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Exploitation of natural resources has reached an unsustainable level, due to the enormous growth of world population. Industrialized intensive agriculture, in particular, demands a great quantity of natural resources. White sugar is a widespread agricultural product. Its production from sugar beet or sugarcane is very expensive from the point of view of resource exploitation and sustainability. The aim of this paper is to compare white sugar and honey as sweeteners. We compared both processes of production in terms of emergy in order to establish the environmental costs and benefits of both. Transformities of honey and sugar were calculated per unit product and per unit area of land. Honey was found to have a better environmental performance than sugar production, due to the low quantity of non-renewable resources required. The environmental loading ratio indi- cated that honey production is more environmentally friendly than sugar production. Agriculture has changed dramatically in the last fifty years. We have seen great development in food and fibre production, due to new technologies, mechanization, use of chemicals, and specialization. On the other hand, the costs have been significant. The major environmental costs are topsoil deple - tion, groundwater contamination, and the effects of massive use of fertilizers. The direct and indirect costs necessary to support this kind of agriculture make exploitation of natural resources unsustain- able. Production of food and fibres implies degradation of natural resources: water (quality and quantity), soil erosion (accelerated by ploughing), and air pollution (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, nitrogen fertilizer production and use, excessive ploughing). Intensive and industrial agriculture depends on non-renewable energy sources, namely fossil fuels, which implies all the negative aspects related to the use of petroleum derivatives. Sugar is a major industrialized agricultural product due to great annual demand. This widespread product is invariably derived from sugarcane or sugar beet. These crops demand many inputs (1). Table 1 shows world sugar production and consumption in 2004-2005. Since most environmental problems caused by sugar are related to mass production and consump- tion, analysis of other natural products as surrogates of sugar can be interesting. Among the alternatives, that would also help to diversify the supply of agricultural products, in some cases safeguarding local production, honey is a possible substitute for sugar as sweetener. In this paper, we evaluate the sustainability and environmental performance of honey and sugar production by an accounting methodology known as emergy evaluation. This method measures the work that nature does to support these processes, comparing them from the point of view of use of resources. It involves calculating and comparing different specific emergies. Data on these production processes is available in the literature (2, 3), and a complete emergy assessment of honey and sugar production can be found in a Chinese study (4).

The complexity of sustainable development and societal transitions require both analytical understandings of how coupled human-environment systems function and transdisciplinary science-to-practice approaches. The academic discourse has advanced in developing a framework for defining success in transdisciplinary research (TDR). Further empirical evidence is needed to validate the proposed concepts with TDR case studies. This paper applies a widely used TDR framework to test and critically evaluate its design principles and criteria of success with five TDR case studies the author is intimately familiar with. Overall, the design principles of the framework are validated for the five cases. Additional design principles are derived from the case analysis and proposed to complement the applied framework: (1) A project origin from society as opposed to with and for society; (2) Quickly available initiation funding; (3) Flexibility in time, objectives and methods throughout the research process; (4) Acceptance of process vs. project results; (5) Inclusion of public science communication; and (6) A demand-driven transition to a prolonged or new project partnership. The complementing principles are proposed for integration in the applied framework and are subject to further empirical testing. The reflexive empirical approach I have taken in this paper offers a key step towards removing institutional barriers for successful TDR, demonstrating how conceptual frameworks can be applied.

The European Green Deal is a political milestone aiming to promote a carbon-neutral economy in the European Union. Decarbonizing the complex food sector requires the unified interaction among effective climate policies, economic instruments, and initiatives involving multiple stakeholders. Despite increasing efforts to highlight the importance of innovations and finance to achieve sustainable food supply chains (FSC), comprehensive information about related opportunities and barriers to mitigating emissions in the food sector is still under-explored. To cover this gap, this paper applies an existing industrial policy framework under the lens of the EU FSC to identify potential strategies that should help achieve the needed financial means and innovation actions, as well as to gauge political alignment across FSC stages. Methodologically, the pillars proposed in the framework are linked to multi-stakeholders’ initiatives engaged in achieving net-zero emissions. The paper highlights three main implications of the identified interlinkages. First, political directionality related to the food sector should be more comprehensively tailored to account for the specificities of all stages of the FSC. Second, research and development projects shall likewise cover all stages, instead of emphasizing only food production and agricultural systems. Finally, multiple stakeholders are crucial as promoters of technology and innovation towards a green economy. Nevertheless, initiatives should be integrated into political discussions in order to promote civil awareness, sustainable food and services demand, aligned to political guidelines.

Este documento proporciona una encuesta multidisciplinaria única de soluciones independientes para el acceso al agua limpia y sostenible en África y propone una arquitectura de tres segmentos, compuesta por una unidad de desinfección de agua basada en UV-LED, una batería de energía solar y un sistema de posicionamiento inalámbrico. Además, nuestro documento también proporciona resultados instantáneos iniciales de los tres segmentos de la arquitectura propuesta, así como dos ejemplos del análisis del agua y los resultados basados en la encuesta del usuario recopilados en Togo, África. Creemos que las características de nuestro sistema previsto, como la larga duración de la batería, el bajo costo de mantenimiento, la capacidad de aumentar significativamente la calidad y desinfectar al menos 1,5 l/min de agua y la capacidad de ofrecer posicionamiento inalámbrico sin la necesidad de acceder a una red celular o WiFi, para anotar con precisión las fuentes de agua, la localización de sistemas de desinfección extraviados o perdidos y las capacidades de posicionamiento independiente del usuario, son características atractivas para mejorar la calidad de vida de las personas con acceso limitado al agua potable o al agua que cumple con los criterios internacionales de calidad. Cet article fournit une enquête multidisciplinaire unique sur les solutions autonomes pour un accès à l'eau propre et durable en Afrique et propose une architecture à trois segments, composée d'une unité de désinfection de l'eau à base d'UV-LED, d'une batterie solaire et d'un système de positionnement sans fil. En outre, notre article fournit également des résultats instantanés initiaux des trois segments de l'architecture proposée, ainsi que deux exemples d'analyse de l'eau et de résultats d'enquête basés sur les utilisateurs collectés au Togo, en Afrique. Nous pensons que les caractéristiques de notre système envisagé, telles que la longue durée de vie de la batterie, le faible coût de maintenance, la capacité d'augmenter considérablement la qualité et de désinfecter au moins 1,5 l/min d'eau et la capacité d'offrir un positionnement sans fil sans avoir besoin d'accéder à un réseau cellulaire ou WiFi, pour une annotation précise des sources d'eau, la localisation des systèmes de désinfection égarés ou perdus et les capacités de positionnement autonomes des utilisateurs, sont des caractéristiques attrayantes pour améliorer la qualité de vie des personnes ayant un accès limité à l'eau potable ou à l'eau qui répond aux critères de qualité internationaux. This paper provides a unique multi-disciplinary survey of standalone solutions for clean and sustainable water access in Africa and proposes a three-segment architecture, comprised of an UV-LEDbased water disinfection unit, a solar-powered battery, and a wireless positioning system.In addition, our paper also provides initial snapshot results from all the three segments of the proposed architecture, as well as two examples of the water analysis and user-survey-based results collected from Togo, Africa.We believe that the features of our envisaged system such as long battery life, low maintenance cost, ability to significantly increase the quality and disinfect at least 1.5 l/min of water and ability to offer wireless positioning without the need to access a cellular or WiFi network, for accurate annotation of water sources, localization of misplaced or lost disinfection systems, and user standalone positioning capabilities, are attractive features towards improving the quality of life of people with limited access to potable water or to water that fulfills international quality criteria. تقدم هذه الورقة مسحًا فريدًا متعدد التخصصات للحلول المستقلة للوصول إلى المياه النظيفة والمستدامة في أفريقيا وتقترح بنية من ثلاثة أجزاء، تتألف من وحدة تطهير المياه القائمة على الأشعة فوق البنفسجية، وبطارية تعمل بالطاقة الشمسية، ونظام تحديد المواقع اللاسلكي. بالإضافة إلى ذلك، توفر ورقتنا أيضًا نتائج اللقطات الأولية من جميع الأجزاء الثلاثة للهندسة المعمارية المقترحة، بالإضافة إلى مثالين على تحليل المياه والنتائج المستندة إلى مسح المستخدم التي تم جمعها من توغو، أفريقيا. نعتقد أن ميزات نظامنا المتصور مثل عمر البطارية الطويل، وتكلفة الصيانة المنخفضة، والقدرة على زيادة جودة وتطهير ما لا يقل عن 1.5 لتر/دقيقة من المياه والقدرة على توفير تحديد المواقع اللاسلكية دون الحاجة إلى الوصول إلى شبكة خلوية أو شبكة واي فاي، للحصول على شرح دقيق لمصادر المياه، وتوطين أنظمة التطهير في غير محلها أو المفقودة، وقدرات تحديد المواقع القائمة بذاتها للمستخدم، هي ميزات جذابة نحو تحسين نوعية حياة الأشخاص الذين يعانون من محدودية الوصول إلى المياه الصالحة للشرب أو المياه التي تفي بالمعايير الدولية للجودة.

The Sultanate of Oman is a country on the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, near the intersection of the Afrotropical, Palaearctic, and Indomalayan biogeographic realms. We surveyed ants at 18 sites between 16 and 22 November 2017 using beating sheets, hand picking, Malaise traps, sifting trays, sweeping net, and light traps on the coastal plains and monsoon slopes of Dhofar Governorate in southwest Oman, an area that is relatively verdant due to its exposure to monsoons between June and September. We collected 37 ant species, including 11 species recorded for the first time from Oman: Camponotus diplopunctatus Emery, 1915, Cardiocondyla minutior Forel, 1899, Cardiocondyla wroughtonii (Forel, 1890), Carebara arabica (Collingwood & van Harten, 2001), Leptanilla islamica Baroni Urbani, 1977, Monomorium clavicorne André, 1881, Monomorium floricola (Jerdon, 1851), Monomorium sahlbergi Emery, 1898, Strumigenys membranifera Emery, 1869, Anochetus sedilloti Emery, 1884, and Hypoponera ragusai (Emery, 1894). In total, 130 ant species are now known from Oman, including 53 from Dhofar. The known ants of Dhofar are primarily of Afrotropical origin (23 species, 43%), followed by Palearctic (20 species, 38%), and Indomalayan (4 species, 8%), and a single species from both the Malagasy and Neotropical Regions (1%). Five species (9%) are apparently endemic to Dhofar, Lepisiota dhofara Collingwood & Agosti, 1996, Lepisiota elbazi Sharaf & Hita Garcia, 2020, Crematogaster jacindae Sharaf & Hita Garcia, 2019, Meranoplus mosalahi Sharaf, 2019, and Nesomyrmex micheleae Sharaf, 2020. The zoogeography of the Omani ant fauna reflects a clear dominance of faunal elements from the Palearctic Region (68 species, 53%) followed by Afrotropical faunal elements (45 species, 34%), and five species that are broadly spread throughout both the Palearctic and the Afrotropical Regions (4%). There are nine species (6%) from the Indomalayan Region, two species from the Neotropical Region (2%), T. melanocephalum, C. emeryi, and a single species Ph. megacephala (1%) from the Malagasy Region. The number of endemic species (15 species, 12%) is relatively low compared to the large geographical area of Oman and the broad diversity of habitats that characterizes the country.

A multi-agent system consists of several computational entities capable of autonomous actions, called agents, which communicate with each other, and have the ability to coordinate their actions and to cooperate. Multi-agent systems received a great interest and attention over time, as they can be seen as a key enabling technology for complex applications, where distributed and processing of data, autonomy, and high degree of interactions in dynamic environments are required at the same time. Therefore, in view of current and future developments of the digitalization of industrial production cycles promoted by Industry 4.0, multi-agent systems are foreseen to play an increasing role for industrial production management and optimization. Because of barriers represented by large presence of legacy systems, in the steel sector agent-based technology is not widely applied yet, and multi-agent systems applications are very few. On the other hand, steel manufacturing industries are complex and dynamic systems whose production processes held a strategic role in the global economy. During last decades, the steel sector has undergone relevant transformations, especially through the massive digitalization and the innovation introduced by Industry 4.0. A further evolution is foreseen in the incoming years to improve the sustainability of the production cycle by improving energy and resource efficiency. Therefore, steel industries must face several challenges on the path toward the factory of the future. In such context multi-agent systems, through their intrinsic properties, such as autonomy, social abilities, reactivity, proactivity, and mobility, can overcome existing drawbacks and barriers, by increasing flexibility, improving resources efficiency, handling production operations, reacting to unpredicted events, optimizing production processes, and supporting legacy systems. In this paper, some applications of multi-agent systems in steel sector are presented to show the advantages and opportunities of agent-based technology.