Energy conservation and building design: the environmental push and pull factors

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is threefold; to investigate the potential impact of energy conservation policies and legislation on building design; examine energy conservation practices in the building industry; and identify associated barriers to an integrated low energy architectural design process. Design/methodology/approach – A survey of UK architectural design practices was conducted to assess the impact of current energy conservation policies and legislation on current building design, and ascertain architects’ views on the associated barriers and incentives to implementing and sustaining energy conservation strategies in their projects. Findings – Results reveal that building design is affected by existing legislation but often not by policies. Additionally, there is a lack of incentives for the building industry to adopt and implement low energy design strategies that are outlined in existing policies and guidance. Furthermore, results identify a need for increased awareness of the available energy saving technologies. Research limitations/implications – Architects are the first point of contact for driving more energy efficient design and conservation strategies. Therefore, this study was confined to a cross section of their opinions of energy conservation within the UK building industry. Practical implications – The study is useful for those interested in the current levels of implementation of low energy design strategies and the recommendations for the future of the energy conservation and building design in the UK. Originality/value – The study of energy conservation and building design provides insights into current environmental design practices; and identifies problems for the implementation of effective and integrated low energy building design process. The content should be of interest to architects, as it highlights the current level of implementation of energy conservation measures in building design

Urinary steroid metabolites and ratios in patients with steatosis, NASH and control patients.

<p>Mean absolute values are shown (µg/24 h) +/− SEM.</p>a<p>P<0.05 vs controls,</p>b<p>P<0.01 vs controls,</p>c<p>P<0.05 vs steatosis,</p>d<p>P<0.01 vs steatosis. (An: Androsterone, Et: Etiochoanolone, THE: tetrahydrocostione, THF: tetrahydrocortisol).</p

Schematic: Hepatic glucocorticoid metabolism and its modulation in response to disease progression in NAFLD.

<p>Schematic: Hepatic glucocorticoid metabolism and its modulation in response to disease progression in NAFLD.</p

Real time PCR mRNA expression data on whole liver samples from 5 normal patients and 5 NASH patients (expressed as arbitrary units ± SEM) for (A)HSD11B1 (11β-HSD 1), (B)SRD5A2 (5α-reductase 2), (C)GRα.

<p>** p<0.01 NASH vs controls; * p<0.05 NASH vs controls.</p

Baseline clinical characteristics of patients with hepatic steatosis, NASH and controls.

<p>Data are presented as means ± SE.</p>∼<p>Whole body fat measured by DXA. CT measured visceral and subcutaneous fat.</p>a<p>controls vs steatosis p<0.05,</p>b<p>controls vs steatosis p<0.01, controls vs NASH p<0.05,</p>d<p>controls vs NASH p<0.01,</p>e<p>steatosis vs NASH p<0.05,</p>f<p>steatosis vs NASH p<0.01. (Dex: dexamethasone).</p

11β-HSD1 activity assessed by:

<p>(A) 24 hr urine cortols/cortolones and 5αTHF+THF/THE ratios (mean ± SEM) in patients with steatosis and steatohepatitis compared with controls. (B) Hepatic cortisol generation measured by cortisol generation profiles (mean AUC ± SEM) in patients with steatosis and steatohepatitis compared with controls.</p

24 hour urine steroid metabolite analysis from patients with steatosis and steatohepatitis compared with obese controls.

<p>(A): 5α-reductase activity as depicted by the urinary 5αTHF/THF ratio (mean ± SEM). (B): total 24 Urine 5α-reduced metabolites (mean ± SEM) (Andros: androsterone). (C): total 24 hr Urine F metabolites (mean ± SEM).</p

Scaling of an antibody validation procedure enables quantification of antibody performance in major research applications.

Antibodies are critical reagents to detect and characterize proteins. It is commonly understood that many commercial antibodies do not recognize their intended targets, but information on the scope of the problem remains largely anecdotal, and as such, feasibility of the goal of at least one potent and specific antibody targeting each protein in a proteome cannot be assessed. Focusing on antibodies for human proteins, we have scaled a standardized characterization approach using parental and knockout cell lines (Laflamme et al., 2019) to assess the performance of 614 commercial antibodies for 65 neuroscience-related proteins. Side-by-side comparisons of all antibodies against each target, obtained from multiple commercial partners, have demonstrated that: (i) more than 50% of all antibodies failed in one or more applications, (ii) yet, ~50-75% of the protein set was covered by at least one high-performing antibody, depending on application, suggesting that coverage of human proteins by commercial antibodies is significant; and (iii) recombinant antibodies performed better than monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies. The hundreds of underperforming antibodies identified in this study were found to have been used in a large number of published articles, which should raise alarm. Encouragingly, more than half of the underperforming commercial antibodies were reassessed by the manufacturers, and many had alterations to their recommended usage or were removed from the market. This first study helps demonstrate the scale of the antibody specificity problem but also suggests an efficient strategy toward achieving coverage of the human proteome; mine the existing commercial antibody repertoire, and use the data to focus new renewable antibody generation efforts

Data used to value nature-based recreation

This is a short data file containing data collected in questionnaire surveys in 2011 of visitors to a wetland restoration project at Wicken Fen. It is divided into short sections that list different categories of data from the questionnaire. It also lists data received from the National Trust about visitor numbers in 2010