2,199 research outputs found
The telecoupled sustainability impacts of global agricultural value chains:Assessing the cross-scale sustainability impacts of the cocoa sector
Agriculture is a major contributor to the global environmental crisis. Natural ecosystems are being replaced by agricultural land, which leads to the extinction of species and the release of tons of carbon emissions. Global agricultural value chains (GVCs) have grown due to the intensification of international trade. While GVCs have undeniably created economic opportunities for the agriculture sector, they have also led to the escalation of local environmental issues. Several initiatives have been implemented to reduce the negative impacts of agriculture, including government regulations, sustainability certification labels, and voluntary sustainability commitments. However, the effectiveness of these initiatives has been questioned due to several reasons, including the mismatches between the scale of the problem and the solution, the lack of monitoring and verification of sustainability actions, and their weak enforcement. Sustainability initiatives are informed by studies assessing the impacts of agriculture that often only focus on local impacts, while disregarding larger-scale – telecoupled– dynamics that can trigger impacts across geographic and temporal scales. This thesis aims to help bridge these knowledge gaps by examining the impacts of agricultural GVCs across scales, studying the role of GVC’s configuration in modulating these impacts and investigating the role of GVC actors in mitigating sustainability risks across scales. The global cocoa value chain is used as a case study. Chapter 2 examines various impact assessment methods and their ability to capture the effects caused by telecoupled dynamics across different scales. The study concludes that no single method is sufficient to capture all telecoupled cross-scale dynamics and that the integration of different methods is necessary to bridge gaps between methods and complement their scope. Chapter 3 implements the recommendations outlined in Chapter 2 by analyzing the impacts caused by cocoa agroforestry and cocoa full-sun production in Ghana. Impacts on carbon, biodiversity stocks, and environmental pollution were analyzed within and beyond the farm-level. This chapter reveals that findings drawn from farm-level assessments can contradict those from landscape-level assessments. Decision-makers focused should be wary of extrapolating farm-level assessment results to larger scales. Chapter 4 expands the scope to the global scale by examining the role of the cocoa GVC configuration on the capacity of the sector to address sustainability challenges across scales. The chapter identifies different types of cocoa traders, their market dominance, and sustainability commitments. The chapter highlights that to address the telecoupled impacts of the cocoa GVC, coordinated action between traders is required, along with government interventions to balance power asymmetries. Chapter 5 measured the degree to which cocoa traders, as identified in Chapter 4, are exposed to deforestation and climate change. This chapter highlights that sustainability challenges in agricultural value chains cannot be resolved in isolation as farming systems are constantly interacting with other farming systems and land competing sectors. To avoid displacing negative impacts across scales, it is necessary to have a coordinated and collaborative effort from stakeholders and sectors involved in making decisions related to land use. This thesis shows that addressing the telecoupled impacts caused by agricultural value chains needs a good understanding of the cause-effect dynamics at play. This requires the quantification of impacts caused by agriculture across scales and the characterization of the GVC network of actors modulating these impacts. Interdisciplinary methods need to be leveraged and integrated to generate actionable insights. The findings of this thesis can assist decision-makers and private actors in devising customized sustainability strategies, prioritizing action, and addressing the most vulnerable hotspots while being mindful of global teleconnections and avoiding spillovers
Weather and climate data for energy applications
Weather information plays a critical role in energy applications — from designing and planning to the management and maintenance of building energy systems, renewable energy applications, and smart utility grids. This research examines weather and climate data for energy applications, covering their sources, generation, implementation, and forecasting. Drivers for the use of weather data, data acquisition methods, and parameter characteristics, as well as their impact on energy applications, are critically reviewed. The study also analyses weather data availability from 32 commonly used online sources, considering their cost, features, and resolution. A comprehensive weather data classification is developed based on measurement type, information period, data resolution, and time horizon. The findings indicate that real-time local weather data with high temporal resolution is crucial for optimal energy management and accurate forecasting of energy and environmental behaviours. However, limitations and uncertainties exist in weather data from online sources, particularly for developing countries, due to the limited spatio-temporal coverage
Strategy Tripod Perspective on the Determinants of Airline Efficiency in A Global Context: An Application of DEA and Tobit Analysis
The airline industry is vital to contemporary civilization since it is a key player in the globalization process: linking regions, fostering global commerce, promoting tourism and aiding economic and social progress. However, there has been little study on the link between the operational environment and airline efficiency. Investigating the amalgamation of institutions, organisations and strategic decisions is critical to understanding how airlines operate efficiently.
This research aims to employ the strategy tripod perspective to investigate the efficiency of a global airline sample using a non-parametric linear programming method (data envelopment analysis [DEA]). Using a Tobit regression, the bootstrapped DEA efficiency change scores are further regressed to determine the drivers of efficiency. The strategy tripod is employed to assess the impact of institutions, industry and resources on airline efficiency. Institutions are measured by global indices of destination attractiveness; industry, including competition, jet fuel and business model; and finally, resources, such as the number of full-time employees, alliances, ownership and connectivity. The first part of the study uses panel data from 35 major airlines, collected from their annual reports for the period 2011 to 2018, and country attractiveness indices from global indicators. The second part of the research involves a qualitative data collection approach and semi-structured interviews with experts in the field to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the first part’s significant findings.
The main findings reveal that airlines operate at a highly competitive level regardless of their competition intensity or origin. Furthermore, the unpredictability of the environment complicates airline operations. The efficiency drivers of an airline are partially determined by its type of business model, its degree of cooperation and how fuel cost is managed. Trade openness has a negative influence on airline efficiency. COVID-19 has toppled the airline industry, forcing airlines to reconsider their business model and continuously increase cooperation. Human resources, sustainability and alternative fuel sources are critical to airline survival. Finally, this study provides some evidence for the practicality of the strategy tripod and hints at the need for a broader approach in the study of international strategies
Proceedings of the 10th International congress on architectural technology (ICAT 2024): architectural technology transformation.
The profession of architectural technology is influential in the transformation of the built environment regionally, nationally, and internationally. The congress provides a platform for industry, educators, researchers, and the next generation of built environment students and professionals to showcase where their influence is transforming the built environment through novel ideas, businesses, leadership, innovation, digital transformation, research and development, and sustainable forward-thinking technological and construction assembly design
INTEGRATED COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN, EXPERIMENTATION, AND OPTIMIZATION APPROACH FOR PEROVSKITES AND PETROLEUM PACKAGING PROCESSES
According to the World Economic Forum report, the U.S. currently has an energy efficiency of just 30%, thus illustrating the potential scope and need for efficiency enhancement and waste minimization. In the U.S. energy sector, petroleum and solar energy are the two key pillars that have the potential to create research opportunities for transition to a cleaner, greener, and sustainable future. In this research endeavor, the focus is on two pivotal areas: (i) Computer-aided perovskite solar cell synthesis; and (ii) Optimization of flow processes through multiproduct petroleum pipelines. In the area of perovskite synthesis, the emphasis is on the enhancement of structural stability, lower costs, and sustainability. Utilizing modeling and optimization methods for computer-aided molecular design (CAMD), efficient, sustainable, less toxic, and economically viable alternatives to conventional lead-based perovskites are obtained. In the second area of optimization of flow processes through multiproduct petroleum pipelines, an actual industrial-scale operation for packaging multiple lube-oil blends is studied. Through an integrated approach of experimental characterization, process design, procedural improvements, testing protocols, control mechanisms, mathematical modeling, and optimization, the limitations of traditional packaging operations are identified, and innovative operational paradigms and strategies are developed by incorporating methods from process systems engineering and data-driven approaches
Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies
Climate change is perhaps the greatest threat to humanity today and plays out as a cruel engine of myriad forms of injustice, violence and destruction. The effects of climate change from human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are devastating and accelerating; yet are uncertain and uneven both in terms of geography and socio-economic impacts. Emerging from the dynamics of capitalism since the industrial revolution — as well as industrialisation under state-led socialism — the consequences of climate change are especially profound for the countryside and its inhabitants. The book interrogates the narratives and strategies that frame climate change and examines the institutionalised responses in agrarian settings, highlighting what exclusions and inclusions result. It explores how different people — in relation to class and other co-constituted axes of social difference such as gender, race, ethnicity, age and occupation — are affected by climate change, as well as the climate adaptation and mitigation responses being implemented in rural areas. The book in turn explores how climate change – and the responses to it - affect processes of social differentiation, trajectories of accumulation and in turn agrarian politics. Finally, the book examines what strategies are required to confront climate change, and the underlying political-economic dynamics that cause it, reflecting on what this means for agrarian struggles across the world. The 26 chapters in this volume explore how the relationship between capitalism and climate change plays out in the rural world and, in particular, the way agrarian struggles connect with the huge challenge of climate change. Through a huge variety of case studies alongside more conceptual chapters, the book makes the often-missing connection between climate change and critical agrarian studies. The book argues that making the connection between climate and agrarian justice is crucial
Genomic architecture of selection for adaptation to challenging environments in aquaculture
Aquaculture, including freshwater and marine farming, has been important for global fish production during the past few decades. However, climate change presents a major risk threatening both quality and quantity of aquaculture production. The environmental stressors in aquaculture resulting from climate change, are temperature rise, salinity changes, sea level rise, acidification and changes of other chemical properties and changes of oxygen levels. Although a reasonable genetic gain can be achieved by selective breeding, this genetic response may not be enough to adapt fish species to the effects of climate change. Marker assisted selection focusing on specific genes or alleles that allow fish to cope with
these changes would allow more rapid adaptation of fish to these new environments. In this thesis, I focused on three essential environmental stressors - dissolved oxygen, salinity and temperature as primarily determined in aquaculture production. The main objective is to provide insight in the genomic architecture underlying the mechanism of adaptation to challenging environments of aquaculture
species under farming conditions. First, I determined candidate QTL associated with phenotypic variation during adaptation to hypoxia or normoxia. I identified overrepresented pathways that could explain the genetic regulation of hypoxia on growth. To identify fish with better hypoxia tolerance and growth under a hypoxic environment, I quantified the genetic correlations between an indicator trait for hypoxia tolerance (critical swimming performance) and growth. Moreover, the genomic architecture associated with swimming performance was demonstrated, while the effect of significant QTLs on growth was estimated. Beyond applying genome-wide association studies, I used selection signatures to identify QTLs and
genes contributing to salinity tolerance. In addition, I also compared the genome of the saline-tolerant and highly productive tilapia “Sukamandi”, that was developed by the aquaculture research institute in Indonesia, to that of blue tilapia and Nile tilapia, to identify the QTLs contributing to salinity tolerance. Finally, I investigated QTLs associated with growth-related traits and organ weights at two distinct
commercial Mediterranean product sites differing in temperature (farms in Spain and Greece). Overall, this thesis considerably adds to insight into how fish adapt to challenging environments, which will aid marker-assisted selection for improved resilience of aquaculture species under climate change
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