‘Islands of Innovation’ and diversities of innovation in the UK and France

This paper explores diverging patterns of innovation and regional development in two ‘islands of innovation’. In the early 2000s the growth trajectories of Grenoble and Oxfordshire were compared (Lawton Smith 2003). The focus was on national laboratories as territorial actors in the clustering of high-tech firms. Building on longitudinal data collected since 2003 the theme shifts in this study to the forms that government intervention takes through investments in knowledge organisations in high tech economies and how that leads to particular specialisations of technological advance. While there are many similarities, there are differences in starting points and structures, leading to diversities in innovation. The analysis shows how both are embedded in their national situations and opportunities for development. We focus on two key elements in sustaining clusters of innovation, those of highly skilled labour and networks. We show that in Grenoble, the clusters are orchestrated information and project-based while in Oxfordshire they are labour market dominated and organic. We demonstrate complementary relationships between the national and regional level policy formation and implementation. In both cases importance of place is sustained over time but for different reasons

Development of a road transport emission inventory for Greece and the greater Athens area: Effects of important parameters

Traffic is considered one of the major polluting sectors and as a consequence a significant cause for the measured exceedances of ambient air quality limit values mainly in urban areas. The Greater Athens Area (located in Attica), the most populated area in Greece, faces severe air pollution problems due to the combination of high road traffic emissions, complex topography and local meteorological conditions. Even though several efforts were made to construct traffic emission inventories for Greece and Attica, still there is not a spatially and temporally resolved one, based on data from relevant authorities and organisations. The present work aims to estimate road emissions in Greece and Attica based on the top down approach. The programme COPERT 4 was used to calculate the annual total emissions from the road transport sector for the period 2006–2010 and an emission inventory for Greece and Attica was developed with high spatial (6 × 6 km2 for Greece and 2 × 2 km2 for Attica) and temporal (1-hour) resolutions. The results revealed that about 40% of national CO2, CO, VOC and NMVOC values and 30% of NOx and particles are emitted in Attica. The fuel consumption and the subsequent reduction of annual mileage driven in combination with the import of new engine anti-pollution technologies affected CO2, CO, VOC and NMVOC emissions. The major part of CO (56.53%) and CO2 (66.15%) emissions was due to passenger cars (2010), while heavy duty vehicles (HDVs) were connected with NOx, PM2.5 and PM10emissions with 51.27%, 43.97% and 38.13% respectively (2010). The fleet composition, the penetration of diesel fuelled cars, the increase of urban average speed and the fleet renewal are among the most effective parameters towards the emission reduction strategies

Spirulina in Clinical Practice: Evidence-Based Human Applications

Spirulina or Arthrospira is a blue-green alga that became famous after it was successfully used by NASA as a dietary supplement for astronauts on space missions. It has the ability to modulate immune functions and exhibits anti-inflammatory properties by inhibiting the release of histamine by mast cells. Multiple studies investigating the efficacy and the potential clinical applications of Spirulina in treating several diseases have been performed and a few randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews suggest that this alga may improve several symptoms and may even have an anticancer, antiviral and antiallergic effects. Current and potential clinical applications, issues of safety, indications, side-effects and levels of evidence are addressed in this review. Areas of ongoing and future research are also discussed

Energy, Environmental Impact and Indoor Environmental Quality of Add-Ons in Buildings

On a European scale, the existing building stock has poor energy performance and partic-ularly vulnerable structures. Indeed, most of the existing buildings were built before the introduction of energy standards and under structural safety criteria different from those currently required. It is therefore necessary the intervention in existing buildings according to an integrated approach that contemplates both the structural safety and the energy efficiency of buildings. This study, con-sistently with the objectives of the European research project “Proactive synergy of integrated Efficient Technologies on buildings’ Envelopes (Pro-GET-OnE)”, proposes a retrofit intervention for a student dormitory of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The scope of the evaluation is to understand how an integrated intervention, that implies a structural and energy retrofit, as well as a spatial redistribution, leads to an improvement of the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). In detail, the structural retrofit was performed through exoskeleton that leads to the addition of new living spaces and to a remodeling of the building facades. The energy retrofit regarded all three levers of energy efficiency, and thus the building envelope, the microclimatic control systems, and the systems from renewable sources. The integrated intervention, in addition to a reduction of energy demand, has led to advantages in terms of IEQ. Thermal comfort, both during summer and winter, is improved and the hours of suitable CO2 concentration pass from 34% in the pre-retrofit stage up to 100% in the post retrofit stage

Multi-disciplinary analysis of light shelves application within a student dormitory refurbishment

The achievement of sustainable cities and communities is closely linked to an accurate design of the buildings. In this context, the transparent elements of the building envelope have a crucial role since, on one hand, they are a bottleneck in regards to heat and mass transfers and sound propagation, while, on the other hand, they must allow daylight penetration. Thus, they are responsible for occupants' thermal and visual comfort and their health. Considering passive solutions for windows, the light shelves can improve natural light penetration, reducing the lights' electricity demand and controlling windows' related thermal aspects. The scientific literature is characterized by several studies that analyze this topic, which, however, focus only on the daylight field and sometimes the energy saving for lights. Moreover, they often refer to fixed sky type for the simulations. The aim of the present study is to analyze the application of the light shelves with a multi-disciplinary approach, by means of dynamic simulations, in the EnergyPlus engine, for a whole year. A new methodological approach is presented in order to investigate the technology under different fields of interest: daylight, lighting energy, cooling and heating needs, and thermo-hygrometric comfort. The case study chosen is an existing building, a student dormitory belonging to the University of Athens. It is subject to a deep energy renovation to conform to the "nearly Zero Energy Building" target, in the frame of a European research project called Pro-GET-onE (G.A No. 723747). By means of the calibrated numerical model of this HVAC-building system, ten different configurations of light shelves have been investigated. The best solution is given by the application of an internal horizontal light shelf placed at 50 cm from the top of the window with a depth of 90 or 60 cm. It has been found that despite the reduction in electricity demand for lighting, the variation in heating and cooling needs does not always lead to a benefit

Indoor Environmental Quality Evaluation Strategy as an Upgrade (Renovation) Measure in a Historic Building Located in the Mediterranean Zone (Athens, Greece)

The assessment of indoor environmental quality in historic buildings converted to museums is a significant tool in deep energy renovation processes, as it provides insights for the microclimatic conditions in the interiors of the building where vast numbers of visitors walk every year and where artifacts that are vulnerable to pollution are exhibited. In this work, aiming to contribute to the development of an energy retrofitting protocol applied in the Mediterranean region (HAPPEN MedZeb protocol) for museums hosted in historic buildings by providing useful data, an experimental campaign to evaluate the indoor environmental quality of a museum housed in a historic building located in Athens took place from February 2019 to April 2021 and was divided into two periods. The findings revealed high concentrations of volatile organic compounds as well as poor thermal comfort levels since the sensors recorded low acceptable percentages of T values within the limits from 7 to 33% for the entire experimental period. Based on the findings, recommendations for retrofitting interventions are made.Unión Europea 78507

Scheduling in an Ethernet Fronthaul Network

This paper investigates and compares the performance of different scheduling techniques in an Ethernet fronthaul network in the presence of both time-sensitive/high priority and background traffic streams. A switched Ethernet architecture is used as the fronthaul section of a cloud radio access network (C-RAN) and a comparison of two scheduling schemes, strict priority scheduling and time-aware shaping, is carried out. The different streams are logically separated using virtual local area network identifiers and contend for the use of trunk links formed between aggregator/switch nodes. The scheduling schemes are applied in the access and trunk ports in the fronthaul, and need to handle the queue management and prioritization of the different streams. In such cases, contention induced latency variation has to be characterized, especially when the fronthaul transports precision time protocol traffic, as it directly leads to errors in timestamping. OPNET models for strict priority and time-aware schedulers have been built and employed, and simulation results are used to compare the performance of the two scheduling schemes

Application of light shelves in a refurbished student dormitory: Energy, lightings and comfort aspects

The transparent elements of the building envelope have a crucial role not only in term of heat and mass transfers control, but also for natural light penetration, sound insulation, thermal and visual comfort of the occupants and their health. Among passive technologies, the light shelves could be architectural solutions for improving daylight penetration and for controlling thermal loads. The available research papers usually focus on one aspect. For this reason, the aim of the present study is to analyse the application of the light shelves with multidisciplinary approach and thus, taking into account: daylight, electricity for lighting, cooling and heating needs and thermo-hygrometric comfort. The case study is a real dormitory building placed in Athens and subject to a deep energy renovation toward the nearly zero energy building target. EnergyPlus, by means of DesignBuilder interface, has been used as dynamic simulation tool. Among ten different configurations, the optimal one turns out to be the internal horizontal light shelf placed at 50 cm from the top of the window with a depth of 90 cm or 60 cm. It has been found that in some cases the reduction of electricity for lighting cannot balance the variation in heating and cooling needs