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This study aimed to give insights into low-carbon vegetable import strategies for Aruba, a Dutch Caribbean island. Our selected products were potatoes, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and green beans. The products originated from 13 different countries, and 25 product-country combinations were identified. The system boundaries were from the farm until arrival at the supermarket. We identified actual maritime transport routes, and calculated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of passenger aircrafts flying from Amsterdam to Aruba. Vegetables imported by air had significantly higher GHG emissions (4.2–8.3 kg CO2eq per kg) than products imported by sea (0.4–2.3 kg CO2eq per kg). GHG emissions of road transport generally contributed more than those of other life cycle stages, except when products showed a high contribution of agriculture. Although sea transport was calculated with much detail, it usually did not contribute much to the GHG emissions. We recommend Life Cycle Practitioners to consider aircraft characteristics when calculating GHG emissions of air transport, and to include the weight of the 80 kg AKE container, used for cooled airfreight, when allocating impacts between passengers and freight. For this case study, GHG emissions of specific passenger aircrafts always resulted in lower GHG emissions compared to generic calculations.

In de bijdrage wordt onderzocht hoe en waarom de betrekking van een adviescommissie op de verschillende Caribische eilanden verschilt in de bestuursrechtelijke bezwaarprocedures. De Arubaanse commissie heeft een duidelijke 'status aparte', en wij concluderen dat recente jurisprudentie duidelijk maakt dat het huidige systeem niet zonder meer gehandhaafd kan blijven omdat de rechter een verantwoordelijkheid bij de Arubaanse bestuursorganen neerlegt waarvoor geen duidelijk wettelijk kader bestaat en waarvoor zij mogelijk operationeel niet zijn uitgerust.

The fusion of heterocycles onto an anthraquinone scaffold represents a promising strategy to optimize anticancer activity. This study has the aim to synthesize and characterize novel anthra[1,2-b]furan compounds based on the natural product aloe-emodin. Six novel anthra[1,2-b]furans bearing phenyl, n-hexane, and methoxy carbonyl substituents were synthesized starting from aloe-emodin. The synthetic route employed involved acetyl protection of aloe-emodin, electrophilic aromatic halogenation, subsequent Castro–Stephens coupling, spontaneous intramolecular cyclization, and deprotection of hydroxyl groups. These newly synthesized compounds were evaluated for their cytotoxic activity against various cancer cell lines, including lung adenocarcinoma (A5492), colorectal carcinoma (HCT116), hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2), ovarian cancer (Skov3), and breast cancer (MCF-7), using the CCK8 assay. The anthra[1,2-b]furan derivative 10c, which contains a methoxy carbonyl group, demonstrated excellent potency against lung (A549) and breast (MCF-7) cancer cell lines, with IC50 values of 0.49 and 2.91 µM, respectively. This preliminary cytotoxic finding shows compound 10c as a promising hit for further investigations towards a promising lead compound.

Small island states mirror and magnify the sustainability challenges confronting the world. Aruba is a compelling example of a small island state, one where the community grapples with local and global sustainability challenges, trying to navigate the tricky path between economic development, social cohesion and environmental impacts. Sustainability challenges have become even more pressing, in Aruba and elsewhere, since our first volume was published ten years ago in 2015. This 2026 volume, like previous ones, documents the efforts made by student researchers from the University of Aruba and Utrecht University to address the pressures Aruba faces in meeting the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 agenda. It opens with a list of guiding principles and goals that these students compiled collectively in a UA classroom in February 2026, at the beginning of their 11 weeks together. The ideas in this list express our students’ ambitions to do research in ways that would be meaningful to others as well as to themselves. Taken together, they reflect the principles of community-based research that have been at the heart of our student research collaboration program since it was founded. In 2026, a total of 21 student researchers completed papers for this publication. They include thesis-year students from the University of Aruba’s Sustainable Island Solutions through STEM program and students from University College Utrecht, Liberal Arts and Sciences and Global Sustainable Sciences at Utrecht University. The students supported each other’s process while working on their own research, morally and practically, providing feedback on approaches to research, and on the content, style, language and structure of the papers submitted for this volume. The content of this volume includes work grounded in a range of fields: engineering, chemistry, data sciences, ecology, economics, governance and social geography. The topics include sustainability in food security, renewable energy and resource management, ecosystem restoration and pollution. The research papers appear here as submitted by the authors, including the occasional raw or not yet developed conclusion. Some of the contributions reflect completed studies, others are preparatory explorations, proposals for research that is still to be carried out. All the authors are still working on interpretation and presentation of their findings and will finalize these in consultancy reports or bachelor theses based on the results of the projects presented here. The authors also each wrote a personal reflection about the individual rewards of participating in community-based research, and these preface their papers. A UA bachelor course (Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches to sustainable development in small island states) served as a forum for mutual support and collaboration during the process of doing the research, and culminated in presentations of their work to the Aruban community in the newly renovated UA Maria Convent Chapel. Many people have made crucial contributions to the students’ success this year. We, and our students, appreciate the value and power of their contributions to this project as a whole. We want to express special gratitude to UA’s Tobia de Scisciolo, Diego Acevedo and Bart van Donselaar help in providing feedback on the student papers in preparing them for publication here. Britta Ricker and Nataliia Pustilnik coached and supported the students from the GSS track. Many others who have played crucial roles as guides, lecturers, mentors, advisors, facilitators, respondents, interview participants, and engaged citizens: thanks to you all! We hope that you have looked forward to the work that is presented in this volume as eagerly as we did! Eric Mijts & Jocelyn Ballantyne Project coordinators UAUCUU