能源互联网与能源路由器

日益紧张的能源供需矛盾和环境压力等要求可再生清洁能源应该在未来能源体系中承担主要能源供给任务.能源传输技术、存储技术、信息通信以及高性能计算技术的发展为有效利用分布式、间歇性可再生能源提供了技术支持.针对类似于信息互联网式的能源互联网愿景,本文探讨了以能源路由器为核心交换装置的能源互联网实现模型,从能源路由器的实现目标,已有支撑技术和实现部署方式等方面分析了涉及的关键技术,并结合已有研究成果说明了该领域亟需突破的研究方向.     

无线传感器网络中OOFSK和FSK能耗性能

无线传感器网络（WSNs）节点通常使用电池来供电,这成为限制其广泛应用的瓶颈．所以低功耗WSNs的设计成为人们研究的重点．WSNs的传输体制很大程度上决定了整个网络的能耗性能．本文中将频移键控调制（FSK）和开关频移键控调制（OOFSK）两种高效的传输方式引入WSNs,通过建立基本通信模型,推导他们的能耗性能指标及变化趋势．通过数值分析结果可知,在低信噪比、低OOFSK调制占空比等条件下,OOFSK传输具有明显的能耗优势．同时进一步分析得到OOFSK和FSK调制在WSNs中的应用场景,对低功耗WSNs的调制模式设计具有积极作用．     

Transformation: a tool for studying fungal pathogens of plants

Plant diseases caused by plant pathogenic fungi continuously threaten the sustainability of global crop production. An effective way to study the disease-causing mechanisms of these organisms is to disrupt their genes, in both a targeted and random manner, so as to isolate mutants exhibiting altered virulence. Although a number of techniques have been employed for such an analysis, those based on transformation are by far the most commonly used. In filamentous fungi, the introduction of DNA by transformation typically results in either the heterologous (illegitimate) integration or the homologous integration of the transforming DNA into the target genome. Homologous integration permits a targeted gene disruption by replacing the wild-type allele on the genome with a mutant allele on transforming DNA. This process has been widely used to determine the role of newly isolated fungal genes in pathogenicity. The heterologous integration of transforming DNA causes a random process of gene disruption (insertional mutagenesis) and has led to the isolation of many fungal mutants defective in pathogenicity. A big advantage of insertional mutagenesis over the more traditional chemical or radiation mutagenesis procedures is that the mutated gene is tagged by transforming DNA and can subsequently be cloned using the transforming DNA. The application of various transformation-based techniques for fungal gene manipulation and how they have increased our understanding and appreciation of some of the most serious plant pathogenic fungi are discussed. Received 9 May 2001; received after revision 2 July 2001; accepted 3 July 2001     

Plants as a direct source of fuel

Summary Euphorbia lathyris, a plant which has been proposed as an energy farm candidate yields a total of 35% of its dry weight as simple organic extractables. Chemical analyses of the extracts show that 5% of the dry weight is a mixture of reduced terpenoids, in the form of triterpenoids, and 20% of the dry weight is simple sugars in the form of hexoses. The terpenoids can be converted to a gasoline-like substance and the sugars can be fermented to alcohol. Based on a biomass yield of about 25 dry tons ha^–1 year^–1, the total energy that can be obtained from this plant in the form of liquid fuels is 48 MJ ha^–1 year^–1, 26 MJ in the form of hydrocarbons and 22 MJ in the form of ethanol. A conceptual process study for the large scale recovery ofEuphorbia lathyris products indicates that this crop is a net energy producer. Several lines of investigation have been started to increase the hydrocarbon yield of this plant. Tissue cultures ofE. lathyris have been established and will be used for selection, with the aim of regenerating a superior plant. Biochemical studies have been initiated to elucidate regulation of terpenoid metabolism. Future plans include eventual genetic engineering to select the most desirable plant for hydrocarbon production.This work was supported by the Assistant Secretary for Conservation and Solar Energy, Office of Solar Energy, Solar Applications for Industry Division of the US Department of Energy under Contract No. W-7405-ENG-48.     

简评储氢与制氢研究中的问题与进展

储氢与再生氢的制备是到达氢经济时代必须解决的2个关键技术问题。通过阐述超临界温度下气体的吸附机理,指出基于吸附原理的储氢材料不可能具有工业应用前景,其它已知的储氢方法亦然,因此储氢研究必须从原理方面探索具有工业应用前景的储氢方法。虽然大多数制氢研究仍以化石燃料为制氢原料,但只有从水制得的氢才是再生氢,才具有可持续性、洁净性和能源安全性。简评了再生氢制备方法,并报告一种通过不同价态的铁氧化物之间的转换实现水不完全分解制取纯氢的实验室研究结果。     

能源互联网关键技术分析

能源互联网是解决未来可再生能源大规模有效利用的重要基础设施,围绕着这一新型电力网络的设计、实现、运行和管理中所面临的新问题,提出了实现能源互联网的六大关键技术:先进储能技术、固态变压器技术、智能能量管理技术、智能故障管理技术、可靠安全通信技术和系统规划分析技术,并对各项关键技术所涉及的科学问题进行了分析与探讨.     

The folding process of hen lysozyme: a perspective from the ‘new view’

How a conformationally disordered polypeptide chain rapidly and efficiently achieves its well-defined native structure is still a major question in modern structural biology. Although much progress has been made towards rationalizing the principles of protein structure and dynamics, the mechanism of the folding process and the determinants of the final fold are not yet known in any detail. One protein for which folding has been studied in great detail by a combination of diverse techniques is hen lysozyme. In this article we review the present state of our knowledge of the folding process of this enzyme and focus in particular on recent experiments to probe some of its specific features. These results are then discussed in the context of the ‘new view’ of protein folding based on energy surfaces and land scapes. It is shown that a schematic energy surface for lysozyme folding, which is broadly consistent with our experimental data, begins to provide a unified model for protein folding through which experimental and theoretical ideas can be brought together.     

Lipid droplet dynamics in budding yeast

Eukaryotic cells store excess fatty acids as neutral lipids, predominantly triacylglycerols and sterol esters, in organelles termed lipid droplets (LDs) that bulge out from the endoplasmic reticulum. LDs are highly dynamic and contribute to diverse cellular functions. The catabolism of the storage lipids within LDs is channeled to multiple metabolic pathways, providing molecules for energy production, membrane building blocks, and lipid signaling. LDs have been implicated in a number of protein degradation and pathogen infection processes. LDs may be linked to prevalent human metabolic diseases and have marked potential for biofuel production. The knowledge accumulated on LDs in recent years provides a foundation for diverse, and even unexpected, future research. This review focuses on recent advances in LD research, emphasizing the diverse physiological roles of LDs in the model system of budding yeast.     

能源互联网重要基础支撑:分布式储能技术的探索与实践

可再生能源分布式发电的能量波动性以及用户驱动的能量需求的时空随机性,导致能源互联网中能量流本身具有先天的不确定性与无秩序性,因此,分布式储能技术由于可以有效消除能量流的不确定性,并使能量的时空转移和能量流的有序流动成为可能,成为能源互联网重要基础支撑.分布式电池储能作为一种重要的储能方式,电池单体本身非线性特性与电池成组或成网后单体间的差异性,使得电池储能系统"管理好"成为真正"使用好"的基础.但是,电池成组或成网后将构成复杂巨系统,这对"管理好"带来巨大的挑战.因此,本文基于作者多年理论与技术的成果积累,总结了一套适用于分布式储能的大规模电池网络优化管理的理论与方法,包括:单体和电池组或电池网络的建模与状态参数精确估算;基于模糊测度的电池网络特征提取及快速计算;基于自适应动态规划的电池网络优化管理.随后,本文将基于能源互联网思想的分布式储能架构及其管理优化方法与技术引入数据中心,并给出了其在数据中心中实际应用原型系统介绍.本文工作可以为能源互联网的重要基础支撑—分布式储能技术—的研究与应用提供方法指导与技术支撑.     

Lipid sensing and lipid sensors

Lipid droplets have been considered for a long time as inert intracytoplasmic deposits formed within cells under various conditions. Recently, new tools and new approaches have been used to visualize and study these intracellular structures. This revealed new aspects of lipid droplets biology and pointed out their organized structure and dynamic composition. In adipocytes, the specialized cell type for the storage of energy as fat, lipid droplets are particularly well-developed organelles and exhibit unique properties. Also discussed in this paper is the view that lipid droplets, through specific candidate constituents, can play a role in sensing the level of their lipid stores by adipocytes.     

Chemoelectrical signal transduction in olfactory sensory neurons of air-breathing vertebrates

When odorants bind to the sensory cilia of olfactory sensory neurons, the cells respond with an electrical output signal, typically a short train of action potentials. This review describes the present state of knowledge about the olfactory signal transduction process. In the last decade, a set of transduction molecules has been identified which help to explain many aspects of the sensory response. Odor-induced second-messenger production, activation of transduction channels, the central role of the ciliary Ca²⁺ concentration, as well as mechanisms that mediate adaptation, are all qualitatively understood on the basis of a consistent scheme for chemoelectrical transduction. This scheme, although necessarily incomplete, can serve as a working model for further experimentation which may reveal kinetical aspects of signal transduction processes in olfactory sensory neurons.     

燃煤发电与水泥生产联产技术可行性研究

本文基于解决我国以燃煤发电为主的电力工业的粉煤灰与SO2等酸性气体排放等难题的目的，从优化能源利用和洁净煤技术的角度出发，提出了燃煤发电与水泥生产联产技术。从原料代替、水泥煅烧工艺与掺杂热效应等方面和一系列实验证明了该联产技术的可行性，并就其前景作了分析。燃煤发电和水泥生产的合二为一，将会在我国的能源节约、环境保护与社会经济效益等方面产生深远而重大的意义，有效促进我国电力工业和水泥工业可持续发展。     

The microbiology programme for UK Nirex

Summary The Nirex Safety Assessment Research Programme (NSARP) considers the effect of microbial action on the repository near field. The upper limit of growth for natural soil organisms appears to be pH 12.25. Environmental conditions in the repository will probably allow slow growth particularly on damp wastes. Experiments using packed columns of waste and concrete have shown that an extremely high pH is not conducive to rapid microbial growth. However, viable populations can exist within regions adjacent to the concrete, e.g. where a surface film coats the concrete. Carbon dioxide and methane will be produced by microbial action within the repository but actual rates of production will be lower than that in a domestic landfill. The cellulosic fraction of waste is the main determinant of cell growth. It appears to be the sugar acids arising from alkaline degradation of cellulose which cause enhanced plutonium solubility. The potentially beneficial reduction of chemically derived polyhydroxy acids by the microorganisms is possible. A mathematical model has been constructed to describe the main features of biological action in the repository.     

The Swedish final repository and the possible risk of interactions by microbial activities

Summary The final Swedish repository for low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste is described, and some of the possible problems caused by microbial activity during storage are discussed. Microbial degradation of bitumen constitutes one of the greatest risks in the silo part of a repository. The production of carbon dioxide due to both aerobic and anaerobic processes might lead to a decrease in the pH of the water, inducing corrosion of the metal construction and storage containers, with large amounts of hydrogen gas being produced. A risk assessment for the repository must thus take into account the various activities of microbes.     

The rise of alternative bread leavening technologies in the nineteenth century

This article reveals how nineteenth-century chemists and health reformers tried to eradicate the use of yeast in bread, claiming they had devised healthier and more sanitary ways to raise bread. It describes the alternative technological solutions to baking bread, investigating factors that influenced their development and adaptation in the marketplace. A lack of scientific and cultural consensus surrounding yeast, what it was and what it did, fermented during this period. The conflict over yeast helped create a heterogeneous industrialization of the baking industry, changing processes and ingredients and creating new forms of bakery products. By examining the claims of promoters of rival scientific beliefs and technologies, as well as those of users and social commentators, we can see that technology’s eventual adaptation and impact on society is not predictable at its outset. Exploring the relationship between differing scientific beliefs, cultural understandings and alternative technologies also shows how science and industry cannot be isolated from their social and cultural context. The examination of the nineteenth-century technological development of commonplace commodities such as bread, baking powder and yeast, also reveals and explores a story that has not been told before in the history of science and technology. Why it has not been told is as enlightening as the story itself, revealing as it does our own privileging of what is important in science and history.     

The Challenge of Colour: Eighteenth-Century Botanists and the Hand-Colouring of Illustrations

Colourful plant images are often taken as the icon of natural history illustration. However, so far, little attention has been paid to the question of how this beautiful colouring was achieved. At a case study of the eighteenth-century Nuremberg doctor and botanist, Christoph Jacob Trew, the process of how illustrations were hand-coloured, who was involved in this work, and how the colouring was supervised and evaluated is reconstructed, mostly based on Trew's correspondence with the engraver and publisher of his books, Johann Jacob Haid in Augsburg. Furthermore, the question of standardizing colours, their uses and their recipes is discussed at two examples of the same time period: the colour charts of the Bauer brothers, arguably the most renowned botanical draughtsmen of the period, and the colour tables by the Regensburg naturalist, Jacob Christian Schaeffer. Hand-colouring botanical illustrations, it is argued, was far from a straightforward task but confronted botanists and their employees with a plethora of practical and methodological problems, to which different solutions were developed in the course of time. Analysing these problems and solutions reveals some new and interesting aspects of the practices of eighteenth-century botany and of the production of scientific illustrations in general.     

Oil shocks: How can OECD countries manage them best?

As the 1990-91 Gulf crisis has emphasized, the risk of new oil shocks remains high in the medium to long run. Although energy intensity has decreased in the major countries since the first two oil shocks, the simulation performed with the MIMOSA world model, which is described in this paper, shows that a permanent rise in oil prices still induces direct strong negative consequences in the OECD: a temporary recession, a durable loss in production and employment and a lasting rise in inflation. Moreover, according to the model and due to national dissimilarities, an oil shock in Europe has some asymmetrical effects which are pointed out here. Further simulations test two different economic policy responses in the OECD: a ‘beggar-thy-neighbor’ policy in which each country tries to ‘export’ its unemployment by curbing domestic inflation and wage growth; and a co-ordinated policy supporting both supply and demand. The first leads to a general deflationist overshooting. The second ensures stabilization with a much lower cost in employment.     

Are elicitins cryptograms in plant-Oomycete communications?

Stimulation of plant natural defenses is an important challenge in phytoprotection prospects. In that context, elicitins, which are small proteins secreted by Phytophthora and Pythium species, have been shown to induce a hypersensitive-like reaction in tobacco plants. Moreover, these plants become resistant to their pathogens, and thus this interaction constitutes an excellent model to investigate the signaling pathways leading to plant resistance. However, most plants are not reactive to elicitins, although they possess the functional signaling pathways involved in tobacco responses to elicitin. The understanding of factors involved in this reactivity is needed to develop agronomic applications. In this review, it is proposed that elicitins could interact with regulating cell wall proteins before they reach the plasma membrane. Consequently, the plant reactivity or nonreactivity status could result from the equilibrium reached during this interaction. The possibility of overexpressing the elicitins directly from genomic DNA in Pichia pastoris allows site-directed mutagenesis experiments and structure/function studies. The recent discovery of the sterol carrier activity of elicitins brings a new insight on their molecular activity. This constitutes a crucial property, since the formation of a sterol-elicitin complex is required to trigger the biological responses of tobacco cells and plants. Only the elicitins loaded with a sterol are able to bind to their plasmalemma receptor, which is assumed to be an allosteric calcium channel. Moreover, Phytophthora and Pythium do not synthesize the sterols required for their growth and their fructification, and elicitins may act as shuttles trapping the sterols from the host plants. Sequence analysis of elicitin genes from several Phytophthora species sheds unexpected light on the phylogenetic relationships among the genus, and suggests that the expression of elicitins is under tight regulatory control. Finally, general involvement of these lipid transfer proteins in the biology of Pythiaceae, and in plant defense responses, is discussed. A possible scheme for the coevolution between Phytophthora and tobacco plants is approached.     

Urban bioclimatology in developing countries

A brief review of the literature on urban human bioclimatology in the tropics is undertaken. Attempts to chart human bioclimatic conditions on the regional/local scale have been made in several developing countries. The effective temperature scheme (with all its limitations) is the one that has been most frequently applied. The possibilities of application of bioclimatic models based on human heat balance for the tropical urban environment are discussed.     

The influence of N2-fixation on the carbon balance of leguminous plants

Biological dinitrogen fixation by legume-rhizobia symbiosis is very important both from the economic and from the ecological point of view. Theoretically, the reduction of the N₂-molecule to ammonia requires at least 16 ATP and 1.5 mg C per mg N fixed (N_fix). These values are difficult to determine in situ as this necessitates the determination of that part of root respiration which drives N₂-fixation. New approaches to such determinations and the results obtained are described. The values vary, depending on the plant species studied, the developmental stage of the plants and the genetic variability of macro- (and micro-?) symbionts. The values range between 1.5 and 4 mg C/mg N_fix. In some species (e.g.Vicia faba L. cv. Fribo), the apparent CO₂ assimilation is enhanced in order to meet this high energy need. In others (e.g.Pisum sativum L. cv. Grapis), root growth is restricted. Physiological criteria are discussed which allow an early diagnosis of the energetic efficiency of various combinations of macro-and microsymbionts as a basis for a selection in plant breeding.