Using a series of moving coils as a high redundancy actuator

This paper investigates the use of two electromagnetic actuation elements in series to produce a fault-tolerant actuator assembly. Faults in one or the other element are considered, and their influence on the behaviour of the whole system is analysed. By carefully choosing the mechanical parameters, it is possible to completely avoid any effect of these faults on the input/output behaviour. That means either of the two actuation elements can keep the system operational and restore the nominal behaviour without any changes to the system. model matching, robust control, electro-mechanical actuator

HRA - Intrinsically fault tolerant actuation through high redundancy

The aim of this paper is to summarise on-going research into a new method of providing fault tolerant actuators for high-integrity and/or safety-critical applications. The High Redundancy Actuator (HRA) project aims to exploit a large number of very small actuation elements to make up a single large actuator. This is in contrast to current technology where a relatively low level of functional redundancy is used. The HRA elements are configured and controlled in such a way that faults in individual elements are inherently accommodated without resulting in a failure of the complete actuation system. The HRA project research challenges are outlined and progress to-date is discussed

Multi-agent control of high redundancy actuation [conference paper]

The High Redundancy Actuator (HRA) project investigates the use of a relatively high number of small actuation elements, assembled in series and parallel in order to form a single actuator which has intrinsic fault tolerance. Both passive and active methods of control are planned for use with the HRA. This paper presents progress towards a multiple model control scheme for the HRA applied through the framework of multi-agent control

Total weighted score using a continuous and binary outcome variable.

Total weighted score using a continuous and binary outcome variable.</p

Map of climate action plans for England.

Note: The code used to create this map can be found at: https://github.com/hwb1030/Climate-Change-Meta-Data.</p

Descriptive statistics.

Local government has an important role to play in mitigation and adaption to climate change. In the UK, 82% of all emissions fall within the scope of local government. However, in UK climate legislation there is no statutory requirement for local government to address climate change. Eighty percent of local authorities have declared a climate emergency and developed climate action plans. The aim of this study is to explore the association between social vulnerability (poor health, financial resources, deprivation, house prices) and the quality of climate action plans as measured by a scorecard system created by Climate Emergency UK. We hypothesis that areas with lower levels of social vulnerability will have higher quality climate plans. We utilised a citizen science created dataset ranking local government’s climate action plans and administrative data on local area characteristics related to social vulnerability at the local authority level. Descriptive analysis and multivariate regression were employed. We found a very small but significant association between total weighted score, central government funding and average house prices. For the individual dimensions of the quality of climate action plans, higher male life expectancy and house prices were associated with better commitment and integration and having a greater percentage of the population over the age of 65 was associated with a lower score in this dimension. More urban areas and less deprived areas had higher scores for planning climate education, skills and training. We suggest that greater national guidance is needed including sharing good practice on how to build community support and additional funding for climate change mitigation/adaption in particular for education, skills, and training in more deprived areas may help to prevent variations in climate action plans increasing inequalities.</div

Table 3 - Exploring the association between health, local area characteristics and climate action plans in the UK: Cross-sectional analysis using administrative data from 2018 and a citizen science ranking of climate action plans from 2021

Table 3 - Exploring the association between health, local area characteristics and climate action plans in the UK: Cross-sectional analysis using administrative data from 2018 and a citizen science ranking of climate action plans from 2021</p

Real-world treatment patterns for patients receiving second-line and third-line treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer: A systematic review of recently published studies

<div><p>Most patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have a poor prognosis and receive limited benefit from conventional treatments, especially in later lines of therapy. In recent years, several novel therapies have been approved for second- and third-line treatment of advanced NSCLC. In light of these approvals, it is valuable to understand the uptake of these new treatments in routine clinical practice and their impact on patient care. A systematic literature search was conducted in multiple scientific databases to identify observational cohort studies published between January 2010 and March 2017 that described second- or third-line treatment patterns and clinical outcomes in patients with advanced NSCLC. A qualitative data synthesis was performed because a meta-analysis was not possible due to the heterogeneity of the study populations. A total of 12 different study cohorts in 15 articles were identified. In these cohorts, single-agent chemotherapy was the most commonly administered treatment in both the second- and third-line settings. In the 5 studies that described survival from the time of second-line treatment initiation, median overall survival ranged from 4.6 months (95% CI, 3.8–5.7) to 12.8 months (95% CI, 10.7–14.5). There was limited information on the use of biomarker-directed therapy in these patient populations. This systematic literature review offers insights into the adoption of novel therapies into routine clinical practice for second- and third-line treatment of patients with advanced NSCLC. This information provides a valuable real-world context for the impact of recently approved treatments for advanced NSCLC.</p></div

Additional file 1 of Assessing the barriers and facilitators of climate action planning in local governments: a two-round survey of expert opinion

Additional file 1: Appendix 1. First Round Survey. Appendix 2. Second Round Survey. Appendix 3. Analysis of data from second round of survey

High redundancy in actuation

Actuation, the controlled movement and positioning of objects, is an essential function of many technical systems. It is crucial in many applications from central heating to aircrafts, and without actuation, the function or even the safety of the system would suffers. For example an aircraft is steered using control surfaces, and if the actuation of these surfaces fails, the aircraft may crash. Therefore, actuation is often provided by using several (typically between 2 and 4) redundant actuation elements. If one element fails, another takes over, and harm can be avoided. While this solution works, it involves increased cost, weight and energy use, reducing the efficiency of the system considerable. This project on high redundancy actuation investigates the use of a high number of actuation elements, such as 10 or even 100. This is a bionic (or bio-mimetic) idea: the use of actuation elements is similar to the composition of a muscle from many individual muscle fibres. Just like the muscle is highly resilient to damage in individual fibres (causing sore muscles, but no loss of movement), high redundancy actuation is highly reliable even if several elements have failed. The reliability analysis shows that this approach provides the same level or even superior protection against faults, without the loss of efficiency involved in the traditional solution. The basic advantage is that the law of large numbers applies, which provides a much more accurate prediction of how faults will affect the actuation elements over time. In the aircraft example, this would provide lighter actuators that provide superior reliability, leading to better fuel economy and easier maintenance. The main scientific problem of this project is how to deal with the complexity of using a high number of elements together. The results show that it is possible to determine the reliability of the system, and it is also possible to control the many elements as if they are just one big actuator. The next phase of the project is dealing with the technological challenges of combining many actuation elements. A simple experiment with four elements has been completed, and a demonstrator with 16 elements is being built. These experiments are used to demonstrate the resilience to faults, and understand the practical control issues at hand. A project leading to a more advanced version with up to 100 elements is currently being prepared. While the developed theories can be extended easily to consider such configurations, the practical difficulties of designing and manufacturing such a solution are challenging. The goal is to demonstrate that high redundancy actuation is feasible with the currently available technology, and to get an idea of the manufacturing issues involved