Effect of stocking density of fish on water quality and growth performance of European Carp and leafy vegetables in a low-tech aquaponic system

Aquaponics (AP) is a semi-closed system of food production that combines aquaculture and hydroponics and represents a new agricultural system integrating producers and consumers. The aim of this study was to test the effect of stocking densities (APL, 2.5 kg m-3; APH, 4.6 kg m-3) on water quality, growth performance of the European Carp (Cyprinus carpio L.), and yield of leafy vegetables (catalogna, lettuce, and Swiss Chard) in a low-technology AP pilot system compared to a hydroponic cultivation. The AP daily consumption of water due to evapotranspiration was not different among treatments with an average value of 8.2 L d-1, equal to 1.37% of the total water content of the system. Dissolved oxygen was significantly (p < 0.05) different among treatments with the lowest median value recorded with the highest stocking density of fish (5.6 mg L-1) and the highest median value in the hydroponic control (8.7 mg L-1). Marketable yield of the vegetables was significantly different among treatments with the highest production in the hydroponic control for catalogna (1.2 kg m-2) and in the APL treatment for Swiss Chard (5.3 kg m-2). The yield of lettuce did not differ significantly between hydroponic control and APL system (4.0 kg m-2 on average). The lowest production of vegetables was obtained in the APH system. The final weight (515 g vs. 413 g for APL and APH, respectively), specific growth rate (0.79% d-1 vs. 0.68% d-1), and feed conversion (1.55 vs. 1.86) of European Carp decreased when stocking density increased, whereas total yield of biomass was higher in the APH system (4.45 kg m-3 vs. 6.88 kg m-3). A low mortality (3% on average) was observed in both AP treatments. Overall, the results showed that a low initial stocking density at 2.5 kg m-3 improved the production of European Carp and of leafy vegetables by maintaining a better water quality in the tested AP system

The Structuration of Community-Based Mental Health Care: A Duality Analysis of a Volunteer Group’s Local Agency

Using a lens of structuration theory, this study highlights the ways that specific structures within the current community-based model of mental health care might enable and constrain individuals and families living with mental illness. Through a case study of a volunteer mental illness advocacy group, the authors employed a duality analysis on a variety of data collected from the case (i.e., interviews, organizational documents, and community health care data). Findings indicate that while group members encountered structural barriers to their organizational mission, they also used communicative agency creatively and collectively to (re)create structures within the current community-based model of mental health care. Member agency is examined in relation to perceived structural influence. Theoretical and practical applications of the findings are discussed

Universal design as resilient urban space plan strategy. New scenarios for environmental resources’ sustainable management

Nowadays, urban framework, stressed by the growing anthropic pressure and its constantly evolving use requests is split by uneven structures, contexts, users and patchy needs, which come out to be inefficient and ineffective in access and management. This fact is directly connected both with morph-functional structure of urban texture and its continuous changing trends. The most important consequences of this situation are some negative effects that produce entropy, mistaken anthropic space uses, ecological networks decrease and most of all a substantial urban life quality reduction connected with mobility problems and non-resilient spaces’ use at the different plan scales. These elements make it necessary to restart thinking about environmental resources’ sustainable use and management. Universal design comes out to be a useful tool related to urban space planning strategies in terms of resilient choices and actions. Design for all plan approach also represents a good solution for matching people needs to urban environmental quality improvement. This idea is supported by the experience of a certain case study, that considers universal design application positive effects on open public space plan strategy in Oslo, together with an example of an active use of water to plan a sustainable public space in Rotterdam

Phase-resolved Crab pulsar measurements from 25 to 400 GeV with the MAGIC telescopes

We report on observations of the Crab pulsar with the MAGIC telescopes. Our data were taken in both monoscopic (> 25GeV) and stereoscopic (> 50GeV) observation modes. Two peaks were detected with both modes and phase-resolved energy spectra were calculated. By comparing with Fermi- LAT measurements, we find that the energy spectrum of the Crab pulsar does not follow a power law with an exponential cutoff, but has an additional hard component, extending up to at least 400 GeV. This suggests that the emission above 25 GeV is not dominated by curvature radiation, as suggested in the standard scenarios of the OG and SG models.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Proc. TAUP 2011, submitted for publication in JCP

Distillery anaerobic digestion residues as fertilizers for field vegetable crops: Performance and efficiency in mid-term successions

Understanding nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of crops plays an important role in achieving sustainable production. Intensive agriculture has adversely affected social and environmental issues worldwide over the past few decades. Anaerobic digested residues from the distillery industry (DADRs) can be used in agriculture, thereby recycling valuable organic materials that can supply organic N. An experiment using DADRs in horticulture was conducted to evaluate the performance of different treatments on yield and NUE. The experiment was conducted for five years, growing lettuce, cauliflower, chicory, potato, Swiss chard, catalogna chicory, tomato, pepper, and melon in two different succession schemes. Five fertilization treatments were designed, including a mineral fertilization control, in which nitrogen (N) was supplied according to standard recommendations in the area. The other treatments were an unfertilized control and three treatments in which 50%, 75%, and 100% of the N were supplied by DADRs and the remaining with common chemical fertilizer. Major findings were: (1) Spring\u2013summer crops showed the lowest N-uptake and N recovery, during this period high chemical fertilization can cause environmental problems such as N leaching, and fertilization with 100% DADRs is a viable alternative; (2) fall\u2013winter crops can be fertilized by combining 50% mineral N and 50% organic N, supplying the nutrients required by the crops during the growing cycle

Universal measurability and the Hochschild class of the Chern character

We study notions of measurability for singular traces, and characterise universal measurability for operators in Dixmier ideals. This measurability result is then applied to improve on the various proofs of Connes\u27 identification of the Hochschild class of the Chern character of Dixmier summable spectral triples. The measurability results show that the identification of the Hochschild class is independent of the choice of singular trace. As a corollary we obtain strong information on the asymptotics of the eigenvalues of operators naturally associated to spectral triples (A, H, D) and Hochschild cycles for A

Industry 4.0 Driven Result-oriented PSS: An Assessment in the Energy Management

Sustainability is a current challenge and all sectors, including the buildings one, are being called upon to provide a solution to mitigate climate change. The state of the art of energy management using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) technology in building systems industry is characterized by a traditional monitoring approach which could assess the energy consumption of the building but that cannot manage and act the required action to improve the energy management according to a demand side approach. The aim of this paper is to overcome this traditional monitoring approach, presenting Simon, a new model proposed by Evogy, enabling a result-oriented product service system (PSS) for buildings through cyber physical systems, artificial intelligence, and internet of things adoption. The main findings highlight the benefits associated with the Simon model by virtue of digital-based predictive maintenance on the real system. In addition, its adoption allows the PSS provider to aggregate energy demand from the plethora of buildings and, according to digital technologies, not only monitor consumption but also implement equipment. Finally, the application case highlights the benefits are different and thus stands as a best practice for combining sustainability and digitization