Surfaces and Interfaces for Renewable Energy

Energy is a growing need in today’s world. Citizens and governments are increasingly aware of the sustainable use that must be made of natural resources and the great negative impact on the environment produced by conventional energies. Therefore, developments in energy systems based on renewable energies must be carried out in the very near future. To ensure their sustainability, they must be made of durable materials, and for this, the study of coatings is extremely important. This is also vital in systems based on solar energy, where the optical properties of the materials must be preserved as long as possible, and to this must be added the fact that they tend to be installed in very aggressive environments from the point of view of corrosion. Therefore, this special issue aims to contribute to the development of this challenge

Worldwide research trends on land tenure

Land tenure issues can contribute to food insecurity, limited livelihood opportunities and consequently poverty. Lack of land tenure can cause migratory movements that can affect not only individuals and families but also communities or even entire nations. This study aims to underline the scientific and social relevance of land tenure studies by identifying research focus and trends. To this end, we analyzed all scientific publications related to land tenure from 1950 to 2020. The three most active countries in this field are the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. The three most active countries in this field are the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, with the three main institutions being Wageningen University & Research, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Three different research periods have been identified in this domain. In the period from 1950 to 1999, the main research clusters identified were related to socioeconomics and demography issues. In the second period, from 2000 to 2009, the main research clusters identified were related to specific geographical areas and land rights issues, with an emphasis on countries in Africa or South America. In the third period, from 2010 to 2020, the main research clusters identified were related to environmental aspects. It has been found that land tenure studies have always been linked to what subsequently became the sustainable development goals, especially those related to the elimination of poverty and hunger in the first period, economic growth and reducing inequalities in the second period, and climate change in the third period. From a geographical point of view, the first two periods were characterized by terms related to continents such as Africa, Asia, or Latin America, with Africa being the most frequently used term in the first two periods. In the third period, studies on specific countries stood out, especially those related to China and Mexico

Worldwide Research on Plant Defense against Biotic Stresses as Improvement for Sustainable Agriculture

Agriculture is the basis for food production on a global scale. Sustainable agriculture tries to improve or maintain the quality of food without compromising the environment. As sessile organisms, plants cannot avoid adverse environmental conditions and contact with other living organisms. The damage caused to plants by other living organisms such as parasites and pathogens (virus, bacteria, fungi, nematodes or insects) brings about what is known as biotic stress. Plants are constantly exposed to biotic stress, which causes changes in plant metabolism involving physiological damages that lead to a reduction of their productivity. To fight biotic stress, plants have developed sophisticated defense mechanisms. Thus, understanding plant defense mechanisms might prevent important crop and economic losses. In this article, a bibliometric analysis of biotic stress is carried out. Different aspects of the publications are analyzed, such as publication type, research field, journal type, countries and their institutions, as well as the keyword occurrence frequency, and finally special attention is paid to the plant studied by the leading countries and institutions. As expected, journals selected by authors to publish their relevant findings are plant-specific journals. However, it should be noted that the fourth position, in terms of the number of publications per journal, is occupied by BMC Genomics journal. Such a journal considers mainly articles on genomics, which indicates the involvement of genetic factors in the control of biotic stress. Analysis of the keywords used in publications about biotic stress shows the great interest in the biotic–abiotic stress interaction, in the gene expression regulation in plants as well as phytohormones in the current research. In short, the great effort made by the scientific community in the biotic and abiotic stresses field with the aim to understand, regulate and control plant damages caused by biotic stress agents will help in the development of sustainable agriculture

The tutoring as a vehicle for the promotion of competences in the new grade cross agricultural engineering

Resumen basado en el de la publicaciónEl modelo de tutoría basado en la entrevista personal y reuniones en pequeños grupos ofrece una serie de ventajas y posibilidades para afianzas algunas de las competencias transversales del Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior. Los títulos de grado acordes con la nueva convergencia incorporan las competencias transversales, dedicadas a la formación en valores humanos del alumnado. Además estos nuevos títulos tienen la particularidad de tener menos horas presenciales del alumno, lo que dificulta la adquisición de estas competencias en las clases. Este modelo, aplicado en la Escuela Técnica de Ingenieros Agrónomos de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid en el curso 2005-2006, se ha visto útil en el desarrollo personal y humano del alumnado, y ha servido para detectar carencias desde el punto de vista personal, académico y curricular. Además el modelo de tutoría propuesto permitirá afianzar muchas de las competencias transversales personales, sistémicas e instrumentales que son parte de los nuevos títulos de grado. Se pretende que a través del modelo propuesto, se contribuya a que el alumnado sea artífice de su particular proyecto de vida y su propia cualificación, potenciar su capacidad de pensar y de hacer crítica, desarrollar su capacidad para planificar y llevarlo a la práctica.AndalucíaES

Generic skills of Cei-A3 Universities (Agrifood Campus of International Excellence)

Resumen basado en el de la publicaciónTítulo, resumen y palabras clave también en inglésSe pretende realizar un análisis de las competencias transversales de las distintas universidades que componen el consorcio del Campus de Excelencia Internacional en Agroalimentación (CeiA3). Como resultado se observa que existen un número escaso de competencias comunes, siendo de vital importancia la incorporación de las competencias transversales comunes a los estudios universitarios de las universidades del CeiA3 ya que constituyen un elemento integrador y vertebrador del campus de excelencia internacional agroalimentario.ES

Worldwide Trends in Agronomy Research: Bibliometric Studies

Agriculture has the large challenge of providing food for a continuously growing world population, while natural resources remain the same. This great challenge is certainly supported in the future by Agronomy, which brings together practical knowledge and scientifically based techniques and applies them to agricultural productivity. Research in agronomy at a global level must reflect global interests, while considering the particular conditions of each country or region. One of the main objectives of this Special Issue is to contribute studies that help to identify the global research trends in agronomy, especially if they have an approach related to sustainability

Coatings in Photovoltaic Solar Energy Worldwide Research

This paper describes the characteristics of contributions that were made by researchers worldwide in the field of Solar Coating in the period 1957–2019. Scopus is used as a database and the results are processed while using bibliometric and analytical techniques. All of the documents registered in Scopus, a total of 6440 documents, have been analyzed and distributed according to thematic subcategories. Publications are analyzed from the type of publication, field of use, language, subcategory, type of newspaper, and the frequency of the keyword perspectives. English (96.8%) is the language that is most used for publications, followed by Chinese (2.6%), and the rest of the languages have a less than < 1% representation. Publications are studied by authors, affiliations, countries of origin of the authors, and H-index, which it stands out that the authors of China contribute with 3345 researchers, closely followed by the United States with 2634 and Germany with 1156. The Asian continent contributes the most, with 65% of the top 20 affiliations, and Taiwan having the most authors publishing in this subject, closely followed by Switzerland. It can be stated that research in this area is still evolving with a great international scientific contribution in improving the efficiency of solar cells

Worldwide Research Trends on Wheat and Barley: A Bibliometric Comparative Analysis

Grain cereals such as wheat, barley, rice, and maize are the nutritional basis of humans and animals worldwide. Thus, these crop plants are essential in terms of global food security. We conducted a bibliometric assessment of scientific documents and patents related to wheat and barley through the Scopus database. The number of documents published per year, their affiliation and corresponding scientific areas, the publishing journals, document types and languages were metricized. The main keywords included in research publications concerning these crops were also analysed globally and clustered in thematic groups. In the case of keywords related to agronomy or genetics and molecular biology, we considered documents dated up to 1999, and from 2000 to 2018, separately. Comparison of the results obtained for wheat and barley revealed some remarkable different trends, for which the underlying reasons are further discussed

Low-Cost Inventions and Patents

Inventions have been the technological advances of mankind. There are inventions of all kinds, some of which have lasted hundreds of years or even longer, preserving their essence. For example, the pipe as a means of transporting water, concrete to attach stones in construction, or the pulley to lift heavy objects; all of these are attributed to Roman times, and are still relevant today. Low-cost technologies are expected to be easy to build, have little or no energy consumption, and be easy to maintain and operate. The use of sustainable technologies is essential in order to move towards greater global coverage of technology, and therefore to improve human quality of life. Low-cost products always respond to a specific need, even if no in-depth analysis of the situation or possible solutions have been carried out. It is a consensus in all industrialized countries that patents have a decisive influence on the organization of the economy, as they are a key element in promoting technological innovation. Patents must aim to promote the technological development of countries, starting from their industrial situation