Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) for energy efficiency in buildings: Review and analysis of results from EU pilot projects

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) can play a potential role in improving the energy performance of buildings by the implementation of effective solutions that take advantage of the energy interactions between all the elements included in a building. A revision of the 105 pilots implemented or under implementation in 18 projects in the area of ICTs for energy efficiency in buildings located in 23 European countries, through 88 cities with different types of climates, buildings and technologies have been carried out through documentary and field analysis of the energy, economic and social project results. These results have been extrapolated to assess the potential energy savings which could be expected at the EU level by implementing the solutions proposed by the projects. By the implementation of the different ICT solutions, buildings have achieved more than 20% energy savings. Pilots have demonstrated that the effectiveness of the ICT solution does not depend directly on the different climates where the solutions are implemented, but on several factors, such as the level of motivation, perceived thermal comfort, quality of social interaction and communication and ICT support

Detection and distribution of European stone fruit yellows (ESFY) in apricot cv. ‘Bergeron’ and epidemiological studies in the province of Trento (Italy)

The aim was to investigate the performance of ‘Bergeron’ on ‘Wavit’ in 4 experimental fields, in the province of Trento (Italy), where European stone fruit yellows (ESFY) caused by “Candidatus Phytoplasma prunorum” has been constantly spreading since 2000.This included visual inspections for typical symptoms (early bud-break during dormancy and premature leaf-roll) and a highly sensitive Real time-PCR (Rt-PCR) assay. 25 % of the propagation material was checked with this method and found to be healthy, before planting in 2005.The epidemiology of the disease was also studied by focusing on: the presence of the vector Cacopsylla pruni (Scopoli) on conifers, the detection of “Ca. P. prunorum” in psyllid eggs and the transmission efficiency at different stages. This was done by exposing apricot trees in 2 locations, during 2 periods from January to July, to the overlapping presence in the orchards of the re-immigrants and the new generation of C. pruni. The results obtained demonstrated that ‘Bergeron’ seems to be highly susceptible to ESFY: typical bud-break was rarely observed, but up to 20-30% of the plants showed premature leaf-roll, fruit deformation and dieback. C. pruni was caught only once on Picea abies during winter; “Ca. P. prunorum” was found in 4 egg samples from 2 locations and the preliminary results on the exposed trees confirmed that the re-immigrants could be the most efficient vectors at least on apricot.Keywords: Prunus armeniaca, cultivar ‘Bergeron’, Real time-PCR, “Candidatus Phytoplasma prunorum”,epidemiolog

Blueberry scorch virus: a new disease for highbush blueberry in Trentino

Blueberry scorch virus (BlScV) is a dangerous disease for blueberry orchards, causing damages and yield losses in North America. In 2004, it has been found in open fields in Europe (in Piedmont, North-west of Italy). Symptom expression varies according to the blueberry cultivar and the virus strain. Susceptible varieties usually show a rapid flower and twig blight (scorch). During the summer 2009, some highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) plants grown in Trentino Province (North-eastern Italy) showed symptoms usually associated to BlScV and a number of samples tested positive in specific DAS-ELISA for BlScV. In 2010, the presence of the virus was confirmed on V. corymbosum and it was also identified on V. ashei. Sequence analysis of the coat protein coding region demonstrated that the strain isolated in Trentino was distinct from the strain previously identified in Piedmont and most similar to strains from Washington State (USA). Control and prophylactic measures were carried out

Estimation of milk fat globules distribution in milk using scattering in near infrared region

The interaction between the electromagnetic radiation in the near infrared region and suspensions of small particles in continuous media such as fat globules in milk generates scattering phenomena. The NIR spectrum of whole milk arises from both absorbance due to molecular vibrations and elastic scattering. The amount of photons that are deviated from theirs straight trajectories depends on the wavelength and on the size of the scattering particle. The extraction of the information relate to the size distribution of scattering particles requires the development of a suitable physical model in order to extract the dimensional information about fat globules from NIR spectra. The milk samples were collected monthly for one year from 50 cows (2 breeds) arranged in 6 different farms with different feeding types. All the cows were half sisters with 6 common fathers for Frisean and 3 for Jersey breed. The reference particle size analyses of fat globules were performed using a Mastersizer 2000 (Malvern instruments Ltd., UK) granulometer (laser=633 nm). NIR spectra were collected using a NIRFlex 500 (Buchi, Switzerland) spectrometer in transmission mode using a quartz flux cuvette (pathlength=0.2 mm) at 40\ub0C. The model was developed using both Visual Basic for Excel (Microsoft, USA) and Matlab (The Mathworka, USA). A model based on the Evans Fournier approximation of Mie scattering was developed using the Weibull distribution for the description of the fat globule distribution in calculating the contribution of scattering to the milk transmission spectrum. The inversion of the model was performed using the conjugate gradient method in order to estimate the particle size distribution from the spectra using the regions 1000-1360 and 1580-1800 nm that are free of absorption bands. The correlation between granulometric data and NIR data was of 0.95 for the median diameter with a SEP of 0.14 microns and of 0.92 for volume-surface average diameter. The samples analyzed showed that the particle size distribution of milk fat globules within the two cow breeds had a bigger dependence on the genetic of the cow than on the farm. The method developed in this work can be useful in monitoring cows and creaming processes: small fat globules are richer in phospholipids than big ones and well suited for new functional foods development, while big fat globules are better for whipping purposes

Estimation of fat globule size distribution in milk using an inverse light scattering model in the near infrared region

The determination of particle characteristics from light scattering patterns is a challenging inversion problem and, not least, a demanding instrumentation problem. Despite the importance of the knowledge of size distribution in several technological dairy processes, often laser diffractometers and other instrumentation for particle size analysis are not available in dairy laboratories and, therefore, such information is not easily available, except for research purposes. Near infrared (NIR) instrumentation, instead, is largely available in dairy labs. Laser granulometers are based on the principle that particles scatter light from one or two laser beams with an angular pattern directly related to their size. Consequently, a suspension of particles forms an angular pattern of scattered light that is characteristic of its size distribution. In a similar manner, a NIR spectrometer in transmission mode can be considered as a tool for studying the behaviour of forward scattering at different wavelengths. In this work, a model based on an approximation of Mie scattering was developed for the calculation of scattering due to fat globules in the NIR transmission spectrum of milk. The inversion of the model was applied to raw milk spectra in the spectral regions from 1000 nm to 1360 nm and from 1580 nm to 1800 nm, free from strong absorption bands, in order to estimate the fat particle size distribution. More than 700 samples, collected monthly for two years from 50 Friesi an- Holstein, 7 Jersey and 5 Brown cows, were analysed. Four hundred of these samples were also analysed using a laser granulometer. The correlation (r2) between NIR and laser granulometric data was equal to 0.95 for the mean volume surface diameter (d3,2) with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.11 microns. A sub-class of Weibull distribution with only one freedom parameter proved to be suffi cient in order to describe milk fat globule distribution and fi t spectral data. The method developed in this work can be useful both for genetic selection and technological purposes and easily extended to the analysis of other dietary fat emulsions