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Acute oral administration of ethanol (3.2g/kg) to rats increased (DOPAC) levels in the caudate nucleus, but had no effect on DOPAC levels in the substantia nigra and frontal cortex and failed to modify dopamine content in any of the above areas. On the other hand, the administration of the same dose of ethanol to rats which had been chronically treated with ethanol (3.2g/kg daily for 60 days), produced a decrease of DA content and a parallel increase of DOPAC levels in all areas studied. In chronically treated rats, 24 hrs after last ethanol administration dopamine levels in the frontal cortex were 60% higher than in controls. The results suggest that ethanol administration causes dopamine release in different brain areas.

Earth observation (EO) data are useful tools to analyse geomorphological processes, among which slow-moving landslides triggered by rainfall. EO data are also used to evaluate climate change and to assess its impact on geomorphological processes and geo-hydrological phenomena. The latter is the topic of the Project OT4Clima (Innovative Earth Observation technologies to study Climate Change and its impact on the environment) joined by CNR-IRPI within a consortium that includes other CNR institutes, universities and private companies. The OT4CLIMA project moves from the awareness that the impacts of climate change on the environment need to be better observed, understood, and modelled, especially at a regional scale, in order to put in place appropriate and effective risk mitigation strategies. Within the project, the CNR-IRPI group works on the development of rigorous methods and procedures for evaluating the impact of climate and its change on landslides, in particular on those characterized by a slow cinematic, at a regional scale. The test site is represented by four catchments located in the Basilicata region, southern Italy, namely the basins of the Bradano, Basento, Agri, and Sinni rivers. Long-term rainfall series gathered from 22 rain gauges located in the four catchments are analysed to evaluate the presence of temporal trends. To this aim, non-parametric and statistical tests are applied to the series. Historical landslide information is gathered from the analysis of the IFFI (Inventario dei Fenomeni Franosi in Italia) database, the Idrogeo platform (https://idrogeo.isprambiente.it/app/) and the AVI (Aree Vulnerate in Italia) catalogue. Only some types of landslide movements are considered, namely rotational-translational slides, slow slides/flows, complex movements. Moreover, Copernicus Sentinel-1 images are employed to detect the spatial and temporal distribution of slow earth surface deformations. The obtained results are used for checking the completeness of the landslide inventories. More in detail, the deformation maps of the test site are obtained by means of the application of the SBAS (Small BAseline Subset) technique to three datasets of Sentinel-1 images: t146 ascending orbit and t51 and t124 descending orbits, for the period 2015-2020. Then, a comparative analysis of rainfall data with displacement series is carried out with the aim of identifying clusters of satellite measurements with homogeneous behaviour likely correlated to variations in the rainfall regime. In particular, only the points with a mean velocity in the observation higher than 0.1 cm/year are considered to be moving. Moreover, only the displacement series of points located in areas mapped as landslides - as for the historical inventories - and sited within the influence regions of each rain gauge in the study area are analysed. A 10-km circular buffer centred in the stations are used to define the influence region of each station. The displacement series are analysed and compared to the rainfall series to search for correlations and to evaluate the effects of climate drivers on slow moving landslides.

RFID tags will really become smart objects of the Internet of Things (IoT) if they will be able to exploit the passive nature of the communication also for exchanging data with any other networked devices in the Internet. To this aim, an adaptation layer, named 6lo-RFID, has been specifically designed to run IPv6 over the RFID link technology. In this paper we draw the design principles for the development of a fully passive, IPv6-compliant, and energy-efficient 6lo-RFID tag platform. In particular, we discuss the block's design of an RF energy harvester and evaluate the simulated performance of a fully-passive 6lo-RFID tag when GET/PUT CoAP methods are used to execute operations on the tag memory.

The winter package to reform EU’s energy system Diritto dell'energia

No abstract available

The Philippines, and in particular its urban agglomerations (Manila, but not only), is characterized by innumerable social and environmental problems. These are largely due to recent history, from colonization onwards, to a socio-political system that has never found stability, but also to environmental impacts of the country's development, such as pronounced deforestation, massive urbanization and growth linked to the use of fossil fuels. In this framework, the role of climate is really important. The Philippines is located in a region of the globe strongly influenced by monsoons, which bring dry seasons (with frequent heat waves) alternating with wet ones with heavy rainfall. In addition, the region is often hit by typhoons, some of them very intense (super-typhoons), and the sea-level rise and storm surges associated with intense events cause severe flooding on the coasts of this archipelago. During recent decades, anthropogenic climate change has generally intensified all these phenomena, with even very serious consequences on territories that can often be considered fragile and on a very exposed population, in the countryside and on the coasts, but especially in urban centres. The environmental and social degradation we are witnessing in the Philippines certainly calls for systemic thinking like that of Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato si' (Pope Francis 2015). It is a matter of adapting to a changed climate that will not return to the pre-industrial conditions, while at the same time strongly mitigating with a drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But here, as in the world's other fragile states, more than anything else there is a need for the developed countries, and the ones that created the problems related to climate change, to reach out to the Philippines with support of international cooperation to make the whole world a fair, more prosperous, safe and happy place to live. In this paper, I will attempt to describe the Philippines' climate and its recent changes, the impacts of these on the territories, the consequences on Philippine society, and the challenges of ecological conversion in this situation of environmental degradation.

The importance of emission control has increased sharply due to increased need of energy from combustion. However, biomass utilization in energy production is not free from problems because of physical and chemical characteristics which are substantially different from conventional energy sources. In this situation, the quantity and quality of emissions as well as used renewable source as wood or corn grain are often unknown. To assess this problem the paper addresses the objectives to quantify the amount of greenhouse gases during the combustion of corn as compared to the emissions in fossil combustion (natural gas, LPG and diesel boiler). The test was carried out in Friuli Venezia Giulia in 2006-2008 to determine the air pollution (CO, NO, NO2, NOx, SO2 and CO2) from fuel combustion in the family boilers with power between 20-30 kWt. The flue gas emission was measured with a professional semi-continuous multi-gas analyzer, (Vario plus industrial, MRU air Neckarsulm-Obereisesheim). Data showed a lower emission of fossil fuel compared to corn in family boilers in reference to pollutants in the flue gas (NOx, SO2 and CO). In particular way the biomass combustion make a higher concentration of carbon monoxide (for a incomplete combustion because there aren’t a good mixing between fuel and air) and nitrogen oxides (in relation at higher content of nitrogen in herbaceous biomass in comparison of another fuel). Proceedings of the 19th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 6-10 June 2011, Berlin, Germany, pp. 1296-1304

The main challenge for concrete industry - and in general for construction materials - is to serve the two major needs of human society, the protection of the environment, on one hand, and the requirements of buildings and infrastructures by the world?s growing population, on the other. In the past concrete industry has satisfied these needs well. However, for a variety of reasons, the situation has changed dramatically in the last years. First of all, the concrete industry is the largest consumer of natural resources. Secondly, Portland cement, the binder of modern concrete mixtures, is not as environmentally friendly. The world's cement production, in fact, contributes to the earth's atmosphere about 7% of the total CO2 emissions, CO2 being one of the primary greenhouse gas (GHG) responsible for global warming and climate change. As a consequence, concrete industry in the future has to face two antithetically needs. In other words, how the concrete industry can feed the growing population needs being - at the same time - sustainable? The answer to this question is represented by the ?3R-Green Strategy? widely discussed in the first chapter of this PhD thesis: Reduction in consumption of gross energy for construction materials production, Reduction in polluting emissions and Reduction in consuming not renewable natural resources. In particular, this thesis is focused on the alternative binders to Portland cement such as alkali-activated slag cements and calcium sulphoaluminate cement-based binders in order to manufacture sustainable mixtures for special applications such as repair mortars, lightweight reinforced plasters and concretes for slabs on ground. The experimental results show the feasibility of manufacturing both EN 1504-3 R3 class mortars and Portland-free concretes for jointless slabs on ground with calcium sulphoaluminate cement, supplementary cementitious materials (fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag) and hydrated lime instead of Portland cement. Moreover, alkali-activated mortars and concretes seem to be a reasonable alternative to natural hydraulic lime-based and/or traditional Portland cement-based mixtures for rehabilitation or restoration of ancient masonry buildings and existing concretes structures. Finally, a new sustainability index was developed taking into account the environmental impact, the performances and the durability of mixtures. In particular, in the environmental impact section, the natural raw materials consumption, the greenhouse gas emissions and the energy consumption have been considered. Furthermore, depending on the applications and the environments, design parameters and properties related to durability have been assigned to each mixture. less