The continuous spread of distributed energy resources (DERs) such as combined heating and power (CHP), diesel generators, boilers and renewable energy sources provide an effective solution to energy related problems to serve the power and heat demands with minimum cost. Moreover, the DERs may play a significant role for supplying power and heat in rural areas, where grid electricity is not avai...

Recently, it has been more and more popular to build hybrid storage systems on the basis of SSD (Solid State Drives) and HDD (Hard Disk Drive). In order to evaluate the performance of various hybrid storage based algorithms, this paper proposes a flexible simulation tool called SH-Sim. SH-Sim aims to provide a flexible virtual hybrid disk which is made up of a virtual SSD and a virtual HDD. SH-...

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in 2002, the international community agreed to a target to halve the proportion of people who lack access to basic sanitation by 2015. Available information paints a grim picture of the water and sanitation conditions in much of the developing countries. The great majority of these people live in Asia and Africa. Over one-hal...

We present an equilibrium model of methane venting through the hydrate stability zone at southern Hydrate Ridge, offshore Oregon. Free gas supplied from below forms hydrate, depletes water, and elevates salinity until pore water is too saline for further hydrate formation. This system self-generates local three-phase equilibrium and allows free gas migration to the seafloor. Log and core data f...

Water deprivation produces a drive to seek and consume water. How neural activity creates this motivation remains poorly understood. We used activity-dependent genetic labeling to characterize neurons activated by water deprivation in the hypothalamic median preoptic nucleus (MnPO). Single-cell transcriptional profiling revealed that dehydration-activated MnPO neurons consist of a single excita...

Recycled water for household laundry can be regarded as a promising strategy to alleviate the current demand on scarce water supplies. Public acceptability becomes fairly important to ensure the successful establishment and development of this new end use. To address the issue, this study conducted social surveys in two locations of Australia, Port Macquarie and Melbourne, where respondents wer...