Coproduce Conservation Technology With Conservation Decision Makers and Practitioners to Increase Its Impact

Addressing the biodiversity crisis will mean developing and adopting new resources and methods that effectively improve public conservation efforts. Technologies have a long track record of increasing the efficiency of carrying out time-consuming tasks or even making new feats possible, and if applied thoughtfully, can serve as a key means of strengthening conservation outcomes. Yet technology development sometimes proceeds without clear mechanisms for application and scaling, or key adopters like government agencies are not able to use the technologies. To overcome these discrepancies, we recommend the use of a coproduction model of conservation technology development that starts from detailed knowledge of conservation laws, regulations, policies, and their implementation; identifies choke points in those processes amenable to technological solutions; and then develops those solutions while integrating existing users and needs. To illustrate the model, we describe three tools recently developed to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of implementing the U.S. Endangered Species Act. We also highlight several outstanding questions and challenges that the broad conservation technology and policy communities may help address.

Assessment of Drivers and Deterrents of Development of High-Speed Passenger Railway Transportation

Reduction in travel time is one of the eloquent trends in transport developments. It is consistent with the desire of leading transport companies to create conditions to increase traffic speeds.The objective of the article is to analyse prospects and drivers for development of high-speed rail transportation as of a priority transport segment characterised by best safety rates and environmental friendliness as compared to other types of transportation.The review of core parameters of HSR is suggested to show features of its global development.Ecological friendliness, encouragement of labour and other mobility of people, of innovative technology development of railways and interconnected industries are most relevant as universal drivers of HSR development.Constraints due to substantial investment needs, long payback period, necessity to implement additional side projects to develop interrelated transport infrastructure to obtain more tangible economic and social effects, to provide for sufficient passenger flow at the initial or further stages of HSR operation were considered as main deterrents.The factors, their parameters, assessment of their priority ranking when making decisions on construction or development of HSR are determined in each country by transport development strategies, current economic conditions, and a set of other factors.

Survival is the driver for adaptation: safety engineering changed the future, security engineering prevented disasters and transition engineering navigates the pathway to the climate-safe future

Consider a simple idea describing the time, space and relationship scales of survival. Engineering has been going along with the current paradigm that growth in wealth and material consumption can continue through innovation and technology development. The proposed survival continuum concept represents a new way to think about sustainability that has clear implications for influencing engineering projects in all fields. The argument for survival as the driver for adaptation is developed sequentially, building on theory, definition, examples and history. The key idea is that sustainability will be effectively addressed by a new engineering discipline furthering development of the field of safety engineering with longer time scale, broader space scale and more complex relationship scale. The implication is that the past 100-year development of safety engineering can be leveraged to fast-track the inclusion of sustainability risk management throughout the entire engineering profession. The conclusion is that a new, interdisciplinary field, Transition Engineering, is emerging as the way our society will achieve sustainability-safety through rapid reduction in fossil fuel use and reduction in detrimental social and environmental impacts of industrialization.

Modelling of Mechanisms as a Methodological Tool (the Case of Designing a Cycloidal Pin Transmission)

The suggested modern approach to modelling of objects and systems allows not only to create models but also to use them to study the main properties of the object (system) with a high degree of clarity and adequacy, as well as to develop most important skills of young engineers in creating and implementing digital models of engineering objects.The objective of the study is to analyse capacity of one of the modern automated computational design systems as a methodological tool.The functionality of an automated computational design system is considered for the case of constructing a model of a planetary cycloidal pinion transmission. The resulting model allows visualising the kinematics of the designed mechanism in the form of static or moving graphic images. The model built based on the described approach contains digital images of mechanism parts, which can be transferred without modification to specialised software systems for analysing strength characteristics or manufacturing material models of a product using rapid prototyping methods.The proposed approach allows to perfect actions referring to the analysis of properties and synthesis of new structures using tools that correspond to the modern level of technology development and to get a visual idea of the process of developing a machine from a mathematical model to its material objectification.The research methods are based on the fundamental principles of mathematical and simulation modelling, data analysis and processing using powerful automated computational design tools.The tools used for modelling can be used for different forms of learning, i.e., without reference to specific premises and equipment.

Recent Progress and Perspectives on Non-Invasive Glucose Sensors

Self-monitoring of blood glucose forms an important part of the management of diabetes and the prevention of hyperglycaemia and hypoglycaemia. Current glucose monitoring methods either use needle-prick enzymatic glucose-meters or subcutaneous continuous glucose sensors (CGM) and thus, non-invasive glucose measurements could greatly improve the self-management of diabetes. A wide range of non-invasive sensing techniques have been reported, though achieving a level of precision comparable to invasive meters remains a challenge. Optical sensors, which utilise the interactions between glucose and light, offer the potential for non-invasive continuous sensing, allowing real-time monitoring of glucose levels, and a range of different optical sensing technologies have been proposed. These are primarily based upon optical absorption and scattering effects and include infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and optical coherence tomography (OCT), with other optical techniques such as photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS) and polarimetry also reported. This review aims to discuss the current progress behind the most reported optical glucose sensing methods, theory and current limitations of optical sensing methods and the future technology development required to achieve an accurate optical-based glucose monitoring device.

Review on critical technology development of avian radar system

Purpose This paper aims to review the critical technology development of avian radar system at airports. Design/methodology/approach After the origin of avian radar technology is discussed, the target characteristics of flying birds are analyzed, including the target echo amplitude, flight speed, flight height, trajectory and micro-Doppler. Four typical airport avian radar systems of Merlin, Accipiter, Robin and CAST are introduced. The performance of different modules such as antenna, target detection and tracking, target recognition and classification, analysis of bird information together determines the detection ability of avian radar. The performances and key technologies of the ubiquitous avian radar are summarized and compared with other systems, and their applications, deployment modes, as well as their advantages and disadvantages are introduced and analyzed. Findings The ubiquitous avian radar achieves the long-time integration of target echoes, which greatly improves detection and classification ability of the targets of birds or drones, even under strong background clutter at airport. In addition, based on the big data of bird situation accumulated by avian radar, the rules of bird activity around the airport can be mined to guide the bird avoidance work. Originality/value This paper presented a novel avian radar system based on ubiquitous digital radar technology. The authors’ experience has confirmed that this system can be effective for airport bird strike prevention and management. In the future, the avian radar system will see continued improvement in both software and hardware, as the system is designed to be easily extensible.

Exploring online consumer reviews of wearable technology: The Owlet Smart Sock

Purpose The purpose of this research is to analyze consumers’ post-purchase reviews of the Owlet Smart Sock (OSS) and investigate the factors influencing continued use and product recommendation. Design/methodology/approach The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 and the privacy calculus model were used to focus both on technology and privacy aspects of OSS – a wearable technology product for baby monitoring. A sample of 450 online consumer review data was collected from Owletcare.com and Amazon.com. The data analysis was done by using NVivo 11. Findings Findings show that effort expectancy, price value and performance expectancy played the most striking role during adoption, continued future use and recommendation to others, whereas perceived privacy risk had the least importance. Research limitations/implications Consumer empowerment through online reviews plays a crucial role in conveying their specific needs and desires to both manufacturers and other prospective consumers. The research is also expected to contribute research and development of technology-integrated products. Practical implications The research findings will provide valuable insights for manufacturers and retailers to understand consumers’ actual preferences and acceptance during the use of wearable technology. Originality/value This study extends research work on consumer use behavior by evaluating online reviews that provide them the opportunity to express their satisfaction and concerns. Insights from experience consumers’ reviews facilitate designers, developers and manufacturers to have a strategic focus during wearable technology development.