Grupo Operacional Olivicultura e Azeite: SustentOlive - Melhoria das práticas de rega e fertilização do olival nas explorações olivícolas em Trás-os-Montes para a sustentabilidade do olival

Na região de Trás-os-Montes, a segunda região de maior importância do sector olivícola em Portugal, apenas 6% da área total do olival é regada (RGA, 2009). É provável que na última década tenha ocorrido um aumento considerável desta área, por um lado, devido à reconversão de olival de sequeiro semi-intensivo ao regadio e, por outro, devido ao aumento da disponibilidade de água para a rega, em consequência dos principais aproveitamentos hidroagrícolas da região. Dentre estes, destacam-se o Empreendimento Hidroagrícola do Vale da Vilariça, com ocupação cultural cerca de 2 500 ha, dos quais 30% são olival de regadio, e do Aproveitamento Hidroagrícola de Macedo de Cavaleiros. Atualmente, verifica-se um aumento do recurso à bombagem de águas subterrâneas e à construção de pequenas “charcas” para rega de olivais localizados fora dos perímetros de rega. O objetivo geral do Grupo Operacional (GO) Olivicultura e Azeite - “SustentOlive” - é o de melhorar as práticas de rega nas explorações olivícolas em Trás-os-Montes para uma gestão eficiente da água de rega pela adoção de diferentes estratégias de rega deficitária, quer pela melhoria do desempenho dos sistemas de rega permitindo maximizar a eficiência da rega e otimizar a produtividade da água, com vista à Eco - Sustentabilidade da olivicultura na região, como uma das formas de prevenir a desertificação do interior Norte do País. Num contexto de alterações climáticas, que aponta para uma escassez e irregularidade da precipitação, estas medidas assumem grande relevância, devendo ser dada importância particular às práticas de rega deficitária, cuja otimização pode ajudar a maximizar a eficiência do uso da água pela planta e, por conseguinte, melhorar os rendimentos e os benefícios económicos das explorações agrícolas que se traduzirá num aumento da competitividade do sector oleícola regional, a nível nacional e internacional. O principal contributo deste GO será disponibilizar conhecimento, informação e competências que potenciarão a adoção pelos olivicultores de práticas de rega e de fertilização sustentáveis. Será possível quantificar as necessidades de rega das diferentes cultivares regionais, regando apenas com dotações de água necessárias, o que evita perdas de produção quer por excessos quer por défice hídrico, em momentos críticos do ciclo vegetativo e produtivo da oliveira. Os resultados esperados permitirão avaliar a resposta de cada cultivar a diferentes estratégias de rega deficitária tendo por base, o compromisso do aumento da eficiência do uso da água e o incremento da produtividade e da qualidade do azeite. A avaliação do funcionamento do sistema de rega e do seu desempenho é fundamental para se poder conduzir a rega de uma forma eficiente maximizando a poupança de água e adequando a rega às necessidades hídricas do olival. O conhecimento dos principais indicadores do desempenho do sistema de rega é indispensável à implementação de uma correta gestão da rega, melhorando a eficiência de rega e o aumento da produtividade da água. Neste projeto pretende-se igualmente avaliar a eficiência da colheita mecânica nos diferentes tratamentos de rega e cultivares o que permitirá identificar o momento ótimo da colheira mecânica, ferramenta essencial para minimizar os custos associados a esta operação cultural e preservar a qualidade da azeitona. Os beneficiários deste GO incluem os agricultores, os técnicos das organizações de agricultores (OA), os investigadores e os gestores económicos e políticos. Os olivicultores serão os beneficiários diretos uma vez que terão ao dispor conhecimento técnico-científico que os auxiliará no processo de tomadas de decisão. Os técnicos das OA passarão a ficar munidos de conhecimento científico e competências para apoiar a tomada de decisão dos olivicultores sobre opções sustentáveis. Os investigadores serão um grupo importante de beneficiários uma vez que, através da abordagem colaborativa para a resolução dos problemas identificados, permitir-lhes-á aproximar a investigação da prática, fomentando a aplicação do conhecimento científico.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Viability of dietary substitution of live microalgae with dry Ulva rigida in broodstock conditioning of the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas)

The current study evaluated the microalgae replacement by dry macroalgae (Ulva rigida) in the reproductive success and biochemical composition of the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) during broodstock conditioning. Five nutritional regimes were tested: 100% macroalgae (diet 1), 50% macroalgae+50% microalgae (diet 2), 25% macroalgae+75% microalgae (diet 3) and 100% microalgae (diet 4). An unfed group was used as a negative control. The microalgae blend was composed of 33% Isochrysis galbana and 67% diatoms (75% Skeletonema costatum+25% Chaetoceros calcitrans). Gonadal maturation was reflected in the physiological condition of the individuals. All treatments, except diet 1, showed an increase in condition index and were fully matured at the end of the trial, with the best physiological condition observed in oysters fed diet 3 and diet 4. Protein and total lipid content increased during the conditioning period, whereas glycogen content decreased. Oysters conditioned with diet 3 had higher protein and total lipid content and lower glycogen content than the other treatments. In addition, diet 3 showed the highest percentage of viable veliger larvae. The current study demonstrated that it is possible to replace 25% of microalgae with macroalgae in the broodstock conditioning, minimizing the operative cost in bivalve hatcheries. © 2018. Published by The Company of BiologistsThis work was supported by Project INNOVMAR-Innovation and Sustainability in the Management and Exploitation of Marine Resources [NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000035] within the line ‘INSEAFOOD, Innovation and valorization of seafood products’, funded by the Northern Regional Operational Programme (NORTE2020) through the European Regional Development Fund. Postdoctoral fellowships were granted to authors T.G.T. [SFRH/BPD/89360/2012] and to author A.C.G. [ref. SFRH/ BPD/72777/2010], by Fundaçaõ para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal), under the auspices of ESF and Portuguese funds. Z.E.M. is grateful to the project [UID/QUI/ 50006/2013-POCI/01/0145/FEDER/007265] with support from Fundaçaõ para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/MEC through national funds and co-financed by European Regional Development Fund, under the Partnership Agreement PT2020. This work was partially supported by POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006939 [Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy—UID/EQU/00511/2013], funded by the European Regional Development Fund, through COMPETE2020— Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizaçaõ and by national funds via Fundaçaõ para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, through project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000005—LEPABE-2-ECO-INNOVATION, supported by NORTE 2020, under the Portugal 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund

What does it take to renature cities? An expert-based analysis of barriers and strategies for the implementation of nature-based solutions

This paper uses an expert-based methodology to survey the barriers and strategies related to the implementation of nature-based solutions (NBS). The ambition of the paper is to offer a bird's eye overview of the difficulties encountered by NBS deployment and ways to overcome them. With a wide participation of 80 experts from COST Action Circular City, we identify barriers specific to 35 pre-defined NBS of the following four categories: Vertical Greening Systems and Green Roofs; Food and Biomass Production; Rainwater Management; and Remediation, Treatment, and Recovery. The research sheds light on how a major interdisciplinary – yet predominantly technically-oriented - community of scientists and practitioners views this important topic. Overall, the most relevant barriers are related to technological complexity, lack of skilled staff and training programs and the lack of awareness that NBS is an option. Our results highlight concerns related to post implementation issues, especially operation and maintenance, which subsequently affect social acceptance. The paper identifies a “chain” effect across barriers, meaning that one barrier can affect the existence or the relevance of other barriers. In terms of strategies, most of them target governance, information, and education aspects, despite the predominantly technical expertise of the participants. The study innovates with respect to state-of-the-art research by showing a fine-grained connection between barriers, strategies and individual NBS and categories, a level of detail which is not encountered in any other study to date

The DUNE far detector vertical drift technology. Technical design report

DUNE is an international experiment dedicated to addressing some of the questions at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics, including the mystifying preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early universe. The dual-site experiment will employ an intense neutrino beam focused on a near and a far detector as it aims to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy and to make high-precision measurements of the PMNS matrix parameters, including the CP-violating phase. It will also stand ready to observe supernova neutrino bursts, and seeks to observe nucleon decay as a signature of a grand unified theory underlying the standard model. The DUNE far detector implements liquid argon time-projection chamber (LArTPC) technology, and combines the many tens-of-kiloton fiducial mass necessary for rare event searches with the sub-centimeter spatial resolution required to image those events with high precision. The addition of a photon detection system enhances physics capabilities for all DUNE physics drivers and opens prospects for further physics explorations. Given its size, the far detector will be implemented as a set of modules, with LArTPC designs that differ from one another as newer technologies arise. In the vertical drift LArTPC design, a horizontal cathode bisects the detector, creating two stacked drift volumes in which ionization charges drift towards anodes at either the top or bottom. The anodes are composed of perforated PCB layers with conductive strips, enabling reconstruction in 3D. Light-trap-style photon detection modules are placed both on the cryostat's side walls and on the central cathode where they are optically powered. This Technical Design Report describes in detail the technical implementations of each subsystem of this LArTPC that, together with the other far detector modules and the near detector, will enable DUNE to achieve its physics goals

Highly-parallelized simulation of a pixelated LArTPC on a GPU

The rapid development of general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is allowing the implementation of highly-parallelized Monte Carlo simulation chains for particle physics experiments. This technique is particularly suitable for the simulation of a pixelated charge readout for time projection chambers, given the large number of channels that this technology employs. Here we present the first implementation of a full microphysical simulator of a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) equipped with light readout and pixelated charge readout, developed for the DUNE Near Detector. The software is implemented with an end-to-end set of GPU-optimized algorithms. The algorithms have been written in Python and translated into CUDA kernels using Numba, a just-in-time compiler for a subset of Python and NumPy instructions. The GPU implementation achieves a speed up of four orders of magnitude compared with the equivalent CPU version. The simulation of the current induced on 10^3 pixels takes around 1 ms on the GPU, compared with approximately 10 s on the CPU. The results of the simulation are compared against data from a pixel-readout LArTPC prototype