A cost benefit analysis of retrofitting public policies on Atlanta residential housing

The residential building sector has a major share in carbon emission and energy consumption. In the US, around 60% of the housing stock belongs to the owner-occupied sector. Since more than half of the existing building stock was built before the modern energy efficiency standards are taken place, there is a potential to reduce the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in this sector, only by retrofitting the existing buildings. However, this goal cannot be achieved without a larger scale Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) to develop and demonstrate market ready retrofit solutions/policies from both the government and the homeowner’s standings. To this extend, the aim of the presented paper is to conduct a city-level CBA on the city of Atlanta which ranked 5th in producing GHG emissions among 100 US metropolitan areas while residential buildings sector is ranked 4th among other contributing sectors. To this end, a hypothetical public policy of retrofitting single-family residential buildings built before 1970s is proposed with the objective of reducing the regional energy consumption rate while calculating the upper bound of the tax to be proposed on the properties rejecting to renovate. The preliminary results of this CBA revealed that although retrofitting all the prior 1970s buildings won’t be beneficial comparing to the status quo, the numbers are highly sensitive to the proposed discount rate as well as the percentage of the homeowners practically decide to retrofit. The sensitivity analysis showed that if only 30-40% of participants decided not to renovate and pay the tax, the CBA could be a positive Net Present Value (NPV) with a relatively low tax rate (less than $0.5/sqft) implementation. Therefore, it is recommended to more accurately study the reaction of the homeowners to the policy before implementing the tax/subsidy rates while precisely observe the fluctuations of the market discount rate

Assessment of fish farm effluents on macroinvertebrates based on biological indices in Tajan River (north Iran)

Impacts of effluent from fish farming activities on fluvial ecosystems lead to deterioration of water quality and changes in the macroinvertebrates assemblage. In this study, the influence of fish farm effluents on water quality and macroinvertebrates communities of Tajan River was investigated to evaluate the suitability of macroinvertebrates based on biological metrics and indices. Benthic macroinvertebrate communities were analyzed seasonally for a period of one year . Five sampling stations were selected along the study reach of 50 km. Station 1(S1) which is located upstream from the fish farm, was used as the reference site. Station S2 and S3 were located downstream from the fish farm outlet; S4 and S5 were further downstream. In order to assess the changes in diversity and richness in relation to water quality,two major groups of sites based on similarity between macroinvertebrate communities identified by cluster analysis. Diversity of macroinvertebrates, EPT richness and EPT/CHIR indices significantly decreased toward downstream stations except for station S4. Conversely, values of HFBI and Jacard index significantly increased in the downstream stations. The present study revealed significant differences in water quality parameters between the stations located above and below the fish farms. Owing to the relatively high diversity of benthic macroinvertebrates inhabiting rivers, use of macroinvertebrate based biological indices is recommended for assessment of water quality and pollution in fluvial systems

Benthic macroinvertebrate distribution in Tajan River using canonical correspondence analysis

The distribution of macroinvertebrate communities from 5 sampling sites of Tajan River were used to examine the relationship among physiochemical parameters with macroinvertebrate communities and also to assess ecological classification system as a tool for the management and conservation purposes.The amount of variation explained in macroinvertebrate taxa composition is within values reported in similar studies. Results of CCA ordination showed that the dissolved oxygen, water temperature, turbidity, pH and TSS were the most important physicochemical factors to affect distribution of macroinvertebrate communities. The study revealed that macroinvertebrate communities of Tajan River may be explained by physiochemical parameters. Mean values of Shannon–Wiener diversity index calculated for macroinvertebrates ranged from 1.35± 0.07 (S5) to 1.86± 0.10 (S1). According to the Shannon–Wiener diversity index the S1 sampling site was categorized in ‘‘good‘‘ and the sampling sites S2 and S3 in ‘‘moderate’’ and S5 in ‘‘moderate to substantially polluted” classes. The anthropogenic disturbances (e.g. trout farms and effluents from factories) impacted abundance and diversity of macroinvertebrate

Osteosarcoma, personalized medicine, and tissue engineering; an overview of overlapping fields of research

Introduction: Osteosarcoma is a common bone malignancy in patients of all ages. Surgical and chemotherapy interventions fail to shrink tumor growth and metastasis. The development of efficient patient-specific therapeutic strategies for osteosarcoma is of great interest in tissue engineering and personalized medicine. The present manuscript aimed to review the advancements in tissue engineering and personalized medicine strategies to overcome osteosarcoma and the relevant biological aspects as well as the current tumor models in vitro and in vivo. Results: Tissue engineering and personalized medicine contribute to gene/cell engineering and cell-based therapies specific to genomic and proteomic profiles of individual patients to improve the current treatment options. Also, tissue engineering scaffolds provide physical support to missing bones, could trap cancer cells and deliver immune cells. Taken together, these strategies suppress tumor growth, angiogenic potential, and the subsequent metastasis as well as elicit desirable immune responses against tumor mass. Discussion: Advanced and high-throughput gene and protein identification technologies have facilitated the recognition of genomic and proteomic profiles of patients to design and develop patient-specific treatments. The pre-clinical studies showed promising outcomes to inhibit tumor growth and invasion but controversial results compared to clinical investigations make the importance of more clinical reports inevitable. The experimental tumor models assist the evolution of effective treatments by understanding the mechanisms of tumor progression. Conclusion: Tissue engineering and personalized medicine strategies seem encouraging alternatives to conventional therapies against osteosarcoma. Modeling the tumor microenvironment coupled with pre-clinical results give new intelligence into the translation of strategies into the clinic. © 202

In vitro survey on the synergistic effect of Cichorium intybus L. and doxorubicin on apoptotic induction in myeloid (NALM-6) and lymphoid (KG-1) cell lines

Objective: Acute leukemia is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Due to chemotherapy drug side effects, the use ofnatural compounds is essential. The Cichorium intybus L. is a natural compound that shows antitumor and antioxidant effects in various cancerous cell lines. However, its impact on leukemic cells is ambiguous. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of the Cichorium extract, alone and in combination with Doxorubicin (DOX), on apoptosis induction in myeloid (NALM-6) and lymphoid (KG-1) cell lines. Materials and Methods: Hydroalcoholic extract of Cichorium intybus L (C. intybus ) was prepared. Results: Our results displayed that C. intybus could induce cytotoxic effects in KG-1, Nalm-6 cell with IC50 values of 400 ±1.7 and 275 ±5.6 µg/ml CIE has a significant apoptotic impact on Nalm-6 and KG-1 cell lines of ALL and AML in a dose and time-dependent manner (p<0.05). Real-time PCR results indicated a notable increase in BAX, CASPAS 3, 9 gene expression, and decreased BCL2 gene expression (p <0.05). Conclusions: C. intybus, Dox, and their combination exerted a more potent apoptotic effect on the Nalm-6 cell line than the KG-1 cell line. Cichorium upgraded the cytotoxic effect of DOX on Nalm-6 and KG-1 cell lines and could be suggested as a chemotherapy supplement in acute leukemia

A reliability-based approach for influence maximization using the evidence theory

The influence maximization is the problem of finding a set of social network users, called influencers, that can trigger a large cascade of propagation. Influencers are very beneficial to make a marketing campaign goes viral through social networks for example. In this paper, we propose an influence measure that combines many influence indicators. Besides, we consider the reliability of each influence indicator and we present a distance-based process that allows to estimate the reliability of each indicator. The proposed measure is defined under the framework of the theory of belief functions. Furthermore, the reliability-based influence measure is used with an influence maximization model to select a set of users that are able to maximize the influence in the network. Finally, we present a set of experiments on a dataset collected from Twitter. These experiments show the performance of the proposed solution in detecting social influencers with good quality.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, DaWak 2017 conferenc

Analysis of Social Media Discussions on (#)Diet by Blue, Red, and Swing States in the U.S

The relationship between political affiliations and diet-related discussions on social media has not been studied on a population level. This study used a cost- and -time effective framework to leverage, aggregate, and analyze data from social media. This paper enhances our understanding of diet-related discussions with respect to political orientations in U.S. states. This mixed methods study used computational methods to collect tweets containing “diet” or “#diet” shared in a year, identified tweets posted by U.S. Twitter users, disclosed topics of tweets, and compared democratic, republican, and swing states based on the weight of topics. A qualitative method was employed to code topics. We found 32 unique topics extracted from more than 800,000 tweets, including a wide range of themes, such as diet types and chronic conditions. Based on the comparative analysis of the topic weights, our results revealed a significant difference between democratic, republican, and swing states. The largest difference was detected between swing and democratic states, and the smallest difference was identified between swing and republican states. Our study provides initial insight on the association of potential political leanings with health (e.g., dietary behaviors). Our results show diet discussions differ depending on the political orientation of the state in which Twitter users reside. Understanding the correlation of dietary preferences based on political orientation can help develop targeted and effective health promotion, communication, and policymaking strategies

The impact of a dedicated coronavirus disease 2019 primary angioplasty protocol on time components related to ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction management in a 24/7 primary percutaneous coronary intervention�capable hospital

Background Primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) as the treatment of choice for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) should be rapidly performed. It is necessary to use preventive strategies during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, which is an ongoing global concern. However, critical times in STEMI management may be influenced by the implementation of infection control protocols. aims We aimed to investigate the impact of our dedicated COVID-19 PPCI protocol on time components related to STEMI care and catheterization laboratory personnel safety. A subendpoint analysis to compare patient outcomes at a median time of 70 days during the pandemic with those of patients treated in the preceding year was another objective of our study. methods Patients with STEMI who underwent PPCI were included in this study. Chest computed tomography (CT) and real-time reverse transcriptase�polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) tests were performed in patients suspected of having COVID-19. A total of 178 patients admitted between February 29 and April 30, 2020 were compared with 146 patients admitted between March 1 and April 30, 2019. results Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection was confirmed by rRT-PCR in 7 cases. In 6 out of 7 patients, CT was indicative of COVID-19. There were no differences between the study groups regarding critical time intervals for reperfusion in STEMI. The 70-day mortality rate before and during the pandemic was 2.73 and 4.49, respectively (P = 0.4). conclusions The implementation of the dedicated COVID-19 PPCI protocol in patients with STEMI allowed us to achieve similar target times for reperfusion, short-term clinical outcomes, and staff safety as in the prepandemic era. Copyright by the Author(s), 2020

Building information modelling to cut disruption in housing retrofit

There is a large stock of solid-wall homes in the UK with poor thermal insulation and low energy performance. Although the UK government has supported efforts to improve these buildings, the identification of appropriate technical solutions that effectively improve the existing stock remains challenging. This research investigates how four dimensional building information modelling (4D BIM) could improve the retrofit of social housing, specifically that of ‘no-fines’ solid-wall homes, through the development of what-if scenarios that enable the analysis of alternative solutions considering costs, energy performance and disruption to users. This paper focuses on the use of 4D building information models to evaluate disruption to end users. The results indicate that the development of such models supports a better understanding of the retrofit process on site. It also supports the definition of production plans with as minimal disruption as possible to users while delivering energy-oriented and cost-effective solutions