Investigation on intestinal bacterial flora and Salmonella spp. presence in organic and conventional chickens

The aim of this study was to evaluate the possible differences in the intestinal microflora composition among the different rearing systems (conventional vs organic) and the Salmonella diffusion using bacteriological techniques. The results showed that the differences between the two groups at the same age, expressed by the bacterial count, are not conclusive in showing an influence of the rearing systems. Salmonella Hadar was isolated once in caeca of conventional and once in caeca of organic ones. Though the results are preliminary and referred to a well defined geographic area in Central Italy, Salmonella detection does not seem to be common in conventional and organic chicken farms

How reproducible is the acoustical characterization of porous media?

There is a considerable number of research publications on the characterization of porous media that is carried out in accordance with ISO 10534-2 (International Standards Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2001) and/or ISO 9053 (International Standards Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 1991). According to the Web of Science(TM) (last accessed 22 September 2016) there were 339 publications in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America alone which deal with the acoustics of porous media. However, the reproducibility of these characterization procedures is not well understood. This paper deals with the reproducibility of some standard characterization procedures for acoustic porous materials. The paper is an extension of the work published by Horoshenkov, Khan, Bécot, Jaouen, Sgard, Renault, Amirouche, Pompoli, Prodi, Bonfiglio, Pispola, Asdrubali, Hübelt, Atalla, Amédin, Lauriks, and Boeckx [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 122(1), 345-353 (2007)]. In this paper, independent laboratory measurements were performed on the same material specimens so that the naturally occurring inhomogeneity in materials was controlled. It also presented the reproducibility data for the characteristic impedance, complex wavenumber, and for some related pore structure properties. This work can be helpful to better understand the tolerances of these material characterization procedures so improvements can be developed to reduce experimental errors and improve the reproducibility between laboratories

Comparative environmental life cycle analysis of stone wool production using traditional and alternative materials

The mineral wool sector represents 10 % of the total output tonnage of the glass industry. The thermal, acoustic and fire protection properties of mineral wool make it desirable for use in a wide range of economic sectors especially in the construction industry for the creation of low energy buildings. The traditional stone wool manufacturing process involves melting raw materials, in a coke-fired hot blast cupola furnace, fiberization, polymerization, cooling, product finishing and gas treatment. The use of alternative raw materials as torrefied biomass and sodium silicate, is proposed as an alternative manufacturing process to improve the sustainability of stone wool production, particularly the reduction of gas emissions (CO2 and SO2). The present study adopts a life cycle analysis (LCA) approach to measure the comparative environmental performance of the traditional and alternative stone wool production processes; process data are incorporated into a LCA model using SimaPro 8 software with the Ecoinvent version 3 life cycle inventory database. The CML 2000 and Eco-Indicator99 methods are used to estimate effects on different impact categories. The Minerals and Land use impacts in Eco-Indicator99 and the Eutrophication impact in CML2000 increase between 2 and 4 % for the alternative process instead of the traditional one. Similarly, the ecotoxicity-related impacts increase between 9 and 24 % with the use of the alternative process. However these increases are compensated by concomitant impact decreases in other categories of impact; consequently, the three areas of impact grouped by individual Eco-indicator 99 impacts, show environmental benefits improvements between 6 and 15 % when using the alternative process based on torrefied biomass and silicate instead of the traditional process based on coke and cement use

Empirical investigation to explore potential gains from the amalgamation of Phase Changing Materials (PCMs) and wood shavings

The reduction of gained heat, heat peak shifting and the mitigation of air temperature fluctuations are some desirable properties that are sought after in any thermal insulation system. It cannot be overstated that these factors, in addition to others, govern the performance of such systems thus their effect on indoor ambient conditions. The effect of such systems extends also to Heating, Ventilation and Air-conditioning (HVAC) systems that are set up to operate optimally in certain conditions. Where literature shows that PCMs and natural materials such as wood-shavings can provide efficient passive insulation for buildings, it is evident that such approaches utilise methods that are of a degree of intricacy which requires specialist knowledge and complex techniques, such as micro-encapsulation for instance. With technical and economic aspects in mind, an amalgam of PCM and wood-shavings has been created for the purpose of being utilised as a feasible thermal insulation. The amalgamation was performed in the simplest of methods, through submerging the wood shavings in PCM. An experimental procedure was devised to test the thermal performance of the amalgam and compare this to the performance of the same un-amalgamated materials. Comparative analysis revealed that no significant thermal gains would be expected from such amalgamation. However, significant reduction in the total weight of the insulation system would be achieved that, in this case, shown to be up to 20.94%. Thus, further reducing possible strains on structural elements due to the application of insulation on buildings. This can be especially beneficial in vernacular architectural approaches where considerably large amounts and thicknesses of insulations are used. In addition, cost reduction could be attained as wood shavings are significantly cheaper compared to the cost of PCMs

Life cycle energy minimization of autonomous buildings

This work aims at investigating the existence of an optimal solution from the life cycle energy point of view of an autonomous building. The life cycle energy demand of a building can be divided into three parts: the operational energy, the embodied energy and the end-of-life one. The introduction of renewable energy resources generally causes a shift of the energy demand from the operational phase to the embodied and end-of-life ones. The study aims at demonstrating that, in autonomous buildings, the relationship between total life cycle energy demand and operational energy demand is characterized by an optimal level that minimizes the overall life cycle energy demand of the construction. An autonomous building, representative of the Italian context, was chosen as a case study and, analysing different design configurations, it was observed that the low energy design solution performed better than the net zero energy building from a life cycle energy perspective

I regolamenti edilizi comunali - Strumenti per la promozione delle fonti rinnovabili e del risparmio energetico in edilizia

Il settore civile è responsabile nel nostro Paese, sommando i consumi energetici per la costruzione, l’esercizio, la ristrutturazione e la demolizione degli edifici, di circa il 30% del fabbisogno energetico nazionale. Il lavoro riporta i risultati relativi ad un’estesa indagine svolta su numerosi regolamenti edilizi di Comuni sparsi su tutto il territorio nazionale, discutendo, inoltre, alcuni aspetti riguardanti l’introduzione di concetti di certificazione energetica degli edifici nei regolamenti edilizi comunali ed al sistema di incentivazioni da implementare per promuovere interventi di risparmio energetico e di bioedilizia. Particolare attenzione è rivolta al recente Regolamento edilizio del Comune di Perugia, che contiene alcuni aspetti a carattere innovativ