Recovery Act - Demonstration of Sodium Ion Battery for Grid Level Applications

Aquion Energy received a $5.179 million cooperative research agreement under the Department of Energyâs Smart Grid Demonstration Program â Demonstration of Promising Energy Storage Technologies (Program Area 2.5) of FOA DE-FOE-0000036. The main objective of this project was to demonstrate Aquionâs low cost, grid-scale, ambient temperature sodium ion energy storage device. The centerpiece of the technology is a novel hybrid energy storage chemistry that has been proven in a laboratory environment. The objective was to translate these groundbreaking results from the small-batch, small-cell test environment to the pilot scale to enable significant numbers of multiple ampere-hour cells to be manufactured and assembled into test batteries. Aquion developed a proof of concept demonstration unit that showed similar performance and major cost improvement over existing technologies. Beyond minimizing cell and system cost, Aquion built a technology that is safe, environmentally benign and durable over many thousands of cycles as used in a variety of grid support roles. As outlined in the Program documents, the original goals of the project were to demonstrate a unit that: 1. Has a projected capital cost of less than$250/kWh at the pack level 2. A deep discharge cycle life of > 10,000 cycles 3. A volumetric energy density of >20 kWh/m3 4. Projected calendar life of over 10 years 5. A device that contains no hazardous materials and retains best in class safety characteristics. Through the course of this project Aquion developed its aqueous electrolyte electrochemical energy storage device to the point where large demonstration units (> 10 kWh) were able to function in grid-supporting functions detailed by their collaborators. Aquionâs final deliverable was an ~15 kWh system that has the ability to perform medium to long duration (> 2 hours) charge and discharge functions approaching 95% DC-DC efficiency. The system has functioned, and continues to function as predicted with no indication that it will not tolerate well beyond 10 calendar years and 10,000 cycles. It has been in continuous operation for more than 1 year with 1,000 cycles (of varying depth of discharge, including 100% depth of discharge) and no identifiable degradation to the system. The final thick electrode cell structure has shown an energy density of 25 kWh/m3 at a five hour (or greater) discharge time. The primary chemistry has remained non-toxic, containing no acids or other corrosive chemicals, and the battery units have passed numerous safety tests, including flame resistance testing. These tests have verified the claim that the device is safe to use and contains no hazardous materials. Current projections show costs at the pack level to offer best in class value and are competitive with lead-acid batteries, factoring in LCOE

Cost-effective targeting of conservation investments to reduce the northern Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone

A seasonally occurring summer hypoxic (low oxygen) zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico is the second largest in the world. Reductions in nutrients from agricultural cropland in its watershed are needed to reduce the hypoxic zone size to the national policy goal of 5,000 km2 (as a 5-y running average) set by the national Gulf of Mexico Task Force’s Action Plan. We develop an integrated assessment model linking the water quality effects of cropland conservation investment decisions on the more than 550 agricultural subwatersheds that deliver nutrients into the Gulf with a hypoxic zone model. We use this integrated assessment model to identify the most cost-effective subwatersheds to target for cropland conservation investments. We consider targeting of the location (which subwatersheds to treat) and the extent of conservation investment to undertake (how much cropland within a subwatershed to treat). We use process models to simulate the dynamics of the effects of cropland conservation investments on nutrient delivery to the Gulf and use an evolutionary algorithm to solve the optimization problem. Model results suggest that by targeting cropland conservation investments to the most cost-effective location and extent of coverage, the Action Plan goal of 5,000 km2 can be achieved at a cost of $2.7 billion annually. A large set of cost-hypoxia tradeoffs is developed, ranging from the baseline to the nontargeted adoption of the most aggressive cropland conservation investments in all subwatersheds (estimated to reduce the hypoxic zone to less than 3,000 km2 at a cost of$5.6 billion annually)

The driver landscape of sporadic chordoma.

Chordoma is a malignant, often incurable bone tumour showing notochordal differentiation. Here, we defined the somatic driver landscape of 104 cases of sporadic chordoma. We reveal somatic duplications of the notochordal transcription factor brachyury (T) in up to 27% of cases. These variants recapitulate the rearrangement architecture of the pathogenic germline duplications of T that underlie familial chordoma. In addition, we find potentially clinically actionable PI3K signalling mutations in 16% of cases. Intriguingly, one of the most frequently altered genes, mutated exclusively by inactivating mutation, was LYST (10%), which may represent a novel cancer gene in chordoma.Chordoma is a rare often incurable malignant bone tumour. Here, the authors investigate driver mutations of sporadic chordoma in 104 cases, revealing duplications in notochordal transcription factor brachyury (T), PI3K signalling mutations, and mutations in LYST, a potential novel cancer gene in chordoma

Concert recording 2013-03-28

[Track 01]. Fanfares liturgiques. Procession du Vendredi-Saint / Henri Tomasi -- [Track 02]. The good soldier Schweik suite. Overture / Robert Kurka -- [Track 03]. The good soldier Schweik suite. Lament / Robert Kurka -- [Track 04]. The good soldier Schweik suite. March / Robert Kurka -- [Track 05]. The good soldier Schweik suite. War Dance / Robert Kurka -- [Track 06]. The good soldier Schweik suite. Pastoral / Robert Kurka -- [Track 07]. The good soldier Schweik suite. Finale / Robert Kurka -- [Track 08]. Serenade no. 11 in E flat major, KV 375. Allegro maestoso / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart -- [Track 09]. Prelude, fugue and riffs / Leonard Bernstein

Understanding Portfolio Efficiency with Conditioning Information *

Abstract I develop two new types of portfolio efficiency when returns are predictable. The first type maximizes the unconditional Sharpe ratio of excess returns and differs from unconditional efficiency unless the safe asset return is constant over time. The second type maximizes conditional mean-variance preferences and differs from unconditional efficiency unless, additionally, the maximum conditional Sharpe ratio is constant. Using stock data, I quantify and test their performance differences with respect to unconditionally and fixed-weight efficient returns. I also show the relevance of the two new portfolio strategies to test conditional asset pricing models

Bigger, Better, Faster, More at the LHC

Multijet plus missing energy searches provide universal coverage for theories that have new colored particles that decay into a dark matter candidate and jets. These signals appear at the LHC further out on the missing energy tail than two-to-two scattering indicates. The simplicity of the searches at the LHC contrasts sharply with the Tevatron where more elaborate searches are necessary to separate signal from background. The searches presented in this article effectively distinguish signal from background for any theory where the LSP is a daughter or granddaughter of the pair-produced colored parent particle without ever having to consider missing energies less than 400 GeV.Comment: 26 pages, 8 Figures. Minor textual changes, typos fixed and references adde

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts