Modeling Operator Behavior in the Safety Analysis of Collaborative Robotic Applications

Human-Robot Collaboration is increasingly prominent in peo- ple's lives and in the industrial domain, for example in manufacturing applications. The close proximity and frequent physical contacts between humans and robots in such applications make guaranteeing suitable levels of safety for human operators of the utmost importance. Formal veri- cation techniques can help in this regard through the exhaustive explo- ration of system models, which can identify unwanted situations early in the development process. This work extends our SAFER-HRC method- ology with a rich non-deterministic formal model of operator behaviors, which captures the hazardous situations resulting from human errors. The model allows safety engineers to rene their designs until all plausi- ble erroneous behaviors are considered and mitigated

A formal approach to discovering simultaneous additive masking between auditory medical alarms

publisher: Elsevier articletitle: A formal approach to discovering simultaneous additive masking between auditory medical alarms journaltitle: Applied Ergonomics articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2016.07.008 content_type: article copyright: © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Formal modelling as a component of user centred design

User centred design approaches typically focus understanding on context and producing sketch designs. These sketches are often non functional (e.g., paper) prototypes. They provide a means of exploring candidate design possibilities using techniques such as cooperative evaluation. This paper describes a further step in the process using formal analysis techniques. The sketch design of a device is enhanced into a specification that is then analysed using formal techniques, thus providing a systematic approach to checking plausibility and consistency during early design stages. Once analysed, a further prototype is constructed using an executable form of the specification, providing the next candidate for evaluation with potential users. The technique is illustrated through an example based on a pill dispenser.We are grateful to Nuno Rodrigues, João Vilaça and Nuno Dias from IPCA (Polytechnic Institute of Cavado and Ave) who developed the first prototypeof the pill dispenser. José C. Campos, Paolo Masci and Michael Harrison werefunded by project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000016, financed by the North Por-tugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL2020 Partnership Agreement, and through the European Regional DevelopmentFund (ERDF)

Reusing models and properties in the analysis of similar interactive devices

"Published online: 03 Apr. 2013"The paper is concerned with the comparative analysis of interactive devices. It compares two devices by checking a battery of template properties that are designed to explore important interface characteristics. The two devices are designed to support similar tasks in a clinical setting but differ in a number of respects as a result of judgements based on a range of considerations including software. Variations between designs are often relatively subtle and do not always become evident through even relatively thorough user testing. Notwithstanding their subtlety these differences may be important to the safety or usability of the device. The illustrated approach uses formal techniques to provide the analysis. This means that similar analysis can be applied systematically.This project was partly funded by the CHI+MED project: Multidisciplinary Computer Human Interaction Research for the design and safe use of interactive medical devices (UK EPSRC Grant EP/G059063/1). Patrick Oladimeji of Swansea University provided help with the Alaris pump and Chris Vincent of UCL provided access to the B. Braun simulation. We are grateful to reviewers for helpful comments

Use of Ex Vivo Normothermic Perfusion for Quality Assessment of Discarded Human Donor Pancreases.

A significant number of pancreases procured for transplantation are deemed unsuitable due to concerns about graft quality and the associated risk of complications. However, this decision is subjective and some declined grafts may be suitable for transplantation. Ex vivo normothermic perfusion (EVNP) prior to transplantation may allow a more objective assessment of graft quality and reduce discard rates. We report ex vivo normothermic perfusion of human pancreases procured but declined for transplantation, with ABO-compatible warm oxygenated packed red blood cells for 1-2 h. Five declined human pancreases were assessed using this technique after a median cold ischemia time of 13 h 19 min. One pancreas, with cold ischemia over 30 h, did not appear viable and was excluded. In the remaining pancreases, blood flow and pH were maintained throughout perfusion. Insulin secretion was observed in all four pancreases, but was lowest in an older donation after cardiac death pancreas. Amylase levels were highest in a gland with significant fat infiltration. This is the first study to assess the perfusion, injury, as measured by amylase, and exocrine function of human pancreases using EVNP and demonstrates the feasibility of the approach, although further refinements are required.This study was financially supported by a grant from the Mason Medical Research Foundation.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available via Wiley at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajt.13303/abstract

A report on the health and social care listening event

The purpose of the Listening Event was to enable a wide range of people, including professionals working in statutory, voluntary and other organisations and members of the public, to ‘have a say’ about health and social care and what we as a University can do for and with these partners and the public. We particularly wanted to hear about key concerns of the University such as: • Strengthening community engagement and partnerships • Health and social care training we should be providing, for whom, and how this is delivered • Ideas relating to the University themes including media, use of space and buildings, human rights, social justice and security • Research topics we should be addressing However the main strength of the Listening Event approach is that topics for discussion are mostly led by participants who attend. On this occasion, the discussion topics were very much focused on the concerns of participants and lots of information and ideas were generated. The task now is for the event planning team to review the discussion notes and identify what can be addressed and how, in the short, medium and long term. This planning will be taking place over the Autumn in 2011, and any participants or readers of this report are more than welcome to get in touch to work with us or add their views. The purpose of this report is to record all discussion summaries for sharing amongst participants and others. It is important that participants especially get to read what others had said at the event. The report will lead to changes in University practices such as the content of some of our courses and new business ideas and relationships will also be explored. The event itself provided a useful means of public engagement that others may wish to adopt

Dynamics of localization in a waveguide

This is a review of the dynamics of wave propagation through a disordered N-mode waveguide in the localized regime. The basic quantities considered are the Wigner-Smith and single-mode delay times, plus the time-dependent power spectrum of a reflected pulse. The long-time dynamics is dominated by resonant transmission over length scales much larger than the localization length. The corresponding distribution of the Wigner-Smith delay times is the Laguerre ensemble of random-matrix theory. In the power spectrum the resonances show up as a 1/t^2 tail after N^2 scattering times. In the distribution of single-mode delay times the resonances introduce a dynamic coherent backscattering effect, that provides a way to distinguish localization from absorption.Comment: 18 pages including 8 figures; minor correction

PubChem3D: a new resource for scientists

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>PubChem is an open repository for small molecules and their experimental biological activity. PubChem integrates and provides search, retrieval, visualization, analysis, and programmatic access tools in an effort to maximize the utility of contributed information. There are many diverse chemical structures with similar biological efficacies against targets available in PubChem that are difficult to interrelate using traditional 2-D similarity methods. A new layer called PubChem3D is added to PubChem to assist in this analysis.</p> <p>Description</p> <p>PubChem generates a 3-D conformer model description for 92.3% of all records in the PubChem Compound database (when considering the parent compound of salts). Each of these conformer models is sampled to remove redundancy, guaranteeing a minimum (non-hydrogen atom pair-wise) RMSD between conformers. A diverse conformer ordering gives a maximal description of the conformational diversity of a molecule when only a subset of available conformers is used. A pre-computed search per compound record gives immediate access to a set of 3-D similar compounds (called "Similar Conformers") in PubChem and their respective superpositions. Systematic augmentation of PubChem resources to include a 3-D layer provides users with new capabilities to search, subset, visualize, analyze, and download data.</p> <p>A series of retrospective studies help to demonstrate important connections between chemical structures and their biological function that are not obvious using 2-D similarity but are readily apparent by 3-D similarity.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The addition of PubChem3D to the existing contents of PubChem is a considerable achievement, given the scope, scale, and the fact that the resource is publicly accessible and free. With the ability to uncover latent structure-activity relationships of chemical structures, while complementing 2-D similarity analysis approaches, PubChem3D represents a new resource for scientists to exploit when exploring the biological annotations in PubChem.</p

Accelerating Discovery for Complex Neurological and Behavioral Disorders Through Systems Genetics and Integrative Genomics in the Laboratory Mouse

Recent advances in systems genetics and integrative functional genomics have greatly improved the study of complex neurological and behavioral traits. The methods developed for the integrated characterization of new, high-resolution mouse genetic reference populations and systems genetics enable behavioral geneticists an unprecedented opportunity to address questions of the molecular basis of neurological and psychiatric disorders and their comorbidities. Integrative genomics augment these strategies by enabling rapid informatics-assisted candidate gene prioritization, cross-species translation, and mechanistic comparison across related disorders from a wealth of existing data in mouse and other model organisms. Ultimately, through these complementary approaches, finding the mechanisms and sources of genetic variation underlying complex neurobehavioral disease related traits is becoming tractable. Furthermore, these methods enable categorization of neurobehavioral disorders through their underlying biological basis. Together, these model organism-based approaches can lead to a refinement of diagnostic categories and targeted treatment of neurological and psychiatric disease