Platform Dedicated to Nature-Based Solutions for Risk Reduction and Environmental Issues in Hilly and Mountainous Lands

In the context of global changes, nature-based solutions (NBSs) increasingly draw attention as a possible way to reduce disaster risk associated with extreme hydro-meteorological events while providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits at the same time. The PHUSICOS platform is dedicated to gather and analyse relevant NBSs used to reduce disaster risk associated with extreme hydro-meteorological events in mountainous and hilly lands. To design the platform, an in-depth review of 11 existing platforms has been performed. The PHUSICOS platform currently references 152 literature NBS cases and is continuously enriched through the contribution of NBS community. The platform also proposes a qualitative assessment of the NBSs collected according to 15 criteria related with five ambits: “disaster risk reduction”, “technical and economical feasibility”, “environment”, “society”, and “local economy”. This paper presents the structure of the platform and a first analysis of its content.

THE REVIEW OF THE USA UNIVERSITY GOALS-BASED RESEARCH MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION STRATEGIES TO ENSURE GROWTH, STABILITY AND RETRENCHMENT

The purpose of the study is to single out the research management and administration strategies that are used at the USA universities and evaluate their feasibility in Ukraine. The method of descriptive content analysis was applied to analyse the relevant literature sources found using the keyword-based strategy. The review process included five basic phases such as preparation, retrieval, appraisal, synthesis, and reporting. The review found three eligible strategies used in research management and administration in the USA universities. These were as follows: the strategy that is based on the Supply Chain Management concept, the strategy that is based on promoting a project management community, the strategies of internationalization: the (research-related) study abroad programs recruiting international students (as a financial source to fund the research), and internationalizing the faculty through the scholarship programmes. While evaluating the strategies using the criteria, the experts rated the project management community-based strategy the highest (45 %), while the Supply Chain Management concept-based strategy scored the least (22 %). Concerning feasibility in Ukraine, the project management community-based strategy scored the highest technical feasibility, legal compatibility, and economical feasibility. The internationalisation strategies showed the greatest values for economical feasibility but moderate scores for other criteria. The Supply Chain Management concept-based strategy showed the largest values for technical feasibility, but the legal compatibility, economical feasibility and stakeholder benefits and ensuring competitive advantage were rated by the experts the lowest.

Platform Dedicated to Nature-Based Solutions for Risk Reduction and Environmental Issues in Hilly and Mountainous Lands

In the context of global changes, Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) increasingly draw attention as a possible way to reduce disaster risk associated with extreme hydro-meteorological events while providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits at the same time. The PHUSICOS platform is dedicated to gather and analyse relevant NBSs used to reduce disaster risk associated with extreme hydro-meteorological events in mountainous and hilly lands. To design the platform, an in-depth review of 11 existing platforms has been performed. The platform currently references 152 literature NBS cases and is continuously enriched with demonstrator sites through the contribution of NBS community. The platform also proposes a qualitative assessment of the NBSs collected according to 15 criteria related with five ambits: disaster risk reduction, technical and economical feasibility, environment, society and local economy. This paper presents the structure of the platform and a first analysis of its content.

Processing of Functional Composite Resins Using Deep Eutectic Solvent

Deep eutectic solvents (DESs)—a promising class of alternatives to conventional ionic liquids (ILs) that have freezing points lower than the individual components—are typically formed from two or more components through hydrogen bond interactions. Due to the remarkable advantages of biocompatibility, economical feasibility and environmental hospitality, DESs show great potentials for green production and manufacturing. In terms of the processing of functional composite resins, DESs have been applied for property modifications, recyclability enhancement and functionality endowment. In this review, the applications of DESs in the processing of multiple functional composite resins such as epoxy, phenolic, acrylic, polyester and imprinted resins, are covered. Functional composite resins processed with DESs have attracted much attention of researchers in both academic and industrial communities. The tailored properties of DESs for the design of functional composite resins—as well as the effects of hydrogen bond on the current polymeric systems—are highlighted. In addition to the review of current works, the future perspectives of applying DESs in the processing of functional composite resins are also presented.

Improving nutrient and water use efficiencies in multi-loop aquaponics systems

The sustainable development of agricultural systems where nutrients and water are recycled to a high degree is of enormous importance. Traditional aquaponics, where fish and plants are cultivated in one recirculating system, addresses these ecological challenges, but still struggles with its economical feasibility. Decoupled multi-loop aquaponics systems, in which the aquaculture and hydroponics subsystems are running autonomously, proved that they can keep up with the productivity of state-of-the-art hydroponics systems or even outscore them. Yet, a problem of such decoupled aquaponics systems was that plants require a high nutrient concentration, whereas fish prefer rather a clean water. In practice, the opposite is happening as the nutrients are added to the aquaculture units through the feed. This paper optimizes a recent approach showing that desalination technologies, such as reverse osmosis, can play an important role in reversing the concentrations within such systems without killing beneficial plant growth–promoting rhizobacteria thermally. The proposed integrated systems approach has the potential to make both periodical nutrient and water discharges and excessive fertilizer supplementation obsolete that would otherwise be necessary to maintain good water quality for the fish and an optimal nutrient solution for the plants.

Economical Feasibility of Rare Earth Mining outside China

Although rare earth deposits are found on all continents, China produces more than 90% of all globally used rare earth metals. Besides its economic dominance, China has also gained a monopolistic know how position in Rare Earth Elements process technologies. Based on China’s dominant position in rare earth markets, other countries such as the USA, Australia, Europe and Japan are increasingly concerned about a stable rare earth supply and their increasing dependence on China. In 2019 the new trade conflict blazed up between China and the U.S., and the threat of China to decrease or even stop rare earth supply to the U.S. is a new chapter in the trade war which shows that new means of supply must be found. The main focus of this paper is to evaluate and compare advanced rare earth projects outside China with a new holistic and objective method to get a detailed picture of possible rare earth mining outside China. In addition to the exclusively economic investigation, specific countries’ risk und price development scenarios are considered. This leads to an objective picture of rare earth mining outside of China, which is needed as a basis for discussions of secure rare earth supply for the western world. Building on this objective economic analysis, we can also add new supply risk due to new political situations. To this end, data is compiled on 14 selected focus projects with regard to the required investments, operating costs, and the potential revenues for each case. These data are used to develop a discounted cash flow model (with analogous assumptions and methods) for each project. This model enables the achievable net present value (NPV), the internal interest rate, and the static amortization period for each project to be determined.