Properties of baked foams from oca (Oxalis tuberosa) starch reinforced with sugarcane bagasse and asparagus peel fiber

ABSTRACT The aim of this work was evaluate the effect of the addition of sugarcane bagasse and asparagus peel fiber on the physical and mechanical properties of baked foams based on oca starch. Low concentrations of fiber reduce the density of the foams and the addition of fiber does not improve the flexural strength of the foams, but generates harder and deformable trays. High concentrations of sugarcane bagasse fiber generate more compact trays with a lower water absorption capacity than the control. Foams with asparagus peel fiber showed higher rates of thermal degradation than the control but not so extensive as to affect their applicability

COVID-19, systemic crisis, and possible implications for the wild meat trade in sub-Saharan Africa

Wild animals play an integral and complex role in the economies and ecologies of many countries across the globe, including those of West and Central Africa, the focus of this policy perspective. The trade in wild meat, and its role in diets, have been brought into focus as a consequence of discussions over the origins of COVID-19. As a result, there have been calls for the closure of China’s “wet markets”; greater scrutiny of the wildlife trade in general; and a spotlight has been placed on the potential risks posed by growing human populations and shrinking natural habitats for animal to human transmission of zoonotic diseases. However, to date there has been little attention given to what the consequences of the COVID-19 economic shock may be for the wildlife trade; the people who rely on it for their livelihoods; and the wildlife that is exploited. In this policy perspective, we argue that the links between the COVID-19 pandemic, rural livelihoods and wildlife are likely to be more complex, more nuanced, and more far-reaching, than is represented in the literature to date. We develop a causal model that tracks the likely implications for the wild meat trade of the systemic crisis triggered by COVID-19. We focus on the resulting economic shockwave, as manifested in the collapse in global demand for commodities such as oil, and international tourism services, and what this may mean for local African economies and livelihoods. We trace the shockwave through to the consequences for the use of, and demand for, wild meats as households respond to these changes. We suggest that understanding and predicting the complex dynamics of wild meat use requires increased collaboration between environmental and resource economics and the ecological and conservation sciences

Emergy Net Primary Production (ENPP) as basis for calculation of Ecological Footprint

Society needs urgently good tools to Understand the biosphere dynamics, become aware of Earth's biophysical limits and make appraisals of environmental performance of human dominated systems. In this context, the Ecological Footprint (EF) was suggested as one of the most important tools. But, according to calculations based on Emergy Analysis, the indicators of EF could underestimate the problem of human carrying support. EF does not consider the work of untouched nature in productivity and ecosystems services. In order to improve the EF results, the present study suggests: (a) to include the ecosystems not considered in conventional EF i.e. tundra, deserts and areas covered by ice; (b) to consider the value of Net Primary Production (NPP) in Emergy units (seJ m(-2) year(-1)) as the base for the calculation of Equivalent Factors (EQF); (c) to account for the consumption of fossil energy used in collection, treatment and distribution of water for domestic use, for this the carbon emissions data (in tonC m(-3) of water) were used. Introducing these changes to the conventional EF calculation and considering the Peruvian economy (in 2004) as the study case, the Biocapacity obtained was 14.31 glia capita(-1) and the footprint was 6.68 gha capita(-1). These values mean that Peru can support 2.14 times its population if the current life style is maintained, as opposed to the 4.0 times ratio obtained with a conventional EF calculation. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.10247548

Indices Versus Indicators: Conceptual Precisions In The Sustainability Discussion Of Countries [Índices Versus Indicadores: Precisões Conceituais Na Discussão Da Sustentabilidade De Países]

Nowadays, sustainable development is one of the most important challenges to be confronted by all countries on the globe. The aim is to obtain economic increase without causing damage to the natural capital and maintain peoples well being. In order to diagnose the development of the countries, many tools with different approaches can be used, all of them supplying performance indices as a final result. However, indices and indicators have been misused in most published works, and as a result, there has been an incoherent discussion about their true meaning. In this way, the present work discusses and tries to clarify the meaning of words associated with sustainability, considering as examples three indices that are much used to diagnose the development of the countries: Environmental sustainability index; Ecological footprint; Emergy performance index. © 2008 ANPPAS - UNICAMP.102137148AZAR, C.HOLMBERG, J.LINDGREN, K. Socio-ecological indicators for sustainability. 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Desarrollo sustentable, bio-industrialización descentralizada y nuevas configuraciones rural-urbanas. Los casos de India y Brasil. Pensamiento Iberoamericano, Madrid, V. 46, p. 235-256, 1990SACHS, I., (2002) Caminhos para o desenvolvimento sustentável, , 2. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Garamond, 96 pSAMUEL-JOHNSON, K., ESTY, D.C., Pilot Environmental Sustainability Index Report (2000) Davos (Switzerland): World Economic Forum: Annual Meeting, 41. , http://sedac.ciesin.org/es/esi/ESI_00.pdf, p. Disponível em:, Acesso em: 12 nov. 2007SHIELDS, D., SOLAR, S., MARTIN, W., The role of values and objectives in communicating indicators of sustainability (2002) Ecological Indicator, 2 (1-2), pp. 149-160. , novSICHE, J. R.ORTEGA, E. O Índice de Sustentabilidade Emergético como ferramenta para avaliar ȧsustentabilidade dos paises da América Latina. In: SEMINÁRIO INTERNACIONAL CIÊNCIA E TECNOLOGIA NA AMÉRICA LATINA, 2.,2005, Campinas. Anais... Campinas: UNICAMP, 2005. Disponível em: . Acesso em: 12 nov. 2007SICHE, J. R.ORTEGA, E. O Emergy-based sustainability of the Peruvian economy. In: BIENNIAL EMERGY ANALYSIS CONFERENCE, 4., 2006, Gainesville, Florida. Proceedings... Gainesville, Florida: The Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida, 2006. p. 11. 1-11.13SICHE, J. R. et al. Sustainability of nations by indices: comparative study between environmental sustainability index, ecological footprint and the emergy performance indices, Ecological Economics, DOI: 10. 1016/j.ecolecon.2007.10.023 (in press)STEINBORN, WSVIREZHEV, Y. Entropy as an indicator of sustainability in agro-ecosystems: North Germany case study. Ecological Modelling, v. 133, n. 3, p. 247-257, set. 2000STOCKHAMMER, E., The index of sustainable economic welfare (ISEW) as an alternative to GDP in measuring economic welfare. The results of the Austrian (revised) ISEW calculation 1955-1992 (1997) Ecological Economics, 21 (1), pp. 19-34. , abrULGIATI, S., ODUM, H.T., BASTIANONI, S. 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Polarity- and orientation-related defect distribution in 4H-SiC single crystals

In order to further improve the crystal quality, the influence of polarity and off-orientation on crystallographic perfection of 4H-SiC single crystals was investigated. Micropipe density (MPD), stacking fault density (SFD) and dislocation density (DD) were determined for 2" single crystals grown in (0001) direction 0-7 degrees off towards (1120) and for crystals tip to 1" in diameter grown in (1150) (a) and (1100) (m) directions and using repeated a-face growth (RAF). KOH etching, optical microscopy and X-ray topography were used for the characterization. It is shown that the MPD and DD decrease with increasing off-orientation for the growth in polar directions, respectively, on C- and Si-terminated seeds. A similar behaviour was found for the SFD and DD in non-polar directions with off-orientation towards c-direction. The non-polar crystals were free of micropipes. Nevertheless, while the DD could be reduced up to three orders of magnitude for the growth along non-polar directions, compared with that in c-direction, the SFD continuously increased. RAF is suitable to completely eliminate the micropipes and to reduce slightly the SFD. However, during the final growth step in polar c-direction MPs as well as SFs tend to form again, with a concentration that is comparable with the standard c-plane growth. The results will be discussed in terms of growth mechanism and kinetic aspects. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

The use of emergy assessment and the Geographical Information System in the diagnosis of small family farms in Brazil

In this work, emergy analysis was used in association with the Geographical Information System (GIS) in order to improve the evaluation of family-managed farms that adopt either the ecological or the chemical production models. Three small farms, located in Amparo County, in Sao Paulo state, Brazil, were studied. One of them, Duas Cachoeiras farm, uses agroecological concepts for its agricultural production. The two others (Santa Helena farm and Tres Lagos farm) use the conventional chemical model. In an attempt to improve the precision of the data used in emergy analysis, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was incorporated to the GIS tool to calculate the topsoil loss in the farms. The GIS tool also allowed the calculation of the amount of rain water that infiltrates the ground and can recharge the aquifer. This percolated water is a system output and was incorporated in the emergy accounting. Another modification in comparison to previous emergy analyses was that the renewability factor of each input was considered in the emergy accounting. Results showed that the agroecological farm is more sustainable and can be used as a model for small farms in their transition to ecological agriculture. The GIS-emergy tools were used to compare the environmental performance of the four main productive areas of Duas Cachoeiras farm (annual cultures, orchard, forest, and pasture). These results demonstrate the emergy performance of each kind of land use and may be used in watershed planning. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.21041671375

Convergence of ecological footprint and emergy analysis as a sustainability indicator of countries: Peru as case study

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)In the last decade, two scientific tools have been extensively used worldwide to measure the human impact on nature: ecological footprint (EF) and emergy analysis (EA). Papers trying to combine the strong points of EF and EA, and obtain more accurate results have appeared in scientific literature, in which Zhao's et al. (2005) [61] approach is an important one. Unfortunately, some weak points of the original methods still remain on the new approaches proposed. The aim of this present work is to discuss some weak points found in Zhao's approach, trying to overcome them through a new approach called emergetic ecological footprint (EEF). The main difference between Zhao's approach and EEF is that the last one accounted for the internal storage of capital natural in the biocapacity calculation. Besides that, soil loss and water for human consume were considered as additional categories in the footprint calculation. After discussing it through comparisons with other approaches, EEF was used to assess Peru as a case study, resulting in a biocapacity of 51.76 gha capita(-1) and a footprint of 12.23 gha capita(-1), with 2004 data; that resulted in an ecological surplus of 39.53 gha capita(-1). The load capacity factor obtained was 4.23, meaning that Peru can support a population 4.23 times bigger considering the life style of 2004. The main limitations of the EEF are: (i) it is impossible to make comparisons between the biocapacity and footprint for each category; (ii) a need for a handbook with emergy intensity factors with good quality. On the other hand, the main positive points are: (i) its easiness of application in global and national scales; (ii) its final indicators account for all the previous energy (or emergy) used to make something; (iii) internal natural capital storage was accounted for in the biocapacity calculation, which can be a valid step towards the evaluation and assess of services provided by nature. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.151031823192Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES