Projects
Development of a Systemic Safety Assessment Method for Human-Robot Interdependencies KU Leuven
Understanding and managing risks in collaborative robot applications requires switching between micro, meso, and macro understandings of systems. This perspective justifies the need for hybrid methods that are able to investigate socio-technical interactions at different abstraction levels, and across different system lifecycle stages. This thesis aims to develop a comprehensive framework for socio-technical safety modelling, which embraces a ...
Safety by natural design: benign bisphenols from biomass KU Leuven
Synthetic polymers are crucial in maintenance of our high standard of living. While delivering many benefits, our current plastics economy has also led to one of the greatest environmental scourges of our time. Plastic pollution is now widespread and leads to substantial chemical exposure to humans and the environment. Within this context, especially endocrine-disrupting chemicals with high production volumes, such as bisphenols, are a major ...
Techniques and measures to co-engineer safety and security in digital systems applied in operational technology environments KU Leuven
The impact of cyber crime on companies is increasing every year and the average damage per successful attack is estimated at a staggering €441000 in 2018 [1]. This impact is much more pronounced in operational technology (OT) environment, since these OT devices and systems are usually designed to keep industrial plants and factories operational with minimal downtime for a long time of usually 10-20 years. It is a tremendous challenge when ...
Neural systems of safety learning KU Leuven
Despite growing interest in the role of ‘safety signals’ and their contribution to adaptive and maladaptive forms of fear regulation, safety learning remains poorly understood. Additionally, it remains unknown as to how safety signals correspond to the inhibition of avoidance behaviour, a behavioural pattern of immense clinical relevance. Human neuroimaging investigations emphasise an extended neural circuitry centred on the ventromedial ...
Measuring arterial stiffness at different scales: a new toolbox for safety pharmacology. University of Antwerp
Learning from mistakes to improve patient safety and team functioning in the hybrid angiosuite Ghent University
During endovascular procedures, a high incidence of adverse events has been described, sometimes causing lifelong impairment and death. Are these caused by the patient’s condition, procedure’s complexity, or influenced by team members' psychosocial well-being, work environmental and/or organizational factors? Near-misses, errors, adverse events and patient outcomes will be analyzed during elective endovascular procedures in a hybrid ...
Safety and efficacy of tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA) as add-on treatment in patients affected by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). KU Leuven
TUDCA-ALS will focus on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) a rare neurodegenerative disorder, that affects motor neurons in the brain, brainstem and spinal cord, resulting in progressive weakness and atrophy of voluntary skeletal muscles. ALS has an estimated prevalence of 5.40 cases per 100.000 population corresponding at about 40.000 patients at European level. Treatments are modestly effective at best, and the majority of patients die ...
Adaptation of enterobacteria to growth at low pH: mechanisms and relevance for food safety. KU Leuven
The Enterobacteriaceae family comprises several important foodborne pathogens and spoilage bacteria. To pass successfully through the food production chain, these bacteria have to endure a wide spectrum of stresses, such as cold, heat, desiccation, acid, or oxidative stress. Acid stress, in particular, exists in the form of the natural acidity of some food products, organic acids formed in fermented foods or added as a food acidulant ...
Neuromodulation for central post-stroke pain: mechanism, safety and outcome. KU Leuven
Central post-stroke pain (CPSP) is an often pharmacorefractory type
of neuropathic pain that develops in 8% of stroke patients. CPSP has
been treated with three distinct types of neuromodulation (deep brain
stimulation of the sensory thalamus (Vc-DBS), motor cortex repetitive
transcranial magnetic stimulation (M1-rTMS), and motor cortex
stimulation (MCS)), but the level of evidence for these procedures is
very ...