Word: monitors
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...American deaths and 33 million injuries a year. Even as the number of domestic and imported goods exploded, the agency has undergone drastic cuts in budget and staff - the deepest of any health and safety agency, says the Consumer Federation of America. Only 15 trained inspectors regularly monitor goods at U.S. ports, where hundreds of millions of toys - about three quarters from China - come in yearly. Fewer than 100 inspectors have to cover the rest of the country, scouring store shelves for safety problems among the 15,000 products regulated by CPSC...
...founded Reef Check. Realizing that one man's chore might be another's hobby, Hodgson decided to fill the information gap by enlisting people who were naturally interested: divers. In 1997 he created a global network of volunteer snorkelers and divers, specially trained by scientists to monitor reefs using a standardized checklist. Over the last 10 years, Reef Check's volunteers have amassed a bounty of data on the world's coral. "In the beginning, people were looking down on us, saying 'Oh, you guys are just volunteers,'" Hodgson recalls. Now, Reef Check has become one of the primary sources...
...need to monitor coral so closely? Coral reefs constitute a complex and vast global ecosystem, home to millions of species of plants and fish that people depend on for food and tourist revenue; in some areas, healthy reefs help protect the shore from potentially destructive waves. But arguments about the preservation of biodiversity make eyes glaze over, so Hodgson, who's trying to get coral on the World Conservation Union's red and endangered species lists, likes to point out that several anticancer drugs are derived from reef species. "Maybe one day a coral will save your life," Hodgson tells...
...with the sensor technology is how to find an inexpensive way of transmitting the sensors' data to computers. Sensors currently rely on batteries that often need to be replaced, and they require a fair amount of bulky hardware. "Right now, it wouldn't be a cost-effective way [to monitor changes] on structures like bridges," Farrar says. So his team is testing small, remote-controlled helicopters that would send a pulse to provide power to the sensor, take a reading and send it back to the helicopter's computer and then transmit the data to officials...
...within grasp. Indexing the Internet, however, is the least of Jimbo's problems. Search engines rely on their algorithms, or complex formulas, to determine what listings to return for a searcher's query. Wales' answer to a better search experience is to combine a computer algorithm with editors who monitor what results should be returned for any given search. But can a viable search engine rely on the altruistic motives of its volunteer keepers? As we discussed here, the anonymity of contributors to such a model can create a product vulnerable to sabotage and subterfuge...