MODELING AND ASSESSING THE SUSTAINABILITY OF DISTRIBUTED SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAICS ADOPTION

Participation of distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) generation in the organized electricity wholesale market is expected to increase under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order 2222 announced in 2020. Our understanding about the technical, economic, and environmental tradeoffs and co-benefits of solar PV adoption on both building and regional scales remains limited, especially considering the complexity of varied distributed solar PV-battery system designs and operation strategies as well as the dynamic interactions of these distributed generations with the centralized grid. This dissertation therefore aims to investigate the grid load reduction, life cycle cost, and life cycle environmental (e.g., carbon, water, and energy footprints) performances of typical distributed PV systems considering their dynamic interactions with the centralized grid. This dissertation intends to examine the possible scenarios in which future adoption of PV systems can facilitate economic saving, reduce environmental footprints, relieve centralized grid stress, and supplement differential electricity demands of residential energy users on both building and city scales. To this end, a modeling framework was developed consisting of a stochastic residential electricity demand model, a system dynamics model of solar energy generation, energy balance, storage, and selling, and life cycle economic and environmental assessment model. The stochastic residential electricity demand simulation considered five typical types of household occupants and eight types of households. The generated solar energy, grid supply, and residential demand were balanced for each residential building using energy balance model. This model was further scaled up to a city level using Boston, MA as a testbed. On the building level, we found a clear tradeoff between the life cycle cost and environmental savings when sizing the PV systems differently. Moreover, installing a solar PV-battery system but without an effective control strategy can result in sub-optimized peak-load reduction, economic, and environmental outcomes. Installing solar PV-battery systems with proper controls can achieve the highest on-peak load reductions and economic benefits under the time-of-use utility rate design. However, they do not necessarily provide the highest environmental benefits, indicating a potential technical, environmental, and economic tradeoff. Our regional analysis found a large penetration of solar PV systems may result in a steeper ramp-up of the grid load during winter days, but it may provide load-shedding benefits during summer days. Large buildings may perform the best technically and environmentally when adopting solar PV systems, but they may have higher life cycle costs

MODELING AND ASSESSING THE SUSTAINABILITY OF DISTRIBUTED SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAICS ADOPTION

Participation of distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) generation in the organized electricity wholesale market is expected to increase under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order 2222 announced in 2020. Our understanding about the technical, economic, and environmental tradeoffs and co-benefits of solar PV adoption on both building and regional scales remains limited, especially considering the complexity of varied distributed solar PV-battery system designs and operation strategies as well as the dynamic interactions of these distributed generations with the centralized grid. This dissertation therefore aims to investigate the grid load reduction, life cycle cost, and life cycle environmental (e.g., carbon, water, and energy footprints) performances of typical distributed PV systems considering their dynamic interactions with the centralized grid. This dissertation intends to examine the possible scenarios in which future adoption of PV systems can facilitate economic saving, reduce environmental footprints, relieve centralized grid stress, and supplement differential electricity demands of residential energy users on both building and city scales. To this end, a modeling framework was developed consisting of a stochastic residential electricity demand model, a system dynamics model of solar energy generation, energy balance, storage, and selling, and life cycle economic and environmental assessment model. The stochastic residential electricity demand simulation considered five typical types of household occupants and eight types of households. The generated solar energy, grid supply, and residential demand were balanced for each residential building using energy balance model. This model was further scaled up to a city level using Boston, MA as a testbed. On the building level, we found a clear tradeoff between the life cycle cost and environmental savings when sizing the PV systems differently. Moreover, installing a solar PV-battery system but without an effective control strategy can result in sub-optimized peak-load reduction, economic, and environmental outcomes. Installing solar PV-battery systems with proper controls can achieve the highest on-peak load reductions and economic benefits under the time-of-use utility rate design. However, they do not necessarily provide the highest environmental benefits, indicating a potential technical, environmental, and economic tradeoff. Our regional analysis found a large penetration of solar PV systems may result in a steeper ramp-up of the grid load during winter days, but it may provide load-shedding benefits during summer days. Large buildings may perform the best technically and environmentally when adopting solar PV systems, but they may have higher life cycle costs

Propofol synergizes with circAPBB2 to protect against hypoxia/reoxygenation‐induced oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis of human cardiomyocytes

Abstract Background Myocardial injury is the main manifestation of cardiovascular diseases, and previous studies have shown that propofol (PPF) regulates myocardial injury. However, the mechanism of PPF in regulating myocardial injury remains to be further explored. This work aims to analyze the effects of PPF on human cardiomyocyte injury and the underlying mechanism. Methods The regulatory and functional role of PPF and circAPBB2 in human cardiomyocyte injury were analyzed using an in vitro hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) cell model, which was established by treating human cardiomyocytes (AC16 cells) with H/R. The study evaluated AC16 cell injury by analyzing cytotoxicity, oxidative stress, inflammation and apoptosis of H/R‐induced AC16 cells. Quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction was performed to detect circAPBB2, miR‐18a‐5p and dual specificity phosphatase 14 (DUSP14) expression. Protein expression was analyzed by Western blot analysis assay. Dual‐luciferase reporter assay, RNA pull‐down assay and RNA immunoprecipitation assay were performed to identify the associations among circAPBB2, miR‐18a‐5p and DUSP14. Cytotoxicity was investigated by cell counting kit‐8 assay and lactate dehydrogenase activity detection kit. Oxidative stress was evaluated by cellular reactive oxygen species assay kit and superoxide dismutase activity assay kit. The production of tumor necrosis factor‐α and interleukin‐1β was evaluated by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assays. Results The expression of circAPBB2 and DUSP14 was significantly decreased, while miR‐18a‐5p was increased in H/R‐induced AC16 cells when compared with controls. H/R treatment‐induced cytotoxicity, oxidative stress, inflammation and cell apoptosis were attenuated after circAPBB2 overexpression or PPF treatment, whereas these effects were restored by increasing miR‐18a‐5p expression. PPF treatment improved the inhibitory effect of ectopic circAPBB2 expression on H/R‐induced cell injury. MiR‐18a‐5p silencing ameliorated H/R‐induced AC16 damage by interacting with DUSP14. Mechanically, circAPBB2 acted as a miR‐18a‐5p sponge, and miR‐18a‐5p targeted DUSP14 in AC16 cells. Conclusion PPF synergized with circAPBB2 to protect AC16 cells against H/R‐induced oxidative stress, inflammation and apoptosis through the miR‐18a‐5p/DUSP14 pathway

Association of Agronomic Traits with SNP Markers in Durum Wheat (Triticum turgidum L. durum (Desf.))

AbstractAssociation mapping is a powerful approach to detect associations between traits of interestand genetic markers based on linkage disequilibrium (LD) in molecular plant breeding. Inthis study, 150 accessions of worldwide originated durum wheat germplasm (Triticum turgidumspp. durum) were genotyped using 1,366 SNP markers. The extent of LD on eachchromosome was evaluated. Association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) markerswith ten agronomic traits measured in four consecutive years was analyzed under a mixlinear model (MLM). Two hundred and one significant association pairs were detected inthe four years. Several markers were associated with one trait, and also some markerswere associated with multiple traits. Some of the associated markers were in agreementwith previous quantitative trait loci (QTL) analyses. The function and homology analyses ofthe corresponding ESTs of some SNP markers could explain many of the associations forplant height, length of main spike, number of spikelets on main spike, grain number perplant, and 1000-grain weight, etc. The SNP associations for the observed traits are generallyclustered in specific chromosome regions of the wheat genome, mainly in 2A, 5A, 6A,7A, 1B, and 6B chromosomes. This study demonstrates that association mapping can complementand enhance previous QTL analyses and provide additional information formarker-assisted selection

SNP locus pairs on the same linkage group with significant (P<0.01) and highly significant (p<0.001) linkage disequilibrium (LD) and R² values at levels of chromosome and genome in durum wheat.

<p>^a Number of locus pairs and percentage of all possible locus pairs showing significant LD at P<0.01, P<0.001, R²>0.1 & P<0.01, and R²>0.1 & P<0.001, respectively.</p><p>SNP locus pairs on the same linkage group with significant (P<0.01) and highly significant (p<0.001) linkage disequilibrium (LD) and R² values at levels of chromosome and genome in durum wheat.</p

Chromosome bin map of plausible QTLs anchored by SNP markers in durum wheat.

<p>The relative interval length is indicated on the left of each chromosome and QTLs represented by SNP-based associations and relative R value (%) are shown on the right. The number in front of the symbol means the repeats of the associations anchored in the interval in the corresponding years and without a number in front of the symbol means one repeat of the association anchored in the interval in one corresponding year. Details of the associations are presented in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0130854#pone.0130854.s002" target="_blank">S2 Table</a>. The exact bins of some associated EST markers are unknown, and thus are shown below the chromosome.</p

Association of Agronomic Traits with SNP Markers in Durum Wheat (<i>Triticum turgidum</i> L. <i>durum</i> (Desf.))

<div><p>Association mapping is a powerful approach to detect associations between traits of interest and genetic markers based on linkage disequilibrium (LD) in molecular plant breeding. In this study, 150 accessions of worldwide originated durum wheat germplasm (<i>Triticum turgidum</i> spp. <i>durum</i>) were genotyped using 1,366 SNP markers. The extent of LD on each chromosome was evaluated. Association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) markers with ten agronomic traits measured in four consecutive years was analyzed under a mix linear model (MLM). Two hundred and one significant association pairs were detected in the four years. Several markers were associated with one trait, and also some markers were associated with multiple traits. Some of the associated markers were in agreement with previous quantitative trait loci (QTL) analyses. The function and homology analyses of the corresponding ESTs of some SNP markers could explain many of the associations for plant height, length of main spike, number of spikelets on main spike, grain number per plant, and 1000-grain weight, etc. The SNP associations for the observed traits are generally clustered in specific chromosome regions of the wheat genome, mainly in 2A, 5A, 6A, 7A, 1B, and 6B chromosomes. This study demonstrates that association mapping can complement and enhance previous QTL analyses and provide additional information for marker-assisted selection.</p></div

SNP locus pairs in different linkage stage with significant (P<0.01) and highly significant (p<0.001) linkage disequilibrium (LD) and R² values on genome level in durum wheat.

<p>^a Locus on the same linkage group.</p><p>^b Locus from different linkage groups.</p><p>^c Locus pairs and percentage of all possible locus pairs showing significant LD at P<0.01.</p><p>^d Locus pairs and percentage of all possible locus pairs showing significant LD at P<0.001.</p><p>^e Locus pairs and percentage of all possible locus pairs showing significant LD at R²>0.1; P<0.01 adjusted for locus pairs description.</p><p>^f Locus pairs and percentage of all possible locus pairs showing significant LD at R²>0.1; P<0.001 adjusted for locus pairs description.</p><p>SNP locus pairs in different linkage stage with significant (P<0.01) and highly significant (p<0.001) linkage disequilibrium (LD) and R² values on genome level in durum wheat.</p

Frequency distribution of the 10 examined agronomic traits of durum wheat in four consecutive years.

<p>P value of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for each year was shown, the hypothesis of normal distribution could be accepted when P>0.05 (significant at P = 0.05), and the trend lines of the accepted normal distribution were shown. PH, plant height (cm); ES, number of effective spikes, LMS, length of main spike (cm); RLMS, rachis internode length of main spike (cm); LFPMS, panicle neck length of main spike (cm); SMS, number of spikelets on main spike; NSPP, number of spikelets per plant; GNP, grain number per plant; GWP, grain weight per plant (g); KGW, 1000-grain weight (g).</p

Correlation coefficients among the 10 observed agronomic traits.

<p>*, ** significant at the probability level of 0.05 and 0.01, respectively.</p><p>Correlation coefficients among the 10 observed agronomic traits.</p