How the Urban Poor Define and Measure Food Security in Cambodia and Nepal

Urban food security, or its lack, is attracting growing interest in global policy debates. Glaringly missing in these conversations, however, are the voices of the urban poor. To fill this gap, grassroots community organizations, with decades-long experience collecting data on their own communities and taking action to improve conditions, decided to ask the urban poor in Cambodia and Nepal how they define and measure food security, what key challenges they face in the daily struggle to put food on the table and what actions might help. Their findings show that access to adequate diets is a major challenge for low-income communities in Asia, and that hunger is widespread, although with great variations and fluctuations between and within households. They also highlight the extraordinary resilience of urban poor women and their multiple strategies to stretch meagre budgets and make sure there is something to eat, even though sometimes this is not enough

HVAC Hardware Modeling Using Programmable Automatic Controller

The primary purpose of this project is to use the donated programmable logic controllers (PLC) from Schneider Electric to develop experiments for a future lab class at Cal Poly. Our goal as the first group working on this project is to develop an experiment where the PLC can control the HVAC system based on temperature and humidity sensors and user inputs to maintain a desired consistent temperature. The PLC will be controlled using Unity Pro XLS/Control Expert software for simulations. The overall purpose of the experiments will be to demonstrate the potential of the PLC to minimize manual intervention while operating electrical devices. The end result of the project was that we successfully emulated an HVAC system utilizing DC Brushless Motor computer fans and the PLC. Much of the project also involved learning how to use the Unity Pro XLS/Control Expert software, designing a Functional Block Diagram in Control Expert based on the logic we want the PLC to act upon, designing the hardware setup with the drivers and temperature sensors, constructing the system, and ultimately implementing the PLC with the HVAC

Incorporating Local Building Practices in Response

International audienceTo enhance resilience, households affected by disasters must be able to make informed choices during reconstruction. They must balance the adoption of safety measures with their other needs (Flinn, 2020). Disaster risk reduction (DRR) techniques that fit with local circumstances are likely to represent the best fit for affected households (Garnier et al., 2013; CRAterre, 2010; Dekens, 2007; Twigg, 2006; Carazas-Aedo et al., 2004; Jigyasu, 2002). The exclusion of local techniques and the shift toward non-traditional DRR practices can, therefore, be problematic for community resilience. However, during reconstruction, local non-engineered DRR construction techniques are frequently absent from building codes and neglected by technical authorities, government institutions, and funding agencies