From failure to value: Economic valuation for a selected set of products and services from Mediterranean forests

Aim of study: the paper estimates the economic value of a selected range of forest products and services, i.e. roundwood, nonwood forest products (NWFPs), and carbon-related services. Area of study: the research covers 21 Mediterranean countries, distinguished into four sub-regions. Material and methods: data have been gathered from official statistical sources (e.g. FAOSTAT), scientific literature and technical reports. Different estimation approaches based on market-price have been used for different products/services. Main results: the estimated value ranges between \u20ac10,512 and \u20ac11,158 million (M). Wood products represent more than 85% of the total value. Within them, industrial timber is the most relevant component (65%). Figures for NWFPs are likely to be underestimated because data are available only for some products and countries. When using alternative estimates for pine nuts, pine resin and cork, figures show a \u20ac36.8-572 M increase. In geographical terms, the economic value of Mediterranean forests is highly concentrated: North-West Mediterranean countries account for 70%, and nearly 90% is in just four countries (France, Spain, Turkey and Italy). Research highlights: enhancing the offer of Mediterranean forest products and increasing their role in the rural economy could help to reduce the costs of forest protection: a well-structured forest economy ensuring stable flows of incomes can provide a fundamental set of public non-market services and social values to both local people and the whole community. Understanding the true value of natural resources, then, is an essential step for promoting their protection and sustainable use

Exploring the multiple effects of the invasive alien robinia tree: a PhD project presentation

The poster explains the background, research questions and objectives and methods of the PhD study on black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) funded by the Linda Scattolin J:ROBIN project (2016-2019)

Social and technological innovations in forestry

In Europe, when referring to innovation in forestry, the dominant discourses mostly deal with technological innovation based on large-scale industrial investments. \u201cInnovation is rather often used synonymously with technological innovation (Kubeczko et al. 2006:706)\u201d. This is supported by a biased (limited) interpretation of the bioeconomy strategies, where attention is almost completely focused on the development of bio-refineries, i.e. on innovative plants that produce power, heat, a potentially large set of bio-chemicals and in some cases pulp, normally using huge amounts of low-value biomasses from agriculture, forestry or organic wastes (McCormick and Kautto 2013; Scarlat et al. 2015; Fund et al. 2015.). Also in the case of plants producing just bio-energy, the needs for industrial scale economies are creating a demand for woody biomass that is frequently not covered by the potential local supply, so industrial plants are located in proximity to port facilities with a process of internationalization not only of the investment capital, but also wood procurement (P\ufclzl et al. 2017). Moreover, although it has been pointed out \u201cthe need to focus on innovation as a socially embedded phenomenon that should stretch across all economic sectors, [this concept] has mostly been applied in policy practice in high-tech fields, often with a technological focus or bias (EU 2003; von Tunzelmann and Acha 2003)\u201d, rather than in forestry (Rametsteiner and Weiss 2003: 692). Other emerging and innovative initiatives, like for example the creation of nature-based businesses connected with the establishment of payment schemes for ecosystem (or environmental) services (PES) that try to obtain value from the management of public goods such as water, biodiversity, human wellbeing and others (e.g., Wunder 2005), are often not considered as strategic choices to be invested in for the development of national economies , despite their potential in rural development (e.g., by means of income generation and employment creation) and innovation (Matilainen et al. 2011; Slee 2011; O\u2019Driscoll et al. 2017; Tyrv\ue4inen et al. 2017). However, it was recently stressed that a new policy narrative is needed, that \u201cshould emphasise a sustainable and socially inclusive forest-based bioeconomy (Winkel 2017:153)\u201d, i.e. a holistic bioeconomy [\u2026] \u201cthat recognises and mobilises the entire spectrum of ecosystem services that Europe\u2019s forests can provide for the benefit of Europe\u2019s societies (Winkel 2017)\u201d. This chapter introduces and discusses the various implications of social and technological innovation on the forestry sector, especially in Europe. In the first section, links are made with the various components of globalization. In the second, both approaches are presented based on commonly used definitions. In the third, the two approaches are illustrated by means of concrete examples, while their pros and cons (in terms of positive and negative consequences) are pointed out and briefly compared. In the fourth section, insights into how to integrate the two approaches are proposed and discussed in relation to the current perspectives of globalization and future development. The special role that information technologies can play in the two cases is highlighted

SIparte: soft coaching and a rural hackathon to support socio-entrepreneurial innovative businesses in rural areas

This paper presents the results of the Siparte Innovation Action implemented in Valbelluna to tackle the challenges of local youth unemployment and growing outmigration rates. The innovation action has created new local networks, supported sustainable business ideas related to social innovation among local young people, and financially supported the initial start-up phase of one selected initiative

Binding of Al(III) to synthetic RNA and metal-mediated strand aggregation

Over the last few years, focused interest in aluminum has been heightened by recent studies regarding its health effects. Its possible relation with chronic diseases makes it convenient to address more in depth the reactivity of aluminum with biologically relevant molecules. The present work investigates the interaction of the aluminum ion with two synthetic RNAs, poly(rA) and poly(rU), through a detailed thermodynamic and kinetic study. The trivalent aluminum ion was kept in solution by complexation with the cacodylate anion, even at neutral pH, thus making the study with biological molecules feasible. The results obtained by spectrophotometry, circular dichroism, viscometry and thermal stability measurements indicate that aluminium strongly interacts with single and duplex RNA structures. The kinetic experiments point out that, even though cacodylate is required to keep the metal in solution, it actually inhibits the reaction of aluminum with RNA as it converts the metal into an unreactive dimer species. Notably, further interaction occurred in an excess of the aluminum/cacodylate complex, inducing aggregation of single-stranded RNAs. An analysis of the kinetic data has shown that the modes of aggregation of the two RNAs differ and such a difference can be ascribed to the diverse polynucleotide secondary structures. The observed stabilization of multiple-stranded systems by aluminum can serve as a model for future studies due to the interest aroused by this metal in the study of non-canonical nucleic acid structures

Social Innovation in the Mediterranean and how it can help to manage Mediterranean forests

This presentation specifies how social innovation initiatives can be promoted in Mediterranean forests. Furthermore, it presents the evaluation methodology proposed for analyzing these initiatives. Preliminary results are also identified and some concluding remarks proposed

Automated segmentation of colorectal tumor in 3D MRI Using 3D multiscale densely connected convolutional neural network

The main goal of this work is to automatically segment colorectal tumors in 3D T2-weighted (T2w) MRI with reasonable accuracy. For such a purpose, a novel deep learning-based algorithm suited for volumetric colorectal tumor segmentation is proposed. The proposed CNN architecture, based on densely connected neural network, contains multiscale dense interconnectivity between layers of fine and coarse scales, thus leveraging multiscale contextual information in the network to get better flow of information throughout the network. Additionally, the 3D level-set algorithm was incorporated as a postprocessing task to refine contours of the network predicted segmentation. The method was assessed on T2-weighted 3D MRI of 43 patients diagnosed with locally advanced colorectal tumor (cT3/T4). Cross validation was performed in 100 rounds by partitioning the dataset into 30 volumes for training and 13 for testing. Three performance metrics were computed to assess the similarity between predicted segmentation and the ground truth (i.e., manual segmentation by an expert radiologist/oncologist), including Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), recall rate (RR), and average surface distance (ASD). The above performance metrics were computed in terms of mean and standard deviation (mean ± standard deviation). The DSC, RR, and ASD were 0.8406 ± 0.0191, 0.8513 ± 0.0201, and 2.6407 ± 2.7975 before postprocessing, and these performance metrics became 0.8585 ± 0.0184, 0.8719 ± 0.0195, and 2.5401 ± 2.402 after postprocessing, respectively. We compared our proposed method to other existing volumetric medical image segmentation baseline methods (particularly 3D U-net and DenseVoxNet) in our segmentation tasks. The experimental results reveal that the proposed method has achieved better performance in colorectal tumor segmentation in volumetric MRI than the other baseline techniques

Validation of the Italian translation of the perceived stigma scale and resilience assessment in inflammatory bowel disease patients

BACKGROUND Stigmatization is the separation of an individual from a group due to aspects that make them different. Resilience may in turn influence the perception of stigma. Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are susceptible to stigma, although data are very limited. AIM To validate an Italian translation of the IBD perceived stigma scale (PSS) in relation to patients’ resilience. METHODS Consecutive IBD outpatients were prospectively enrolled (December 2018-September 2019) in an Italian, tertiary referral, IBD center. Clinical and demographic data were collected. Stigma and resilience were evaluated through the IBD-PSS and the 25-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, respectively. The International Quality of Life Assessment Project approach was followed to translate the IBD-PSS into Italian and to establish data quality. Higher scores represent greater perceived stigma and resilience. Multivariable analysis for factors associated with greater stigma was computed. RESULTS Overall, 126 IBD patients (mean age 46.1 ± 16.9) were enrolled. The International Quality of Life Assessment criteria for acceptable psychometric properties of the scale were satisfied, with optimal data completeness. There was no ceiling effect, whilst floor effect was present (7.1%). The discriminant validity and the internal consistency reliability were good (Cronbach alpha = 0.87). The overall internal consistency was 95%, and the test-retest reliability was excellent 0.996. The median PSS score was 0.45 (0.20-0.85). Resilience negatively correlated with perceived stigma (Spearman’s correlation = -0.18, 95% confidence intervals: -0.42-0.08, P = 0.03). CONCLUSION We herein validated the Italian translation of the PSS scale, also demonstrating that resilience negatively impacts perceived stigma