Decoupling and EKC in European Union countries: a shiftshare decomposition of air emissions

This paper examines the non-linear effect of per capita GDP growth rate, trade openness, and physical and human capital endowments on air pollution in the EU region over the period 2008-2016 by decomposing air emissions into scale, composition, and technique effects. Results show a negative non-linear relationship between greenhouse and acidifying gas emissions and per capita GDP growth rate, with more open economies tending to reduce emissions both directly and indirectly through investment in physical capital. The determinants mainly affect the scale component, although the environmental improvement due to capital investment works through the technique component. There are heterogeneous effects across countries, with more pronounced environmental benefits for countries in the higher deciles of GDP and trade growth rates.&nbsp

Decoupling and EKC in European Union countries: a shiftshare decomposition of air emissions

This paper examines the non-linear effect of per capita GDP growth rate, trade openness, and physical and human capital endowments on air pollution in the EU region over the period 2008-2016 by decomposing air emissions into scale, composition, and technique effects. Results show a negative non-linear relationship between greenhouse and acidifying gas emissions and per capita GDP growth rate, with more open economies tending to reduce emissions both directly and indirectly through investment in physical capital. The determinants mainly affect the scale component, although the environmental improvement due to capital investment works through the technique component. There are heterogeneous effects across countries, with more pronounced environmental benefits for countries in the higher deciles of GDP and trade growth rates.&nbsp

Ageing in Place, Healthy Ageing: Local Community Involvement in the Prevention Approach to Eldercare

The increase in ageing societies is posing new and urgent societal and political challenges to meeting people's medical, personal, and social needs in old age. Ageing should not be considered a uniform phase of life and at least three phases should be distinguished: (a) silver age, (b) the mildly frail age, and (c) those at risk of dependency. Policy tools and logics should prevent and support specific needs in a life‐course approach and the preventive approach is seen as among the most useful interventions, with a baseline objective to promote ageing in place, minimize the institutionalization of care, and prevent psychophysical deterioration by supporting older people and their families through tailor‐made approaches and policies. Our study focuses on the project Invecchiare bene/Bien vieillir (ageing well) funded by Interreg Alcotra France-Italy and implemented in the Valleys of Monviso in northern Italy. The project targets older people living at home in mountainous areas, where healthy ageing is difficult due to chronic diseases and social isolation. This article presents an analysis of preventive‐based interventions and services that promote innovative ageing policies and investigates the involvement of the local community and how it can lead to the deployment of new preventive measures. The research covers the direct impact on the health and living conditions of the recipients (older people) and innovation by the local care model (among social workers and the local community). Qualitative (documentary analysis, semi‐structured interviews, and focus groups) as well as quantitative (questionnaire and secondary data analysis) methods were used

European governments’ electromobility plans: an assessment with a focus on infrastructure targets and vehicle estimates until 2030

Electromobility offers great potentials to the decarbonisation of the transport sector. The purpose of this study is to analyse the development of electromobility in the European Union (EU) and in the United Kingdom (UK) by 2030. The study is based on the objectives provided by the EU Member States and UK in their national implementation reports, as foreseen by the Directive 2014/94/EU on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure. As the initial data coverage was not full, in order to produce a complete data set on registered electric vehicles and public recharging points, we estimated missing values with different statistical techniques and critical analysis of the initial data. A set of proposed indicators, namely the share of electric vehicles, the density of publicly accessible recharging points, the electric vehicles and recharging points annual growth rates and the sufficiency index, were averaged at EU27+UK level to depict the envisaged evolution of electromobility in the present decade. The results show that the objectives of the countries’ governments are overall less ambitious than the goals defined in the EU Green Deal for 2025 and in the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy for 2030. Most of the indicators vary significantly in the 2016–2030 period, often revealing an increased divergence between the development of electric vehicles and public recharging points. Two policy implications are derived: (i) the use of a combined set of indicators to assess the governments’ electromobility plans could be pursued, while the ratio of ten electric vehicles per recharging point may no longer be a useful benchmark; and (ii) measures supporting the uptake of recharging infrastructure are still needed to mitigate the divergence with electric vehicles and to meet the ambitious objectives of the EU Green Deal and Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy

Analysing the potential of a simulation-based method for the assessment of CO2 savings from eco-innovative technologies in light-duty vehicles

[EN] Mandatory targets are set in Europe for Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions of light-duty vehicles. EU law recognises the potential of certain innovative technologies to contribute to reducing CO2 emissions. Vehicle systems and innovations are becoming increasingly complex, and the accurate quantification of their benefits increasingly difficult. The study investigates the potential of the CO2MPAS simulator to serve this purpose. Two innovative technologies were studied, Light-emitting diode (LED) lighting systems, efficient alternators (EA), and their combination. The model was validated on detailed test results from eight vehicles. A total of 452 passenger cars, for which test data were available, were subsequently simulated using CO2MPAS simulator. The mean simulated CO2 savings was 0.91gCO2/km (LED lights), 0.98 gCO2/km (EA), and 1.78 gCO2/km (combined). Results show that simulated CO2 savings were comparable to those calculated using the existing standardised method. For gasoline and diesel vehicles respectively, the difference in CO2 savings between simulated and existing method was 2.8% and 0.14% in the LED lights case, and 0.6% and 0.67% in the alternator case. In the combined case, the difference was calculated to be 1.7% and 0.34%. Similar approaches could be used in the future for accurately capturing the benefits of more complex technologies.Authors would like to thank Mr Filip Francois, Ms Susanna Lindvall, and Mr Sotirios Kakarantzas of DG Climate Action for their valuable comments. A special thanks goes to Dr Vincenzo Arcidiacono who guided in the targeted sample CO2MPAS simulations which gave the starting point for this work, and to Dr Giuseppe Di Pierro who provided insight and expertise that greatly improved this work.Gil-Sayas, S.; Komnos, D.; Lodi, C.; Currò, D.; Serra, S.; Broatch, A.; Fontaras, G. (2022). Analysing the potential of a simulation-based method for the assessment of CO2 savings from eco-innovative technologies in light-duty vehicles. Energy. 245:1-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2022.12323811424

Combined Treatment of Cancer Cells Using Allyl Palladium Complexes Bearing Purine-Based NHC Ligands and Molecules Targeting MicroRNAs miR-221-3p and miR-222-3p: Synergistic Effects on Apoptosis

Combined treatments employing lower concentrations of different drugs are used and studied to develop new and more effective anticancer therapeutic approaches. The combination therapy could be of great interest in the controlling of cancer. Regarding this, our research group has recently shown that peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) that target miR-221 are very effective and functional in inducing apoptosis of many tumor cells, including glioblastoma and colon cancer cells. Moreover, in a recent paper, we described a series of new palladium allyl complexes showing a strong antiproliferative activity on different tumor cell lines. The present study was aimed to analyze and validate the biological effects of the most active compounds tested, in combination with antagomiRNA molecules targeting two miRNAs, miR-221-3p and miR-222-3p. The obtained results show that a “combination therapy”, produced by combining the antagomiRNAs targeting miR-221-3p, miR-222-3p and the palladium allyl complex 4d, is very effective in inducing apoptosis, supporting the concept that the combination treatment of cancer cells with antagomiRNAs targeting a specific upregulated oncomiRNAs (in this study miR-221-3p and miR-222-3p) and metal-based compounds represents a promising therapeutic strategy to increase the efficacy of the antitumor protocol, reducing side effects at the same time

Use of Radium-223 Dichloride in Patients With Osteonecrosis of the Jaw Induced by Zoledronic Acid: Report of 2 Cases.

Bisphosphonates, a group of inorganic pyrophosphate analogues that prevent the loss of bone density, are commonly used in patients with bone metastases; the calcium-mimetic a-emitter radium-223 dichloride (Ra223) is a bone-targeting therapy used in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC)-related bone metastases. Both treatments reduce pain and disability; Ra223 is associated with significantly improved overall survival in mCRPC. Patients who receive bisphosphonate therapy are at risk of developing osteonecrosis of the jaw, especially in those who do not undergo an accurate oral evaluation and sanitation before the beginning of therapy, and in patients who present with conditions that facilitate the development of this problem, such as inadequate oral and dental care, lack of prophylactic antimicrobial mouth rinsing, patient comorbidity, or suboptimal suturing after tooth extraction. Although there is possible synergism between bisphosphonates and Ra223 therapy, there is no consensus about the use of Ra223 in patients with previous/current osteonecrosis of the jaw induced by zoledronic acid. However, our experience suggests that Ra223 therapy might not be contraindicated in patients with osteonecrosis of the jaw induced by zoledronic acid if an appropriate multidisciplinary approach is followed, and we report 2 cases of patients with current or previous osteonecrosis of the jaw induced by zoledronic acid, who were treated with Ra223 for mCRPCrelated bone metastases. Multidisciplinary management, including accurate clinical and radiological evaluation before beginning therapy with Ra223, together with oral sanitation and periodic controls during treatment, allowed successful administration of Ra223 while reducing side effects, with absent or minimal worsening of osteonecrosis

A data-driven method for unsupervised electricity consumption characterisation at the district level and beyond

A bottom-up electricity characterisation methodology of the building stock at the local level is presented. It is based on the statistical learning analysis of aggregated energy consumption data, weather data, cadastre, and socioeconomic information. To demonstrate the validity of this methodology, the characterisation of the electricity consumption of the whole province of Lleida, located in northeast Spain, is implemented and tested. The geographical aggregation level considered is the postal code since it is the highest data resolution available through the open data sources used in the research work. The development and the experimental tests are supported by a web application environment formed by interactive user interfaces specifically developed for this purpose. The paper’s novelty relies on the application of statistical data methods able to infer the main energy performance characteristics of a large number of urban districts without prior knowledge of their building characteristics and with the use of solely measured data coming from smart meters, cadastre databases and weather forecasting services. A data-driven technique disaggregates electricity consumption in multiple uses (space heating, cooling, holidays and baseload). In addition, multiple Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are derived from this disaggregated energy uses to obtain the energy characterisation of the buildings within a specific area. The potential reuse of this methodology allows for a better understanding of the drivers of electricity use, with multiple applications for the public and private sector.This work emanated from research conducted with the fi-nancial support of the European Commission through the H2020project BIGG , grant agreement 957047, and the JRC Expert Con-tractCT-EX2017D306558-102.D.ChemisanathanksICREAfortheICREA Acadèmia. Dr J. Cipriano also thanks the Ministerio deCiencia e Innovación of the Spanish Government for the Juan dela Cierva Incorporación gran

Psychopathological Burden among Healthcare Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic Compared to the Pre-Pandemic Period

This retrospective observational study on hospital staff requesting an “application visit” (from 2017 to 2022) at the Occupational Medicine department aimed at comparing a “pre-COVID group” (2017–2019) with a “COVID group” (2020–2022) regarding (a) sociodemographic data (i.e., age, sex, occupation, years of employment at the hospital), (b) rate and type of psychiatric diagnoses in both groups and rate of psychiatric diagnoses per subject, and (c) rate of drug/psychotherapeutic prescriptions. Two hundred and five healthcare workers (F = 73.7%; mean age = 50.7 ± 10.33) were visited. Compared with the pre-COVID group, healthcare workers evaluated during COVID-19 were significantly younger and reported fewer years of employment at the hospital. Although rates of primary psychiatric diagnoses were similar in both samples, an increased number of psychopathologies per subject and associated treatment prescriptions in the COVID group was observed. In the COVID group, 61% had one psychiatric diagnosis, and 28% had 2+ psychiatric diagnoses, compared with 83.8% and 6.7% of pre-COVID. Furthermore, 56.2%/1.9% in pre-COVID and 73%/6% in the COVID group were prescribed drugs/psychotherapy, respectively. The findings of the present study highlighted an increase in both younger workers’ requests and psychiatric comorbidities during the pandemic, representing a burden on the Italian healthcare system. It is thus relevant to address the mental health challenges of healthcare workers accordingly