Embodied Carbon reporting by German real estate institutional investors

Background: The building sector is one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. The European Union pledges to become climate neutral by 2050. To reach this goal, member states will need to account for embodied carbon emissions. Currently, in Germany, there are no regulations that require institutional real estate investors to account for the embodied carbon of their buildings. However, existing voluntary measurement frameworks could be used for embodied carbon accounting. Hence, this is the first systematic study exploring public disclosures by German institutional real estate investors on their embodied carbon emissions to improve the transparency of their emissions.Methods: The study uses a mixed-methods research design. Secondary data was collected using purposive sampling of German institutional real estate investors and investigating their public disclosures via corporate websites. This data was then used to shape exploratory semi-structured interviews with industry experts from those institutions responsible for addressing sustainability issues.Results: While the built environment sector is one of the major contributors of carbon emissions and is under pressure to disclose these in a transparent way in order to evaluate opportunities for reductions, the current public disclosures are limited and lack substance, suggesting that institutional real estate investors in Germany are yet to adequately quantify their environmental impact regarding embodied carbon and, thus, need to improve reporting on their progress towards climate neutrality.Conclusions: This study gives an overview of embodied carbon measuring and accounting tools, current and proposed regulations in Germany, and sets the foundations for best-practice recommendations on embodied carbon accounting across Europe

MESURE DES GRADIENTS DE DENSITÉ DANS L'INTERACTION LASER-PLASMA

Nous étudions la densité électronique et son gradient dans l'interaction d'un laser à CO2 avec une cible plane de polyéthylène, pour un flux laser de 1012 W/cm2. L'étude par interférométrie Jamin des profils de densité et la mesure strioscopique de son gradient, couplées à l'étude de l'image en rayons X du plasma conduisent à une valeur de 220 ± 80 µm de la longueur du gradient de densité. Ceci est confirmé par des mesures indirectes obtenues à partir du bilan optique de l'interaction et du seuil de génération de l'harmonique 3/2 ω0 du laser à CO2. Les conséquences de ces résultats sur les conditions de l'interaction sont discutées

Enhancing the activity of platinum-based drugs by improved inhibitors of ERCC1–XPF-mediated DNA repair

Purpose: The ERCC1–XPF 5′–3′ DNA endonuclease complex is involved in the nucleotide excision repair pathway and in the DNA inter-strand crosslink repair pathway, two key mechanisms modulating the activity of chemotherapeutic alkylating agents in cancer cells. Inhibitors of the interaction between ERCC1 and XPF can be used to sensitize cancer cells to such drugs. Methods: We tested recently synthesized new generation inhibitors of this interaction and evaluated their capacity to sensitize cancer cells to the genotoxic activity of agents in synergy studies, as well as their capacity to inhibit the protein–protein interaction in cancer cells using proximity ligation assay. Results: Compound B9 showed the best activity being synergistic with cisplatin and mitomycin C in both colon and lung cancer cells. Also, B9 abolished the interaction between ERCC1 and XPF in cancer cells as shown by proximity ligation assay. Results of different compounds correlated with values from our previously obtained in silico predictions. Conclusion: Our results confirm the feasibility of the approach of targeting the protein–protein interaction between ERCC1 and XPF to sensitize cancer cells to alkylating agents, thanks to the improved binding affinity of the newly synthesized compounds