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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).

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).

This study investigates the nexus between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in Italy in the 1970-2007 years. The unit root tests results point out that our four variables are integrated of order one. Cointegration analysis reach contradictory results. However, the long-run estimations reveal that, if renewable energy consumption increases by 1%, real GDP decreases by 0.23%. The Toda and Yamamoto approach shows that exists a unidirectional causal flow, running from renewable energy consumption to aggregate income, in line with the "growth hypothesis". Moreover, these results are confirmed by Granger causality tests. While forecasts applications set out that VAR forecasts represent an improvement on simpler forecasts in more than half the comparisons, for each variable. In fact, VAR gives more accurate forecasts, over-performing the mean, RW, and AR methods.

This study investigates the nexus between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in Italy in the 1970-2007 years. The unit root tests results point out that our four variables are integrated of order one. Cointegration analysis reach contradictory results. However, the long-run estimations reveal that, if renewable energy consumption increases by 1%, real GDP decreases by 0.23%. The Toda and Yamamoto approach shows that exists a unidirectional causal flow, running from renewable energy consumption to aggregate income, in line with the "growth hypothesis". Moreover, these results are confirmed by Granger causality tests. While forecasts applications set out that VAR forecasts represent an improvement on simpler forecasts in more than half the comparisons, for each variable. In fact, VAR gives more accurate forecasts, over-performing the mean, RW, and AR methods.

The goal of this study is to determine the difference in CO2 emissions between 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, more specifically during lockdown periods during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the beginning of the pandemic, most countries were forced into lockdowns, and a countless number of people had to continue their daily work from home in isolation. Previously, people would go to an office or to school and leave their houses empty for eight hours, without having lights or any electronics on. Because of this, there should be a direct correlation between electricity usage before and during lockdowns, as a private residence should have higher electricity consumption during 2020-2021, when they are at home. Using machine learning, we will investigate to see if COVID-19 affected CO2 emissions as a result of more electricity usage in private residences. A model will be made to predict what the CO2 emissions would be for 2019-2020, based on electricity usage data from 2020-2021. Then, the real CO2 emissions from 2019-2020 will be compared with the model’s predicted values, and the difference will indicate if COVID-19 caused an inconsistency between actual and predicted CO2 emissions. Factors that were taken into account when making a model were independent variables relating to outdoor conditions, the number of people living in the house, and the temperature that the thermostat is set at, making the response variable CO2 emissions.

The goal of this study is to determine the difference in CO2 emissions between 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, more specifically during lockdown periods during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the beginning of the pandemic, most countries were forced into lockdowns, and a countless number of people had to continue their daily work from home in isolation. Previously, people would go to an office or to school and leave their houses empty for eight hours, without having lights or any electronics on. Because of this, there should be a direct correlation between electricity usage before and during lockdowns, as a private residence should have higher electricity consumption during 2020-2021, when they are at home. Using machine learning, we will investigate to see if COVID-19 affected CO2 emissions as a result of more electricity usage in private residences. A model will be made to predict what the CO2 emissions would be for 2019-2020, based on electricity usage data from 2020-2021. Then, the real CO2 emissions from 2019-2020 will be compared with the model’s predicted values, and the difference will indicate if COVID-19 caused an inconsistency between actual and predicted CO2 emissions. Factors that were taken into account when making a model were independent variables relating to outdoor conditions, the number of people living in the house, and the temperature that the thermostat is set at, making the response variable CO2 emissions.

Abstract A search for a chargino-neutralino pair decaying via the 125 GeV Higgs boson into photons is presented. The study is based on the data collected between 2015 and 2018 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant excess over the expected background is observed. Upper limits at 95% confidence level for a massless $$ {\tilde{\chi}}_1^0 $$ χ ˜ 1 0 are set on several electroweakino production cross-sections and the visible cross-section for beyond the Standard Model processes. In the context of simplified supersymmetric models, 95% confidence-level limits of up to 310 GeV in $$ m\left({\tilde{\chi}}_1^{\pm }/{\tilde{\chi}}_2^0\right) $$ m χ ˜ 1 ± / χ ˜ 2 0 , where $$ m\left({\tilde{\chi}}_1^0\right) $$ m χ ˜ 1 0 = 0.5 GeV, are set. Limits at 95% confidence level are also set on the $$ {\tilde{\chi}}_1^{\pm }{\tilde{\chi}}_2^0 $$ χ ˜ 1 ± χ ˜ 2 0 cross-section in the mass plane of $$ m\left({\tilde{\chi}}_1^{\pm }/{\tilde{\chi}}_2^0\right) $$ m χ ˜ 1 ± / χ ˜ 2 0 and $$ m\left({\tilde{\chi}}_1^0\right) $$ m χ ˜ 1 0 , and on scenarios with gravitino as the lightest supersymmetric particle. Upper limits at the 95% confidence-level are set on the higgsino production cross-section. Higgsino masses below 380 GeV are excluded for the case of the higgsino fully decaying into a Higgs boson and a gravitino.