Biomedical subjects

Federico Maria Pulselli

Publications and source records attributed to Federico Maria Pulselli.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2002

Thermodynamic indicators for environmental certification.

The Earth is an open thermodynamic system, that remains in a steady state far from the equilibrium, through energy and matter exchanges with the surrounding environment. These natural constraints, which prevent the system from maximizing its entropy, are threatened by human action and our ecosystem needs urgent protection. In this viewpoint the environmental certification was born, according to international standards ISO 14001, ISO 14040, and European Regulation EMAS. These are voluntary adhesions to a program of environmental protection by companies, administrations and organizations which, starting from the respect of the existing environmental laws and regulations, decide to further improve their environmental performance. To obtain and maintain certification of a system is necessary to apply some indicators to evaluate its environmental performance and to demonstrate its progressive improvement. Here we propose to use for this purpose the thermodynamic indicators produced from energy analysis by Odum. The case study is Montalcino city (Italy) and energy indicators are used to evaluate environmental performance of this system where exist different activities, from agricultural productions, to tourism. Results show that energy analysis could become a valid standard monitoring method for environmental certification, especially in consideration of its wide application field.

Conservation of Natural Resources↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Origin of arsenic pollution in Southwest Tuscany: comparison of fluvial sediments.

The Colline Metallifere in SW Tuscany are characterized by strong anomalies in arsenic concentrations and distribution. The area is sparsely populated and largely wild, though it has been subject to human impact due to mining and metal processing since Etruscan and Roman times. In the Middle Ages it was exploited intensively for silver and copper. Until 1995, pyrite (FeS2) was mined and roasted to produce sulphuric acid and iron. Hypotheses based on geological and mineralogical factors formulated in the last 20 years have failed to explain the peculiar distribution of arsenic in the Colline Metallifere. Here we report preliminary results of widespread sampling and analysis of the fluvial sediments of rivers originating in this mining area. The data was analysed in relation to the archaeological features of the area, since the presence of ancient mining and ore processing sites can shed light on the peculiar distribution of arsenic. Comparison of data from two rivers and their respective contaminated and uncontaminated coastal lagoons also clarified the general mechanisms of arsenic mobility, pinpointing the source of arsenic contamination. The study methods also promise to be useful for discovering unknown archaeological sites.

Archaeology↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Non equilibrium thermodynamics and the city: a new approach to urban studies.

A city can be conceived as a complex self-adaptive system. The multiple interactions among its structural elements and dynamic agents, its organization on multiple time-space scales, its exchanges with the external context, its irreversible dynamics, are signs of complexity. Some concepts from the evolutionary thermodynamics, such us the theory of dissipative structures, could be extended to the city in order to investigate its behaviour. This theoretical framework suggests to analyze the city in terms of entropy and negentropy production. An emergy analysis (spelled with an "m") of an urban region is presented in order to investigate how cities maintain their organization (and decrease their entropy) by virtue of constant energy inflows from the external environment. As a result, a non-homogeneous spatial pattern of emergy density is shown as an attempt to investigate the multiple relations and energy exchanges that take place in an urban region. This approach to urban studies introduces a new energy-based vision to understand cities.

Cities↗