In both the school environment and teacher education, sustainable development is usually linked to the natural and social sciences and is rarely incorporated into language education or encouraged as part of language teacher education. As more research is needed on the practical implementation of sustainable development in language teaching and language teacher education, this study elucidates Finnish pre-service language teachers’ perceptions of sustainability dimensions (i.e. ecological, economic, social, and cultural) and their role in language teaching. We used a questionnaire comprising open-ended and Likert-scale questions to examine pre-service language teachers’ perceptions of and attitudes towards themes under all sustainability dimensions, and their feeling about their ability to integrate them into their teaching. Pre-service teachers ( n = 26) recognized the importance of the social and cultural dimensions in language teaching and felt more capable of addressing personal environmental actions than global problems in the language classroom. Some pre-service teachers produced concrete practices linking sustainability issues with language teaching, but they were mostly teacher-centred. The pre-service teachers did not link equality as tightly to the cultural and social aspects of language teaching as they did in their personal lives. These findings help in developing language teaching and teacher education programmes toward the educational sustainable development goals. Moreover, the questionnaire can be used to analyse the consideration of sustainability themes in language teaching and language teacher education.
Software Ecosystem (SECO) has emerged as a crucial concept, which represents a collaborative and interconnected environment in which a variety of actors engage in developing software systems. SECOs play a key role in the development of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), that present a myriad of challenges, primarily due to the need for real-time responsiveness, reliability, security, and interoperability. The implications of leveraging SECOs for developing CPSs are profound in both research and practice. This paper aims to understand the collaboration between industry and academia within SECOs for the development of CPSs, identifying potential challenges and providing insights and guidelines for the proper management of these collaborations. We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR), complemented by empirical evidence collected through an opinion survey administered to the partners of the European collaborative project AIDOaRt, a concrete example of a SECO, which worked on the development of CPSs. From these findings we discuss the identified challenges, and potential effects on collaboration, in addition to our lessons learned in the AIDOaRt project and SECO.
This study provided a detailed structural analysis of oat husk lignin (OHLN) obtained from a Finnish biorefinery process using the BIOFORSENSE (R)-technology. A combination of quantitative13C NMR with DEPT-135 and DEPTQ enabled accurate quantification of S/G/H units, interunit linkages, and condensation degree without chemical derivatization (e.g., acetylation). The results were directly comparable to those obtained by 31P NMR. Furthermore, diffusion NMR (1D and 2D DOSY) was used to detect incorporated fatty-acid and extractive residues and to separate low-molecular-weight contaminants from the polymeric backbone, offering new insights into lignin-carbohydrate/extractive associations. Analysis of inter-unit linkages indicated a relatively low (3-O-4 content (8.6 per 100 aromatic units). Phenolic hydroxyl content was 4.83 mmol/g. FT-IR, Py-GC/MS, GPC, and SDT/TGA, established additional structural features and properties. The syringyl to guaiacyl ratio was 0.7 and the average molar mass was 5.4 kDa. Thermal analyses showed a Tg at approximately 180 degrees C, and a char residue of 39 %. OHLN is a renewable, sustainable raw material with favorable structural properties, making it suitable for diverse applications such as adhesives, resins, coatings, and bio-based chemicals. Unlike many other lignins, OHLN's origin from food material and the use of chemical free extraction technologies make it especially promising for food grade applications.
Accurately predicting the multi-variable thermal state of the blast furnace is crucial for operational stability and high-quality hot metal production, yet it is challenged by the complexity and measurement delays of the process. This study develops a data-enhanced mechanistic modeling framework to address this challenge. The framework synergizes a first-principles mechanistic model, developed in Aspen Plus (R), with a data-driven residual correction model. The mechanistic model provides robust but approximate initial estimates of key thermal state parameters. A sophisticated data-driven model, incorporating Gated Recurrent Units and a Multi-Head Self-Attention mechanism, is then employed to learn and correct the complex, non-linear residuals between the mechanistic outputs and actual industrial measurements. Validated on industrial data, the proposed hybrid model demonstrates superior performance in predicting four key variables, i.e., hot metal silicon content, slag basicity, top gas CO utilization rate, and top gas temperature, achieving hit rates exceeding 90% within predefined error margins. The results highlight the potential of this hybrid approach to provide a robust and accurate solution for real-time thermal state prediction in ironmaking processes.
This work demonstrates the potential of low-cost cobalt catalysts supported on activated biochars from biomass on the hydrodeoxygenation of isoeugenol, bio-oil model compound for the production of sustainable aviation fuels. Co/biochar catalysts were obtained by pyrolysis and steam activation of rice husk, leather waste, and their mixture, followed by metal impregnation, calcination, and reduction. Compared to Co/AC, (commercial active carbon), Co/A-RH, (rice husk biochar), exhibited competitive isoeugenol conversion to propylcyclohexane (PCH) at 300 degrees C, 30 bar, 4 h, with a higher initial rate (r0PCH = 0.38 vs 0.34 mmol/min gCo), but lower PCH yield (55 % vs 75 %), due to hydrocracking. By kinetic modeling, the activation energy for PCH formation was determined to be 151 kJ/mol. Comprehensive characterization revealed that Co0-Co2+ synergy enhances HDO performance. DFT calculations provided mechanistic insight into the HDO pathways, which were consistent with the experimentally derived reaction network, and kinetic model.
