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The "Inerter" is a completely new mechanical device and suspension component that was conceived by Professor Malcolm Smith at University of Cambridge Department of Engineering (DoEng), as a result of his fundamental study of the possible behaviour of passive mechanical systems. Penske Racing Shocks purchased a license to produce versions of the Inerter for sale to Formula 1 (F1) teams and in IndyCar racing in 2008, once the Inerter's use in the McLaren cars that won 10 out of 15 races in the 2005 F1 season was widely known and McLaren's exclusive licence had lapsed. The use of the Inerter is now endemic in F1 and IndyCar racing.
Collaborations funded through EPSRC Interact and RCUK UK-China Science Bridge resulted in QUB's advanced control research having important economic and environmental impact in China, Pakistan, Vietnam. This includes the creation of new core modules for the Shanghai Automation Instrumentation Co (SAIC) SUPMAX Distributed Control System series of products now in use for whole plant monitoring and control to maximise energy efficiency and reduce pollutant emissions. These products have since 2008 increased SAIC's revenue by over $50M p.a. Related networked monitoring technologies have been successfully deployed in Baosteel's hot-rolling production lines and in the Nantong Water Treatment Company that treats 20,000 tonnes of industrial waste water daily.
This case study provides an account of work on a mathematical framework for the design and optimization of communication networks, and some examples of the framework's influence upon the development of the network congestion control schemes that underlie modern communication networks, notably the Internet.
The impact on protocol development and on network architectures has been significant; in particular on the development of congestion control algorithms and multipath routing algorithms that are stable and fair. Several of the insights on large scale system behaviour have been transferred to help understand cascading failures in other large scale systems, including transport infrastructures.
Aston University has developed systems thinking, specifically soft systems thinking, into a new approach known as the Process Orientated Holonic (PrOH) Modelling Methodology which has been used to model, debate and implement changes to strategy and operational processes in service and manufacturing organisations. Through PrOH Modelling our research has changed the awareness, use, and long term legacy effect in a variety of organisations as exemplified here by 4 cases in which considerable operational and financial impacts have accrued. These impacts have been achieved by (i) increasing awareness of systems thinking, particularly soft systems thinking, by management (ii) implementing use of soft systems thinking (as PrOH modelling) to give demonstrable organisational improvement in specific change projects, and (iii) ensuring a legacy effect of systems thinking practice, as managers' use of systems thinking is more effective after an initial Aston University led project has been completed.
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.
This research by the University's Transportation Research Group (TRG) has contributed to the development of sustainable road transport networks both in the UK and other leading cities worldwide. In summary:
Professors Smith and French designed the overall information flows and outline methodologies for forecasting and decision analysis now incorporated into RODOS, a widely-installed decision support system for responding to nuclear emergencies. Their design uses:
HDM-4 is the most widely used system for road investment appraisal and decision making, generating improvements in public policies and services. Economic development and road agencies in developing countries are major users of the tool. HDM-4 has become the de facto standard used by the World Bank for its road investment appraisals and has been used to assess more than 200 projects since 2008, with some $29.5bn of World Bank loans, credits or grants drawn-down to fund these. Uptake of the tool has led to the commercial success of HDMGlobal, a consortium which manages the distribution and development of the software under exclusive licence from the World Road Association-PIARC, with revenues of £1.6m generated since 2008. HDM-4 has also been utilised for economic assessment and road systems investment management in the UK.
Agent-based computing is a new paradigm for building complex socio-technical systems composed of many interacting intelligent and autonomous components. New co-ordination and negotiation algorithms developed at the University of Southampton, have provided new methods for managing such interactions in a flexible manner. This study focuses on their applications in two new start-up companies (Aerogility and Aroxo) in the defence, aerospace and civil contingency sectors (e.g. BAE Systems, Ministry of Defence and Hampshire County Council) in helping the GB Sailing Team to success at the 2012 Olympics, and in monitoring the environment for effects of climate change.
Water distribution systems (WDS) are highly complex, spatially distributed networks comprising thousands of different components which deliver drinking water to customers. The impact described here has been achieved in areas of energy management, pressure control and burst detection in WDS. Some developed solutions, such as the model reduction method, model of pump stations and pressure control algorithms, have been widely accepted by the water research community and then filter down to industrial applications or implemented in a widely available shareware. Direct economical and environmental impacts have been achieved by projects for the UK companies with measurable benefits in pounds through reducing water losses and energy consumption as described in Section 4. These include South Staffordshire Water, Aquavent and Scottish Water in the pressure control area and Affinity Water (former Veolia) in the energy management and burst detection areas.