1,721,120 research outputs found
Nexus analysis and life cycle assessment of regional water supply systems: A case study from Italy
Full text linkEnsuring reliable access to water sources is an emerging issue being currently addressed by governments and international communities. However, local conditions play a primary role in determining requirements for urban water supply systems and cascade implications due to simultaneous interlinkages with complementary resources such as energy. As such, addressing sustainability in water management comes through quantitative evaluation modelling and assessment. To this aim, nexus analysis and life cycle assessment methodologies are applied to the drinking water supply system in the Romagna region (Italy). Our research provides detailed characterization of the involved material and energy flows, which is used as a basis for determining water-for-energy and energy-for-water results, and to conduct environmental assessment for complementary impact categories by withdrawal, treatment, and distribution processes. The results show that the energy needed to produce drinking water ranges from 0.27 MJ to 2.53 MJ per cubic meter of water delivered. Water deriving from the artificial basin and treated following a conventional technology turned out to be both the less energy intensive and the less impacting process. Overall, the study provides an exhaustive comparison of the environmental impacts of different water production alternatives, which may ultimately support decision-makers and local communities to the planning of strategies for optimized and long-term reliable access to water resources
The “SQUIID claim”: A novel LCA-based indicator for food dishes
Full text linkMany studies aimed at estimating the environmental impacts associated with the food sector, but most of the existing developed indicators limited the problem only to the climate change, while it is well-known that the food sector may extend its influence on a wider spectrum of environmental categories. In this work, the Life Cycle Assessment was applied to a list of 1001 recipes for an Italian food canteen, prepared with more than 150 ingredients, with the purpose to develop a comprehensive environmental indicator (namely, SQUIID: Simplified Quantitative Impact Indicator for food Dishes). SQUIID includes in the evaluation the environmental categories showing a significant contribution (at least 86%) to the single score, i.e., global warming potential (GWP), particulate matter formation, land occupation, human non-carcinogenic toxicity and water consumption. The list of recipes was then analyzed under three perspectives: mass, GWP and SQUIID. The mass perspective indicates that the list of recipes contains a fairly balanced amount of ingredients, pointing out a remarkable diversification of the menu in the examined canteen. Concerning GWP and SQUIID spheres, meat-based and fish-based recipes resulted the main impacting ones (77% for the former and 73% for the latter), demonstrating to be the two classes mainly responsible for the environmental impacts observed, even if the vegetarian and vegan food dishes represent the 41% in mass. Meat-based dishes represent the 42% of the entire list of recipes in case of GWP, when adopting SQUIID, their overall contribution is reduced to the 35%. In fact, the main percentage of SQUIID is instead attributed to fish, raising from 31% (GWP) to 43%. Such variation demonstrated the relevance of the four additional selected categories for a final and comprehensive evaluation, proving that GWP-based indicators provide to the consumer only a partial representation of the environmental issue
Regional food consumption in Italy, a life cycle analysis
Full text linkUrbanization and globalization have led to an increasing concern and focus on the sustainability of the food sector, particularly in discussing the composition of consumers' diets. This study examines Italian consumption habits, categorizing them into four macro-geographical areas (North-West, North-East, Center, South, and Islands), utilizing public data obtained from surveys including 3323 individuals, and assesses their environmental impacts through the application of the Life Cycle Assessment methodology. The findings unveil distinct dietary patterns across Italian macro-regions, indicative of cultural disparities, and present avenues for promoting environmentally sustainable dietary choices. The study identifies meat consumption as the primary environmental concern across all macro-regions, with fish emerging as a secondary contributor to particulate matter formation. Pork and poultry exhibit notable impacts within toxicity-related categories. Additionally, the research underscores challenges in data collection, notably the absence of a site-specific Italian database, and underscores the necessity for more recent consumption data to accurately capture contemporary Italian dietary habits. Finally, the study demonstrates that addressing the issue from a macro-regional perspective allows for more targeted and dedicated cultural interventions
Spectral micro-CT for simultaneous gold and iodine detection, and multi-material identification
Full text linkMultiple energy bin spectral micro-CT (SμCT) is an advanced imaging technique that allows multi-material decomposition according to their specific absorption patterns at a sub-100 μm scale. Typically, iodine is the preferred CT contrast agent for cardiovascular imaging, while gold nanoparticles have gained attention in recent years owing to their high absorption properties, biocompatibility and ability to target tumors. In this work, we demonstrate the potential for multi-material decomposition through SμCT imaging of a test sample at the PEPI lab of INFN Trieste. The sample, consisting of gold, iodine, calcium, and water, was imaged using a Pixirad1/PixieIII chromatic detector with multiple energy thresholds and a wide spectrum (100 kV) produced by a micro-focus X-ray tube. The results demonstrate the simultaneous detection and separation of the four materials at a spatial scale of 35 μm, suggesting the potential of this technique in improving material detectability and quantification in a range of pre-clinical applications, including cardiovascular and oncologic imaging.
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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