Nowadays, debates addressing climate change, fossil fuels depletion and energy security highlight the need for a more sustainable built environment in order to reduce energy consumption and emission trends in the buildings sector. Meeting these targets is a challenge that calls for innovative research to improve the use of renewable energy sources, new technologies, and holistic tools and methodologies. Such research should integrate the dynamics and main drivers of energy supply and demand in buildings to support new policies, plans and actions towards lowering the built environment burdens. This paper brings together ten research topics concerning the energy and environmental performance of buildings, which can support a shift towards a more sustainable built environment. Background information and state of the art literature on the covered research topics is briefly summarized, gaps are identified and guidelines for future research are provided. The selected topics cover different stages along the lifetime of buildings (from design and operation, to retrofitting and endof-life), different scale approaches (from building elements/components, to the building, district and urban scales), and different methods to assess the energy and environmental performance of buildings (life-cycle assessment, generative design methods and retrofitting tools). Other topics are discussed such as: nearly zero-energy buildings, the control of domestic energy resources in smart grid scenarios, the need to include end-users' behaviors in the dynamics of energy demand, the advantages of improving thermal storage by using phase change materials, the importance of reducing heating and cooling energy demand (maintaining indoor thermal comfort), and the optimization of heating and cooling fluids, and their system control.

Measurements of the kinematic distributions of J /ψ mesons produced in p-C, p-Ti and p-W collisions at √ s = 41.6 GeV in the Feynman-x region −0.34 < x F < 0.14 and for transverse momentum up to p T = 5.4 GeV/c are presented. The x F and p T dependencies of the nuclear suppression parameter, α, are also given. The results are based on 2.4 × 10 5 J /ψ mesons reconstructed in both the e + e − and μ + μ − decay channels. The data have been collected by the HERA-B experiment at the HERA proton ring of the DESY laboratory. The measurement explores the negative region of x F for the first time. The average value of α in the measured x F region is 0.981 ± 0.015. The data suggest that the strong nuclear suppression of J /ψ production previously observed at high x F turns into an enhancement at negative x F .

Please cite this article as: J. Bastos, S.A. Batterman, F. Freire, Life-cycle energy and greenhouse gas analysis of three building types in a residential area in Lisbon, Energy and Buildings (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10. 1016/j.enbuild.2013.11.010 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Ratios of the ψ ′ over the J/ψ production cross sections in the dilepton channel for C, Ti and W targets have been measured in 920 GeV proton-nucleus interactions with the HERA-B detector at the HERA storage ring. The ψ ′ and J/ψ states were reconstructed in both the µ + µ − and the e + e − decay modes. The measurements covered the kinematic range −0.35 ≤ xF ≤ 0.1 with transverse momentum pT ≤ 4.5 GeV/c. The ψ ′ to J/ψ production ratio is almost constant in the covered xF range and shows a slow increase with pT. The angular dependence of the ratio has been used to measure the difference of the ψ ′ and J/ψ polarization. All results for the muon and electron decay channels are in good agreement: their ratio, averaged over all events, is R ψ ′ (µ)/R ψ ′ (e) = 1.00 ± 0.08 ± 0.04. This result constitutes a new, direct experimental constraint on the double ratio of branching fractions, (B ′ (µ) • B(e)) / (B(µ) • B ′ (e)), of ψ ′ and J/ψ in the two channels.

This paper brings together several contemporary topics in energy systems aiming to provide a literature review based reflection on how several interrelated energy systems can contribute together to a more sustainable world. Some directions are discussed, such as the improvement of the energy efficiency and environmental performance of the systems, the development of new technologies, the increase of the use of renewable energy sources, the promotion of holistic and multidisciplinary studies, and the implementation of new management rules and "eco-friendly and sustainable" oriented policies at different scales. The interrelations of the diverse energy systems are also discussed in order to address their main social-economic-environmental impacts. The subjects covered include the assessment of the electricity market and its main players (demand, supply, distribution), the evaluation of some urban systems (buildings, transportation, commuting), the analysis of the implementation of renewable energy cooperatives, the discussion of the diffusion of the electric vehicle and the importance of new bioenergy systems. This paper also presents relevant research carried out in the framework of both the Energy for Sustainability Initiative of the University of Coimbra and the Sustainable Energy Systems focus area of the MIT-Portugal Program. To conclude, several research topics that should be addressed in the near future are proposed.