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Iter nuclear fusion project reaches halfway point
 Assembling the world's largest nuclear fusion experiment is now an engineering problem. But it may be the most daunting challenge that has ever been posed, as Stuart Nathan explains.

My last visit to the site of Iter, the international project to develop and build the world’s largest ever nuclear fusion reactor and a model for the powerplant of prospective fusion power stations, was three years ago. Then, there was comparatively little to see on-site, as the foundations that will support the enormous weight of the fusion machine were still under construction, and the concrete had yet to be poured. The situation now is very different.

The theoretical and design aspects of the Iter ‘fusion machine’ — as it is known within the organisation — have largely been finalised, and the contracts for construction of its components farmed out among its member states. The remaining task, to piece all 10 million components together, is essentially a programme of mechanical, electrical and process engineering; but what a programme.

It will be the most complex machine ever built — an accolade that’s been held at various times in past decades by the Boeing 747, the Apollo command module, The US nuclear missile submarines, and the Large Hadron Collider. Because of the level of instrumentation and the need to comply with existing nuclear regulations, Iter is currently seen as likely to be the most complex fusion reactor ever built.

Returning to Cadarache, near Marseilles, a few weeks ago, progress was obvious from the first glance.

Buildings on the ground

The parched, sun-drenched landscape is the same, but whereas previously, only the bones of a few buildings were projecting from the rocky man-made plateau that forms the Iter site, the full complex is now visibly taking shape.

The most obvious progress is on the tokomak complex. Forming a T-shape, with the assembly hall to the south and the still-unbuilt diagnostics building and tritium plant flanking the tokomak hall itself to the east and west, the assembly hall is complete and the walls of the square tokomak hall are now rising above the pit where the machine will sit, descending two stories below ground. In the coming months the hall will completely enclose a squat circular concrete tower rising from the pit floor, pierced with rectangular and oval holes. Reminiscent of medieval fortifications, this is the bioshield that will keep Iter’s operators safe from the lethal neutron flux that the fusion reaction will produce in operation.

The tokamak pit in front of the assembly hall, on the left of this picture. The building with the red stripe is the poloidal coil workshop; to its left is the cryostat workshop, and in front is the cryoplant

The concrete of the floor, hall walls and bioshield is regularly studded with rectangular steel slabs onto which the fusion machine will be welded to hold it safely in place, in compliance with French nuclear regulations.

More concrete supporting structures radiate from the bioshield into the spaces that will be occupied by the equipment that will heat the hydrogen plasma confined by mighty magnets within the tokomak’s toroidal vacuum chamber; to the north will be radiofrequency generators, which will blast in microwave energy, and equipment to replenish the plasma by blowing pellets of frozen hydrogen into it; and to the south — squeezed in between the tokomak itself and the assembly hall, which will then be redundant (and according to jocular staff, the location for dance parties) — will be neutral beam injectors, huge devices that accelerate beams of hydrogen, render them electrically neutral and then fling them into the plasma (more on these below).

Keeping cool; the cryoplant

Nearby on the site is the cryoplant that will supply and manage liquid helium, the crucial ingredient for chilling the tokomak’s magnets to near-absolute zero (the precise temperature is -269°C), keeping their superconducting electrical coils in a state of zero resistance. This makes it possible to maintain the titanic magnetic fields that both keep the plasma squeezed tightly, and accelerate its component particles (nuclei of the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium) to enormous speeds (corresponding to temperatures of 150x106°C, ten times hotter than the centre of the sun).

Temperature and confinement are the two most crucial conditions necessary to force the particles, which all carry identical positive electrical charges, to overcome electrostatic repulsion and collide with each other with enough momentum for them to fuse together into helium nuclei, releasing the energy that is the raison d’être of the project.

The cryoplant, the world’s largest, includes three identical refrigerators which will liquefy some 25 tonnes of helium gas to supply the magnets and the vacuum pumps. Capable of a liquefaction rate of 1,230 litres per hour, these refrigeration units are fed by 18 compressors. Another refrigeration plant containing two units will produce liquid nitrogen from the air, which will act as a pre-cooler in the helium plant and will also chill the tokomak’s thermal shield, reducing the load on the superconducting cooling system.

Coils and cryostat; on-site manufacturing

Perhaps most exciting of all for visitors are two buildings where manufacture of real components is under way. In one, contractors from Indian engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro are welding huge steel components together into the tokomak cryostat.

Already giving the impression of being Colosseum-scale, this will be the biggest vacuum vessel ever built, 30m in width and height, weighing a total of 3850 tonnes, and enclosing a volume of 16,000m3. It will maintain the thermal shield, and will also keep its interior at a pressure of 10-4Pa. The biggest contribution of India to the Iter project, the cryostat components will be the first and last pieces of the fusion machine assembly to be installed in the tokomak pit.

Checking the welding on the cryostat base

The installation of the cryostat will be a staggered process, and its assembly is too. The sections of stainless steel are being welded together into four very large components. The first to be installed is the base, whose lower plate, shaped like a wide, flat dish with an upturned rim, is complete. On top of this will go the pedestal, a shallow cylinder topped with a flat rim; the 25,000 tonne combined weight of the tokomak itself and the rest of the cryostat will bear directly onto this component.

The thickest metal in the cryostat is found in the pedestal — 200mm — which is now undergoing final welding and is being finished directly above the baseplate, onto which it will be welded before the whole base assembly is lifted into the pit. The base is the heaviest single component of the fusion machine, weighing 1250 tonnes.

A rendering of the cryostat, showing the four components

On top of the base will sit two cylindrical tiers with an internal diameter of 28m. Both tiers have holes matching those of the bioshields, which will be connected to instrumentation and equipment by leak-tight bellows. On the lower of these, the first welding pass to link the pieces together is completed; the second welding pass will complete the joints to ensure leak-tightness. The parts of the upper tier are currently arriving from India. The final component, the lid, will be last to be assembled and the last piece of the fusion machine to be put in place.

Winding poloidal field double-pancakes. A reel of superconducting cable is surrounded by red scaffolding on the left

Not far away from the cryostat hall is a facility that was cavernous and intimidatingly empty on my last visit. Here, the poloidal field coils of Iter are being wound. Iter will have three sets of magnets: the central solenoid, a pillar that will sit in the middle of the torus and is important for driving a current around the plasma.

Toroidal coils, which occupy the position of lines of longitude on a globe and are the main method for squeezing the plasma; and poloidal coils, which occupy the lines of latitude will help to stabilise and shape the plasma. The six poloidal coils are among the largest and heaviest components of the whole assembly, and apart from the top and bottom coils are too big to be transported to the site from an external manufacturer, so the four middle coils, with diameters of 24 and 17m, must be wound on-site with only their component parts — a cable formed from strands of superconducting niobium-titanium alloy, bundled and packed into hefty stainless steel conduits through which liquid helium coolant will circulate.

Though the steel is some millimetres thick, this cable arrives at the site wound onto huge 20 tonne reels; it is then laboriously unwound, cleaned, straightened, and forced into a more gentle curve to form the flat hoops of the poloidal coils.

Like many of the operations that will form Iter, this is a sequential process. The coils will be deployed not singly but in winding packs, each pack consisting of multiple ‘double-pancakes’ of two identical coils; and building these packs is complicated.

While being wound, the coils are wrapped in glass fibre insulating tape in an automated process where the winding speed and tension are carefully controlled. The completed double pancake, the largest of which now weighs 37 tonnes, is then lifted with the magnet assembly building’s overhead crane into a mould, where it is impregnated with epoxy resin under pressure.

The number of double-pancakes in each magnet pack is determined by position, from the bottom of the machine magnet packs. 1, 3, 4 and 5 have eight double pancakes, while pack two has six and pack 6 has nine.

To form the packs, solid double-pancakes must be stacked together, undergo an additional vacuum resin impregnation step, and have additional components such as clamps, protective covers and liquid inlet and outlet pipes added.

Progress on on-site magnet production is now at a stage where the first vacuum impregnation processes can begin. Off-site, pack 1 (the smallest and upper-most poloidal coil) is now halfway through production at the Srednenevsky Shipbuilding Plant in St Petersburg, with its fifth double-pancake being wound and the first two having now completed vacuum impregnation. The third double-pancake was being impregnated as this article was being written.

Putting it together; the assembly schedule

The building sequence that will lead up to the completion of the fusion machine is now clear, but it won’t be quick. First, the remaining construction of the tokomak building itself must be completed, so that the rails of the crane in the assembly hall can be extended over the tokomak pit. Completion is expected by the end of 2018. Then the wall between the assembly hall and tokomak hall (currently towering over the tokomak pit and adorned with a huge poster showing a cutaway diagram of the fusion machine) will be demolished, and the neutral beam equipment installed. The base of the cryostat will then be lowered into place early in 2019, followed by the first two poloidal field coils.

Assembly of the tokomak vacuum vessel itself can then start. The first stages of this part of the assembly process have already begun in the assembly hall. The floor of the hall is being prepared for the arrival of two vacuum vessel sector sub-assembly tools, which are being built by Taekyung Heavy Industries in South Korea. The ground-level supporting components of the tools are now grouted into position, and the components of the tools themselves are now arriving at Cadarache.

One of the vacuum vessel sector assembly tools, assembled for testing in Korea; the dark grey components are test masses

These tools will themselves be mammoth components, 22m tall, weighing 800 tonnes and with two hinged hydraulic ‘wings’ that can open to a width of 20m. The role of each tool is to suspend a 40° slice of the toroidal vacuum vessel (seven are being forged in Italy; the other two in Korea) in a precise position, while the wings will suspend two toroidal field coils and thermal shield components, sliding them around the outside of the vacuum vessel sector where they will be fixed into position, along with associated thermal shielding.

Assembling the sectors is a task requiring extraordinary precision, and the assembly tools will be heavily equipped with sensors to measure the relative positions of the components as they are hoisted into position, manoeuvred and welded into place. It will take both of the assembly hall’s overhead cranes working in concert to lift and move the assembled sectors, which will weigh 1200 tonnes each.

Once the nine sectors of the tokomak - each a vacuum vessel/toroidal field coil/thermal shield assembly - are in place and welded together, the remaining four poloidal coils will be hoisted into position, followed by the upper and lower tiers of the cryostat. The central solenoid, being made in the US, will then be craned in and installed (the ceilings of the tokomak and assembly halls are twice the height of the fusion machine to allow clearance for this component, which runs the full height of the vacuum vessel). Then it’s time for the final component, the cryostat lid, to be installed.

A vacuum vessel sector component ready for machining

In-vessel assembly can then begin, carried out by hand and by an array of robotic equipment, installing equipment to put the tokomak in its initial configuration for first plasma in 2025.

Once the first plasma campaign is complete, the configuration of the tokomak interior will be altered, with further equipment installed, including the diverter (a water-cooled structure, made moistly of titanium, at the base of the torus where the plasma touches the wall and most of its energy is expended), ready for deuterium-tritium plasma operation, where actual fusion will take place, from 2035. This will also include testing of breeder blanket modules, where collisions between neutrons and lithium atoms will generate tritium. Commercial fusion plants, if feasible, will need to generate their own tritium; it is radioactive and currently produced only in small quantities in specialised nuclear reactors

Power up: the neutral beam injectors

In order to produce a burning plasma — a state of self-supporting nuclear fusion in the hot soup of charged particles circulating inside the vacuum chamber, which has never before been achieved — the plasma must be heated. There are three ways of doing this. The first is to induce a current around the plasma, which is achieved using the magnet systems (mainly the central solenoid); and two external methods: microwave — or radiofrequency — heating, of which Iter will use two types; and neutral beam injection.

Rendering of a neutral beam injector; the D-shaped object is a toroidal field coil shown inside the cryostat

Neutral beams are jets of electrically-neutral hydrogen atoms, accelerated at high speed into the plasma, where they give up their energy by colliding with the particles of the plasma. They have to be uncharged, or they would be deflected out of the plasma by the magnetic fields. But to be accelerated at all, they have to be charged, so neutral beam injectors work by stripping an electron away from hydrogen atoms, accelerating them with linear magnetic fields to a high velocity, passing them through a gas chamber where they reacquire their lost electron without losing momentum, then sending them into the tokomak.

This is proven technology — most tokomaks use it, including the Joint European Torus in the UK, but Iter’s system will have to accelerate atoms three to four timers faster than any previous injectors, for them to penetrate deeply enough into the plasma to be effective. The faster positive ions are travelling, the harder they are to neutralise; so Iter will use injectors which make and accelerate negatively-charged ions — the first time this method has been used. Negative hydrogen ions are less stable than positive ones, so easier to neutralise but harder to handle.

Iter will have three injectors; two for heating and one for diagnostics. Each of the two heating injectors will be able to supply 16.5MW of power at 1MeV of energy, in pulses up to an hour long. The hardware is being developed art a facility in Italy called PRIMA, which houses two test beds: SPIDER, for the development and characterisation of the negative ion source, and MITICA, a full-scale prototype of an injector. Europe, Japan and India are all contributing to this effort, and the last components for the Japanese contribution to MITICA — parts of the power supply — were delivered in November.

PRIMA provides an example of the scale of companies contributing to Iter. OCEM, a Bologna-based electrical equipment specialist more commonly involved in providing airfield lighting, is developing and providing components for the power supply of SPIDER. “We are an SME, but Iter has helped us think big,” says OCEM power division md Guiseppe Taddia. “It has helped us increase our technical skills and skills in project and contract management, as well as helping us motivate our staff.”

At the other end of the industrial spectrum, Siemens and Hitachi are collaborating on developing an ultra-high voltage deck and bushing for the injectors. Operating at 1MV DC, weighing 100tonnes and requiring seismic qualification, it is well in excess of anything used in industry.

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Output: The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) in the South of France has reached its halfway point, said Bernard Bigot, the director-general of the project. Power could be produced from the experimental facility from 2025, using nuclear fusion, a process that has been pursued since nuclear energy was conceived. By creating a scenario similar to that which occurs in the sun, scientists hope to find an energy source that could harness more energy than the entirety of humanity requires.


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Concern as UK's Westminster School plans branches in China
 One of Britain’s top public schools is set to open six offshoots in China teaching the Chinese national curriculum at a time when the country’s authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping, is pushing to tighten the Communist party’s grip on the classroom.

According to the Financial Times, Westminster School will on Thursday unveil plans to create branches in six major Chinese cities in partnership with a Hong Kong education group called HKMETG. The first will open in Chengdu, capital of the south-western province of Sichuan, in 2020.

Westminster, whose alumni include politicians such as Tony Benn and Nick Clegg as well as Martin Amis, Helena Bonham Carter and Louis Theroux, described the move as a “soft power” initiative that would help fund a bursary scheme in the UK.

“The reason for opening the schools is that we’re quite excited about being able to influence education of Chinese pupils in China,” a spokeswoman said.

Westminster, which was founded in 1179 by Benedictine monks, is the latest in a series of British schools to head east. Dulwich College, Harrow and Wellington all operate spin-offs for international students in Shanghai, with Dulwich also boasting campuses in Beijing and Suzhou and a franchise in the southern city of Zhuhai.

Unusually, however, the Westminster schools will reportedly teach China’s national curriculum to 6- to 15-year-olds.

Xiong Bingqi, an education specialist from Shanghai’s Jiaotong University, told the Guardian that was the only way Chinese authorities would allow a foreign school to offer Chinese students compulsory education.

However, as a result teachers are likely to skirt over politically sensitive topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, in which Chinese troops gunned down an unknown number of civilians, and Mao’s Great Famine, in which tens of millions died.

Westminster said students aged 16-18 would be able to study the English national curriculum.

Chinese textbooks have grown increasingly pro-party since Xi took power in 2012 and set in motion a severe political chill that has seen academics forced into exile and critics jailed.

In August, China’s assistant education minister, Zheng Fuzhi, unveiled a new generation of party-sanctioned textbooks designed to push Xi’s so-called “core socialist values” and reinforce Beijing’s claims over places such as Tibet, Taiwan and the South China Sea.

One recent command to schools pronounced that pupils should be “guided to firmly support the CPC [Chinese Communist party] leadership”.

Last December Xi said universities should be strongholds of party rule and teachers “engineers of the human soul” whose “sacred mission” was to help students improve their ideological quality.

Steve Tsang, the head of the School of Oriental and African Studies’ (SOAS) China Institute, told the Financial Times he believed Westminster was making a mistake.

“I think they have no idea what they’re dealing with … If you set up a school in China, they will have a party secretary superintending the whole school and the party secretary will be responsible for political education.”

Xiong said it was normal for Beijing to require a foreign school to operate under Chinese rules: “Even if you are running a school in the US, you need to obey local education laws and regulations.”

He said there would be greater flexibility outside the period of compulsory education, although not when it came to ideologically or historically sensitive topics. “Teaching anything in history class that is different from what is in Chinese textbooks, that’s impossible.”

Westminster is likely to have to modify its motto, as well as its teaching materials, before opening in one-party China, an officially atheist country. The school’s motto is currently: “Dat deus incrementum” or ‘God gives bounteously”.

Before it opened in China, Dulwich College had to replace its original motto - “Detur gloria soli deo” (“Let glory be given to God alone”) - with ‘Detur pons mundo” (“Building bridges to the world”).

Additional reporting by Wang Zhen

Output: The UK's posh Westminster School, which has educated British political leaders, will soon be teaching pupils to love the Chinese Communist Party (CPP) when it opens classrooms at six sites in China. The new branches will teach the local national curriculum, which stresses pupils must be firmly guided to support the CCP leadership. The expansion plans are hoped to raise bursary funds for the London school. But the move has raised questions as China's authoritarian leader Xi Jinping cracks down on what's taught in the country's classrooms, resulting in some academics going into exile and critics being jailed.


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No deal 'worst possible outcome' for economy, security and nuclear: Lords
 It is impossible to imagine a worse outcome for Britain than failing to agree a Brexit deal, the House of Lords will warn on Thursday, in a last-ditch warning to ministers under increasing pressure to walk away from stalled talks with the EU.

In a 60-page report that predicts legal and economic chaos without an exit agreement, the cross-party committee of peers cautions that a government strategy of brinkmanship with Brussels “risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy”.

“‘No deal’ would mean the abrupt cessation of over 40 years of economic, political and legal partnership,” they conclude. “It is difficult, if not impossible, to envisage a worse outcome for the United Kingdom.”

The government was accused of failing to prepare for the future on Wednesday after the chancellor, Philip Hammond, revealed there had been no cabinet discussion on Britain’s ultimate relationship with Europe, and the Brexit secretary, David Davis, said no assessment of the likely impact on different business sectors had been carried out.

Theresa May is also facing a backlash from hardliners in the cabinet after it emerged that the only way to salvage a stricken first-phase agreement over Northern Ireland might be to extend EU regulatory alignment to the whole of the UK – a soft Brexit option many regard as the worst of all worlds.

Now the Lords report warns that the alternative of walking away from the talks entirely and relying on existing WTO trade rules would have catastrophic implications, ranging from a 20% rise in food prices and grounded airline flights, to the loss of 75,000 jobs in the City and £8-10bn in tax revenues.

“A complete ‘no-deal’ outcome would ... bring UK-EU cooperation on matters vital to the national interest, such as counter-terrorism, police, justice and security matters, nuclear safeguards, data exchange and aviation, to a sudden halt,” said the report, after taking evidence from more than 50 expert witnesses.

“It would place the status of UK nationals in the EU, and EU nationals in the UK, in jeopardy, and would necessarily lead to the imposition of controls at the Irish land border.

“The short-term impact on trade in goods would also be grave,” the peers added. “The UK’s ports would be overwhelmed by the requirement for customs and other checks. There is simply not enough time to provide the necessary capacity, IT systems, human resource and expertise to deal with such an outcome.”

The Lords warning came as business leaders also accused the Tory party of “gross irresponsibility” for considering a no-deal route out of the Brexit impasse. “To those politicians suggesting we walk away from the negotiating table, I have a simple message: careless talk will cost jobs,” the CBI president, Paul Drechsler, told an audience in the City on Wednesday night. “Businesses will press snooze for as long as they can – but the alarm will go off,” he added.

British business leaders have long warned that failure to move on from phase one talks by next week could force them to take painful contingency measures to prepare for a no-deal Brexit, but the Lords report sets out in unprecedented detail why it fears such a scenario could come about by accident.

“The key factor adding to the risk of ‘no deal’ is the lack of time,” the peers write. “While we reiterate our support for the government’s goal of securing a comprehensive agreement by October 2018, the uncertainty over the feasibility of that aim means that the overriding UK and EU interest is now to secure an orderly and legally certain transition, as early as possible.”

The committee also dismissed testimony provided by David Davis in which he claimed there could still be a “bare bones” deal with the EU if the main exit negotiations broke down. The peers argued that a disorderly breakup would be more likely to lead to a widespread breakdown in trust between the two sides.

Lord Jay, acting committee chairman and a former ambassador to France, said: “The overwhelming weight of evidence suggests that ‘no-deal’ would be the worst possible outcome for the UK, in terms of the economy, security, the environment and citizens’ rights.”

Campaigners against a hard Brexit claimed the report provided damning evidence against the theory that Britain could be prepared to walk away. “For months we have have heard bluster from Brexiteers about how no deal is better than a bad deal,” said Eloise Todd, of Best For Britain. “What this report finally tells us is that no deal is a bad deal... [it] is a brutal character assassination carried out on the whole, shambolic government.”

The government argues that it has to maintain the ‘no-deal’ option to prevent Brussels from dictating all the terms of the exit. Responding to criticism of the government’s strategy during prime minister’s questions, Theresa May claimed “very good progress” had been made in the talks.

“We’re leaving the European Union, we’re leaving the single market and the customs union but we will do what is right in the interests of the whole United Kingdom,” she said. “And nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”

Output: The UK's House of Lords European Union committee has condemned the possibility of a 'no deal' Brexit option, and said it was: "difficult, if not impossible, to envisage a worse outcome for the UK". The comments were part of a report which highlighted the lack of time available to reach agreement on key issues, and suggested it could inadvertently lead to a no deal outcome. The cross-party committee called on the government to consider extending the UK's EU membership or transition period.


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Water risk is an overlooked global threat for investors
 If investors are not aware of water risks, now is the time to get up to speed, argues Monika Freyman

Water, like carbon, is a growing operational and strategic risk that investors must look out for. But unlike the threats of higher carbon prices or regulatory changes due to climate change that continue to build, today's water threats can lead to immediate and significant, or even total, value destruction.

Water resources, already at risk in a more climate volatile world, are also under growing threat from pollution, a rising global population, and skyrocketing water competition from growing cities, power generation and food production needs.

Floods. Shortages. Spills. Community backlash. Every day, we're seeing how water security translates into water risk overnight.

Newmont delayed a $5 billion mining project in Peru after community protests over water concerns. Competition with farmers for groundwater in India forced Coca-Cola to close plants and abandon some expansion plans. BHP and Vale face a $48 billion fine stemming from compensation claims. These are just a few proof points.

So what can investors do? Do what investors do best — research the risks and manage them.

That's where Ceres' new Investor Water Toolkit comes in. Created for investors by investors, the "Toolkit" is the first ever investor-designed, comprehensive resource to help investors better understand and evaluate water risks throughout every step of the decision-making process — from creating institutional priorities and goals, conducting portfolio attribution analysis, to buy/sell decision-making and much in between.

The Toolkit was produced in partnership with over 40 members of Ceres' Investor Water Hub, collectively managing $6 trillion in assets. It provides resources and tools on analysing water risk along with real-life case studies from pension funds, endowments and asset managers. The Toolkit offers different levels of analysis, meeting investors wherever they are on their journey of integrating water risks into portfolio decision-making. These range from understanding and evaluating risks to providing recommendations for advanced methods of scenario analysis.

It also showcases that a broad spectrum of industries have exposure to potential water risks. A new water footprint analysis Ceres released alongside the Toolkit reveals that the majority of stocks in the MSCI World, MSCI Emerging Markets, S&P 500 and Russell 3000 are in industries with medium to high water risk.

That's why serious analysis of these risks is more important than ever. Water risk footprinting, also known as water risk heat-mapping, is one of many important investor water research methods.

And in fact, some investors are already leading the way. For instance, ACTIAM, a Netherlands-based firm managing €54.6 billion in assets, is measuring the footprint of its portfolio as part of its 2030 goal to limit the water use and impacts of its portfolio — the first ever public commitment by a large institutional investor.

In the US, the Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) analysed the water risks of its $15 billion passive investment portfolio, using water risk scores to create a heat map. The map visually represents the financial exposure of Florida SBA's investments in companies with varying degrees of water risk exposure.

Many investors are also beginning to see the value of scenario analysis and stress testing not only to assess the impact of climate change but also to more fully understand water risk exposure. This mirrors the call for scenario analysis by the G20's Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure.

Investor water risk exposure can be very different from corporate water risk exposure, because investors need to evaluate the risks throughout their portfolios, including their aggregate exposure to high-risk industries or geographic regions. And given that investment firms may own hundreds, if not thousands, of companies or securities, investors also need to prioritise which entities to research and engage further on water risks. The Toolkit has a number of recommendations for just how to do this, using the size of holdings, ability to influence change, and geographic exposure analysis as key considerations.

The online Ceres Investor Water Toolkit is designed to fill a critical gap for investors who have been looking for ways to integrate water and other sustainability considerations into investment decision-making. While there are many other resources in the marketplace to help companies model their water risks, there are few that specifically target investors.

Water risks are increasingly material. Climate change and other drivers are turning water into a scarce commodity, increasing competition for available resources and making protection of water quality more vital than ever. These risks have to become an integral part of investor research and risk management processes and daily financial decisions. Otherwise, investors will be blind to a risk that is only continuing to grow.

Monika Freyman, CFA is Director of Investor Engagement, Water at Ceres, a sustainability non-profit organisation working with the most influential investors and companies to build leadership and drive solutions throughout the economy.

Output: Water risk is a growing operational and strategic threat investors may be overlooking. Climate change, pollution, rising global population, power generation, food production and competition for supply by cities are already impacting the worldwide water supply. Water security risks can impact a company overnight. Recent examples include competition for water in India forcing Coca-Cola to shut plants and halt expansion plans. Additionally, Newmont had to delay its $5bn mining project in Peru over water fears while BHP and Vale are facing a $48bn fine due to compensation claims over water.


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Mounting financial risks threaten to derail Chinese economy: IMF
 "The system's increasing complexity has sown financial stability risks," the fund said in the 2017 China Financial Sector Stability Assessment report released on Thursday morning Asia hours.

Those tensions emerged as China moves away from its role as the world's factory to a more modern, consumer-driven economy, the IMF said. The financial sector is critical in facilitating that transition, but in the process it evolved into a more complicated and debt-laden system.

An almost two-year long study of the Chinese financial system by the International Monetary Fund found three major tensions that could derail the world's second-largest economy.

The report was a culmination of the fund's several visits to China between October 2015 and September 2017. The assessment is intended to identify key sources of systemic risk in the financial sector so that policies can be implemented to enhance resilience to shocks and problems that could spread across the globe.

The first tension in China's financial system, according to the IMF, is the rapid build-up in risky credit that was partly due to the strong political pressures banks face to keep non-viable companies open, rather than letting them fail. Such struggling firms have, in recent years, taken on more debt to achieve growth targets set by the authorities.

The overall debt-to-GDP ratio in the Asian economic giant grew from around 180 percent in 2011 to 255.9 percent by the second quarter of 2017, data by the Bank for International Settlements showed. The rise coincided with a slowdown in productivity growth and pressures on asset quality in the banking system — increasing the risks faced by the Chinese economy.

The second tension identified by the IMF is that risky lending has moved away from banks to the less-regulated parts of the financial system, commonly known as the "shadow banking" sector. That adds to the complexity of the financial sector and makes it more difficult for authorities to supervise activities in the system, the IMF said.

And the third issue identified by the international organization is that there's been a rash of "moral hazard and excessive risk-taking" because of the mindset that the government will bail out troubled state-owned enterprises and local government financing vehicles. An example is the "implicit guarantees" that financial institutions offer when selling products to retail investors. That is a situation where the financial product sold are not guaranteed, but banks almost always compensate investors for principal losses by dipping into their own capital.

The People's Bank of China, in response to the IMF assessment, said in a statement on its website that it disagrees with some points in the report but the fund's recommendations are "highly relevant in the context of deepening financial reforms" in the country.

One of the points the Chinese central bank said it disagrees with is the conclusion that many banks lack the ability to withstand shocks. The IMF's stress tests found that 27 out of 33 banks studied were under-capitalized. But the PBOC said the Chinese financial system is resilient.

Output: China's financial system is under threat from risky bank debt, risky lending and excessive risk-taking, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned as the nation moves towards a consumer-driven economy. "The system's increasing complexity has sown financial stability risks," the IMF said in the report of a two-year study into the world's second-largest economy. The Chinese central bank said it disagrees with the assessment, particularly the assertion that many lenders would be unable to absorb shocks.


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Irish government to ban most zero-hour contracts
 The Minister for Employment and Social Protection Regina Doherty said the new legislation would significantly improve the employment protections for people in less secure arrangements. Photograph: Dara Mac Donaill / The Irish Times

The Government is to ban zero-hours contracts in most circumstances and strengthen rights for workers on insecure contracts and those working variable hours.

The Minister for Employment and Social Protection Regina Doherty said the new legislation,published on Thursday, would significantly improve the employment protections for people who were in less secure arrangements, not by choice, and may not know from week to week what hours they will be working.

She said the vast majority of employers treated their employees well and they should have nothing to fear from the new Bill.

“On the contrary, the Bill is aimed at tackling exploitative employment arrangements and those unscrupulous employers who do not respect even the most basic rights of employees.”

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The general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) Patricia King said the new legislation was by no means perfect and required some amendments but it did represent progress.

“The Ictu will lobby hard to achieve amendments to this Bill to meet the demands of the workers who are affected by insecure and precarious work. It appears from the provisions of the Bill that the prohibition of zero-hour contracts excludes casual workers. It is our view that all workers should be covered by this prohibition.”

‘If and when’

However the employers’ group Ibec argued the legislation as drafted would have significant adverse consequences.

“It will deprive employees and employers of the ability to make their own flexible working arrangements and to adapt to change collaboratively.”

Labour Party senator Ged Nash said the Bill was silent on "a new and dubious form of precarious work" known as "if and when" contracts.

He said the Bill would apply only to employees who had worked under contract for at least 18 months.

“This of itself is a major improvement to the status quo and is a very welcome development. But the new legislation entirely dodges the question of ‘if and when’ contracts and how such workers are to be treated. It seems that, for most workers trapped in the ‘if and when’ spiral, work of that nature will continue to be treated as a casual form of work. ”

The new legislation will prohibit zero hours contracts in all circumstances except in “cases of genuine casual work or where they are essential to allow employers to provide cover in emergency situations or to cover short-term absences”.

Substitute workers

The Department of Employment and Social Protection said such flexibility would be required in residential care settings, for example, where a member of staff must accompany a resident in the care facility to hospital at short notice and an appropriately qualified substitute worker needed to be called in to cover the absence.

Ms Doherty said: “While we understand that zero-hour contracts are not prevalent in this jurisdiction, we want to ensure that that remains the position.”

Under the new legislation five key terms of employment must be provided to workers within five days of commencing work for their employer. These are:

– The full name of the employer and employee

– The address of the employer

– The expected duration of the contract (where the contract is temporary or fixed-term)

– The rate or method of calculating pay

– What the employer reasonably expects the normal length of the employee’s working day and week will be.

Output: The Irish Government is to ban most zero-hours contracts, while also improving rights for workers in insecure and variable employment. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions said the new legislation, published last Thursday, demonstrated progress, but needed to be amended. Employers’ group Ibec claimed that the legislation would deprive both companies and workers of the ability to establish flexible working arrangements.


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Google launches gender diversity gaming initiative
 Missed the GamesBeat Summit excitement? Don't worry! Tune in now to catch all of the live and virtual sessions here.

Google is launching its Change the Game program, a diversity initiative for starting a dialogue about women who play and make mobile games. It also partnered with market researcher Newzoo on a study about people’s behaviors when they play games on their phones.

Change the Game will focus on women who are playing mobile games as well as to jumpstart more careers for them in the game industry. To the former point, it has released a trailer that it’s calling an “anthem video” to showcase the diverse range of women who play games. Google Play is also spotlighting a collection of games starring women protagonists, such as State of Play Games and Noodlecake Studios’s Lumino City and Camouflaj’s République.

According to the Newzoo study, 65 percent of women between the ages of 10 and 65 play mobile games. These stats are out of the 3,000 people who participated in the study, 2,000 of whom identified as women and 1,000 as men. Though a high percentage of women play games, Google product marketing manager Mathilde Cohen Solal said a disconnect exists between how men and women approach their experiences.

“For example, women are less likely to explore a variety of genres. While men usually play games from three or more genres, women tend to play two genres or less,” said Solal in a phone call with GamesBeat. “They’re less likely to talk about games among their friends and communities. They’re less likely to identify as gamers.”

The study also says that most of the women thought only 30 percent of mobile games are made “for them,” though it’s not entirely clear what that means exactly. The study isn’t conclusive, and Solal is cautious about assigning cause or correlation to its findings. Change the Game intends to continue doing more research to look at different behaviors, demographics, and geographic regions.

“What we’ve realized is that everything is interrelated,” said Solal. “It’s very hard to find one cause of the behavior, of something that’s happening. What I would say is something that—a hypothesis we’ve talked about with a lot of experts is there’s a kind of chicken and egg relationship.”

Image Credit: State of Play Games / Noodlecake Studios

The underlying implication is that women may feel that mobile gaming isn’t welcoming or inclusive. Change the Game is trying to ease player perception with its anthem videos and collections, but it’s also approaching the developer side as well.

“To support the creation of more inclusive games and storylines, we’ve partnered with Ideas United to launch a development program for emerging game designers,” said Google’s product marketing manager Kate Brennan. “We asked them to pitch us a mobile game concept that would resonate with underrepresented audiences and we’re spending the next few months bringing those games to life.”

Google is also working with Girls Make Games and Made With Code, both organizations that help girls learn programming and game design skills. It’s the last piece to complete its pipeline of getting more girls involved with games, more women to join the industry, and folks to feel more welcome to play.

“For right now, we’re looking at initially getting people excited about and involved with the process of game-making, that initial first step,” said Brennan. “Retention is definitely something we’re thinking about, but haven’t explicitly looked at right now. I think both of the programs do a good job of showing an entry-level overview of the games industry as a whole. Something we like to highlight is it’s not just coding. It’s also music direction, art design, a whole plethora of jobs within the gaming industry that young girls can get excited about.”

The Change the Game initiative is still new, so it hasn’t revealed many of its future projects. However, Brennan says that it’s incredibly necessary.

“Right now, knowing that only 27.8 percent of the industry identifies as women or trans or marked ‘other,’ that’s really important,” said Brennan. “Increasing that will lead to more inclusive work environments, and also more games that are telling stories that appeal to many different people. Ultimately we do believe that gaming has the ability to move people, to tell fantastic stories, to get people involved, to build empathy.”

“Basically, we found in our research that the great thing about mobile games today is that they’re way more diverse than ever before,” said Solal. “There are a lot of new people playing. But the industry as a whole – and we are part of that industry – still isn’t keeping up with that.”

Output: Google has launched a diversity initiative designed to create a dialogue about female gamers. The Change the Game programme will use an “anthem video” to demonstrate the diversity of women who play games, while Google Play will highlight games featuring female protagonists. The company has also joined with creative agency Ideas United to establish a development programme for new designers to create games designed to appeal to underrepresented groups. Google is also partnering with the Girls Make Games and Made with Code groups, which encourage girls to learn programming and game design.


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Tradesman visas urged as construction industry faces Brexit hit
 More than one in six people working on housebuilding sites across Britain come from other EU countries, rising to half of site workers in London, according to a new report.

A survey of 37,000 housebuilding workers across Britain shows 17.7% are from the EU. More than half of those come from Romania, with 12% from Poland and almost 10% from Ireland.

In London, where housing demand is at its most acute, some building skills are dominated by EU workers, with more than 70% of carpenters, 63% of demolition and groundworks workers, 61% of general labourers, 54% of plasterers, painters and decorators, 44% of bricklayers and nearly 40% of roofers hailing from other EU countries.

Nationwide, 15% of bricklayers , 25% of general labourers and almost 18% of finishing trades, which include plasterers, painters and decorators, come from the EU.

The survey by the Home Builders Federation (HBF) on more than 1,000 housebuilding sites, underlines the extent of UK sites’ reliance on overseas workers. The federation said its report was the first extensive survey of the sector and showed that builders would need continued access to skilled EU workers following Brexit to deliver the government’s target of building 300,000 homes a year.

The federation is lobbying the government for a special permit system (similar to the mooted barista visas) that would allow housebuilders to recruit workers from abroad after 2019 to ramp up construction from the 217,00 homes built last year.

In the capital, 56% of workers in the housebuilding sector are from outside the UK and 49.5% are EU nationals. Of those, half come from Romania, 8.5% from Bulgaria, and 6.4% from Poland.

The federation said that although tens of thousands of UK-born workers have been recruited and trained in recent years, training took time and would not be enough to meet demand. It said that with an ageing UK workforce, the reliance on EU nationals was likely to grow. About 70% of overseas workers are in their 20s or 30s compared with just over 50% of their UK colleagues.

Federation spokesman Steve Turner said: “We needed evidence that demonstrates housebuilding should be treated as a special case; hopefully this quite clearly demonstrates that it is a special case and heavily reliant on EU labour.”

However, the survey shows that most EU housebuilding site workers intend to stay in Britain. Fewer than 7% of EU nationals surveyed said they were not intending to stay in the UK industry.

Stewart Baseley, the federation’s executive chairman, said: “The results of this census clearly demonstrate the reliance the industry currently has on non-UK workers. Output is up a massive 74% in recent years but achieving the very challenging targets set by government will require further big increases in workforce capacity.

“While the industry is investing heavily in recruiting and training young people leaving our schools, colleges and universities, continued access to overseas workers is absolutely essential.”

More than 217,000 new homes were built across the UK last year – 15% more than in the previous year but still well short of the government’s target of 300,000 homes a year. In London, 39,600 homes were built, the highest number since the 1930s.

The new London plan published last week set a target for 65,000 new homes a year although the government has indicated the figure should be 72,000 to meet housing needs.

Output: The Home Builders Federation has called for a post-Brexit work permit system as it revealed one in six construction workers come from European Union nations. A survey of 37,000 housebuilding workers across the UK showed that 17.7% were from Europe, more than half of which were Romanian. In London, EU workers made up more than 70% of carpenters and 61% of general labourers, the study found.


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DHS accuses Chinese drone maker DJI of spying on US
 An unclassified memo from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alleges that Chinese UAS maker DJI is “providing U.S. critical infrastructure and law enforcement data to the Chinese government …[and] is selectively targeting government and private owned entities within these sectors to expand its ability to collect and exploit sensitive data.” DHS also alleged that DJI was leveraging its lower manufacturing costs “combined with illegal dumping tactics” to give it monopoly power in the U.S. “As a result, U.S. companies have fewer options and are more likely to purchase DJI UAS.”

The memo was drafted this past summer but widely released only last week. DJI—Dà-Jiāng Innovations Science and Technology, headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong—is one of the the largest manufacturers of recreational and commercial drones worldwide. Its models include the Phantom and Mavic Pro. It holds an estimated 50 percent share of the overall North American market and nearly 70 percent of the North American market for UASs priced between $1,000 and $4,000. It also has technology partnerships with powerhouses including Sony, owns a majority interest in Swedish camera maker Hasselblad and offers its units for sale in Apple stores. Competitors have alleged that the company engages in dumping and other unfair trade practices.

In late November, DJI issued a strong statement rebutting the DHS memo. “The bulletin is based on clearly false and misleading claims from an unidentified source” and shows “a fundamental lack of understanding of DJI, its technology and the drone market.” DJI’s statement also refuted claims of dumping, “DJI does not sell products at a loss or cheaper in the United States than in China.” It also disputed charges that its drones are equipped with facial recognition software or that it widely shared data with the Chinese government.

Limited Data Sharing

To the extent data is shared with the Chinese government, the company said, it has done so to comply with “location-specific rules and policies within China” related to registration and no-fly zones. “In compliance with Chinese regulation, DJI utilizes the user's IP address, GPS location, and MCC (mobile country code) ID to determine if a drone is being operated in China. If so, DJI provides the customer with features necessary to comply with Chinese regulations and policies. Otherwise, DJI provides no information about or data collected by the drone to the Chinese government.”

However, the company did say that its advanced new products have “Active Track” algorithms that “can track the movement of the shape of the face or the shape of the person to facilitate control of the drone or movement of the camera.” It also acknowledged several actual or potential recent security breaches including compromise of its secure web certificate and the DJI website, receiving a report that its Amazon Web Services server repository was accessible by unauthorized parties. In both cases, DJI said, it promptly fixed the problems. The company also noted that it maintains a “Bug Bounty Program” that pays security researchers to identify potential vulnerabilities in DJI's technology.

Nevertheless, the DHS memo notes that the U.S. Army has stopped using DJI products due to “an increased awareness of cyber vulnerabilities associated” with them. Earlier this year the U.S. Navy issued its own memo on “operational risks” associated with operating DJI vehicles.

Despite the U.S. military's misgivings, DJI is establishing a foothold with U.S. law enforcement and contractors and companies with critical security and infrastructure links. DHS pointed out that a DJI Inspire UAS is currently used by the Los Angeles County Sheriff and on site by a contractor currently building DHS's own National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kansas.

It also noted that DJI's current U.S. infrastructure customers include American Water, Union Pacific Railroad and American Electric Power. The company is also targeting water utilities in Chicago, Los Angeles, New Jersey, and New York; and railway companies in Omaha, Los Angeles, and Dallas. DHS asserted that DJI's target client list “appears to focus on the account holder's ability to disrupt critical infrastructure. " The DHS also alleged that the Chinese government could use DJI data to “disrupt and degrade” the U.S. food supply and to surreptitiously evaluate assets planned for purchase.

The DHS concluded that data gleaned from DJI systems could be used by the Chinese government to conduct physical or cyber attacks against the U.S. or shared with terrorist organizations or other parties to strike the U.S.

Output: Chinese drone manufacturer DJI has been accused of spying on the US by the Department of Homeland Security, in a memo released to the public this week. DJI is accused of “providing critical infrastructure and law enforcement data to the Chinese government" and "selectively targeting government and privately-owned entities within these sectors to expand its ability to collect and exploit sensitive data". DJI has a 50% total share of the US drone market, rising to nearly 70% for drones priced between $1,000 and $4,000.


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Lithuania speeds up licensing regime to lure fintechs post-Brexit
 Tech & Science

The sector was already victim to 10.7 percent of attacks globally in 2022 and it is expected to increase even more in 2023.

Output: Since the Brexit decision, Lithuania has been positioning itself as a fintech hub by speeding up the processes by which foreign firms can enter the country and receive online payment permits. The Lithuanian central bank has streamlined its licence approval processes so that online payment permits can be secured by prospective foreign fintechs in three months and full banking licences in just six months, making the process several times quicker than in rival nations. Lithuania has reportedly granted 18 operating licences to foreign fintechs in 2017 alone, including one to UK-based Revolut, with an additional 16 under review.


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Earny, the refunds-focused fintech, secures $9m funding
 EXCLUSIVE – The payment protection app Earny announced today it has raised $9 million and wants to use the funds to diversify into the travel vertical.

Based in Santa Monica, Calif., Earny automatically monitors for and claims refunds on past purchases through retailer and credit card price protection policies.

With its new funding, Dori Yona, COO and co-founder of Earny, told Bank Innovation that the company will expand in the travel field. It will start by providing payment protection to hotel bookings early next year and then will gradually diversify in other aspects of the vertical, he said.

The series A funding was led by Mayfield Fund, an early investor in ride-share app Lyft and social-market platform Poshmark. Other investors include Comcast Ventures and Science Inc. This new round brings the company’s total funds to $11.5 million.

“We are very excited about Mayfield because they have a huge history and have built massive companies that changed consumer behavior,” Yona said.

The funds will be also be used to double Earny’s employees to 35 people and to start a major marketing campaign.

“We want to focus on brand awareness,” he said. “These funds will also let us make a big marketing push – TV, print, advertising, and the whole gamut.”

As a part of the deal, Mayfield managing director, Rishi Garg, will join Earny’s board.

So far, Earny has partnered with major retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, Costco, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart. It also works with the typical 90-day price protection policies for credit cards like Visa, Mastercard, Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, US Bank, Capital One, Barclays and First Premier Bank.

The app, which is free to download on both Android and Apple, monitors and automatically files for a claim on behalf of its user.

Typically, Earny can secure more than 90% of its claims, he said. Earny shoppers approximately get back 5% of what they spend online on average, Yona said. Some Earny shoppers have gotten back more than $1,600 back in a year, he said.

The company was launched in 2016 after winning Mastercard’s Masters of Code Hackathon. Last May, it raised $1.2 million in seed funding from investors that include Mastercard, Sweet Capital and Science Inc.

To learn more about the latest developments in mobile payments, join us on March 5-6, 2018 at the Parc 55 in San Francisco for Bank Innovation 2018. Click here to register.

Output: Earny, which uses retailer and credit card price protection policies to claim refunds on users' purchases, has raised $9m. Earny said the money will be used to diversify into the travel industry, including payment protection for hotel bookings. Early already has partnerships with Amazon, Bloomingdale's and Wal-Mart, among others. The COO and co-founder of the Santa Monica-based firm, Dori Yona, said: "We want to focus on brand awareness … these funds will let us make a big marketing push into TV, print [and] advertising." The series A funding was led by Mayfield Fund and takes Earny's total backing to $11.5m.


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FabRx launches Kickstarter campaign for 3D printed medicine
 FabRx FabRx Printlets. 3D printed formulations with different shapes, colours, and flavours.

FabRx, a biotech company looking to transform the manufacture of medicines using 3D printing, is to launch a Kickstarter campaign for its own 3D printing platform.

The machine will be an adapted version of The Magic Candy Factory's and will enable the preparation of medicines that are ideal for children. With a goal of £50,000, FabRx’s Kickstarter campaign will get underway on Wednesday 6th December.

Based in Kent, with a laboratory in London, FabRx is looking to not only make medicines more appealing for children, but also achieve more precision in the dosage, combine more than one drug per medicine, and prepare medicines on-demand in hospitals and pharmacies. The company will also look to produce several forms of medicine, including tablets, capsules, and chewable formulations, all appropriate for children – the tablets the printer produces are called Printlets. Printlets can be made to contain a certain does, be easy to swallow, and prepared in the child’s desired flavour, colour and shape. FabRx has also managed to combine up to four drugs in one medicine, each represented by a different coloured layer.

Winner of the TCT Show Start-Up Award 2017, FabRx has been working at the advanced 3D printing laboratory at UCL for more than five years conducting research around 3D printed medicines. It has entered into a partnership with The Magic Candy Factory, to adapt their printer which has already been successful in the 3D printing of sweets. The design will be altered, so as to avoid contamination from the environment, and FabRx will also ensure pharmaceutically approved materials will be supported.

Meanwhile, the software will allow the user to select key dosage form parameters, and can already enable the printing of any shape and flavour. Upgrades will be implemented so the user can accurately prepare the dose prescribed by the doctor. Since the dose of the tablet depends on weight, the software will be designed so it can transform the selected dose to an object in the selected shape with the right weight.

On the back of this Kickstarter campaign, FabRx plans to start studies with hospital patients in mid-2018, using the standard printer and beta-version of its modified software. The company plans to develop the first prototype of the printer and the modified software after feedback is garnered from the clinicians and patients in summer 2018.

Output: A UK-based biotech start-up is seeking crowdfunding to support the launch of a new 3D printing platform for children's medicine. FabRx, based in Kent, has been working for five years at the 3D printing laboratory at University College London developing ways of adapting the technology to produce medicines. It has now launched a bid to raise £50,000 on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to support its plan to adapt an existing 3D printer produced by the Magic Candy Factory, a company that produces bespoke sweets. FabRx aims to make medicines more appealing to children and achieve greater precision in dosages.


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Chinese English language tutor ALO7 raises $37.5m in series D
 ALO7 (Formerly known as Saybot), a China-based English language learning product and services provider, receives $37.5 million in Series D financing round.

The round was led by Legend Capital with participation from GuoHe Capital and UG Investment and C-round investors Qualcomm, New Oriental, and Vickers Venture Partners.

This financing will be used to hire a large number of highly-skilled technical engineers to accelerate a dual upgrade of the company’s products and services.

Led by CEO Pengkai Pan, EVP Andrew Shewbart, ALO7 provides English language learning product and services which leverages technology that manages online and offline interactions between students, teachers, parents, and school administrators. Using smartphones, tablets, and PCs, users can access AI-driven interactive materials, in-depth reports on student progress, an online learning platform, and adaptive testing based on big data.

The company provides a primary-school digital courseware and textbook series, Genius English, and recently introduced Wise English, a program for middle schools, at the conference.

ALO7 was founded in the United States in 2004 by MIT PhD Pengkai Pan and his mentor, digital-media guru Nicholas Negroponte. In 2010, ALO7 joined the K12 English education market, focused on providing high-quality teaching products and services to schools.

FinSMEs

29/11/2017

Output: China's ALO7 has raised $37.5m in series D funding for its English language learning products. ALO7, formerly known as Saybot, offers an online learning platform, which includes artificial intelligence-driven interactive materials and adaptive testing based on big data, as well as digital courseware and textbooks for schools. It will use the money to hire a large number of technical engineers to expedite an upgrade of its products and services. The investment was led by Legend Capital, with involvement from Qualcomm.


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Researchers at IIT Hyderabad develop way to recycle polystyrene
 In India, researchers at IIT Hyderabad have discovered a way to recycle the common polystyrene foam thermocol using citrus extract from orange peels.

Citrus extract was found to dissolve thermocol—which otherwise takes hundreds of years to biodegrade—almost instantly without added heat. The dissolved polystyrene is then drawn into fibers via wet-solution spinning.

The project is being led by Professor Chandra Shekhar Sharma from the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad and has received financial support from the Technology Development Board, Department of Science and Technology.

“Using the orange peel extract to dissolve polystyrene will not change the chemical composition, and so will not make polystyrene into a biodegradable product. What this process does is to extend the use and life cycle of polystyrene waste material,” says Professor Sharma tells The Hindu.

Only 12% of polystyrene waste gets recycled currently, and citrus peel waste is plentiful. A pilot-scale machine to demonstrate the process is currently being built.

More on the story.

Output: A new process can dissolve the polystyrene foam thermocol almost instantly without the need for heat, say scientists at IIT Hyderabad. Using orange peel extract, the researchers, led by Professor Chandra Shekhar Sharma from the Department of Chemical Engineering, found that the citrus extract could almost instantly dissolve the thermocol, which was then drawn into fibres. Thermocol usually takes centuries to dissolve; however, the scientists said the new method was a way to extend the lifecycle of thermocol rather than to make it biodegradable.


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Burger King tests ways to hyper-localise outdoor advertising
 Burger King is testing how its outdoor ads can be changed on the go to have the biggest sales impact.

The fast-food restaurant is wading through analytics for 30 different ads created by 360i and bought by Vizeum that ran on 100 billboards over the course of a week in October. Each billboard was near one of 13 Burger King restaurants across London, and the creative changed dynamically in response to time of day, proximity to a local event and the weather to push people to their nearest Burger King during quieter sales periods such as breakfast, snacking and late night.

Until recently, outdoor advertising hasn’t been able to quantify the audiences it has delivered. Over the last year, however, outdoor media owners such as JCDecaux, which worked with Burger King on the campaign, have started letting brands plan and buy more contextually to a targeted audience.

Burger King measured pre-, during- and post-campaign foot traffic using beacons installed in its restaurants to isolate the campaign’s impact on each location’s foot traffic. The beacons tracked the number of Wi-Fi engagements with Burger King diners as they entered stores, recording a cumulative number of increased visits tied to devices rather than personal information. For example, a series of ads promoted the restaurant’s breakfast and midmorning products and consequently delivered an increase in visitors to Burger King locations during those periods.

Burger King would not share further details about the test so soon after it had concluded. But Renato Rossi, Burger King’s vp of marketing in the U.K., told attendees at Ad:tech London earlier this month that the initial metrics had proven “streets can be a lot more connected to our digital environment.” Speaking to Digiday at the event, he admitted the mix of data on foot traffic and sales might not be the clearest attribution model but said it was a start to understanding the path to purchase from its outdoor ads. The business will evolve the model in 2018, he said.

“We’re not going to suddenly stop buying static ads. If we get the current [outdoor advertising] investment we do today and translate 100 percent of it in [digital-enabled outdoor ads], we would lose too much coverage, which we can’t afford,” Rossi added. “This isn’t yet a full migration from static to digital. Both will coexist for the coming years.”

At the start of 2017, just 2.5 percent of all digital out-of-home campaigns with JCDecaux ran dynamic ads, but by the end of the year, that percentage will have quadrupled, according to the media owner. In fact, 2017 will be the first year where revenue derived from digital will overtake static, traditional media at JCDecaux.

Rossi’s pragmatism aside, the marketer believes outdoor media can prompt direct action from people and become more accountable in the process. He and his team are considering buying impressions for dynamic billboards upfront that they can allocate over the course of the year to specific locations they want to try and increase sales to. Traditionally, a business like Burger King would have campaigns on a certain number of static panels per restaurant live all year, but there would be limited flexibility in how the media buy is matched to the specific needs of that location.

Outdoor media is Burger King’s second-biggest media outlay after TV, yet it’s one of the most restrictive channels, Rossi revealed. He added that having a static message on a billboard that can’t change for two weeks means those ads have reverted to “lowest common denominator” product promotions that are “attractive to the majority but not relevant to anyone.”

Image courtesy of Burger King.

Output: Fast-food chain Burger King is analysing how outdoor ads that change dynamically to achieve the biggest sales impact have affected foot traffic at its London restaurants. Burger King used Wi-Fi engagement data in its stores to track customer numbers at particular times, and found dynamic ads promoting breakfast and midmorning products delivered increased visitor numbers during those periods. Speaking at Ad:tech London, vice-president of marketing Renato Rossi admitted the relationship between foot traffic data and restaurant sales wasn't yet clear, but said Burger King would be developing the test next year.


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Time Out develops a conversational app for Google Assistant
 City guide Time Out has developed a conversational app for Google Assistant, used in Android phones, iOS and Google Home devices, through which people can ask up to 100 questions about what to do in their city. People can ask questions like, “What’s a good bar to go to tomorrow?” “What’s happening in London tonight?” or “Where’s a good place to go for cocktails with the girls this weekend?” Time Out’s assistant responds with three suggestions chosen by the publisher’s editors.

In time, Time Out will incorporate e-commerce deals into the assistant. For instance, people could hear three different theater show options, one of which could have a discount available as part of a partnership with the publisher. Time Out’s app for Google Assistant went live last week and is only available in London for now.

“This is highly applicable to what we already do with local businesses,” said Christine Petersen, CEO of Time Out Digital. “We already have a pretty broad offering with local shops and restaurants. Audio will play into this; it will be a really important part of the ad toolkit that we offer.”

Aware of the limits of a business reliant solely on advertising, Time Out began focusing on growing e-commerce and affiliate relationships in 2016. In the first half of 2017, revenue from e-commerce was up by 51 percent from the same period in 2016, according to the company. ESI Media’s London news brand, London Evening Standard, is another publisher looking to incorporate offers from local business like theater ticket sales into its Amazon Echo Show skill.

As voice-activated platforms grow, publishers and brands are spending more time thinking about what their brand sounds like. The female British voice of Time Out’s assistant is one of Google’s rather than one the publisher recorded. After each suggestion, the assistant asks, “Are you keen?” a slightly more British way of asking questions, according to the company. The assistant understands and responds to a few other playful questions. For instance, if the user asks, “Where are you from?” the assistant responds with the opening rap from “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

In early July, Time Out released an Amazon Alexa skill that delivers the top three things to do in a city, chosen by editors, but Time Out wanted to offer a skill that goes beyond the simple call-and-response model commonly found on the Echo and Google Home devices.

“We wanted this to be a human-focused project. We spent a lot of time in a room watching people ask questions to their phone,” said Sanjay Vakil, Time Out’s director of product development. “The rallying cry from our team was for it to sound like your best friend in the city who knows what’s going on, rather than a dumb robot.”

Vakil said Time Out’s app for Google Assistant took roughly three months of development work from a primary team of three people spending half their workday on the project, as well as input from dozens of editorial staffers to perfect the conversational tone. It was built on Google’s Dialogflow, which uses natural language processing to understand voice input.

While developing the assistant, the team worried about people asking it certain types of questions, including questions it would have no way of knowing, like the cost of tea in China. In this situation, the assistant provides a generic response. Another concern was when it doesn’t know the answer to what the user believes is a reasonable question, like, “What train will get me to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park?” In this instance, the assistant offers help, like sending directions or a map to the user’s phone. When the assistant doesn’t trust its answer because something has broken technically, it offers a humorous reply, like, “Sorry, I don’t have any ideas for that. I’m still new at this whole assistant thing. What else do you want to do?”

According to Vakil, the data Time Out gets from Google is limited to reams of text and anonymized information about the questions asked. But in time, Time Out will be able to infer information on what people are interested in knowing and when. For instance, the assistant could offer the top three local kebab shops late on a Saturday night.

“Voice is a channel that will grow, and we want to grow with it,” said Vakil. “We felt we were on the cutting edge because we weren’t asking questions like, ‘When is my flight due?’”

Output: City guide Time Out has developed a conversational assistant app for Google Assistant, which can be used on Android phones, iOS and Google Home devices. The app is built on Google's Dialogflow and enables users to find out what's happening in their city by asking questions such as, “what’s happening in London tonight?”. Time Out's assistant will also incorporate e-commerce deals with selected partners when it makes recommendations. Product development director Sanjay Vakil spoke of how Time Out wanted the assistant to "sound like your best friend in the city who knows what’s going on”.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Dutch designers 'bake' plastic from algae for 3D printers
 Dutch designers Eric Klarenbeek and Maartje Dros have developed a bioplastic made from algae, which they believe could completely replace fossil-derived plastics over time.

Working at Atelier Luma in France, Klarenbeek and Dros have cultivated aquatic algae, which they then dry and process into a material that can be used to 3D print objects.

The designers believe that the algae polymer could be used to make everything from shampoo bottles to tableware or rubbish bins, eventually entirely replacing plastics made from fossil fuels like oil.

They are among a host of designers using algae to create products that are more environmentally friendly than their synthetic counterparts, from fabric dyes and water bottles to chairs and even entire building facades.

As well as algae, Klarenbeek and Dros have created biopolymers from other organic raw materials such as mycelium, potato starch and cocoa bean shells, which they use to 3D print objects.

The studio's ultimate goal is to establish a local network of biopolymer 3D printers, called the 3D Bakery.

"Our idea is that in the future there will be a shop on every street corner where you can 'bake' organic raw materials, just like fresh bread," said Klarenbeek.

"You won't have to go to remote industrial estates to buy furniture and products from multinational chains. 3D printing will be the new craft and decentralised economy."

Both Design Academy Eindhoven graduates, Klarenbeek and Dros' research follows on from Klarenbeek's work with mycelium, which began six years ago and led to him developing the world's first 3D-printed chair using living fungus.

Since then, together with American company Ecovative, the studio has developed a commercial line of mycelium products called Krown. The DIY kits allow consumers to grow their own lamps, tables or biodegradable picnic items.

The designers believe their project offers a solution to the vast consumption of non-renewable fossil fuels, which emit carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere when burnt to create materials like plastic. Scientists attribute rising CO2 levels to global warming.

"All around the world in recent decades, enormous amounts of fossil fuels – materials that lay buried in the ground for millions of years – have been extracted," said the designers.

"In this relatively brief period, a vast amount of carbon dioxide has been released into the atmosphere, with damaging consequences. It is therefore important that we clean the CO2 from the atmosphere as quickly as possible and this can be done by binding the carbon to biomass."

As a type of plant, algae absorbs carbon dioxide during the process known as photosynthesis, which it uses to create energy. Therefore, the designers are advocating the growth of algae to be used as a production material to help reduce global CO2 levels and prevent climate change.

"Everything that surrounds us – our products, houses and cars – can be a form of CO2 binding," they said. "If we think in these terms, makers can bring about a revolution. It's about thinking beyond the carbon footprint: instead of zero emissions we need 'negative' emissions."

After three years of research into algae with Wageningen University, Salga Seaweeds, Avans Biobased Lab in Breda and other institutions, Klarenbeek and Dros were invited to establish an open research and algae production lab at Atelier Luma in Arles.

"Algae is equally interesting for making biomass because it can quickly filter CO2 from the sea and the atmosphere," said the duo.

"The algae grow by absorbing the carbon and producing a starch that can be used as a raw material for bioplastics or binding agents. The waste product is oxygen, clean air."

Since February 2017, the pair has been splitting their time between their home and studio in a former paint factory on the River Zaan in Zaandam, the Netherlands, and the AlgaeLab at Atelier Luma in Arles, France.

In the lab, the duo cultivate the living algae, which they then dry and process into a material that can be used to 3D print objects.

The designers believe that the local algae polymer could be used to make everything from shampoo bottles to tableware or rubbish bins, eventually replacing fossil oil-based plastics entirely.

"Our ambition is to provide all restaurants and catered events in the city with tableware from the AlgaeLab," they said.

"We are currently using our 3D printers to produce the same design in Arles and in Zaandam, one from French algae and the other from Dutch seaweed."

"Both have exactly the same form, but they are made from local materials," the studio continued. "This is the change we believe in; designing products that are distributed via the internet but made locally."

"We don't want to grow into a large centralised organisation," added Klarenbeek, who believes that the 3D Bakery could be a reality within 10 years. "We want to change the system so that people grow raw materials locally that they can use to produce things that comply with their needs."

The duo's research is currently on show at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam as part of an exhibition called Change the System, curated by Annemartine van Kesteren.

For the duration of the exhibition, which runs until 14 January 2018, Klarenbeek and Dros are working on a new algae glass made from algae grown in the museums' pond. When enough algae is produced, it will be "harvested" and dried into a 3D printable material, which will then be used to produce a replica of a glass object from the museum's collection.

Van Kesteren presented this project as part of Dezeen's Good Design For A Bad World talks series at Dutch Design Week, which aimed to question whether designers can offer solutions to global issues.

The curator sees Klarenbeek and Dros' work as an important example of how a small project could be scaled up, to make a real difference to the world.

"According to Eric, if we dream big we need to find the solutions on a microscale," said Van Kesteren. "Algae are a miracle in his approach."

Photography is by Antoine Raab unless stated otherwise.

Output: Plastic made from plant material for use in 3D printers could replace oil-based materials, say Dutch designers Eric Klarenbeek and Maartje Dros. They created biopolymers using organic raw materials such as algae, fungi and potato starch. The pair want to see local biopolymer 3D print stores, or "3D bakeries", creating everything from furniture to water bottles.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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NASA expects commercial space flights to meet safety standards
 WASHINGTON — As the two companies developing commercial crew vehicles prepare for test flights in the next 12 months, a NASA official said the agency expects those companies to be able to meet, or come close to, stringent safety requirements for those spacecraft.

At a Nov. 29 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations committee, Lisa Colloredo, deputy program manager for NASA’s commercial crew program, said Boeing and SpaceX were making good progress towards achieving a “loss of crew”, or LOC, requirement established by NASA at the beginning of the program.

The LOC requirement states that the odds of an accident killing or causing serious injury to a crewmember be no more than 1 in 270 flights for a 210-day mission at the International Space Station. That covers all aspects of the mission, including launch and reentry.

“We have a very difficult LOC requirement to meet, and we knew that when we going in,” Colloredo said. The 1-in-270 LOC requirement for commercial crew is more stringent than the 1-in-90 value at the end of the shuttle program. “I would say that we’ve made a lot of progress, and the providers have both done a lot of redesign work to improve their LOC numbers.”

Those changes, she said, include “more robustness” to the thermal protection systems on the spacecraft and additional parachute testing. “It’s served its purpose of getting the right look at the top drivers for LOC,” she said, including making design changes to improve those values.

Colloredo said she expected that both companies would meet the 1-in-270 LOC requirement, or come close enough that NASA would be willing to accept the vehicles as safe enough for its astronauts. “It’s pretty likely in the end that SpaceX and Boeing will come in with their evidence that they meet the requirement or close to it,” she said. Ultimately, she said, it will require NASA due diligence to either confirm they meet the requirement or be willing to accept a variance from the requirement in a specific area.

Another NASA committee has also monitored the ability of Boeing and SpaceX to meet the LOC requirement. At the October meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), committee members discussed the progress both companies were making on addressing key risk issues for their systems.

“The ASAP believes that NASA is judiciously continuing to address the risk drivers with the providers for the most serious scenarios through continued analysis, modeling, testing, and design development. It remains challenging,” the panel noted in the minutes from that meeting. “Nevertheless, the focus on worst case scenarios has driven positive design decisions for both providers, as well as other aspects such as increases in systems testing for some of the systems that carry notable risks.”

The biggest challenge, ASAP reported, was meeting micrometeoroid and orbital debris protection requirements. NASA was working to improve the modeling of the risks posed to those spacecraft from micrometeoroids and orbital debris through experiments mounted on the station as well as on Dragon cargo spacecraft.

At the NASA Advisory Council committee meeting, Colloredo said the LOC requirement was the biggest programmatic issue facing the overall program, but not the only one. She said NASA was assessing if it had included all the costs of various government-provided services for commercial crew missions. It was also working to ensure that search and rescue training for Air Force personnel supporting commercial crew launches would be ready in time for the first missions.

Both companies are working to schedules that call for both uncrewed and crewed test flights in 2018, although later in the year than previously planned. SpaceX is planning an uncrewed test of its Crew Dragon in April, previously scheduled for February. The crewed test flight is now planned for August, instead of June. Between the two flights will be an in-flight abort test.

Boeing’s uncrewed test flight of its CST-100 Starliner is now scheduled for August, two months later than previously planned. The crewed test flight has shifted from August to November, although the company said earlier this fall that the crewed test flight might slip into early 2019.

“We’re making a lot of progress with the providers,” Colloredo said. “We’re getting prepared for flight and we acknowledge that we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

Output: NASA has set stringent safety standards for the companies currently developing spacecrafts under its commercial crew vehicle programme. Boeing and SpaceX are both planning crewed and uncrewed test flights during 2018 as they work towards delivering operational vehicles for future NASA missions. The US space agency is requiring them to meet a 'loss of crew' standard based on the odds of an accident resulting in death or serious injury to the crew being no more than one in 270 flights for a 210-day mission. The standard is seen as challenging and requires additional progress before it is met.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Mondelez to review media assignment after $200m spend
 by Richard Whitman , Columnist, December 5, 2017

Food and snack giant Mondelez International is conducting a review of its North American media agency assignment, the company has confirmed.

The company spent more than $200 million on measured media in the U.S. last year, according to Kantar Media.

Carat, part of Dentsu Aegis Network, has been the media agency incumbent for the company’s North America region since 2015, when Mondelez conducted a global review.

The firm then split the account between Carat and Publicis Groupe’s SMG. In addition to adding North America duties, Carat retained its Europe and Asia-Pacific assignments.

A Mondelez spokesperson confirmed “we are doing a review of our NA media roster, and Carat has been invited to participate in that process.”

The spokesperson emphasized the review is focused on North America media and noted “Carat continues to be a valued media partner to Mondelez International, supporting our business across a number of geographies around the world.”

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The firm had said earlier that it intends to cut some $3 billion in costs out of its budget by 2018.

I wonder how that will impact fees for whichever agency wins the review? Think maybe Mondelez will be paying a little less for NA media agency services going forward? Thaat would be my guess. Still, it's a huge account with iconic brands like Oreo, Cadbury and Ritz and most agencies would jump at the opportunity to handle it.

Output: Food company Mondelez International, which spent $200m on measured media in the US last year, is reviewing its North American agency roster. The move follows reports the firm plans to make savings of $3bn in 2018. Mondelez's media portfolio -- which includes brands Cadbury, Ritz and Oreo -- is split between Carat, which handles Europe and Asia-Pacific, and Publicis Groupe's SMG.


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Input:
Facebook suffers malware attacks as advertisers turn to Amazon
 Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

Malware Blues

ProPublica found dozens of politically charged ads on Facebook that inject malware into consumers’ computers. The ads come with provocative headlines about hot-button political issues and targeted Facebook users likely to click based on political ideologies. Some ads caused computers to freeze with a warning and a phone number users could call to get it fixed for a price. Other ads linked to spoofed domains peddling free products that rope consumers into automatic credit card charges. All the ads, which have been removed from the platform, violated Facebook’s guidelines for advertising, clickbait, fraud and spam. “There is no tolerable amount of malware on the site,” Facebook ads VP Rob Goldman tells ProPublica. “The tolerance is zero, but unfortunately that’s not the same as zero occurrence.” More.

Enter The Triopoly

Google and Facebook, watch out: Holding companies are gearing up to spend big on Amazon in 2018. Publicis and Omnicom will increase their ad spend with the ecommerce giant to upward of $800 million next year, while WPP will direct $200 million of client spend to the platform, reports WSJ’s Alex Bruell. “We are absolutely leaning into Amazon as an ad partner and think there are big advantages to our clients,” said Kelly Clark, CEO of WPP’s GroupM. More. Agencies see Amazon’s huge audience and rich intent data as an opportunity to reach consumers with better-targeted ads. And there’s a fringe benefit in that Amazon’s rise may help check Facebook’s and Google’s power.

Dish CEO Charlie Ergen has stepped down from his role to focus on the company’s wireless business, Variety reports. President and COO Eric Carlson will take his place. Dish’s ambitions in wireless are big: The company has paid more than $11 billion to acquire wireless licenses and assets and invested an additional $10 billion worth of minority stakes in wireless companies. Ergen’s shift comes among a major shake-up of Dish’s senior management team, including former EVP of marketing, programmatic and media sales Warren Schlichting moving over to head Sling TV, Dish’s OTT network. More.

But Wait, There’s More!

You’re Hired!

Output: Dozens of politically charged ads containing malware have been found on Facebook by news organisation ProPublica, despite Facebook's attempts to prevent them. Once clicked, the malware infects users' computers and attempts to extract money through extortion or by selling false products. Meanwhile, Amazon's rich customer intent data and gigantic audience is helping the brand to be perceived as a strong contender to both Facebook and Google as an ad partner. Advertising giants Publicis and Omnicom are set to increase their Amazon ad spend by $800m in 2018, while WPP is pushing $200m of client spending towards Amazon next year.


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Input:
Tri Delta Transit switches to Neste MY Renewable Diesel
 Tri Delta transit to use Neste biodiesel

Tri Delta Transit, an Eastern Contra Costa County Transit Authority in California, has switched their entire fleet of transit buses from operating on petroleum diesel to using only Neste MY Renewable Diesel.

Neste MY Renewable Diesel is a low-carbon fuel, produced from 100% renewable and sustainable raw materials. This innovative fuel cuts greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% and significantly reduces tailpipe emissions, all while enhancing fleet performance. Neste MY Renewable Diesel is a drop-in alternative to petroleum diesel and is distributed via the same fuel infrastructure.

Tri Delta Transit provides more than 3,000,000 trips each year to a population of more than 250,000 residents in the 225 square mi of Eastern Contra Costa County.

They operate 14 local bus routes Monday–Friday, four local bus routes on weekends, door-to-door bus service for senior citizens and people with disabilities, and shuttle services to community events.

Related News

From the Archive

Output: Tri Delta Transit, a County Transit Authority in California has retrofitted its entire fleet of buses to run exclusively on Neste MY Renewable Diesel. Produced from 100% renewable and sustainable raw materials, the renewable diesel cuts emissions by 80%.