1,721,008 research outputs found
End-of-life management of oil and gas offshore platforms: challenges and opportunities for sustainable decommissioning
No full textPurpose of the paper: The decommissioning of offshore platforms represents a significant and controversial challenge that has gained attention over the years due to its environmental, social, and economic impact. This work aims to investigate stakeholders’ perceptions regarding the future of offshore platforms and to explore dimensions of sustainability related to decommissioning.
Methodology: An analysis was carried out based on two rounds of empirical inquiry, a range of primary data collected through multiple-choice questionnaires and in-depth interviews.
Findings: The analysis shows that stakeholders perceive reuse as an opportunity to minimise the impacts according to an environmental, economic, and social perspective. While the multipurpose platform represents an opportunity for the future, it also presents challenges.
Research limitations: The study relies only on qualitative analysis techniques and on a limited sample and geographical area.
Practical implications: The analysis offers several insights into the decommissioning scenario according to a sustainable and circularity perspective and contributes to the decommissioning debate by providing information about decommissioning programs, stakeholders’ impacts, and future planning considerations.
Originality of the paper: The study contributes knowledge to the field and useful managerial insights, highlighting stakeholders’ perception in the Italian context and exploring dimensions of sustainability and main SDGs related to the issu
Artificial Intelligence and Fuzzy Cognitive Map for Supporting Urban Decision-Making During the Covid-19 Pandemic
No full textThe growing complexity of urban landscapes due to the Covid-19 and the fast technology evolution make central a rethink of urban governance, in or-der to understand how decision-making processes are boosted by the application of smart technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data analytics. Although there is much evidence that innovative technology is crucial to fight the Covid-19, the analysis of the literature highlights the poor attention paid in the study of the urban governance framework based on emerging technologies during the pandemic. Based on these considerations, the work aims to propose a decision-making support model for the urban local governments. By following a methodological framework based on a Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM), a first experimentation has been conducted on a popular social network, Twitter, in reference to an Italian city. The impact analysis through the Fuzzy Cognitive Map suggests that Covid-19 emergency is highlighting the necessity to pay attention to the priorities of local governments: if, from one hand, new efforts are required regarding social welfare and health sector, on the other hand, improvements in air quality in cities during lockdown periods bring out the environmental impacts of anthropogenic activities
Towards a resilient perspective for the future of offshore platforms. Insights from a data driven approach
No full textPurpose: This study aims to investigate the collective perception regarding the future of offshore platforms and frame the main categories of meanings associated by the community with the investigated phenomenon. Design/methodology/approach: A data driven approach has been conducted. The collection of the peoples’ opinions has been realized on two specific social network communities as follows: Twitter and Instagram. The text mining processes carried out a sentiment and a cluster analysis. Findings: The sentiment analysis of the most frequent words has been shown. The following four main homogeneous categories of words are emerged in relation to the decommissioning of offshore platforms: technological areas, green governance (GG), circular economy and socio-economic sphere. Research limitations/implications: The alternative use of the offshore platforms, including tourism initiatives, aquaculture, alternative energy generation, hydrogen storage and environmental research, could improve the resilience of communities by offering the development of new jobs and the growth of local and innovative green businesses. Practical implications: The adoption of a circular model and GG initiatives aims to limit the input of resources and energy, minimize waste and losses, adopt a sustainable approach and realize new social and territorial value. Originality/value: The analysis underlines the importance to adopt a systems perspective, which takes into account the social, economic and environmental system as a whole, the different phenomena that occur and the variety of categories of stakeholders, from users to local governments that participate in the territorial development
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
Aspettando l'unità (1861-1866): Venezia e la letteratura
No full textDopo aver ricordato il ruolo svolto dal veneziano Pietro Bembo come
“normalizzatore” della lingua letteraria italiana, Daria Perocco propone uno
studio accattivante relativo all’espressione letteraria dell’orgoglio nazionale
della Repubblica di Venezia nei cinque anni precedenti l’adesione al Regno
d’Italia. Prima del plebiscito del 1866, la memorialistica privata redatta dalle
patriote veneziane appare ben più efficace degli scritti ufficiali nella trasmissione
dell’orgoglio della venezianità e della nazione italiana. Il ruolo «di assoluto
primo piano» svolto dal protagonismo femminile a favore dell’unione
di Venezia all’Italia, in cui queste donne vedevano una possibilità di riscatto
dopo la sconfitta subita dagli Austriaci, e il consecutivo esilio di numerosi
uomini, fu messo in rilievo anche da famosi autori dell’epoca come Luigi
Carrer che «ha identificato nella presenza femminile [...] l’essenza e la gloria
di Venezia», e da altri scrittori come Giovanni Verga, per i quali «la letteratura
viene ad essere un grande strumento per celebrare parallelamente la
grandezza della libertà di Venezia, il suo amore per l’Italia e, di conseguenza,
la sua ribellione all’Austria»
The impact of oxidative stress in human pathology: focus on gastrointestinal disorders
Full text linkAccumulating evidence shows that oxidative stress plays an essential role in the pathogenesis and progression of many diseases. The imbalance between the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the antioxidant systems has been extensively studied in pulmonary, neurode-generative cardiovascular disorders; however, its contribution is still debated in gastrointestinal disorders. Evidence suggests that oxidative stress affects gastrointestinal motility in obesity, and post-infectious disorders by favoring the smooth muscle phenotypic switch toward a synthetic phenotype. The aim of this review is to gain insight into the role played by oxidative stress in gastrointestinal pathologies (GIT), and the involvement of ROS in the signaling underlying the muscular alterations of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). In addition, potential therapeutic strategies based on the use of antioxidants for the treatment of inflammatory gastrointestinal diseases are reviewed and discussed. Although substantial progress has been made in identifying new techniques capable of assessing the presence of oxidative stress in humans, the biochemical-molecular mechanisms underlying GIT mucosal disorders are not yet well defined. Therefore, further studies are needed to clarify the mechanisms through which oxidative stress-related signaling can contribute to the alteration of the GIT mucosa in order to devise effective preventive and curative therapeutic strategies
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