Transformations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals Includes the SDG Index and Dashboards. Sustainable Development Report 2019

The Sustainable Development Report 2019 presents an updated SDG Index and Dashboards with a refined assessment of countries’ distance to SDG targets. The report has been successfully audited for the first time by the European Commission Joint Research Centre. New indicators have been included, primarily to refine the indicator selection on agriculture, diets, gender equality and freedom of speech. We have also added more metrics for international spillovers, including on fatal work accidents. A new website and data visualization tools are available (http://sustainabledevelopment.report). Once again, Nordic countries – Denmark, Sweden and Finland – top the SDG Index. Yet, even these countries face major challenges in implementing one or several SDGs. No country is on track for achieving all 17 goals with major performance gaps even in the top countries on SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water) and SDG 15 (Life on Land). Income and wealth inequalities, as well as gaps in health and education outcomes by population groups also remain important policy challenges in developing and developed countries alike. The Sustainable Development Report 2019 generates seven major findings: 1. High-level political commitment to the SDGs is falling short of historic promises In September 2019, heads-of-states and governments will convene for the first time in person at the UN in New York to review progress on their promises made four years after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda. Yet, our in-depth analyses show that many have not taken the critical steps to implement the SDGs. Out of 43 countries surveyed on SDG implementation efforts, including all G20 countries and countries with a population greater than 100 million, 33 countries have endorsed the SDGs in official statements since January 1st, 2018. Yet in only 18 of them do central budget documents mention the SDGs. This gap between rhetoric and action must be closed. 2. The SDGs can be operationalized through six SDG Transformations SDG implementation can be organized along the following Transformations: 1. Education, Gender, and Inequality; 2. Health, Wellbeing, and Demography; 3. Energy Decarbonization and Sustainable Industry; 4. Sustainable Food, Land, Water, Oceans; 5. Sustainable Cities and Communities; and 6. Digital Revolution for Sustainable Development. The transformations respect strong interdependencies across the SDGs and can be operationalized by well-defined parts of governments in collaboration with civil society, business, and other stakeholders. They must be underpinned and guided by the principles of Leave No One Behind and Circularity and Decoupling of resource use from human wellbeing. 3. Trends on climate (SDG 13) and biodiversity (SDG 14 and SDG 15) are alarming On average, countries obtain their worst scores on SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water) and SDG 15 (Life on Land). No country obtains a “green rating” (synonym of SDG achieved) on SDG 14 (Life Below Water). Trends on greenhouse gas emissions and, even more so, on threatened species are moving in the wrong direction. These findings are in line with the recent reports from the IPCC and IPBES on climate change mitigation and biodiversity protection, respectively. 4. Sustainable land-use and healthy diets require integrated agriculture, climate and health policy interventions Land use and food production are not meeting people’s needs. Agriculture destroys forests and biodiversity, squanders water and releases one-quarter of global greenhouse-gas emissions. In total, 78% of world nations for which data are available obtain a “red rating” (synonym of major SDG challenge) on sustainable nitrogen management; the highest number of “red” rating across all indicators included in the report. At the same time, one-third of food is wasted, 800 million people remain undernourished, 2 billion are deficient in micronutrients, and obesity is on the rise. New indicators on nations’ trophic level and yield gap closure highlight the depth of the challenge. Transformations towards sustainable landuse and food systems are required to balance efficient and resilient agriculture and forestry with biodiversity conservation and restoration as well as healthy diets

Community exchange and time currencies: a systematic and in-depth thematic review of impact on public health outcomes.

OBJECTIVES: Austerity in government funding, and public service reform, has heightened expectations on UK communities to develop activities and resources supportive of population health and become part of a transformed place-based system of community health and social care. As non-monetary place-based approaches, Community Exchange/Time Currencies could improve social contact and cohesion, and help mobilise families, neighbourhoods, communities and their assets in beneficial ways for health. Despite this interest, the evidence base for health outcomes resulting from such initiatives is underdeveloped. STUDY DESIGN: A systematic review. METHODS: A literature review was conducted to identify evidence gaps and advance understanding of the potential of Community Exchange System. Studies were quality assessed, and evidence was synthesised on 'typology', population targeted and health-related and wider community outcomes. RESULTS: The overall study quality was low, with few using objective measures of impact on health or well-being, and none reporting costs. Many drew on qualitative accounts of impact on health, well-being and broader community outcomes. Although many studies lacked methodological rigour, there was consistent evidence of positive impacts on key indicators of health and social capital, and the data have potential to inform theory. CONCLUSIONS: Methodologies for capturing impacts are often insufficiently robust to inform policy requirements and economic assessment, and there remains a need for objective, systematic evaluation of Community Exchange and Time Currency systems. There is also a strong argument for deeper investigation of 'programme theories' underpinning these activities, to better understand what needs to be in place to trigger their potential for generating positive health and well-being outcomes

Efficient Synthesis of Sensor Deception Attacks Using Observation Equivalence-Based Abstraction

This paper investigates the synthesis of successful sensor deception attack functions in supervisory control using abstraction methods to reduce computational complexity. In sensor deception attacks, an attacker hijacks a subset of the sensors of the plant and feeds incorrect information to the supervisor with the intent on causing damage to the supervised system. The attacker is successful if its attack causes damage to the system and it is not identified by an intrusion detection module. The existence test and the synthesis method of successful sensor deception attack functions are computationally expensive, specifically in partially observed systems. For this reason, we leverage results on abstraction methods to reduce the computational effort in solving these problems. Namely, we introduce an equivalence relation called restricted observation equivalence, that is used to abstract the original system before calculating attack functions. Based on this equivalence relation we prove that the existence of successful attack functions in the abstracted supervised system guarantees the existence of successful attack functions in the unabstracted supervised system and vice versa. Moreover, successful attack functions synthesized from the abstracted system can be exactly mapped to successful attack functions on the unabstracted system, thereby providing a complete solution to the attack synthesis problem

Selection of coals of different maturities for CO2 Storage by modelling of CH4 and CO2 adsorption isotherms

International audienceCO2 injection in unmineable coal seams could be one interesting option for both storage and methane recovery processes. The objective of this study is to compare and model pure gas sorption isotherms (CO2 and CH4) for well-characterised coals of different maturities to determine the most suitable coal for CO2 storage. Carbon dioxide and methane adsorption on several coals have been investigated using a gravimetric adsorption method. The experiments were carried out using both CO2 and CH4 pure gases at 25 °C from 0.1 to 5 MPa (1 to 50 bar). The experimental results were fitted using Temkin's approach but also with the corrected Langmuir's and the corrected Tóth's equations. The two last approaches are more accurate from a thermodynamical point of view, and have the advantage of taking into account the fact that experimental data (isotherms) correspond to excess adsorption capacities. These approaches allow better quantification of the adsorbed gas. Determined CO2 adsorption capacities are from 0.5 to 2 mmol/g of dry coal. Modelling provides also the affinity parameters of the two gases for the different coals. We have shown these parameters determined with adsorption models could be used for classification and first selection of coals for CO2 storage. The affinity ratio ranges from a value close to 1 for immature coals to 41 for high rank coals like anthracites. This ratio allows selecting coals having high CO2 adsorption capacities. In our case, the modelling study of a significant number of coals from various ranks shows that anthracites seem to have the highest CO2 storage capacities. Our study provides high quality affinity parameters and values of CO2 and CH4 adsorption capacities on various coals for the future modelling of CO2 injection in coal seams

Parallel Electromechanical model of the heart

In this paper, we present a high performance computational electromechanical model of the heart, coupling between electrical activation and mechanical deformation and running efficiently in up to thousands of processors. The electrical potential propagation is modelled by FitzHugh-Nagumo or Fenton-Karma models, with fiber orientation. The mechanical deformation is treated using anisotropic hyper-elastic materials in a total Lagrangian formulation. Several material models are assessed, such as models based on biaxial tests on excised myocardium or orthotropic formulations. Coupling is treated using the Cross-Bridges model of Peterson. The scheme is implemented in Alya, which run simulations in parallel with almost linear scalability in a wide range computer sizes, up to thousands of processors. The computational model is assessed through several tests, including those to evaluate its parallel performance.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Kinematic characteristics of elite men's 50 km race walking.

Race walking is an endurance event which also requires great technical ability, particularly with respect to its two distinguishing rules. The 50 km race walk is the longest event in the athletics programme at the Olympic Games. The aims of this observational study were to identify the important kinematic variables in elite men's 50 km race walking, and to measure variation in those variables at different distances. Thirty men were analysed from video data recorded during a World Race Walking Cup competition. Video data were also recorded at four distances during the European Cup Race Walking and 12 men analysed from these data. Two camcorders (50 Hz) recorded at each race for 3D analysis. The results of this study showed that walking speed was associated with both step length (r=0.54,P=0.002) and cadence (r=0.58,P=0.001). While placing the foot further ahead of the body at heel strike was associated with greater step lengths (r=0.45,P=0.013), it was also negatively associated with cadence (r= -0.62,P<0.001). In the World Cup, knee angles ranged between 175 and 186° at initial contact and between 180 and 195° at midstance. During the European Cup, walking speed decreased significantly (F=9.35,P=0.002), mostly due to a decrease in step length between 38.5 and 48.5 km (t=8.59,P=0.014). From this study, it would appear that the key areas a 50 km race walker must develop and coordinate are step length and cadence, although it is also important to ensure legal walking technique is maintained with the onset of fatigue