The global agri-food system plays a critical role in food security and environmental issues. Increasing globalization has resulted in a complex international food system where production and... Show moreThe global agri-food system plays a critical role in food security and environmental issues. Increasing globalization has resulted in a complex international food system where production and consumption along the international supply chain can incorporate many geographically distinct regions. This interconnection means that it is difficult for any single producer or consumer to address these impacts. This thesis represents a step towards mapping the global food system from producers to consumers and offers several policy-relevant insights, especially in the national accounting of environmental footprints. Given that many drivers occur locally, but are traded globally, and that inter-regional differences in consumption are increasingly important, it is a natural next step to find approaches that can connect local impacts (production side) with global consumption (consumption side) through trade.Global spatially explicit multi-regional input-output (SMRIO) analyses can help identify hotspots of local production and associated social and environmental impacts driven by global consumption. In this thesis, I assess the use of SMRIO in the past and build a SMRIO model in three different case studies to assess its use. I use SMRIO models to investigate three critical issues (i.e. food security, biodiversity loss, and climate change) in the agri-food system.These sorts of assessments can help provide insights into how we might avoid catastrophic environmental problems in a globalized world. However, any of the benefits highlighted in these studies will require significant international action and collaboration. They will have to be sensitive to local conditions and the economic ramifications of rapid food transitions. Show less
This thesis is concerned with the constitution of chiral responsive matrix assemblies that may undergo light-driven conformational changes and self-select vibrations to develop vibronic states for... Show moreThis thesis is concerned with the constitution of chiral responsive matrix assemblies that may undergo light-driven conformational changes and self-select vibrations to develop vibronic states for driving semi-classical coherent transfer with nearly 100% yield in a lossless NCAP process. In this work, a truncated CsmA derived from the CsmA protein from the baseplate of the Chlorobaculum tepidum has been used to engineer a chiral matrix around a zinc protoporphyrin IX (ZnPP) chromophore (Chapter 2). After the study of the specific structure of tCsmA-ZnPP complex, the mechanism of self-assembly was resolved (Chapter 3 and Chapter 4). Expression and purification of tCsmA in E.coli was explored to pave the way for other methods, such as NMR (Chapter 5). Show less
