An Analysis of Global Research Trends on Greenhouse Technology: Towards a Sustainable Agriculture

Greenhouse farming is an agricultural management system that has demonstrated its efficiency in intensifying food production. These systems constitute a feasible alternative for ensuring food supply, which is one of the greatest challenges faced by humankind in the twenty-first century. Technology has been able to meet the challenges related to greenhouse farming in both contributing to overcoming its limitations, correcting adverse impacts and ensuring system sustainability. The objective of this article is to analyse the global research trends in greenhouse technology over the last two decades, in order to identify the main driving agents, the most outstanding research lines and possible gaps in the literature. Different methodologies have been used for the analysis; both quantitative and qualitative. The principal results show that there are different relevant lines of research related to different aspects of greenhouse farming: the use of water for irrigation, the design of the optimum structure of the greenhouse, conserving the soil in the best growing conditions, energy consumption of the system as a whole, climate control within the facility and pest control. The research is characterized by the being composed largely of ad hoc studies, which hinders the international collaboration between researchers and institutions. The research approach has shifted from being focused on increasing production and cost savings to aspects related to resource conservation and sustainability

Optimal modelling and experimentation for the improved sustainability of microfluidic chemical technology design

Optimization of the dynamics and control of chemical processes holds the promise of improved sustainability for chemical technology by minimizing resource wastage. Anecdotally, chemical plant may be substantially over designed, say by 35-50%, due to designers taking account of uncertainties by providing greater flexibility. Once the plant is commissioned, techniques of nonlinear dynamics analysis can be used by process systems engineers to recoup some of this overdesign by optimization of the plant operation through tighter control. At the design stage, coupling the experimentation with data assimilation into the model, whilst using the partially informed, semi-empirical model to predict from parametric sensitivity studies which experiments to run should optimally improve the model. This approach has been demonstrated for optimal experimentation, but limited to a differential algebraic model of the process. Typically, such models for online monitoring have been limited to low dimensions. Recently it has been demonstrated that inverse methods such as data assimilation can be applied to PDE systems with algebraic constraints, a substantially more complicated parameter estimation using finite element multiphysics modelling. Parametric sensitivity can be used from such semi-empirical models to predict the optimum placement of sensors to be used to collect data that optimally informs the model for a microfluidic sensor system. This coupled optimum modelling and experiment procedure is ambitious in the scale of the modelling problem, as well as in the scale of the application - a microfluidic device. In general, microfluidic devices are sufficiently easy to fabricate, control, and monitor that they form an ideal platform for developing high dimensional spatio-temporal models for simultaneously coupling with experimentation. As chemical microreactors already promise low raw materials wastage through tight control of reagent contacting, improved design techniques should be able to augment optimal control systems to achieve very low resource wastage. In this paper, we discuss how the paradigm for optimal modelling and experimentation should be developed and foreshadow the exploitation of this methodology for the development of chemical microreactors and microfluidic sensors for online monitoring of chemical processes. Improvement in both of these areas bodes to improve the sustainability of chemical processes through innovative technology. (C) 2008 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Multicriteria performance analysis of an integrated urban wastewater system for energy management

The optimization and management of an integrated urban wastewater system is a complex problem involving many processes and variables. The possible control options are defined by several management strategies that may differently impact the economic, operational or environmental performance of the system. The present paper aims to contribute to the environmental and energy sustainability of urban wastewater systems by means of a multicriteria performance analysis. The paper begins with a complete analysis of the system performance in several fields of interest (energy, environment, quality of service, operation, economy and financial resources), and it highlights the management strengths and weaknesses in each subsystem. The analysis was carried out by means of a prototype, developed during the ALADIN project, which enables understanding the system, planning effective improvement actions and assessing their possible effects in each part of the urban water cycle. To demonstrate the potential of such an approach, it was tested on an actual integrated urban wastewater system in Sicily

Environmental Management Control Systems and Environmental Performance: Direct and Indirect Effect

Purpose: This study aims to examine the effect of environmental management control systems on environmental performance. Testing is carried out directly or through the environmental strategy mediation role.   Theoretical framework: In contrast to previous studies, this research focuses on managerial activity processes that enable, encourage, ensure how a company and facilitate practices that achieve environmental performance and strategies to achieve it.  The research model is built on the basis of stakeholder theory and contingency theory.   Design/methodology/approach: The research was conducted through an online survey of hotel managers in Makassar City, Indonesia. Data analysis was performed by regression, path analysis and Sobel test.   Findings:  The results of the study prove that the environmental management control system has a positive and significant effect on environmental strategy and environmental performance. The Sobel test also proves that environmental strategy mediates the influence of environmental management control systems on environmental performance.   Research, Practical & Social implications:  This research covers hotels in Makassar, not all of them in Indonesia; therefore, generalizing the findings of this study should be exercised with caution. Secondly, this study assumes hotel homogeneity and does not consider hotel type. The findings of this study also provide recommendations on public policy and business practices to integrate environmental issues into managerial processes and decision-making as well as corporate control. Further research can expand this research by considering contextual and other contingency aspects. In addition, future research may use a larger sample and longitudinal data which allows to investigate changes in strategic environmental management control system policies over time.   Originality/value:  Improvements in research on environmental management control systems have become a very important issue in supporting the themes of sustainability in business practices globally. The originality of this research focuses on managerial processes to support sustainability practices in business, especially business practices in hotels

Governance for Sustainable Systems: The Development of a Participatory Framework

Despite an increasing recognition of the need for an integrative approach to sustainable development, there remains a tendency for this to be anthropocentric. Attempts to govern sustainability are invariably focused on the pre-eminence of the human perspective and social systems in the pursuit of human goals. This often means either excluding or attempting to control the external environment rather than understanding and responding to it. This thesis explores more holistic approaches to governance that are based upon the need for an improved understanding about the interconnections between social, economic and ecological systems. It examines current literature on governance for sustainable development and systems thinking as applied to it, with specific reference to Socio-Technical Systems (STS), social learning about systems’ interrelations and the nature of public goods. On the basis of this analysis, a systemic conception of governance for sustainability is developed and translated into a provisional framework that can aid participatory social learning relating to sustainable development. Three initial Socio-Technical Systems (STS) case studies are drawn upon to populate the empty framework (the European Critical Electricity Infrastructure (ECEI), the Finnish security system and the transition of energy systems towards a post carbon society); these are then analysed thematically to derive common governance for sustainability criteria. The final modified framework is then applied to an in depth, and on-going, case study of food systems’ security and sustainability and a final discussion considers how this governance framework (GAME) might contribute to future holistic decision making for more sustainable Socio-Technical Systems. The multi-method GAME supports the generation of future scenarios and core sustainability criteria by multiple stakeholders; reflecting needs, capabilities and limits that can maintain systems’ equilibrium. It also implies a more normative governance for sustainability and a commitment to improved evidence-based decision-making that reflects systems’ complexity and contributes to bridging the gaps between science, policy and society. The GAME is currently being extended to incorporate the user-friendly geospatial representations of impacts

Vulnerability and resilience analysis of the air traffic control sector network in China

Sustainability and its component resilience have become an important issue that cannot be neglected in airspace planning and development. Resilience, as an emerging system concept, is critical to sustainability in many fields. With the rapidly growing demand in China’s air transportation sector, airspace congestion and flight delays have become a major issue in the fast development of this sector, and threatens the sustainability and resilience of air traffic control (ATC) systems such as waste of resources, air pollution, etc. Sectors, the basic units of an ATC system, play a significant role in ensuring the safe and smooth operations of day-to-day flights. In this paper, we apply the complex network theory to establish a model of China’s air sector network (CASN) and examine a series of characteristic parameters with an empirical analysis on its vulnerability and resilience. Through a simulation-based approach, the CASN’s resilience was quantitatively assessed with a resilience indicator (RI) in different scenarios to identify the optimal recovery strategy for building higher system resilience. The results show that the CASN has a lengthy average shortest path and a small clustering coefficient, which demonstrates a hybrid topological feature. We have also found that betweenness has the greatest impact on the resilience and has managerial implications to understand the relationship between vulnerability and resilience in CASN, so as to achieve the resilience and sustainability of CASN.</jats:p

A contingency base camp framework using model based systems engineering and adaptive agents

This research investigates the use of adaptive agents and hybridization of those agents to improve resource allocation in dynamic systems and environments. These agents are applied to contingency bases in an object oriented approach utilizing Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) processes and tools to accomplish these goals. Contingency bases provide the tools and resources for the military to perform missions effectively. There has been increasing interest in improving the sustainability and resilience of the camps, as inefficiencies in resource usage increases. The increase in resource usage leads to additional operational costs and added danger to military personnel guarding supply caravans. The MBSE approach alleviates some of the complexity of constructing a model of a contingency base, and allows for the introduction of 3rd party analysis tools through the XML metadata interchange standard. This approach is used to create a virtual environment for the agents to learn the system patterns and behaviors within the system. An agent based approach is used to address the dynamic nature of base camp operations and resource utilization. , helping with extensibility and scalability issues since larger camps have a very high computation load. To train the agents to adjust to base camp operations, an evolutionary algorithm was created to develop the control mechanism. This allows for a faster time to convergence for the control mechanisms when a change is observed. Results have shown a decrease in resource consumption of up to 20% with respect to fuel usage, which will further help reduce base costs and risk --Abstract, page iii

Governance of Systems of Social Practice for Sustainability: Developing a reflexive systems of practice approach for governance of sustainability

It is widely recognised that meeting current emissions reduction targets will require radical changes to the sustainability performance of the built environment. Dominant approaches to sustainable building rest upon technological innovation, regulation and behavioural change initiatives. These represent a centralised command and control approach to governance. This thesis contributes to existing literature which contends that these approaches are inadequate because they fail to recognise the simultaneously socio-technical nature of systems, thus focusing on narrow interventions aimed at isolated aspects of dynamic systems. Instead, the thesis develops and applies a novel conceptual approach to explore the reflexive governance of systems of social practice. The thesis draws on new empirical data from a multi-site in depth qualitative study of the system of practice that emerged around a sustainable building project at the University of East Anglia. This involved 58 interviews with key actors and residents, 12 months participant observation and documentary analysis conducted during the construction process and first months of occupancy. Key novelty of the thesis is found in producing a map of a “live” system of practice. The mapping process enabled the identification of the multiple and diverse relations between practices through which governance occurs, and an exploration of numerous overlapping forms of governance happening at different points in the system. Sustainability is identified as a situated element of practice, taking different forms at different points in the system. The thesis concludes by drawing out implications for governing systems of practice for sustainability. It outlines an idealised system of governance based on principles of: i) systematic mapping of connections within systems of practice to understand both current context and likely outcomes; ii) anticipatory policy visioning; iii) co-design of interventions with key practitioners; and iv) developing distributed reflexivity across whole systems of practice to better attend to multiple forms of sustainability

Low temperature district heating: An expert opinion survey

Among the available solutions for building heating and cooling, district heating (DH) and district cooling (DC) systems are considered some of the best options since they can ensure a better control of pollutant emissions and greater efficiency than individual systems. Nevertheless, improvements are needed to increase their sustainability and reliability. The so-called \u201clow temperature district heating\u201d (LTDH) concept has been introduced in recent years in an attempt i) to reduce the distribution heat losses through a temperature decrease in the DH network, ii) to favor the integration with renewable energy sources, and iii) to create the conditions required for the development of future smart energy systems. However, many concerns have been raised about its implementation in both existing and new systems. For this reason, this paper aims to identify the stakeholders\u2019 ranking of the barriers against LTDH system development and implementation over the next few years. Aiming to this, a questionnaire was designed, including an analysis of current gaps and strengths, and then submitted to more than 50 Italian and international experts in the field of DH. An in-depth analysis of the received answers was performed, focusing in particular on the Italian experts\u2019 answers. Comments and suggestions on how to promote the transition to the new LTDH approach are reported

School Operational Assistance Fund (BOS) Accounting Information System as an Internal Control Tool

This study examines the accounting information system as an internal control tool over cash deposits and disbursements on the School Operational Assistance Fund or in Indonesian called Bantuan Operasional Sekolah (BOS). To enforce accountability and transparency in the use of the BOS Fund, which is one of the important sources of funds for education in Indonesia, it is very important to implement a strict monitoring mechanism. This research approach uses qualitative and descriptive research methods, which combine primary data collection, document analysis, interviews with stakeholders, and direct observation of the accounting information system that regulates the process of receiving and spending BOS funds. The framework includes elements of planning, in this case including the initial stage of making the RKAS, then implementation by carrying out the RKAS by procedures and paying attention to internal controls. Furthermore, the reporting stage leads to the realization of the RKAS, where all stages use an integrated information system. Based on the research results, SMK Darurrohman already has a computerized information system that is available to the public. This system is designed to receive and distribute BOS funds by the guidelines outlined in the BOS guidebook and adequate and accurate control mechanisms. Accounting information systems play a key role in supporting the implementation and maintenance of effective internal controls in an organization. Suggestions for the sustainability of BOS fund management for SMK Darurrohman Sukawangi include utilizing BOS to maintain and improve the quality and quantity of education, emphasizing routine, and implementing job rotation.This study examines the accounting information system as an internal control tool over cash deposits and disbursements on the School Operational Assistance Fund or in Indonesian called Bantuan Operasional Sekolah (BOS). To enforce accountability and transparency in the use of the BOS Fund, which is one of the important sources of funds for education in Indonesia, it is very important to implement a strict monitoring mechanism. This research approach uses qualitative and descriptive research methods, which combine primary data collection, document analysis, interviews with stakeholders, and direct observation of the accounting information system that regulates the process of receiving and spending BOS funds. The framework includes elements of planning, in this case including the initial stage of making the RKAS, then implementation by carrying out the RKAS by procedures and paying attention to internal controls. Furthermore, the reporting stage leads to the realization of the RKAS, where all stages use an integrated information system. Based on the research results, SMK Darurrohman already has a computerized information system that is available to the public. This system is designed to receive and distribute BOS funds by the guidelines outlined in the BOS guidebook and adequate and accurate control mechanisms. Accounting information systems play a key role in supporting the implementation and maintenance of effective internal controls in an organization. Suggestions for the sustainability of BOS fund management for SMK Darurrohman Sukawangi include utilizing BOS to maintain and improve the quality and quantity of education, emphasizing routine, and implementing job rotation