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In this paper, we assess the demand effects of lower public transport fares in Geneva, an urban area in Switzerland. Considering a unique sample based on transport companies' annual reports, we find that, when reducing the costs of annual season tickets, day tickets and hourly tickets (by up to 29%, 6% and 20%, respectively), demand increases by, on average, over five years, about 10.6%. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to show how the synthetic control method (Abadie and Gardeazabal, 2003, Abadie et al., 2010) can be used to assess such (for policy-makers) important price reduction effects in urban public transport. Furthermore, we propose an aggregate metric that inherits changes in public transport supply (e.g., frequency increases) to assess these demand effects, namely passenger trips per vehicle kilometre. This metric helps us to isolate the impact of price reductions by ensuring that companies' frequency increases do not affect estimators of interest. In addition, we show how to investigate the robustness of results in similar settings. Using a recent statistical method and a different study design, i.e., not blocking off supply changes as an alternate explanation of the effect, leads us to a lower bound of the effect, amounting to an increase of 3.7%. Finally, as far as we know, it is the first causal estimate of price reduction on urban public transport initiated by direct democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Bottom-up approach for predicting near-optimal building retrofit solutions. • Artificial neural networks ensure scalability for large-scale retrofit analysis. • Retrofit model for residential buildings of various climatic regions. • Trade-off between accuracy, computational cost, and ease of application. • Near-optimal retrofit solutions for residential buildings in Geneva municipality. Coordinated large scale building retrofit is one of the most effective approaches not only to reduce the environmental footprint of existing buildings but also to assure that climate goals can be met. Existing bottom-up retrofit approaches become infeasible or lack in terms of accuracy and/or computational cost especially when the scale of application increases in size. Hence, the aim of this paper is to propose and develop a bottom-up approach for large-scale building retrofit with the use of a scalable building-level surrogate retrofit model. To ensure scalability and generalization to large areas, we use artificial neural networks. The developed approach consists of a set of artificial neural networks trained on building archetypes, aiming to predict near-optimal building retrofit solutions for all residential buildings in Switzerland. This is achieved with a small set of inputs, and within a short run time. In order to validate the developed approach, we compare it with a conventional mixed building simulation and optimization approach. The surrogate model computes near-optimal building retrofit solutions, with an average coefficient of determination of 0.91 and an average f1 score of 0.89. To illustrate the advantages of this model, we perform a large-scale retrofit analysis of a case study in Geneva municipality. Such a surrogate model is capable of providing insights into the overall retrofit potential of large areas and thus shall support reaching energy emission reduction targets of existing residential buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on two questions: (I) how to set research priorities in a transparent, systematic, fair and legitimate way?; and (ii) how to mobilize low and middle- income countries to take more ownership in defining their own research policies, rather than merely being passive recipients of international aid for research and development? I propose that the recently developed Child Health and Nutrition Research initiative (CHNRI) methodology is becoming widely accepted as a feasible answer to both those questions. In this paper, I review its numerous applications to date and show how it evolved into a practical and systematic tool that can assist priority setting in health research investments in diverse contexts. The CHNRI methodology also addresses support for different instruments of health research to achieve better balance between fundamental research, translation research and implementation research. The wide application of CHNRI methodology is expected to maximise the potential of health research to reduce disease burden and gradually reduce inequities that exist between support for research on the health problems of the rich and the poor. I believe that this tool will find application within many low and middle-income countries and assist them to pull together their own experts and actively define their priorities for research and development in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Levelized costs, economic impact multiplier and share of domestic impact are assessed for geothermal district heating. • Choosing the right share of geothermal heat in the district heating is crucial for levelized costs. • The choice of auxiliary heat strongly influences district heating's economic impacts. • Standalone geothermal systems have higher domestic economic impacts. • Integrating waste incineration heat often maximizes both competitiveness and economic impacts. Geothermal district heating could play an important role towards climate change mitigation, but its slow uptake implies that it is cost competitive only under specific sets of conditions, including drilling success and design of the district heating. Even in cases when geothermal district heating may be less cost competitive than other alternatives, expenditure that occurs during its development brings indirect economic impact that could also benefit domestic economy. Using the case study of the State of Geneva in Switzerland, this paper analyzes cost competitiveness and economic impacts of 5′892 decision paths (combinations of decisions) to develop geothermal district heating, including the choice of auxiliary heat source, and uses comprehensive sensitivity analysis to identify the most influential decisions. The right share of geothermal coverage in the heat mix to achieve an optimum combination of investment costs and geothermal heat production, and the integration of waste incineration as auxiliary heat source are crucial for cost competitiveness. High economic impact multipliers are created by geothermal systems incorporating individual pellet boilers as auxiliary heat source. High share of domestic impact consistently occurs in the case of standalone geothermal installations, especially when they are used with second or third generation of district heating. Combining geothermal district heating from medium and deep wells (1′500 m and 2′500 m) with heat from waste incineration creates synergies where above-average cost competitiveness and economic impacts are achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper describes the methodology used to create a multimedia collection of cases with interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) at the University Hospitals of Geneva. The dataset contains high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) image series with three-dimensional annotated regions of pathological lung tissue along with clinical parameters from patients with pathologically proven diagnoses of ILDs. The motivations for this work is to palliate the lack of publicly available collections of ILD cases to serve as a basis for the development and evaluation of image-based computerized diagnostic aid. After 38 months of data collection, the library contains 128 patients affected with one of the 13 histological diagnoses of ILDs, 108 image series with more than 41l of annotated lung tissue patterns as well as a comprehensive set of 99 clinical parameters related to ILDs. The database is available for research on request and after signature of a license agreement. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper compares the use of perceived and measured noise in a hedonic housing model. Although in theory the use of subjective variables is recommended, most empirical applications use measured noise variables. Merging different databases, we obtain a sample of about 2800 apartments located in Geneva, Switzerland, containing both measured and perceived noise data. We make the measured and perceived noise data comparable and analyse their performance by fitting alternatively three hedonic models. We find that for moderate to high noise levels the measured noise safely approximates its perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Many correlations of mean hourly direct luminous efficacy for all sky, clear sky and intermediate sky conditions have been compared with experimental data measured in Arcavacata di Rende (Italy), Geneva (Switzerland), Vaulx-en-Velin (France), Bratislava (Slovakia) and Osaka (Japan). The comparisons show that, for all sky conditions, the correlations developed for one locality predict the luminous efficacy in the other localities with mean errors between −13% and 20% and root mean square errors between 15% and 35%; for clear sky conditions, the correlations developed for one locality predict the luminous efficacy in the other localities with mean errors between −7% and 14% and root mean square errors between 7% and 19%; for intermediate sky conditions, the correlations developed for one locality predict the luminous efficacy in the other localities with mean errors between −17% and 26% and root mean square errors between 20% and 41%. If the correlations with local coefficients are applied in each locality, the errors become considerably shorter. The paper gives indications on the values of the measured mean luminous efficacies and on the best models. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study presents the upstream–downstream complexity of the Rhone, which earlier was a braided river. The fluvial patterns of the Rhône ca. 1860–70 are discussed, i.e. at the end of the Little Ice Age, which was also the beginning of the period of river dredging for improving navigation in the channel (1840–1930) and before the development of a chain of hydroelectric dams (1892–1986) on the river. Flowing across Switzerland and France to the Camargue delta on the Mediterranean, the Rhône drains the western part of the Alps in Europe. Befitting a large river flowing from the mountains, the Rhône was braided along most of its course, due to large quantities of coarse sediments formerly contributed by tributaries from the Alps, Jura Mountains, and Massif Central. The paper begins with a summary of palaeo-environmental studies on the Rhône, which show that the river experienced several events of fluvial metamorphosis during the Holocene. The reaches, which were braided during the late 19th century, alternated between meandering and braided patterns during this period due to the high sensitivity of the channel pattern to external variables such as changing water and sediment discharges. A discussion on the methods used to describe different aspects of the braided pattern of the Rhône from 1860 to 1870, using large-scale maps follows. Discrete reaches on the river are identified using slope, downstream variations of discharge, and stream power. These can be attributed to three factors: the tributaries (large supplies of bed load are brought by the Arve, the Ain, the Drôme, the Ardèche and the Durance rivers), Quaternary tectonics, and the along-channel distance from tributary confluences. Finally, the study assesses the pre-modern conditions of the Rhône for restoring selected reaches on the modern river. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Aim: To assess the properties of the Cigarette Dependence Scale (CDS-12) in various samples of daily smokers and to provide reference scores in a general population sample. Methods: Surveys in 4 samples of daily cigarette smokers: psychiatric out-patients in Geneva, Switzerland (n =226), clients of smoking cessation clinics in France (n =370), visitors of a French-language smoking cessation website (n =13,697) and a representative sample of the general population of Geneva (n =292). Results: In all 4 samples, Cronbach''s alpha coefficients were >0.87 and factor analyses indicated that CDS-12 was unidimensional. CDS-12 was slightly skewed towards higher values, and it was associated with expired carbon monoxide, but this association was not strong (9% of variance explained, p <0.001). CDS-12 scores were highest in clients of smoking cessation clinics (mean=47.7, SD=10.2), followed by psychiatric patients (mean=44.4, SD=8.4), visitors of smoking cessation websites (mean=43.3, SD=11.6) and the general population sample (mean=36.9, SD=12.3). Except for tolerance, each element in the DSM-IV and ICD-10 definitions of dependence is reflected by at least one item in CDS-12, even though the match with these definitions is sometimes indirect. Conclusions: This paper presents reference scores and validity and reliability tests for CDS-12 in a diversity of samples of daily smokers. This information should be useful to clinicians and researchers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

DNA, as the signature of life, has been extensively studied in a wide range of environments. While DNA analysis has become central to work on natural gene exchange, forensic analyses, soil bioremediation, genetically modified organisms, exobiology, and palaeontology, fundamental questions about DNA resistance to degradation remain. This paper investigated on the presence of plant DNA in groundwater and artesian fountain (groundwater-fed) samples, which relates to the movement and persistence of DNA in the environment. The study was performed in the groundwater and in the fountains, which are considered as a traditional artesian drinking water in Geneva Champagne Basin. DNA from water samples was extracted, analysed and quantified. Plant gene sequences were detected using PCR amplification based on 18S rRNA gene primers specific for eukaryotes. Physicochemical parameters of water samples including temperature, pH, conductivity, organic matter, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and total organic carbon (TOC) were measured throughout the study. The results revealed that important quantities of plant DNA can be found in the groundwater. PCR amplification based on 18S rDNA, cloning, RFLP analysis and sequencing demonstrated the presence of plant DNA including Vitis rupestris, Vitis berlandieri, Polygonum sp. Soltis, Boopis graminea, and Sinapis alba in the water samples. Our observations support the notion of plant DNA release, long-term persistence and movement in the unsaturated medium as well as in groundwater aquifers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents the implementation of a large-scale systems analytic method in a model permitting the assessment of air quality policies in urban regions. This method is based on the use of a convex optimization technique called the analytic center cutting plane method. One realizes the coupling of a photochemical model (TAPOM-Lite), used to simulate ozone creation and dispersion in the region under study, and of a technoeconomic model (MARKAL-Lite) that represents the technology and energy uses by different economic sectors in the same region. Although the models correspond to different time and space scales, one realizes the coupling through a series of approximating convex reduced order optimization problems with constraints that are implicitly defined by the photochemical and the technoeconomic model, respectively. The implementation of the method in a case study corresponding to the region of Geneva, Switzerland is described. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article presents abstracts of papers submitted at the Joint International Meeting of the European Society for Dermatological Research and the Society for Investigative Dermatology Inc. held in Geneva, Switzerland on June 22-26, 1986. Ultra violet-B radiation impairs several immune functions. Negative effects on antigen presentation function, lymphokine production and HLA-DR/antigen expression on the surface of immunocompetent cells in epidermis and spleen have been reported. The deposition of IgM on keratin intermediate filament containing structures such as apoptotic keratin bodies, localized cutaneous amyloid or corneocytes is a frequent finding in normal and diseased skin. This IgM deposition has often been regarded to be a consequence of non-specific trapping of IgM rather than specific binding of antibodies to autoantigens.