Search results for "Missions"
showing 10 items of 380 documents
Respiratory Effects of Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollutants During Exercise
2020
Traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) is increasing worldwide. Habitual physical activity is known to prevent cardiorespiratory diseases and mortality, but whether exposure to TRAP during exercise affects respiratory health is still uncertain. Exercise causes inflammatory changes in the airways, and its interaction with the effects of TRAP or ozone might be detrimental, for both athletes exercising outdoor and urban active commuters. In this Mini-Review, we summarize the literature on the effects of exposure to TRAP and/or ozone during exercise on lung function, respiratory symptoms, performance, and biomarkers. Ozone negatively affected pulmonary function after exercise, especially after co…
Recupero sostenibile nel centro storico di Petralia Soprana: strategie per il retrofit energetico.
2013
The valorization of building in the historical centers of limited territorial environment, such as the ones in the Madonie’s Park, represents a requirement of mountain communities, which are the witnesses of a gradual abandonment of historical buildings, representative of the local cultural heritage, mainly because they are inadequate to ensure indoor comfort. Also for the recovery of these buildings, technological, energy and economic issues have to be evaluated, compatibly with the historical value. In particular this urban area, typical of the Madonie’s Park, is an architectural, historical and material heritage that merges with the natural and scenic values of the area, representing the…
The instability of the adjusted and unadjusted environmental Kuznets curves
2006
We test the stability of the unadjusted and adjusted environmental Kuznets curves (EKCs). Our results provide evidence in favour of a theoretically funded "adjusted EKC hypothesis" in which the impact of per capita GDP on CO2 emissions is evaluated conditionally to the effects of the industry mix and of the energy-supply infrastructure. In this specification, the shape of the GDP-CO2 relationship appears quite sensitive to changes in the estimation period. In the final part of the paper, signs and dynamics of fixed effects of individual countries in different specifications are interpreted as measures of virtuous or vicious of environmental behaviour. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserve…
Sustainable Mobility in Park Areas: The Potential Offered by Guided Transport Systems
2012
The project choices to design and manage a transport infrastructure system are extremely hard in thinly populated areas like, for instance, protected areas and mostly parks. In actual fact, the need for promotion and development of these areas, often characterized by large surfaces, contrasts with the necessity to preserve their inestimable natural value. The transportation demand in extremely sensible environmental contexts can be satisfied by providing incentives to use reduced-impact means of transport, regulating adequately the vehicle traffic flow and promoting the intermodality between private and public transport systems. Apart from performing their own traditional functions, these s…
Review of wind tunnel modelling of flow and pollutant dispersion within and from naturally ventilated livestock buildings
2021
[EN] Ammonia emissions from naturally ventilated livestock buildings (NVLBs) pose a serious environmental problem. However, the mechanisms that control these emissions are still not fully understood. One promising method for understanding these mechanisms is physical modelling in wind tunnels. This paper reviews studies that have used this method to investigate flow or pollutant dispersion within or from NVLBs. The review indicates the importance of wind tunnels for understanding the flow and pollutant dispersion processes within and from NVLBs. However, most studies have investigated the flow, while only few studies have focused on pollutant dispersion. Furthermore, only few studies have s…
Modelling the Interaction between Air Pollutant Emissions and Their Key Sources in Poland
2021
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between key sources of air pollutant emissions (sources of energy production, factories which are particularly harmful to the environment, the fleets of cars, environmental protection expenditure) and the main environmental air pollution (SO2, NOx, CO and PM) in Poland. Models based on MLP neural networks were used as predictive models. Global sensitivity analysis was used to demonstrate the significant impact of individual network input variables on the output variable. To verify the effectiveness of the models created, the actual data were compared with the data obtained through modelling. Projected courses of changes in t…
Structure and performance properties of environmentally-friendly biocomposites based on poly(ɛ-caprolactone) modified with copper slag and shale dril…
2018
The potential application of two types of industrial wastes, drill cuttings (DC) and copper slag (CS), as silica-rich modifiers of poly(ɛ-caprolactone) (PCL) was investigated. Chemical structure and physical properties of DC and CS fillers were characterized using X-ray diffractometer, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, particle size and density measurements. PCL/DC and PCL/CS composites with a variable content of filler (5 to 50 parts by weight) were prepared by melt compounding in an internal mixer. It was observed that lower particle size of DC filler enhanced processing of biocomposites comparing to CS filler. Smaller particles of DC filler and thus the higher specific surface area, enabl…
The contribution of volcanoes to the atmospheric trace metals budget in the Mediterranean basin
2009
Volcanic emissions represent one of the major natural source for several trace metals (Cd, Cu, As, Pb, Hg and Zn) into the atmosphere both as gaseous and aerosol forms. The Mediterranean Sea can be considered a large geochemical sink for these elements whose source are the huge amounts of aerosols of different origin. The industrialised areas located in the northern part of the basin represent a nearly constant source of the anthropogenic-dominated aerosol. By contrast, the arid and desert regions located at the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean, are the sources of frequent dust “pulses” perturbing the “steady-state” conditions of the local atmosphere through the input of seve…
Reducing Air Pollutants through Road Innovative Intersections
2013
Road pollutant emissions are correlated mainly to infrastructural capacity and to traffic intensity and typology. With the aim to improve road intersections performances in the last years was designed many new geometric layouts, like turbo roundabouts and flower roundabouts. The main objective of this paper is carried out a comparative analysis between conventional and innovative roundabouts in terms of CO, CO2, NO and PM2,5 vehicular emissions, evaluated by means of COPERT Software which is developed as a European tool for the calculation of emissions from the road transport sector.
Environmental Implications of Traffic Flow Delays: A Model for Urban Streets
2012
In this paper the problem of road's capacity is dealt in presence of perturbations of the vehicular flow. In particular, among the different disturbing causes, it is here considered the presence of vehicles parked along the road in relation to their parking activity. Having already established the delay, caused by those vehicles leaving their stationary positions and entering the traffic flow or by those who slow down the flow to park, it is possible to evaluate the changes in time running values. Related to these times delay, the extra pollutant emissions by a given urban running fleet is also evaluated, by utilizing emission factors depending on age, type, volume capacity and engine of th…