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Building a better concrete

Of the major carbon producers, aviation often gets the most attention. But underneath the soaring aircraft are the buildings, driveways, bridges, dams and sometimes roads that are made from an even bigger offender: concrete.

The building material accounts for at least 8 percent of the world’s total CO2 emissions. The aviation industry produces about 2.5 percent, although estimates vary.

Most of the concrete emissions are produced when limestone (calcium carbonate) is heated with clay to about 1,400 degrees C in a kiln to make cement, a key ingredient. The heating process fuses the calcium carbonates into calcium silicates, or as they’re known in the industry, clinker.

IMAGE: Unsplash
Storing carbon in concrete

A better way to sequester carbon may be as close as your sidewalk. Read more›››

Two companies, Heirloom Carbon Technologies and CarbonCure, in early 2023 tested a process to inject recovered CO2 into freshly poured concrete. It was a small test, using only about 37 kilograms of carbon, but the process shows promise that, if scaled up, it could help the concrete industry reduce its footprint, they say.

“In the broader carbon-removal ecosystem, this is meaningful,” Anu Khan, of the environmental group Carbon180, tells the Washington Post. Finding a way to permanently store carbon is a major bottleneck, she says.‹‹‹ Read less

IMAGE: Unsplash
Timber might be the new concrete

In the race for more sustainable building materials, wood is making a comeback. Read more›››

Of course, it isn’t old-style timber. Mass timber – engineered wood products created from layers of wood bound together – is being increasingly seen as a more environmentally friendly alternative to steel and concrete.

Proponents of the technology point to its aesthetics, structural strength and ease of construction. There’s also a lighter carbon footprint.

“The amount of energy to produce mass timber is a fraction of what it would be to produce the same materials in steel or concrete,” Antony Wood, director of Tall Buildings and Vertical Urbanism at the Illinois Institute of Technology and president of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, tells BBC.com.

And there’s another benefit. “While it’s producing itself, it’s sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere.”‹‹‹ Read less

Clinker is the binding agent that gives concrete its structural properties. But the process also produces CO2. And a lot of it. About 650 to 900 kilograms of carbon dioxide are produced and released into the atmosphere for every ton of cement in this process.

According to the International Energy Agency, cement production increased about 1.5 percent a year from 2015 to 2021, with demand expected to only increase worldwide. But for net-zero goals to stay on track, the agency says, the industry needs to see 3 percent annual declines by 2030.

An Innovative Material

Strategies for reducing those emissions include improving energy efficiency; using lower-carbon fuels; making the process more efficient so less scrap is produced; and switching to construction techniques such as pre-cast modules that reduce concrete use.

Another strategy: using innovative materials to make a better concrete.

One innovative material that is showing promise in the concrete industry is graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms that form a hexagonal lattice. Graphene is light, flexible, tough and has high resistance. It’s 200 times stronger than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.

And it passes many of those properties along when added to concrete, also reducing the amount of CO2-producing clinker needed without diminishing performance.

A team from the UK’s Exeter University in a 2018 paper found that such nanoengineered concrete showed “an unprecedented range of enhanced properties when compared to standard concrete. These include an increase of up to 146 percent in the compressive and 79.5 percent in the flexural strength.”

The researchers also reported a decrease in water permeability by 400 percent, suggesting that the composite material might be ideal for structures in areas subject to flooding.

And there was more.

“Including graphene we can reduce the amount of materials required to make concrete by around 50 percent – leading to a significant reduction of 446kg/ton of the carbon emissions,” co-author Monica Craciun said in 2018.

More recently, a team of researchers from French and Polish universities in 2021 concluded that integrating graphene-family materials into concrete could impart functions that might enable smart and multifunctional buildings. Used as a sensing material, graphene might help buildings monitor themselves for damage.

Overcoming obstacles

Although the Exeter team was bullish about the potential for graphene additives, it also encountered issues that made wide-scale implementation difficult. It found dispersing the material into the dry cement matrix expensive, complex and difficult to scale up.

First Graphene, a company that originated with support from the University of Adelaide in Australia, however, has been working to solve the issues identified by the 2018 research.

“We are advancing commercial-scale trials into strengthening cement/concrete and reducing the CO2 emissions,” Michael Bell, First Graphene’s managing director and CEO, tells KUST Review.

These trials are expected to show how much clinker reduction can be expected. That, combined with increased strength that might lead to thinner cement slabs and panels, will give better information about how much CO2  reduction the material can provide.

First Graphene also collaborated with Australia’s Wollongong University and an Australian municipal water authority to investigate how using graphene-enhanced materials might prolong the life of wastewater pipes. They published their results in 2022.

“This was positive in showing graphene’s strength-increasing capability and also improved resistance to sulphate and chloride erosion,” Bell says.

Challenges in the Middle East

Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, UAE, is also looking at ways to improve concrete performance with graphene, and the material shows promise under the GCC region’s severe conditions of humidity, temperature and salinity, says Hassan Arafat, the senior director of the university’s Research & Innovations Center for Graphene and 2D Materials.

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The Romans did it better

While modern concrete can crumble in 50 years or less, Roman concrete construction has stood for thousands of years in a variety of climates and seismic zones. Read more›››

Some examples still hold up in direct contact with corrosive seawater.

A team of researchers wanted to know why. The team, with members from the United States, Italy and Switzerland, took samples from Italian archaeological site Privernum. They found that white chunks called lime clasts, previously dismissed as evidence of sloppy mixing or poor construction materials, may give the material the ability to heal cracks.

The findings suggest that using quicklime – rather than or in addition to the slake lime commonly used today – combined with a high-temperature process called “hot mixing” creates the lime clasts and a more durable material.

To test their theories, the researchers made two samples of concrete: one with the Roman-style formula, the other from a modern recipe. Each sample was deliberately cracked. Two weeks later, water passed through the modern concrete but was stopped by the Roman variety.

The researchers theorize that the lime clasts dissolve into cracks when exposed to water, then recrystallize, preserving structures over time.

They also suggest that adapting the formula for modern construction could lead to more durable, resilient and sustainable builds that could help shrink the carbon footprint of concrete around the world.”‹‹‹ Read less

“Graphene is known to be highly hydrophobic, which means it repels water and is not easily affected by high-humidity environments,” Arafat tells KUST Review. “This property makes graphene a promising material for improving the durability of concrete in high-humidity environments. In fact, research has shown that graphene-enhanced concrete has increased resistance to water absorption, which can reduce the potential for corrosion of steel reinforcement in the concrete.”

Temperature is also a factor, as concrete poured on hot days can shrink and crack. Arafat cites studies in Construction and Building Materials (2019) and Composites Part B: Engineering (2020) that suggest graphene can improve concrete’s performance at high temperatures.

“Overall, the potential benefits of using graphene in concrete are vast and could have a significant impact on many different industries,” Arafat says. “As research in this field continues to develop, it will be interesting to see which industries will be the first to adopt this technology and benefit from its unique properties.”

Among the industries he sees potential for:

Aerospace: Graphene-enhanced concrete could be used to construct lightweight and durable structures for spacecraft, satellites and other aerospace applications.”

Energy: “This could lead to the development of more efficient and durable infrastructure that is better able to withstand harsh environmental conditions.”

Infrastructure: The use of graphene in concrete could improve the durability and lifespan of roads, bridges and tunnels, he says.

More research is needed, Arafat stresses. “There are still challenges that need to be addressed in using graphene as a concrete additive, such as the cost of production, the potential toxicity of graphene, and the need to optimize the amount of graphene used in the mix to achieve the desired performance. These aspects are dependent on the region and its local conditions and applied concrete mixes.

“Our research center is working to explore the full potential of these materials and develop new applications that could have a significant impact on our Emirati society and beyond,” he says.

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Launching medical research

A generation of drugs called monoclonal antibodies, also known as MABs, is altering the landscape of disease treatment by selectively targeting disease-causing agents and kick-starting immune cells. But sending fundamental, engineered proteins into space for further research may reveal ways to make drugs more targeted, concentrated and easier to administer.

MABs make up about one-third of protein-based therapeutics and are most often used to treat cancer and inflammation. They are widely regarded for their ability to target the specific protein of a pathogen and stop it from invading more cells. This means the therapy is tailored to the patient’s disease. The problem, however, is that patients need to get these drugs in large quantities over extended periods of time.

Proteins are too small to study under a microscope, so growing them into crystals lets researchers get a better understanding of their 3D constitution. Their makeup reveals how each protein works and how it contributes to disease growth. Once we understand this, drugs can be developed that mesh with the protein and fight the disease scenarios.

As well as being an important category of therapeutics, proteins are themselves drug targets. Drug design companies need high-resolution protein structures to design suitable drugs.

This is where microgravity comes in.

Earth’s gravity can inhibit the growth and quality of crystals by affecting how the molecules position themselves on the exterior of the crystal. This makes space an ideal environment for this type of research.

AN INVOLVED PROCESS

Dr. David Sheehan, professor of biochemistry in Khalifa University’s department of Chemistry, has been working on a method of crystalizing proteins for 12 years. Now, his proteins are waiting in Japan for a possible February 2024 ride to the International Space Station.

While turning proteins into crystals might seem like a cool magic trick, the process is quite involved. And many of the victories in successful crystallization can be attributed to time, patience and a lot of luck.

CAPTION: David Sheehan, professor of biochemistry-chemistry department, Khalifa University

Sheehan says initially, the protein is purified or separated from anything that might inhibit crystallization, like fatty materials from cells. The pH level is maintained for an optimum growth environment, and salt might be added to increase the ionic strength — or concentration — of the solution.

Other precipitants like polyethylene glycol or organic solvents, which decrease the protein solubility, are added. Then, the conditions are manipulated in a variety of ways, such as adjusting the temperature or exposure to gravity.

The chemical additives and pH combined make up a condition. Most proteins only give crystals in a small number of conditions, so it is necessary to screen thousands of conditions to find the small number that will yield usable crystals.

– Dr. David Sheehan, professor of biochemistry-Chemistry department, Khalifa University

And then it’s a waiting game — crystals might form in a week, a year or not at all.

Sheehan says researchers spend most of their time watching and hoping for a crystal, but most won’t see it: “When and if a crystal appears, then you’ve got a project.”

In his case, the crystals responded well to the addition of nanoparticles. While most of these types of experiments might typically result in one or two crystals from thousands, Sheehan’s team grew 15 crystals out of a panel of 16 proteins studied.

“We found one formulation that worked better than the others. So, then we used that nanoparticle with about 200 conditions,” he tells KUST Review.

This is unheard of, he says. And he knew they were on to something significant.

CAPTION: Crystals of protein Furin grown on Earth IMAGE: Khalifa University

When the UAE space program was asked to send protein samples to Japan for testing and a possible spot on the 2024 mission to the International Space Station, Sheehan believed his team had a good shot at it. The crystals are in Japan for final testing.

JOURNEY TO SPACE

The project has a long history.

Sheehan grew his first nanoparticle-doped protein crystal over a decade ago, the result of an idea that had been brewing, a fridge full of available proteins, a student looking for a project and a friend with access to a synchrotron, a machine that uses electricity to create intense X-ray beams to study matter’s chemical and structural properties.

The student experimented with two nanoparticles, different from the ones they used on the recent project: “The crystals grew very quickly and in the presence of a nanoparticle, they were larger, they grew faster, and they really grew. And that worked with both nanoparticles,” he says.

The stars (or crystals rather) aligned, and Sheehan and his student were soon transporting proteins to Dublin to a crystallographer friend who agreed to take them to the Paris synchrotron.

A synchrotron is about the size of a football stadium and is an ideal way to determine the three-dimensional atomic structure of a protein. It involves the crystallization of the protein and an in-depth analysis using a method called X-ray diffraction, Sheehan says.

Here, an X-ray beam is sent through the crystal. This interacts with the atoms in the crystal’s network, which scatter, creating a pattern. The pattern is recorded, and multiple images are created by rotating the protein, collecting further patterns and creating a map. The data is analyzed and a 3D structure is created.

FOCUS ON PROTEINS

But why are we so focused on proteins? Why not other molecules?

Proteins are the worker bees of a cell. They play an essential role in most biological systems and are responsible for most cellular functions. They are responsible for the shape, the interior design, production, cleanup, general upkeep and communication of cells. This makes them of great interest for targeted drug development, Sheehan says.

There are more than 130 protein-based therapeutics on the market, and the next step is to make them even better.

Current drugs for diseases like cancer, for example, require patients to take them for lengthy periods. Patients might sit in a clinic, hooked up to an IV for hours at a time, to ensure they get the right concentration of treatment. These treatments can go on for months or years. Imagine if they could receive a simple injection in a doctor’s office. This is something pharmaceutical giant Merck is working on.

And this type of drug development is dependent on research like that of Sheehan and his team.

CAPTION: Structure of Furin obtained by Cryo-EM of crystals IMAGE: Khalifa University

For example furin, the protein in Japan at present, is a potential antiviral drug target for treating COVID-19.

Aside from the contributions to science, fighting disease and improving patient care, it could also mean a commercial venture.

“This could be very big,” Sheehan says. “I can see two options for commercialization, one of which is to market this as a crystallization screen and the other a start-up offering this as a service.”

With the team’s current success rate of more than 90 percent, it’s promising.

Sheehan and his researcher Salma Sultana Syed have now patented their screen in the USA and UAE with a patent in Europe pending. They are exploring creating a start-up to be called ProScreenix.

According to Allied Market Research, the protein therapeutics global market value is expected to reach U.S.$566.6 billion by 2030, up from U.S.$283.64 billion in 2020.

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Digitizing history

Bedouins are experiencing major shifts, transforming from a nomadic people into a population comfortable with modern technology and city living. With this shift, however, comes the danger of forgetting the old ways entirely.

If the people are no longer practicing, the heritage needs preserving in other ways.

The UAE National Archives and Library has been collecting records about life in the region since 1968. Today, more than 5 million historical documents are stored at the National Archives, including 800 audio-visual recordings of Emirati storytellers and elders, preserving dialects, songs and folktales, as well as photographs, manuscripts and written histories.

CAPTION: This Bedouin woman was photographed circa 1900-1920 in El Raha Plain, Egypt.  CREDIT: U.S. Library of Congress

Now, the challenge is to digitize everything for greater longevity. Digitization offers more than the safe storage of cultural content, however; it also offers wider availability. An ICT storage system needs to be more than a repository. It requires integrated search functions with well-organized metadata-tagging systems, interoperability with other IT systems to future-proof a collection, and easy access for archivists and curious laypeople alike.

Digitization is essential in modern management of heritage collections. The process can be as simple as photographing or scanning an extant document to be stored as a digital image, but it’s the IT architecture that’s the complicated part.

Additionally, meticulous planning is required for developing the metadata that will drive this architecture. If assets aren’t tagged appropriately, the smartest search function in the world will struggle to return them.

CHECKING FOR BIAS IN AI

Artificial intelligence can serve as a powerful tool in identifying and tagging digital-heritage assets, but it’s important to consider how bias in AI systems can affect the data collected. Careful cultivation of “cultural intelligence” is vital to developing an AI to avoid bias in identifying images of certain demographic characteristics and ensure appropriate and sensible tags and captions are generated.

Athol Yates, professor of humanities and social sciences at Khalifa University, uses examples from World War 2 archiving to explain:

“During WWII, there were U.S. aircraft and a facility located in Sharjah, UAE, but this isn’t a well-known fact. Confirmation bias was at play in the archive where I found a photo of an aircraft in Sharjah labeled as an aircraft in Egypt. Fortunately, this was found in the Australian War Memorial archive, which had a system to inform the archivist of the issue. There will be other examples of photos with an Arabic setting tagged as other areas of the Middle East, rather than Sharjah where it may actually have been.”

 U.S. servicemen work on an aircraft in Sharjah during World War II. The image was previously falsely identified as being taken in Egypt. CREDIT: U.S. Library of Congress

Not to mention, all of this tagging and archiving needs to be scalable. Digital library systems need to be able to expand to accommodate additional assets. Beyond the sheer volume of items, the system should also be able to handle different types of content, the number of users accessing the system at a given time, and the different ways the content could be accessed. The more complex they become, however, the more difficult to maintain, extend and reuse. The system needs to be flexible, not unwieldy.

When asked how difficult it is to build an IT system that stores, archives and makes easily accessible and searchable hundreds of thousands of photos, Dr. Ibrahim Elfadel answers with just three words: “Use the cloud.”

Now a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, Elfadel was a senior scientist at IBM before switching to academia. “The research on storing, archiving, indexing and searching digital media is quite old, but with the emergence of web services, early research work has become mainstream,” he says.

The research on storing, archiving, indexing and searching digital media is quite old, but with the emergence of web services, early research work has become mainstream.

– Ibrahim Elfadel

“For instance, when we place our smartphone photos on the cloud, they get stored, indexed and retrieved according to methods based on that early research. AI is now playing a larger role in retrieving digital media based on complex user queries.”

REGION’S LIBRARIES STEP UP

Libraries across the region are rising to the challenge of digitizing their history.

In 2021, Qatar Digital Library had a 2-million-page repository of culture, heritage and history. Each page highlights a historical report, letter, map, photograph or sound recording, with an explanation in both English and Arabic.

Art Jameel is a project preserving heritage and supporting creative enterprises rooted in local heritage in AlUla, Saudi Arabia. It trains photographers in advanced photogrammetry, a technique used to document objects in 3D, and is leading efforts to record and preserve the rich archaeological heritage of the region, especially the rock art.

Art Jameel has also operated abroad, using digital-documentation techniques to record evidence of Yazidi cultural heritage in Iraq. Working in the Sinjar region, the Art Jameel team used aerial photography and photogrammetry to construct 3D models of sites destroyed by conflict.

In Oman, an online training program seeks to turn young Omanis into keen digital-heritage curators, providing students and recent graduates from all disciplines with the digital skills and tools needed to conserve their history.

The Caaba and Sanctuary at Mecca was photographed from an elevated position due east of the Masjid al-Haram, or Grand Mosque, circa 1886-1889. CREDIT: Qatar Digital Library

The National Library of Israel received a donation of more than 50 years of documentation of the Bedouin community living in the Sinai Peninsula. The donation is the work of Dr. Clinton Bailey, author and researcher of Middle Eastern and Islamic history, who spent his life recording and collecting materials from the last Bedouin generation to grow up in the pre-modern period to capture an orally transmitted ancient heritage. He conducted research throughout the deserts of Sinai and the Negev, speaking with the Bedouin people to collect their knowledge, memories and history.

COLLABORATION WITH UAE

The archivists involved in curating the Clinton Bailey Archive of Bedouin Culture are now working with archivists in the UAE to transcribe more than 350 hours of interviews in the various Arabic dialects spoken by the Bedouin people.

Dr. Samuel Thrope, curator of the Islam and Middle East collection at the National Library of Israel, explained that while the storage and cataloguing of these recordings were the technical challenges, they were simple compared with the careful transcription of the content: “We have all the recordings digitized and cataloged. They’re fully searchable with rich descriptions of the topics discussed and full names and tribal affiliations of the interviewees.

“The next stage is transcribing them. Robust cataloging — that’s not new. That wasn’t the challenge. The challenge was how to make the transcriptions available and searchable — and accurate. All these dialects, they’re difficult to transcribe and translate. Working with the professionals at the National Library and Archives in the UAE has been so helpful in solving this. We can learn from their experiences, from the work they’ve done in archiving rare and precious recordings of the Arabic language.”

As for the other side of archiving — the accessibility and democratization of knowledge, as Thrope puts it — the library is forward-thinking:

“All the vast collections we have are open and accessible to everyone everywhere around the world. Maybe we don’t know why people want to access the information and it’s OK that we don’t know. We’re collecting not just for the present, but for the future. We know we have to preserve, protect, record.”

We have all the recordings digitized and cataloged. They’re fully searchable with rich descriptions of the topics discussed and full names and tribal affiliations of the interviewees.

– Samuel Thrope

GIVING OLD PHOTOS NEW PUNCH

Artificial intelligence has revolutionized the way old images are not only tagged and archived but restored and cleaned. By using sophisticated algorithms, AI can analyze and improve the quality of old photographs, even those that have suffered from decades of wear and tear.

Machine learning techniques can be used by training models on large datasets of high-quality images to learn patterns and features that can be used to restore and enhance older images. By analyzing and identifying the differences between the old and the new, AI models can determine the best way to restore an old image.

Neural networks are one such technique. These networks are designed to mimic the structure and function of the human brain, allowing them to learn and adapt to different types of images. They can learn to identify patterns and features that are specific to high-quality images, such as sharpness and light balancing, and then apply these features to old and degraded images.

In this way, AI can enhance and clean the images by removing noise and other imperfections. Human photo editors can use these techniques and their own expertise to improve the overall quality and clarity of older images, bringing them into the future in ways that were previously impossible, preserving them for anyone interested in the past.

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Modern heritage

Traditional ways often suffer after the introduction of technology. But Bedouins and other nomadic peoples are adapting modern tech to preserve the customs of their ancestors from herding and hunting to sailing and sports.

Here are four ways tech is making an impact.

CELLPHONES AND MODERN COMMS

“Before I went to do research among the Egyptian Bedouin tribes, I had envisioned Bedouins as desert roamers living in tents and herding animals,” Lila Abu-Lughod says about her time with Bedouin groups along the northern edge of the Egyptian Western Desert in 1984. “Instead, I found that these same people who touted the joys of the desert lived in houses, wore wristwatches and plastic shoes, listened to radios and cassette players, and traveled in Toyota pickup trucks.”

The falling costs of solar panels help keep cellphones a cheap means of staying in touch for nomadic peoples. IMAGE: Alamy

Abu-Lughod is a professor of social science at Columbia University these days, but in 1984, she was working on her Ph.D. at Harvard University. She was living with the Awlad ‘Ali tribe, documenting her experiences living with Bedouin women and researching their poetry and storytelling. The most visible changes in their mode of life, she says, do not signal the disintegration of their culture or society.

Thirty-nine years later, Fatma Al-Kalin visited Marsa Matrouh, Egypt, and came to a similar conclusion. The researcher from Girls’ College Ain Shams University in Egypt noted most of the Bedouin she met had a cellphone and a social media account. More than three-quarters of the population surveyed owned a cellphone and spent “a lot” of time using the internet. Compared with the mostly male ownership of the Toyotas seen by Abu-Lughod, cellphones were equally distributed among men and women.

The proliferation of cheap communications technology has rapidly modernized the way of life for many Bedouin people, as have the cheap means to keep phones charged without a fixed power station — thanks to the falling cost of solar panels.

Beyond “the internet,” there are unique benefits to reap from the cellular revolution. Sharing information through informal social networks on the price of produce, weather patterns and grazing conditions helps families to maximize their production and profits while minimizing their risk, says Mark Hay, a freelance writer focusing on the culture and society of nomadic peoples.

“During a major drought in 2010, the Kenyan government itself took to using these networks to help nomadic Maasai tribes avoid disaster,” Hay explains. “Another Kenyan project gives mobile-phone holders access to hundreds of pro bono lawyers who can help nomads defend their land rights, using tools of a legal system that were once utterly inaccessible to most of them.

Another Kenyan project gives mobile-phone holders access to hundreds of pro bono lawyers who can help nomads defend their land rights.

– Mark Hay

“In Mongolia, the solar panels brought in to charge phones have granted nomads access to cheap and reliable solar power in the countryside to light their homes, eliminating the need for candles to create light,” Hay says. “This has reduced the risk of smoke-exposure-based diseases, extended the workday and freed up huge sums in family budgets to buy consumer goods. All from the proliferation of cellphones.”

DHOWS

Symbolic of the golden age of exploration, pearl diving and fishing, the dhow is the traditionally romantic Arabian seacraft undergoing a dramatic revival.

Dhows are traditional sailing boats used in the Red Sea, Arabian Peninsula and the seas of East Africa. IMAGE: Shutterstock

While the dhows employed nowadays may look the same as the vessels that linked the countries of the Arabian Gulf to the rest of the world through the centuries, advancements in materials mean they are now built of fiberglass instead of wood. A modern fiberglass boat can be produced twice as quickly as the traditional teak boat and requires half the maintenance. While a wooden dhow needs dry-docking every three months to be treated, a fiberglass one can go much longer at sea.

Lamination has replaced shark-liver oil, and epoxy is used instead of cotton, while masts and booms are made of carbon fiber. Sails are much lighter and stronger than they used to be, and radio and satellite navigation are standard accoutrements to the modern dhow sailor.

ROBOT JOCKEYS

Across the Gulf, camel racing is a treasured sport. Controlling the camel as it thunders down the track is a remote-controlled robot jockey.

Since 2005, camel racing in the UAE and Qatar has required the use of robot jockeys rather than humans. Robots are much lighter and can’t be injured if they fall off.

Development began in the early 2000s, with Swiss company K-Team first employed to design a mannequin-like robot that wouldn’t spook the camels. Beyond the visual aspect, the robots also needed to withstand high desert temperatures and cope with a fast-moving and uneven ride. These robots were introduced to the sport but they came with disadvantages: They were relatively heavy, weighing in at 16-18 kilograms, and expensive.

Camel racing can be traced back to the 7th century CE in the Arabian Peninsula. IMAGE: Shutterstock

A team at the Qatar Scientific Club improved the design, using aluminum frames to protect the circuit box, now reduced to the size of a large book. A rotor spins the jockey’s single arm, propelling the whip. The design is simple: It’s basically a power drill, with the drill bit replaced with a riding crop. The jockey is controlled remotely by the handler.

The robots also provide feedback to the camel handlers, measuring and transmitting biological signals in real-time throughout the race.

Esan Maruff was head of IT and robotics on the Robotics Academy of Qatar for Bright Inventions (RAQBI) in 2005. His team was also tasked with developing robotic jockeys but found that camel-racing technology didn’t need to be complicated.

“Instead of full automation or a sleek design, the camel owners wanted a simple, streamlined robot. It didn’t need to be intelligent or high-spec,” Maruff says. The final RAQBI model miniaturized the K-Team design and repurposed car key fobs for remote controls. It also weighs just 2 kilograms.

“Any electronics technician can make this. Our methodology here was engineering rooted in simplification and an understanding of the local tradition. Within months, our design was being copied across the Gulf. It was amazing. We never expected that kind of reach.”

FALCONRY DRONES (AND NOT-DRONES)

For thousands of years, the Bedouin people across the Arabian Peninsula practiced falconry as an important form of hunting in a resource-scarce land. While resources are now plentiful for modern Emiratis, the sport remains popular.

Falcons require training to hunt in partnership with humans — they must be taught to fly high and swoop for their prey, a challenge for a human decidedly floor-bound. For help, modern falconers have turned to the drone.

The best falconry drone should be able to mimic the bird’s speed and flight pattern.

– Paul Posea

Falconry is a form of hunting using birds of prey. IMAGE: Shutterstock

Easy to fly and control thanks to advanced stabilization and GPS technology, modern drones are also sturdy enough to withstand the impact of a falcon seizing the lure.

Ideally, the drone needs enough battery for plenty of practicing and stability for training under diverse wind conditions. That’s it.

Paul Posea tests drones for a living. As the designers of the robot jockey found, Posea recommends simplicity in a drone designed for falconry.

“Some manufacturers of UAVs exclusively used for falconry have too many gimmicks,” he said. “They try to adopt a more ‘bird-like’ appearance. Others use folding wings, V-twincopter designs, and others just don’t help with falconry. The best falconry drone should be able to mimic the bird’s speed and flight pattern. It should be versatile, not gimmicky.”

Nick Fox of Wingbeat Ltd. disagrees. Instead of training falcons to catch prey with assists from drones, Wingbeat creates drones that the falcon can actually catch — drones with a decidedly bird-like appearance. His design has had particular success in the Middle East, where prey suitable for the hunt is in short supply. The houbara bustard is the most prestigious game bird in the region, but its population has nosedived.

“The end result is they haven’t got anything to hunt,” Fox says. “Our Robara model has been specifically designed as prey for hunting falcons. Through years of experiments, it was clear we needed a lure that looked the same as the real prey, behaved the same, had similar flight-performance characteristics, was controllable at all times, could fly high and freely in the sky, was safe to catch, could withstand repeated attacks, and could be mass-produced at an economical price.”

A tall order.

The Robara looks and flies like a houbara. Made from expanded polypropylene, the design resembles flapping wings, but it is much more resilient, with parts that can be easily replaced if broken. Although technically not a drone, more a remote-control helicopter since handlers fly it by eye, rather than videofeed from the drone cameras, the design is popular among falconers in the Middle East.

Peter Bergh went in a different direction. The Dubai-based falconer also wanted a drone that could push falcons to the limits of their speed and agility, and he also wanted his birds to be able to catch it. His may not look like a bustard, but it’s definitely a drone. His BerghWing also enables falconers to analyze flight data, which can be used to find areas of improvement for their training.

In this project, we will … create a houbara robot that can travel freely in the houbara habitats, to perform behavior observations and interaction tasks related to houbara conservation

– Lakmal Senevirtane

Powered by a single motor resembling a desk fan atop a stealth bomber, the Berghwing has just three auto features: launch into wind, return to home, and loiter mode. Everything else is between trainer and falcon.

Technology isn’t just helping train falcons, however. Researchers at Khalifa University and the Abu Dhabi-based International Fund for Houbara Conservation are looking at using robotics and AI to preserve houbara bustards, which are traditionally used to train falcons but have become endangered by habitat destruction and illegal hunting.

The idea is to use the technology to study the birds in the wild.

“In this project, we will exploit the synergies between IFHC and KU to create a houbara robot that can travel freely in the houbara habitats, to perform behavior observations and interaction tasks related to houbara conservation,” Lakmal Seneviratne, director of Khalifa University’s Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems, tells KUST Review.

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Staying cyber safe

The coronavirus pandemic disrupted every aspect of life. Not the least among the disruptions: Businesses and governments scrambled to enable remote workforces. As a result of stretched networks and inadequate home security, they now face increases in cyberattacks.

We talked with His Excellency Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, head of cybersecurity for the UAE government, about these issues and more.

QUESTION: How were businesses made vulnerable by a rapid increase in remote workforces and what are some of the biggest issues companies face? How is this affected by the increase in remote shopping and other customer services?

ANSWER: Before the pandemic, most companies did not practice remote working. As such, the cybersecurity measures and practices put in place and implemented were not designed to protect the organization in the event of widespread remote access.

In addition, employees were not trained and provided with the necessary best practices and guidelines on how to exercise proper cyber hygiene during remote working. As such, when the pandemic occurred and a high ratio of employees started remote working, the organization’s data were simply not protected adequately, resulting in security breaches and data exfiltration, both intentionally and unintentionally.

On the other hand, the increase in online shopping during the pandemic was not accompanied by adequate awareness on how to protect oneself from online fraud or proper hygiene on managing one’s data in these kinds of scenarios. This includes sensitive and private data, as well as personal identifiable information: credit card information or even more seriously one’s online identity or credentials. Losing these data may result in identity theft.

Cybersecurity terms

Security misconfiguration: Security misconfiguration is a type of security vulnerability that occurs when a system or application is not properly configured to protect against unauthorized access or data breaches. It can happen when security settings are not implemented, configured incorrectly or not updated to the latest version. Read more›››

Phishing scams: A type of online fraud where scammers try to trick you into sharing your sensitive information, such as passwords, credit card numbers or other personal data. They usually do this by pretending to be a trustworthy entity, like a bank, a government agency or a popular website, and sending you emails, text messages or social media posts that look legitimate. The goal of these scams is to lure you into clicking on a link or downloading an attachment that contains malware or to fill out a form that asks for your personal information. Once scammers get access to your sensitive data, they can use it to steal your identity, empty your bank account or carry out other criminal activities.

Ransomware attacks: A type of malicious cyberattack in which an attacker gains access to a victim’s computer or network and encrypts the victim’s files or data, rendering them inaccessible. The attacker then demands a ransom payment from the victim in exchange for the decryption key that will unlock the files. The ransom demand is usually accompanied by a threat to delete or publish the victim’s data if the ransom is not paid within a certain time frame.‹‹‹ Read less

Q: What are some of the most common scams and attacks you’re seeing?
A: Phishing attacks, through emails as well as voice calls, remain a common threat today, because they are most easily executed and often used in conjunction with other methods in a blended attack on targeted users.

But on a bigger scale, system misconfiguration is another major concern, with one misconfiguration error happening to a major cloud provider recently. Allegedly data from 65,000-plus entities in 111 countries were exposed and a series of other data leaks from the original related leakage affected 150,000 companies in 123 countries.

And not to mention that ransomware remains a very real problem. In the UAE, we are committed to leading efforts to fight against this threat. In fact, we were co-chair for information sharing at the recent Second International Counter-Ransomware Initiative held in the White House (in November 2022).

Q: Cyberattacks threaten businesses with lost data, money, status and productivity. But does this kind of damage to private industry potentially affect national security? If so, how?
A: The financial sector has always been recognized as a vital part of any country’s critical infrastructure because it is a backbone to sustain our economy. The increased reliance on ICT in the financial sector, with online banking and trading, and also with with the emergence of crypto currency, e-wallets and e-commerce today, shows that the availability, integrity and resiliency of the ICT infrastructure sustaining the financial sector is of the utmost importance to our very survival.

Q: What should governments do better to support improvements in private-sector security and discourage cybercrime? Are there any UAE initiatives you can discuss?
A: Our strategy is to engage the private sector directly by getting them to be part of the equation.

As such, since last year I have been issuing a call for a public-private partnership … to harness their expertise to solve our daily problems because they have the solutions while we have the problems.

Besides the various (memorandums of understanding) that we have put in place with leading ICT companies, more recently we have started to engage the experts directly. For example, with the successful conclusion of the first CISO Circle gathering at GITEX Global 2022 that also saw the establishment of the (ISC)2 UAE Chapter in our country.

Q: Aside from cybersecurity, what other emerging risks does your role monitor?
A: Cybersecurity, data privacy, operational risks, governance and compliance – anything that leads towards data protection and the secure and safe usage of these data towards enabling business while protecting lives. This is what my role entails.

Q: What advice would you give to any new graduate considering a career in cybersecurity?
A: Consider getting your hands dirty first and always be grounded in the basic fundamentals as these are the skill sets you will depend on when the going gets tough. Program them into your mind and body: There are no shortcuts, so roll up your sleeves first!

Q: How should an organization go about assessing its critical infrastructure and securing its most vital assets?
A: The organization should gather all their department heads, both businesses and platforms, and make them the risk owners of their own departments, so as to build a complete risk register of the business.

Q: Apple or Microsoft? Why?
A: Apple, because they are going to be a major cybersecurity player in the future. They are the leaders in consumer products. These consumer products or (internet of things) are going to be the biggest concerns moving into the future.

They are not only providing the necessary information to your fingertips, but they are also going to be the largest group of devices collecting your information consciously or subconsciously. That may be the biggest cybersecurity crisis that we need to address in the future in order to protect one’s data.

Q: Are we at risk when we use open-source programs, and what steps can we take to minimize risk?
A: There are always risk benefits, whether we use open-source or proprietary software. The question should be: How can we build a risk-based program to address these risks, and build a multi-level defense system grounded in zero trust principle?

Q: How do you see technology evolving in the next five to 10 years?
A: It is going to get more and more personal as we straddle between multiple worlds or realms in our journey to the realization of the future Metaverse.

Q: What is the ethical response to ransomware? Does the government have a responsibility to protect businesses and citizens from ransomware attacks? If so, how?

A: We should never succumb to the threats of the perpetrators and pay the ransom. The buck should stop here as long as I am in charge. By paying the ransom, we are only going to see them get better and soon, beyond any reasonable means that we can respond to them in the future as we can only smell their smoke.

So we shall not give them a chance at all. Do not pay them to leapfrog us in terms of technology (and innovation).

Q: Is there anything we didn’t ask that you’d like to talk about?
A: The sky is no longer the limit for us anymore; space is. And space security, that is a topic that we can explore the next time we speak.