The robot could serve a wide range of purposes, particularly in the realms of search and rescue and medical devices, the researchers said."The body can be stuck to the environment or jammed between rocks, but that doesnt stop the robot because the tip can continue to progress as new material is added to the end," Hawkes said."The applications were focusing on are those where the robot moves through a difficult environment, where the features are unpredictable and there are unknown spaces," said Laura Blumenschein, a graduate student in the Okamuras lab.The group tested the benefits of this method for getting the robot from one place to another in several ways.Further, it pulled a cable through its body while growing above the dropped ceiling, offering a new method for routing wires in tight spaces.The robot also manoeuvred through the space above a dropped ceiling, which showed how it was able to navigate unknown obstacles as a robot like this might have to do in walls, under roads or inside pipes.The robot is inspired by natural organisms that cover distance by growing such as vines, fungi and nerve cells."The body lengthens as the material extends from the end but the rest of the body doesnt move," said Elliot Hawkes, a visiting assistant professor from the University of California, Santa Barbara."Essentially, were trying to understand the fundamentals of this new approach to getting mobility China plastic Tray container Manufacturers or movement out of a mechanism," said Allison Okamura, professor at the Stanford University in the US.The robot is a tube of soft material folded inside itself, like an inside-out sock, that grows in one direction when the material at the front of the tube everts, as the tube becomes right-side-out.To investigate what their robot can do, the group created prototypes that move through various obstacles, travel toward a designated goal, and grow into a free-standing structure. In other versions, fluid could replace the pressurised air.It successfully completed this course even though it was punctured by the nails because the area that was punctured did not continue to move and, as a result, self-sealed by staying on top of the nail. The robot is inspired by natural organisms that cover distance by growing such as vines, fungi and nerve cells. The design results in movement of the tip without movement of the body. In other demonstrations, the robot lifted a 100-kilogramme crate, grew under a door gap that was 10 per cent of its diameter and spiralled on itself to form a free-standing structure that then sent out a radio signal.In the prototypes, the material was a thin, cheap plastic and the robot body everted when the scientists pumped pressurised air into the stationary end. It grew through an obstacle course, where it travelled over flypaper, sticky glue and nails and up an ice wall to deliver a sensor, which could potentially sense carbon dioxide produced by trapped survivors. Stanford scientists have developed a new soft robot equipped with cameras that can grow like a vine into tiny nooks and crevices to look for people trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building. The robot is a tube of soft material folded inside itself, like an inside-out sock, that grows in one direction when the material at the front of the tube everts, as the tube becomes right-side-out

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It draws on proven best practices in microfinance but adapted to the classical housing finance paradigm. It is a know-your-customer process that goes far beyond mere formalities.The writer is a well-known banker, author and Islamic researcher. The Gaekwad family lives in a single-room house on the outskirts of a city. They are seen by these institutions as both expensive to serve and risky as they have no capacity to make regular monthly payments over a long period of time. The housing units are usually attractive to members of the middle class, who often manoeuvre the eligibility rules and succeed in displacing the intended beneficiaries.A better approach to tackle the issue is to finance the people to build according to their own preferences. Lack of shelter is the locus that continues to breed innumerable problems for those without a roof Fruit clamshells on their head — problems in the areas of health, education, family stability, livelihood and self-esteem. A home is a personal asset that usually appreciates in value over time.A decent habitat and sheltered environment for low-income families can improve their well-being and catalyse overall economic growth. It also makes them vulnerable to so many natural hazards like cyclones, floods and fire and causes annual setbacks to their economic condition and saving ability.Traditional housing finance has not offered products tailored to low-income people, but a range of financial institutions are applying good microfinance practices to housing finance. There are millions of low-income families who live in overcrowded, inadequate and unsafe shacks made of wood and corrugated steel, crammed between dusty paths and open sewers. A new stream of lending has emerged, called housing microfinance. Finally, poor people find the procedures of traditional financial institutions onerous. So we get a plethora of "low-cost" home schemes with ambiguous rules for entitlement.Housing microfinance offers small, incremental loans that fit with the way poor people build: progressively and over time. Further, they do not have the formal proof of land ownership needed by mainstream financial institutions. However, both the poor and low-income households are excluded from the formal sector finance for many reasons. He can be reached at moinqazi123@gmail.Housing microfinance is broadly defined as small loans dedicated to housing activities, including, but not limited to repairing, improving or upgrading housing; investment in infrastructure; the purchase of inhabitable land or permanent structures; and the construction of new housing. The family cooks their food, eats it and sleeps in the same room. And don’t accept limits to how the world works. This has been highly successful wherever governments are offering long-term tenancies and shared-ownership housing in a supportive context. They construct a toilet, bathing place and construct a well. We increasingly have the tools, but we need to summon the will and think out of the box. House prices have been stretching further and further away from normal wages, making it difficult for low income families to get on the housing ladder. But the sector is still in need of a more sustainable business model to grow. We need to introduce policy reforms to stimulate private sector participation through creative partnerships and fruitful linkages for fostering a sound ecosystem for affordable housing. With no clear definition and a lot of fudging, anything is possible. Further, they are not heavily collateralised, if at all, and collateral substitutes are often used. Once the housing needs are suitably met they focus on sanitation and water supply.House prices have been stretching further and further away from normal wages, making it difficult for low income families to get on the housing ladder. Both of these considerations need to work in tandem. This is allowing them to successfully deliver the much-needed services to the poor customers. Moreover, repayment periods are relatively short and are on par with mid to high-end microfinance individual loans.The challenges facing housing microfinance programmes include affordability constraints, specially for rural households; high land prices in the case of urban clients; commercial viability of the microfinance lenders; and need for new products, including savings-for-housing instruments, and for mechanisms limiting disaster and disability/death risk in housing lending. A home can be a place to store inventory, produce goods and run a business.In particular, the poor and low-income people are shunned by traditional banks because they lack the requisite documents to attest their income. Solutions will come from pairing passion with entrepreneurship and digging deep into the challenge at hand. It is thus critical to recognise housing investment as a fundamental building block of economic activity.A decent habitat and sheltered environment for low-income families can improve their well-being and catalyse overall economic growth. There is little more critical to a family’s quality of life than a healthy and safe living space. These include loans for relatively small amounts and based on clients’ capacity to repay, wherein loan pricing is expected to cover the real, long-run costs — operational and financial — of providing the service. Home improvement, thus, not only enhances living conditions but is also an investment.Faced with the enormity of the housing need and financial weakness of those in need, the government builds low-income housing units and distributes them — at very high levels of subsidy.The entire low-income housing ecosystem depends upon two things working together. This method of improving housing one step at a time is called "incremental" or "progressive building". These can be financed as one individual module at a time. Families might reinforce the walls or the roof to prevent seepage of water. Microentrepreneurs often use their homes as productive assets in generating income. The shorter term loans enable different parts of the house to be built over a suitable period of time. There is a need for both the supply of housing — builders who have to build for this segment — and financiers, who help the demand side. Careful blending of government policies, public-private partnerships, smart subsidies, planning and technical assistance for housing microlending would be required to further develop the low-income housing and housing finance markets.The low income households cannot afford resources for constructing a full unit. While formal land titles are not necessary for housing microfinance, land security is essential. Due to the high proportion of subsidy, only a few such units are built.The stresses on account of homelessness are mounting and India must summon the will and act fast. Without comprehensive paper trails to rely on, credit officers have to make their assessments through site visits to homes and workplaces, in-depth interviews and analysis of cash flows and household conditions. A modular loan with shorter pay-back period is a better fit for their income pattern than a long-term mortgage.The demand for housing microfinance is high. They might replace a dirt floor with a tiled surface.com end-of Tags: homeless, microhousing.Endowing slum-dwellers with mortgageable titles can open the gates to numerous opportunities for improving health, education, employment and providing entitlements to social programmes. To manage this situation, the poor build their homes bit by bit over time as funding becomes available. We need a mass programme of social house building if we have to relieve the congestion of the homeless. This room is also used as a play area by their three-year-old child. This is a daunting task. Lack of credit has prevented the Gaekwads from obtaining a loan to improve their living conditions. Clients already channel a good portion of microenterprise loans to home improvement. Loans finance habitat needs in an incremental manner with short repayment periods and relatively low monthly payments

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The lead author of the study said that the reason for this phenomenon was not clear yet but it could be due to the digestion of the plastic by the worms. This was in comparison to a control sample, in which the worms kept in clean soil saw an increase of their body weight by five per cent, reported The Guardian. They found that the worms residing in this soil lost three per cent of their body weight.Research has now revealed that these worms are failing to thrive in soil that has been contaminated by microplastics. The presence of microplastics in the soil could cause long term damage to the worms and the soil quality. (Photo: Representational/Pixabay) Aporrectodea rosea, Plastic favor boxes Suppliers commonly known as the rosy-tipped earthworms are found abundantly in soil. As they move through it, they enable more oxygen flow to the soil, which in turn helps in plant and crop growth.This research was conducted as a part of the growing number of studies being conducted on the effect of microplastics on varied aspects of the environment. Scientists studied soil that had high density of polyethylene, a commonly used plastic in bags and bottles for 30 days. While it is too soon to draw conclusions of its subsequent effect on human health, it can be well perceived that it will eventually make its way through our ecosystem.The presence of microplastics in the soil could cause long term damage to the worms and the soil quality. However, the extent of the microplastic pollution is not known yet, but reports suggest that it can be anything between 700 and 4,000 plastic particles per kilogram of soil in agricultural lands. A study shows that the presence of microplastics in soil is not allowing worms to thrive, thus reducing soil quality. If the plastic inhibits growth of the earthworms on a large scale, it could have large-scale implications on farming and the farmland soil ecosystem. "These effects include the obstruction and irritation of the digestive tract, limiting the absorption of nutrients and reducing growth," he said.With the increasing usage of plastics, these harmful microplastics can now be found in tap water, seas and oceans, human stools, in the air, and other parts of the environment. They are great for increasing the fertility of the soil

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