Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

Industrialization and urbanization have resulted in ecosystems being contaminated with persistent toxic elements and chemical dyes, posing significant threats to both environmental health and human well-being. To tackle this issue, bioremediation has emerged as a promising method. However, conventional bioremediation techniques have their limitations in terms of efficiency and practicality. Nanotechnology, particularly the development of BioNPs, has opened up new possibilities for addressing these challenges. Various biological entities such as bacteria, fungi, yeast, and algae have been explored for synthesizing metal NPs through intracellular or extracellular processes. These NPs find applications in healthcare, agriculture, and environmental management. Nano-bioremediation offers a potential solution to the current limitations of bioremediation. BioNPs exhibit unique properties and interactions with PTE&Cs, making them a promising option for environmental applications. In this chapter, we dig into the application of BioNPs for targeting PTE&Cs in bioremediation to ensure sustainability. We explore the types of NPs utilized and their mechanisms of action. Additionally, we address the advantages, challenges, and drawbacks associated with this approach while also discussing future prospects and research directions. By presenting cutting-edge research insights so far, we enlighten to the advancement of eco-friendly solutions for remediating persistent toxic elements and chemical dye contaminated environments, paving the way for a healthier and more sustainable future.

Cracks in sinter component production are a significant concern in the field of powder metallurgy, and predicting and avoiding them is crucial for ensuring the quality and reliability of the final products. This study aims to contribute to this effort by investigating the variability of cracks under constant press settings by studying the performance of the compaction process. To this end, we intentionally induced cracks at different levels and studied the respective process performance. Our results show that with the same settings of the powder compaction press, 99% of the produced cracks could be found within a range of ±25% of the overall mean of the crack lengths. The lower and upper limits of crack lengths found and the approach presented for their determination can be used in future for the classification of good and bad parts on the basis of the availability of only a few crack measurements and permissible values of crack lengths that have yet to be defined.

This study explores eco-friendly alternatives to flexible plastic substrates aiming to mitigate the environmental impact of electronics. Thin-film temperature sensors were fabricated on CRUSH FSCTN-certified paper substrates made with coconut, coffee, cacao, and cherry fiber waste, substituting 15% of traditional tree cellulose. The sensors were created by sputtering a semiconducting thin-film layer of InGaZnO and zinc electrodes onto the paper substrates. The devices’ responses to relative humidity changes from 2.9 to 73% were recorded, alongside their sensing performance for temperatures 25 \, ^\circC and 70 \, ^\circC. The results indicate that the sensors perform optimally when subjected to sudden and significant temperature changes and portray sensitivities values of $-$1.83\%~ \, ^\circ \textrm{C}^{\text{-}} $^1$ (heating) and $-$1.38$\%$ \, ^\circ $\hbox {C}^{\text{-}}$ $^1$ (cooling). Additionally, the dissolution of the transient sensors in water was examined to assess their sustainability.

933 Russian-Roulette-Klauseln finden in der internationalen Vertragspraxis zunehmend Aufmerksamkeit. Zu ihrer rechtlichen Beurteilung liegen inzwischen verschiedene Gerichtsentscheidungen aus dem In- und Ausland vor. Ein spektakuläres Grundsatzurteil des italienischen Kassationshofs wertet das internationale Fallmaterial umfassend aus. Der vorliegende Beitrag würdigt dieses Urteil und ordnet es in einen größeren Gesamtzusammenhang ein. Hierbei setzt er sich auch mit dem bisher unterbelichteten Phänomen der Rechtsvergleichung vor Gericht im Gesellschaftsrecht auseinander.

Knowledge about the local relative density and porosity over a randomly packed particle system is important as it provides valuable insights into the system’s behaviour, as several numerical simulations rely on this information. In this study, different methods of estimating the local density of particle systems are compared and contrasted. These methods depend on particle-based data and can be applied to a wide variety of particle systems, including granular materials and powders. The first method divides the volume of interest along an axis; the second along two and three axes; the third is based on the probability density function of kernel densities (KDE); the fourth uses the Caley–Menger method; the fifth uses the method presented by Strobel; and the sixth performs a Delaunay triangulation of the volume, where two different implementations are investigated. In this study, discrete element method (DEM) simulations are performed to produce the dataset used for comparison. Randomly packed particles with varying radii within a predefined region of interest (ROI) are considered for simulations. The aforementioned methods are then employed to estimate the local relative density at any point in the ROI. The results indicate that the method based on the Voronoi tessellation provides the most accurate local density estimation.

Various types of semantic artifacts play a vital role in developing software systems, for example, information systems for materials scientists that adhere to the findability, accessibility, interoperability, reusability principles for digital assets. Among them, integrity constraints (ICs) are essential artifacts as they orthogonally add to the representation capabilities of ontologies a means to enforce consistency and completeness of given data. An IC language recommended by the worldwide web consortium (W3C) for use with linked open data is Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL). This article discusses the algorithm and evaluation results for a new SHACL validator developed in the context of SmaDi, a project for digitalizing smart materials associated with MaterialDigital. The new validator reduces SHACL constraints to SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL) queries, that is, queries in the W3C recommended query language over repositories represented in the standard syntax for linked open data, RDF. Hence, in contrast to off‐the‐shelf validators, it can be used with any SPARQL endpoint, even if there is only a (virtual) view of the RDF data. The article demonstrates the use of SHACL ICs for modeling some simple constraints over smart materials. The evaluation shows that our SHACL validator has processing times comparable to off‐the‐shelf SHACL validators.

Between around 1480 until the end of the sixteenth century, the city of Lyon became one of the most important printing hubs in Europe, second in France only to Paris. Developed along the banks of the two rivers Saône and Rhône, placed in a unique strategic position bordering Italy, Switzerland, and the south of Germany, the Renaissance city was a crossover of people, goods, and ideas. In Lyon was published the first illustrated book in France, Le Mirouer de la Rédemption de l’Humaine Lignage (Huss, 1478). Funded by the Equipex Biblissima (CNRS), the project Le Livre Illustré à Lyon (1480-1600) collected a substantial number of illustrated editions printed in the city in the sixteenth century, indexing these illustrations iconographically. The corpus includes more than 3300 indexed images currently hosted in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database. These images also served as material to initiate a digital project in collaboration with the Visual Geometry Group in Oxford and the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities in Venice. In between Digital Iconography, Digital Art History and the History of Collections, the book offers insight into the new methodologies of the Digital Humanities to index, search, and share early modern printed images.

Between around 1480 until the end of the sixteenth century, the city of Lyon became one of the most important printing hubs in Europe, second in France only to Paris. Developed along the banks of the two rivers Saône and Rhône, placed in a unique strategic position bordering Italy, Switzerland, and the south of Germany, the Renaissance city was a crossover of people, goods, and ideas. In Lyon was published the first illustrated book in France, Le Mirouer de la Rédemption de l’Humaine Lignage (Huss, 1478). Funded by the Equipex Biblissima (CNRS), the project Le Livre Illustré à Lyon (1480-1600) collected a substantial number of illustrated editions printed in the city in the sixteenth century, indexing these illustrations iconographically. The corpus includes more than 3300 indexed images currently hosted in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database. These images also served as material to initiate a digital project in collaboration with the Visual Geometry Group in Oxford and the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities in Venice. In between Digital Iconography, Digital Art History and the History of Collections, the book offers insight into the new methodologies of the Digital Humanities to index, search, and share early modern printed images.

Between around 1480 until the end of the sixteenth century, the city of Lyon became one of the most important printing hubs in Europe, second in France only to Paris. Developed along the banks of the two rivers Saône and Rhône, placed in a unique strategic position bordering Italy, Switzerland, and the south of Germany, the Renaissance city was a crossover of people, goods, and ideas. In Lyon was published the first illustrated book in France, Le Mirouer de la Rédemption de l’Humaine Lignage (Huss, 1478). Funded by the Equipex Biblissima (CNRS), the project Le Livre Illustré à Lyon (1480-1600) collected a substantial number of illustrated editions printed in the city in the sixteenth century, indexing these illustrations iconographically. The corpus includes more than 3300 indexed images currently hosted in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database. These images also served as material to initiate a digital project in collaboration with the Visual Geometry Group in Oxford and the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities in Venice. In between Digital Iconography, Digital Art History and the History of Collections, the book offers insight into the new methodologies of the Digital Humanities to index, search, and share early modern printed images.

Between around 1480 until the end of the sixteenth century, the city of Lyon became one of the most important printing hubs in Europe, second in France only to Paris. Developed along the banks of the two rivers Saône and Rhône, placed in a unique strategic position bordering Italy, Switzerland, and the south of Germany, the Renaissance city was a crossover of people, goods, and ideas. In Lyon was published the first illustrated book in France, Le Mirouer de la Rédemption de l’Humaine Lignage (Huss, 1478). Funded by the Equipex Biblissima (CNRS), the project Le Livre Illustré à Lyon (1480-1600) collected a substantial number of illustrated editions printed in the city in the sixteenth century, indexing these illustrations iconographically. The corpus includes more than 3300 indexed images currently hosted in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database. These images also served as material to initiate a digital project in collaboration with the Visual Geometry Group in Oxford and the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities in Venice. In between Digital Iconography, Digital Art History and the History of Collections, the book offers insight into the new methodologies of the Digital Humanities to index, search, and share early modern printed images.

Between around 1480 until the end of the sixteenth century, the city of Lyon became one of the most important printing hubs in Europe, second in France only to Paris. Developed along the banks of the two rivers Saône and Rhône, placed in a unique strategic position bordering Italy, Switzerland, and the south of Germany, the Renaissance city was a crossover of people, goods, and ideas. In Lyon was published the first illustrated book in France, Le Mirouer de la Rédemption de l’Humaine Lignage (Huss, 1478). Funded by the Equipex Biblissima (CNRS), the project Le Livre Illustré à Lyon (1480-1600) collected a substantial number of illustrated editions printed in the city in the sixteenth century, indexing these illustrations iconographically. The corpus includes more than 3300 indexed images currently hosted in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database. These images also served as material to initiate a digital project in collaboration with the Visual Geometry Group in Oxford and the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities in Venice. In between Digital Iconography, Digital Art History and the History of Collections, the book offers insight into the new methodologies of the Digital Humanities to index, search, and share early modern printed images.

With the rollback of insecticides, novel tools for pest control are urgently needed. Aphids are particularly a major concern with few sustainable control alternatives. Ecological intensification has been promoted as a way of “inviting" back nature’s self-regulating abilities into agricultural production systems. Although such measures enhance the presence of natural enemies in agroecosystems, we demonstrate that in an ecologically intensified apple orchard, biocontrol of rosy apple aphid was minimal. We verified why the biodiverse settings did not result in enhanced ecosystem services, i.e., biological control of the rosy apple aphid. Close monitoring of food–web interactions in thousands of aphid colonies showed that tending ants dominated responses, while those of natural enemies were weak or absent. However, application of artificial aphid honeydew diverted ants from tending aphids and flipped the myrmecophily-dominated state into favoring numerical responses of a guild of natural enemies. Responses were swift and controlled both Aphis pomi and Dysaphis plantaginea, provided intervention was synced with aphid and predator phenology. Although myrmecophily in aphids is well-known on its own accord, it has been completely overlooked in ecological intensification. To unlock the aphid-biocontrol potential provided through ecological intensification, myrmecophily needs to be disrupted. Although particularly true for perennial systems, generally practices that reduce soil disturbance favor ants and may amplify aphid pests, thereby reducing biocontrol impacts in ecological intensification efforts. Harnessing ecosystem services requires careful analysis and good understanding of agroecosystem intricacies.

Ein Mindestziel von Schulsport ist der Erwerb von motorischen Basiskompetenzen, um Schulkindern die Teilhabe an der Sport- und Bewegungskultur zu ermöglichen (Herrmann et al., 2016). Im Sinne einer Didaktik zum Anfassen werden in diesem Beitrag die Förderkonzepte von zwei schulischen Interventionsstudien vorgestellt, die auf den Erwerb von motorischen Basiskompetenzen abzielen.

Lehrpersonen sollten über alle Schulstufen hinweg eine solide diagnostische Kompetenz hinsichtlich der motorischen Basiskompetenzen von Kindern aufweisen. Der Beitrag beschreibt drei Studien, in denen sich zeigt, dass Lehrpersonen Schwierigkeiten haben, die motorischen Leistungen der Kinder akkurat einzuschätzen. Dies legt nahe, dass Lehrpersonen aller Schulstufen ihr diagnostisches Urteil selbstkritisch hinterfragen sollten. Weitere Forschungsbemühungen sind notwendig, um die Allgemeingültigkeit der Befunde sowie deren Relevanz für die Unterrichtsgestaltung zu erhöhen.

We address the issue of testing for threshold nonlinearity in the conditional mean in the presence of conditional heteroskedasticity. We propose a supremum Lagrange multiplier approach to test a linear ARMA‐GARCH model versus a TARMA‐GARCH model. We derive the asymptotic null distribution of the test statistic, and this requires novel results due to nuisance parameters, absent under the null hypothesis, combined with the nonlinear moving average and GARCH‐type innovations. We show that tests that do not account for heteroskedasticity fail to achieve the correct size even for large sample sizes. Moreover, the TARMA specification naturally accounts for the ubiquitous presence of measurement error that affects macroeconomic data. We apply the results to analyse the time series of Italian strikes, and we show that the TARMA‐GARCH specification is consistent with the relevant macroeconomic theory while capturing the main features of the Italian strikes dynamics, such as asymmetric cycles and regime‐switching.

This study examines the mediating role of firm reputation in the relationship between corporate digital responsibility (CDR) and financial performance in an emerging market, Ethiopia. An online cross‐sectional survey was used to collect data from 126 agricultural, manufacturing, and service firms. The study used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS‐SEM) to analyze the hypothesized relationship. Our findings reveal that the impact of CDR on financial performance is indirect only as firm reputation plays a full , complementary mediation role in the CDR—financial performance nexus. This implies that firms could leverage CDR as a competitive “inducing” strategy to enhance their firm reputation, which, in turn, can boost their financial prospects. Our study significantly contributes to the business ethics and digital economy literature by offering a pioneering empirical validation of the CDR phenomenon in an emerging context, thus extending the signaling and stakeholder theories to digitalization and reputation management domains. The findings offer managers fresh insight into the potential impact of a CDR strategy on firm reputation and financial performance, showing that firms can leverage CDR as a loss prevention strategy to gain a competitive advantage. Policymakers are therefore urged to promote soft‐law regimes and policies on CDR to motivate companies to leverage it as a competitive tool.