Ocracoke trouble spot along N.C. 12 shown Aug. 29, 2011. Photo: NCDOT Communications

This is the fifth installment in a continuing series on climate change and the North Carolina coast that is part of thePulitzer Centers nationwide Connected Coastlinesreporting initiative.

Twenty-seven years ago, an interagency panel of bureaucrats, politicians and scientists gathered for the first time in Atlanta, Georgia, to study how to save a North Carolina coastal highway skirting the volatile waters of the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

No one back then talked about resilience or adaptation, and certainly not retreat. Still, the diverse group turned out to be pioneers of brainstorming and collaborating to solve the multitude of challenges from sea level rise and other climate change impacts.

The Outer Banks Task Force met six times before being shelved after one year for lack of funds and staff. But that was only one iteration of numerous transportation study groups that assembled over the years to address N.C. 12, a sliver of roadway stretching about 65 miles on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands.

The two-lane road has been a headache for the state practically from the day the first tire hit the pavement. In 1962, the infamous Ash Wednesday Storm ripped open an inlet in Buxton and destroyed 25% of the dunes that buffered the road from ocean waves.

Still, the extreme and worsening coastal conditions for N.C. 12 serve as both lesson plan and cautionary tale for teams like the Outer Banks Task Force, working against time while begging for funds to maintain vital transportation infrastructure into the future.

Gov. Roy Coopersexecutive orderin 2018 directed 10 cabinet agencies and the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to integrate climate adaptation and resiliency planning into their policies, programs and operations. In response, the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency was created to coordinate agencies and assist communities facing storm recovery and/or risks of future climate change impacts.

But complex problems that involve many players, a slew of stakeholders and tons of money can become unwieldy and paralyzing.

At least 10 government entities federal, state and local were represented on the task force, in addition to several coastal engineers and scientists from different universities.

How do we simplify what were trying to do so that we get something done? former Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairwoman Geneva Perry asked the revived task force in November 1998, as quoted then in The Virginian-Pilot. This thing has been going on forever, and unless we keep kicking it, it dies again.

Built in phases during the 1950s, N.C. 12 bisects Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and seven villages. It is also the only route for millions of tourists that contribute to the Outer Banks $1 billion tourism economy.

The roadway, with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the massive Pamlico Sound on the other, is inches above mean sea level and crosses numerous weak spots on skinny barrier islands that are subject to severe beach erosion. To add to its vulnerabilities, the islands are close to the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, the super-highway for Atlantic hurricanes.

Over the decades, the road has been repeatedly over-washed by ocean and sound tide; undermined by ocean surge; inundated by moon tide and rain deluges; buried by mountains of sand from storm-flattened dunes; broken apart by hurricanes and nor-easters; and covered by telephone poles, trees and debris from destroyed buildings.

Sections of road have been replaced, elevated, bridged or moved further from the ocean. Adjacent beaches have been widened and walkways have been built to protect dunes.

And the dunes between the beach and the road have been built, knocked down and rebuilt, higher, longer and stronger. Then flattened again.

Its a very good example of a corridor being impacted by climate, Jerry Jennings, Division 1 engineer with the North Carolina Department of Transportation, said in a recent telephone interview. Certainly, from Division 1s perspective, theres not another road that has the challenges that N.C. 12 has.

Located in the northeast corner of North Carolina, Division 1 is a huge, mostly rural territory that encompasses 14 counties. It not only includes the second-largest estuarine system in the nation, its coastal area the Outer Banks is one of the most vulnerable regions in the U.S. to the impacts of sea level rise.

Maintenance and repair of the road from Oregon Inlet to Ocracoke village has cost NCDOT about $75 million in the last 10 years, not including N.C. 12 improvements that were part of the recently completed Bonner Bridge replacement project.

Opened last year, the new Marc Basnight Bridge spans the inlet and incorporates phased work on the road to just south of Rodanthe.

The only other comparison in the state to N.C. 12 cited by some transportation officials could be the heavily traveled Blue Ridge Parkway in the mountains, which is subject to costly landslides and intense winter weather.

But a lot of environmental changes generally have been observed over time in coastal regions and in low-lying areas, Jennings said. Shoreline erosion along water bodies, for example, can impact roadway shoulders and potentially threaten the road. Flooding is a persistent problem on roads in Mackeys Island, Aydlett and Water Lily in Currituck County and on N.C. 94 at Lake Mattamuskeet in Hyde County.

Theres a number of those out there, he said. Its not just a beach thing.

An ongoing improvement project on Colington Road in Kill Devil Hills includes elevation of parts of the road vulnerable to tidal flooding, he said, which seems to be a longstanding problem.

That project will attempt to resolve that, Jennings said. Its hard to say what is directly related to climate change.

NCDOT had been working with the new North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency, or NCORR. But NCDOTs resiliency work has been suspended indefinitely while the agency addresses severe budgetary shortfalls aggravated by COVID-19 shutdowns.

Unspecified cuts are also expected in NCDOTs Ferry Division, which operates about 20 ferries on seven regular routes on the coast. The passenger ferry between Hatteras and Ocracoke islands has been canceled for the season.

In March, North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies released theNorth Carolina Climate Science Report, an assessment of current and projected climate impacts to the state. The report is a component of the comprehensiveN.C. Risk Assessment and Resilience Planthat is expected to be completed this summer.

The report found that future impacts in the state from climate change some effects are already apparent will likely be more intense storms, increased rain volume, more wildfires and drought, more hot days and higher humidity, increased flooding including sunny day tide and higher sea levels, especially on the northeast coast.

For transportation, it means offering people multiple ways to get around, by better connecting roads and sidewalks and providing quality transit services, the report said.

Jessica Whitehead, chief resilience officer with NCORR, said that NCDOT has been an engaged participant in discussions about such critical needs as building redundancy and updating old infrastructure.

Even with NCDOTs and other state agencies budgetary woes from the pandemic, Whitehead said that resiliency work will continue.

The thing about climate change in any of this, its not going to go away, she said. Were still going to figure out ways to plan for it.

Transportation projects in North Carolina have already been engineered for environmental changes, said Chris Werner, director of technical services at NCDOT.

Resiliency is a critical part of how we design and build our infrastructure, he said. We work with all our partners across the state.

Werner said that the agency has an inbuilt culture that fosters innovative and proactive approaches to problem solving.

Were always looking for cutting-edge analytics and software, he said. Most of us are engineers. The more data we can get, the more analytics we can perform.

One example is application of the states data-richFlood Inundation Mapping Alert Network, or FIMAN, to not only predict flooding on roads and bridges, but also to design for it by looking at trends in the data.

The agency, he said, is in the process of expanding the FIMAN gauge system from a property-impact focus to provide data specific to transportation infrastructure. For instance, data collection can be tailored so it can be used to prevent future road washouts.

Its not just a matter of fixing a damaged structure, he explained, the goal is to keep it from happening again by building redundancy and resiliency.

When severe flooding on U.S. 421 in Wilmington in 2018 during Hurricane Florence damaged the road and cut off traffic, Werner said, the agency took the opportunity to build better and stronger. After analysis of historic and current data, instead of just replacing ruined culverts, the department replaced them with a new bridge. Another bridge was also built nearby, providing the transportation corridor with both redundancy and resiliency in the event of future flooding.

Our goal is to build infrastructure thats durable and safe and resilient as possible, Werner said. As civil engineers, were constantly improving what weve done in the past. Thats what we do. It all stems from field observation and data.

Other measures NCDOT has put in place, he said, are monitors of water levels at low bridges, and identifying alternative travel routes on itsREADY NC app. The department has partnered with Google Maps and WAZE to feed their traffic data into the app. Also,DRIVENC.govshows up-to-date closures and maintenance work on the states roads.

In reality, the feats of engineering for NCDOT are not so much in dramatic crane work at bridge construction sites or road restorations after storms. Its mostly what goes on behind the scene at research centers and laboratories.

We do a lot of work with our universities, said Neil Mastin, NCDOT Research and Development manager. We work with business units and academics.

In May 2019, the department presented its first Research & Innovation Summit at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University to discuss transportation-related innovations and research.

Although it is not often a focus of public discussion, NCDOT has been studying numerous issues that could result in transportation improvements, although its research program for 2021 has been postponed, Mastin said.

Ongoing or planned research projects include the following:

Mastin said that NCDOT is also hyper-aware of the public concern about drainage issues. The state is responsible for the ditches and culverts within road right of ways, as well as the nine ocean outfalls in the state, all of which except one is on the Outer Banks.

Water in general, he said, is the enemy of transportation networks.

In the past, locations of all small and medium drainage pipes around the state were mapped, he added, with the ambitious goal yet mostly unfulfilled of eventually replacing them. But thats just pipes and flooding is getting increasingly worse.

Eastern North Carolina in particular, with land as flat as it is, makes it extremely challenging, Mastin said. We can fix one problem somewhere and it makes it worse somewhere else.

Drones are being used more often by NCDOT to provide footage of flooded areas and to help manage flood gates, he said. Theyre also used to build wetlands, to identify plant types, to measure elevation and to help determine where to send crews after disasters. Researchers are also studying development of drones to inspect bridges.

Improvements of material mostly concrete and asphalt are constantly being studied, Mastin said. One example of research results is the proposed bridge replacement on Harkers Island, which would be the states first fully composite reinforced bridge. Rather than using corrosion-prone steel rebar, he said, the structure will be built with a mixture of carbon fiber prestressed strands and fancy fiberglass.

Well be monitoring this closely, he said. This is really exciting.

The new Marc Basnight Bridge over notoriously wild and wicked Oregon Inlet was designed to last 100 years and was built with high-performance, less-permeable concrete made to better endure corrosive salt air and water. It is the first bridge project in the state to use stainless reinforcing steel, and the bridge has longer and deeper pilings to withstand scour.

The Outer Banks Task Force, in a significant way, laid the groundwork for the bridge and the N.C. 12 improvements by determining where the problems were and what to do about them. Most importantly, the panel recognized the need for safety and access for both the bridge and the road and linked them together as a single corridor.

Jennings, the division engineer, said that over the last few years, feasibility studies have been completed looking at long-term options for eroded areas in Buxton, Hatteras and Ocracoke, as well as costs of the alternatives and how long projects would last.

Years before the panel was replaced by a merger team that worked on planning and permitting for the road and bridge projects, the Outer Banks Task Force had designated six vulnerable hot spots between Oregon Inlet and Ocracoke village that were critical to address, and started the planning process on each one.

Predictions about the dire risks at each of the hot spots from storm surge, beach erosion, road loss, dune breaching, even another inlet cutting through have since played out all too often.

In 1999, John Fisher, a N.C. State University civil engineer and then-chair of the task force science panel, called a reconstructed dune lost during Hurricane Dennis at the eroding Ocracoke hot spot a Band-Aid that wouldnt last.

We seriously think you should think about abandoning that whole stretch of road and relocating the ferry system, he told the task force, according to The Virginian-Pilot on Nov. 7. It didnt make sense to us to try to maintain the highway.

That is exactly what NCDOT is now considering. After storm after storm over the last 20 years wiped out dunes in the same hot spot, it seems Hurricane Dorian last September may end up taking that one off N.C. 12s list.

Read more here:
Resilience Bigger Part of Plan to Save NC 12 - Island Free Press

Researchers are learning more about howCovid-19affects children, and a new study finds that among a group of children and adolescents in New York who were hospitalized with the disease, about a fifth 22% had obesity.

The study,published in the journal The Lancet on Wednesday, suggests thathaving obesity could put a child at an increased risk of getting severely ill withCovid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

"Obesity was the most significant factor associated with mechanical ventilation in children 2 years and older," the researchers added. "Contrary to some previous reports, infants seemed largely spared severe manifestations."

More on the study: The study included data on 50 young people, ages 21 and younger, who were diagnosed withCovid-19between March 1 and April 15 and hospitalized for at least a day or longer.

The data, which came from the patients' electronic medical records, showed that about half of the patients 52% had an adult family member or was living with someone with symptoms associated withCovid-19. None of the patients had a history of international travel around the time they were diagnosed.

Most of the patients 80% had a fever, and 64% had some respiratory symptoms, but three of the patients only experienced gastrointestinal problems, the researchers found. Nine of the patients, or 18% of them, needed mechanical ventilation and one patient died.

Overall, the researchers found that obesity was significantly associated with needing mechanical ventilation among children ages 2 or older. Among the patients who required mechanical ventilation, six of them 67% had obesity.

About the study: The study had some limitations, including that the group of patients included in the datawas smalland half of the patients were Hispanic.The researchers noted thatthe hospital serves a predominantly Hispanic community.Somore research is needed to determine whether similar findings would emerge among a more diverse group of patients.

Yet overall, "studies such as this one emphasize that certain groups of children may be disproportionally affected. In this study, 50% were Hispanic,"Dr. Jason Newland of theWashington University School of Medicine in St Louis, and Dr. Kristina Bryant of theUniversity of Louisville in Kentucky, co-wrote in an editorial that accompanied the new study.

"As theCovid-19 pandemic has spread and created adversity for many people physically, emotionally, and economically, the groups most affected have been those of color," Newland and Bryant wrote.

"Going forward, multicenter collaborative studies are needed to define the infectious and postinfectious sequelae ofCovid-19in children in communities across the US, including rural communities, and in all racial and ethnic groups. We also need to understand the association of the pandemic with adverse health outcomes in children beyond the consequences of viral infection," they wrote.

The researchers noted that on May 15, "the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a precipitous drop in the ordering and administration of pediatric vaccines. Are outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases on the horizon? That could be the next important chapter of the evolvingCovid-19story."

Read the original:
WHO says coronavirus is not mutating, but that doesn't mean it is not dangerous - CNN

The Government has now released its decisions on a number of freshwater policy initiatives that were first revealed in September 2019 under the banner Essential Freshwater Action for Healthy Waterways.

The announcements see the new National Policy Statement, National Environmental Standards and Stock Regulations proceed largely unchanged, but with notable tweaks to the time frames, nutrient limits, and regulatory mechanisms. Most notably, dissolved organic nitrogen and dissolved reactive phosphorous will no longer have national bottom lines, restrictions on farm intensification and stock exclusion requirements will both be relaxed slightly in response to submissions, and the Resource Management Act (RMA) will be amended to include a new regime for farm management plans.

The Action For Healthy Waterways package was first announced in September 2020, and was fairly described at the time as the biggest set of freshwater reforms since the RMA was passed in 1991. Our summary of the proposals as first announced is available here; this Newsflash focuses on the recent changes. The main proposals were:

The thrust of last Thursdays announcements was to confirm that the Government will proceed with the New NPS-FM, NES-Freshwater, and Stock Exclusion Regulations. While final drafting is not yet available (it will now be developed and then put to Cabinet for decisions by 20 July 2020), it appears that there will be refinements rather than wholesale changes to the exposure drafts of these three documents released last year. However, the Cabinet Paper and supporting materials do outline a number of notable changes, which are summarised below. No firm date is provided in terms of when these instruments will be passed into law (beyond later this year), but we can anticipate that it is likely to be late July or early August, before Government enters the pre-election caretaker period.

The RMA changes to introduce the new planning process were already well advanced through the Resource Management Amendment Bill 2019, which is now at the Second Reading stage. As introduced, the Bill had included a rather ambitious deadline of December 2023 for councils to notify the next wave of regional plans to reflect the new national policy instruments, but that date will now be pushed out (slightly) to December 2024 (with decisions due December 2026) as a result of COVID-19.

Another key change proposed to the Bill (via a supplementary order paper) is for it to introduce a new regime for farm plans (originally proposed as part of the draft NES-Freshwater) into the RMA itself.

To date there have not been any further public announcements in relation to the NES for Wastewater or the NES for Sources of Human Drinking Water.

It is intended that the New NPS-FM 2020 will entirely replace the existing NPS-FM 2014, although it retains and builds on many of the same concepts.

Many of the core features of the draft version released in September will be retained (with refinements), including (as detailed previously): a central focus on Te Mana o te Wai (the mana of the water), an expanded national objectives framework including new attributes to focus on broader components of ecosystem health, new requirements for primary contact sites (swimmability), and a suite of new requirements to protect streams and wetlands, and provide for fish passage.

Key changes announced from the draft version released in September last year include that:

As noted above, the deadline for notifying plan changes to give effect to the New NPS-FM will be shifted to December 2024.

The new NES will directly regulate a number of activities that have the potential to impact on freshwater, by setting out standards to be met and when resource consents will be required under the RMA.

Specifically, the draft released last year included standards for activities in wetlands and streams, requirements to provide for fish passage, restrictions on high risk farming activities (e.g. feedlots, sacrifice paddocks, and intensive winter grazing), restrictions on further intensification of farming and horticulture activities, and requirements to prepare farm plans.

Key changes to these proposals include:

In the exposure draft released in September last year it was proposed that the NES-Freshwater would include a requirement for freshwater modules of Farm Plans (FW-FPs).While the policy intent has not substantially changed, it is now proposed to instead provide for FW-FPs through a legislative change to the RMA itself.

That amendment is being progressed through supplementary order paper (SOP) to the RM Bill, to enable the development of an enforceable FW-FP regime through subsequent regulations under a new Part 6AAA of the RMA. The requirement to have a FW-FP will apply to almost all farms over a minimum size (e.g. 20 ha for pastoral farming and arable farming, 5 ha for horticulture), or otherwise as described in the regulations (yet to be prepared).

Farmers will be required to prepare a FW-FP in accordance with regulations, have it certified as appropriate by an independent certifier, and have their farm audited for compliance.Regional Councils in turn will be responsible for ensuring compliance. It is intended that regulations will initially prioritise the roll-out of FW-FPs in highly nitrogen-impacted catchments, being those within the top 10% of in-stream nitrate levels, once the new regime is in place.

The Stock Exclusion regulations (released in draft last September) will be phased in more or less as proposed, but relaxed in some respects in response to submissions.Key changes will be that:

The restrictions will now apply to grazing dairy cattle and pigs on all terrain, intensive stock activities on all terrain, and beef cattle and deer on low slope land only.

Overall, these announcements largely stay the course in terms of the policy direction signalled last year. While some may have hoped or feared (depending on their perspective) that the Government would delay or significantly water down the proposed changes given the economic situation following COVID-19, that has not really been the case (and Minister Parker was quick to clarify that the decisions to ease limits for DIN and DRP were made in advance of the pandemic).

When pressed on the economic implications of the new requirements on Thursday, Minister Parkers response was to the effect that we cant make things better by letting them get worse, and that delaying action now would only make it more expensive in the long run.Similarly, Minister Shaw acknowledged that there may have been some additional measures that the Green Party might have wanted, but emphasised that the package was nonetheless the strongest protection any government has ever put in place for waterways in New Zealand.

While these sorts of announcements tend to attract equal and opposite criticism from both environmental groups and the primary sector, to date the complaints from the environmental side have been slightly louder, principally in relation to what might be seen as a backdown on the proposed DIN and PRP limits. Of course, in the current economic climate and heading into the national election it can be expected that there will be further debate to come. That said, it is clear that the proposals have been relaxed in response to submissions (or advice) in a few key areas, such as those DIN and PRP limits and the detail of the stock exclusion regulations.Horticulture has also faired relatively well, being taken back out of the new restrictions on intensification (despite being one of the most nitrogen-intensive land uses), and potentially also being exempted from certain NPS-FM requirements in the key vegetable growing areas of Pukekohe and Lake Horowhenua.

At a more technical level, shifting farm plans from an NES requirement to a standalone RMA instrument (perhaps somewhere between a resource consent and a certificate of compliance in nature) is an interesting development.The regulatory (and political) challenge in this space has always been to develop a system that is flexible and responsive to on the ground circumstances, while also enforceable and effective in improving water quality. In this regard the policy explanation (at Appendix 1 to the Cabinet paper) states that, while industry involvement in the setup of the FW-FP regime is desirable, this is not a non-regulatory partnership with industry, and the future FW-FP regime will incorporate strong regulatory oversight.One of the future challenges will now be in resourcing, as it may take some time to get suitably trained and qualified farm plan certifiers and auditors up and running.

The new 190kg nitrogen limit is also notable because it is an input control in relation to water quality, whereas Government has to date preferred an output-based' approach to regulation.However, Minister Parker signalled that further input controls may be necessary in the future, if the present suite of output controls proved ineffective (and nitrogen management settings are to be revised in 2023).Similarly, the Cabinet paper describes the current freshwater package as the last chance saloon for output controls, and signals an openness to other blunter input measures (like stocking rates per hectare or limits on supplementary feed) if we do not see rapid progress on freshwater quality.

Beyond their immediate implications for primary production activities, the reforms will also be of interest to infrastructure providers, particularly in terms of the of the provisions in the NES-Freshwater and New NPS-FM around streams and wetlands, and the extent to which these will allow necessary maintenance and upgrades to significant infrastructure assets.There will also be more direct implications for providers of three waters infrastructure, as the increased focus on urban water quality will raise the bar for stormwater and wastewater operations in particular.

Overall, while there were few big shocks in the announcements on Thursday, the challenge of making meaningful progress on freshwater quality (without drastically reducing production levels) is as big as it ever was.The time frame for notifying new plans (or plan changes) to give effect to it all has only been slightly deferred to 2024, and the technical work, community consultation, and plan drafting remains a mammoth task for regional councils. Last weeks announcements provide useful certainty going forward, but the devil as always will be in the drafting detail, and we will be reviewing this with interest when the final wording of these new instruments is released in July.

Go here to read the rest:
Government confirms Action for Healthy Waterways - with some key changes - JD Supra

A busy Yeovil road will close for five days as resurfacing work is carried out on the route - only two years after it was last resurfaced.

The A30 Sherborne Road will be closed between the Lyde Road junction and the Dorset boundary for the work.

The route will be closed for five days from Monday June 15, Somerset County Council has revealed, and heavy traffic disruption is expected.

The road was initially resurfaced in 2018, but the surface has already begun to deteriorate.

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A spokesman for Somerset County Council said: "Testing has shown the surface to be defective and it will be removed and replaced at no cost to the county council.

"This replacement is also taking place earlier than planned, making use of the quieter network at present.

"Works will take place over five nights, starting on June 15, with a road closure in place to keep the workforce and travelling public safe."

Councillor John Woodman, Somerset County Councils cabinet member for Highways and Transport, added: Our contractors use approximately 23,000 tonnes of road surfacing materials every year and failures like this are very rare.

However, when it does happen, we have the necessary safeguards in place to ensure faulty materials can be replaced at no cost to the taxpayer.

Although the additional works may not be welcome in the short term, the restored road surface will be much improved and provide lasting benefits.

View original post here:
Busy Yeovil road to close for five days with heavy traffic disruption expected - Somerset Live

During the last couple of years, the vending machine market has demonstrated significant growth in general, with increasing market share of intelligent vending machines. According to research firm Technavio, the intelligent vending machine market size has the potential to grow by $11.24 billion during 2020-2024. As the maturity of connected devices and IoT sensors has been established, there is increasing demand both from customers and operators to use more intelligent machines.

In addition, the fast changing lifestyle of the population urbanization, extensive growth of public transportation usage, development of huge office buildings and parks and the consuming habits of the younger generations, millennials and Gen-Z led some research firms to claim an increasing market share of micro markets at the expense of slowing the growth of traditional vending machines.

Micro markets are more robust from a variety of products perspective, allow the selling of fresh foods, salads and sandwiches, and are much more relevant in office buildings' lobbies, workplaces, clubs, gyms, etc. The main challenge of micro markets is still the relatively high level of shrinkage, being open and relying on trust of the customers. That also limits their potential distribution to public areas such as railway stations.

Apparently, vending machines and micro markets leave a space for a solution that has significant potential growth: "a next generation vending machine" or "closed cabinet micro market." This type of machine will include a full micro market with a reasonably large number of SKUs functioning like a vending machine from a resilience and security point of view, while allowing a wider variety of products and price points. Several North American and European operators are offering such solutions, but until recently, it has not gained significant market share.

Micro markets are deploying a large variety of solutions, from single closed coolers or dry cabinets to combined cabinets to fully automated convenient stores equipped with several cabinets and open shelves offering an autonomous, frictionless shopping experience.

One of the main challenges in closed micro markets is the product recognition functionality. While solutions with sensors and telemetry can perform like traditional vending machines using scan-and-go or self-check-out technologies, such solutions actually downgrade the customer experience. That is why technologies such as smart weighing sensors, camera vision and in some cases even RFID will be used in micro markets.

With post COVID-19 market trends emerging, including the desire for more healthy food, sanitary and public safety, we can expect major growth in the demand for intelligent vending machines, equipped with more sensors monitoring the status of the food, and even consumers' temperatures.

The hotter trend appears to be the demand for closed micro markets. Closed cabinets of micro markets, or even autonomous closed micro markets, are expected to grow even faster because of their potential to better meet the customer's desires, including a full replacement for the supermarket.

Autonomous micro markets offer a variety of products, including fresh foods, available 24/7 (either at the office, on the way at the railway station or close to home in neighborhoods), while adhering to sanitary requirements, social distancing and providing a pleasant customer experience.

Micro markets are not only for traditional vending machine operators. By the nature of operations and data management, the micro market can be an ideal solution for retailers (mainly supermarkets and pharmaceuticals) wishing to expand beyond the store and allow customers 24/7 availability of products.

Even consumer product manufacturers, some of which are looking to get direct access to the end customers, are considering their own micro market networks.

And finally, having such digitized systems, equipped with a large number of sensors and available data, will become a rich source of data to be analyzed by the various stakeholders: operators, retailers and consumer product manufacturers, to learn and better understand the needs and habits of their customers. Such technology offers operational excellence, improved sales and many insights to other fields of expertise.

For an update on how the coronavirus is affecting convenience services, click here.

See the rest here:
Why the post COVID-19 era will drive intelligent vending, micro markets and beyond - Vending Times

Even with NCDOTs and other state agencies budgetary woes from the pandemic, Whitehead said that resiliency work will continue.

The thing about climate change in any of this, its not going to go away, she said. Were still going to figure out ways to plan for it.

Transportation projects in North Carolina have already been engineered for environmental changes, said Chris Werner, director of technical services at NCDOT.

Resiliency is a critical part of how we design and build our infrastructure, he said. We work with all our partners across the state.

Werner said that the agency has an inbuilt culture that fosters innovative and proactive approaches to problem solving.

Were always looking for cutting-edge analytics and software, he said. Most of us are engineers. The more data we can get, the more analytics we can perform.

One example is application of the states data-richFlood Inundation Mapping Alert Network, or FIMAN, to not only predict flooding on roads and bridges, but also to design for it by looking at trends in the data.

The agency, he said, is in the process of expanding the FIMAN gauge system from a property-impact focus to provide data specific to transportation infrastructure. For instance, data collection can be tailored so it can be used to prevent future road washouts.

Its not just a matter of fixing a damaged structure, he explained, the goal is to keep it from happening again by building redundancy and resiliency.

When severe flooding on U.S. 421 in Wilmington in 2018 during Hurricane Florence damaged the road and cut off traffic, Werner said, the agency took the opportunity to build better and stronger. After analysis of historic and current data, instead of just replacing ruined culverts, the department replaced them with a new bridge. Another bridge was also built nearby, providing the transportation corridor with both redundancy and resiliency in the event of future flooding.

Our goal is to build infrastructure thats durable and safe and resilient as possible, Werner said. As civil engineers, were constantly improving what weve done in the past. Thats what we do. It all stems from field observation and data.

Other measures NCDOT has put in place, he said, are monitors of water levels at low bridges, and identifying alternative travel routes on itsREADY NC app. The department has partnered with Google Maps and WAZE to feed their traffic data into the app. Also,DRIVENC.govshows up-to-date closures and maintenance work on the states roads.

In reality, the feats of engineering for NCDOT are not so much in dramatic crane work at bridge construction sites or road restorations after storms. Its mostly what goes on behind the scene at research centers and laboratories.

We do a lot of work with our universities, said Neil Mastin, NCDOT Research and Development manager. We work with business units and academics.

In May 2019, the department presented its first Research & Innovation Summit at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University to discuss transportation-related innovations and research.

Although it is not often a focus of public discussion, NCDOT has been studying numerous issues that could result in transportation improvements, although its research program for 2021 has been postponed, Mastin said.

Ongoing or planned research projects include the following:

How to reduce environmental impacts of road construction.

Building 2-D scour models to improve understanding of water interaction at bridge pilings.

Monitoring erosion on the Outer Banks going back 20 years, along with an ongoing coastal monitoring program, that gathers data on island width, the size of the dunes and distance of the road to the ocean.

Documenting stormwater impacts from recent storms (on pause) and studying Neuse River watershed flood abatement study (ongoing).

Forensic analysis of sections of girders from the old Bonner Bridge that spanned Oregon Inlet to learn how they withstood the harsh coastal conditions.

Analysis of submerged aquatic vegetation in the Currituck Sound to understand where it is and how to protect it.

Biologic stabilization of soil to potentially increase resistance to erosion.

Using dredged material from the Rodanthe emergency ferry channel potentially to build bird or material disposal islands or to fill eroded areas.

Mastin said that NCDOT is also hyper-aware of the public concern about drainage issues. The state is responsible for the ditches and culverts within road right of ways, as well as the nine ocean outfalls in the state, all of which except one is on the Outer Banks.

Water in general, he said, is the enemy of transportation networks.

In the past, locations of all small and medium drainage pipes around the state were mapped, he added, with the ambitious goal yet mostly unfulfilled of eventually replacing them. But thats just pipes and flooding is getting increasingly worse.

Eastern North Carolina in particular, with land as flat as it is, makes it extremely challenging, Mastin said. We can fix one problem somewhere and it makes it worse somewhere else.

Drones are being used more often by NCDOT to provide footage of flooded areas and to help manage flood gates, he said. Theyre also used to build wetlands, to identify plant types, to measure elevation and to help determine where to send crews after disasters. Researchers are also studying development of drones to inspect bridges.

Improvements of material mostly concrete and asphalt are constantly being studied, Mastin said. One example of research results is the proposed bridge replacement on Harkers Island, which would be the states first fully composite reinforced bridge. Rather than using corrosion-prone steel rebar, he said, the structure will be built with a mixture of carbon fiber prestressed strands and fancy fiberglass.

Well be monitoring this closely, he said. This is really exciting.

Continue reading here:
Resilience Bigger Part of Plan to Save N.C. 12 - Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

Fresh protest in Berlin for Floyd; France plans rally against police violence

Protests against the death of George Floyd are continuing for a third day in Berlin, though the gathering outside the US embassy Monday is significantly smaller than earlier rallies, which drew up to 2,000 people.

Paul Schreiner, 69 and originally from Wisconsin, is among a dozen people holding a vigil outside the embassy Monday. Its my duty, I feel, to be here, he said. Theres a very interesting phrase that white silence is violence, and that moved me to make sure I came today.

People attend a rally to commemorate George Floyd and against racism and police violence in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, Monday, June 1, 2020. (AP/Markus Schreiber)

Holding a sign with the names of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and others, American citizen Carmen Osorio Rodrigues says she is concerned about the direction the United States is heading. We have to confront these social injustices, she says, adding: We need clear leadership on how to act.

In Paris,family and friends of a French black man who died shortly after he was arrested by police in 2016 have called for a protest on Tuesday which will also pay homage to George Floyd.

The circumstances of the death of Adama Traore, a French 24-year-old man of Malian origin, are still under investigation by justice authorities.

Calls for Tuesdays protest in front of the Paris court come after some medical experts last week attributed the death to a cardiac problem, the latest in a series of conflicting medical assessments.

French police claimed Traore died of a heart attack due to preexisting medical condition. His family said he died from asphyxiation from police tactics.

In a video message published on social media, Traores sister Assa Traore calls for protesters to express their indignation at a time when the world, when France is outraged by the death of George Floyd.

Les ecologistes rejoignent l'appel contre le dni de justice! Youth For Climate IDF Mardi 2 juin 19h00 devant le

La vrit pour Adama - , 31 2020

She says they had the same words, their last words: I cant breathe, I cant breathe.

She denounces the latest medical experts report as racist and untrue.

The family wants the officers in charge of Traores arrest to go on trial.

AP

Original post:
Netanyahu facing fresh stint in quarantine after worker comes down with virus - The Times of Israel

With current National Partnership Agreements (NPAs) on Public Dental Services for Adults due to end on June 30 and no sign of an extension, the Australian Dental Association (ADA) is urging the National Cabinet to renew the arrangements.

NPAs are funded by the Commonwealth and allow states and territories to increase services to eligible patients, either within their own facilities or outsource treatment of public patients to the private sector, where the public system cannot cope due to long waiting lists.

If the NPA funding isnt extended, we estimate around 720 patients a day, or 180,000 a year, will miss out on dental services they so badly need, said ADA President Dr Carmelo Bonanno.

This will result in waiting lists getting even longer, and peoples dental issues will get even worse as they wait years for treatment.

The National Partnership Agreements expires on June 30 and as yet theres no concrete plan for its continuation or replacement.

Peak oral health bodies are calling on governments to extend the current agreement for two years to allow time for a national group of experts to be established to advise on a more permanent solution.

ADA statistics show these agreements urgently need to be renewed: in March the ADA released the 2020 Oral Health Tracker which revealed Australias oral health is tracking in the wrong direction, with the prevalence of tooth decay and gum disease on the rise.

Australia has one of the best health systems and approaches to public health measures in the world as weve just proven with our management of COVID-19, said Dr Bonanno.

The Cabinet has worked collaboratively on an agreement for public hospitals, now it must put that same strategy in place to manage funding for public dental care. Without this, the oral health of those eligible for public dentistry will decline.

Further damning statistics from Australias Oral Health Tracker revealed:

a third of people eligible for public dental avoid certain foods/have difficulty chewing,

a quarter of those eligible for public dental dont have the teeth needed for their mouth to function properly. (Note:21 teeth is the threshold dentists use for the minimum number of teeth needed for the mouth to function efficiently.)

Continued here:
Oral health of millions in hands of government - Mirage News

A recent FICCI survey made it amply clear that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a deep impact on Indian businesses which could lead to unprecedented collapse of the Indian economy. Only a substantive and urgent economic package by the Government could save a large section of the industry from permanent impairment, survey findings stated.

The survey has just brought to the fore what businesses, cutting across segments, have been realizing ever since the Corona outbreak led to shuttering of businesses and disruption of supply chains. A financial stimulus is, indeed, imperative in view of the huge financial impact on businesses especially to those like auto & tyre sectors who had been facing exceptional distress even before the arrival of the current pandemic. For instance, Tyre industry is poised to lose sales of nearly Rs 10000 crore due to lock-down till the end of April. There is huge blockage of funds by way of inventories of raw materials and in the form of finished goods. Many OEMs have asked for deferment of payments and realizations from the replacement market have dried out.

It is heartening to note the Governments resolve to fight back with full might. Honble Prime Minister has exhorted his cabinet that Government must work on war footing to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 and strategize for the emergent conditions. However, what is of greater significance is PMs advice to lessen the countrys dependence on other nations and give a sincere push to Make in India as a long-term strategy to immune the country from external trade shocks. He emphasized on boosting Indias manufacturing and exports to benefit from emerging world realties.

Certainly, it is all the more important now to identify champion sectors where the country has much better bet of attaining the ideals of Make in India. These sectors will include the ones which have significant employment potential, have proven credentials in domestic manufacturing and exports, enjoy wide acclaim for quality worldwide and have the capacity to ramp up and become global leaders.

On all these counts, Tyre Industry in India has withstood the test very well over the years. It is unfortunate that Indian Tyre Industry has remained one of the less celebrated success stories on manufacturing landscape of India. The industry has not been adequately acclaimed for sterling achievements in areas such as exports, research & development and innovation. It is time that industrys key contribution as wheels of nations economy gets adequately noticed.

For one, Tyre Industry is self-sufficient in India with indigenous capacities to manufacture practically all kinds of tyres from a moped tyre to mammoth off-the-road tyres. Not many countries in the world can boast of this capability.

Not only has the Tyre Industry worked for a self-reliant India ever since independence but has emerged as a major exporter with Indian manufactured tyres being exported to more than 100 countries in the world including the most discerning ones such as US and European countries. Exports of tyres from India are in the range of Rs 12,000 crore per annum (nearly 20% of the industry revenue).

Job creation potential of the Tyre Industry is huge in view of a rich value chain extending from rubber planters to tyre mechanics. Industry supports over one million Natural Rubber (NR) planters since as much as 75% of the NR produced in the country is consumed in tyre manufacturing. Another million or so are engaged in tyre manufacturing, tyre retreading and those employed at tyre dealerships and tyre repair services across the length and breadth of the country.

Indian Tyre Industry is increasingly converging with the world in terms of practices, product quality and research & development. Today India has some of the finest radial tyre manufacturing facilities in the world. International vehicle majors (OEMs) have been rolling out leading brands in India on Indian made tyres underscoring the quality edge. The Indian Tyre Industry is emerging as a force to reckon with in the global manufacturing ecosystem. As many as four Indian tyre companies find a pride of place among the top 30 tyre companies in the world.

At a time when private investments have been hard to come by, Tyre Industry in India has continued to invest handsomely in capacity creation and technology. Ongoing and recently completed investments are to the extent of Rs 51,000 crore which is unprecedented in the history of the industry.

There is little doubt that India is in the sweet spot as far as tyre manufacturing goes. Seasoned entrepreneurship, availability of skilled manpower, availability of NR plantations and products surpassing international quality benchmarks are all the ingredients to make India a hub for tyre manufacturing in the world.

Tyre Industry deserves to be a shining example of Indian manufacturing (much like IT or Pharma in the respective sectors) in view of advancements in technology, contribution to Auto and Transport sectors, job creation potential and growth projections.

Currently, several countries in the world are looking to reduce their dependence on China for political, economic and strategic reasons. US and Japan are openly looking for alternatives to China to source products that offer quality and price competitiveness. And therein lies the opportunity of casting the net wider for exports of tyres from India.

However, the Indian Tyre Industry can leverage this opportunity and replace China in several key markets only if production and exports are provided a policy push by the Government and bottlenecks are removed. China enjoys huge economies of scale as far as tyre manufacturing is concerned. For instance, China exports tyres worth $15 billion in a year which is nearly double the size of Indian Tyre Industry. Actually, China has provided large export incentives to its tyre companies since the manufacturing capacity in China is many times that of its domestic requirements. To insulate its companies from the vagaries of fluctuation in Natural Rubber prices and availability, China is maintaining large reserves of rubber as a state policy.

Corona outbreak can work to Indias advantage as the quality of tyres produced in India has received worldwide acclaim. India can leverage this opportunity if the production and exports of tyres is given a strong fillip. That requires support to the industry much in the same way that the Chinese Government has been providing to its tyre companies.

Indias economic engine needs a lot of help from the Government to restart after the lockdown. However, support to a champion sector like Tyre Industry which has already proven its credentials as employment and export revenue generator will pay dividends in multiples.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

See the original post here:
Getting the priority sectors right post-lockdown - Economic Times

Under cover of the fight against the coronavirus and fears of a threatened second wave, the Netanyahu-Gantz government is trying to appropriate draconian legislative powers that will deal a mortal blow to human rights. The cabinet is advancing a bill to give itself special authorities as a replacement for existing emergency regulations that are due to expire. This bill would undermine not just fundamental rights, but also the principle of the separation of powers and the basic rules of democracy.

LISTEN: Bibis slash-and-burn strategy puts Israel on trial

The emergency regulations, which were hastily enacted when the coronavirus pandemic began, naturally entailed major violations of human rights freedom of occupation, freedom of movement, personal autonomy, the right to demonstrate, the right to education and freedom of religion and conscience. The Basic Laws put a time limit on emergency regulations for that very reason so as to give the government these powers only during brief periods of crisis and prevent rights from being severely infringed for longer than the period of immediate necessity.

Apart from the restrictions the public is familiar with from the lockdown period, the bill would allow the government to authorize police officers (and inspectors who arent police officers) to enter private homes without a warrant and enforce these restrictions inside them, including by using force. The courts would never declare this constitutional. The government could also create new crimes without the Knessets approval. All this violates the foundational idea of democracy and the separation of powers, which is that fundamental issues are supposed to be decided by the legislature rather than the executive, since the Knesset is the publics most authentic representative. Moreover, the minister in charge of the law would be the prime minister.

The draft bill would authorize the cabinet to promulgate regulations and allow it to continue dictating rules that undermine freedom of movement, the right to demonstrate, freedom of assembly and personal autonomy just as if the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty and the Basic Law on Freedom of Occupation had never been enacted, or as if they were irrelevant in the coronavirus era.

The proposed legislation does set a time limit on regulations that undermine individual rights, but it doesnt set any criteria for infringing on these rights. It also doesnt set any criteria for what constitutes a relevant rise or fall in the incidence of illness. Thus it effectively gives the government an opening to decide for itself what constitutes an emergency situation.

This is the behavior of a cynical government that has abandoned all restraints and is trying to accumulate more and more power rather than working to serve the public and protect its rights. This is what a police state looks like. Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit must make it clear to the cabinet that it may not expropriate power from the Knesset. And Kahol Lavan Chairman Benny Gantz must exercise the veto power he received under the coalition agreement to strive to get this destructive legislation shelved.

The above article is Haaretzs lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.

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With proposed coronavirus emergency regulations, it's the Israeli government vs. the public - Haaretz