Search Results (16)

Mozambique’s natural forests are increasingly affected by climate change, deforestation, and unsustainable exploitation, threatening both biodiversity and rural livelihoods. This study examines the wood anatomical characteristics of five commercially important tree species—Spirostachys africana Sond., Afzelia quanzensis Welw., Millettia stuhlmannii Taub., Pterocarpus angolensis DC., and Colophospermum mopane (J. Kirk ex Benth.) J. Léonard—to assess their vulnerability to drought, cyclones, and floods. The aim is to enhance current knowledge regarding their wood anatomy and to clarify how these anatomical traits could help to identify species most vulnerable to climate extremes. Wood samples were collected from native forests and analyzed in laboratories in Brazil and Portugal using standardized anatomical methods according to IAWA guidelines. The results show that Afzelia quanzensis, Millettia stuhlmannii, Pterocarpus angolensis, and Colophospermum mopane have solitary vessels with vestured pits and thick-walled fibers, which improve hydraulic conductivity and drought resistance. Colophospermum mopane shows the greatest anatomical adaptation to climatic stressors. By contrast, Spirostachys africana has narrow, grouped vessels and thin walls, indicating higher susceptibility to embolism and limited resilience. Cyclone resistance is associated with higher wood density and parenchyma abundance, which enhance mechanical stability and recovery. Flood resilience, however, appears to depend more on leaf and root adaptations than on wood anatomy alone. These findings highlight the role of wood structure in climate adaptability and underline the urgency of integrating anatomical data into forest management strategies to support the conservation and sustainable use of Mozambique’s forest resources. Full article

The DECIDE project entitled “Career choices competencies for the post-pandemic future using multicriteria decision-making”, aimed to empower young individuals in their career decision-making by providing them with personalised learning sources and tools to monitor the development of essential career competencies. This paper presents the findings from evaluating two key components of the DECIDE project: an e-guide for developing career competencies and a web-based application that monitors individuals’ progress in competency development. These tools help young people identify the skills and knowledge they lack to meet the demands of employers for sustainable and innovative career paths. The e-guide was designed as a self-learning programme that guides users through interactive models focused on building the competencies required for sustainable and innovative career profiles. Pre-tests and post-tests were developed to assess the effectiveness of the e-guide and measure the participants’ competency levels before and after engaging with the learning content. The application utilises advanced algorithms and visualisation techniques to analyse pre-test and post-test data, identify competency gaps, and provide users with a clear understanding of their competency development progress and areas for further improvements. The results of the testing and user feedback indicate that the developed tools positively impacted the development of career competencies. The study reveals that the e-guide provided educational value and effectively supported self-directed learning. At the same time, the web-based application offered a valuable tool for self-assessment and identifying competency gaps in career decision-making. Full article

In recent decades, there has been a perception that the Mozambican forests have been threatened with massive exploitation for commercialization, deforesting vast areas, leading to desertification and contributing to the extinction of some forest species. The present research summarizes the official information obtained by monitoring the country’s natural resources over time and identifying the major types of existing forests in Mozambique. The main objective is to elucidate on the current state of Mozambican forests, analyze change and trends, and characterize the actual distribution of forest species in Mozambique to verify the sustainability of forest resources and their composition. It is a case study of the qualitative descriptive type, with data obtained through a bibliographic research method focusing on scientific articles on the type of forest species existing in Africa and Mozambique and data from official sources of the forests. Various types of forests were identified, such as mopane, mercrusse, semi-deciduous, miombo, and semi-evergreen, including the gallery forest. Forest species with particular relevance were highlighted, such as Afzelia quanzensis, Swartzia madagascariensis, Pterocarpaus angolensis, Combretum imberbe, and Millettia stuhalmannii. Major threats to these natural resources were identified and reported, including anthropogenic activity associated with traditional practices of illegal logging or due to the valuation of other goods of primary necessity, lack of protection and conservation measures, and impacts resulting from climate change. The Munza district is presented as a case study, carrying out a characterization of the forest in this district and identifying the main threats in the study area from 2015 to 2020. Full article

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the education sector worldwide had to adapt rapidly from in-person to virtual modes of teaching and learning to mitigate the spread of the virus. In a short period of time, teachers were forced to find new and innovative ways of delivering education to their students to ensure the continuation of education. In this context, this paper investigates how teachers in Pakistan leveraged mobile technology as an alternative teaching strategy to provide access to and to ensure the continuation of education. Through in-depth interviews with 13 selected teachers, this study explores the potential of mobile technology to offer alternative teaching and learning arenas. The findings underscore the importance of embracing new pedagogical possibilities offered by mobile technology and the significance of effective teacher professional development in the post-pandemic era. This study provides valuable insights into the utilization of mobile technology in the education sector, even in the most challenging circumstances, and highlights the potential for mobile learning to contribute to education reform. Full article

Due to the increase in the global terrorist threat, there has been a growing demand for materials that can more efficiently protect civil, industrial, and military structures against explosions. In this sense, two new commercial polyureas (A and B), that present high potential to be used as a protective coating on building facades against explosions, were compared in this work, through several tests. Chemical characterization with the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) of the surface of the polyureas revealed that the commercial polyurea A has a heterogeneous surface while the other polyurea has a more uniform and homogeneous surface, resulting in a more compact structure. The shock-wave attenuation ability of polyurea is believed to be controlled primarily by the hard domains. The TGA tests revealed that polyurea B has more hard segments than polyurea A in its composition. The mechanical tests performed showed that polyurea B has significantly better tensile properties-almost 3000% of maximum deformation capacity compared with approximately 115% of polyurea A. Thus, it was concluded that polyurea B has more potential to be used as a coating in building blast protection due to its exceptional elongation characteristics, a critical parameter to absorb the high frequency and intensity of blasts. Full article

The Unified Power Quality Conditioner (UPQC) is one of the Custom Power devices (CP), and it mitigates both load current and supply voltage problems (voltage swells, sags, harmonics, etc.) simultaneously. By using CP, we are getting more familiar with renewable energy’s high penetration on the electrical grid because of its intermittent nature, which causes power flection. We are also using powered electronic devices, and non-linear loads produce harmonics that affect the voltage and current waveform. In this paper, a UPQC will be used with a sensitive load that is connected to a grid (grid–wind turbine) power system. The UPQC will operate under different disturbances such as phase-to-ground fault, non-linear load on the grid side, and non-linear load in parallel with the sensitive load, using pulse-width modulation and hysteresis as switching techniques. Simulation results using MATLAB/Simulink are used to compare the two pulsing-generating techniques and show that electrical power is continuously fed to the load in all disturbances with total harmonic distortion (THD) less than 5% for voltage and 4.5% for current. Full article

The Jurassic–Early Cretaceous was a time of variable organic carbon burial associated with fluctuations of marine primary productivity, weathering intensity, and redox conditions in the pore and bottom water at paleo-shelf areas in north Egypt. This time interval characterized the deposition of, from old to young, the Bahrein, Khatatba, Masajid, and Alam El Bueib Formations in the north Western Desert. Although several studies have been devoted to the excellent source rock units, such as the Khatatba and Alam El Bueib Formations, studies on paleoenvironmental changes in redox conditions, paleoproductivity, and continental weathering and their impact on organic carbon exports and their preservation for this interval are lacking. This study presents organic and inorganic geochemical data for the Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous sediments from the Almaz-1 well in the Shushan Basin, north Western Desert. A total of 32 cuttings samples were analyzed for their major and trace elements, carbonates, and total organic carbon (TOC) contents. Data allowed the reconstruction of paleoenvironmental conditions in the southern Tethys Ocean and assessment of the changes in paleo-redox, paleo-weathering, and marine primary productivity, and the role of sediment supply. Additionally, factors that governed the accumulation of organic matter in the sediment were interpreted. Results showed that the Khatatba Formation was deposited during a phase of enhanced marine primary productivity under prevalent anoxia, which triggered enhanced organic matter production and preservation. During the deposition of the Khatatba Formation, significant terrigenous sediment supply and continental weathering were followed by a limited contribution of coarse clastic sediment fluxes due to weak continental weathering and enhanced carbonate production. The Bahrein, Masajid, and Alam El Bueib Formations were deposited during low marine primary productivity and prevalent oxygenation conditions that led to poor organic matter production and preservation, respectively. A strong terrigenous sediment supply and continental weathering predominated during the deposition of the Bahrein Formation and the lower part of the Alam El Bueib Formation compared to the limited coarse clastic supply and continental weathering during the deposition of the carbonate Masajid Formation and the upper part of the Alam El Bueib Formation. Such conditions resulted in the enhanced dilution and decomposition of labile organic matter, and, thus, organic carbon-lean accumulation in these sediments. Full article

This paper presents a new sensory system based on advanced algorithms and machine learning techniques that provides sensory gloves with the ability to ensure real-time connection of all connectors in the cabling of a cockpit module. Besides a microphone, the sensory glove also includes a gyroscope and three accelerometers that provide valuable information to allow the selection of the appropriate signal time windows recorded by the microphone of the glove. These signal time windows are subsequently analyzed by a convolutional neural network, which indicates whether the connection of the components has been made correctly or not. The development of the system, its implementation in a production industry environment and the results obtained are analyzed. Full article

Energy transitions around the world will change the spatial fingerprint of the electricity sector, but there is a lack of studies on citizen preferences for siting the future mix of electricity technologies. Using the case of Switzerland in 2035, we present a serious board game to form and elicit citizen preferences for spatial siting of a full mix of electricity technologies and we test this game with 44 participants in the city of Zurich. The game proves to help elicit valid preferences of the participants and lead to measurable learning effects about this complex, multi-dimensional topic. The results show that these 44 participants prefer a diverse mix of renewable technologies for Switzerland in 2035. In terms of siting, these participants consistently choose the efficiency strategy, where new plants are concentrated in the areas where they produce most electricity at least cost, in contrast to the strategy of regional equity, where all Swiss regions would equally build new generation and share the benefits and burdens of the energy transition. Full article

Protein hydrolysates (PH) with a degree of hydrolysis (DH) of 5%, 10%, and 13% from two varieties of peanut were prepared using two commercial enzymes, Alcalase and Flavourzyme. The content of essential amino acids (30,290 mg/100 g) and hydrophobic amino acids (34,067 mg/100 g) of the peanut variety Kalasin 2 (KAC431) protein was higher than that of a common variety, Kalasin 1 (KAC1) (p < 0.05). The protein molecular weight distributions of the two varieties of peanut detected by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) were similar, ranging from 15 to 75 kDa, with a major protein band at 50–75 kDa. The antioxidant and functional properties of derived PHs were influenced by DH. Although the foaming ability of protein was improved by DH5%, it was obviously decreased upon increasing DH further. The best emulsifying properties were observed in PH with DH5% (p < 0.05). The incorporation of PH with a small DH, especially when produced using Flavourzyme, had a highly positive impact on the specific volume and relative elasticity of gluten-free bread. The effect of PHs on bread quality was highly correlated with their functional properties. This study suggests that partially enzymatically modified proteins are suitable for incorporation in food products such as bread and other gluten-free products. Full article

Our paper presents the preliminary results of a study aimed at building a new creativity assessment tool, suitable also for younger children (3/4 years old), who do not master enough language and design to respond to the classical tests used to evaluate this competence. The first results are encouraging, both for the collaboration and interest of children for the test, and for correlations with a classical evaluation tool used too (a task of the Torrance’ TTCT). The discussion of results considers in particular the relationship between cognitive skills (representation) and individual response strategies. Full article

The ever-increasing presence in Italian school of Italian L2 children is an established reality. Language learning is a priority: it is the gateway to all school subjects and “social life” in the new country. Unfortunately, language learning has its own times, which often collide with schooling. Consequently, while a child is learning a language, he/she is excluded from many other subjects, especially scientific, thus accumulating gaps. The mathematical operations visual dictionary takes traditional language access tools (visual dictionaries) and verge them for mathematical concepts, implementing traditional illustration with the interactive media declined through the principle of understanding by doing. Full article

The production of food is responsible for major environmental impacts. Bearing this in mind, it is even worse when food is lost rather than consumed. In Switzerland, 46% of all processing potatoes and 53% of all fresh potatoes are lost on their way from field to fork. Our study therefore compares the environmental impacts of losses of fresh potatoes with those of French fries. With the aid of a Life Cycle Assessment, we assessed the impact categories “demand for nonrenewable energy resources”, “global warming potential”, “human toxicity”, “terrestrial ecotoxicity” and “aquatic ecotoxicity”. Our results show that 1 kg of potatoes consumed as French fries causes 3–5 times more environmental impacts than the same quantity of fresh potatoes, but also that the proportion of impacts relating to losses is considerably lower for French fries (5%–10% vs. 23%–39%). The great majority of processing potato losses occur before the resource-intensive, emission-rich frying processes and therefore the environmental “backpack” carried by each lost potato is still relatively small. Nonetheless, appropriate loss treatment can substantially reduce the environmental impact of potato losses. In the case of French fries, the frying processes and frying oil are the main “hot spots” of environmental impacts, accounting for a considerably higher proportion of damage than potato losses; it is therefore also useful to look at these processes. Full article

When trying to optimize the sustainability performance of farms and farming systems, a consideration of trade-offs and synergies between different themes and dimensions is required. The aim of this paper is to perform a systematic analysis of trade-offs and synergies across all dimensions and themes. To achieve this aim we used the Sustainability Monitoring and Assessment Routine (SMART)-Farm Tool which operationalizes the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA) Guidelines by defining science-based indicator sets and assessment procedures. It identifies the degree of goal achievement with respect to the 58 themes defined in the SAFA Guidelines using an impact matrix that defines 327 indicators and 1769 relations between sustainability themes and indicators. We illustrate how the SMART-Farm Tool can be successfully applied to assess the sustainability performance of farms of different types and in different geographic regions. Our analysis revealed important synergies between themes within a sustainability dimension and across dimensions. We found major trade-offs within the environmental dimension and between the environmental and economic dimension. The trade-offs within the environmental dimension were even larger than the trade-offs with other dimensions. The study also underlines the importance of the governance dimension with regard to achieving a good level of performance in the other dimensions. Full article

Identifying patterns and drivers of regional land use changes is crucial for supporting land management and planning. Doing so for mountain ecosystems in East Asia, such as the So-yang River Basin in South Korea, has until now been a challenge because of extreme social and ecological complexities. Applying the techniques of geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical modeling via multinomial logistic regression (MNL), we attempted to examine various hypothesized drivers of land use changes, over the period 1980 to 2000. The hypothesized drivers included variables of topography, accessibility, spatial zoning policies and neighboring land use. Before the inferential statistic analyses, we identified the optimal neighborhood extents for each land use type. The two archetypical sub-periods, i.e., 1980–1990 with agricultural expansions and 1990–2000 with reforestation, have similar causal drivers, such as topographic factors, which are related to characteristics of mountainous areas, neighborhood land use, and spatial zoning policies, of land use changes. Since the statistical models robustly capture the mutual effects of biophysical heterogeneity, neighborhood characteristics and spatial zoning regulation on long-term land use changes, they are valuable for developing coupled models of social-ecological systems to simulate land use and dependent ecosystem services, and to support sustainable land management. Full article