Overcoming the incumbency and barriers to sustainable cooling

This article examines cooling in the built environment, an area of rapidly rising energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, the status quo of cooling is assessed and proposals are made for how to advance towards sustainable cooling through five levers of change: social interactions, technology innovations, business models, governance and infrastructure design. Achieving sustainable cooling requires navigating the opportunities and barriers presented by the incumbent technology that currently dominates the way in which cooling is provided—the vapour-compression refrigerant technology (or air-conditioners). Air-conditioners remain the go-to solution for growing cooling demand, with other alternatives often overlooked. This incumbent technology has contributed to five barriers hindering the transition to sustainable cooling: (1) building policies based exclusively on energy efficiency; (2) a focus on temperature rather than other thermal comfort variables; (3) building-centric design of cooling systems instead of occupant-centric design; (4) businesses guided by product-only sales; and (5) lack of innovation beyond the standard operational phase of the incumbent technology. Opportunities and priority actions are identified for policymakers, cooling professionals, technicians and citizens to promote a transition towards sustainable cooling. Policy relevance The priority actions that can overcome key barriers to a sustainable cooling pathway are as follows. (1) Moving building policies beyond energy efficiency to address climate mitigation and adaptation for improving the heat resilience of the built environment. Building indicators are needed to measure the passive survivability to heat. (2) Conventional cooling control and related regulations based exclusively on air temperature require expansion in scope to consider a wider range of thermal comfort variables, thus stimulating technological innovation. (3) Shifting building-centric cooling control to an occupant-centric design, downsizing centralised cooling requirements and enabling adaptive environments integrating personalised environmental control systems. (4) Business models moving from product-oriented to service-based businesses. (5) Environmental cooling considerations that address the humidity influence, the role of energy storage to support renewables through energy flexibility in cooling, and the impact of F-gases. Regulation and citizen empowerment through better environmental labelling can play an important role

Comparative SAXS and DSC study on stratum corneum structural organization in an epidermal cell culture model (ROC):Impact of cultivation time

Cell cultured skin equivalents present an alternative for dermatological in vitro evaluations of drugs and excipients as they provide the advantage of availability, lower variability and higher assay robustness compared to native skin. For penetration/permeation studies, an adequate stratum corneum barrier similar to that of human stratum corneum is, however, a prerequisite. In this study, the stratum corneum lipid organization in an epidermal cell culture model based on rat epidermal keratinocytes (REK organotypic culture, ROC) was investigated by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) in dependence on ROC cultivation time and in comparison to native human and rat stratum cornea. In addition, the thermal phase behavior was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and barrier properties were checked by measurements of the permeability of tritiated water. The development of the barrier of ROC SC obtained at different cultivation times (7, 14 and 21 days at the air–liquid interface) was connected with an increase in structural order of the SC lipids in SAXS measurements: Already cultivation for 14 days at the air–liquid interface resulted overall in a competent SC permeability barrier and SC lipid organization. Cultivation for 21 days resulted in further minor changes in the structural organization of ROC SC. The SAXS patterns of ROC SC had overall large similarities with that of human SC and point to the presence of a long periodicity phase with a repeat distance of about 122 Å, e.g. slightly smaller than that determined for human SC in the present study (127 Å). Moreover, SAXS results also indicate the presence of covalently bound ceramides, which are crucial for a proper SC barrier, although the corresponding thermal transitions were not clearly detectable by DSC.Due to the competent SC barrier properties and high structural and organizational similarity to that of native human SC, ROC presents a promising alternative for in vitro studies, particularly as it can be obtained under overall rather straightforward cell culture conditions and thus low assay costs

The use of multicriteria decision analysis to support decision making in healthcare: an updated systematic literature review

Objectives Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) is increasingly used for decision making in healthcare. However, its application in different decision-making contexts is still unclear. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive review of MCDA studies performed to inform decisions in healthcare and to summarize its application in different decision contexts. Methods We updated a systematic review conducted in 2013 by searching Embase, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar for MCDA studies in healthcare, published in English between August 2013 and November 2020. We also expanded the search by reviewing grey literature found via Trip Medical Database and Google, published between January 1990 and November 2020. A comprehensive template was developed to extract information about the decision context, criteria, methods, stakeholders involved, and sensitivity analyses conducted. Results From the 4295 identified studies, 473 studies were eligible for full-text review after assessing titles and abstracts. Of those, 228 studies met the inclusion criteria and underwent data extraction. The use of MCDA continues to grow in healthcare literature, with most of the studies (49%) informing priority-setting decisions. Safety, cost, and quality of care delivery are the most frequently used criteria, although there are considerable differences across decision contexts. Almost half of the MCDA studies used the linear additive model whereas scales and the analytical hierarchy process were the most used techniques for scoring and weighting, respectively. Not all studies report on each one of the MCDA steps, consider axiomatic properties, or justify the methods used. Conclusions A guide on how to conduct and report MCDA that acknowledges the particularities of the different decision contexts and methods needs to be developed

Lead tolerance and accumulation in Hirschfeldia incana, a Mediterranean Brassicaceae from metalliferous mine spoils.

Lead is a heavy metal of particular concern with respect to environmental quality and health. The lack of plant species that accumulate and tolerate Pb is a limiting factor to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in Pb tolerance. In this study we identified Hirschfeldia incana, a Brassicaceae collected from metalliferous mine spoils in Morocco, as a Pb accumulator plant. H. incana exhibited high Pb accumulation in mine soils and in hydroponic cultures. Major Pb accumulation occurred in the roots and a part of Pb translocated from the roots to the shoots, even to the siliques. These findings demonstrated that H. incana is a Pb accumulator species. The expression of several candidate genes after Pb-exposure was measured by quantitative PCR and two of them, HiHMA4 and HiMT2a, coding respectively for a P1B-type ATPase and a metallothionein, were particularly induced by Pb-exposure in both roots and leaves. The functional characterization of HiHMA4 and HiMT2a was achieved using Arabidopsis T-DNA insertional mutants. Pb content and primary root growth analysis confirmed the role of these two genes in Pb tolerance and accumulation. H. incana could be considered as a good experimental model to identify genes involved in lead tolerance and accumulation in plants

Description of the cDNA sequences isolated from <i>H. incana</i>.

a<p>GeneBank accession number (<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/" target="_blank">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/</a>).</p>b<p>AGI gene code (<a href="http://www.arabidopsis.org/" target="_blank">http://www.arabidopsis.org/</a>).</p

Lead concentration in shoots of <i>H. incana</i> growing on different polluted soils.

<p>Seedlings were grown on sterile compost for 20 days and transferred for 2 months on 4 different soils containing various amounts of total lead (soil 1∶6972 mg.kg⁻¹ DW, soil 2∶18626 mg.kg⁻¹ DW, soil 3∶7531 mg.kg⁻¹ DW and soil 4∶1577 mg.kg⁻¹ DW; <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0061932#pone-0061932-t001" target="_blank">Table 1</a>). Data are the average (± SE) of three independent measurements.</p