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

Effects of environmental variability and offspring growth on the movement ecology of breeding Scopoli's shearwater Calonectris diomedea

Abstract Most seabird species display colonial behavior during the breeding period which implies that food resources around breeding sites can easily go depleted. Seabirds need to both reach profitable areas, which can be located far from the colony, and return to the colony regularly. In this context, flexibility in movement behavior may be crucial for breeding success. During chick-rearing, Procellariformes species can alternate short trips lasting 1–4 days for chick provisioning with longer trips for self-provisioning in what has been called a dual-foraging strategy. We analyzed foraging trips from 136 Scopoli's shearwaters from three Mediterranean colonies tracked with GPS during 6 chick-rearing seasons to assess whether the adoption of a dual foraging strategy depends on the quality of habitat surrounding the colony. We found a marked dual-foraging strategy only in birds from the Linosa colony which was the largest colony in terms of breeding pairs and was characterized by having a lower marine habitat quality. Birds from this colony performed foraging trips that extended up to 369 km from the nest and lasted more than 10 days. In general, the decision to perform long lasting trips was triggered by lower values of primary production and higher offspring weight. Contrary to expectation, the decision to feed far from the colony was not related to the parents' weight. At the same time, despite the higher productivity offered by distant areas, the higher proportion of long trips performed by birds breeding in poor areas was not sufficient to maintain the same body mass as the ones breeding in richer areas

Effect of coil charge duration on combustion variability and flame morphology in a GDI engine working in lean burn conditions

Spark ignition (SI) and subsequent flame front development exert a significant influence on cyclic variability of internal combustion engines (ICEs). The increasing exploitation of lean air-fuel mixtures in SI engines to lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions is driving the scientific community towards the search for innovative combustion strategies. Moreover, although lean combustion has been widely investigated and an important number of studies is already present in literature, the high cyclic variability typical of this combustion process still represents a major hinder to its exploitation. This study aims to investigate the effects of increasing ignition energy on combustion characteristics of lean mixtures. Tests were performed on an optically accessible gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine that allowed to investigate the correlation between the thermodynamic results and spark arc-flame morphology. Engine speed was fixed at 2000 rpm, a relative air fuel ratio (AFRrel) of about 1.3 was selected and ignition timing was set at 12 crank angle degrees (CAD) bTDC. Coil charge duration was swept from 10 to 40 CAD. Two intake pressure levels were investigated, the first corresponding to wide open throttle under naturally aspirated operating mode, the second with an intake pressure of 1.2 bar, thus corresponding to a boosted operating condition. Two dedicated scripts built using NI Vision were employed for image processing, allowing the evaluation of temporal and spatial evolution of the early stages of combustion. Arc elongation and flame front contour were used as correlation parameters that characterize flame kernel inception and development. The results confirm that, as expected, the increase of the coil charge duration tends to reduce cyclic variability in terms of engine output. The optical investigations revealed that for both examined cases the standard deviation related to the wrinkling effect on flame edge at CA5 decreased as the coil charge duration increased

GSAC - WG4 EPOS Meeting

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

Switching on the deep brain stimulation: Effects on cardiovascular regulation and respiration.

BACKGROUND: Objective of this study was to evaluate the acute cardiovascular and respiratory effects of switching on the deep brain stimulation in the follow up of nine Parkinson's disease patients with subthalamic nucleus stimulation and six cluster headache patients with posterior hypothalamic area stimulation. METHODS: Systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate were monitored continuously during supine rest in both groups. Each patient was assessed in two conditions: resting supine with stimulator off and with stimulator on. RESULTS: In supine resting condition switching on the DBS induced no significant changes (p>0.05) in systolic and diastolic blood pressure as well as in heart rate and respiratory rate, in both groups of patients, either taking 1 min or 10 heartbeats as a sample for analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Switching on the DBS does not modify heart rate, blood pressure nor respiratory rate in both Parkinson and cluster headache patients under resting conditions

The RNA-dependent RNA polymerase essential for post-transcriptional gene silencing in Neurospora crassa interacts with replication protein A

Post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) pathways play a role in genome defence and have been extensively studied, yet how repetitive elements in the genome are identified is still unclear. It has been suggested that they may produce aberrant transcripts (aRNA) that are converted by an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) into double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), the essential intermediate of PTGS. However, how RdRP enzymes recognize aberrant transcripts remains a key question. Here we show that in Neurospora crassa the RdRP QDE-1 interacts with Replication Protein A (RPA), part of the DNA replication machinery. We show that both QDE-1 and RPA are nuclear proteins and that QDE-1 is specifically recruited onto the repetitive transgenic loci. We speculate that this localization of QDE-1 could allow the in situ production of dsRNA using transgenic nascent transcripts as templates, as in other systems. Supporting a link between the two proteins, we found that the accumulation of short interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the hallmark of silencing, is dependent on an ongoing DNA synthesis. The interaction between QDE-1 and RPA is important since it should guide further studies aimed at understanding the specificity of the RdRP and it provides for the first time a potential link between a PTGS component and the DNA replication machinery

Efficacy of ginger as antiemetic in children with acute gastroenteritis: a randomised controlled trial

Background: Ginger is a spice with a long history of use as a traditional remedy for nausea and vomiting. No data on the efficacy of ginger are presently available for children with vomiting associated with acute gastroenteritis (AGE). Aim: To test whether ginger can reduce vomiting in children with AGE. Methods: Double-blind, randomised placebo-controlled trial in outpatients aged 1 to 10 years with AGE-associated vomiting randomised to ginger or placebo. The primary outcome was the occurrence of ≥1 episode of vomiting after the first dose of treatment. Severity of vomiting and safety were also assessed. Results: Seventy-five children were randomised to the ginger arm and 75 to the placebo arm. Five children in the ginger arm and 4 in the placebo arm refused to participate in the study shortly after randomisation, leaving 70 children in the ginger arm and 71 in the placebo arm (N = 141). At intention-to-treat analysis (N = 150), assuming that all children lost to follow-up had reached the primary outcome, the incidence of the main outcome was 67% (95% CI 56 to 77) in the ginger group and 87% (95% CI 79 to 94) in the placebo group, corresponding to the absolute risk reduction for the ginger versus the placebo group of −20% (95% CI −33% to −7%, P = 0.003), with a number needed to treat of 5 (95% CI 3 to 15). Conclusion: Oral administration of ginger is effective and safe at improving vomiting in children with AGE. Trial registration: The trial was registered on https://clinicaltrials.gov/ with the identifier NCT02701491