IMPORTANCE OF COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES FOR MODERN WASTE-TO-ENERGY FACILITIES IN COMPLEX GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXTS ORIENTED TO CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Although circular economy (CE) principles set material circularity, resource efficiency and waste recycling as priority targets to guarantee the sustainable development of future generations, the thermochemical valorisation of municipal solid waste (MSW) still plays a fundamental role in the transition towards the final CE targets. As a matter of fact, the waste-to-energy (WtE) sector allows recovering energy from waste, reducing the pressure on MSW landfills and their related potential environmental impacts; however, recovering material for further uses is not excluded in WtE options. Significant improvements have been achieved in the air pollution control of exhaust gases from direct and indirect MSW combustion during the last decades. The efforts focussed on reducing dioxin emissions especially, and this has let other substances emerge as priority pollutants (e.g., heavy metals). In addition, the location of WtE facilities in certain geographical contexts is still potentially critical from the point of view of human exposure and the related health risk; moreover, the public acceptance of WtE plants is still limited, in spite of their recent role in fighting SARS-CoV-2 risks from waste management. The purpose of the present paper is to underline the importance of implementing correct and complete health risk assessment procedures tailored to the exposed population living in the area of influence of a WtE plant. The paper will present two case studies regarding the projects of two WtE plants in a mountainous region, highlighting the critical issues that arose during the environmental impact assessment procedures. The paper will finally suggest possible options to improve the health risk assessment procedure and alternative measures to reduce the expected impacts of the WtE sector on the environment and human exposure

Local Actions for Reducing Global Greenhouse Gas Footprint: 10 Years of Covenant of Mayors Initiative

Covenant of Mayor was launched in 2008 as a voluntary initiative for local administrations that intend to adopt a plan of interventions concerning greenhouse gas mitigations, achieving and exceeding the EU climate and energy targets. In its first decade of activity, Covenant of Mayors has become the world\u2019s largest initiative based on actions of energy saving and local climate mitigation, involving 250+ million inhabitants and 7700+ signatories in more than 50 countries worldwide, under the denomination of Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. Globally, a total 5996 municipalities subscribed to the above-mentioned agreement in the first decade, in addition to 1743 progress plans and a wide database of indications regarding successful actions of Greenhouse Gas footprint mitigation at a European scale. This work reports on the global statistics of the initiative in the period 2008-2017 and the geographical location of the signatories within the territory of the European Union, highlighting limits and challenges of the initiative

A Fully Scalable Video Coder with Inter-Scale Wavelet Prediction and Morphological Coding

In this paper a new fully scalable - wavelet based - video coding architecture is proposed, where motion compensated temporal filtered subbands of spatially scaled versions of a video sequence can be used as base layer for inter-scale predictions. These predictions take place between data at the same resolution level without the need of interpolation. The prediction residuals are further transformed by spatial wavelet decompositions. The resulting multi-scale spatiotemporal wavelet subbands are coded thanks to an embedded morphological dilation technique and context based arithmetic coding. Dyadic spatio-temporal scalability and progressive SNR scalability are achieved. Multiple adaptation decoding can be easily implemented without the need of knowing a predefined set of operating points. The proposed coding system allows to compensate some of the typical drawbacks of current wavelet based scalable video coding architectures and shows interesting visual results even when compared with the single operating point video coding standard AVC/H.264

Biliary pancreatic diversion and laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding in morbid obesity: their long-term effects on metabolic syndrome and on cardiovascular parameters

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bariatric surgery is able to improve glucose and lipid metabolism, and cardiovascular function in morbid obesity. Aim of this study was to compare the long-term effects of malabsorptive (biliary pancreatic diversion, BPD), and restrictive (laparoscopic gastric banding, LAGB) procedures on metabolic and cardiovascular parameters, as well as on metabolic syndrome in morbidly obese patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>170 patients studied between 1989 and 2001 were called back after a mean period of 65 months. 138 patients undergoing BPD (n = 23) or LAGB (n = 78), and control patients (refusing surgery and treated with diet, n = 37) were analysed for body mass index (BMI), blood glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides, blood pressure, heart rate, and ECG indexes (QTc, Cornell voltage-duration product, and rate-pressure-product).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After a mean 65 months period, surgery was more effective than diet on all items under evaluation; diabetes, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome disappeared more in surgery than in control patients, and new cases appeared only in controls. BPD was more effective than LAGB on BMI, on almost all cardiovascular parameters, and on cholesterol, not on triglyceride and blood glucose. Disappearance of diabetes, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome was similar with BPD and with LAGB, and no new cases were observed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These data indicate that BPD, likely due to a greater BMI decrease, is more effective than LAGB in improving cardiovascular parameters, and similar to LAGB on metabolic parameters, in obese patients. The greater effect on cholesterol levels is probably due to the different mechanism of action.</p

Análise ótica da parede abdominal pelo biospeckle após implante de prótese de polipropileno em ratos

To evaluate an experimental animal model to study the abdominal tissue activity considering its interaction with a polypropylene mesh, through the use of one of the optical phenomena of light Laser, the biospeckle. Fifty Wistar male rats were divided into four groups: Group 1: ten animals not submitted to surgery; Group 2: ten animals submitted to surgery without polypropylene mesh; Group 3: 20 animals submitted to surgery followed by the mesh placement; Group 4: (sham) with ten animals. None of the animals presented post surgical complications being submitted to the optical tests at the 20th postoperative day. The analysis from the biospeckle tests, comparing the medians and standard deviations with T Student test, indicated that no significative difference was observed on the abdominal wall tissue activity in the four groups considered, with and without polypropylene mesh prosthesis implantation. The animal model is viable and the biospeckle open ways for a great number of experiments to be developed in evaluating tissue activity246442448Avaliar o modelo experimental animal para o estudo da atividade tecidual da parede abdominal em sua interação com a prótese de polipropileno, através da utilização de um dos fenômenos ópticos da luz Laser, o biospeckle. Foram utilizados 50 ratos Wistar machos, divididos em quatro grupos: Grupo 1 com 10 animais não operados e controles; Grupo 2 com 10 animais submetidos a cirurgia sem a colocação de prótese; Grupo 3 com 20 animais submetidos a cirurgia com colocação de prótese de polipropileno pré-peritonial; Grupo 4 (Sham) com 10 animais. Nenhum animal apresentou complicações pós-operatórias, sendo que no 20º PO foram submetidos ao ensaio óptico. A comparação das médias e o desvio padrão das medidas da atividade tecidual da parede abdominal, com e sem implantação da prótese de polipropileno obtidas dos grupos de animais, pelo teste T de Student, não evidenciou diferença estatística significativa (p>0.05). A análise dos dados obtidos permitiu concluir que o modelo animal é viável e que o biospeckle abre caminhos para toda uma linha de experimentos a ser desenvolvida em avaliar atividade tecidua

Freeze-drying of pharmaceuticals in vials nested in a rack system

The distribution of biopharmaceuticals often requires lyophilisation. The drug product is first frozen and potentially exposed to stress conditions that can be detrimental to its quality. These stresses are also encountered when a drug product has to be distributed under ultra-cold conditions. Adjusting the formulation and/or freezing conditions allows for limiting the impact of these stresses on the final product. This paper investigates two loading configurations, vials directly resting on the shelf and nested in a rack system, and their impact on the freezing and drying behaviour of a sucrose-based formulation. First, two key freezing parameters, i.e., ice nucleation temperature and cooling rate, were studied as they can affect the product behaviour during drying. The product freezing rate and the ice nucleation temperature distribution were affected by the loading configuration, resulting in larger ice crystals in the case of vials nested in a rack system. The analysis was also extended to the drying phase, showing that the loading configuration impacted the product temperature during drying and the overall heat transfer coefficient between the equipment and the product