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£1.6m funding at the interface of statistics, healthcare and manufacturing

Researchers at the University of Warwick have been awarded £1.1 million to develop the statistics needed to pool the vast quantities of data generated by brain scans.

The University has also been awarded £500,000 to improve quality control in 3D printing.

Both projects are joint between the Department of Statistics and WMG, exploiting the unique strengths of each group.

Brain imaging has brought dramatic advances to neuroscience and there are now tens of thousands of academic studies that use neuroimaging data from equipment such as fMRI scanners.

To make sense of all of these studies, researchers use a tool known as meta-analysis that combines the findings of many different studies, producing results that are more reliable than any individual study.

Brain researchers studying everything from mental disorders to the aging brain depend on meta-analysis to make sense of the sometimes-conflicting literature.

The new £1.1 million project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, will develop new and sensitive statistical methods to combine information from fMRI studies.

It will also develop software tools to make it easier for scientists to share their data.

The project is led by Dr Thomas Nichols, jointly based in the Institute for Digital Healthcare at WMG and the Department of Statistics. He will be joined by two post-doctoral research fellows.

Dr Nichols said: “Neuroimaging has made huge advances in recent years but currently much data is lost when fMRI studies are pooled together.

“My team will develop statistical solutions so we can make better use of this data and ultimately better understand the human brain.”

A further joint project between the Department of Statistics and WMG has received £500,000 from the EPSRC in the area of Additive Manufacturing (3D printing).

For manufacturing purposes there is an urgent need to check whether printed objects accurately match the original design both in exterior details and – vitally - in internal structure.

This new research project, led by Professor Wilfrid Kendall, will investigate the use of statistics to analyse data from CT scans to determine the quality of this match as efficiently as possible.

A research team of statisticians and engineers will work together to address this challenge.

Professor Kendall said: “Additive Manufacturing holds great promise but if it is to reach its full potential the question of quality control needs to be addressed.

“This new project aims to develop statistical techniques that will help interpret CT scans in order to speed up this quality assurance process.”

ENDS

For further information please contact University of Warwick press officer Anna Blackaby on 02476 575910 or a dot blackaby at warwick dot ac dot uk

 

 



For further information please contact University of Warwick press officer Anna Blackaby on 02476 575910 or a dot blackaby at warwick dot ac dot uk