1,720,961 research outputs found
LCA for territorial metabolism analysis: An application to organic waste management planning
Full text linkThe management of biodegradable waste in landfills is associated to a range environmental impacts and refers to a linear model regarded as unsustainable. At the same time, many agricultural and urban soils present low organic matter content. Composting is emerging as a good practice for converting organic waste into a new resource able to improve soil properties, thus providing regulation Ecosystem Services. Considering a territorial metabolism perspective, this work discusses the potential contribution to regional planning of a transferable methodology for quantifying environmental impacts and benefits associated to waste management, based on a combined use of Life Cycle Assessment and Geographic Information Systems, and considering Ecosystem Services deriving from the application of compost in agricultural soils. The approach was tested through a site-dependent analysis based on primary data, referring to year 2019 and focusing on the Veneto Region, Italy. Results indicate that direct benefits associated to the use of compost and the thermal energy to district heating are compensating from 29 % to 51 % of the impacts associated to compost production, while waste transports represent the largest share of the impacts, covering between 52 % and 78 % of the total flows considered. The proposed methodology is applied for comparing the reference condition to alternative scenarios, in the perspective of providing support in Strategic Environmental Assessment procedures. In this context, results shown markedly lower impacts associated to compost production, with respect to organic waste treatment, for 5 out of 6 of the considered categories (freshwater eutrophication 100:1, climate change 5:1), with the notable exception of water resource depletion. Scenarios produced are discussed with respect to the choice between centralized and non-centralized plants, and the characterization of potential benefits at the territorial scale associated to compost use for urban green infrastructures. With respect to this latter point, results showed an underdeveloped use of compost-related ES flow, compared to its capacity, suggesting an interest for further research aimed at estimating compost requirements by urban and peri-urban soils
Key Quality Criteria in an Integrated Multiple Transport Systems Scenario: A Systematic Literature Review
No full textHow to Promote and Implement Mobility as a Service? An Italian Survey to Learn About the Propensity of Users
Full text linkTo discourage private vehicle use and promote multimodality, Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) has been developed in recent years. The idea is to combine different types of transportation, including active transportation, on-demand cab services, shared vehicles, and emerging micromobility technologies (such as e-bikes and electric scooters), with well-known modes of public transport, such as rail, tram, bus, and ferry. In this way, users can plan and book their trips using a single platform and user account. This study aims to investigate the needs and desires of travelers from a real perspective of Integrated Mobility as a Service. To achieve this goal, a survey was performed in the Italian context to understand the profiles and needs of potential MaaS users. The structure of the survey includes 33 questions divided into seven sections: i) Introduction and Language, ii) Daily Travel and Transportation, iii) MaaS and Sharing Mobility, iv) Travel Behavior and Technology, v) MaaS Platform, vi) MaaS Platform Travel Functions, and vii) Socio-demographic Information. A total of 301 responses were collected. Analysis of the results allows us to: i) understand whether there is a correlation between user profiling and the daily transportation mode chosen by travelers, ii) identify representative clusters that include the characteristics of travelers that are most closely related to transportation modal choice. Three clusters of users were identified by considering the following criteria: a) occupation, b) residence, and c) reason for travel. Finally, iii) the interest in MaaS was evaluated. The results can be used to implement representative mobility scenarios that reflect user needs and provide valuable insights for designing MaaS products in different spatial areas
Abaco per la transizione climatica : primo catalogo per pianificare l’adattamento nell’Alto Adriatico
Full text linkLa temperatura del Pianeta sta aumentando a una velocità senza precedenti a causa delle attività antropiche. Nonostante i progressi in campo scientifico e previsionale, permane un forte divario tra le azioni che sarebbero necessarie e quelle effettivamente intraprese al fine di scongiurare i peggiori rischi derivanti dagli impatti dei
cambiamenti climatici.
Anche nell’Alto Adriatico la strada per rispondere a questa necessità è quella di guidare la transizione climatica con la consapevolezza che chi si impegnerà prima avrà meno probabilità di essere travolto dagli eventi che – comunque – si verificheranno e avrà la possibilità di tutelare l’enorme patrimonio culturale, storico, abitativo e produttivo che caratterizza – con grandi sfaccettature e diversità – questa parte di Adriatico.
Questo Abaco per la transizione climatica è stato pensato per sostenere il necessario e improcrastinabile mutamento sostanziale dei processi di Governo del Territorio a tutti i livelli decisionali dell’Alto Adriatico, con il fine ultimo di aumentare la resilienza delle città e delle coste di questa splendida parte di mare Adriatico: dal Parco del Delta del Po a Venezia, da Spalato a Trieste
Pathways to active mobility planning
No full textReducing some of the impacts generated by transport activities - such as congestion, crashes, noise, and air pollution - by redirecting some demand shares towards active modes of transport should be a priority for the environmental and social well-being of modern cities. This paper aims at proposing and evaluating a simple and transferable strategy to achieve a modal shift towards active modes in urban centers, thus reducing externalities produced by the transport sector. The proposed model, based on an efficient combination of policies to sustain transition to active modes, is discussed and evaluated through a cost-benefit analysis for three different scenarios of modal split variation. In this regard, the Scottish city of Aberdeen is used as a case stud
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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