Construction and demolition waste (C&DW) represents a pressing concern within the European Union, underscoring the urgent need for effective waste management strategies. The selection of these solutions constitutes a complex task, entailing the identification of efficient C&DW management strategies that balance appropriate practices, regulatory compliance, resource conservation, economic feasibility, and environmental considerations. LCA is widely utilized to assess environmental impact, yet the economic aspect has not been adequately incorporated into the LCA process in the field of C&DW management.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndustry 4.0 technologies present transformative potential in data acquisition for production activities, promising to revolutionize the Life Cycle Inventory process. Despite acknowledging their utility in environmental impact analysis, a gap exists in understanding the specific applicability of these technologies to fulfill ISO 14044 criteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAmong the environmental issues that have recently catalyzed the attention of the scientific world, we must undoubtedly include the perturbation in the biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, which have been identified as one of the major risks on a global scale, also considering its social implications, since the use of macronutrients is essential to guarantee the food needs of the world population. In this context, there is a growing interest in the evaluation of the environmental impact related to this issue, particularly with regard to the effects of changes in the nitrogen cycle and the methods for quantifying them. In the latter field, several researches have recently been developed focusing on the indicator known as the nitrogen footprint, associated with the environmental releases of reactive nitrogen.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSustainability in steel production is considered a global challenge which needs to be faced with coordinated actions. The aim of this study is to assess the environmental improvements of a steel mill in a circular economy perspective, through the Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (O-LCA) and the Product Life Cycle Assessment (P-LCA) methodologies. This study explores to what extent the improvements and the efforts to recover the steel slag can be detected using an organization perspective and making a comparison with the more traditional product perspective.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn late December 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) quickly spread worldwide, and the syndrome it causes, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has reached pandemic proportions. Around 30% of patients with COVID-19 experience severe respiratory distress and are admitted to the intensive care unit for comprehensive critical care. Patients with COVID-19 often present an enhanced immune response with a hyperinflammatory state characterized by a "cytokine storm," which may reflect changes in the microbiota composition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The long pentraxin PTX3 is a key component of the humoral arm of innate immunity related to sepsis severity and mortality. We evaluated the clinical and prognostic significance of circulating PTX3 in the largest cohort ever reported of patients with severe sepsis or septic shock.
Materials And Methods: Plasma PTX3 was measured on days 1, 2 and 7 after randomization of 958 patients to albumin or crystalloids for fluid resuscitation in the multicentre Albumin Italian Outcome Sepsis (ALBIOS) trial.