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- Stafoggia, Massimo
(författare)
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Health effects of air pollution : innovative approaches for spatio-temporal evaluations
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Air pollution is one of the major risk factors to human health, causing both short- and long-term effects and the global burden on mortality is estimated in more than 4 million deaths every year. Most of the evidence on the short-term effects is based on studies conducted in major cities, because data or estimates of air pollutants exposures in non-urban settings have been historically lacking. This is a limitation, because a large fraction of the population lives outside the cities, where the vulnerability profile is different from that of urban populations. In the last decade, several attempts were made to estimate daily concentrations of particulate matter (PM) with high spatial resolution over large geographical domains. However, applications in Italy and Sweden, and on other pollutants as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3), are almost lacking, leaving a gap in the knowledge of their health effects outside cities. This thesis has been designed to fill this gap, by providing daily estimates of multiple air pollutants at the national level, and exploring the spatial heterogeneity in their health effects. Italy represented a testing ground for the development of innovative mixed-effects regression models which combined PM measurements with satellite data, land-use parameters and meteorological fields, and produced daily estimates of PM10 (PM with diameter smaller than 10 m) for each squared kilometer of the country, and each day in 2006-2012 (Study I). More recently, machine learning methodologies have been tested in the U.S., therefore, we have updated estimates of PM10 till 2015 and produced new estimates of PM2.5 (PM < 2.5 m), using a random forest (RF) algorithm (Study II). We replicated the same approach in Sweden, to which we added models for NO2 and O3, and a few spatiotemporal predictors aimed at capturing sources of air pollutants’ variations missed in the previous studies (Study III). We collected national data on hospital discharges for all Italian public and private hospitals during 2013-2015. We created municipality-specific time-series of daily counts of acute admissions for multiple cardiovascular (CVD) endpoints, which we related to daily mean PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations. We found evidence of adverse effects of PM on total CVD admissions and on specific outcomes such as heart failure and atrial fibrillation. Also, we estimated highest effects at the lowest PM concentrations, also in non-urban municipalities (Study IV). Similarly, we collected daily mortality counts at small area level in the Stockholm county, that we analyzed in relation to daily mean exposure to PM10, PM2.5, NO2 and O3. We found evidence of an association between daily O3 and non-accidental mortality in the year-round analysis, and significant associations with PM and O3 in the warm (April-September) period only. Effects were slightly higher in more densely inhabited areas, but we found associations also in non- urban areas outside the Stockholm city (Study V). In conclusion, we developed novel spatiotemporal models to estimate air pollutant concentrations at fine spatial and temporal resolution in Italy and Sweden. These allowed us to document adverse short-term effects on mortality and morbidity at very low concentrations and in areas (and among populations) previously neglected by epidemiological investigations.
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- Ottosson, Mikael, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Biogas in the Nordic forest industry : current state and future business potential
- 2016
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Ingår i: Industrial Efficiency 2016 - Going beyond energy efficiency to deliver savings, competitiveness and a circular economy. - : European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ECEEE). - 9789198048285 - 9789198048292 ; , s. 1-15
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The forest industry is of great importance to the Nordic countries in terms of exports and employment. Today the industry faces tough challenges related to future higher energy prices, increased competition for wood raw material, and a declining demand for traditional paper products. However, there are also possibilities related to the transition to a bio-based economy. This paper focuses on one such avenue, the business potential in using wastewater from pulp and paper mills as a basis for biogas production. The paper identifies biogas plants at Nordic mills currently operating or under construction and, positions the mills according to their decisions on how to engage in activities related to biogas production and use. Requirements for and consequences and of the different positions are discussed in terms of resources and capabilities, governance, and strategy focus.The paper shows that cost reduction is an important driver for biogas production in the pulp and paper industry, but public financial support is needed to justify the investments. Since forest firms do not view biogas production as a core business activity, external actors that can offer turnkey solutions or runt the operations may be needed to facilitate biogas production in the forest industry. While internal use of gas is an option for some mills, it is evident that external demand for biogas, i.e. as vehicle fuel, differ in the three different Nordic countries. In Norway, whose forest industry is the least significant of the three countries, the situation for external use seem to be the most promising, emphasizing the role of public policy interventions in the transport sector for the development of biogas in the forest industry.
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- Schröder, Stephan, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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A low-cost nitric oxide gas sensor based on bonded gold wires
- 2017
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Ingår i: TRANSDUCERS 2017 - 19th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems. - : Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). - 9781538627310 ; , s. 1457-1460
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we report of a novel and very simple fabrication method for realizing amperometric gas sensors using conventional wire bonding technology. Working and counter electrodes are made of 360 vertically standing bond wires, entirely manufactured by a fully automated, standard wire bonding tool. Our process enables standing bond wires with a length of 1.24 mm, resulting in an extremely high aspect-ratio of 50, thus effectively increasing the surface area of the working electrode. All gas sensor electrodes are embedded in a polymer-based, solid electrolyte. Therefore, laborious handling of liquid electrolytes can be avoided. Here, we report of a nitric oxide (NO) gas sensor that is capable of detecting NO gas concentrations down to the single-digit ppm range. The proposed approach demonstrates the feasibility towards a scalable and entire back-end fabrication concept for low-cost NO gas sensors.
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