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Organizations play a crucial role in facilitating the transition to a circular economy. Implementing circular practices often begins with a material flow analysis (MFA) to identify issues and opportunities. However, existing MFA methodologies focus mainly on territorial applications and lack effectiveness at the organizational level. Conducting MFA at this level presents distinct challenges, requiring insights into dynamic material circulation and effective handling of heterogeneous data. Addressing this gap, this study introduces an innovative methodology tailored to organizational contexts. The developed methodology consists of six steps for conducting MFA while proposing an archetype-based approach capable of analyzing extensive and disparate datasets, coupled with bootstrapping and Monte Carlo simulation techniques, that considerably reduces the complexity of MFA execution. Furthermore, this methodology enables a comprehensive understanding of material flows within the system and provides a straightforward method for estimating uncertainty in mass estimations by incorporating confidence level calculations. A case study from a governmental organization is used to illustrate the proposed methodology. • Clarifying the steps to perform Material Flow Analysis at the organizational level proposed. • The archetype approach enables to analyze a large amount of heterogeneous data. • This approach reduces processing time while maintaining a suitable level of accuracy. • Bootstrapping and Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) are utilized to enhance this approach. • A straightforward technique for measuring uncertainty based on MCS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With their automatic feature extraction capabilities, deep learning models have become more widespread in sensor-based human activity recognition, particularly on larger datasets. However, their direct use on mobile and wearable devices is challenging due to the extensive resource requirements. Concurrently, attention-based models are emerging to improve recognition performance by dynamically emphasizing relevant parts of features and disregarding the irrelevant ones, particularly in the computer vision domain. This study introduces a novel application of attention mechanisms to smaller deep architectures, investigating whether smaller models can achieve comparable recognition performance to larger models in sensor-based human activity recognition systems while keeping resource usage at lower levels. For this purpose, we integrate the convolutional block attention module into a hybrid model, deep convolutional and long short-term memory network. Experiments are conducted using five public datasets in three model sizes: lightweight, moderate and original. The results show that applying attention to the lightweight model enables achieving similar recognition performances to the moderate-size model, and the lightweight model requires approximately 2–13 times fewer parameters and 3.5 times fewer flops. We also conduct experiments with sensor data at lower sampling rates and from fewer sensors attached to different body parts. The results show that attention improves recognition performance under lower sampling rates, as well as under higher sampling rates when model sizes are smaller, and mitigates the impact of missing data from one or more body parts, making the model more suitable for real-world sensor-based applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural sustainability is threatened by pressures from water scarcity, energy crises, escalating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and diminishing farm profitability. Practices that diversify crop rotations, retain crop residues, and incorporate cover crops have been widely studied for their impacts on soil organic carbon and crop production. However, their associated usage of natural resources and economic returns have been overlooked. Here, we employed a food-energy-water-carbon (FEWC) nexus framework to assess the sustainability of crop rotations plus various management strategies across three sub-regions of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia. We found that compared with residue burning and fallowing, residue retention and cover cropping contributed to GHG abatement, but the latter consumed more energy and water per hectare. The composite sustainability scores, calculated with the FEWC framework, suggested that legume-inclusive rotations were generally more sustainable. Furthermore, in northern NSW (with existing sorghum/wheat/chickpea/wheat rotation), residue retention with cover cropping was most suitable combination, while the use of residue retention with fallow yielded greater benefits in southern NSW (with existing wheat/field pea/wheat/canola rotation). Regional disparities in climate, soil, cropping systems, and on-farm costs prompted region-specific strategies to address the unbalanced distribution among FEWC domains. Our study provides assessments for identifying feasible management practices to advance agricultural sustainability. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a single machine scheduling problem with coupled tasks under limited resource availability. Each job comprises of two tasks which are separated by an exact amount of delay. We assume that the processing time of the initial task and the duration of the delay period are equal and the same for all jobs. The processing time of the completion task, however, is job-dependent and modelled as a convex function of the amount of resource the job is allocated. The scheduling objective consists of minimizing the makespan, subject to an upper-bound on the resource availability. We provide several properties of an optimal solution and develop an O (n 2) time algorithm for the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To analyze the clinical and economic burden of community-acquired (CA) or community-onset healthcare-associated (COHCA) multidrug-resistant (MDR) infections requiring hospitalization.Methods: Case-control study. Adults admitted with CA or COHCA MDR infections were considered cases, while those admitted in the same period with non-MDR infections were controls. The matching criteria were source of infection and/or microorganism. Primary outcome was 30-day clinical failure. Secondary outcomes were 90-day and 1-year mortality, hospitalization costs and resource consumption.Results: 194 patients (97 cases and 97 controls) were included. Multivariate analysis identified age (odds ratio [OR], 1.07, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01-1.14) and SOFA score (OR, 1.45, CI95%, 1.15-1.84) as independent predictors of 30-day clinical failure. Age (hazard ratio [HR] 1.09, 95%CI, 1.03-1.16) was the only factor associated with 90-day mortality, whereas age (HR 1.06, 95%CI, 1.03-1.09) and Charlson Index (HR 1.2, 95%CI, 1.07-1.34) were associated with 1-year mortality. MDR group showed longer hospitalization (p<0.001) and MDR hospitalization costs almost doubled those in the non-MDR group. MDR infections were associated with higher antimicrobial costs.Conclusions: Worse economic outcomes were identified with community-onset MDR infections. MDR was associated with worse clinical outcomes but mainly due to higher comorbidity of patients in MDR group, rather than multidrug resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• If social influences are forceful, they are usually based on economic pressure. • Resource based technical progress coerces firms and households to grow. • States' growth policies are substantially driven by technological unemployment. • The meritocratic principle is a key for understanding restrictions on policy making. • Limiting resource use and redistributing rents can stabilize markets without growth. Economic growth remains a prominent political goal, despite its conflicts with ecological sustainability. Are growth policies only a question of political or individual will, or do 'growth imperatives' make them inescapable? We structure the debate along two dimensions: (a) degree of coerciveness between free will and coercion, and (b) agents affected. With carefully derived micro level definitions of 'social coercion' and 'growth imperative', we discuss several mechanisms suspected to make growth necessary for firms, households, and nation states. We identify technological innovations as a systematic necessity to net invest, trapping firms and households in a positive feedback loop to increase efficiency. Resource-intensive technology is economically attractive because of a subtle violation of the meritocratic principle of justice. The resulting dilemma between 'technological unemployment' and the social necessity of high employment explains why states 'must' foster economic growth. Politically, we suggest to institutionally limit resource consumption and redistribute economic rents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge distillation guides student networks' training and enhances their performance through excellent teacher networks. However, along with the performance advantages, knowledge distillation also entails a huge computational burden, sometimes tens or even hundreds of times that of traditional training methods. So, this paper designs a book-based knowledge distillation (BookKD) to minimize the costs of knowledge distillation while improving performance. First, a decoupling-based knowledge distillation framework is designed. By decoupling the traditional knowledge distillation process into two independent sub-processes, book-making and book-learning, knowledge distillation can be completed with little resource consumption. Second, a book-making method based on knowledge ensemble and knowledge regularization is developed, which makes books by organizing and processing the knowledge generated by teachers. These books can replace these teachers to provide sufficient knowledge with little distillation costs. Finally, a book-learning method based on entropy dynamic adjustment and label smoothing is designed. The entropy dynamic adjustment optimizes the training loss and mitigates student networks' difficulty in learning books. Label smoothing alleviates the student network's over-confidence in ground truth labels, which increases its attention to the class similarity knowledge in books. BookKD is tested on three image classification datasets, CIFAR100, ImageNet and ImageNet100, and an object detection dataset PASCAL VOC 2007. The experiment results indicate the advantages of BookKD in reducing distillation costs and improving distillation performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon footprints (CFs) are the measure of extent of green house gases (GHGs) emitted from any organization or activity. Reporting of extent of CFs in terms of CO 2 e from educational campus may be considered as a first step towards sustainable educational practices. The present study employs a bottom up approach where CFs due to consumption of resources from each academic department is evaluated separately and net is obtained by adding contributions from individual departments. This method has the advantage of avoiding the potential overlaps in the calculation. Hence this approach to calculate carbon footprints can lead to their precise CF evaluation. In order to justify above hypothesis, CF evaluation was carried out at Shikshana Prasarak Mandali's Sir Parashurambhau College, Pune for three consecutive years starting from 2015 to 2016. The average carbon footprints over the study period were 3630.57 ± 296.79 tones CO 2 e per year with per capita emission of 0.81 ± 0.06 tones CO 2 e. The emission density determined from the average value was found to be 0.0361 ± 0.0029 tCO 2 e m−2 of the campus. It was observed that emission sources classified as scope-1, scope-2 and scope-3 contribute 28%, 48% and 25% respectively to total emission. Out of all the emission sources identified, apart from human contribution through respiration, electricity (35%), biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste, stationary paper, 7%, use of chemicals in the laboratories (5%), paper for official purpose (12%), LPG (3%) and transport (27%) were main contributors. As this is a multi faculty college, science faculty contributes almost 62%, commerce 9% and arts 11% of the total emission. • Present paper highlights carbon footprints from an Indian HEI using bottom up approach. • A questionnaire based survey was used to arrive at departmental and net footprints. • Carbon footprints of HEI in India are much less as compared to developed countries. • The carbon footprints of Indian HEIs are expected to grow at 5–6%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Assuming specific behavior models, the variety of design codes currently used for the design of concrete beams inevitably results in different solutions, ensuring service during the whole expected lifetime with a maximum functional quality and safety. However, from a sustainable design perspective, such differences may have remarkable environmental impacts. This paper analyses if the approach of the newest design code, i.e., the Model Code, leads to a reduction in resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) over the life-cycle of concrete beams. To do so, a comparative analysis of the environmental impact of concrete beams was carried out depending on the reference code used for its design (i.e., EHE-08 or Model Code). The results show that the reduction of reinforcing steel is a basic objective to minimize the life cycle environmental impacts of concrete beams. Every country may have its own design codes and, thus, the reinforcing steel use can vary for structures subjected to the same loads and with equivalent structural reliability. Hence, regulations play a key role in the sustainability of construction assets. Conclusions depend on the beam length (L) and height (h) and characteristic compressive strength (f ck). For short beams (4 m), the greater the h , the greater the reinforcement difference between the two codes. With regard to beams of 8 m, these differences can lead to varying steel and GHG savings, e.g., up to 5.0% with MC-2010 (h = 0.6 m and f ck ≤ 35 MPa), almost 40% with EHE – 08 (h = 1.0 m and 35 MPa < f ck ≤ 50 MPa) and more than 30% with EHE–08 (h = 0.6 m and 35 MPa < f ck ≤ 50 MPa). For long beams (L = 12.0 m), steel consumption is 0.3–19% lower when the beam is designed with EHE-08, and this difference decreases as f ck increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Environmental change has become the most serious global problem in recent years. The increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emission is one of the consequences of environmental change. Remanufacturing of waste products constitutes a good production practice destined for environment protection. Nevertheless, GHG emissions are inevitably generated in the remanufacturing process. This study provides an insight into the characteristics of GHG emissions associated with product remanufacturing and presents a new analysis method for GHG emissions based on the Petri net, thus introducing a new theoretical concept for cleaner production of used products. In this method, the boundary of the GHG emission for product remanufacturing is defined, the dynamic characteristics of GHG emissions are analyzed, and the GHG emission analysis model is set up based on the Petri net. Based on this method, the GHG emissions in each remanufacturing process can be quantitatively analyzed. Accordingly, suggestions for energy conservation and GHG emission reduction are proposed. A WD615.87 diesel engine remanufacturing paradigm is presented as a case study throughout the text, whereby elicited results showed that the proposed method is effective in the analysis of GHG emissions for product remanufacturing. Highlights • A GHG emissions analysis method for product remanufacturing based on Petri net is proposed. • The system boundary of GHG emission for product remanufacturing is determined. • The dynamical characteristics of GHG emissions for products remanufacturing are analyzed. • GHG emissions in different remanufacturing process are analyzed quantitatively based on two types of GHG emission source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Governments spend significant amounts of money to promote recycling lifestyles to the public; however, they cannot maximize the beneficial effects of recycling without avoiding its potential negative consequences. In this research, we empirically examine the effects of recycling efforts on subsequent resource usage by analyzing the online survey data of 356 participants in China. Based on partial least squares-structural equation modeling, the results show that (1) recycling efforts have a positive effect on resource consumption, which suggests that engaging in recycling leads individuals to use significantly more resources in the future; (2) the positive effect of recycling efforts on resource consumption is mediated by environmental self-identity and feelings of pride; and (3) consideration of future consequences negatively moderates the effects of recycling efforts on environmental self-identity and on feelings of pride. That is, consideration of future consequences mitigates the positive effects of recycling efforts on resource consumption. The paper concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The two-stage flow-shop scheduling problem investigated in this work aims minimize the resource consumption of non-identical job sizes. The flow shop consists of two batch-processing machines (BPMs): a parallel batch BPM and a sequential BPM. The makespan and resource consumption are considered together in this study, the makespan is the constraint condition, and the resource consumption is the objective. A copula-based Estimation of Distribution Algorithm (cEDA) is used to solve the problem. In this study, the individuals are coded by the allocated resource sequences of all jobs in two machines, and the convex resource consumption function is adopted to simulate the relationship between the processing time of the jobs and the resources allocated to the jobs. A Gaussian distribution is adopted as the marginal probabilistic distribution of all the components. The proposed copula function C 1 assumes independence among the components, whereas the Clayton copula function C 2 assumes that all components are interrelated and introduced for comparison. The computational experiments and comparisons verify the effectiveness of the proposed cEDA. In addition, the copula functions C 1 and C 2 adopted in the proposed cEDA approach are compared. Highlights • A flow shop scheduling problem on batch-processing machines is considered. • The objective is to minimize resource consumption under the deadline constraint. • An attempt is made to solve the scheduling problem by using the copula-based EDA. • An advanced dynamical adjustment to correction algorithm is developed. • Computational results show that the copula-based EDA outperforms GA, PSO and MIMIC c. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A system with limited resource determining maximum operation time is considered. • During the mission the system can undergo several maintenance actions. • Algorithm for determining expected mission downtime is suggested. • Operation and maintenance schedule minimizing the expected downtime is obtained. Traditional reliability models typically assume that a system can operate until it is failed or not needed due to the mission completion. In practice, the system may have limited resource (e.g., battery power, fuel) and thus have certain maximum operation time due to the resource depletion. This paper makes contributions by modeling and optimizing the expected mission downtime (EMD) for a resource-constrained system that requires replenishing the resource according to a pre-specified operation and maintenance schedule (OMS) for accomplishing a mission of certain duration. Different types of maintenance options characterized by different maintenance durations, efficiencies in reducing the system's cumulative exposure time, and resource replenishing amounts are considered. Based on a new numerical method suggested for the EMD evaluation, the optimal OMS problem is formulated and solved minimizing the EMD. A detailed case study on an unmanned aerial vehicle performing a surveillance mission is conducted to investigate the influence of several system parameters on the EMD and optimization solutions, including the maximum amount of resource, system reliability, resource consumption during system activation and operation, resource replenishment speed, as well as maintenance duration, efficiency, and failure probability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of our study is to analyse how urban lifestyles impact on the environment to offer knowledge based inspiration for effective environmental policies relating to contemporary Danish consumption patterns. The application of a Personal Metabolism (PM) coupled Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach supported by cluster analysis facilitated the identification of consumption-related clusters based on central demographic and life style parameters such as income, diet, transport, and age. The environmental performance of the assessed consumption patterns were calculated in a full life cycle perspective and covering all relevant environmental impacts both on midpoint and endpoint levels by applying the ReCiPe 2008 Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methodology. The results of the contribution analysis revealed that climate change, particulate matter, human toxicity, fossil depletion and ionizing radiation contribute most to the three endpoints covered by ReCiPe 2008. Results of cluster analysis indicated that demographic parameters such as income level and age of the respondents has a strong influence on the environmental impacts. The influence of lifestyle aspects such as choice of diet, use of private car and household size was also investigated. These three parameters were found to significantly influence the consumption related environmental impacts of urban Danish residents. Overall our study identify drivers and focus points of consumption and provides a contemporary picture of Danish urban consumption-related environmental impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many years, investigation of impacts of variation of effective parameters on the evaporative cooling systems performance has been limited to the thermodynamic or hydraulic analyses, while economic issues, consumption of all resources together and capability of the cooler to provide thermal comfort in the ranges of variation have not been considered. In order to cover all the three above-mentioned shortcomings and provide an applicable realistic point of view from the system operation, this research is done. For a two-stage direct-indirect evaporative cooler, the impacts of variation of effective parameters on different performance criteria of the system, including each stage outlet air conditions, cooling capacity, resource consumption and their ratios, operating and initial costs are investigated while for smart selection of the variation range of the effective parameters, a novel approach based on employing thermal comfort indices is proposed. In addition, the economic analysis is done for diverse existing water to electricity tariff conditions all around the world. It is found that there is a trade-off between performance criteria when the working to inlet air ratio of the second-stage increases, so it has an optimum value. In addition, using pads with higher specific contact areas is recommended as one of the most economical strategies to enhance the system. The results also show that the best values for inlet air velocity and pad thickness area are minimum possible magnitudes. These values for this study are 0.4 m s −1 and 5 cm, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Circular economy and bioeconomy factors has driven the economy sectors towards sustainable choices. Chemical industry, as stated by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, has a potential to reduce 36 % of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 [1] mainly linked with introduction of emerging energy technologies. Ethylene, chlorine, ammonia and hydrogen are important chemicals for such reduction as they are the most worldwide produced chemicals (16 % of the total production in 2050 for ethylene, 11 % for chlorine and 6 % for ammonia). Meanwhile planned GHG reduction potential for these chemicals, through introduction of compression and separation technologies, is estimated as 75 % for hydrogen, 54 % for ammonia, 31 % for chlorine and 27 % for ethylene. The aim of the study is to perform an indicator analysis (raw material consumption, emissions produced and associated costs per one tonne of bioethylene) of bioethylene production pathways focusing on the following raw materials – corn, manioc, sugar cane, sugar beet, wheat and conifer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 117 and 200 million kettles are used in the European Union (EU) every year. However, the full environmental impacts of kettles remain largely unknown. This paper presents a comprehensive life cycle assessment of conventional plastic and metallic kettles in comparison with eco-kettles. The results show that the use stage contributes 80% to the impacts. For this reason, the eco-kettle has over 30% lower environmental impacts due to a greater water efficiency and related lower energy consumption. These results have been extrapolated to the EU level to consider the implications for proposed eco-design regulations. For these purposes, the effects on the impacts of durability of kettles and improvements in their energy and water efficiency have been assessed as they have been identified as two key parameters in the proposed regulations. The results suggest that increasing the current average durability from 4.4 to seven years would reduce the impacts by less than 5%. Thus, improving durability is not a key issue for improving the environmental performance of kettles and does not justify the need for an eco-design regulation based exclusively on it. However, improvements in water and energy efficiency through eco-design can bring relevant environmental savings. Boiling the exact amount of water needed would reduce the impacts by around a third and using water temperature control by further 2%–5%. The study has also considered the effects of reducing significantly the number of kettles in use after the UK (large user of kettles) leaves the EU and reducing the excess water typically boiled by the consumer. Even under these circumstances, the environmental savings justify the development of a specific EU eco-design regulation for kettles. However, consumer engagement will be key to the implementation and achievement of the expected environmental benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind turbines transform wind energy into electricity and it has a negative environmental impact during manufacturing or transportation. Gearbox is one of the most important components of wind turbine and its reliability is of great concern in industry. So this study performed a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impact of wind turbine gearbox considering its reliability, with a “cradle-to-grave” approach. To quantify the influence of wind turbine gearbox's reliability on its environmental impact and provide a more realistic and accurate result, reliability analysis was integrated into LCA model. The reliability of gearbox determines not only the required amount of gearbox to achieve its design life but also the number of components which can be reused in next gearbox, both of which affect the environmental performance. First, the method to calculate these two parameters was described, afterwards, these two parameters would be used in the LCA model. Then, a 2 MW wind turbine gearbox with two recycling scenarios was used as the case study. The results show that the life cycle assessment of the gearbox is dominated by the manufacture process, and the reuse of components can reduce the impact around 10%. The reliability sensitivity analysis indicates that the environmental impact increases 25.25% as gearbox's reliability is reduced from 78.25% to 40.03%. Therefore, by taking reliability information into consideration when evaluating its environmental impact, a more accurate and realistic assessment result can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 130 million microwaves are affected by European Union (EU) legislation which is aimed at reducing the consumption of electricity in the standby mode (‘Standby Regulation’) and at more sustainable management of end-of-life electrical and electronic waste (‘WEEE Directive’). While legislation focuses on these two life cycle stages, there is little information on the environmental impacts of the entire life cycle of microwaves. To address this gap, this paper presents a comprehensive life cycle assessment of microwaves and assesses the environmental implications of the Standby Regulation and the WEEE Directive at the EU level. The impacts are first considered at the level of individual appliances and then at the EU level, with the aim of evaluating the potential environmental implications of the full implementation of the above two EU regulations by 2020. The effects of the electricity decarbonisation and the expected increase in the number of microwaves in use have also been considered. The results suggest that implementation of the EU regulation by 2020 will reduce the environmental impacts considered by 4%–9% compared to the current situation. The majority of these reductions is due to the Standby Regulation, with the contribution of the WEEE Directive being small (~ 0.3%). However, the expected decarbonisation of electricity will result in much higher reductions (6%–24%) for most impact categories. The results also show that the materials used to manufacture the microwaves, the manufacturing process and end-of-life disposal are environmental hot-spots for several impacts, including depletion of abiotic elements. Therefore, efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of a future electricity mix should be combined with the development of specific eco-design regulations for microwaves that stipulate optimisation of resource consumption. Possible future trends, such as shorter lifetimes and limited availability of some resources, make the development of such product regulations more critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural gas is regarded as a cleaner alternative to coal combustion-based power generation (CPG) for urban use. Because of the insufficient natural gas reserve in China, coal-based synthetic natural gas (SNG) has been under rapid development. However, coal-based SNG production process has problems of environmental pollution and emission transfer. This paper uses life cycle assessment to compare the CPG and SNG energy production and usage routes, in order to find a reasonable way to reduce the environmental pollution and production cost. Results show that the CPG route is superior to the SNG route in terms of the haze pollution emissions, greenhouse gases emissions, coal resource consumption and life cycle cost. However, the water consumption of the CPG route is much higher than that of the SNG route. The SNG route is more suitable to adopt in water-deficient areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An environmental impact assessment was obtained for sulfoaluminate clinker preparation from red mud, desulfurization gypsum, and other industrial solid wastes, and the results were compared with a standard production method. A quantitative analysis and prediction of the environmental burden that results from mining/waste utilization, energy consumption, and waste emissions in sulfoaluminate clinker preparations using limestone, gypsum, bauxite and using industrial solid wastes as raw materials was provided. The life cycle theory was used to analyze the different production technologies, and it was found that comprehensive waste utilization to produce sulfoaluminate clinker reduces resource consumption, global warming, chemical oxygen demand, particulate matter, primary energy consumption, acidification, eutrophication, and solid waste generation by 92.89%, 40.95%, 36.48%, 25.25%, 12.6%, 8.3%, 7.91%, and 5.29%, respectively, compared with the conventional preparation of sulfoaluminate clinker. The sulfoaluminate clinker production with comprehensive waste utilization can reduce the total environmental burden by 38.62% compared with the conventional process. Cement manufacturing enterprises should combine power plants and chemical plants for industrial solid waste collection and recycling. Such a production mode would promote a circular economy industry, reduce the consumption of primary energy and natural resources, and reduce global warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in the consumption of resources in the past decade has caused an increase in the interest of the international academic community in the challenges to reduce such rapid consumption of resources. Every year, many researchers propose different methods by which resource consumption can be reduced. Material, equipment, and process refinement are vivid examples of such efforts. While these innovations can be very helpful, in several cases, however, they can be very costly and greatly time-consuming. In addition, decision-makers tend to tackle the problem of resource consumption, while maintaining the proper level of service. Thus, in this paper, we propose a new bi-objective mathematical model by which we can reduce the consumption of resources and energy, as well as decrease the tardiness penalty in a supply chain scheduling and vehicle routing problem. The model demonstrates that finding the proper production (assembly) sequence, assignment of orders to vehicles and vehicle routing, will enable us to reduce resource consumption. A new Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm based on shaking and local search strategies of Variable Neighborhood Search algorithm is also developed to solve the proposed problem. Several criteria are introduced and defined to assess the performance of the proposed algorithm. Results demonstrate the out-performance of the proposed algorithm compared with the classic non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II. We also propose a method that allows decision makers to make an informed decision to choose a proper sequence of jobs and routes that create a trade-off between resource consumption and the tardiness penalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile device capabilities have increased tremendously in recent years, and the complexity of the applications executed in these devices has evolved accordingly. However, despite the efforts made by mobile manufactures, resource consumption, particularly battery and data traffic, are still limiting factors for mobile applications. The most important aspects determining the consumption of a mobile application is its software architecture and its behaviour. Hence, by comparing the resource consumption of different software architectures before an application is built, mobile developers can make decisions that are better informed. This work presents the consumption analysis of two applications, each of them built with two different architectures in order to identify under which situation each architecture is more efficient. In addition, by generalizing the analysis of the two applications, a conceptual framework is created with which to analyse the consumption pattern of applications in their early development phases. This conceptual framework will allow mobile developers to estimate the resource consumption of their applications under different conditions of software architecture and usage scenarios, providing them with information relevant for decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the promotion of biodegradable chelating agents, hyperaccumulators can accumulate large amounts of heavy metals. However, in practical application, excessive accumulation of heavy metals will lead to the reduction of biomass, resulting in the reduction of heavy metal accumulation efficiency. Therefore, here we seek to investigate the dynamic process of vacuolar compartmentalization regulated by biological chelators, to provide guidance for improving the accumulation efficiency of heavy metals and alleviating the reduction of biomass. In this study, subcellular isolation was used to study the changes of enzyme activities, total cadmium (Cd), Cd2+, glutathione and reactive oxygen species (ROS) contents in protoplasts and vacuoles of leaf cells of Solanum nigrum L. The results indicate that vacuolar compartmentalization is a dynamic regulation process of continuous glutathione consumption. Under the promotion of biodegradable chelating agent N, N-bis glutamic acid (GLDA), more glutathione was induced and preferentially entered the vacuole to chelate and store Cd. Moreover, for large amounts of Cd accumulation, the insufficient supply of glutathione (GSH) preferentially maintains vacuolar homeostasis and causes redox damage outside the vacuole. These results showed that insufficient glutathione production led to the reduction of biomass. Therefore, in the practical application of GLDA, the consumption inside and outside the vacuole can be met by controlling the production of glutathione, so as to increase the efficiency of heavy metal accumulation. [Display omitted] • The content of Cd in cells increased significantly under the action of GLDA. • Cells preferentially protect vacuolar homeostasis instead of cytosol. • Controlling GSH content can increase biomass when GLDA promote phytoremediation. • Oxidative stress and detoxification mediated by the GSH were present in vacuoles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental and social attitudes of consumers can greatly affect the consumption of common-pool resources by the whole society – as demonstrated by many experimental and theoretical studies. Rooting in the current knowledge of consumer psychology, and employing the game-theoretic modelling framework, we formalise the decision making process of individuals about their resource consumption levels depending on their level of environmental concern, and relative importance placed on social and ecological information. Our model demonstrates, in a stylized fashion, how profound preference to social information can help avert free-riding behaviour and result in globally stable resource consumption dynamics. This avoids the “Tragedy of the Commons”, leading to affluence in the resource stock as well as in the individual consumption. Furthermore, we find that heterogeneity of the levels of individuals’ environmentalism promotes free-riding, whereas heterogeneity in relative information preferences helps avoiding tragedies. Our analysis demonstrates that accounting for heterogeneity of consumers and their social relationships can yield additional insights regarding to what kind of societies may have better chances to ensure sustainable consumption of a natural resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine transport has been essential for international trade. Concern for its environmental impact was growing among regulators, classification societies, ship operators, ship owners, and other stakeholders. By applying life cycle assessment, this article aimed to assess the impact of a new-build hybrid system (i.e. an electric power system which incorporated lithium ion batteries, photovoltaic systems and cold-ironing) designed for Roll-on/Roll-off cargo ships. The study was carried out based on a bottom-up integrated system approach using the optimised operational profile and background information for manufacturing processes, mass breakdown and end of life management plans. Resources such as metallic and non-metallic materials and energy required for manufacture, operation, maintenance, dismantling and scrap handling were estimated. During operation, 1.76 × 10 8 kg of marine diesel oil was burned, releasing carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, particulate matter, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide which ranged 5–8 orders of magnitude. The operation of diesel gensets was the primary cause of impact categories that were relevant to particulate matter or respiratory inorganic health issues, photochemical ozone creation, eutrophication, acidification, global warming and human toxicity. Disposing metallic scrap was accountable for the most significant impact category, ecotoxicity potential. The environmental benefits of the hybrid power system in most impact categories were verified in comparison with a conventional power system onboard cargo ships. The estimated results for individual impact categories were verified using scenario analysis. The study concluded that the life cycle of a new-build hybrid power system would result in significant impact on the environment, human beings and natural reserves, and therefore proper management of such a system was imperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Centralised production of essential products and services based on fossil fuels and large scale distribution infrastructures has contributed to a plethora of issues such as deterioration of ecosystems, social-economic injustice and depletion of resources. The establishment of local production systems that deliver various products for local consumption (e.g. food, energy and water) by making the best use of locally available renewable resources can potentially alleviate unsustainable resource consumption. The main objective of this work is to develop process systems engineering tools combined with the concept of resource accounting using exergy for the design of such local production systems. A general design framework comprising an optional preliminary design stage followed by a simultaneous design stage based on mathematical optimisation is proposed. The preliminary design stage considers each supply subsystem individually and allows insights into the potential interactions between them. The simultaneous design stage yields an optimal design of the local production system and has the capacity to include all design integration possibilities between the subsystems and generate a truly integrated design solution. The proposed methodology, which reflects generalised principles for designing local production systems, has been illustrated through a case study on the integrated design of the food-energy-water nexus for a designated eco-town in UK. It demonstrates the advantages of an integrated design of a system making use of local resources to meet its demands over a system relying on centralised supplies and a design without considering integration opportunities between subsystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As orthopedic surgeons search for objective measures that predict total joint arthroplasty (TJA) outcomes, body mass index may aid in risk stratification. The purpose of this study was to compare in-hospital TJA outcomes and resource consumption amongst underweight (body mass index ≤19 kg/m(2)) and morbidly obese patients (≥40 kg/m(2)).Methods: Discharge data from 2006 to 2012 National Inpatient Sample were used for this study. A total of 1503 total hip arthroplasty (THA) and 956 total knee arthroplasty (TKA) patients were divided into 2 cohorts, underweight (≤19 kg/m(2)) and morbidly obese (≥40 kg/m(2)). Patients were matched by gender and 27 comorbidities by use of Elixhauser Comorbidity Index. Patients were compared for 13 in-hospital postoperative complications, length of stay, total hospital charge, and disposition. Multivariate analyses were generated by SAS software. Significance was assigned at P value <.05.Results: Underweight patients undergoing primary TJA had higher risk for developing postoperative anemia compared with morbidly obese patients (TKA: odds ratio [OR], 3.1; 95% CI, 2.3-4.1; THA: OR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.5-2.3). Underweight THA candidates displayed greater risk for deep venous thrombosis (75.36% vs 24.64%; OR, 3.1; 95% CI, 1.1-8.4). Underweight TJA patients were charged more (TKA: USD 51,368.90 vs USD 40,128.80, P = .001, THA: USD 57,451.8 vs USD 42,776.9, P < .001) compared to the morbidly obese patients. Length of stay was significantly longer for underweight THA patients (4.6 days vs 3.5 days, P = .008) compared to morbidly obese counterparts.Conclusion: Our results indicate underweight, compared to morbidly obese, TJA patients are at a greater risk for postoperative anemia and consume more resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable construction of buildings provides an ethical and practical response to issues of environmental impact and resource consumption. Sustainability assumptions include the entire life cycle of the building and its significant components, from resource extraction through disposal at the end of the materials’ useful life. Sustainable building design relies on renewable resources for energy systems, recycling and reuse of water and materials, minimal intervention for landscaping, passive heating, cooling, and ventilation; and other approaches that minimize environmental impact and resource consumption. At present, sustainable buildings are defined by the assessment systems, that rate and certify them. Building assessment systems simply score or rate the effects of a building's design, construction, and operation, among them environmental impacts, resource consumption, and occupant health. Health in building can be deduced by the presence or absence of chemical and biological substances within circulating air, as well as the relative health and wellbeing of the building occupants. Building assessment systems used in the world evaluates various types’ buildings (office, hotels, government buildings, educations, institutional, industrial facilities, facilities of health-care, residential buildings). Assessment systems evaluate new buildings, major renovations or existing buildings. The aim of this paper is to highlight the evaluation of the selected family houses in various categories aimed at location and site, building constructions, energy efficiency, water efficiency and waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource over-exploitation and resource depletion have received increasing attentions, especially for industrial regions. In this paper an innovative method that combines emergy analysis and an IPAT (Human Impact Population Affluence Technology) equation is developed in order to create an integrated framework for uncovering the driving forces on resource consumption in one industrial region. Liaoning province, one of the old heavy industrial bases in China, is selected as the case study region. The main results show that total emergy of Liaoning province increased from 9.25E + 23 sej in 2002 to 1.92E + 24 sej in 2012, with 165% growth on non-renewable emergy and 250% growth on imported emergy. Regional emergy/RMB ratio was higher than other developed regions and the average value of China, indicating that this province consumed more local free non-renewable resources to support its own development. The lower ESI (emergy sustainability index) indicates that Liaoning province's sustainability is still weak and far away from sustainable development. IPAT analysis further identifies that rapid economic growth was the main driving force to increase its total emergy use, while technology innovation offset the increase of total emergy use. Policy insights suggest that industrial regions should improve their energy efficiency and optimize their economic and energy structure by applying economic instruments and capacity building efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge about the characteristics and driving forces of material flows in urban areas is crucial, as the pathways towards sustainability depend on local conditions. Currently, Urban Metabolism research focuses on the analysis of trends and transitions in different stages of city development, on developing classification systems and identification of metabolism profiles for urban areas. A novel framework for characterizing cities metabolism is provided using Urban Material Flow Accounting indicators as the basis. A Material Flow Accounting study is conducted for three cities in Sweden, from 1996 until 2011: Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. Based on the urban metabolism characteristics framework, three distinct profiles are proposed: consumer-service; industrial; and transitioning. Stockholm's material needs are mainly for final consumption. When compared with the other two cities, material flows follow a more stable trend and have lower dependency on external systems due to the marginal production and export of goods. Gothenburg has the most resource intensive metabolism. It requires several times larger material inputs than the other two cities and produces much larger outputs, for benefit of the rest of the country and the world. Consequently, CO 2 emissions are higher in Gothenburg. Malmo characteristics are more complex than Stockholm's with higher material needs in particular construction minerals. Its dependency on external flows is low, due to the fact that the economy and exports are based on domestically extracted Non-Metallic Minerals and Biomass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the enforcement of MARPOL Annex VI Regulations for the Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships , retrofitting conventional power plants with emerging technologies is seen as a means to promote sustainability of marine transport and comply with more stringent emissions legislation. However, a knowledge gap exists as the environmental performance of retrofit power plant solutions incorporating emerging technologies has not been examined using an integrated system approach based on Life Cycle Assessment. The purpose of this research was to investigate if integrating selected emerging technologies i.e. photovoltaic systems, lithium-ion batteries, cold ironing and power-take-off/power-take-in systems supplemented by frequency converters and variable frequency drives into an existing power plant would be to the advantage of a chosen ship type i.e. Roll-on/Roll-off cargo ships, from the perspectives of resource consumption and environmental burden. Using the power plant of an existing vessel as a case study, it was found that cast iron, steel, copper and aluminium were the four materials most commonly consumed during manufacturing phase i.e. 2.9 × 10 5 kg, 1.9 × 10 5 kg, 5.3 × 10 4 kg and 2.9 × 10 4 kg respectively. By burning 2.9 × 10 7 kg of heavy fuel oil and 2.3 × 10 8 kg of marine diesel oil during operation, 8.2 × 10 8 kg of carbon dioxide, 1.7 × 10 7 kg of nitrogen oxides, 6.1 × 10 6 kg of sulphur dioxide, 7.6 × 10 5 kg of carbon monoxide, 6.5 × 10 5 kg of hydrocarbon and 4.7 × 10 5 kg of particulate matter would be released. Over a projected 30-year period, emissions released to air and freshwater were found to be significant. Based on 3 characterisation methodologies, ecotoxicity potential, with 7–10 orders of magnitude, was identified as the most significant environmental burden. Consuming and storing resources had the least impact, operating diesel engines and auxiliary generators had a moderate impact, and disposing metallic waste had the highest impact. The research concluded that the environmental burden caused by a marine power plant was significant but retrofitting existing power plant with suitable emerging technologies could reduce a number of impacts by 4–7 orders of magnitude, as verified via scenario analysis. However, the system should be designed and managed with due care as the environmental benefits, such as lower fuel consumption, emission reduction and performance improvement in some environmental measures are always achieved at the expense of an increase in other detrimental impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable and informed resource consumption is the key to make everyday living sustainable for entire populations. An intelligent and strategic way of addressing the challenges related with sustainable development of the everyday living of consumers is to identify consumption-determined hotspots in terms of environmental and health burdens, as well as resource consumptions. Analyzing consumer life styles in terms of consumption patterns in order to identify hotspots is hence the focus of this study. This is achieved by taking into account the entire value chain of the commodities consumed in the context of environmental and human health burdens, as well as resource consumptions. A systematic commodity consumption, commodity disposal, and life style survey of 1281 persons living in urbanized Danish areas was conducted. The findings of the survey showed new impact dimensions in terms of Personal Metabolism (PM) patterns of residents living in urbanized areas of Denmark. Extending the PM analysis with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provided a clear picture of the per capita environmental and human health burdens, as well as resource consumptions, and the exact origin hereof. A generic PM-LCA Model for all the 1281 persons was set-up in Gabi 6. The assessment results obtained applying the model on all 1281 personal consumption scenarios yielded the 1281 Personal Impact Profiles (PIPs). Consumption of food and energy (electricity and thermal energy) proved to be the primary impact sources of PM, followed by transport. The PIPs further revealed that behavioral factors ( e.g. different diets, use of cars, household size) affect the profiles. Hence, behavioral changes are one means out of many that humanity will most likely have to rely on during the sustainable development process. The results of this study will help the Danish and other comparable populations to identify and prioritize the steps towards reducing their environmental, human health, and resource consumption burdens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The nutritional value of food and its environmental impact have received considerable attention, however an assessment of environmental sustainability of catered meals is lacking. We therefore assessed the nutritional value and resource consumption of a specific catered meal, pork tenderloin with potato croquettes, carrots and mushroom sauce (‘Canteen Pork’). The outcomes are compared with that of an identical meal cooked at home (‘Home’), for which ‘Low’ and ‘High’ scoring hypothetical alternatives were defined (e.g. whether or not frying oil as a waste product was reprocessed or recycled), as well as with that of a vegetarian alternative: Quorn™. The resource consumption impact is assessed from cradle-to-disposal, expressed as the Cumulative Exergy Extraction from the Natural Environment (CEENE). Exergy is the amount of useful energy. The CEENE approach accounts for all resource types and is unique since it considers the deprived natural net primary production (expressed in exergy) as the impact for human land occupation, highly relevant for crop and thus food production. The food production, processing and packaging stage accounts for the largest amount of resource consumption compared to food preparation and waste management. The ‘Home Pork High’ scenario has the highest resource consumption at 83 MJex meal −1 . ‘Home Pork Low’, ‘Home Quorn™ High’, ‘Canteen Pork’, ‘Home Quorn™ Low’ and ‘Canteen Quorn’ have a 15, 18, 26, 32 and 40% lower resource consumption compared to ‘Home Pork High’, respectively. For all scenarios, biomass resources contribute 52–64% of the total CEENE, mainly through land occupation. The nutritional analysis, via nutritional density scoring (the higher the better), resulted in a score of 18.1 and 31.2 for the ‘Home Quorn Low’ and ‘High’, 10.4 and 23.4 for the ‘Home Pork High’ and ‘Low’ scenario and 17.0 and 27.3 for the ‘Canteen Pork’ and ‘Canteen Quorn™’, respectively. To conclude, the vegetarian meal scores best on both attributes, however, this effect diminishes considerably if one considers outcomes per energy or protein amount. With regards to catered vs home cooked meals, resource consumption is lower in canteen prepared meals than in the case of the home-cooked meal. However, the nutritional value can be lower or higher depending on consumer behaviour, namely the extent of the use, type and application of butter is key in altering this result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An agricultural ecosystem provides provisioning, regulating and supporting services for humans. At the same time, it consumes the resources of other ecosystems, including the investment of economic resources and can generate useless or harmful services, collectively called dis-services. Here, we built a framework for assessing agricultural ecosystem services and dis-services based on emergy analysis of Luancheng County, China. We analysed the inputs and outputs of the agricultural ecosystem from the three aspects of consumption of resources, ecosystem services and ecosystem dis-services and explored the variations in inputs and outputs from 1984 to 2008. We then proposed composite indexes for measuring the sustainable development of the agro-ecosystem. Our analysis showed that the agricultural ecosystem consumed a lot of resources, especially the nonrenewable ones; provisioning services were the largest services and provisioning dis-services were the largest dis-services. Both provisioning services and dis-services increased yearly as purchased nonrenewable inputs increased. The overall evaluation of the Luancheng agricultural ecosystem showed it to be a serious consumer system and thus not developing sustainably. The farming community should take steps, such as controlling excess inorganic fertilizer input, increasing organic fertilizer use and improving water and fertilizer use efficiency to ensure sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Todays efforts to optimize industrial production processes exceedingly focus on tools’ life cycle costs. Toolmaker and its customer are the two entities influencing tools’ life cycle costs. Due to lack of information exchange neither life cycle assessment nor cost efficient life cycles can be realized. An effective lever for penetrating information exchange and therefore gaining cost efficiency alongside tool's life cycle is the integration of the toolmaker into the value creation process of its customer. The so called customer integration succeeds through innovative product-service systems alongside tools’ life cycle networking the value creation processes of toolmaker and tool user. As the findings of research project TEC in this paper practical solutions for realizing customer integration are introduced and measures for gaining life cycle cost efficiency alongside tool's life cycle are explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A study on the effects of ecological measures on the Environmental Kuznets curve. • Land footprints in the Weihe River Basin, China were studied. • Land footprint, industry structure and solid waste utilization influence GDP. • Parametric and semiparametric models. This study tests the Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for the Weihe River basin using the land footprint as a proxy for environmental degradation. To investigate the impact of ecological measures on the EKC, we set up a comparison experiment using "ecological measures" as a single variable and then compared the EKC of the treatment and control groups using parametric and semi-parametric estimation methods. Fixed effects studies suggest that the treatment group and control group both have an inverted N-shaped cubic EKC. Following the validity of semiparametric estimation, the economic development and land footprint of the treatment group exhibit an inverted U-shaped EKC; while a monotonically increasing relationship is found for the control group, where invalidates the EKC hypothesis. The results indicate that ecological measures implemented in the cities of Weihe River basin can indeed influence the shape of the EKC and make the decoupling point occur sooner. As a result, Natural Capital Investment in China has helped to decouple economic progress from environmental concerns in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article presents a symbolic static analysis for computing parametric upper bounds of the number of simultaneously live objects of sequential Java-like programs. Inferring the peak amount of irreclaimable objects is the cornerstone for analyzing potential heap-memory consumption of stand-alone applications or libraries. The analysis builds method-level summaries quantifying the peak number of live objects and the number of escaping objects. Summaries are built by resorting to summaries of their callees. The usability, scalability and precision of the technique is validated by successfully predicting the object heap usage of a medium-size, real-life application which is significantly larger than other previously reported case-studies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In course of increasing cost pressure caused by competitors from low-wage countries and customers’ budgetary restrictions the observation and optimization of tools’ life cycle costs covers differentiation potentials for European tool making companies. In the course of the research project TEC (Total Efficiency Control) a calculation tool is developed to enable tool making companies to prognosticate and to present their customers tools’ life cycle costs transparently. Therefore they are able to justify their higher acquisition prices by the lower production costs and market an overall more cost-efficient tool. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Despite rising prices for natural resources during the past 30years, global consumption of natural resources is still growing. This leads to ecological, economical and social problems. So far, however, limited effort has been made to decrease the natural resource use of goods and services. While resource efficiency is already on the political agenda (EU and national resource strategies), there are still substantial knowledge gaps on the effectiveness of resource efficiency improvement strategies in different fields. In this context and within the project “Material Efficiency and Resource Conservation”, the natural resource use of 22 technologies, products and strategies was calculated and their resource efficiency potential analysed. In a preliminary literature- and expert-based identification process, over 250 technologies, strategies, and products, which are regarded as resource efficient, were identified. Out of these, 22 subjects with high resource efficiency potential were selected. They cover a wide range of relevant technologies, products and strategies, such as energy supply and storage, Green IT, transportation, foodstuffs, agricultural engineering, design strategies, lightweight construction, as well as the concept “Using Instead of Owning”. To assess the life-cycle-wide resource use of the selected subjects, the material footprint has been applied as a reliable indicator. In addition, sustainability criteria on a qualitative basis were considered. The results presented in this paper show significant resource efficiency potential for many technologies, products and strategies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Assessment of working postures by observation is a common practice in ergonomics. The present study investigated whether monetary resources invested in a video-based posture observation study should preferably be spent in collecting many video recordings of the work and have them observed once by one observer, or in having multiple observers rate postures repeatedly from fewer videos. The study addressed this question from a practitioner''s perspective by focusing two plausible scenarios: documenting the mean exposure of one individual, and of a specific occupational group. Using a data set of observed working postures among hairdressers, empirical values of posture variability, observer variability, and costs for recording and observing one video were entered into equations expressing the total cost of data collection and the information (defined as 1/SD) provided by the resulting estimates of two variables: percentage time with the arm elevated <15° and >90°. Sixteen measurement strategies involving 1–4 observers repeating their posture ratings 1–4 times were examined for budgets up to €2000. For both posture variables and in both the individual and group scenario, the most cost-efficient strategy at any specific budget was to engage 3–4 observers and/or having observer(s) rate postures multiple times each. Between 17% and 34% less information was produced when using the commonly practiced approach of having one observer rate a number of video recordings one time each. We therefore recommend observational posture assessment to be based on video recordings of work, since this allows for multiple observations; and to allocate monetary resources to repeated observations rather than many video recordings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Building construction in India is estimated to grow at a rate of 6.6% per year between 2005 and 2030 resulting in a continuous increase in demand for building materials. Fired clay bricks are the most widely-used walling materials in the country. However, over the past few decades, the development of other materials such as concrete blocks, fly ash bricks, stabilized mud blocks, etc., has created viable alternatives to bricks. There is limited understanding of the broader environmental consequences of these building materials addressing natural resource depletion, energy, environment and socio-economic impacts. The main objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive assessment of materials used for wall construction by comparing one square meter of constructed wall for each of the materials. A composite Environmental Index was developed by weighting and aggregating normalized numerical scores of several parameters making use of a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) framework. The Environmental Index was then ranked to determine walling systems that are best suited in the context of India. Our analysis shows that wall assemblies that use non-fired products as masonry units are ranked higher compared to fired masonry unit wall assemblies. Clay fired masonry wall assemblies exhibit poorer environmental performance compared to non-fired masonry wall assemblies. When a more efficient form of construction such as the Rat-trap bond wall construction is considered, the environmental performance of clay fired brick walls is significantly improved. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This work presents an analysis of the different modes of the Turkish transportation sector along the guidelines of the Extended Exergy Accounting (EEA) method. The results refer to year 2006 because that was the most complete and sufficiently disaggregated database available. The evaluation of the transportation sector leads to the calculation of its extended exergetic efficiency (EEAeff) and requires the inclusion of all commercial and private transportation services (passengers and goods) as well as of all services directly related to transportation (post, cargo, pipeline transport, etc.). The environmental remediation costs (EEEnv) of sectoral solid waste and gas emissions (direct and indirect) are obtained in accordance with the original calculation procedure, without recurring to the conversion of monetary into exergetic costs. The resulting EEAeff of the sector is 0.36, which is rather low (in the EE sense), because of the sector’s largely unsustainable structure: fossil-fuelled road transportation widely prevails, which not only destroys a very high percentage of the incoming exergy, but is also affected by quite large CO2-equivalent emissions that demand for a high EEEnv. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The resource consumption of the Chinese society is investigated by ecological footprint (EF) as an aggregate indicator. Based on the theory of ecological thermodynamics, a modified calculation of ecological footprint termed as exergetic ecological footprint (EEF) in contrast to the conventional one is performed and related overall trends of the Chinese society are analyzed. The annual policy for the individual sector is described in detail corresponding to the variations of the EF and EEF components. Comparison of the conventional EF and the EEF is outlined. The EF intensity and EEF intensity are also presented to depict the resource consumption level corresponding to unit economic output. Finally, EEF is suggested to serve as a supplemented indicator of EF towards illustrating the productions of the resource, environment, population, and thereby reflecting the ecological overshoot of the general ecological system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In our continued effort in reducing resource consumption, greener technologies such as rainwater harvesting could be very useful in diminishing our dependence on desalinated or treated water and the associated energy requirements. This paper applies exergy analysis and exergetic efficiency to evaluate the performance of eight different scenarios of urban rainwater harvesting systems in the Mediterranean-climate Metropolitan Area of Barcelona where water is a scarce resource. A life cycle approach is taken, where the production, use, and end-of-life stages of these rainwater harvesting systems are quantified in terms of energy and material requirements in order to produce 1m3 of rainwater per year for laundry purposes. The results show that the highest exergy input is associated with the energy uses, namely the transport of the materials to construct the rainwater harvesting systems. The scenario with the highest exergetic efficiency considers a 24 household building with a 21m3 rainwater storage tank installed below roof. Exergy requirements could be minimized by material substitution, minimizing weight or distance traveled. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: This study aimed to describe health care provision, resource consumption and related costs, as well as treatment patterns and quality of life in adult patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in Germany. Data for this retrospective and prospective cost-of-illness-study were derived from hospitals, general practitioners and patients. Costs were evaluated from the perspective of third party payer and patient. Quality of life data were collected by using three validated instruments. A total of 167 patients were enrolled at 10 hospitals. Time period from first occurrence of symptoms to confirmed diagnosis of PAH was 2.3 years on average. Mean number of GP visits was 1.5 per patient per month, and within 15 months, inpatient stays were reported for 50% of patients. The ratio of combination therapy to single-drug therapy for endothelin receptor antagonists, phosphodiesterase-5-inhibitor and prostacyclin analogues increased significantly during 15 months. Treatment costs were, on average, €47,400 per patient per year, arising mainly from drugs. Compared to the general population, quality of life of PAH patients was considerably impaired. This is the first study which evaluated aspects of the medical and economic consequences of PAH based on a large cohort of PAH patients in Germany. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]