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The disruptive force of the COVID-19 pandemic is lessening in power and plans are being made for the postcrisis period, among which increasing the sustainability of higher education is of significant importance. The study aims at establishing students’ existing environment-related routines during their home confinement, as a basis for applying green measures to campus living once academic life is resumed with the physical presence of students. The collected data rely on self-reported information provided by 816 students from Politehnica University of Timisoara (Romania), collected via an online, anonymous survey. The novelty of the approach is that household environment-related routines are investigated during a crisis period, with the possibility to build upon the results to implement tailored measures to encourage or diminish environmentally relevant consumption by young, highly skilled individuals. The students display a moderate awareness of environmental issues and indicate consumption routines that may be steered towards an increased sustainability-conscious campus life, through the combined intervention of the university, city administration, and stakeholder involvement. The findings are used to explore the possible directions for action towards increasing or contributing to the territorial sustainability in the socio-ecological context of Timisoara, the largest university city in the western part of Romania via educational, managerial and policy interventions.

In the age of Evidence-Based Medicine, Clinical Guidelines (CGs) are recognized to be an indispensable tool to support physicians in their daily clinical practice. Medical Informatics is expected to play a relevant role in facilitating diffusion and adoption of CGs. However, the past pioneering approaches, often fragmented in many disciplines, did not lead to solutions that are actually exploited in hospitals. Process Mining for Healthcare (PM4HC) is an emerging discipline gaining the interest of healthcare experts, and seems able to deal with many important issues in representing CGs. In this position paper, we briefly describe the story and the state-of-the-art of CGs, and the efforts and results of the past approaches of medical informatics. Then, we describe PM4HC, and we answer questions like how can PM4HC cope with this challenge? Which role does PM4HC play and which rules should be employed for the PM4HC scientific community? This research received no external funding

The disposal of industrial paper mill sludge waste is a big issue and has a great importance all over the world. A study was conducted to determine the chemical properties of recycled paper mill sludge (RPMS) and assess its possibilities for land application. RPMS samples were collected from six different paper mills in Malaysia and analyzed for physical and chemical properties, heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, (13)C-NMR spectra and for the presence of dioxins/furans. The RPMS was dewatered, sticky with a strong odour, an average moisture of 65.08%, pH 7.09, cation exchange capacity (CEC) 14.43 cmol (+) kg(-1), N 1.45, P 0.18, K 0.12, Ca 0.82, Mg 0.73, Na 0.76 and Al, 1.38%. The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals levels were below the standard Class 2 limits. The dioxin and furan were in below the standard concentration of Class 1. The most prominent peak in the (13)C-NMR spectra of RPMS was centered at 31 ppm, proving the presence of methylene (-CH2) groups in long aliphatic chains, with lipids and proteins. The signal at 89 ppm and highly shielded shoulder at 83 ppm were due to presence of cellulose carbon C-4, and the peak at 63 and 65 ppm was due to the cellulose carbon spectrum. The RPMS therefore contains significant amount of nutrients with safe levels of heavy metals and PAHs for environment and can be used as a fertilizer and soil amendment for land application.

Attention to the environment and its problems has undergone unprecedented growth in recent years [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the management of non-communicable diseases in health systems around the world. This study aimed to understand the impact of COVID-19 on diabetes medicines dispensed in Australia. Publicly available data from Australia’s government subsidised medicines program (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme), detailing prescriptions by month dispensed to patients, drug item code and patient category, was obtained from January 2016 to November 2020. This study focused on medicines used in diabetes care (Anatomical Therapeutical Chemical code level 2 = A10). Number of prescriptions dispensed were plotted by month at a total level, by insulins and non-insulins, and by patient category (general, concessional). Total number of prescriptions dispensed between January and November of each year were compared. A peak in prescriptions dispensed in March 2020 was identified, an increase of 35% on March 2019, compared to average growth of 7.2% in previous years. Prescriptions dispensed subsequently fell in April and May 2020 to levels below the corresponding months in 2019. These trends were observed across insulins, non-insulins, general and concessional patient categories. The peak and subsequent dip in demand have resulted in a small unexpected overall increase for the period January to November 2020, compared to declining growth for the same months in prior years. The observed change in consumer behaviour prompted by COVID-19 and the resulting public health measures is important to understand in order to improve management of medicines supply during potential future waves of COVID-19 and other pandemics.

Background: Antibiotic resistance (ABR) is one of the major health emergencies for global society. Little is known about the ABR of environmental bacteria and therefore it is important to understand ABR reservoirs in the environment and their potential impact on health. Method/Design: Quantitative and qualitative data will be collected during a 3-year follow-up study of a river associated with religious mass-bathing in Central India. Surface-water and sediment samples will be collected from seven locations at regular intervals for 3 years during religious mass-bathing and in absence of it to monitor water-quality, antibiotic residues, resistant bacteria, antibiotic resistance genes and metals. Approval has been obtained from the Ethics Committee of R.D. Gardi Medical College, Ujjain, India (No. 2013/07/17-311). Results: The results will address the issue of antibiotic residues and antibiotic resistance with a focus on a river environment in India within a typical socio-behavioural context of religious mass-bathing. It will enhance our understanding about the relationship between antibiotic residue levels, water-quality, heavy metals and antibiotic resistance patterns in Escherichia coli isolated from river-water and sediment, and seasonal differences that are associated with religious mass-bathing. We will also document, identify and clarify the genetic differences/similarities relating to phenotypic antibiotic resistance in bacteria in rivers during religious mass-bathing or during periods when there is no mass-bathing.

The 9th International Conference on Managing Fatigue in Transportation, Resources and Health was held in Fremantle, Western Australia in March 2015. The purpose of the conferences in this series is to provide a forum for industry representatives, regulators, and scientists to discuss recent advances in the field of fatigue research. We have produced a Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health based on papers from the conference that were focused on various aspects of public health. First, the Special Issue highlights the fact that working long shifts and/or night shifts can affect not only cognitive functioning, but also physical health. In particular, three papers examined the potential relationships between shiftwork and different aspects of health, including the cardiovascular system, sleep disordered breathing, and eating behaviour. Second, the Special Issue highlights the move away from controlling fatigue through prescriptive hours of service rules and toward the application of risk management principles. In particular, three papers indicated that best-practice fatigue risk management systems should contain multiple redundant layers of defense against fatigue-related errors and accidents.

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health started to institute an annual award in 2013 to recognize outstanding papers related to environmental health sciences and public health that meet the aims, scope and high standards of this journal. We are pleased to announce the second “International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Best Paper Award” for 2014. Nominations were solicited from the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board members, with all papers published in 2010 eligible for consideration. [...]

Our aim was to compere diabetes-related distress (DD) in young patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and in their parents before and during the national COVID-19-related lockdown when schools operated on-line. Problems Areas in Diabetes-Child (PAID-Ch), Teen (PAID-T) and Parent (P-PAID-Ch, P-PAID-T) questionnaires in paper version were used to evaluate DD before COVID-19 pandemic (November 2019–February 2020) and during the lockdown (April 2020) the same surveys were performed by phone. We enrolled 76 patients (median age (Q1–Q3): 13.6 (11.8–15.2) years, 21 children, 55 adolescents, T1DM duration 3.7 (1.7–6.8) years). Initial PAID score was lower in teenage boys than in girls (34.0 (24.0–42.0) vs. 44.5 (40.0–50.5), p = 0.003). In teens PAID score decreased significantly during the lockdown (−3.0 (−11.0–3.0), p = 0.018), more in girls than boys (p = 0.028). In children (−3.0 (−14.0–7.0), p = 0.131) and parents PAID did not change (teens’ parents: 3.0 (−9.0–10.0), p = 0.376, children’s parents: −5.0 [−9.0–1.0], p = 0.227). In the studied group COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdown was associated with decrease in DD in teens with T1DM, particularly in girls, while no significant change in DD was observed in children or parents. DD decrease in teens during the pandemic should attract attention to the potential “rebound” of DD related to return to regular on-site school routine.

In competitive athletes, the differential diagnosis between nonpathological changes in cardiac morphology associated with training (commonly referred to as “athlete’s heart”) and certain cardiac diseases with the potential for sudden death is an important and not uncommon clinical problem. The use of noninvasive, fast, and cheap analytical techniques can help in making diagnostic differentiation and planning subsequent clinical strategies. Recent studies have demonstrated the role of gut microbiota and their metabolites in the onset and the development of cardiovascular diseases. Trimethylamine (TMA), a gut bacteria metabolite consisting of carnitine and choline, has recently emerged as a potentially toxic molecule to the circulatory system. The present work aims to develop a simple and cost-effective capillary electrophoresis-based method for the determination of TMA in biological samples. Analytical characteristics of the proposed method were evaluated through the study of its linearity (R2 > 0.9950) and the limit of detection and quantification (LOD = 1.2 µg/mL; LOQ = 3.6 µg/mL). The method shows great potential in high-throughput screening applications for TMA analysis in biological samples as a novel potential biomarker of cardiovascular diseases. The proposed electrophoretic method for the determination of TMA in biological samples from patients with cardiac disease is now in progress.

Fluctuating crude oil price and global environmental problems such as global warming and climate change lead to growing demand for the production of renewable chemicals as petrochemical substitutes. Butanol is a nonpolar alcohol that is used in a large variety of consumer products and as an important industrial intermediate. Thus, the production of butanol from renewable resources (e.g., biomass and organic waste) has gained a great deal of attention from researchers. Although typical renewable butanol is produced via a fermentative route (i.e., acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation of biomass-derived sugars), the fermentative butanol production has disadvantages such as a low yield of butanol and the formation of byproducts, such as acetone and ethanol. To avoid the drawbacks, the production of renewable butanol via non-fermentative catalytic routes has been recently proposed. This review is aimed at providing an overview on three different emerging and promising catalytic routes from biomass/organic waste-derived chemicals to butanol. The first route involves the conversion of ethanol into butanol over metal and oxide catalysts. Volatile fatty acid can be a raw chemical for the production of butanol using porous materials and metal catalysts. In addition, biomass-derived syngas can be transformed to butanol on non-noble metal catalysts promoted by alkali metals. The prospect of catalytic renewable butanol production is also discussed.

Health services quality and sustainability rely mainly on a qualified workforce. Adequately trained public health personnel protect and promote health, avert health disparities, and allow rapid response to health emergencies. Evaluations of the healthcare workforce typically focus on physicians and nurses in curative medical venues. Few have evaluated public health workforce capacity building or sought to identify gaps between the academic training of public health employees and the needs of the healthcare organizations in which they are employed. This project report describes the conceptual framework of “Sharing European Educational Experience in Public Health for Israel (SEEEPHI): harmonization, employability, leadership, and outreach”—a multinational Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education funded project. By sharing European educational experience and knowledge, the project aims to enhance professionalism and strengthen leadership aspects of the public health workforce in Israel to meet the needs of employers and the country. The project’s work packages, each jointly led by an Israeli and European institution, include field qualification analysis, mapping public health academic training programs, workforce adaptation, and building leadership capacity. In the era of global health changes, it is crucial to assess the capacity building of a well-qualified and competent workforce that enables providing good health services, reaching out to minorities, preventing health inequalities, and confronting emerging health challenges. We anticipate that the methods developed and the lessons learned within the Israeli context will be adaptable and adoptable by other countries through local and cultural adjustments.

A pilot-scale airlift bioreactor (ALBR) system was built and operated continuously for refinery excess sludge (RES) reduction. Combined ALBR and function-enhanced microbes (composed of photosynthetic bacteria and yeast) were integrated into the system. The pilot-scale ALBR was operated for 62 days, and the start-up time was 7 d. Continuous operation showed that the sludge reduction efficiency was more than 56.22%, and the water quality of the effluent was satisfactory. This study focused on investigating the effects of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on the stability of the system and the effect of sludge reduction. Under different HRT conditions of 40, 26.7, 20, and 16 h, the sludge reduction rates reached 56.22%, 73.24%, 74.09%, and 69.64%, respectively. The removal rates of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total nitrogen (TN) decreased with decreasing HRT, whereas the removal rate of NH4+-N increased. The removal rate of total phosphorus (TP) was approximately 30%. Results indicate that the ALBR and function-enhanced microbe system can reduce sludge and treat sewage simultaneously, and the effluent is up to the national emission standard. Addition of function-enhanced microbes can promote the degradation of petroleum hydrocarbon substances in the sludge, especially alkanes with low carbon numbers. This study suggests that the optimal HRT for the system is 16 h. The total operation cost of the ALBR combined with the function-enhanced microbe system can be reduced by 50% compared with the cost of direct treatment of the RES system.

Theoretical models of suicide are based on risk factors associated with suicide, such as psychiatric pathology, genetics, epigenetics, functional brain disorders, and impaired decision making. In current clinical practice, the predominant risk model is the medical model, which posits that treating suicide risk is primarily a matter of treating psychiatric disorders. However, even comprehensive risk factor models cannot overcome the basic problem that, by their nature, they cannot accommodate the suicidal person’s psychological experience of suicidality. Risk factor models do not translate into effective treatment models. Suicide risk is highly personal and fluid, and is related to individual vulnerabilities and to person-specific events triggering suicidal thoughts and actions. Clinicians need treatment models that are meaningful to suicidal patients. Understanding the single person’s suicidality requires a patient-centered approach. Therapeutic interventions that effectively reduce the risk of suicidal behavior have been developed from general principles of psychotherapy. Therapy process factors associated with effective therapies are working alliance, validation of the individual patient’s thoughts and feelings, active treatment engagement. Psychological therapies need patients who are active participants in a collaborative working relationship between therapist and patient. The goal must be to jointly develop a meaningful understanding of the suicidal crisis. In view of the limited personal resources in health care systems it is important that effective therapies are brief and effective. Future research must aim to improve our understanding of the factors involved in effective therapies in order to optimize treatments for individuals at risk. This may also include the integration of biological risk factors in psychological treatment models.

Today, a person’s health literacy (HL) is perceived as a critical determinant for their health. It is well known that limited health literacy is associated with harmful health behaviours, the lower use of preventive services, problems in making use of healthcare resources and poor skills for the self-management of chronic disorders. This study analysed the level and factors associated with HL in high school students in southern Poland. The study is based on the data from a paper-and-pencil survey of high schools students in the Malopolska Voivodshop. The students were selected using a two-stage cluster random sampling procedure. The level of HL was assessed with the European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire, consisting of 47 items. Univariate logistic and linear regression models were applied to analyse the association between general HL score and the main domain-specific indices. The respondents whose parents had attended University and came from more affluent families were less likely to demonstrate limited HL. There was a significant positive relationship between the self-assessment of the economic situation, size of accommodation, the level of expenditure on a mobile phone and receiving external support, the size of the book collection at home, and domain-specific HL sub-indices. In conclusion, among socio-demographic factors, the parents’ education is the only consistent predictor of the level of HL in high school students. Furthermore, most variables reflecting the economic status of the respondent’s family are significantly associated with the general HL score and its sub-indices.

Medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) is an adverse event associated with antiresorptive and antiangiogenic drugs. The use of these drugs in the treatment of cancer patients with bone metastasis is necessary and standardized in the literature. A multidisciplinary approach for the patient’s management is strongly recommended. Therefore, it should be necessary to integrate the path of these subjects with a dedicated dental screening in order to first assess the individual risk of developing a MRONJ, and then to plan dental treatments and oral hygiene sessions, and finally to schedule a follow-up to intercept and treat early osteonecrosis. The aim of this manuscript is to propose a new simple medical report to evaluate patients affected by metastatic bone cancer in order to reduce the risk of developing MRONJ.

With the vigorous development of the 5G industry, the characteristic hazardous waste, spent coppery etchant, was also produced in large quantities. In recent years, there are many companies that have begun to collect spent coppery etchant for the purpose of producing recycled products, such as copper sulfate, copper oxide, basic copper chloride, and copper powder, which often contain large amounts of heavy metals. However, due to the lack of relevant standards and applicable regulatory measures, some of the recycled products flow to the feed processing industry and even to the food processing industry. This study investigated the pollution status of heavy metals in recycled products of spent coppery etchant and evaluated the impact of recycled products exposure on human health. The results showed that the content of Zn was the highest, which was 21 times higher than the corresponding standard limit. Human health risk assessment indicated that the hazard quotients of As account for 87.5% of the entire HI value, while the average carcinogenic risk values of As for copper sulfate, copper oxide, basic copper chloride, and copper powder are 1.09 × 10−5, 3.19 × 10−5, 1.29 × 10−5, 7.94 × 10−6, respectively. Meanwhile, suggestions on the supervision of recycled products and the concentration limits of heavy metals in recycled products were put forward.

This paper reviews the application of carbonation technology to the environmental industry as a way of reducing carbon dioxide (CO(2)), a green house gas, including the presentation of related projects of our research group. An alternative technology to very slow natural carbonation is the co-called 'accelerated carbonation', which completes its fast reaction within few hours by using pure CO(2). Carbonation technology is widely applied to solidify or stabilize solid combustion residues from municipal solid wastes, paper mill wastes, etc. and contaminated soils, and to manufacture precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC). Carbonated products can be utilized as aggregates in the concrete industry and as alkaline fillers in the paper (or recycled paper) making industry. The quantity of captured CO(2) in carbonated products can be evaluated by measuring mass loss of heated samples by thermo-gravimetric (TG) analysis. The industrial carbonation technology could contribute to both reduction of CO(2) emissions and environmental remediation.

Stress is a common belief among breast cancer patients and the public to explain variation in breast cancer incidence. Epidemiological studies interrogating the relationship between stress and cancer have reported mixed results. The impact of the topic and the lack of consensus has sparked this review of the literature to investigate gaps in knowledge and identify areas of research. We first present a brief summary of the biopsychosocial model generally used to conduct research on stress. We then divide the overview of the literature into areas of research focus. These include the role of distressing life events in breast cancer incidence, the role of adverse childhood events in later breast cancer incidence, the importance of race and socioeconomic status (SES) as social determinants of breast cancer incidence, and the specific role of chronic stress in relation to breast cancer. For each topic, we discuss the potential of stress as a risk factor and possible intervention strategies that could reduce the effects of stress. We then identify further research questions to be probed to fill the gaps in knowledge. We conclude with a discussion of future research directions for stress research as it relates to breast cancer incidence.

Racial and ethnic differences in breast cancer occur by race/ethnicity in both incidence and mortality rates. Women of lower socioeconomic status likewise have poorer outcomes. When race alone is considered, incidence rates in the United States are highest among White women (130.8 per 100,000), with Black women close behind (126.7 per 100,000). Incidence is lowest among Asian/Pacific Islander women, at 93.2 per 100,000. Mortality differences are more pronounced, with Black women 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than White women (28.4 per 100,000 and 20.3 per 100,000, respectively). Mortality rates for Asian/Pacific Islander women (11.5 per 100,000) are far lower than for Black and White women. When age is considered, additional differences between Black and White women appear, in part accounted for by types of breast cancer experienced. Women of other racial/ethnic groups and socioeconomic status have received less scientific attention. In this article, we provide a brief overview of the evidence for social determinants of breast cancer and argue that the current reliance on race over racism and ethnicity contributes to our inability to eliminate breast cancer disparities in the United States and elsewhere in the world. We suggest alternatives to the current approach to research in breast cancer disparities.

Eight candidate genes selected in this study were previously associated with gene-environment interactions in asthma in an urban area. These genes were analyzed in a familial collection from a founder and remote population (Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, SLSJ) located in an area with low air levels of ozone but with localized areas of relatively high air pollutant levels, such as sulphur dioxide, when compared to many urban areas. Polymorphisms (SNPs) were extracted from the genome-wide association study (GWAS) performed on the SLSJ familial collection. A transmission disequilibrium test (TDT) was performed using the entire family sample (1,428 individuals in 254 nuclear families). Stratification according to the proximity of aluminium, pulp and paper industries was also analyzed. Two genes were associated with asthma in the entire sample before correction (CAT and NQO1) and one was associated after correction for multiple analyses (CAT). Two genes were associated when subjects were stratified according to the proximity of aluminium industries (CAT and NQO1) and one according to the proximity of pulp and paper industries (GSTP1). However, none of them resisted correction for multiple analyses. Given that the spatial pattern of environmental exposures can be complex and inadequately represented by a few stationary monitors and that exposures can also come from sources other than the standard outdoor air pollution (e.g., indoor air, occupation, residential wood smoke), a new approach and new tools are required to measure specific and individual pollutant exposures in order to estimate the real impact of gene-environment interactions on respiratory health.

The treatment of paper mill effluent for COD, TOC, total phenols and color removal was investigated using combined activated sludge-ozonation processes and single processes. The combined activated sludge-O3/pH 10 treatment was able to remove around 80% of COD, TOC and color from Kraft E(1) effluent. For the total phenols, the efficiency removal was around 70%. The ozonation post treatment carried out at pH 8.3 also showed better results than the single process. The COD, TOC, color and total phenols removal efficiency obtained were 75.5, 59.1, 77 and 52.3%, respectively. The difference in the concentrations of free radical produced by activated sludge-O3/pH 10 and activated sludge-O3/pH 8.3 affected mainly the TOC and total phenol removal values.

A constructed rapid infiltration (CRI) system is a new type of sewage biofilm treatment technology, but due to its anaerobic zone it lacks the carbon sources and the conditions for nitrate retention, and its nitrogen removal performance is very poor. However, a shortcut nitrification–denitrification process presents distinctive advantages, as it saves oxygen, requires less organic matter, and requires less time for denitrification compared to conventional nitrogen removal methods. Thus, if the shortcut nitrification–denitrification process could be applied to the CRI system properly, a simpler, more economic, and efficient nitrogen removal method will be obtained. However, as its reaction process shows that the first and the most important step of achieving shortcut nitrification–denitrification is to achieve shortcut nitrification, in this study we explored the feasibility to achieve shortcut nitrification, which produces nitrite as the dominant nitrogen species in effluent, by the addition of potassium chlorate (KClO3) to the influent. In an experimental CRI test system, the effects on nitrogen removal, nitrate inhibition, and nitrite accumulation were studied, and the advantages of achieving a shortcut nitrification–denitrification process were also analysed. The results showed that shortcut nitrification was successfully achieved and maintained in a CRI system by adding 5 mM KClO3 to the influent at a constant pH of 8.4. Under these conditions, the nitrite accumulation percentage was increased, while a lower concentration of 3 mM KClO3 had no obvious effect. The addition of 5mM KClO3 in influent presumably inhibited the activity of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB), but inhibition of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB) was so strong that it resulted in a maximum nitrite accumulation percentage of up to over 80%. As a result, nitrite became the dominant nitrogen product in the effluent. Moreover, if the shortcut denitrification process will be achieved in the subsequent research, it could save 60.27 mg CH3OH per litre of sewage in the CRI system compared with the full denitrification process.

The lack of progress in reducing health disparities suggests that new approaches are needed if we are to achieve meaningful, equitable, and lasting reductions. Current scientific paradigms do not adequately capture the complexity of the relationships between environment, personal health and population level disparities. The public health exposome is presented as a universal exposure tracking framework for integrating complex relationships between exogenous and endogenous exposures across the lifespan from conception to death. It uses a social-ecological framework that builds on the exposome paradigm for conceptualizing how exogenous exposures “get under the skin”. The public health exposome approach has led our team to develop a taxonomy and bioinformatics infrastructure to integrate health outcomes data with thousands of sources of exogenous exposure, organized in four broad domains: natural, built, social, and policy environments. With the input of a transdisciplinary team, we have borrowed and applied the methods, tools and terms from various disciplines to measure the effects of environmental exposures on personal and population health outcomes and disparities, many of which may not manifest until many years later. As is customary with a paradigm shift, this approach has far reaching implications for research methods and design, analytics, community engagement strategies, and research training.

Safe disposal of municipal sewage sludge is a challenging global environmental concern. The aim of this study was to assess the response of soil microbial functional diversity to the accumulation of municipal sewage sludge during landfill storage. Soil samples of a municipal sewage sludge (SS) and from a sewage sludge landfill that was 3 m from a SS landfill (SS3) were analyzed relative to an undisturbed reference soil. Biolog EcoPlatesTM were inoculated with a soil suspension, and the Average Well Color Development (AWCD), Richness (R) and Shannon-Weaver index (H) were calculated to interpret the results. The fungi isolated from the sewage sludge were identified using comparative rDNA sequencing of the LSU D2 region. The MicroSEQ® ID software was used to assess the raw sequence files, perform sequence matching to the MicroSEQ® ID-validated reference database and create Neighbor-Joining trees. Moreover, the genera of fungi isolated from the soil were identified using microscopic methods. Municipal sewage sludge can serve as a habitat for plant pathogens and as a source of pathogen strains for biotechnological applications.

Interventions for ending intimate partner violence (IPV) have not usually provided integrated approaches. Legal and social policies have the duty to protect, assist and empower women and to bring offenders to justice. Men have mainly been considered in their role as perpetrators to be subjected to judicial measures, while child witnesses of violence have not been viewed as a direct target for services. Currently, there is a need for an integrated and holistic theoretical and operational model to understand IPV as gender-based violence and to intervene with the goal of ending the fragmentation of existing measures. The EU project ViDaCS—Violent Dads in Child Shoes—which worked towards the deconstruction and reconstruction of violence’s effects on child witnesses, has given us the opportunity to collect the opinions of social workers and child witnesses regarding violence. Therefore, the article describes measures to deal with IPV, proposing functional connections among different services and specific preventative initiatives. Subsequently, this study will examine intimate partner violence and provide special consideration to interventions at the individual, relational, organizational and community levels. The final goal will be to present a short set of guidelines that take into account the four levels considered by operationalizing the aforementioned ecological principles.

A steam autoclave was used to sterilize bacteria in clinical solid waste in order to determine an alternative to incineration technology in clinical solid waste management. The influence of contact time (0, 5, 15, 30 and 60 min) and temperature (111 °C, 121 °C and 131 °C) at automated saturated steam pressure was investigated. Results showed that with increasing contact time and temperature, the number of surviving bacteria decreased. The optimum experimental conditions as measured by degree of inactivation of bacteria were 121 °C for 15 minutes (min) for Gram negative bacteria, 121 °C and 131 °C for 60 and 30 min for Gram positive bacteria, respectively. The re-growth of bacteria in sterilized waste was also evaluated in the present study. It was found that bacterial re-growth started two days after the inactivation. The present study recommends that the steam autoclave cannot be considered as an alternative technology to incineration in clinical solid waste management.

South East Queensland is one of the fastest growing regions in Australia with a correspondingly rapid increase in sewage production. In response, local councils are investing in more effective and sustainable options for the treatment and reuse of domestic and industrial effluents. A novel, evaporative solar dryer system has been installed on the Sunshine Coast to convert sewage sludge into a drier, usable form of biosolids through solar radiation exposure resulting in decreased moisture concentration and pathogen reduction. Solar-dried biosolids were analyzed for selected pathogenic microbial, metal and organic contaminants at the end of different drying cycles in a collaborative study conducted with the Regional Council. Although fecal coliforms were found to be present, enteroviruses, parasites, E. coli, and Salmonella sp. were not detected in the final product. However, elevated levels of zinc and copper were still present which restricted public use of the biosolids. Dilution of the dried biosolids with green waste as well as composting of the biosolids is likely to lead to the production of an environmentally safe, Class A end-product.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015) is a global strategy for addressing disaster risk and resilience that has been ratified by member countries of the United Nations. Its guiding principles emphasise building resilience through inter-sectoral collaboration, as well as partnerships that facilitate community empowerment and address underlying risk factors. Both public health and the emergency management sector face similar challenges related to developing and implementing strategies that involve structural change, facilitating community resilience and addressing individual risk factors. Familiarity with public health principles enables an understanding of the holistic approach to risk reduction that is outlined within the Sendai Framework. We present seven concepts that resonate with contemporary public health practice, namely: the social determinants of health; inequality and inequity; the inverse care law; community-based and community development approaches; hard to reach communities and services; the prevention paradox; and the inverse prevention law. These ideas from public health provide a useful conceptual base for the ”new” agenda in disaster risk management that underpins the 2015 Sendai Framework. The relevance of these ideas to disaster risk management and research is illustrated through drawing on the Sendai Framework, disaster literature and exemplars from the 2010–2011 earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand.

Wolfram Syndrome (WS) is a rare neurodegenerative disease with autosomal recessive inheritance and characterized by juvenile onset, non-autoimmune diabetes mellitus and later followed by optic atrophy leading to blindness, diabetes insipidus, hearing loss, and other neurological and endocrine dysfunctions. A wide spectrum of neurodegenerative abnormalities affecting the central nervous system has been described. Among these complications, neurogenic bladder and urodynamic abnormalities also deserve attention. Urinary tract dysfunctions (UTD) up to end stage renal disease are a life-threatening complication of WS patients. Notably, end stage renal disease is reported as one of the most common causes of death among WS patients. UTD have been also reported in affected adolescents. Involvement of the urinary tract occurs in about 90% of affected patients, at a median age of 20 years and with peaks at 13, 21 and 33 years. The aim of our narrative review was to provide an overview of the most important papers regarding urological impairment in Wolfram Syndrome. A comprehensive search on PubMed including Wolfram Syndrome and one or more of the following terms: chronic renal failure, bladder dysfunction, urological aspects, and urinary tract dysfunction, was done. The exclusion criteria were studies not written in English and not including urinary tract dysfunction deep evaluation and description. Studies mentioning general urologic abnormalities without deep description and/or follow-up were not considered. Due to the rarity of the condition, we considered not only papers including pediatric patients, but also papers with pediatric and adult case reports

Increasing land utilization, population aggregation and strong land–sea interaction make coastal areas an ecologically fragile environment. The construction of an ecological security pattern is important for maintaining the function of the coastal ecosystem. This paper takes Jiaodong Peninsula in China, a hilly coastal area, as an example for evaluating landscape ecological risk within a comprehensive framework of “nature–neighborhood–landscape”, based on spatial principal component analysis, and it constructs the ecological security pattern based on the minimum cumulative resistance model (MCR). The results showed that the overall level of ecological risk in the study area was medium. The connectivity between the areas of low landscape ecological risk was relatively low, and the high risk areas were concentrated in the north of the Peninsula. A total of 11 key ecological corridors of three types (water, green space and road corridors) and 105 potential corridors were constructed. According to the ecological network pattern, landscape ecological optimization suggestions were proposed: key corridors in the north and south of Jiaodong Peninsula should be connected; urban development should consider current ecological sources and corridors to prevent landscape fragmentation; and the ecological roles of potential corridors should be strengthened. This paper can provide a theoretical and practical basis for ecological planning and urban master planning in coastal areas in the future.

Environmental factors in time and space play a critical role in advancing the sustainable development of the fresh agricultural product supply chain. This paper, availing the panel data of 31 Chinese provinces from 2008 to 2019, constructs a system of indicators assessing the development of the fresh agricultural product supply chain, and obtains the comprehensive development level in the Entropy Weight Method (EWM). Furthermore, it establishes a comparison between optimal solutions generated by the Instrumental Variables Method (IVM) and the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) over the endogeneity issue of variables, creates the comparison between the weighted regression methods of Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) and Multi-scale Geographic Weighted Regression (MGWR), and obtains the relationship among the 14 environmental factors in their spatio-temporal impacts on the development of the fresh agricultural product supply chain. The results indicate that: (1) the environmental influencing factors in this paper have significant endogenous problems and various environmental factors impact on the fresh agricultural product supply chain in different trends and to different degrees. (2) With different bandwidths, the environmental factors could impact the fresh agricultural product supply chain to greatly varied degrees, demonstrating a strong attribute of regional correlation.

By considering the recently proposed definitions and metrics, oral healthcare quality management (OHQM) emerges as a distinct field in the wider healthcare area. The goal of this paper is to systematically review quality management initiatives (QMIs) implementation by dental clinics. The research methodology approach is a review of 72 sources that have been analyzed using the Context–Intervention–Mechanism–Outcome Framework (CIMO). The analysis identifies five mechanisms that explain how quality management initiatives are implemented by dental clinics. The simplest QMIs implementations are related to (1) overall quality. The next ones, in terms of complexity, are related to (2) patient satisfaction, (3) service quality, (4) internal processes improvement, and (5) business outcomes. This paper is the first attempt to provide a critical review of this topic and represents an important advancement by providing a theoretical framework that explains how quality management is implemented by practitioners in this field. The results can be used by scholars for advancing their studies related to this emerging research area and by healthcare managers in order to better implement their quality management initiatives.

The global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has tremendously reshaped the tourism industry and destinations worldwide. Tourism destinations and the travel market require empirical research to support their post-pandemic strategies, especially in relation to the influences of changing perceptions of tourism risks, experience, and behavioural intention. This paper aims to propose a conceptual model and its hypotheses of the perceived tourism risks of natural and man-made disasters to explain the associations between the expected travel experience and ultimate travel behaviour. This paper provides a foundation for further empirical study based on a literature review and discussion. Several areas of theoretical development are identified for immediate research: (1) comparison of self-interpretation and understanding of multi-dimensional tourism risks of natural and man-made complexity in epidemics across a great variety of geographical and geo-political territories, (2) a complex web of influence to changing safety concerns and risk perception by information dissemination, (3) the effect of destination selection or hesitation in travel intention caused by changing destination image, and (4) local perception of the epidemic and health crisis. Destination authorities are recommended to (1) strengthen the preparedness and emergency responses of an effective disaster management process, (2) maintain the emotional solidarity of both tourists and local residents, and (3) mitigate multiple dimensions of the perceived risks, mainly associated with the health and psychological risks of those affected.

The COVID-19 pandemic has strongly affected the dynamics of Emergency Departments (EDs) worldwide and has accentuated the need for tackling different operational inefficiencies that decrease the quality of care provided to infected patients. The EDs continue to struggle against this outbreak by implementing strategies maximizing their performance within an uncertain healthcare environment. The efforts, however, have remained insufficient in view of the growing number of admissions and increased severity of the coronavirus disease. Therefore, the primary aim of this paper is to review the literature on process improvement interventions focused on increasing the ED response to the current COVID-19 outbreak to delineate future research lines based on the gaps detected in the practical scenario. Therefore, we applied the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to perform a review containing the research papers published between December 2019 and April 2021 using ISI Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, IEEE, Google Scholar, and Science Direct databases. The articles were further classified taking into account the research domain, primary aim, journal, and publication year. A total of 65 papers disseminated in 51 journals were concluded to satisfy the inclusion criteria. Our review found that most applications have been directed towards predicting the health outcomes in COVID-19 patients through machine learning and data analytics techniques. In the overarching pandemic, healthcare decision makers are strongly recommended to integrate artificial intelligence techniques with approaches from the operations research (OR) and quality management domains to upgrade the ED performance under social-economic restrictions.

In the context of public health emergency management, it is worth studying ways to mobilize the enthusiasm of government, community, and residents. This paper adopts the method of combining evolutionary game and system dynamics to conduct a theoretical modeling and simulation analysis on the interactions of the behavioral strategies of the three participants. In response to opportunistic behavior and inadequate supervision in the static reward and punishment mechanism, we introduced a dynamic reward and punishment mechanism that considers changes in the social environment and the situation of epidemic prevention and control. This paper proves that the dynamic reward and punishment mechanism can effectively suppress the fluctuation problem in the evolutionary game process under static scenarios and achieve better supervision results through scenario analysis and simulation experiments.

This paper applied landscape indexes to evaluate the size, form, and structure of green spaces in the mountainous city of Chongqing and found that green spaces benefit from certain advantages in size, but the network suffered from low heterogeneity and limited interconnectivity. To ensure the integrity and continuity of ecological processes and improve the efficiency of ecosystem services (ES), the authors used Geographic Information System (GIS) software to conduct adaptability evaluation and adjacent buffer analysis for the existing green spaces, wetlands, rivers, and other landscapes with relatively high capacity for ES. We designed a comprehensive map of potential areas for UGS expansion by superimposing the maps obtained from adaptability evaluation and buffer analysis. We also proposed some strategies that respect, consider, and evaluate aspects and special features of urban environment to optimize green space planning and improve ES efficiency, such as protection of important areas, development of green corridors, and careful consideration of ecological processes and complex functions in urban areas. Based on these strategies, the paper put forth suggestions for green space planning to improve ES efficiency that can function as foundation for subsequent green space planning.

In the past 30 years, China’s industrialization level has developed rapidly, and agricultural green development (AGD) is facing severe challenges. The research on the temporal and spatial features of the coupling and coordination of industrialization and agricultural green development is a key issue to promote the sustainable development of agriculture. This paper takes China’s industrialization and AGD level as the research object, and uses panel data from 31 provinces in China from 1990 to 2019 to construct an evaluation index system for industrialization and AGD. This paper uses the coupling coordination degree model and spatial autocorrelation analysis method to calculate, test and analyze the temporal and spatial features of the coupling coordination level of industrialization and AGD. The results show that: this paper compares the industrialization and AGD levels during the study period and finds that China’s industrialization development level is on the rise as a whole, and the AGD level shows a downward trend first and then rises later. Through the horizontal comparison of different regions, this paper finds that there is a large regional imbalance in the level of industrialization and AGD. The coupling and coordination level of industrialization and AGD has always been primary. From the time point of view, coupling coordination degree shows a trend of first decline and then rise. From a spatial point of view, coupling coordination degree varies greatly among provinces, with the eastern, central and western regions decreasing successively. The level of coupling coordination has obvious positive autocorrelation in spatial distribution, and presents significant spatial agglomeration characteristics in space. The research results can provide a theoretical basis for regionally differentiated governance of the coordinated development of industrialization and AGD, and promote coordinated development.

Introduction: The field of artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly expanding, with many applications seen routinely in health care, industry, and education, and increasingly in workplaces. Although there is growing evidence of applications of AI in workplaces across all industries to simplify and/or automate tasks there is a limited understanding of the role that AI contributes in addressing occupational safety and health (OSH) concerns. Methods: This paper introduces a new framework called Risk Evolution, Detection, Evaluation, and Control of Accidents (REDECA) that highlights the role that AI plays in the anticipation and control of exposure risks in a worker’s immediate environment. Two hundred and sixty AI papers across five sectors (oil and gas, mining, transportation, construction, and agriculture) were reviewed using the REDECA framework to highlight current applications and gaps in OSH and AI fields. Results: The REDECA framework highlighted the unique attributes and research focus of each of the five industrial sectors. The majority of evidence of AI in OSH research within the oil/gas and transportation sectors focused on the development of sensors to detect hazardous situations. In construction the focus was on the use of sensors to detect incidents. The research in the agriculture sector focused on sensors and actuators that removed workers from hazardous conditions. Application of the REDECA framework highlighted AI/OSH strengths and opportunities in various industries and potential areas for collaboration. Conclusions: As AI applications across industries continue to increase, further exploration of the benefits and challenges of AI applications in OSH is needed to optimally protect worker health, safety and well-being.

Human activities have been affecting rivers and other natural systems for millennia. Anthropogenic changes to rivers over the last few centuries led to the accelerating state of decline of coastal and estuarine regions globally. Urban rivers are parts of larger catchment ecosystems, which in turn form parts of wider nested, interconnected systems. Accurate modelling of urban rivers may not be possible because of the complex multisystem interactions operating concurrently and over different spatial and temporal scales. This paper overviews urban river syndrome, the accelerating deterioration of urban river ecology, and outlines growing conservation challenges of river restoration projects. This paper also reviews the river Thames, which is a typical urban river that suffers from growing anthropogenic effects and thus represents all urban rivers of similar type. A particular emphasis is made on ecosystem adaptation, widespread extinctions and the proliferation of non-native species in the urban Thames. This research emphasizes the need for a holistic systems approach to urban river restoration.

The aim of this scoping review is to synthesize the available evidence on the prevalence rates of healthcare workers being victims of violence perpetrated by patients and visitors in Italy. PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and CINAHL were systematically searched from their inception to April 2021. Two authors independently assessed 1182 studies. All the scientific papers written in English or in Italian reporting primary quantitative and/or qualitative data on the prevalence of aggression or sexual harassment perpetrated by patients or visitors toward healthcare workers in Italy were included. Thirty-two papers were included in the review. The data extracted were summarized in a narrative synthesis organized in the following six thematic domains: (1). Methodology and study design; (2). Description of violent behavior; (3). Characteristics of health care staff involved in workplace violence (WPV); (4). Prevalence and form of WPV; (5). Context of WPV; and (6). Characteristics of violent patients and their relatives and/or visitors. The proportion of studies on WPV differed greatly across Italian regions, wards and professional roles of the healthcare workers. In general, the prevalence of WPV against healthcare workers in Italy is high, especially in psychiatric and emergency departments and among nurses and physicians, but further studies are needed in order to gather systematic evidence of this phenomenon. In Italy, and worldwide, there is an urgent need for governments, policy-makers and health institutions to prevent, monitor and manage WPV towards healthcare professionals.

Dental health care workers around the world are in a constant state of fear and anxiety because they work in a constrained space of the dental practice. During routine dental procedures, they are exposed to aerosol and splatter. These airborne particles pose a great risk of transmitting contagious infections to health care workers and patients, especially in an era of social distancing due to COVID-19. The current study was conducted to evaluate contamination amount, duration, the distance of aerosol, and splatter produced after cavity preparation using a two-hole and four-hole handpiece. The study was performed on a dental manikin in a dental simulation laboratory at the College of Dentistry, King Faisal University Al Ahsa. The dental manikin was set to a reclined position to simulate the clinical operatory position of the patient for dental restorative procedures. Aerosol and splatter were collected on Grade 1 qualitative cotton cellulose filter paper. These were placed on adhesive tape extending from the headrest of the dental manikin in six different directions (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 o’clock) for up to 60 inches and on certain positions of the operator and assistant such as the chest, head, forearms, upper leg, and inside facemask. Class V cavity preparation was done by the principal investigator at a specific time of 3 min on tooth #11 using a two-hole high-speed handpiece, then on the next day, Class V cavity preparation was performed on tooth #21 by a four-hole handpiece. High volume suction was used throughout the cavity preparation. Immediately after cavity preparation, the first filter paper disc was replaced with new ones in all positions. The second set of filter papers was removed after 30 min. Transparent grids were used to count the contamination area on the filter paper disc. No statistically significant difference was found in the mean amount of aerosol and splatter produced by both handpieces, however, a statistically significant difference was found in an amount of aerosol and splatter produced at a 12, 24, and 36 inches distance immediately after cavity preparation and 30 min after cavity preparation, regardless of the type of handpiece used. It is advisable to refrain from removing the personal protective barriers immediately after the procedure within the vicinity of the dental practice. The use of other adjuncts such as high volume suction to reduce the spread of aerosol and splatter is also recommended.

Racism towards Black, Indigenous and people of colour continues to exist in the healthcare system. This leads to profound harm for people who use and work within these settings. This is a scoping review to identify anti-racism interventions in outpatient healthcare settings. Searching the peer-reviewed and grey literature, articles were screened for inclusion by at least two independent reviewers. Synthesizing the socio-ecological levels of interventions with inductively identifying themes, a conceptual model for implementing anti-racism interventions in healthcare settings is presented. In total, 37 peer-reviewed articles were included in the review, with 12 empirical studies and 25 theoretical or conceptual papers. Six grey literature documents were also included. Healthcare institutions need to incorporate an explicit, shared language of anti-racism. Anti-racism action should incorporate leadership buy-in and commitment with dedicated resources, support and funding; a multi-level approach beginning with policy and organizational interventions; transparent accountability mechanisms for sustainable change; long-term meaningful partnerships with Black, Indigenous, and people of colour (i.e., racialized communities); and ongoing, mandatory, tailored staff education and training. Decision-makers and staff in healthcare settings have a responsibility to take anti-racism action and may improve the success and sustainability of their efforts by incorporating the foundational principles and strategies identified in this paper.

The world community has long used natural hot springs for tourist and medicinal purposes. In Indonesia, the province of West Java, which is naturally surrounded by volcanoes, is the main destination for hot spring tourism. This paper is the first report on radon measurements in tourism natural hot spring water in Indonesia as part of radiation protection for public health. The purpose of this paper is to study the contribution of radon doses from natural hot spring water and thereby facilitate radiation protection for public health. A total of 18 water samples were measured with an electrostatic collection type radon monitor (RAD7, Durridge Co., USA). The concentration of radon in natural hot spring water samples in the West Java region, Indonesia ranges from 0.26 to 31 Bq L&minus, 1. An estimate of the annual effective dose in the natural hot spring water area ranges from 0.51 to 0.71 mSv with a mean of 0.60 mSv for workers. Meanwhile, the annual effective dose for the public ranges from 0.10 to 0.14 mSv with an average of 0.12 mSv. This value is within the range of the average committed effective dose from inhalation and terrestrial radiation for the general public, 1.7 mSv annually.

Gender is recognized as one of the most relevant determinants of health inequalities. This scoping review sought to identify and analyse policies, either implemented or formulated as proposals, which aimed to reduce gender inequalities in health. We searched Medline, Web of Science, and Scielo. Of 2895 records, 91 full text articles were analysed, and 33 papers were included. Of these papers, 22 described the process of formulation, implementation, or evaluation of policies whose aim was to reduce gender inequalities in health; six focused on recommendations, and the remaining five dealt with both issues. Our review showed that the policies aimed at reducing gender inequalities in health, either implemented or formulated as proposals, are scarce. Moreover, despite some success, overall progress has been slow. The studies show failures in design and particularly in the implementation process. We found a lack of awareness and capacity in the policy-making progress, under-financing, bureaucratization, shortage of relevant data, and absence of women’s participation in decision-making. Therefore, an emphasis on the design and implementation of gender-sensitive policies seems essential to advance gender equality in health. This scoping review gathers evidence to support the design of such policies and recommendations that can facilitate their implementation.

It is crucial to understand how the most vulnerable populations have been impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This paper intends to contextualize the experience of resettled refugees in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, framing the issue for further study as the situation evolves. Based on the experience drawn from the first wave of the pandemic, the findings of this paper suggest that refugees in Canada encounter barriers to healthcare, economic support, education, social support, and border crossing impediments, all of which can have a compounding effect. These findings provide needed information to inform the development of effective policies and strategies to support refugees during health security emergencies in Canada.

Over the past decade, in the light of intensive robotisation, job insecurity referring to the employees&rsquo, overall concern about the continued availability of their jobs in the future has become a hot topic. A general assumption supported by the findings is that job insecurity causes far-reaching negative consequences for the employee well-being and health, attitudes towards the job and organisation, and behaviours at work. However, the focus on behavioural outcomes, especially on employee performance at work, is still scant. Trying to narrow the gap, the paper aims at revealing the linkage between job insecurity and two dimensions of performance, namely task performance and organisational citizenship behaviour. Building on the hindrance stressor dimension of the stress model, the paper claims that a negative relationship exists between the constructs. Quantitative data were collected in a survey of robotised production lines operators working in the furniture sector in Lithuania. As predicted, the results revealed that job insecurity had a negative impact on both the task performance and organisational citizenship behaviour. These findings affirmed that job insecurity was a hindrance stressor, which needed to be considered when managing human resources in a robotised production environment.

The emergence and development of car-sharing has not only satisfied people&rsquo, s diverse travel needs, but also brought new solutions for improving urban traffic conditions and achieving low-carbon and green sustainable development. In recent years, car-sharing has had competition with other ways of getting around, as the acceptance of car-sharing has grown, notably taxis. Therefore, it is particularly important to explore car-sharing travel costs advantages from the perspective of consumers and discover the competitive and complementary spaces between car-sharing and other modes. Therefore, taking Beijing as an example, this paper uses GPS trajectory data based on car-sharing orders to design a travel cost framework of car-sharing and taxis. We calculate and compare the travel cost difference between these two modes under different travel characteristics. The results indicate that car-sharing is a more economical way for consumers to travel for short or medium lengths of time, while people are more inclined to take taxis for distances of long duration. Compared with on workdays, at the weekend, the cost advantage of car-sharing is greater for long-distance trips. Moreover, the cost advantage of car-sharing increases gradually with the increase in travel distance. In addition, the travel costs of car-sharing and taxis are also affected by peak and off-peak traffic periods. Compared with off-peak periods, it is more cost-effective for travelers to take taxis during peak traffic periods for various travel distances. From the perspective of the travel cost, it is of great theoretical significance to discuss the substitution (market competition) and complementary relationship (market cooperation) between car-sharing and taxis in a detailed and systematic way. It provides methods and ideas for the comparative cost calculation of car-sharing and other travel modes. This paper also provides enlightenment and guidance for the development of car-sharing. Enterprises should implement differentiated pricing, designing different charging methods for different traffic periods, travel miles, and rental times, and set up additional stations in the surrounding areas of the city. Relevant government departments should also strictly manage the market access of car-sharing, and add or open car-sharing parking lots in centralized areas and for specific periods.

Despite the vast evidence on the environmental influence in neurodegenerative diseases, those considering a geospatial approach are scarce. We conducted a systematic review to identify studies concerning environmental atmospheric risk factors for neurodegenerative diseases that have used geospatial analysis/tools. PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched for all scientific studies that included a neurodegenerative disease, an environmental atmospheric factor, and a geographical analysis. Of the 34 included papers, approximately 60% were related to multiple sclerosis (MS), hence being the most studied neurodegenerative disease in the context of this study. Sun exposure (n = 13) followed by the most common exhaustion gases (n = 10 for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and n = 5 for carbon monoxide (CO)) were the most studied atmospheric factors. Only one study used a geospatial interpolation model, although 13 studies used remote sensing data to compute atmospheric factors. In 20% of papers, we found an inverse correlation between sun exposure and multiple sclerosis. No consensus was reached in the analysis of nitrogen dioxide and Parkinson’s disease, but it was related to dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. This systematic review (number CRD42020196188 in PROSPERO’s database) provides an insight into the available evidence regarding the geospatial influence of environmental factors on neurodegenerative diseases.

Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is an innovative process capable of converting wet biodegradable residues into value-added materials, such as hydrochar. HTC has been studied for decades, however, a lack of detailed information on the production and composition of the process water has been highlighted by several authors. In this paper the state of the art of the knowledge on this by-product is analyzed, with attention to HTC applied to municipal and agro-industrial anaerobic digestion digestate. The chemical and physical characteristics of the process water obtained at different HTC conditions are compared along with pH, color, organic matter, nutrients, heavy metals and toxic compounds. The possibility of recovering nutrients and other valorization pathways is analyzed and technical feasibility constraints are reported. Finally, the paper describes the main companies which are investing actively in proposing HTC technology towards improving an effective process water valorization.