Consumer Resource Research Articles

Estimation of Monthly Irrigation Water Requirement of Crops Using CROPWAT

Water is increasingly becoming a limited resource due to rising demands for various uses, including hydropower generation, irrigation, and domestic supply. As the population grows, the need for water across different sectors constantly increases. However, the availability of water resources is restricted both spatially and temporally. Therefore, there is an urgent need for systematic and scientific planning to ensure its optimal use. Agriculture sector being the major consumer of water resources, the adoption of modern irrigation techniques can significantly reduce water consumption and promote water conservation. This advancement will expand the irrigated areas and ultimately lead to increased agricultural productivity. Irrigation water requirements of major crops, namely, Paddy, maize, sugarcane etc. are determined using the CROPWAT model. The present study aimed to find out the irrigation water requirement for the major crops grown in Krishna Central Delta, Andhra Pradesh. Results revealed that irrigation water requirement for kharif season ranges from 89-475 mm and in rabi season varies from 320-821 mm. For sugarcane irrigation water requirement was found to be 927 mm.

Climate‐associated variation in the within‐season dynamics of juvenile ticks in California

AbstractChanging climate has driven shifts in species phenology, influencing a range of ecological interactions from plant–pollinator to consumer–resource. Phenological changes in host–parasite systems have implications for pathogen transmission dynamics. The seasonal timing, or phenology, of peak larval and nymphal tick abundance is an important driver of tick‐borne pathogen prevalence through its effect on cohort‐to‐cohort transmission. Tick phenology is tightly linked to climatic factors such as temperature and humidity. Thus, variation in climate within and across regions could lead to differences in phenological patterns. These differences may explain regional variation in tick‐borne pathogen prevalence of the Lyme disease‐causing Borrelia bacteria in vector populations in the United States. For example, one factor thought to contribute to high Lyme disease prevalence in ticks in the eastern United States is the asynchronous phenology of ticks there, where potentially infected nymphal ticks emerge earlier in the season than uninfected larval ticks. This allows the infected nymphal ticks to transmit the pathogen to hosts that are subsequently fed upon by the next generation of larval ticks. In contrast, in the western United States where Lyme disease prevalence is generally much lower, tick phenology is thought to be more synchronous with uninfected larvae emerging slightly before, or at the same time as, potentially infected nymphs, reducing horizontal transmission potential. Sampling larval and nymphal ticks, and their host‐feeding phenology, both across large spatial gradients and through time, is challenging, which hampers attempts to conduct detailed studies of phenology to link it with pathogen prevalence. In this study, we demonstrate through intensive within‐season sampling that the relative abundance and seasonality of larval and nymphal ticks are highly variable along a latitudinal gradient and likely reflect the variable climate in the far western United States with potential consequences for pathogen transmission. We find that feeding patterns were variable and synchronous feeding of juvenile ticks on key blood meal hosts was associated with mean temperature. By characterizing within‐season phenological patterns of the Lyme disease vector throughout a climatically heterogeneous region, we can begin to identify areas with high potential for tick‐borne disease risk and underlying mechanisms at a finer scale.

A Scientometric Review and Analysis of Studies on the Barriers and Challenges of Sustainable Construction

Despite numerous concerns about climate change and the deterioration of nature, the construction industry is still one of the largest consumers of minerals and natural resources. In recent decades, sustainable construction using renewable and recyclable materials, reducing energy, and the adoption of more green technologies with the aim of reducing harmful impacts on the environment have received profound worldwide attention. The more key stakeholders involved strive to achieve sustainability, the more barriers they may face, which requires investigating them to have an effective plan to recognize, prevent, and control them. This paper reviews, classifies, and analyzes the major barriers of sustainable construction between January 2000 and April 2023. In this scientometric study, 153 articles were selected from the Web of Science database. Then, bibliometrics, the creation of maps from network data, as well as the illustration and exploration of those maps were conducted with the HistCite 12.03.1 and VOSviewer 1.6.20 software programs. The analytical results showed that the most profound barriers of sustainable construction are classified into 12 groups: price, economic parameters, awareness, technical, policy and regulations, design, management and government, environmental, social, materials, planning, and market.

Green Building Technology and Sustainable Construction: The Case of Pakistan

ABSTRACT The construction industry (CI) has been at the center of the discussion on sustainable development as the largest consumer of resources and energy. The sustainable development goals offer the construction sector a general direction for pursuing sustainable development from social, environmental and economic perspectives. A sustainable and low-carbon future requires the promotion of sustainable building. In Pakistan, sustainable buildings are potentially difficult to adopt on a large scale, which requires further consideration. This research therefore aims to identify green building technologies (GBTs) and analyze the main drivers of the adoption of GBTs for future sustainable construction from the stakeholders’ perspective in Pakistan. The data were collected using a survey in the form of a questionnaire of 349 CI stakeholders, and the partial least squares structural equation modelling (SEM) method was applied. The results showed that environmental drivers have the highest significant influence on the adoption of GBTs, and that it is also significantly influenced by energy and industry-related drivers. However, company-related and economic drivers have an insignificant influence. Based on the study's findings, it is recommended that government authorities and concerned stakeholders should be competent, proactive, and active in the successful promotion of GBTs in Pakistan.

Can adaptive prey refuge facilitate species coexistence in Bazykin’s prey–predator model?

Bazykin’s prey–predator system with constant and adaptive prey refuge is investigated in this paper. We examine Bazykin’s resource consumer system with exponential growth rate and by employing constant prey refuge we demonstrate that refuge does promote species coexistence. The incorporation of constant prey refuge expands the stability zone for the interior equilibrium. Furthermore, the bifurcation diagram with reference to prey refuge (ur) shows how ur influences the system’s behavior from unstable to periodic stability and then to equilibrium stability. Next, we provide a Bazykin’s model with adaptive prey refuge and develop a fitness function for the prey population using refuge as a strategy and in order to obtain the prey’s optimal response to the environment we determine evolutionary stable strategies (ESS). Our model consists of more than one ESS, thus we employ the best response dynamics for the prey strategy. Our analysis showcases that adaptive refuge used by the prey population promotes the coexistence of prey–predator dynamics. Our theoretical analysis is supported by extensive numerical simulations. Bifurcation diagrams with reference to the two most crucial parameters, namely, δ2 (intra-species competition rate among predators) and τ (the rate at which populations adapt to their environment), are included in the numerical analysis. Species cohabitation along a limit cycle or at an equilibrium is discovered to be dependent on the pace of strategy dynamics and the competition amongst predator species.

Nutritional thermal ecology: investigating the combined influence of temperature and nutrient availability on plant‐ectotherm trophic interactions

Many primary consumers in freshwater, marine and terrestrial systems are ectotherms (e.g. zooplankton and insects), whose metabolisms, and therefore nutritional demands, are modulated by temperature. Further, nutrient availability largely influences the quality of resources consumed by these organisms, and hence affects whether nutritional demands of consumers are fulfilled. From these considerations, a crucial question arises: how do temperature and nutrient availability together modulate trophodynamics at the basis of food webs? Addressing this question for zooplankton and insects is essential since these consumers are the most abundant metazoans on Earth, and they link primary production to higher trophic levels. Here, we synthesize the existing literature and offer avenues to guide future scientific endeavours. We highlight that the vast majority of studies on the combined influence of temperature and nutrient availability published to date focus on at least one of the following research topics: 1) metabolic requirements of ectotherms; 2) feeding behaviour; 3) eco‐evolutionary processes; and 4) trophodynamics. We pose that further advances in this field of research may provide a robust understanding of how modulations of consumer metabolic requirements and resource quality define consumer–producer interactions across marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. This research effort would enable to combine the fields of Ecological stoichiometry and of Metabolic theory of ecology, and create an integrated approach, which we propose to call Nutritional thermal ecology.

Fabricating a Pistachio Nut Shells Activated Carbon + CNTs @ Chitosan (PAC-CNTs @Cs) Composite for Pesticides Attenuation from Agricultural Wastewater

Agriculture is the largest consumer of water resources in Egypt. Pesticides are a major contaminant of agricultural wastewater. Chemical pesticides must be eliminated from wastewater because they accumulate in the soil and water sources. They can be absorbed by specific crops, resulting in a significant impact on human health because they are toxic and carcinogenic. Adsorption technology has been used widely for wastewater treatment due to its effectiveness and low cost. In this study, both microporous activated carbon (PAC) and composite (PAC-CNTs @Cs) were made from pistachio nutshell as agricultural waste and used to remove pesticides from agricultural wastewater. The XRD, TGA, BET, SEM, EDAX and FT-IR techniques were used to characterize the (PAC-CNTs @Cs) composite. The results demonstrate that the maximal PAC removal percentages in synthetic and real samples are 90% and 64%, respectively. While the PAC-CNTs @Cs removal percentage reached 98% and 78% in synthetic and real samples, respectively. Otherwise, the minimum PAC removal percentages in synthetic and real samples are 62% and 57%, respectively. While PAC-CNTs @Cs had minimum removal percentage of 77% and 75% for synthetic and real samples, respectively. The conclusion reached was that PAC-CNTs @Cs had a higher adsorption capacity than PAC.

Trends in Health Insurance Literacy and Consumer Health Resources

Librarians are uniquely poised to address the need for connecting individuals to health insurance information resources that are credible, as bias-free as possible, and written with literacy considerations in mind. This article explores health insurance outreach in libraries and presents a thorough list of vetted consumer resources on health insurance information. Each health insurance information resource is assessed, and connections are made to how the resources can be used in practice. This article aims to empower librarians to guide people to reliable health insurance information.

Preparation of Jackfruit Artocarpus Heterophyllus Seed Starch-Grafted Polyvinyl Acetate by Emulsion Polymerization

Abstract Petrochemical-based materials are depleting for the past decades and alternative methods to replace them are being studied over the years. This includes a wide range of probable applications such as adhesive industry. Starch, in its native form, possesses inadequate bond strength and viscosity. The said properties limit the possible applications of starch thus improvement should be employed. Jackfruit seed (JFS) starch is a viable substitute for other starches that is commonly used in the industry. This research developed a starch grafted polyvinyl acetate formula that can be used as an alternative to non-renewable and food consumable resources. Parameters such as monomer/starch ratio, temperature, and amount of initiator were observed and how it affected the graft percent, shear strength, and viscosity of the samples. This process was conducted via emulsion polymerization using PPS as initiator and SDS as emulsifier, Ethanol was also utilized to wash away homopolymers. Each run was done under ambient conditions. The samples were triplicated in the software to ensure the data credibility. From the statistical analysis, it was concluded that all three parameters which are temperature, monomer/starch ratio, and initiator amount were all significant. The appearance of 1735 cm−1 band in FTIR spectrum of the grafted starch and the visible roughness in the spherical-shaped granules in SEM photographs indicated that the VAc has been successfully grafted onto jackfruit starch. DSC analysis showed that Tg of starch-g PVAc was shifted to a little higher value as compared to Tg of native jackfruit starch which suggests that material can be used in a wider temperature range.

Perceiving less but wasting more: The relationship between perceived resource scarcity and consumer food waste

Consumers' food-related behaviors often culminate in significant food waste. Surprisingly however, limited attention has been given to psychological reasons why this occurs. Across four studies, this research suggests that, because perceived resource scarcity activates a resource acquisition goal, under conditions where product scarcity is not present it leads consumers to engage in inaccurate over-acquisition of resources (i.e., food), resulting in greater waste. Studies 1a (quasi-experimental field study) and 1b (lab experiment) test the role of perceived resource scarcity in predicting food acquisition and waste. Studies 2a and 2b are correlational and measure household food waste to demonstrate that resource acquisition accuracy mediates the relationship between perceived resource scarcity and food waste.

Ensuring a fit-for-purpose resource for consumers, clinicians and health services: The updated Osteoarthritis of the Knee Clinical Care Standard.

Ensuring a fit-for-purpose resource for consumers, clinicians and health services: The updated Osteoarthritis of the Knee Clinical Care Standard.

A Review on Experimental Study of Design of Rigid Pavement by using Recycled Coarse Aggregate with M30 Mix Design

Concrete, a fundamental construction material, boasts attributes like durability, versatility, and cost- effectiveness. However, the depletion of natural resources and the escalating concrete waste production necessitate innovative solutions. In this rapidly industrializing world, recycling construction materials plays a pivotal role in preserving our finite resources. Concrete pavements, widely practiced in developed countries, are relatively new in India. Selecting the right pavement type is crucial, but equally important is determining the optimal pavement thickness based on traffic levels, subgrade conditions, and environmental factors. Unfortunately, many existing methodologies overlook critical factors (such as vehicle loads, support loss, thermal gradients, and environmental stress), leading to inaccurate thickness calculations. In this context, rigid pavement construction using recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) emerges as an eco-friendly and cost- effective solution. In a recent research endeavour, Recycled Coarse Aggregates (RCAs) sourced from demolished material took center stage. These demolished materials are meticulously crushed to a suitable size and repurposed as recycled coarse aggregate. Meanwhile, natural sand continues to serve as the fine aggregate. Notably, the concrete industry consumes a staggering 12.6 billion tons of raw materials annually, making it the world’s largest natural resource consumer. The environmental impact of concrete production—especially the extraction of raw ingredients such as cement, coarse aggregates, and fine aggregates—is considerable. To address this, the study employed a trial-and-error approach for mix design, adhering to relevant standards (such as IS code and IRC: 44-2008). For M30 grade cement concrete, varying percentages (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) of recycled coarse aggregates replaced conventional coarse aggregates. Casting used cube and beam models to obtain laboratory test results for rigid pavement to determine how much optimal percentage of RCA can be substituted in place of NCA. By integrating RCAs, we not only mitigate environmental impact but also contribute to sustainable rigid pavement structures. Key Words: Rigid Pavement Design, Recycled Coarse Aggregate, RCA Concrete, Natural Coarse Aggregate, NCA Concrete, Mix Proportion, Pavement Thickness, Life Cycle Cost, And Environmental Benefits etc.

Dynamic optimisation of carbon allowance considering inter-provincial energy resources trade for emissions reduction: Case of China southern power grid

As the main carrier of natural resources into energy, the power industry is the world's largest carbon emitter, and its sustainable development will have far-reaching impacts on the utilization of natural resources and economic growth. Carbon trading market is a widely used tool to promote proactive emissions reductions in the electricity industry in different regions. On this basis, inter-provincial trading in the power industry creates a hidden carbon transfer between producers and consumers of energy resources. Therefore, it is necessary to construct systematic multi-period emission reduction measures to deal with the conflict and coordination of the operation of the two systems. In this study, to promote orderly emission reductions in the power industry in areas with different natural resource endowments, a two-tier decision-making model for carbon allowances allocation based on interactive model predictive control technique is constructed. The model readjustss the overall allowances by tracking the implied carbon transfer flows between regions and implementing a production-oriented allowance compensation mechanism, forming an optimisation strategy for carbon compliance cost and emission intensity in the power sector. The experimental results show that adjusting the regional allowance distribution in inter-provincial transmission can alleviate the impact of high emission reduction pressure on the overall carbon compliance cost, while the rolling horizon optimisation of the carbon baseline value can approach the expected emission reduction target in stages. Taking the Southern Power Grid as an example, this study ultimately provides policy recommendations for sustainable emission reductions under multi-period inter-provincial trade in energy resources.

Enhancing sustainability in irrigation networks: A multicriteria method for optimizing flow distribution and reducing environmental impact

Irrigation systems significantly enhance agricultural productivity but are also substantial consumers of water, energy, and natural resources. The need to optimize their design encouraged agronomic engineering to develop various methods for improving the design and management of these irrigation networks. This development focuses on creating a tool to define the optimal flow distribution according to the system's irrigation or consumption needs, thereby determining the design flows. The aim is to optimize the design of pipe diameters to improve sustainability (i.e., reducing CO2 emissions, minimizing service pressure, and maximizing recoverable energy within the system). These principles ensure a better evaluation of sustainable development goals within agricultural production. The proposed procedure develops a strategy to define the best-fitting distribution using a multicriteria solution. As novel, the research develops a tool, which characterizes flow distributions deviating from the classic Clement's formulation used in irrigation systems. The proposed method was applied in a Mediterranean irrigation system in Spain, achieving a correlation coefficient above 0.9 in the model. This methodology addresses design criteria in terms of sustainability and reduces energy consumption in networks. It achieved material savings of 6.01 % compared to the observed network, reducing CO2 emissions between 5.61 and 5.72 TnCO2/ha over its lifecycle.

Evolution of sustainable retailing and how it influences consumer behavior: a bibliometric review

ABSTRACT Over the years, sustainability has garnered much attention owing to evidence of climate change, United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals, pandemics, and the changing behavior of millennials. Retailers are one of the largest consumers of global natural and human resources. They have joined the sustainability bandwagon by pledging resources and communicating the same to their target customers for better business positioning. This study aims to analyze the conceptual structure of sustainability in the context of retail enterprises and its role in shaping consumer behavior. Therefore, it leverages bibliometric techniques to elaborate on the productivity and impact of the existing body of knowledge in this area through performance analysis and discover the knowledge clusters through science mapping. The data used for this study were sourced by querying the Scopus database for the intersection of terms related to ‘sustainability,’ ‘retail,’ and ‘consumer behavior.’ Subsequently, they were processed and illustrated using RStudio and the bibliometrix package for R to drive insights in bibliometric summaries, including tables, maps, and networks. In addition to highlighting temporal and spatial trends and dominant themes, the study suggests future research avenues in sustainable retailing.

Quantifying massively parallel microbial growth with spatially mediated interactions.

Quantitative understanding of microbial growth is an essential prerequisite for successful control of pathogens as well as various biotechnology applications. Even though the growth of cell populations has been extensively studied, microbial growth remains poorly characterised at the spatial level. Indeed, even isogenic populations growing at different locations on solid growth medium typically show significant location-dependent variability in growth. Here we show that this variability can be attributed to the initial physiological states of the populations, the interplay between populations interacting with their local environment and the diffusion of nutrients and energy sources coupling the environments. We further show how the causes of this variability change throughout the growth of a population. We use a dual approach, first applying machine learning regression models to discover that location dominates growth variability at specific times, and, in parallel, developing explicit population growth models to describe this spatial effect. In particular, treating nutrient and energy source concentration as a latent variable allows us to develop a mechanistic resource consumer model that captures growth variability across the shared environment. As a consequence, we are able to determine intrinsic growth parameters for each local population, removing confounders common to location-dependent variability in growth. Importantly, our explicit low-parametric model for the environment paves the way for massively parallel experimentation with configurable spatial niches for testing specific eco-evolutionary hypotheses.

INDIA AND THE CENTRAL ASIAN FACTOR OF EURASIA’S ENERGY AND TRANSPORT SECTOR RESTRUCTURING

The article analyzes the prerequisites and main directions of India’s possible actions to expand its influence in the Central Asian region. The author assesses the importance of transport and energy projects in Central Eurasia for India, as one of the key consumers of energy resources from Russia and Central Asian states. Another spotlight of this research is the strategy for expansion of Indian-Uzbek cooperation as the most promising support base for the implementation of India’s geopolitical and geo-economic interests in the region.The ongoing and deepening global geoeconomic and geopolitical transformations are creating a wide field of opportunities for restructuring of the continental energy and transport systems. In these conditions, the Indian leadership is required to take active steps in implementing its foreign policy so as not to remain on the sidelines of large-scale projects for the development of key areas of the continent, including the resource and transit potential of Russia and Central Asia.

Technology modification, development, and demonstrations for future spaceflight medical systems at NASA

Throughout the history of human spaceflight, spacefarers have experienced and reported the occurrence of medical conditions, including various illnesses and injuries. Therefore, future spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars will require the capabilities necessary for maintaining the health of these new space travelers. Mass, power, and volume available in the space vehicles used for these missions will be severely constrained. The ability to resupply or evacuate to Earth will be limited or non-existent, and ground-based support will no longer be immediate due to communication latencies and blackouts. These vehicle and mission constraints will necessitate healthcare be provided from an efficiently planned medical system. To provide the necessary care, these medical systems will need to include at a minimum, several different types of medical devices, consumable resources, centralized data management, procedural guidance, and decision support technologies. Medical devices needed for diagnosing and treating medical conditions that are expected to occur during future spaceflight missions may include real-time health monitoring, medical imaging capabilities, as well as blood and urine analysis. Novel methods for interacting with onboard patient medical records will be necessary, as will resource tracking. Terrestrial medicine shares many of these same needs, therefore a multitude of these required medical capabilities can likely be satisfied by currently available, Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) devices and methodologies; however, in some cases the unique space environment and increased mission durations will drive the need for modifications or customization of standard technologies and treatment procedures. This article will provide a review of medical devices and technologies that have been considered for inclusion within future spaceflight medical systems. It will also include a discussion about the modifications and customized development that have been performed, as well as descriptions of the technology demonstrations that have been conducted in analog and spaceflight environments.

Ensuring a fit-for-purpose resource for consumers, clinicians and health services: the updated Osteoarthritis of the Knee Clinical Care Standard.

Ensuring a fit-for-purpose resource for consumers, clinicians and health services: the updated Osteoarthritis of the Knee Clinical Care Standard.

Extending Structure Life via Intelligent Digitization: the Nibelungen Bridge as a Pilot Project

The construction industry is a significant consumer of natural resources and a major contributor to CO2 emissions in Germany, accounting for an annual waste volume of 54%. Therefore, preserving existing structures can play a crucial role in environmental protection and resource conservation. To achieve this goal, effective monitoring and maintenance concepts are essential to extend the service life of structures while ensuring their stability and functionality. In 2022, the German Research Foundation launched a priority program called 'SPP 100+' with the objective of fundamentally redefining the current maintenance strategy for infrastructure structures through intelligent digitization. This paper focuses on the Nibelungen Bridge in Worms, which serves as a validation case in this program. The paper begins by presenting the Nibelungen Bridge and its maintenance history. It then outlines key aspects, including geometric modeling, structural health monitoring (SHM), digital twinning, level 4 recalculation considering complex nonlinearities, and the assessment of detected structural damages. In the end, conclusions and outlooks are given.