Groundwater resources in the Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) Region (northeast Italy) are an important natural wealth in terms of quantity, quality and ease of supply. This optimal condition, however, ...has long believed that it allowed an irrational and uncontrolled exploitation that inevitably produced tangible consequences on the water resources availability.The goal of the present research is the evaluation of the sustainable use of the groundwater in the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region aimed at providing guide-lines for its rational use. The study area belongs to the hydrogeological basin of the Friuli Plain and includes part of Veneto Region and Slovenia. The plain area is divided in two parts: the High Plain (HP) characterized by a phreatic aquifer and the Low Plain (LP) where eleven confined aquifer systems were identified. The two physiographic zones are separated by the spring belt. In order to evaluate the groundwater avaliability, a 3D model of the Low Friuli Plain aquifer systems was realized using Rockworks R14 software, starting from 603 lithostratigraphic wells data. Isobath and isopach maps were elaborated using kriging geostatistical method. Precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff and infiltration were calculated to evaluate the inflow and outflow groundwater budget terms (109 rainfall and 46 thermometric stations, time series 1979-2008). To better define the river influences and the outflows at sea, a series of recent surveys on river discharges and surface withdrawals were considered. To obtain the water-budget in non-natural conditions, as the currents, were taken into account the groundwater withdrawals that were evaluated for each type of use and for each aquifer systems, starting from 2 geodatabases: one for the domestic uses (50101 estimated wells) and one for the industrial, agricultural, fish breeding, hygienic, geothermal and other minor uses (7594 wells). Well withdrawals amount were evaluated on annual base for recent periods and expressed as m3/s. The total current estimated groundwater withdrawals reach 62.4 m3/s, of which 41.1 m3/s from the confined aquifer systems in the LP area. More than 52% of the withdrawals are due to the domestic wells. For the water-budget, the studied territory was considered a “semi-closed box” in which groundwater sharings with the neighboring areas are not relevant and where the recharge is mainly due to the influent character of the river, infiltration, rainfall and irrigation practices. As result, the waterbudget for the confined LP is equal to +2.6 m3/s representing the accuracy, fairly acceptable for the scale of the research. Withdrawal entity, spring belt discharge, phreatic levels and confined aquifer’s pressure are closely interdependent and in dynamic equilibrium. The sustainability comes from the consistency and ratio between recharge and withdrawals. The confined aquifer withdrawals in the LP represent the 23.1% of the groundwater recharge coming from the HP and the 30.6% of the spring belt discharge. Seen that this last one can not further decrease, unless loss of important ecosystems, is likely to think that the present situation can be defined of limit equilibrium.
Devolatilization behavior of different coals and biomasses under heating conditions typical of conventional pyrolysis processes was investigated. Thermogravimetric analyses were performed on coals ...(with high and low volatile matter), biomasses (pine sawdust and dried sewage sludge) and coal–biomass blends with different weight ratios. The different behavior of coals and biomass fuels in the devolatilization process (different amount and nature of volatile species released, different rate of devolatilization and different reactivity of produced chars) was analyzed for abstracting kinetic data. In addition, analyses of coal–biomass blends revealed that in the operative conditions used (i.e. low heating rate 20
°C/min and high nitrogen flowrate), primary reactions of the thermal decomposition of biomass fuels are not significantly affected by the presence of coal, and also coal does not seem to be influenced by the release of volatile matter from biomass. This led to the first conclusion that the weight loss of a blend can be obtained from the weighted sum of reference materials.
Further, a kinetic analysis was performed in order to fit the experimental results and verify simple sub-models (namely, distribution activation energy model and lumped model) to be used in comprehensive combustion codes (computational fluid dynamic) assuring a major accuracy compared with SFOR model, but maintaining both simplicity and computational velocity. A quite good fitting was obtained for all materials and blends studied.
Platinum filament pyrolyzers achieve very high temperature and heating rate and can provide useful parameters for practical applications in combustion, pyrolysis and gasification processes. The ...critical use of an experimental instrument is necessary to provide reliable data. In this work, a commercial pyrolyzer (CDS Pyroprobe 2000) is characterized to obtain a correspondence between the nominal and the effective operating conditions. This is the basis for the modeling estimation of the effective thermal history of the sample during each experimental run. The experimental results obtained performing the devolatilization of coals, biomass and waste fuels using the pyrolyzer are compared with those obtained in a conventional thermogravimetric balance, to evaluate the effects of extremely different operating conditions. The amount of volatile released programming the most severe thermal conditions using the pyrolyzer (thus in conditions more similar to large-scale plants) differs significantly from that of thermogravimetric runs. Global kinetics are obtained fitting the experimental results and using the thermal history of the sample from the model results. They depend strongly on the conditions used for the devolatilization. Global kinetics obtained in the thermogravimetric balance runs (low heating rate) overestimate the rate of devolatilization in the pyrolyzer (high heating rate).
Money transfer between banks Lippi, Andrea; Barbieri, Laura; Poli, Federica
International journal of bank marketing,
04/2020, Letnik:
38, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine which individual traits of financial advisors influence portfolio transfer speed when a financial advisor recommends investors to migrate to a new ...financial intermediary.
Design/methodology/approach
With reference to the years 2014–2016, one of the three leading Italian tied-agent banks provided the authors with an exclusive and unique data set containing information regarding the financial advisors who had become tied agents, transferring their existing portfolios from their previous banks (traditional or tied-agent banks). The authors observed the ability of the migrant financial advisor in successfully transferring the entire portfolio declared within 12 months of observation. To investigate empirically which personal traits of financial advisors determine their success in the rapid transfer of clients’ portfolios to a new financial intermediary, the authors applied a Cox proportional hazards model.
Findings
The authors find that factors such as age, type of bank of origin and size of the managed financial portfolio positively affect the speed transfer.
Practical implications
The obtained results may be interesting for guiding recruiting policies of financial intermediaries.
Social implications
Regulators should closely examine the phenomenon analyzed in this paper to avoid conflict of interests.
Originality/value
The literature on this topic is scarce, mainly due to the lack of available data. This paper represents an original contribution to open a new field of research.
Money transfer between banks Lippi, Andrea; Barbieri, Laura; Poli, Federica
International journal of bank marketing,
04/2020, Letnik:
38, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine which individual traits of financial advisors influence portfolio transfer speed when a financial advisor recommends investors to migrate to a new ...financial intermediary.
Design/methodology/approach
With reference to the years 2014–2016, one of the three leading Italian tied-agent banks provided the authors with an exclusive and unique data set containing information regarding the financial advisors who had become tied agents, transferring their existing portfolios from their previous banks (traditional or tied-agent banks). The authors observed the ability of the migrant financial advisor in successfully transferring the entire portfolio declared within 12 months of observation. To investigate empirically which personal traits of financial advisors determine their success in the rapid transfer of clients’ portfolios to a new financial intermediary, the authors applied a Cox proportional hazards model.
Findings
The authors find that factors such as age, type of bank of origin and size of the managed financial portfolio positively affect the speed transfer.
Practical implications
The obtained results may be interesting for guiding recruiting policies of financial intermediaries.
Social implications
Regulators should closely examine the phenomenon analyzed in this paper to avoid conflict of interests.
Originality/value
The literature on this topic is scarce, mainly due to the lack of available data. This paper represents an original contribution to open a new field of research.
The containment measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic affected food-related activities, influencing dietary behavior, food habits, and dietary choices. This study aimed to compare the relationship ...between food involvement and dietary choices before and during the pandemic, investigating the role played by food in dietary habits. Responses given by 2773 Italian consumers to an online survey were studied through the Food Involvement Scale (FIS) and correlated to eating habits. FIS scores were then used to explain the importance given to food in circumstances related to well-being, health, and protection against COVID-19 and used to study the relationship between FIS and bioactive compound knowledge, use, and efficacy against COVID-19. The consumers more involved in food issues recognized the importance of food in circumstances related to well-being, health, and protection against COVID-19 and improved their diet during the pandemic. Moreover, consumers who gave more importance to food also revealed higher attention to the use of healthy substances, such as bioactive compounds, considering them effective against COVID-19. These results showed that food experiencing and involvement could be important elements to promote healthy dietary habits that are essential to maintain physical and mental health during emergency periods such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Purpose
Lipodystrophy is a collection of rare disorders defined by complete or partial loss of adipose tissue, due to abnormal adipocyte production, function, or distribution; it shares the main ...metabolic complications with obesity. Aims of the present study were to investigate the psychopathological characteristics of non-HIV lipodystrophic patients in comparison with a group of obese patients, a group of patients affected by oncologic chronic illness, and a control group of healthy subjects.
Methods
All participants were female: 16 non-HIV lipodystrophic women (mean age 42 ± 12 years), 20 women with breast cancer (adenocarcinoma with a positive sentinel lymph node in outpatients awaiting chemotherapy, mean age 44 ± 5 years), 20 obese women (mean age 40 ± 3 years), and 20 healthy women (mean age 40 ± 2 years). Each lipodystrophic patient received a psychiatric assessment, following the diagnostic criteria for DSM-5. Patients and controls received a battery of self-report instruments measuring general psychopathology, body image concerns, eating habits and food craving, and pain concerns. The following psychopathological rating scales were used: SCL-90-R (Symptom Check List) for general psychopathology, BUT (Body Uneasiness Test) for body image, FCQ-T (Food Cravings Questionnaire Trait) for food craving, and WHYMPI (West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory) for multidimensional pain inventory.
Results
The psychiatric assessment of the 16 lipodystrophic patients revealed: three lifetime mood disorder, six current mood disorder, six lifetime anxiety disorder, five current anxiety disorder, four current somatic symptom disorder with predominant pain, six current binge eating disorder, 11 eating disorder not otherwise specified, two borderline personality disorder, one obsessive–compulsive personality disorder, one avoidant personality disorder, and five personality disorder not otherwise specified. In SCL-90-R scale, the subscale sensitivity showed a significantly higher score in the lipodystrophic and oncologic groups compared to healthy subjects. The subscale paranoid ideation showed a significantly higher score in the lipodystrophic group vs all the other groups. The total score of BUT scale was significantly higher in the lipodystrophic compared to healthy subjects. In WHYMPI scale, the scores of pain interference and family support were significantly higher in the lipodystrophic group. The scores of negative responses were significantly higher in the lipodystrophic group vs healthy subjects. In FCQ-T scale, the score of Cues dimension in lipodystrophic patients was significantly lower as compared with all the other groups.
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that lipodystrophic patients have an increased prevalence of mood, anxiety, pain, and eating disorders.
Level of evidence
Level III. Evidence obtained from case-control analytic study.
We present a case of hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) with severe pulmonary complication and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) hospitalized in our intensive care unit (ICU) in 2014; ...distinctive trait of this case has been the challenging diagnosis, with a bone marrow biopsy always negative, the severe pulmonary complication with ARDS and severe pulmonary hypertension, and the ferritin temporal kinetics that precisely followed the clinical course of disease.
A 32-year-old woman from the Philippines first diagnosed with upper airway infection, was subsequently hospitalized in infectious disease department and treated for community acquired pneumonia.
After clinical picture worsened with a profound respiratory insufficiency, the patient was intubated and transferred to our ICU. During this hospitalization, the clinical picture of fever, cutaneous rashes, lymphadenitis, hepatitis, leukopenia, anemia, hyperferritinemia, hypertriglyceridemia, high level of auto-antibodies, and low NK activity suggested an hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis syndrome, even if bone marrow biopsy was negative for hemophagocytosis.
Immunosuppressive therapy with dexamethasone and etoposide was started, and the patient was discharged from ICU 4 months after admission.
HLH is a rare disorder of the mononuclear phagocytic system, characterized by systemic proliferation of non- neoplastic histiocytes. The diagnosis is often challenging and not all of the diagnostic criteria may be present at the same time; this case shows how complex the diagnosis could be, how hematic ferritin levels could help in following the course of the disease, and the possibility of severe pulmonary complication either due to the disease itself and to possible sovra infections.
Dabigatran is a direct oral anticoagulant drug exhibiting clinical benefits over vitamin K antagonists. A procedure for reversing the anticoagulant effect of direct oral anticoagulants may be needed ...in emergency clinical settings, and is traditionally accomplished by using plasma products or hemostatic physical interventions. Idarucizumab, a specific antidote for dabigatran, has recently become available. This compound can be rapidly administered by intravenous injection and is effective in reversing anticoagulation in few minutes. We describe here the case of a 78-year-old woman taking dabigatran for atrial fibrillation, who was admitted to the emergency department with a diagnosis of acute cerebral ischemia. Dabigatran plasma levels on admission (74 ng/ml) were measured with diluted thrombin time. Idarucizumab was immediately administered and dabigatran plasma concentration suddenly decreased to less than 2 ng/ml. Successful systemic thrombolysis could hence be performed with full recovery.
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