Search results for "ASSESSMENT"
showing 10 items of 5125 documents
A Tool for Energy Management and Cost Assessment of Pumps in Waste Water Treatment Plants
2017
Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTPs) are generally considered energy intensive. Substantial energy saving potentials have been identified by several authors. Pumps consume around 12% of the overall WWTP energy consumption. In this paper we propose a methodology that uses the sensors commonly installed in WWTPs, such as volume and energy sensors, to perform energy benchmarking on pumps. The relationship between energy efficiency and flow rate is used to detect specific problems, and potential solutions are proposed, taking into consideration economical and environmental criteria (cost of externalities in energy production). The methodology integrates energy benchmarking, data-mining, and eco…
Application of Wastewater-Based Epidemiology for Tracking Human Exposure to Deoxynivalenol and Enniatins
2022
Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a promising biomonitoring approach with the potential to provide direct information on human intake and exposure to food contaminants and environmental chemicals. The aim of this study was to apply WBE while employing the normalization method for exploring human exposure to selected mycotoxins according to population biomarker 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA). This type of normalization technique has been previously used to detect various other compounds. However, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study tracking human exposure to mycotoxins. A sensitive analytical methodology was developed to achieve reliable quantification of deoxyniv…
Energy, water and environmental balance of a complex water supply system
2015
The present paper describes the analysis of water and energy balance in a complex urban water supply system. The analysis was carried out employing Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodologies. The LCA approach was integrated with the analysis of the system energy and water balance. For a real size water supply system, based on the results of the individual LCAs, the current baseline was constructed highlighting the water, energy and environmental (in terms of CO2eq emissions in the atmosphere) costs of supplied water. Then, three different mitigation measures have been evaluated: the first is based on energy production by installation of photovoltaic systems; the second is based on energy recov…
A Preliminary Energy Assessment to Improve the Energy Sustainability in the Small Islands of the Mediterranean Sea
2020
Power plants supplied by renewable energy sources are expanding around the world, in order to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions, limit the global warming and improve the energy sustainability. Despite the relevant achieved results, small islands are heavily reliant on fossil fuels. In this context, renewable energy sources are available but practically unused, due to landscape and economic constraints. This condition is quite common in the Mediterranean Sea. These islands are normally fed by a stand-alone electrical grid and a power plant, equipped with diesel engines. In order to improve the sustainability of the energy sector, the paper considers the case study of Ustica, a small Italia…
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of Wave Energy Converter (WEC)
2015
The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an environmental management instrument implemented worldwide. In the last years the development of Wave Energy Converter (WEC) influenced environmental research to quantify impacts on marine life. In this paper we present a case study of EIA: a real application and study of device installed in Tirren Sea (near Castellammare — Sicily).
Verification of Numerical Weather Prediction Model Results for Energy Applications in Latvia
2014
Abstract Wind power forecasting greatly relies on wind speed forecasts. Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models are a reliable source of meteorological forecasts and they can also be used in wind resource assessment. In this work we carry out the verification of wind speed results from the NWP model Weather Research and Forecast (WRF), grid resolution - 3 km. Results from 172 model runs in May and November 2013 are compared with meteorological observations in 24 stations in Latvia. The model usually predicts wind speed values that are larger than the observed and the diurnal cycle has a large impact on verification results. Verification results obtained by interpolating model results betw…
Exposure assessment to ochratoxin A from the consumption of Italian and Hungarian wines
2005
Abstract A total of 267 wine samples including 19 dessert, 186 red, 11 rose and 51 white produced mostly in the years 1997–2002 in Italian and Hungarian regions were analyzed for ochratoxin A (OTA) using inmunoaffinity column (IAC) clean-up and HPLC with fluorimetric detection. None of Hungarian wine samples were contaminated with this mycotoxin. For Italian red wines, 84% of the samples were positive for OTA ranged from 0.01 to 4.00 ng/mL. Furthermore, OTA was detected in 63% of dessert, in 56% of rose and in 19% of white wine samples ranged from 0.01 to 1.64, from 0.01 to 1.04 and from 0.01 to 0.21 ng/mL, respectively. A study of OTA daily exposure assessment in Italian wines was also car…
Prevalence of Wine Intolerance
2012
Background Wine is an ancient food product, ubiquitous across cultures all over the world. Its effects on health have been extensively studied, yet there have been only a few case reports of wine intolerance or wine allergy. We studied the prevalence of self-reported wine intolerance in the adult population of Mainz, Germany.
Life Cycle Assessment in the Wine Sector
2015
Currently, stakeholders’ increasing attention to quality is driving the wine sector to rethink and change its own production processes. Amongst product quality dimensions, the environment is gaining ever-growing attention at various levels of policy-making and business. Given its soundness, the use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has become widespread in many application contexts. Apart from applications for communication purposes, LCA has also been used in the wine sector to highlight environmental hot spots in supply chains, to compare farming practices and to detect improvement options, inter alia. Case studies whose focus is the wine industry abound in high quality publications. This Cha…
Conservation of Ptilostemon greuteri (Asteraceae), an endemic climate relict from Sicily (Italy): state of knowledge after the discovery of a second …
2022
Ptilostemon greuteri is one of the most endangered and poorly studied woody vascular plant species of the Mediterranean Basin, endemic to Sicily (Italy). Several peculiar traits confer to P. greuteri a character of uniqueness and an enigmatic attractiveness. In fact, at first glimpse the largest individuals of this species remind the most remarkable and peculiar cases of herbaceous genera (e.g., Echium, Senecio) turned woody on insular or insular-like mountain ecosystems. Following the discovery of a second population of this rare species, a project aiming at the study and conservation of P. greuteri was set up. We present here updated information on the distribution, conservation status, b…