Ecocycles

Education and training in heritage practices – the case of heritage craft education at University of Gothenburg as an opportunity for Albania

Bosse Lagerqvist — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The intention of this article is to discuss the challenges in organising higher education in heritage practices and craft skills. The development of the Department of Conservation, University of Gothenburg, its establishment of a Craft laboratory, and the certification of craft skills in an Albanian context, is used as a case. Based on the activities of the Craft Laboratory in Sweden, the paper investigates the possibilities for a similar development in Albania. The background for the specific subject rests in a long-standing cooperation between the Department of Conservation and Cultural heritage without Borders Albania (CHwBA), in terms of skills development for improving restoration practices. Through the paper it is clear that the same kind of context are not in place in Albania, and that the needs are different. It is also obvious that CHwBA is functioning as a de facto Craft Laboratory in Albania and the need for an outfit like that are more focused on improving competences, standards and qualities in the architectural restoration area, leading to economic development, employability, establishment of small craft companies, and formal branch networks. The article discusses the challenges facing the higher education systems in developing education as well as vocational training in the subject areas of heritage practices and craft skills.

Enforceability of decisions of the Agricultural Paying Agency in matters of direct payments

Lucia Palsova, Ondrej Benus — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Since its inception, the Common Agricultural Policy has been the largest among all common European policies. The main objective of the Common agricultural policy is food sovereignty in the European Union, stabilization of farmers' incomes and, at present, support for non-production functions of agriculture and environmental protection. Given the rising input prices and the time mismatch between supply and demand for agricultural products, the first pillar of the CAP has become a key tool for sustaining the desired competitiveness of agricultural products in the EU Member States.

Direct payments have become an important tool for Slovak farmers, and therefore their effective implementation is essential for their continued existence or development. The aim of the paper was to point out the weak enforceability of direct payments to eligible users of agricultural land if there is a conflicting legal entitlement to provide a direct payment in accordance with §28 and §29 of Act no. 280/2017 Coll. and the resulting problems for eligible applicants.

Human geography of drylands. I. Planning the database: Physical, built-up, chemical, biological (ecological), and social indicators

Matyas Arvai, Karoly Fekete, Laszlo Pasztor, Tamas Komives — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We propose a method based on multilayered mapping for investigating the current problems of people who live in drylands and we urge decision-makers to support such studies to establish the foundations for future decisive and preventive actions. This paper contains an expandable compilation of the environmental indicators (mostly mappable) that may influence the human geography of a certain region. We believe that this geospatial approach may help to resolve convoluted physical, chemical, and social relationships and, at the same time, generate a valuable database for further research. The application of the concept, if successful, will give directions to tackle certain contemporary problems in drylands and predict future ones caused by global climate change.

Assessment of the biodegradation of doxycycline by biostimulation with addition of glucose, phenol or/and copper

Hayet Djelal, Paola Estrada Martinez, Djouza Haddouche, Malika Chabani — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Doxycycline, an antibiotic, is largely used in human and veterinary medicine. The conventional treatment with activated sludge is not very efficient. Laccase appeared to be the main enzyme secreted essentially by white rot fungi as Trametes versicolor and Phlebia fascicularia on the degradation of xenobiotic compounds from the pharmaceutical industry. The main purpose of this study was to enhance the biodegradation of doxycycline through activated sludge combined with addition of glucose as a carbon co-substrate to improve the growth of the microbial population present in the activated sludge, phenol as a laccase mediator, copper as a cofactor and inductor for laccase production. The enhancement of the biodegradation of doxycycline was 50, 90, 68 and 83% greater respectively with the addition of glucose, copper, phenol and with a mixture of the compounds after 14 days of treatment at 25°C. Compared with the biotic control (activated sludge alone), a 30% increase for the test with the addition of phenol was observed.

The prospects for organic agriculture in Hungary – A human ecological approach

Zoltan Alfoldi — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The natural, social, and economic issues and problems of today and the near future pose new challenges for researchers and educators in every disciplines. In this complex situation, human ecology, which synthesizes the knowledge of individual disciplines and focuses on connections and interactions, has a special role to meet this challenge. In the service of practical sustainability, it helps to reveal the complexity of the agricultural sector and to prepare public policy decisions, taking the special features and capabilities of the particular environments into account. In the complex understanding of the operation of highly complex living systems, in mitigating the effects of climate change, in conserving biodiversity, in assessing the effects of biogeochemical processes and in solving many other problems at local and global level, the holistic system-approach is needed for putting them in contexts. In this study, we highlight the reasonableness and the vital role of human ecology in organic farming as well as outline its future challenges and possibilities.

Effective natural food complements: anti-CoV-2 spike protein directed druggable inhibitors

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There is a number of photosynthetically produced small molecules that have previously been validated through SARS-CoV spike protein interaction assays for selectivity and effectivity in our database. Our specialty database, the AVIRA-DB, has been built from scientific papers that published results regarding selective & effective CoV-2 spike protein binding inhibitors that prevent virus binding to the Angiotensin Converting Enzyme type 2 (ACE2). These data have been accumulated since 2003, the time of the first well documented coronavirus pandemic. To develop our anti-viral nutraceutical capsule we favoured small molecules (Mw <1000 Dalton) from edible plant parts that are enriched in experimentally evaluated coronavirus inhibitors. From this “AVIRA-DB” we screened for local culture varieties of vegetables and spices that are enriched in the anti-viral hits. Thus, AVIRA is the first knowledge-based nutraceutical composition that was validated by selective anti-CoV-2’s spike protein assays, performed in silico, -vitro & -vivo. From Chemo- & Bio-text-mined meta-data from literature and patents resulted in druggable flavonoids and flavonols, which were validated as anti-CoV-2 spike protein directed small molecules that are preventing the binding of the virus to ACE2.

Upgrading the wine hospitality training in Hungary

Kinga Angler — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The knowledge and skills required in wine evaluation, information and serving vary depending on the nature of profession where work with wine is involved. Although the waiter, the cook and the chef, the bartender and the sommelier have different approaches to wine due to their duties, there are a number of overlapping areas of knowledge and practical skills, which must be included in training programmes. We suggest that in Hungary the Portuguese model should be followed as an education technique in the HORECA industry. Thus, the theoretical and practical training should take place in regional centers, with student dormitories, and public restaurants. The vocational may be part-time, partly paid, and partly with state support.

Managing challenges of increasing complexity in sustainability

Aniko Klausmann-Dinya — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The paradigm under which our society and economy have operated until now has become obsolete in the 21st century. Some Nobel Prize-winner economists made it clear that we have to forget the paradigm currently dominating the global economy: "Let’s privatize the benefits and socialize (distribute) its costs as much as possible!" The results of it are extremely and rapidly increasing inequalities, followed by unmanageable socio-economic - environmental tensions. It seems we could get out of this situation only with radical social and economic transformations, both globally and at the lower levels (countries, regions, localities). There isn’t another solution just the social and economic paradigm exchange parallel with each other. Interconnected and not separated them. But many big challenges are coming up from the natural and the technological environment too and they are rooted in the human-made systems. So altogether we are facing the quickly changing complexity and an unknown situation in the history of humanity. We don't have appropriate methods and experiences how to deal with these new types of challenges but there isn't any other choice just to manage them. Despite this fact, there are very few studies about the causes and consequences of this rapidly growing problem in the era of growing sustainability risks. Similarly, there is very little practical information that provides actionable advice on how to manage these problems at different (global-, macro-, and micro-) levels of social and economic organizations. We define complexity as the number of components in a system plus the variety of relationships among these components plus the speed of changes of both the components and the relationships. Larger systems (like social - economic - ecological systems) are often very complex – but they may be more complicated if their behavior is unpredictable. Based on the global databases and reports we investigated the trials of countries how prepared they are for managing the growing complexity in the field of implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. We have found that in most of the countries (and globally too) experts are choosing the simplest way - they deal with the goals separately from each other and don't take into account the very complicated system of their interconnections and the feedback loops. We have tried to summarize some conclusions for the future about what would be the better approach to deal with the complexity.

A review of the book ’Cold-blooded Vertebrates in Nicaragua and its Regional Development’ by Ivo Pavlík and Miguel Ángel Garmendia Zapata

Sandor Nemethy — Wed, 30 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This paper summarizes the views of the author on the new book titled ’Cold-blooded Vertebrates in Nicaragua and its Regional Development’ by Ivo Pavlík and Miguel Ángel Garmendia Zapata.

Microbiological control of alcoholic fermentation

Albert Mas, Gemma Beltran, Maria-Jesus Torija — Wed, 30 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Alcoholic fermentation and the production of wine has accompanied humanity for more than 10000 years. However, it has been only in the last 50 years when the winemakers have had the tools to manage and control the process. The methodology to analyze and monitor the succession of the microorganisms that participate in the process along with the effective use of antimicrobial compounds (for instance sulfur dioxide), the control of the temperature and, above all, the use of cellar-friendly fermentation starters (mostly as Active Dry Wine Yeast) have provided the appropriate conditions for that control. However, the use of a limited number of commercial presentations of the starters has generated an unwanted uniformity of the wines produced. Furthermore, new tendencies in wine making with limited or no human intervention have considered these tolls as a negative aspect in the wine quality, although most of these concerns are only philosophical, without clear scientific evidence. We present a revision of the present state of the art in these methodologies where our research group has been working for the last 25 years.

Public-private partnerships for multifunctional sustainable land use in peri-urban areas to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change

Anna Ternell, Anders M. Nilsson, Bjorn Ohlen, Daniel Stenholm, Dag Berksjo — Thu, 31 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Climate change increases the risk of damage caused by storms, insects and fungi in agriculture and forestry. Multifunctional sustainable land use, including a more diversified agriculture and forestry sector in terms of biodiversity, is one way to create resilience and meet these climate risks. For example, a forest with trees of different ages and of several species is more resistant to these risks. Multifunctional refers to how the same land can provide food and wood products, but also job creation, recreation and be a provider of ecosystem services such as pollination, erosion protection and biodiversity. Research shows that there is a large acceptance for a more varied forest sector and diversified agriculture. In recent years, urban farming has received widespread understanding on its many advantages, including a sense of belonging and meaning, other than food production. In this article the authors try to assess a scenario when these initiatives become commercial and when the urban farming trend meets traditional forms of agriculture and forestry. Furthermore, the large potential of developing public-private partnerships for multifunctional sustainable land use in peri-urban areas in the Swedish City of Gothenburg and its surrounding area is analysed, based on experiences from ongoing initiatives. Developed within the framework of Climate KIC Accelerator Project, a business model is presented allowing for a long-term sustainability of initiatives.

Colophon 6.2

Julia Tarodi — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This is the Colophon of ECOCYCLES Volume 6, Issue 2.