396 research outputs found
Sostenibilità e bioenergia: un’applicazione del modello CO2FIX ai boschi della Lombardia
No full textResource Orchestration in Cross-Sector Partnerships for Systemic Change: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Food Assistance
Get PDFCross-sector partnerships (CSPs) can play a prominent role in tackling wicked sustainability problems. In particular, cities are critical venues for testing the potential of CSPs as agents of systemic change. However, the effectiveness of CSPs in orchestrating resources to drive systemic change in urban contexts is still not fully understood. We fill this gap through the longitudinal study of an action research case of a CSP offering urban food assistance. Our process model synthesizes how the resource orchestration activities put in place by the CSP spur phases of systemic change in the urban food system through different yet interrelated lifecycle stages of the initiative. Our results extend the literature on CSPs and systemic change showing the relationship between resource orchestration and the delivery of systemic change in urban contexts by CSPs, with significant implications for the design and management of CSPs dealing with wicked sustainability problems in cities
Green logistics practices in the food sector: a framework
No full textThere is an increased attention to environmental sustainability in the food industry, given the raising concerns about emissions it produces. Logistics is a key component in the carbon footprint of food products, with emissions from infrastructures and means of transport significantly impacting the environment. In response to this, novel distribution practices within the food supply chain have emerged, aimed at reducing the impact of the product in its whole life cycle. Despite this, existing literature lacks a comprehensive framework that systematically
summarises these evolving practices, with logistics often relegated to a peripheral role within broader green supply chain frameworks. This study aims to bridge this gap by developing a bespoke framework tailored specifically for sustainability practices in the logistics stage of food companies. The review of approximately 100 papers has produced useful insights. Firstly, theoretical lenses related to green supply chain management and systems theory are analysed to provide context. Secondly, empirical topics linked to green logistics practices used in the food industry are studied. Sustainability reports from various food companies have enriched the findings by integrating the framework with real-world implementations. The outcome is the compilation of a list of green practices classified in a novel taxonomy. The resultant framework classifies approximately 200 distinct practices, which span various categories, including network design, warehouse management, transport, packaging, reverse logistics, and offsetting strategies. Emphasis was placed on clarifying the role of Industry 4.0 technologies in enhancing logistics sustainability. The contribution of this study is both theoretical, as it fills the gap in the literature, and practical, as it gives managers actionable insights to facilitate their transition toward greener logistics practices. Future research could delve deeper into evaluating the effectiveness of these identified practices in terms of their tangible environmental impacts and in terms of their economic viability
Food Waste Causes in Fruit and Vegetables Supply Chains
Get PDFFruit and vegetables are a core component of healthy diets, but horticultural production and distribution activities suffer from a high incidence of surplus food and food waste. The intrinsic perishability of products as well recurring pests, diseases and contamination events are since long recognized to be primary reasons for fruit and vegetables wastage, but a more thorough knowledge of causes, including external events and internal strategies and practices, is necessary to design and implement waste reduction strategies. However, literature on waste causes in fruit and vegetables supply chains is rather fragmented. Most existing studies focus on single products, single deterioration mechanisms or single reuse or recycling choices, and hardly ever investigate more than one stage of the fruit and vegetables supply chain.
The main objective of the paper is to offer an instrument for identifying in a comprehensive way the possible origin points and root issues behind food waste generation in the stages of fruit and vegetables supply chains. The research is conducted through the application of two methods. A first phase consists in a deep literature review, whose results are summarized in the so-called Causes Framework. This qualitative instrument shows the possible sources of fruit and vegetables surplus and waste, highlighting for each supply chain stage the high-priority causes and for each cause the fundamental root issue. The second research phase is a case study that shows how the Framework can be applied to pinpoint the most significant causes for specific supply chains. The unit of analysis is the supply chain of an Italian PGI pear. Primary information is gathered from 6 enterprises through 7 semi-structured interviews. The most critical causes of surplus and waste generation in the focal supply chain are found as the intersection between interview answers and Framework predictions. The paper integrates sparse pieces of knowledge on the processes of food waste generation in fruit and vegetables supply chains, and offers an instrument that may support private and public decision-makers in the reduction of horticultural waste
Convenience in Funding Upgrading Works
No full textWith reference to upgrading actions on existing building stock, Construction Procurement Guidance, No.7 Whole Life Costs (Office of Government Commerce) states: ‘All procurement must be made solely on the basis of value for money in terms of the optimum combination of global costs and quality to meet the user’s requirements’. Cash-flow analyses allow showing the economic value of investments for alternative technological upgrading works extended all along their service lives. Optimisation of choices is not only a matter of cash-flow analyses—choices should not be made only according to the lowest costs but also considering several aspects that can be brought back to the concept of ‘technical-sustainable value’, which mainly derives from competent functional and environmental assessments of the reference analysis system. The mentioned interrelation should theoretically be adequately considered but this is seldom the case in the common building practice. Cost estimate for an engineered system has to entail much more detailed analyses on costs, energy, sustainability and technologies. Possible technological solutions would be convenient in terms of technological/technical utility, but less convenient in monetary terms for the funding subject. Under the economic point of view, cash outflow means less economic convenience in funding a given technology. All that stated above, nowadays effective data-display global cost-quality indicators are rarely available in literature. The present manuscript introduces to the reader fundamentals of an economic tool proposal designed by the author with the use of synthetically displaying interrelations between cash-flow scenarios and quality-sustainability in upgrading processes on existing buildings. Fundamentals have been tested on a reference case study. Then, fundamentals have been contextualized to the Italian Legislative framework: in Italy, in multi-owner existing residential buildings, expenditure allocation is carried out based on thousandths. The thousandth type to be considered is due to the configuration of the case under review and to balance-sheet expenditure to be allocated to owners. Property thousandths allocated to housing units have been used to allocate expenses for technological/energy upgrading works. The author has tried to find out the amount of a possible bank investment that a user might start at building Time ‘0’ to theoretically clear possible economic losses, trying to highlight technical utility of the technological solution that would be disadvantaged in economic terms. ‘Neutral’ mathematical finance formulas have been used to calculate the theoretical capital to be invested by an owner based on the reference cash-flow scenario. Conclusion will be drawn at the end of the manuscript
Recupero edilizio e nuova costruzione. Non solo risparmio energetico. Importanza della valutazione della fattibilità applicativa a monte della modellazione energetica
No full textThe expressions ‘low environmental impact’ and ‘energy efficiency’ mean much more than ‘compliance to regulation and technical specifications’ (89/106/ EEC, article 4).
Nowadays, solutions implemented in actions on buildings at least have to comply with regulatory values or parameters with reference to a specific time outlook. This is due to policies and guidelines issued at several levels, starting from the European one to get to the local one, promoting: for new buildings, reviews of design processes so as to create sustainable buildings providing for high-quality housing, for existing buildings, reviews on as-built assets so as to limit energy consumption.
Designers selecting potentially applicable ‘sustainable’ technologies should not only assess their profiles in terms of energy and performance which, of course, are essential.
Together with the abovementioned issues, in addition to convenience, critical points and viability constraints should be reasonably taken into account during the selection process.
For this purpose, some ideas are introduced in form of a journalistic discourse, which, according to the author, can be useful to those designers who have to select from different ranges of viable technological solutions, both based on traditional building practices and on new or emerging practices
The chain of confiscated caught fish : state-of-the-art analysis and opportunities for social redistribution in Italy
Get PDFLAUREA MAGISTRALEQuesto studio è nato dalla necessità di approfondire e analizzare un fenomeno che l’Italia sta affrontando da diversi anni: la confisca dei prodotti ittici. Banco Alimentare Onlus, un’organizzazione impegnata nel recupero e nella ridistribuzione delle eccedenze alimentari per le persone più bisognose in tutte le regioni italiane, è stata contattata negli ultimi anni per intervenire nel ricovero di grandi quantità di prodotto ittico, oggetto di misure di confisca da parte delle Autorità Competenti.
Lo scopo di questa tesi è di avere una prima fotografia di cosa sta avvenendo in Italia, di analizzare il processo della confisca e di costruire possibili catene del recupero, considerando le principali barriere e opportunità incontrate e le implicazioni di carattere operativo maggiormente presenti nel processo di recupero.
Negli anni, diversi autori hanno analizzato il fenomeno dello spreco alimentare e della ridistribuzione delle eccedenze alimentari, tuttavia ci sono ancora pochi studi riguardo al recupero dei prodotti ittici, e di conseguenza sul recupero dei prodotti ittici confiscati. Pertanto, dopo una prima revisione della letteratura su questi temi e un’analisi dei principali Regolamenti e delle Direttive sui diversi argomenti, sono state identificate delle lacune e formulate le domande di ricerca. Sono state poi svolte interviste per ricercare informazioni qualitative e quantitative sul fenomeno dei prodotti ittici confiscati.
Il contributo di questo studio è la creazione di un quadro generale che descrive le variabili da considerare e i diversi processi e scenari che possono realizzarsi nel recupero e la ridistribuzione dei prodotti ittici confiscati, i quali possono essere generalizzati e applicati ad altri contesti geografici dell’Unione Europea.This study was born by the necessity to understand and analyse a phenomenon that Italy has been facing for years: the confiscation of fish products. Banco Alimentare Onlus, a non-profit organization engaged in surplus food recovery and redistribution for people in need in all the Italian regions, has been called in recent years to intervene in the recovery of huge quantities of fish products, which have been object of confiscation measures by the Competent Authorities.
The purpose of this thesis is to have a first photography of what happens in Italy, to analyse the confiscation process and to build possible recovery chains, considering the main barriers and opportunities faced and the main operational implications present in the recovery process.
Over time, many authors analysed the phenomenon of food waste and surplus food redistribution, however there are still very few studies about the recovery of fish products, and consequently on the recovery of confiscated fish products. Therefore, after a first literature review about these themes and the analysis of the main European and National Regulations and Directives on the topic, gaps are identified and research questions are formulated. Interviews are made to find out qualitative and quantitative information about the phenomenon of the confiscation of fish products.
The contribution of this study is the creation of a general framework which describes the variables to consider and the different processes and scenarios that can occur in the recovery and redistribution of confiscated fish, which can be generalized and applied to other geographical contexts within the European Union
Mitogenomes from Two Uncommon Haplogroups Mark Late Glacial/Postglacial Expansions from the Near East and Neolithic Dispersals within Europe
No full textThe current human mitochondrial (mtDNA) phylogeny does not equally represent all human populations but is biased in favour of representatives originally from north and central Europe. This especially affects the phylogeny of some uncommon West Eurasian haplogroups, including I and W, whose southern European and Near Eastern components are very poorly represented, suggesting that extensive hidden phylogenetic substructure remains to be uncovered. This study expanded and re-analysed the available datasets of I and W complete mtDNA genomes, reaching a comprehensive 419 mitogenomes, and searched for precise correlations between the ages and geographical distributions of their numerous newly identified subclades with events of human dispersal which contributed to the genetic formation of modern Europeans. Our results showed that haplogroups I (within N1a1b) and W originated in the Near East during the Last Glacial Maximum or pre-warming period (the period of gradual warming between the end of the LGM, ~19 ky ago, and the beginning of the first main warming phase, ~15 ky ago) and, like the much more common haplogroups J and T, may have been involved in Late Glacial expansions starting from the Near East. Thus our data contribute to a better definition of the Late and postglacial re-peopling of Europe, providing further evidence for the scenario that major population expansions started after the Last Glacial Maximum but before Neolithic times, but also evidencing traces of diffusion events in several I and W subclades dating to the European Neolithic and restricted to Europe
Io sono confine / I am border
No full textLa mostra Io sono confine / I am border muove dalla ricerca di Antonino Milotta, dottorando in Scienze Sociali presso l’Università degli Studi di Genova con un progetto volto a individuare metodologie e pratiche artistiche che indagano il fenomeno della migrazione. La mostra è a cura di Pierre Dupont (Giulia De Giorgi, Michela Murialdo, Roberta Perego) con Anna Daneri
THINK TO GRASP: Development of a Motor-imagery controlled neuroprosthesis to promote re-learning of grasping: a feasibility study on healthy subjects
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