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Background: Agro-food supply chains possess specific characteristics due to the diverse nature of products involved and contribute to all three pillars of sustainability, making the optimal design of a sustainable agro-food supply chain a complex problem. Therefore, efficient models incorporating the unique characteristics of such chains are essential for making optimal supply chain decisions and achieving economically and environmentally sustainable agro-food supply chains that contribute to global food security. Methods: This article presents a multi-objective mixed-integer linear programing model that integrates agricultural-related strategic decisions into the tactical design of an agro-food supply chain. The model considers transportation, inventory, processing, demand fulfilment, and waste disposal decisions. It also accounts for seasonality and perishability, ensuring a comprehensive approach to sustainability. The model aims to maximize the total generated profits across the supply chain while simultaneously minimizing CO2 emissions as a measure of environmental impact. Results: By implementing the model on a sugar beet supply chain in the Netherlands, strategic crop rotation farm schedules for the crop rotation cycle and the optimum supply network decisions are obtained. Furthermore, different objectives are analyzed and the Pareto-efficient frontier is investigated to analyze the underlying trade-offs. Additionally, the model serves as a decision support tool for managers facilitating informed investment decisions in technologies that prolong product shelf life while maintaining profitability. Conclusions: The proposed multi-objective model offers a valuable framework for designing economically and environmentally sustainable agro-food supply chains. By aligning with sustainability goals and providing decision support, this research contributes to enhancing global food security and promoting sustainable resource utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To describe the construction and testing of a portable point‐of‐care low‐field MRI system on site in Africa. Methods: All of the components to assemble a 50 mT Halbach magnet‐based system, together with the necessary tools, were air‐freighted from the Netherlands to Uganda. The construction steps included individual magnet sorting, filling of each ring of the magnet assembly, fine‐tuning the inter‐ring separations of the 23‐ring magnet assembly, gradient coil construction, integration of gradient coils and magnet assembly, construction of the portable aluminum trolley and finally testing of the entire system with an open source MR spectrometer. Results: With four instructors and six untrained personnel, the complete project from delivery to first image took approximately 11 days. Conclusions: An important step in translating scientific developments in the western world from high‐income industrialized countries to low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) is to produce technology that can be assembled and ultimately constructed locally. Local assembly and construction are associated with skill development, low costs and jobs. Point‐of‐care systems have a large potential to increase the accessibility and sustainability of MRI in LMICs, and this work demonstrates that technology and knowledge transfer can be performed relatively seamlessly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce and test a framework to qualitatively assess the environmental impact of climate adaptation innovations with the ambition to facilitate the implementation of these adaptations. The framework was designed to enable continuous environmentally conscious benchmarking based on three environmental performance indicators: sustainable design, environmental impact and ecological impact. It was pilot tested by uninvolved experts and key-persons for two large-scale nature-based flood adaptation innovations in the Netherlands and discussed with environmental assessment professionals. Our findings indicate how the inclusion of our framework helps to identify important knowledge gaps regarding environmental co-benefits and trade-offs, and can be beneficial to both those developing the innovation and the local authorities charged with assessing the suitability of innovations. We conclude by noting how the incorporation of environmental impact assessment from the design stage of adaptations could supplement existing environmental assessment regulations pre-empting concerns rather than reacting to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability has become the transdisciplinary buzzword of urbanism. Sustainability can be leveraged as an integrated tool that can fortify design and redesign of urban forms that are deemed 'unsustainable'. For this study, sustainability is given criteria, following the methodology of Frey, and applied to the redesign of an actual existing city. This methodology reorganizes cities or districts into 'urban quarters', which are modular units within the city. In this manner, the city of Eindhoven, The Netherlands was taken as a case study and the sustainability criteria given by Frey's method were used to analyse and identify the levels of sustainability in urban quarters in Woensel, a district of Eindhoven. The results indicate that a grand part of the evaluated areas as unsustainable possess characteristics that diagnose a loss of modularity principally in the quarters in the north of Woensel. A redesign proposal is presented, to modularly restructure the district Woensel. The development of a large urban unit is carried out as example, through the union of sustainable and unsustainable areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intercountry adoption is declining and many adoptees at any point of their life are in search of therapeutic services. Specialized care is scare and regular services seem to be missing the point. Regular therapeutic services do not cater to the specific needs of adoptees because they often forget to take the early adversity into account. Adoption specific therapeutic services are called for worldwide, this needs not be very difficult. Affective neurobiology, trauma and attachment research next to adoption studies have given practitioners many tools to design a sustainable therapeutical practice for both adoption aware assessment as well as adoption aware treatment. Advocating a neuro-informed approach to treatment when intercountry adoptees present developmental or other mental health problems. This approach is based on a combination of professional reflection as well as on theory and the idea is that it can be used broadly by clinicians, even when not specifically trained or focused on intercountry adoptions. Theoretical insights are combined with clinical experience in De Adoptiepraktijk, a private, specialized mental health practice, making the argument for embracing a neuro informed approach in working with intercountry adoptees in the Netherlands. Theoretical evaluation, argumentation and personal reflection illustrated by a small case study. Results Overview of problems, models and methods to be used in clinical work with intercountry adoptees. Proposition to use theoretical and practical insights from the neurosequential network, dyadic developmental psychotherapy, sensorimotor psychotherapy 1 1 The author trained both in Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy as well as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, in the latter she is a certified advanced practitioner and consultant intern. and the polyvagal theory to help clinicians assess the problems adopted clients encounter and plan interventions accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, exergy is applied as a parameter to measure the "sustainability" of a recycling system in addition to the fundamental prediction of material recycling and energy recover3; summarizing a development of over 20 years by the principal author supported by various co-workers, Ph.D., and M.Sc. students. In order to achieve this, recyclate qualities and particle size distributions throughout the system must be predicted as a function of product design, liberation during shredding, process dynamics, physical separation physics, and metallurgical thermodynamics. This crucial development enables the estimation of the true exergy of a recycling system from its inputs and outputs including all its realistic industrial traits. These models have among others been linked to computer aided design tools of the automotive industry and have been used to evaluate the performance of waste electric and electronic equipment recycling systems in The Netherlands. This paper also suggests that the complete system must be optimized to find a "truer" optimum of the material production system linked to the consumer market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the development of sustainable architectural design in the Netherlands. The comprehensive approach in designing and building are used in sustainable design practices in the country. Sustainable design refers to sustainable construction which is stressed on the use of environmentally friendly materials and improve energy efficiency. Several structures have been developed including Nieuw Terbregge and De Componist Maassluis.