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This paper aims to formulate a mathematical model for a multi-type electric bus scheduling problem to determine the optimal fleet composition, bus-to-trip assignment, and partial charging schedule, where the battery degradation, nonlinear charging, and the constraint of charging station capacity are considered. A time-expanded network is proposed to represent the bus-to-trip assignment and partial charging. An adaptive large neighborhood search algorithm is designed to solve the problem. Using a multi-line bus network in Nanjing as the case, empirical operational data is used to generate monthly timetable samples to simulate the uncertainty of trip travel time and energy consumption. The result shows that the charging station capacity can be reduced from 20 (real-world case) to 12, considering the cost-effectiveness and robustness of the bus system. The result of this study also provides suggestions on the charging duration choices and the starting state-of-charge for different periods of the day. In peak and off-peak hours, 20-30-minute charging is recommended for electric buses with state-of-charge lower than 30 %, and 10-minute charging is more recommended when the state-of-charge of the electric bus is between 30 % and 70 %.

Transportation electrification, involving large-scale integration of electric vehicles (EV) and fast charging stations (FCS), plays a critical role for global energy transition and decarbonization. In this context, coordination of EV routing and charging activities through suitably designed price signals constitutes an imperative step in secure and economic operation of the coupled power-transportation networks (CPTN). This work examines the non-cooperative pricing competition between self-interested EV charging service providers (CSP), taken into account the complex interactions between CSPs' pricing strategies, EV users' decisions and the operation of CPTN. The modeling of CPTN environment captures the prominent type of uncertainties stemming from the gasoline vehicle and EV origin-destination travel demands and their cost elasticity, EV initial state-of-charge and renewable energy sources (RES). An enhanced multi-agent proximal policy optimization method is developed to solve the pricing game, which incorporates an attention mechanism to selectively incorporate agents' representative information to mitigate the environmental non-stationarity without raising dimensionality challenge, while safeguarding the commercial confidentiality of CSP agents. To foster more efficient learning coordination in the highly uncertain CPTN environment, a sequential update scheme is also developed to achieve monotonic policy improvement for CSP agents. Case studies on an illustrative and a large-scale test system reveal that the proposed method facilitates sufficient competition among CSP agents and corroborates the core benefits in terms of reduced charging costs for EV users, enhancement of RES absorption and cost efficiency of the power distribution network. Results also validate the excellent generalization capability of the proposed method in coping with CPTN uncertainties. Finally, the rationale of the proposed attention mechanism is validated and the superior computational performance is highlighted against the state-of-the-art methods.

Abstract The development of renewable‐dominated power systems (RDPS) in the context of pursuing deep decarbonisation targets necessitates suitable exploitation of the peak shaving capacity (PSC) of central air conditioning loads (CACL) in multiple time scales. Based on the evaluation framework of CACL participating in the RDPS PSC and the CAC apparent temperature model and its operation mode, the CACL PSC evaluation model related to the resource allocation in multiple time scales is proposed. For the time scale of online dispatching, the capacity evaluation model for rapid CACL response to power system emergency peak shaving command and its continuous response potential is constructed. The method of optimising CACL PSC based on the load aggregator model is developed. For the intraday pre‐scheduling time scale, the evaluation model of CACL's remaining capacity after undertaking the peak shaving task and the ability to respond continuously to the peak shaving command is constructed. For the day‐ahead dispatching time scale, the PSC of CACL under different weather conditions, temperatures, holidays, and other typical scenarios is evaluated. Finally, case studies carried out on 14 central air‐conditioned buildings in Shanghai city comprehensively validate the effectiveness of the proposed CACL PSC evaluation model.

The energy consumption of buildings accounts for approximately 40% of total energy consumption. An accurate energy consumption analysis of buildings can not only promise significant energy savings but also help estimate the demand response potential more accurately, and consequently brings benefits to the upstream power grid. This paper proposes a novel physical-data fusion modeling (PFM) method for modeling smart buildings that can accurately assess energy consumption. First, a thermal process model of buildings and an electrical load model that focus on building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are presented to analyze the thermal-electrical conversion process of energy consumption of buildings. Second, the PFM method is used to improve the accuracy of the energy consumption analysis model for buildings by modifying the parameters that are difficult to measure in the physical model (i. e., it effectively modifies the electrical load model based on the proposed PFM method). Finally, case studies involving a real-world dataset recorded in a high-tech park in Changzhou, China, demonstrate that the proposed method exhibits superior performance with respect to the traditional physical modeling (TPM) method and data-driven modeling (DDM) method in terms of the achieved accuracy.

Background Benzodiazepine receptor agonists (BZRAs) are commonly used clinically and data on their hazardous use from large populations of psychiatric patients is limited. Aims To assess the current status of hazardous BZRA use and related factors in Chinese out-patient psychiatric settings. Method The study included out-patients with at least one BZRA prescription from five psychiatric settings in east, central and west China in 2018. Demographic and prescription information were extracted from the electronic prescription database. We defined the co-occurrence of overdose and long-term use as hazardous use, and patients whose recorded diagnoses did not meet any indications approved by the Chinese Food and Drug Administration as over-indication users. Additionally, 200 hazardous users were randomly selected for follow-up interview to confirm the actual situation. Results Among 720 054 out-patients, 164 450 (22.8%) had at least one BZRA prescription; 55.9% of patients were prescribed over-indication and 3% were defined as hazardous users. Multilevel multivariate regression analysis with hospital as a random effect showed that factors associated with hazardous use were older age (18–64 years: β = 0.018; 95% CI 0.013–0.023; >65 years: β = 0.015; 95% CI 0.010–0.021), male (β = 0.005, 95% CI 0.003–0.007), over-indication (β = 0.013, 95% CI 0.012–0.015), more out-patient visits (β = 0.006, 95% CI 0.006–0.006) and more visits to different doctors (β = 0.007, 95% CI 0.007–0.008); 98.5% of hazardous users (197/200) could not be contacted. Conclusions BZRAs are commonly used and there is a relatively large proportion of over-indication users among Chinese psychiatric out-patients. However, only a small proportion of hazardous users were detected. The study highlights how to use prescription data to support improvements in clinical practice.

In an attempt to achieve net zero, the operation and planning of the energy system face techno-economic challenges brought by integrating large-scale distributed energy resources (DERs) with low carbon footprints. Previous work has analyzed the technical challenges including hosting capacity (HC) for DERs. In light of the deregulation of the power industry and the transition to power system with renewables at its center, this article takes the lead to maximizing renewable integration in power grids from a market viewpoint. It solves a significant problem brought forth by the fall in electricity prices, resulting from increasing renewable penetration that jeopardizes investment cost recovery and prevents sustainable grid integration of renewables. To this end, a novel bi-level optimization model is formulated, where the upper-level problem aims to maximize the HC of renewables ensuring the recovery of investment, and the lower-level problem describes the market clearing process considering network constraints. The optimal solution of devised bi-level problem can be found after reformulating it to a single-level mixed-integer linear problem (MILP) using the strong duality theorem and a special ordered set-type 1 (SOS1) founded linearization approach. Case studies confirm the significance of the devised model and quantitatively analyze the impact of different network capacities, renewable subsidies, and energy storage, respectively, on the market-based HC obeying its profitability constraint.

As the terminal of electricity consumption, the distribution network is a vital field to lower the carbon emission of the power system. With the integration of distributed energy resources, the flexibility of the distribution network has been promoted significantly where dispatch actions can be employed to lower carbon emissions without compromising the accessibility of reliable electricity. This study proposes a security constrained dispatch policy based on safe reinforcement learning for the distribution network. The researched problem is set up as a constrained Markov decision process, where continuous-discrete mixed action space and high-dimensional state space are in place. In addition, security-related rules are embedded into the problem formulation. To guarantee the generalization of the reinforcement learning agent, various scenarios are generated in the offline training stage, including randomness of renewables, scheduled maintenance, and different load profiles. A case study is performed on a modified version of the IEEE 33-bus system, and the numerical results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method in decarbonization.

Introduction Benzodiazepine receptor agonists (BZRAs), which include benzodiazepines and Z-drugs, are the most commonly prescribed psychotropic drugs worldwide, and their inappropriate use places a significant burden on public health. Given the widespread use of BZRAs in psychiatric settings, this condition may result from doctors’ improper prescribing. Researchers have developed an electronic intervention system to assist psychiatrists in prescribing BZRAs appropriately. This study aims to determine the efficacy and utility of electronic intervention in reducing improper BZRAs prescriptions in real-world psychiatric outpatient settings.Methods and analysis A multicentre randomised controlled research study will be conducted in real-world settings with licensed psychiatrists with prescription qualifications from five of Chinese most significant regional hospitals that provide high-quality mental healthcare. Participants will be 1:1 randomly assigned to receive a 3-month electronic intervention (11 related information pushing and 3 online lectures) or be placed on a waiting list. The primary outcome is the change in the proportion of inappropriate BZRAs prescriptions between the baseline period (3 months before the intervention) and 3 months after the intervention. Secondary outcomes will be examined at baseline, the third month and the sixth month. The secondary outcomes include psychiatrists’ knowledge and attitudes about appropriate BZRAs prescription, the associated side effects of BZRAs among patients and self-efficacy. To measure the utility, intervention assessment and system utilisation data from the intervention group were collected.Ethics and dissemination The institutional review board and ethics committees of Shanghai Mental Health Center, Second Xiangya Hospital, West China Hospital, Guangji Hospital and Wuhan Mental Health Center approved the study. After the study is completed, the results will be published in peer-reviewed journals or presented at conferences. If the educational materials are effective, they are available to the general public.Trial registration number NCT03724669; Pre-results.

Previously works on analysing imperfect electricity markets have employed conventional game-theoretic approaches. However, such approaches necessitate that each strategic market player has full knowledge of the operating parameters and the strategies of its rivals as well as the computational algorithm of the market clearing process. This unrealistic assumption, along with the modeling and computational complexities, renders such approaches less applicable for conducting practical multi-period and multi-spatial equilibrium analysis. This paper proposes a novel multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MA-DRL) based methodology, combining multi-agent intelligence, the deep policy gradient (DPG) method, and an innovative long short term memory (LSTM) based representation network for optimizing the offering strategies of multiple self-interested generation companies (GENCOs) as well as exploring the market outcome stemming from their interactions. The proposed approach is tailored to align with the nature of the examined problem by posing it, for the first time, in multi-dimensional continuous state and action spaces, enabling GENCOs to receive accurate feedback regarding the impact of their offering strategies on the market clearing outcome, and devise more profitable bidding decisions by exploiting the entire action domain, and thereby facilitates more accurate equilibrium analysis. The proposed LSTM-based representation network extracts discriminative features which further improves the learning performance and thus promises more profitable offerings strategies for each GENCO. Case studies demonstrate that the proposed method i) achieves a significantly higher profit than state-of-the-art RL methods for a single GENCO's optimal offering strategy problem and ii) outperforms the state-of-the-art equilibrium programming models in efficiently identifying an imperfect market equilibrium with/without network congestion. Quantitative economic analysis is carried out on the obtained equilibrium.

With the roll-out of smart meters and the increasing prevalence of distributed energy resources (DERs) at the residential level, end-users rely on home energy management systems (HEMSs) that can harness real-time data and employ artificial intelligence techniques to optimally manage the operation of different DERs, which are targeted toward minimizing the end-user’s energy bill. In this respect, the performance of the conventional model-based demand response (DR) management approach may deteriorate due to the inaccuracy of the employed DER operating models and the probabilistic modeling of uncertain parameters. To overcome the above drawbacks, this paper develops a novel real-time DR management strategy for a residential household based on the twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient (TD3) learning approach. This approach is model-free, and thus does not rely on knowledge of the distribution of uncertainties or the operating models and parameters of the DERs. It also enables learning of neural-network-based and fine-grained DR management policies in a multi-dimensional action space by exploiting high-dimensional sensory data that encapsulate the uncertainties associated with the renewable generation, appliances’ operating states, utility prices, and outdoor temperature. The proposed method is applied to the energy management problem for a household with a portfolio of the most prominent types of DERs. Case studies involving a real-world scenario are used to validate the superior performance of the proposed method in reducing the household’s energy costs while coping with the multi-source uncertainties through comprehensive comparisons with the state-of-the-art deep reinforcement learning (DRL) methods.

Conditional Lie-Bäcklund symmetry approach is used to study the invariant subspace of the nonlinear diffusion equations with source ut=e−qx(epxP(u)uxm)x+Q(x,u), m≠1. We obtain a complete list of canonical forms for such equations admit multidimensional invariant subspaces determined by higher order conditional Lie-Bäcklund symmetries. The resulting equations are either solved exactly or reduced to some finite-dimensional dynamic systems.