The Role of Polyculture in Sustainable Agricultural Development and Prevention of Land Degradation

2022 ◽  
pp. 132-153
Author(s):  
Milan Marković ◽  
Ivana Marjanović

The aim of the chapter is to show the possible impact of policulture farming on some determinants of sustainable agricultural development, especially from the point of view of economic viability, biodiversity, and land degradation. Increasing the area under polyculture is one of the main solutions to the present environmental problems. The key constraints are economic pressures due to the question of the cost-effectiveness of such a mode of production and the need to provide sufficient food for a growing population, especially in developing countries. The results of the research show that policulture (organic agriculture) should be favored, while monoculture farming must be adequately directed and put in the function of achieving ecological goals of sustainable development as much as possible. In addition, on the example of European countries, it was assessed that there are good conditions for further “greening” of agriculture, bearing in mind the movement of the analyzed indicators.

Author(s):  
Milan Marković ◽  
◽  
Ivana Marjanović ◽  
Žarko Rađenović ◽  
◽  
...  

The rapid development of individual countries often has unprecedented environmental consequences. This is why more and more innovations are being used to ensure, in addition to economic development, the preservation of environmental quality. In addition to transport and industry, agriculture is an important environmental factor. There are many studies in the literature dealing with the relationship between agricultural development and sustainable development, as well as the study of the economic and social role of innovation in this field. The paper aims to examine the relationships between innovation in agriculture and sustainable development, based on extensive scientific literature. The results of the research show that agriculture, such as organic agriculture, is one of the interesting solutions for maintaining the principles of sustainable development. Such an innovation, concerning the mode of production in agriculture, can have many positive benefits for sustainable development from both an economic and environmental point of view.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 196
Author(s):  
Wingo Wira Dewanatan ◽  
Muhammad Kurniawan Adiputra ◽  
Imam Karfendi Putro ◽  
Soni Hartanto ◽  
Jonas Kristanto ◽  
...  

Petrochemical industries have faced growing pressure to decrease their carbon emission from direct and indirect sources. This work aims to demonstrate a carbon tax’s introduction to a feasibility study on the heat exchanger (HE) replacement project at PT Kaltim Methanol Industri, Indonesia. The project was aimed to avoid methanol release as much as 48.88 MT/year. The release of methanol can also be associated with CO2 emission with an emission factor of 0.6 ton CO2e/ton methanol. Here, we investigated the influence of inclusion and exclusion of carbon tax to monetize the CO2 release. From the project investment point of view, carbon tax inclusion is expected to increase the cost-saving. Introduction of the carbon tax as high as 10 USD/ton CO2e with 5% annual increase gives IRR value of 7.06% with Payout Time (PoT) of ca. 11 years. The IRR value without carbon tax scenario is 6.68 % with the same range of PoT. Hence, the inclusion of carbon tax may increase the feasibility of the project. This work has demonstrated the positive role of the carbon tax to increase the feasibility of a project which inlines with the national initiatives to curb the CO2 emission from chemical industries. It is also worth noting that introduction of carbon tax should be accompanied by a reorganization of government incentives, including several financial policies to create a conducive atmosphere for investors in Indonesia.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (08) ◽  
pp. 1529-1564
Author(s):  
Matthieu Bonnivard ◽  
Florian Omnès ◽  
Yannick Privat

This paper is concerned with aquaporins (AQPs), that are proteins playing the role of water-selective channels also called nanopores, involved in many biological systems. From a technological point of view, it is relevant to design systems enjoying as good filtration properties. Inspired by [S. Gravelle, L. Joly, C. Ybert and L. Bocquet, Large permeabilities of hourglass nanopores: From hydrodynamics to single file transport, J. Chem. Phys. 141 (2014) 18C526], we investigate in a quite general framework shape optimization issues related to the improvement of hourglass-shaped aquaporins performances, in terms of energy dissipated by the fluid through the channel. After modeling this problem mathematically, we show that it is well-posed in some sense, and compute the so-called shape derivative of the cost functional in view of numerical simulations. Noting that our framework requires regularity properties of the free boundary, we introduce a dedicated numerical method, using in particular a proper shape gradient extension-regularization to adapt the mesh at each iteration, in an adequate way. Optimal shapes of aquaporins are then provided for relevant values of parameters, and we finally discuss the observed performances with respect to the existing results/literature.


Behaviour ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 83 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 229-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinrich-Otto Von Hagen

AbstractThe fiddler crabs Uca mordax and U. burgersi, living sympatrically from Guatemala to southern Brazil, were until recently discussed as belonging to only one species, because their similarities refer not only to morphology but also to their waving displays, which were called "indistinguishable". A frame-by-frame analysis of motion pictures taken in Trinidad (W.I.) confirmed the presence of many similarities in respect to the special "jerking" type of waving display, the mean duration of routine waves, the effect of increasing excitation, the pattern of leg-waving and the presence of a "precursory" downstroke" of the major cheliped. However, a closer analysis of certain components or elements of the display yielded various interspecific differences. In burgersi there is the tendency to omit the precursory downstroke and to extend all motion components at the cost of all kinds of pauses, while in mordax the contrary is true. Furthermore, the movements of the minor cheliped show a different pattern in the two species. The differences found are discussed in respect to differences in the allometry of the major cheliped and from an evolutionary point of view. It is concluded that the waving display of mordax represents the more ancestral type. The role of the waving display as a possible means of reproductive isolation will be discussed in part II of this study dealing with the acoustic display.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athanasios Kehagias ◽  
Dieter Mitsche ◽  
Paweł Prałat

The cops-and-robber (CR) game has been used in mobile robotics as a discretized model (played on a graph G) of pursuit/evasion problems. The “classic” CR version is a perfect information game: the cops’ (pursuer’s) location is always known to the robber (evader) and vice versa. Many variants of the classic game can be defined: the robber can be invisible and also the robber can be either adversarial (tries to avoid capture) or drunk (performs a random walk). Furthermore, the cops and robber can reside in either nodes or edges of G. Several of these variants are relevant as models or robotic pursuit/evasion. In this paper, we first define carefully several of the variants mentioned above and related quantities such as the cop number and the capture time. Then we introduce and study the cost of visibility (COV), a quantitative measure of the increase in difficulty (from the cops’ point of view) when the robber is invisible. In addition to our theoretical results, we present algorithms which can be used to compute capture times and COV of graphs which are analytically intractable. Finally, we present the results of applying these algorithms to the numerical computation of COV.


2007 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kees Boersma ◽  
Sytze F. Kingma ◽  
Marcel Veenswijk

Recently, some the large public (transport) infrastructures became an important issue on the Dutch political agenda. It was especially the High Speed Alliance (HSA), one of the major transport infra-structural projects in the Netherlands that attracted a lot of attention. On one hand, this project was highly advanced from a technical point of view; on the other hand, the HSA was characterized by enormous (budgetary, time, and technical) problems. A large part of these problems was supposed to be covered by a complex (electronic) monitoring and reporting system. The system, which was established to exclude uncertainty and risk, created its own uncertainty. In this paper, the authors examine the role of this system in the process of rationalization and control within the HSA-organization by focusing upon the process of sensemaking. The authors argue that the problems within the HSA can best be understood in terms of a paradox: rationalization and control versus local, individual freedom and initiatives. Three major paradoxes have been distinguished: the cost paradox, the control paradox, and the risk paradox.


2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sascha Münnich

AbstractThis article addresses the question of how ideas and interests can be linked in policy analysis. The juxtaposition of the two concepts is criticized from a sociological point of view. Instead, ideas are a substantial element of interest formation. Cognitive and normative worldviews shape the transformation of objective socio-economic positions into subjective, situational action orientations. Interests can be traced back to the interplay between structural positions, situational problems and their idea-based interpretation.It is then shown how these conceptual arguments can bring forward a prominent debate in welfare state analysis: the role of business in the emergence of the American welfare state in the New Deal. While struggling with the question whether the supportive role of some business leaders in theSocial Security Actof 1935 reveals substantial interest changes or strategical adaption, both sides of the debate suffer from an objectivist concept of interest. This one-sided concept of interest comes at the cost of leaving open the question of why business interests changed in the direction of unemployment insurance and not in the direction of other feasible institutional options such as price regulation or public works. These options would also have provided a solution to the problem American employers were facing. Analysis of social reform discourses between 1911 and 1935 shows that the partial reorientation of business people cannot be sufficiently explained without taking into account the growing legitimacy of liberal- corporatist ideas among employers in the 1920s.


1990 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Paul Hanley

Proper agricultural development is a “fundamental principle” conductive “to the advancement of mankind and to the reconstruction of the world” For this reason, Bahá’u’lláh instructs us to give “special regard” to agricultural development, but to a form of development shaped by and serving the goals of unity, justice, equity, and sustainability. The task of building a new social and economic order is associated with the redesign of food and agricultural systems, locally and internationally. A survey of the Bahá’í writings imparts vision of appropriate leading values for agriculture to ensure that development results in both ecological and economic viability. The survey further consider some of the implications for agriculture of the human/nature relationship, the role of women, the role of science and technology, and the relationship between globalism and local community development.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athanasios Kehagias ◽  
Dieter Mitsche ◽  
Paweł Prałat

The cops-and-robber (CR) game has been used in mobile robotics as a discretized model (played on a graph G) of pursuit/evasion problems. The “classic” CR version is a perfect information game: the cops’ (pursuer’s) location is always known to the robber (evader) and vice versa. Many variants of the classic game can be defined: the robber can be invisible and also the robber can be either adversarial (tries to avoid capture) or drunk (performs a random walk). Furthermore, the cops and robber can reside in either nodes or edges of G. Several of these variants are relevant as models or robotic pursuit/evasion. In this paper, we first define carefully several of the variants mentioned above and related quantities such as the cop number and the capture time. Then we introduce and study the cost of visibility (COV), a quantitative measure of the increase in difficulty (from the cops’ point of view) when the robber is invisible. In addition to our theoretical results, we present algorithms which can be used to compute capture times and COV of graphs which are analytically intractable. Finally, we present the results of applying these algorithms to the numerical computation of COV.


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