Ex-ante life cycle assessment of FineFuture flotation technology: case study of Grecian Magnesite

Purpose This study aims at evaluating the environmental performance of a novel froth flotation technology in mining industry from a life cycle perspective. The technology is being developed under EU Horizon 2020 project titled "FineFuture" (FF) with the aim of saving valuable materials in fine particles that are currently wasted due to lack of technology.Methods FF relies on chemically enhancing the physical characteristics of particles allowing it to float and concentrate. Prospective life cycle assessment (pLCA) was conducted for two possible industrial applications of FF flotation technology in the case study of Grecian Magnesite (GM) which is a main magnesium oxide producer in Europe. Each application can be perceived as a standalone comparative LCA study comparing current system with future system incorporating FF technology on industrial scale.Results and discussion The future scenarios did not decisively support FF technology in neither of the two applications from an environmental point of view. When applied to fines of < 4 mm granular size with the aim of material recovery, the future scenario performed better than the current situation only in 5 out of 16 impact categories. The main issue is the added burden of calcination phase. When the technology was tested to upgrade the existing magnesite concentrate before calcination, it introduced some gains in most of the impact categories, but the difference compared to the current situation is not very considerable. Testing improved scenarios showed a great benefit to the overall performance of the scenarios by introducing cleaner fuels and burners in calcination phase.Conclusion and recommendations Overall, the results tend to favour applying FF technology to upgrade low quality concentrates rather than beneficiating < 4 mm fines. However, and in any case, if FF technology is to be applied, combining it with cleaner fuels and burners in calcination should be prioritized. Furthermore, it was found that improving the purity (i.e. quality) in the flotation tank output is a key factor from an environmental view. The results also showed little impact of the added electric energy demand from the new units. As any pLCA, the study has limitations mainly originating from the low technology readiness level (TRL) when data collection activities were carried out. Further studies should start from pilot-scale data and adopting more accurate upscaling approaches to calculate the impacts of a full industrial deployment of the technology

GSAC - WG4 EPOS Meeting

Description of GSAC installation at INGV and acquisition and distribution system of RIN

Empathy through the Pandemic: Changes of Different Emphatic Dimensions during the COVID-19 Outbreak

Growing evidence suggests that empathy is a relevant psychological trait to face the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but at the present very little is known on whether this multi-dimensional construct has been affected by the pandemic outbreak differently in its separate components. Here, we aimed at filling this gap by capitalizing on the opportunity of having collected data from different self-report measures and cognitive tasks assessing the main dimensions of empathy immediately before the beginning of the global pandemic and about one year later. The results showed a detrimental impact of the pandemic outbreak on empathic social skills but not on both cognitive (perspective-taking) and emotional empathy that instead significantly improved. Thus, reduced empathic social skills could be a weakness to be targeted in psychological interventions to help people cope with the mental health challenges related to COVID-19 pandemic, whereas the ability of understanding another’s mental states and emotions could represent a strength in dealing with the current long-lasting crisis

Year-round variation in the isotopic niche of Scopoli's shearwater (Calonectris diomedea) breeding in contrasting sea regions of the Mediterranean Sea

Top marine predators are key components of marine food webs. Among them, long-distance migratory seabirds, which travel across different marine ecosystems over the year, may experience important year-round changes in terms of oceanographic conditions and availability of trophic resources. We tested whether this was the case in the Scopoli's shearwater (Calonectris diomedea), a trans-equatorial migrant and top predator, by sampling birds breeding in three environmentally different regions of the Mediterranean Sea. The analysis of positional data and stable isotopes (δ1³C and δ15N) of target feathers revealed that birds from the three regions were spatially segregated during the breeding period while they shared non-breeding areas in the Atlantic Ocean. Isotopic baseline levels of N and C (meso-zooplankton) were significantly different among marine regions during breeding. Such variation was reflected at the higher trophic levels of pelagic and demersal fish muscles as well as in shearwater feathers grown in the Mediterranean. δ15N- and δ13C-adjusted values of shearwaters were significantly different among populations suggesting that birds from different breeding areas relied on prey species from different trophic levels. Conversely, the non-breeding spatial and isotopic niches overlapped greatly among the three populations. Shearwater trophic niches during breeding were narrower and segregated compared to the non-breeding period, revealing a high plasticity in trophic resource use. Overall, this study highlights seasonal and region-specific use of trophic resources by Scopoli's shearwater, suggesting a broad trophic plasticity and possibly a high adaptability to environmental changes

PARP inhibitors in endometrial cancer: current status and perspectives

Advanced, recurrent and metastatic endometrial cancer (EC) has a dismal prognosis due to poor response rates to conventional treatments. In the era of precision medicine, the improved understanding of cancer genetics and molecular biology has led to the development of targeted therapies, such as poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors. This class of drugs that inhibit PARP enzymes has been investigated in many different types of tumors and its use in the treatment of gynecological malignancies has rapidly increased over the past few years. Data from several clinical trials showed that PARP inhibitors have a beneficial role in cancers with a defect in the homologous DNA recombination system, regardless of the BRCA mutational status. Since EC frequently shows mutations in PTEN and TP53 genes, indirectly involved in the homologous DNA recombination pathway, several in vivo and in vitro studies investigated the efficacy of PARP inhibitors in EC, showing promising results. This review will discuss the use of PARP inhibitors in endome-trial cancer, summarizing data from preclinical studies and providing an overview of the ongoing trials, with a special focus on the development of combined treatment strategies with PARP inhibitors and immune checkpoint inhibitors