Diadema sea-urchins play a vital role in maintaining a balanced coral reef ecosystem by grazing away algae and creating bare substrate for coral recruitment. The RAAKPRO Diadema project aims to develop interventions to improve larval recruitment and juvenile survival to increase local Diadema populations. To do this, researchers are investigating the larval and settlement stage of Diadema populations around the islands of Saba and St. Eustatius. First results show that some locations have a high suitability for “assisted natural recovery”.
MULTIFILE
In most shopping areas, there are place management partnerships (PMPs) that aim to increase the competitiveness of the area. Collective digital marketing activities, such as the adoption and update of collective websites and social media pages, provide opportunities in this regard. Currently, the extent to which digital marketing activities are being employed varies widely among PMPs. However, studies investigating the factors that influence the uptake of digital marketing activities are lacking. This study applies a resource-based view to fill this gap, using data from an online survey about collective digital marketing activities among 164 official representatives of PMPs in urban shopping areas in the Netherlands. Regression analyses were employed to examine the extent to which the resources of PMPs influence the adoption and update frequency of the two most often used digital marketing channels: websites and social media pages. The results revealed that while the adoption of collective digital marketing channels is strongly influenced by the physical resources that characterize the shopping area itself, the update frequency of these channels is influenced more by the organizational resources of PMPs. In addition, the strategic choice of PMPs to deploy human and financial resources for the benefit of collective digital marketing activities leads to increased use of these activities. This effect is reinforced by the fact that digital marketing skills gained through experience contribute to a higher update frequency of the adopted channels. As such, this study provides empirical evidence on the influence of PMPs shared resources upon their digital marketing activities.
Due to the existing pressure for a more rational use of the water, many public managers and industries have to re-think/adapt their processes towards a more circular approach. Such pressure is even more critical in the Rio Doce region, Minas Gerais, due to the large environmental accident occurred in 2015. Cenibra (pulp mill) is an example of such industries due to the fact that it is situated in the river basin and that it has a water demanding process. The current proposal is meant as an academic and engineering study to propose possible solutions to decrease the total water consumption of the mill and, thus, decrease the total stress on the Rio Doce basin. The work will be divided in three working packages, namely: (i) evaluation (modelling) of the mill process and water balance (ii) application and operation of a pilot scale wastewater treatment plant (iii) analysis of the impacts caused by the improvement of the process. The second work package will also be conducted (in parallel) with a lab scale setup in The Netherlands to allow fast adjustments and broaden evaluation of the setup/process performance. The actions will focus on reducing the mill total water consumption in 20%.
Phosphorus is an essential element for life, whether in the agricultural sector or in the chemical industry to make products such as flame retardants and batteries. Almost all the phosphorus we use are mined from phosphate rocks. Since Europe scarcely has any mine, we therefore depend on imported phosphate, which poses a risk of supply. To that effect, Europe has listed phosphate as one of its main critical raw materials. This creates a need for the search for alternative sources of phosphate such as wastewater, since most of the phosphate we use end up in our wastewater. Additionally, the direct discharge of wastewater with high concentration of phosphorus (typically > 50 ppb phosphorus) creates a range of environmental problems such as eutrophication . In this context, the Dutch start-up company, SusPhos, created a process to produce biobased flame retardants using phosphorus recovered from municipal wastewater. Flame retardants are often used in textiles, furniture, electronics, construction materials, to mention a few. They are important for safety reasons since they can help prevent or spread fires. Currently, almost all the phosphate flame retardants in the market are obtained from phosphate rocks, but SusPhos is changing this paradigm by being the first company to produce phosphate flame retardants from waste. The process developed by SusPhos to upcycle phosphate-rich streams to high-quality flame retardant can be considered to be in the TRL 5. The company seeks to move further to a TRL 7 via building and operating a demo-scale plant in 2021/2022. BioFlame proposes a collaboration between a SME (SusPhos), a ZZP (Willem Schipper Consultancy) and HBO institute group (Water Technology, NHL Stenden) to expand the available expertise and generate the necessary infrastructure to tackle this transition challenge.
Genematics aims to help life science researchers and medical specialists to discover, interpret and communicate valuable patterns in biological data. Our software combines the recovery of data from public scientific resources with instant interpretation. It does so in such a way that the expert only needs a few seconds instead of hours or even days to retrieve answers from the available biological data. Use of our software should accelerate the research for new drugs, new treatments and other innovations in health-related research to build a better tomorrow.
