Additive manufacturing (AM) is the name given to a family of manufacturing processes where materials are joined to make parts from 3D modelling data, generally in a layer-upon-layer manner. AM is rapidly increasing in industrial adoption for the manufacture of end-use parts, which is therefore pushing for the maturation of design, process, and production techniques. Machine learning (ML) is a branch of artificial intelligence concerned with training programs to self-improve and has applications in a wide range of areas, such as computer vision, prediction, and information retrieval. Many of the problems facing AM can be categorised into one or more of these application areas. Studies have shown ML techniques to be effective in improving AM design, process, and production but there are limited industrial case studies to support further development of these techniques.

Artificial nestboxes and habitat structures can play an impactful role in wildlife conservation and research, but their development requires sensitivity to the target species, environmental impact ...

Propolis is a plant-derived resin collected by honeybees, essential for maintaining colony health by protecting against pathogens and building the hive. With the aim of determining influencing factors on the wax content of propolis, 139 samples of propolis were collected from hives across the United Kingdom in 2025 via an extensive nationwide citizen-science approach. We determined propolis mass and wax content, used a generalised linear model to analyse the relationship between colour and wax content, and principal component analysis with generalised linear mixed models to analyse the effect of surrounding land cover on propolis composition. Colour analysis indicated that colour and wax were strongly correlated. Land cover analysis indicated that hives in proximity to larger proportions of arable land and managed grasslands, with greater floral abundance, had increased wax content, compared to hives in proximity to broadleaf woodland, suburban and urban areas with more trees and less grasslands, which tended to have lowered wax content. We conclude that both the colour of raw propolis and land cover surrounding the hive strongly correlates with the wax content of propolis.