Consumption Corridors as a new paradigm of sustainability

Sufficiency perspective involves a new and deep re-examination of individual moral principles such as the personal values system in the time of environmental crisis. To illustrate, it seems to be evidence of an urge to follow the guideline of moral and ethical dimensions of consumption, supporting social and wellbeing standards for all individuals taking into account the planetary boundaries. More specifically, it is recommended that, in the future, the transition towards the achievement of sufficiency models should be devoted to the area of complex concepts that bring together upper and lower limits of resources consumption, also named consumption corridors

An Attempted Suicide with Copper Sulphate injected intravenously:Pathopsysiology and Therapy about a case report

Acute copper sulphate poisoning is an unusual event, rarely following parenteral exposure, complicated by toxicological effects as haemolytic anaemia, methaemoglobinaemia , hepato-renal damage and acute rhabdomyolysis. Currently, the therapeutic management ignores unique classes of evidence and is mainly based on supportive and chelation therapies. Case details. This case report describes acute copper sulphate poisoning in a 37-year-old man who attempted suicide by self-injecting an unknown amount of copper sulphate. Within three days the patient developed severe intravascular haemolysis and rhabdomyolysis. Initial therapy relied on intensive supportive care with fluids administration, electrolyte correction and packed red blood cells transfusion. The D-penicillamine (30 mg/Kg/day per os) was prescribed as chelation therapy by the poison control centre. The N-acetilcysteine and ascorbic acid were administered to prevent further oxidative stress. Later on, two sessions of therapeutic plasma exchange were performed in order to support the drug therapy. Haemolysis and rhabdomyolysis reversed throughout the hospital stay. Discussion. In this case the antidotic and antioxidant therapy resulted effective to reverse haemolysis and rhabdomyolysis and to prevent hepatic and renal damage. Moreover, this case underlies that therapeutic plasma exchange should be considered as an additive measure to undertake since the earlier stages of the emergency intervention. Acute copper sulphate poisoning is an event complicated by toxicological effects: haemolytic anaemia, methaemoglobinaemia, hepato-renal damage, acute rhabdomyolysis. The therapeutic management ignores unique classes of evidence and is based on supportive and chelation therapies. In this case: i) the antidotic and antioxidant therapy resulted effective to reverse haemolysis and rhabdomyolysis and to prevent hepatic and renal damage, ii) therapeutic plasma exchange should be considered as an additive measure to undertake

Governance Mechanisms in Food Community Networks

How do consumers and farmers organize credence food transactions? This paper discusses this issue through the concept of Food Community Network (FCN). A FCN is defined as an organization where consumers and farmers integrate their goals organizing a network. FCN is based on pooling specific resources and using membership-based contracts, to assign decision and property rights. It implies an organization based on a combination of several democratic and communitarian elements, with few market-like and bureaucratic ones. Based on those concepts this paper proposes a research to analyse the FCN governance mechanisms. Real case studies collected through an internet-based investigation on Community Supported Agriculture in North America have been found. Applying (i) new institutional economics and (ii) organizational science arguments, the case studies were used to determine features that are useful to describe how FCN governance works. On one hand we used (i) new institutional economics based features such as pooling resources and contracting; (ii) on the other hand market-like, bureaucratic, communitarian and democratic elements represent the organizational science approach. The results indicate a great variety of FCN organizational forms emerging in North America

Eco-packaging in organic foods: rational decisions or emotional influences?

The introduction of biodegradable and compostable packaging has been a signifcant milestone in reducing conventional plastic use, particularly in sectors that prioritize sustainability like the organic food industry. This study explores the factors infuencing the selection of such packaging, with a specifc focus on the role of emotions in a representative sample of Italian consumers. Two models, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Rational-Emotional Model (REM), were evaluated and compared. The TPB model confrms that positive attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control infuence the intention to choose biodegradable and compostable packaging. The REM reveals that environmental concern, cognitive benefts, and emotions signifcantly impact purchase intentions. The REM explains a greater variance in intention compared to the TPB model, highlighting the importance of combining rational and emotional components. Biodegradable and compostable packaging aligns well with the target consumers of organic food, making it an excellent solution for organic produce. Emotions play a crucial role in shaping consumer intentions and behaviors. Marketing strategies should appeal to consumers’ emotional responses, address cognitive concerns, and highlight the specifc benefts of sustainable packaging. This research emphasizes the relevance of bioplastic packaging for organic products and underscores the signifcance of emotions in infuencing consumer behavior

Seismic response monitoring of the Arno river masonry embankment during the conservation works after the Lungarno Torrigiani riverbank landslide (Florence - May 25, 2016)

Geohazards are the most relevant processes that can damage or increase the risk of human beings, properties, critical and transport infrastructures, and environment itself. They also could involve the interruption of human activities. The concepts of disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management involve the development, improvement, and application of policies, strategies, and practices to minimize disaster risks throughout society. Since 1972 (UNESCO Convention) the identification, protection, and preservation of cultural and natural heritage has been recognized to be of outstanding value to humanity, and a key resource to build resilient societies. Nevertheless, world architectural wealth is accumulating damages and heavy losses because of both materials deterioration and exceptional natural or man-made events. The "health" of buildings/structures/infrastructures may be evaluate by its deterioration or damage level. Thus, structure dynamic characterization and microtremor analysis are considered powerful techniques, even thought seismic noise techniques in densely populated area are hardly to carry out because of the background noise due to the human activities. A wide bibliography about buildings/structures/infrastructures seismic dynamic characterization is counterposed to a missing one about their seismic response during conservation/safety works, even thought the seismic vibration monitoring (SVM) is widely used. On May 25, 2016 a riverbank landslide seriously damaged a portion roughly 100 m long of the Lungarno Torrigiani historical masonry embankment wall (left river bank of the Florence urban stretch of the Arno river, between Ponte alle Grazie e Ponte Vecchio). The street next to the embankment wall collapsed, and the earth fill material was fully retained by the embankment wall that did not collapse but seriously deformed towards the Arno river, fracturing itself in three main areas (a cusp roughly in the middle of the damaged wall, where is also concentrated the maximum landslide pressure, and two hinges). In this work we present the results of the SVM carried out during the conservation works. The SVM (sampling frequency 200 Hz) was carried out from August 14 to October 10, 2016 by means of three high gain triaxle velocimeters SS45 (own frequency 4.5 Hz), each one coupled with a SL06 24-bit digitiser, located onto the masonry embankment wall, in the three main fractured areas. The H/V results of the traces acquired to evaluate the resonance frequency of the masonry embankment wall showed that its main resonance frequency was between 4 Hz and 15 Hz, in agreement with the frequency range of roughly 10-meters-high, squat and monolithic structure. Moreover, the maximum peak component particle velocities substantially increased during the roto-percussion piling works, and clearly showed the works advancement. The spectra analysis showed that the NS component, perpendicular to the wall, was the most stressed until the end of the piling works. The SMV indicated that the piling works stressed more the embankment wall section between Ponte alle Grazie hinge and the cusp. Finally, the hinge zones seem to be more sensitive to the vibrations characterized by low-frequency content, while the cusp section (the most damaged one) was more sensitive to vibrations associated with on site works

Do Italian consumers value health claims on extra-virgin olive oil?

The present study aims to extend the existing literature on EVOO consumers by assessing the importance of health claims in selecting EVOO products by jointly accounting for consumer preferences for the many search, experience, and credence attributes potentially available on EVOO, as well as by accounting for attitudinal and psychographic individual characteristics which affect consumer decision to prefer products with health claims over conventional ones (i.e. subjective nutritional knowledge, nutritional knowledge, nutritional importance, attitudes towards using food as a medicine, general health interest). The latter characteristics play a pivotal role in individual decisions to consider health claims when purchasing food, as indicated in the general literature on consumers and health claims. Such individual related characteristics capture the individual attitude and interest in preventing health losses through food choices and diet (see for instance, Roininen et al. (1999), Van Trijp & Van der Lans (2007) Dean et al. (2012)). To achieve our research goal, we employed a best-worst (BW) approach on a representative sample of Italian household members who are responsible for food shopping. Consumers tested competitively the multiple product attributes of EVOO. The share of consumers interested in health claims was detected by a latent class clustering model and characterized based on their socio-demographic, attitudinal, and psychographic features. Thus, this is the first study attempting to identify the features of consumers interested in health claims while purchasing EVOO using a large sample of household responsible of food purchases

The role of prosumers in supporting renewable energies sources

The present study is a part of an on-going Horizon 2020 project, named "SCORE" (Supporting Consumer Co-Ownership in Renewable Energies), which focuses on sustainable cities and communities developments goal. Particularly, this project aims at (1) overcoming usage of energy from fossil sources in favour of renewable sources, (2) increasing the energy efficiency and (3) reducing the energy consumption. Since the first project's task was completed, i.e. identification and description of different case studies, the next one is to propose for each of them several retrofit alternatives, in order to address the above mentioned "SCORE" purposes. In this framework, the main goal of the present study is to select and rank the relevant evaluation criteria, with the aim at building an evaluative matrix, which later makes possible to analyse the feasibility of the different case studies and choice the best retrofit alternative through a Multi-Criteria analysis (MCA). The criteria were pre-selected through a literature reviews, while the final selection took place by organizing a specific working group composed by real stakeholders. The results show how the role of the working groups (one composed by energy experts and the other by evaluation experts) were fundamental since the application of the playing card method allowed to (i) select and rank the set of relevant evaluation criteria and (ii) associate a weight for each evaluation criteria. Finally, it was decided not to aggregate the results of the two expert groups in order to show and consider the difference in stakeholders' point of view