Optimum Energy Management for Air Conditioners in IoT-Enabled Smart Home.

This paper addresses the optimal pre-cooling problem for air conditioners (AC) used in Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled smart homes while ensuring that user-defined thermal comfort can be achieved. The proposed strategy utilises renewable energy generation periods and moves some of the air conditioning loads to these periods to reduce the electricity demand. In particular, we propose a multi-stage approach which maximises the utilisation of renewable energy at the first stage to satisfy air conditioning loads, and then schedules residual energy consumption of these loads to low price periods at the second stage. The proposed approach is investigated for the temperature and renewable generation data of NSW, Australia, over the period 2012-2013. It is shown that the approach developed can significantly reduce the energy consumption and cost associated with AC operation for nearly all days in summer when cooling is required. Specifically, the proposed approach was found to achieve a 24% cost saving in comparison to the no pre-cooling case for the highest average temperature day in January, 2013. The analysis also demonstrated that the proposed scheme performed better when the thermal insulation levels in the smart home are higher. However, the optimal pre-cooling scheme can still achieve reduced energy costs under lower thermal insulation conditions compared to the no pre-cooling case.

Quantitative analysis of 17 amino acids in the connective tissue of patients with pelvic organ prolapse using capillary electrophoresis-tandem mass spectrometry.

The simultaneous determination of 17 amino acids in connective tissue using capillary electrophoresis is described in this study. Separation was carried out on a fused silica capillary column (80 cm x 50 mm i.d.) with 1M formic acid as the running electrolyte. The detection was conducted on a mass spectrometer by selective reaction monitoring (SRM) mode via an electrospray ionization source. Tissue samples were prepared by reduction and acid hydrolysis to extract amino acids; over 84.3% recovery was seen for all compounds. The method allowed for sensitive, reproducible, and reliable quantification, and all 17 amino acids were separated using this method. Good linearity over the investigated concentration ranges was observed, with values of R higher than 0.993 for all the analytes. Precision and accuracy examined at three concentration levels ranged from 0.2% to 19.5% and 84.1% to 120.0%, respectively. Matrix effects were also tested and ranged from -9.1% to 15.4%. The validated method was applied to the quantitation of 17 amino acids in pelvic connective tissue of pelvic organ prolapsed patients. Methionine, glutamine, and histidine were significantly higher in the experimental patients compared to the controls. This suggests that changes in the amino acid concentrations within the connective tissue could be a factor in the genesis of pelvic organ prolapse. Therefore, this method is potentially applicable for amino acid analysis in tissue, providing a more complete understanding of pelvic organ prolapse.

Quantitative determination of progesterones and corticosteroids in human urine using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry: application to pelvic organ prolapse patients.

A quantitative analytical method using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) to determine urinary concentrations of eight progesterones and corticosteroids has been developed. After enzymatic hydrolysis with beta-glucouronidase/arylsulfatase, urine samples were extracted by simple one-step solid-phase extraction. Obtained extracts were derivatized with a mixture of N-methyl-N-(trimethylsilyl)trifluoroacetamide/ammonium iodide/dithiothreitol and determined by GC/MS in selected ion monitoring mode to increase the sensitivity. d(4)-Cortisol and d(9)-progesterone were used as internal standards for two different steroid groups. The linear correlation coefficient was in the range of 0.9913 to 0.9998 and recoveries were over 80% for all compounds. Precision and accuracy were in the range of 0.9-18.1 and 84.1-118.7%, respectively. The limit of quantitation (LOQ) was 10 ng/mL for 11-deoxycorticosterone and 21-deoxycortisol and 5 ng/mL for all other analytes. The developed method was successfully applied on pelvic organ prolapsed patients (n = 10, age: 67.9 +/- 4.9) and post-menopausal (n = 10, age: 63.6 +/- 5.5) control women. Urinary levels of most progesterones and corticosteroids except 11-deoxycorticosterone decreased but only that of 17 alpha-hydroxyprogesterone significantly decreased in patients compared with the control groups. Thus, it is concluded that progesterones could be a factor in the pathogenesis of pelvic organ prolapse, and, among them, 17 alpha-hydroxyprogesterone could be a biomarker for pelvic organ prolapse.