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Energy master plans are important tools for an effective and sustainable land governance. On the other hand, the stakeholder role in setting priorities for planning energy interventions is dramatically increasing, also in the light of recently issued European directives. The priorities of energy-saving measures of the Sicilian energy and environmental master plan were originally established with the application of typical economic indicators (the cost of saved energy and the cost of avoided pollutant emissions). During the prioritization process, there was a minor contribution from stakeholders who were not directly involved in the priority-setting process but were only asked to express their opinions according to the in-force regulations. Based on more active stakeholder involvement in hierarchizing a given set of actions, as required by the recently issued directives, the University of Palermo, which participated in the development of this master plan, assessed an ex post evaluation of these established economy-based priorities, by means of the application of a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) tool. The resulting changed priorities, which lead to a better policy allocation of the regional budget for energy efficiency in the building sector, confirm the preeminent role played by the stakeholders in the development of energy plans, further supported by a sensitivity analysis.

In cities vegetated roofs are becoming more popular because they can mitigate Urban Heat Island phenomena by decreasing the outdoor air temperature in summer. This decrease reduces the electric energy demand for climatization of buildings, which, in front of a milder climate, will recur less to mechanical tools for guaranteeing thermal comfort conditions to occupants. Cities can registered another indirect positive effect: the reduced cooling energy demand, limits the heat released by the climatization systems’ external unities toward the urban open spaces, thus lowering the outdoor air temperature. Therefore, the outdoor surface temperature of green, as well as cool roofs, can be assumed as an important design parameter for guaranteeing the sustainability of buildings and their approach toward an nZEB path. Obviously, designers and city planners must have at their disposal simple and effective tools for evaluating the economic feasibility of these two choices. This paper proposes a simple method to assess the economic effectiveness of green or cool roofs. It relies on the appraisal of the number of hours during which a building requires a cooling mechanical support for maintaining the indoor comfort conditions. This duty period of the cooling system is then simply converted into the cost of the needed electric energy.

Energy policy makers, architects and researchers, when designing new buildings or rehabilitating the existing ones, are engaged in the attempt of limiting the energy needs for climatization (NZEB buildings) and the environmental pressure exerted by buildings (EU Climate Action). The pursuit of this demanding assignment calls for innovative solutions in conceiving the building envelope and its energy systems. Recently, among the most effective tools for improving the energy and environmental performances of buildings, the technical interventions regarding the roofs are gaining a rising attention. Indeed, covers of buildings are responsible of a relevant part of their energy losses and, on the other hand, could contribute to increasing the UHI effect. In the paper, a simple methodology that compares the energy and environmental benefits of cool and green coverages with traditional ones is presented. The capability of limiting the UHI effect of these solutions is also analysed. The methodology is applied to four cities of the Sicilian Island, characterized by different building density and different microclimates. This in-field application shows the feasibility of the method to be used in different urban contexts, as a useful contribution to the design of new buildings or to the re-design of the existing ones.

The energy saving in building goes on as an important challenge in the policy of Developed Countries. While the issue of energy building efficiency in heating season has deeply been investigated for a long time, the issue of energy building efficiency in cooling season is relatively recent. Moreover, considering the increase of electric consumption for air-conditioning in summer, mainly due to the growing quality of life, the research of technologies for reducing energy building consumption during this season becomes essential. The green roof represents a technology useful to reduce the energy consumption during the cooling season. In this work the authors report the results of a monitoring campaign of temperature through a green roof that is installed in a building situ in a town close to Palermo, South of Italy.

The life style of building occupants is continuously arising towards conditions that are more comfortable involving, on turn, the growing of the electric energy consumptions for climatization purposes. This calls for the improvement of the efficiencies of equipment along with environmental performance of building materials. Laboratory analyses of samples of mixed materials, utilizing tomato stems harvested in Sicily and Cataluna, have been conducted Thermal conductance and mechanical properties have been detected for different rates of bio-component and inert materials. First results of the thermal properties seem to situate such bio-composites among the insulating building materials, for all the analyzed percentages of the presence of tomato stems. On the other hand, measurements regarding mechanical properties of the same samples suggest that further analyses are certainly required in order of getting definitive judgments concerning the optimal rate of tomato fibers.

In this paper, a dynamic simulation of a building located in the Campus University of Palermo, Italy, has been carried out. We considered two different scenarios; in the first one, the building as it is, with a conventional covering, while in the second one the roof was equipped with a green roof. The results of the two simulations have been compared, suggesting that such building component could contribute to the energy savings of the building. However, it has to be considered as part of other possible actions devoted to improve the energy efficiency of the whole building. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the CENTRO CONGRESSI INTERNAZIONALE SRL In this paper, a dynamic simulation of a building located in the Campus University of Palermo, Italy, has been carried out. We considered two different scenarios; in the first one, the building as it is, with a conventional covering, while in the second one the roof was equipped with a green roof. The results of the two simulations have been compared, suggesting that such building component could contribute to the energy savings of the building. However, it has to be considered as part of other possible actions devoted to improve the energy efficiency of the whole building.

Radiative heat exchanges inside buildings remarkably affect the thermal balance of the human body in confined spaces and the related thermal comfort sensations of people. The mean radiant temperature is an important component of this balance. Unfortunately, it is usually computed by means of too simplified relationships, which significantly influence the comfort evaluations. Such simplified approaches are also accountable for a less effective design of HVAC systems which, in turn, could result in high energy consumption in the climatization of buildings. However, an accurate evaluation of the mean radiant temperature, especially when high intensity sources are present in a given internal space, depends on the angle factors between human subjects and surrounding surfaces of the enclosure. Angle factors, in turn, are direct functions of the projected area factors of the human body. Presently, there is still a certain lack in the availability of simple and reliable methods for computing angle factors of people in assigned postures, particularly in case of complex geometry and presence of heat high intensity sources, like sun. A comprehensive method is here introduced for evaluating the thermal comfort conditions of indoor spaces, avoiding the difficult singling out of several algorithms, dispersed in an inorganic way in the literature. A further contribution consists in the possibility of evaluating geometrically complex enclosures also in presence of direct solar radiation entering the room. Moreover, an analytical method for computing the projected area factors, based on experimental results, obtained by means of a photographic apparatus on purpose designed, is included in the methodology. An application of the method to a typical building situation in presence of direct solar radiation is also proposed.

The achievement of high level personalized sets of comfort parameters is contemplated within the more general context of the so-called smart buildings, where people, by means of the new communication technologies, become active actors to the process of the singling out and control of the best indoor conditions. This Dynamic Intelligence approach would usefully contribute to a better energy efficient and environmental friendly management of buildings. Multi-Agent schemes are suitable tools in this aim, since they are able to manage the user-building-plant system where the adaptivity of people to the indoor conditions is suitably achieved. In this paper a contribution to a development of the classical Fanger’s model is presented, embodying into account user’s personal preferences referring to his cognitive-emotive-relational ambit. The proposed algorithm is based on a particular Multi-Agent aimed at the assessment of subjective indoor comfort. Such subjective adaptive model is here meant as a tool for achieving an optimal control of thermal comfort conditions in buildings.

The world energy demand is continuously growing, which means an increase in consumption for all modern fuels or stronger effort on the development and improvement of renewable technologies. Moreover, Developing Countries claims more energy and they have often wide unutilized or unusable lands. The solar energy represents a useful opportunity for these Countries. The Solar Pond is both a solar collector and a thermal storage for long period and is suitable to use in wide sunny areas. Solar pond technology is able to supply heat for several applications requiring low-grade thermal energy or for electrical power production. In order to produce electrical energy from solar ponds it is necessary to use systems fed by low enthalpy sources, such Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) and Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC). In this paper, a model of a Solar Pond for power generation is analyzed in conjunction with an Organic Rankine Cycle. The model has been validated using climate data of an area near to Palermo city (Italy) and exactly the Test Reference Year developed by the Authors.

The tourist sector, despite the present severe constraints imposed by the sanitary emergence, can be considered as an important component of almost all countries’ economies. In Italy agriturism, in particular, has been experiences a continuously rising trend in recent years. Clearly, such great interest towards these businesses also calls for a deep attention by an energy point of view, in sight of an energy efficiency improvement, hence a lowering of the pressure that such facilities exert to the natural environment. On the other hand, the European Union has been engaged, for a long time, in awarding the tourist accommodations environmental excellence brands, like the EU Ecolabel. Unfortunately, the achievement of such excellence brands requires the capability of managing complex energy and environmental data, which is often not the prerogative of people running such facilities. In order of contributing to overcome this difficulty, and with the aim of helping the addressing of agritourism towards a Nearly Zero Energy path, we propose here a simple approach that does not require the modelling and simulation of the energy behaviour of an agritourism, being essentially based on the application of easy-to-use ARERA (Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy Networks and Environment) datasheets scheme. On purpose, an application of the method, involving two typical Sicilian agritourism, is presented. The obtained results showed the viability of the proposed methodology, although the need of an update and/or replacement of some technical datasheets arose.

Local and central administrations are often called to properly allocate economic resources intended for the territorial energy planning, on the basis of the performances achieved by implementing energy conservation measures. Particularly in the residential sector, that represents one of the most relevant sector for the energy demand, effective and reliable evaluation tools are required for this aim. Unfortunately, building stocks are characterized by a very large number of buildings that are referred to different construction periods and are equipped with a variety of appliances and tools, other than with different heating and cooling systems. This means that the whole energy consumption of a large territorial context cannot be obtained by simply summing up the energy requirements of each single dwelling and building. A procedure is therefore needed that, by means of a suitable characterization of the building stock and of the structure of the energy consumption, allows to assess the whole residential energy requirements and the effects induced by energy conservation measures. To provide a contribution in this direction, a methodology is here introduced for the disaggregation of a given building stock into proper typologies that are representative of the different construction practices characterizing different periods of time. The climatic properties of sites are accounted for in this methodology as well. Furthermore, the whole energy consumption is assessed using different approaches for heating, cooling, lighting and other electric appliances. This multiple approach relies on statistical data and on the application of well established calculation tools for the energy demand of buildings. In this way “virtual” sample buildings are defined as representative of the considered building stock. The method has been applied to the entire building sector of the Sicilian Region and its reliability has been checked against real data. The found value of the overall energy demand of the residential sector is 1100 ktoe/y, while the actual value coming from official statistics was 1192 ktoe in the year 2011; this signals the fair reliability of the method.

The granite production chain is high energy and water intensive with low resource efficiency. This paper focus on characterizing the potential for environmental improvement of the granite production chain by promoting the optimization of sawing technology, the implementation of rainwater harvesting (RWH) and the material recovery of wasted granite (sludge). The environmental performance of multi-blade gangsaw (MBGS) and diamond multi-wire saw (DMWS) technologies is compared by mean of life cycle assessment. Results demonstrate that DMWS technology contribute 30% of water savings, 40% of energy savings and 80% of material savings per square meter of polished granite tiles (60 x 40 x 2 cm) production. These resource savings contribute together to reduce the product's environmental footprint by 35% to 80%. The potential for RWH is analyzed using Plugrisost® simulation software based on system dynamics. RWH depends on the relationship between rainfall, catchment surface and tank size according to the industrial process’s water demand. The results demonstrate major potential to satisfy over 50% of the systemś daily water requirements using rainwater stored in rainwater tanks of varying capacity. RWH is a sustainable strategy for industrial water cycle management. A comprehensive review of literature reveals a range of technically feasible alternatives to promote material recovery of granite sludge. The ceramic industry is one promising industrial endpoint with which to avoid waste landfilling and contribute to mineral, energy and water savings. This by-product synergy could also serve as starting point for springboarding exchanges with other industrial agents, becoming a global extension of resource efficiency.

The energy efficiency interventions and rehabilitation actions regarding university campuses are characterized by an emblematic impact, representing significant examples of good practices that a given community could adopt, even at the city level. Starting from the idea that campuses may be regarded as small scale models of cities, a quantitative method for estimating to which extent the adoption of a given set of interventions by a municipality could contribute to make such city close to a nearly zero energy profile is proposed. To accomplish this task, the study considers the low carbon transition path of the campus of the University of Palermo and applies a simple method that, implementing an idea firstly developed by Yoshida et al. (2017), provides a rapid and effective graphical representation of the level of the success reached by the campus in terms of accomplishment of the nearly zero energy targets. The analysis of the transferability of such method to cities has shown that it can also be easily adopted by a city's administration and can be used for assessing the effectiveness of actions typically belonging to a city's energy policy, such as the public procurement and the waste management, apart from the actions regarding the public transportation system and the energy efficiency of the public building stock.

The need to reduce greenhouse gases emission produced by the building sector leads to the research of renewable and less impacting materials that can replace traditional ones. This subject has encouraged new researches on biocomposite concretes with the aim to exploit renewable resources like vegetal fibres intended as materials whose production processes are generally characterized by low costs and energy demand. This biocomposite is obviously much lighter than concrete and, therefore, can be suitably used in such cases where a structure cannot be overloaded, for instance in the realization of a green covering on top of a preexistent building. In this work, a first analysis of the thermal and structural behaviour of a biocomposite concrete, constituted by a mineral matrix (lime) with the addition of vegetal fibres (hemp), has been carried out, with particular attention to the amount of fibres and its granulometry in the mixture. The drying process contemplate a permanence of the material in a thermostatic chamber. The analysis carried out shows that hemp can be used both for the realization of insulation panel (hemp fibres alone) and as a construction material (hemp bast and concrete mix). This biocomposite has shown good insulation properties and some mechanical resistance. However, the results show that further analyses should be carried out on the drying process of the material, as it can greatly influences thermal and mechanical properties.

This paper addresses the emerging problem consisting in a correct energy and environmental evaluation of buildings belonging to the new architectural tendency. In fact, innovative buildings are often characterized by new materials that, not rarely, are not contemplated in current environmental databases. Moreover, unconventional shapes of these buildings could require further manufacturing processes that involve additional energy consumption not included in the commercial environmental database. Through the work a spotlighting of the problem is presented with reference to a real innovative building.

Marble is a natural dimension stone that is widely used in building due to its resistance and esthetic qualities. Unfortunately, some concerns have arisen regarding its production process because quarrying and processing activities demand significant amounts of energy and greatly affect the environment. Further, performing an environmental analysis of a production process such as that of marble requires the consideration of many environmental aspects (e.g., noise, vibrations, dust and waste production, energy consumption). Unfortunately, the current impact accounting tools do not seem to be capable of considering all of the major aspects of the (marble) production process that may affect the environment and thus cannot provide a comprehensive and concise assessment of all environmental aspects associated with the marble production process. Therefore, innovative, easy, and reliable methods for evaluating its environmental impact are necessary, and they must be accessible for the non-technician. The present study intends to provide a contribution in this sense by proposing a reliable and easy-to-use evaluation method to assess the significance of the environmental impacts associated with the marble production process. In addition, an application of the method to an actual marble-producing company is presented to demonstrate its practicability. Because of its relative ease of use, the method presented here can also be used as a "self-assessment" tool for pursuing a virtuous environmental policy because it enables company owners to easily identify the segments of their production chain that most require environmental enhancement.

In this paper the problem of road's capacity is dealt in presence of perturbations of the vehicular flow. In particular, among the different disturbing causes, it is here considered the presence of vehicles parked along the road in relation to their parking activity. Having already established the delay, caused by those vehicles leaving their stationary positions and entering the traffic flow or by those who slow down the flow to park, it is possible to evaluate the changes in time running values. Related to these times delay, the extra pollutant emissions by a given urban running fleet is also evaluated, by utilizing emission factors depending on age, type, volume capacity and engine of the vehicles.

Biodiesel from vegetable oils has been analyzed and its suitability for internal combustion engines has been assessed. The Standard biofuel’s characteristics have been investigated. Gas chromatography (GC) tests were carried out to characterize the fatty acid behavior. It was found that the mass percentage of saturated fatty acids did not change substantially with time, while unsaturated fatty acids increased with time for both B100 and B30. An increase in density for B100 and B30 with time was noted. Biodiesel density was within the standardization. The calorific values of biodiesel and its blend increased with time. Higher heating value for B100 increased from 41 to 43 MJ/kg while B30 increased from 44 to 45 MJ/kg.

Worldwide, governments are introducing several rules and standards in the aim of limiting the quantity of primary energy for air conditioning of buildings and supporting the use of renewable source of energy for generating thermal and electric energy to be utilized in buildings such as the European Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings [1]. Along with these interventions, another important action takes currently place in the building sector, that is the introduction of passive structural components of the envelope, able to reduce the requirements of energy for air conditioning purposes. Among these building components, the so-called green roofs are becoming more and more interesting for designer and buildings owners. This simple technical solution, in fact, apart its effectiveness in lowering particularly the summer cooling loads, could make more attractive the shape of each single building and, when adopted on a large extension, of an entire city district, reducing the risks for urban heat island phenomena that represent a severe problem in urban contexts. In this work, a short review of the literature models for computing the energy balance of roof coverings will be proposed, with particular reference in modelling the heat exchange of a canopy.

A classical LCA methodology is here applied to green roofs including in this analysis also the whole life cycle of the substrate, that represented a lack of previous LCA studies on green roofs. This inclusion will allow a complete and proper application of the LCA methodology to achieve an environmental accounting of the “green roof” performance. We have here chosen to approach the problem by analysing a specific substrate, that is used within an actual extensive green roof. Afterwards, we have applied the LCA methodology to the whole actual extensive green roof whose substrate under analysis is part of. In this manner, we achieved an environmental accounting of the “green roof” performance. In this study the contribution of production, maintenance and end of life to the whole environmental burden of extensive green roofs has been illustrated as well. Furthermore, in the present work we have speculated about the required level of data for allowing a complete LCA analysis of a green roof. Particularly, we have focused here our attention on the role of fertilizers used for the green roof maintenance and on the disposal of substrate, which seem to play a significant role in the whole LCA balance.

The Eco-label scheme is becoming ever more important in the environmental certification of products and services, especially in light of the recent ambitious aim of containing greenhouse emissions and improving the efficiency of utilizing energy sources. A recently-introduced hypothesis concerns the European Eco-label scheme relating to buildings, in the awareness that the construction industry is of primary importance to the whole economic and social life of states. This scheme should adopt an integrated approach to environmental problems and include construction, day-to-day management, and the possible disposal of building materials, throughout the life cycle of the building. In addition, in consideration of the particular scope of buildings, the main aim of this new scheme should also be to ensure enhanced conditions of comfort to the occupants of these buildings. In sight of this challenge, the building can be regarded as a summation of components (each of them characterized by a given level of environmental quality) or as a unique physical entity aimed at delivering suitable indoor condition to occupants with an assigned amount of primary energy and with a limited impact on the natural environment. In the paper, both approaches will be investigated, keeping also in mind the initiatives that are currently on the ground in the aim of establishing ecological criteria for the award of the community Eco-label for buildings.

Town Administrations are increasingly facing the challenge to identify smart planning actions to reduce the cities' energy demand by improving the efficiency of the urban energy systems. Buildings play an important role in this regarding both the demand and supply energy. In this scenario, the neighborhood or district scale seems to be the most appropriate to implement a multi-disciplinary approach on which smart planning relies. This paper shows the application, to a district of the city of Palermo (Sicily, Italy), of a methodology for architectural-energy classification of existing buildings. Such methodology provides, regarding the building sector, an easy tool that can support smart planning at district scale using data available to the municipalities. The work also shows a first experimental approach for the neighborhoods' characterization. The basic idea guiding this work is to identify possible features and subsequent intervention actions for energy refurbishment in neighborhoods clusters.

The paper provides a contribution for populating database of three physical parameters needed to model energy performance of buildings with green roofs: “coverage ratio” ( σ f ), leaf area index (LAI) and leaf temperature ( T f ). On purpose, six plant species were investigated experimentally: Phyla nordiflora, Aptenia lancifolia , Mesembryanthenum barbatus , Gazania nivea, Gazania uniflora , and Sedum . Proper ranges of the cited parameters have been found for each species. The here indicated ranges of σ f values refer to different growth levels of the species in the same lapse of time, that is four months. Single measured LAI values are also reported for the same plants. As for the T f (upper and lower layer), ranges of revealed temperatures refer to those detected from 10:30 a.m. to 16:30 p.m. of a selected day. Additionally, the dependence of T f on climatic parameters was investigated. A linear equation resulted the best fitting curve for all experimental T f data and the corresponding solar radiation data (with autocorrelation coefficients between 0.80 and 0.98). Furthermore, the effect potentially produced on building energy consumption by these species was analyzed using a simulation tool. Estimated cooling energy savings range approximately between 8% and 20% depending on adopted plants.

Purpose This work intends to show whether the Eco-label EU Decision for hard coverings, in which marble is contemplated among hard coverings as a natural product, is really capable of capturing the environmental performances of the marble productive chain, in other words whether it is actually viable for the natural products, like marble. Methods After a preliminary critical analysis of the suitability formarble of the current EU Decision (2009/607/EC), a classical life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology has been applied on the field to the marble “Perlato di Sicilia.” More specifically, the whole productive chain of a couple of firms treating the “Perlato di Sicilia” marble has been examined. The life cycle analysis is actually a cradle-to-gate analysiswhich includes the raw material extraction, processing phase, and finishing operations. Results and discussion Both the preliminary critical analyses of the structure of the Decision and the in-field checking on the two firms of the Custonaci marble district in Sicily singled out several conflicting points of the Decision for the marble working chain. These difficulties could be reasonably extended to other natural stones, such as granite, for which similar working processes are applied. Based on the outcomes of both these analyses, in the present work, a set of new indicators and modified criteria, already present in the Decision, is proposed as a candidate to be considered for inclusion in a future release of the Decision. Conclusions The changes here introduced can represent a useful indication toward a more suitable scheme of the EU Eco-label for marble, at least. Clearly, further investigations need to better assess the proposed scheme, especially in terms of threshold values of pollutant releases and use of explosive that are actually specific for the marble productive chain. The present modified version of the standard has been proposed to the Sicilian administration in order to be voluntarily adopted by marble productive sites of the region, in the aim of extensively verifying its suitability.

Worth aged buildings represent among the existing buildings a special case when it comes to their energy refurbishment. Unfortunately, the available technologies for building components characterized by high level of thermal performances show, not rarely, a limited compatibility with the architectural integrity of the building. In other words, the so-called Best Available Technologies, which are effectively adopted to optimize the building energy performances, in case of buildings to which a certain artistic, historic and/or architectural merit is recognized, i.e. heritage houses, might determine such kind of conflicts. This situation may lead to the selection of “non-invasive” but less performing building and plant elements. To check the effectiveness of these less performing technologies, we investigated the energy performance of two different refurbishment configurations of the building envelope of a heritage house: a “Best Available Technology” scenario, in which interventions assumed consist of using the Best Available Technology for energy saving; and an “Allowed Best Technology” scenario, in which interventions assumed consist of using technologies that, although not the best available ones, are anyway “allowable” according to the cultural heritage preservation requisites and rules. A cost-based comparison between these two configurations was also made. Results of this comparative analysis are reported here.

The use of novel building materials that contain active thermal components would be a major advancement in achieving significant heating and cooling energy savings. In the last 40 years, Phase Change Materials or PCMs have been tested as thermal mass components in buildings, and most studies have found that PCMs enhance the building energy performance. The use of PCMs as an energy storage device is due to their relatively high fusion latent heat; during the melting and/or solidification phase, a PCM is capable of storing or releasing a large amount of energy. PCMs in a wall layer store solar energy during the warmer hours of the day and release it during the night, thereby decreasing and shifting forward in time the peak wall temperature. In this paper, an algorithm is presented based on the general Fourier differential equations that solve the heat transfer problem in multi-layer wall structures, such as sandwich panels, that includes a layer that can change phase. In detail, the equations are proposed and transformed into formulas useful in the FDM approach (finite difference method), which solves the system simultaneously for the temperature at each node. The equation set proposed is accurate, fast and easy to integrate into most building simulation tools in any programming language. The numerical solution was validated using a comparison with the Voller and Cross analytical test problem.

We describe a case of a 67-year-old woman with severe disabling right-sided tinnitus, mild hyperacusis, and headache. The tinnitus was associated with sudden right hearing loss and vertigo, which occurred about 18 months before. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) resulted in normal anatomical structures of the cochlea and of the cranial nerves showing a partial empty sella syndrome with suprasellar cistern hernia. Angio-MR revealed a bilateral contact between the anterior-inferior cerebellar artery (AICA) and the acoustic-facial nerve with a potential neurovascular conflict. Surgery was considered unnecessary after further evaluations. The right ear was successfully treated with a combination device (hearing aid plus sound generator). Shortly after a standard fitting procedure, the patient reported a reduction of tinnitus, hyperacusis, and headache which completely disappeared at the follow-up evaluation after 3, 6, and 12 months. This paper demonstrates that the combination device resulted in a complete tinnitus and hyperacusis suppression in a patient with unilateral sensorineural sudden hearing loss. Our paper further supports the restoration of peripheral sensory input for the treatment of tinnitus associated with hearing loss in selected patients.

This study is aimed at providing a contribution in overcoming the current gap, especially in Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Benefit – Cost (BCA) analyses, due to the lack concerning the green roof disposal costs. Therefore, we have applied to an actual extensive green roof the LCC methodology suggested by D. G. Woodward (that appears like one of the most formalized and generalizable), but we have extended the analysis to the disposal phase. This will allow a complete and proper application of the LCC methodology in order of achieving an economic accounting of this component through its life cycle. In this way, it is possible to achieve the complete evaluation of the “green roof” performance by a life cycle perspective (the environmental performances, in fact, are assessed by means of the classical Life Cycle Assessment approach). Needed steps for accomplishing the cost analysis of the disposal phase of this building component have been applied and discussed. These steps help to formalize the procedure, so attributing it an approach which may be generalized. The relative contribution of production, maintenance and end of life phases to the whole cost of this extensive green roof has been illustrated as well.

The debate on the environmental performance of buildings and their classification is continuously rising and deeply involves all actors of the sector, from researchers to technicians and from owners to real estate managers. In the field, the EU has created a panel that is currently working on defining the criteria for attributing an Ecolabel award to a building. However, despite the enormous efforts made by administrative and academic institutions, a suitable and widely available scheme for operators to assess the environmental performance of a building is far from being established. To help provide a solution to the problem, the possibility of adopting the EU Ecolabel scheme established for tourist facilities for the overall ranking of buildings is discussed in this work. A corresponding procedure between residential buildings and hotels is presented, along with a simple score method for ranking the buildings. The methodology can be seen as a simplified Ecolabel scheme for analysing and ranking the environmental performance of buildings. It could be used temporarily until the pending definition of a generally accepted method for analysing and ranking the environmental performance of buildings is set and could be usefully adopted by local administrations to define the impact of different policy scenarios concerning urban building parks. An application is also presented to evaluate the coherence of this proposal with those actually in use for the energy and environmental appraisal of buildings.

A viable solution to reducing the buildings’ energy demand is the implementation of green coverings that have been demonstrated to improve the envelope performance, especially in summer season. Anyway, to apply computer models analyzing the energy performance of buildings equipped with such components, the knowledge of specific parameters is needed. Among these, the fractional vegetation coverage and leaf area index are of great importance. By means of an experimental facility, first results of the evaluation of these foliage-related parameters for five types of vegetation are presented.

PV/T panels are innovative systems increasingly used in the building sector. Their energy production and overall efficiency depend on several factors related to the shares of electrical and thermal loads and to the working temperature of the operating fluid. Therefore, an optimal configuration should be found. In this work, a parametric analysis was performed to provide a contribute on this issue. The conclusive indications can be exploited by designers and researchers, to maximize the efficiency of the systems in relation to configurations and to both electrical and thermal loads. To this purpose a simulation model was designed and implemented in a spreadsheet, using Visual BasicTM functions.