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Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, with a cost to society estimated at €177 billion per annum across Europe, according to the European Collaboration on Dementia (EuroCoDe) project funded by Alzheimer Europe. Data-based modelling of network structures is a modern approach to study and understand many diseases including dementia. Research carried out at the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) at the University of Aberdeen has led to the development, implementation, and testing of novel mathematical algorithms to infer network structures by means of observations of their dynamics. The results of our research have been implemented as part of a software package now offered by the Netherlands-based company BrainMarker to researchers and practitioners across Europe in an online `pay-per-click' platform (section 5.c1 and 5.c4). As such our research generated impact on clinical practitioners in addition to commercial impact.
Research by Professor Karl Friston at UCL has led to the development of Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM), a statistical framework and software package. By providing a way to analyse signals measured from the human brain in MRI scanners, SPM triggered the creation of an entirely new field of imaging neuroscience. Beneficiaries include: commercial manufacturers who provide imaging equipment; healthcare practitioners and patients, where SPM is used to deliver new treatments; pharmaceutical industries using SPM to deliver clinical trials; the IT industry developing new software based on SPM; and entirely new industries such as neuromarketing that could only have been created once SPM had been invented.
Professor Malcolm Young and colleagues at Newcastle University developed new mathematical and computational tools with which they could analyse large amounts of data on connections in the brain and produce models of how the brain is organised. Young realised that those research tools could also be used to analyse networks of proteins involved in disease processes and predict their susceptibility to drugs and in 2003 he set up the medicines discovery company e-Therapeutics to exploit the technology. The company listed on the AIM of the London Stock Exchange in November 2007 and in May 2013 became the eighth largest company in the biotechnology/pharmaceutical sector listed on the index, with a market capitalisation of over £90 million.
Since its launch in 2009, the mobile phone package price comparison tool Billmonitor has identified £35 million worth of savings available to the 110,000 users whose bills have been analysed. It was the first price comparison tool to be accredited by Ofcom and it has been widely praised in the media. Exploiting techniques that they had developed for applications in finance and genetics, University of Oxford researchers Chris Holmes and Nicolai Meinshausen developed the statistical algorithms underpinning the package, which uses simulation-based inference and careful statistical modelling to analyse users' phone bill data. It searches over 2.4 million available packages to identify the best mobile phone deal for each user's particular pattern of usage. Widely quoted in the press, reports in 2011 and 2012 from the Billmonitor team estimated that approximately three quarters of mobile phone customers are on the wrong tariff, with an overspend of around 40%.
This impact case is based on economic impact through improved forecasting technology. It shows how research in pattern recognition by Professor Henry Wu at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science led to significantly improved accuracy of daily national gas demand forecasting by National Grid plc. The underpinning research on predicting non-linear time series began around 2002 and the resulting new prediction methodology is applied on a daily basis by National Grid plc since December 2011. The main beneficiaries from the improved accuracy (by 0.5 to 1 million cubic meters per day) are UK gas shippers, who by conservative estimates save approximately £3.5M per year. Savings made by gas shippers benefit the whole economy since they reduce the energy bills of end users.
This Impact Case Study illustrates the impact of our research on clinicians and medical researchers. Research conducted by the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) at the University of Aberdeen has developed software enabling clinical trials to be carried out in Germany aimed at creating new diagnostic tools for unborn children in order to identify foetal developmental issues. The research, focusing on time series analysis and dynamical systems, derived clinical benefits in that the Groenemeyer Institute, a privately-run research and treatment organisation, used it in the development of pioneering non-invasive methods for the diagnosis of foetal pathological conditions. The research also achieved considerable reach among the non-specialist public through media coverage in the UK and Germany.
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).
In response to the deficiencies in bank risk management revealed following the 2008 financial crisis, one of the mandated requirements under the Basel III regulatory framework is for banks to backtest the internal models they use to price their assets and to calculate how much capital they require should a counterparty default. Qiwei Yao worked with the Quantitative Analyst — Exposure team at Barclays Bank, which is responsible for constructing the Barclays Counterpart Credit Risk (CCR) backtesting methodology. They made use of several statistical methods from Yao's research to construct the newly developed backtesting methodology which is now in operation at Barclays Bank. This puts the CCR assessment and management at Barclays in line with the Basel III regulatory capital framework.
Professor Alexander's work on diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) modelling and processing has had significant and lasting impact on medical practice. In particular, neurosurgical support systems rely on his work to map the major connection pathways in the brain, helping the surgeons avoid damaging them during intervention. Specific examples are in epilepsy, where, since 2010, surgeons perform about one operation per week using these systems, and brain tumour resection, where surgeons in Milan have since early 2013 been using a similar system based on UCL's latest microstructure imaging techniques. The key impact is on patients, whose likelihood of permanent post-operative deficits in, for example, visual, verbal or motor skills, is significantly reduced.
Based on his research at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Professor Paul Burgess invented and co-invented several cognitive tests (known as the Hayling and Brixton Tests, and the BADS and BADS-C assessment batteries) which are used to detect dysfunction of the frontal lobes of the brain. These were developed for commercial production by Burgess and are now produced and marketed by the largest test publisher in the world (Pearson Assessment). There are versions in several different languages, and they are used in clinics worldwide to diagnose problems in a wide variety of patients with neurological, psychiatric and developmental problems. The tests are now administered around the world to around 55,000 patients per year.