This applied research is an attempt to analyse the effectiveness of milk marketing and facilitate developing a sustainable milk value chain for dairy farmer’s groups in Punakha district. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of survey, key informant interviews and focus group discussion were used as research strategies to obtain relevant information. The survey was conducted using both open and closed-ended structured questionnaire in seven subdistricts of Barp, Dzomi, Guma, Kabisa, Shelnga-Bjemi, Talog and Toedwang. A total of 60 respondents; 30 existing milk suppliers and 30 non-milk suppliers were drawn using a simple random sampling technique. One-to-one interviews were conducted following semi-structured questions with eight key informants in the chain. One focus group interview was conducted with the existing dairy farmer groups representatives to triangulate and discover in-depth information about the situation of the milk value chain in the district. The survey data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences software version 20. A method of grounded theory design was used to analyse the qualitative data of interviews and focus group discussion. Value chain mapping was employed for assessing the operational situation of the current milk chain. The mean cost of milk production was estimated at Nu.27.53 per litre and the maximum expenses were incurred in animal feeds which were estimated to be 46.34% of the total cost of milk production. In this study, milk producers had the highest share of added value and profit which were estimated at 45.45% and 44.85% respectively. Limited information and coordination amongst stakeholders have contributed to slow progression in the formal milk market. The finding reveals that 90% of nondairy farmer groups respondents were interested in joining formal milk marketing. The average morning milk available for supply from this group would be 4.41 ± 3.07 litres daily by each household. The study also found that 50% of the respondents were interested in supplying evening milk with an average of 4.43 ± 2.25 litres per day per household. Based on the result of this study, it was concluded that there are possibilities of expanding the milk value chain in the district. However, there is a need to enhance consistent milk supply through a quality-based milk payment system, access to reasonable input supplies, and facilitate strong multi-stakeholder processes along the milk value chain.
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Digitalization is the core component of future development in the 4.0 industrial era. It represents a powerful mechanism for enhancing the sustainable competitiveness of economies worldwide. Diverse triggering effects shape future digitalization trends. Thus, the main research goal in this study is to use sustainable competitiveness pillars (such as social, economic, environmental and energy) to evaluate international digitalization development. The proposed empirical model generates comprehensive knowledge of the sustainable competitiveness-digitalization nexus. For that purpose, a nonlinear regression has been applied on gathered annual data that consist of 33 European countries, ranging from 2010 to 2016. The dataset has been deployed using Bernoulli’s binominal distribution to derive training and testing samples and the entire analysis has been adjusted in that context. The empirical findings of artificial neural networks (ANN) suggest strong effects of the economic and energy use indicators on the digitalization progress. Nonlinear regression and ANN model summary report valuable results with a high degree of coefficient of determination (R2>0.9 for all models). Research findings state that the digitalization process is multidimensional and cannot be evaluated as an isolated phenomenon without incorporating other relevant factors that emerge in the environment. Indicators report the consumption of electrical energy in industry and households and GDP per capita to achieve the strongest effect.
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Electrification of transportation, communication, working and living continues worldwide. Televisions, telephones, servers are an important part of everyday life. These loads and most sustainable sources as well, have one thing in common: Direct Current. The Dutch research and educational programme ‘DC – road to its full potential’ studies the impact of feeding these appliances from a DC grid. An improvement in energy efficiency is expected, other benefits are unknown and practical considerations are needed to come to a proper comparison with an AC grid. This paper starts with a brief introduction of the programme and its first stages. These stages encompass firstly the commissioning, selection and implementation of a safe and user friendly testing facility, to compare performance of domestic appliances when powered with AC and DC. Secondly, the relationship between the DC-testing facility and existing modeling and simulation assignments is explained. Thirdly, first results are discussed in a broad sense. An improved energy efficiency of 3% to 5% is already demonstrated for domestic appliances. That opens up questions for the performance of a domestic DC system as a whole. The paper then ends with proposed minor changes in the programme and guidelines for future projects. These changes encompass further studying of domestic appliances for product-development purposes, leaving less means for new and costly high-power testing facilities. Possible gains are 1) material and component savings 2) simpler and cheaper exteriors 3) stable and safe in-house infrastructure 4) whilst combined with local sustainable generation. That is the road ahead. 10.1109/DUE.2014.6827758
Chemical preservation is an important process that prevents foods, personal care products, woods and household products, such as paints and coatings, from undesirable change or decomposition by microbial growth. To date, many different chemical preservatives are commercially available, but they are also associated with health threats and severe negative environmental impact. The demand for novel, safe, and green chemical preservatives is growing, and this process is further accelerated by the European Green Deal. It is expected that by the year of 2050 (or even as soon as 2035), all preservatives that do not meet the ‘safe-by-design’ and ‘biodegradability’ criteria are banned from production and use. To meet these European goals, there is a large need for the development of green, circular, and bio-degradable antimicrobial compounds that can serve as alternatives for the currently available biocidals/ preservatives. Anthocyanins, derived from fruits and flowers, meet these sustainability goals. Furthermore, preliminary research at the Hanze University of Applied Science has confirmed the antimicrobial efficacy of rose and tulip anthocyanin extracts against an array of microbial species. Therefore, these molecules have the potential to serve as novel, sustainable chemical preservatives. In the current project we develop a strategy consisting of fractionation and state-of-the-art characterization methods of individual anthocyanins and subsequent in vitro screening to identify anthocyanin-molecules with potent antimicrobial efficacy for application in paints, coatings and other products. To our knowledge this is the first attempt that combines in-depth chemical characterization of individual anthocyanins in relation to their antimicrobial efficacy. Once developed, this strategy will allow us to single out anthocyanin molecules with antimicrobial properties and give us insight in structure-activity relations of individual anthocyanins. Our approach is the first step towards the development of anthocyanin molecules as novel, circular and biodegradable non-toxic plant-based preservatives.
Introduction The research group Biobased Resources & Energy (BRE) of Avans focusses on recovery of valuable building blocks from low-value solid and liquid residual streams from agriculture, households and industries. For the valorisation of these residual streams, BRE looks into different biological, chemical and mechanical processes. One of the main issues in the utilisation of residual streams is economic feasibility and the recovery of multiple resources from one residual stream. Using membrane technologies in combination with biological, chemical and/or mechanical processes could offer great opportunities. Central Research Question What is the applicability of membrane technologies for valorisation of different residual streams and is it possible to integrate membrane technology in current and new biorefining projects of research group BRE: Set-up In order to reach the goal of this postdoc, 4 research questions will be answered using literature search, experimentation and modelling: 1) What membrane methods are currently (commercially) available to enhance the results of current projects in research group BRE? 2) What are the essential technical parameters for membrane separation and how can these be optimized? 3) What is the economic impact of using membrane technology in recovery of valuable building blocks from residual streams? 4) What are the effects of using membranes instead of or complementary to currently used methods on the sustainability of valorisation of residual streams? Cooperation The postdoc and the research group BRE want to extend the contact and research cooperation with (regional) businesses and (applied) universities and support and facilitate the introduction and further development of membrane technologies in the curriculum of different Avans study programmes. This will be done via internships, minor projects (together with businesses) and development of study material for courses and trainings.
The message we intend to communicate is that in the future, our cities can (partly) feed themselves with healthy foods grown in microbial gardens, which can be part of a household kitchen or community garden for providing fresh green "vegetables" where the energy for the artificial LED lighting for the microbial garden is coming from solar panels on roofs thereby making this system free from fossil energy.For Floriade 2022, we would like to introduce the Urban Microbial garden pop-up restaurant for feeding and greening the city. The menu will include a speciality microbiota vegan burger made from algae, seaweed, fungi and fava beans served on dishes made from baked mycelium. Our objective is to elicit consumer perception and opinion on the future of our new microbial food chain, which is fully sustainable and safer for the environment. Consumer opinions will be video recorded and compiled into a short movie/video for further inspiration and analysis for product/service development. This pop-up restaurant is a logical extension of the Art-Work by 4F.STUDIO (Kim van den Belt, Joshua Kelly, Steven Wobbes) already present in Kavel 123 at Floriade as part of the Light Challenge. The artwork depicts a future object for community gardens which supports the idea of locally produced microbes. Since we already have work at Floriade, this living-lab project has the benefit of broadening the vision of their work through more in-depth and visceral feedback.
