ALBERT

Description: Unconventional geothermal resource development can contribute to increase power generation from renewable energy sources in countries without conventional hydrothermal reservoirs, which are usually associated with magmatic activity and extensional faulting, as well as to expand the generation in those regions where conventional resources are already used. Three recent drilling experiences focused on the characterization of unconventional resources are described and compared: the Campi Flegrei Deep Drilling Project (CFDDP) in Italy, the United Downs Deep Geothermal Power (UDDGP) project in the United Kingdom, and the DEEP Earth Energy Production in Canada. The main aspects of each project are described (geology, drilling, data collection, communication strategies) and compared to discuss challenges encountered at the tree sites considered, including a scientific drilling project (CFDDP) and two industrial ones (UDDGP and DEEP). The first project, at the first stage of pilot hole, although not reaching deep supercritical targets, showed extremely high, very rare thermal gradients even at shallow depths. Although each project has its own history, as well as social and economic context, the lessons learned at each drilling site can be used to further facilitate geothermal energy development.

Description: Published

Description: 3306

Description: 1TR. Georisorse

Description: JCR Journal

Description: Sustainability is a topic that is at the center of current discussions in the political, economic, social, and environmental fields. For its analysis, an integral and multidisciplinary vision is needed. This work aims to assess the sustainability of agricultural systems in Paraguay through a comparison applying SAFA (Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems) indicators. The research focuses on 15 case studies on the territory of the Eastern Region of Paraguay divided into five classes of agricultural systems: agribusiness, conventional peasant family farming, agroecological peasant family farming, neo-rural farming, and indigenous agriculture. Data were collected through interviews with producers and key informants, direct observation, and scientific literature research in order to assess, through the SAFA Tool Software, the level of sustainability of each agricultural system as a whole and for each sustainability dimension (political, environmental, economic, and social dimension) in a comparative way. It has emerged that producers belonging to conventional peasant family farming, agroecological peasant family farming, neo-rural farming, and indigenous agriculture have achieved levels of sustainability that are similar to each other and very good in all four dimensions of sustainability. Meanwhile, agribusiness achieved moderate scores in the dimensions of governance and environmental integrity, and was good in the economic and social dimension.

Description: Historic centers have suffered different processes of neglect, occupation, segregation, gentrification, and touristification as a result of changes in demand and policies. Currently, they are going through a homogenization process motivated by tourist pressure, which is causing the expulsion of the local population; this is a common topic of interest for media and political agendas, which requires scientific analysis. This research aims at identifying the winning and the losing tourist groups in the historic center of Seville. It is structured in two parts: a conceptual one based on the bibliographic review with which one wants to know how the current society responds to tourist pressure through defining and characterizing the processes of substitution of uses and inhabitants, and another empirical one in which the analysis of statistical indicators (demographic, economic, and residential) treated with Geographic Information System (GIS) allows us to measure the degree of existing vulnerability and analyze social and spatial effects caused by the tourism in Seville.

Description: Research on current practices and the state of green public procurement enables the identification of areas that can be improved, as well as opportunities to improve the tendering procedures from an environmental point of view. To understand the behaviour of local, provincial, and regional administrations concerning green public procurement, a case study on the Valencia region of Spain is made. The Valencian region is one of the most important communities in terms of population, number of contracting authorities, and weight in the Spanish Gross Domestic Product. In this study, a total of 967 procedures were analysed from calls for tenders made by municipal, provincial, and regional administrations in2016 and 2017.The results of this study show that the use of environmental criteria is 19.7% and the average weight is 4.1 out of 100. The civil engineering subsector, more than the building subsector, employs environmental criteria, particularly in projects tendered by regional administrations, whereas for projects with large budgets the level of use is similar for both subsectors. It is necessary to encourage plans to improve Green Public Procurement (GPP) practices in the Valencian administrations, especially those with a local scope such as municipalities.

Description: The objective of this article is to analyse how regional financial and economic differences influence the capital structure decisions of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Specifically, this paper considers the regional financial and economic differences in four ways: the development of the financial sector in the region, bank market concentration, the financial cost of obtaining funds, and regional economic development. For this purpose, we used unbalanced panel data from 26,504 SMEs across the 20 Italian regions and over the period from 2004 to 2010. This work is completed with an analysis of a no-crisis (2004–2007) and a crisis period (2008–2010). The results show that the regional differences in the degree of financial sector development, banking concentration, and local economic situations have a significant impact on the leverage level of SMEs, while the cost of obtaining funds is only relevant during a period of economic stability. These results suggest that insights can be derived from data disaggregation at the regional level inside the same country. These regional divergences in the capital structure of SMEs could influence regional economic resilience.

Description: Mapping irrigated plots is essential for better water resource management. Today, the free and open access Sentinel-1 (S1) and Sentinel-2 (S2) data with high revisit time offers a powerful tool for irrigation mapping at plot scale. Up to date, few studies have used S1 and S2 data to provide approaches for mapping irrigated plots. This study proposes a method to map irrigated plots using S1 SAR (synthetic aperture radar) time series. First, a dense temporal series of S1 backscattering coefficients were obtained at plot scale in VV (Vertical-Vertical) and VH (Vertical-Horizontal) polarizations over a study site located in Catalonia, Spain. In order to remove the ambiguity between rainfall and irrigation events, the S1 signal obtained at plot scale was used conjointly to S1 signal obtained at a grid scale (10 km × 10 km). Later, two mathematical transformations, including the principal component analysis (PCA) and the wavelet transformation (WT), were applied to the several SAR temporal series obtained in both VV and VH polarization. Irrigated areas were then classified using the principal component (PC) dimensions and the WT coefficients in two different random forest (RF) classifiers. Another classification approach using one dimensional convolutional neural network (CNN) was also performed on the obtained S1 temporal series. The results derived from the RF classifiers with S1 data show high overall accuracy using the PC values (90.7%) and the WT coefficients (89.1%). By applying the CNN approach on SAR data, a significant overall accuracy of 94.1% was obtained. The potential of optical images to map irrigated areas by the mean of a normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) temporal series was also tested in this study in both the RF and the CNN approaches. The overall accuracy obtained using the NDVI in RF classifier reached 89.5% while that in the CNN reached 91.6%. The combined use of optical and radar data slightly enhanced the classification in the RF classifier but did not significantly change the accuracy obtained in the CNN approach using S1 data.

Description: Natural zeolites are low in cost and exhibit interesting properties for applications in adsorption and catalysis. However, the fact that they are natural materials, not obtained in pure form, and can incorporate various compensating ions can compromise their properties and restrict their use. As their textural and chemical properties are of great relevance for adsorption and catalysis applications, this work aims to study the modification of the natural zeolite clinoptilolite to obtain materials with better physicochemical properties. Clinoptilolite was treated with NaOH under various conditions. The treated material was characterized by X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, N2 adsorption and desorption at 77 K, CO2 adsorption at 273 K, and pyridine adsorption. The treatment allowed the removal of silicon from the material, improving the textural properties and preserving the structural Al. With the removal of Si, the Si/Al ratio decreased, and consequently, the number of acid and adsorptive sites increased. In addition, statistical planning revealed that the concentration of NaOH is the parameter that most influences the improvement of the textural properties.

Description: Light signaling pathways interact with the circadian clock to help organisms synchronize physiological and developmental processes to periodic environmental cycles. The plant photoreceptors responsible for clock resetting have been characterized, but signaling components that link the photoreceptors to the clock remain to be identified. Members of the family of NIGHT LIGHT–INDUCIBLE AND CLOCK-REGULATED (LNK) genes play key roles linking light regulation of gene expression to the control of daily and seasonal rhythms in Arabidopsis thaliana. Particularly, LNK1 and LNK2 were shown to control circadian rhythms, photomorphogenic responses, and photoperiod-dependent flowering time. Here we analyze the role of the four members of the LNK family in Arabidopsis in these processes. We found that depletion of the closely related LNK3 and LNK4 in a lnk1;lnk2 mutant background affects circadian rhythms, but not other clock-regulated processes such as flowering time and seedling photomorphogenesis. Nevertheless, plants defective in all LNK genes (lnkQ quadruple mutants) display developmental alterations that lead to increased rosette size, biomass, and enhanced phototropic responses. Our work indicates that members of the LNK family have both distinctive and partially overlapping functions, and are an essential link to orchestrate light-regulated developmental processes.

Description: Lamiaceae is one of the largest families of aromatic plants and it is characterized by the presence of external glandular structures which produce essential oils highly valued in cosmetics and medicine. Plants of Lavandula latifolia, Mentha piperita, Salvia sclarea, Salvia lavandulifolia, Thymus capitatus, and Thymus mastichina were grown for one year. In order to evaluate the effects of drought stress, plants were subjected to two water treatments (100% ETo and 70% ETo, including the rainfall during the experimental period). At the end of the experiment, the biomass, the essential oil content, and leaf nutrients concentration were assessed for each water treatment and species studied. At the end of the experiment, L. latifolia, M. piperita and T. capitatus plants showed a significant fresh weight reduction under drought stress conditions whereas the other species studied remained unchanged. With respect to dry weight, only L. latifolia plants showed a reduction under water deficit conditions. As far as essential oil content was concerned, L. latifolia and S. sclarea plants had a reduction under water deficit conditions. Leaf nutrient concentration showed different trends between species considering the nutrient assessed. The economic viability of the growth of this species will be dependent on the benefits achieved which are related to yield production obtained and the price accorded for both raw material and the essential oil extracted.

Description: Chamaemelum fuscatum (Brot.) Vasc. is a south west Iberian chamomile that has been traditionally used as folk medicine in its natural distribution area but currently it is underestimated regarding its biological activities. For this reason, it is proposed in this paper to get insight into the scientific validation of the traditional knowledge of this plant with the aim of taking advantage of its anti-inflammatory, gastroprotective and antinociceptive activities, among others. To this aim, the chemical composition of the essential oil from the whole plant, the flowers and the green parts of this plant has been evaluated by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Plant materials were collected in Badajoz (Spain). A total of 61 components including monoterpenoids, sesquiterpenoids and aliphatic esters were identified. (E)-2-Methyl-2-butenyl methacrylate (27.57%–18.53%) and 2-methylallyl isobutyrate (9.79%–7.51%) were the most abundant compounds in the essential oils of flowers and of the whole plant, whereas α-curcumene, trans-pinocarveol, α-bergamotene and pinocarvone were the major terpenoids irrespective of the plant part considered. Certain compounds showing a relative high abundance as isobutyl methacrylate, isoamyl butyrate, α-bergamotene and pinocarvone were identified for the first time in this species. Finally, we have reviewed the bioactivity of several compounds to relate the ethnobotanical use of this plant in Spain with its volatile profile. This work is a preliminary contribution to reinforce the use to this Mediterranean endemic plant as a natural source of bioactives.