Dealing with the effects of ocean acidification on coral reefs in the Indian Ocean and Asia

© 2019 Elsevier B.V. Shallow coral reefs provide food, income, well-being and coastal protection to countries around the Indian Ocean and Asia. These reefs are under threat due to many anthropogenic stressors including pollution, sedimentation, overfishing, sea surface warming and habitat destruction. Ocean acidification interacts with these factors to exacerbate stress on coral reefs. Effective solutions in tackling the impact of ocean acidification require a thorough understanding of the current adaptive capacity of each nation to deal with the consequences. Here, we aim to help the decision-making process for policy makers in dealing with these future challenges at the regional and national levels. We recommend that a series of evaluations be made to understand the current status of each nation in this region in dealing with ocean acidification impacts by assessing the climate policy, education, policy coherence, related research activities, adaptive capacity of reef-dependent economic sectors and local management. Indonesia and Thailand, are selected as case studies. We also highlight general recommendations on mitigation and adaptation to ocean acidification impacts on coral reefs and propose well-designed research program would be necessary for developing a more targeted policy agenda in this region

ICT and big data Adoption in SMEs from rural areas: comparison between Portugal, Spain and Russia

One of the components of the success of modern economic systems of any level and scale is the use of the latest information and communication technologies (ICT). The use of technology allows the increase in the efficiency of the production process and conduct the business to a completely new level. The main objective of this research is to assess the state of ICT in small and medium-sized enterprises, and the possibility of using Big data technologies for analyzing and making forecasts for improving economic performance. The research of the use of ICT were carried out on the example of small and medium enterprises (SME) in rural areas of three countries: Alto Trás-os-Montes (Portugal), Castela e Leão (Spain) and Krasnodar (Russia). The goals of the work are to conduct a comparative description of the selected areas, to determine the level of the current state of ICT, to bring proposals for improving this level. The main conclusion is that although the objects of research are at a different level of economic development, they have similar experimental data, and the proposed improvement proposals may be useful for each of them.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio