The U.S. industries accounted for 37% of the wind turbine capacity installed in 2020 and corporate solar purchases have totaled $22 billion over the last 10 years. However, affordability and ...intermittency of renewable generation are still the main obstacles for firms to power their operations using wind and solar energy. Aggregate production planning models that incorporate onsite renewable energy (APPMs-RE) are the state-of-the-art to facilitate renewable adoption. A large number of APPMs are available in the literature, but renewables-based APPMs are still inadequately investigated. This paper proposes a novel APPM-RE because it optimizes wide-ranging RE decisions such as microgrid capacity, energy storage, prosumer energy transactions, and demand response along with production, machine usage, and workforce levels to minimize cost. The model is a two-stage stochastic program considering uncertainties in product demand, labor and machine capacity, and power generation. The research goals are to (1) investigate the feasibility of decarbonizing the production, transportation, and warehousing operations, (2) examine the system affordability under practical hourly load requirements, (3) assess the cost-benefit of a prosumer energy transaction mechanism (PETM), (4) identify the effect in cost and microgrid capacity of time-of-use tariff, and (5) demonstrate the suitability of a two-stage stochastic programming model. The numerical experiments relying on climate analytics of six U.S. cities represent a broad scope of climate conditions. The managerial insights derived from this study are: (1) renewable microgrids with PETM may attain net-zero carbon operations with an affordable levelized cost of energy, and (2) time-of-use stimulates more adoption of solar generation than the flat rate.
The Aggregate Production Planning Problem with Renewable and Prosumer Microgrids in a Multi-Site Manufacturing Supply Chain System. Display omitted
•Jointly optimizes aggregate production planning and microgrid sizing decisions.•Considers uncertainties in products' demand, labor capacity, machine capacity and microgrids generation.•Incorporates time-of-use, prosumer energy transactions, and variable hourly load.•Includes probability distributions for hourly capacity factors of the renewables.•A holistic approach to assess the viability of onsite renewables in supply chains.
Conventional copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS)-based solar cells offer higher efficiency than other second-generation technologies such as hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H)- or cadmium ...telluride (CdTe)-based solar cells, but higher manufacturing cost due to the use of the rare metals indium and gallium. The purpose of the work presented herein is to improve the efficiency of such devices by using cheaper materials. Accordingly, a back-surface field layer made of low-cost and widely available barium silicide (BaSi
2
) with a thickness of 0.3
µ
m is introduced for the first time into the basic CIGS solar cell structure consisting of Al/ZnO/CdS/CIGS/Mo, resulting in the alternative structure of Al/FTO/CdS/CIGS/BaSi
2
/Mo, with fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) as the window layer. One-dimensional simulations of the solar cell capacitance are employed to study the photovoltaic parameters such as the power conversion efficiency, short-circuit current density, open-circuit voltage, fill factor, and quantum efficiency of the devices. The thickness of the CIGS absorber layer is varied from 0.1 to 3 µm to optimize the device. Besides, the effects of the acceptor ion and bulk defect densities in the CIGS absorber layer, cell resistances, and operating temperature on the overall performance are also investigated. The proposed structure offers an efficiency of 26.24% with a thin CIGS layer of only 0.8 µm. In addition to reduced CIGS thickness and cost, the presented approach results in CIGS solar cells with enhanced performance compared with previously reported conventional designs.
Abstract
Pulmonary inflammation is the leading cause of respiratory illness worldwide. Although strong T cell responses are desired for defending the hosts against infections, the cytotoxic effector ...function of the innate and adaptive immune responses can lead to the development of pulmonary immunopathology, which may lead to death. While T cells produce inflammatory cytokines during infections and allergies, they can also produce the immunomodulatory cytokine IL-10, which is critical for limiting the immunopathology caused by the excessive effector immune responses. However, the composition of IL-10-producing lymphocyte population and their molecular signatures are unclear. Using mouse models that report the production of IL-10 by GFP and expression of T regulatory cell marker Foxp3 by RFP, mouse models of lung inflammation (including allergic asthma, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, and flu), transcriptomic analyses at the population and single cell levels, and transgenic mouse models that are impaired in T cell-derived IL-10 production, we found that, in the disease models used, regulatory T cells in the mouse airway are mainly comprised of CD4+ Foxp3+, CD4+ Foxp3− and CD8+ subsets, and they differ under different disease conditions. Furthermore, within each subset, IL-10-producing T cells exhibit significant molecular heterogeneity. Information gained from this dataset provides insights into the T cell subset heterogeneity and signature markers, and shed light for future strategic design for therapeutic development utilizing the immunomodulatory features of T cells for the treatment of pulmonary immunopathology.
Abstract
Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are important for mucosal homeostasis and host defense against infectious pathogens. ILC subsets ILC1, 2, and 3, classified similar to T helper cells Th1, Th2, ...and Th17, are well characterized and known to promote both protective and harmful inflammatory responses. However, the immunosuppressive roles of ILCs are less understood. Regulatory ILCs that produce the immunomodulatory cytokine IL-10 have been recently defined, but the mechanisms regulating their development and function are not fully understood. Similar to other ILCs, regulatory ILCs were thought to be a pre-existing population, however unlike ILC1, 2, and 3 which all differentiate from ILC precursor cells (ILCPs), regulatory ILCs were thought to differentiate exclusively from upstream precursors, common helper-like innate lymphoid precursors (CHILPs) and common lymphoid cell precursors (CLPs). In our animal facilities, we found no evidence of pre-existing tissue resident IL-10+ ILCs in our investigations. In contrast, we find that co-stimulation of IL-33 and a γ-chain cytokine (IL-2, IL-4, or IL-7) robustly induces IL-10+ILCs that exhibit immunosuppressive functions in vitro and in vivo. Further, in addition to CLPs and CHILPs, we find that downstream ILC2Ps can develop into functionally suppressive IL-10+ ILCs following cytokine stimulation. Together, our data support an alternative pathway of IL-10-producing regulatory ILC development and regulation of inflammatory responses.
Abstract
Respiratory viral infections are a major cause of human morbidity and mortality. Influenza (flu) infections cause 250,000 deaths and 3–5 million cases of severe illness during the average ...flu season. Severe flu infections are associated with a combination of strong pro-inflammatory and weak anti-inflammatory immune responses. Production of the immunomodulatory cytokine IL-10 by T cells restricts immunopathology during flu infections, however our knowledge of the signaling pathways regulating IL-10 induction during flu is limited. Using IL-10GFP reporter mouse models, we found that Interleukin-2 inducible T cell kinase (ITK), a critical component in T cell receptor (TCR) signaling, regulates immunopathology and the development of IL-10-producing CD8+ T cells in the airways during influenza A infection. Utilizing alternative coculture, the model antigen ovalbumin (OVA), and transgenic TCR specific for OVA in CD8+ T cells (OTI) adoptive transfer, we determined that ITK regulates flu antigen-specific IL-10+CD8+ T cell differentiation in a CD8+ T cell intrinsic and extrinsic manner. Exogenous IL-2 rescued IL-10 production by Itk−/− CD8+ T cells, in vitro and in vivo, suggesting that ITK may play a role in IL-2-producing T helper cells that promote IL-10 production in CD8+ T cells. The absence of ITK impaired the expression of transcription factors (TFs) IRF4 and Blimp-1, and retroviral transduction enabling the reintroduction of these TFs could partially rescue IL-10 production in Itk−/− CD8+ T cells. Our data suggests that ITK is a critical regulator of IL-10 production by CD8+ T cells and flu-induced pulmonary immunopathology. Modulating ITK signaling may be a strategy for regulating immunopathology due to viral infections.
The rapid expansion of the Electric Vehicle (EV) industry is occurring in the world owing to numerous economic and environmental benefits. However, a lack of charging infrastructures could make EV ...charging quite difficult. Besides, the EV owners recharge the batteries from the residential connection which leads to power quality problems as well as increased system loss. It is known that renewable like solar-based EV charging stations lowers the burden of the utility grid in an eco-friendly way. However, solar irradiation lasts only for few hours a day while EV charging especially in Bangladesh starts from peak hour. Therefore, hybridization of solar with largely available biogas resources in Bangladesh can be a potential solution to overcome the EV charging disputes. To make the EV charging station more effective, reliable, and robust, energy transferring technology like Grid to Vehicle (G2V) and Vehicle to Grid (V2G) in Bangladesh incorporating renewable resources can be implemented. In this paper, V2G and G2V technology for EV charging are proposed using a fuzzy inference system that ensures cost-effective EV charging with lowering peak hour demand. The proposed EVCS offers a real-time charging cost which inspires the EV owners to recharge the batteries during the off-peak hour with the lowest cost.
Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) accounts for 5% of stroke, with women having a decreased inflammatory response compared to men; however, this mechanism has yet to be identified. One hurdle in SAH ...research is the lack of human brain models. Studies in murine models are helpful, but human models should be used in conjunction for improved translatability. These observations lead us to develop a 3D system to study the sex-specific microglial and neuroglial function in a novel in vitro human SAH model and compare it to our validated in vivo SAH model. Our lab has developed a 3D, membrane-based in vitro cell culture system with human astrocytes, microglia, and neurons from both sexes. The 3D cultures were incubated with male and female cerebrospinal fluid from SAH patients in the Neuro-ICU. Furthermore, microglial morphology, erythrophagocytosis, microglial inflammatory cytokine production, and neuronal apoptosis were studied and compared with our murine SAH models. The human 3D system demonstrated intercellular interactions and proportions of the three cell types similar to the adult human brain. In vitro and in vivo models of SAH showed concordance in male microglia being more inflammatory than females via morphology and flow cytometry. On the contrary, both in vitro and in vivo models revealed that female microglia were more phagocytic and less prone to damaging neurons than males. One possible explanation for the increased phagocytic ability of female microglia was the increased expression of CD206 and MerTK. Our in vitro, human, 3D cell culture SAH model showed similar results to our in vivo murine SAH model with respect to microglial morphology, inflammation, and phagocytosis when comparing the sexes. A human 3D brain model of SAH may be a useful adjunct to murine models to improve translation to SAH patients.
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