1,720,967 research outputs found
Life Cycle Assessment of a novel process of polyhydroxyalkanoates production with waste and by-products from wine industry value chain
No full textEU wine production accounts for some 60 percent of worldwide output, with France and Italy being the largest wine producer countries in the world (Gaeta and Corsinovi, 2014). The wine industry influences the environment with the use of soil, water, energy, fertilizers and pesticides. In addition it produces liquid and solid organic waste that has to be managed in the proper manner in order to minimize environmental impacts. In recent years, some innovative technologies have been proposed for the valorization of winery waste and by-products (i.e. grape marcs, grape seeds, vinification lees, etc.) (Devesa-Rey et al., 2011). VALSOVIT is a research project funded by Emilia Romagna Region (Italy) which aims to valorize wine industry by-products. Its focus is the development of an integrated strategy for the transformation of waste from the whole oenological supply chain into high added-value products such as polymers, base chemicals, and molecules for the nutraceutical, cosmetic and agrochemical industries. In this framework, a novel experimental process for the valorization of wine lees and sewage sludge is carried out. These winery residues are subject to anaerobic acidogenic fermentation in order to produce volatile fatty acids (VFAs), which in turn are used to feed a mixed microbial community (MMC) able to accumulate polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) granules as carbon and energy intracellular reserve. The last step consists of PHAs extraction using dimethyl carbonate (DMC). Life cycle assessment is applied to calculate and compare the environmental impacts related to the production of one kg of PHAs to those of an analogous amount of a fossil-based plastic (polypropylene, PP), and two bio-based plastics (bio-polypropylene, bio-PP, and polylactic acid, PLA). PHAs produced from wine industry residues show mixed results. Four different scenarios which vary in terms of feedstock used and pre-treatment process are analyzed. Results show that system setup including pyrolysis pre-treatment allows to reduce both energy demand and GHG emissions more efficiently than the setup without pyrolysis. The latter, on the other hand, is technologically simpler and therefore less effort and cost consuming than the one including pyrolysis. No significant differences between the two feedstock used are found in the results. Gaeta and Corsinovi, 2014. Economics, Governance, and Politics in the Wine Market. Palgrave Macmillan, US. Devesa-Rey et al., 2011. Waste Management. 31:2327-233
Greenhouse gas savings and energy balance of sewage sludge treated through an enhanced intermediate pyrolysis screw reactor combined with a reforming process
No full textA life cycle thinking approach focusing on energy and greenhouse gas savings has been applied to study the potential for energy recovery and organic matter reclamation from Waste Activated Sludge produced in Waste Water Treatment Plants by means of a catalytic thermo-chemical process. A generic Basic Sludge Processing line has been modelled following common waste water and sludge treatment stages found in several European plants. This has served to identify and divide generic sludge treatment units in order to compare the performance of different industrial configurations where a specific thermo-chemical technology treatment unit and related cogeneration was substituted or added to reference units. The considered technology is an enhanced intermediate pyrolysis screw reactor combined with a reforming process known as Thermo-Catalytic Reforming allowing for conversion of sewage sludge into energy carriers and reclamation of organic substances in the form of charcoal (biochar). In order to study the greenhouse gas savings, a calculator tool complying with Directive 2009/28/EC has been adopted. Results show that substantial benefits in terms of energy production and greenhouse gas emissions reduction of a sludge-to-energy system are expected if the secondary sludge is directly treated with the Thermo-Catalytic Reforming process, without an intermediate anaerobic digestion step
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
Life cycle assessment of a novel polyhydroxyalkanoates production process with mixed microbial cultures fed on winery waste
No full textThe study aims to assess the environmental performances of a novel process of bio-plastic (polyhydroxyalkanoates, PHAs) production using winery waste. Sustainability is measured by an attributional life cycle assessment and compared both with results reported in literature for PHAs, and with results of a fossil-based plastic (polypropylene, PP), and of an alternative bio-based plastic (bio-polypropylene, bio-PP). PHAs produced from wine industry residues, although generally better than other PHAs in terms of greenhouse emissions and energy demand, show mixed results. Large environmental benefits in terms of both global warming potential reduction, lesser energy use and resource depletion, are counterpoised to higher impacts on other categories also when compared to both PP and bio-PP. Research shall deeper investigate the effects of combining different waste and residues in input and of the fate of co-products and waste obtained by their processing
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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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