The "Statinth" wonder of the world: a panacea for all illnesses or a bubble about to burst

After the introduction of statins in the market as effective lipid lowering agents, they were shown to have effects other than lipid lowering. These actions were collectively referred to as 'pleiotropic actions of statins.' Pleiotropism of statins formed the basis for evaluating statins for several indications other than lipid lowering. Evidence both in favour and against is available for several of these indications. The current review attempts to critically summarise the available data for each of these indications

Advancing design criteria for energy and environmental performance of buildings

Globally, buildings are responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 40% of energy consumption. The European Union’s climate and energy policy framework for 2020 and 2030 requires reducing GHG emissions by 40%, increasing the level of energy savings by 25%, and increasing the share of renewable energy by at least 30% relative to 1990. The environmental and energy performance criteria for buildings will continually evolve to meet the aforementioned decarbonisation goals. Consequently, buildings will have an increased number of variables and alternatives that are to be evaluated for their performance, indicating increased complexity for building designers. The prospect of evaluating multiple building performance criteria necessitates integrated designing and planning tools, such as the use of Building Information Model (BIM), Building Performance Simulations (BPS), and methodologies for comparing and optimizing alternative design options. This dissertation presents new insights on advancing the design criteria for the energy and environmental performance of commercial and residential buildings. Specially, the four associated journal publications demonstrate how building designers and the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry can integrate embodied GHG analysis, comprehensive BIM tools in conjunction with BPS analyses, and stochastic assessment of public perceptions to work towards buildings that are more energy-efficient, generate energy on-site, and have a smaller carbon footprint. Through comprehensive literature reviews, this dissertation outlines future research directions for BIM-based, iterative multi-criteria assessment for energy and environmental performance of buildings

Extending capabilities of BIM to support performance based design

As we advance towards high-performance buildings, it is becoming necessary to reinforce and extend the role of building information modelling (BIM) to better support performance-based design. To achieve an optimally functioning building that fulfils the need of the end-user and is designed in an environmentally conscious manner necessitates considering energy performance, environmental performance, indoor air quality, lighting, and acoustics. To consider these multiple criteria, use of computer-based modelling tools and comprehensive simulation methods becomes essential. These criteria are typically assessed after the main phases of architectural design of the building, and the knowledge is passed on to the engineers for development of the technical design. During the technical design process, the exchange of data between the design model and a selected building performance aspect may occur. This paper investigates the potential of BIM-based models at the core of providing input data required for performance-based simulations (BPS) to enable iterative multi-criteria assessment towards high performance buildings. A comprehensive literature review of 249 documents was conducted to identify the current state of knowledge and provide future directions for design and simulation tools to better quantify and evaluate the performance aspects. Furthermore, it explains and clarifies stakeholders' current ability, needs, barriers, and potentials in using BIM for assessing building performance through nineteen expert interviews of key BIM stakeholders in Finland.Peer reviewe