RoofKIT - Circular Construction and Solar Energy Use in Practice at the Solar Decathlon Europe 21/22

he contribution of the RoofKIT team to the SDE 21/22 competition is the extension for an existing café in Wuppertal, Germany, to create new functions and living space for the building with simultaneous energetic upgrading. The energy concept targets all renewable resources available on and in the building for energy supply: mainly solar energy which is used via PVT collectors, as well as waste heat from ventilation and grey water which is recovered for pre-heating. As part of the competition, a demonstration unit will be built representing a small cut-out of the extension. An integral building and energy concept combines physical properties of the building with adapted building services technologies to achieve maximum indoor comfort – particularly considering possible overheating of the lightweight construction during summer – and minimum CO2 emissions. The latter extends to the whole lifecycle of the building unit and one of the major goals of the project is to realize an almost completely mono-fraction and circular building construction as a contribution to the urban mining concept

Comfort-oriented control strategies for decentralized ventilation using co-simulation

Mechanical ventilation systems have acquired relevance in the past years in order to guarantee the hygrothermal comfort and indoor air quality (IAQ) in highly retrofitted residential buildings. The optimization of control strategies could provide a solution to this existing trade-off between energy efficiency, hygrothermal comfort and IAQ. In this publication, we propose a co-simulation approach (using EnergyPlus and Modelica) and a mathematical approximation of the discomfort of the occupant (namely, quadratic for relative humidity and exponential for CO2), and apply them to a demand controlled ventilation (DCV) scheme. Results show that this approach provides around 10% energy savings, while improving the thermal comfort, without compromising the humidity comfort or the IAQ. Finally, the developed functions could allow the control schemes to adapt to different occupant preferences, showing potential for future work

BEL \u3b2\u2010Trefoil Reduces the Migration Ability of RUNX2 Expressing Melanoma Cells in Xenotransplanted Zebrafish

RUNX2, a master osteogenic transcript ion factor, is overexpressed in several cancer cells; in melanoma it promotes cells migration and invasion as well as neoangiogenesis. The annual mortality rates related to metastatic melanoma are high and novel agents are needed to improve melanoma patients\u2019 survival. It has been shown that lectins specifically target malignant cells since they present the Thomsen\u2013Friedenreich antigen. This disaccharide is hidden in normal cells, while it allows selective lectins binding in transformed cells. Recently, an edible lectin named BEL \u3b2-trefoil has been obtained from the wild mushroom Boletus edulis. Our previous study showed BEL \u3b2-trefoil effects on transcription factor RUNX2 downregulation as well as on the migration ability in melanoma cells treated in vitro. Therefore, to better understand the role of this lectin, we investigated the BEL \u3b2-trefoil effects in a zebrafish in vivo model, transplanted with human melanoma cells expressing RUNX2. Our data showed that BEL \u3b2-trefoil is able to spread in the tissues and to reduce the formation of metastases in melanoma xenotransplanted zebrafish. In conclusion, BEL \u3b2-trefoil can be considered an effective biomolecule to counteract melanoma disease

Gene Expression Dynamics During Bone Healing and Osseointegration

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141010/1/jper1007.pd

Prevalence and correlates of physical disability and functional limitation among community dwelling older people in rural Malaysia, a middle income country

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The prevalence and correlates of physical disability and functional limitation among older people have been studied in many developed countries but not in a middle income country such as Malaysia. The present study investigated the epidemiology of physical disability and functional limitation among older people in Malaysia and compares findings to other countries.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A population-based cross sectional study was conducted in Alor Gajah, Malacca. Seven hundred and sixty five older people aged 60 years and above underwent tests of functional limitation (Tinetti Performance Oriented Mobility Assessment Tool). Data were also collected for self reported activities of daily living (ADL) using the Barthel Index (ten items). To compare prevalence with other studies, ADL disability was also defined using six basic ADL's (eating, bathing, dressing, transferring, toileting and walking) and five basic ADL's (eating, bathing, dressing, transferring and toileting).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ten, six and five basic ADL disability was reported by 24.7% (95% CI 21.6-27.9), 14.4% (95% CI 11.9-17.2) and 10.6% (95% CI 8.5-13.1), respectively. Functional limitation was found in 19.5% (95% CI 16.8-22.5) of participants. Variables independently associated with 10 item ADL disability physical disability, were advanced age (≥ 75 years: prevalence ratio (PR) 7.9; 95% CI 4.8-12.9), presence of diabetes (PR 1.8; 95% CI 1.4-2.3), stroke (PR 1.5; 95% CI 1.1-2.2), depressive symptomology (PR 1.3; 95% CI 1.1-1.8) and visual impairment (blind: PR 2.0; 95% CI 1.1-3.6). Advancing age (≥ 75 years: PR 3.0; 95% CI 1.7-5.2) being female (PR 2.7; 95% CI 1.2-6.1), presence of arthritis (PR 1.6; 95% CI 1.2-2.1) and depressive symptomology (PR 2.0; 95% CI 1.5-2.7) were significantly associated with functional limitation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The prevalence of physical disability and functional limitation among older Malaysians appears to be much higher than in developed countries but is comparable to developing countries. Associations with socio-demographic and other health related variables were consistent with other studies.</p

The influence of occupancy behaviour on the performance of mechanical ventilation systems regarding energy consumption and IAQ

It has already been proven that a large portion of the energy consumption gap between simulations and reality is due to the occupant behaviour in buildings. The improving airtightness of buildings makes that Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) can no longer rely on air renewal through infiltrations, bringing the need of ventilation systems. Within this frame, an ongoing dissertation focuses on the relationship between occupancy behaviour and ventilation systems in low energy buildings. In this paper, focus is made on a high rise residential multifamily building in south Germany, which has been retrofitted and then measured for two years to obtain post-refurbishment information. The occupant’s behaviour nature was captured in 27 dwellings by measurements of inside temperatures and window openings and applied to the dynamic simulation environment WUFI+. In addition, a presence estimation model was developed in order to represent user behaviour as close as possible to reality. Different behaviours’ scenarios (concerning window opening, temperature set point, presence, activities) were combined with different control strategies for mechanical ventilation systems, with the aim of analysing the impact of these variables on the energy consumption, thermal comfort and IAQ. The results show that there is a significant energy savings potential that can be achieved regarding to the occupant behaviour, and that the most challenging issue is the trade-off between these energy savings and maintaining healthy environments with higher IAQ. The challenges of the next generation of control strategies for ventilation systems will be to provide high flexibility to make the systems compatible with different user behaviours

Acquisition of Serum Antibodies Reactive With Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli Virulence-Associated Factors by Healthy Brazilian Children and Adults

Background: Patients with hemorrhagic colitis or hemolytic uremic syndrome due to enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) develop serum IgM and IgG response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and to virulence factors such as intimin. The small numbers of cases of diarrhea associated with EHEC strains in Brazil suggests a pre-existing immunity probably due to previous contact with diarrheagenic E. coli. Our aim was to evaluate the development of the serum antibody repertoire to EHEC virulence factors in Brazilian children and adults. Methods: Serum IgM and IgG antibodies were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with LPS O111, LPS O26, and LPS O157 in 101 children between 2 months and 10 years of age and in 100 adult sera, by immunoblotting with protein membrane extracts and purified beta intimin; the ability of adult sera to neutralize Shiga toxin2 was also investigated. Results: Children older than 24 months had IgM concentrations reactive with the 3 LPS equivalent to those seen in the adult group, and significantly higher than the group of younger children (P < 0.05). Anti-O26 and anti-O157 LPS IgG concentrations were equivalent between the 2 groups of children and were significantly different from the adult group (P < 0.05). The anti-O111 LPS IgG levels in older children were intermediate between the younger group, and adults (P < 0.05). Immunoblotting revealed strong protein reactivity, including the conserved and variable regions of beta intimin and more than 50% of the adult samples neutralized Shiga toxin 2. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate an increasing anti-LPS and antiprotein antibody response with age, which could provide protection against EHEC infections.Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP)[02/03596-7]Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP)[03/13250-3

Improvement of the electron collection efficiency in porous hematite using a thin iron oxide underlayer: towards efficient all-iron based photoelectrodes

Different approaches have been explored to increase the water oxidation activity of nanostructured hematite (a-Fe2O3) photoanodes, including doping with various elements, surface functionalization with both oxygen evolving catalysts (OEC) and functional overlayers and, more recently, the introduction of ultrathin oxide underlayers as tunneling back contacts. Inspired by this latter strategy, we present here a photoanode design with a nanometric spin-coated iron oxide underlayer coupled with a mesoporous hematite film deposited by electrophoresis. The electrodes equipped with the thin underlayer exhibit a four-fold improvement in photoactivity over the simple hematite porous film, reaching a stable photocurrent density of ca. 1 mA cm2 at 0.65 V versus the saturated calomel electrode (SCE) at pH 13.3 (NaOH 0.1 M) under air mass (AM) 1.5G illumination. A further improvement to 1.5 mA cm2 is observed after decoration of the hematite surface with a Fe(III)-OEC. These results demonstrate that by combining different iron oxide morphologies, it is possible to improve the selectivity of the interfaces towards both electron collection at the back contact and hole transfer to the electrolyte, obtaining an efficient all-iron based photoelectrode entirely realized with simple wet solution scalable procedures