Agritourism is a complex activity, a chance maybe today to ensure both human health and the “health” of the environment and rural settlements in order to achieve a most wanted desideratum, the sustainability of the rural environment. The idea of this paper starts from the trend of the current period, meaning the strong emphasis on natural, organic, bio, in all human activities, health and environment, in a word, sustainability. The necessity of implementing the sustainability of activities, health and environment in rural areas, taking into account the agritourism field, was a subject pursued in the study, taking as area of study the mountainous rural environment, the reason of this choice deriving from the fact that the mountain area offers great opportunities for agritourism development, the practice of which is even necessary in the current period. The sustainability of agritourism on rural health and environment cannot be dissociated from the economic, social and cultural life of the community in which it manifests itself, and has a multiplier effect on all the domains with which it interacts. So the purpose of the paper is to follow the development of the agritourism field and, based on some present information, to make a future forecast for some specific indicators, to highlight the representative aspects related to the development and capitalization of guesthouses from a rural mountain environment through agritourism and to come up with a forecast for future transformations that need to take place in the studied area in order to support the sustainable development of the human environment through agritourism.
Sustainability has become a priority in the last decades. If we consider rural regions, agritourism, an activity strongly related to local communities, represents an opportunity to ensure the sustainability of rural settlements and of the environment, and at the same time an innovative and diversifying possibility for the economic support of rural settlements. Many studies have shown that the sustainability trend of the current period can be achieved by combining rural and local resources and traditional products specific to the rural regions with tourist activities, the challenge being the revitalization of rural economy. A large number of Romanian mountain rural regions can provide opportunities for sustaining agritourism activity; some of them may succeed to capitalize on the niche characteristic of agritourism, and through appropriate and effective strategies to move from the pioneering stage to an economically and socially valuable chance for improving the living conditions from rural area and finally to ensure sustainable development of rural communities. This paper begins from the importance of agritourism for rural regions. It aims at identifying the current situation of the agritourism activity in three regions and at developing proposals that are based strictly on the specific needs of the regions. In our opinion, the implementation of these specific actions would represent future challenges and at the same time ways of supporting the sustainable development of agritourism activities and of local settlements.
Amino-acids, peptides, and protein hydrolysates, together with their coordinating compounds, have various applications as fertilizers, nutritional supplements, additives, fillers, or active principles to produce hydrogels with therapeutic properties. Hydrogel-based patches can be adapted for drug, protein, or peptide delivery, and tissue healing and regeneration. These materials have the advantage of copying the contour of the wound surface, ensuring oxygenation, hydration, and at the same time protecting the surface from bacterial invasion. The aim of this paper is to describe the production of a new type of hydrogel based on whey protein isolates (WPI), whey protein hydrolysates (WPH), and gelatin. The hydrogels were obtained by utilizing a microwave-assisted method using gelatin, glycerol, WPI or WPH, copper sulfate, and water. WPH was obtained by enzymatic hydrolysis of whey protein isolates in the presence of bromelain. The hydrogel films obtained have been characterized by FT-IR and UV-VIS spectroscopy. The swelling degree and swelling kinetics have also been determined.
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