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The energy consumption of residential and commercial buildings has risen steadily in recent years, an increase largely due to their HVAC systems. Expected energy loads, transportation, and storage as well as user behavior influence the quantity and quality of the energy consumed daily in buildings. However, technology is now available that can accurately monitor, collect, and store the huge amount of data involved in this process. Furthermore, this technology is capable of analyzing and exploiting such data in meaningful ways. Not surprisingly, the use of data science techniques to increase energy efficiency is currently attracting a great deal of attention and interest. This paper reviews how Data Science has been applied to address the most difficult problems faced by practitioners in the field of Energy Management, especially in the building sector. The work also discusses the challenges and opportunities that will arise with the advent of fully connected devices and new computational technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the framework of the Spanish monitoring program, this study reports on air concentration of DDTs, HCB, HCHs, NDL-PCBs, DL-PCBs, PCDD/Fs and PBDEs measured during the five-year sampling period 2008–2013. Spanish coastal remote and urban locations were studied using PUF disk passive air samplers which were deployed and collected every three months. Despite the wide range of concentrations measured for most contaminants, a common pattern of relative abundance (median values): NDL-PCBs (36.6 pg/m 3 ) > HCB (24.8 pg/m 3 ) ≈ HCHs (17.9 pg/m 3 ) ≈ DDTs (16.6 pg/m 3 ) > PBDEs (3.65 pg/m 3 ) > DL-PCBs (2.99 pg/m 3 ) >> PCDD/Fs (0.060 pg/m 3 ) was found fairly consistent across most seasons and locations. Nevertheless, important variations in yearly concentrations were measured for different POPs. In general, higher levels of DDTs, HCHs, NDL-PCBs, DL-PCBs and PCDD/Fs were found in urban sites highlighting important differences between remote and urban sampling locations for most target contaminants. Greater concentrations of the banned organochlorine pesticides in urban locations suggested the existence of unexpected pointed sources that need to be further investigated and characterized. The limited dataset collected thus far rendered no clear temporal trends for most study target compounds, which emphasizes the necessity of the Spanish monitoring program future maintenance in time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The main objective of the Ubiquitous computing is to include technology on the user life without modifying their daily routine. A lot of kinds of applications base their operations on using sensors situated on a Tagged World, which is a smart area that serves to recognize user’s behaviour using information about their daily activity. It manages information collected by sensors to identify the user behaviour and to provide some services according to inferred behaviours. In this paper, we present a specific method to extract behaviour patterns on time from the collected sensor signals. The method is based on frequent itemsets that represent the common actions of the user. After, we obtain sequence patterns from these extracted itemsets. Our method should pay attention to the user activities because these have non-random imprecision by definition. Thus, we have designed a method to handle this imprecision, through establishing a temporal constraint that is called Fuzzy Temporal Window. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a system that is able to process the information provided by a Tagged World to identify user’s behavior and to produce alarms in dangerous situations. The system inputs are signals from sensors, which are used to recognize correct behavior (action sequences) by Inductive Learning, using Data Mining techniques. The inference engine is a reasoning device that is implemented by means of Regular Grammars. It permits us to control user’s behavior. As output, the system produces and sends alarms when a user action sequence is wrong, indicating the erroneous actions, forgotten future, and so on. To test our system, the Tagged World is supposed to be at a house, where we have used RFID technology to control the objects inside it. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Monoterpenes have antimicrobial properties but are associated with strong smells and flavors that limit their use in foods; therefore, strategies to keep their effectivity using lower concentrations are required. This work tested the antimicrobial capacity of thymol, carvacrol and linalool free or complexed in hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrins (HP- β-CDs) using two complexation methods. To this, these monoterpenes were complexed in HP- β-CDs by the solubility method or a microwave-assisted method, spray dried and their antimicrobial capacity was tested on Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus by determining minimal inhibitory concentration and minimal bactericidal concentration. The results show significant differences (p < 0.05) between the complexed and uncomplexed forms. In addition, thanks to the complexation of monoterpenes, the use of lower concentrations of these has been reached to achieve the same level of inhibition than uncomplexed forms. Likewise, it has been found that a lower minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) is achieved for the solubility method for both microorganisms (3.82 mM for thymol and 2.44 mM for carvacrol in E. coli; and 3.91 and 2.61 mM, respectively for S. aureus) than for the microwave method. This implies that a lower concentration of these compounds can be used to inhibit microbial growth in foods, which should minimize their effects on their smell and taste. • Monoterpene-cyclodextrin complexes were prepared by two methods. • Their antimicrobial action was compared with free monoterpenes. • The solubility method yielded better results than the microwave-assisted method. • Complexation allows using lower monoterpene concentrations. • Carvacrol and thymol CD complexes are effective hurdles for microbial grow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Water pollution by wastewater containing dyes is an environmental issue that can be mitigated by the use of advanced oxidation processes (AOP). Pulsed light (PL) is an emerging food processing technology that uses eco-friendly lamps and can potentially be adapted as light source of an UV-based AOP. In the present work, a PL/H 2 O 2 process was tested for the decolourization of two azo dyes, and a pulsed light/H 2 O 2 /ferrioxalate process was tested for the decolourization of one azo dye. The efficiency of the PL/H 2 O 2 process in a batch reactor under different parametric values: dye concentration, pH, H 2 O 2 and salt doses was followed by spectrophotometry and fitted to first-order kinetics; and several degradation products were detected. In the PL/H 2 O 2 process, decolourization rates increased at low dye concentrations and high H 2 O 2 doses, were pH-dependent and were inhibited by the addition of NaCl, Na 2 SO 3 or Na 2 CO 3. More than 50% decolouration was achieved with the PL/H 2 O 2 process for both dyes after applying 54 J/cm2 (25 light pulses). The PL/H 2 O 2 /ferrioxalate process achieved >95% decolouration for Methyl orange when applying 21 J/cm2 (10 pulses); that level of energy can be supplied by PL commercial systems in nine and four seconds respectively. No known toxic degradation products were detected. Results show that a PL/H 2 O 2 process has potential to be used for the efficient degradation of dyes from wastewater. Furthermore, the efficacy of this process can be improved by the use of ferrioxalate. PL technology could become an alternative light source to contribute to decrease the environmental impact of wastewater produced by the dyeing industry. Graphical abstract Image 1 Highlights • An advanced oxidation process using pulsed light technology was tested. • A pulsed light/H 2 O 2 process can decolourize different azo dyes. • The decolourization provided by a pulsed light/H 2 O 2 process is very fast. • Ferrioxalate complex enhances the efficacy of the pulsed light/H 2 O 2 process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adsorption properties of two cyclodextrin-epichlorohydrin polymers to remove Direct Red 83:1 textile dye from wastewater solutions was evaluated. Adsorption studies were performed in a batch reactor, and the efficiency of the polymers under different parametric values such as contact time, adsorbent dosage, initial dye concentration, pH of initial solution and temperature was followed by spectrophotometry. Both Langmuir and Freundlich equations were used to fit the equilibrium isotherms and the kinetic data were analyzed by the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models. Adsorption process follows a pseudo-second-order kinetic and was influenced by intraparticle diffusion model, dye concentration and contact time, reaching equilibrium within the first 30 min. Experimental data were better fitted to Freundlich isotherm model than to Langmuir and Temkin isotherms. Since about 93% of dye removal was achieved under optimized conditions, the α-cyclodextrin-epichlorohydrin polymer seems to be a useful device for removing Direct Red 83:1 from aqueous solutions and industrial effluents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present study was to assess the presence of perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs), namely perfluoroalkane sulfonates and perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids, in Spanish river basins in order to: identify potential spatiotemporal variations; evaluate the effectiveness of the measures implemented for the reduction/elimination of these pollutants; verify the fulfillment of the Environmental Quality Standards (EQSs) in the European Union. PFOS and PFOA were determined in 116 water samples from four sites in the Duero basin, the largest in the Iberian Peninsula, collected seasonally from 2013 to 2020. In addition, 30 fish sample composites from the sample banks of Duero, Tagus, Ebro, Eastern Cantabrian and Catalonian basins were analyzed for 15 PFAAs. Median PFOS and PFOA concentrations were 0.72 and 0.42 ng/L, ranging from values below the limit of quantification (LOQ) to 81 and 22 ng/L, respectively. During the studied period, 51% of water samples were above the EQS of 0.65 ng/L for PFOS. In the case of fish, the PFOS range was