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The Editors of the Virtual Special Issue (VSI) "New Research on Water, Waste and Energy Management, with Special Focus on Antibiotics and Priority Pollutants" (VSI WWEM-20) here present details corresponding to papers that have been accepted, as well as further comments on the matter. It should be noted that the VSI should be associated to a Conference that had been initially programmed to be held in Rome during the summer of 2020, Unfortunately, it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That conference was one of those within the series called "International Congress on Water, Waste and Energy Management". Although the Conference was postponed, the Call for Papers for the VSI was maintained by this journal. As a result, a set of very interesting papers were accepted after a careful peer-review process. We hope that it will be complemented with additional VSIs associated to future conferences corresponding to the series, increasing the knowledge on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates the often repeated modern claim of significant trading in ‘shares of the societates publicanorum ’ ( partes ) during the late Roman Republic cannot be supported using the available ‘primary sources’. Building on recent contributions detailing the economy of the late Republic, in general, and the tax farming activities of the publicani , in particular, an alternative more plausible legal and commercial explanation of the ‘primary sources’ – especially In Vatinium [12.29] and Pro C. Rabiro Postumo [2.4] – is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a methodology to design the biomethane production chain from MSW at the regional level and to assess the environmental and economic performance of the chain. In the design phase, the following parameters are considered: number and production capacity of biomethane plants, localization of plants, waste flows among municipalities and plants. The model is adopted to design the biomethane chain in the Rome Metropolitan Area (Italy). Several structures of production chain are designed and their performances are assessed. The economic factors mostly able to affect the performance of the chain are waste disposal tariff, biomethane selling price, and the economic incentive provided to biomethane producers. Their impacts are discussed through sensitivity analyses. Results show that the structure maximizing the economic performance has the worst environmental performance and vice versa. Hence, a new structure of the economic incentive is proposed, aimed at re-aligning economic and environmental performance. [Display omitted] • A methodology to design the biomethane chain from MSW is proposed. • Economic and environmental performance can be easily computed. • The methodology is tested on the Rome Metropolitan Area case study. • How the structure of the chain impacts on the performance is assessed. • Factors impacting on the performance of the chain are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-term exposure to air pollution has been related to mortality in several epidemiological studies. The investigations have assessed exposure using various methods achieving different accuracy in predicting air pollutants concentrations. The comparison of the health effects estimates are therefore challenging. This paper aims to compare the effect estimates of the long-term effects of air pollutants (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 10 μm, PM 10 , and nitrogen dioxide, NO 2) on cause-specific mortality in the Rome Longitudinal Study, using exposure estimates obtained with different models and spatial resolutions. Annual averages of NO 2 and PM 10 were estimated for the year 2015 in a large portion of the Rome urban area (12 × 12 km2) applying three modelling techniques available at increasing spatial resolution: 1) a chemical transport model (CTM) at 1km resolution; 2) a land-use random forest (LURF) approach at 200m resolution; 3) a micro-scale Lagrangian particle dispersion model (PMSS) taking into account the effect of buildings structure at 4 m resolution with results post processed at different buffer sizes (12, 24, 52, 100 and 200 m). All the exposures were assigned at the residential addresses of 482,259 citizens of Rome 30+ years of age who were enrolled on 2001 and followed-up till 2015. The association between annual exposures and natural-cause, cardiovascular (CVD) and respiratory (RESP) mortality were estimated using Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for individual and area-level confounders. We found different distributions of both NO 2 and PM 10 concentrations, across models and spatial resolutions. Natural cause and CVD mortality outcomes were all positively associated with NO 2 and PM 10 regardless of the model and spatial resolution when using a relative scale of the exposure such as the interquartile range (IQR): adjusted Hazard Ratios (HR), and 95% confidence intervals (CI), of natural cause mortality, per IQR increments in the two pollutants, ranged between 1.012 (1.004, 1.021) and 1.018 (1.007, 1.028) for the different NO 2 estimates, and between 1.010 (1.000, 1.020) and 1.020 (1.008, 1.031) for PM 10 , with a tendency of larger effect for lower resolution exposures. The latter was even stronger when a fixed value of 10 μg/m3 is used to calculate HRs. Long-term effects of air pollution on mortality in Rome were consistent across different models for exposure assessment, and different spatial resolutions. • Chemical Transport, Random Forest and Lagrangian particle models used for exposure. • Building effects and city structure considered at different buffer sizes. • NO 2 and PM 10 long-term health effects evaluated by different models and resolution. • Significant associations with natural and cardiovascular mortality shown by all models. • Hazard Ratios for increments of interquartile ranges are not statistically different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]