Evolution of and additional functionalities to the city energy planning platform MEU

The MEU GIS-enabled web-platform has been developed in close collaboration with four Swiss cities: it enables detailed monitoring and planning for both energy demand and supply at individual building and neighborhood level (http://meu.epfl.ch). Whereas the first version of the MEU platform allowed launching calculations for only up to several hundreds of buildings at a time, the refactored version presently gives access to entire cities comprising several thousands of buildings with the same level of detail. On one hand, the code architecture has been thoroughly revised and consolidated while, on the other hand, the databases for the four partner cities are being completed, checked, corrected and eventually made completely available for several years. A large test campaign is thus underway on the refactored version of the MEU platform. In the upcoming months, the latter will present all the functionalities of the prototype version, i.e. include the construction and evaluation of complex energy scenarios. New functionalities are concomitantly being added to the MEU platform, in particular at the level of the energy networks. Indeed, in the prototype version, the latter were only displayed but no network attributes (except geo-referencing) were neither introduced nor used in calculations. The envisioned new functionalities will enable to start filling this important usability gap by adding network detailed attributes to the database structure and by allowing pre-dimensioning calculations based on selected energy scenarios and including the networks characteristics (available power, temperatures/pressures, limiting dimensions, aso.). The energy supply side aspects will thus be quantitatively be taken into account, along with the implications in terms of network extension/densification precisely determined. The natural gas network, which is – and shall continue to be - broadly present in all four partner cities, representing up to 30 % of the overall final territorial energy consumption, will be used as the first test case, in close collaboration with local multi-energy utilities

Image‐guided percutaneous cryoablation of unresectable sacrococcygeal chordoma: Feasibility and outcome in a selected group of patients with long term follow‐up

Chordoma is a rare malignant tumor of the axial skeleton. Percutaneous cryoablation (PCA) is a minimally invasive technique that allows freezing of tumors under imaging control. The purpose of our retrospective study was to investigate the outcome of PCA in a selected cohort of patients with sacrococcygeal chordoma, with a minimum of 5 years follow-up. Four patients were treated in 10 sessions. The mean follow-up was 57.3 months. We evaluated the feasibility, the procedure-related complications, the impact on pain control and oncological outcomes. Freezing of 100% of the tumor volume was possible in 60%. Pain control was not reliably evaluable. Local recurrence occurred in 90% of the treated lesions; the mean time to progression was 8.1 months (range 1.5-16). At last follow-up, one patient had died of the disease, one of another cause and one was receiving the best supportive care. The only patient alive without the disease had received additional carbon-ion radiotherapy. The 5-year survival rate after index PCA was 50%. Complete freezing of the tumor was technically challenging, mainly due to the complex local anatomy. Recurrence occurred in 90% of the lesions treated. PCA should be considered with caution in the curative management of sacrococcygeal chordoma

LIN28B Underlies the Pathogenesis of a Subclass of Ewing Sarcoma

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SyGEMe: Système de gestion municipale intégrée du cycle de l'eau: Définition des spécifications et analyse des interactions entre les besoins métiers, l'architecture du système et la définition de fonctionnalités innovantes

Les impacts sur notre environnement et notre société des actuels changements climatiques sont nombreux. Les effets du réchauffement / dérèglement des températures annoncé et la nécessité de diminuer drastiquement et rapidement les émission de gaz à effet de serre vont modifier notre mode de vie actuel. Les consommations d’énergie fossile devront être freinés, les productions d’énergie d’origine renouvelable augmentées. Dans les régions alpines, la disponibilité des ressources en eau serra probablement diminuée, avec pour effet une diminution de la production annuelle d’hydroélectricité et de la sécurité d’approvisionnement des villes et villages en eau potable. Ce sont les collectivités qui ont pour devoir de gérer les flux qui traversent les villes (eau potable / usées, gaz naturel, électricité, chauffage à distance, télévision câblée) et donc d’assurer la sécurité d’approvisionnement. Cependant, à l’heure actuelle, les responsables politiques et techniques locaux ne disposent pas encore d’instruments intégrés de pilotage des flux. Les outils existants restent spécifiques, non interconnectés et ne permettent pas la vision globale nécessaire à l’optimisation de la gestion. Fort de cette problématique, les experts du Centre de Recherches Energétiques et Municipales CREM et de l’Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) en collaboration avec différents partenaires industriels travaillent depuis mars 2007 au développement d’un outil de gestion municipal intégré du cycle de l’eau (SyGEMe)

Allergie aux implants orthopédiques : mythe ou réalité ? [Hypersensitivity to metal : myth or reality ?]

So-called metal allergy is a new interesting subject in orthopedics. Two different ways of thinking prevail in the literature. In the German orthopaedic literature, the diagnosis of metal allergy is often described and considered a real pathology, while we can find a more skeptical approach to this entity in Anglo-Saxons literature. Being an exclusion diagnostic, without any universal consensus on how to diagnose or on the treatment, the aim of this article is to clarify what we know about metal allergy today

Centrales électriques du futur: Quelles possibilités pour les rejets thermiques?

La production d’électricité sera dans le futur assurée en bonne partie par des centrales thermiques alimentées d’une part en énergie fossile et d’autre part en énergies renouvelables. En effet, quelle que soit l’ampleur du phénomène de substitution des énergies fossiles par les énergies renouvelables, la valorisation de la chaleur issue de la géothermie profonde, de la biomasse (bois), du biogaz, du gaz de digestion (STEP), des UIOM (déchets) pour la production d’électricité nécessite le déploiement de réseaux de chauffage à distance (CAD) sur les territoires à fortes densités de demande thermique.Thermische Kraftwerke: Wie kann die Wärme genutzt werden? Die Stromerzeugung wird künftig häufig durch thermische Kraftwerke sichergestellt,die einerseits mit fossiler Energie und andererseits mit erneuerbaren Energien betrieben werden. Unabhängig davon, inwiefern fossile Energiequellen durch erneuerbare Quellen abgelöst werden, bedingt die Verwertung der Wärme aus Erdwärme, Biomasse (Holz),Biogas, Klärgas (ARA) und Abfällen (KVA) für die Stromherstellung die Erstellung thermischer Kombikraftwerke (Strom und Wärme). Für jede Stromeinheit, die in einem thermischen Kraftwerk erzeugt wird, müssen die zugeführten 1 bis 10 Wärmeeinheiten verwertet werden, die heute noch viel zu häufig als nicht nutzbare Nebenprodukte betrachtet werden

Traitement chirurgical des métastases du fémur proximal [Surgical treatment of proximal femur metastases]

Aging of the population results in an increase of the incidence of cancer and bone metastases. The proximal femur is one of the most frequent locations of bone metastases. A pathological fracture has a major impact on the quality of life and potentially on survival. In case of impending fracture, prophylactic fixation is therefore strongly recommended. The management of metastases of the proximal femur depends on multiple parameters, life expectancy and fracture risk being the most important ones. If survival is estimated to be less than 6 weeks, surgery is generally not indicated. Beyond 6 weeks, surgical indication essentially depends on location of the metastases on the proximal femur and the presence of a fracture