scholarly journals Insect feeds in salmon aquaculture: sociotechnical imagination and responsible story-telling

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
R. Strand ◽  
G. Gamboa ◽  
D.J. Dankel ◽  
M. Giampietro

Salmon aquaculture is a growing industry with increasing challenges of feed sustainability and availability. This global sustainability issue has led to calls for novel feeds. Aquafly, a Norwegian research project, has performed small-scale tests using the black soldier fly as an ingredient in salmon diet. However, in order for insect feeds to become a reality on the industrial scale, workable scientific, technical and political solutions have to be envisioned in tandem. In this study, we studied, elicited and assessed sociotechnical imaginaries in the Aquafly research consortium, using the approaches of concomitant ELSA research, the Ethical Matrix and Quantitative Story-Telling. We show how the sociotechnical imaginaries develop together with the scientific trajectory of the project, and how this also affects the assessment of the ethical and environmental impacts of the technology, including issues of food and feed safety and security, fish health and welfare, pollution and efficient use of waste streams. We show how there are intrinsic challenges when dealing with global sustainability issues in the research project. For instance, overcoming the problem of salmon feed scarcity may aggravate the challenges caused by intensive aquaculture. We report the results of a Quantitative Story-Telling exercise that indicates that Aquafly can be seen as part of a larger economy of technological promise, and discuss if and how this critique can be employed and integrated into scientific and technical imagination in a research project, contributing to Responsible Research and Innovation.

Author(s):  
Maria Vaïopoulou ◽  
Robin Rönnlund ◽  
Fotini Tsiouka ◽  
Derek Pitman ◽  
Sotiria Dandou ◽  
...  

This paper presents a short summary of archaeological operations carried out in 2020 in the area of the modern village of Vlochos on the western Thessalian plain, Greece, as part of the Palamas Archaeological Project (PAP). Initially, the project aimed to conduct a significant campaign of fieldwork during the 2020 season, but operations were severely scaled back by limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, only a small-scale campaign, aimed at method testing and exploratory investigation, could be carried out. Fieldwork included an evaluation of complimentary geophysical techniques, cleaning operations, and oral history enquiries. The work—despite its limitations—highlighted the value of using multiple geophysical techniques, as well as proving the importance of a systematic cleaning of the site. Overall, the first season of PAP highlighted the productivity of the research project and will act as a strong foundation for the forthcoming field seasons.


2020 ◽  
pp. 70-98
Author(s):  
Andrea Quartara

The purpose of this essay is to outline a particular evolution path of digital achievements and improvements in architecture. The author depicts the historical emergence of the digital in architecture presenting a sequence of world-renowned and pioneering researches focusing the dissertation on the materiality feature of the digital designs. The author paraphrases several scientific papers and books using the designer's words to support his story telling. In this way, this chapter proposes not only an illustration of several researches that go beyond the boundaries of computational thought. The author argues his standpoint that is the awareness of materiality as the substantial feature of architecture. The digital tools and any further related improvement of powerful parametric logics for design require the physical objecthood of fabrication to really enrich architecture. The chapter does not illustrate an own research project; it neither aims to establish a digital workflow for the digital fabrication of architecture. Rather it aims to highlight the fallacy of digital productions (in the meaning of simplistic virtual representation), pointing out the material instance as the address of the advancing of the digital as a method. The increasing availability of technical equipment kits should not be confused with the potential of the computation for architecture. According to these premises, it is necessary to start to examine some of the cornerstones of the last century to support the validation of digital fabrication and robotics as a powerful research field.


2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Altmann

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the rise of strata manager as a newly emergent profession and note their impact on the governance within medium and high density, strata titled housing such as flats, apartments, town-houses and CIDs. Design/methodology/approach – This research presents finding from a small scale, qualitative research project focused on the interaction between the owner committee of management and strata managers. Findings – The introduction mandatory certification is championed by industry bodies. The strata managers considered they already demonstrated valuable attributes desired by committees of management. These differed to the attributes targeted by the new training regime, and the attributes valued by the committees of management. Research limitations/implications – This is a small scale pilot study. A larger study will need to be undertaken to confirm these results. Practical implications – There is a disjunct between the training and what strata managers consider relevant to undertaking their duties. This has significance for the ongoing governance of these properties and industry professionalisation. The resilience of Australia’s densification policies will depend on how learning will translate into better governance outcomes for owners. Social implications – One in three people within Australia’s eastern states lives or owns property within strata titled complex (apartments, flats and townhouse developments). The increasing number of strata managers and professionalisation within their industry has the ability to impact an increasing number of people. Originality/value – The impact of this new profession, and their requirements in terms of expertise has not been fully considered within existing academic literature.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 551-563
Author(s):  
Nicola Carr ◽  
Tanya Serisier ◽  
Siobhán McAlister

Recent years have seen increased attention in both research and policy towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners as a group with distinct needs. This has been driven by wider political recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and research suggesting that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners are particularly ‘vulnerable’ to bullying and abuse within prison settings. Much of this research, and the policy solutions associated with it, we argue, ignores or side-steps queer perspectives, relying instead on liberal conceptions of identity, vulnerability and, ultimately, assimilation. Just as contemporary campaigns around marriage rights see lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities and individuals as fundamentally the same as the majority, rather than posing a challenge to the heteronormativity of marriage as an institution, much contemporary research and policy on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners sees this group as marked only by potential discrimination. We argue here instead that experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners can be read ‘queerly’ so as to potentially challenge the rigid gender and heteronormative foundations that underlie systems of incarceration. We draw on a small-scale empirical research project around the experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners to revisit contemporary paradoxes of prisons and sexuality and to problematise understandings of identity, intimacy and deviance in the prison context.


Author(s):  
Nathan P. Gibson ◽  
Winona Salesky ◽  
David A. Michelson

One of the major digital challenges of the Syriaca.org research project has been to encode and visualize personal names of authors in Middle Eastern languages (especially Syriac and Arabic). TEI-XML and HTML are digital standards for the encoding and visualization of cultural heritage data and have features for encoding names and displaying Middle Eastern languages. Because these formats were developed primarily for Western cultural data, however, representing our non-Western data in these formats has required complex adaptation particularly in regard to marking up name parts, customizing search algorithms, displaying bidirectional text, and displaying Syriac text with embedded fonts. These requirements have led us to develop small-scale systems that may be of use to other cultural heritage preservation projects involving names for ancient and, especially, non-Western entities.


Author(s):  
Peter Schaumann ◽  
Alexander Raba ◽  
Anne Bechtel

Grouted connections represent a common joining technique between substructure and foundation piles of offshore oil & gas platforms as well as of offshore wind turbines. Due to cyclic loads arising from wind and wave actions the fatigue performance of the connection has to be considered. In lattice substructures like jackets the grouted connections are located at seabed level being fully submerged during their entire lifetime. Today’s fatigue design regulations are based on investigations neglecting any influence of the surrounding water since they were conducted in dry ambient conditions. So far, only Germanischer Lloyd gives additional recommendations for submerged grouted connections. At the Institute for Steel Construction, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany investigations of the joint research project ‘GROWup’ focus on the fatigue performance of axially loaded grouted connections. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi, funding sign: 0325290) and is the third project in a row dealing with grouted connections. As part of this research project, cyclic loading tests on small-scale and large-scale grouted connections with shear keys are conducted. Small-scale fatigue tests showed a reduced number of endurable load cycles for connections when tested in wet ambient conditions. However, the transferability of these findings to a larger scale was still doubtful due to unknown scale effects. Therefore, the impact of water on the fatigue performance was tested recently at large-scale grouted connections. Previous to the submerged large-scale grouted connection fatigue tests, similar test specimens were exposed to alternating loads at dry ambient conditions. Comparison of both large-scale test results under wet and dry conditions enable to estimate the influence of water on the fatigue performance of grouted connections. Reflection of the small-scale test results gives hints on the scale effect. Test preparation, test results and design recommendations are presented in the paper.


EDIS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hayk Khachatryan ◽  
Melinda Knuth ◽  
Alan Hodges ◽  
Charlie Hall

This publication summarizes production, marketing, and trade practices for Florida ornamental growers and dealers based on a 2019 national survey by the Green Industry Research Consortium, a multi-state research project under the USDA-National Institute for Food and Agriculture. The most recent survey collected information on business practices for the fiscal year 2018-2019 in all 50 states.


Author(s):  
Mukatayeva Kundyz Boranbayevna

The issue of international students in higher education is considered highly important in many countries. The current article considers the influences on the intercultural adaptations of international students at a host university during study abroad. It presents detailed results of a small-scale research project undertaken as a part of the course aimed at assisting students to manage educational research both more efficiently and effectively. This work was purposed to find out international students problems of ‘settling in’ in the foreign university and identify some aspects that influence this process. The research finds out a deeper understanding of the specific problems international students face when they arrive, and what kind of support international students can obtain from the foreign university and evaluate the effectiveness of the support provided by the host university. The article will examine both contextual and political aspects and will make some suggestions and recommendations into the context of the host university.


Author(s):  
Osiris Hernández Castro ◽  
Yolanda Samacá Bohórquez

This article explores the relevance of implementing the cultural aspects of both foreign and own countries as a paramount issue in the teaching of a target language. This small scale research project was developed as a component of the seminar on Bilinguism offered by Universidad Distrital in Bogotá as part of its Master ́s program in Applied Linguistics to the Teaching of English. The authors of this research collected data to find out and compare how university students from Tunja and Bogotá –two major Colombian cities– assess the incorporation of cultural aspects of the foreign country into the teaching of the foreign language. Thus, the guiding question of this research is: How do EFL students interpret cultural aspects embedded in foreign language learning?


1996 ◽  
Vol 34 (9) ◽  
pp. 125-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Dittrich ◽  
R. Gnirss ◽  
A. Peter-Fröhlich ◽  
F. Sarfert

The objective of Research Project 02 WA 9253/4 on “Advanced Treatment of Municipal Wastewater: Microfiltration of municipal wastewater for disinfection and advanced phosphorus removal” which is supported by the BMBF (Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology) is to show whether microfiltration (MF) is a technically feasible and economically competitive process for disinfection and phosphorus removal of secondary effluent. For bacteria and phosphorus removal, three different microfiltration systems (systems with flat sheet, tube and hollow-fibre modules) with a pore size of 0.2 μm are tested in small-scale pilot plants to find out whether they are suitable for municipal wastewater treatment. The most suitable system will afterwards be tested in one full-scale unit to obtain operational data. The monitoring program with the small-scale MF plants using the final effluent of the Berlin-Ruhleben wastewater treatment plant started in November 1993 and the results obtained so far can be summarized as follows. Total coliforms, E. coli, faecal streptococci and salmonella are removed to levels below the detection limit, less than 1 cfu/100 ml in the effluent of all three MF plants. Coliphage - as a surrogate organism for enterovirus - are significantly reduced with a 2-3 log removal, which means that the limit value for enterovirus laid down in the EU Bathing Water Directive can be met in the effluent of the MF plants. The average concentrations for total phosphorus (PT) in the effluent are 60 μg/l for the Memcor and the DOW units and 90 μg/l for the Starcosa unit without the use of precipitants. With a low ferric dosage of 0.014 mol/m3 prior to the MF, the average effluent PT concentrations of all three MF units are lower than the target concentration of 50 μg/l (no polymer feed). With a specific energy consumption of about 0.2 kWh/m3 filtrate the dead-end MF (Memcor) requires at least five times less energy than the cross-flow MF. Based on the energy consumption dead-end MF should be preferred if large volumetric flows of wastewater with a low concentration of solids have to be treated. Because of unfavourable energy consumption the tests with the cross-flow MF have been discontinued. When using MF systems in the final effluent of wastewater treatment plants, evidence must be produced in a full-scale MF unit to demonstrate that microfiltration is really suitable for practical application. This as well as a reliable calculation of investment and operating costs are the main objectives of further investigations within the framework of this research project.


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