The effect of body position on pulmonary ventilation and respiratory gas exchange

This study looked at the potential use of supine gas transfer measurements using carbon monoxide and nitric oxide, and positional structured light plethysmography (SLP), in detecting the location and severity of emphysematous destruction within the lungs. Healthy normal subjects (n=95) were compared to those with Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (A1AD) (n=64), a genetic condition known to cause emphysema. There were statistically significant differences observed in the A1AD group when tested in the supine position, with decreases seen in TL$_{NO}$, VAeff, and TL$_{NO}$/TL$_{CO}$ of 10%, 10% and 4.1% respectively. There was a significant increase in K$_{CO}$ for both the healthy controls and A1AD group of 12.6% and 6.2% respectively. There was no significant change in K$_{NO}$ from seated to supine in any study group. Disease severity had a significant impact on transfer measurements whilst in the supine position. A1AD subjects with airflow obstruction (OBA1) showed significant changes to TL$_{CO}$ (- 12.6%) compared to non-obstructive A1AD subjects (NOA1) (-4.0%). All subject groups showed statistically significant postural changes for K$_{CO}$ and TL$_{NO}$ showed significant postural changes for both groups of A1AD subjects. K$_{NO}$ showed no significant changes between postures for any of the three cohorts. Measurements using SLP showed that all subject groups demonstrate asynchronous, abdominally dominant breathing movements whilst supine. There was a significant decrease in ribcage contribution (RCC%) and upper ribcage contribution (URCC%) in healthy controls (- 35.8%), NOA1 (-32.7%), and OBA1 (-26.0%). These findings validate current understanding of gas transfer measurements in healthy controls and emysematous disease and measurements using Nitric Oxide/Carbon Monoxide and SLP measurements provide additional insight into patients disease location and severity and therefore, would be of value to be used as part of patient’s clinical investigations

Developing proof technology for CSP-CASL.

Distributed applications such as flight booking systems, web services, and electronic payment systems require parallel processing of data. Such systems exhibit concurrent aspects (e.g., deadlock freedom) as well as data aspects (e.g., functional correctness). Often, these two aspects depend on each other. The language CSP-CASL is tailored to the specification and verification of such distributed systems and allows one to model data as well as processes within a single framework. In this thesis we explore methods and techniques tailored to theorem proving for CSP-CASL. This leads to the development of an architecture for CSP-CASL-Prover which re-uses the tools HETS and CSP-Prover. We also design - up to the algorithmic level - procedures for transforming a CSP- CASL specification into Isabelle/HOL code whilst preserving the semantics. By using this translation, it is possible to perform theorem proving on CSP-CASL specifications using Isabelle/HOL. As proof of concept we validate our tool CSP-CASL-Prover on a case study of industrial strength. Our experiment shows that CSP-CASL-Prover scales up to large systems. When using CSP-CASL-Prover reasoning about CSP-CASL specifications becomes as easy as reasoning about data and processes separately

Is threat in the way they move? Influences of static and gait information on threat judgments of unknown people

Recognising intraspecies threat is essential for survival. However, this needs to be balanced against the undue avoidance of unknown others who may be useful to us. Research has shown that judgments of ‘aggression’ and ‘threat’ posed by an unknown person can accurately reflect that person’s general aggressive tendencies. To date, there has not been a within-sample comparison of the informativeness of static and walking stimuli for threat judgments. In this study, 193 participants rated the threat posed by 23 target people presented as both simplified gait presentations (point-light walkers) and still images. We analysed how threat judgments made by participants were predicted by the target’s self-reported aggression (accuracy), the sex of the targets and the medium of target presentation (point-light vs. still image). Our results showed that participants’ threat judgments accurately predicted targets’ aggression. Male targets received higher threat ratings than female targets and point-light displays were rated as more threatening than still images. There were no effects of target sex and presentation medium on accuracy of threat perception and no sex by medium interactions on judgments themselves. Overall, this study provides further evidence of the accuracy of threat judgments at detecting trait aggression. However, further research is needed to explain what features of the target people are enabling the accurate judgments of aggression

Teaching The Early: Formal Methods in School

In this paper, we describe a programme of school engagement aimed at instilling a discipline of computational thinking within pupils before they embark on a university course. The workshops we deliver are designed mainly to increase the pipeline of school leavers going on to study computer science or software engineering, specifically by changing perceptions on what this means amongst the vast majority - particularly girls - who think it is just a geeky topic for boys.Over the past number of years, student enrolment has been increasing dramatically in our university's undergraduate computer science and software engineering degree programmes. Also, the performance of the students on first-year formal methods modules - which has historically been poor - has risen substantially. Whilst there are many influences contributing towards these trends, we present evidence that our efforts with school engagement has to a non-trivial extent contributed towards these: both through the way the undergraduate programme has been adapted to incorporate the Technocamps approach, and through providing a pipeline of students who understand the principles of computational thinking

Self-pulsation at 480 GHz from a two-color discrete mode laser diode

A discrete mode Fabry-Pérot laser is designed and fabricated to achieve two-color lasing. We demonstrate beating between the two laser modes and self-pulsation at 480 GHz

Inverse scattering approach to multiwavelength Fabry-Pérot laser design

A class of multiwavelength Fabry-Pérot lasers is introduced where the spectrum is tailored through a patterning of the cavity effective index. The cavity geometry is obtained using an inverse scattering approach and can be designed such that the spacing of discrete Fabry-Pérot lasing modes is limited only by the bandwidth of the inverted gain medium. A specific two-color semiconductor laser with a mode spacing in the THz region is designed, and measurements are presented demonstrating the simultaneous oscillation of the two wavelengths. The nonperiodic effective index profile of the particular two-color device considered is shown to be related to a Moiré or superstructure grating