Controlling Steering Using Vision

The Two-level model is a popular account of how humans use visual information to successfully control steering within road edges. A guidance component uses information from far regions to preview upcoming steering requirements, and a compensatory component uses information from near regions to stabilise position-in-lane. Researchers who have considered the case of driving often treat road edges as the sole informational input for controlling steering, but this approach is not consistent with the notion that the human visual system adaptively uses multiple inputs to maintain robust control of steering. A rich source of information which may also be useful for steering control is optic flow. Chapter 2 demonstrates that optic flow speed is used to control steering even with road edges present. Chapters 3-5 develop a framework to examine how use of flow speed changes depending on the availability of guidance or compensatory road edge information, and demonstrate that use of flow speed increases only when guidance level information (far road edges) is present. Chapters 6-7 go on to examine the contribution of flow direction to controlling steering within road edges, and demonstrate that the use of flow direction appears to be yoked to the presence of compensatory information (near road edges). Together, these experiments demonstrate that the contribution of flow information to controlling steering within road edges can be understood within the context of two-level steering, and show that an approach which emphasise robust control through combining multiple informational inputs is vital if we are to fully understand how the visual-motor system solves the problem of steering along constrained path

Steering bends and changing lanes: the impact of optic flow and road edges on two point steering control

Successful driving involves steering corrections that respond to immediate positional errors whilst also anticipating upcoming changes to the road layout ahead. In popular steering models these tasks are often treated as separate functions using two points: the near region for correcting current errors, and the far region for anticipating future steering requirements. Whilst two-point control models can capture many aspects of driver behaviour, the nature of perceptual inputs to these two ‘points’ remains unclear. Inspired by experiments that solely focused on road-edge information (Land & Horwood, 1995), two-point models have tended to ignore the role of optic flow during steering control. There is recent evidence demonstrating that optic flow should be considered within two-point control steering models (Mole et al., 2016). To examine the impact of optic flow and road edges on two-point steering control we used a driving simulator to selectively and systematically manipulate these components. We removed flow and/or road-edge information from near or far regions of the scene, and examined how behaviours changed when steering along roads where the utility of far-road information varied. Whilst steering behaviours were strongly influenced by the road-edges, there were also clear contributions of optic flow to steering responses. The patterns of steering were not consistent with optic flow simply feeding into two-point control, rather the global optic flow field appeared to support effective steering responses across the time-course of each trajectory

PANC Study (Pancreatitis: A National Cohort Study): national cohort study examining the first 30 days from presentation of acute pancreatitis in the UK

Abstract Background Acute pancreatitis is a common, yet complex, emergency surgical presentation. Multiple guidelines exist and management can vary significantly. The aim of this first UK, multicentre, prospective cohort study was to assess the variation in management of acute pancreatitis to guide resource planning and optimize treatment. Methods All patients aged greater than or equal to 18 years presenting with acute pancreatitis, as per the Atlanta criteria, from March to April 2021 were eligible for inclusion and followed up for 30 days. Anonymized data were uploaded to a secure electronic database in line with local governance approvals. Results A total of 113 hospitals contributed data on 2580 patients, with an equal sex distribution and a mean age of 57 years. The aetiology was gallstones in 50.6 per cent, with idiopathic the next most common (22.4 per cent). In addition to the 7.6 per cent with a diagnosis of chronic pancreatitis, 20.1 per cent of patients had a previous episode of acute pancreatitis. One in 20 patients were classed as having severe pancreatitis, as per the Atlanta criteria. The overall mortality rate was 2.3 per cent at 30 days, but rose to one in three in the severe group. Predictors of death included male sex, increased age, and frailty; previous acute pancreatitis and gallstones as aetiologies were protective. Smoking status and body mass index did not affect death. Conclusion Most patients presenting with acute pancreatitis have a mild, self-limiting disease. Rates of patients with idiopathic pancreatitis are high. Recurrent attacks of pancreatitis are common, but are likely to have reduced risk of death on subsequent admissions. </jats:sec

Co-Designing for inclusion: Lessons from the AutSPACEs project

&lt;p&gt;A poster presented by the AutSPACEs project at the 2023 &lt;i&gt;Citizen Science 4 Health&lt;/i&gt; conference.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Abstract&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Historically, research on Autism has often been performed on autistic people, rather than with them. With AutSPACEs – an open and participatory online citizen science project that focuses on sensory processing in built environments – we are exploring how co-created citizen science can lead to more inclusive and applied research. By combining co-design of research methods; co-leadership for decision making; and using open source philosophies we aim to guarantee the equitable co-ownership of all our outputs.&nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In our poster we will reflect on the challenges that we have encountered throughout this process that has been going on since 2019 – including the barriers to creating inclusive online communities, technical challenges, and the building relationships between historically distrusting communities. Beyond those challenges we will also share our success stories and how we managed to overcome many of these challenges: through on-going relationship building, providing diverse engagement pathways for contributors and by taking a long-term view on real-world impact rather than focusing on short-term academic impact.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We expect that this sharing of our learned lessons can support and inspire others that aim to develop co-led research efforts with diverse communities and in particular those which typically have been marginalized by academic research to avoid some of the issues we encountered. Furthermore, we hope that we will be able to learn from others that have already tried similar approaches within their own fields or domains, sparking mutual learning.&lt;/p&gt