A Practical Tool to Generate Complex Energy System Configuration Based on the SYNTHSEP Methodology

Traditional fossil fueledpower plants are commonly based on steam Rankine cycle or Brayton Joule cycle. Using water or air as working fluid is obviously the most obvious choice for the wide availability of these substances in nature. However, the scarcity of natural energy sources and the strong need of reducing environmental impact have necessarily drawn the research to new energy systems configurations operating with other working fluids, which are able to recover lower temperature sources, such as Sun or industrial wasted heat. The variety of new working fluids (refrigerants or organic fluids) widens the choice to a variety of configurations that can be tailored to the specific source characteristics and boundary constraints. It is not always easy or even possible to conceive the best configuration for given specifications withthe mere experience of a common designer. To design a new system configuration, the designer normally uses some \u201cnon-codified rules\u201d deriving from his knowledge of basic thermodynamics and energy engineering. This paper aims instead at showing a practicaltool that is based on a new methodology, named SYNTHSEP, to generate new energy system configurations. This methodology starts from the simple thermodynamic cycles operated by a given fluid made up of the four fundamental processes (compression, heating, expansion and cooling) and uses a rigorous set of codified rules to build the final system configuration. The paper presents the basics of the new methodology and how it has been implemented in a practical tool that simply requires the information about the elementary cycles and their shared processes as input data

A new method to assess the acute toxicity toward honeybees of the abrasion particles generated from seeds coated with insecticides

Abstract Background: Large amounts of insecticide-containing dusts produced from abrasion of the seed dressing can be released into the atmosphere during sowing operations. Neonicotinoid pesticides, introduced in the 1990s for several crops, are the leading products for seed-coating treatments in many countries. Neonicotinoid containing dusts can be efectively intercepted by bees in fight over the sowing feld, inducing lethal acute efects, so that restrictions in the use of the main neonicotinoids have been adopted in the European Union. This led to the consequent introduction of replacement insecticides for seed-coating, i.e. methiocarb and thiacloprid, despite the lack of information on both the toxicity and the exposure scenarios for honeybees. Results: In this study, a laboratory apparatus was developed in order to quantify the toxicity of the dusts produced from the abrasion of the seed coating. This quantifcation is based on (i) an airstream transporting coating particles into an exposure chamber; (ii) exposure of bees to reproducible and measurable concentrations of insecticide, and (iii) direct measurement of the exposure dose on single bees. The method allowed us to perform in vivo experiments of honeybee exposure to provide toxicity data in more realistic exposure conditions. In fact, the formulation rather than the active principle alone can be tested, and the exposure is through dusts rather than a solution so that specifc absorption behavior can be studied in representative environmental conditions. The method was used to quantify the acute toxicity (LD50) of dusts obtained from the abrasion of corn seeds coated with clothianidin, thiacloprid and methiocarb. Conclusions: Our results show that, surprisingly, the replacement insecticide methiocarb has a toxicity (LD50=421– 693 ng/bee) in the same order of magnitude as clothianidin (LD50=113–451 ng/bee) through this specifc exposure route, while thiacloprid (LD50=16.9·103 ng/bee) has a signifcantly lower acute toxicity. Moreover, dusts containing methiocarb and clothianidin show a signifcant increase in toxicity when, after exposure, bees are kept under high humidity conditions. This suggests that the method here presented can be used to obtain complementary toxicity data in the risk assessment procedure for the authorization of new seed-coating insecticides or new formulations. Keywords: Systemic insecticides, Neonicotinoids, Methiocarb, Seed coating, Abrasion dusts, Honeybees, Pollinator insects, Acute toxicity, Exposure measuremen

Improving the early detection of alien wood-boring beetles in ports and surrounding forests

International ports are generally considered the most likely points of entry for alien wood-boring beetles. A better understanding of the factors affecting their arrival and establishment at ports and their surrounding areas is of utmost importance to improve the efficacy and the cost-effectiveness of early detection programmes. Our work aimed at understanding how port size and the characteristics of the landscape surrounding the port, in terms of forest cover and forest composition, influence the occurrence of alien wood-boring beetles. From May to September 2012, 15 Italian international ports and the surrounding forests were monitored with multi-funnel traps baited with a multi-lure blend (\u3b1-pinene, ethanol, ipsdienol, ipsenol, methyl-butenol), three in each port and three in forests located 3\u20135 km away from the port. We identified both alien and native Scolytinae, Cerambycidae and Buprestidae beetles. Fourteen alien species, among which four are new to Italy, were trapped. Alien species richness was positively related to the amount of imported commodities at the port scale. Broadleaf forests surrounding ports received larger number of alien species than conifer forests. By contrast, total forest cover in the landscape surrounding ports was positively related to the occurrence of native but not alien species. The alien and native species richness was higher in the surrounding forests than in the ports. Synthesis and applications. The simultaneous use of traps in ports with large volume of imported commodities and in their surrounding broadleaf forests can strongly increase the probability of alien wood-boring beetle interceptions. The identification of sites where the arrival and establishment of alien species is more probable, combined with an efficient trapping protocol, can substantially improve the efficacy of early detection. Similar approaches may be used in other countries as early warning systems to implement timely measures to eradicate or contain alien invasions at the European scale

Arbuscular mycorrhizal colonization in black poplar roots after defoliation by a non-native and a native insect

A major goal in ecology is to understand how interactions among organisms influence ecosystem services. This work compares the effects of two Lepidoptera defoliators, one non-native (Hyphantria cunea) and one native (Lymantria dispar) to Europe, on the colonization of black poplar (the Populus nigra clone "Jean Pourtet") roots by an arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiotic fungus (Funneliformis mosseae) in a pot experiment. The effects of defoliation have also been assessed on the expression of fungal and plant genes playing a role during symbiosis. Both control and defoliated poplars have shown a low level of mycorrhization. Additionally, neither the non-native nor the native insect seem to strongly affect the AM colonization, at least at the time of observation (eight days from the end of the defoliation). Concerning the gene expression analysis, our results suggest that defoliation does not influence neither the expression of genes coding for a fungal and a plant phosphate transporter nor that of a gene coding for a fungal ATPase, and that there were no differences between defoliation carried out by the non-native and the native insect. \ua9 SISEF

Seafloor massive sulfides from mid-ocean ridges: Exploring the causes of their geochemical variability with multivariate analysis

The neovolcanic zones of mid-ocean ridges are host to seawater-derived hydrothermal systems forming seafloor massive sulfide (SMS) deposits. These deposits have high concentrations of base metals and potentially economic enrichment of a wide range of trace elements. The factors controlling this enrichment are currently poorly understood. We have investigated the main factors controlling SMS compositional variability through robust principal component analysis and robust factor analysis of published and newly obtained bulk geochemical data for samples collected from SMS deposits worldwide. We found that a large part of the observed variability is produced by a combination of three independent factors, which are interpreted to reflect (in order of importance): (1) the temperature of deposition, (2) the ridge spreading rate, and (3) zone refining. The first and the third factors are mostly related to processes operating near the seafloor, such as conductive cooling, mixing of the hydrothermal fluids with seawater and metal remobilization, and determine the relative proportions of the main minerals and, thus, of Cu and Zn (Co, Se, Sb, Pb). The ridge spreading rate influences the structure of the oceanic lithosphere, which exerts a major control on the length and depth of the hydrothermal convection cell and on the rock-to-water ratios in the reaction zone, which in turn control the behavior of the precious metals Au and Ag and elements including Ni (Mo, Se). Despite the obvious role of substrate rocks as metal sources, their composition (specifically mafic vs. ultramafic) does not emerge as a statistically significant independent factor

The double traveling salesman problem with partial last-in-first-out loading constraints

In this paper, we introduce the double traveling salesman problem with partial last-in-first-out loading constraints (DTSPPL). It is a pickup-and-delivery single-vehicle routing problem, where all pickup operations must be performed before any delivery operation because the pickup-and-delivery areas are geographically separated. The vehicle collects items in the pickup area and loads them into its container, a horizontal stack. After performing all pickup operations, the vehicle begins delivering the items in the delivery area. Loading and unloading operations must obey a partial last-in-first-out (LIFO) policy, that is, a version of the LIFO policy that may be violated within a given reloading depth. The objective of the DTSPPL is to minimize the total cost, which involves the total distance traveled by the vehicle and the number of items that are unloaded and then reloaded due to violations of the standard LIFO policy. We formally describe the DTSPPL through two integer linear programming (ILP) formulations and propose a heuristic algorithm based on the biased random-key genetic algorithm (BRKGA) to find high-quality solutions. The performance of the proposed solution approaches is assessed over a broad set of instances. Computational results have shown that both ILP formulations have been able to solve only the smaller instances, whereas the BRKGA obtained good-quality solutions for almost all instances, requiring short computational times

An Experimental Study on Kinetics-Controlled Ca-Carbonate Aqueous Reduction into CH4 (1 and 2 GPa, 550 degrees C): Implications for C Mobility in Subduction Zones

Abiotic methane (CH4) generation under subduction zone conditions has been experimentally investigated through aqueous reduction of pure C-bearing materials (e.g. carbonate minerals and organic matter). However, quantitative assessments of CH(4 )production in these experiments, as well as the potential effects of other components such as SiO2 on the reduction processes, have not yet been well established. Here, we performed experiments to quantitatively evaluate the time-resolved Ca-carbonate aqueous reduction into CH4 at P = 1 and 2 GPa and T = 550 degrees C in the CaO + COH, CaO + SiO2 COH, and CaO + SiO2 + MgO + COH systems, employing calcite + water +/- quartz +/- serpentine (synthetic chlorine (Cl)-bearing chrysotile and natural Fe-Al-bearing antigorite) as starting materials. Redox conditions of the experiments were buffered by iron-wilstite (IW) using a double capsule setting, corresponding to oxygen fugacity (fO(2)) values (expressed as log units relative to the fayalite-magnetite-quartz buffer, Delta FMQ) in the inner capsule of Delta FMQ approximate to -5.5 at 1 GPa and Delta FMQ approximate to -6.0 at 2 GPa. The solid products are mainly composed of portlandite +/- larnite +/- wollastonite +/- brucite, while Ca-carbonate and/or silicate reactants commonly occur as relicts. Quadrupole mass spectrometric analysis shows that CH4 and H2O are the major COH molecular species in the fluid products, with molar ratios between CH4 and starting calcite representing the reaction progress ranging from similar to 0.13 to similar to 1.00. Comparisons of experimental run products with thermodynamically predicted phase assemblages, together with time-series experiments, indicate that the reduction processes are primarily controlled by reaction kinetics. At 1 GPa and 550 degrees C, rate constants of 4.0 x 10(-6) s(-1), 7.4 x 10(-6) s(-1) , and 2.6 x 10(-6 )s(-1) were retrieved for reactions starting with calcite + quartz + water, calcite + synthetic Cl-bearing chrysotile + water, and calcite + natural Fe-Al-bearing antigorite + water, respectively, significantly higher than the constant of 0.8 x 10(-6) s(-1 )for the silicate-absent reaction. Besides, an increase in pressures can also enhance the reduction efficiency of Ca-carbonates until reaching equilibrium with the fluids. Our data provide experimental evidence for kinetics-controlled Ca-carbonate aqueous reduction into CH4 in subduction zones, indicating that silicate involvement and/or pressure increase can accelerate the reaction rates through short-lived fluid-rock interactions, which may have important implications for deep C mobility

Automated mobile virtual reality cognitive behavior therapy for aviophobia in a natural setting: a randomized controlled trial

Background: Access to evidence-based psychological treatment is a challenge worldwide. We assessed the effectiveness of a fully automated aviophobia smartphone app treatment delivered in combination with a $5 virtual reality (VR) viewer.Methods: In total, 153 participants from the Dutch general population with aviophobia symptoms and smartphone access were randomized in a single-blind randomized controlled trial to either an automated VR cognitive behavior therapy (VR-CBT) app treatment condition (n = 77) or a wait-list control condition (n = 76). The VR-CBT app was delivered over a 6-week period in the participants' natural environment. Online self-report assessments were completed at baseline, post-treatment, at 3-month and at 12-month follow-up. The primary outcome measure was the Flight Anxiety Situations Questionnaire (FAS). Analyses were based on intent-to-treat.Results: A significant reduction of aviophobia symptoms at post-test for the VR-CBT app compared with the control condition [p Conclusions: This study is the first to show that fully automated mobile VR-CBT therapy delivered in a natural setting can maintain long-term effectiveness in reducing aviophobia symptoms. In doing so, it offers an accessible and scalable evidence-based treatment solution that can be applied globally at a fraction of the cost of current treatment alternatives

Long-term effects of an informal education program on tourist environmental perception

Tourism is one of the most important economic sectors worldwide, with significant overarching impact on the environment, including negative effects caused by tourist inappropriate behavior while on vacation. By providing informal educational activities, tourism also has an educative role that leads to positive learning outcomes and beneficial environmental effects. Here we present the short- and long-term outcomes of a project for environmental education (Glocal Education) carried out in three travel destinations, aimed at promoting sustainability variables (knowledge, attitude, and awareness) in participating tourists. Since psychological components can affect learning outcomes, we also considered tourist satisfaction in participating in the project and identification with its values, as well as the intention to travel with the hosting tour operator again in the future. Tourists were asked to complete evaluation questionnaires three times: before Glocal Education activities, right after activities (i.e., while still on vacation), and after at least one year from initial project participation. Short- and long-term learning outcomes were tested, and possible relations between these variables and psychological components (satisfaction, identification, and intention) of the learning experience were verified. Overall, knowledge, attitude and awareness increased in the short term, while in the long term, knowledge and attitude decreased, and awareness remained constant. In most cases, psychological components showed positive relation with sustainability variables, which suggested their important role in structuring and carrying out environmental education activities. This study suggests that informal environmental education activities can be advantageous for tourism stakeholders in terms of customer loyalty. Such activities can contribute to enhance environment literacy, by allowing tourists to observe the environmental impact caused by human activity, and understand how their day-to-day actions, even if small, might help address some of the current concerns for environmental conservation