Probabilistic Restoration Modeling of Wide-Area Power Outage
Not Available
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Engineering topics
Turner, Benjamin
Publications and source records attributed to Turner, Benjamin.
New cyclophilin D inhibitor rescues mitochondrial and cognitive function in Alzheimer’s disease
Abstract Mitochondrial dysfunction is an early pathological feature of Alzheimer disease and plays a crucial role in the development and progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Strategies to rescue mitochondrial function and cognition remain to be explored. Cyclophilin D (CypD), the peptidylprolyl isomerase F (PPIase), is a key component in opening the mitochondrial membrane permeability transition pore, leading to mitochondrial dysfunction and cell death. Blocking membrane permeability transition pore opening by inhibiting CypD activity is a promising therapeutic approach for Alzheimer’s disease. However, there is currently no effective CypD inhibitor for Alzheimer’s disease, with previous candidates demonstrating high toxicity, poor ability to cross the blood–brain barrier, compromised biocompatibility and low selectivity. Here, we report a new class of non-toxic and biocompatible CypD inhibitor, ebselen, using a conventional PPIase assay to screen a library of ∼2000 FDA-approved drugs with crystallographic analysis of the CypD-ebselen crystal structure (PDB code: 8EJX). More importantly, we assessed the effects of genetic and pharmacological blockade of CypD on Alzheimer’s disease mitochondrial and glycolytic bioenergetics in Alzheimer’s disease-derived mitochondrial cybrid cells, an ex vivo human sporadic Alzheimer’s disease mitochondrial model, and on synaptic function, inflammatory response and learning and memory in Alzheimer’s disease mouse models. Inhibition of CypD by ebselen protects against sporadic Alzheimer’s disease- and amyloid-β-induced mitochondrial and glycolytic perturbation, synaptic and cognitive dysfunction, together with suppressing neuroinflammation in the brain of Alzheimer’s disease mouse models, which is linked to CypD-related membrane permeability transition pore formation. Thus, CypD inhibitors have the potential to slow the progression of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, by boosting mitochondrial bioenergetics and improving synaptic and cognitive function.
Neurosciences & Neurology↗
2022 Summer Resource Adequacy in the ERCOT Region
This report is a 2022 update to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) report that examined the potential system performance of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) system during the summer of 2021. Anticipated summer reserve margins in ERCOT have risen year-over-year from the 15.7 percent reported in ERCOT’s Final Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy (SARA) for Summer 2021 to 22.8 percent in the Final SARA for Summer 2022, driven mostly by increases in wind and solar generation. Using data from ERCOT’s 2022 Summer SARA, Capacity, Demand and Reserves (CDR) reports, and historical performance data obtained from ERCOT and Hitachi Energy Velocity Suite, six economic dispatch scenarios using PROMOD were developed to assess the risk to ERCOT of a load shedding event for Summer 2022. The results suggests that ERCOT may be facing a very tight resource adequacy situation, with the potential for a serious shortfall during the summer peak, usually the end of July through mid-August, if demand and generator outage rates significantly exceed peak levels. Under these conditions, ERCOT will need to call on its operating tools, including Energy Emergency Alerts (EEA) and calls to conserve electricity, to maintain reliability and continue serving load. Those measures alone may not be sufficient to avert a shedding of load.
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RePOWERD: Restoration of Power Outage from Wide-area Severe Weather Disruptions
The purpose of the RePOWERD project is to develop a probabilistic and a simulation based power restoration forecasting model for tropical storms based on geographic utility service areas, impacts to energy infrastructures and transportation networks, time-varying customer outage number, crew information (i.e., crew size, crew staging requirements), and utility restoration plans. Energy infrastructure is a critical lifeline essential for the United States’ national and economic security. Like other critical infrastructures, this infrastructure is aging and is at a high risk of damages from extreme weather events. Based on the number of reported outages in EAGLE-I during 2020 and 2021, it is evident that the current energy infrastructure is not equipped to handle extreme event impacts and will contribute to significant outages. From a resilience perspective, it is essential to forecast restoration time in the event of a severe weather induced power outage to assist the US Department of Energy, emergency managers, and first responders with resource planning. This project contributes to this crucial need. This report details the models, that were developed in this pilot study, to determine the rate of restoration and estimated time of restoration (ETR) during tropical storm events within counties and utility service areas based on damage to energy infrastructures and total number of customers experiencing outages.
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Consequences of Altered Root Nutrient Uptake for Soil Carbon Stabilization (Final Report)
Objectives: The primary objectives of this project are to improve our understanding of tropical forest belowground processes, and to increase representation of this biome in ecosystem-scale and global C cycle models. Belowground dynamics present a major source of uncertainty inhibiting our ability to predict C cycle responses to climate change. Representation of tropical forests in these models is particularly lacking, even though these ecosystems hold >25% of terrestrial C stocks. While the majority of humid tropical forests exist on relatively infertile soils (i.e. poor in rock-derived nutrients), enormous gradients in soil nutrient availability exist at landscape-scales due to shifts in geology and soil order. Soil fertility is likely to greatly influence how tropical soil C storage will respond to the declines in precipitation predicted for the tropics. In particular, root dynamics vary across soil fertility gradients, with roots representing the major input of C to subsurface soils. Root characteristics related to soil fertility include biomass, turnover, C exudates, tissue chemistry, and nutrient uptake rates, with each of these likely sensitive to changes in moisture. The proposed project will fully integrate field research with an existing ecosystem model to assess potential effects of drying on belowground tropical C dynamics across a range of soil fertilities. Project Description:. This project will identify key linkages among soil fertility, root nutrient uptake, root dynamics, and soil C storage. The hypothesized framework for understanding these linkages is: Tropical rainforest roots in relatively fertile soils have lesser root biomass, faster turnover, fewer exudates, and improved root tissue quality relative to infertile sites, all resulting from increased root nutrient uptake. Ultimately, these root characteristics in fertile soils promote proportionally greater long-term soil C storage in organo-mineral associations. Specifically, lower root exudates and improved root tissue quality in fertile soils reduce microbial respiration of extant soil C (i.e. “priming) and increase microbial C use efficiency, leading to sorption of protein-rich microbial and plant organic matter on soil mineral surfaces. However, the larger pools of mineral-associated C in fertile tropical soils are more vulnerable to decreased rainfall than smaller C pools in infertile soils, in part because of the lesser root biomass, faster turnover, and softer, more labile root tissues. Also, the shallower lateral rooting structures typical in fertile soils experience greater desiccation and death than deeper roots in infertile sites, with little short-term adaptation to drying.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Photosynthetic parameters and nutrient content of trees at the Panama crane sites.
This data package contains leaf chemistry and photosynthetic traits data from trees within the NGEE Tropics Parque Natural Metropolitano (PA-PNM) and Bosque Protector San Lorenzo (PA-SLZ) sites in Panama. Photosynthetic parameters including maximum photosynthesis, Vcmax, Jmax, and TPU, were calculated from A/Ci curves. Foliar nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations and leaf mass per unit leaf area of the leaves also were determined. The plants that were sampled were classified as to species, family, order, clade, and growth form (tree, liana, perennial herb, or other). Wood density of the tree and the source of that data also are included. Included in this data package is a zip file with a single Excel data file and CSV copies.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗