Abstract: Algal-based bioenergy products have faced multiple economic and environmental problems. To counter these problems, algal-based biorefineries have been proposed as a promising solution. Multiple environmental and economic assessments have analyzed this concept. However, a wide variation in results was reported. This study performs a review to evaluate the methodological reasons behind this variation. Based on this review, four main challenges for a sustainability assessment were identified: 1) the use of a clear framework; 2) the adaptation of the methodology to all stages of technological maturity; 3) the use of harmonized assumptions; 4) the integration of the technological process. A generic methodology, based on the integration of a techno-economic assessment methodology and a streamlined life cycle assessment was proposed. This environmental techno-economic assessment can be performed following an iterative approach during each stage of technology development. In this way, crucial technological parameters can be directly identified and evaluated during the maturation of the technology. The use of this assessment methodology can therefore act as guidance to decrease the time-to-market for innovative and sustainable technologies.

Abstract: In spite of global actions, biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate. Despite the need for objectively comparable monetary standards to include biodiversity arguments in policymaking, research on the relationship between species diversity and its valuation from a societal perspective is still scarce. In this paper, a methodological framework for the valuation of natural predators based on their ecological role in the agroecosystem is introduced. The framework integrates a dynamic ecological model simulating interactions between species with an economic model, thereby quantifying the effect of reduced numbers of natural predators on the net farm income. The model attributes an objective monetary value to increased species diversity through the changes in the provisioning of a marketable good. Results indicate that the loss of three predators could decrease net farm income with 88.86 ha− 1 to 2186.5 ha− 1. For the pear production sector in Flanders in 2011, this constitutes to an indirect use value of 0,68 million for one predator and 16.63 million for the presence of three predators. The aim is to provide a justification for the argument for biodiversity conservation, based on the ecological function of species, through the delivery of comparable monetary standards.

Abstract: Despite the importance of biosphere reserves in Iran's livelihood and welfare, the economic significance of Hara Biosphere Reserve has never been comprehensively studied. This study examines the current importance of Hara Biosphere Reserve (HBR) in local livelihood and welfare. Using a household survey, data were collected through a questionnaire, key informant interviews and direct observations. Two hundred and forty-four households were randomly selected from 10 villages through proportional sampling. Results showed that non-environmental income was the first driver of the total income, poverty alleviation and narrowing income inequality gap. Park income was the second. The results also showed that excluding park income from total income would significantly increase headcount poverty, widen the poverty gap, and raise the Gini coefficient. Wealthier households had the greatest absolute income from the environment, including forest, fishing and fodder. However, the poorest group had smallest absolute income from these sources. Thus, the study demonstrated that wealthier households are responsible for the overharvesting of environmental resources. Interestingly, the study showed that wealthier households are more dependent on profitable environmental incomes sources while the poorest are more dependent on non-profitable ones. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract: Air pollutants from fossil fuel fired power plants harm the environment and human health. More than 91% of Irans electricity production is from thermal power plants that use natural gas, diesel, and fuel oil. We apply the impact pathway approach to estimate the health impacts arising from Iranian fossil-based electricity generation emission, and in a next step, we calculate monetary costs of the estimated damages, for a one-year period starting from 20 March 2016 through 2017. We use the new version of SIMPACTS (International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria) to investigate the health effects from 61 major Iran fossil-based power plants separately. The selected plants represent 95.6% of total Iran fossil-based power generation. Using the individual and different power plant estimates, we avoid extrapolation and our results can be considered more reliable, taking into account spatial differences. The total damage cost is 723.42 million USD (2000). The damage cost per generated electricity varies from 0.06 to 22.41 USD/MWh and average plant damage cost is 2.85 USD/MWh. Accounting for these external costs indicates the actual costs of fossil energy. The results are useful for policy makers to compare the health costs from these plants and to decide on cleaner energy sources and to take measures to increase benefits for society.

Abstract: Canola production is an important alternative for agricultural policy-makers in Iran to reduce dependency on the imported vegetable oils. Nevertheless, the canola planted area is only increasing at a slow pace, indicating a low willingness-to-accept of farmers. The general aim of this study was to determine the factors influencing the canola adoption in the Kermanshah Province in Western Iran. Employing stratified random sampling method, 106 farmers from each adopter and non-adopter group were selected. Helping to reach a suitable extensional program, two main categories of variables were defined; i.e. farmers personal characteristics and extension parameters. The analysis of farmers personal characteristics variables revealed that the adopters had larger farms and were younger. The results also show that 80% of the adopters were highly to very highly willing to cultivate canola. Furthermore, a logistic regression model estimated the influence of extensional parameters variables on the canola adoption. According to the regression model, the most effective factors are contact with extension agents and participating in extension classes. As a conclusion, it is suggested that the focus of extension services should be to reduce the distance to agricultural service centers in combination with more contact with extension agents and classes.

Abstract: Transition projects have been implemented for Flemish agriculture since 2003, but these did not enable a transformation of the agricultural sector. This paper looks at pre-transition scenarios that have been collectively designed by stakeholders of the agricultural sector in 2002. These foresaw decreases in the regional animal stocks in Flanders. However, the real evolution of the sector did not reveal such a decrease. It is assumed that the individual adaptive behaviour of farmers can explain the unexpected stability of the Flemish agricultural sector. A detailed agent-based model has been built to replicate the past evolution, accounting for structural diversity of farmers, heterogeneity in behaviour, and natural resource constraints. The results indicate that different forms of rigidity in the individual behaviour of farmers slow down the adaptation of the agricultural sector. Future transition scenarios should account for these elements in order not to overestimate the speed of change in the sector. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract: Ca8MgR(PO4)(7) = La, Pr, Nd, Sm-Lu, and Y) phosphates with a beta-Ca-3(PO4)(2) related structure were prepared by a standard solid-state method in air. Second-harmonic generation, differential scanning calorimetry, and dielectric measurements led to the conclusion that all Ca8MgR(PO4)(7) are centrosymmetric and go to another centrosymmetric phase in the course of a first-order antiferroelectric phase transition well above room temperature (RT). High-temperature electron diffraction showed that the symmetry changes from R (3) over barc to R (3) over barm during the phase transition. Structures of Ca8MgR(PO4)(7) at RT were refined by the Rietveld method in centrosymmetric space group R (3) over barc. Mg2+ cations occupy the M5 site; the occupancy of the M1 site by R3+ cations increases monotonically from 0.0389 for R = La to 0.1667 for R = Er-Lu, whereas the occupancy of the M3 site by R3+ cations decreases monotonically from 0.1278 for R = La to 0 for R = Er-Lu. In the case of R = Er-Lu, the M3 site is occupied only by Ca2+ cations. P1O(4) tetrahedra and cations at the M3 site are disordered in the R (3) over barc structure of Ca8MgEu(PO4)(7). Using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction, we found that annealing conditions do not significantly affect the distribution of Ca2+ and Eu3+ cations between the structure positions of Ca8MgEu(PO4)(7). Luminescent properties of CasMgEu(PO4)(7) powder samples were investigated under near-ultraviolet (n-UV) light. Excitation spectra of CasMgEu(PO4)(7) show the strongest absorption at about 395 nm that matches with commercially available n-UV-emitting GaN-based LED chips. Emission spectra show an intense red emission due to the D-5(0) -> F-7(2) transition of Eu3+. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract: In this work, a mathematical model was developed to describe the dynamics of fermentation products in sludge alkaline fermentation systems for the first time. In this model, the impacts of alkaline fermentation on sludge disintegration, hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis, and methanogenesis processes are specifically considered for describing the high-level formation of fermentation products. The model proposed successfully reproduced the experimental data obtained from five independent sludge alkaline fermentation studies. The modeling results showed that alkaline fermentation largely facilitated the disintegration, acidogenesis, and acetogenesis processes and severely inhibited methanogenesis process. With the pH increase from 7.0 to 10.0, the disintegration, acidogenesis, and acetogenesis processes respectively increased by 53%, 1030%, and 30% while methane production decreased by 3800%.However, no substantial effect on hydrolysis process was found. The model also indicated that the pathway of acetoclastic methanogenesis was more severely inhibited by alkaline condition than that of hydrogentrophic methanogenesis. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract: A previously unreported Pb-based perovskite PbMoO3 is obtained by high-pressure and high-temperature synthesis. This material crystallizes in the Pm3m cubic structure at room temperature, making it distinct from typical Pb-based perovskite oxides with a structural distortion. PbMoO3 exhibits a metallic behavior down to 0.1 K with an unusual T-sublinear dependence of the electrical resistivity. Moreover, a large specific heat is observed at low temperatures accompanied by a peak in C-P/T-3 around 10 K, in marked contrast to the isostructural metallic system SrMoO3. These transport and thermal properties for PbMoO3, taking into account anomalously large Pb atomic displacements detected through diffraction experiments, are attributed to a low-energy vibrational mode, associated with incoherent off-centering of lone-pair Pb2+ cations. We discuss the unusual behavior of the electrical resistivity in terms of a polaronlike conduction, mediated by the strong coupling between conduction electrons and optical phonons of the local low-energy vibrational mode.

Abstract: Major obstacles in current CMOS technology, such as the interconnect bottleneck and thermal heat management, can be overcome by employing subwavelength-scaled light in plasmonic waveguides and devices. In this work, a plasmonic structure that implements the majority (MAJ) gate function is designed and thoroughly studied through simulations. The structure consists of three merging waveguides, serving as the MAJ gate inputs. The information of the logic signals is encoded in the phase of transmitted surface plasmon polaritons (SPP). SPPs are excited at all three inputs and the phase of the output SPP is determined by theMAJof the input phases. The operating dimensions are identified and the functionality is verified for all input combinations. This is the first reported simulation of a plasmonic MAJ gate and thus contributes to the field of optical computing at the nanoscale. (C) 2017 Author(s).

Abstract: Electrically gating of trilayer graphene (TLG) opens a band gap offering the possibility to electrically engineer TLG quantum dots. We study the energy levels of such quantum dots and investigate their dependence on a perpendicular magnetic field B and different types of stacking of the graphene layers. The dots are modeled as circular and confined by a truncated parabolic potential which can be realized by nanostructured gates or position-dependent doping. The energy spectra exhibit the intervalley symmetry E-K(e) (m) = -E (h)(K') (m) for the electron (e) and hole (h) states, where m is the angular momentum quantum number and K and K' label the two valleys. The electron and hole spectra for B = 0 are twofold degenerate due to the intervalley symmetry E-K (m) = E-K' [-(m + 1)]. For both ABC [alpha = 1.5 (1.2) for large (small) R] and ABA (alpha = 1) stackings, the lowest-energy levels show approximately a R-alpha dependence on the dot radius R in contrast with the 1/R-3 one for ABC-stacked dots with infinite-mass boundary. As functions of the field B, the oscillator strengths for dipole-allowed transitions differ drastically for the two types of stackings.

Abstract: To properly estimate and manage pesticide occurrence in urban rivers, it is essential, but often highly challenging, to identify the key pesticide transport pathways in association to the main sources. This study examined the concentration-discharge hysteresis behaviour (hysteresis analysis) for three pesticides and the parent-metabolite concentration dynamics for two metabolites at sites with different levels of urban influence in a mixed land use catchment (25 km(2)) within the Swiss Greifensee area, aiming to identify the dominant pesticide transport pathways. Combining an adapted hysteresis classification framework with prior knowledge of the field conditions and pesticide usage, we demonstrated the possibility of using hysteresis analysis to qualitatively infer the dominant pesticide transport pathway in mixed land-use catchments. The analysis showed that hysteresis types, and therefore the dominant transport pathway, vary among pesticides, sites and rainfall events. Hysteresis loops mostly correspond to dominant transport by flow components with intermediate response time, although pesticide sources indicate that fast transport pathways are responsible in most cases (e.g. urban runoff and combined sewer overflows). The discrepancy suggests the fast transport pathways can be slowed down due to catchment storages, such as topographic depressions in agricultural areas, a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and other artificial storage units (e.g. retention basins) in urban areas. Moreover, the WWTP was identified as an important factor modifying the parent-metabolite concentration dynamics during rainfall events. To properly predict and manage pesticide occurrence in catchments of mixed land uses, the hydrological delaying effect and chemical processes within the artificial structures need to be accounted for, in addition to the catchment hydrology and the diversity of pesticide sources. This study demonstrates that in catchments with diverse pesticide sources and complex transport mechanisms, the adapted hysteresis analysis can help to improve our understanding on pesticide transport behaviours and provide a basis for effective management strategies.(C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract: In a small, open and resource-poor economy, import and export dependency have an ever-growing impact on local policy decisions, which makes local (environmental) policy-makers increasingly depend on global data. This increases the interest in models that link local production and consumption data to global production, trade and environmental data. The recent increase in availability of global environmentally extended multi-regional input-output tables (EE-MRIO tables) provides an opportunity to link them with existing local environmentally extended input-output tables (EE-RIO tables). These combined tables make it possible (1) to analyse the links between local and global production and consumption and (2) to study global value chains, material use and environmental impacts simultaneously. However, estimations using input-output (I-O) analyses contain errors due to imperfect databases. In this article the magnitude of specification, aggregation and time errors are estimated and compared. The results show the need to combine local datasets with multi-regional ones and show that highest detailed (country and sector levels) as well as time series of I-O tables are the way forward for using I-O analyses in local policy-making. The paper provides guidance on trading off investments in model adoption and/or extension and the reliability of estimation results.

Abstract: In this study, a recently developed model accounting for intracellular nitrate storage kinetics was thoroughly studied to understand and compare the storage capacity of Phaeodactylum tricornutum and Amphora coffeaeformis. In the first stage the identifiability of the biokinetic parameters was examined. Next, the kinetic model was calibrated for both microalgal species based on experimental observations during batch growth experiments. Two kinetic parameters were calibrated, namely the maximum specific growth rate (mu(max)) and the nitrate storage rate (k(sto)). A significant difference was observed for the nitrate storage rate between both species. For P. tricornutum, the nitrate storage rate was much higher (k(sto) = 0.036m(3) g(-1) DW d(-1)) compared to A. coffeaeformis (k(sto) = 0.0004m(3) g(-1) DW d(-1)). This suggests that P. tricornutum has a more efficient nitrate uptake ability and intracellular nitrate storage capacity and also indicates the need for determination of k(sto) in order to quantify nitrate storage.

Abstract: A study has been conducted on the leaching of two fungicides, tebuconazole and cymoxanil, in a soil amended with spent mushroom substrate (SMS), with an evaluation of how different factors influence this process.The objective was based on the potential use of SMS as a biosorbent for immobilizing pesticides in vulnerable soils, and the need to know how it could affect the subsequent transport of these retained compounds. Breakthrough curves (BTCs) for C-14-fungicides, non-incubated and incubated over 30 days, were obtained in columns packed with an unamended soil (S), and this soil amended with SMS at rates of 5% (S + SMS5) and 50% (S + SMS50) under saturated and saturated-unsaturated flows. The highest leaching of tebuconazole (> 50% of the total C-14 added) was found in S when a saturated water flow was applied to the column, but the percentage of leached fungidde decreased when a saturated-unsaturated flow was applied in both SMS-amended soils. Also a significant decrease in teaching was observed for tebuconazole after incubation in the column, especially in S + SMS50 when both flows were applied. Furthermore, cymoxanil leaching was complete in S and S + SMS when a saturated flow was applied, and maximum peak concentrations were reached at 1 pore volume (PV), although BTCs showed peaks with lower concentrations in S + SMS. The amounts of cymoxanil retained only increased in S + SMS when a saturated-unsaturated flow was applied. A more relevant effect of SMS for reducing the leaching of fungidde was observed when cymoxanil was previously incubated in the column, although mineralization was enhanced in this case. These results are of interest for extending SMS application on the control of the leaching of fungicides with different physicochemical characteristics after different ageing times in the soil and water flow conditions applied. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.