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In recent years there has been an explosion of real data from areas as diverse as bioinformatics, genetics, engineering and finance. Coupled with this has been the development of complex and realistic Bayesian statistical models to represent these data. In order to use these models to perform (Bayesian) statistical inference, one is required to calculate integrals, which are unknown analytically. Most of the numerical methods used to approximate these integrals are based upon Monte Carlo methods of which some of the seminal work has been done at Imperial College London, for instance the `particle-filter' developed in 1993 [4]. These methods are now very widely used in finance for automated trading, calculating the probability of default for economies, and for target tracking in the defence sector and we give explicit exemplars of each. The numerical methods developed at Imperial have been important in applying realistic models to these varied application areas and have impacted companies and organisations as diverse as Maple-Leaf Capital LLC, QinetiQ and the Credit Research Initiative.
Wavelets and multiscale methods were introduced and rapidly became popular in scientific academic communities, particularly mathematical sciences, from the mid-1980s. Wavelets are important because they permit more realistic modelling of many real-world phenomena compared to previous techniques, as well as being fast and efficient. Bristol's research into wavelets started in 1993, has flourished and continues today. Multiscale methods are increasingly employed outside academia. Examples are given here of post-2008 impact in central banking, marketing, finance, R&D in manufacturing industry and commercial software, all originating from research at Bristol. Much of the impact has been generated from the original research via software. This software includes freeware, distributed via international online repositories, and major commercial software, such as Matlab (a preeminent numerical computing environment and programming language with over one million users worldwide).
Work since 1993 at Imperial College has led to a novel generic approach to Separation Science called: Label Free Intrinsic Imaging (LFII) — with applications in high throughput proteomics, metabolomics, analytical chemistry, health care diagnostics and genomics. LFII was commercialised by Imperial spin-out deltaDOT Ltd in Nov 2000. Sales of LFII products by deltaDOT have been made to various sectors including pharmaceutical, analytical and diagnostic companies. The average annual turnover of deltaDOT Ltd in the REF period was >£600k per annum and the net worth and total assets in 2012 were £569,595 and £808,027, respectively. The deltaDOT technology has been adopted by the US multi-million dollar DARPA-funded [Defense Advanced Research Project Agency] rapid-vaccine development programme. In 2009 an affiliate company, deltaDOT QSTP-LLC, was formed in Qatar, developing a world-class proteomics research and testing facility in Doha also entirely based on the LFII technology. Since its formation deltaDOT QSTP-LLC has generated total revenues of >$10M.
The WinBUGS software (and now OpenBUGS software), developed initially at Cambridge from 1989-1996 and then further at Imperial from 1996-2007, has made practical MCMC Bayesian methods readily available to applied statisticians and data analysts. The software has been instrumental in facilitating routine Bayesian analysis of a vast range of complex statistical problems covering a wide spectrum of application areas, and over 20 years after its inception, it remains the leading software tool for applied Bayesian analysis among both academic and non-academic communities internationally. WinBUGS had over 30,000 registered users as of 2009 (the software is now open-source and users are no longer required to register) and a Google search on the term `WinBUGS' returns over 205,000 hits (over 42,000 of which are since 2008) with applications as diverse as astrostatistics, solar radiation modelling, fish stock assessments, credit risk assessment, production of disease maps and atlases, drug development and healthcare provider profiling.
Locust and grasshopper outbreaks can form swarms containing billions of insects, creating feared and damaging agricultural pests. Following research at Imperial College London, the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium acridum was developed into an oil formulated product (`Green Muscle®') that could be applied by ground-based and aerial spray equipment at ultra-low volume (ULV) rates, when locust and grasshopper populations periodically increased. Green Muscle® has since been used to treat locust outbreaks in Israel and five southern African countries. Green Guard®, an associated mycoinsecticide marketed in Australia, has been used extensively to control locusts in regions where there are land use limitations on chemical pesticides. Both Green Musclef6da and Green Guardf6da are supplied by Becker Underwood. Besides the success of Metarhizium as an effective, environmentally-friendly locust control option, substantial science and enabling technology ensued, that should accelerate the development of other mycopesticides as important alternatives to currently beleaguered chemical pest control methods.
Full-waveform inversion (FWI) is a seismic technique for exploring the interior of the Earth; it has been developed at Imperial College over two decades, from a promising concept into a fully commercialised industrial process that has been widely adopted across the petroleum industry. The technique improves both the spatial resolution and the fidelity with which the sub-surface can be imaged in three dimensions. All the major multinational petroleum companies now use FWI internally, and all the major oil-field service companies offer the technology to the wider industry. Since its first commercial uptake in 2008, its application has influenced at least one hundred drilling decisions worldwide, and as a consequence it has generated additional value of at least $500M within the petroleum industry.
Questions about the benign or malignant nature of liver tumours are common and pressing since they determine how the patient is managed. Benign masses are frequently encountered; they usually do not require intervention but are easily mistaken for malignancies with conventional imaging methods. Work at Imperial College demonstrated that microbubble contrast agents have the special property of lingering in both normal liver tissue and in benign solid masses, whereas malignancies do not retain microbubble. The discovery of this property at Imperial has led to their use worldwide as a diagnostic tool. In 2012 NICE recommended their use as being cost-effective for this use.
Molecular Vision Ltd ("MV"), which was spun-out of Imperial Innovations, develops simple-to-use, point-of-care diagnostic devices (known as the BioLED™ platform) that quickly produce lab-quality information from a single sample of bodily fluids. Since 2008 MV has validated the platform, including demonstration of its CardioplexTM triple test for myoglobin, CK-MB and troponin-I in a serum sample, and undertaken >£1.5M of contract work for a variety of customers including Acrongenomics Inc, Microfluidic ChipShop and L'Oreal; addressing analysis problems relating to kidney and cardiac health, pathogen identification and cosmetics. During the REF period the Company has generated a total of over £3.4m in investment, contract revenue and non-UK grant funding and created greater than 50 man years of UK employment, primarily at the PhD level. Abingdon Health Group acquired a majority stake in MV in 2012 as part of its strategy to create a fully integrated business in the UK that is able to compete in the large and global immunodiagnostics market.
Aurox Ltd is an Oxfordshire spin-out company formed in 2004 by Prof Mark Neil (at Imperial since August 2002) with former colleagues from Oxford University. Its main product line consists of wide field optical sectioning fluorescence microscopes based on the principle of structured illumination and detection using patterned disks. The microscopes use conventional (lower cost) light sources and do not require a scanning system which sets them apart from competitors. Research at Imperial has impacted on the design of disk patterns for optimising performance and has played a critical role in bringing these microscopes to market. Aurox's systems are supplied to and marketed by Carl Zeiss (as VivaTome™) and Andor Technology (as Revolution DSD™) for application in the biomedical sciences, generating successful sales over the period 2008-2012 and enabling Aurox to embark on a second-generation development programme. Since 2008 Aurox have sold more than 150 units with market value in excess of £3M. The majority of this £3M in sales have been since 2010 when an optimisation step which was developed and devised at Imperial College was incorporated into the Aurox products.
A spin-out company, Ingenia Technology Ltd, was launched in 2005, to bring the technique now known as Laser Surface Authentication (LSA) to market. LSA is used to detect and prevent forgeries by allowing a unique, naturally occurring and uncopyable identity code to be read from material surfaces. It is particularly useful for fighting counterfeiting and smuggling of high-value documents and products and as such makes an important contribution to (i) industrial and consumer safety, (ii) commercial revenues and (iii) countering criminal activity. Organisations and companies contracted to use Ingenia's LSA technology include the pharmaceutical firm Bayer, carton manufacturers CARTONDRUCK and Grafiche Bramucci, Swiss precious metal refiner PAMP and the International Atomic Energy Agency.