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The important task (NBI neutral beam injector for fusion) and the complexity of radiofrequency ion source need large tests (as ELISE and SPIDER) and intermediate scale tests (as NIO1 in this poster) for optimization. Conditioning (with gas) was found necessary in Cs-free operation. Cs-based operation has begun: stability improves at lower oven temperature; in both cases, lateral view cameras show beam quality. Energy recovery plugin almost ready for NIO1 (or at a test station at TRIPS).

In this study we evaluate the skill of a new, merged soil moisture product (ECV_SM) that has been developed in the framework of the European Space Agency's Water Cycle Multi-mission Observation Strategy and Climate Change Initiative projects. The product combines in a synergistic way the soil moisture retrievals from four passive (SMMR, SSM/I, TMI, and AMSR-E) and two active (ERS AMI and ASCAT) coarse resolution microwave sensors into a global data set spanning the period 1979-2010. The evaluation uses ground-based soil moisture observations of 596 sites from 28 historical and active monitoring networks worldwide. Besides providing conventional measures of agreement, we use the triple collocation technique to assess random errors in the data set. The average Spearman correlation coefficient between ECV_SM and all in-situ observations is 0.46 for the absolute values and 0.36 for the soil moisture anomalies, but differences between networks and time periods are very large. Unbiased root-mean-square differences and triple collocation errors show less variation between networks, with average values around 0.05 and 0.04m3m-3, respectively. The ECV_SM quality shows an upward trend over time, but a consistent decrease of all performance metrics is observed for the period 2007-2010. Comparing the skill of the merged product with the skill of the individual input products shows that the merged product has a similar or better performance than the individual input products, except with regard to the ASCAT product, compared to which the performance of ECV_SM is inferior. The cause of the latter is most likely a combination of the mismatch in sampling time between the satellite observations and in-situ measurements, and the resampling and scaling strategy used to integrate the ASCAT product into ECV_SM on the other. The results of this study will be used to further improve the scaling and merging algorithms for future product updates.

Agroforestry is considered a sustainable form of land management that optimizes the use of natural resources (nutrients, radiation, water). Agroforestry is defined as the deliberate integration of woody vegetation with agricultural activities in the lower story. It provides a higher biomass production per unit of land, while providing more ecosystem services than woody-less agricultural lands, such as the reduction of soil erosion and nitrogen leaching, and increase carbon sequestration and landscape biodiversity. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the past and current European Union Common Agricultural policies aiming at promoting the afforestation or reforestation of lands, as the introduction of trees can be seen as a first step to carry out agroforestry practices in former agricultural or forest lands. Agroforestry was a traditional land use system in Europe before modern times. However, before the sixties land intensification and consolidation destroyed millions of trees all over Europe. On the contrary, some good examples of agroforestry promotion are found in Eastern European countries in order to reduce the effect of extreme events such as winds, flooding at the beginning and mid of the last century. In Western European countries, the introduction of trees in the land has been promoted by agroforestry, afforestation and reforestation at the end of the last century. Afforestation of agricultural lands have been the most successful CAP measure (over 1 million hectares) while agroforestry measures were not extensively adopted which may be explained by the funds associated to afforestation measure which compensated the losses of income 15 or 20 years in afforested lands. Agroforestry was poorly adopted in the CAP 2007-2013, having a better success in the CAP 2014-2020 due to the recognition of woody vegetation and the compensation of 5 years given for maintenance once agroforestry is established. However, policy rules ensuring Pillar I payment when agroforestry measure is adopted such as a management plans ensuring that maximum tree density (100 trees per hectare) is not reached, should be pursued.

Photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE) devices applied to solar energy may be considered as high-temperature solar cells. A cathode structure for PETE was designed for high temperature energy conversion in solar concentrating systems. Surface-hydrogenated diamond is one of the few semiconductors showing negative electron affinity and a work function as low as 1.7 eV if nitrogen doped, that is connected to a significant thermionic emission at moderate temperatures (up to 800 °C, where hydrogen desorbs inducing a positive electron affinity). But diamond is transparent to solar radiation, consequently advanced techniques for preparing an efficient sunlight absorbing diamond are necessary.

Society is becoming more conscious on the need to preserve the environment. Sustainable development schemes have grown rapidly as a tool for managing, predicting and improving the growth path in different regions and economy sectors. We introduce a novel and simple mathematical model of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) in order to obtain a dynamical description for each one of the sustainability components (economy, social development and environment conservation), together with their dependence with demographic dynamics. The main part in the modeling task is inspired by the works by Cobb, Douglas, Brander and Taylor. This is completed through some new insights by the authors. A model application is presented for three specific geographical rural regions in Caldas (Colombia).

The present paper analyses the implementation process and some aspects related to the resilience of the marine system, of the EU project BLUEMED (2016-2020), a Coordination and Support Action (CSA), aimed to involve the relevant actors and stakeholders of the Mediterranean Sea in the definition of knowledge driven shared sustainable strategies, through a collective democratic educational process. The Mediterranean Sea has been a crucial crossroad for the history, economy and culture of Europe, Middle East and North African countries. The concept of sustainable marine and maritime economic development has only recently been adopted by the European Union and is finally aimed at improving social well-being through an educational process that involves all the actors of the territory and the stakeholders in the broad sense. This implies a drastic change from how operators from marine and maritime sectors have traditionally addressed management of marine resources, towards a synergistic, non-conflicting and sustainable use of the sea (Stobberup, K. et Al.,2017). The Mediterranean region, given its long history of marine resources exploitation and increasing human pressure, is an ideal natural laboratory for testing the implementation and feasibility of this new educational process and, at the same time, to understand the resilience of the maritime system in this process (European Commission Staff Working Document, 2017). The paper intends to analyze and assess the steps and some implementation aspects of the collective educational process necessary to reach the goals of the BLUEMED project that includes also joint analysis and strategic planning. In particular it intends to test the capacity for resilience at various levels (territorial, individual, of community) that the whole system has retained in terms of its potentiality. If we consider the current economic crisis and the evolving political, social and environmental conditions in the Mediterranean Region, it becomes clear that only an interactive educational process, able to involve all the multidisciplinary actors from different Countries can build an ideal environment for reconciling tensions and balancing economic growth, social implications and environmental conservation. The main aim is to identify strengths and weaknesses in the educational process at the base of the Bluemed project, in order to verify if it can be able, taking advantage from the resilience of the whole maritime system, to create a participative and educational process, where the top-down and bottom-up approach can be connected, so stimulating a dialogue among stakeholders at different level and of different European Regions.

This study investigates for the first time, on laboratory scale, the possible application of an innovative enhanced stabilization process based on sequential mesophilic/thermophilic anaerobic digestion of waste-activated sludge, with low-energy sonication pretreatment. The first mesophilic digestion step was conducted at short hydraulic retention time (3-5 days), in order to favor volatile fatty acid production, followed by a longer thermophilic step of 10 days to enhance the bioconversion kinetics, assuring a complete pathogen removal. The high volatile solid removals, up to 55%, noticeably higher compared to the performances of a single-stage process carried out in same conditions, can guarantee the stability of the final digestate for land application. The ultrasonic pretreatment influenced significantly the fatty acid formation and composition during the first mesophilic step, improving consequently the thermophilic conversion of these compounds into methane. Methane yield from sonicated sludge digestion reached values up to 0.2 Nm(3)/kgVSfed. Positive energy balances highlighted the possible exploitation of this innovative two-stage digestion in place of conventional single-stage processes.

Thermal hydrolysis pretreatment coupled with Thermophilic Anaerobic Digestion (TAD) for Waste Activated Sludge (WAS) treatment is a promising combination to improve biodegradation kinetics during stabilization. However, to date there is a limited knowledge of the anaerobic biomass composition and its impact on TAD process performances. In this study, the structure and dynamics of the microbial communities selected in two semi-continuous anaerobic digesters, fed with untreated and thermal pretreated sludge, were investigated. The systems were operated for 250 days at different organic loading rate. 16S rRNA gene clonal analysis and Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) analyses allowed us to identify the majority of bacterial and archaeal populations. Proteolytic Coprothermobacter spp. and hydrogenotrophic Methanothermobacter spp. living in strict syntrophic association were found to dominate in TAD process. The establishment of a syntrophic proteolytic pathway was favoured by the high temperature of the process and enhanced by the thermal pretreatment of the feeding sludge. Proteolytic activity, alone or with thermal pretreatment, occurred during TAD as proven by increasing concentration of soluble ammonia and soluble COD (sCOD) during the process. However, the availability of a readily biodegradable substrate due to pretreatment allowed to significant sCOD removals (more than 55%) corresponding to higher biogas production in the reactor fed with thermal pretreated sludge. Microbial population dynamics analysed by FISH showed that Coprothermobacter and Methanothermobacter immediately established a stable syntrophic association in the reactor fed with pretreated sludge in line with the overall improved TAD performances observed under these conditions.