Strategic investment in merchant transmission: the impact of capacity utilization rules

In this paper we look at the relative merits of two capacity utilization regimes in the merchant electricity transmission network: Must offer (Mo) where the entire capacity installed is made available for transmission and Non Must Offer (NMo) where some capacity could be withheld. We look at two specific cases: (i) Demand for transmission varies across time, and (ii) Vertical integration is allowed between investors in transmission network and electricity generators. In the case of time-varying demand under Mo, we find that a monopolist may underinvest in transmission when compared to NMo, although NMo may lead to more capacity withholding. In the case of vertical integration, we find that when the market power is with the generators of the exporting node, without vertical integration no welfare-enhancing merchant investment would occur. Further, if the generators in the importing node have market power, which of the two regimes is welfare enhancing depends on the parameter values. In case vertical integration is better, then Mo is better than NMo. Finally, we also argue that the incentive to collude among various transmission network investors is mitigated with Mo in place

Evaluation of a smartphone electrocardiograph in healthy foals and comparison to standard base-apex electrocardiography

Smartphone-based technology for ECG recording has recently spread as a complementary tool for electrocardiographic screening and monitoring in adult horses and in other animal species. The present study aimed to assess the feasibility and accuracy of a smartphone-based ECG in healthy foals. This was a prospective observational study (authorization n. 45,865/2016) including 22 foals aged less than 21 days. A reference standard base-apex ECG (rECG) was acquired, and a smartphone ECG (sECG) was recorded immediately after by using a smartphone-based single lead electrocardiograph. All ECG tracings were evaluated in a blind fashion by a single board-certified cardiologist, who judged whether the tracings were acceptable for interpretation and performed ECG measurements and diagnosis. The Spearman correlation coefficient, the Cohen's k test and the Bland-Altman test were used to assess the agreement between sECG and rECG. All sECG tracings were acceptable for interpretation. All foals showed sinus rhythm on both rRCG and sECG tracings, with perfect agreement in heart rate classification (κ = 0.87; p < 0.001). No clinically relevant differences were found in the assessment of waves and intervals duration. Concerning P wave and QRS complex polarity, the percentage of agreement between rECG and sECG was 78% and 83%, respectively. About ECG tracing quality, rECG and sECG showed a substantial agreement (κ = 0.624; p < 0.001). In conclusion, the smartphone-based ECG device tested in the present study recorded good quality single-lead ECG tracings in foals, reliable for heart rate and ECG measurements, but different polarity of P waves and QRS complexes was found in some foals in comparison to rECG

Empleo del proceso Fenton para la regeneración de carbón activado saturado con contaminantes orgánicos

[ES] El carbón activado es un adsorbente empleado en muchas aplicaciones industriales. Una de ellas es la de adsorber contaminantes de las aguas en procesos de tratamiento o para el control de vertidos. Cuando el carbón activado se satura se regenera, normalmente, por procesos térmicos. Para ello se necesitan altas temperaturas y el transporte del carbón a las plantas de regeneración térmica. El proceso Fenton, puede ser una alternativa que permite el tratamiento in situ sin necesidad de consumir grandes cantidades de energía. Para probar la eficiencia del proceso de regeneración, primero se ha saturado en carbón adsorbiendo un colorante. Después se ha aplicado un proceso de Fenton siguiendo el mismo procedimiento que el empleado durante la saturación; esto es, recirculando una pequeña cantidad de agua con los reactivos de Fenton en una columna con el carbón activo saturado. Viendo la validez del método para regenerar el carbón en 3 ciclos consecutivos se planea el escalado del proceso para el tratamiento de carbón activo saturado a nivel industrial. También se ha realizado un estudio de huella de carbono del tratamiento Fenton para compararlo con el tratamiento térmico convencional.[EN] Activated carbon is an adsorbent of great interest today in our industry due to its great adsorption capacities due to its great porosity. This is used in areas such as the extraction of metals, the purification of drinking water, in veterinary and human medicine for cases of poisoning, in the treatment of waste water among many other things. This adsorbent is limited to its maximum adsorption, when this point is reached, virgin carbon can be bought again or the carbon is reactivated to recover approximately 95% of its adsorption capacity. The most used method of reactivation at the moment is the thermal one by means of furnaces at 800ºC, this reactivation has as its main problem its high cost of energy required and the cost of transport since there are few companies in the world in charge of regenerating activated carbon by thermal means and it is necessary to transport the saturated coal to one of these industries. In this project, an alternative will be studied, which is the regeneration of activated carbon by a Fenton reaction. In addition, it will be studied whether this method is actually more profitable than the one currently used in the industry.[CA] El carbó activat és un adsorbent de molt d'interés actualment en la nostra indústria per les seues grans capacitats d'adsorció a causa de la seua gran porositat. Aquest s'utilitza en àmbits com l'extracció de metalls, la purificació d'aigua potable, en medicina veterinària i humana per a casos d'intoxicació, en el tractament d'aigua residuals entre moltes altres coses. Aquest adsorbent es limita a la seua màxima adsorció, quan s'arriba a aquest punt es pot tornar a comprar carbó verge o es reactiva el carbó per a recuperar aproximadament el 95% de la seua capacitat per adsorbir. El mètode més utilitzat actualment de reactivació és el tèrmic mitjançant forns a 800 °C, aquesta reactivació té com a principal problema el seu alt cost d'energia necessaria i el cost de transport ja que hi ha poques empreses en el món encarregades de la regeneració del carbó activat per via tèrmica i és necessari transportar el carbó saturat a una d'aquestes indústries. En aquest projecte s'estudiarà una alternativa que és la regeneració del carbó activat per una reacció fento. A més s'estudiara si realment aquest mètode és més rendible que el més utilitzat actualment en la indústriaJuliá Sala, F. (2021). Empleo del proceso Fenton para la regeneración de carbón activado saturado con contaminantes orgánicos. Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/173738TFG

Consumer Footprint. Basket of Products indicator on Housing

The EU Consumer Footprint aims at assessing the potential environmental impacts due to consumption. The calculation of the Consumer footprint is based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of representative products (or services) purchased and used in one year by an EU citizen. This report is about the consumer footprint indicators of the basket of product (BoP) on housing. In order to assess the environmental impact of EU housing consumption, a LCA-based methodology has been applied to twenty-four representative dwellings (basket of products), modelled on the basis of the type of building (single or multifamily houses), the year of construction (four timeframes), and the climate zone (three zones) in which they are located. One of the main novelty of this work is the definition of twenty-four archetypes of buildings, changing the construction materials and the building specific features affecting the inventory for each archetype. The resulting baseline inventory model, referring to the year 2010, was assessed for 15 different impact categories, using the ILCD LCIA method. A sensitivity analysis has been run for some impact categories, with a selection of recent impact assessment models and factors. Results allows a wide array of considerations, as this study reports overall impact in Europe, average impact per citizen, share of impact due to dwelling typology and climate areas, as well as impact of each dwelling type per climate zone per year of construction. Single-family houses are responsible for the highest share of impacts. The same type of building has different impacts in different climatic zones, especially because cold climate requires higher input of resources for space heating. The overall results reveal that the use phase (energy and water consumption) dominates the impacts, followed by the production of construction materials. In general, electricity use and space heating are the activities that contribute the most to the overall impacts. Depending on the normalisation reference used (European or global) the most important impact category present a different relative share. However, human toxicity, respiratory inorganics, resource depletion (metals, fossils, and water), climate change and ionising radiations show the highest impacts for all the normalization references. Since many LCA study on housing are limited to the assessment of climate change related emissions, the BoP housing baseline aims at helping understanding the wider array of impacts associated to the housing system and the potential areas of ecoinnovation improvement for reducing the burden. To assess potential benefits stemming from selected ecoinnovation, the Consumer Footprint BoP housing baseline has been assessed against nine scenarios, referring to improvement options related to the main drivers of impact. The nine scenarios covers both technological improvements and changes in consumers behaviour, entailing: 1. night attenuation of setting temperature for space heating; 2. external wall insulation with an increased thickness; 3. external wall insulation comparing conventional or bio-based materials; 4. use of a solar collector to heat sanitary water; 5. floor finishing with timber instead of ceramic tiles; 6. a building structure in timber compared with concrete frame; 7. implementation of smart windows for improved energy efficiency; 8. a combination of selected above mentioned energy-related scenarios; 9. production of electricity through a photovoltaic system installed on the roof. The assessment of the selected scenarios, acting on energy efficiency, resource efficiency, renewable energy and bio-based material (scenarios 1 to 7) revealed that the potential reduction in impact for each of the eco-innovation assessed is relatively limited and that a combination of actions is needed to achieve significant improvements. Moreover, in the case of scenarios acting on the substitution of specific components of the building, the potential improvement is proportional to the relative importance of the substituted component in the baseline scenario. However, a preliminary modelling of combination of energy-related measures (scenario 8) proved to be a good way to enlarge the potential benefits coming from the selected improvements of the building stock. The results highlight as well that LCA is fundamental for unveiling trade-off between benefits associated to eco-innovation and burden arising from their implementation.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Effects of antihypertensive drugs on carotid intima-media thickness: Focus on angiotensin II receptor blockers. A review of randomized, controlled trials

Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and plaques have been shown to have a strong continuous relationship with cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality; therefore, carotid atherosclerosis, as assessed by ultrasonography, can be regarded as a reliable surrogate end-point for therapeutic interventions. In this survey, we report the results of 16 double blind, randomized, controlled studies comparing: 1) antihypertensive drugs versus placebo/no treatment (five trials including 3,215 patients); 2) different active antihypertensive drug regimens (five trials including 4,662 patients); 3) angiotensin-II receptor blockers (ARBs) versus other antihypertensive agents (six trials including 841 patients). Our main findings can be summarized as follows: I) Long-term antihypertensive treatment has a blunting effect on carotid IMT progression, regardless of types of drugs. II) Calcium-channel blockers (CCBs) are more effective than other antihypertensive drugs including diuretics, beta-blockers, and angiotensin converting-enzyme (ACE)-inhibitors in this blunting effect; III) the effect of ARBs compared to other antihypertensive regimens (mostly based on atenolol) on carotid atherosclerosis progression needs to be further elucidated, as a protective effect was demonstrated by some, but not all studies examined. Thus, further studies are needed to clarify the role of ARBs in this therapeutic area

Vulnerability, Responsibilities and Migration

Vulnerability is commonly considered as a feature of human beings on which our duties towards each other are grounded: we ought to help the vulnerable in virtue of their being such. Our duties seem rather clear when those in need are close to us, both physically and culturally, but less so when they are distant in either of the two senses. In this essay we wish to investigate the strength of our duties towards migrants, who are often either culturally or physically distant, yet vulnerable by definition – fleeing from wars, dictatorships, poverty, climate change, or other calamities. The view we aim to defend, is that our duties towards them, unlike what has been suggested by David Miller, are duties of justice, not of beneficence, and involve duties to host. This, we claim, is owed to migrants’ very vulnerability, which is not due to some kind of misfortune, but, eventually, to some form of injustice. We will also claim that taking into account migrants’ own responsibility, either as individuals or as members of a collectivity, is of no practical use when establishing our duties to host them

Left ventricular geometry and diastolic function in the hypertensive heart : impact of age

Background and aim. The impact of aging on the relationship between left ventricular (LV) mass/geometry and diastolic function as assessed by updated echocardiographic methods, such as tissue Doppler, is poorly defined. We investigated this issue in a cohort of hypertensive patients. Methods. A total of 660 hypertensives (mean age 65±13 years, 48% men) with preserved LV systolic function underwent a comprehensive echo-Doppler examination for routine clinical indications. For the present analysis, the subjects have been divided in two age groups (<65 or ≥65 years). Results. Overall, 61% of subjects fulfilled the criteria for LVH, 18% for left atrial (LA) enlargement and 11% for altered LV filling index. Concentric LV geometry was 1.4-fold higher in older hypertensives than in younger counterparts; also the prevalence of LA enlargement and altered LV filling was 2.0- and 1.9-fold higher in the former group, respectively. In older hypertensives, at variance from younger ones, neither LV mass nor relative wall thickness (RWT), a continuous index of LV geometry, were independently correlated to conventional as well as tissue Doppler LV diastolic indexes. Conclusions. Our findings suggest the relationship between cardiac hypertrophy and diastolic function in hypertensive subjects is affected by aging-associated factors unrelated to the amount of LV mass as assessed by standard echocardiography. © 2013 Scandinavian Foundation for Cardiovascular Research

Delirium in hip fractured patients

The current clinical case concerns the mixed delirium in a 70-year-old man with hip fracture, following a fall at home. In his medical history, the patient reported several comorbidities, among which also sarcopenia. Delirium was already diagnosed by the geriatrician on hospital admission. The patient underwent hip endoprosthesis surgery after 24 hours without any intra-operative complications. However, in the post-operative period delirium persisted, causing a prolonged hospital stay, a delayed physio-therapy rehabilitation with poor functional recovery, and subsequent insti-tutionalization. The prevalence of delirium in older people with hip fracture is extremely high and it is associated with several negative outcomes. Delirium is considered a multifactorial disorder, and, in particular, sarcopenia appears directly linked to the development of delirium. The systematic assessment of sarcopenia should be performed in hospitalized older patients with hip fracture, together with the other predisposing risk factors for delirium, to timely identify people at higher risk for both delirium and disability