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The post-containment period of spring 2020 in Western Europe was a time of hope and hesitation about the possibility of a return to normality after the first act of Covid-19. This article reports on the specific case of the return to the beach in four major Mediterranean cities (two in Spain and two in France), where a user survey and field observations were conducted to identify the effects of the pandemic on practices and management. Between apprehension of the risk and desire for sociability, between the presence and relative absence of public authorities, the study reveals a clear distinction between the Spanish and French situations, directly related to the unequal violence of the shock caused by the first wave of the pandemic in these two countries.

Service life is often used by state transportation agencies to evaluate alternative flexible pavement designs. The design that keeps the pavement in acceptable condition longest before it needs another maintenance treatment is the preferred design. For a given rehabilitation design, this study evaluates the pavement service life using AASHTO 1972 pavement design guide and mechanistic-empirical (M-E) pavement design guide. The service life here is referred as the duration from last completed rehabilitation to the next maintenance treatment. The goal is not to determine which method is better, but rather, it is to understand how their estimated service lives differ and what factors contribute to their differences. To perform the evaluation, rehabilitation designs developed by the SCDOT for a research project are used. These designs take into account existing pavement distresses obtained through field investigation of 28 actual rehabilitation projects on primary routes. Service life is determined using MAP-21 criteria for good and fair pavements. Analysis results indicated that (1) the predicted service life using the M-E method has lower variation than the AASHTO 1972 method and is affected by the location (rural vs. urban) of the routes, (2) the predicted service life using the AASHTO 1972 method is generally lower than that of the M-E method and is affected by the difference between the design structural number (SN) and required SN, (3) the M-E service life for good pavement is generally longer for routes that include CMRB design and the percentage of trucks lower than 10%, and (4) the AASHTO 1972 service life is higher if the existing SN is already exceeding the required SN from the previous maintenance.

Abstract Background Peanut is an important crop for farmers in Haiti. Currently, very limited information is available on farmers’ yields, production practices as well as post-harvest practices that reduce aflatoxin prevalence and increase food security. Methods A household survey from Haiti and regression analysis are used to examine peanut production among small female and male-headed households in terms of yield and post-harvest practices (use of tarps for drying and sorting) which are very important for preventing aflatoxins. Results We find that yields are low (average 270 kg/ha) compared to more developed countries (more than 2000 kg/ha) and there is substantial room for improvement. Female-headed households have lower yields compared to male-headed households and farming on a slope imposes a penalty on peanut yields. We did not find significant differences between male and female-headed households on post-harvest practices when it comes to the use of a tarp for drying peanuts, but households where decisions were made jointly are more likely to use a tarp. Conclusions There is substantial room for improving peanut yields among smallholder farmers in Haiti. Households with more access to capital, as measured by off-farm income and receiving remittances, are associated with an increase the likelihood of tarp use, which may reduce levels of aflatoxin contamination. In addition, saving more seed and joint decisions are associated with an increased level of sorting efforts, which will lower aflatoxin prevalence and increase food security.

Many state transportation agencies are faced with making pavement rehabilitation decisions for roadways annually. Their design choices affect the future performance and maintenance cost of those pavements. This study determines if it is cost-effective to perform a field investigation (e.g., FWD, coring) for non-interstate routes to identify pavement structural and functional characteristics at the design stage and whether this information can aid in determining the most appropriate design for rehabilitation. To this end, field investigations are performed on 16 actual roadways (non-interstate routes) in the state of South Carolina prior to their rehabilitation, and an analysis was performed to compare the life-cycle cost between rehabilitation designs with and without field investigations. The results indicate that (1) the rehabilitation design with field investigation tends to produce a pavement that has the necessary depth and made up of higher strength materials that bring the pavement’s SN closer to the required value, (2) the rehabilitation design with field investigation defers the maintenance cycles, and (3) performing field investigation is cost-effective, particularly for those pavements that do not need maintenance treatments until their present serviceability index falls to a 2.