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The main objective of this paper is to identify the intensity and the sense of the impact that eco-innovation and recycling exert on raw material consumption in the European Union member-states. The basic hypothesis is that eco-innovation and recycling have a significant influence on raw material consumption. The authors consider that, in the long run, by promoting eco-innovation and recycling, countries will minimize their demand and use of raw materials. In the paper, the material footprint per capita has been considered as an adequate indicator to measure the material consumption induced by economic and social activities. The model used has estimated the influence of eco-innovation and recycling on the material footprint per capita using panel data regression by considering the 27 EU countries, for the 2010–2019 time period. The authors found that the most adequate econometric model is the panel model with fixed effects. The respective econometric model validates the hypothesis that eco-innovation and recycling have significant influence on reducing the material footprint per capita and reveals heterogeneity existing among EU countries. At the same time, the model shows the intensity of influence exerted by each regressor. The eco-innovation and recycling have an important role in decreasing the material footprint per capita and should be in the centre of policies aimed at decoupling the economic growth from the raw material consumption.

Behavioral strategies require gating of premature responses to optimize outcomes. Several brain areas control impulsive actions, but the neuronal basis of natural variation in impulsivity between individuals remains largely unknown. Here, by combining a Go/No-Go behavioral assay with resting-state (rs) functional MRI in mice, we identified the subthalamic nucleus (STN), a known gate for motor control in the basal ganglia, as a major hotspot for trait impulsivity. In vivo recorded STN neural activity encoded impulsive action as a separable state from basic motor control, characterized by decoupled STN/substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) mesoscale networks. Optogenetic modulation of STN activity bidirectionally controlled impulsive behavior. Pharmacological and genetic manipulations showed that these impulsive actions are modulated by metabotropic glutamate receptor 4 (mGlu4) function in STN and its coupling to SNr in a behavioral trait-dependent manner, and independently of general motor function. In conclusion, STN circuitry multiplexes motor control and trait impulsivity, which are molecularly dissociated by mGlu4. This provides a potential mechanism for the genetic modulation of impulsive behavior, a clinically relevant predictor for developing psychiatric disorders associated with impulsivity.

Markov decision processes provide a formal framework for a computer to make decisions autonomously and intelligently when the effects of its actions are not deterministic. This formalism has had tremendous success in many disciplines; however, its implementation on platforms with scarce computing capabilities and power, as it happens in robotics or autonomous driving, is still limited. To solve this computationally complex problem efficiently under these constraints, high-performance accelerator hardware and parallelized software come to the rescue. In particular, in this work, we evaluate off-line-tuned static and dynamic versus adaptive heterogeneous scheduling strategies for executing value iteration—a core procedure in many decision-making methods, such as reinforcement learning and task planning—on a low-power heterogeneous CPU+GPU SoC that only uses 10–15 W. Our experimental results show that by using CPU+GPU heterogeneous strategies, the computation time and energy required are considerably reduced. They can be up to 54% (61%) faster and 57% (65%) more energy-efficient with respect to multicore—TBB—(or GPU-only—OpenCL—) implementation. Additionally, we also explore the impact of increasing the abstraction level of the programming model to ease the programming effort. To that end, we compare the TBB+OpenCL vs. the TBB+oneAPI implementations of our heterogeneous schedulers, observing that oneAPI versions result in up to $$5\times$$ less programming effort and only incur in 3–8% of overhead if the scheduling strategy is selected carefully.

Value Iteration (VI) is a core method to find optimal policies, allowing a robot to act autonomously in environments where the effects of its actions are not deterministic. Although there are extensive studies on VI’s theoretical properties and computational cost, its energy performance — an essential indicator for its use in the physical world — has not been evaluated. In this paper, we explore both the energy and runtime performance of five parallel implementation strategies of VI on representative low-power heterogeneous computing platforms that integrate CPUs and GPUs, for the use-case scenario of indoor autonomous robot navigation. We provide a statistical analysis of their performance depending on the problem size, parallel implementation and computing platform. Our study shows that CPU–GPU heterogeneous strategies reduce computation time and energy considerably, given large enough problem sizes, regardless of the computation platform. This work also provides practical guidelines to assist in the application of the most efficient implementation, either in terms of energy consumption or time, to a low-power heterogeneous platform.

The healthcare industry is a conjunction of monolithic applications based on neutral and time-stamped diagnostics. Hence, it is particularly interested in decentralised technologies to achieve global and social-driven electronic health records. Blockchain is a decentralised networking system where multiple copies of immutable data records are distributed and validated among different independent nodes. While traditionally used to create currently famous digital cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, its worldwide fever helped to extend its applications beyond the financial industry. However, given how fast completely new technologies evolve, healthcare stakeholders are struggling to find the correct usage of blockchain ecosystem developments. Our goal is to provide a summary of the state-of-the-art efforts in the development of decentralised blockchain-based solutions for electronic healthcare records, in which social networking and wearable technology data is considered in order to provide patient-driven diagnostics - proven to be critical in the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In this paper, we present a comprehensive guide on blockchain technologies competing in the healthcare market, including emerging blockchain-based initiatives and trends. Additionally, we discuss the main caveats of blockchain applications development in this industry based on practical experience.

The management of waste electrical and electronic equipment – WEEE, or e-waste represents one of the areas with significant potential for the implementation of economic instruments and it is higly regulated at EU level. Due to their physical characteristics, WEEE is suitable for development of recovery, repair and recycling policies, extension of their life cycle for as long as possible being an objective pursued by the specific mechanisms of circular economy. In this paper, we will look at how Romania manages economic instruments for e-waste recycling, their implementation and potential benefits. We chose for detail the economic instrument known as "The Green Stamp". This fee is assumed by all manufacturers and retailers of EEE. The amounts thus collected are administered by the Romanian Association for Recycling (RoRec) which deals with the collection, dismantling and recycling of WEEE. The ratio between the amounts collected through the green stamp duty and the amounts invested in e-waste reduction activities is a sensitive topic at national level. The exact quantification of WEEE is very difficult: the quantities of electronic products sold at national level (POM- put on market) are very different from the quantity of WEEE registered. The WEEE collection target set at European level is 4 kg / inhabitant and Romania, with only 2.19 kg / inhabitant at the level of 2016 (Eurostat), is far from reaching it.

The paper analyses some important challenges faced by the sector of hazardous medical waste (HMW) management in Romania, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the beginning section, there is a brief presentation of the characteristics and evolution of the epidemic in Romania as compared to the EU and other states, showing the resurgence of cases in the summer of 2020 and the fact that the rate of incidence is high. There is a growing concern on the large additional quantities of hazardous medical waste generated in the context of the pandemic, since according to the recommendations of international health organizations, the proper management of the infectious medical waste is critical for the disease control and for avoiding increased environmental pollution. However, since in the next section there are analysed the main current characteristics and issues of the hazardous medical waste management in Romania (the types of medical waste; legal provisions; the amounts generated, the disposal, processing and treatment facilities, the costs incurred) it may be stated that the COVID-19 pandemic only reinforces the challenges for the management of the already growing amounts of hazardous medical waste having occurred in Romania (from a quantity of 8,900 tons in 2012, rising to 13,031 tons in 2018). Several scenarios of the likely increase in the amount of hazardous medical waste in a short time due to COVID-19 are provided, most probable scenarios B (+50%) and C (+75%) requiring investment in the capacity of hazardous medical waste management, with total values of between 14.67 million € and 18.00 mil. €. In the concluding remarks, to highlight the development and innovation opportunities in dealing with the challenges, the paper proposes a series of measures, investment and mechanisms for the adequate management of the HMW in Romania.

Unified access to anonymous records through a trustworthy system is needed in our increasingly globalised world that still suffers from profoundly disconnected health care services. Emergencies are followed by redundant, costly and slow medical examinations without a global health data sharing mechanism. We establish the foundations of a decentralised healthcare ledger where patients decide what to share, with who, and with minimal costs. We review the state-of-the-art of transparent, auditable and interactive Blockchain-based healthcare studies, developing ClinicAppChain. Our solution features authentication, confidentiality and permissioned data sharing, considering the EU data protection regulation of 2018. ClinicAppChain is a cross-platform low-cost Blockchain prototype that empowers patients, hospitals, researchers, pharmaceuticals and insurance industries without crypto-currencies involved, and with a negligible energy foot-print (7.7 watts per node).

Protection of forest cover has a primary importance in conserving natural heritage, as well as sustaining other forms of life and land use. As argued in our previous research, sustainable forest management (SFM) is therefore supported by the necessity to preserve, value, and develop forest ecosystem services and the total economic value of forests, as part of a country’s natural heritage. This chapter will emphasize the role of virgin forests in Romania, as a part of cultural heritage. Our approach is motivated by the need to protect and increase awareness of the significant heritage represented by the virgin forest in Romania. We start by highlighting some of the most important current developments concerning forests in the European Union (EU) and Romania. In this respect, we analyze the ranking of European countries, including Romania, with regard to their share of forestry areas across Europe. In Romania, what stands out is the peculiar increase of forest areas in the last decade, which can be explained by the changes in methodology used for classification and data gathering, due to the new Forestry Code. The next section of our chapter is dedicated to the importance of virgin forests as natural heritage sites. These are mostly represented by natural beech forests located in several remote counties. The value of Romanian virgin forest is proven by the current ongoing nomination process to include them in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List. Romania’s virgin forests are a national, European and global heritage—so the task of protecting this natural heritage should not be left solely to the private forest owners. It is required to have the intervention of the state and efforts by public authorities to continue having and sustainably manage these forests. The impulse for protection of such forests came from NGO and activists in biodiversity protection, foresters etc.

Due to the abundance of heritage issues interpretation and in order to facilitate analysis of the transformation of an object or site—through expertise and instrumentation—into a topic open to long-lasting cultural consumption, researchers have recently imposed the concept of patrimonialization. Being able to promote and manage sustainable development by capitalizing both natural segments, as well as the cultural and intangible segments of universal heritage, patrimonialization added—from an interdisciplinary perspective—to social interrogations of heritage interpretation, those specific for the necessity to ensure environmental, economic, and social sustainability. This paper will emphasize the importance of heritage component for sustainable development, as well as the fact that patrimonialization provides to sustainable development the opportunity to become part of the heritage. Following an integrated approach, patrimonialization implies that the implementation of all activities related to heritage will be introduced in the service of sustainable development. Thus, policies, strategies, and measures for conservation, protection, and promotion of heritage should stimulate, on the one hand, civic engagement and critical attitude towards protecting and respecting local and universal heritage values and, on the other hand, transnational cooperation in implementing the most appropriate ways for their integration. Therefore, having the quality of an alternative device for economic recovery, heritage of Southeast Europe must be patrimonialized to ensure sustainable reconciliation between entrepreneurship that reflects emergence of regional markets, and consumption of heritage, between economic development and the limitations of environmental protection and between museological local traditionalism and the expansion of international networks of living heritage interpretation. In the field of climate change, there is a clear opportunity for all sectors linked to sustainability and also for heritage. Many of the initiatives of heritage conservation stated that sustainability strategies and compliance are imposed by respect for the environment and climate change constraints. Despite the fact that identification of heritage items was already resolved by instrumentalization of interpretation process, its placement in the field of sustainable development could be done only by interdisciplinary targeting of correlation elements.

This chapter discusses the development of improved citizen services taking into consideration integration of agent-based modelling and simulation experience into conceiving, design and implementation activities with a strong focus on technology enabled service systems. Service design is formalized here towards the integration of customer experience, validated through service interaction modelling. Integration of user experience at design stage in the value co-creation process is a possible immediate evolution direction of projects in the Smarter Cities perspective. Guidelines for integrating a modelling and simulation perspective in service design are presented along with the Socio-Technical Systems Engineering process. The case study presented here is dedicated to Smart Transport. The chapter opens a larger discussion on specific research directions and knowledge transfer related to Smart Transport as highlighted in EU projects.

Urban structure consists of all the relationships established in urban areas, between its components: functional, psychosocial, physical and spatial. Developments depend on demographic concentration and socio-economic and cultural differentiated development of member localities. Analysis presented in this material follows changes recorded in urban structure from several European countries for a time period of approximately 30 years. The same analysis was conducted for Romania, highlighting the phenomenon of concentration of urban structure or reducing the concentration, by decreasing share of cities and increasing importance of small and medium towns. After 1990, Romania displayed a phenomenon of emergence of new towns that have led to changes in urban structure.

Economic assessment of forest ecosystems is especially important for determining efficiency of investment in: biodiversity conservation, expansion of the national forest and rational use of forest resources, sustainable forest development. In Romania, although discussed and debated in recent years, this subject has generated and still produces theoretical, methodological and practical issues. Economic and social consequences of changes in forest ecosystems are difficult to predict. Changes in the dynamics of river basins, ecologic regions or wildlife systems, for example, can reduce or increase various aspects of human welfare. Without sufficient knowledge about the value of forest ecosystem services, consequences unpredictability tends to increase with the degree of change. This paper will address some issues related to estimating the economic value of forests in Romania and ecosystem services provided by forests. The methodology used includes: clarifying and defining the main methodological and operational concepts, charts and diagrams to describe correlations and mechanisms of forest functions, qualitative and quantitative assessment (tables, matrices) of ecosystem services, with identification of the most important benefits, analysis of main methods of economic assessment of forest ecosystem services with recommendations and conclusions.

Risk assessment for environmental projects consists of studying the probability that projects will achieve a satisfactory performance for threshold - values of internal rate of return (IRR) or net present value (NPV). Risk analysis identifies and estimates risks and their level as well as measures considered to mitigate their negative impact. Quantitative risk analysis is performed for estimating the risk of the project by numeric resources. Monte Carlo simulation method can be widely applied in this area due to the advantages recognized both by practitioners and the academic community. By using this method, the distribution of all possible outcomes of an event is generated by analyzing a model several times, each time using random input values selected from the probability distributions considered normal of the components that comprise the model.

This paper presents experience obtained in modelling and simulation of stakeholder-driven interactions for improved transport service design. The presented results describe value-aware, service model driven design artefacts supporting smart transport service development. The Socio-Technical System Engineering process is used in order to generate modelling and simulation artefacts, based on an executable representation of requirements. As a case study, the paper presents an improved design approach for a city transport information service to support travellers with valuable information regarding planning a trip in a city. This attempt to integrate agent-based modelling and simulation experience into the development of smart transport services emphasises the role of the development platform that provides tools for model analysis, validation, simulation, and real-time animation. The development platform’s role in transposing the above mentioned aspects in practice is emphasized and integration guidelines of the STSE process steps with the IBM Rational Rhapsody®development platform are described.

The healthcare industry is a conjunction of monolithic applications based on neutral and time-stamped diagnostics. Hence, it is particularly interested in decentralised technologies to achieve global and social-driven electronic health records. Blockchain is a decentralised networking system where multiple copies of immutable data records are distributed and validated among different independent nodes. While traditionally used to create currently famous digital cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, its worldwide fever helped to extend its applications beyond the financial industry. However, given how fast completely new technologies evolve, healthcare stakeholders are struggling to find the correct usage of blockchain ecosystem developments. Our goal is to provide a summary of the state-of-the-art efforts in the development of decentralised blockchain-based solutions for electronic healthcare records, in which social networking and wearable technology data is considered in order to provide patient-driven diagnostics – proven to be critical in the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In this paper, we present a comprehensive guide on blockchain technologies competing in the healthcare market, including emerging blockchain-based initiatives and trends. Additionally, we discuss the main caveats of blockchain applications development in this industry based on practical experience. Work by Munoz is supported by the European Union’s H2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement DAEMON 101017109, by the projects co-financed by FEDER funds LEIA UMA18-FEDERJA-15, MEDEA RTI2018-099213-B-I00 and Rhea P18-FR-1081 and the PRE2019-087496 grant from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. Work by Constantinescu is supported by the projects TIN2016-80920-R, PID2019-105396RB-I00 and UMA18-FEDERJA-108. This work has been supported by IMFAHE Foundation Nodal Award of 2018.

This is a Conference Presentation, please access and cite the published version of the respective publication: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4599585 The healthcare industry is a conjunction of monolithic applications based on neutral and time-stamped diagnostics. Hence, it is particularly interested in decentralised technologies to achieve global and social-driven electronic health records. Blockchain is a decentralised networking system where multiple copies of immutable data records are distributed and validated among different independent nodes. While traditionally used to create currently famous digital cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, its worldwide fever helped to extend its applications beyond the financial industry. However, given how fast completely new technologies evolve, healthcare stakeholders are struggling to find the correct usage of blockchain ecosystem developments. Our goal is to provide a summary of the state-of-the-art efforts in the development of decentralised blockchain-based solutions for electronic healthcare records, in which social networking and wearable technology data is considered in order to provide patient-driven diagnostics – proven to be critical in the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In this paper, we present a comprehensive guide on blockchain technologies competing in the healthcare market, including emerging blockchain-based initiatives and trends. Additionally, we discuss the main caveats of blockchain applications development in this industry based on practical experience. Work by Munoz is supported by the European Union’s H2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement DAEMON 101017109, by the projects co-financed by FEDER funds LEIA UMA18-FEDERJA-15, MEDEA RTI2018-099213-B-I00 and Rhea P18-FR-1081 and the PRE2019-087496 grant from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. Work by Constantinescu is supported by the projects TIN2016-80920-R, PID2019-105396RB-I00 and UMA18-FEDERJA-108. This work has been supported by IMFAHE Foundation Nodal Award of 2018.