Passive solar design strategies comprise important ways of reducing the heating, cooling and lighting energy consumption of buildings. Although it is relatively simple to reduce the energy use up to ...some extent by applying individual strategies, very high levels of energy performance require application of the optimal combination of several strategies, verified through building energy simulations. Here we give an exhaustive review of the previous studies of simulation-based optimization of passive solar design strategies, with particular focus on recent research results.
Circulating cell-free (ccf) human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA may serve as a unique tumor marker for HPV-associated malignancies, including cervical cancer. We developed a method to genotype and ...quantify circulating HPV DNA in patients with HPV16- or HPV18-positive metastatic cervical cancer for potential disease monitoring and treatment-related decision making.
In this retrospective study, HPV ccfDNA was measured in serum samples from 19 metastatic cervical cancer patients by duplex digital droplet PCR (ddPCR). Nine patients had received tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) immunotherapy. ccfDNA data were aligned with the tumor HPV genotype, drug treatment, and clinical outcome.
In blinded tests, HPV ccfDNA was detected in 19 of 19 (100%) patients with HPV-positive metastatic cervical cancer but not in any of the 45 healthy blood donors. The HPV genotype harbored in the patients' tumors was correctly identified in 87 of 87 (100%) sequential patient serum samples from 9 patients who received TIL immunotherapy. In three patients who experienced objective cancer regression after TIL treatment, a transient HPV ccfDNA peak was detected 2-3 days after TIL infusion. Furthermore, persistent clearance of HPV ccfDNA was only observed in two patients who experienced complete response (CR) after TIL immunotherapy.
HPV ccfDNA represents a promising tumor marker for noninvasive HPV genotyping and may be used in selecting patients for HPV type-specific T-cell-based immunotherapies. It may also have value in detecting antitumor activity of therapeutic agents and in the long-term follow-up of cervical cancer patients in remission.
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Recent building regulations in Serbia prescribe the design of highly insulated, airtight buildings with low U-value glazing. Serbia has continental climate with hot summers, so that for office ...buildings, whose internal gains are higher from the presence of people, computer systems and lighting, this means that far more focus has to be put on cooling demands than on heating demands. This shift toward cooling is studied here through exhaustive simulation of combinations of selected passive solar design parameters for a model of an office building in Belgrade. Design parameters include glazing type, window-to-wall ratio of façades, presence of exterior shading and U-value of opaque envelope components. Optimal variants of the model have been determined with respect to construction cost and heating, cooling and lighting energy use. Results reveal that exterior shading, which has to sustain occasional strong winds in Belgrade, is too expensive to appear in cost-optimal solutions. Hot summers of Belgrade climate imply that cost-optimal solutions have close-to-minimal window-to-wall ratio at the southern façade and significantly larger window-to-wall ratio at the northern façade. Results further show that glazing in cost-optimal solutions has to have small U-value and medium solar heat gain coefficient, although specific choices of optimal glazing type, as well as thermal insulation level, depend on future electricity prices. The case study is repeated for climates of Frankfurt and Stockholm as well, which yield similar results with respect to glazing type and the absence of exterior shading, but with different patterns of window-to-wall ratios at the southern and northern façades.
•Focus on the convex hull facilitates analysis of solutions on the Pareto front.•Exterior shading is not a cost-optimal choice for an office building in Belgrade.•Cost-optimal office building in Belgrade has small southern window-to-wall ratio.•Its northern window-to-wall ratio is much larger with low U-value glazing.•Findings are compared to results for offices in Frankfurt and Stockholm.
Throughout centuries, the concept of church music has held significant importance within the Orthodox Church. Its positive reception in the life of the Serbian Orthodox Church is evident by its ...frequent usage to describe various musical practices, such as: 'church singing, 'choral singing, 'polyphonic singing (or singing from sheet music)', 'Serbian folk singing', 'Karlovac chant', 'Belgrade chant' or 'Byzantine chant'. Drawing from anthropological research, we establish the definition of music through two interdependent approaches. Music is a cultural construct that lacks uniqueness and universality, but rather possesses a multitude of meanings dependent on collective and individual perspectives. Simultaneously, music is a cultural phenomenon that engenders diverse forms of identity, ranging from ethnic, gender, individual, collective, to local or global identities. From the perspective of Eucharistic theology, the Church is presented as the Mystery of unity between the created and the uncreated, founded in the Trinitarian nature of existence. The identity of the Church is not confined to historical and institutional frameworks, but is found in eschatology - the Kingdom of God. The Eucharistic church singing is examined in relation to church music and its connection with the anthropological understanding of music. The findings are analyzed from the standpoint of Orthodox ecclesiology. This paper aims to explore whether the identification of Eucharistic church singing with music, as a human category, can be positively argued within Orthodox theology.
Genetically engineered T cell therapy can induce remarkable tumor responses in hematologic malignancies. However, it is not known if this type of therapy can be applied effectively to epithelial ...cancers, which account for 80-90% of human malignancies. We have conducted a first-in-human, phase 1 clinical trial of T cells engineered with a T cell receptor targeting HPV-16 E7 for the treatment of metastatic human papilloma virus-associated epithelial cancers (NCT02858310). The primary endpoint was maximum tolerated dose. Cell dose was not limited by toxicity with a maximum dose of 1 × 10
engineered T cells administered. Tumor responses following treatment were evaluated using RECIST (Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors) guidelines. Robust tumor regression was observed with objective clinical responses in 6 of 12 patients, including 4 of 8 patients with anti-PD-1 refractory disease. Responses included extensive regression of bulky tumors and complete regression of most tumors in some patients. Genomic studies, which included intra-patient tumors with dichotomous treatment responses, revealed resistance mechanisms from defects in critical components of the antigen presentation and interferon response pathways. These findings demonstrate that engineered T cells can mediate regression of common carcinomas, and they reveal immune editing as a constraint on the curative potential of cellular therapy and possibly other immunotherapies in advanced epithelial cancer.
We studied previously optimal shape of external shading of windows in a cellular office with an outer edge modeled by a non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) curve whose control points were ...placed uniformly around western fin, overhang and eastern fin of the window, and whose depths were allowed to vary independently. We observed there that for each climate considered in the study there exists a shading shape close to the optimal one, but with a substantially simpler structure of control points for the NURBS curve. This simpler structure was reflected in partitioning control points into six groups such that all control points in the same group have equal depths, with groups corresponding to lower part of the western fin, upper part of the western fin, joint of the western fin and the overhang, internal part of the overhang, joint of the overhang and the eastern fin and the remaining part of the eastern fin. Here we confirm that shadings with control point structure restricted in such way can perform as well as shadings with unrestricted control points by optimising shape of external shading of windows in an apartment room for both restricted and unrestricted control point structure for the same range of climates, and showing that differences in heating and cooling demands between Pareto optimal shadings in both cases are negligibly small. This grouping of control points thus gives a simple and natural division of shading into a small number of basic constituents that have most impact on its heating and cooling demands. We further consider the convex hull of the Pareto front for shadings with restricted control points, as it contains shadings that minimise equivalent source energy in terms of the ratio of efficiencies and source energy conversion factors for district heating and cooling. We show that, in cases when depths of control point groups in convex hull shadings do not experience sudden changes between their extremal values, these depths can be fitted reasonably well by a sigmoid function that results in functional shadings that satisfactorily approximate heating and cooling demands of shadings in the Pareto front.
We briefly discuss counterexamples to the conjecture of Lepović (2010) 6 that a walk-regular graph, which is cospectral to its complement, has to be strongly regular.
Shading of windows influences building cooling and heating loads through control of solar heat gains, and lighting load through access to available daylight. Shading shape thus presents an important ...factor both in building energy analysis and building aesthetics. Curvilinearity of solar paths suggests that the optimal shading shape may be curvilinear as well, and our aim here is to test this expectation. To accommodate curvilinearity of shading shape, outer edges of shading, which consists of overhang, western and eastern fins, are modeled as non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) curves, a widely accepted representation standard for curves in design industry. As a case study, a cellular office is considered in the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) office building model, with its overhang lined up by seven control points, and the fins lined up by five control points each, with two ending control points joint for the overhang and the fins. With control points allowed to take on nine different alternative depths, genetic optimisation is employed for 16 representative USA climates with respect to total equivalent source energy for heating, cooling and lighting loads. The main finding is that in a very close proximity to optimal shadings found by genetic optimisation there exist shadings with much simpler control point structure, obtained by identifying depths of successive control points, that have nearly rectangular overhangs. Since the difference between these simpler shadings and the optimal ones is less than 0.24%, this partially rejects the expectation that the optimal shading shape should be curvilinear. Structure of these near-optimal shadings also suggests a new way to partition shadings into independent regions: the lower and the upper parts of the western fin, joints of the overhang with the western and the eastern fin, the interior part of the overhang and the rest of the eastern fin.
In this work, six groups of non-toxic compounds were tested as inhibitors for mild steel in 1 M HCl solution: glycine (Gly), glutamic acid (Glu), cysteine (Cys), a mixture of three amino acids ...glycine, glutamic acid, and cysteine (Gly + Glu + Cys); a mixture of dipeptide composed of glycine and glutamic acid with amino acid cysteine (Gly-Glu + Cys); and a tripeptide composed of glycine, cysteine and glutamic acid which is called glutathione (Glt). The inhibition performances of inhibitor systems for steel corrosion were investigated by electrochemical tests (polarization measurements and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy) and surface analyses (atomic force microscopy-AFM, optical microscope, and photoelectron spectroscopy-XPS). Experimental results showed that all six groups of inhibitors affect the reduction of steel corrosion rate, with Glt having the highest efficiency during 4-h immersion (97.3%). Atomic force microscopy and optical microscope showed that the inhibitors are able to protect the metal surface and reduce the extent of corrosion. The existence of the Glt inhibitory film on the steel surface was confirmed by the XPS method. DFT calculations provided useful insights into adsorption of the corrosion inhibitors.
► Financial analysis of SHW installation in Serbia is performed with RETScreen. ► Contingent valuation survey was used to determine willingness to install SHW. ► The 20% subsidy is justified by CO2 ...mitigation potential. ► Willingness to install at 20%, 30% and 40% subsidy levels is negligibly different. ► The 50% subsidy generates most interest among household owners.
Hot water consumption is an important segment in the energy consumption in households in Serbia, where majority of households heat water with electric resistance storage water heaters. A more appropriate alternative is installation of solar water heating (SWH) systems in households. The current number of installed SWH systems in Serbia is negligibly small – only about 0.1% of all households. Serbia has recently adopted feed-in tariffs for generating electricity from renewable energy sources (RES), but it did not provide any incentive for SWH installations. It is generally accepted that best form of SWH incentive is a direct subsidy to reduce high upfront costs. The aim of this work is to suggest the level of the subsidy which Serbian government should offer in order to reach the level of SWH deployment comparable to that of more developed countries. After financial analysis of SWH installation in six Serbian cities, followed by contingent valuation survey among household owners in Serbia, it is concluded that 20% subsidy is justified already by CO2 mitigation potential of SWH systems, while 50% subsidy, which lowers equity payback period to 5.5–6 years, generates most interest among household owners.
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