LCA to start and perform green public procurement for funeral products

AMNU S.p.A. is an Italian multi-utility company, whose owner are local municipalities, which operates basically in the territory of the Province of Trento in urban waste collection and transport. In the last years AMNU has started the “new” activity of funeral service that has a wide public concern and is a source of deep connection with the the territory. Funeral services and cemetery\u27s management are becoming more and more important and therefore AMNU has moved forward in the environmental path and this is the objective of this work: to integrate procurement tenders for the funeral products industry by inserting environmental purchasing criteria. To achieve this, we have performed a LCA study, because it has scientific and legal bases, focusing on sector of inhumation. The aim is to determine criteria that may characterize funerary products from an environmental point of view. Moreover, AMNU is related to the GPP (= Green Public Procurement) which is an instrument of european environmental policy and aims to encourage the market for green products and services, starting from the public administration. It is important to note that the GPP is no longer a voluntary instrument in Italy and that the cost of procurement of goods and services in Italy, operated by different Public Authorities (PA), each year is around 50 billion euro (ISTAT data): PA can push towards a more green economy and a more sustainable market. To propose an invitation to tender for the first time characterized by green criteria for funeral products, an environmental assessment has been performed for the use of three types of products: 1) coffin, 2) padding, 3) absorbent pad which is often added between the coffin and the padding to absorb the body fluids of the deceased. THE RESULTS 1) The LCA study helped to identify nine criteria (5 applied to the first product and 4 to the other two) that have allowed to identify and choose products that provide the best environmental impact. 2) Furthermore, the assessment based on the Carbon Footprint has provided interesting directions: in the case of the first product, the difference between the best possible product and the worst is about 40 times of CO2eq. while it is much smaller, with a maximum difference of impact of about 4 times, if referred to the other two products. So, in an LCA perspective, it is more important to focus on coffin rather than padding or absorbent pad. 3) The tender has been compiled with the new requirements and it has been published and now it is available to suppliers (totale value: more than 200.000 euro) who have to contend with these new criteria for the next delivery; consider that the part of the technical bid means 60% of the contract notice and environmental section is the more important

Noncovalent passivation of supported phosphorene for device applications: from morphology to electronic properties

An interface between poly(methyl-methacrylate) PMMA-supported phosphorene and layers of linear alkane chains has been studied computationally to reveal an efficient route to noncovalent passivation in terms of the effective coverage of surface area. The formation of strongly ordered compact planar aggregates of alkanes driven by the anisotropy of the phosphorene surface greatly improves the packing at the interface. Small mechanical deformations of the phosphorene structure induced by the interaction with PMMA substrate, a polymer dielectric material, do not alter substantially the mechanical, electronic properties of phosphorene. This indicates remarkable possibilities of using alkanes for prevention of phosphorene from surface degradation phenomena and suggests new technological routes for the fabrication of phosphorene-based electronic devices

Cenni storici sull’Agronomia e lo studio delle scienze agrarie

La didattica universitaria nel campo delle scienze agrarie necessita anche del richiamo ad alcuni temi di carattere storico, in riferimento alle vicende dell’agricoltura nelle diverse epoche, con particolare attenzione all’evoluzione degli aspetti tecnici e pratici e alle numerose tappe percorse dal pensiero agronomico dall’antichità classica ai nostri giorni. L’auspicio primario di queste pagine è quello di costituire una utile integrazione alle dettagliate nozioni tecnico-scientifiche che caratterizzano i corsi universitari di Agronomia e di Coltivazioni erbacee, non trascurando la possibilità di individuare spunti di approfondimento e temi di ricerca su più ampie questioni di storia dell’agricoltura, e di storia della ricerca e dell’insegnamento universitario in ambito agronomico

AI and data-driven infrastructures for workflow automation and integration in advanced research and industrial applications

The use of AI and data-driven technologies and infrastructures for innovation and development of advanced research and industrial applications requires a strong degree of integration across a broad range of tools, disciplines and competences. In spite of a huge disruptive potential, the role of AI for research and development in the context of industrial applications is often hampered by the lack of consolidated and shared practices for transforming domain-specific processes for generating knowledge into added value. These issues are particularly striking for small-medium enterprises (SMEs), which must adopt clear and effective policies for implementing successful technology transfer paths for innovation. The activities of the DAIMON Lab of the CNR-ISMN focus on the design, development, implementation and application of integrated modelling, data-driven and AI methods and infrastructures for innovation in hi-tech applications. Our approach is based on the development of horizontal platforms, which can be applied to a broad range of vertical use-cases. Namely, we target the realisation of high-throughput workflows, related to specific domains and use cases, which are able to collect and process simulations and/or physical data and information. The implementation of an interoperable integration framework is a prerequisite for further application of AI tools for predictivity and automation. With a strong focus on the development of key enabling technologies (KETs), such as advanced materials, the approach pursued is extended to a broad range of application fields and scenarios of interest in industry, including electronic and ICT, advanced and sustainable manufacturing, energy, mobilit

Factors affecting the quality and reliability of online health information

Background: Internet represents a relevant source of information, but reliability of data that can be obtained by the web is still an unsolved issue. Non-reliable online information may have a relevance, especially in taking decisions related to health problems. Uncertainties on the quality of online health data may have a negative impact on health-related choices of citizens. Objective: This work consisted in a cross-sectional literature review of published papers on online health information. The two main research objectives consisted in the analysis of trends in the use of health web sites and in the quality assessment and reliability levels of web medical sites. Methods: Literature research was made using four digital reference databases, namely PubMed, British Medical Journal, Biomed, and CINAHL. Entries used were “trustworthy of medical information online,” “survey to evaluate medical information online,” “medical information online,” and “habits of web-based health information users”. Analysis included only papers published in English. The Newcastle Ottawa Scale was used to conduct quality checks of selected works. Results: Literature analysis using the above entries resulted in 212 studies. Twenty-four articles in line with study objectives, and user characteristics were selected. People more prone to use the internet for obtaining health information were females, younger people, scholars, and employees. Reliability of different online health sites is an issue taken into account by the majority of people using the internet for obtaining health information and physician assistance could help people to surf more safe health web sites. Conclusions: Limited health information and/or web literacy can cause misunderstandings in evaluating medical data found in the web. An appropriate education plan and evaluation tools could enhance user skills and bring to a more cautious analysis of health information found in the web

telemedicine practice review of the current ethical and legal challenges

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Crop rotations sustain cereal yields under a changing climate

Agriculture is facing the complex challenge of satisfying increasing food demands, despite the current and projected negative impacts of climate change on yields. Increasing crop diversity at a national scale has been suggested as an adaptive measure to better cope with negative climate impacts such as increasing temperatures and drought, but there is little evidence to support this hypothesis at the field scale. Using seven long-term experiments across a wide latitudinal gradient in Europe, we showed that growing multiple crop species in a rotation always provided higher yields for both winter and spring cereals (average +860 and +390 kg ha(-1) per year, respectively) compared with a continuous monoculture. In particular, yield gains in diverse rotations were higher in years with high temperatures and scant precipitations, i.e. conditions expected to become more frequent in the future, rendering up to c. 1000 kg ha(-1) per year compared to monocultures. Winter cereals yielded more in diverse rotations immediately after initiation of the experiment and kept this advantage constant over time. For spring cereals, the yield gain increased over time since diversification adoption, arriving to a yearly surplus of c. 500 kg ha(-1) after 50-60 years with still no sign of plateauing. Diversified rotations emerge as a promising way to adapt temperate cropping systems and contribute to food security under a changing climate. However, novel policies need to be implemented and investments made to give means and opportunities for farmers to adopt diversified crop rotations