Solar cooling: a case study

Throughout the years various methods for heat prevention and indoor temperatures control in the summer have been used. The alternative cooling strategies are based on various passive and low energy cooling technologies for protection of the buildings via design measures or special components to moderate the thermal gains, or to reject the excess heat to the ambient environment. All these techniques aim to reduce summer cooling loads and electricity demand for air conditioning. During the summer the demand for electricity increases because of the extensive use of heating ventilation air conditioning (HVAC) systems, which increase the peak electric load, causing major problems in the electric supply. The energy shortage is worse during ‘dry’ years because of the inability of the hydroelectric power stations to function and cover part of the peak load. The use of solar energy to drive cooling cycles for space conditioning of most buildings is an attractive concept, since the cooling load coincides generally with solar energy availability and therefore cooling requirements of a building are roughly in phase with the solar incidence. Solar cooling systems have the advantage of using absolutely harmless working fluids such as water, or solutions of certain salts. They are energy efficient and environmentally safe. The purpose of this paper is to describe a Solar Cooling System to be installed on the roof of a building in Rome, the headquarters of the State Monopoly. The medium size power plant is composed of the following components: − Solar Collectors; − Thermal Storage Tank; − Absorption Chiller; The plant design is based on a dynamic simulation in TRNSYS, a dynamic simulation tool used by engineers all over the world to make energy calculations in a transient state

Improving the energy performance of healthcare buildings: a case study

The energy issue due to dependence on fossil fuels, pollution, and problems due to climate change are closely related issues. To address them, in recent years, solutions are being studied that provide for different methodologies that exploit alternative sources and technologies capable of reducing the environmental impact. One of the sectors most affected by the problem linked to environmental sustainability is the building sector, as can be read in the European Union directive 91 of 2002: "the energy used in the residential, healthcare and service sectors, made up for the most part of buildings, represents more than 40% of the total energy consumption”. To reduce the environmental load due to construction, it is necessary to study the energy performance of buildings, understand their critical issues and improve their efficiency using systems that exploit renewable energy sources and new construction techniques. In this study, a methodology will be developed to analyse the plant and energy characteristics of healthcare facilities, referring to the "target" buildings of a healthcare complex of Central Italy that will be used as a case study, highlighting all the problems and critical issues. Solutions will be proposed to improve the energy performance of the healthcare buildings, indicating the interventions to be implemented

Computer-aided diagnosis systems for automatic malaria parasite detection and classification: a systematic review

Malaria is a disease that affects millions of people worldwide with a consistent mortality rate. The light microscope examination is the gold standard for detecting infection by malaria parasites. Still, it is limited by long timescales and requires a high level of expertise from pathologists. Early diagnosis of this disease is necessary to achieve timely and effective treatment, which avoids tragic consequences, thus leading to the development of computer-aided diagnosis systems based on artificial intelligence (AI) for the detection and classification of blood cells infected with the malaria parasite in blood smear images. Such systems involve an articulated pipeline, culminating in the use of machine learning and deep learning approaches, the main branches of AI. Here, we present a systematic literature review of recent research on the use of automated algorithms to identify and classify malaria parasites in blood smear images. Based on the PRISMA 2020 criteria, a search was conducted using several electronic databases including PubMed, Scopus, and arXiv by applying inclusion/exclusion filters. From the 606 initial records identified, 135 eligible studies were selected and analyzed. Many promising results were achieved, and some mobile and web applications were developed to address resource and expertise limitations in developing countries

Comparison of different heating generator systems to reduce energy consumption in social housing in a Mediterranean climate

This study analyses the energy consumption of a social housing built in the 80's. This building typology is deteriorating over time with increased energy consumption for air conditioning and indoor comfort that is well below the standard. This typology is also widely diffused in the city's building stock, especially in its suburbs. Thus, the energy efficiency of public social housing represents a major concern for the Italian national scene, and its improvement represents an effort of critical importance. However, public funding is significantly reduced compared to the past and. In addition, it is often difficult to act on passive systems, such as installing thermal insulation, or replacing terminal units inside apartments. In these cases, as an energy retrofit, it may be appropriate to evaluate the possibility of preserving as much of the existing distribution and supply system as possible, while modifying the thermal energy generation system. In general, where the boiler is not obsolescent, the idea is to propose a hybrid generation system with the inclusion of a heat pump (HHP), which could be implemented with renewable energy equipment, properly installed in the building. The main goal of the present work was to evaluate through dynamic analysis different HVAC scenarios, to assess the optimal configuration of the system for residential use. The results show that a hybrid system can lower the primary energy consumption up to 28%, thus allowing the employment of renewable energies within the social housing building stock

Deciphering the genetic control of fruit storability in pear fruit through a multi-parental cross designed based approach

Fruit security, a concept promoted by FAO and WHO, is supported by the improvement of the physical availability of a specific commodity and the maintenance of its properties as unaltered as possible. This is particularly relevant for the fruit of pear, which are commonly subjected to an important rate of softening. The degradation of the mechanical polysaccharidic structure leading to a loss of firmness although necessary to establish fruit quality, in parallel strongly limits its storability. To date, several postharvest technologies can effectively address this issue. However, they can be extremely severe, excessively influencing the physiological progression of ripening, which has a detrimental effect on the overall quality of the fruit. Breeding for novel and ameliorated accessions can be a valid alternative. Nevertheless, the scientific knowledge and genomic/genetic tools available for this species are much behind compared other more investigated Rosaceae crop species. In this work, we employed two population of pear, characterized by a common pedigree, and a multi-parental cross design to dissect the fruit firmness and storability genetic control. The set of QTLs initially mapped by a classical bi-parental approach and further validated by a Pedigree Based Analysis identified a series of major and minor loci associated to both static and dynamic firmness/softening traits. The in- silico gene mining and QTL comparison with other Rosaceae species, especially apple, revealed a unique genetic controlled cell wall dismantling process for pear. These core set of QTL and associated markers will also represent an important tool to support the assisted selection of future breeding programs oriented to the improvement of fruit quality and security in pear

A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE VEGETATION ON THE CLIMATIC CONDITIONS IN AN URBAN ENVIRONMENT

This work was about the study of the variations of the climatic parameters in an urban area bordering a green area. The problem of the great urbanization of the territory led to the registration of high temperatures in the cities, during the summer. Such a phenomenon, called “heat island”, is caused by the employment of those materials used for the urbanization of the territory, that have different responses to the solar radiations that influences the naked soil or on a soil with vegetation. Actually, the presence of a green area in a territory strongly urbanized changes its environmental parameters and those of a bordering zone. In particular, it is possible to record the variation of air and soil temperature and the variation of the wind speed and direction. It as been studied a typical urban context, in which a green area is surrounded by an urbanized area constituted by buildings, car parks and streets totally asphalted. Then the effect of different types of vegetation on the urban area climate has been evaluated, with the help of numerical analysis, and, moreover, the influence area of a specific green area on the bordering urban context has been studied. The computational model employed is the software ENVI-MET that successfully reproduces the interaction among urban surfaces, the vegetation and the atmosphere. The outcomes achieved help to understand how a green area modifies a city climate, making an area climatically more benign both under the comfort point of view for the people living there and under the energetic point of view