A review of LCA assessments of forest-based bioeconomy products and processes under an ecosystem services perspective

The emergence of politically driven bioeconomy strategies worldwide calls for considering the ecological issues associated with bio-based products. Traditionally, life cycle analysis (LCA) approaches are key tools used to assess impacts through product life cycles, but they present limitations regarding the accounting of multiple ecosystem service-related issues, at both the land-use and supply chain levels. Based on a systematic review of empirical articles, this study provides insights on using LCA assessments to account for ecosystem service-related impacts in the context of bioeconomy activities. We address the following research questions: what is the state of the art of the literature performing LCA assessments of forest-based bioeconomy activities, including the temporal distribution, the geographic areas and products/processes at study, and the approaches and methods used? 2. Which impacts and related midpoints are considered by the reviewed studies and what types of ecosystem service- related information do they bear? Out of over 600 articles found through the Scopus search, 155 were deemed relevant for the review. The literature focuses on North-America and Europe. Most of the articles assessed the environmental impact of lower-value biomass uses. Climate change was assessed in over 90% of the studies, while issues related to ozone, eutrophication, human toxicity, resource depletion, acidification, and environmental toxicity were assessed in 40% to 60% of the studies. While the impact categories accounted for in the reviewed LCA studies bear information relevant to certain provisioning and regulating services, several ecosystem services (especially cultural ones) remain unaccounted for. The implications of our study are relevant for professionals working in the ecosystem services, circular bioeconomy, and/or LCA communities. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

How the optical timing system, the longitudinal diagnostics and the associated feedback systems provide femtosecond stable operation at the FERMI free electron laser

FERMI, the seeded free electron laser (FEL) in operation in Italy, is providing the User Community with unique fully coherent radiation, in the wavelength range 100–4 nm. FERMI is the first FEL fully synchronized by means of optical fibers. The optical timing system ensures an ultra-stable phase reference to its distributed clients. Several femtosecond longitudinal diagnostics verify the achieved performance; the bunch length monitor (BLM) and the bunch arrival monitor (BAM) will be presented in this paper. Feedback systems play a crucial role to guarantee the needed long-term electron beam stability. A real-time infrastructure allows shot-to-shot communication between front-end computers and the servers. Orbit feedbacks are useful in machine tuning, whereas longitudinal feedbacks control electron energy, compression and arrival time. A flexible software framework allows a rapid implementation of heterogeneous multi-input–multi-output (MIMO) longitudinal loops simply by selecting the appropriate sensors and actuators

Improved Methodology to Estimate the Power Transfer Efficiency in an Inductively Coupled Radio Frequency Ion Source

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor neutral beam injector includes an ion source which can produce D− ion beams for 1 h, accelerated at the energy of 1 MeV. An ion source consists of a driver where the plasma is produced by the application of the radio frequency (RF) power to an inductive coil. This paper presents an improved methodology which provides an estimation of the power transfer efficiency to the plasma of the driver. The developed methodology is based on different mechanisms which are responsible for the plasma heating (ohmic and stochastic) and an electrical model describing the power transfer to the plasma. As a first approximation in a previous work, a transformer model was assumed as an electrical model. In this paper, a main improvement is introduced based on the development of a multi-filament model which takes into account the mutual coupling between the RF coil, the plasma, and the passive metallic structure. The methodology is applied to the negative ion optimization 1 (NIO1), a flexible negative ion source, currently in operation at Consorzio RFX, Italy. The results from the two models, transformer and multi-filament, are presented and compared in terms of plasma equivalent resistance and power transfer efficiency. It is found that results obtained from both the transformer and the multi-filament model follow the same trend in comparison with the applied frequency and the other plasma parameters like electron density, temperature, and gas pressure. However, lower values of the plasma equivalent resistance and power transfer efficiency are observed with the multi-filament model. The multi-filament model reproduces a more realistic experimental scenario where the power losses due to the generation of the eddy currents in the metallic structure are considered

Free-electron laser spectrum evaluation and automatic optimization

The radiation generated by a seeded free-electron laser (FEL) is characterized by a high temporal coherence, which is close to the Fourier limit in the ideal case. The setup and optimization of a FEL is a non-trivial and challenging operation. This is due to the plethora of highly sensitive machine parameters and to the complex correlations between them. The fine tuning of the FEL process is normally supervised by physicists and is carried out by scanning various parameters with the aim of optimizing the spectrum of the emitted pulses in terms of intensity and line-width. In this article we introduce a novel quantitative method for the evaluation of the FEL spectrum via a quality index. Moreover, we investigate the possibility of optimization of the FEL parameters using this index as the objective function of an automatic procedure. We also present the results of the preliminary tests performed in the FERMI FEL focused on the effectiveness and ability of the automatic procedure to assist in the task of machine tuning and optimization

AC/DC: The FERMI FEL Split and Delay Optical Device for Ultrafast X-ray Science

Free-electron lasers (FELs) are the most advanced class of light-sources, by virtue of their unique capability to lase high-brightness pulses characterized by wavelengths spanning the extreme-ultraviolet, the soft and hard X-ray spectral domains, as well as by temporal lengths lying in the femtosecond (fs) timescale. The next step to push the current standards in ultrafast X-ray science is strongly linked to the possibility of engineering and exploiting time-resolved experiments exclusively for FELs pulses, ideally having different colors tunable at specific electronic resonance of the chemical elements. At the seeded FERMI FEL (Trieste, Italy) this goal is committed to the optical device known as AC/DC, which stands for the auto correlator/delay creator. AC/DC is designed to double the incoming FEL pulse splitting the photon beam by inserting a grazing incidence flat mirror, thus preserving the spectral and temporal properties, and further delaying one of these two pulses in time. It can independently tune the FEL pulses fluence on the two optical paths by means of solid-state filters, too. Here, we present a detailed description about this optical device. Strong emphasis is dedicated to the AC/DC opto-mechanical design and to the laser-based feedback systems implemented to compensate for any mismatch affecting the FEL optical trajectory, ascribable to both mechanical imperfections and paraxial errors rising during a temporal delay scan

Overview on electrical issues faced during the SPIDER experimental campaigns

SPIDER is the full-scale prototype of the ion source of the ITER Heating Neutral Beam Injector, where negative ions of Hydrogen or Deuterium are produced by a RF generated plasma and accelerated with a set of grids up to ~100 keV. The Power Supply System is composed of high voltage dc power supplies capable of handling frequent grid breakdowns, high current dc generators for the magnetic filter field and RF generators for the plasma generation. During the first 3 years of SPIDER operation different electrical issues were discovered, understood and addressed thanks to deep analyses of the experimental results supported by modelling activities. The paper gives an overview on the observed phenomena and relevant analyses to understand them, on the effectiveness of the short-term modifications provided to SPIDER to face the encountered issues and on the design principle of long-term solutions to be introduced during the currently ongoing long shutdown.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figures. Presented at SOFT 202

Investigation of oral and general health status and IL-1β gene polymorphism as risk factors for oral mucositis in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation patients

The aim of the present study was to analyze the relationship of OM with possible risk factors such as oral health condition, immunological status and IL-1β profile in patients submitted to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Fifty-four individuals submitted to HSCT were included. All patients received previous dental treatment and photobiomodulation (PBM) as the institutional OM preventive protocol. OM scores, immune status, and IL-1β levels were determined during the conditioning period and at D+3 and D+8 after HSC infusion. IL-1β gene polymorphism was also analyzed during conditioning. Possible associations of OM with risk factors were analyzed using conditional Fisher’s exact test. OM was observed in 34 patients (62.9%) classified as Grade 1 (13 patients/24.1%), Grade 2 (14 patients/25.9%), Grade 3 (3 patients/5.5%), and Grade 4 (4 patients/7.4%). Allogeneic HSCT individuals exhibited a higher OM grade than autologous subjects. Moreover, an association was observed between severe OM and severe gingivitis (p = 0.01), neutropenia (p = 0.03), and leukopenia (p = 0.04). A significant association between OM and lower IL-1β levels was detected at three time points, i.e., conditioning (p = 0.048), D+3 (p = 0.01), and D+8 (p = 0.005). The results showed that IL-1β gene polymorphism was not associated with OM. Our study provided important insights into the scope of OM risk factors in the setting of HSCT. Patients submitted to HSCT with severe gingivitis prior to chemotherapy and with severe neutropenia and leukopenia exhibited a higher OM grade. Further investigation will be necessary to better understand the exact role of IL-1β in the context of OM pathobiology and to validate cytokine analysis in larger cohorts

Indirect calibration between clinical observers - application to the New York Heart Association functional classification system

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previous studies showed an inter-observer agreement for the NYHA classification of approximately 55%. The aim of this study was to calibrate the New York Heart Association (NYHA) classification system between observers, increasing its reliability.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among 1136 community-dwellers in Porto, Portugal, aged ≥ 45 years, 265 reporting breathlessness answered a 4-item questionnaire to characterize symptom severity. The questionnaire was administered by 7 physicians who also classified the subject's functional capacity according to NYHA. Each subject was assessed by one physician. We calibrated NYHA classifications by the concurrent method, using 1-parameter logistic graded response model. Discrepancies between observers were assessed by differences in ability thresholds between NYHA classes I-II and II-III. The ability estimated by the model was used to predict the NYHA classification for each observer.</p> <p>Estimates of the first and second thresholds for each observer ranged from -1.92 to 0.46 and from 1.42 to 2.30, respectively. The agreement between estimated ability and the observers' NYHA classification was 88% (kappa = 0.61).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The study objectively indicates the main reason why several studies have reported low inter-observer is the existence of discrepant thresholds between observers in the definition of NYHA classes. The concurrent method can be used to minimize the reliability problem of NYHA classification.</p

Functional EPAS1/ HIF2A Missense Variant Is Associated With Hematocrit in Andean Highlanders

Hypoxia-inducible factor pathway genes are linked to adaptation in both human and nonhuman highland species. EPAS1, a notable target of hypoxia adaptation, is associated with relatively lower hemoglobin concentration in Tibetans. We provide evidence for an association between an adaptive EPAS1 variant (rs570553380) and the same phenotype of relatively low hematocrit in Andean highlanders. This Andean-specific missense variant is present at a modest frequency in Andeans and absent in other human populations and vertebrate species except the coelacanth. CRISPR-base-edited human cells with this variant exhibit shifts in hypoxia-regulated gene expression, while metabolomic analyses reveal both genotype and phenotype associations and validation in a lowland population. Although this genocopy of relatively lower hematocrit in Andean highlanders parallels well-replicated findings in Tibetans, it likely involves distinct pathway responses based on a protein-coding versus noncoding variants, respectively. These findings illuminate how unique variants at EPAS1 contribute to the same phenotype in Tibetans and a subset of Andean highlanders despite distinct evolutionary trajectories