European Mediterranean Countries Research Articles

Encouraging Invasive Acacia Control Strategies by Repurposing Their Wood Biomass Waste for Pulp and Paper Production

Concerns on the expanding infestation of several Acacia species in the southern Mediterranean European countries have triggered an ever-growing requirement for costly targeted control actions. Valorizing biomass waste produced could help promote and better finance these actions. For that purpose, wood wastes from invasive control actions were tested regarding their pulp and paper potential, aiming to entice cellulose industries to partake in future conservation actions. Wood waste from the five most pervasive Acacia species was studied (Acacia dealbata Link, Acacia longifolia Willd, Acacia mearnsii De Wild, Acacia melanoxylon R.Br, and Acacia saligna Labill) regarding physical and chemical characteristics, and a central composite design was used to optimize alkali charge and reaction temperature on pulping yield and delignification. Bleached kraft pulps were produced with each species’ optimized conditions and for an equitable mixture of all species. Optimized pulp yields (52.6%–53.5%) and pulp polymerization degree (2867–3690) of Acacia species were higher than those of Eucalyptus globulus Labill (used as reference). Optimized bleached pulps were refined and fiber, pulp, and handsheet properties determined. Acacia dealbata and A. longifolia presented high specific wood consumption and lower handsheet strength properties, pointing to overall lower pulping potential, while A. melanoxylon and A. mearnsii characteristics were equal to or higher than those of E. globulus. A. saligna pulp and handsheet characteristics appear more suited for tissue paper. The Acacia mixture achieved acceptable characteristics, enabling the indiscriminate use of Acacia wood regardless of the species. As a shortcoming, the Acacia pulps showed the worst optical characteristics, with brightness dropping substantially with beating (64%–76%) when compared to E. globulus (81%).

Dynamic Analysis of Loneliness at Older Ages in Europe by Gender

AbstractIn this article, we analyse loneliness trajectories for older people aged 50 or more in selected European countries by gender. We also focus on the relationship between disability and loneliness trajectories. We use three waves of the longitudinal SHARE database. Loneliness trajectories are non-linear, increasing with age for both genders, and have the same shape irrespective of disability status but with different levels of loneliness. Loneliness persistence increases with disability and disability severity, especially for women. Worsening (improving) disability increases (decreases) the risk of loneliness persistence. We build rankings of the country's effects on loneliness persistence by gender. Mediterranean and Eastern European countries have the highest persistence rates, while the lowest rates are in Northern countries.

Honour-based violence: Legal and institutional approaches in Spain

The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (known as the Istanbul Convention) imposes on States Parties the need to address holistically all forms of violence against women, including honour-based violence not only by prosecuting such conduct, but also by preventing it and, above all, protecting its victims. While some northern European countries have addressed it, this form of violence against women has not yet received the attention it deserves in some Mediterranean European countries. This paper uses Spain as a case study to expose its deficient institutional and regulatory approach and lack of visibility of this form of violence against women. It analyses this reality phenomenologically, examines the legal and institutional response to it from a victim-centred perspective, and proposes ways to overcome this situation.

First Detection of West Nile Virus Lineage 2 in Mosquitoes in Switzerland, 2022.

West Nile virus (WNV) is one of the most widespread flaviviruses in the world, and in recent years, it has been frequently present in many Mediterranean and Eastern European countries. A combination of different conditions, such as a favourable climate and higher seasonal average temperatures, probably allowed its introduction and spread to new territories. In Switzerland, autochthonous cases of WNV have never been reported, and the virus was not detected in mosquito vectors until 2022, despite an entomological surveillance in place in Canton Ticino, southern Switzerland, since 2010. In 2022, 12 sites were monitored from July to October, using BOX gravid mosquito traps coupled with honey-baited FTA cards. For the first time, we could detect the presence of WNV in FTA cards and mosquitoes in 8 out of the 12 sampling sites monitored, indicating an unexpectedly widespread circulation of the virus throughout the territory. Positive findings were recorded from the beginning of August until mid-October 2022, and whole genome sequencing analysis identified a lineage 2 virus closely related to strains circulating in Northern Italy. The entomological surveillance has proved useful in identifying viral circulation in advance of possible cases of WNV infection in humans or horses.

Qualitative inquiry into the experience of suicide loss, aftereffects and coping strategies of suicide-bereaved Greek-speaking parents in Cyprus

ABSTRACT Purpose Studies on suicide-bereaved parents are scarce in South European and Eastern Mediterranean countries. We explored the experiences of Greek-speaking suicide-bereaved parents in Cyprus, with emphasis on the interpretations of their child’s suicide, its aftereffects and their coping strategies. Methods A qualitative methodology based on inductive content analysis of the interviews of ten mothers and two fathers was applied. Results The participants described their efforts to make sense of the senseless, reporting numerous interpretations of their child’s suicide. Some participants had achieved to move on by trying to keep the remaining family together. Others felt detached from their social network. The different coping strategies and support systems described, reflected participants’ efforts to escape from obsessive, enduring and deeply traumatizing thoughts about their child’s suicide. The analysis mirrored participants’ ultimate desire to find existential relief and serenity through the management of distressing reminders of their child’s suicide, and alleviate the burden of their own negative self-judgement and the criticism of others. They sought physical and emotional comfort in the inner realm of their psyche, through spiritual and psychological coping processes. Conclusion Further exploration is suggested about intervention planning aiming to strengthen effective coping strategies and external supportive resources in mourning parents.

Food oral immunotherapy and eosinophilic esophagitis: Complication or comorbidity?

Oral immunotherapy (OIT) is a treatment for immunoglobulin E-mediated food allergy (IgE-FA) where patients consume increasing amounts of food they are allergic to, reducing sensitivity. Allergens treated with OIT include cow milk (CM), egg, and lipid transfer protein (LTP). LTPs are the primary cause of food allergy in adults in Mediterranean European countries

Participation of Morocco and Tunisia in the European Research Area: Research-intense Collaborative Patterns Across the European Southern Neighbourhood

The purpose of the study is to explore the research-intense collaborative patterns that weave the EU Southern Neighbourhood into the European Research Area through EU-funded projects. The task of this article is to test the straw-in-the-wind hypothesis which, as the results demonstrate, rightly argues that the EU Framework Programmes do not encourage very restrictive engagement in projects among Morocco- and Tunisia-based entities. The study design entails explaining-outcome process-tracing performed with data-set observations of the collaborative patterns engaging Morocco and Tunisia. Despite taking part in projects coordinated primarily by managers from the European Mediterranean littoral countries, many European centres of expertise located elsewhere included Morocco and Tunisia in their consortiums. As a result, both countries are exposed to very rich European scientific expertise, including diverse subfields, habitus and capital transactions of the European Research Area facilitated by various project management styles. The Moroccan National Institute for Agricultural Research and the Tunisian Pasteur Institute stand out because, when comparing Framework Programme 7 and Horizon 2020 project portfolios, both sustain increasing engagement. Research cooperation addresses the pressing challenges of the neighbourhood, especially in environmental and agricultural domains and the capacity to engage in international collaboration. The article commences filling the gap in the literature on the EU Southern Neighbourhood.

Promoting sustainable waste management for regional economic development in European Mediterranean countries

Promoting sustainable waste management for regional economic development in European Mediterranean countries

Stressors affecting the ecological status of temporary rivers in the Mediterranean region

Temporary rivers are widespread in the Mediterranean region and impose a challenge for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and other environmental regulations. Surprisingly, an overarching analysis of their ecological status and the stressors affecting them is yet missing. We compiled data on the ecological status of 1504 temporary rivers in seven European Mediterranean region countries and related their ecological status (1) to publicly available data on pressures from the European WISE-WFD dataset, and (2) to seven more specific stressors modelled on a sub-catchment scale. More than 50 % of the temporary water bodies in the Mediterranean countries reached good or even high ecological status. In general, status classes derived from phytobenthos and macrophyte assessment were higher than those derived from the assessment of benthic invertebrates or fish. Of the more generally defined pressures reported to the WISE-WFD database, the most relevant for temporary rivers were ‘diffuse agricultural’ and ‘point urban waste water’. Of the modelled more specific stressors, agricultural land use best explained overall ecological status, followed by total nitrogen load, and urban land use, while toxic substances, total phosphorus load and hydrological stressors were less relevant. However, stressors differed in relevance, with total nitrogen being most important for macrophytes, and agricultural land use for phytobenthos, benthic invertebrates and fish. For macrophytes, ecological quality increased with stressor intensity. The results underline the overarching effect of land use intensity for the ecological status of temporary water bodies. However, assessment results do not sufficiently reflect hydrological stress, most likely as the biological indicators used to evaluate these systems were designed for perennial water bodies and thus mainly target land use and nutrient impacts. We conclude that biomonitoring systems need to be updated or newly developed to better account for the specific situation of temporary water bodies.

Agaricus L. from European Mediterranean Countries

The genus Agaricus is subdivided into 18 sections and four subsections. This group of fungi are represented by thehighly prized edible and commercially grown Agaricus campestris described and illustrated on pages 233–237 with highlightedforemost synonyms, etymology, descriptions, notes, and habit photographs included for about 97 species andsubspecies. Each species has 4 to 10 color photographs with species morphological descriptions featuring the pileus (cap),stipe, context, and microscopy. Habitat and collections give where the species can be found.

Mapping the Most Susceptible Regions to Fire in Portugal

Mediterranean European countries, including Portugal, are considered fire-prone regions, being affected by fire events every summer. Nonetheless, Portugal has been recording large burned areas over the last 20 years, which are not only strongly associated with hot and dry conditions, but also with high fuel availability in the ecosystems. Due to recent catastrophic fire seasons, Portugal has been implementing preventive policies during the pre-fire season, which, in turn, can optimize combat strategies during the fire season. In this context, our study contributes to fire prevention by identifying the regions with the highest potential to burn. The application of a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to a range of climatological, ecological, and biophysical variables, either provided by remote sensing or reanalysis products, and known to be linked with diverse fire-vulnerability factors, allows the objective identification of the regions with the highest susceptibility to burn. The central and southernmost areas of Portugal present a stronger signal in the PCA, suggesting a likely high exposure to future fire events. The fuel accumulation over several months, in conjunction with elevation and fire weather conditions, are the terms out of the retained PCs that can explain most of the variability. The quality assessment performed for the burned areas in 2022 showed that they occurred in highly susceptible areas, highlighting the usefulness of the proposed methodology.

Key Performance Indicators for Sustainable Mediterranean Buildings and Cities

Cities have emerged to become a major challenge and at the same time can evolve to an instrument for supporting the global sustainability efforts. Cities consume 78% of the world’s energy and produce more than 60% of greenhouse gas emissions and 70% of global waste. In the Mediterranean region, two thirds of the population live in urban areas and urban population it is expected to increase to about 170 million in the countries on the northern shore and to over 300 million to the south and east by 2050. Thus, urban sustainability has become increasingly mainstream in policymaking towards a competitive, secure and decarbonized built environment. In order to promote sustainability efforts, local governments must have the capacity to measure it. Various sustainability methodologies and rating systems have been developed including different performance indicators, like the energy use intensity, carbon emissions, smart readiness, potable water consumption and recycled materials. However, most of them are following a building scale approach, which does not fully exploit the potential for synergies that groups of buildings might offer. The Sustainable MED Cities project, is an on-going effort aiming to provide an easy to use, harmonized methodology and an open-source software to support the assessment, planning and overall and monitoring effective measures to improve sustainability of the built environment at city scale. The work is a collaborative work in the Mediterranean basin among Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Spain, and Tunisia and capitalizes CESBAMED, an existing transnational methodology and assessment tool for buildings and neighbourhoods in European Mediterranean countries. This work reviews the common method and tools for the assessment and the final sustainability rating score. Emphasis is given on the proposed key performance indicators that cover all fields of sustainability, at building, neighbourhood and city scale.

Global citizenship online in higher education

Discourses of global education, citizenship and competence have been characterising the higher education literature in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has both heightened the relevance of global citizenship education and presented new challenges as educators and students continue to grapple with the lasting impact and implications. This paper presents the findings of a research study which looked at the perceived learning outcomes of a ‘virtual exchange’ project which addressed issues relevant to global citizenship, involving students in European and Southern Mediterranean countries in online dialogue programmes. The study used quantitative and qualitative approaches to the analysis of responses to open survey questions using the quantitative tool IRAMUTEQ (Sbalchiero & Tuzzi, 2016) and focus groups. Participants perceived that their learning was happening above all through their encounters and discussions with people from different backgrounds. They reported learning to listen actively and carefully, to accept and/or respect different opinions and experiences. The findings open up possibilities for how higher education institutions might engage students in online transnational and global learning experiences—which can contribute to thinking about renewing education and societies in a post-pandemic world.

The role of soil temperature in mediterranean vineyards in a climate change context.

The wine sector faces important challenges related to sustainability issues and the impact of climate change. More frequent extreme climate conditions (high temperatures coupled with severe drought periods) have become a matter of concern for the wine sector of typically dry and warm regions, such as the Mediterranean European countries. Soil is a natural resource crucial to sustaining the equilibrium of ecosystems, economic growth and people's prosperity worldwide. In viticulture, soils have a great influence on crop performance (growth, yield and berry composition) and wine quality, as the soil is a central component of the terroir. Soil temperature (ST) affects multiple physical, chemical and biological processes occurring in the soil as well as in plants growing on it. Moreover, the impact of ST is stronger in row crops such as grapevine, since it favors soil exposition to radiation and favors evapotranspiration. The role of ST on crop performance remains poorly described, especially under more extreme climatic conditions. Therefore, a better understanding of the impact of ST in vineyards (vine plants, weeds, microbiota) can help to better manage and predict vineyards' performance, plant-soil relations and soil microbiome under more extreme climate conditions. In addition, soil and plant thermal data can be integrated into Decision Support Systems (DSS) to support vineyard management. In this paper, the role of ST in Mediterranean vineyards is reviewed namely in terms of its effect on vines' ecophysiological and agronomical performance and its relation with soil properties and soil management strategies. The potential use of imaging approaches, e.g. thermography, is discussed as an alternative or complementary tool to assess ST and vertical canopy temperature profiles/gradients in vineyards. Soil management strategies to mitigate the negative impact of climate change, optimize ST variation and crop thermal microclimate (leaf and berry) are proposed and discussed, with emphasis on Mediterranean systems.

Screening of Domestic Cats from North-Eastern Hungary for Hepatozoon felis and Cytauxzoon europaeus That Cause Infections in Local Wildcat Populations.

Among vector-borne protozoa Hepatozoon felis and Cytauxzoon europaeus are considered emerging species in felids in Europe. To investigate the presence of these two protozoa 127 domestic cats and 4 wildcats were screened by PCRs targeting the 18S rRNA gene of Hepatozoon spp. and piroplasms, as well as the cytb gene of Cytauxzoon spp. The samples were collected inside and outside a region of Hungary, where both protozoan groups are endemic in wildcats. Among domestic cats, one proved to be infected with H. felis. Furthermore, spleen samples of four wildcats were also examined, among which three tested positive for H. felis, and one had co-infection with C. europaeus. Importantly, H. felis from the co-infected wildcat belonged to genogroup II, similarly to H. felis from the positive domestic cat. Based on phylogenetic evidence, this genogroup probably represents a separate species from genogroup I of H. felis, which was hitherto reported from Mediterranean countries in Europe. The two other wildcats also harbored H. felis from genogroup I. Neither Hepatozoon nor Cytauxzoon infections were detected outside the recently discovered endemic region. In conclusion, this study demonstrates for the first time in Europe that H. felis from genogroup II may emerge in free-roaming domestic cats in regions where this protozoan parasite is endemic in wildcats.

Multiple jobholding and non-standard employment among young workers: a comparative analysis of EU-28 member states

ABSTRACT This article presents a comparative analysis of multiple jobholding and non-standard employment among young people in EU-28 member states. This work contributes to the understanding of multiple jobholding among youth by connecting the empirical work to the issues of labour market flexibilisation in Europe. The database used is the European Union Labour Force Survey for 2019. Non-standard forms of employment have a positive effect on the likelihood of secondary jobholding, especially part-time work. There is a high rate of multiple jobholding in Nordic countries, whereas it is low in Mediterranean, Central and Eastern European countries, where the time spent in second jobs is high. Finally, there are statistically significant differences in the propensity toward multiple jobholding according to level of education, gender, age, and country of birth, while there is no noticeable effect of over-qualification, although there is on the search for another job.

THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS ON BUDGET BALANCES OF THE HEAVILY INDEBTED EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

The present study identifies socioeconomic, political, and institutional factors that shape extensive budget unbalances in four European Mediterranean countries (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain), causing significant deficits and a public debt equal to (or above) 120% of their respective Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at the end of 2020. Regression analysis, run on official statistics, demonstrates that the dynamics of fiscal deficits in these countries are largely heterogeneous. This outcome suggests that the various factors and contexts considered here exert different effects in each country. Political factors played an important role in Greece, being less important in Spain, and having a negligible role in both Italy and Portugal. On the contrary, institutional factors were recognized as particularly important in Greece, Italy, and Portugal. Although important almost everywhere, the magnitude of the impact of economic factors also differed across the four countries.

Poles Apart? Alternative Welfare Trajectories under Finance-Dominated Capitalism

By connecting the post-Keynesian view of financialization with Comparative Political Economy, we suggest some elements for an updated interpretation of the existing models of welfare. As a main element of novelty, we consider how high-income countries are reacting to the pressures of finance-dominated capitalism, namely by extending, keeping, or retrenching their welfare systems. The contribution of the article is threefold. First, we elaborate on the nexus between welfare and financialization. Second, we introduce a multidimensional index aimed at assessing the degree of welfare of 32 OECD countries for the period 1990–2015. Third, we compare our index with the socio-economic models identified in the literature and with the patterns of financialization. Two trajectories emerge from our exploration: on the one side, Scandinavian and Continental European countries moved toward relatively higher levels of welfare; on the other side, lower levels of welfare feature Anglo-Saxon, Asian, Mediterranean, and Central and Eastern European countries. Besides such divergence, we find that the process of financialization was more intense in countries with stronger welfare, which likely opted for a compensation strategy. Our work highlights the relevance of policies and institutions in shaping different welfare systems and coping with the challenges of the current phase of capitalism.

Decomposition of the Kaya identity in the European Mediterranean countries over the 1990-2020 period with respect to CO2 emissions

The Kaya identity, proposed by Yoichi Kaya in 1993, attempts to evaluate the impact of total emissions of carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) as the impact of human activity on the environment. The purpose of this work is the decomposition of CO2 emissions in the European Mediterranean countries (Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Slovenia and Spain) for a time period spanning from 1990 to 2020, based upon the Kaya identity into scale, technological and structural effect. For this purpose, the Tapio decoupling analysis is adopted. According to results, technology improvements leading to declining rates of carbon per unit of energy used and structural changes indicating the use of less energy per unit of production could help in counterbalancing the positive scale effect of GDP production in CO2 emissions per capita. This, however, requires the implementation of proper strategies focusing in improvements in technological change and structural changes in order to mitigate CO2 emissions without hindering the economic growth process.

Analysis of Tolerance in Six European Mediterranean Countries

Analysis of Tolerance in Six European Mediterranean Countries