Water is the most abundant substance in the human body as much as on Earth and is also essential for the survival of all known forms of life.
And despite its importance, every day more voices warn of the dangerslooming on such a “precious element.” For example, the World Economic Forum met last January in Mount Davos (Switzerland) has placed the water crisis as the third overall risk over the next 18 months … and it will be the first risk to the world in a 10-year horizon.
Which are the causes that are positioning the water in this top ranking ahead of other potential problems such as oil or turf wars? Climate change, droughts, floods, population growth or demographic changes are some of the challenges around water. In addition, because of its close relation to agriculture, the idea of a “water war” breaking out in Africa, the Middle East or Asia is increasingly seen as a real possibility to the extent that these governments need to feed their populations.
To this long list of long-range dangers, today we want to draw your attention to a closest one: the lack of individual knowledge.
You certainly know the price of 1L of gasoline, but do you know what you pay for 1 L of water? First, you need to know that in Spain water supply is under municipal jurisdiction and each local authority sets its own prices and tariff structures. On average, in our country we pay 1.83 € per 1000 L of drinking water supplied to our households. Translated into usual domestic chores, a five-minute shower costs about 0.10 € and a bath about 0,55 €.
However, the key question is not what you pay for the drinking water, but what is the real cost to produceit and if this is a “fair and sustainable price” for the future.
Returning to the case of gasoline, in recent months we have witnessed a drastic fall in the price of crude. However, as consumers we have not benefited entirely from this drop as fuel is heavily taxed in our country (more than half of the final cost is linked to taxes).
Well, the water is at the opposite extreme, ie, it is heavily granted. While it is true that public money comes at the end from “the black box” of our taxes, there is a very important hint facing the taxpayer. It is difficult to value water if its real cost remains unknown and even when waste it goes so cheap. In the choice between taking a shower or a bath it is clear that today, the money does not come into the equation. And if you go for the more sustainable option probably it is because of the 100 L of water that you save when you do not fill the bathtub. But … what if the money began to count?
Apparently positive for the citizen, the situation is untenable and water will be, within a short period of time, a very high value resource that will need to be managed more efficiently.
In Spain, our supply networks are often obsolete and water losses due to leaks are incalculable. Would you be willing to pay a fair price for water if that would guarantee access to higher water quality and helps to improve infrastructure?
Knowing is the first step to value and informed citizens lead to a responsible society. As an example, a study sponsored by the Council of Almeria in 2002 detected the presence of natural radioactivity in the groundwater intended to supply the population. Furthermore, the existing water treatments at that time were not enough to provide water suitable for human consumption. Then, some municipalities launched information campaigns which sensitized population and a raise of the water price was approved. Thereby, new treatments installed allowed the access to a high quality drinking water.
In recent years, the average consumption of water per capita and day has decreased in our country. What you can keep doing? First, use common sense in your daily habits. Remember not to let the water run from faucets when not necessary, think about how you use the toilet if you have a dual flush mechanism, or if you use the washing and dishwasher machine with full loads etc. Also, when buying new appliances, consider criteria of water efficiency, or install aerators on faucets or shower heads to reduce the flow by 50%. If you are interested, you just can google it and read:
“It’s too late to be a pessimist”. In CARTIF we are seeking for solutions to current challenges and water is one of them. Sustainable use of water, removal of micro-pollutants (endocrine disruptors, trihalomethanes), water-energy nexus, water in the context of circular economy, are for us among the water challenges of this century. In future entries in this blog, we will be telling you our research in these lines.
There is a growing concern caused by the possible effects Artificial Intelligence (AI) could have on everyday working life. Recently in the Davos Forum they have dealt with this issue, but two years ago The Economist published an article about the potential job lost that will be caused by this technology.
Films have made Artificial Intelligence familiar to everybody. From Colossus: The Forbid Project, where a super-computer managed to dominate the entire world and stole the girlfriend to its designer; to Ex Machina, where a heartless machine managed to fulfil its ambitions with no moral hesitation. Almost in all cases, it has been portrayed in a dystopian way. However, the AI we will see soon will not look like an android, as Ava in Ex Machina, but it will resemble HAL 9000, the moral disoriented computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I think the first AI materialisation we will see is the Cognitive Computation, named by IBM as Watson.
Watson is a machine able to answer questions posed in natural language capable of processing huge amounts of information to give the correct answer. It became known to general public in 2008, when it defeated two human opponents in Jeopardy!, a television contest featuring a quiz competition.
One of the first commercial Watson uses is to support lung cancer treatment by suggesting the best drug combination for every patient. Another application soon available will be to answer call phones in a call centre. Genesys, a company that develops and sells systems for that application, wants to include Watson in its portfolio. Watson will answer the phone, have a conversation with the user and refer him to a human operator if needed. The experience will be quite similar to the current one, but a machine will do a job that requires some intellectual abilities.
Aptitudes like the ones featured by Watson fear analysts there will be a job lostthere where intellectual and routine tasks are done, even if qualification is needed as in accounting, layer assistants, technical writers or drivers. This is similar to fears arisen when the artificial force appeared: machines whose power enabled them to do the same work than a dozen people while they were driven by only one.
Technology has improved artificial force. While at the beginning it was powered by steam pressure, today it is enabled by automation and robotics. Artificial force ousted many workers and make some professions disappear but, at the same time, new jobs requiring higher qualification emerged. Workers had to do a transition from muscle to brain.
On the advent of this new Artificial Intelligence technology, able to carry out intellectual, repetitive tasks, how will be the new transition workers will have to do? It will have to aim at those tasks machines by the moment cannot do: creative and emotional jobs. However, the transition period could be not easy. Required formation could not be afforded by everyone, or to hire a machine could be cheaper than to hire a person. AI cost will be determinant and, considering only Watson hardware cost around three million dollars, it seems not every company will be able to access it.
In any case, we will have to face the old question: to let others to develop the technology and became mere users, or to be the scientific, technological or commercial developers of this new industrial revolution. A Hamlet like decision.
Robotics, mainly service robotics, has long been the subject of science fiction, with protocol droids designed to serve human beings like C-3PO from “Star Wars”, military robots like Johnny 5 from “Short Circuit”, robot cleaners like Wall-E, or maids like Rosie from “The Jetsons”. The service robotics is finally stepping out of science fiction and into service, in our homes for personal use like vacuum robots led by iRobot “Roomba”. And for professional use on multitude of application areas such as cleaning robot for public places, delivery robot in offices or hospitals, rehabilitation robot and surgery robot in hospitals, assistant robot.
What is the difference between service robots and industrial robots? The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) defines service robotics as “a robot that performs useful tasks for humans or equipment excluding industrial automation application”. While in general, industrial robots refer as robot arms used in manufacturing and service robots tend to be smaller and mobile, the definition has been dependent on the end application of the robot. Furthermore, contrary to their industrial counterparts, service robots do not have to be fully automatic or autonomous. In many cases these machines may even assist a human user or be tele-operated.
Market Data Since 2010, IFR has split their report into two sections, one for industrial robotics and one for service robotics. Until now, industrial robotics has been the dominant sector for robots, particularly in the automotive industry and consumer electronics. The industrial robotics sector is worth more than 29 billion euros in sales, software and service, even though there are only 1.5 million industrial robots in the world (compared to more than 10 million Roombas)! There has been steady growth in industrial robotics for the last five years and this trend shows no signs of slowing.
The IFR has tracked overall annual growth at around 11.5% so far, and projects more than 20% annual growth to come in the service robotics industry. But some niche areas have already demonstrated growth of between 150% (mobile platforms) and 650% (assistive technology) in the last year. The primary market areas for service robots so far have been in defence, field (agriculture and inspection), logistics and health/medical applications.
One of the new categories to emerge in the last year is the humanoid helper, kiosk robot or retail assistant.
Leading Countries The largest industrial robot manufacturing country is Japan with giants such as Fanuc, Yaskawa – Motoman, Kawasaki, OTC Daihen and others. Europe also has important players, mainly with ABB, Kuka and Universal Robots. In the US, there is Adept and others that are not as dominant in the market.
With respect to service robotics, the situation is the opposite, with the US clearly leading the way. The US approach is not to build humanoid robots but rather robots dedicated to one application. Robotic industry clusters have formed around MIT, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon universities of which many start-ups have formed from these institutions. In fact, IFR analyses also reveal that of all the enterprises engaged in the service robot market 15 percent are start-ups.
Europe’s Position in Robotics According to SPARC (partnership for robotics in Europe), Europe starts from a strong position in robotics, having a 32% of current world markets. Industrial robotics has around one third of the world market, while in the smaller professional service robot market European manufacturers produce 63% of the non-military robots. The European position in the domestic and service robot market represents a market share of 14% and, due to its current size, this is also a much smaller area of economic activity in Europe than the other two areas.
The European Commission submits Robotics in Europe is a rapidly developing field, with a high potential for supporting growth, creating jobs and solving societal challenges. Service robotics is also bringing unique solutions to key societal challenges from health and ageing society to environmental issues. The goal is to actively shape future developments in this area and enable our businesses and citizens to capture the resulting benefits.
CARTIF and Service Robotics CARTIFhas broad experience in the development of applied research projects in service robotics developing several different mobile robots with different degrees of autonomy. Some of these robots include teleoperated platform for pipe inspection, water reservoir cleaning and maintenance to more complex autonomous robots such as a museum tour guide, a robotic bellboy, a mechatronic head with realistic appearance and an all-terrain robot for assisting emergency squads on different situations.
When we work developing environmental technologies, to quantify the advantages to be obtained by using them can be an important added value. And if we put numbers, we are committed to communicate these numbers in an objective and traceable way, and it is when indicators, as environmental footprints, appear.
The most famous is the carbon footprint (after Armstrong’s footprint on the moon, of course!) but recently, another one resonates, the water footprint. This may be the least known member of the group so there are 9 things about it that, perhaps, you don’t know:
To sum up, we celebrate the World Water Day this month, and it is important to remind that the concept ‘water crises’ goes beyond a definition. The World Economic Forum called it in 2014 as the third overall risk worldwide, over climate change and food availability in the world… to give people pause, don’t you think?
Diets are a fashion and they are always changing. Almost without respite, we passed the liquids’ diet, the lingual mesh and many more. And now, it is the gluten’s turn.
It seems that the main guilty of all kind of fat problems is the gluten. But, is it true? For centuries, we have consumed bread, pasta and pastries. However, the ‘devastating’ gluten effects are more recent. We know some people who suffered stomachaches, headaches or other symptoms when they ate bread or derived products. When they asked their doctors, they said them that they were celiac or gluten intolerant, so they must consume a gluten-free diet. We have started to realize that our friends are losing weight with this kind of diet, and we have had the idea to prove it. But, is it so simple? Could you say goodbye to fatness without the gluten? I suspect not.
From the Spanish Celiacs Associations Federation recommend not start a gluten-free diet without having a bowel biopsy showing intolerance to gluten. Celiacs have to stop eating gluten because if they do it, lymphocytes attack the tissue of the intestine, causing the disappearance of the hair of it and having consequently poor absorption of nutrients.
Nutrition experts are cautious and they advise us against eating without gluten, because of the negative effects it could have on our health. Make a gluten-free diet, without professional assistance, can lead to an unbalanced and inadequate diet with more disadvantages than advantages.
Do you know that oats and barley (food with gluten) are high in soluble fiber?
Soluble fiber is formed by compounds which capture much water and are capable of forming viscous gels, help the growth of bacterial flora and decrease and slow the absorption of sugars and fats in food. This contributes to lower cholesterol and glucose blood. Therefore, it is necessary to consume foods such as oats and barley, which also have gluten. Here we only mention fiber, but foods rich in gluten also provide other essential nutrients for humans like proteins, vitamins and essential minerals.
For all these reasons, it is advisable to stay away from the pastries and the precooked and make a healthier lifestyle with a balanced diet. We must try to replace these products with other homemade foods and fewer calories and, as my mother said, eat a bit of everything but without excesses. In addition, it is important to relying on innovation to solve the problems of people with intolerances or special needs.
In CARTIF, we work on several projects in order to replace the use of industrial additives for other natural and animal fats for healthy compounds. These technological contributions work and help us to eat better. You may not have a perfect figure but, undoubtedly, you will be healthier.
The United Nations, led by its Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has launched the 2016 International Year of Legumes under the slogan “nutritious seeds for a sustainable future”. The objective is raising awareness about the protein power and health benefits of all kinds of dried beans and peas, boost their production and trade, and encourage new and smarter uses throughout the food chain.
Clearly we want to eat better. Healthier, more natural, more plant products even more sustainable. We are conscious of what consumption of certain nutrients means for our health, such as dietary fiber that is known to be beneficial for health because affects in the intestinal function, weight control, reduce the risk of certain heart diseases and type II diabetes. And the fashionable proteins (even better if they are from plant origin) play a structural function in our body. We want to consume more vitamins, minerals and bioactive compounds that help to prevent some diseases, to have good health and even delay cellular aging. Moreover, we know the benefits of following the Mediterranean Diet pattern; rich, varied and healthy in which the consumption of our typical food products and ways of cooking are included.
However, even though we have all this knowledge, according to data recently released by the World Health Organization (WHO), consumption of fast food in Spain has increased in recent years and, even worse, this data is expected to increase to 50 % over the next five years.
But… consumers, we’re in luck! We have within our reach tiny packages with all those nutrients that we are asking for. Their name are pulses and are considered gluten-free and functional foods that exert a positive effect on certain metabolic functions such as the cholesterol levels, the glycemic index, reduces lipid accumulation in the body, promote intestinal transit and can prevent the occurrence of certain types of cancer, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease or diabetes. What´s more, they are sold at the supermarket and have a very affordable price.
Undoubtedly, legumes should be an important part of the diet because they are a great source of proteins and carbohydrates. The average protein content of legumes varies between 17 and 40%, considerably higher than the cereals (3-7%) and are considered proteins of high biological value and approximately equal to the protein content in the meat. They are also rich in complex carbohydrates, including significant amounts of dietary fiber (9-27 %) and a low fat content.
Moreover, the legumes are very important from the point of view of maintaining the agricultural ecosystem due not only to the cultivation area occupied worldwide, but also to the ability for fixing atmospheric nitrogen increasing soil fertility and reducing the use of nitrogen fertilizers. Waste footprint (carbon footprint + water footprint) of legume crops is lower than other crops, so it promotes sustainability and contributes to mitigate climate change. And last but not least, legumes are even more important in developing countries for their good shelf life and low cost.
It´s clear that legumes are an essential part of many diets in the world including the Mediterranean. Not in vain, in the new healthy eating pyramid, legume consumption is recommended at least twice a week. The new pyramid considers the importance of consuming traditional, local and friendly products with the environment, such as legumes.
For all this reasons, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has launched the 2016 International Year of Pulses. Nevertheless, despite its importance and the growing of legumes has increased by 20% over the last 10 years (mainly due to animal feed demand) its consumption has declined in favor of other protein sources such as meat. This decline is due to social and cultural reasons; from our new life style (we are cooking less and less), to a perception of legumes as “poor food” or even the rejection of their consumption because they produce flatulence.
Challenges in innovation to boost consumption
It is very clear: food industry must innovate to cover this demand through ready-to-eathigh quality dishesbased on legumes that meet with a good nutritional profile, or, for example, legumes in the form of flour.
Pulse flours are a very good alternative to increase consumption of legumes, especially in children. With an appreciable nutritional value, good dietary fiber source, and gluten-free, these ingredients just need a little imagination, a little technology and a big desire to investigate to get very good products such bread, biscuits, pasta or snacks.
