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Public policy requires public support, which in turn implies a need to enable the public not just to understand policy but also to be engaged in its development. Where complex science and technology issues are involved in policy making, this takes time, so it is important to identify emerging issues of this type and prepare engagement plans. In our horizon scanning exercise, we used a modified Delphi technique. A wide group of people with interests in the science and policy interface (drawn from policy makers, policy adviser, practitioners, the private sector and academics) elicited a long list of emergent policy issues in which science and technology would feature strongly and which would also necessitate public engagement as policies are developed. This was then refined to a short list of top priorities for policy makers. Thirty issues were identified within broad areas of business and technology; energy and environment; government, politics and education; health, healthcare, population and aging; information, communication, infrastructure and transport; and public safety and national security.

Installations of an Energy Storage System (ESS) with various functions such as power stabilization of renewable energy, demand management, and frequency adjustment are increasing. In particular, ESS for demand management is being established for high-voltage customers (300 KVA–1000 KVA) who have placed an Auto Section Switch (ASS) at the connection point within the distribution system. However, a power outage may occur in the Power Receiving System (PRS) when a short-circuit fault due to insulation breakdown occurs at the ESS DC side. The reason for this breakdown is that the fault current is reduced by transformer impedance, and the ASS is opened before the DC power fuse. Therefore, using the Graphic Solution Method (GSM), this paper presents an operation algorithm for protection coordination that isolates the fault section by first operating the DC power fuse with a small fault current. Furthermore, fault analysis modeling for a PRS composed of a switchgear section, a main distribution panel, a Power Conditioning System (PCS), a power fuse, and a battery is performed through PSCAD/EMTDC. From the simulation results, it is confirmed that the fault section is quickly isolated, and power outages for high-voltage customers are prevented because the DC power fuse selected by the proposed operation algorithm of protection coordination is opened before the ASS.

The ‘4 per mille Soils for Food Security and Climate’ was launched at the COP21 with an aspiration to increase global soil organic matter stocks by 4 per 1000 (or 0.4 %) per year as a compensation for the global emissions of greenhouse gases by anthropogenic sources. This paper surveyed the soil organic carbon (SOC) stock estimates and sequestration potentials from 20 regions in the world (New Zealand, Chile, South Africa, Australia, Tanzania, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, India, China Taiwan, South Korea, China Mainland, United States of America, France, Canada, Belgium, England & Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Russia). We asked whether the 4 per mille initiative is feasible for the region. The outcomes highlight region specific efforts and scopes for soil carbon sequestration. Reported soil C sequestration rates globally show that under best management practices, 4 per mille or even higher sequestration rates can be accomplished. High C sequestration rates (up to 10 per mille) can be achieved for soils with low initial SOC stock (topsoil less than 30 t C ha− 1), and at the first twenty years after implementation of best management practices. In addition, areas which have reached equilibrium will not be able to further increase their sequestration. We found that most studies on SOC sequestration only consider topsoil (up to 0.3 m depth), as it is considered to be most affected by management techniques. The 4 per mille number was based on a blanket calculation of the whole global soil profile C stock, however the potential to increase SOC is mostly on managed agricultural lands. If we consider 4 per mille in the top 1m of global agricultural soils, SOC sequestration is between 2-3 Gt C year− 1, which effectively offset 20–35% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. As a strategy for climate change mitigation, soil carbon sequestration buys time over the next ten to twenty years while other effective sequestration and low carbon technologies become viable. The challenge for cropping farmers is to find disruptive technologies that will further improve soil condition and deliver increased soil carbon. Progress in 4 per mille requires collaboration and communication between scientists, farmers, policy makers, and marketeers.

One of main concepts involved in regional small nuclear reactors is unmanned remote control. Internet-based virtual private networks provide environments for the remote monitoring and control of geographically-dispersed systems, and with the advances in communication technologies, the potential of networks for real time control and automation becomes enormous. However, networked control has some problems. The most critical is delay in signal transmission, which degrades system stability and performance. Therefore, a networked control system should be designed to account for delay. This paper proposes some design approaches for a delay-tolerant system that can guarantee predetermined stability margins and performance. To accomplish this, the reactor plant is modeled with consideration of uncertainties. With this model, three kinds of controllers are developed using different methods. The designed systems are compared with respect to stability and performance, and a second-order controller designed using the table lookup method was found to give the most satisfactory results.

Several methods were known to observe the cloud height. Since the meteorological administration mainly has been using human eye method, an automatic cloud height observer is proposed to reduce human errors.The proposed cloud observer system is for the cloud automatic observation system which has been operating at weathers stations in Korea since 1993. The high hand camera is adapted to get high resolution images without a capture board that has the low resolution. And the man-made passive filter for extracting sky reign is replaced by the active filter using image processing. The famous BRISK matching is selected instead of the block mating to get more precise disparity form a pair of stereo image.The Cloud cover announced by the Korean Meteorological Agency is the eye observation result nowadays, even though an intelligent cloud observation system was supplied. The reason is the impermissible error in the observed data of the automatic observation system. The current system is applied a man-made passive filter has to be changed periodically due to the boundary transition, but the proposed system is maintenance-free, since the active filter using edge detection algorithm automatically adjusts itself. The measuring of disparity which is important to analyze spatial information, has improved up to the resolution of observing height is 100m by getting image data directly form the high resolution camera, the old resolution from the capture board. Also, the disparity analyzing method is changed to the BRISK matching algorithm instead of the block mating algorism to get more deliberate disparity analysis since the dimension of the block is too big relatively compare to the cloud in the stereo all sky image. The test results are acceptable range which is human observation value ± 10% since the resolution of observing height is 100m at lower cloud in the sky. The proposed system is conducting the comparison research to compare with the result of reading satellite images and ceilometer. 

Torrefaction is a thermal treatment process to pre-treat biomass at temperature of under an inert atmosphere. It was known that torrefaction process strongly depended on the decomposition temperature of the lignocellulosic constituents in biomass. In this work, the torrefaction characteristics of baggase has been studied. This study focuses on the relation between the energy yields, heating values, gas emission, volatile and ash constituents with torrefaction temperatures and times. The activation energies of baggase torrefaction has been studied by using TGA (Thermogravimetric Analyzer). From this work, it was seen that ash constituents and heating values were increased with torrefaction temperature, while volatile constituents and energy yields decreased. It was also found that carbon monoxide containing oxygen were decomposed at a lower temperature than those of hydrocarbon compounds, .