• Energy Research
• Closed Access close
• GB close
• AU close
• IT close
• ES close

This study assessed the hand hygiene performance in French nursing homes using the consumption of alcohol-based hand rubs (AHRs) as a surrogate. Nursing homes from the 17 French regions were contacted to collect their AHR consumption and occupancy in 2018 and 2019. A total of 1290 nursing homes from 15 French regions participated in the survey. The estimated median number of hand hygiene actions per resident-day was 1.48 (interquartile range: 1.04-2.03) in 2018 and 1.60 (1.10-2.26) in 2019. A significantly higher AHR consumption was observed in public nursing homes with an infection control team or link nurse.

Abstract To achieve the EU climate and energy objectives, a transition towards a future sustainable energy system is needed. The integration of the huge potential for industrial waste heat recovery into smart energy system represents a main opportunity to accomplish these goals. To successfully implement this strategy, all the several stakeholders' conflicting objectives should be considered. In this paper an evolutionary multi-objective optimization model is developed to perform a sustainability evaluation of an energy system involving an industrial facility as the waste heat source and the neighbourhood as district heating network end users. An Italian case study of heat recovery from a steel casting facility shows how the model allows to properly select the district heating network set of users to fully exploit the available waste energy. Design directions such as the thermal energy storage capacity can be also provided. Moreover, the model enables the analysis of the trade-off between the stakeholders’ different perspectives, allowing to identify possible win-win solutions for both the industrial sector and the citizenship.

Changes in the main weather features are becoming perceivable in Italy. In the last years, the average temperature and the intensity of rainstorms are increasing. Such phenomena could lead to changes in the earth-atmosphere interaction. Accounting for the high vulnerability of the Italian territory, an obvious consequence would concern the effects on the hydro-geological hazards, including landslides and floods. As a matter of fact, the higher frequency of high magnitude flood and landslide events represent an alarm bell. It is necessary to explore with all available instruments the consequences of the potential climate changes. Since quantitative predictions are not possible, the only way to run is depicting rational scenarios for the most vulnerable contexts adopting a multidisciplinary approach. Based on projections of potential climate changes in the 21st century, the report examines their potential impact in the context of the Italian peninsula. After a general overview about typical slope responses to weather changes, some quantitative scenarios have been depicted for representative geomorphological contexts. The last part of the paper examines changes in the expected risk, based on the characteristics of the Italian territory and its vulnerability, looking at the initiatives to undertake for its mitigation.

The electrical resistance of Ni 50 Ti 30 Hf 20 and Ni 50 Ti 40.5 Hf 9.5 alloys during Stress Assisted Two Way Memory Effect was investigated with the aim to deduce the relationship between electrical resistance and deformation across the transformation range. Results show an almost linear relationship although a crossing point between increasing and decreasing deformation may compromise the use of these alloys actuators.

AbstractCumulus‐intact and ‐denuded unfertilized oocytes from two mouse strains were exposed to 1.5 m ethanol (EtOH) or two cryoproteclant solutions, 1.5 M propanediol (PROH) or 1.5 M dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), for 4.5 min at 27°C, and the proportion of activating or degenerating oocytes studied. Exposure to DMSO did not significantly increase activation above that of oocytes not exposed to DMSO. Treatment of oocytes in PROH resulted in the activation of up to 87% of viable oocytes. This was significantly higher (P <01) than in control oocytes and comparable to the rate of activation after treatment with EtOH (59–96% activation). In solutions at 1°C, 47% of control oocytes were activated, which was not significantly different from the rate of activation in EtOH (36%) or PROH (50%) at 1°C. Following treatment with PROH, up to 87% of oocytes degenerated within a period of 6 h in vitro. The age of the oocytes (h post hCG) and the time of cumulus removal with the enzyme hyaluronidase, relative to the time of exposure to the chemicals, influenced the level of degeneration in most groups. Significantly fewer oocytes degenerated when cumulus cells were removed before treatment (0–31%) than when the cumulus was left intact throughout the treatment and 6 h culture period (10–87%). Exposure to PROH at 1°C reduced oocyte degeneration to 5%. We conclude that PROH causes significantly greater losses of oocytes as a result of parthenogenetic activation and degeneration than of exposure to DMSO.

Among various bioreactors examined in anaerobic digestion and dark fermentation, UASB bioreactor has shown to be a promising alternative. However, mass transfer resistance and biomass washout have been the issues that reported as draw backs of the granular system in the literature. Another problem associated with such a system is its long start-up period as a result of biomass washout and long microbial granulation stage. In this paper, the results obtained from an UASFF bioreactor in methane (AD process) and hydrogen (DF process) production from POME, are presented to assess mass transfer of substrate into the granules and also study the role of internal packing used in the middle part of reactor in the process stability. The value of effectiveness factor, η, for AD and DF processes were calculated to be 0.96 and 0.94, respectively, indicating that there was no mass transfer resistance due to internal and/or external factors. The results showed that the packing material could retain biomass in the reactor and had outstanding contribution in the granulation enhancement. Its role as a supplementing treatment stage was more significant at low HRTs and up-flow velocities.

Abstract AP1000® Generation III+ reactor bases its safety concept on passive systems, differently from the previous Generation II reactors. This fact has led the approximations and methodologies previously used for modeling active safety systems to be reviewed and adapted to simulate the physics of passive systems. Diverse studies about the AP1000 containment have demonstrated the difficulty to correctly model the occurring phenomenology. In this paper, an integral AP1000 3D containment GOTHIC model is presented, including the Passive Containment Cooling System (PCCS). The model includes the compartments inside and outside the metallic containment liner that influence the thermal–hydraulic behavior. The model is tested against a Large Break Loss of Coolant Accident (LBLOCA) to assess its thermal–hydraulic performance, assuming a PCS tank malfunction, what is a conservative hypothesis. The pressure and temperature evolution predicted by the 3D containment model is analyzed and compared with a single node Lumped Parameters model, allowing to evaluate some preliminary benefits of 3D modeling for containment safety analysis. The 3D containment model allows to predict the thermal evolution in each containment compartment capturing the heterogeneity of this phenomenon, with higher resolution than the lumped parameters models traditionally used in this kind of analyses. It allows to observe the thermohydraulic conditions locally at any time during the transient.

Abstract Synchronous cultures of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe 972 h −1 are most sensitive to killing by 15 min, 49 °C pulses during a stage stretching from nuclear division through short G1 and S phases to a point early in G2. In this work the cell cycle position of the S phase has been altered by growing the cells in the presence of 2-phenylethanol. The heat sensitivity of these cells was greater at all stages of the cell cycle compared with the cells grown without 2-phenylethanol. However, the position of the most heat sensitive stage in the cell cycle was unaltered. This heat sensitive stage did not include S phase in the cells grown with 2-phenylethanol.

Short-term generation scheduling is an important function in daily operational planning of power systems. It is defined as optimal scheduling of power generators over a scheduling period while respecting various generator constraints and system constraints. Objective of the problem includes costs associated with energy production, start-up cost and shut-down cost along with profits. The resulting problem is a large scale nonlinear mixed-integer optimization problem for which there is no exact solution technique available. The solution to the problem can be obtained only by complete enumeration, often at the cost of a prohibitively computation time requirement for realistic power systems. This paper presents a hybrid algorithm which combines Lagrangian Relaxation (LR) together with Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) to solve the problem in cooperative and competitive energy environments. Simulation studies were carried out on different systems containing various numbers of units. The outcomes from different algorithms are compared with that from the proposed hybrid algorithm and the advantages of the proposed algorithm are briefly discussed.