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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the economic and environmental gains that result from the implementation of cleaner production in a small enterprise (SE) from the metal and mechanics industry, allowing for overcoming barriers and contributing to sustainable development goals. The research work builds on a case study that involved several data sources, including semi structured interviewing and non-participant observation. Data analysis involved the calculation of mass balance, building solid and liquid waste that were minimized in the process. The results suggest that cleaner production led to economic gains, by allowing for reduction in losses and promoting a better use of raw materials. It also led to environmental improvements by means of the implementation of a wastewater treatment station that allowed for the reuse of water in the manufacturing process. It was concluded that the economic gain in the project played a determinant role for the SE to overcome the barriers for the implementation of CP and leading to the reduction of the environmental impact in the abiotic, biotic, water and air compartments, as estimated with the Mass Intensity Factor. The study offers a timely and relevant contribution for the literature in the field, while offering insights for o managerial practice, and the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals defined by the United Nations Development Program.

The adequate assessment and management of indoor air quality in healthcare facilities is of utmost importance for patient safety and occupational health purposes. This study aims to identify the recent trends of research on the topic through a systematic literature review following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) methodology. A total of 171 articles published in the period 2015–2020 were selected and analyzed. Results show that there is a worldwide growing research interest in this subject, dispersed in a wide variety of scientific journals. A textometric analysis using the IRaMuTeQ software revealed four clusters of topics in the sampled articles: physicochemical pollutants, design and management of infrastructures, environmental control measures, and microbiological contamination. The studies focus mainly on hospital facilities, but there is also research interest in primary care centers and dental clinics. The majority of the analyzed articles (85%) report experimental data, with the most frequently measured parameters being related to environmental quality (temperature and relative humidity), microbiological load, CO2 and particulate matter. Non-compliance with the WHO guidelines for indoor air quality is frequently reported. This study provides an overview of the recent literature on this topic, identifying promising lines of research to improve indoor air quality in healthcare facilities.

In the past three decades, there has been increasing research carried out on the role of heritage and its processes in achieving broader sustainable development objectives beyond heritage conservation. As part of this movement, people-centered approaches and participation have been widely integrated into international regulations and guidelines on heritage management, stimulating the implementation of case studies-based research worldwide. Despite the wide advocacy of participatory heritage practices’ contributions to more inclusive and culturally sensitive local development in a great variety of projects, there is limited research into the roles these practices can have in addressing sustainability objectives. How are these roles addressed in international heritage regulatory frameworks, and what forms of participation are promoted for their fulfillment? This paper seeks to answer this research question through a content analysis of international declarations, conventions, guidelines, and policy documents focused on the roles and forms of participation that are promoted. A crossed-matched analysis of results reveals that active forms of participation are those most used to promote all roles and subcategories of participation, as a right, as a driver, and as an enabler of sustainable development. However, fewer active forms are presented as complementary at different stages of sustainability-oriented heritage practices. Moreover, a higher incidence of generic forms of participation can be observed in documents addressing international stakeholders, while partnership and intervention are to be found in those targeting regional and local actors. Nevertheless, the low incidence of decisional forms of participation confirms the challenges of power-sharing at all scales. Trends and influences are highlighted, informing heritage research, governance, and policymaking, but also revealing gaps and ambiguities in current regulations that further research encompassing a larger number of documents might confirm.

This conceptual paper aims to expand the notion of “farming newcomers” in Europe by also including those that we label “involuntary newcomers”, who correspond to the workforce coming unwillingly to farming for reasons associated with spatial (im)mobilities. We fully develop our aim in four steps. Firstly, we present an integrative literature review which describes how the interplay between the key concepts of the sustainable farming framework (i.e., sustained development, networked rural development, and spatial (im)mobilities) tailor the newcomers’ arrival to the farming sector. Secondly, we define involuntary newcomers, describe their profiles and list the barriers to their engagement with sustainable farming. Thirdly, we advance some implications and limitations of our work for mobility research agendas. Fourthly, we conclude with an overview of the main inputs provided by our paper. We contribute to the literature by showing that: (a) newcomers must be defined beyond land ownership; (b) involuntary newcomers are very diverse, due to trends in spatial (im)mobilities; and (c) there is a high risk of the sustainable farming framework failing to meet its ambitions if it continues to ignore involuntary newcomers (and the barriers they encounter) in sustainable forms of agriculture.

Agroecosystems are complex socio-ecological systems that are managed by farmers to achieve desired outcomes, including economic income and environmental benefits contributed by ecosystem services (ES). Therefore, understanding farmers’ attitudes for ES will provide references for targeted agricultural environment management, which is critical to achieving the sustainable development of agriculture. The aim of this study is to identify the attitudes of farmers regarding ES, and to test whether and how annual household income and social demographic characteristics affect farmers’ attitudes toward ES. Using face-to-face interviews to collect data and the hypothesis of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) to provide an analytical framework, the results reveal that, in general, the perceptions of farmers’ attitudes on ES are highly complex, caused by characteristics of the farmers. Furthermore, the inflection points of the U-shaped curves, where priorities change from increasing income to paying more attention to waste assimilation and biological pest control, are identified at 17,091 and 25,071RMB, respectively. Initiatives that aim to achieve sustainable agricultural development by strengthening ES provisions should be sensitive to farmers’perceptions. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen farmers’ educational attainment, concentrate fragmented cultivation area and create reasonable incentives for preserving and restoring of ES and increasing farmers’ income together, which then can enhance the positive outcomes from income growth.

Maritime search and rescue (SAR) operations play a crucial role in reducing fatalities and mitigating human suffering. Compared to short-range maritime SAR, long-range maritime SAR (LRMSAR) is more challenging due to the far distance from the shore, changeful weather, and less available resources. Such an operation put high requirements on decision makers to timely assign multiple resources, such as aircraft and vessels to deal with the emergency. However, most current researches pay attention to assign only one kind of resource, while practically, multiple resources are necessary for LRMSAR. Thus, a method is proposed to provide support for decision makers to allocate multiple resources in dealing with LRMSAR problem; to ensure the sustainable use of resources. First, by analyzing the factors involved in the whole process, we formulated the problem as a multi-objective optimization problem, the objective of which was to maximize both the probability of completing the tasks and the utilities of allocated resources. Based on the theory of search, an integer nonlinear programming (INLP) model was built for different tasks. Second, in order to solve the non-deterministic polynomial-time hardness (NP-hard) model, by constructing a rule base, candidate solutions can be found to improve the calculation efficiency. Furthermore, in order to obtain the optimal scheme, the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) was applied to the candidate solution sets to approximate Pareto fronts. Finally, an emergency case of Chinese Bohai Sea was used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model. In the study, 11 resource allocation schemes were obtained to respond to the emergency, and calculation processes of schemes were further analyzed to demonstrate our model’s rationality. Results showed that the proposed models provide decision-makers with scientific decision support on different emergency tasks.

In order to develop precise hole placement technology for gas extraction, this paper combines industrial testing, the evolution law of coal rock damage permeability, and the coal double-pore double-permeability model; establishes a coupling model of the coal damage deformation field and matrix-fracture double diffusion seepage field; and determines precise hole placement spacing for a coal seam gas by using the COMSOL Multiphysics 5.6 numerical simulation software. This study shows that the effective radius of gas extraction is 4.8 m after 180 d of extraction, which is a power function of the extraction time. The permeability of the coal body is affected by matrix adsorption, and contraction and effective stress, and the influence range between the boreholes under multi-hole extraction increases with the increase in spacing; at the same time, we took into account the positive effect of the permeability change on the extraction effect and ultimately determined the optimal spacing of boreholes in Dashucun Mine to be 6 m, which was arranged in the square area. The extraction effect was good after the on-site test, and the results of this study can provide guidance for the optimal arrangement of the spacing of boreholes in the underground areas of coal mines.