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Publication Open Access Natural convection drying of mango slices: An experimental study(University of Aruba, 2026-03-23)Small state islands like Aruba are highly dependent on other countries for food. Vulnerable to natural calamities and impediments in food supply chain can cause difficulties and concerns to the local population. It is the need of time to focus on food security by reducing the import dependency and strengthening agriculture at local and commercial level. To strategize the focus on food security, indirect solar food dryer was tested for drying mango slices. This experimental study focused on the determination of temperature distribution within the solar dryer, drying kinetics, effect of slice thickness on drying process, and finally performance evaluation of solar dryer. The study of natural convection drying of mango slices indicated the feasibility of the drying process at existing climatic conditions. Temperature distribution within the FC indicated uniform temperature and maintained the drying air (HTF) temperature of 38 – 44 °C. It was a significant step in natural convection drying process. The drying curves were obtained to study drying kinetics and observed that maximum moisture was evaporated in the first 2 hours of drying process. The drying rate decreased in the last 4 hours of the drying process. Effect of slice thickness demonstrated decrease in drying rate as thickness increased. Thin layer modeling demonstrated Wang and Singh equation best fit with the experimental measurements. Performance evaluation of dryer showed the specific moisture extraction rate in the range of 0.07 to 0.12 kg of moisture evaporated per kWh of energy consumed.Publication Open Access Institutional Repositories in Small Island States - The Open Knowledge Repository of the University of Aruba(2026-06-08)Presentation by Esther Plomp for the 21st International Conference on Open Repositories, OR2026 on 8 June 2026 for the Lightning talk session. For Small Island States (SIS), digital preservation is constrained by limited institutional and financial resources, technological infrastructure, and human capacity. This affects accessibility of data and research outputs. This lightning talk discusses the case of the Open Knowledge Repository maintained by the University of Aruba, Aruba. Taking back control of digital preservation of research outputs from University of Aruba staff is a privilege as it allows for dissemination and maintenance of our research outputs, but it is also a costly endeavor due to the small scale of the institute. Compared to countries from the Global North that are well-resourced, such as the Netherlands, the University of Aruba has access to limited staffing and financial resources to maintain the Open Knowledge Repository - despite Aruba falling into the category of a high income country. While the content of the repository is maintained by the University of Aruba, the University still relies on external experts and technical maintenance to keep the repository running. This contribution illustrates the tensions between the desire for local agency over digital preservation, and the realities of sustaining these efforts under precarious conditions even in high income countries - highlighting the uneven costs of digital preservation and the challenges of limited human capacity.Publication Open Access UA Research Ethics Committee - kick-off(2026-05-04)Publication Open Access Action Plan Towards FAIR Implementation in the Dutch Social Sciences and Humanities(2026-04-17)Over the past years, many research infrastructures, research performing organisations (RPOs), and funders have expressed their commitment to the FAIR principles. - i.e., ensuring that digital research objects (such as data, software, training materials) are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Yet, implementing the FAIR principles remains a significant challenge across the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in the Netherlands, leaving a gap between the ambitions as outlined in policies and guidelines, and actual practices. This is due to a combination of technical/infrastructural constraints (for example, unavailability of semantic resources for meaningful data annotation for interoperability) and organisational aspects (such as insufficient recognition for time investment into making data FAIR, lack of a clear organisational structure that sustains FAIR data generation). The Action Plan towards FAIR Implementation in the SSH addresses these challenges with a focus on the practical realities. Its purpose is twofold: first, to provide a clear overview of the key bottlenecks that stand in the way of effective FAIR implementation. Second, to propose concrete and actionable steps that stakeholders can take to move forward and reduce the gap between FAIR ambitions and practices. While many reports and roadmaps already exist, this Action Plan is unique in its focus on the practical realities of those working with RDM and FAIR in the SSH: the data stewards, repository managers, infrastructure providers, researchers, and policy officers who navigate the FAIR data principles in their daily work.Publication Open Access The environmental impact and research characteristics of food systems in small island contexts. Case studies on food imports and a scoping review in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao (Dutch Caribbean)(2026)Many countries, including small Caribbean islands, have become increasingly dependent on a global food system that is under growing pressure from human activities such as plastic pollution, the conversion of nature to agricultural land, and climate change. While agriculture itself is a major driver of harm to the Earth's ecosystems. The food system causes almost a third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and drives almost 90% of global deforestation, mainly due to livestock production. The goal of this dissertation was to apply the method Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - used to quantify the environmental impact (e.g., CO2 emissions, land use) of products or services - to foods in an island context. Throughout the PhD project, an increased interest from policymakers and citizens in food security and in increasing local food production was observed, as well as numerous research outputs related to food. Therefore, the focus expanded to exploring other approaches to research food in Aruba and the neighbouring islands Bonaire and Curacao (the ABC islands in the Dutch Caribbean). This dissertation explored the question: What is the environmental impact of an island's food imports, and how can its food system be studied through diverse analytical approaches? To answer this question, two case studies were performed on the environmental impact of Aruba's food imports, on a product level (Chapter 2 on canned tuna imports from three different brands), and on a product category level (Chapter 3 on vegetable imports from 25 product-country combinations). The case studies were chosen due to their diversity in supply chains, production methods, and their importance to the scientific field of food and LCA as well as the Aruban diet. Then, a first-time overview of published research on food production, supply, and consumption was created (scoping review in chapter 4). In two case studies, impacts from sea and air transport were calculated in detail, for two reasons. First, although it is generally known that sea transport contributes relatively little to total GHG emissions of food imports, this has been understudied for islands, which are situated further away from main maritime transport routes. Therefore, food imports to islands may require longer transport distances, longer sailing times, and smaller vessel sizes, especially for the final part of the sailing trip, while the vessels may not always sail at maximum cargo capacities. Also, the environmental impact per kilogram product is higher for smaller vessels compared to larger vessels. Second, airfreighted foods are often imported to islands (and other tourist destinations) using passenger aircrafts. GHG emissions of imports by passenger aircrafts vary dependent on aircraft characteristics and may be different compared to general estimates. Results showed a generally low contribution of sea transport (despite a detailed modelling approach) and a high contribution of air transport to total GHG emissions of food imports. However, GHG emissions from specific passenger aircrafts attending Aruba were lower compared to generic data, which are used by many LCA practitioners. At the product level, results from the three canned tuna brands showed similar environmental impacts because the main contributing supply chain stages were the same for the three brands and a detailed modelling of processing and transport stages did not generate large differences in environmental impact. As expected, canned tuna in large cans had a lower environmental impact per kilogram tuna compared to small cans. At the product category level, vegetables that were transported by sea had much lower GHG emissions compared to airfreighted vegetables, especially when road transport was relatively short. Finally, research related to food supply, production, and consumption in the ABC islands was mapped for the first time. Nine databases were searched: academic databases, local university repositories, local knowledge repositories, and global knowledge repositories. Based on predefined inclusion criteria, 117 publications from 2000 - March 2025 were included. Results showed a growing research field, a diverse, local and international research community, a strong Dutch Kingdom and EU orientation in collaboration and funding, and a diverse coverage of topics and aspects of the food system studied. Challenges and solutions to increase local food production and improving food security are well recorded. LCA may assist in specific aspects of food security planning, as part of a greater puzzle. Future projects, laws, regulations, and research should contribute to increasing food security, as well as provide insight in promoting locally acceptable dietary changes aimed at climate change mitigation and health.
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