Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) developed by NanoSight has been proved to be a highly useful, simple and efficient characterisation tool to differentiate between capping efficiencies of various biomass-derived stabilising agents (e.g. starch, alginic acid and a waste-derived hemicellulosic syrup) of aqueous colloidal silver suspensions. Results indicated that the use of a complex biorefinery-derived hemicellulosic syrup containing a mixture of C 5 and C 6 sugars as well as oligomers provided comparable capping and stabilisation properties to those of the most efficient pure polysaccharides including alginic acid. These findings illustrate the potential of waste-derived feedstocks for nanoparticle stabilisation in solution.
The need to characterise photovoltaic modules in the general field of ensuring technical quality in photovoltaic rural electrification (PVRE) has often been pointed out. The ongoing national PVRE initiatives announced world-wide, together with the fact that PV modules with an actual power smaller than the nominal value can still be found on the market, make it advisable to apply systematic control to supplied power procedures. This paper argues that it is possible to carry out such control in the case of crystalline silicon PV modules, by means of experiments performed outdoors under a wide range of operation conditions, and using reduced and conventional equipment. A simple characterisation procedure specifically aimed at PVRE programmes is described and validated with an extensive experimental campaign.
Sustainable spaces are those that are optimized, accessible, promote user experience and aim to reduce CO2 emissions while enhancing users’ well-being and comfort. The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology that was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to understand and improve the use of coliving spaces based on remote Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) analysis of the digital trail generated by the users. Applying the POE methodology based on data collection from IT infrastructure enabled to identify opportunities to improve the future design of human-centered spaces. The residential market, design-wise traditional for centuries, is now facing a high-speed adaptation to the changing needs, accelerated by the COVID-19 crisis. New ways of living and shared spaces like Coliving are escalating. Technology is both an enabler of this shift in housing and the solution to operating and managing these new buildings. This paper demonstrates, through the case study of a Coliving space located in Madrid, Spain, the benefits of implementing data analysis of the digital trail collected from in-built IT systems such as smart locks, Wi-Fi networks and electric consumption devices. The conclusion is that analysing the available data from the digital infrastructure of coliving buildings can enable practitioners to improve the future design of residential spaces.
ICTs account nowadays for 2% of total carbón emissions. However, in a time when strict measures to reduce energy consumption in all the industrial and services sectors are required, the ICT sector faces an increase in services and bandwidth demand. The deployment of Next Generation Networks (NGN) will be the answer to this new demand and specifically, the Next Generation Access Networks (NGANs) will provide higher bandwidth access to users. Several policy and cost analysis are being carried out to understand the risks and opportunities of new deployments, though the question of which is the role of energy consumption in NGANs seems off the table. Thus, this paper proposes a model to analyze the energy consumption of the main fiber-based NGAN architectures, i.e. Fiber To The House (FTTH) in both Passive Optical Network (PON) and Point-to-Point (PtP) variations, and FTTx/VDSL. The aim of this analysis is to provide deeper insight on the impact of new deployments on the energy consumption of the ICT sector and the effects of energy consumption on the life-cycle cost of NGANs. The paper presents also an energy consumption comparison of the presented architectures, particularized in the specific geographic and demographic distribution of users of Spain, but easily extendable to other countries.
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