Welcome to University of Aruba Open Knowledge Repository

Recent Submissions

  • Publication
    Towards sustainable food systems on terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Aruba
    (2025-04-11) Bouchired, Enza; Hesseling, Plym; Kyriakidou, Katerina; Rødnes, Inger; Spoor, Sophie; Versteeg, Ilvie; Wilke, Kaja
  • Publication
    Diaspora and Digital Discourse: Papiamento/u Research in the Digital Archives of Coleccion Aruba
    (2025-02) Bant, Jan; Mijts, Eric; Scholing, Peter
    This article describes the development, scope and possibilities of the Aruban collaborative digital archive initiative Coleccion Aruba. Coleccion Aruba is an online Aruban digital hub where users can consult historical texts, videos, and images. Among other things, it comprises the digitalized databases of the Aruban National Library, the Aruban National Archive, and the Aruban Archeological Museum. In addition to Aruban documents, it hosts sources from European and regional institutes that touch on the cultural, social, and political history of Aruba and the former Netherlands Antilles. A unique feature is that many of the digitized sources are in Papiamento/u. This article first describes the history and creation of this collection. Second, it demonstrates how Coleccion Aruba has opened up new research possibilities in and about Papiamento/u, and sketches directions for future research on the basis of this collection. Lastly, it explains how the digital collection enables new and decolonial opportunities for the development of Artificial Intelligence solutions for the Papiamento/u language as well as regional and international collaborations between archives, libraries, and research institutions. Because of the scattered and diasporic nature of the Papiamento/u language community, the authors conclude that online digital collections such as this one are essential in ensuring a sustainable future for the language of Papiamento/u as well as research in and about this language.
  • Publication
    Vertical farming
    (2021-06) Facun, Kryss
  • Publication
    Vertical Farming, the practice of cultivating plants on a stacked layer to optimize space
    (2021-06-10) Facun, Kryss
    Vertical Farming, the practice of cultivating plants on a stacked layer to optimize space, is a rising trend being implemented mainly in urban areas to boost local and sustainable food production. Aruba does not fall under a developing state, however due to its size similar constraints with Small Island Developing States (SIDS) regarding the environment, economics and societal structures are the same. Nowadays Aruba has a limited capacity to raise domestic resources and depends on a small number of economic sectors. This makes the island very sensitive to economic shock as we have seen during the recent COVID19 pandemic, so growing vertically and indoors is a great opportunity to become more self-sufficient, and partly independent of agricultural import. This project is a collaboration between the University of Aruba and the University of Leuven (Belgium) and focuses on indoor vertical farming, optimizing growth conditions with respect to climate and light quantity and quality to grow plants in a controlled space. In addition, a specialty crop (strawberries with a short storage life will be grown), this to diverge from local product and to show proof of concept of independence of import. A local crop (comcomber chikito), whose growth conditions meets the short time span and close relative to cucumbers will be investigated. The goal is to translate knowledge on plant physiology and photobiology, to agricultural and innovative vertical farming applications for real-life situations. Eventually providing locally produced fruits and vegetables, which will add to an economically sustainable food production on Aruba.

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