Thursday, November 28, 2024

Earning money while making the power grid more stable – energy consumers have a key role in supporting grid flexibility

Hosna Khajeh's doctoral dissertation from the University of Vaasa, Finland, presents innovative methods for efficiently utilising energy users' flexibility in distribution and transmission networks

University of Vaasa

By providing flexibility services to renewable energy systems, consumers can both help in balancing power grids and receive financial benefits. Hosna Khajeh’s doctoral dissertation from the University of Vaasa, Finland, introduces new methods that enable the efficient utilisation of energy users’ flexibility resources in distribution and transmission networks.

As the use of weather-dependent renewable energy sources increases, power systems need to become more flexible to guarantee energy supply at all times. One of the necessary steps for the future is making it possible for consumers to support both national and local power grids with their existing flexibility resources – such as home batteries, air conditioners, and renewable energy setups.

In her doctoral dissertation in electrical engineering, Hosna Khajeh shows how individual energy users, local energy communities, and industrial hydrogen systems can become flexibility service providers for both transmission and distribution system operators.

– While flexibility services for transmission system operators are well-developed, less attention has been given to those for distribution system operators, points out Khajeh who will defend her dissertation on 3 December at the University of Vaasa.

Khajeh states that consumers providing flexibility services not only benefits the system operators, but also the energy users themselves since they would profit financially from harnessing their own resources.

Practical methods for providing flexibility services

In her dissertation, Khajeh introduces different mathematical methods that enable consumers to improve grid stability.

– The presented methods help flexibility providers in effectively scheduling their resources, controlling their energy use based on the needs of system operators, and boosting their profits.

Distribution system operators, such as Vaasan Sähköverkko in Finland, can also utilise the findings to strengthen their networks, create new services, and make the electrical network more flexible.

Implementation requires global improvements from automation to planning

Khajeh points out that to deploy these new methods for providing flexibility services from household customers, improvements and investments are required both in Finland and globally.

– We need flexibility utilisation enabling advanced automation and telecommunication solutions, common transmission and distribution network planning and operating principles as well as market platforms and tariff solutions.

In her research, Khajeh used price and frequency data from Finnish national electricity transmission grid operator Fingrid’s open data platform, along with modified energy consumption data from Finnish households provided by Vaasan Sähkö, a Finnish electricity company.

Doctoral dissertation

Khajeh, Hosna (2024) Improving the Flexibility of Future Power Systems – Provision of Flexibility Services to the System Operators by Different Energy Resources. Acta Wasaensia 547. Doctoral dissertation. University of Vaasa.

Publication pdf

Public defence

The public examination of M.Sc. Hosna Khajeh’s doctoral dissertation, "Improving the Flexibility of Future Power Systems – Provision of Flexibility Services to the System Operators by Different Energy Resources" will take place on Tuesday, 3 December 2024 at 12 noon in the Kurtén Auditorium at the University of Vaasa.

It is possible to participate in the defence also online: https://uwasa.zoom.us/j/67318647702?pwd=Wze2aJ6ySoIAVSL0H50GJMo9efqzqy.1. The password is 031628

Professor Pertti Järventausta (Tampere University) will act as opponent and Professor Hannu Laaksonen as custos.

Further information

Hosna Khajeh, tel. +358 29 449 8688, hosna.khajeh@uwasa.fi

Hosna Khajeh was born in Iran in 1990. She earned a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, specialising in power system studies, from Semnan University. In 2019, Khajeh moved to Finland to pursue a doctorate at the University of Vaasa. During her doctoral studies, she contributed to several projects, including FLEXIMAR and SMART GRID 2.0, which focused on harnessing energy flexibility from various energy assets to improve future electrical grids. Currently, Khajeh works as a Data Scientist at Elisa Distributed Energy Storage.

Fowl play: Why the hunt for Thanksgiving’s favorite bird could get tougher

UGA study says hunting patterns could influence future turkey harvest

University of Georgia

image:
Turkey receives GPS tracker for research
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Credit: Nickolas Gulotta

The turkey may be the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving dinner table now, but harvesting the iconic holiday bird could become harder in the holidays to come.

If hunters continue to follow their current strategies and prey continue their same routine, turkeys may become tougher to harvest in the future, according to new research from the University of Georgia.

“Hunters should be willing to adapt because the turkeys are also adapting as well. If we continue to harvest individuals that are close to risky areas associated with hunters, turkeys will adjust their behavior and could become harder to detect and harder to harvest,” said Nickolas Gulotta, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.

Gulotta studied risk-taking and exploratory behavior from 109 wild male turkeys across Georgia Wildlife management areas and how they acted in response to both hunters and predators. He and other researchers found that a turkey’s choice of movement and the level of risk associated were directly impacted by hunters and natural predators.

Bold birds don’t always benefit

Most of the tracked male turkeys showed frequently daring behavior.

They traveled close to areas where hunters parked their cars, popular trails and roads, as well as wide open areas. That’s great news for hunters — but not so great for the turkeys.

“If turkeys are closer to these open areas, it’s going to be easier for both a hunter and a predator to detect them. Across both study sites in general, turkeys that took more risks were more likely to be harvested,” Gulotta said.

That bodes well for the initial waves of hunters. But when future turkeys see how that turned out for their predecessors, they are unlikely to make those same choices.

That means hunters may have to get more creative to find the birds and be more patient.

“Turkeys are obviously adapting and learning that if you’re closer to risky areas, then there’s potential to be harvested. That’s why some of them are adopting less risky behaviors that essentially make them less detectable,” said Gulotta. “If hunters harvest birds that are riskier and more detectable, it could become more difficult to harvest turkeys because we could be left with a bunch of individuals that are harder to detect.”

Predator vs. poultry presents another challenge for turkeys

The turkeys that avoided those areas beneficial for hunters often remained static or in high cover areas to survive.

A big giveaway for hunters is when turkeys gobble. So, when the birds don’t move around or yap in open spaces, that makes things more challenging for the humans.

Turkeys don’t keep calendars, though, so when the hunters vacate and those relaxed routines remain, predators can move in.

“There are certain traits associated with outlasting the hunting season, like hiding in areas with good cover and reducing the distance traveled within a day. But in turn, if turkeys stay in the same area and don’t travel a lot, then they’re going to be more likely to be detected by a predator,” said Gulotta. “It’s kind of a catch-22 where if they can survive that hunting season, they’re most likely going to be fine. But at the same time, too, if they don’t travel that fast and are predictable, then they have the potential to be killed by a predator.”

Future fowl and humans can learn from each other

Individual behaviors of turkeys can of course vary, and overall survival techniques are something that can be inherited.

This study shows a need for tailored hunting strategies based on local conditions. If an area is patterned with the habitual actions of hunters, then turkeys could become harder to harvest over time. Gulotta said that could also have a long-term impact on hunting license sales and overall hunter satisfaction.

“The turkeys closer to areas that hunters use are the ones that are harvested,” Gulotta said. “So if we continue to harvest them like that across the Southeast, then there’s the potential that we could shift the behavioral strategies of wild turkeys making them more difficult to harvest.”

Published by the Royal Society, the study was co-authored by Patrick Wightman and Michael Chamberlain of UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and Bret Collier of Louisiana State University.

Journal

Royal Society Open Science

DOI

10.1098/rsos.240788

Article Title

The role of human hunters and natural predators in shaping the selection of behavioural types in male wild turkeys

Article Publication Date

26-Nov-2024

SOCIOBIOLOGY

Vanderbilt scientists discover shared genetic foundations between musical rhythm and human language

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

In a groundbreaking study published Nov. 21 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, researchers have uncovered significant genetic connections between human language abilities and musical rhythm skills, providing new insights into the biological underpinnings of these fundamental human traits.

The study brought together leading experts in the areas of musicality genetics and language genetics from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in close collaboration with researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands. 

The study revealed overlapping genetic underpinnings between rhythm-related skills and language-related traits, including dyslexia. Multiple datasets were used from over 1 million individuals. By applying advanced multivariate methods, the researchers were able to identify common genetic factors and explore their biological and evolutionary significance.

The study revealed that genetic variants associated with higher likelihood of rhythm impairments tended to be also associated with higher likelihood of dyslexia. The reverse was also the case: Genetic variants associated with more accurate musical rhythm skills co-occurred with genes linked to higher performance on language and reading tests, and to language-related educational outcomes (i.e. grades in foreign language classes). 

Combining the statistical power achieved by the large dataset and creative integration of brain data, the study team was then able to reach a new understanding of how the genes that influence our rhythm and language skills play a role in the neural circuitry supporting these traits. The results showed 16 regions of the genome overlapped between rhythm and language, and these loci showed up as being likely to harbor genetic variants known to play a role in regulating gene expression in various types of brain cells. 

According to Reyna Gordon, PhD, associate professor at VUMC and senior author on the paper, the results suggest a complex genetic and neurobiological architecture shared by human musical rhythm and the capacity to learn and maintain human language. 

“We were particularly intrigued by the finding of genetic variants jointly tied to rhythm and language as being enriched for oligodendrocytes in the brain,” Gordon said. “Oligodendrocytes are a type of brain cell that help to maintain specific connections between brain areas by helping the connecting circuitry to stay healthy and strong.” 

Analyses conducted by co-author Yasmina Mekki, PhD, postdoctoral fellow at VUMC, resulted in a locus on chromosome 20 that was common to neural connectivity in the language network and rhythm. Taken together, these findings point to connectivity as a key neurobiological factor impacted jointly by the polygenic (many-gene) bases of rhythm and language interindividual variation. 

Human brains are special in their strong connectivity between auditory and motor regions. These connections are a hypothesized co-evolved neurobiological underpinning of language and musicality, according to prior work in the field. Additional potential evolutionary signatures highlighted by the results include a joint variant (linked to both rhythm impairment and dyslexia) occurring in the gene DLAT, which has been previously implicated in rare neurodevelopmental disorders. 

Collectively, the study uncovered novel genomic factors shared between rhythm and language traits in humans and their role in development and function of the human brain. These results contribute exciting new knowledge to the understanding of the origins of human musicality and communication skills. Potential future clinical applications may include risk detection and personalization of treatments based on an individual’s genetic predispositions to rhythm impairments and childhood reading/language impairments. 

This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grants R01DC016977 and DP2HD098859 and is the result of a collaboration with co-senior author Simon Fisher, DPhil, and the first author, PhD candidate Gokberk Alagoz (both of the Max Planck Institute) to design and carry out the study, with additional input from colleagues at the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute. Summary genomic data from 23andMe, Inc. on rhythm and dyslexia were used for analyses.

Journal

Nature Human Behaviour

DOI

10.1038/s41562-024-02051-y

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The shared genetic architecture and evolution of human language and musical rhythm

Article Publication Date

27-Nov-2024

New paper provides insight into ‘boycott and buycott’ of Russian goods in China

More than ten per cent of Chinese citizens who took part in a survey say they are willing to boycott Russian goods and most likely disapprove of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, says new research led by Lancaster University. This important finding, say the

Lancaster University

This important finding, say the researchers, indicates that a substantial minority of the Chinese population might not share the official position of the Chinese Communist Party despite widespread propaganda and censorship.

Published this week in the Journal of Contemporary China, the research ‘Willingness to Boycott Russian Goods in China: How Political Ideology Shapes Consumer Preferences in an Authoritarian Context’ is authored by Dr Barbara Yoxon, of Lancaster University, Xue Bai, of Lancaster University and Richard Turcsanyi, of Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, says the article, the government of the People’s Republic of China has refused to condemn the violence and developed stronger economic and diplomatic ties with its authoritarian neighbour.

Recent surveys show that most Chinese people hold a positive view of Russia, despite its war with Ukraine.

Unlike previous research, the article investigates the motives of those Chinese citizens who are likely to oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It uses original survey data from 3,029 respondents in China collected as part of the ‘Sinophone Borderlands—Interaction at the Edges’ project to better understand the patterns of political engagement in an authoritarian regime.

The paper suggests there is potential for anti-Russian political action in China and suggests that more organised anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian campaigns are possible in the future.

That action, says the paper, would have the scope to disrupt the profit margins of Russian companies hoping to escape Western sanctions.

In 2023, Russian consumer goods made up 5.1% of China’s 2023 imports and are likely to become even more common in China as Russia becomes more isolated from the Western world.

“While this share of the Chinese market might seem like a low figure, it is important to note that China is home to more than 1.5 billion consumers and even small decreases in the Sino-Russian trade volume would be a significant loss to Russian companies as the war with Ukraine continues,” says the article.

By focusing on the interaction between political ideology and political consumerism, the article has identified a group of individuals who are most likely to participate in activities that go against the ideological status quo in China.

This is a new avenue of research which goes beyond previous studies that focus on ethnocentric and nationalist causes of Chinese boycott and buycott practices.

To help determine who is willing to boycott Russian goods, the article delineated three broad political leanings in China: liberals, neo-authoritarians, and the New Left.

The results indicated that liberals, who show higher support for free market policies and lower support for social authoritarianism, are more likely than others to express willingness to boycott Russian goods.

The paper argues that liberal individuals are more supportive of the liberal international order and believe that Russia and China should work with, rather than against, multilateral institutions. This means liberals are more likely to interpret NATO’s actions in Eastern Europe as defensive and see Russian actions against Ukraine as unprovoked, aggressive and disproportional.

The article found that individuals with neo-authoritarian and New Left leanings are less likely to support the boycott of Russian goods.

Neo-authoritarians, who desire free market reform but support the existing sociopolitical structures, were against boycotting Russian goods. They believe that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is an extension of the rivalry between authoritarian China and the liberal United States. They believe that supporting Russia, an allied autocracy, is in China’s national interest.

For the New Left, the belief that NATO and the liberal international order is a form of neocolonial domination by the United States has also led to greater levels of support for Russian goods.

While it is not surprising, adds the paper, that individuals with more liberal leanings are likely to oppose Russian actions, this is the first study to date to clearly demonstrate such a link.

Commenting on the paper Dr Yoxon says: “The surprising level of anti-Russian attitudes in China suggests that an organised campaign to boycott Russian products might already be underway in China.

“Our findings are important because they show that alternative forms of political participation can be a safe and convenient way for citizens of authoritarian regimes to express their political preferences.”

Journal

Journal of Contemporary China

DOI

10.1080/10670564.2024.2427941

Article Title

Willingness to Boycott Russian Goods in China: How Political Ideology Shapes Consumer Preferences in an Authoritarian Context

Article Publication Date

25-Nov-2024

Higher levels of democracy and lower levels of corruption are associated with more doctors, independent of healthcare spending, per cross-sectional study of 134 countries

PLOS

Higher levels of democracy and lower levels of corruption are associated with more doctors, independent of healthcare spending, per cross-sectional study of 134 countries.

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Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal. pgph.0003656

Article Title: The relationship between democracy and corruption and the global physician workforce

Author Countries: Canada

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Journal

PLOS Global Public Health

DOI

10.1371/journal.pgph.0003656

Article Publication Date

27-Nov-2024

Wyoming research shows early North Americans made needles from fur-bearers

University of Wyoming

Needle from fox bone — image:
An eyed needle made from the bone of a red fox found at the LaPrele archaeological site in Wyoming’s Converse County.
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Credit: Todd Surovell

A Wyoming archaeological site where people killed or scavenged a Columbian mammoth nearly 13,000 years ago has produced yet another discovery that sheds light on the life of these early inhabitants of North America.

Wyoming State Archaeologist Spencer Pelton and colleagues at the University of Wyoming and other institutions have found that these Paleolithic humans made needles from the bones of fur-bearers -- including foxes; hares or rabbits; and cats such as bobcats, mountain lions, lynx and possibly even the now-extinct American cheetah. The needles likely were used to create garments from the animals’ furs to keep the early foragers warm in what was a cool climate.

The findings appear in the journal PLOS ONE, a top-tier, peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science.

“Our study is the first to identify the species and likely elements from which Paleoindians produced eyed bone needles,” the researchers wrote. “Our results are strong evidence for tailored garment production using bone needles and fur-bearing animal pelts. These garments partially enabled modern human dispersal to northern latitudes and eventually enabled colonization of the Americas.”

The LaPrele site in Converse County preserves the remains of a killed or scavenged sub-adult mammoth and an associated camp occupied during the time the animal was butchered almost 13,000 years ago. Also discovered in the archaeological excavation -- led by UW Department of Anthropology Professor Todd Surovell -- was a bead made from a hare bone, the oldest known bead in the Americas.

Identification of the origins of both the bone bead and bone needles was made possible through the use of zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry, also known as ZooMS, and Micro-CT scanning. Collagen was extracted from the artifacts, and the chemical composition of the bone was analyzed.

The researchers examined 32 bone needle fragments collected at the LaPrele Mammoth site, comparing peptides -- short chains of amino acids -- from those artifacts with those of animals known to have existed during the Early Paleondian period, which refers to a prehistoric era in North America between 13,500 and 12,000 years ago.

The comparison concluded that bones from red foxes; bobcats, mountain lions, lynx or the American cheetah; and hares or rabbits were used to make needles at the LaPrele site. This is the first such analysis ever conducted.

“Despite the importance of bone needles to explaining global modern human dispersal, archaeologists have never identified the materials used to produce them, thus limiting understanding of this important cultural innovation,” the researchers wrote.

Previous research has shown that, in order to cope with cold temperatures in northern latitudes, humans likely created tailored garments with closely stitched seams, providing a barrier against the elements. While there’s little direct evidence of such garments, there is indirect evidence in the form of bone needles and the bones of fur-bearers whose pelts were used in the garments.

“Once equipped with such garments, modern humans had the capacity to expand their range to places from which they were previously excluded due to the threat of hypothermia or death from exposure,” Pelton and his colleagues wrote.

How did the people at the LaPrele site obtain the fur-bearing animals? Pelton and his colleagues say it was likely through trapping -- and not necessarily in pursuit of food.

“Our results are a good reminder that foragers use animal products for a wide range of purposes other than subsistence, and that the mere presence of animal bones in an archaeological site need not be indicative of diet,” the researchers concluded. “Combined with a review of comparable evidence from other North American Paleoindian sites, our results suggest that North American Early Paleoindians had direct access to fur-bearing predators, likely from trapping, and represent some of the most detailed evidence yet discovered for Paleoindian garments.”

This is an aerial view of the LaPrele archaeological site near Douglas, Wyoming.

Credit

Todd Surovell

Journal

PLOS ONE

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Early Paleoindian use of canids, felids, and hares for bone needle production at the La Prele site, Wyoming, USA

Article Publication Date

27-Nov-2024

Early Paleoindian use of canids, felids, and hares for bone needle production at the La Prele site, Wyoming, USA — image:
Bone needle and needle preform reconstructions and Micro-CT scans of comparative faunal specimens.
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Credit: Pelton et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

North American Early Paleoindians almost 13,000 years ago used the bones of canids, felids, and hares to create needles in modern-day Wyoming, potentially to make the tailored fur garments which enabled their dispersal into these colder climates

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Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0313610

Article Title: Early Paleoindian use of canids, felids, and hares for bone needle production at the La Prele site, Wyoming, USA

Contact: Spencer Pelton, spencer.pelton@wyo.gov, Ph. +1 307 399 2827

Author Countries: U.S.

Funding: Funding for this project includes the National Science Foundation (award #1947297), the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund, the Quest Archaeological Research Program at Southern Methodist University, the National Geographic Society, Ed and Shirley Cheramy, and the George C. Frison Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Journal

PLOS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0313610

Article Title

Early Paleoindian use of canids, felids, and hares for bone needle production at the La Prele site, Wyoming, USA

Article Publication Date

27-Nov-2024

Survey of 12 European countries reveals the best and worst for smoke-free homes

European Respiratory Society

image:
Map of Europe showing best and worst for smoke-free homes
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Credit: ERJ Open Research / Olena Tigova

Seven out of ten homes in Europe are smoke-free, according to a major survey published today (Thursday) in ERJ Open Research [1]. However, some countries have come further than others in protecting children and adults from second-hand tobacco smoke in the home.

Greece came out bottom of the 12 countries in the survey, with smoking allowed in more than half of homes. In Romania, Bulgaria and Spain more than four in ten homes allow smoking to take place. England scored the highest out of the 12, with more than eight in ten homes smoke-free, with Ireland, Latvia and Italy following next.

The researchers say that the proportion of smoke-free homes is growing but progress is too slow, and more work is needed to protect children and adults from the health effects of breathing second-hand smoke in the home.

The study's author is Olena Tigova from the Tobacco Control Unit of the Catalan Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, Spain. She said: “Exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke, in any setting, is harmful to both adults and children. Since 2004, many European countries have introduced smoke-free regulations in public places. However, private settings, particularly homes, remain common sites for smoking and tobacco-smoke exposure. With this research, we wanted to examine the home smoking rules across the general population in Europe. Although some national surveys have taken place, there has been no multi-country survey in Europe since 2010.”

Around 1,000 people were surveyed in each of the 12 countries taking part in the research (11,734 people in total). These people were carefully selected to represent the population of each country and were interviewed face-to-face in 2017-18. They were asked whether smoking was allowed anywhere inside their homes and, if so, whether there were any restrictions on smoking indoors.

The survey showed that around 70% of all people interviewed do not allow smoking anywhere in their homes. A further 18% said they have some rules but are not completely smoke-free. Surprisingly, about 13% of homes where there are no smokers living in the house, still allow visitors to smoke.

The proportion of smoke-free homes according to country from highest to lowest was:

England 84.5%
Ireland 79.4%
Latvia 78.9%
Italy 75.8%
Germany 75.0%
Portugal 74.0%
Poland 69.6%
France 65.1%
Spain 57.6%
Bulgaria 56.6%
Romania 55.2%
Greece 44.4%

“Countries in Northern Europe have more smoke-free homes, while Eastern Europe and less affluent countries have more homes with partial smoking rules, allowing smoking in specific areas or on certain occasions,” Olena Tigova said.

The researchers also looked at other factors that seem to influence rules on smoking in the home. They found that women, older people, people with a higher level of education and those living with children are more likely to have smoke-free homes.

Tigova added: “Our findings suggest that smoke-free homes are gradually increasing in Europe by about 1% each year. However, at this slow rate, it could take another 30 years for all homes in Europe to be smoke-free. To speed things up, stronger tobacco control measures are essential. Expanding smoke-free laws in workplaces, public spaces, and some private areas like cars, combined with new strategies to reduce smoking at home, will help make more European homes smoke-free sooner.”

The researchers plan to broaden their study to examine levels of vaping in European homes and exposure to second-hand smoke and vape fumes in cars. They are also studying how best to encourage people to make their homes smoke-free.

Dr Filippos Filippidis is Chair of the European Respiratory Society Tobacco Control Committee, a reader in public health at Imperial College London, UK, and was not involved in the research. He said: “While it’s good to see that more homes are becoming smoke-free, this survey reveals that there are countries that are lagging far behind, and that progress is too slow.

“Across Europe, millions of people still smoke and millions more are exposed to second-hand smoke. Making our homes smoke-free protects children and adults from second-hand smoke and it can help smokers to cut down or quit too.

“The cost of smoking in Europe, both to the public purse and to public health, it too high. We need comprehensive smoke-free laws and freely available support to help people quit.”

Photo of researcher Olena Tigova

Photo of the research team

Credit

ERJ Open Researcj / Olena Tigova

Journal

ERJ Open Research

DOI

10.1183/23120541.00950-2024

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Prevalence and determinants of smoke-free homes in 12 European countries: the TackSHS Survey

Article Publication Date

28-Nov-2024