Narrowing the gap between smart metering and everyday life. Comfort, cleanliness and smart metering technologies in undergraduate students’ households.

Smart meters measure aggregate energy consumption for an entire building. Recent literature suggests that disaggregated information describing appliance-by-appliance electricity consumption is more effective than aggregate information (Kelly et al. 2016, Fisher 2008). The thesis therefore investigates the potential for aggregated and disaggregated energy metering data but takes a different angle by trying to understand how newly established student households use energy in their daily lives and whether this can be changed with smart electricity display meters. The interdisciplinary methodology involved video recorded guided tours, focus groups, semi-structured interviews, photographs, video diaries and metered energy data. The data was collected in three phases. Initially, a video recorded guided tour was carried out in each student household to find out how students are sensing their environments as they move inside the house and how they are maintaining these environments through the sensory aesthetic of the home. This was followed by focus group sessions and semi-structured interviews in each household to find out how electricity was implicated in everyday practices. Next, students received three different types of smart electricity display monitors, aimed at assessing the implication of disrupting practices by real-time metering feedback. The central finding of this work is that practices-that-consume energy cannot be reduced to attitudes or intentions. This finding is nuanced by an extended discussion on the relationship between practices and the temporal structuring of practices. The research identifies other types of feedback (such as social, material and sensory) that influence the energy use in practices or substitute practices for other non-energy using practices, suggesting that there are no simple technological or behavioural fixes. More profoundly, this thesis suggests that policy should focus on connection between practices, rather than technological performance or what consumers think about electricity display monitors. The thesis concludes by discussing a re-framing of policy expectations; identifying the ways in which smart metering data could target domestic practices and its influencing elements potentially constrain or catalyse a transition towards a more sustainable way of living

Unpacking the modeling process for energy policy making

This article explores how the modeling of energy systems may lead to an undue closure of alternatives by generating an excess of certainty around some of the possible policy options. We retrospectively exemplify the problem with the case of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) global modeling in the 1980s. We discuss different methodologies for quality assessment that may help mitigate this issue, which include Numeral Unit Spread Assessment Pedigree (NUSAP), diagnostic diagrams, and sensitivity auditing (SAUD). We illustrate the potential of these reflexive modeling practices in energy policy‐making with three additional cases: (i) the case of the energy system modeling environment (ESME) for the creation of UK energy policy; (ii) the negative emission technologies (NETs) uptake in integrated assessment models (IAMs); and (iii) the ecological footprint indicator. We encourage modelers to adopt these approaches to achieve more robust, defensible, and inclusive modeling activities in the field of energy research

Diastereomeric salt precipitation based resolution of ibuprofen by gas antisolvent method

We investigated the resolution and crystallization of ibuprofen with (R)-phenylethylamine based on diastereomeric salt formation using the supercritical gas antisolvent (GAS) method. Our goal was to study the effects of the operational parameters (pressure, temperature and the carbon dioxide–organic solvent ratio) during an antisolvent resolution. The diastereomeric purity of the crystalline diastereomer salt (70–80% in a single step) was not affected by either parameter in the range investigated. However, yields, and thus selectivity (a product of yield and diastereomeric purity) was strongly affected by pressure and the carbon dioxide–organic solvent ratio. Using methanol and ethanol, yield curves as a function of the molar carbon dioxide–organic solvent ratio are the same for both solvents. By selecting appropriate parameters, the crystal habit (average crystal size and crystal size distribution) can be influenced. Some crystals formed thin fibers with diameters in the micrometer range (1–3 µm), but certain parameters yielded shorter and thicker bladed crystals. At the optimal settings (10 MPa, 35 ◦C, 12.3 mol/mol carbon dioxide–methanol ratio) the resolvability (0.444) slightly exceeded previously reported values using supercritical carbon dioxide, with a significant reduction in operating time

A nemszinaptikus nikotinikus acetilkolin és NMDA receptorok szerepe élettani körülmények között és pathológiás állapotokban = Role of nonsynaptic nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and NMDA receptors in physiological and pathophysiological conditions

A szélütés (stroke) utáni neurodegeneráció a jelenlegi morbiditási és mortalitási mutatók egyik legfontosabb tényezője. Az iszkémiás stroke kezelésében számos ígéretes gyógyszerjelölt molekula vallott kudarcot a klinikai vizsgálatokban. Ennek valószínűleg az az oka, hogy hiányosak ismereteink az iszkémiás kórképek kialakulásának mechanizmusaira vonatkozólag. A legtöbb központi idegrendszerre ható gyógyszert szinaptikusan elhelyezkedő receptorokra vagy transzporterekre fejlesztik annak érdekében, hogy igazán hatékony gyógyszereket tudjunk fejleszteni, figyelembe kell venni, hogy az extraszinaptikus receptorok és transzporterek száma jóval meghaladja a szinaptikusakét, illetve hogy nagyon sok központi idegrendszeri megbetegedés alapja a nemszinaptikus rendszer malfunkciója. Például, a szinaptikus NMDA receptorok aktivációja neuroprotektív hatást fejt ki, míg az extraszinaptikus NMDA receptor aktiváció excitotoxikus hatású. Konkrét javaslataink a gyógyszerfejlesztést illetően: Az NR2B alegységet tartalmazó NMDA receptorok szelektív gátlói (mint például a fluoxetine), és a nátriumcsatorna gátlók egyes típusai; mint neuroprotektív szerek. A nikotinikus agonisták pozitív modulátorai, amelyek a kognitív problémák kezelésében, ill. a dohányzásról való leszokás segítésében lehetnek hasznosak. | Neurodegeneration after a stroke is one of the major causes of present-day morbidity and mortality. There is a long list of neuroprotective compounds that have failed to be clinically useful in the treatment of ischaemic stroke. This is likely due, at least in part, to our inadequate knowledge regarding the core mechanisms of ischaemic diseases. Most “novel” drugs that target the CNS are designed to act on neurotransmitter receptors or transporters that are localised within synapses. To develop the most effective drugs, it is important to remember that there are extrasynaptic receptors and transporters that may outnumber those located within synapses and that, when malfunctioning, may be responsible for several symptoms of CNS disorders. For example, activation of synaptic NMDA receptors is neuroprotective, whereas stimulation of extrasynaptic NMDA receptors causes excitotoxicity. We suggest that future drug development research consider the following: Compounds that are able to selectively inhibit non-synaptic NR2B Glu receptors (such as Fluoxetine), and specific subtypes of sodium channel inhibitors as neuroprotective compounds. Positive modulators of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. They would be potential drugs in the treatment of memory problems and in smoking cessation

Impact of Time-Use Behaviour on Residential Energy Consumption in the United Kingdom

In order to have the best possible chance of achieving ‘decent work’ and ‘climate action’ as laid forth in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, government and policy makers must pay close attention to current time-use patterns, as well as the way these might change in the near future. Here we contribute to the existing literature on time-use behaviour through a systematic exploration of the relationship between working patterns and energy consumption from the perspective of time-use. Our starting point is the premise that different work arrangements impact the timing of energy demand not only in workplaces, but also at home. Using the data from the 2014–2015 UK time-use survey, we were able to capture patterns of time-use behaviours and to assess their relationship with daily energy consumption. We propose a systematic time-use-based approach for estimating residential energy consumption with regards to activity timing, activity location, activity coordination, and appliance type. We use this method to discover patterns in residential activities and energy consumption, as well as the causal relationship between residential energy consumption and work patterns. In this study, we unpack the heterogeneity in the work–energy relationship, particularly when comparing full-time and part-time workers. Our results suggest that full-time employees have a higher potential to reduce their energy use compared to part-time employees. We also discover a non-linear change in total energy consumption for respondents with varying levels of work time. Energy consumption reductions associated with differences in work schedules are greatest during the first few hours of the workday, but then level off. Our findings suggests that time-use data can provide useful insights for evaluating and possibly designing energy and labour-market policies

Impact assessment culture in the European Union. time for something new?

Current approaches and cultures for the economic evaluations of environmental and health policies may suffer from excessive reliance on a standard neoclassic economic toolbox that neglects alternative perspectives. This may prematurely limit the spectrum of available policy options. Here we show how the inclusion of neglected currents of thought such as non-Ricardian economics, bioeconomics and a set of qualitative-quantitative methods from post-normal science leads to richer perspectives for a more inclusive uses of quantitative evidence, and opens the analysis to more possible futures. We also present some case studies in the energy, water, health and climate domains that highlight the point in a practical context for a more policy-oriented audience. We situate our analysis in the context of recent calls in the EU for the inclusion of more perspectives from the social sciences and the humanities in environmental assessment works