Report of the first external review of the Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (PRGA)

Providing compelling empirical evidence of the impacts of participatory research has been a major goal of the PRGA Program since its initiation. The number of our published Impact Assessment documents over the past 5 years supports the conclusion that the Program has well reached that goal. We are pleased to note that the EPMR report recognizes the high quality of our “conventional” economic ex post impact assessment work, but we had expected an acknowledgment of an equal importance of process-oriented documentation of impacts, associated with the incorporation of participatory research (PR) and gender analysis (GA) in research processes. To accomplish this major Program goal of substantial body of empirical evidence has required first convincing researchers to see value in assessing the impact of a participatory research approach, and forming a network of people interested in working together to accomplish this goal. Furthermore, reaching this goal has required developing frameworks for assessing the impacts of the PR methods as compared to the impacts of technologies alone, developing and testing some specific tools and methodologies for such assessment, conducting case studies, organizing workshops and international meetings to build the impact assessment capacity in the CG system and to promote mutual leaning among the impact assessment practitioners and maintaining the network amongst them, and providing support and backstopping to the centers conducting impact studies of participatory research

Infection prevention during anaesthesia ventilation by the use of breathing system filters (BSF): Joint recommendation by German Society of Hospital Hygiene (DGKH) and German Society for Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (DGAI)

An interdisciplinary working group from the German Society of Hospital Hygiene (DGKH) and the German Society for Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (DGAI) worked out the following recommendations for infection prevention during anaesthesia by using breathing system filters (BSF). The BSF shall be changed after each patient. The filter retention efficiency for airborne particles is recommended to be >99% (II). The retention performance of BSF for liquids is recommended to be at pressures of at least 60 hPa (=60 mbar) or 20 hPa above the selected maximum ventilation pressure in the anaesthetic system

IEA SHC Task 42/ECES Annex 29 – A Simple Tool for the Economic Evaluation of Thermal Energy Storages

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Solar Heating and Cooling for Buildings and Industry (SHC 2015)Within the framework of IEA SHC Task 42 / ECES Annex 29, a simple tool for the economic evaluation of thermal energy storages has been developed and tested on various existing storages. On that account, the storage capacity costs (costs per installed storage capacity) of thermal energy storages have been evaluated via a Top-down and a Bottom-up approach. The Top-down approach follows the assumption that the costs of energy supplied by the storage should not exceed the costs of energy from the market. The maximum acceptable storage capacity costs depend on the interest rate assigned to the capital costs, the intended payback period of the user class (e.g. industry or building), the reference energy costs, and the annual number of storage cycles. The Bottom-up approach focuses on the realised storage capacity costs of existing storages. The economic evaluation via Top-down and Bottom-up approach is a valuable tool to make a rough estimate of the economic viability of an energy storage for a specific application. An important finding is that the annual number of storage cycles has the largest influence on the cost effectiveness. At present and with respect to the investigated storages, seasonal heat storage is only economical via large sensible hot water storages. Contrary, if the annual number of storage cycles is sufficiently high, all thermal energy storage technologies can become competitive.This study is part of IEA SHC Task 42 / ECES Annex 29 „Compact Thermal Energy Storage - Material Development and System Integration“ (http://task42.iea-shc.org). The work of ZAE Bayern is part of the project PC-Cools_V and supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy under the project code 03ESP138A. University of Zaragoza thanks the Spanish Government for the funding of their work under the projects ENE2008-06687-C02-02, ENE2011-28269-C03-01 and ENE2014-57262-R. University of Lleida would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group (2014 SGR 123). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° PIRSES-GA-2013-610692 (INNOSTORAGE) and European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovationprogramme under grant agreement No 657466 (INPATH-TES). Laia Miró would like to thank the Spanish Government for her research fellowship (BES-2012-051861). The University of the Basque Country acknowledges the financial support of the Spanish’s Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the MicroTES (ENE2012- 38633) research project. The responsibility for the content of this publication is with the author

The Evolutionary and Phylogeographic History of Woolly Mammoths: A Comprehensive Mitogenomic Analysis

Near the end of the Pleistocene epoch, populations of the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) were distributed across parts of three continents, from western Europe and northern Asia through Beringia to the Atlantic seaboard of North America. Nonetheless, questions about the connectivity and temporal continuity of mammoth populations and species remain unanswered. We use a combination of targeted enrichment and high-throughput sequencing to assemble and interpret a data set of 143 mammoth mitochondrial genomes, sampled from fossils recovered from across their Holarctic range. Our dataset includes 54 previously unpublished mitochondrial genomes and significantly increases the coverage of the Eurasian range of the species. The resulting global phylogeny confirms that the Late Pleistocene mammoth population comprised three distinct mitochondrial lineages that began to diverge ∼1.0-2.0 million years ago (Ma). We also find that mammoth mitochondrial lineages were strongly geographically partitioned throughout the Pleistocene. In combination, our genetic results and the pattern of morphological variation in time and space suggest that male-mediated gene flow, rather than large-scale dispersals, was important in the Pleistocene evolutionary history of mammoths

Towards a radical re-appropriation: gender, development and Neoliberal Feminism

Tracing a complex trajectory from ‘liberal’ to ‘neoliberal’ feminism in development, this article argues that approaches to gender which are currently being promoted within neoliberal development frameworks, while often characterized as ‘instrumentalizing’ gender equality, in fact rely upon, extend and deepen gendered inequalities in order to sustain and strengthen processes of global capital accumulation in several ways. This is explored through development discourses and practices relating to microfinance, reproductive rights and adolescent girls. Drawing on examples from India, the article goes on to reflect on experiences of collective movements in which the assumptions underpinning this ‘Gender Equality as Smart Economics’ approach are challenged. Finally, it highlights several concepts associated with Marxist, Black, Post-colonial and Queer feminisms and underlines their importance to projects seeking to critically redefine development, arguing for a radical re-appropriation of gender in this context

Observations sur la mise en place du cerne chez le pin d'Alep (Pinus halepensis Mill.) : confrontation entre les mesures de croissance radiale, de densité et les facteurs climatiques

Intra-annual variations of radial growth and ring structure. Radial growth monitoring of four Aleppo pines is done to analyse ring formation and its climatic determinism. These measures are confronted to wood density profiles and meteorological parameters. Growth occurs in two phases: spring growth and autumnal growth, separated by the summer rest period. The rainfall pattern, before and after the summer drought, plays a major role on ring increment and ring structure. Temperature combined with precipitation, influences growth start and summer water availability. Radial growth measurement and density profiles confrontation makes it possible to associate a temporal scale to density profile. Early wood formation corresponds to optimum of the spring growth phase; early wood-late wood transition corresponds to growth rate reduction at the end of the spring growth phase (June, July); late wood fluctuations are linked with the successive rest period and autumnal growth.Afin d'analyser la mise en place du cerne et son déterminisme climatique, quatre pins d'Alep ont fait l'objet d'un suivi en continu de la croissance radiale durant trois années. Les concordances entre les accroissements radiaux, les profils densitométriques des cernes correspondants et les données météorologiques mesurées sur le même site, ont été recherchées. La construction du cerne du pin d'Alep est caractérisée par une phase de croissance printanière, une période de repos estivale et une reprise de croissance à l'automne. La croissance radiale est essentiellement déterminée par la quantité des précipitations du printemps et de l'automne. Les températures interviennent, toujours en combinaison avec les précipitations, sur le démarrage de la croissance, et sur la mobilisation des réserves hydriques estivales. La mise en correspondance des accroissements cumulés et des densitogrammes a permis de dater les variations de densité. La formation du bois initial correspond à l'optimum de la première phase de croissance. À la fin de cette première phase correspond la transition bois initial bois final (juin, juillet). L'alternance repos estival phase de reprise automnale est responsable des fluctuations de densité au sein du bois final

Finite Element Analysis of DC Partial Discharges in Failure Types of Thin Insulation Layers in Traction Battery Systems

Improving insulation testing in traction battery systems is crucial for quality standards and the safety of passengers in electric vehicles. The DC phase resolved partial discharge diagnostics is sensible and enables information about the cause of insulation faults. Faults are referred to PRPD patterns using a DC test voltage with a superimposed AC voltage ripple as a phase reference. These patterns vary depending on the start electron location. Thus, derived models are created by analyzing defect geometries in microsections. Electric field distribution and PD activity are calculated using a time domain finite element method in combination with a stochastic tree model. The electric field distribution is mainly influenced by interfacial polarization at the surface of solid impurities. The voltage ramp and the superimposed ripple of the dc test voltage can cause partial discharges in the volume of the defect. The information about PD locations and the type of geometry of the defect can be obtained from the shape of the PD patterns. Thus, the paper results expand the knowledge about DC phase resolved partial discharge diagnostics and improve the root cause analysis of insulation faults in traction battery systems