Upgrading the Power Grid Functionalities with Broadband Power Line Communications: Basis, Applications, Current Trends and Challenges.

This article reviews the basis and the main aspects of the recent evolution of Broadband Power Line Communications (BB-PLC or, more commonly, BPL) technologies. The article starts describing the organizations and alliances involved in the development and evolution of BPL systems, as well as the standardization institutions working on PLC technologies. Then, a short description of the technical foundation of the recent proposed technologies and a comparison of the main specifications are presented; the regulatory activities related to the limits of emissions and immunity are also addressed. Finally, some representative applications of BPL and some selected use cases enabled by these technologies are summarized, together with the main challenges to be faced.

Development of a novel protocol for generating flavivirus reporter particles.

Infection with West Nile virus (WNV), a mosquito-borne flavivirus, is a growing public and animal health concern worldwide. Prevention, diagnosis and treatment strategies for the infection are urgently required. Recently, viral reverse genetic systems have been developed and applied to clinical WNV virology. We developed a protocol for generating reporter virus particles (RVPs) of WNV with the aim of overcoming two major problems associated with conventional protocols, the difficulty in generating RVPs due to the specific skills required for handling RNAs, and the potential for environmental contamination by antibiotic-resistant genes encoded within the genome RNA of the RVPs. By using the proposed protocol, cells were established in which the RVP genome RNA is replicated constitutively and does not encode any antibiotic-resistant genes, and used as the cell supply for RVP genome RNA. Generation of the WNV RVPs requires only the simple transfection of the expression vectors for the viral structural proteins into the cells. Therefore, no RNA handling is required in this protocol. The WNV RVP yield obtained using this protocol was similar that obtained using the conventional protocol. According to these results, the newly developed protocol appears to be a good alternative for the generation of WNV RVPs, particularly for clinical applications.