The sustainability transitions research field continues to broaden rapidly, engaging scholars from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds. As highlighted in the STRN research agenda, transitions research relies on a broad range of methodological approaches; yet the methodological diversity of transitions studies has remained somewhat limited. I...
The economic viability and energy use of vertical farms strongly depend on the efficiency of the use of light. Increasing far-red radiation (FR, 700–800 nm) relative to photosynthetically active radiation (PAR, 400–700 nm) may induce shade avoidance responses including stem elongation and leaf expansion, which would benefit light interception, and ...
BACKGROUND: Genome mining for biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) has become an integral part of natural product discovery. The >200,000 microbial genomes now publicly available hold information on abundant novel chemistry. One way to navigate this vast genomic diversity is through comparative analysis of homologous BGCs, which allows identification ...
Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) is a mosquito-transmitted bunyavirus that causes severe outbreaks among wild and domesticated ruminants, of which sheep are the most susceptible. Outbreaks are characterised by high mortality rates among new-born lambs and abortion storms, in which all pregnant ewes in a flock may abort their foetuses. In endemic area...
A humid tropical forest disturbance alert using Sentinel-1 radar data is presented for the Congo Basin. Radar satellite signals can penetrate through clouds, allowing Sentinel-1 to provide gap-free observations for the tropics consistently every 6–12 days at 10 m spatial scale. In the densely cloud covered Congo Basin, this represents a major advan...
The work concerns large scale production of microalgae in photobioreactors and involves both technical-economic studies, productivity modeling and validation in industrial scale. Chapter 2 is an economical comparison of the 3 major microalgal production technologies: open raceway ponds, tubular photobioreactors and flat panel photobioreactors. The ...
Poly(ethylene 2,5-furandicarboxylate) (2,5-PEF) is one of the most credible biobased alternative to poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET). The Henkel disproportionation reaction that leads to furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) provides three position isomers: 2,5-FDCA (obtained with the highest yield), 2,4-FDCA (so far considered as a by-product), and 3,4...
Improvements in ex situ storage of genetic and reproductive materials offer an alternative for endangered livestock breed conservation, but collections should be optimized cost-effectively to avoid duplication, and with reference to the sustainability of in situ breeds. We developed a multi-period chance-constrained optimization model to rationaliz...
Endogenous viruses form an important proportion of eukaryote genomes and a source of novel functions. How large DNA viruses integrated into a genome evolve when they confer a benefit to their host, however, remains unknown. Bracoviruses are essential for the parasitism success of parasitoid wasps, into whose genomes they integrated ~103 million yea...
