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At the 1972 Stockholm Conference, participating States expressed concern about the extent and consequences of air pollution, laying the groundwork for international legal cooperation to address it. The Action Plan for the Human Environment included the need to promote scientific observation of the atmosphere, and the principles set out in the Stockholm Declaration served, as in other areas of environmental international law, to articulate the response to the threats identified. Since that meeting, the evolution of international legal protection of the atmosphere has been marked by the implementation of three international regimes. The European regime on transboundary air pollution, inaugurated in 1979, was the first model of international cooperation in this field, and influenced subsequent developments in the regimes on ozone layer protection and climate change. Taking into account the foundational impetus that the Stockholm Conference provided for the development of these regimes, this paper analyses the evolution of international legal protection of the atmosphere in the fifty years since the Conference was held

This deliverable includes the methodology in EnergyPROSPECTS for an in-depth study of energy citizenship. It features the criteria used for selecting the cases for indepth study, the list of cases selected for in-depth study as well as key research foci and empirical research questions.

Due to the increasing demand for higher efficiencies of centrifugal compressors, numerical optimization methods are becoming more and more relevant in the design process. To identify the beneficial features of a numerical optimized compressor design, this paper analyses the influence of arbitrary blade surfaces on the loss generation in a transonic centrifugal compressor. The paper therefore focuses on an analysis of the secondary flow development within the impeller blade passages. To do this, steady simulations were performed on both a baseline and an optimized blade design. Two distinct design features of the optimized compressor stage were identified, which lead to a more homogenous impeller exit flow and thus to an increase in total-to-static efficiency of 1.76% points: the positive lean in the near-tip region and the positive blade curvature in the rear part of the optimized impeller. Furthermore, through extensive experimental investigations conducted on a large scale test rig it has been possible to prove the particular impeller outflow characteristics of the baseline compressor stage.

Environmental and intrinsic factors interact to determine energy requirements in vertebrates. Glucocorticoid hormones (GCs) are key mediators of this interaction, as they fluctuate with energetic demands and regulate physiological and behavioral responses to environmental challenges. While a great body of research has focused on GC variation among individuals, the mechanisms driving GC variation across species and at broad spatial scales remain largely unexplored. Here, we adopted a macrophysiological approach to investigate the environmental factors and life-history traits driving variation in baseline GCs across lizard species. We tested three hypotheses: (1) If GCs increase with body temperature to meet higher metabolic demand, we expect an association between average baseline GCs and the mean species’ body temperature in the field (GC-temperature dependence hypothesis); (2) If GCs mediate behavioral responses to avoid thermal extremes, we expect that individuals frequently exposed to extreme conditions exhibit higher baseline GC levels (Behavioral thermoregulation hypothesis); (3) If GCs increase to support higher energy demands in active foragers during their period of activity, we expect that active foraging species have higher baseline GCs than sit-and-wait foragers, and that GC levels increase in relation to the duration of daily activity windows (Activity hypothesis). We used biophysical models to calculate operative temperatures and the activity patterns of lizards in sun-exposed and shaded microenvironments. Then, we tested the association between baseline GCs, body temperature, operative temperatures, foraging mode, and activity windows across 37 lizard species, using data from HormoneBase. Our comparative analyses showed that variation in baseline GCs was primarily related to the mean field body temperature and foraging mode, with higher baseline GCs in active foragers with higher body temperatures. Our results suggest that body temperature and foraging mode drive GC variation through their effects on energy requirements across lizard species.

We evaluated a teacher training intervention programme aimed at improving the teaching and learning process relating to history in the secondary classroom. This was carried out via the implementation of several teaching units during the period of teaching practice of trainee teachers specialising in geography and history. The design of the teaching units was based on historical thinking competencies and on the introduction of active learning strategies. The programme was evaluated via a quasi-experimental A-B type methodological approach employing a pretest and a post-test. Both tools were designed on the basis of four dimensions (methodology, motivation, satisfaction and perception). The content of the tools was validated using the interjudge process via a discussion group in the first round and with a Likert scale questionnaire (1–4) with seven experts in the second round. The reliability of the tools has been estimated via three indices (Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability and omega), and the validity of the construct via an exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with the structural equation model. The results regarding reliability and validity have been adequate. Furthermore, the descriptive results show an improvement in all of the dimensions following the implementation of the teaching units, particularly with regard to group work, the use of digital resources and work with primary sources.

Thermodynamic cycles requiring high operating temperatures (≥750 °C up to 1200 °C) are currently being explored to improve the sun-to-electricity conversion efficiency of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants. This is calling for the design of new efficient high-temperature (≥750 °C) Thermochemical Energy Storage (TCES) systems, which are fundamental for supplying power on demand during off-sun periods. Recently, Fe-doped CaMnO3 oxides have been proposed as TCES candidate materials, and the determination of their thermodynamics properties via thermogravimetric (TG) analysis allowed evaluation of their heat storage capacity at a very small scale (mg scale). A 10 % Fe-doped CaMnO3 composition (CaMn0.9Fe0.1O3-δ – CMF91) emerged as optimum candidate material for TCES application due to its large heat storage capacity complemented by enhanced thermal stability over multiple oxidation/reduction cycles. To advance in the thermal characterization of these materials at a multigram scale, here we carried out bench-scale reactor tests using CMF91 under conditions considered representative of future CSP plants. The redox-active material has been extruded in the form of porous pellets through a simple production method that required the use of carboxymethylcellulose as a removable binder and water. With the bench-scale reactor tests, the CMF91 pellets showed fully reversible reduction-oxidation in cycles between 500 and 1100 °C under relevant operating pO2 conditions without any deterioration of the pellet's structural integrity. Remarkably, the material exhibited the same δ(T, pO2) profile at this significantly larger scale (~40 g) than the one derived from thermodynamics. Nevertheless, slight differences in oxygen release/uptake profiles between cooling and heating branches can be tracked down to an excess heat generation in the perovskite bed not efficiently extracted by the carrier gas. These results demonstrate that CMF91 oxide is ideally suited for thermal energy storage applications with a large total (thermochemical and sensible) heat storage capacity (~ 916 kJ/kgABO3 or ~ 400 kWh/m3) and good scalability. © 2022 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska- Curie grant agreement N◦ 74616. Support of the ACES2030-CM from “Comunidad de Madrid” and European Structural Funds to (P2018/EMT-4319), and the Spanish “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad” through Research Challenges project ARROPAR-CEX (ENE2015-71254-C3-1-R) are also fully acknowledged. M. S´anchez is grateful to Spanish “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad” by funding through internship FPI (BES-2016-077031). It is greatly acknowledged the Technical Research Support Unit of the Institute of Catalysis and Petroleum Chemistry (ICP-CSIC). The authors fully appreciate the advice provided by Prof. Pedro Avila and Dr. Raquel Portela from the SpeICat group of ICP-CSIC, about the procedure for pellets preparation. Supporting Information Peer reviewed