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- Al Naggar, Yahya, et al.
(författare)
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Are Honey Bees at Risk from Microplastics?
- 2021
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Ingår i: Toxics. - : MDPI AG. - 2305-6304. ; 9:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Microplastics (MPs) are ubiquitous and persistent pollutants, and have been detected in a wide variety of media, from soils to aquatic systems. MPs, consisting primarily of polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyacrylamide polymers, have recently been found in 12% of samples of honey collected in Ecuador. Recently, MPs have also been identified in honey bees collected from apiaries in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as nearby semiurban and rural areas. Given these documented exposures, assessment of their effects is critical for understanding the risks of MP exposure to honey bees. Exposure to polystyrene (PS)-MPs decreased diversity of the honey bee gut microbiota, followed by changes in gene expression related to oxidative damage, detoxification, and immunity. As a result, the aim of this perspective was to investigate whether wide-spread prevalence of MPs might have unintended negative effects on health and fitness of honey bees, as well as to draw the scientific community's attention to the possible risks of MPs to the fitness of honey bees. Several research questions must be answered before MPs can be considered a potential threat to bees.
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| 2. |
- Feng, Chi, et al.
(författare)
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Hygric properties of porous building materials (VI) : A round robin campaign
- 2020
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Ingår i: Building and Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0360-1323. ; 185
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Hygric properties of porous building materials are important for hygrothermal analysis. Their experimental determination is however not always reliable, shown by the discrepant results from different laboratories on the same materials. In this study, a recent round robin campaign initiated by KU Leuven (Belgium) and participated in by eight institutes from different countries is reported. Ceramic brick was selected as the target material. The bulk density and open porosity from vacuum saturation tests, the capillary absorption coefficient and capillary moisture content from capillary absorption tests, and the vapor permeability from cup tests were measured. Results were analyzed statistically and compared with a previous round robin project, EC HAMSTAD. The reproducibility errors for determining the capillary absorption coefficient were noticeably reduced when compared with the EC HAMSTAD project, and the different laboratories in the present study obtained similar results from vacuum saturation tests and capillary absorption tests without a common protocol. For cup tests, large inter-laboratory discrepancies still exist. However, with a stringent common protocol different laboratories achieved consistent results. For all properties a common protocol did not change the average results of all laboratories.
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| 3. |
- Hagentoft, Carl-Eric, 1958, et al.
(författare)
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Annex 55, Reliability of Energy Efficient Building Retrofitting - Probability Assessment of Performance and Cost, (RAP-RETRO): Stochastic Data
- 2015
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The International Energy AgencyThe International Energy Agency (IEA) was established in 1974 within the framework of theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to implement an internationalenergy programme. A basic aim of the IEA is to foster international co-operation among the 28 IEAparticipating countries and to increase energy security through energy research, development anddemonstration in the fields of technologies for energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.The IEA Energy in Buildings and Communities ProgrammeThe IEA co-ordinates research and development in a number of areas related to energy. The missionof the Energy in Buildings and Communities (EBC) Programme is to develop and facilitate theintegration of technologies and processes for energy efficiency and conservation into healthy, lowemission, and sustainable buildings and communities, through innovation and research. (Until March2013, the IEA-EBC Programme was known as the Energy in Buildings and Community SystemsProgramme, ECBCS.)The research and development strategies of the IEA-EBC Programme are derived from researchdrivers, national programmes within IEA countries, and the IEA Future Buildings Forum Think TankWorkshops. The research and development (R&D) strategies of IEA-EBC aim to exploit technologicalopportunities to save energy in the buildings sector, and to remove technical obstacles to marketpenetration of new energy efficient technologies. The R&D strategies apply to residential, commercial,office buildings and community systems, and will impact the building industry in five focus areas forR&D activities:- Integrated planning and building design- Building energy systems- Building envelope- Community scale methods- Real building energy use
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| 5. |
- Tamm, Sandra, et al.
(författare)
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Objective and Subjective Sleep in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Severe Seasonal Allergy : Preliminary Assessments of the Role of Sickness, Central and Peripheral Inflammation
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature and Science of Sleep. - : Dove Medical Press. - 1179-1608. ; 13, s. 775-789
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Disturbed sleep in inflammatory disorders such as allergy and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is common and may be directly or indirectly related to disease processes, but has not been well characterized in these patient groups, especially not with objective methods.Aim: The present study aimed to characterize objective and subjective sleep in patients with allergy or RA using sleep diaries, one-channel EEG and actigraphy. It also aimed to investigate if sleep measures were associated with central immune activation, assessed using translocator protein (TSPO) positron emission tomography, as well as cytokine markers of peripheral inflammation and disease-specific symptoms or general symptoms of sickness.Methods: In total, 18 patients with seasonal pollen allergy, 18 patients with RA and 26 healthy controls were included in the study. Allergy patients and matched controls were assessed twice, in and out of pollen season, and RA patients and controls were assessed once. Sleep was recorded for approximately 1 week at each occasion.Results: Patients with allergy had increased levels of slow-wave sleep during pollen season. In contrast, patients with RA had less SWS compared to healthy controls, while no differences were observed in sleep duration or subjective sleep quality. Across groups, neither proinflammatory cytokines, grey matter TSPO levels nor general sickness symptoms were associated with objective or subjective measures of sleep. Rhinitis, but not conjunctivitis, was correlated to worse subjective sleep and more slow wave sleep in allergy. Functional status, but not disease activity, predicted lower subjective sleep in RA.Conclusion: This study tentatively indicates that both patients with allergy and RA display sleep alterations but does not support inflammation as an independent predictor of the sleep disturbance across these patient groups.
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