Roland W. Scholz

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Scholz

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Roland W.

ORCID

0000-0003-2506-3254

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Publications 1 - 10 of 18

The Future of Phosphoric Acid Production –Why We Have to Leave Trodden Paths
Bertau, Martin; Wellmer, Friedrich-W.; Scholz, Roland W.; et al. (2025)
ChemSusChem
This paper examines the need for innovation in phosphorus fertilizer production. An important area requiring action is the use of sulfuric acid in the wet chemical process (WCP), which is the dominant process in phosphate fertilizer production. About 50 % of the sulfuric acid produced worldwide is used for fertilizers, and similar to 95 % of the world's fertilizers are based on sulfuric acid. The latter is almost exclusively a by-product of gas and oil production, so the production of conventional P fertilizer is largely dependent on the availability of oil and gas. In addition to rendering P fertilizer production independent of fossil raw materials, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, phosphogypsum production and water consumption should also be considered. With the example of the PARFORCE process and the Improved Hard Process (IHP), new non-sulfuric acid-based alternatives are discussed with respect to overcoming the drawbacks of the classical WCP by being completely independent of fossil sources, working with renewable energies as the sole energy source, and the option of using seawater instead of fresh water. These new processes adhere to the principles of climate neutrality, zero waste production, low CO2 footprint, water conservation, renewable energy use, and energy and resource efficiency. This demonstrates what sustainable innovation can look like from a production perspective. The discussion will focus on whether current incentives are sufficient to realize the sustainability innovations discussed.
Autoactivation of Transforming Growth Factor β-activated Kinase 1 Is a Sequential Bimolecular Process
Scholz, Roland W.; Sidler, Corinne L.; Thali, Ramon F.; et al. (2010)
Journal of Biological Chemistry
Transforming growth factor-β-activated kinase 1 (TAK1), an MAP3K, is a key player in processing a multitude of inflammatory stimuli. TAK1 autoactivation involves the interplay with TAK1-binding proteins (TAB), e.g. TBL1 and TBL2, and phosphorylation of several activation segment residues. However, the TAK1 autoactivation is not yet fully understood on the molecular level due to the static nature of available x-ray structural data and the complexity of cellular systems applied for investigation. Here, we established a bacterial expression system to generate recombinant mammalian TAK1 complexes. Co-expression of TAK1 and TBL1, but not TBL2, resulted in a functional and active TAK1-TBL1 complex capable of directly activating full-length heterotrimeric mammalian AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in vitro. TAK1-dependent AMPK activation was mediated via hydrophobic residues of the AMPK kinase domain αG-helix as observed in vitro and in transfected cell culture. Co-immunoprecipitation of differently epitope-tagged TAK1 from transfected cells and mutation of hydrophobic αG-helix residues in TAK1 point to an intermolecular mechanism of TBL1-induced TAK1 autoactivation, as TAK1 autophosphorylation of the activation segment was impaired in these mutants. TBL1 phosphorylation was enhanced in a subset of these mutants, indicating a critical role of αG-helix residues in this process. Analyses of phosphorylation site mutants of the activation segment indicate that autophosphorylation of Ser-192 precedes TBL1 phosphorylation and is followed by sequential phosphorylation of Thr-178, Thr-187, and finally Thr-184. Finally, we present a model for the chronological order of events governing TBL1-induced TAK1 autoactivation.
Transition process towards improved regional wood flow by integrating material flux analysis and agent analysis: The case of Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Switzerland
Binder, Claudia R.; Hofer, Christoph; Wiek, Arnim; et al. (2003)
UNS-Working Paper
This paper discusses the integration of material flux analysis and agent analysis as a pre requisite for a transition process towards improved regional wood management in Appenzell Ausserrhoden (AR), a small Swiss canton (i.e., state) with 93 square miles located in the Pre-Alps of Switzerland. We present a wood-flow analysis for forests, wood processing industries and consumption in AR, accounting for different wooden goods. We find, that the forest is currently significantly underutilized despite of considerable imports of wood and energy to this small region. The wood resources, however, would be sufficient to satisfy the total current wood de mand of the population in AR. These wood resources are not being utilized for two main rea sons: first, wood prices are so low that harvesting trees is a deficit; second, consumer wood demand (mostly hard wood) and the current supply by forest owners (mostly softwood) are not aligned to each other. In addition, cultural values and traditions such as organizational struc ture of forest owners, where each owner has a small piece of forest at 1.2 ha and lifestyle trends of consumers and construction industries make an alignment of demand and supply not an easy step to take. Consensus and strategy building on the basis of the obtained results of the wood flow analysis and agent analysis is a reasonable next step to take. We conclude that wood flow analysis combined with agent analysis is a useful and straightforward tool for en suring a successful transition process towards improved regional wood flows.
Risk perception of heavy metal soil contamination by high-exposed and low-exposed inhabitants
Grasmück, Dirk; Scholz, Roland W. (2003)
UNS-Working Paper
Soil contaminated with heavy metals is a salient example of environmental risk. Con suming vegetables cultivated on contaminated soil or direct ingestion of soil by small children can cause health damage. In contrast to other kinds of pollution or risks such as air pollution or exposure to ozone, the individual risk concerning soil contamination is highly dependent on the way one is exposed to the local source of risk. An experimental study was conducted in the community of Dornach in the North West of Switzerland. The main contaminant posing a threat to human health is cadmium. The level of contamination varies mostly in dependency on the distance to the source of the contamination, i.e., a metal factory. A quasi-experimental and questionnaire-based study investigated the perception of risk of heavy metal contaminated soil by high-exposed (N = 27) and low-exposed (N = 30) people living in Dornach. Both groups judge the risk for oneself similarly whereas low-exposed people perceive the risk for other peo ple living in Dornach higher than the high-exposed group. Besides this exposure effect, risk perception is mainly determined by emotional concerns. The extent of the knowledge about the risk had no influence, but the self-estimated knowledge did. On the other hand, judgments on the need for decontamination are determined by the risk perception, less application of the dissonance heuristics, and commitment to sustainability. The desire for additional information is not affected by missing knowledge but is affected by emotional concern.
Future Urban Sustainable Mobility: Using ‘Area Develop ment Negotiations’ for Scenario Assessment and for Assisting the Democratic Policy Proces
Loukopoulos, Peter; Scholz, Roland W. (2003)
UNS-Working Paper
An examination of how land-use planning, conceptualised as a long-range travel demand management (TDM) measure, can proceed while simultaneously emphasising sustainability in transport objectives is presented. Given the time scale of such a TDM measure it is vital that citizen preferences are assessed. The Area Development Negotiation method for obtaining such preferences within a case study framework is detailed. The method permits evaluations by various interest groups of future urban mobility scenarios, which have been developed among scientists and case agents, using multiattribute utility analyses. In order to illustrate the method key results from a Swedish case study are presented demonstrating that all interest groups with the exception of business representatives had an awareness of the importance of environmental factors and that these factors were given greater weight than economic factors. Discussion focuses upon issues relevant to policy analysis and the democratic process such as how the method can support the policy process and the potential for meaningfully engaging the citizen in the democratic policy process.
Wirtschaftliche und organisationale Entscheidungen
Scholz, Roland W.; Mieg, Harald A.; Weber, Olaf (2003)
UNS-Working Paper
In diesem Papier werden praxisrelevante Grundlagen der Entscheidungsforschung darge stellt. Betrachtet werden individuelle Entscheidungen sowie Entscheidungen in Gruppen und Organisationen. Hierbei spielen unterschiedliche Typen von Entscheidungssituationen und Strategien zum Umgang mit diesen Situationen eine große Rolle. Nach der Erklärung verschie dener entscheidungstheoretischer Konzepte wird auf Heuristiken eingegangen, welche zu sub optimalen Entscheidungen führen können. Das Papier enthält Aussagen zur Optimierung von Entscheidungsvorbereitung sowie zur Vermeidung schlechter Entscheidungen.
Effektivität, Effizienz und Verhältnismässigkeit als Kriterien der Altlastenbearbeitung
Scholz, Roland W.; Scholz, Roland W. (1996)
UNS-Working Paper
Die Begriffe Effektivität, Effizienz und Verhältnismässigkeit werden definiert. Es wird zwi schen Verhältnismässigkeit im engeren Sinne (ieS) und Verhältnismässigkeit im weiteren Sinne (iwS) unterschieden. Der Wert dieser Begriffe für den Vollzug, insbesondere für dessen Transpa renz und Rechtssicherheit wird aufgezeigt. Aus den unterschiedlichen Raum-Zeit-Bezügen der Altlastenbearbeitung der beteiligten Akteure ergeben sich unterschiedliche Effektivitäts- bzw. Wirksamkeitsbetrachtungen. Es wird plädiert, zunächst für alle Akteure die Wirkung (d.h. den Effekt) einer Altlastensanierung aufzuzeigen und eine akteursbezogene Effizienzoptimierung vorzunehmen. Danach ist im Sinne der Verhältnismässigkeit (ieS) ein güter- bzw. interessenbe zogener Abwägungsprozess vorzunehmen. Das Amt hat in diesem Prozess zwei Funktionen: a) es muss das langfristige gesellschaftliche Interesse (im Sinne einer kantonalen Nachhal tigkeit) vertreten, b) es muss im Sinne der Verhältnismässigkeit (ieS) einzelfallbezogen die Abwä gung zwischen den Interessen vornehmen. Dem Dialog zwischen den Akteuren kommt als be gleitender Prozess eine grosse Bedeutung zu.
Does Good Environmental Performance reduce Credit Risk? – Empirical Evidence from Europe’s Banking Sector
Fenchel, Marcus; Scholz, Roland W.; Weber, Olaf (2003)
UNS-Working Paper
About 15 years ago, banks started to integrate Environmental Risks (ER) in their credit risk valuation procedures in an explicit way. However, it is still unclear if this strategy pays back from a credit management point of view. We present a survey in the European banking sector. We ran the survey in 2002 and it encompasses questionnaires from 50 banks. The inquiry fo cused on the analysis of the integration of ER in all phases of the credit risk management proc ess. Thus the study goes beyond prior research that focused almost exclusively on the rating phase and ignored the other phases of costing, pricing, monitoring and work out. We compared banks that are proactive in terms of the management of ER with banks that consider ER as an issue of low importance to their business. The results of our study show that making use of the environmental performance of borrowers as an indicator for credit risk is beneficial, as it (i) re duces the workload in the work out phase, caused by bad credits and (ii) accomplishes the cost benefit condition.
The paradigm of human-environment systems
Scholz, Roland W.; Binder, Claudia R. (2003)
UNS-Working Paper
Human-environment systems (HES) are all environmental and technological systems that are relevant for or affected by humans. This paper presents a process structure model (PSM) to investigate regulatory, feedback, and control mechanisms (RFC-mechanisms) in HES. The model separates human and environmental systems. The interaction between both sys tems is given by the environmental awareness of humans and the short- and long-term envi ronmental impacts and feedback loops of human action. Human decision-making is considered a key factor in this model, as humans can regulate and control the type of interaction within HES. The model distinguishes between goal formation, strategy building, strategy evaluation, action, and evaluation/learning. The environmental system reacts and gives feedback to hu man action, allowing for humans to learn and adapt their behavior. Evaluation/learning is based on the feedbacks of the environmental system to human action. We distinguish various types of environmental awareness and learning, which differ with respect to time and spatial ranges (primary and secondary feedback loops). Human systems are conceptualized on a multi level hierarchy including cell, organ, individual, group, organization, and society a systems. Each level differs in its regulatory and control options regarding HES, as well as in the perceived envi ronmental feedback. We illustrate the model with an example from environmental hygiene
Expert views on sustainability and technology implementation
Laws, David; Scholz, Roland W.; Shiroyama, Hideaki; et al. (2002)
UNS-Working Paper
Twenty-one senior faculty members and researchers were interviewed about their con ception of sustainability and their understanding of implementation in projects linked to the Alliance of Global Sustainability, a joint project of MIT (Boston), ETH (Zurich and Lausanne), UT (Tokyo), and Chalmers (Gothenburg). We identified five complementary views on sustainability, i.e. i) science is sustainable per se, ii) sustainability is an ethical relationship with the past and future, iii) sustainability is the maintenance of a system within functional limits, iv) eco-efficiency, v) sustainability is a form of ongoing inquiry. In total, the conception of ethical relationship was the most dominant concep tion whereas science per se and eco-efficiency were less used. Researchers with a natural science background raised more aspects of sustainability and more emphasized limit management Eco efficiency is important for professors with a social science but not for those with a natural sci ence background. Most of the researchers regarded implementation as the process whereby their work comes into contact with social groups and processes and where concerns about taking action and social technology change became prominent. The interviewed researchers considered suc cessful implementation to be linked to value change, efficient information policy, institutional action but not regulations and supposed technology implementation to creates new alloca tions, i.e. winners and losers. The relationship between knowledge and action is considered central in views on imple mentation. Three different conceptions and habits could be identified with respect to this rela tionship, i.e. a) action: I act to change the world; b) interaction, I exchange information with my environment through my actions, c) transaction or mutual learning. I change as a result of my effort to bring about change in the word. The concept of sustainability has a surprisingly long tradition and is a child of the 17th cen tury crises in forest overuse due to shipping construction and mining. The concept goes back to the Saxonian Oberberghauptmann von Carlowitz, a “principal captain” in the Saxonian silver mining business In his volume Sylviculturum Oeconomica. Die Naturmäßige Anweisung zur Wilden Baum-Zucht (Leipzig 1713, [engl. Nature based guidelines for breeding of the wild tree.]), he was concerned about “wie eine sothane Conservation und Anbau des Holtzes anzustellen, daß es eine continuirliche, beständige und nachhaltige Nutzung gebe.” [ engl., “how to accomplish conservation and growing of wood that a continuous, steady, and sustainable can become possi ble.”] In this quote the technical term [engl. sustainable was firstly defined (DIE ZEIT, Nov. 25th, 1999, No. 48, p. 98).

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Roland W. Scholz

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