Soil-Gas Geochemistry: Significance and Application in Geological Prospectings

Gas-geochemistry has been proven to be a reliable and simple technique to apply, at different scales, in many geological scenarios. The study of spatial distribution of soil-gas anomalies, at the surface, can give important and interesting information on the origin and processes involving deep and superficial gas species. This information can be applied and studied in different frameworks, for example: I) seismic zonation, examining, at the surface, anomalous concentrations of deep gas species that upraise throughout preferential pathways (faults and/or fractures); II) environmental protection, monitoring naturally occurring toxic gases and highlighting zones with high health risks for humans; III) geomorphological and structural research, detecting the aggressive fluid piping that causes carsic phenomena; IV) radionuclide migration, both in the pollution assessment from abandoned uranium mines and in the study of high-level radioactive-waste isolation systems. Soil-gas distribution could be affected by surface features such as pedological, biogenic and meteorological factors: these are supposed to have only a subordinate effect on gas leakage. However, it is possible to properly interpret soil-gas anomalies and recognize, and avoid, influences of surface features studying the association of different gases (with different origin and physical/chemical behavior), collecting a large number of samples during periods of stable meteorological and soil moisture conditions (e.g., during dry season) and using appropriate statistical treatment of data (i.e., experimental variograms to investigate the spatial dependency of gas concentrations). We will try, in this paper, to give hints for a better comprehension of the main mechanisms ruling soil-gas features both displaying and discussing some data obtained in either prospecting or monitoring case studies. Soil-gas geochemistry involves the study of many gaseous species (i.e., radiogenic, trace and diagenetic gases) each of them can give specific information on the conditions that allow their formation, accumulation and/or migration. In this study, we outline the results from two analyzed soil-gases: radon (222Rn), a radiogenic trace gas, and carbon dioxide (CO2) which generally acts as carrier for trace gases.Published183-2044.5. Studi sul degassamento naturale e sui gas petroliferiope

On-going and future research at the Sulcis site in Sardinia, Italy. Characterization and experimentation at a possible future CCS pilot

National Italian funding has recently been allocated for the construction of a 350 MWe coal-fired power plant / CCS demonstration plant in the Sulcis area of SW Sardinia, Italy. In addition, the recently approved EC-funded ENOS project (ENabling Onshore CO2 Storage in Europe) will use the Sulcis site as one of its main field research laboratories. Site characterization is already ongoing, and work has begun to design gas injection experiments at 100-200 m depth in a fault. This article gives an overview of results to date and plans for the future from the Sapienza University of Rome research group

Informing People about CCS: A Review of Social Research Studies

This contribution examines studies on CCS public perception which have investigated the introduction of CCS information to the public. Studies published between 2007 and 2011 are considered and analysed with regard to research methods and tools and the construction of information. The relationship within which the communication of information takes place and content characteristics of the information emerge as two key aspects to be developed both from a methodological and an operational point of view

Making the Communication of CCS more "human"

CCS communication has proven a tough challenge, particularly for the difficulty in raising interest for the technology, which is still unknown to the majority of the population, and for the complexity of conveying information about its potential for reducing emissions. In this paper we present a research based effort for bringing CCS nearer to people, through visual material developed taking into account emotional needs related to the technology. The production of a short introductory film on CCS is illustrated and its testing with a sample of 700 high school students

Cardiac effect of thyrotoxicosis in acromegaly

Cardiac structure and function are affected both by acromegaly and hyperthyroidism. Whereas the former is mainly characterized by ventricular hypertrophy as well as diastolic and systolic impairment, the latter frequently leads to increased heart rate and enhancement of contractility and cardiac output. To further investigate this issue, we designed this two-arm study. In the first cross-sectional study, we compared echocardiography and radionuclide angiography results obtained in eight hyperthyroid acromegalic patients, eight hyperthyroid nonacromegalic patients, and eight healthy subjects. All acromegalic patients were receiving treatment for acromegaly at the onset of hyperthyroidism. In the second longitudinal study, performed in the group of acromegalic patients, we compared the cardiovascular results obtained during hyperthyroidism with the retrospective data obtained at the initial diagnosis of acromegaly and after 1-yr treatment for this disease and those prospective data obtained during the remission of hyperthyroidism. In the cross-sectional study, hyperthyroid acromegalic patients showed an increase in the left ventricular (LV) mass index (LVMi) compared to healthy and hyperthyroid controls (P < 0.05), with evidence of LVMi hypertrophy in five of them (62.5%). A significant correlation was found between LVMi and GH levels (r = 0.785; P < 0.05). The LV ejection fraction (LVEF) at rest was higher in the control hyperthyroid population than in healthy controls (P < 0.05), whereas the LVEF response to exercise was reduced in acromegalic patients (P < 0.05 vs. healthy controls). In acromegalics, the exercise-induced change in LVEF was significantly reduced compared to that in healthy controls (P < 0.001), but not to that in hyperthyroid controls (P < 0.07), being abnormal (<5% increase vs. baseline values) in six patients. Four of these six patients (66%) had elevated GH and insulin-like growth factor I levels during the treatment of acromegaly. An inverse correlation between GH and LVEF at rest (r = -0.896;P < 0.05) and at peak exercise (r = -0.950; P < 0.001) was recorded. The peak filling rate was reduced in hyperthyroid acromegalic patients compared to those in both control populations (P < 0.05). In the longitudinal study, acromegalic patients showed an increased LVMi during hyperthyroidism compared to that observed after successful treatment of acromegaly (P < 0.05); resting LVEF was increased compared to both basal (P < 0.001) and posttreatment values (P < 0.05). However, the exercise-induced change in LVEF was reduced (P < 0.05 vs. previous follow-up values). Remission of hyperthyroidism led to significant reduction of LVMi (P < 0.05) and resting LVEF (P < 0.05) and an increase in exercise-induced LVEF (P < 0.05). In light of these findings, hyperthyroidism produces a detrimental effect on the cardiovascular system of acromegalic patients, particularly in those with uncontrolled disease. Thus, control of GH and insulin-like growth factor I should be a major objective, as cardiovascular risk persists in patients with ineffective hormonal suppression, and constant endocrine and cardiovascular surveillance remain crucial steps in patient follow-up

JavaScript Dead Code Identification, Elimination, and Empirical Assessment

Web apps are built by using a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. While building modern web apps, it is common practice to make use of third-party libraries and frameworks, as to improve developers' productivity and code quality. Alongside these benefits, the adoption of such libraries results in the introduction of JavaScript dead code, i.e., code implementing unused functionalities. The costs for downloading and parsing dead code can negatively contribute to the loading time and resource usage of web apps. The goal of our study is two-fold. First, we present Lacuna, an approach for automatically detecting and eliminating JavaScript dead code from web apps. The proposed approach supports both static and dynamic analyses, it is extensible and can be applied to any JavaScript code base, without imposing constraints on the coding style or on the use of specific JavaScript constructs. Secondly, by leveraging Lacuna we conduct an experiment to empirically evaluate the run-time overhead of JavaScript dead code in terms of energy consumption, performance, network usage, and resource usage in the context of mobile web apps. We applied Lacuna four times on 30 mobile web apps independently developed by third-party developers, each time eliminating dead code according to a different optimization level provided by Lacuna. Afterward, each different version of the web app is executed on an Android device, while collecting measures to assess the potential run-time overhead caused by dead code. Experimental results, among others, highlight that the removal of JavaScript dead code has a positive impact on the loading time of mobile web apps, while significantly reducing the number of bytes transferred over the network