scholarly journals Sulfur Isotope Analysis to Examine the Provenance of Cinnabar Used in Wall Paintings in the Roman domus Avinyó (Barcelona)

Minerals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Evanthia Tsantini ◽  
Takeshi Minami ◽  
Miguel Ángel Cau Ontiveros ◽  
Kazuya Takahashi ◽  
Joan Carles Melgarejo

Wall paintings in the Roman period were used to decorate both public and private spaces; therefore, they reflect, on the one hand, ideas and convictions, and on the other, daily activities and socio-economic models. Characterizations of the pigments used in mural paintings are useful for determining the economic status of a specific settlement or the importance of a particular area or the buildings within it, since the cost of different pigments varied widely. Isotope analysis can be used to identify the provenance of pigments and to establish whether the raw materials are local, regional, or imported. This provides very important information, as it might be related to both the quality and the cost of the pigments, which, in turn, might be indicators of the socio-economic status of the area in question. The present study examines the sulfur isotope ratios of the cinnabar used in Roman wall paintings sampled from the high-status Roman Domus of Casa d’Avinyó and compares them with the ratios of the analyzed geological ores sampled at various Spanish cinnabar/mercury mines. The results exclude the possibility of the cinnabar being imported from outside the Iberian Peninsula. An isotopic analysis also suggested a few possible sources for the pigments.

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (S2) ◽  
pp. 1172-1173
Author(s):  
S. P. Newberry

The use of microscopes in education has proved be a powerful tool in grades K through 12 for catching the student's interest in the sciences, the humanities and the arts. While the equipment and the approach varies with the grade level, the questions of availability, teacher training and cost are each important to obtaining full and successful use of microscopes in the classroom. The one item which is beyond the control of the school is the high cost of appropriate quality microscopes. A projection system capable of showing bacteria should be available to the teacher at all times and a number of microscopes which the students can use themselves should also be present Because of the cost, many schools, both public and private, have only one microscope room or share one set of microscopes for the entire school. The result is a study of the tool rather than using the tool to better appreciate history, ecology, high technology, medicine, and so forth.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-18
Author(s):  
V Manivasagan ◽  
K Susmitha ◽  
S Prabavathi ◽  
K Saranya ◽  
N G Ramesh Babu

The present study aims to evaluate the potential of agro wastes such as apple pomace, Grasses, sugarcane bagasse as potential sources of bioethanol production. Bioethanol is the one of the recent increasing biofuels due to its positive impact on the environment and especially towards second generation of biofuels i.e. from non-food biomass. It’s produced from high sugar and starch containing raw materials and lignocellulosic biomass. Lignocellulose may be a complex mixture of carbohydrate that needs an efficient pretreatment for the assembly of fermentable sugar, after hydrolysis are fermented into ethanol. Pretreatment of lignocellulose has received considerable research globally thanks to economic and environmental sustainability of ethanol production. Microbes like Zymomonas mobilis, and Phanerochaete provide sufficient fermentation yield and can be utilized for fermenting lignocellulosic substrate. These microbes are isolated from the feedstock samples in the present study. A suitable media was also designed for the growth of the isolated microorganisms. The antioxidant tests were analyzed on the potential samples using UV-VIS spectrophotometer. Lowering the cost of bioethanol production is one of the biggest challenges currently and can be greatly reduced by utilizing renewable feedstocks. Thus, making bioethanol is more economically competitive compared to fossil fuel.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHERZOD SHADIKHODJAEV

AbstractIn anti-dumping procedures, the EU authorities have adjusted State-distorted input costs in the constructed normal value to market benchmarks. This methodology increases the amount of anti-dumping duties and hence import barriers to foreign goods produced with low-priced raw materials. Such cost adjustments are based on certain EU anti-dumping provisions that implement corresponding World Trade Organization (WTO) rules under which the cost of input must be derived, as a principle, from the records of target companies in the exporting country if those records, inter alia, reasonably reflect production costs of the product under investigation. But in the case of input costs distorted by the government, the EU authorities have typically deviated from this principle relying on alternative sources on the grounds of unreasonable costs. While the EU jurisprudence has so far been generally lenient towards this methodology as applied to significant distortions in the raw material (upstream) market, the recent WTO appellate ruling in EU–Biodiesel is rather negative on its use in the presence of the valid domestic records. This article examines the EU anti-dumping practice as reviewed in both EU and WTO judicial proceedings and discusses some legislative reforming options under both regimes. It concludes that the WTO anti-dumping rules should be amended to allow market-oriented cost adjustments in the normal value, on the one hand, and ensure parallel export price adjustments, on the other.


2019 ◽  
pp. 47-71
Author(s):  
Petr M. Mozias

China’s Belt and Road Initiative could be treated ambiguously. On the one hand, it is intended to transform the newly acquired economic potential of that country into its higher status in the world. China invites a lot of nations to build up gigantic transit corridors by joint efforts, and doing so it applies productively its capital and technologies. International transactions in RMB are also being expanded. But, on the other hand, the Belt and Road Initiative is also a necessity for China to cope with some evident problems of its current stage of development, such as industrial overcapacity, overdependence on imports of raw materials from a narrow circle of countries, and a subordinate status in global value chains. For Russia participation in the Belt and Road Initiative may be fruitful, since the very character of that project provides us with a space to manoeuvre. By now, Russian exports to China consist primarily of fuels and other commodities. More active industrial policy is needed to correct this situation . A flexible framework of the Belt and Road Initiative is more suitable for this objective to be achieved, rather than traditional forms of regional integration, such as a free trade zone.


Author(s):  
SAFITRI NURHIDAYATI ◽  
RIZKI AMELYA SYAM

This study aims to analyze whether the difference that occurs in the cost of raw materials, direct labor, and factory overhead costs between the standard costs and the actual costs in PLTU LATI is a difference that is favorable or unfavorable. Data collection techniques with field research and library research. The analytical tool used is the analysis of the difference in raw material costs, the difference in direct labor costs and the difference in factory overhead costs. The hypothesis in this study is that the difference allegedly occurs in the cost of raw materials, direct labor costs, and factory overhead costs at PT Indo Pusaka Berau Tanjung Redeb is a favorable difference. The results showed that the difference in the cost of producing MWh electricity at PT Indo Pusaka Berau Tanjung Redeb in 2018, namely the difference in the price of raw material costs Rp. 548,029.80, - is favorable, the difference in quantity of raw materials is Rp. 957,216,602, - is (favorable) , the difference in direct labor costs Rp 2,602,642,084, - is (unfavorable), and the difference in factory overhead costs Rp 8,807,051,422, - is (favorable) This shows that the difference in the overall production cost budget is favorable or profitable. This beneficial difference shows that the company is really able to reduce production costs optimally in 2018.  


Author(s):  
Paola Sangiorgio ◽  
Alessandra Verardi ◽  
Salvatore Dimatteo ◽  
Anna Spagnoletta ◽  
Stefania Moliterni ◽  
...  

AbstractThe increase in the world population leads to rising demand and consumption of plastic raw materials; only a small percentage of plastics is recovered and recycled, increasing the quantity of waste released into the environment and losing its economic value. The plastics represent a great opportunity in the circular perspective of their reuse and recycling. Research is moving, on the one hand, to implement sustainable systems for plastic waste management and on the other to find new non-fossil-based plastics such as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). In this review, we focus our attention on Tenebrio molitor (TM) as a valuable solution for plastic biodegradation and biological recovery of new biopolymers (e.g. PHA) from plastic-producing microorganisms, exploiting its highly diversified gut microbiota. TM’s use for plastic pollution management is controversial. However, TM microbiota is recognised as a source of plastic-degrading microorganisms. TM-based plastic degradation is improved by co-feeding with food loss and waste as a dietary energy source, thus valorising these low-value substrates in a circular economy perspective. TM as a bioreactor is a valid alternative to traditional PHA recovery systems with the advantage of obtaining, in addition to highly pure PHA, protein biomass and rearing waste from which to produce fertilisers, chitin/chitosan, biochar and biodiesel. Finally, we describe the critical aspects of these TM-based approaches, mainly related to TM mass production, eventual food safety problems, possible release of microplastics and lack of dedicated legislation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6052
Author(s):  
Paola Comodi ◽  
Azzurra Zucchini ◽  
Umberto Susta ◽  
Costanza Cambi ◽  
Riccardo Vivani ◽  
...  

A multi-methodic analysis was performed on five samples of fly ashes coming from different biomasses. The aim of the study was to evaluate their possible re-use and their dangerousness to people and the environment. Optical granulometric analyses indicated that the average diameter of the studied fly ashes was around 20 µm, whereas only ~1 vol% had diameters lower that 2.5 µm. The chemical composition, investigated with electron probe microanalysis, indicated that all the samples had a composition in which Ca was prevalent, followed by Si and Al. Large contents of K and P were observed in some samples, whereas the amount of potentially toxic elements was always below the Italian law thresholds. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were completely absent in all the samples coming from combustion plants, whereas they were present in the fly ashes from the gasification center. Quantitative mineralogical content, determined by Rietveld analysis of X-ray powder diffraction data, indicated that all the samples had high amorphous content, likely enriched in Ca, and several K and P minerals, such as sylvite and apatite. The results obtained from the chemo-mineralogical study performed make it possible to point out that biomass fly ashes could be interesting materials (1) for amendments in clayey soils, as a substitution for lime, to stimulate pozzolanic reactions and improve their geotechnical properties, thus, on the one hand, avoiding the need to mine raw materials and, on the other hand, re-cycling waste; and (2) as agricultural fertilizers made by a new and ecological source of K and P.


Polar Record ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frigga Kruse ◽  
Gary R. Nobles ◽  
Martha de Jong ◽  
Rosanne M. K. van Bodegom ◽  
G. J. M. (Gert) van Oortmerssen ◽  
...  

Abstract Arctic mining has a bad reputation because the extractive industry is often responsible for a suite of environmental problems. Yet, few studies explore the gap between untouched tundra and messy megaproject from a historical perspective. Our paper focuses on Advent City as a case study of the emergence of coal mining in Svalbard (Norway) coupled with the onset of mining-related environmental change. After short but intensive human activity (1904–1908), the ecosystem had a century to respond, and we observe a lasting impact on the flora in particular. With interdisciplinary contributions from historical archaeology, archaeozoology, archaeobotany and botany, supplemented by stable isotope analysis, we examine 1) which human activities initially asserted pressure on the Arctic environment, 2) whether the miners at Advent City were “eco-conscious,” for example whether they showed concern for the environment and 3) how the local ecosystem reacted after mine closure and site abandonment. Among the remains of typical mining infrastructure, we prioritised localities that revealed the subtleties of long-term anthropogenic impact. Significant pressure resulted from landscape modifications, the import of non-native animals and plants, hunting and fowling, and the indiscriminate disposal of waste material. Where it was possible to identify individual inhabitants, these shared an economic attitude of waste not, want not, but they did not hold the environment in high regard. Ground clearances, animal dung and waste dumps continue to have an effect after a hundred years. The anthropogenic interference with the fell field led to habitat creation, especially for vascular plants. The vegetation cover and biodiversity were high, but we recorded no exotic or threatened plant species. Impacted localities generally showed a reduction of the natural patchiness of plant communities, and highly eutrophic conditions were unsuitable for liverworts and lichens. Supplementary isotopic analysis of animal bones added data to the marine reservoir offset in Svalbard underlining the far-reaching potential of our multi-proxy approach. We conclude that although damaging human–environment interactions formerly took place at Advent City, these were limited and primarily left the visual impact of the ruins. The fell field is such a dynamic area that the subtle anthropogenic effects on the local tundra may soon be lost. The fauna and flora may not recover to what they were before the miners arrived, but they will continue to respond to new post-industrial circumstances.


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