Efficient building energy management is essential for energy saving and green society. This paper investigates sustainable energy management for an energy building cluster with distributed ...transaction. The building cluster consists of several types of energy buildings, e.g., office, industrial, and commercial buildings. We first formulate utility functions for the buildings of consuming energy based on the characteristics of their controllable loads. Then a two-stage energy sharing strategy is presented. In the first stage, the total social energy cost is minimized through finding the optimal energy sharing profiles in a distributed way. In the second stage, the clearing for mutual energy sharing is modeled as a non-cooperative game, and the existence of the equilibrium of the game is illustrated and a relaxation-based algorithm is introduced to search for the equilibrium. Moreover, a real-time model for each building to overcome real-time uncertainties, such as renewable energy generation and base loads is provided. The simulation results show that the proposed energy sharing strategy is economically beneficial for the energy buildings, computationally efficient, and is promising to facilitate a sustainable regional building cluster.
Monitoring COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy helps design and implement strategies to increase vaccine uptake. Utilizing the large scale cross-sectional Household Pulse Survey data collected between July 21 ...and October 11 in 2021, this study aims to construct measures of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and identify demographic disparities among U.S. adults (18y+). Factor analysis identified three factors of vaccine hesitancy: safety concerns (prevalence: 70.1 %). trust issues (53.5 %), and not seen as necessary (33.8 %). Among those who did not show willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine, females were more likely to have safety concerns (73.7 %) compared to males (66.7 %), but less likely to have trust issues (female: 49.7 %; male: 57.1 %) or not seen as necessary (female: 23.8 %; male 43.4 %). Higher education was associated with higher prevalence of not seen as necessary. Younger adults and Whites had higher prevalence of having trust issues and not seen as necessary compared to their counter parts.
This paper studies the synchronization problem of coupled delayed multistable neural networks (NNs) with directed topology. To begin with, several sufficient conditions are developed in terms of ...algebraic inequalities such that every subnetwork has multiple locally exponentially stable periodic orbits or equilibrium points. Then two new concepts named dynamical multisynchronization (DMS) and static multisynchronization (SMS) are introduced to describe the two novel kinds of synchronization manifolds. Using the impulsive control strategy and the Razumikhin-type technique, some sufficient conditions for both the DMS and the SMS of the controlled coupled delayed multistable NNs with fixed and switching topologies are derived, respectively. Simulation examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed results.
The design of white‐light phosphors is attractive in solid‐state lighting (SSL) and related fields. A new strategy in obtaining white light emission (WLE) from dual‐way photon energy conversion in a ...series of dye@MOF (LIFM‐WZ‐6) systems is presented. Besides the traditional UV‐excited one‐photon absorption (OPA) pathway, white‐light modulation can also be gained from the combination of NIR‐excited green and red emissions of MOF backbone and encapsulated dyes via two‐photon absorption (TPA) pathway. As a result, down‐conversion OPA white light was obtained for RhB+@LIFM‐WZ‐6 (0.1 wt %), BR‐2+@LIFM‐WZ‐6 (2 wt %), and APFG+@LIFM‐WZ‐6 (0.1 wt %) samples under 365 nm excitation. RhB+@LIFM‐WZ‐6 (0.05 wt %), BR‐2+@LIFM‐WZ‐6 (1 wt %) and APFG+@LIFM‐WZ‐6 (0.05 wt %) exhibit up‐conversion TPA white light under the excitation of 800, 790, and 730 nm, respectively. This new WLE generation strategy combines different photon energy conversion mechanisms together.
White‐light emission (WLE) was obtained in dye@MOFs. Besides the traditional UV‐excited one‐photon absorption (OPA) pathway, modulation can also be gained from the combination of NIR‐excited green and red emissions of the MOF backbone and encapsulated dyes via a two‐photon absorption (TPA) pathway.
A protein‐sized (ca. 4.2×4.2×3.6 nm3) non‐biologically derived molecule {Nb288O768(OH)48(CO3)12} (Nb288) containing up to 288 niobium atoms has been obtained, which is by far the largest and the ...highest nuclearity polyoxoniobate (PONb). Particularly, in terms of metal nuclearity number, Nb288 is the second largest cluster so far reported in classic polyoxometalate chemistry (V, Mo, W, Nb, and Ta). Nb288 can be described as a giant windmill‐like cluster aggregate of six nanoscale high‐nuclearity PONb units {Nb47O128(OH)6(CO3)2} (Nb47) joined together by six additional Nb ions. Interestingly, the 47‐nuclearity Nb47 units generated in situ can be isolated and bridged by copper complexes to form an inorganic–organic hybrid three‐dimensional PONb framework, which exhibits effective catalytic activity for hydrolyzing nerve agent simulant of dimethyl methylphosphonate. The unique Nb47 cluster also provides a new type of topology to very limited family of Nb‐O clusters.
Friendly niobium giant: An unprecedentedly huge polyoxoniobate (PONb) with as many as 288 Nb centers has been made. This is by far the largest PONb and the second highest nuclearity polyoxometalate reported to date. It incorporates a unique 47‐nuclearity PONb building unit formed in situ, which can be stabilized by metal complexes to form an extended PONb framework with the capability of hydrolyzing dimethyl methylphosphonate.
With the rapid development of energy buildings, advanced energy management is urgently demanded for a green society. In this paper, focusing on the coordinated energy management for a building ...community, we present a new and fair peer-to-peer energy sharing framework to realize an economic and sustainable building community. Specifically, in the building-centric peer-to-peer mode, buildings directly share their energy supplies/demands and offer the related payments within the community under the constraints of community energy and payment balance. We propose a non-cooperative energy sharing game for the selfish buildings, and we further show that a generalized Nash equilibrium of the game is independent of the energy sharing payments. Consequently, we firstly derive the energy sharing profiles by seeking the equilibrium. Since the buildings' energy sharing payments are mutually coupled and influenced, we propose a cost reduction ratio distribution model to determine the payments to ensure the fairness in the sense that buildings can get as large cost reductions and similar cost reduction ratios as possible. Simulation results show that all buildings can reduce their energy costs and have smoother and smaller net demand profiles on the main grid, thus making the proposed schemes and algorithms promising in real applications.
Administration of exosomes derived from mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) could improve some neurologic conditions by transferring functional biomolecules to recipient cells. Furthermore, exosomes ...from hypoxic progenitor cells exerted better therapeutic effects in organ injury through specific cargoes. However, there are no related reports about whether exosomes derived from MSCs or hypoxia‐preconditioned MSCs (PC‐MSCs) could prevent memory deficits in Alzheimer disease (AD). In this study, the exosomes derived from MSCs or PC‐MSCs were systemically administered to transgenic APP/PS1 mice. The expression of miR‐21 in MSCs was significantly increased after hypoxic treatment. Injection of exosomes from normoxic MSCs could rescue cognition and memory impairment according to results of the Morris water maze test, reduced plaque deposition, and Aβ levels in the brain; could decrease the activation of astrocytes and microglia; could down‐regulate proinflammatory cytokines (TNF‐α and IL‐1β); and could up‐regulate anti‐inflammatory cytokines (IL‐4 and ‐10) in AD mice, as well as reduce the activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and NF‐κB. Compared to the group administered exosomes from normoxic MSCs, in the group administered exosomes from PC‐MSCs, learning and memory capabilities were significantly improved; the plaque deposition and Aβ levels were lower, and expression of growth‐associated protein 43, synapsin 1, and IL‐10 was increased; and the levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein, ionized calcium‐binding adaptor molecule 1, TNF‐α, IL‐1β, and activation of STAT3 and NF‐κB were sharply decreased. More importantly, exosomes from PC‐MSCs effectively increased the level of miR‐21 in the brain of AD mice. Additionally, replenishment of miR‐21 restored the cognitive deficits in APP/PS1 mice and prevented pathologic features. Taken together, these findings suggest that exosomes from PC‐MSCs could improve the learning and memory capabilities of APP/PS1 mice, and that the underlying mechanism may lie in the restoration of synaptic dysfunction and regulation of inflammatory responses through regulation of miR‐21.—Cui, G.‐H., Wu, J., Mou, F.‐F., Xie, W.‐H., Wang, F.‐B., Wang, Q.‐L., Fang, J., Xu, Y.‐W., Dong, Y.‐R., Liu, J.‐R., Guo, H.‐D. Exosomes derived from hypoxia‐preconditioned mesenchymal stromal cells ameliorate cognitive decline by rescuing synaptic dysfunction and regulating inflammatory responses in APP/PS1 mice. FASEB J. 32, 654–668 (2018). www.fasebj.org
Efficient and stable blue emission of perovskite light‐emitting diodes (PeLEDs) is a requisite toward their potential applications in full‐color displays and solid‐state lighting. Rational ...manipulation over the entire electroluminescence process is promising to break the efficiency limit of blue PeLEDs. Herein, a facile device architecture is proposed to achieve efficient blue PeLEDs for simultaneously reducing the energetic loss during electron‐photon conversion and boosting the light outcoupling. Effective interfacial engineering is employed to manipulate the perovskite crystallization nucleation, enabling highly compact perovskite nanocrystal assemblies and suppressing the trap‐induced carrier losses by means of interfacial hydrogen bonding interactions. This strategy contributes to a high external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 12.8% for blue PeLEDs emitting at 486 nm as well as improved operational stability. Moreover, blue PeLEDs reach a peak EQE of 16.8% with the incorporation of internal outcoupling structures for waveguided light, which can be further raised to 27.5% by integrating a lens‐based structure for substrate‐mode light. These results verify the validity of this strategy in producing efficient and stable blue PeLEDs for practical applications.
Synergistic manipulation of the whole electroluminescence process in blue perovskite light‐emitting diodes has been proposed with an interfacial nucleation seeding scheme. Efficient and stable blue devices achieve a maximum external quantum efficiency of 27.5% and improved electroluminescent stability during operation.
Power and electronic components that are self‐healable, deformable, transparent, and self‐powered are highly desirable for next‐generation energy/electronic/robotic applications. Here, an ...energy‐harvesting triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) that combines the above features is demonstrated, which can serve not only as a power source but also as self‐powered electronic skin. This is the first time that both of the triboelectric‐charged layer and electrode of the TENG are intrinsically and autonomously self‐healable at ambient conditions. Additionally, comparing with previous partially healable TENGs, its fast healing time (30 min, 100% efficiency at 900% strain), high transparency (88.6%), and inherent superstretchability (>900%) are much more favorable. It consists of a metal‐coordinated polymer as the triboelectrically charged layer and hydrogen‐bonded ionic gel as the electrode. Even after 500 cutting‐and‐healing cycles or under extreme 900%‐strain, the TENG retains its functionality. The generated electricity can be used directly or stored to power commercial electronics. The TENG is further used as self‐powered tactile‐sensing skin in diverse human–machine interfaces including smart glass, an epidermal controller, and phone panel. This TENG with merits including fast ambient‐condition self‐healing, high transparency, intrinsic stretchability, and energy‐extraction and actively‐sensing abilities, can meet wide application needs ranging from deformable/portable/transparent electronics, smart interfaces, to artificial skins.
The first entirely, intrinsically, and autonomously self‐healable, highly transparent, and superstretchable triboelectric nanogenerator is developed for not only energy sources but also self‐powered electronic skins. This unprecedented triboelectric nanogenerator with energy‐extracting and activity‐sensing abilities is timely and able to usher vast emerging fields including flexible/self‐powered electronics, smart interfaces, and prosthetic and robotic skins.
The United States experienced three surges of COVID-19 community infection since the World Health Organization declared the pandemic on March 11, 2020. The prevalence of psychological distress among ...U.S. adults increased from 11 % in 2019 to 35.9 % in April 2020 when New York City become the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. Analyzing 21 waves of the Household Pulse Survey data collected between April 2020 and December 2020, this study aimed to examine the distress level in the 15 most populated metropolitan areas in the U.S. Our study found that, as the pandemic swept from East to South and soared in the West, 39.9%–52.3 % U.S. adults living in these 15 metropolitan areas reported symptoms of psychological distress. The highest distress levels were found within the Western areas including Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario (52.3 % in July 2020, 95 % CI: 44.9%–59.6 %) and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim (49.9 % in December 2020, 95 % CI: 44.5%–55.4 %). The lowest distress level was observed in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria ranging from 29.1 % in May 2020 to 39.9 % in November 2020. COVID-19 and its complex ecology of social and economic stressors have engaged high levels of sustained psychological distress. Our findings will support the efforts of local, state and national leadership to plan interventions by addressing not only the medical, but also the economic and social conditions associated with the pandemic.
•In 2020, the prevalence of psychological distress tripled compared to that of 2019.•The national pattern of distress followed the trend of COVID-19 in waves 1 and 2.•The prevalence of distress stabled even the COVID-19 cases surged in wave 3.•Distress level of Riverside, LA, and Miami metro areas was above the national level.•Distress level of the Washington metro area was substantially below the national level.