Methodology proposed for estimating biowaste generation using municipal rurality indexes

The separated collection and management of biowaste (BW) must be implemented in next years in the European countries. In order to define a proper BW strategy, it is necessary to estimate the generation at a municipal level, since depending on the amount to be treated, the strategy may notably vary. The aim of this study is to develop a methodology to estimate BW generation at municipal level taking into account the characteristics of the region, the Municipal Solid Waste management applied, and diferent socio-economic variables that defne the level of rurality of a municipality. A model to estimate the BW generation for each type of municipality has been developed using Multiple Linear Regression Analysis. As input data, results from a Waste Compositional Analysis executed by the regional government to samples collected on 38 municipalities and data related to infuential socio-economic variables have been used. Signifcant infuence of socio-economic variables on BW generation is observed for the rural municipalities. The evolution of these characteristics, as well as the greater awareness of society with food waste, have change the consumption patterns. Therefore, it is not recommended to use static ratios, but models that allow including socio-economic changes in the estimation of waste generation.This work has been financially supported by the Government of Cantabria R&D project entitled “Obtention, treatment and dissemination of data related to production and management of waste, and adjustment of the existing indicators system to the valid waste plan of Cantabria”. The public company MARE S.A. has provided the MSW generation data, as well as the WCA characterisations used to develop the statistical modellin

Primary sector waste indicators for regional planning

Decisions are made based on information of different kinds and several tools have been developed to facilite the inclusion of environmental aspects in decision-making. One of these tools is the indicators that have become a vital component of environmental impact assessments and "state of the environmental" reporting. In Cantabria, a northern Spanish region, a specific set of indicators has been developed to monitor the degree of implementation of waste policies recently adopted in the region, identified in the Cantabria Regional Waste Plan 2010- 2014. This Regional Planning covers all waste streams generated: There is a Regional Waste Plan developed through four Sectorial Waste Plans on: (i) Primary Sector and Sanitary Waste; (ii) Industrial, Construction and Demolition, and Mining Waste; (iii) Special Waste, and (iv) Municipal Waste. At the present time, the primary sector waste flows in Cantabria are outstanding, since it is a region where the primary sector is one of the driving forces of the economy together with the tourism. The 86% of municipalities are classified as rural or semirural, and there, it is producing a large rural development from traditional craft production to intensive farms in which waste management is becoming a problem. In this work the methodology developed by European Environmental Agency has been used as a starting point in developing a set of Specific Indicators on the primary sector waste. Eleven indicators have been developed to evaluate the generation and management of forest, agricultural, livestock and food industry waste. These indicators allow not only monitoring the primary sector waste management, but also they highlight the precarious situation in relation to knowledge of actions undertaken in the sector in relation to their waste and with the information flows. Therefore, in this paper the analysis of difficulties for management the available information has been carried out

Waste indicators of primary sector and health & veterinary services for regional planning

When there is a need to move smoothly and effectively from an abundance of detailed field data to summarized information, indicators and indices are used. Indicators are important tools that assist decision-makers in formulating and implementing plans for the management of waste at different geographic levels. In Cantabria, a northern Spanish region, all waste streams generated are covered through four specific Waste Plans recently adopted. The present study is focused on the Primary Sector, Health & Veterinary Services Waste Plan (PHWP), which is the framework to the decision-making processes related to the generation and management of forest, agricultural, livestock, food industry and health & veterinary wastes. In this work, 16 indicators have been proposed to track the evolution over time of the management of these waste streams in the region and the degree of achievement of the policy objectives. This article discusses the way to obtain, analyse and evaluate valuable information to build the indicators, finding that only eight indicators can be applied at short term. In addition, a summary of these indicators is included, showing in general, a good trend of the evolution of primary sector, health & veterinary waste management. Finally, different actions to improve the quality of data used for the indicators development are proposed in order to obtain more useful waste indicators to the stakeholders

Computational intelligence models to predict porosity of tablets using minimum features

The effects of different formulations and manufacturing process conditions on the physical properties of a solid dosage form are of importance to the pharmaceutical industry. It is vital to have in-depth understanding of the material properties and governing parameters of its processes in response to different formulations. Understanding the mentioned aspects will allow tighter control of the process, leading to implementation of quality-by-design (QbD) practices. Computational intelligence (CI) offers an opportunity to create empirical models that can be used to describe the system and predict future outcomes in silico. CI models can help explore the behavior of input parameters, unlocking deeper understanding of the system. This research endeavor presents CI models to predict the porosity of tablets created by roll-compacted binary mixtures, which were milled and compacted under systematically varying conditions. CI models were created using tree-based methods, artificial neural networks (ANNs), and symbolic regression trained on an experimental data set and screened using root-mean-square error (RMSE) scores. The experimental data were composed of proportion of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) (in percentage), granule size fraction (in micrometers), and die compaction force (in kilonewtons) as inputs and porosity as an output. The resulting models show impressive generalization ability, with ANNs (normalized root-mean-square error [NRMSE] =1%) and symbolic regression (NRMSE =4%) as the best-performing methods, also exhibiting reliable predictive behavior when presented with a challenging external validation data set (best achieved symbolic regression: NRMSE =3%). Symbolic regression demonstrates the transition from the black box modeling paradigm to more transparent predictive models. Predictive performance and feature selection behavior of CI models hints at the most important variables within this factor space.This work was supported by the IPROCOM Marie Curie Initial Training Network, funded through the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007–2013/under REA grant agreement number 31655

Animal welfare: the visitor effect on the behavior of five “Gorilla gorilla” individuals

Oral session 3[EN] Can the presence of visitors influence gorilla behavior? Tourists are an inevitable presence in zoos, so this study aimed to determine their impact on the behavior of the gorillas in the Parque de la Naturaleza de Cabárceno, as an indicator of their welfare. For this purpose, a comparative study of the behavior of 5 individuals was carried out, between the summer period when visitor numbers are high (277,082), and the winter period when there are fewer visitors (71,279)

Highly hydrophobic organic coatings based on organopolysilazanes and silica nanoparticles: evaluation of environmental degradation

Hydrophobic coatings have potential applications in various fields, including for corrosion and weathering protection. In this study, we investigated the use of organopolysilazanes (OPSZs) combined with hydrophobic nanoparticles (NPs) on steel as a substrate to obtain hydrophobic coatings. The coatings were characterized using various techniques, and their hydrophobic properties and corrosion and weathering resistance were evaluated under near-shore marine conditions with high salinity, humidity and UV radiation. Our results show that the coatings exhibited excellent hydrophobic properties and significantly improved corrosion and weathering resistance compared to an uncoated steel and a pristine polymer. These findings suggest that the developed coatings have the potential to provide protection against corrosion for atmospheric and splash exposures in marine environments.This research was funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain, through the Torres Quevedo Program, grant number PTQ2018-009743

Microstructure and indentation hardness study of CAE-PVD (Cr,Ti,Al)N solid solution coatings deposited using a combinatorial multitarget approach

In this study we have analysed the indentation hardness and modulus of cathodic arc deposited CrTiAlN coatings as a function of the stoichiometric variables Ti/Cr, Al content and cation mix. The coatings have been prepared using a combinatorial cathode composition approach, leading up to 14 different stoichiometries produced in 5 batches. The coatings have been inspected by glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and nanoindentation techniques. The coatings develop crystalline structures compatible with solid solutions of face-centered cubic unit cells for all the compositions produced. Such unit cells exhibited a downwards lattice parameter dependency on the aluminum concentration of the coatings (from 0.417 nm down to 0.413 nm). The indentation hardness as a function of the Ti/Cr is compatible with other previous studies reported. The films hardnesses and moduli also increase as the aluminum concentration increases (21 GPa up to 34 GPa). Both indentation responses upon Ti/Cr and Al are attributed to solid solution strengthening. However in order to prove this statement, the indentation hardness and modulus were studied as a function of the mixing term of the cations, as this term is well representative of the solid solution compositional map. The observed results unambiguously evidence that the solid solution strengthening effect is confirmed on the basis of the dependency between the indentation hardness and the so called degree of mixing.This work has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain through the project PGC2018-096855-A-C44. The authors also acknowledge the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico e Industrial (CDTI) for the support of the excellence program CERVERA through the project CER2019-1003

Allergenicity to worldwide invasive grass Cortaderia selloana as environmental risk to public health

Allergies to grass pollen affects about 20% of the population worldwide. In the last few decades, the South American grass Cortaderia selloana (CS, Pampas grass) has expanded worldwide in a variety of countries including the USA, Australia and Western Europe. In many of these locations, CS has strikingly spread and has now been classified an invasive species. Many pernicious consequences of CS have been reported for local biodiversity, landscape and structures. However, the effect on human health has not been studied. To investigate this issue, we have chosen a European region on the northern cost of Spain where CS spread is overwhelming, Cantabria. We obtained CS pollen extract and analysed the allergenic reaction of 98 patients that were allergic to pollen of local grasses. We determined the skin reaction and the presence of specific IgE antibodies (sIgE) to CS or to a typical autochthonous grass, Phleum pratense. We also compared the seasonal symptoms with reported grass pollen counts in the area. The results strongly suggest that CS can cause respiratory allergies at a similar extent to the local grasses. Given that CS pollinises later than the local grasses, this would extend the period of grass allergies in the region for about three months every year, as stated by most of the patients. This is the first study reported on the effects of the striking expansion of CS on human health. Considering the strong impact that respiratory allergies have on the population, our results suggest that CS can currently constitute a relevant environmental health issue.We thank Daniel Liebana Uranga (Cantabria, Spain) for permission to include authorship and data obtained by Marta Uranga, sadly deceased before preparation of the manuscript. We thank Thalia Burn (England, UK) for manuscript text revision and Life Stop Cortaderia (Cantabria, Spain) for image in Fig. 2B-right. This work received financial support from ALK-Abello S.A (Madrid, Spain). This article is dedicated to the memory of Marta Uranga

Assessment of sectorial waste plans through development indicators

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