• Energy Research
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More healthy and sustainable food are nowadays desirable to improve human health and protect the planet’s resources. From this perspective, the aim of this study is to investigate artichoke (Cynara scolymus L.) by-products as a potential source of phenolic compounds and to use these compounds to design new fresh egg pasta formulation. Sustainable extraction was carried out using ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) and chemometric techniques, such as the Response Surface Methodology (RSM). UAE process parameters (temperature and time) and solvent composition (ethanol aqueous mixtures) were optimized using a three-level Box–Behnken design, in order to carry out the maximum yield in phenols. Under the optimal conditions (temperature: 60 °C; time: 60 min; solvent: 50% ethanol:water), the amount of phenolics (TPC) was 22.4 ± 0.2 mg GAE g−1 d.w., characterized mainly by dicaffeoylquinic acid (32.8 ± 0.6 mg CAE g−1 d.w.) and chlorogenic acid (14.1 ± 0.2 mg CAE g−1 d.w.). Hence, the polyphenols extract was used as an ingredient to design a new formulation of functional fresh egg pasta. Four recipes with soft wheat and semolina (P1 and P2) and with soft wheat alone (P3 and P4) were prepared. Compared with control pastas (P1 and P3), the enriched ones (P2 and P4) showed a higher polyphenol content, especially for P4 (1.86 ± 0.03 mg GAE g−1 d.w. for P1, 2.05 ± 0.02 mg GAE g−1 d.w. for P2, 1.92 ± 0.03 mg GAE g−1 d.w. for P3, 2.04 ± 0.02 mg GAE g−1 d.w. for P4). A high decrease in TPC was observed as a result of the cooking process, especially for the two control formulations (−71% for P1 and −70% for P3) in comparison with P2 (−64%) and P4 (−55%). At last, to assess the antimicrobial effect of artichoke by-products on fresh pasta and to monitor its spoilage, we used image analysis. Corresponding to a higher TPC content, P2 and P4 showed an extended shelf life of 16% and 33%, respectively, probably due to the antioxidant activity of artichoke. The new fresh egg pasta enriched with polyphenols extracted from artichoke by-products showed very good nutritional and technological characteristics, even after cooking, confirming the good potentiality of artichoke by-products in the design of new, healthy, and sustainable food products.

In the transition from linear production systems, unsustainable from the point of view of resources, to a model that finds strength in environmental, social and economic sustainability, the circular economy paradigm is the foundation that facilitates the planetary agro-ecological transition. The European Union has taken a number of steps (including the Circular Economy Package of Directives) shaping circularity as a wide-ranging driver measure involving many sectors. The paper intends to provide a regulatory framework on the current general situation regarding circularity in European Union, in order to extrapolate and give evidence to the aspects that intersect the agri-food sector. This is not only because they are poorly addressed in the literature, but also because there is a lack of regulatory instruments on the circular economy specifically addressing this area of interest. For this purpose, the analysis focuses on waste and residue/scrap management issues, recognized by law as by-products and end-of-waste status, as they are covered by circular economy legislation and as they can be applied to the agri-food sector. The latter allow the implementation of circularity strategies in the agri-food sector and, given the numerousness of production chains and the peculiarities of each of them, various regeneration and/or reuse processes of specific resources may be depicted. The intent is to provide useful knowledge on how to implement sustainable waste management, also proposing a concrete case on a by-product of olive oil processing, through which it is possible to highlight how the correct application of regulations favors the adoption of circular economic and management models in the firms involved, as well as informing the relevant economic operators on the possible profiles of legal liability that may arise from insufficient knowledge. Furthermore, this paper delves into the European Green Deal’s Strategy as it enriches the circular economy paradigm with new facets. NextGenerationEU and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan financially support this strategy in the aftermath of the socioeconomic crisis from COVID-19 in the EU Member States. This is in order to achieve the objective of achieving the agro-ecological transition.

The objectives of this study are to: estimate African countries’ Government Openness Index (AGOI) to see the updated progress of open government in those countries, examine which areas African countries should further improve for sustainable development, and compare the performance of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) member countries to that of non-OGP countries in forming AGOI. This study developed the AGOI with 32 selected countries and four factors (ACC (accountability), TRA (transparency), CPF (citizen participation and freedom) and ICT (information and communication technology)) for the period of 2006–2019. The results show that African countries have continuously increased the values of AGOI for the period. ACC has barely changed, but TRA has increased slightly. Both CPF and ICT have increased at higher growth rates during the period. The OGP group reached much better scores than their non-OGP counterparts, with positive differences in AGOI, ICT, CPF, and TRA, except ACC. The results of this study suggest that the constantly increasing CPF and ICT levels in countries that have similar conditions as African countries should be further improved to function well enough to build accountability and transparency. It is also recommended that countries join the OGP in order to move towards improving government openness and creating sustainable development.

This article proposes an effective evolutionary hybrid optimization method for identifying unknown parameters in photovoltaic (PV) models based on the northern goshawk optimization algorithm (NGO) and pattern search (PS). The chaotic sequence is used to improve the exploration capability of the NGO algorithm technique while evading premature convergence. The suggested hybrid algorithm, chaotic northern goshawk, and pattern search (CNGPS), takes advantage of the chaotic NGO algorithm’s effective global search capability as well as the pattern search method’s powerful local search capability. The effectiveness of the recommended CNGPS algorithm is verified through the use of mathematical test functions, and its results are contrasted with those of a conventional NGO and other effective optimization methods. The CNGPS is then used to extract the PV parameters, and the parameter identification is defined as an objective function to be minimized based on the difference between the estimated and experimental data. The usefulness of the CNGPS for extraction parameters is evaluated using three distinct PV models: SDM, DDM, and TDM. The numerical investigates illustrate that the new algorithm may produce better optimum solutions and outperform previous approaches in the literature. The simulation results display that the novel optimization method achieves the lowest root mean square error and obtains better optima than existing methods in various solar cells.

Botswana’s new national climate-adaptation plan framework acknowledges the fundamental challenges climate change is posing to household resilience. While the plan aims to be gender-responsive, there is limited empirical data on the current gender dynamics around household-level climate-adaptive priorities and practices. This study aims to understand the gendered variations of how people understand resilience to climate change in both rural and a periurban areas. The authors then consider how these views are reflected in current climate-adaptation policies and responses. A household-level baseline survey with 141 participants was conducted in Ramotswa and Xhumaga, using participant-coded narratives to understand how people understand resilience to climate change. This study found that planning for the shocks and stressors of climate change is gendered, and these variations have important implications for how equity should be reflected in a policy response.

Although the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) advocate, through SDG 4 and SDG 10, equitable quality education and the reduction of inequalities within and between countries, respectively, few studies have examined how inequalities in regional sustainability influence higher education. Therefore, this study aims to examine the relationship between regional sustainability and higher education in China using fixed-effects panel modelling. A systematic force framework showing how regional sustainability drives higher education was constructed from economic, social, and environmental perspectives, and the endogeneity in the process of how regional sustainability affects higher education was explored by introducing one-year lagged values as instrumental variables. Our results show that regional sustainability has a significant impact on higher educational attainment in China, with differing effects in the eastern, central, and western regions, respectively. In central China, economic sustainability plays a significant positive role in higher educational attainment; in the western region, economic and social sustainability have stronger positive effects, while environmental sustainability has significantly negative effects. In terms of policy implications, our findings can be used to support regional development policies to promote regional higher education.

Achieving economic development is one of the most important economic goals of every country. Identifying the determinants of economic growth, is a useful tool for adopting appropriate economic policies. This study, therefore, empirically examines the impact of trade openness, foreign direct investment, and financial development on economic growth, across 62 countries over the period 1995–2016. These countries are divided into two groups: low-income and high-income countries. We employ the pooled mean group (PMG), mean group (MG), and dynamic fixed effect (DFE) estimation techniques on the cross-country panel data. The findings show a positive long run association between trade openness, foreign direct investment (FDI), financial development, labor, government expenditure, and economic growth in low-income countries, with a positive and negative short run effect from capital and government expenditures, respectively. For high-income countries, a positive long run association between trade openness, FDI, capital, and economic growth exist. The short run estimates indicate a positive effect on trade openness and capital as well as a negative effect on government expenditure. Our study shows that the adoption of policies that improves access to skilled labor and international trade, affect the attainment of a sustainable economic development.

In this study, we aimed to determine the effects of tillage systems (TS) on wheat grain yield, yield components, and physicochemical properties under rain-fed conditions over 2 years (2018–2019) in the Kuhdasht region in southwestern Iran. The tillage treatments were a combination of conventional tillage (CT), reduced tillage (RT), and no tillage (NT) systems based on randomized complete blocks with three replications. Wheat grain yields and yield components, physical properties (geometrical dimensions, sphericity, thousand-grain mass (TGM), water absorption (WA), volume (V), and density), chemical composition (protein content (PC), water content (WC), fiber content (FC), ash content (AC)), surface color parameters (L*, a*, and b*), and correlations among measured parameters were assessed. The results showed that wheat grain yield and yield components were significantly affected by TS (p < 0.01). The wheat grain yield was higher under CT (2.72 t ha−1), with a significant difference between RT (1.76 t ha−1) and NT (1.20 t ha−1). The highest TGM (49.19 g) was achieved under CT, followed by RT (43.41 g), with the lowest (39.17 g) in the NT system. TS had significant effects on certain physical properties of wheat grains (p < 0.01). Wheat grain, size, shape, and mass values were higher under CT than RT and NT systems in all experimental years. CT resulted in the highest WA, while the lowest resulted from NT. TS had no significant influence on the density of the grains. TS had significant effects on PC, AC, and WC values of grains at the 1% probability level and on FC at the 5% level. Higher PC values were obtained under the CT system (13.07%, against 11.90% and 10.67% for RT and NT, respectively) in all growing seasons. Additionally, the AC was significantly lower in the sample grains under RT (2.38%) and NT (2.43%) than in those from CT (2.56). The FC was higher under NT (15.73%) than RT (13.73) and CT (13.71%). The grain WC was significantly higher under NT (7.57%) than RT (6.79%) and CT (7.0%). The TS significantly affected the surface color parameters of grains, while the L* (lightness) and b* (yellowness) values of grains under CT were higher than in RT and NT.