Ecocycles最新文献

{"title":"Microalgae cultivation integrated into agro-industrial wastewater treatment","authors":"David Pacha-Herrera, P. Nagy, T. Magyar","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v7i2.210","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v7i2.210","url":null,"abstract":"The world demands more and more energy due to the continuous population increase. In parallel, high organic and nutrient contents of wastewater streams are generated from anthropogenic activities like urbanization, industrialization, and agricultural practices. The continuous discharge of these wastewater streams into water bodies has been considered responsible for oxygen depletion and eutrophication in the environment. Integrating microalgae cultivation into wastewater treatment can be a promising solution to produce renewable energy while removing pollutants. In contrast to several review articles published about microalgae cultivation on different wastewater streams, the current review is focusing mainly on microalgae-based wastewater treatment on agricultural waste streams. Hence, first of all, the main characteristics of different agricultural streams will be described, then microalgal consortia cultivation, as well as monoculture strains, will be evaluated. Moreover, the photobioreactor systems for agricultural wastewater treatment will also be summarized. Finally, harvesting methods for microalgae recovery will be presented.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68243292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Smart and sustainable cities in the Mediterranean region : The contribution of short supply chains of food","authors":"Maria José Palma Lampreia Dos-Santos, N. Baptista, C. Machado-Santos","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v7i2.196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v7i2.196","url":null,"abstract":"The cities around the world in general, and in the Mediterranean area in particular, are facing tremendous challenges at the environmental, social, economic, and institutional levels, due to the urbanization trend, environmental climatic changes and challenges due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, cities need to be sustainable and smart in the future. An economically important and innovative sector in urban areas is food security. Nowadays, most of the literature explores the concept of smart cities from the point of view of information and communications technology, indeed, the connection with the sustainability aspects of the food supply chain and the ways to operationalize that, remains unsolved. This paper tries to overcome this gap in the literature. The main aim is to analyze the contribution of the short supply chain of food in terms of sustainability in smart cities, regarding current urban trends in cities in general and in Mediterranean areas in particular. The methodology was based on a literature review and includes quantitative and qualitative analysis. The results confirm the existence of positive impacts in the short supply chains of food in urban areas in terms of sustainability. Despite the existence of a considerable number of papers about smart cities and ICT-related topics, the benefits from society of short supply chains of food, and the linkage among the topics and subjects, remain unreferred to or with a limited knowledge exchange.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68243652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The influence of agriculture on the chemical composition of aerosols in the coastal zone of the Southern Baltic Sea (Gdynia)","authors":"Martyna Malinowska, A. Lewandowska, M. Bielawska","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v7i2.199","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v7i2.199","url":null,"abstract":"In order to improve soil quality, size, and appearance of plants, various types of fertilizers are used in Poland. They are rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, and potassium. Plants are fertilized before sowing, during germination, and during crop growth. Such agricultural activity can have a negative effect on the chemical composition of atmospheric aerosols, which can be transported with air masses far away from the agricultural sources regions. The aim of the research was to estimate the influence of agriculture on the chemical composition of aerosols of various sizes (<0.45 to 10 µm) in the atmosphere of the coastal zone of the Baltic Sea. The samples were collected in Gdynia, from 11/05/2016 to 17/08/2016, only outside traffic hours (10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.) and only when air masses were transported from over agricultural areas. Aerosols were collected using Tisch Environmental high-flow impactor. The ions (NO3?, PO43-, K+, Ca2+) were determined by Metrohm ion chromatography (881 Compact IC pro). The obtained results allowed us to conclude that the highest mean concentrations of NO3?, K+, Ca2+occurred in aerosols below 0.45 µm in diameter (0.26, 0.04 and 5.85 µg·m-3, respectively). Phosphates showed the highest average concentration (0.191 µg·m-3) in aerosols with a diameter from 1.5 to 3.0 µm. The concentration of calcium and nitrates was the highest in the days when advection from Western Kashubia was dominant. In turn, the highest concentrations of phosphates and potassium occurred on the days when air masses were transported from Vistula ?u?awy. All episodes occurred in the spring when agricultural activity related to fertilizing farmland was the highest and the average wind speed was lower than 5 m·s-1, which indicates local to the regional origin of the analyzed compounds in aerosols.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68243670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"New, regenerative approaches to sustainability : Redefining ecosystem functions, environmental management, and heritage conservation","authors":"S. Némethy","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v7i2.212","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v7i2.212","url":null,"abstract":"The international conference “Sustainable Management of Cultural Landscapes in the context of the European Green Deal”, held in Santo Stefano di Camastra (Sicily, Italy) on November 9-14, 2021. aimed to shed light on those environmental, social, economic, and cultural problems of interactions between humankind and its natural environment, which cannot be answered through one single discipline but only by applying a multidisciplinary system approach, built on applied Earth System Science intimately interwoven with social sciences, economics and heritage science. The structure of the Congress mirrored this concept since the overlapping areas of sessions encouraged interdisciplinary thinking and practical approach to the key issues of regional development such as ecosystem protection, green infrastructures, sustainable and multifunctional agriculture, circular economy, renewable energy, regeneration, and conservation of natural environments and conservation of cultural heritage.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68243335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Living with Water : Infrastructure and Urbanism in Jakarta","authors":"J. Napier","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v7i1.191","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v7i1.191","url":null,"abstract":"Cities around the world are at risk of pluvial and fluvial flooding, due to more frequent extreme weather events and uncontrolled urbanisation. Coastal cities are additionally at risk from tidal flooding and sea level rise. Hard surface infrastructure leads to rapid storm-water run off overwhelming conventional drainage systems at peak times. This article examines what constitutes infrastructure in the 21st century and what should its new priorities be? A case study is made of Jakarta, a low lying delta city, where the consequences of unregulated economic development are starting to be addressed. The lack of a city based water supply has led to excessive ground water extraction and the sinking of the city further exacerbating flood risk. City wide flooding has occurred three times in the last 15 years. Water needs to be considered as a primary element in infrastructure strategy and space found for natural systems and active travel. In Jakarta the role of the kampungs (informal settlements) provides an opportunity to address social and environmental difficulties at the same time. This interdisciplinary overview analyses recent infrastructure initiatives and developments and asks what more can be done and what new planning policies and concepts may be required.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68243524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Microbiological control of alcoholic fermentation","authors":"A. Mas, Gemma Beltran, M. Torija","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v6i2.181","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v6i2.181","url":null,"abstract":"Alcoholic fermentation and the production of wine has accompanied humanity for more than 10000 years. However, it has been only in the last 50 years when the winemakers have had the tools to manage and control the process. The methodology to analyze and monitor the succession of the microorganisms that participate in the process along with the effective use of antimicrobial compounds (for instance sulfur dioxide), the control of the temperature and, above all, the use of cellar-friendly fermentation starters (mostly as Active Dry Wine Yeast) have provided the appropriate conditions for that control. However, the use of a limited number of commercial presentations of the starters has generated an unwanted uniformity of the wines produced. Furthermore, new tendencies in wine making with limited or no human intervention have considered these tolls as a negative aspect in the wine quality, although most of these concerns are only philosophical, without clear scientific evidence. We present a revision of the present state of the art in these methodologies where our research group has been working for the last 25 years.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42128072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Managing challenges of increasing complexity in sustainability","authors":"Aniko Klausmann-Dinya","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v6i2.159","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v6i2.159","url":null,"abstract":"The paradigm under which our society and economy have operated until now has become obsolete in the 21st century. Some Nobel Prize-winner economists made it clear that we have to forget the paradigm currently dominating the global economy: \"Let’s privatize the benefits and socialize (distribute) its costs as much as possible!\" The results of it are extremely and rapidly increasing inequalities, followed by unmanageable socio-economic - environmental tensions. It seems we could get out of this situation only with radical social and economic transformations, both globally and at the lower levels (countries, regions, localities). There isn’t another solution just the social and economic paradigm exchange parallel with each other. Interconnected and not separated them. But many big challenges are coming up from the natural and the technological environment too and they are rooted in the human-made systems. So altogether we are facing the quickly changing complexity and an unknown situation in the history of humanity. We don't have appropriate methods and experiences how to deal with these new types of challenges but there isn't any other choice just to manage them. Despite this fact, there are very few studies about the causes and consequences of this rapidly growing problem in the era of growing sustainability risks. Similarly, there is very little practical information that provides actionable advice on how to manage these problems at different (global-, macro-, and micro-) levels of social and economic organizations. We define complexity as the number of components in a system plus the variety of relationships among these components plus the speed of changes of both the components and the relationships. Larger systems (like social - economic - ecological systems) are often very complex – but they may be more complicated if their behavior is unpredictable. Based on the global databases and reports we investigated the trials of countries how prepared they are for managing the growing complexity in the field of implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. We have found that in most of the countries (and globally too) experts are choosing the simplest way - they deal with the goals separately from each other and don't take into account the very complicated system of their interconnections and the feedback loops. We have tried to summarize some conclusions for the future about what would be the better approach to deal with the complexity.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48397618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effective natural food complements: anti-CoV-2 spike protein directed druggable inhibitors","authors":"Z. Oláh, László Ökrész, I. Török, A. Pestenácz, Anikó Harkai, É. Kocsis","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v6i2.176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v6i2.176","url":null,"abstract":"There is a number of photosynthetically produced small molecules that have previously been validated through SARS-CoV spike protein interaction assays for selectivity and effectivity in our database. Our specialty database, the AVIRA-DB, has been built from scientific papers that published results regarding selective & effective CoV-2 spike protein binding inhibitors that prevent virus binding to the Angiotensin Converting Enzyme type 2 (ACE2). These data have been accumulated since 2003, the time of the first well documented coronavirus pandemic. To develop our anti-viral nutraceutical capsule we favoured small molecules (Mw <1000 Dalton) from edible plant parts that are enriched in experimentally evaluated coronavirus inhibitors. From this “AVIRA-DB” we screened for local culture varieties of vegetables and spices that are enriched in the anti-viral hits. Thus, AVIRA is the first knowledge-based nutraceutical composition that was validated by selective anti-CoV-2’s spike protein assays, performed in silico, -vitro & -vivo. From Chemo- & Bio-text-mined meta-data from literature and patents resulted in druggable flavonoids and flavonols, which were validated as anti-CoV-2 spike protein directed small molecules that are preventing the binding of the virus to ACE2.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43811367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enforceability of decisions of the Agricultural Paying Agency in matters of direct payments","authors":"Lucia Palšová, Ondrej Beňuš","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v6i2.169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v6i2.169","url":null,"abstract":"Since its inception, the Common Agricultural Policy has been the largest among all common European policies. The main objective of the Common agricultural policy is food sovereignty in the European Union, stabilization of farmers' incomes and, at present, support for non-production functions of agriculture and environmental protection. Given the rising input prices and the time mismatch between supply and demand for agricultural products, the first pillar of the CAP has become a key tool for sustaining the desired competitiveness of agricultural products in the EU Member States. Direct payments have become an important tool for Slovak farmers, and therefore their effective implementation is essential for their continued existence or development. The aim of the paper was to point out the weak enforceability of direct payments to eligible users of agricultural land if there is a conflicting legal entitlement to provide a direct payment in accordance with §28 and §29 of Act no. 280/2017 Coll. and the resulting problems for eligible applicants.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49267440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessment of the biodegradation of doxycycline by biostimulation with addition of glucose, phenol or/and copper","authors":"Hayet Djelal, Paola Estrada Martinez, Djouza Haddouche, M. Chabani","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v6i2.175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v6i2.175","url":null,"abstract":"Doxycycline, an antibiotic, is largely used in human and veterinary medicine. The conventional treatment with activated sludge is not very efficient. Laccase appeared to be the main enzyme secreted essentially by white rot fungi as Trametes versicolor and Phlebia fascicularia on the degradation of xenobiotic compounds from the pharmaceutical industry. The main purpose of this study was to enhance the biodegradation of doxycycline through activated sludge combined with addition of glucose as a carbon co-substrate to improve the growth of the microbial population present in the activated sludge, phenol as a laccase mediator, copper as a cofactor and inductor for laccase production. The enhancement of the biodegradation of doxycycline was 50, 90, 68 and 83% greater respectively with the addition of glucose, copper, phenol and with a mixture of the compounds after 14 days of treatment at 25°C. Compared with the biotic control (activated sludge alone), a 30% increase for the test with the addition of phenol was observed.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46005658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}