Icarus

None provided

Monitoring of the “Energiewende” – energy efficiency indicators for Germany

The increasing number of energy and climate targets both at national and international level induces a rising demand for regular monitoring. In this paper, we analyse the possibilities and limits of using energy efficiency indicators as a tool for monitoring these targets. We refer to the energy efficiency targets of the German “Energiewende” and calculate and discuss several energy efficiency indicators for Germany both at the level of the overall economy and the main energy consumption sectors. We make use of the energy efficiency indicator toolbox that we have developed within the ODYSSEE database in recent years and find that there is still a considerable gap to close to achieve the overall energy efficiency targets in Germany by 2020. We also show that progress in energy efficiency slowed down between 2008 and 2012, i.e. compared to the base year of most of the German energy efficiency targets and find that energy efficiency progress in the industrial sector during the last decade has been especially slow. We conclude that improvements in energy efficiency have to speed up considerably in order to achieve the targets for 2020. Although the use of energy efficiency indicators is limited by data constraints and some methodological problems, these indicators give a deep insight into the factors determining energy consumption and can therefore complement the official monitoring process of the German “Energiewende” which only relies on highly aggregated indicators for energy efficiency

Detection of bimanual gestures everywhere: why it matters, what we need and what is missing

Bimanual gestures are of the utmost importance for the study of motor coordination in humans and in everyday activities. A reliable detection of bimanual gestures in unconstrained environments is fundamental for their clinical study and to assess common activities of daily living. This paper investigates techniques for a reliable, unconstrained detection and classification of bimanual gestures. It assumes the availability of inertial data originating from the two hands/arms, builds upon a previously developed technique for gesture modelling based on Gaussian Mixture Modelling (GMM) and Gaussian Mixture Regression (GMR), and compares different modelling and classification techniques, which are based on a number of assumptions inspired by literature about how bimanual gestures are represented and modelled in the brain. Experiments show results related to 5 everyday bimanual activities, which have been selected on the basis of three main parameters: (not) constraining the two hands by a physical tool, (not) requiring a specific sequence of single-hand gestures, being recursive (or not). In the best performing combination of modeling approach and classification technique, five out of five activities are recognized up to an accuracy of 97%, a precision of 82% and a level of recall of 100%.Comment: Submitted to Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Elsevier

Arianna: towards a new paradigm for assistive technology at home

Providing elderly and people with special needs to retain their independence as long as possible is one of the biggest challenges of the society of tomorrow. Teseo, a startup company spinoff from the University of Genoa, aims at accelerating the transition towards a sustainable healthcare system. Teseo's first concept and product, Arianna, allows for the automated recognition of activities of daily living at home and acts as a wellbeing and healthcare personalized assistant. This abstract outlines the main concepts underlying its features and capabilities.Comment: Paper accepted at the Eight Italian Forum on Ambient Assisted Living (ForItAAL 2017

Whey proteins interact with lipids during autoxidation primarly via the production of reactive carbonyl species

Nowadays, it is well recognized that polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) can provide extensive nutritional and health benefits. Thus, ω-3 PUFAs have been considered to contribute to the prevention of several diseases. Recognition of the potential benefits of ω-3 fatty acids has stimulated increased interest towards the fortification of foods with oils rich in these particular fatty acids. However, enrichment of food products with such unsaturated fatty acids should be carefully evaluated since they are highly susceptible to oxidation. Moreover, exposure of proteins to peroxidizing lipids or their secondary breakdown products may induce severe changes in proteins, including polymerization, insolubilization and formation of lipid – protein complexes. Several amino acids, but mainly mainly cysteine, methionine, histidine, tyrosine and lysine are affected by the secondary lipid oxidation products, therefore leading to reductions of their availability. The objective of this study was to characterize changes induced in whey protein isolate (a mixture of α-lactalbumin and β-lactoglobulin) through oxidation with oils with different unsaturation degrees and different initial oxidation status. The incubation of whey proteins with oils caused an increase in protein bound carbonyl content through the interaction of lipid oxidation products with the amino acids. Changes in the amino acid composition were therefore also observed mostly upon incubation with fish and highly oxidized soybean oil. Interaction of proteins with lipid oxidation products was taking place via interaction of the reactive carbonyl species formed thus leading to protein aggregates formation. Protein aggregation was therefore one of the most prominent consequence of the interaction of whey proteins with oxidizing lipids

Stability of whey protein derived peptides upon severe protein glycation

Cow’s milk and dairy products are major nutrients in the human diet, especially during infancy. Though at one time whey proteins were considered as by-product of the cheese making process, nowadays, due to their wide ranging nutritional, biological, and functional properties, whey proteins are often used in food technology as low-cost protein ingredients. However, whey-protein fractions, such as β-lactoglobulin (β-LG) and α-lactalbumin (α-LA) represent the major allergens in cow’s milk. Therefore, the use of whey proteins in food might pose a serious threat to the milk allergic consumers. It is well reported that food processing may modify the allergenicity and detectability of proteins. This can be due to hydrolysis or chemical reactions with other food components (carbohydrates, fatty acids etc), leading to modification or destruction of the allergen’s structure. Therefore, the objective of this study was in the first stage to investigate the influence of glycation on the molecular changes induced in whey proteins. This was done with a special focus on the modifications induced on the lysine residues, free amino groups, the formation of protein bound carbonyls, formation of fluorescent compounds and brown polymers and on the protein aggregation. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization - time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) was used to get a better insight into the molecular changes that took place on the protein level. Unexpectedly, this study led to the identification of protein segments in the epitope region that remained unmodified during the experiments that mimic typical food processing conditions. The 57Val – Lys76 and 31Val – Arg56 from β–LG, remained unchanged disregarding the severe heating treatment in the presence of glucose and bulk proteins and they could be identified by either direct MALDI-TOF MS and MS/MS or after a more tedious separation using reversed phase chromatography. It is proposed that these peptide segments can be used as analytical targets for the development of more robust methods for the assessment of the presence of whey proteins in processed foodstuffs. Moreover, MALDI-TOF MS and MS/MS holds potential to be used as a screening tool for the identification of such stable peptides