BI). Design Randomised 1:1 non-inferiority trial. Setting Practices of 58 general practitioners (GPs) in Italy. Participants Of 9080 patients (>18 years old) approached to take part in the trial, 4529 (49·9%) logged on to the website and 3841 (84.8%) undertook online screening for hazardous drinking. 822 (21.4%) screened positive and 763 (19.9%) were recruited to the trial. Interventions Patients were randomised to receive either a face-to-face BI or access via a brochure from their GP to an alcohol reduction website (facilitated access). Primary and secondary outcome measures The primary outcome is the cost per QALY gained of facilitated access compared with face-to-face. A secondary analysis includes total costs and benefits per 100 patients, including number of hazardous drinkers prevented at 12 months. Results The average time required for the face-to-face BI was 8 min (95% CI 7.5 min to 8.6 min). Given the maximum time taken for facilitated access of 5 min, face-to-face is an additional 3 min: equivalent to having time for another GP appointment for every three patients referred to the website. Complete case analysis adjusting for baseline the difference in QALYs for facilitated access is 0.002 QALYs per patient (95% CI −0.007 to 0.011). Conclusions Facilitated access to a website to reduce hazardous drinking costs less than a face-to-face BI given by a GP with no worse outcomes. The lower cost of facilitated access, particularly in regards to investment of time, may facilitate the increase in provision of BIs for hazardous drinking. Trial registration number NCT01638338;Post-results. [less ▲]

Rapid Testing of Stabilised Finite Element Formulations for the Reissner-Mindlin Plate Problem using the FEniCS Project

Scientific Conference (2012, June)

Re-Interpretation of Conceptualisation - A Contribution to the Advance of Design Theory

in Lindemann, Udo (Ed.) Human Behaviour in Design. Individuals, Teams, Tools (2003)

Reachability analysis of continuous-time piecewise affine systems

in Automatica (2008), 44(12), 3189-3194

This paper proposes an algorithm for the characterization of reachable sets of states for continuous-time piecewise affine systems. Given a model of the system and a bounded set of possible initial states ... [more ▼]

This paper proposes an algorithm for the characterization of reachable sets of states for continuous-time piecewise affine systems. Given a model of the system and a bounded set of possible initial states, the algorithm employs an LMI approach to compute both upper and lower bounds on reachable regions. Rather than performing computations in the state-space, this method uses impact maps to find the reachable sets on the switching surfaces of the system. This tool can then be used to deduce safety and performance results about the system. [less ▲]

A real time hybrid controller for regulating bus operations and reducing stops at signals

Scientific Conference (2019, June)

We propose a hybrid controller which consists of holding and a Driver Advisory System (DAS). It combines the objectives of seeking the regularization of operation and the reduction of stop and go actions ... [more ▼]

We propose a hybrid controller which consists of holding and a Driver Advisory System (DAS). It combines the objectives of seeking the regularization of operation and the reduction of stop and go actions at signalized intersections. A simple headway based holding criterion is applied at stops to define the time needed to maintain even spaced headways between buses and additionally a speed recommendation is given to traverse during green indication at the downstream signalized intersection. The controller is tested using simulation for a bus line of the city of Luxembourg, Luxembourg and compared to a benchmark scenario, the single application of bus holding, two advisory systems and different levels of transit signal priority. Results show that there are additional benefits compared to traditional holding in terms of regularity while similar performance to strong transit signal priority is achieved in terms of time spent at traffic lights. [less ▲]

Real time multiline holding control for networks with shared transit corridor

Scientific Conference (2018, September 05)

Real-time error controlled adaptive mesh refinement in surgical simulation: Application to needle insertion simulation

in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering (n.d.)

This paper presents the first real-time discretisation-error-driven adaptive finite element approach for corotational elasticity problems involving strain localisation. We propose a hexahedron-based ... [more ▼]

This paper presents the first real-time discretisation-error-driven adaptive finite element approach for corotational elasticity problems involving strain localisation. We propose a hexahedron-based finite element method combined with local oct-tree $h$-refinement, driven by a posteriori error estimation, for simulating soft tissue deformation. This enables to control the local error and global error level in the mechanical fields during the simulation. The local error level is used to refine the mesh only where it is needed, while maintaining a coarser mesh elsewhere. We investigate the convergence of the algorithm on academic examples, and demonstrate its practical usability on a percutaneous procedure involving needle insertion in a liver. For the latter case, we compare the force displacement curves obtained from the proposed adaptive algorithm with that obtained from a uniform refinement approach. [less ▲]

Real-time graph-based SLAM in unknown environments using a small UAV

in 2017 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS); Miami 13-16 June 2017 (2017)

Autonomous navigation of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in cluttered environments is still a challenging problem. In this work, we present an approach based on graph slam and loop closure detection ... [more ▼]

Autonomous navigation of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in cluttered environments is still a challenging problem. In this work, we present an approach based on graph slam and loop closure detection for online mapping of unknown outdoor environments using a small UAV. Here, we used an onboard front facing stereo camera as the primary sensor. The data extracted by the cameras are used by the graph-based slam algorithm to estimate the position and create the graph-nodes and construct the map. To avoid multiple detections of one object as different objects and to identify re-visited locations, a loop closure detection is applied with optimization algorithm using the g2o toolbox to minimize the error. Furthermore, 3D occupancy map is used to represent the environment. This technique is used to save memory and computational time for the online processing. Real experiments are conducted in outdoor cluttered and open field environments.The experiment results show that our presented approach works under real time constraints, with an average time to process the nodes of the 3D map is 17.79ms. [less ▲]

Real-Time Large Deformation Simulations Using Probabilistic Deep Learning Framework

Scientific Conference (2022, June)

Real-time Model Predictive Control for Aerial Manipulation

Doctoral thesis (2018)

The rapid development in the field of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is driven by new applications in agriculture, logistics, inspection and smart manufacturing. The future keys in these domains are the ... [more ▼]

The rapid development in the field of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is driven by new applications in agriculture, logistics, inspection and smart manufacturing. The future keys in these domains are the abilities to autonomously interact with the environment and with other robotic systems. This thesis is providing control engineering solutions to contribute to these key capabilities. The first step of this thesis is to develop an understanding of the dynamic behavior of UAVs. For this purpose, dynamic and kinematic models are presented to describe a UAV's motion. This includes a kinematic model which is suitable for off-the-shelf UAVs and combines full 360° heading operation with a low computational complexity. The presented models are subsequently used to develop a nonlinear model predictive control NMPC strategy. In this context, the performance of several NMPC solvers and inequality constraint handling techniques is evaluated. The real-time capability and NMPC performance are validated with real AR.Drone 2.0 and DJI M100 quadrotors. This includes collision avoidance and advanced tracking scenarios. The design work-flow for the related control objectives and constraints is presented accordingly. As a next step, this UAV NMPC strategy is extended for a UAV with attached robotic arm. For this purpose, the forward kinematics of the robotic arm are developed and combined with the kinematic model of the UAV. The resulting NMPC strategy is validated in a grasping scenario with a real aerial manipulator. The final step of this thesis is the NMPC of cooperating UAVs. The computational complexity of such scenarios conflicts directly with the fast UAV dynamics. In addition, control objectives and system topologies can dynamically change. To address these challenges, this thesis presents the DENMPC software framework. DENMPC provides a computationally efficient central NMPC strategy that allows changing the control scenario at runtime. This is finally stated in the control of a real cooperative aerial manipulation scenario. [less ▲]