Cost-Optimal measures for renovation of existing school buildings towards nZEB

Abstract The energy policies of the European Union (EU) encourage the member states to convert building stock into nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (nZEB) and national public authorities to adopt exemplary actions. Directive 2010/31/EU (EPBD recast) introduces the concept of nZEB as a building that has a very high energy performance and its energy need is covered to a very significant extent by energy from renewable sources (RES). Moreover the Directive refers to the cost-optimal methodology for fixing building energy requirements. This paper presents the results of the application of the cost-optimal methodology in a couple of existing school buildings located in the North East of Italy. The analysed buildings are a primary and a secondary schools that differ in construction period, in compactness ratio, in buildings envelope materials and systems. Several combinations of retrofit measures have been applied in order to derive cost-effective efficient solutions for retrofitting according to the methodology proposed by the project Annex56 "Cost Effective Energy & CO2 Emissions Optimization in Building Renovation". The cost-optimal level has been identified for each building and the best performing solutions have been selected considering a financial analysis and the application of "Conto Termico 2.0" government incentives. The results show the suitability of the proposed methodology to assess cost-optimality and energy efficiency in school building refurbishment. Moreover, this study shows different possibility providing the most cost-effective balance between costs and energy saving

Emerging structures in social networks guided by opinions’ exchanges

n this paper, we show that the small world and weak ties phenomena can spontaneously emerge in a social network of interacting agents. This dynamics is simulated in the framework of a simplified model of opinion diffusion in an evolving social network where agents are made to interact, possibly update their beliefs and modify the social relationships according to the opinion exchange

Metabolome in Tibialis and Soleus Muscles in Wild-Type and Pin1 Knockout Mice through High-Resolution Magic Angle Spinning 1H Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

Skeletal muscles are heterogenous tissues composed of different myofiber types that can be clas-sified as slow oxidative, fast oxidative, and fast glycolytic which are distinguished on the basis of their contractile and metabolic properties. Improving oxidative metabolism in skeletal muscles can prevent metabolic diseases and plays a protective role against muscle wasting in a number of neuromuscular diseases. Therefore, achieving a detailed understanding of the factors that regulate myofiber metabolic properties might provide new therapeutic opportunities for these diseases. Here, we investigated whether peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase NIMA-interacting 1 (PIN1) is involved in the control of myofiber metabolic behaviors. Indeed, PIN1 controls glucose and lipid metabolism in a number of tissues, and it is also abundant in adult skeletal muscles; however, its role in the control of energy homeostasis in this tissue is still to be defined. To start clarifying this topic, we compared the metabolome of the tibialis anterior muscle (mainly glycolytic) and soleus muscle (oxidative) in wild-type and Pin1 knockout mice with High-Resolution Magic Angle Spinning (HR-MAS) NMR on intact tissues. Our analysis reveals a clear demarcation between the metabo-lomes in the two types of muscles and allows us to decode a signature able to discriminate the glycolytic versus oxidative muscle phenotype. We also detected some changes in Pin1-depleted muscles that suggest a role for PIN1 in regulating the metabolic phenotype of skeletal muscles

Gas-phase oxidative dehydrogenation of long chain alkenols for the production of key fragrance ingredients: from Rosalva isomers to Costenal analogues

The continuous-flow, gas-phase oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of an actual mixture of decen-1-ol isomers ("Isorosalva" alcohol) towards the corresponding mixture of aldehydes ("Costenal" analogues, valuable ingredients in perfumes formulation) is herein reported for the first time over noble metal-free catalysts. In particular, the optimisation of the reaction conditions over a copper ferrite (Cu/Fe/O), as well as dedicated characterizations and comparisons between the fresh, the post-reaction (reduced) and regenerated (re-oxidised) catalytic material, allowed us to underline the key role of well dispersed copper oxide over a Fe-enriched spinel in promoting the selective ODH of Isorosalva alcohol. The superior catalytic activity and selectivity of CuO/gamma-Fe2O3 synthesized ad hoc were attributed to the very high dispersion of Cu over the support as well as to a cooperative effect between Cu and Fe species in promoting the redox cycle

Alguns Oligochaeta do norte e nordeste do Brasil

São estudadas 16 espécies de Oligochaeta do norte e noroeste do Brasil. A Ocnerodrilidae, Eukerria emete, sp. n. e a Glossoscolecidae, Chibui barni, gen. n., sp. n. sao descritas. São apresentadas novas observações sobre Martiodrilus matapi. Novas ocorrências são indicadas para as Ocnerodrilidae: Gordiodrilus habessinus, Eukerria eiseniana, E. urna, Nematogenia lacuum; Octochaetidae: Dichogaster bolaui, D. gracilis, D. modiglianii, D. saliens; Glossoscolecidae : Martiodrilus matapi, Rhinodrilus curiosus, Pontoscolex (P.) corethrurus, Goiascolex pepus, Diaguita vivianeae e Glossodrilus tocantinensis pola

Follies subdued: Informational efficiency under adaptive expectations and confirmatory bias

We study the informational efficiency of a market with a single traded asset. The price initially differs from the fundamental value, about which the agents have noisy private information (which is, on average, correct). A fraction of traders revise their price expectations in each period. The price at which the asset is traded is public information. The agents’ expectations have an adaptive component and a social-interactions component with confirmatory bias. We show that, taken separately, each of the deviations from rationality worsens the informational efficiency of the market. However, when the two biases are combined, the degree of informational inefficiency of the market (measured as the deviation of the long-run market price from the fundamental value of the asset) can be non-monotonic both in the weight of the adaptive component and in the degree of confirmatory bias. For some ranges of parameters, two biases tend to mitigate each other’s effect, thus increasing informational efficiency

Lattice strain accommodation and absence of pre-transition phases in Ni50_{50}Mn25+x_{25+x}In25−x_{25-x}

The stoichiometric Ni$_{50}$Mn$_{25}$In$_{25}$ Heusler alloy transforms from a stable ferromagnetic austenitic ground state to an incommensurate modulated martensitic ground state with a progressive replacement of In with Mn without any pre-transition phases. The absence of pre-transition phases like strain glass in Ni$_{50}$Mn$_{25+x}$In$_{25-x}$ alloys is explained to be the ability of the ferromagnetic cubic structure to accommodate the lattice strain caused by atomic size differences of In and Mn atoms. Beyond the critical value of $x$ = 8.75, the alloys undergo martensitic transformation despite the formation of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic clusters and the appearance of a super spin glass state.Comment: Appearing in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte