The key objective of this study is the examination of the regulatory and policy framework of the feed-in-tariff (FiT) scheme, specifically its effect on both the electricity pricing as well as the ...local and European renewable energy sources (RES) market, and accordingly the definition of its feasibility as a scheme for the further development and promotion of renewable energy technologies (RETs). This work discusses the FiT scheme implementation for photovoltaics (PVs) in four case study countries - Denmark, Germany, Cyprus, and Spain. A model describing the conditions under which a FiT scheme is led to collapse is also introduced and a parametric analysis towards revealing the sensitivity of the different parameters affecting it, is delivered. The study concludes with significant policy implications that should be considered for future implementation of the scheme. For the prevention of the collapse of the scheme, the tariff's value ought to be determined by each country's government based on a set of influencing factors including the operational, capital and investment costs of each RET, the standard cost of renewable energy (RE) generation and the avoidance cost, which would be regularly reviewed depending on the excess of the annual capacity.
•Feasibility conditions of FiT schemes examined focusing on the treasury of 4 countries.•FiT׳s drawbacks led to its collapse less than a decade from its application.•Model for the prediction of the performance of the FiT scheme introduced.•Allocation of the economic growth to penetration rate affects FiT positively.•RES penetration into the energy mix has the highest impact on FiT's sustainability.
Cilia have been associated with diverse developmental and physiological processes, and defects in cilia underlie a number of genetic conditions. Several lines of evidence support a critical role of ...the actin cytoskeleton in ciliogenesis and ciliary function. Here, we show that well-characterized focal adhesion (FA) proteins, including FAK, Paxillin, and Vinculin, associate with the basal bodies of multiciliated cells and form complexes (CAs) that interact with the actin cytoskeleton. FAK downregulation leads to ciliogenesis defects similar to those observed when the actin cytoskeleton is disrupted, including defects in basal body migration, docking, and spacing, suggesting that CAs link basal bodies to the actin cytoskeleton. The important role of FA proteins in ciliogenesis leads us to propose that evolutionarily FA proteins, many of which are found in primitive flagellated unicellular eukaryotes, may have originally evolved to perform functions at flagella and were later co-opted for use in cell adhesion.
•Focal adhesion proteins associate with the basal bodies in ciliated cells•FAK, Paxillin, and Vinculin form “ciliary adhesion” complexes•Ciliary adhesions link basal bodies to the actin cytoskeleton•Downregulation of FAK leads to defects in ciliogenesis
Antoniades et al. show that focal adhesion proteins FAK, Paxillin, and Vinculin form “ciliary adhesion” (CA) complexes that associate with basal bodies and interact with the actin cytoskeleton. FAK disruption results in ciliogenesis defects, suggesting that CAs connect basal bodies to the actin cytoskeleton, a key modulator of motile ciliogenesis.
•Review of state-of-the-art literature and research regarding the passive and active infrared thermography.•Fundamentals of IRT and the thermographic process for building diagnostics is ...presented.•Previous studies employing passive, active pulsed, and active lock-in thermographies for building diagnostics presented.•While IRT is a useful tool, there is still a great prospect for the development of more advanced and accurate approaches.
Infrared thermography (IRT) has met an extensive popularity among the non-destructive technologies for building diagnostics, especially with the increasing concerns of energy minimisation and low energy consumption of the building sector. Its popularity for a broad range of applications can be attributed to its non-contact safe nature, its usefulness and effectiveness, as well as the energy and cost savings it can achieve. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art literature and research regarding the passive and active infrared thermography. The fundamentals of IRT are thoroughly explained and the thermographic process for building diagnostics is presented. This work also presents the fields of applicability of IRT with a focus on the building sector, as well as the advantages, limitations and potential sources of errors of IRT employment. Additionally previous non-destructive testing (NDT) studies that employed passive, active pulsed, and active lock-in thermographies for building diagnostics are presented. A review of the thermal image analysis methods and the future trends of thermal imaging are also included in this work. It can be concluded that while IRT is a useful tool for the characterisation of defects in the building sector, there is great prospect for the development of more advanced, effective and accurate approaches that will employ a combination of thermography approaches.
•Review study for the main characteristics of olive mill solid waste to energy practices undertaken the last two decades.•Theoretical background of the main waste-to energy conversion pathways of ...solid olive mill wastes are presented.•The state of the art of pre-treatment techniques for upgrading solid fuels are described.•OMSW related research must focus on the optimization of the proposed conversion technologies.
In recent years, the utilization of olive industry by-products for energy purposes has gained significant research interest and many studies have been conducted focused on the exploitation of olive mill solid waste (OMSW) derived from the discontinuous or continuous processing of olive fruits. In this review study, the primary characteristics of OMSW and the techniques used to define their thermal performance are described. The theoretical background of the main waste-to-energy conversion pathways of solid olive mill wastes, as well as the basic pre-treatment techniques for upgrading solid fuels, are presented. The study aims to present the main findings and major conclusions of previously published works undertaken in the last two decades focused on the characterization of olive mill solid wastes and the utilization of different types of solid olive mill residues for energy purposes. The study also aims to highlight the research challenges in this field.
The aim of this study is to define the features that smart buildings should fulfil in order to be compatible with the overall context of the smart city and to introduce a new evaluation framework of ...Smart Buildings Integration into a Smart City (SBISC). By analysing scientific literature as well as existing international and local project examples, the features of smart buildings that are expected to be adopted in smart cities were identified. The SBISC evaluation methodology was developed and applied to a set of selected projects. The literature review revealed that the smart building and smart city concepts were developed in different time frames and by different stakeholders and, thus, need to be realigned. The most important aspect is to employ in a smart building all the functionalities proposed by the smart areas of the city and vice versa by enabling the recommended features of smart materials, smart building services, and smart construction to serve for the surrounding systems. Nine office buildings representing smart building concept in different smart cities built within the period 2007–2018 with a total area from 10,000 m2 to 143,000 m2 were selected for the analysis. The research of selected projects revealed that the smart buildings have more potential to become smarter by utilizing smart cities capabilities in the areas of smart energy, smart mobility, smart life, and smart environment. Smart cities are the most prominent trend in creating a cohesive environment.
The c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) regulates various important physiological processes. Although the JNK pathway has been under intense investigation for over 20 yr, its complexity is still ...perplexing, with multiple protein partners underlying the diversity of its activity. We show that JNK is associated with the basal bodies in both primary and motile cilia. Loss of JNK disrupts basal body migration and docking and leads to severe ciliogenesis defects. JNK's involvement in ciliogenesis stems from a dual role in the regulation of the actin networks of multiciliated cells (MCCs) and the establishment of the intraflagellar transport-B core complex. JNK signaling is also critical for the maintenance of the actin networks and ciliary function in mature MCCs. JNK is implicated in the development of diabetes, neurodegeneration, and liver disease, all of which have been linked to ciliary dysfunction. Our work uncovers a novel role of JNK in ciliogenesis and ciliary function that could have important implications for JNK's role in the disease.
The building sector constitutes one of the three major energy consumers. To this end it comes as no surprise the fact that initiatives and policies in the field of energy saving focus on this sector ...in order to improve the energy performance of societies. The reduction of the energy consumption of dwellings becomes more important when social housing buildings are discussed, not only due to the fact that they constitute a major part of the European building stock, but also because the main concept of these buildings is that they are used by low income or vulnerable social classes. The main aim of this study is to discuss the impact of the implementation of the energy performance of the EU buildings Directive on the energy performance of the Cyprus Land Development Corporation buildings, which is the main social housing association of Cyprus. For this purpose the building stock of the corporation was studied, and detailed analysis of the actual performance and of the structural and thermal features of the considered dwellings was performed. This study produced well justified conclusions concerning the decrease of the energy consumption of Cyprus social housing corporation buildings, as well as important findings concerning the appropriate indicators which should be used in the case of the analysis of buildings energy performance. Further findings of this study include the considerations of the end-energy use for the reliable comparison between the energy habits and the lifestyle of social housing occupants, and the importance of exploiting social housing buildings both for proving the effectiveness of building related energy policies, as well as to introduce novel future relevant policies.
•Impact of EPBD implementation on the energy performance of the social housing buildings.•Reduction of end-energy consumption by 60% for new buildings and 30% 2000-07 buildings.•Housing associations buildings should be used as model case studies.•Energy consumption per area per year (kWh/m2a) does not consider buildings usage.•Energy consumption per capita per hour of building occupancy, delivers more reliable results.
The exploitation of biomass for energy production purposes can significantly reduce the environmental burdens associated with the highly criticized fossil fuelled energy production. Life cycle ...assessment (LCA) methodology has proven to be one of the most effective tools for carrying out environmental impact analysis of any process or system. The interpretation of the findings of LCA can be used as a basis for recommendations and decision making in accordance to the goal and scope definition. The aim of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive LCA for the environmental evaluation of the biomass pelleting process with the focus being on the transportation and manufacturing stages. To achieve this aim, four scenarios are presented, investigating the pelleting process of olive husk, an abundant waste biomass found in Cyprus. Two alternative scenarios are developed in an effort to compare the centralised and the decentralised management of olive husk. Regarding those two scenarios, a novel mathematical parametric model was developed and Non-Linear Programming was applied for the computation of the optimal locations for a set of management facilities which achieve the lowest energy needs for transportation purposes. Additionally, a third and fourth scenario aimed to the comparison of the potential improvement of the environmental footprint of the olive husk pellets with regard to their reference cases (Scenario 1 and 2 respectively), when Renewable Energy Sources (RES) are incorporated in the pelleting process system. The authors concluded that the selection of location for the biomass management centres, as well as the employment of renewable energy technologies (RET) for energy generation can significantly affect the environmental impact of biomass utilisation. The environmental impact of olive husk pellet production was improved by more than 85% in selected impact categories when RES were incorporated in the manufacturing stage. The comparison of centralised and decentralised scenarios for olive husk management has indicated the latter to be the most environment-friendly solution.
•LCA was employed to assess the environmental impacts of the pelleting process using waste olive husk.•The optimal locations for a set of management facilities, based on non-linear programming were derived.•The decentralized pelleting centres scenarios were found to have the less harmful impact on the environment.•Transportation and RES exploitation were found to have a crucial environmental impact on pelleting process chains.
Bordetella pertussis and Bordetella parapertussis are closely related bacterial agents of whooping cough. Whole-cell pertussis (wP) vaccine was introduced in France in 1959. Acellular pertussis (aP) ...vaccine was introduced in 1998 as an adolescent booster and was rapidly generalized to the whole population, changing herd immunity by specifically targeting the virulence of the bacteria. We performed a temporal analysis of all French B. pertussis and B. parapertussis isolates collected since 2000 under aP vaccine pressure, using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), genotyping and detection of expression of virulence factors. Particular isolates were selected according to their different phenotype and PFGE type and their characteristics were analysed using the murine model of respiratory infection and in vitro cell cytotoxic assay. Since the introduction of the aP vaccines there has been a steady increase in the number of B. pertussis and B. parapertussis isolates collected that are lacking expression of pertactin. These isolates seem to be as virulent as those expressing all virulence factors according to animal and cellular models of infection. Whereas wP vaccine-induced immunity led to a monomorphic population of B. pertussis, aP vaccine-induced immunity enabled the number of circulating B. pertussis and B. parapertussis isolates not expressing virulence factors to increase, sustaining our previous hypothesis.
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