Standardization Roadmap for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Version 2.0

This Standardization Roadmap for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Version 2.0 (“roadmap”) is an update to version 1.0 of this document published in December 2018. It identifies existing standards and standards in development, assesses gaps, and makes recommendations for priority areas where there is a perceived need for additional standardization and/or pre-standardization R&D. The roadmap has examined 78 issue areas, identified a total of 71 open gaps and corresponding recommendations across the topical areas of airworthiness; flight operations (both general concerns and application-specific ones including critical infrastructure inspections, commercial services, and public safety operations); and personnel training, qualifications, and certification. Of that total, 47 gaps/recommendations have been identified as high priority, 21 as medium priority, and 3 as low priority. A “gap” means no published standard or specification exists that covers the particular issue in question. In 53 cases, additional R&D is needed. As with the earlier version of this document, the hope is that the roadmap will be broadly adopted by the standards community and that it will facilitate a more coherent and coordinated approach to the future development of standards for UAS. To that end, it is envisioned that the roadmap will continue to be promoted in the coming year. It is also envisioned that a mechanism may be established to assess progress on its implementation

Mobile health systems and emergence

Changes in the age distribution of the population and increased prevalence of chronic illnesses, together with a shortage of health professionals and other resources, will increasingly challenge the ability of national healthcare systems to meet rising demand for services. Large-scale use of eHealth and mHealth services enabled by advances in ICT are frequently cited as providing part of the solution to this crisis in future provision. As part of this picture, self-monitoring and remote monitoring of patients, for example by means of smartphone apps and body-worn sensors, is on the way to becoming mainstream. In future, each individual’s personal health system may be able to access a large number of devices, including sensors embedded in the environment as well as in-body smart medical implants, in order to provide (semi-)autonomous health-related services to the user. This article presents some examples of mHealth systems based on emerging technologies, including body area networks (BANs), wireless and mobile technologies, miniature body-worn sensors and distributed decision support. Applications are described in the areas of management of chronic illnesses and management of (large- scale) emergency situations. In the latter setting BANs form part of an advanced ICT system proposed for future major incident management; including BANs for monitoring casualties and emergency services personnel during first response. Some challenges and possibilities arising from current and future emerging mHealth technologies, and the question of how emergence theory might have a bearing on understanding these challenges, is discussed here

New Outlooks on Reshaping and Revitalizing Post-Conflict Regions: Strategies, Principles and Models of Reconstruction

Within societies recently recovering from war, people operating at the community or national levels are pressed to deal with reconciliation, development, reintegration and security. Changes and advancements are already at our front door in political philosophy, technology, communications, infrastructure, and shifts in attitudes and behavior of people. All of this will affect regions and communities, and basically alter the requisites for future planning and roles of professionals. Planning in the new millennium is needed to assist people and communities to manage change by all the techniques and skills that it possesses. In progressive crisis situations there is a need for progressive methods and new approaches, especially if the systems in use are not producing necessary results and changes. The situation where the primary objective is the rebuilding of livelihoods and rebuilding a community in a traumatized setting, a holistic way of looking at the ''big picture'' is a condicio sine qua non for any sustainable development effort. The paper draws attention to situations, which require interdisciplinary approaches and the collaboration of different professional actors. In order to structure the complex question of post-conflict reconstruction in a more systematic way, a conceptual interdisciplinary model called Sustainable Communities in Post-Conflict Environments (SCOPE) could be developed for rebuilding communities. This presentation looks at how such a model, applied to places like Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, can effectively conceptualize and design policies, programs and projects that efficiently address the above-mentioned issues, giving at the same time a new strategic and innovative approach.

Towards Identifying and closing Gaps in Assurance of autonomous Road vehicleS - a collection of Technical Notes Part 1

This report provides an introduction and overview of the Technical Topic Notes (TTNs) produced in the Towards Identifying and closing Gaps in Assurance of autonomous Road vehicleS (Tigars) project. These notes aim to support the development and evaluation of autonomous vehicles. Part 1 addresses: Assurance-overview and issues, Resilience and Safety Requirements, Open Systems Perspective and Formal Verification and Static Analysis of ML Systems. Part 2: Simulation and Dynamic Testing, Defence in Depth and Diversity, Security-Informed Safety Analysis, Standards and Guidelines

Unleashing the Potential of Philanthropy in China

Countries like China, but also Brazil, India, Indonesia and South Africa, are becoming more involved in development assistance not only through government aid but also through private investment, remittances and homegrown philanthropy. As the world looks for additional sources of funding to finance its fight against poverty, inequality and climate change, a lot of hope is resting on the rise of philanthropy. A strong and healthy philanthropic sector in China, confident in looking outside its borders and with the right capacities to respond to the great demands, will benefit China, as well as the rest of the world. This report believes that China today has the unprecedented opportunity to tap into its expanding non-profit and philanthropic sector. Home to record numbers of billionaires who have started to give back, with more and more corporations investing in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and with an expanding middle class increasingly aware of environmental and social challenges, China has vast resources to mobilize in support of philanthropy. In the last few years, technology and new media have created innovative ways to donate, which are making it even easier for the general public to participate in philanthropy. Finally, as Chinese businesses and state-owned companies continue to go global, China's philanthropists are also starting to look beyond their borders

Valuing adaptation under rapid change

AbstractThe methods used to plan adaptation to climate change have been heavily influenced by scientific narratives of gradual change and economic narratives of marginal adjustments to that change. An investigation of the theoretical aspects of how the climate changes suggests that scientific narratives of climate change are socially constructed, biasing scientific narratives to descriptions of gradual as opposed rapid, non-linear change. Evidence of widespread step changes in recent climate records and in model projections of future climate is being overlooked because of this. Step-wise climate change has the potential to produce rapid increases in extreme events that can cross institutional, geographical and sectoral domains.Likewise, orthodox economics is not well suited to the deep uncertainty faced under climate change, requiring a multi-faceted approach to adaptation. The presence of tangible and intangible values range across five adaptation clusters: goods; services; capital assets and infrastructure; social assets and infrastructure; and natural assets and infrastructure. Standard economic methods have difficulty in giving adequate weight to the different types of values across these clusters. They also do not account well for the inter-connectedness of impacts and subsequent responses between agents in the economy. As a result, many highly-valued aspects of human and environmental capital are being overlooked.Recent extreme events are already pressuring areas of public policy, and national strategies for emergency response and disaster risk reduction are being developed as a consequence. However, the potential for an escalation of total damage costs due to rapid change requires a coordinated approach at the institutional level, involving all levels of government, the private sector and civil society.One of the largest risks of maladaptation is the potential for un-owned risks, as risks propagate across domains and responsibility for their management is poorly allocated between public and private interests, and between the roles of the individual and civil society. Economic strategies developed by the disaster community for disaster response and risk reduction provide a base to work from, but many gaps remain.We have developed a framework for valuing adaptation that has the following aspects: the valuation of impacts thus estimating values at risk, the evaluation of different adaptation options and strategies based on cost, and the valuation of benefits expressed as a combination of the benefits of avoided damages and a range of institutional values such as equity, justice, sustainability and profit.The choice of economic methods and tools used to assess adaptation depends largely on the ability to constrain uncertainty around problems (predictive uncertainty) and solutions (outcome uncertainty). Orthodox methods can be used where both are constrained, portfolio methodologies where problems are constrained and robust methodologies where solutions are constrained. Where both are unconstrained, process-based methods utilising innovation methods and adaptive management are most suitable. All methods should involve stakeholders where possible.Innovative processes methods that enable transformation will be required in some circumstances, to allow institutions, sectors and communities to prepare for anticipated major change.Please cite this report as: Jones, RN, Young, CK, Handmer, J, Keating, A, Mekala, GD, Sheehan, P 2013 Valuing adaptation under rapid change, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, pp. 192.The methods used to plan adaptation to climate change have been heavily influenced by scientific narratives of gradual change and economic narratives of marginal adjustments to that change. An investigation of the theoretical aspects of how the climate changes suggests that scientific narratives of climate change are socially constructed, biasing scientific narratives to descriptions of gradual as opposed rapid, non-linear change. Evidence of widespread step changes in recent climate records and in model projections of future climate is being overlooked because of this. Step-wise climate change has the potential to produce rapid increases in extreme events that can cross institutional, geographical and sectoral domains.Likewise, orthodox economics is not well suited to the deep uncertainty faced under climate change, requiring a multi-faceted approach to adaptation. The presence of tangible and intangible values range across five adaptation clusters: goods; services; capital assets and infrastructure; social assets and infrastructure; and natural assets and infrastructure. Standard economic methods have difficulty in giving adequate weight to the different types of values across these clusters. They also do not account well for the inter-connectedness of impacts and subsequent responses between agents in the economy. As a result, many highly-valued aspects of human and environmental capital are being overlooked.Recent extreme events are already pressuring areas of public policy, and national strategies for emergency response and disaster risk reduction are being developed as a consequence. However, the potential for an escalation of total damage costs due to rapid change requires a coordinated approach at the institutional level, involving all levels of government, the private sector and civil society.One of the largest risks of maladaptation is the potential for un-owned risks, as risks propagate across domains and responsibility for their management is poorly allocated between public and private interests, and between the roles of the individual and civil society. Economic strategies developed by the disaster community for disaster response and risk reduction provide a base to work from, but many gaps remain.We have developed a framework for valuing adaptation that has the following aspects: the valuation of impacts thus estimating values at risk, the evaluation of different adaptation options and strategies based on cost, and the valuation of benefits expressed as a combination of the benefits of avoided damages and a range of institutional values such as equity, justice, sustainability and profit.The choice of economic methods and tools used to assess adaptation depends largely on the ability to constrain uncertainty around problems (predictive uncertainty) and solutions (outcome uncertainty). Orthodox methods can be used where both are constrained, portfolio methodologies where problems are constrained and robust methodologies where solutions are constrained. Where both are unconstrained, process-based methods utilising innovation methods and adaptive management are most suitable. All methods should involve stakeholders where possible.Innovative processes methods that enable transformation will be required in some circumstances, to allow institutions, sectors and communities to prepare for anticipated major change

The Use of UAVs for Performing Safety-Related Tasks at Post-Disaster and Non-Critical Construction Sites

Thanks to the wide diffusion of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), geomatics solutions have actively contributed to the field of safety enhancement and disaster risk reduction, supporting rapid mapping and documentation activities of the damages that have occurred to heritage buildings after natural disasters (such as earthquakes) where, in this scenario it is even more important to plan and execute disaster assessment and response operations in safe conditions. In fact, the planning and execution of technical countermeasures in a seismic emergency response involve higher risks for the safety of the operators as compared with responses related to the activities performed at non-critical construction sites. After an analysis of the state of the art, this study aims to underline the possibilities offered by the use of UAVs for performing safety-related tasks, both at post-disaster and non-critical construction sites. First, a survey has been conducted concerning the main user expectations and characteristics that an ideal UAV platform should have in order to perform safety-related tasks at construction sites that are created following the initial emergency phases. The answers that were obtained have been compared with similar studies retrieved from the literature validating previously conducted research. The legislative context is also considered, as it is an important factor that influences the applicability of these platforms and technology. Along with a method for assessing and mitigating the intrinsic risk of using an UAV, the results of a survey submitted to experts in the field of safety at construction sites is also discussed, intending to identify requirements of the ideal platform and the related user expectations. The results are reported, together with a summary of considerations on the use of these strategies in the analyzed contexts