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Financial markets were the first to react on COVID-19 pandemic and were also very sensitive on following lock-outs, support policies and restrictions. Though equally exposed to the threat and lack of information, different countries reacted to the disease in a different way. In this paper we focus on European financial markets and respective representative indices to analyze their characteristics and study their response to the economic changes that followed the outbreak of the pandemic. We use six European stock market indices (FTSE 100, CAC 40, DAX, IBEX 35, FTSE MIB and STOXX Europe 600) to compare their performance before and after 2020, assess their reaction on COVID-19 and discuss their recovery. Using MLE estimation and BFGS optimization we analyze return distribution and use them as proxy for pandemic impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a cutting-edge technology that enables virtual and physical objects to connect and communicate, resulting in new digitized services that enhance our quality of life. Despite its many advantages, the current centralized architecture of IoT poses various challenges such as single point of failure, security concerns, privacy issues, lack of transparency, and data integrity problems. These obstacles hinder the future progress of IoT applications. Moving the IoT to one of the decentralized technologies is the right solution to these issues. Blockchain is considered as the most common and popular decentralized technology. It is a new technology that operates with a decentralized, distributed, public, and real-time ledger to store transactions between IoT nodes. The main focus of this paper is on utilizing Blockchain technology for the IoT, specifically showcasing how different features of Blockchain can be utilized as a service in various IoT applications. The increasing penetration of Blockchain and IoT in various companies and industries primarily enables secure storage of large amounts of sensitive data, which can grow at a tremendous pace for the global IoT Blockchain market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, road traffic noise pollution still represents a considerable problem in Europe despite the efforts gathered by the scientific community, local authorities, and policymakers to tackle this issue. Research mostly focused on the development of Road Traffic Noise Models (RTNMs) and Noise Emission Models (NEMs) to forecast respectively traffic noise levels in terms of equivalent continuous sound levels and single-vehicle noise emissions in terms of sound power level. However, although the validity of such models was demonstrated in the literature, most of them are not able to deeply characterize the source in terms of motorization, engaged gear, and in idling conditions (i.e., a vehicle stopped in neutral gear with the engine running). Therefore, in this paper, an approach (based on standards and regulations) to obtain noise emission curves as a function of speed, motorization, and engaged gear, and a mathematical relationship between the sound pressure level (measured at the exhaust tube pipe) and the engine Revolution Per Minute (RPM) will be presented. Both methods are based on regressions (non-linear and linear, respectively). Two probe vehicles with different motorization (one diesel and one bi-fuel) were adopted to this end. Results showed that there exists a variability among the noise emission curves based on motorization information and engaged gear (at low speeds for manual transmission vehicles). Moreover, exhaust noise emissions, which are a function of motorization, linearly depend on RPM. All the obtained regressions are characterized by high determination coefficients (above 0.9) confirming the goodness of the presented approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commercial medium and heavy-duty diesel vehicles in Europe are responsible for transporting an average of 73% of the total freight tonnage over distances up to 150 km as of 2021. These vehicles often operate on routes where no other form of transport is viable while still assuring fast deliveries. However, due to the nature of the journeys performed by the heavy-duty vehicles, which can span over several days or weeks depending on the mileage and the loading and unloading destinations, it becomes essential for the drivers to address the energy demands for heating and for the cabin accessory appliances during resting periods. As a rule, and especially in cold weather conditions, in order to prevent start-up problems, engine idling has traditionally been used. In order to mitigate the negative impact of increased fuel consumption and cut the harmful emissions from the engine's idling, the usage of a fuel cell auxiliary power unit (APU) is proposed. Fuel cells are more efficient than internal combustion engines and as an APU they could be sized appropriately to specifically power the cabin's accessories. There are two types of fuel cells that are applied for an APU in heavy-duty vehicles, namely, proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) and solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), each one imposing specific system topology requirements. A brief literary review on fuel cell APUs for heavy-duty vehicles is undertaken in the paper with emphasis being on the most recent advancements and on the advantages and disadvantages for the two possible systems. An estimation of the cabin power consumption during rest periods for European heavy-duty vehicles is presented. Some general suggestions and considerations are laid down, which may be of use when designing such a system, as there is not much information on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optical properties of atmospheric aerosols, such as aerosol optical depth (AOD), are determined from solar radiation measurements using filter radiometers, known in such measurement applications as sun photometers. Here we present calibration of filter radiometers from the European branches of aerosol monitoring networks AERONET, GAW-PFR, and SKYNET with respect to their spectral irradiance responsivities. The calibrations were carried out at PTB within the framework of the EMPIR project 19ENV04 MAPP "Metrology for aerosol optical properties" using the tunable laser-based setup, TUable Lasers In Photometry (TULIP). The realization of the spectral responsivity measurements of the filter radiometers at the TULIP setup, results, uncertainty contributions and implications are discussed in this conference paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]