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"Understanding Student Mobility in Europe interprets student mobility in European higher education through an active dialogue between disciplines, voices and variables of interest. Providing the conceptual, methodological, pedagogical and empirical foundations, this book advances readers' understanding of the student exchange experience, whilst outlining guidelines and resources for approaching student mobility and considering how students can gain from cross-border education. Intersecting voices from different disciplines and sojourners, including exchange students, international students and highly skilled immigrants, the book outlines practical guidelines for intercultural curriculum development and assessment, and provides insights, practical ideas, useful terminology and resources to maximise the learning gains of this student population. Split into three distinct parts, the book initially lays the foundational substructure in which an interdisciplinary approach is based. It then addresses questions of practical application by considering the experiences of 50 sojourners in Portugal and the UK through an interdisciplinary lens, and summarises the implications of interdisciplinarity with regards to student mobility in European tertiary-level education. This book is essential reading for academics and postgraduate students interested in student mobility, education abroad practitioners, and policy-makers at institutional, national and international levels"--

University cooperation ; European Union countries --- Education and globalization ; European Union countries

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Marine fouling affects most man-made surfaces temporarily or permanently immersed in the sea, causing important economic costs. Intense research is aimed at methods for preventing or reducing fouling development. The most widespread solution to inhibit fouling is to make surfaces unsuitable for settlers by coating them with antifouling paints containing toxic compounds. Most such antifouling agents give undesirable effects on nontarget species, including commercially important ones. The search for new nontoxic antifouling technologies has become a necessity, particularly after the ban of organotin compounds such as tributyltin (TBT), once the most widespread and used antifouling agent. Alternative organic and metal-based biocides are now used in antifouling paints, but their possible toxic effects on the aquatic environment are not yet fully understood. A nontoxic alternative for antifouling protection comes from the possibility of adopting natural antifouling compounds that are and may be found in marine sessile invertebrates like sponges, bryozoans, corals, and tunicates and in marine microorganisms. Such metabolites can prevent their producers from being fouled on by other organisms or be responsible for specific metabolic functions that may interfere with biofouling species adhesion. As natural marine compounds, they may inhibit settlement through a nontoxic mechanism without adverse effects to the environment. Such compounds could be developed into active ingredients of new antifouling coatings. So far, a rather limited number of natural products antifoulants (NPAs) has been isolated from marine organisms, but a huge reservoir of compounds with potential antifouling activity is hidden in marine organisms. The Special Issue on Marine Natural Products with Antifouling Activity aims at the discovery of such compounds their activity, toxicity and potential application in environmentally friendly antifouling coatings.

barnacle --- cement gland --- cyprid adhesive --- transcriptome --- cement protein --- cyanobacteria --- uropathogens --- anti-adhesive coating --- urinary catheters --- surface modification --- catheter-associated urinary tract infections --- antifouling mechanism --- antifouling coating --- antifoulant --- environmentally friendly --- polymer --- flavonoids --- synthesis --- click chemistry --- biofouling --- antifouling --- eco-friendly alternatives --- elasnin --- biofilms --- marine --- natural products --- marine microorganisms --- urinary catheter --- antibiofilm --- coating --- chitin --- chitosan --- marine waste --- antimicrobial activity --- poly(lactic acid) --- active packaging --- antifouling compounds --- structural optimisation --- butenolide --- larval attachment assay

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This textbook is a comprehensive review of many different areas in solar-pumped lasers design and characterization. It enables readers to develop their skills in general solid-state laser design and solar collector design and provides numerous solved exercises at the end of each chapter to further this development. This book begins by introducing the brief history of solar-pumped laser and its potential applications. It explains the basic theories of imaging and non-imaging primary, secondary, and tertiary solar concentrators. It discusses solar-pumped solid-state laser theory and solar-to-laser power conversion efficiencies. There are chapters dedicated to ZEMAX and LASCAD numerical simulation tools, to help develop readers’ skills in innovative solid-state laser design. This book is one of the first books to relate concentrated solar energy technologies to solid-state laser technologies and is therefore of interest to students, academics, engineers, and laser and optical system designers.

Spectrometric and optical chemical analysis --- Electronics --- Telecommunication technology --- lasers (technologie) --- tekstverwerking --- spectrometrie --- Solar energy. --- Solid-state lasers.

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Bioenergy was put forward as a way to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of energy provision. In order to ascertain that this goal is met it is necessary to compare the cumulative emissions of bioenergy and fossil-based energy supply chains. One well-accepted method to do so is life cycle assessment (LCA), which records all the material and energy flows in and out of a supply chain and estimates their impact on climate through the global warmingnbsp;(GWP) indicator. Land use change (LUC) emissions are claimed to potentially invert the emission reduction potential of bioenergy feedstocks, but arenbsp;left out of LCAs due to methodological difficulties and a lack of data. In fact, GHG emissions fromnbsp;are distributed in time and space, in contrast to the static and spatially-abstract nature of LCA. Bioenergy has motivated anbsp;deal of efforts in making life cycle inventories (LCIs) more complete in terms of LUC emissions and also in making LCA more receptive to their spatial and temporal variations. Thenbsp;goal is to accurately estimatenbsp;emissions and their impact on climate, and to better value emissions occurring at different moments in a life cycle. This thesis aims at estimating and integrating LUC emissions in LCA of bioenergy, gauging the importance of time considerations in GWP and thenbsp;of spatially explicit LCIs.Here, we focus on the case of Jatropha initiatives in Mali. Jatropha is an oil-yielding bioenergy crop that was promoted as an accessible, decentralized energy source for rural populations in developing countries. Previously published Jatropha LCAs reported it to have lower emissions than fossil fuels. Such LCAs, however, did notnbsp;into account the full scope of GHGnbsp;as LUC emissions were left out andnbsp;lacked reliable yield information. Their magnitude for Jatropha is highly site specific and therefore largely unknown. We started by making a generic LCA, with literature data collected during early Jatropha investments, and a site specific onenbsp;field data, including on yields. Next, we measured LUC emissions based on field data and estimatedrsquo;s carbon debt. The field datanbsp;of measurements of carbon content in soil and biomass in Jatropha plantations and proxies of previous land uses: cropland and fallow land. We concludenbsp;yield and previous land use are key factors in the environmental performance ofnbsp;production system. Improving productivity in degraded lands seems to be the priority, starting with an engagement of growers in tending and harvesting Jatropha plants.Based on the data collected in the first part of the thesis, we built an LCI in annual time steps for a whole rotation span of Jatropha. We used RothC model to determine how the soil organic carbon (SOC) content evolves under Jatropha throughout the years, revealing that Jatropha plantations lose SOC rapidly after LUC and a new equilibrium isnbsp;after 9-10 rotations (180-200 years). We analyzed this LCI with the GWP metrics currently adopted by the IPCC and also with a novel dynamic LCA approach that addresses the effects of emission timing and time horizon choice in the GWP of the life cycle. Our results were, however, inconclusive regarding its advantages relative to the classic GWP of IPCC. The timenbsp;of carbon sequestration and release in the Jatropha system is too short to have different signals innbsp;two approaches, which was expected. In addition, dynamic LCA yields a wide range of results depending on the time of analysis, maintaining the subjectivity of this choice.Further on, we explored new spatial applications of LCA in a spatially explicit supply chain optimization exercise. We used a pre-existing optimization model and parameterized it with life cycle impact assessment datanbsp;the production of electricity from Jatropha oil in Mali. The goal was to obtain the spatial outline and input requirements of the optimal supply chains to fulfil a certain electricity demand in Mali. We included a spatially-explicit inventory ofnbsp;emissions in function of harvestable Jatropha seednbsp;the Southern part of Mali, based on estimated yields of Trabucco et al. (2010). This approach successfully modeled supply chains optimized for minimal GWP. This mainly linkednbsp;finding the parts of the country where the best LUC emission to seed yield ratio is obtainable, as these are the factors most decisive on the final GHG emission balance. These optimal cultivation areas are located not on degraded lands, but on more productivenbsp;and conflict with cropland.This thesis showed how life cycle thinking can serve the betterment and sustainable design of land-based production systems and how their spatial and temporal dimensions challenge the LCA methodology. While a small contribution is done here to the time issues in LCA, we demonstrated the usefulness of extensive, time-specific LCIs to appreciate the sustainability of a bioenergy initiative. On the one hand, we showed that including LUC in the LCI can compromise Jatropha’s low GHG emission premise. On the other hand, such comprehensive LCIs add value to life cycle thinking as a framework to conjecture prospective, more efficient Jatropha and other crop-based bioenergy supply chains. Future research should include improving LCIs through better, more specific data on the emissions from land conversion and land occupation with bioenergy, namely extending them with approachable indirect land use change estimates.

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Economics