Assessing the emissions of short sea international shipping: a case study of the Mytilini-Ayvalik route.

Short sea shipping involves transporting passengers and cargo between European ports and coastal countries bordering Europe on enclosed seas. Challenges include aging fleets and environmental concerns, but efforts to reduce emissions are in progress through the use of low-sulfur fuels, hybrid and electric vessels, and improved energy efficiency. This study focuses on emissions from international short shipping routes between Mytilini and Ayvalik, using standardized emission factors to calculate CO2, SO2, NOx, PM, and HC emissions. The research aims to bridge knowledge gaps and provide insights into these emissions, identifying the main commercial ships on the route, analyzing their emissions, and discussing the findings. Overall, six ships completed the route, consuming an average of 60 L of fuel per hour per 100 HP, depending on factors like speed and total load. Notably, NOx emissions are the highest, followed by sulfur oxides, with values exceeding 12.9 and 3.5 tons, respectively. As anticipated, cruising is the shipping practice with the highest energy footprint, amounting to 695 MWh. An essential discovery is that hoteling plays a significant role in energy consumption and emissions, accounting for 152 MWh out of the total 881 MWh consumed across all shipping practices. The potential adoption of hydrogen as a fuel holds the promise of substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, enhancements in air quality, and noise pollution mitigation.

Shipping routes through core habitat of endangered sperm whales along the Hellenic Trench, Greece: Can we reduce collision risks?

The Mediterranean sperm whale population is listed as 'Endangered". The Hellenic Trench is the core habitat of the eastern Mediterranean sperm whale sub-population that numbers two to three hundred individuals. Major shipping routes running on or very close to the 1000 m depth contour along the Hellenic Trench are causing an unsustainable number of ship-strikes with sperm whales reviewed in this paper. Sperm whale sighting and density data were combined with specific information on the vessel traffic in the area (e.g., types of vessels, traffic patterns, speed and traffic density), in order to estimate the risk of a whale/ship interaction. Routing options to significantly reduce ship strike risk by a small offshore shift in shipping routes were identified. The overall collision risk for sperm whales in the study area would be reduced by around 70%, while a maximum of 11 nautical miles would be added to major routes and only around 5 nautical miles for the majority of ships. No negative impacts were associated with re-routing by shipping away from sperm whale habitat and there would be additional shipping safety and environmental benefits. A significant contribution to the overall conservation status of the marine Natura2000 sites in the area and very important population units of threatened species such as Cuvier's beaked whales, monk seals and loggerhead turtles would be achieved, by the reduction of shipping noise and reduced risk of any oil spills reaching the coasts, which are also important touristic destinations in Greece.

Screening agrochemicals as potential protectants of plants against ozone phytotoxicity.

We tested seven contemporary agrochemicals as potential plant protectants against ozone phytotoxicity. In nine experiments, Bel-W3 tobacco plants were experienced weekly exposures to a) 80 nmol mol(-1) of ozone-enriched or ozone-free air in controlled environment chambers, b) an urban air polluted area, and c) an agricultural-remote area. Ozone caused severe leaf injury, reduced chlorophylls' and total carotenoids' content, and negatively affected photosynthesis and stomatal conductance. Penconazole, (35% ± 8) hexaconazole (28% ± 5) and kresoxim-methyl (28% ± 15) showed higher plants' protection (expressed as percentage; mean ± s.e.) against ozone, although the latter exhibited a high variability. Azoxystrobin (21% ± 15) showed lower protection efficacy and Benomyl (15% ± 9) even lower. Trifloxystrobin (7% ± 11) did not protect the plants at all. Acibenzolar-S-methyl + metalaxyl-M (Bion MX) (-6% ± 17) exhibited the higher variability and contrasting results: in some experiments it showed some protection while in others it intensified the ozone injury by causing phytotoxic symptoms on leaves, even in control plants.

Long-term verifiability of the electronic healthcare records' authenticity.

PURPOSE: To investigate whether the long-term preservation of the authenticity of electronic healthcare records (EHR) is possible. To propose a mechanism that enables the secure validation of an EHR for long periods, far beyond the lifespan of a digital signature and at least as long as the lifetime of a patient. APPROACH: The study is based on the fact that although the attributes of data authenticity, i.e. integrity and origin verifiability, can be preserved by digital signatures, the necessary period for the retention of EHRs is far beyond the lifespan of a simple digital signature. It is identified that the lifespan of signed data is restricted by the validity period of the relevant keys and the digital certificates, by the future unavailability of signature-verification data, and by suppression of trust relationships. In this paper, the notarization paradigm is exploited, and a mechanism for cumulative notarization of signed EHR is proposed. RESULTS: The proposed mechanism implements a successive trust transition towards new entities, modern technologies, and refreshed data, eliminating any dependency of the relying party on ceased entities, obsolete data, or weak old technologies. The mechanism also exhibits strength against various threat scenarios. CONCLUSIONS: A future relying party will have to trust only the fresh technology and information provided by the last notary, in order to verify the authenticity of an old signed EHR. A Cumulatively Notarized Signature is strong even in the case of the compromise of a notary in the chain.

Technical guidelines for enhancing privacy and data protection in modern electronic medical environments.

Raising awareness and providing guidance to on-line data protection is undoubtedly a crucial issue worldwide. Equally important is the issue of applying privacy-related legislation in a coherent and coordinated way. Both these topics gain extra attention when referring to medical environments and, thus, to the protection of patients' privacy and medical data. Electronic medical transactions require the transmission of personal and medical information over insecure communication channels like the Internet. It is, therefore, a rather straightforward task to capture the electronic medical behavior of a patient, thus constructing "patient profiles," or reveal sensitive information related to a patient's medical history. The consequence is clearly a potential violation of the patient's privacy. We performed a risk analysis study for a Greek shared care environment for the treatment of patients suffering from beta-thalassemia, an empirically embedded scenario that is representative of many other electronic medical environments; we capitalized on its results to provide an assessment of the associated risks, focusing on the description of countermeasures, in the form of technical guidelines that can be employed in such medical environments for protecting the privacy of personal and medical information.

Quality assured trusted third parties for deploying secure internet-based healthcare applications.

In this paper we present a complete reference framework for the provision of quality assured Trusted Third Party (TTP) services within a medical environment. The main objective is to provide all the basic guidelines towards the development of a quality system for a TTP as an organisation, which could be mapped directly to the requirements of ISO-9000 standards. The important results of the implementation of a quality system, are the enhanced trustworthiness of the TTP and the confidence of the medical society in the provided services. Furthermore, the value added certification services conform to customer requirements and are characterised by efficiency, reliability, security, credibility and trust. The internal organisation acquires a clear and strict structure and maximises its effectiveness by establishing quality management, committed to control, assure and improve quality. The TTP requirements for quality are identified and the various elements of the quality system are described illustratively.