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Integrated resource planning is an important regulatory process used in many U.S. states to formulate and evaluate least-cost and risk-assessed portfolios to meet future load requirements for electric utilities. In principle, effective implementation of integrated resource planning seeks to assure regulators and the public that utility investment decisions, given uncertainty, are as cost-effective as possible. However, there is no empirical assessment on the effectiveness of integrated resource planning and its implementation. This paper compares planning outcomes and actual decisions for twelve utilities across the Western U. S. from 2003 to 2014. The authors find that subsequent plans differ significantly due to changes in the planning environment, which limited amount of information produced during planning is ultimately used during the procurement process, and that the latter process relies extensively on the most recent information available for decision making. These findings suggest that states' integrated resource planning rules and regulations mandating long-term planning horizons with the same analytical complexity throughout the planning period may not create useful information for the procurement process. The social value of a long-term planning process that departs from procurement and the balance between transparency and complexity of the planning and procurement processes is an open question.

Energy efficiency is widely recognized as a cost-effective strategy to meet energy demand. The U.S. energy service company (ESCO) industry generates significant energy savings and other benefits through installing and maintaining energy efficiency, renewable and other types of projects. In this study, we evaluate factors that may explain trends in the economic performance of U.S. ESCO projects by analyzing project level data for ∼7000 U.S. ESCO industry projects. We find that real project investment levels normalized for floor area have increased over time in ESCO projects across market segments. However, the dollar value of energy savings and other reported benefits have not kept pace with increases in real project investment levels over time. The latter have increased 100%–500% in various market segments from 1990 to 2017. We conduct an econometric analysis to decompose the drivers of these underlying trends. Number of measures and a changing mix of conservation measures are the primary factors that correlate with the long-term increase in project investment levels. However, our analysis is only able to account for less than 50% of the increase in real investment levels. We discuss additional factors, and conclude discussing policy implications and outlining long-term research needs.

With the recent discovery of their ability to produce neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), neutrophils are increasingly appreciated as active participants in infection and inflammation. NETs are characterized as large, web‐like networks of DNA and proteins extruded from neutrophils, and there is considerable interest in how these structures drive disease in humans. Advancing research in this field is contingent on developing novel tools for quantifying NETosis. To this end, we have developed a 7‐marker flow cytometry panel for analyzing NETosis on human peripheral neutrophils following in vitro stimulation, and in fresh circulating neutrophils under inflammatory conditions. This panel was optimized on neutrophils isolated from whole blood and analyzed fresh or in vitro stimulated with phorbol 12‐myristate 13‐acetate (PMA) or ionomycin, two known NET‐inducing agonists. Neutrophils were identified as SSChighFSChighCD15+CD66b+. Neutrophils positive for amine residues and 7‐Aminoactinomycin D (7‐AAD), our DNA dye of choice, were deemed necrotic (Zombie‐NIR+7‐AAD+) and were removed from downstream analysis. Exclusion of Zombie‐NIR and positivity for 7‐AAD (Zombie‐NIRdim7‐AAD+) was used here as a marker of neutrophil‐appendant DNA, a key feature of NETs. The presence of two NET‐associated proteins – myeloperoxidase (MPO) and neutrophil elastase (NE) – were utilized to identify neutrophil‐appendant NET events (SSChighFSChighCD15+CD66b+Zombie NIRdim7‐AAD+MPO+NE+). We also demonstrate that NETotic neutrophils express citrullinated histone H3 (H3cit), are concentration‐dependently induced by in vitro PMA and ionomycin stimulation but are disassembled with DNase treatment, and are present in both chronic and acute inflammation. This 7‐color flow cytometry panel provides a novel tool for examining NETosis in humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial titled "Enhancing the right to science: the triple planetary crisis and the need for comprehensive approaches" emphasizes the importance of the right to science in addressing global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss. It discusses the role of the right to science in promoting access to scientific knowledge, protecting against harm, and ensuring academic freedom. The editorial also highlights the need to address global inequalities in scientific practice, decolonize scholarship, and address gender inequalities in the field. It calls for international cooperation and the protection of scientific integrity in the face of disinformation and anti-science sentiment. The article acknowledges the efforts of organizations like UNESCO and the UN Human Rights Council in promoting the right to science but recognizes the obstacles and inequalities that need to be addressed for effective implementation. [Extracted from the article]

Forecasts of electricity consumption and peak demand over time horizons of one or two decades are a key element in electric utilities’ meeting their core objective and obligation to ensure reliable and affordable electricity supplies for their customers while complying with a range of energy and environmental regulations and policies. These forecasts are an important input to integrated resource planning (IRP) processes involving utilities, regulators, and other stake-holders. Despite their importance, however, there has been little analysis of long term utility load forecasting accuracy. We conduct a retrospective analysis of long term load forecasts on twelve Western U. S. electric utilities in the mid-2000s to find that most overestimated both energy consumption and peak demand growth. A key reason for this was the use of assumptions that led to an overestimation of economic growth. We find that the complexity of forecast methods and the accuracy of these forecasts are mildly correlated. In addition, sensitivity and risk analysis of load growth and its implications for capacity expansion were not well integrated with subsequent implementation. We review changes in the utilities load forecasting methods over the subsequent decade, and discuss the policy implications of long term load forecast inaccuracy and its underlying causes.

Host-associated microbial dynamics are influenced by dietary and immune factors, but how exogenous microbial exposure shapes host-microbe dynamics remains poorly characterized. To investigate this phenomenon, we characterized the skin, rectum, and respiratory tract-associated microbiota in four aquarium-housed dolphins daily over a period of 6 weeks, including administration of a probiotic during weeks 4 to 6. The environmental bacterial sources were also characterized, including the animals' human handlers, the aquarium air and water, and the dolphins' food supply. Continuous microbial exposure occurred between all sites, yet each environment maintained a characteristic microbiota, suggesting that the majority of exposure events do not result in colonization. Small changes in water physicochemistry had a significant but weak correlation with change in dolphin-associated bacterial richness but had no influence on phylogenetic diversity. Food and air microbiota were the richest and had the largest conditional influence on other microbiota in the absence of probiotics, but during probiotic administration, food alone had the largest influence on the stability of the dolphin microbiota. Our results suggest that respiratory tract and gastrointestinal epithelium interactions with air- and food-associated microbes had the biggest influence on host-microbiota dynamics, while other interactions, such as skin transmission, played only a minor role. Finally, direct oral stimulation with a foreign exogenous microbial source can have a profound effect on microbial stability. IMPORTANCE These results provide valuable insights into the ecological influence of exogenous microbial exposure, as well as laying the foundation for improving aquarium management practices. By comparing data for dolphins from aquaria that use natural versus artificial seawater, we demonstrate the potential influence of aquarium water disinfection procedures on dolphin microbial dynamics.

Utilities are constantly making improvements to their infrastructure and operating protocols to maintain or enhance the reliability and resilience of the electric grid. Customer interruption cost (CIC) estimates are useful in assessing and monetizing the economic benefits customers receive from these improvements. This Guidebook for electric utilities explains how to conduct customer interruption cost studies and describes commonly-used, value-based planning methods. The authors intend that this Guidebook will serve as a reference for utility personnel, policymakers and experts in survey design and administration who may be planning to implement CIC studies. It brings the utility industry up-to-date using modern survey technologies, practices, and data analytics to estimate CICs and, ultimately, use the estimates to address both traditional and emerging planning needs.

In March 2018, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and Nexant released a significant upgrade of the Interruption Cost Estimate (ICE) Calculator. While most of the improvements involved a modernization of the user interface, there are two notable modifications to the underlying econometric models. LBNL and Nexant documented the original models and customer interruption cost meta-analysis in a 2009 report. They subsequently revised the meta-analysis and econometric models for the ICE Calculator in 2015, as documented in an updated report. The models for the current version of the ICE Calculator are based on two additional modifications summarized in this update.

This analysis integrates regional models of power system reliability, output from atmosphere-ocean general circulation models, and results from the Interruption Cost Estimate (ICE) Calculator to project long-run costs to electric utility customers from power interruptions under different future severe weather and electricity system scenarios. We discuss the challenges when attempting to model long-run costs to utility customers including the use of imperfect metrics to measure severe weather. Despite these challenges, initial findings show that discounted cumulative customer costs, through the middle of the century, could range from $1.5-$3.4 trillion ($2015) without aggressive undergrounding of the power system and increased utility operations and maintenance (O&M) spending and $1.5-$2.5 trillion with aggressive undergrounding and increased spending. By the end of the century, cumulative customer costs could range from $1.9-$5.6 trillion (without aggressive undergrounding and increased spending) and $2.0-$3.6 trillion (with aggressive undergrounding and increased spending). We find that, in some scenarios, aggressive undergrounding of distribution lines and increased O&M spending is not always cost-effective. We conclude by identifying important topics for follow-on research, which have the potential to improve the cost estimates of this model.