The Role of Smart Farming in Sustainable Development

This paper intends to explore the development of agriculture in to smart farming and how smart farming can contribute to the sustainable development goals. The paper focuses on how smart farming can be imparted in sustainable agriculture by analyzing the environmental, economic and social impact. This paper applied a systematic literature review technique to assess published academic literature on smart farming and sustainable agriculture in Southeast Asia. The review identified that smart farming can lead to less environmental damage, lower cost and higher productivity and has the potential to create decent jobs for the youth ultimately leading to a sustainable food system.

The Role of Smart Farming in Sustainable Development

This paper intends to explore the development of agriculture in to smart farming and how smart farming can contribute to the sustainable development goals. The paper focuses on how smart farming can be imparted in sustainable agriculture by analyzing the environmental, economic and social impact. This paper applied a systematic literature review technique to assess published academic literature on smart farming and sustainable agriculture in Southeast Asia. The review identified that smart farming can lead to less environmental damage, lower cost and higher productivity and has the potential to create decent jobs for the youth ultimately leading to a sustainable food system.

Outlook threat at the future climate changes on livestock resources

Food availability is the most important issue that takes the priority places in the policies of all countries all over the world. Recently, more attention has been paid to livestock because of their ability to produce meat and milk, as well as it has a significant source of income for small holders and an economic contributor to the gross domestic product. Climate changes induced physiological stress, which is one of the complex factors making livestock management and husbandry challenging in many geographical locations in the world. Increased body temperature or heat stress will cause production losses in livestock and impact on their ability to maintain normal function. There is considerable research evidence that showed significant decline in animal performance when subjected to heat stress. Heat stress inflicts heavy economic losses on livestock production. The effects of heat stress is evident in feed consumption, production efficiency in terms of milk yield or weight gain per unit of feed energy, growth rate, and reproductive efficiency. The aim of this article is to discuss increasing food production to ensure food security for nearly 8 billion people, without causing further environmental damage that can be achieved by transforming systems and adopting sustainable livestock practices within a changing climate.

Predicting the Mechanical Properties of RCA-Based Concrete Using Supervised Machine Learning Algorithms

Environment-friendly concrete is gaining popularity these days because it consumes less energy and causes less damage to the environment. Rapid increases in the population and demand for construction throughout the world lead to a significant deterioration or reduction in natural resources. Meanwhile, construction waste continues to grow at a high rate as older buildings are destroyed and demolished. As a result, the use of recycled materials may contribute to improving the quality of life and preventing environmental damage. Additionally, the application of recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) in concrete is essential for minimizing environmental issues. The compressive strength (CS) and splitting tensile strength (STS) of concrete containing RCA are predicted in this article using decision tree (DT) and AdaBoost machine learning (ML) techniques. A total of 344 data points with nine input variables (water, cement, fine aggregate, natural coarse aggregate, RCA, superplasticizers, water absorption of RCA and maximum size of RCA, density of RCA) were used to run the models. The data was validated using k-fold cross-validation and the coefficient correlation coefficient (R2), mean square error (MSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and root mean square error values (RMSE). However, the model’s performance was assessed using statistical checks. Additionally, sensitivity analysis was used to determine the impact of each variable on the forecasting of mechanical properties.

Achieving Access to Justice in a Business and Human Rights Context

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) can contribute to economic prosperity and social development in the countries where they operate. At the same time, their activities may directly or indirectly cause harm to humans and to the environment. However, MNEs are rarely held accountable for their involvement in human rights abuses and environmental damage. In recent years, activists have challenged corporate impunity by introducing innovative claims seeking to hold parent companies directly liable for the harm caused by their group’s activities. They have also strategically used this type of litigation to trigger corporate accountability reforms at international, regional, and national levels. Using national litigation experiences as a starting point and focusing on European civil-law countries, the book evaluates the extent to which litigation against MNEs has been effective in achieving access to justice and corporate accountability. It also considers whether ongoing regulatory developments, such as the adoption of mandatory human rights due diligence norms and the negotiations for a business and human rights treaty, can contribute to the realisation of access to justice and corporate accountability in the future.

Effect of Chemical Treatment Sequence on Pineapple Peel Fiber: Chemical Composition, Thermal Stability and Thermal Degradation Kinetics

Millions of tons of fruit wastes are generated globally every year from residual agriculture, which makes essential to find alternative uses to increase their aggregate value and reduce the impact of environmental damage. The present study aimed to explore pineapple peel as an alternative source of cellulose by evaluating its composition and physical properties, which are essential to provide a clue to its application function diverse. Cellulose was extracted by a sequence of chlorine-free treatments to delignify the fresh pineapple peels, followed by characterization using chemical composition, XRD, FTIR, SEM and TGA to determine its crystallinity, structural properties, morphology thermal characteristics, and thermal degradation kinetic study. The result revealed that the pineapple peel amorphous segments containing hemicelluloses and lignin were extensively removed with increasing chemical treatments, leading to increased purity, crystallinity index and thermal stability of the extracted materials. The maximum degradation, and crystallinity index of the 2B isolated from the PPF are 150 °C and 80.91% respectively. The cellulose content increased from 24.05% (pineapple peel) to 80.91% (bleached cellulose). These results indicated that pretreatment via bleaching has suitable potential applications in nanocrystal production and suggests possible uses in the development of cellulose nanocrystal and application for packaging films.

Human Rights and Socio-Environmental Conflicts of Mining in Mexico: A Systematic Review

Socio-environmental conflicts are situations that exemplify human rights transgressions caused by extractive activities. These are present in developing countries where extractivism, imperialism, and colonialism paradigms prevail. In the context of Mexico, criminalization, violence, and the absence of rule of law promote these conflicts, frequently aggravated by involvement with private interests. In the last 20 years, the relationship between human rights in the mining sector and its impact on the environment has been a critical research subject. This paper aims to carry out a systematic review to analyze human rights transgressions related to the mining industry’s impact in Mexico, and identify factors causing socio-environmental conflicts. The current study shows a systematic analysis based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodology. This method contributed to the collection of references that describe conflicts due to human rights transgressions and environmental damage in mining areas in Mexico. Human rights transgressions caused by mining in a Mexican context demonstrate the inability of the state to stop the increase in socio-environmental conflicts and its lack of concern towards preventing damage to the environment.

Waste Management Reform In Regions Of The Russian Federation: Implementation Issues On The Way To Sustainable Development

Disposal of production and consumption waste is a worldwide problem. Despite the experience of foreign countries, waste disposal practice in the Russian Federation remains at the level of the 1970s. The method of waste burial at landfill sites prevails, leading to a loss of secondary resources and the appearance of sites of accumulated environmental damage, which is connected with the lack of a clear legal framework for waste management activities. Analysis of waste accumulation standards for apartment buildings in 20 regions of the Russian Federation showed that the difference in accumulation standards can vary by 2.32 times (from 0.125 m3 in the Kursk region to 0.279 m3 in the Voronezh region). At the same time, the difference in the cost of solid waste removal services can be varied by 2.74 times from 51.55 rubles in the Altai Territory (on average in the region) to 141.45 rubles in the Tyumen region. At the same time, the share of the population with incomes below the subsistence minimum in different regions reaches 7 - 36%. This is largely due to the critically low recovery of secondary materials (about 7%). The capacity of landfills in the regions of the European part of Russia (where more than 2/3 of the population lives) is almost exhausted. Many landfills of solid waste are objects of accumulated environmental damage. The decision to introduce the «institute» of “regional environmental operators”, which was adopted at the level of the Russian Federation to implement the waste management reform, has not, yet had any positive effect. Given the constant deficit of the consolidated budgets of most regions, the high level of poverty and the lack of state support, the prospects for waste management reform indicate the need for additional efforts on the part of the state, business and society

Transcriptome Analysis of Cultivated and Wild Ginseng in Different Growth Years Revealed the Regulatory Mechanism of Ginsenosides

Background: As a famous Chinese medicine, ginseng has been used in the world for nearly 5,000 years. Wild ginseng is endangered due to environmental damage. Thus, cultivated ginseng is developed to replace wild ginseng. The morphological and physiological characteristics of both wild ginseng and cultivated ginseng change during growth, and the mechanism of this change is not yet understood. Results: This study performed transcriptome sequencing on the roots, stems and leaves of cultivated ginseng and wild ginseng with different growth years, exploring the effect of growth years on gene expression in ginseng. The number of DEGs in cultivated ginseng is more than that in wild ginseng. Based on the weighted gene co-expression network analysis, we found that the growth years significantly affected the gene expression of MAPK signaling pathway - plant and terpenoid backbone biosynthesis pathway in cultivated ginseng, but had no effects in wild ginseng. Furthermore, the growth years had significant effects on the genes related to ginsenoside synthesis in cultivated ginseng, and the effects were different in the roots, stems and leaves. However, it had little influence on the expression of genes related to ginsenoside synthesis in wild ginseng and no effect on leaves. These results showed wild ginseng was less affected by growth years than cultivated ginseng. Furthermore, HMGR, SS, DXS, DS, IspF, AACT, CYP450 and UGTs were related with MYB, NAC, AP2/ERF, bHLH and WRKY transcription factors. Growth years may regulate genes for ginsenoside synthesis by influencing these transcription factors, thereby affecting the content of ginsenosides. Conclusions: This study complemented the gaps in the genetic information of wild ginseng in different growth periods and different tissues and provided a new insight into the mechanism of ginsenoside regulation.

The Health and Environmental Impact of Plastic Waste Disposal in South African Townships: A Review

Twenty-first century human behaviour continues to escalate activities that result in environmental damage. This calls for environmentally friendly solutions, such as waste recycling and handling, to deal with the increased amount of waste, especially plastics. The plastic materials manufacturing sector is booming, particularly packaging; while only a fraction of its waste is recycled, another fraction is destroyed, and the larger part continues to pollute the environment. In addition to other waste disposal activities, destroying plastic or incineration (which could be for energy recovery) is usually subjected to strict legal requirements because of its effect on the environment. However plastic is destroyed or disposed of, it poses a serious challenge in both the short term and the long term to humans and their natural environment if the process is not efficiently managed. This article describes how a growing amount of plastic waste is disposed of haphazardly in South African townships, while most of the inhabitants are not aware or do not care about the adverse environmental and health effects of these actions. This article examines the environmental and health effects of poor plastic disposal in South African townships as it is in other developing countries to sensitise the citizens to the significance of reducing plastic waste quantities, which will downplay their impact on human health and the environment.