How to Turn Poultry Manure into Valuable Resources: A Circular Business Model for Resilient and Sustainable Small and Medium-Sized Farms

This paper illustrates how small and medium-sized farmers can resolve the complex issue of poultry manure disposal by implementing an innovative technology with the aims of reducing emissions and waste and transforming manure into precious resources for the production of energy and fertilizers. After a literature review, a case study is analyzed to identify the main elements of a circular business model that can realize a strategic priority, such as defining production and consumption processes compatible with sustainability, circularity, and resilience. This paper identifies the main elements that constitute the “value proposition,” “value creation and delivery,” and “value captured,” showing the potential benefits in terms of competitiveness and profitability. This good practice may be replicated by other breeding and agricultural companies that want to be sustainable and resilient. The analyzed topic is a key concern given the great quantity of energy and chemical substances used by farms and the challenges posed by current dramatic events, such as the Russia–Ukraine conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic, which have led to less availability of energy and fertilizers and unsustainable prices

Correlations in quantum thermodynamics: Heat, work, and entropy production

We provide a characterization of energy in the form of exchanged heat and work between two interacting constituents of a closed, bipartite, correlated quantum system. By defining a binding energy we derive a consistent quantum formulation of the first law of thermodynamics, in which the role of correlations becomes evident, and this formulation reduces to the standard classical picture in relevant systems. We next discuss the emergence of the second law of thermodynamics under certain---but fairly general---conditions such as the Markovian assumption. We illustrate the role of correlations and interactions in thermodynamics through two examples.Comment: 16 page

Cardiorespiratory DB: Collection of cardiorespiratory data acquired during normal breathing, deep breathing and breath holding

The database is constituted by 50 datasets containing cardiorespiratory signals acquired from 50 healthy volunteer subjects (one dataset for each subject; 23 males and 27 females; age: 23±5 years) while performing normal breathing, deep breathing, and breath holding, and two spreadsheet files, namely the “SubjectsInfo.xlsx” and “DBInfo.xlsx” containing the metadata of subjects (including demographic data) and of acquired signals, respectively. Cardiorespiratory signals consisted in simultaneously recorded 12-lead electrocardiograms acquired by the clinical M12 Global InstrumentationR digital Holter ECG recorder, and single-lead electrocardiograms and respiration signals acquired by the wearable chest strap BioHarness 3.0 by Zephyr. The database may be useful to: (1) validate the use of wearable sensors in the acquisition of cardiorespiratory data during different respiration kinds, including apnea; (2) investigate the physiological association between cardiovascular and respiratory systems; (3) validate algorithms able to indirectly extract the respiration signal from the electrocardiogram; (4) study the fatigue level induced by a series of controlled respiration patterns; and (5) investigate the effect of COVID-19 infection on the cardiorespiratory system

Tailoring Micro-solar Systems to Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

Energetic needs of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been thoroughly studied. Among the most important results, clustering protocols are able to reduce significantly energy consumption in these networks. In the last few years though, focus has also been put on energy harvesting for WSNs. With energy harvesting researchers aim to reach energy neutrality, which means the network only runs on harvested energy. Many papers propose design options for energy harvested WSN, but they only focus on ad-hoc solutions, homogeneous WSNs, or pose other limitations. In this paper we propose a new approach. We study the energetic need of a heterogeneous WSN clustered with a known algorithm (REECHD) through simulation, in order to calculate the minimum and ideal energy to harvest for a given network. Given that, we design an appropriate micro-solar power system to achieve energy neutrality

Characterization of licorice root waste for prospective use as filler in more eco-friendly composite materials

The extraction of glycyrrhizin fromlicorice root and stolonwith ethanol/water solutions leaves a lignocellulosic residue, which could be potentially applied in biocomposites. This process proved difficult in principle, given the considerable hardness of this material as received, which impedes its use in polymer resins in large amounts. After ball milling, up to 10% of this fibrous residue, which shows very variable aspect ratio, was introduced into an epoxy matrix, to investigate its possible future application in sustainable polymers. Of the three composites investigated, containing 1, 5 and 10 wt% of licorice waste, respectively, by performing flexural testing, it was found that the introduction of an intermediate amount of filler proved the most suitable for possible development. Thermal characterization by thermogravimetry (TGA) did not indicate large variation of degradation properties due to the introduction of the filler. Despite the preliminary characteristics of this study, an acceptable resin-filler interface has been obtained for all filler contents. Issues to be solved in future study would be the possibility to include a larger amount of filler by better compatibilization and a more uniform distribution of the filler, considering their orientation, since most of it maintains an elongated geometry after ball milling

Nanodiamonds-induced effects on neuronal firing of mouse hippocampal microcircuits

Fluorescent nanodiamonds (FND) are carbon-based nanomaterials that can efficiently incorporate optically active photoluminescent centers such as the nitrogen-vacancy complex, thus making them promising candidates as optical biolabels and drug-delivery agents. FNDs exhibit bright fluorescence without photobleaching combined with high uptake rate and low cytotoxicity. Focusing on FNDs interference with neuronal function, here we examined their effect on cultured hippocampal neurons, monitoring the whole network development as well as the electrophysiological properties of single neurons. We observed that FNDs drastically decreased the frequency of inhibitory (from 1.81 Hz to 0.86 Hz) and excitatory (from 1.61 Hz to 0.68 Hz) miniature postsynaptic currents, and consistently reduced action potential (AP) firing frequency (by 36%), as measured by microelectrode arrays. On the contrary, bursts synchronization was preserved, as well as the amplitude of spontaneous inhibitory and excitatory events. Current-clamp recordings revealed that the ratio of neurons responding with AP trains of high-frequency (fast-spiking) versus neurons responding with trains of low-frequency (slow-spiking) was unaltered, suggesting that FNDs exerted a comparable action on neuronal subpopulations. At the single cell level, rapid onset of the somatic AP ("kink") was drastically reduced in FND-treated neurons, suggesting a reduced contribution of axonal and dendritic components while preserving neuronal excitability.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figure

Initial investigation of athletes’ electrocardiograms acquired by wearable sensors during the pre-exercise phase

Aim: The aim of this study is to support large-scale prevention programs fighting sport-related sudden cardiac death by providing a set of electrocardiographic features representing a starting point in the development of normal reference values for the pre-exercise phase. Background: In people with underlying, often unknown, cardiovascular abnormalities, increased cardiovascular load during exercise can trigger sport-related sudden cardiac death. Prevention remains the only weapon to contrast sport-related sudden cardiac death. So far, no reference values have been proposed for electrocardiograms of athletes acquired with wearable sensors in the pre-exercise phase, consisting of the few minutes immediately before the beginning of the training session. Objective: To perform an initial investigation of athletes’ electrocardiograms acquired by wearable sensors during the pre-exercise phase. Methods: The analyzed electrocardiograms, acquired through BioHarness 3.0 by Zephyr, belong to 51 athletes (Sport Database and Cycling Database of the Cardiovascular Bioengineering Lab of the Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy). Preliminary values consist of interquartile ranges of six electrocardiographic features which are heart rate, heart-rate variability, QRS duration, ST level, QT interval, and corrected QT interval. Results: For athletes 35 years old or younger, preliminary values were [72;91]bpm, [26;47]ms, [85;104]ms, [-0.08;0.08]mm, [326;364]ms and [378;422]ms, respectively. For athletes older than 35 years old, preliminary values were [71;94]bpm, [16;65]ms, [85;100]ms, [-0.11;0.07]mm, [330;368]ms and [394;414]ms, respectively. Conclusion: Availability of preliminary reference values could help identify those athletes who, due to electrocardiographic features out of normal ranges, are more likely to develop cardiac complications that may lead to sport-related sudden cardiac death

Macro Minerals and Trace Elements in Milk of Dairy Buffaloes and Cows Reared in Mediterranean Areas

Aim of this study was to evaluate the differences in Ca, P, K, Na, Mg, Zn, Fe, Cu, Mn, Se, Mo, Co, Li, B, Ti, Rb, and Sr concentrations in milk from buffaloes and cows reared in the same farm in Mediterranean areas and fed diets including the same ingredients. Individual milk samples were obtained from 32 Mediterranean buffaloes and 29 Italian Friesian cows and samples of milk, dietary ingredients and drinking water were analyzed for the investigated chemical elements by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. Data about milk element concentrations were processed by one-way analysis of variance. Buffalo milk contains higher concentrations of Ca, P, Mg, Zn, Fe, Cu, B, Ti, and Sr, and lower concentrations of K, Na, Mo, Li, and Rb compared to cow milk, whereas milk from both species contains similar concentrations of Mn, Se, and Co. The concentrations of the investigated elements in the diet were similar for both species and the differences observed between buffalo and cow milk were not dependent on environmental factors

FedCohesion: Federated Identity Management in the Marche Region

Federated identity management is a set of technologies and processes supporting dynamically distribute identity information. Its adoption in Public Administrations maintains organizations autonomy giving at the same time citizens support to access the services that are distributed across security domains. In this paper, we propose the Marche Region experience for what concern federate identity management focusing on the regional authentication framework, named FedCohesion. It is bases on Security Assertion Markup Language standard and it results from Cohesion re-engineering. It is the old style legacy authentication framework. We first present resulting architecture showing supported identification process and pilot applications. Lessons learned and opportunities have been also presented