Trade-off between photovoltaic systems installation and agricultural practices on arable lands: An environmental and socio-economic impact analysis for Italy

The paper introduces and discusses an open-source spatial-based model (called r.green.solar) able to quantify the energy production from solar photovoltaic (PV) ground-mounted panels. Socio-economic and environmental impacts can be evaluated by the model. The model starts from the theoretical quantity of solar PV potential energy and estimates a reduction of total amount of energy based on legal, technical, recommended and economic constraints. Model outputs were used for a trade-off analysis between energy production and traditional crops for food/feed cultivation on not irrigated arable land. The model was tested at regional level for a Mediterranean context (Italy). The results confirm that the economic profitability of PV systems follows a north-south gradient, but the main impacts are related to local peculiarities – such as the disposal of not irrigated arable land and the presence of constraints, in particular the landscape maintenance, the morphological variables and the specialization index – and crop yields. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rightsreserved

A method to assess the economic impacts of forest biomass use on ecosystem services in a National Park

The aim of the paper is to develop a method to assess the effect of forest biomass use for energy on ecosystem services (ES). Such method has been in the GRASS GIS environment, by creating an Decision Support System (DSS) called r.green.biomassfor. The method has been tested in the Triglav National Park in Slovenia. The potential forest biomass was estimated with r.green.biomassfor DSS taking into account the effects of forest biomass harvesting on ES in terms of economic value. The economic value of each ecosystem service to society has been estimated using different economic evaluation methods and were spatially located with a Geographical Information System (GIS) application. Then, a semi-structured questionnaire was administered face-to-face to the experts in order to understand the effects of forest biomass harvesting on the ES at local level. Finally, the results of the questionnaire survey were elaborated to obtain indicators useful to assess the economic gain or loss on the benefits provided by ES based on the results of r.green.biomassfor DSS. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserve

Scientific Opinion about the Guidance of the Chemical Regulation Directorate (UK) on how aged sorption studies for pesticides should be conducted, analysed and used in regulatory assessments

Abstract The EFSA Panel on Plant Protection Products and their Residues reviewed the guidance on how aged sorption studies for pesticides should be conducted, analysed and used in regulatory assessment. The inclusion of aged sorption is a higher tier in the groundwater leaching assessment. The Panel based its review on a test with three substances taken from a data set provided by the European Crop Protection Association. Particular points of attention were the quality of the data provided, the proposed fitting procedure of aged sorption experiments and the proposed method for combining results obtained from aged sorption studies and lower‐tier studies on degradation and adsorption. Aged sorption was a relevant process in all cases studied. The test revealed that the guidance could generally be well applied and resulted in robust and plausible results. The Panel considers the guidance suitable for use in the groundwater leaching assessment after the recommendations in this Scientific Opinion have been implemented, with the exception of the use of field data to derive aged sorption parameters. The Panel noted that the draft guidance could only be used by experienced users because there is no software tool that fully supports the work flow in the guidance document. It is therefore recommended that a user‐friendly software tool be developed. Aged sorption lowered the predicted concentration in groundwater. However, because aged sorption experiments may be conducted in different soils than lower‐tier degradation and adsorption experiments, it cannot be guaranteed that the higher tier predicts lower concentrations than the lower tier, while lower tiers should be more conservative than higher tiers. To mitigate this problem, the Panel recommends using all available higher‐ and lower‐tier data in the leaching assessment. The Panel further recommends that aged sorption parameters for metabolites be derived only from metabolite‐dosed studies. The formation fraction can be derived from parent‐dosed degradation studies, provided that the parent and metabolite are fitted with the best‐fit model, which is the double first‐order in parallel model in the case of aged sorption

Investigation into experimental toxicological properties of plant protection products having a potential link to Parkinson's disease and childhood leukaemia

In 2013, EFSA published a literature review on epidemiological studies linking exposure to pesticides and human health outcome. As a follow up, the EFSA Panel on Plant Protection Products and their residues (PPR Panel) was requested to investigate the plausible involvement of pesticide exposure as a risk factor for Parkinson's disease (PD) and childhood leukaemia (CHL). A systematic literature review on PD and CHL and mode of actions for pesticides was published by EFSA in 2016 and used as background documentation. The Panel used the Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) conceptual framework to define the biological plausibility in relation to epidemiological studies by means of identification of specific symptoms of the diseases as AO. The AOP combines multiple information and provides knowledge of biological pathways, highlights species differences and similarities, identifies research needs and supports regulatory decisions. In this context, the AOP approach could help in organising the available experimental knowledge to assess biological plausibility by describing the link between a molecular initiating event (MIE) and the AO through a series of biologically plausible and essential key events (KEs). As the AOP is chemically agnostic, tool chemical compounds were selected to empirically support the response and temporal concordance of the key event relationships (KERs). Three qualitative and one putative AOP were developed by the Panel using the results obtained. The Panel supports the use of the AOP framework to scientifically and transparently explore the biological plausibility of the association between pesticide exposure and human health outcomes, identify data gaps, define a tailored testing strategy and suggests an AOP’s informed Integrated Approach for Testing and Assessment (IATA)

Statistical mechanics of ecological systems: Neutral theory and beyond

The simplest theories often have much merit and many limitations, and, in this vein, the value of neutral theory (NT) of biodiversity has been the subject of much debate over the past 15 years. NT was proposed at the turn of the century by Stephen Hubbell to explain several patterns observed in the organization of ecosystems. Among ecologists, it had a polarizing effect: There were a few ecologists who were enthusiastic, and there were a larger number who firmly opposed it. Physicists and mathematicians, instead, welcomed the theory with excitement. Indeed, NT spawned several theoretical studies that attempted to explain empirical data and predicted trends of quantities that had not yet been studied. While there are a few reviews of NT oriented toward ecologists, the goal here is to review the quantitative aspects of NT and its extensions for physicists who are interested in learning what NT is, what its successes are, and what important problems remain unresolved. Furthermore, this review could also be of interest to theoretical ecologists because many potentially interesting results are buried in the vast NT literature. It is proposed to make these more accessible by extracting them and presenting them in a logical fashion. The focus of this review is broader than NT: new, more recent approaches for studying ecological systems and how one might introduce realistic non-neutral models are also discussed

Technical Design Report - TDR CYGNO-04/INITIUM

The aim of this Technical Design Report is to illustrate the technological choices foreseen to be implemented in the construction of the CYGNO-04 demonstrator, motivate them against the experiment physics goals of CYGNO-30 and demonstrate the financial sustainability of the project. CYGNO-04 represents PHASE 1 of the long term CYGNO roadmap, towards the development of large high precision tracking gaseous Time Projection Chamber (TPC) for directional Dark Matter searches and solar neutrino spectroscopy. The CYGNO project1 peculiarities reside in the optical readout of the light produced during the amplification of the primary ionization electrons in a stack of triple Gas Electron Multipliers (GEMs), thanks to the nice scintillation properties of the chosen He:CF4 gas mixture. To this aim, CYGNO is exploiting the fast progress in commercial scientific Active Pixel Sensors (APS) development for highly performing sCMOS cameras, whose high granularity and sensitivity allow to significantly boost tracking, improve particle identification and lower the energy threshold. The X-Y track project obtained from the reconstruction of the sCMOS images is combined with a PMT measurement to obtain a full 3D track reconstruction. In addition, several synergic R&Ds based on the CYGNO experimental approach are under development in the CYGNO collaboration (see Sec 2) to further enhance the light yield by means of electro luminescence after the amplification stage, to improve the tracking performances by exploiting negative ion drift operation within the INITIUM ERC Consolidator Grant, and to boost the sensitivity to O(GeV) Dark Matter masses by employing hydrogen rich target towards the development of PHASE 2 (see Sec. 1.2). While still under optimization and subject to possible significant improvements, the CYGNO experimental approach performances and capabilities demonstrated so far with prototypes allow to foresee the development of an O(30) m3 experiment by 2026 for a cost of O(10) MEUROs. A CYGNO-30 experiment would be able to give a significant contribution to the search and study of Dark Matter with masses below 10 GeV/c2 for both SI and SD coupling. In case of a Dark Matter observation claim by other experiments, the information provided by a directional detector such as CYGNO would be fundamental to positively confirm the galactic origin of the allegedly detected Dark Matter signal. CYGNO-30 could furthermore provide the first directional measurement of solar neutrinos from the pp chain, possibly extending to lower energies the Borexino measurement2. In order to reach this goal, the CYGNO project is proceeding through a staged approach. The PHASE 0 50 L detector (LIME, recently installed underground LNGS) will validate the full performances of the optical readout via APS commercial cameras and PMTs and the Montecarlo simulation of the expected backgrounds. The full CYGNO-04 demonstrator will be realized with all the technological and material choices foreseen for CYGNO-30, to demonstrate the scalability of the experimental approach and the potentialities of the large PHASE 2 detector to reach the expected physics goals. The first PHASE 1 design anticipated a 1 m3 active volume detector with two back-to-back TPCs with a central cathode and 500 mm drift length. Each 1 m2 readout area would have been composed by 9 + 9 readout modules having the LIME PHASE 0 dimensions and layout. Time (end of INITIUM project by March 2025) and current space availability at underground LNGS (only Hall F) forced the rescaling of the PHASE 1 active volume and design to a 0.4 m3, hence CYGNO-04. CYGNO-04 will keep the back-to-back double TPC layout with 500 mm drift length each, but with an 800 x 500 mm2 readout area covered by a 2 + 2 modules based on LIME design. The reduction of the detector volume has no impact on the technological objectives of PHASE 1, since the modular design with central cathode, detector materials and shieldings and auxiliary systems are independent of the total volume. The physics reach (which is a byproduct of PHASE 1 and NOT an explicit goal) will be only very partially reduced (less than a factor 2 overall) since a smaller detector volume implies also a reduced background from internal materials radioactivity. In addition, the cost reduction of CYGNO-04 of about 1⁄3 with respect to CYGNO-1 illustrated in the CDR effectively makes the overall project more financially sustainable (see CBS in the last section). In summary this document will explain: the physical motivation of the CYGNO project and the technical motivations of the downscale of the PHASE 1 to CYGNO-04, 400 liters of active volume, with respect to the demonstrator presented in the CDR; the results of R&D and the Montecarlo expectations for PHASE 0; the technical choices, procedures and the executive drawings of CYGNO-04 in the Hall F of the LNGS; safety evaluations and the interference/request to the LNGS services; Project management, WBS/WBC, WP, GANTT, ec

The CYGNO Experiment

The search for a novel technology able to detect and reconstruct nuclear and electron recoil events with the energy of a few keV has become more and more important now that large regions of high-mass dark matter (DM) candidates have been excluded. Moreover, a detector sensitive to incoming particle direction will be crucial in the case of DM discovery to open the possibility of studying its properties. Gaseous time projection chambers (TPC) with optical readout are very promising detectors combining the detailed event information provided by the TPC technique with the high sensitivity and granularity of latest-generation scientific light sensors. The CYGNO experiment (a CYGNus module with Optical readout) aims to exploit the optical readout approach of multiple-GEM structures in large volume TPCs for the study of rare events as interactions of low-mass DM or solar neutrinos. The combined use of high-granularity sCMOS cameras and fast light sensors allows the reconstruction of the 3D direction of the tracks, offering good energy resolution and very high sensitivity in the few keV energy range, together with a very good particle identification useful for distinguishing nuclear recoils from electronic recoils. This experiment is part of the CYGNUS proto-collaboration, which aims at constructing a network of underground observatories for directional DM search. A one cubic meter demonstrator is expected to be built in 2022/23 aiming at a larger scale apparatus (30 m$^3$--100 m$^3$) at a later stage

INQUINANTI ATMOSFERICI E PATOLOGIE ONCOLOGICHE

RICERCHE STATUNITENSI ED EUROPEE HANNO DIMOSTRATO LA POTENZIALIT\uc0 ONCOLOGICA DEGLI INQUINANTI ATMOSFERICI. PER DETERMINARE IL RISCHIO CANCEROGENO OCCORRONO MONITORAGGI E STUDI IN VITRO. DI GRANDE INTERESSE SONO I DATI EPIDEMIOLOGICI E SPERIMENTALI PRODOTTI DAL PROGETTO SUPERSITO IN EMILIA-ROMAGNA