Search results for " Monitoring"

Assessing the efficiency of wastewater treatment plants in an uncertain context: a DEA with tolerances approach

2012

Abstract As the number of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has increased, the economics associated with their management have become more relevant. The efficiency assessment is therefore a useful tool for cost reduction. For this purpose, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a highly suitable technique, since it is a holistic approach that aggregates performance indicators into a single index. However, one of the most common criticisms of DEA models is that information on uncertainty estimates is not provided. To overcome this limitation, we assess efficiency by using a DEA model with statistical tolerances for both inputs and outputs. This model is applied to a sample of Spanish WWTPs. Th…

Are mandatory non-financial disclosures credible? Evidence from Italian listed companies

2020

According to the Directive 2014/95/EU on non‐financial information (NFI), from 2017 onwards, large companies of member states must provide social, environmental, and governance disclosures. This paper, focusing on the evaluation of the credibility of NFI in Italy after the implementation of the EU Directive, aims to investigate whether making non‐financial disclosures (NFDs) obligatory affect their credibility. From a theoretical perspective of material legitimacy theory, we investigated the NFDs of the 31 FTSE MIB Italian listed companies for the 2017 fiscal year. Through a meaning‐oriented content analysis, we developed a self‐constructed credibility index applying an operational framewor…

Effects of Carbon Emissions, Environmental Disclosures and CSR Assurance on Cost of Equity in Emerging Markets

2021

The objective of the paper is to empirically test the relation between carbon emissions, environmental disclosures, assurance of sustainability reports and firms&rsquo

The Inclusion of Socially Irresponsible Companies in Sustainable Stock Indices

2019

Social rating agencies implement complex filters to identify the companies with the best sustainable and social performance and help investors select the companies for their sustainable portfolios. This study analysed whether companies that are defined as ethical, sustainable and socially responsible by those agencies actually deserve this label. More specifically, the inclusion in the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) World of companies that have been involved in controversies according to the Thomson Reuters Eikon database was studied. The results show that the inclusion of irresponsible companies in the DJSI Index is a fact. This outcome is in line with previous studies t…

Evaluating the Eco-Efficiency of Wastewater Treatment Plants: Comparison of Optimistic and Pessimistic Approaches

2020

The assessment of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) performance has gained the interest of water utilities and water regulators. Eco-efficiency has been identified as a powerful indicator, as it integrates economic and environmental variables into a single index. Most previous studies have employed traditional data envelopment analysis (DEA) for the evaluation of WWTP eco-efficiency. However, DEA allows the selection of input and output weights for individual WWTPs for the calculation of eco-efficiency scores. To overcome this limitation, we employed the double-frontier and common set of weights methods to evaluate the eco-efficiency of a sample of 30 WWTPs in Spain. The WWTPs were ranked b…

Effect of the relative optical air mass and the clearness index on solar erythemal UV irradiance

2014

This paper analyses the effects of the clearness index (Kt) and the relative optical air mass (mr) on erythemal UV irradiance (UVER). The UVER measurements were made in Valencia (Spain) from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm between June 2003 and December 2012 and (140,000 data points). Firstly, two models were used to calculate values for the erythemal ultraviolet irradiance clearness index (KtUVER) as a function of the global irradiance clearness index (Kt). Secondly, a potential regression model to measure the KtUVER as a function of the relative optical air mass was studied. The coefficients of this regression were evaluated for clear and cloudy days, as well as for days with high and low ozone levels…

Induced seismicity response of hydraulic fracturing: results of a multidisciplinary monitoring at the Wysin site, Poland

2018

Abstract Shale oil and gas exploitation by hydraulic fracturing experienced a strong development worldwide over the last years, accompanied by a substantial increase of related induced seismicity, either consequence of fracturing or wastewater injection. In Europe, unconventional hydrocarbon resources remain underdeveloped and their exploitation controversial. In UK, fracturing operations were stopped after the Mw 2.3 Blackpool induced earthquake; in Poland, operations were halted in 2017 due to adverse oil market conditions. One of the last operated well at Wysin, Poland, was monitored independently in the framework of the EU project SHEER, through a multidisciplinary system including seis…

INVESTIGATIONS ON INFILTRATION METHODS FOR AN IMPROVED SOIL HYDRAULIC CHARACTERIZATION

2020

Aligning Inner Peripheries with rural development in Italy: Territorial evidence to support policy contextualization

2021

Abstract Inner Peripheries is a recent concept based on both peripherality and marginality features, thus far from the commonly adopted geographical notion of periphery. Inner Peripheries are fragile territories covering rural Europe, which suffer from depopulation, low economic potential, and weak territorial cohesion. However, these territories are extremely important for the provision of goods and services, and the stewardship of natural and semi-natural environments. Such dichotomous condition poses several challenges for planning in the EU context, particularly regarding the implementation of the Rural Development Policy. Therefore, current planning needs to contextualize the policy im…

Increased recovery of brain acetylcholinesterase activity in dichlorvos-intoxicated European eels Anguilla anguilla by bath treatment with N-acetylcy…

2003

Organophosphate (OP) pesticides are widely used as antiparasitic chemicals in finfish aquaculture. However, current antidotes cannot be applied to treat intoxicated fish. We showed in previous studies the importance of glutathione (GSH) metabolism in pesticide resistance of the European eel Anguilla anguilla L. The present work studied the effects of the antioxidant and glutathione pro-drug N-acetyl-l-cysteine (NAC) on the recovery of European eels exposed for 96 h to a sublethal concentration (0.17 mg l^-1; 20% of its 96 h LC50) of the OP pesticide dichlorvos (2,2-dichlorovinyl dimethyl phosphate; DDVP). This insecticide and acaricide decreased muscular GSH content and increased oxidised g…