In this study a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) was applied to find the best combination of mixing energy, economic and environmental indices concerning oilseed canola production. Data were ...collected from oilseed farming enterprises in Mazandaran province of Iran. Life cycle assessment of canola production from cradle to farm gate was investigated to calculate the environmental emissions. Econometric modelling was applied to find the relationship functions between energy inputs and three individual output parameters including environmental emissions, output energy and economic productivity. A multi-objective model was formulated in order to maximise the output energy and benefit to cost ratio, and minimise the final score of environmental emissions in order to obtain a set of Pareto frontier. When applying CML-IA methodology, multi-objective optimization resulted in a 32.1% reduction of the total environmental emissions as well as simultaneous increase of output energy and benefit cost ratio by 24.1% and 14.2%, respectively. More specifically, the reduction of chemicals by 82.2%, nitrogen by 11.1% and other chemical fertilisers by 70.7% would be beneficial from environment, energy and economic viewpoints. This work highlights the usefulness of the implementation of MOGA in agricultural production systems to find an optimized combination of mixing energy, economic and environment.
We propose reforming the Brazilian regulatory safety framework (BRSF) for offshore oil and gas production and drilling operations. Brazil has emerged as a leading offshore producer with extensive ...proven reserves yet to be exploited. However, the BRSF has not been updated since 2007, and there are now major concerns about the industry's safety, particularly after the BP Deepwater Horizon accident, along with the technical challenges due to extreme conditions under which Brazil's resources are located. Drawing on experiences from three leading offshore oil and gas producers (Norway, the UK, and the US), we recommend the adoption of three best practices: the UK's 'safety case' approach (where operators are expected to provide convincing and valid arguments that a system is sufficiently safe for a given application in a specific environment), Norway's 'barrier management' (evidence that there are at least two tested and independent barriers to avoid accidents) and greater investment in safety research and development, as suggested by the US's National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. We discuss implications for policy reform and how best practices can be applied within the Brazilian context.
The purpose of this work is to carry out an accurate and extensive environmental analysis of the steel production occurring in in the largest integrated EU steel mill, located in the city of Taranto ...in southern Italy. The end goal is that of highlighting the steelworks' main hot spots and identifying potential options for environmental improvement. The development for such an analysis is based on a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of steel production with a cradle to casting plant gate approach that covers the stages from raw material extraction to solid steel slab production. The inventory results have highlighted the large solid waste production, especially in terms of slag, which could be reused in other industries as secondary raw materials. Other reuses, in accordance with the circular economy paradigm, could encompass the energy waste involved in the steelmaking process. The most burdening lifecycle phases are the ones linked to blast furnace and coke oven operations. Specifically, the impact categories are influenced by the energy consumption and also by the toxicity of the emissions associated with the lifecycle of steel production. A detailed analysis of the toxicity impacts indicates that LCA is still not perfectly suitable for toxicity assessments and should be coupled with other more site specific studies in order to understand such aspects fully. Overall, the results represent a first step to understanding the current levels of sustainability of the steelworks, which should be used as a starting point for the development both of pollution control measures and of symbiotic waste reutilization scenarios needed to maintain the competitiveness of the industrial plant.
Background
Hereditary cranial hyperostosis is a rare disease never described in Italy, so the neurological manifestations in patients and carriers of the disease have been little studied.
Methods
We ...describe the neurological and neuroimaging features of patients and carriers of the gene from a large Italian family with sclerosteosis.
Results
In this family, genetic testing detected the homozygous p.Gln24X (c.70C > T) mutation of the SOST gene in the proband and a heterozygous mutation in 9 siblings. In homozygous adults, severe craniofacial hyperostosis was manifested by cranial neuropathy in childhood, chronic headache secondary to intracranial hypertension, and an obstructive sleep apnea syndrome in adults. In one of the adult patients, there was a compressible subcutaneous swelling in the occipital region caused by transosseous intracranial-extracranial occipital venous drainage, a compensation mechanism of obstructed venous drainage secondary to cranial hyperostosis. Mild cranial hyperostosis causing frequent headache and snoring was evident in the nine heterozygous subjects.
Conclusions
Multiple cranial neuropathies and headache in children, while severe chronic headache and sleep disturbances in adults, are the neurological manifestations of the first Italian family with osteosclerosis. It is reasonable to extend neurological and neuroimaging evaluation to gene carriers as well.
Genome-wide gene expression profiling of skeletal muscle from Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients has been used to describe muscle tissue alterations in DMD children older than 5 years. By ...studying the expression profile of 19 patients younger than 2 years, we describe with high resolution the gene expression signature that characterizes DMD muscle during the initial or "presymptomatic" phase of the disease. We show that in the first 2 years of the disease, DMD muscle is already set to express a distinctive gene expression pattern considerably different from the one expressed by normal, age-matched muscle. This "dystrophic" molecular signature is characterized by a coordinate induction of genes involved in the inflammatory response, extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling and muscle regeneration, and the reduced transcription of those involved in energy metabolism. Despite the lower degree of muscle dysfunction experienced, our younger patients showed abnormal expression of most of the genes reported as differentially expressed in more advanced stages of the disease. By analyzing our patients as a time series, we provide evidence that some genes, including members of three pathways involved in morphogenetic signaling--Wnt, Notch, and BMP--are progressively induced or repressed in the natural history of DMD.--Pescatori, M., Broccolini, A., Minetti, C., Bertini, E., Bruno, C., D'amico, A., Bernardini, C., Mirabella, M., Silvestri, G., Giglio, V., Modoni, A., Pedemonte, M., Tasca, G., Galluzzi, G., Mercuri, E., Tonali, P. A., Ricci, E. Gene expression profiling in the early phases of DMD: a constant molecular signature characterizes DMD muscle from early postnatal life throughout disease progression.
In this research, the environmental profile of sugar produced from beet was estimated by considering the beet cultivation and the milling process in the Iranian Hamadan Province via the life cycle ...assessment methodology. Data were obtained from sugar beet growers and the main sugar mill in the province. The system boundaries were set from the sugar beet planting to the production of white sugar in the sugar mill. The functional unit was considered to be 1 ton of white sugar. The calculations were performed for impact categories including global warming, abiotic depletion, fossil fuel depletion, ozone layer depletion, human toxicity, fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity, marine aquatic ecotoxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, photochemical oxidation, acidification, and eutrophication. Results indicate that the global warming impact of sugar production through beet cultivation and the milling process was estimated to be 310, and 1540 kgCO
2
eq/ton, respectively. Electricity accounted for the greatest share of the impact for agricultural phase (55.29%), followed by chemical fertilisers (20.83%). This electricity consumption in sugar beet production is mainly due to the agricultural irrigation. Therefore, the enhancement of water use efficiency and water extraction in sugar beet farming seems to be a possible solution to the reduction of the overall environmental burden. Also, sugar beet production should become more efficient in terms of fertiliser use. In the industrial phase, the most significant impacts are related to the production and use of natural gas. Renovation of equipment and development of renewable energies in the mill have been suggested for making beet processing more energy efficient.
Purpose
The ability to estimate fuel and lubricant consumption as well as depreciated weight of agricultural machinery used for field operations is very useful for energy and environmental analyses. ...In this study, life cycle inventory data of agricultural field operations were established by considering different parameters of such operations.
Methods
Agricultural operations considered in this study include tillage, cultivation, planting, harvesting and post-harvest operations. For these operations, the fuel and lubricant consumption as well as depreciated weight of tractors, combine harvesters and agricultural implements was estimated by considering different operational parameters such as tractor power, field condition, depth of operation, soil condition, tractor type, operational capacity of machine, width of operation and speed. Technical standards were used to estimate different types of power required for most agricultural operations (drawbar power, rotary power and motion power). The standards were then used to evaluate the variability of the fuel and lubricant consumption as well as depreciated weight of the implements by varying the aforementioned parameters.
Results and discussion
The results were compared to those that can be calculated with other approaches for life cycle inventory analysis of agricultural operations. Such comparison indicates that by using different parameters, representing the diverse local conditions of different field operations, a great variability of the results is obtained. For instance, diesel fuel consumption of tillage operations ranges from 12.6 to 76.0 L ha
−1
, with an average of 34.15 L ha
−1
and standard deviation of 11.7 L ha
−1
. Such representativeness of the different conditions of each field operation cannot be modelled with other tools or via the use of standard LCI datasheets.
Conclusions
The final result of this study is a novel approach for the life cycle inventory analysis of agricultural operations, in terms of fuel and lubricant consumption and of depreciated weight of the machines, which are estimated by simply selecting the operational parameters which best represent the effect of local conditions.
The work illustrated in this paper is part of a project of a multisector business group aimed at defining and quantifying the environmental profile of the production activities carried out by the ...companies of the group during the period 2020–2021. The approach used is that of an Organisational Life Cycle Assessment (ISO 14072). The paper describes the methodological approaches and the main results. Since some of the companies of the group operate in the material recovery and self-production of electricity from renewable sources sector, thus giving rise to avoided impacts, particular attention was paid to the allocation of end-of-life situations and the separate treatment of any credits. The results highlighted environmental hotspots and enabled the companies of the organisation to undertake actions which improved the overall environmental profile.
•Study contributes to a scarce number of O-LCA studies found in literature.•O-LCA regards a corporate group composed of 14 companies belonging to various business sectors.•The results are fully compliant with UNEP analytical and managerial objectives an O-LCA study.•The results highlighted the usefulness of this type of study for organizations.
To review information on cardiovascular health and migration, to stress the attention of researchers that much needs to be done in the collection of sound data in Italy and to allow policy makers ...identifying this issue as an important public health concern.
In Italy, the rate of immigrants in the total number of residents increased from 2.5% in 1990 to 7.4% in 2010, and currently exceeds 10% in regions such as Lombardia, Emilia Romagna and Toscana.
A consensus statement was developed by approaching relevant Italian national scientific societies involved in cardiovascular prevention. Task force members were identified by the president and/or the boards of each relevant scientific society or working group, as appropriate. To obtain a widespread consensus, drafts were merged and distributed to the scientific societies for local evaluation and revision by as many experts as possible. The ensuing final draft was finally approved by scientific societies.
In several western European countries, the prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, obesity and metabolic syndrome was found to be higher among immigrants than in the native population. Although migrants are often initially healthier than non-migrant populations in their host countries, genetic factors, and changing environments with lifestyle changes, social exclusion and insufficient medical control may expose them to health challenges. Cultural reasons may also hamper both the dissemination of prevention strategies and migrant communication with healthcare providers. However, great diversity exists across and within different groups of migrants, making generalizations very difficult and many countries do not collect registry or survey data for migrant's health.
In the present economic context, the European Union is placing great attention to improve data collection for migrant health and to support the implementation of specific prevention policies aimed at limiting the future burden of cardiovascular and renal disease, and the consequent load for health systems. Wider initiatives on the topic are awaited in Italy.
In a randomized, controlled trial involving patients with membranous nephropathy, rituximab was noninferior to cyclosporine in inducing complete or partial remission of proteinuria at 12 months and ...was superior in maintaining proteinuria remission for up to 24 months.
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