News from the BIPM laboratories—2021

In order to fulfil its mission to ensure and promote the global comparability of measurements, the BIPM operates laboratories in the fields of physical metrology, time, ionizing radiation and chemistry. These laboratories act as centres for scientific and technical collaboration between Member States providing capabilities for international measurement comparisons on a shared cost basis. They coordinate international comparisons of national measurement standards agreed to be of the highest priority, and they establish and maintain appropriate reference standards for use as the basis of key international comparisons at the highest level and provide selected calibrations from them.

Security enabled UAVs for Tech-Agriculture monitoring rice crops using FIBOR architecture

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles usage has significantly improved in all the sectors. Various industries are using drones as a platform for development with eco- nomic investment. Drastic advancement in design, flexibility, equipment and technical improvements has a great impact in creating airborne domain of IoT. Hence, drones have become a part of farming industry. Indian agriculture economy concentrates more on producing rice as this is considered as a staple food in various states. For increasing the production of rice sensors are equipped in the fields to track the water supply and humidity components. Whereas, identifying weeds, early stages of disease detection, recognizing failed crops, spraying fertilizers and continuous monitoring from bleats, locust and other dangerous insects are some of the technical collaboration with UAVs with respect farming sector. However, use of UAVs in real time environment involves many security and privacy challenges. In order to preserve UAVs from external vulnerabilities and hacking the collaborative environment requires a tough security model. In this proposed article a framework is implemented applying FIBOR security model on UAVs to suppress the threats from data hackers and protect the data in cloud from attackers. This proposed model enabled with drone technology provides a secured framework and also improves the crop yield by 15% by adapting a controlled network environment.

Science, technology, security: Towards critical collaboration

Science and technology play a central role in the contemporary governance of security, both as tools for the production of security and as objects of security concern. Scholars are increasingly seeking to not only critically reflect on the interplays between science, technology and security, but also engage with the practices of security communities that shape and are shaped by science and technology. To further help this growth of interest in security topics within science and technology studies (STS), we explore possible modes of socio-technical collaboration with security communities of practice. Bringing together literatures from STS and critical security studies, we identify several key challenges to critical social engagement of STS scholars in security-related issues. We then demonstrate how these challenges played out over the course of three case studies from our own experience in engaging security communities of practice. We use these vignettes to show that there is a rich vein of developments in both theory and practice that STS scholars can pursue by attending to the interplay of science, technology and security.

The Geopolitics of Plant Pathology: Frederick Wellman, Coffee Leaf Rust, and Cold War Networks of Science

During the Cold War, coffee became a strategically important crop in the global contest between the United States and the Soviet Union. The economies of many US allies in Latin America depended upon coffee. In the Cold War context, then, the coffee leaf rust ( Hemileia vastatrix) became a geopolitical problem. Coffee experts in Latin America, which produced most of the world's coffee, began to prepare for an outbreak. In the 1950s, they built a global network of coffee experts. This network was sustained by US-led Cold War programs that promoted technical collaboration across the Global South, such as Harry Truman's Point Four programs. We explore the network's growth and evolution through one of its central figures, the American plant pathologist Frederick L. Wellman. This network has survived the end of the Cold War and evolved to reflect the new geopolitical context.

Public Services and the Missed Values of (Non)Communication

Citizens' interactions are at the center of open governments. When the latter use open structures and open processes to foster (technical) collaboration, citizens' wellbeing can be improved by observing what citizens (do not) publicly write about or search for. This chapter tries to compare the wellbeing and quality of life (the older terms are public value or solidarity) with public goods inside and outside of public services. This relationship can be achieved when people debate and governments listen to diverse alternatives. To test this relationship, the Google Trends application was used. Trends show that satisfied people do not write about effective, efficient, legal, and ethical things, so a temporary conclusion needed for further investigation is that the government's success in a certain field is present when people do not talk (on a large scale) about matters or topics in that field. Governments should, therefore, listen to or read what people (do not) say or write.

Construcciones ambientales para el hábitat moderno: Le Corbusier y André Missenard (1937-57)

Resumen: Desde final de los años 30, la formulación de una nueva sensibilidad cultural, tecnológica y política hacia el clima, entendido en un sentido amplio, replanteó la relación entre el cuerpo humano y su entorno. El presente artículo confronta la obra de Le Corbusier ante dicha hipótesis de evolución del paradigma higienista previo. A partir de una investigación original en los archivos de la Fondation Le Corbusier, el objeto principal es el estudio de los intercambios teóricos y los aportes técnicos entre el arquitecto y André Missenard. El ingeniero, referente en el entorno científico, industrial y político de la época, resulta una pieza clave para entender la relevancia de la dimensión ambiental del hábitat propugnado por Le Corbusier durante los años 50. En particular, este trabajo aborda tanto los métodos de ideación (Grille Climatique) como su materialización espacial, técnica y sensorial (Unités d’habitation y Maison du Brésil). Las conclusiones del artículo muestran la evolución de los postulados habitacionales de Le Corbusier, que partiendo de la “Ville Radieuse”, acabó por integrar las ideas de la “Science des climats artificiels” en el proyecto arquitectónico, buscando “Rétablir les conditions nature” en el hábitat moderno. Abstract: Since the late-1930s, the emergence of a renewed cultural, technological and political approach towards the notion of climate reformulated the relationship between bodies and their milieux. This article analyses the works of Le Corbusier through the lens of this hypothesis of the hygienist paradigm’s evolution. Based on an original research at the archives of the Fondation Le Corbusier, this paper focuses on the theoretical discussions and the technical collaboration of the architect with André Missenard. This engineer, a key figure in the scientific, industrial and political environment of his time, played a main role to understand the relevance of the ambient dimension in Le Corbusier’s housing proposals in the 1950s. In particular, this paper deals with the design methods (Grille Climatique), as well as their spatial, technical and sensory materialization (Unités d'habitation and Maison du Brésil). The conclusions of the article show the evolution of Le Corbusier’s postulates, which beginning from his early proposal for the “Ville Radieuse”, managed to integrate the contributions of the “Science des climats artificiels” in architectural design looking for “Rétablir les conditions nature” in modern housing. Palabras clave: André Missenard; climas artificiales; control ambiental; Le Corbusier. Keywords: André Missenard; artificial climates; thermal ambiances; Le Corbusier. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015.659