A variety of multidimensional anthropogenic activities, especially of industrial level, are contaminating our aquatic and terrestrial environments with a variety of metallic and non-metallic pollutants. The metallic and non-metallic pollutants addressed specifically in this review are heavy metals and various compound forms of sulfates, respectively. Direct and indirect deleterious effects of t...

Recent analysis of policy-induced income changes along the agro-food chain in Bulgaria uses an extension of the PSE/CSE methodology. It shows that measures taken by the government with the intention of supporting consumers have led to a substantial negative impact on producers, without having a positive impact on consumers; that throughout the period 1990-1993 farmers have been net losers and r...

In the past decade, a new project of agrarian capitalism has emerged in the Colombian countryside driven by the expansion of commercial agribusinesses, particularly in palm oil. This process is often referred to as an emergent form of agrarian extractivism or land-grabbing. While for the Colombian government, this agro-extractivist project represents one of the main locomotives driving the econ...

Based on the existing biomass co-firing technologies and the known innate drawbacks of dedicated biomass firing, including slagging, corrosion and the dependence on fuel, a new model of agro/forestry residue pellets/shreds and coal co-fired in a large Pulverized Coal (PC) furnace was proposed, and the corresponding technical and economic assessments were performed by co-firing testing in a 300 ...

Abstract: The natural occurrence of fungal contamination was evaluated in stored soybeans in different agro-ecological zones. Of 30 samples examined, fungal contaminations were positive in 25.9 percent and 74.1 percent of Iranian and imported soybeans (p

Spatial and temporal variation of methane emissions in drained eutrophic peat agro-ecosystems: drainage ditches as emission hotspots A. P. Schrier-Uijl, E. M. Veenendaal, P. A. Leffelaar, J. C. van Huissteden, and F. Berendse Department of Nature Conservation and Plant Ecology, Wageningen University, Droevendaalse steeg 3a, 6708 PD Wageningen, The Netherlands Department of Plant Production Syst...

Fuzzy Modeling is an effective approach for System Identification. In its turn, Data Driven Fuzzy Modeling (DDFM) extracts these models from a set of input-output observations about the system. One way to carry out a DDFM process is by means of a combination of techniques, each one solving one of the DDFM phases. In this paper, we apply hybridizations of clustering algorithms and neural network...

This study reports lovastatin production by solid state fermentation using pomegranate seeds as a substrate. Six different fungal strains and several agro-industrial wastes were selected and screened. Various physicochemical parameters were optimized to improve lovastatin productivity. Moreover, chemical mutation was system-atically employed to enhance lovastatin yield on selected strains. Prod...