The urban and environmental building code as implementation tool

The frame within which the work is placed refers to the actions necessary to achieve the objectives of the coverage of the consumption of energy from renewable sources compared to the gross final consumption, posed to Regions by 2020, and that can be implemented through various actions involving local gov-ernments including the revision of the Building Regulations municipalities in a sustainable view. Theseactions are increasingly being recognized as energy plan-ning tools for the territories where administrations have committed to the Euro-pean project Covenant of Mayors. The discussion shows how the adoption by the Regions of Guidelines for sustainable Municipal Building Regulations can be a practical tool for raising the energy performance of buildings and the achievement of common goals of sustainability at regional scale. The work also aims at showing a concrete example of the definition of guidelines for the revision of the municipal Building Regulations for cities within the Sicilian Region

The EU-ETS scheme and the forest credits: analysis of possible scenarios for the period 2013-2020

According to art. 3.3 and 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol it is possible to achieve the emissions reductions goals through removals by sinks resulting mostly from afforestation, reforestation and forest management activities. At the moment the EU-ETS scheme does not allow the trade of LULUCF credits, though the member states can use the RMUs or develop CDM projects on afforestation and reforestation (tCER/lCER) to achieve the emissions reductions goals. This paper will focus on the impact on the EU-ETS allowance price of the trade of LULUCF credits and will analyze the key-role that the rewarding of avoided deforestation credits (REDD credits) could play against the deforestation of Amazon Rainforest

The role of central, regional and local administrations in the application of the Kyoto protocol in the forestry sector in Italy

According to art. 3.3 and 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol and subsequent UNFCCC COP's and national decisions, Italy shall report the net changes in GHG emissions by sources and removals by sinks resulting from afforestation, reforestation and deforestation (art. 3.3) and forest management (art. 3.4) activities. To assess art. 3.3 activities, Italy will define methods to estimate land use changes occurring after 31 December 1989. The paper considers the key-role that central administration shall have, as well as the role of regional and local administrations in order to solve some specific topics regarding data collection and management issues

Forest Environmental Reporting Services

One of the forest environmental monitoring projects of the European Space Agency is implementing remote-sensing based services for national Kyoto Protocol reporting. Key players in this reporting for five European countries are actively involved. Their needs are mainly forest maps, land-use and land-use change maps. Prototypes are being implemented on twelve test sites before proceeding to a large-scale demonstration covering 500 000 km2

Conversion activity of brain derived PrP^C in the CAA seeded with infected brain homogenates.

<p>(A) UBH from balb/c (WT) mice were subjected to the CAA in the presence of IBH for differing periods of time (0–24 hours). B) The CAA was performed for 16 hours using IBH added to DPBS, or UBH from KO, WT or PrP over expressing Tga20 (TG) mice. DPBS represents total (DPBS⁻ without PK treatment), and protease resistant (DPBS⁺ with PK treatment) PrP present in the IBH used to seed the CAA. Relative PrP^C expression (without PK treatment) is shown in right of panel for KO, WT and TG mice. Conversion activity was determined as the fold increase in immunoreactive signal of WT relative to KO reactions after overnight (or as indicated) incubation at 37°C and treatment with PK (100µg/ml, 1hr at 37°C). Blots developed with 03R19. Molecular weights (kDa) are shown. Western blots are representative of replicated experiments, quantification is based on at least three experiments, mean and SEM are shown. *p&lt;0.05, **p&lt;0.01, ***p&lt;0.001 using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey's multiple comparison test (GraphPad, Prism).</p

Conversion activity of brain derived PrP^C in the CAA seeded with infected brain homogenates is sensitive to ionic strength and inhibited by the specific depletion of heparan sulphate.

<p>(A) The CAA was performed using IBH diluted in UBH prepared from WT and KO mice in Tris-HCl pH 7.4 and the indicated concentrations of NaCl. ** Indicates a significant reduction in conversion activity relative to 125mM NaCl. B) The CAA was performed using IBH diluted in UBH prepared from WT mice in 125mM NaCl/Tris-HCl pH 7.4 after treatment with Heparinase I (H), Heparinase III (HS), Chondroitinase ABC (Ch), their corresponding buffers (underlined) or without treatment (Con). Conversion activity was determined as the fold increase in immunoreactive signal of WT relative to KO reactions after overnight incubation at 37°C and treatment with PK (100µg/ml, 1hr at 37°C). Quantification (A, B) is based on at least three experiments, mean and SEM are shown. **p&lt;0.01, ***p&lt;0.001 using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey's multiple comparison test (GraphPad, Prism). C) The amount of sGAG purified from UBH treated with Heparinase I (H), Heparinase III (HS) and Chondrotinase ABC (Ch) or untreated (Con) was determined by Blyscan analysis and normalised to the amount of sGAG recovered from buffer controls (not shown). D) The absorbance (254nm) of sGAG eluted from a Q-Sepharose HiTrap anion exchange column in increasing concentrations of NaCl (0–1M). GAGs were purified from control (□), Heparinase I treated (⋄) and Heparinase III treated (○) or Chondroitinase ABC treated (+) brain homogenates. Quantification (C, D) is based on an analysis performed in duplicate.</p