Web-Based Management of Public Buildings: A Workflow Based on Integration of BIM and IoT Sensors with a Web–GIS Portal

In this paper, we present the final results from the research project “Urban Abacus of Building Energy Performances (Abaco Urbano Energeticodegli Edifci–AUREE)” aimed at supporting the renovation process and energy efficiency enhancement of urban building stocks. The crux of the AUREE project is a Web–GIS GeoBlog portal with customized semantic dashboards aimed at sharing information on an urban built environment and promoting the participation of local stakeholders in its improvement. As the latest development of this research, a workflow that integrates the AUREE portal with BIM authoring and an open-source IoT platform is implemented and applied to an experimental case study concerning a public building in Carbonia (Italy). The headquarters of the Sotacarbo Sustainable Energy Research Center was selected as the case study. The presented results proved that it was possible to create a valid open system, which was accessible to both specialist and unskilled users, and aimed at guiding, through a progressive knowledge deepening, common end-users toward proper conscious “energy behaviors” as well as public administrations and decision-makers toward sustainable facility management. Later, the proposed open system could also be suitable to be used as an effective tool to support the rising “energy communities”

low enthalpy geothermal systems for air conditioning a case study in the mediterranean climate

Abstract This paper presents a preliminary evaluation of the technical and economic feasibility of a low-enthalpy geothermal system for air conditioning and its integration with other systems, including a photovoltaic plant and an electrical storage system. The pilot building is a research center located in the southern side of the Mediterranean basin (Sardinia, Italy). Preliminarily, the main geological, hydrogeological and geothermal characteristics of the area were analyzed. Then, an energetic assessment of the building and its plants was performed. The hourly production of a photovoltaic plant already designed for the building was assessed. To improve the energy efficiency and the thermal energy self-consumption, an alternative thermal generation plant was proposed to replace the existing air conditioning system: a water-water heat pump coupled with a low-enthalpy geothermal probe (vertical configuration), to be embedded into the ground or placed into an existing groundwater well. The feasibility of electric storage was evaluated by considering a system capacity of 100 kWh to temporarily store and self-consume the electricity overproduced by the photovoltaic plant. A preliminary economic assessment showed the viability of the photovoltaic system. The 100 kWh-capacity electric storage will increase the self-production percentage, but it is not economically affordable. The replacement of the current air-water heat pumps with one water-water heat pump will be economically convenient if coupled with a groundwater geothermal probe, but the solution of a vertical probe embedded into the ground is unsustainable, due to high drilling costs

The Palma Echo Platform: Rationale and Design of an Echocardiography Core Lab

Background: The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Characterization of cardiac structural and functional abnormalities due to the MetS can help recognize individuals who would benefit the most from preventive interventions. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) provides an opportunity to identify those abnormalities in a reproducible and cost-efficient manner. In research settings, implementation of protocols for the acquisition and analysis of TTE images are key to ensure validity and reproducibility, thus facilitating answering relevant questions about the association of the MetS with cardiac alterations. Methods and Results: The Palma Echo Platform (PEP) is a coordinated network that is built up to evaluate the underlying structural and functional cardiac substrate of participants with MetS. Repeated TTE will be used to evaluate 5-year changes in the cardiac structure and function in a group of 565 individuals participating in a randomized trial of a lifestyle intervention for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. The echocardiographic studies will be performed at three study sites, and will be centrally evaluated at the PEP core laboratory. Planned analyses will involve evaluating the effect of the lifestyle intervention on cardiac structure and function, and the association of the MetS and its components with changes in cardiac structure and function. Particular emphasis will be placed on evaluating parameters of left atrial structure and function, which have received more limited attention in past investigations. This PEP will be available for future studies addressing comparable questions. Conclusion: In this article we describe the protocol of a central echocardiography laboratory for the study of functional and structural alterations of the MetS.Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers R01HL137338 and K24HL148521, and administrative supplement to promote diversity 3R01HL137338-03S1. This work was supported by the official Spanish Institutions for funding scientific biomedical research, CIBER Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición (CIBEROBN) and Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), through the Fondo de Investigación para la Salud (FIS), which was co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (PI13/00673, PI13/00492, PI13/00272, PI13/01123, PI13/00462, PI13/00233, PI13/02184, PI13/00728, PI13/01090, PI13/01056, PI14/01722, PI14/00636, PI14/00618, PI14/00696, PI14/01206, PI14/01919, PI14/00853, PI14/01374, PI14/00972, PI14/00728, PI14/01471, PI16/00473, PI16/00662, PI16/01873, PI16/01094, PI16/00501, PI16/00533, PI16/00381, PI16/00366, PI16/01522, PI16/01120, PI17/00764, PI17/01183, PI17/00855, PI17/01347, PI17/00525, PI17/01827, PI17/00532, PI17/00215, PI17/01441, PI17/00508, PI17/01732, PI17/00926, PI19/00957, PI19/00386, PI19/00309, PI19/01032, PI19/00576, PI19/00017, PI19/01226, PI19/00781, PI19/01560, PI19/01332, PI20/01802, PI20/00138, PI20/01532, PI20/00456, PI20/00339, PI20/00557, PI20/00886, and PI20/01158); the Especial Action Project entitled: Implementación y evaluación de una intervención intensiva sobre la actividad física Cohorte PREDIMED-Plus; the European Research Council (Advanced Research Grant 2014–2019; agreement #340918); the Recercaixa (number 2013ACUP00194); grants from the Consejería de Salud de la Junta de Andalucía (PI0458/2013, PS0358/2016, PI0137/2018); the PROMETEO/2017/017 grant from the Generalitat Valenciana; the SEMERGEN grant; none of the funding sources took part in the design, collection, analysis, interpretation of the data, or writing the report, or in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication

Sulfur rich coal gasification and low impact methanol production

In recent times, the methanol was employed in numerous innovative applications and is a key compound widely used as a building block or intermediate for producing synthetic hydrocarbons, solvents, energy storage medium and fuel. It is a source of clean, sustainable energy that can be produced from traditional and renewable sources: natural gas, coal, biomass, landfill gas and power plant or industrial emissions. An innovative methanol production process from coal gasification is proposed in this work. A suitable comparison between the traditional coal to methanol process and the novel one is provided and deeply discussed. The most important features, with respect to the traditional ones, are the lower carbon dioxide emissions (about 0.3%) and the higher methanol production (about 0.5%) without any addition of primary sources. Moreover, it is demonstrated that a coal feed/fuel with a high sulfur content allows higher reductions of carbon dioxide emissions. The key idea is to convert hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide into syngas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide) by means of a regenerative thermal reactor. This is the Acid Gas to Syngas technology, a completely new and effective route of processing acid gases. The main concept is to feed an optimal ratio of hydrogen sulphide and carbon monoxide and to preheat the inlet acid gas before the combustion. The reactor is simulated using a detailed kinetic scheme

COVID-19 Severity in Multiple Sclerosis: Putting Data Into Context

Background and objectives: It is unclear how multiple sclerosis (MS) affects the severity of COVID-19. The aim of this study is to compare COVID-19-related outcomes collected in an Italian cohort of patients with MS with the outcomes expected in the age- and sex-matched Italian population. Methods: Hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, and death after COVID-19 diagnosis of 1,362 patients with MS were compared with the age- and sex-matched Italian population in a retrospective observational case-cohort study with population-based control. The observed vs the expected events were compared in the whole MS cohort and in different subgroups (higher risk: Expanded Disability Status Scale [EDSS] score > 3 or at least 1 comorbidity, lower risk: EDSS score ≤ 3 and no comorbidities) by the χ2 test, and the risk excess was quantified by risk ratios (RRs). Results: The risk of severe events was about twice the risk in the age- and sex-matched Italian population: RR = 2.12 for hospitalization (p < 0.001), RR = 2.19 for ICU admission (p < 0.001), and RR = 2.43 for death (p < 0.001). The excess of risk was confined to the higher-risk group (n = 553). In lower-risk patients (n = 809), the rate of events was close to that of the Italian age- and sex-matched population (RR = 1.12 for hospitalization, RR = 1.52 for ICU admission, and RR = 1.19 for death). In the lower-risk group, an increased hospitalization risk was detected in patients on anti-CD20 (RR = 3.03, p = 0.005), whereas a decrease was detected in patients on interferon (0 observed vs 4 expected events, p = 0.04). Discussion: Overall, the MS cohort had a risk of severe events that is twice the risk than the age- and sex-matched Italian population. This excess of risk is mainly explained by the EDSS score and comorbidities, whereas a residual increase of hospitalization risk was observed in patients on anti-CD20 therapies and a decrease in people on interferon

DMTs and Covid-19 severity in MS: a pooled analysis from Italy and France

We evaluated the effect of DMTs on Covid-19 severity in patients with MS, with a pooled-analysis of two large cohorts from Italy and France. The association of baseline characteristics and DMTs with Covid-19 severity was assessed by multivariate ordinal-logistic models and pooled by a fixed-effect meta-analysis. 1066 patients with MS from Italy and 721 from France were included. In the multivariate model, anti-CD20 therapies were significantly associated (OR = 2.05, 95%CI = 1.39–3.02, p < 0.001) with Covid-19 severity, whereas interferon indicated a decreased risk (OR = 0.42, 95%CI = 0.18–0.99, p = 0.047). This pooled-analysis confirms an increased risk of severe Covid-19 in patients on anti-CD20 therapies and supports the protective role of interferon

A methodological approach for a home occupants centred web tool to support buildings energy retrofitting process

This paper presents a methodological approach to develop a user-oriented web tool to support the early stage of the decision making process for energy retrofitting of residential real estates. The tool mixes a simple analytical Urban Building Energy Model (UBEM) to user-oriented feedback interfaces to simulate the retrofitting potential of the residential units. The AUREE tool will be based on a Web – GIS GeoBlog portal with customized interfaces aimed to share the knowledge on urban building heritage and promote participation of stakeholders of the urban community. There are many literature exempla of guidelines or quality protocols on the topic of energy efficiency specified to particular types of buildings or focused on a territorial area, but these are generally not integrated into a geographically based tool. Moreover, the AUREE methodology aims to set interfaces that could use the portal users’ feedback to update the content of the portal itself. After touch on the theoretical context, a summary of the AUREE project is presented, and then the paper focuses on the structures of algorithms and tools adopted on the residential users’ interfaces. The interface mixes the results of an engineering Urban Building Energy Model based on local archetypal approach and standard energy calculation (series UNI 11300 - TS), with participative data provided via user-interactive interfaces to obtain customized retrofitting scenarios and suggestions. At the end of the paper, the main critical aspects and the further step of the research project are pointe