1,721,047 research outputs found
The International multimodal transport of hazardous goods and waste
No full textThe international multimodal transport of hazardous goods and waste is a sector of remarkable economic importance. This transport activity is connected to several productive sectors and it can have considerable repercussions on the environment and health as well as on the safety of the workers and third parties that study in the same field. A certain part of the transport of hazardous goods and waste is managed by organized criminals who can obtain enormous savings by neglecting the measures necessary to protect the environment and safety. The legitimate economy is thus damaged and, above all, the efforts the International Community has made since the fifties-sixties, concerning the regulation of the complex aspects of this activity, are undermined. Two distinct judicial models exist at an international level concerning hazardous waste and goods: "transboundary movement" and "international transport". The purpose of these models is to regulate a phenomenon which, although very complex and articulated, requires a homogeneous view. The international multimodal transport judicial model is here examined in 3 subsequent stages: (1) the general aspects and the details along the entire chain, starting from the loading operations, then going on to the transport itself and ending up with the unloading at its final destination; (2) the controls on the respect of international legislation on this topic; (3) a study case is conducted pertaining to the extensive PCB category which, from a judicial point of view, in certain cases can be considered hazardous goods and in other cases hazardous waste. The aim of the study is to supply decision makers with indications that can be used to improve the efficacy and the effectiveness of the regulations at a UN level and of the cascading particular agreements for the various means of transport. The international multimodal transport judicial model suffers from the uncertainties that were already encountered for the transborder movement model, with particular reference to the lack of a unique interpretation of what is waste and what are goods at an international, regional and national level. This difficulty, which was already present in the first model, has negative repercussions on the second one and diminishes the efficacy and effectiveness of the interventions put into place to solve the real problems of multimodal transport which, if considered separately, would be valid. Even the controls, which are basically objectively complex and costly, come up against difficulties right from the beginning. Finally, the study case of PCBs also shows that the lack of a solution to the fundamental problem reduces the various operations inherent to transport to almost just a heavy bureaucratic practice, which suffers from practical implications that make it difficult to reach the objectives of protecting the environment and safety that the model has established. The attention of decision makers should be concentrated on two fundamental aspects. The first concerns the fundamental theme of the difference between goods and waste which, being unresolved, weakens many parts of the two models and results in the amplification of the problems on the second model. The second aspect regards the controls that should be conducted. The improvement of the technical-judicial model requires the combined study of experts, from both the judicial and technical field
The transboundary movement of hazardous waste: a contribution to improve the present technical-judicial model
No full textThe expression "the transboundary movement of hazardous waste" refers, from the technical point of view, to a series of phases that begin with the creation of a hazardous waste and includes its identification according to international, regional and national standards, its delivery to specialized companies and its movement from the exporting country to the importing country; these phases end with the final destination of the waste (disposal or recovery). From the judicial point of view, this same expression means a set of international regulations, at the UN level, a judicial model constituted by various Multilateral Environmental Agreements-MEAs and in particular the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions. In spite of this model, an international market, dominated in certain strategic points by a chain of organized crime, has become established over the last 30 years, with consequent adverse effects on human health and the environment as well as on trade and competition. The illegal movement and transport of hazardous goods and waste undermine international policies and enforcement efforts and put law-abiding businesses at an economic disadvantage. It is here taken into account that there are in fact two judicial models that have to be referred to. Apart from the previously mentioned one, it is necessary to take into consideration the international judicial hazardous goods and waste transport model. The former model is examined (1) from a general point of view and during the various phases; (2) as far as the controls that the international regulations foresee along the chain are concerned; (3) with a case study concerning the PCB category, a category which is very vast and whose contents are sometimes considered as hazardous goods and sometimes as wastes. Because of the great complexity of the problems and in order to have a clear picture, a specific second study, which is closely connected to the first, has been conducted on the technical-judicial aspects of transport. The aim of both studies was to offer useful instruments to decision makers to help them make efficacious interventions. The different interpretations of the basic concept of waste at an international, regional and national level, together with the lack of clearly defined borders between the concept of waste and that of goods, are weak points of the regulations. The unresolved problem in the initial part of the model affects all the phases of the transboundary movement of waste. In particular, the important phase of controls, which in itself is already difficult and costly, is unable to reach its objectives. Decision makers should first of all intervene by establishing a univocal definition of waste and goods. However, the technical-judicial problem can only be resolved by legal practitioners and technical experts in the sector who are known to be super partes at an international level. In particular, it is necessary to monitor the increasingly rapid technological evolution in order to be able to identify what is waste, or has become so and what are (or continues to be) goods, considering the various degrees of development throughout the planet. Only once these aspects have been clarified will a more efficacious control of all the elements that make up the chain be possibl
La produzione di energia da biomasse agricole: criticità e prospettive
No full textIn Italia, per la produzione di energia con la tecnologia della digestione anaerobica si usano da anni reflui zootecnici da filiere agro energetiche primarie. Recentemente è stata presa in esame la possibilità di trattare i reflui organici integrando processi aerobici ed anaerobici. Il successo su larga scala di tale prospettiva è condizionato al superamento di elementi negativi già presenti nel trattamento di biomasse agricole. La nota esamina tali criticità verificando la possibilità di superarle e in quale misura, al fine di evidenziare quelle soluzioni più idonee a concretizzare tali prospettive
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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