The Italian port system: a survey on competitiveness and development factors

Between 2003 and 2007 the volume of container traffic handled by the national port system increased only slightly despite the strong growth of maritime traffic in the Mediterranean Sea. This was due both to national economic stagnation and to the inability of the ports to extend their operational area further afield because of the lack of good port and land infrastructure. This paper aims to investigate these issues on the basis of a survey of the national agents of the main global shipping companies. The main weaknesses in competitiveness regard land infrastructure; other problems involve inefficiencies in national ports’ activities and insufficient infrastructure. National logistics and the supply chain are fragmented compared with the integrated systems of other countries. In the opinion of the shipping agents, in addition to improvements in infrastructure, it is necessary to liberalize rail transportation and to modernize port governance, especially by reducing red tape and granting wider financial autonomy to the port authorities.ports, logistics, transport infrastructure

A Numerical Investigation of Electrically-Heated Methane Steam Reforming Over Structured Catalysts

The use of electric energy as an alternative system to provide heat of reaction enables the cut-off of CO2 emissions of several chemical processes. Among these, electrification of steam methane reforming results in a cleaner production method of hydrogen. In this work, we perform for the first time a numerical investigation of a compact steam reforming unit that exploits the electrical heating of the catalyst support. First, for such unit we consider the optimal thermodynamic conditions to perform the power to hydrogen conversion; the process should be run at atmospheric pressure and in a close temperature range. Then, among possible materials currently used for manufacturing structured supports we identify silicon carbide as the best material to run electrified steam reforming at moderate voltages and currents. The temperature and concentration profiles in idealized units are studied to understand the impact of the catalyst geometry on the process performances and open-cell foams, despite lower surface to volume show the best potential. Finally, the impact of heat losses is analyzed by considering different operative conditions and reactor geometries, showing that it is possible to obtain relatively high thermal efficiencies with the proposed methodology

Investigation of packed conductive foams as a novel reactor configuration for methane steam reforming

Abstract In this work, a novel fixed bed reactor configuration is proposed and tested for the steam reforming of methane; the proposed solution consists of filling the voids of highly conductive metallic open-cell foams with small catalytic pellets. This reactor layout aims at enhancing the radial heat transfer of the tubular reactor by exploiting the thermal conductivity of the solid interconnected matrix, while keeping a target catalyst inventory and avoiding issues related to washcoating of metallic structures. Tests were performed using a Rh/Al2O3 catalyst in the form of alumina egg-shell particles, with diameter of 600 μm. FeCrAlY open cell foams of 12 PPI and copper open cell foams of 10 and 40 PPI were compared to a conventional packed bed system; experiments were performed at GHSV of 5000 and 10000 h−1 at oven temperatures in the 600–800 °C range. Experiments demonstrated a benefit in terms of the thermal management of the reactor and an increase of productivity at the same furnace temperature in kinetically-limited conditions. A heat transfer model of the packed foams was developed based on the approach of electric equivalent circuit; the model incorporates independently estimated lumped or effective parameters and provides an engineering rationale of the observed reduction of temperature gradients across the catalytic bed

Electrified CO2 valorization driven by direct Joule heating of catalytic cellular substrates

The growing environmental concerns have driven catalytic CO2 valorization as a forward-looking solution to mitigate the carbon footprint of valuable chemical products. CO2 conversion processes into synthesis gas, such as CO2 reforming of methane (CRM) or reverse water–gas shift (RWGS), may have a strategic role for the future sustainable production of chemicals and energy carriers. However, fuel combustion to supply the heat of the associated endothermic reactions would result in unwanted CO2 emissions, frustrating the overall objective. Electrification of the endothermic processes may represent the technological solution to such an issue. Here we report a promising approach for the direct electrification of the CO2 reforming of methane (eCRM) and reverse water–gas shift (eRWGS) processes in washcoated structured reactors. We employ catalytically activated open-cell foams that provide optimal heat and mass transfer properties and serve as Joule heating substrates for the catalytic conversion of CO2 via reaction with methane or hydrogen. The proposed reactor system with Joule-heated Rh/Al2O3-coated foam exhibited excellent catalytic and electrical stability for more than 75 h, operating up to 800 °C and approaching equilibrium conversion at high space velocity, i.e., GHSV of 600 and 100 kNl/kgcat/h for eRWGS and eCRM, respectively. Such a reactor concept has potential to ensure remarkably low specific energy demand for CO2 valorization. Assuming an optimized process configuration approx. 0.7 kWh/Nm3CO2 is calculated for eRWGS. By replacing fuel combustion with Joule heating driven by renewable electricity, the electrified CO2 valorization processes provide an important approach for dealing with the intermittent nature of renewable sources by storing the energy in chemicals with a low carbon footprint

Impact of Hanging Motionless in Harness on Respiratory and Blood Pressure Reflex Modulation in Mountain Climbers

Harness hang syncope (HHS) is a risk that specifically affects safety of harness users in mountain climbing. Aims: To evaluate individual patterns of breathing resulting from deranged cardiovascular reflexes triggering a syncopal event when a mismatch between cerebral O2 demand and supply is present. Results: Forty healthy participants [aged 39.1 (8.2) years] were enrolled in a motionless suspension test while hanging in harness. Respiratory gas exchange values were analyzed to assess the pattern of breathing (EpInWel, respiratory elastic power) and cardiovascular parameters were monitored (BP, blood pressure). Four participants experienced HHS after 30.0 (7.6) minutes, with an early manifestation of loss of control of both a sustainable EpInWel and BP, starting after 10-12 minutes. Among the other participants, two different reactions were observed during suspension: (1) group G1 tolerated 32.7 (11.4) minutes of suspension by a favorable adaptation of the EpInWel and BP parameters and (2) group G2 showed significantly shorter time of suspension 24.0 (10.4) minutes with unfavorable increase in EpInWel and BP. Conclusions: Greater resistance to HHS occurs in people developing less marked fluctuations of both respiratory and cardiovascular reflex responses. Conversely, wider fluctuations both in control of EpInWel and BP were observed in the event of decreased suspension tolerance or in syncopal events

537. New Graph-Based Algorithm for Comprehensive Identification and Tracking Retroviral Integration Sites

Vector integration sites (IS) in hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene therapy (GT) applications are stable genetic marks, distinctive for each independent cell clone and its progeny. The characterization of IS allows to identify each cell clone and individually track its fate in different tissues or cell lineages and during time, and is required for assessing the safety and efficacy of the treatment. Bioinformatics pipelines for IS detection used in GT identify the sequence reads mapping in the same genomic position of the reference genome as a single IS but discard those ambiguously mapped in multiple genomic regions. The loss of such significant portion of patients' IS may hide potential malignant events thus reducing the reliability of IS studies. We developed a novel tool that is able to accurately identify IS in any genomic region even if composed by repetitive genomic sequences. Our approach exploits an initial genome free analysis of sequencing reads by creating an undirected graph in which nodes are the input sequences and edges represent valid alignments (over a specific identity threshold) between pairs of nodes. Through the analysis and decomposition of the graph, the method identifies indivisible subgraphs of sequences (clusters), each of them corresponding to an IS. Once extracted the consensus sequence of the clusters and aligned on the reference genome, we collect the alignment results and the annotation labels from RepeatMasker. By combining the set of genomic coordinates and the annotation labels, the method retraces the initial sequence graph, statistically validates the clusters through permutation test and produces the final list of IS. We tested the reliability of our tool on 3 IS datasets generated from simulated sequencing reads with incremental rate of nucleotide variations (0%, 0.25% and 0.5%) and real data from a cell line with known IS and we compared out tool to VISPA and UClust, used for GT studies. In the simulated datasets our tool demonstrated precision and recall ranging 0.85-0.97 and 0.88-0.99 respectively, producing the aggregate F-score ranging 0.86-0.98 which resulted higher than VISPA and UClust. In the experimental case of sequences from LAM-PCR products, our tool and VISPA were able to identify all the 6 known ISs for >98% of the reads produced, while UClust identified only 5 out 6 ISs. We then used our tool to reanalyze the sequencing reads of our GT clinical trial for Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD) completing the hidden portion of IS. The overall number of ISs, sequencing reads and estimated actively re-populating HSCs was increased by an average fold ~1.5 with respect the previously published data obtained through VISPA whereas the diversity index of the population did not change and no aberrant clones in repeats occurred. Our tool addresses and solves important open issues in retroviral IS identification and clonal tracking, allowing the generation of a comprehensive repertoire of IS

Development of a Catalytic Fuel Processor for a 10 kW Combined Heat and Power System: Experimental and Modeling Analysis of the Steam Reforming Unit

In this work, we address the development of a combined heat and power unit for residential applications, fed by natural gas, air and H2O; focus is on the design of the first catalytic stage of the fuel processor, that is the steam reforming unit. A commercial catalyst was tested at the laboratory scale, under kinetically controlled conditions in order to derive information on the reaction kinetics and support the basic engineering of the full scale reactor. Analogous tests after long term steam reforming ageing were then performed to quantify the evolution of the catalyst activity under real operating conditions and estimate a lumped deactivation factor. A modelling analysis was performed to predict the expected performance of the fuel processor at varying input parameters and catalyst activity profiles. It was verified that at a space velocity below 5000 Nl/kgcat/h, the reactor output is fully controlled by the thermodynamics at 650 °C, which guarantees the best operability and efficiency of the whole fuel processo

Feasibility and Acceptability of a Real-Time Telerehabilitation Intervention for Children and Young Adults with Acquired Brain Injury During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Experience Report

This study examined the feasibility and acceptability of a telerehabilitation intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic in a sample of children and young adults with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI). Thirteen patients and/or their families agreed to participate in the speech and neuropsychological telerehabilitation sessions. The treatment was synchronous, patient centered and aimed at improving specific abilities. Sessions were held twice a week over a 10-week period. Two questionnaires were completed both by parents and therapists to assess feasibility and acceptability. Neither technical issues nor clinical obstacles were found. The quality of the therapeutic relationship played a key role in the intervention. Synchronous telerehabilitation provided several advantages both for patients and therapists. Moreover, the patient centered intervention eased the burden of the caregivers at a time of high stress. The real-time telerehabilitation treatments were deemed suitable for children and young adults with ABI. Further studies are needed to support the use of telerehabilitation as an integral part of their standard care

Metal Micro-Monoliths for the Kinetic Study and the Intensification of the Water Gas Shift Reaction

A kinetic study of the water gas shift (WGS) reaction has been carried out on a Pt-based catalyst promoted by a Zr-based proton conductor. The investigation was first performed on powders with diluted feed mixtures and then extended to more severe and representative conditions by using a catalyst coated metallic micromonolith. Temperature measurements reveal that isothermal conditions were obtained along the micromonolith during the tested conditions. In addition, the very thin catalytic layer allows for the discarding of intraporous resistances, providing excellent conditions to analyse the kinetics of the WGS reaction under the integral regime. The proposed rate expression accounts for independence on CO concentration, an inhibiting effect of H2 and a promoting effect of H2O; kinetic orders on CO and H2 are in line with those reported in the literature for the Pt-based catalyst. Instead, the obtained reaction order of water (0.36) is significantly lower than that reported for unpromoted catalysts (typically 0.77–1.10) in good agreement with the proposed water-enhancer effect of the proton conductor on the rate-limiting step. Metallic micromonoliths turn out to be a powerful tool for the kinetic investigation, due to the absence of mass and heat transport limitations and represent a strategy for the intensification of the WGS unit for future applications of fuel processors in small mobile devices