Co-producing a Research Agenda for Sustainable Palm Oil

The rise of palm oil as the world’s most consumed vegetable oil has coincided with exponential growth in palm oil research activity. Bibliometric analysis of research outputs reveals a distinct imbalance in the type of research being undertaken, notably a disproportionate focus on biofuel and engineering topics. Recognizing the expansion of oil palm agriculture across the tropics and the increasing awareness of environmental, social, and economic impacts, we seek to reorientate the existing research agenda toward one that addresses the most fundamental and urgent questions defined by the palm oil stakeholder community. Following consultation with 659 stakeholders from 38 countries, including palm oil growers, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and researchers, the highest priority research questions were identified within 13 themes. The resulting 279 questions, including 26 ranked as top priority, reveal a diversity of environmental and social research challenges facing the industry, ranging from the ecological and ecosystem impacts of production, to the livelihoods of plantation workers and smallholder communities. Analysis of the knowledge type produced from these questions underscores a clear need for fundamental science programmes, and studies that involve the consultation of non-academic stakeholders to develop “transformative” solutions to the oil palm sector. Stakeholders were most aligned in their choice of priority questions across the themes of policy and certification related themes, and differed the most in environmental feedback, technology and smallholder related themes. Our recommendations include improved regional academic leadership and coordination, greater engagement with private and public stakeholders in Africa, and Central and South America, and enhanced collaborative efforts with researchers in the major consuming countries of India and China.The online survey and focus groups were funded by the Geran Kursi Endowmen MPOB-UKM Malaysia, and the Royal Geographical Society UK. The residential workshop was supported from by British Council and Academy Science Malaysia via the UK Newton Ungku-Omar Fund. ZD, JB, and MS are supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/K016407/1; http://lombok.nerc-hmtf.info/)

One-step fast calibration of an industrial workcell

The calibration of a work cell is a process which allows to increase the accuracy of an industrial robot in reaching Cartesian locations. This is a crucial aspect if the robotic manipulator is required to perform accurate positioning to non-recorded locations or has to interact with external equipment. The calibration of a work cell is a time-consuming task and has to be repeated several times during set-up and every time the robot, equipment or sensors are moved from their original position for some reason, like maintenance. In this paper, a multi-calibration device and procedure are presented, which allow calibrating a picking plane with a one-step fast data acquisition procedure

Integrating Economic and Social Policy through the Singapore Housing System

For those interested in East Asian development states, one question continues to attract much attention: what has made the remarkable growth of Singapore sustainable thus far? Singapore has an average GDP growth rate of 6.36 per cent, a per capita GDP of US$32,573 and a current account surplus of US$11,853 million in 2011 (Trading Economics, 2012a). This level of economic progress has put Singapore on the top of many international scoreboards. The 2011 Index of Economic Freedom ranks Singapore as the freest economy in the world after Hong Kong. More importantly, Singapore tops the four East Asia tiger states in terms of health care and education provisions. Building on a sound economic foundation, Singapore has developed into a regional medical tourism centre and a higher education hub, with universities like Yale and Duke forming close collaborations with Singapore universities. Lee Kuan Yew, first prime minister and father of the modern Singaporean state, as well as the new leadership, pride themselves on having established a social democracy in the East. While many would disagree with this claim, in the development literature Singapore has always been portrayed as a unique developmental state in East Asia with non-traditional institutions and social arrangements having little theoretical relevance for other countries in terms of governance (Huff, 1995). This mindset has successfully deterred the quest for a more general conceptual understanding of the implications and relevance of the Singapore experience on understanding social policy and social development in East Asia.Department of Applied Social Science