How Much Can a Campus Save on Utility Bills by Turning a 5-Workday Week Into a 4­Workday Week

The recent budget cuts campaign mandated by the governor's office had all state agencies in Texas looking for ways to reduce revenue spending. One of the cost savings opportunities perceived by many university officials is to convert a typical 5-workday week into a 4- workday week (e.g., Monday to Thursday) with 10 working hours each day during the universities summer session. The potential savings come from the fact that the universities can be partially shut down during the prolonged weekends (Friday to Sunday). It is believed that the savings from partially shutting down an extra workday is much more significant than the marginal energy increase caused by the extended working hours during workdays. This paper analyzes the potential energy cost savings of this approach for three real cases. The savings can be largely estimated by comparing whole-campus electricity consumptions between typical weekdays and weekends (or holidays). Energy overheads caused by the extended working hours (two more hours per working day) were also estimated. A limited shutdown scenario (similar to a typical weekend schedule) and a more aggressive shutdown scenario (similar to a typical holiday schedule) during the weekend periods are presented. The potential savings opportunities were from 0.32% to 1.53% of the annual electricity bills for different universities

Integrated Commissioning for a Large Medical Facility

The energy costs of heating, ventilating and air conditioning usually represents a large portion of the utility bills for a medical facility. One large, modem medical center located in the hot and humid region of southern Texas includes clinic areas, inpatient areas, critical areas, diagnostic areas, and pharmacy and a research center. An integrated commissioning of the HVAC system was performed for this building. The commissioning activities improved the building comfort conditions and reduced the utility costs by $225,000 for seven months during the commissioning periods and four months following the major commissioning completion. Some unique optimized control strategies were developed and implemented in the control system. This paper describes the commissioning activities and the results

The Dynamic Transcriptional Cell Atlas of Testis Development during Human Puberty

The human testis undergoes dramatic developmental and structural changes during puberty, including proliferation and maturation of somatic niche cells, and the onset of spermatogenesis. To characterize this understudied process, we profiled and analyzed single-cell transcriptomes of similar to 10,000 testicular cells from four boys spanning puberty and compared them to those of infants and adults. During puberty, undifferentiated spermatogonia sequentially expand and differentiate prior to the initiation of gametogenesis. Notably, we identify a common pre-pubertal progenitor for Leydig and myoid cells and delineate candidate factors controlling pubertal differentiation. Furthermore, pre-pubertal Sertoli cells exhibit two distinct transcriptional states differing in metabolic profiles before converging to an alternative single mature population during puberty. Roles for testosterone in Sertoli cell maturation, antimicrobial peptide secretion, and spermatogonial differentiation are further highlighted through single-cell analysis of testosterone-suppressed transfemale testes. Taken together, our transcriptional atlas of the developing human testis provides multiple insights into developmental changes and key factors accompanying male puberty

Judicial decision-making within political parties: A political approach

How do German intra-party tribunals manage internal conflicts? More specifically, why do they accept some cases for trial but reject others? Required by law to strictly adhere to implement rule of law standards, German intra-party tribunals are designed to insulate conflict regulation from politics. Meanwhile, research on judicial politics highlights the role of political and strategic considerations in accepting cases for trial. Building on the latter, we develop a theory that emphasizes tribunals’ political concerns such as winning elections. We test our hypotheses with a mixed-effects logit model on a novel data set covering 1088 tribunal decisions in six German parties from 1967 until 2015. Our findings indicate that political factors exert a strong effect on tribunal case acceptance. Tribunals are more likely to accept cases when suffering electoral loss and after losing government office. Moreover, tribunals dismiss cases more easily when their parties display relatively high levels of policy agreement

Increasing abdominal pressure with and without PEEP: effects on intra-peritoneal, intra-organ and intra-vascular pressures

Intra-organ and intra-vascular pressures can be used to estimate intra-abdominal pressure. The aim of this prospective, interventional study was to assess the effect of PEEP on the accuracy of pressure estimation at different measurement sites in a model of increased abdominal pressure

Increasing abdominal pressure with and without PEEP: effects on intra-peritoneal, intra-organ and intra-vascular pressures

Intra-organ and intra-vascular pressures can be used to estimate intra-abdominal pressure. The aim of this prospective, interventional study was to assess the effect of PEEP on the accuracy of pressure estimation at different measurement sites in a model of increased abdominal pressure

Induction of PPM1D following DNA-damaging treatments through a conserved p53 response element coincides with a shift in the use of transcription initiation sites

PPM1D (Wip1), a type PP2C phosphatase, is expressed at low levels in most normal tissues but is overexpressed in several types of cancers. In cells containing wild-type p53, the levels of PPM1D mRNA and protein increase following exposure to genotoxic stress, but the mechanism of regulation by p53 was unknown. PPM1D also has been identified as a CREB-regulated gene due to the presence of a cyclic AMP response element (CRE) in the promoter. Transient transfection and chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments in HCT116 cells were used to characterize a conserved p53 response element located in the 5′ untranslated region (UTR) of the PPM1D gene that is required for the p53-dependent induction of transcription from the human PPM1D promoter. CREB binding to the CRE contributes to the regulation of basal expression of PPM1D and directs transcription initiation at upstream sites. Following exposure to ultraviolet (UV) or ionizing radiation, the abundance of transcripts with short 5′ UTRs increased in cells containing wild-type p53, indicating increased utilization of downstream transcription initiation sites. In cells containing wild-type p53, exposure to UV resulted in increased PPM1D protein levels even when PPM1D mRNA levels remained constant, indicating post-transcriptional regulation of PPM1D protein levels

Where less may be more: how the rare biosphere pulls ecosystems strings

Rare species are increasingly recognized as crucial, yet vulnerable components of Earth’s ecosystems. This is also true for microbial communities, which are typically composed of a high number of relatively rare species. Recent studies have demonstrated that rare species can have an over-proportional role in biogeochemical cycles and may be a hidden driver of microbiome function. In this review, we provide an ecological overview of the rare microbial biosphere, including causes of rarity and the impacts of rare species on ecosystem functioning. We discuss how rare species can have a preponderant role for local biodiversity and species turnover with rarity potentially bound to phylogenetically conserved features. Rare microbes may therefore be overlooked keystone species regulating the functioning of host-associated, terrestrial and aquatic environments. We conclude this review with recommendations to guide scientists interested in investigating this rapidly emerging research area

The Life of George Buchanan with a Translation of Two Latin Satires

George Buchanan, a sixteenth-century classicist and Scottish satirist, seems to be a long-forgotten writer. For some reason his name and his works are known only to a few today. Nevertheless, in his own lifetime and even through the eighteenth century, his influence touched not only the literary scholars of Scotland, but also those of other countries