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In the lowland part of Croatia, heavy machinery such as forwarders is mainly used for the purpose of extracting wood from even-aged forest stands. According to the forest management plan, forwarders are used intensively in the winter period when the soil is mostly saturated with water and when their activity can cause significant damage to the soil. The aim of this study was to determine changes in soil characteristics as a consequence of the repeated passage of a loaded 8-wheel forwarder on silty clay loam type of soil. The research was conducted in an area where the forwarder usually works and in a way that did not significantly disrupt his normal workflow. The results indicate that during the study period the soil had a good bearing capacity and that the observed changes in soil characteristics (bulk density, total soil porosity, soil moisture, particle density, soil water retention capacity etc.) occurred as a result of breaking structural soil aggregates after soil compaction by multiple passes. Characteristic points (T) of equalized penetration curves indicate the compaction of the soil surface layer. Cone penetration index (CI) values did not show a proportional increase as the number of forwarder passes increased, although significant differences in their values with respect to the number of passes were found. Shear strength (τ) did not significantly increase with increasing the number of passes, but a statistically significant difference in the measured values was detected at the soil surface, which was not observed at a depth of 15 cm. Exceeding the rut depth limit of 10 cm occurred only after the 20th pass. Our results indicate that the soil at the harvesting site had a good bearing capacity during the study period.

So far, the notion of food sovereignty has not claimed a place at the table of competition law. Although competition law developments in the last four decades have promoted the exclusive dominance of efficiency considerations, the next few years may bring a turning point through the recognition that in the long term economic efficiency also requires social and environmental sustainability, especially in a sector like agriculture. Although family farming has always been dominant in Europe, recent trends of concentration and consolidation in the agricultural and food supply chain as well as globalisation itself have shaken European agricultural producers who face several competition-related problems. This article aims to shed light on whether the theoretical framework of EU competition law and policy are appropriate for the notion of food sovereignty to join the discourse. In order to do so, the article presents the main tenets of ordoliberalism, the prevailing school of thought in EU competition policy, in particular the findings of those ordoliberal scholars who deal with the issues of agriculture. Moreover, the article aims to theorise sovereignty in food sovereignty, in parallel with bringing it into line with ordoliberalism, in order to explore whether the concept of social market economy, one of the key concepts of ordoliberalism explicitly followed by the EU, and in particular ordoliberal competition policy to be realised within the framework of the social market economy, is suitable to take into account food sovereignty’s core elements at least at a theoretical level. If it is, it may bring to the fore a viewpoint of EU competition policy which ensures appropriate protection for the agricultural sector to overcome the newly emerging anomalies faced by European agricultural producers as a consequence of globalising markets.

Digitalization is globally transforming the world with profound implications. It has enormous potential to foster progress toward sustainability. However, in its current form, digitalization also continues to enable and encourage practices with numerous unsustainable impacts affecting our environment, ingraining inequality, and degrading quality of life. There is an urgent need to identify such multifaceted impacts holistically. Impact assessment of digital interventions (DIs) leading to digitalization is essential specifically for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Action is required to understand the pursuit of short-term gains toward achieving long-term value-driven sustainable development. We need to understand the impact of DIs on various actors and in diverse contexts. A holistic understanding of the impact will help us align the visions of sustainable development and identify potential measures to mitigate negative short and long-term impacts. The recently developed digitainability assessment framework (DAF) unveils the impact of DIs with an in-depth context-aware assessment and offers an evidence-based impact profile of SDGs at the indicator level. This paper demonstrates how DAF can be instrumental in guiding participatory action for the implementation of digitainability practices. This paper summarizes the insights developed during the Digitainable Spring School 2022 (DSS) on “Sustainability with Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence,” one of whose goals was to operationalize the DAF as a tool in the participatory action process with collaboration and active involvement of diverse professionals in the field of digitalization and sustainability. The DAF guides a holistic context-aware process formulation for a given DI. An evidence-based evaluation within the DAF protocol benchmarks a specific DI’s impact against the SDG indicators framework. The participating experts worked together to identify a DI and gather and analyze evidence by operationalizing the DAF. The four DIs identified in the process are as follows: smart home technology (SHT) for energy efficiency, the blockchain for food security, artificial intelligence (AI) for land use and cover change (LUCC), and Big Data for international law. Each of the four expert groups addresses different DIs for digitainability assessment using different techniques to gather and analyze data related to the criteria and indicators. The knowledge presented here could increase understanding of the challenges and opportunities related to digitainability and provide a structure for developing and implementing robust digitainability practices with data-driven insights.

The Gajevo landslide is located in a hilly area of northern Croatia, where numerous landslides endanger and damage houses, roads, water systems, and power lines. Nevertheless, available landslide data are relatively scarce. Therefore, the Gajevo landslide location was chosen for detailed research and the development of a typical landslide model for this area. During initial research, the geographical and geological settings were reviewed and historical orthophotos were analysed. Due to the complexity and vulnerability of the area, the location required detailed investigations and the integration of multi-level data: remote (based on high-resolution LiDAR data) and field landslide mapping were performed and a map of the landslide area was developed. Precipitation data were reviewed, while shallow boreholes with material sampling and geophysical measurements provided information on material characteristics and 3D (depth) insight. As a result, knowledge was gained about material resistivity and composition along with the depth of sliding surfaces, and an engineering geological map of the Gajevo landslide area with the landslide and directly endangered areas marked was developed to be used by the local community in landslide risk assessment. As it is reasonable to expect that an extreme rainfall event will occur in combination with snowmelt in the coming years, resulting in the reactivation of Gajevo landslide, further research and continuous landslide monitoring are recommended.

Growing demand for forest machines that cost less to operate than current compared to traditional hydraulic and mechanical ones, along with regulatory pressures for lower emissions, is increasing manufacturers’ interest in developing electric and hybrid drives. While purely electric drives of forest machines meet a lot of bottlenecks (costs of the electric components, battery durability, duration of charging, access to the electrical grid, size of batteries that can ensure enough energy for 8 h working time), electric hybrid drives offer a favorable solution for the propulsion of forestry machinery in terms of lower fuel consumption and improved efficiency. Among all forest vehicles, specialized forest tractors (skidders), so far, have not been considered for forest vehicles with hybrid drive capabilities. A skidder is a forest-articulated self-propelled vehicle for pulling trees or parts of trees. In most countries in southern Europe, the use of skidders equipped with forest winches is the most common technique for timber extraction. The first goal of the research is to develop methods for measuring the energy consumption of skidders at different operating tasks and under different field conditions. Research was performed on the skidder Ecotrac 140V (from Croatian producer Hittner Ltd.) during timber extraction in mountainous terrains in Lika–Senj County. The skidder was equipped with a measuring device WIGO-E (Telematic Data collector) gateway with an integrated GPS system, which ensured data were collected from sensors and motor and stored in a computer via CANBUS and data transfer with GSM to Web platforms. Additionally, a fuel-flow meter was installed on the skidder. Data on fuel consumption (mL), position (traveling route), detection of winch work, engine rpm (min−1), engine torque (% of max), throttle position (%), and engine temperature were measured with a sampling frequency of 5 s. Furthermore, skidder load volumes per cycles and slopes of tractor paths were constantly measured. The paper shows the skidder’s energy consumption per day, work cycle, and individual work procedure with regard to the size of the load, the slope of the tractor path, and the direction of movement based on overlapping and merging all measurement data. Using mathematical and simulation models of the drive with defined operating cycles obtained by measurement, the possibilities of the hybrid drive and the dimensions of the elements of the hybrid drive (internal combustion engine, electric motor, batteries, control unit) were determined and are presented in this paper.

The incorporation of trees on traditional agricultural land has the potential for providing beneficial conditions for understory crops by altering the microclimate. Under these assumptions, we conducted a study on maize productivity intercropped in a 14-year-old walnut orchard by measuring growth and yield parameters, and water and nutrient uptake. Overall, we found that walnut trees decreased maximum air temperature and increased air humidity, especially during hot summer months characterized by precipitation deficit. A 30% reduction in maize yield per total area was a result of significantly reduced plant density, which could be a walnut-specific effect due to juglone excretion. Productivity per plant increased as shown by a significantly higher harvest index and 1000 kernel weight. No meaningful differences were found in terms of maize grain nutrient productivity, nutrient recovery, or nutrient use efficiency. On the systems level, we observed an advantage of the walnut-maize system compared to its respective monoculture systems—land and water equivalent ratios showed that for gaining the same yields as in intercropped system, walnut and maize grown separately would need 32% more land and 31% more water. Our study implies there are some beneficial outcomes to growing maize with trees, although further research should focus on investigating walnut as an option, due to its possible allelopathic effects.

International audience; The Internet of Health Things (IoHT) has emerged as an attractive networking paradigm in wireless communications, integrated devices and embedded system technologies. In the IoHT, real-time health data are collected through smart healthcare sensors and, in recent years, the IoHT has started to have an important role in the Internet of Things technology. Although the IoHT provides comfort in health monitoring, it also imposes security challenges in maintaining patient data confidentiality and privacy. To overcome such security issues, in this paper, a novel blockchain-based privacy-preserving authentication scheme is proposed as an approach for achieving efficient authentication of the patient without the involvement of a trusted entity. Moreover, a secure handover authentication mechanism that ensures avoiding the patient re-authentication in multi-doctor communication scenarios and revoking the possible malicious misbehavior of medical professionals in the IoHT communication with the patient is developed. The performance of the proposed authentication and handover scheme is analyzed concerning the existing state-of-the-art authentication schemes. The results of the performance analyses reveal that the proposed authentication scheme is resistant to different types of security attacks. Moreover, the results of analyses show that the proposed authentication scheme outperforms similar state-of-the-art authentication schemes in terms of having lower computational, communication and storage costs. Therefore, the novel authentication and handover scheme has proven practical applicability and represents a valuable contribution to improving the security of communication in IoHT networks.

Cilj ovoga istraživanja bio je istražiti varijabilnost populacija običnoga graba (Carpinus betulus L., Betulaceae) u Turskoj prema morfološkim obilježjima ovoja. Ukupno je uzorkovano 12 prirodnih populacija običnoga graba, smještenih u četiri različita sliva istočnog Crnog mora iz tri različite visinske zone do 1200 m n.v. Ovoji su ispitani biometrijski, analizom 13 morfoloških karakteristika. Provedenim istraživanjem utvrđena je velika varijabilnost morfoloških obilježja, a za sve proučavane karakteristike potvrđene su razlike na međupopulacijskoj i unutarpopulacijskoj razini. Nadalje, otkriveno je grupiranje populacija prema eko-geografskom načelu. Varijabilnost ovoja iz slivova Camlıhemşin, Çaykara i Trabzon-Maçka bila je povezana s promjenom nadmorske visine. Stabla na višim nadmorskim visinama karakterizirali su sitniji ovoji u odnosu na stabla na nižim nadmorskim visinama. Međutim, ovaj trend nije uočen na području regije Giresun-Espiye. Štoviše, stabla na tom području na nižim nadmorskim visinama imala su manje ovoje u odnosu na stabla s viših nadmorskih visina. Sveukupno, naši rezultati potvrđuju da je regija istočnog Crnog mora jedno od žarišta biološke raznolikosti te da je morfološka varijabilnost ovoja rezultat složenog evolucijskog procesa povezanog s prilagodbom i plastičnošću. The objective of this study was to investigate involucre morphological variability of common hornbeam (Carpinus betulus L., Betulaceae) populations in Turkey. In total, 12 natural populations of common hornbeam located in four different watersheds of the Eastern Black Sea Region were sampled from three different altitude zones up to 1200 m a.s.l. Involucres have been examined biometrically by analyzing 13 morphological characteristics. High phenotypic variability was determined both among and within the studied populations. Furthermore, grouping of populations according to the eco-geographic principle was revealed. Variation in most of involucre characteristics from the Camlıhemşin, Çaykara and Trabzon-Maçka watersheds appeared to be related mostly to altitude. The trees in the higher elevations were characterized with the smaller involucres than those in the lower elevations. However, this trend has not been observed in the populations from the Giresun-Espiye watershed. Moreover, trees from that region at lower altitude had the smallest involucres. Overall, our results confirm the Eastern Black see region as one of the hot spots of biodiversity and that the involucre morphological variability is the result of the complex evolutionary process related to the adaptation and plasticity.