100,365 research outputs found
Certificazione energetico-ambientale: l’esperienza del Progetto LIFE Sun & Wind sulle tipologie edilizie mediterranee
No full textLetter, [Author unclear] to Paulina T. Merritt
No full textHandwritten letter to Paulina Merritt from an unknown author, October 1, 1876.
LA LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT APPLICATA AL SETTORE AGROALIMENTARE: IL CASO STUDIO DI TRE PRODOTTI SICILIANI
No full textEco-design of solar driven systems: a performance comparison between the Italian and the Brazilian context
No full textThe paper shows a comparative analysis of the performances of two typologies of solar assisted cooling systems for building applications. In particular, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is applied to assess the energy and environmental impacts of solar-assisted, heat-driven chillers and conventional compression chillers driven by grid-connected and stand-alone photovoltaic configurations.
LCA is applied in compliance with the international standards of ISO 14040. System boundaries are defined following a “cradle to grave” approach, taking into account all the life-cycle phases including the raw materials supply, the production of the components of the plant, the operation and maintenance, and the end-of-life.
The operation step of the assessed systems is simulated with TRNSYS models. Two reference buildings are modeled for two different sites, Palermo (Italy) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), according to local practices and regulations. The building models are normalized to have the same peak cooling demand (12 kW).
The results show that the assessed energy and environmental performances of the grid-connected systems are usually better than the others for both climates, while the manufacturing process of storages in the stand-alone configurations does not allow these solutions to be competitive yet. Furthermore, the impact of the high average national electricity conversion efficiency in Brazil on the results is analyzed and discussed
Life Cycle Environmental Impacts and Health Effects of Protein-Rich Food as Meat Alternatives: A Review
No full textThe food sector is responsible for a considerable impact on the environment in most environmental contexts: the food supply chain causes greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, reduction in cultivable land, and other environmental impacts. Thus, a change in food supply is required to reduce the environmental impacts caused by the food supply chain and to meet the increasing demand for sufficient and qualitative nutrition. Large herds of livestock are inappropriate to achieve these goals due to the relevant impact of meat supply chain on the environment, e.g., the land used to grow feed for animals is eight times more than that for human nutrition. The search for meat alternatives, especially for the intake of critical nutrients such as protein, is a consequent step. In the above context, this paper summarizes the health aspects of protein-rich food alternatives to meat and carries out a literature review on the life-cycle environmental impacts of this alternative food
Dysregulation of anti-viral function of CD8+T cells in the COPD lung: role of the PD1/PDL1 axis
No full textRationale: COPD patients are susceptible to respiratory viral infections which cause exacerbations. Mechanisms underlying susceptibility are not understood. Effectors of the adaptive immune response; CD8+ T cells which clear viral infections, are present in increased numbers in lungs of COPD patients but fail to protect against infection and may contribute to the immunopathology of the disease. Objectives: CD8+ function and signalling through the Programmed Cell Death (PD-1) exhaustion pathway was investigated as a potential key mechanism of viral exacerbation of the COPD lung. Methods: Tissue from control or COPD patients undergoing lung resection was infected with live influenza virus ex vivo. Viral infection and expression of lung cell markers was analysed using flow cytometry. Measurements and Main Results: The proportion of lung CD8+ T cells expressing PD-1 was greater in COPD(mean=16.2%) than controls(4.4%, p=0.029). Only epithelial cells and macrophages were infected with influenza and there was no difference in the proportion of infected cells between controls and COPD. Infection upregulated T cell PD-1 expression in control and COPD samples. Concurrently, influenza significantly upregulated the marker of cytotoxic degranulation (CD107a) on CD8+ T cells(p=0.03) from controls, but not from COPD patients. Virus-induced expression of the ligand PD-L1 was decreased on COPD macrophages(p=0.04) with a corresponding increase in IFN? release from infected COPD explants compared to controls(p=0.04). Conclusions: This study has established a signal of cytotoxic immune dysfunction and aberrant immune regulation in the COPD lung that may explain both the susceptibility to viral infection and the excessive, inflammation associated with exacerbations
Integrated hybrid multi-regional input-output for assessing life cycle air emissions of the Italian power system
No full textThe air emissions of the Italian power system, as well as national emissions between 2010 and 2017 and projections to 2040, have been assessed from a lifecycle perspective, using an integrated hybrid two-region input-output model of Italy versus the rest of the world. The Italian economy is divided into 42 sectors, including electricity, which is further disaggregated into seven technologies. Detailed electricity sector data, from Istat, are fed into the EXIOBASE input-output database. NAMEA tables represent overall air emissions, while the Ecoinvent database is used for the electricity sector. Electricity transition scenarios from Terna and Snam have been integrated into input-output and air emission databases. Demand and emissions were tracked within the electricity sector over medium-term, and the findings showed a sharp decrease between 2017 and 2025, from 97.5 MtCO2 to 32.6 MtCO2. By 2040, air emissions from the electricity sector are expected to grow gradually, compared to those of 2030, from 22.2 MtCO2 to 25.9 MtCO2, suggesting that the demand between 2030 and 2040 grows faster than the decarbonization effort during the same period. There is an overall, gradual downtrend between 2010 and 2040, with all air emission categories declining by half from both production and consumption-based perspectives in this period
Handwritten biographical information on Paulina T. McClung Merritt
No full textA handwritten biography of Paulina T. McClung Merritt by an unknown author, 1892.
Heterogeneous and tissue-specific regulation of effector T cell responses by IFN-gamma during Plasmodium berghei ANKA infection.
No full textIFN-γ and T cells are both required for the development of experimental cerebral malaria during Plasmodium berghei ANKA infection. Surprisingly, however, the role of IFN-γ in shaping the effector CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cell response during this infection has not been examined in detail. To address this, we have compared the effector T cell responses in wild-type and IFN-γ(-/-) mice during P. berghei ANKA infection. The expansion of splenic CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells during P. berghei ANKA infection was unaffected by the absence of IFN-γ, but the contraction phase of the T cell response was significantly attenuated. Splenic T cell activation and effector function were essentially normal in IFN-γ(-/-) mice; however, the migration to, and accumulation of, effector CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells in the lung, liver, and brain was altered in IFN-γ(-/-) mice. Interestingly, activation and accumulation of T cells in various nonlymphoid organs was differently affected by lack of IFN-γ, suggesting that IFN-γ influences T cell effector function to varying levels in different anatomical locations. Importantly, control of splenic T cell numbers during P. berghei ANKA infection depended on active IFN-γ-dependent environmental signals--leading to T cell apoptosis--rather than upon intrinsic alterations in T cell programming. To our knowledge, this is the first study to fully investigate the role of IFN-γ in modulating T cell function during P. berghei ANKA infection and reveals that IFN-γ is required for efficient contraction of the pool of activated T cells
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe 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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