An Integrated Approach to Risk and Impacts of Geo-Resources Exploration and Exploitation

Geo-resources are widely exploited in our society, with huge benefits for both economy and communities. Nevertheless, with benefits come risks and impacts. Understanding how such risks and impacts are intrinsically borne in a given project is of critical importance for both industry and society. In particular, it is crucial to distinguish between the specific impacts related to exploiting a given energy resource and those shared with the exploitation of other energy resources. A variety of different approaches can be used to identify and assess such risks and impacts. In particular, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and risk assessments (RAs) are the most commonly adopted. Although both are widely used to support decision making in environmental management, they are rarely used in combination perhaps because they have been developed by largely different groups of specialists. By analyzing the structure and the ratio of the two tools, we have developed an approach for combining and harmonizing LCA and MRA; the resulting protocol envisages building MRA upon LCA both qualitatively and quantitatively. We demonstrate the approach in a case study using a virtual site (based on a real one) for geothermal energy production

Health Communications Trial with a Resistant Population to Increase Public Health Compliance during a Pandemic

Background: Georgia has among the worst rates of COVID-19 hospitalization and death rates in the nation. Many identifying as politically conservative resist public health mitigation measures, similar to populations in other politically conservative geographical areas. There are limited peer-reviewed public health communications designed for this population. We aimed to determine if an intervention using a fear appeal approach with efficacy during a pandemic can positively affect knowledge, attitude, perception, and/or behavior (KAP) in Georgia with this population. Methods: We delivered online video stimuli tailored to the geocultural characteristics of the target population. designed to stimulate fear, encourage efficacy, and counter mis- and disinformation. It used three routes to affect participants: narrative, direct messaging, and non-message cues. We measured risk aversion and conspiratorial ideation as moderating psychological factors using psychological batteries. Census and voting data were used to identify a convenience sample of 829 Georgia adults in an outer Atlanta suburb. Results: Exposure to the video, moderated by risk aversion, resulted in increased recommended mitigating behavior to prevent COVID-19 (13.7%, 95% CI: 2.7% to 24.7%,) and increased positive attitude toward the recommendations (7.7%, 95% CI: 5.9% to 9.3%). Exposure to the video, moderated by conspiratorial ideation, resulted in an increase in perception of COVID-19 risk (7.6% 95% CI: 1.8% to 13.5%) among participants. Conclusions: An intervention using a fear appeal approach with efficacy during a pandemic can positively affect attitude and risk perception of a politically conservative population. Scaling similar interventions with resistant geocultural populations has promise of increasing adherence to public health recommendations. The moderating factor of conspiratorial ideation is relevant given conspiracies during pandemics, such as COVID-19. This multidisciplinary study contributes to the extant literature by providing insights of populations influenced by contrary political attitudes

Acute stress modulates the outcome of traumatic brain injury-associated gene expression and behavioral responses.

Psychological stress and traumatic brain injury (TBI) result in long-lasting emotional and behavioral impairments in patients. So far, the interaction of psychological stress with TBI not only in the brain but also in peripheral organs is poorly understood. Herein, the impact of acute stress (AS) occurring immediately before TBI is investigated. For this, a mouse model of restraint stress and TBI was employed, and their influence on behavior and gene expression in brain regions, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and peripheral organs was analyzed. Results demonstrate that, compared to single AS or TBI exposure, mice treated with AS prior to TBI showed sex-specific alterations in body weight, memory function, and locomotion. The induction of immediate early genes (IEGs, e.g., c-Fos) by TBI was modulated by previous AS in several brain regions. Furthermore, IEG upregulation along the HPA axis (e.g., pituitary, adrenal glands) and other peripheral organs (e.g., heart) was modulated by AS-TBI interaction. Proteomics of plasma samples revealed proteins potentially mediating this interaction. Finally, the deletion of Atf3 diminished the TBI-induced induction of IEGs in peripheral organs but left them largely unaltered in the brain. In summary, AS immediately before brain injury affects the brain and, to a strong degree, also responses in peripheral organs

The LuGRE project: a scientific opportunity to study GNSS signals at the Moon

The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) is a joint NASA-Italian Space Agency (ASI) payload on the Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 with the goal to demonstrate GNSS-based positioning, navigation, and timing at the Moon. When launched, LuGRE will collect GPS and Galileo measurements in transit between Earth and the Moon, in lunar orbit, and on the lunar surface, and will conduct onboard and ground-based navigation experiments using the collected data. These investigations will be based on the observation of the data collected by a custom development performed by the company Qascom, based on the Qascom QN400-Space GNSS receiver. The receiver is able to provide, PVT solutions, the GNSS raw observables obtained by the real time operation, as well as snapshots of IF digital samples collected by the RF front-end at frequencies L1/E1 and L5/E5. These data will be the input for the different science investigations, that require then the development of proper analysis tools that will be the core of the ground segment during the mission. The current work done by the science team of NASA and ASI, which is supported by a research team at Politecnico di Torino, is planning the data acquisitions during the time windows dedicated to the LuGRE payload in the checkout, transit and surface mission phases

Σ+ and ¯Σ− Polarization in the J/ψ and ψ(3686) Decays

From 1310.6×106  J/ψ and 448.1×106  ψ(3686) events collected with the BESIII experiment, we report the first observation of Σ+ and ¯Σ− spin polarization in e+e−→J/ψ[ψ(3686)]→Σ+¯Σ− decays. The relative phases of the form factors ΔΦ have been measured to be (−15.5±0.7±0.5)° and (21.7±4.0±0.8)° with J/ψ and ψ(3686) data, respectively. The nonzero value of ΔΦ allows for a direct and simultaneous measurement of the decay asymmetry parameters of Σ+→pπ0(α0=−0.998±0.037±0.009) and ¯Σ−→¯pπ0(¯α0=0.990±0.037±0.011), the latter value being determined for the first time. The average decay asymmetry, (α0−¯α0)/2, is calculated to be −0.994±0.004±0.002. The CP asymmetry ACP,Σ=(α0+¯α0)/(α0−¯α0)=−0.004±0.037±0.010 is extracted for the first time, and is found to be consistent with CP conservatio

The front-end electronics for the COMPASS MWPCs

In the COMPASS experiment 34 planes of MWPCs for about 26,000 readout channels of MWPCs are used. The very high rate of the muon and hadron beams, and the consequently high trigger rate, requires the use of a front-end electronics with new conceptual design, to have a fast DAQ with a minimum dead-time. Its scheme will be described, together with some results of the performances achieved

Psi clustering for the assessment of underground infrastructure deterioration

Remote sensing images find application in several different domains, such as land cover or land usage observation, environmental monitoring, and urbanization. This latter field has recently witnessed an interesting development with the use of remote sensing for infrastructural monitoring. In this work, we present an analysis of Sentinel-1 images, which were used to monitor the Italian provinces of Bologna and Modena located at the Emilia Region Apennines foothill. The goal of this study was the development of a machine learning-based detection system to monitor the deterioration of public aqueduct infrastructures based on Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI). We evaluated the land deformation over a temporal range of five years; these series feed a k-means clustering algorithm to separate the pixels of the region according to different deformation patterns. Furthermore, we defined the critical areas as those areas where different patterns collided or overlapped. The proposed approach provides an informative tool for the structural health monitoring of underground infrastructures