The quality and shelf life of meat and meat products are key factors that are usually evaluated by complex and laborious protocols and intricate sensory methods. Devices with attractive characteristics (fast reading, portability, and relatively low operational costs) that facilitate the measurement of meat and meat products characteristics are of great value. This review aims to provide an overview of the fundamentals of electronic nose (E-nose), eye (E-eye), and tongue (E-tongue), data preprocessing, chemometrics, the application in the evaluation of quality and shelf life of meat and meat products, and advantages and disadvantages related to these electronic systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPolicies to improve air quality need to be based on effective plans for reducing anthropogenic emissions. In 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic resulted in significant reductions of anthropogenic pollutant emissions, offering an unexpected opportunity to observe their consequences on ambient concentrations. Taking the national lockdown occurred in Italy between March and May 2020 as a case study, this work tries to infer if and what lessons may be learnt concerning the impact of emission reduction policies on air quality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground/aim: The relationship between air pollution and respiratory morbidity has been widely addressed in urban and metropolitan areas but little is known about the effects in non-urban settings. Our aim was to assess the short-term effects of PM10 and PM2.5 on respiratory admissions in the whole country of Italy during 2006-2015.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis global study, which has been coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization Global Atmospheric Watch (WMO/GAW) programme, aims to understand the behaviour of key air pollutant species during the COVID-19 pandemic period of exceptionally low emissions across the globe. We investigated the effects of the differences in both emissions and regional and local meteorology in 2020 compared with the period 2015-2019. By adopting a globally consistent approach, this comprehensive observational analysis focuses on changes in air quality in and around cities across the globe for the following air pollutants PM, PM, PMC (coarse fraction of PM), NO, SO, NOx, CO, O and the total gaseous oxidant (OX = NO + O) during the pre-lockdown, partial lockdown, full lockdown and two relaxation periods spanning from January to September 2020.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite the relevance of road crashes and their impact on social and health care costs, the effects of extreme temperatures on road crashes risk have been scarcely investigated, particularly for those occurring in occupational activities. A nationwide epidemiological study was carried out to estimate the risk of general indistinct and work-related road crashes related with extreme temperatures and to identify crash and occupation parameters mostly involved. Data about road crashes, resulting in death or injury, occurring during years 2013-2015 in Italy, were collected from the National Institute of Statistics, for general indistinct road crashes, and from the compensation claim applications registered by the national workers' compensation authority, for work-related ones.
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