Search results for "consumption"
showing 10 items of 1796 documents
Is Participation in Tourism Market an Opportunity for Everyone? Some Evidence from Italy
2014
Exploring the main determinants of tourism participation at national and international level, the paper investigates if there are differences in tourism consumption behavior among Italian families which reflect disparities in their standard of living. To achieve this a Heckman model has been used on a huge sample of Italian households over the period 1997-2007. Results show that participation in the tourism market is strongly affected by the personal characteristics of individuals and that tourism consumption is an income sensitive good. The analysis reveals that tourism is generally a luxury good reflecting the disparities in the standard of living among Italian families. We have found tha…
Mapping geographical inequalities in access to drinking water and sanitation facilities in low-income and middle-income countries, 2000-17.
2020
Background: Universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities is an essential human right, recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals as crucial for preventing disease and improving human wellbeing. Comprehensive, high-resolution estimates are important to inform progress towards achieving this goal. We aimed to produce highresolution geospatial estimates of access to drinking water and sanitation facilities. Methods: We used a Bayesian geostatistical model and data from 600 sources across more than 88 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) to estimate access to drinking water and sanitation facilities on continuous continent-wide surfaces from 2000 to 2017, and…
Drivers, barriers and impacts of digitalisation in rural areas from the viewpoint of experts
2022
Abstract Context: The domain of rural areas, including rural communities, agriculture, and forestry, is going through a process of deep digital transformation. Digitalisation can have positive impacts on sustainability in terms of greater environmental control, and community prosperity. At the same time, it can also have disruptive effects, with the marginalisation of actors that cannot cope with the change. When developing a novel system for rural areas, requirements engineers should carefully consider the specific socio-economic characteristics of the domain, so that potential positive effects can be maximised, while mitigating negative impacts. Objective: The goal of this paper is to sup…
Caffeine and cardiovascular diseases: critical review of current research.
2015
Caffeine is a most widely consumed physiological stimulant worldwide, which is consumed via natural sources, such as coffee and tea, and now marketed sources such as energy drinks and other dietary supplements. This wide use has led to concerns regarding the safety of caffeine and its proposed beneficial role in alertness, performance and energy expenditure and side effects in the cardiovascular system. The question remains "Which dose is safe?", as the population does not appear to adhere to the strict guidelines listed on caffeine consumption. Studies in humans and animal models yield controversial results, which can be explained by population, type and dose of caffeine and low statistica…
Pre-Clinical Studies with D-Penicillamine as a Novel Pharmacological Strategy to Treat Alcoholism: Updated Evidences
2017
Ethanol, as other drugs of abuse, is able to activate the ventral tegmental area dopamine (VTA-DA) neurons leading to positively motivational alcohol-seeking behavior and use, and, ultimately to ethanol addiction. In the last decades, the involvement of brain-derived acetaldehyde (ACD) in the ethanol actions in the mesolimbic pathway has been widely demonstrated. Consistent published results have provided a mechanistic support to the use of ACD inactivating agents to block the motivational and reinforcing properties of ethanol. Hence, in the last years, several pre-clinical studies have been performed in order to analyze the effects of the sequestering ACD agents in the prevention of ethano…
The embodiment of wastewater data for the estimation of illicit drug consumption in Spain
2021
Data obtained from wastewater analysis can provide rapid and complementary insights in illicit drug consumption at community level. Within Europe, Spain is an important country of transit of both cocaine and cannabis. The quantity of seized drugs and prevalence of their use rank Spain at the top of Europe. Hence, the implementation of a wastewater monitoring program at national level would help to get better understanding of spatial differences and trends in use of illicit drugs. In this study, a national wastewater campaign was performed for the first time to get more insight on the consumption of illicit drugs within Spain. The 13 Spanish cities monitored cover approximately 6 million inh…
On the Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring in dwellings: a feasibility perspective
2021
The oncoming modernization process of the power grids, driven above all by decarbonisation objectives and the continuous improvement of digital technologies, is encouraging active participation in the electricity market by consumers through the Demand-Response mechanism. From this perspective, the introduction of smart meters and energy consumption monitoring devices plays a fundamental role, being able to give benefits to consumers, suppliers and the electricity grid itself. This paper proposes a supervised method of non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) based on the recognition of patterns in the time domain with the Dynamic Time Warping algorithm which is suitable for low-cost smart meter…
Impressing my friends: The role of social value in green purchasing attitude for youthful consumers
2021
Abstract Prior studies predominantly use cross-sectional designs to determine effects of pro-environmental beliefs on green purchasing attitudes, thereby limiting the possibility for causal inferences and examining mediation effects. We overcome these gaps by adopting a two-wave longitudinal design to test a moderated-mediation model that draws on consumer choice theory, positing that the effect of implicit pro-environmental beliefs on green purchasing attitudes is mediated by perceived social value from buying green, while the relationship between pro-environmental beliefs and perceived social value is moderated by perceived inconvenience of buying green. Findings from a sample of Polish y…
Local Green Power Supply Plants Based on Alcohol Regenerative Gas Turbines: Economic and Environmental Aspects
2020
Growing economies need green and renewable energy. Their financial development can reduce energy consumption (through energy-efficient technologies) and replace fossil fuels with renewable ones. Gas turbine engines are widely used in transport and industry. To improve their economic attractiveness and to reduce harmful emissions, including greenhouse gases, alternative fuels and waste heat recovery technologies can be used. A promising direction is the use of alcohol and thermo-chemical recuperation. The purpose of this study is to estimate the economic efficiency and carbon dioxide emissions of an alcohol-fueled regenerative gas turbine engine with thermo-chemical recuperation. The carbon …
How does seasonality affect water reuse possibilities? An efficiency and cost analysis
2012
Abstract Because of the harsh conditions of water stress and seasonal water demand in many zones, water reuse has emerged as a key alternative for achieving sustainable water management. An efficient performance by wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in technical and economic terms favors water reuse. However, seasonality in the flow of wastewater and in the pollutant load may be a determining factor in the efficiency of WWTPs. To evaluate if seasonality affects WWTP efficiency, analytical benchmarking methodology Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to obtain an average efficiency score for seasonal and non-seasonal plants. Given the importance of extended aeration (EA) and activated sl…