Stabilization of Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

The conservation of virgin olive oil quality during its shelf life could be considered a key issue for olive oil industry. To improve the product stability, virgin olive oils should not be stored with considerable amounts of suspended solids and water. The latter have to be removed from oil musts. The chapter reviews the main spread technologies and those recently proposed for the removal of suspended solids and the water from extra-virgin olive oils. These technologies are described from an engineering perspective, and their effects on product quality during storage are discussed

An LCA model to assess the environmental improvement of new farming systems

The environmental impact of new farming practices is compared with that of conventional one. The approach is that of LCA and the assessing procedure is based on two cross-interaction matrices relating system inputs with emissions and impacts. With the aim to allow its application also at farm level by non-expert users, the procedure has been implemented in software that facilitate it use. Furthermore, the definition of standard impact values and a total environmental effects index make it easier to compare different systems and to evaluate the improvement achieved with a new agricultural practice. As an example, the model has been applied to compare the environmental effects generated in the production of sunflower using ecological, integrated and conventional farming techniques. Both Ecological and Integrated technique present lower impact than conventional even if for some specific impact the results are inverted. The application highlights the importance of the functional unit: when environmental effects are referred to the unit of production (ton), the total impact of the integrated technique is higher than the conventional one. Energy and CO2 efficiency are also computed, which are resulted to be good indicators of the overall environmental impact of a cultivation syste

Transition to Quark Matter and long Gamma Ray Bursts

The energy released by the inner engine of GRBs can originate from structural readjustments inside a compact star. In particular, the formation of deconfined quark matter can liberate enough energy to power the burst. We show that the burning of a neutron star into a quark star likely proceeds as a deflagration and not as a detonation. In that way no strong baryon contamination is produced near the surface of the star. It is tempting to associate the temporal structures observed in the light curves with specific processes taking place inside the compact star. The so-called quiescent times, during which no signal is emitted in the highest energy band, correspond to pauses during the processes of readjustment. If the quark (or hybrid) star formed after these transformations is strongly magnetized and rotates rapidly, a prolonged gamma emission can be produced, as proposed by Usov years ago. This can explain the quasi-plateau observed by Swift in several GRBs.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings of "Swift and GRBs: Unveiling the Relativisitc Universe", Venice, 5-9 June 200

Hyponatremia: a case report of SIAD

Hyponatremia, defined as serum sodium concentration <136 mEq/l, represents one of the most frequently encountered electrolyte disorder in clinical practice. Among hospitalised patients up to 15-30% present mild hyponatremia (130-135 mEq/l), whereas moderate to severe forms are seen in up to 7% of inpatients. Hyponatremia is associated with significant morbidity and mortality especially in patients with underlying diseases. According to volume status hyponatremia can be classified as hypovolemic, hypervolemic or euvolemic. An accurate diagnostic algorithm has to be performed in order to optimize the therapeutic approach. Acute and severe forms are accompanied by neurological symptoms due to cerebral edema and can cause death if not appropriately treated. Moreover, even a too rapid correction can be associated with serious complications, such as the osmotic demyelination syndrome. Hypovolemic forms have to be treated with isotonic saline infusion, whereas eu-hypervolemic forms require hypertonic saline when symptomatic, and fluid restriction or vaptans when asymptomatic. Here, we report the case of a 79-year-old woman with hyponatremia admitted to the Emergency Department of XXX

The spent cake from olive oil filtration as biomass feedstock

The most widespread method for virgin olive oil filtration at industrial scale is the so-called precoat body-feed filtration by means of filter aids, mainly consisting of perlite and cellulose. The residue of the process is a spent filtration cake, that has potential for upgrading if understood in the context of the biorefining concept. Data about the production and composition of the spent cake were collected from an industrial case-study. The potential availability of the spent cake has been estimated both at local (the industrial case-study) and large scale (Spain context). The mean percentage composition of the spent cake is 5 % oil impurities, 7 % cellulose, 28 % perlite, 52 % oil and 8 % water. About 10 g of spent cake are produced per kilogram of virgin olive oil to be processed; while about 316 and 7482 Mg of spent cake could be potentially available for the local and large scale scenarios, respectively. Owing to its diversified composition entailing oil and waxes, cellulose and mineral fractions, the spent cake appears a valuable feedstock to supplement the supply of the emerging biorefineries technologies

Profit Shifting Frictions and the Geography of Multinational Activity

We develop a quantitative general equilibrium model of multinational activity embedding corporate taxation and profit shifting. In addition to trade and investment frictions, our model shows that profit-shifting frictions shape the geography of multinational production. Key to our model is the distinction between the corporate tax elasticity of real activity and profit shifting. The quantification of our model requires estimates of shifted profits flows. We provide a new, model-consistent methodology to calibrate bilateral profit-shifting frictions based on accounting identities. We simulate various tax reforms aimed at curbing tax-dodging practices of multinationals and their impact on a range of outcomes, including tax revenues and production. Our results show that the effects of the international relocation of firms across countries are of comparable magnitude as the direct gains in taxable income

Environmental Impact Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Management in Florence, Italy

Research Paper - Facing the trouble of municipal solid waste (MSW) management is a rising challenge of urbanized areas. Yearly data of waste management from the city of Florence (Italy) and neighboring municipalities were gathered over 2015 year. About 412105 t of waste were collected, where 202794 t were mixed-waste and 72540 t were organic. Fractions were treated in a centralized selecting-composting plant. The outgoing materials were further treated in external plants for additional selection, composting, incineration, landfilling. The present study was aimed to assess the environmental impact of such waste management applying LCA technique. The functional unit was \u201cone year mixed and organic waste treatment at Florence and neighboring municipalities\u201d. System boundaries included waste collection, final transport, working of the selecting-composting plant. System expansion was used to account for energy recovery (electricity) from waste. Background data were sourced from ELCD-core3-LCI database. Life cycle impact assessment (classification and characterization) was performed by ILCD midpoint method. Sixteen impact categories were computed. Focusing on global warming potential (GWP), the functional unit impacts for roughly 6.99E+8kgCO2eq. This figure drops to 0.212E+8kgCO2eq if urban collection was not considered and further to 0.186E+8kgCO2eq if final transportation was excluded. Results underline the potential benefit of on-site treatment of waste

Large Language Models and Explainable Law: a Hybrid Methodology

The paper advocates for LLMs to enhance the accessibility, usage and explainability of rule-based legal systems, contributing to a democratic and stakeholder-oriented view of legal technology. A methodology is developed to explore the potential use of LLMs for translating the explanations produced by rule-based systems, from high-level programming languages to natural language, allowing all users a fast, clear, and accessible interaction with such technologies. The study continues by building upon these explanations to empower laypeople with the ability to execute complex juridical tasks on their own, using a Chain of Prompts for the autonomous legal comparison of different rule-based inferences, applied to the same factual case