Search results for " Indicators"

Analysis, assessment and quantification of the climate changes impact: the resilience silvicultural indicators

2017

Sicilian forests can be considered at high decay risk because of more and more frequent wildfires and, even more, because of climate change effects, like floods, draught, heat waves, snow and wind storms. They are worrying processes, contributing at making ecosystems weaker and intensifying the potential desertification risk in Sicily, one of the most threatened of Italian regions by this form of soil degradation. The most effective approach to mitigate the effects of the climate change has been developed through the following action: analysis, assessment and quantification of the climate change impact: the silvicoltural resilience indicators.

Nematodes colonization of pyrite cinders in a phytoremediation study

2007

A performance based approach for the analysis of urban water distribution systems under drought conditions

2009

The present study proposes some performance indicators for analysing urban water distribution system characterised by intermittent supply service. Specific indicators have been proposed for investigating the reduction of quality of water service under resources scarcity conditions. A modelling procedure has been implemented in order to allow for analysing complex network schemes in which users self adapt to scarcity conditions. The procedure has been applied to analyse the performance of an existing supply system in Palermo (Italy). The network and users’ behaviour in intermittent distribution conditions have been monitored in order to calibrate the model and verify the reliability of the p…

STERILIZZAZIONE CON MICROONDE DI RIFIUTI SANITARI: DETERMINAZIONE DIRETTA DELL’EFFICACIA DEL PROCESSO

2018

In the sterilization of those Health Care Waste that are marked as possibly infectious, microwaves (MW) have long been proposed as an alternative means to steam. The effectiveness of the operation is assessed determining the fraction that has survived to the sterilizing agent of a known starting population of micro-organisms. Customarily, this population is introduced into the waste mass in the form of one or more sealed vials. These make up an artificial environment which is completely under control; but onto it the sterilizing agent could a priori behave with higher or lower effectiveness, compared with the loose mass which is directly exposed to it. As far as the traditional steam steril…

SUSTAINABLE URBAN PUBLIC TRANSPORT. A COMPARISON BETWEEN EUROPEAN AND NORTH AFRICAN CITIES

2011

The aim of paper is to carry out a benchmarking analysis among European and North African Cities in order to point out the improvement areas for a Sustainable Urban Public Transport System. The focus is to improve public transport performance, all aspects such as fares, operational effectiveness and attractiveness of the service.

ENERGY RETROFIT AND URBAN RENOVATION. APPLICATION OF SBTOOL METHOD. A CASE STUDY IN TRAPANI, ITALY

2013

Climate changes caused by carbon emissions are nowadays considered as one of the greatest threats faced by humanity, because they cause problems of human health and poor prospects for global economy. It means that, also in the field of architecture and urban planning, there is an urgency to find appropriate solutions to face this issue, as demonstrated by the increasing amount of normative measures and policy at global level. The paper aims to show a critical analysis of the urban context conducted through the application of sustainability assessment tool - SBTool - into the social housing complex of Cappuccinelli district, chosen as case study. The choice for applying this methodology, whi…

Searching the internet for learning materials through didactic indicators

2007

Internet offers a huge amount of didactic materials that can be used in creating new online courses. However, those materials need a deep analysis to understand their context and contents before their potential use. As a consequence, the search of didactic material in internet is often quite tedious and time consuming so the searcher usually limits his/her analysis to the first found web pages . To help users in finding efficiently and timely the most appropriate online materials, we have developed a system, called SAXEF (System for Automatic eXtraction of lEearning object Features), that is capable to automatically extract the didactic indicators (a sort of DNA) of any web page (or group o…

Energy analysis of the buildings stocks. Scaling from national to regional and urban contexts

Life-Cycle Assessment of Buildings

2019

The chapter presents a complete overview of LCA applied to buildings. After a brief introduction on the origin and developments of the LCA, it describes four steps of the LCA methodology, according to the framework of the International standards of ISO 14040 series. Then, the authors focus on the LCA applied to the building sector and on the standard EN 15978. They identify the main issues related to the application of the methodology to buildings, such as the selection of the functional unit, the systems boundaries,the environmental indicators, etc. In the context of the sustainability, a brief overview on the economic and social aspects of buildings and on the available building life-cycl…

I piani energetici ambientali regionali. Applicabilità degli indicatori proposti a scala nazionale (ISPRA) ed europea (EUROSTA).

2014

As it is well known, indicators represent effective tools in the aim of designing, monitoring and verifying energy and environmental Masterplans. At this regard, a large number of indicators do exist both at European and country Italian levels which designers can usefully apply to. Anyway, being such indicators released at a general European level, their actual verifiability should be properly checked when them are applied to the local level of a given territory. In the present work this issue is approached by referring to the Sicilian Energy and Environmental Masterplan (PEARS): on purpose, the themes proposed at European (Eurostat) and country Italian (ISPRA) levels have been compared wit…