Modeling and visualization of lifecycle building performance assessment

Lifecycle building performance assessment (LBPA) ensures that buildings perform and operate as intended during building lifecycle. Such assessment activities are typically multi-phase and multi-disciplinary, and generate large amounts of information that need efficient management. During the lifecycle of one building, multiple assessment methods are employed semi-concurrently and with a great deal of information overlap between successive phases. This information is semantically rich and context-dependent, reflecting the local perspective that it exists within. Usage of separate and disconnected tools for each method results in information fragmentation and redundancy, posing problems for well-informed decision making. The objective of this research is to develop an integral reference model, CLIP (Computational support for Lifecycle Integral Performance assessment), that aims to improve the efficiency and quality of existing performance assessment practices. The model provides flexible, modular, and extensible data structures and algorithms for the representation, transformation, integration, and visualization of performance information. The initial results support the CLIP model’s ability to deal with the local volatility and variation in the processes and information content that is being managed, while requiring further refinement and extension work to achieve a customized solution to fit in different contextual settings.     

Operating conditions of batteries in off-grid renewable energy systems

Operating conditions in off-grid renewable energy systems (RES) vary significantly in different applications and locations. To describe RES and the operating conditions of their components it is useful to define categories of similar operating conditions. Categories can also be used for lifetime considerations of RES components, for making recommendations and for analysing the properties and performance of a RES and its components. Categories support system designers and an economic analysis. This paper describes the process and the results of creating RES categories of similar operating conditions for batteries. Categories are defined in such a way that batteries belonging to the same category are subjected to similar operating conditions and a similar combination of stress factors. The results provide a comprehensive overview of battery operating conditions in existing off-grid renewable energy systems. This work is part of the EU research project Benchmarking.¹     

Proteomic Analysis of Albumins and Globulins from Wheat Variety Chinese Spring and Its Fine Deletion Line 3BS-8

The relationship between chromosome deletion in wheat and protein expression were investigated using Chinese Spring and fine deletion line 3BS-8. Through 2-DE (2-D electrophoresis) analysis, no differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were found in leaf samples; however, 47 DEPs showed at least two-fold abundance variation (p < 0.05) in matured wheat grains and 21 spots were identified by tandem MALDI-TOF/TOF-MS. Among the identified spots, four were cultivar-specific, including three (spots B15, B16, and B21) in Chinese Spring and one in 3BS-8 (spot B10). Among variety-different DEPs between Chinese Spring and 3BS-8, most spots showed a higher express profile in CS; only four spots showed up-regulated expression tendency in 3BS-8. An interesting observation was that more than half of the identified protein spots were involved in storage proteins, of which 11 spots were identified as globulins. According to these results, we can presume that the encoded genes of protein spots B15, B16, and B21 were located on the chromosome segment deleted in 3BS-8.     

Detection of Beer‐spoilage Lactobacillus brevis strains by Reduction of Resazurin

Lactobacillus brevis is the most common beer‐spoilage bacteria found in breweries. Due to its high prevalence and biodiversity, it is necessary to differentiate between the strains based on their hop tolerance. Forcing tests are often conducted for different types of beer, which can vary in cereal base, fermentation type, ethanol‐ and hop content. These conventional tests are considered to be the safest way to determine the ability of a given strain to cause beer‐spoilage, but they are very time consuming and costly. Since NADH₂ is used as cofactor by many cellular dehydrogenases, this study used the reduced form of intracellular nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH₂) as an indicator for microbial metabolic activity and thus ability to spoil beer, in order to reduce the time required to conduct the forcing tests for beer production. Beer‐spoiling L. brevis strains were detected among other strains in beer samples within two days (of sampling).     

杭州RAFFLES城

杭州Raffles城发展坐落于浙江省省会杭州市的钱塘江边，是嘉德置地继新加坡、上海、北京、成都和巴林之后的第六栋，将零售店、办公楼、住户和酒店设施融于一体，成为新城区的文化地标。     

Properties enhancement using oil palm shell nanoparticles of fibers reinforced polyester hybrid composites

Oil palm shell (OPS) nanoparticles were utilized as filler in fibers reinforced polyester hybrid composites. The OPS nanoparticles were successfully produced from the raw OPS using high-energy ball milling process. Fundamental properties including morphology, crystalline size, and particle size of the OPS nanoparticles were determined. Tri-layer natural fiber reinforcement (kenaf–coconut–kenaf fiber mat) polyester hybrid composites were prepared by hand lay-up techniques. The influences of the OPS nanoparticles loading in the natural fibers reinforced polyester hybrid composites were determined by analyzing physical, mechanical, morphological, and thermal properties of the composites. Results showed that the incorporation of the OPS nanoparticles into the hybrid composites enhanced the composite properties. Further, the natural fibers reinforced polyester hybrid composite had the highest physical, mechanical, morphological, and thermal characteristics at 3 wt.% OPS nanoparticles loading.     

Constructing design representations using a sortal approach

Supporting the early phases of design requires, among others, support for the specification and use of multiple and evolving representations, and for the exchange of information between these representations. We consider a complex adaptive system as a model for the development of design representations, and present a semi-constructive algebraic formalism for design representations, termed sorts, as a candidate for supporting this approach. We analyze sorts with respect to the requirements of a complex adaptive system and compare it to other representational formalisms that consider a constructive approach to representations. We demonstrate the advantages of sorts in various examples, illustrate its use to support the specification of design queries and the recognition of emergent information, and consider sorts in relationship to integrated product models.