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This paper analyses the effects of regional renewable electricity self-sufficiency targets on the power system in Germany. For this purpose, an interdisciplinary approach from social sciences and energy system modelling was chosen, which allows considering qualitative factors such as public acceptance or political stability. Following the concept of context scenarios, consistent raw scenarios are generated by a cross-impact balance analysis (CIB), and the scenarios are quantified by the unit commitment and expansion cost minimisation model ENTIGRIS considering power plants, storages, and the electricity grid. This approach enables an understanding of the system framework conditions and their relationships and allows the combination of qualitative and quantitative scenario descriptors. The most important factors for setting regional self-sufficiency targets were identified through interviews. The main system effects identified are: The regional distribution of generation capacities is strongly influenced by a more demand-oriented installation of generation capacities. This leads to less grid reinforcement, but higher rates of curtailment. In all scenarios, higher utilization of the PV roof potential instead of ground mounted could be observed. The total system costs are increasing only slightly with regional self-supply targets. In general, it was found that the influence of regional self-sufficiency targets is less pronounced in scenarios that already achieve high national RES shares than in scenarios that achieve lower shares, since technology, storage and grid expansion measures are necessary anyway to achieve high RES shares. Overall, the effects here are rather small and the regional objective is not associated with major disadvantages for the system. In a future characterised by stagnation, the system can benefit from regional targeting, as higher renewable shares and lower costs can result. The main conclusion therefore is that regional target setting seem to be beneficial for the overall power system, in terms of system cost, national RE share, acceptance and CO2-emissions.

Sustainable development embraces a broad spectrum of social, economic and ecological aspects. Thus, a sustainable transformation process of energy systems is inevitably multidimensional and needs to go beyond climate impact and cost considerations. An approach for an integrated and interdisciplinary sustainability assessment of energy system transformation pathways is presented here. It first integrates energy system modeling with a multidimensional impact assessment that focuses on life cycle-based environmental and macroeconomic impacts. Then, stakeholders’ preferences with respect to defined sustainability indicators are inquired, which are finally integrated into a comparative scenario evaluation through a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), all in one consistent assessment framework. As an illustrative example, this holistic approach is applied to the sustainability assessment of ten different transformation strategies for Germany. Applying multi-criteria decision analysis reveals that both ambitious (80%) and highly ambitious (95%) carbon reduction scenarios can achieve top sustainability ranks, depending on the underlying energy transformation pathways and respective scores in other sustainability dimensions. Furthermore, this research highlights an increasingly dominant contribution of energy systems’ upstream chains on total environmental impacts, reveals rather small differences in macroeconomic effects between different scenarios and identifies the transition among societal segments and climate impact minimization as the most important stakeholder preferences.

Background Given the multitude of scenarios on the future of our energy systems, multi-criteria assessments are increasingly called for to analyze and assess desired and undesired effects of possible pathways with regard to their environmental, economic and social sustainability. Existing studies apply elaborate lists of sustainability indicators, yet these indicators are defined and selected by experts and the relative importance of each indicator for the overall sustainability assessments is either determined by experts or is computed using mathematical functions. Target group-specific empirical data regarding citizens’ preferences for sustainability indicators as well as their reasoning behind their choices are not included in existing assessments. Approach and results We argue that citizens’ preferences and values need to be more systematically analyzed. Next to valid and reliable data regarding diverse sets of indicators, reflections and deliberations are needed regarding what different societal actors, including citizens, consider as justified and legitimate interventions in nature and society, and what considerations they include in their own assessments. For this purpose, we present results from a discrete choice experiment. The method originated in marketing and is currently becoming a popular means to systematically analyze individuals’ preference structures for energy technology assessments. As we show in our paper, it can be fruitfully applied to study citizens’ values and weightings with regard to sustainability issues. Additionally, we present findings from six focus groups that unveil the reasons behind citizens’ preferences and choices. Conclusions Our combined empirical methods provide main insights with strong implications for the future development and assessment of energy pathways: while environmental and climate-related effects significantly influenced citizens’ preferences for or against certain energy pathways, total systems and production costs were of far less importance to citizens than the public discourse suggests. Many scenario studies seek to optimize pathways according to total systems costs. In contrast, our findings show that the role of fairness and distributional justice in transition processes featured as a dominant theme for citizens. This adds central dimensions for future multi-criteria assessments that, so far, have been neglected by current energy systems models.

The transformation of the energy system is a highly complex process involving many dimensions. Energy system models help to understand the process and to define either target systems or policy measures. Insights derived from the social sciences are not sufficiently represented in energy system models, but address crucial aspects of the transformation process. It is, therefore, necessary to develop approaches to integrate results from social science studies into energy system models. Hence, as a result of an interdisciplinary discourse among energy system modellers, social scientists, psychologists, economists and political scientists, this article explains which aspects should be considered in the models, how the respective results can be collected and which aspects of integration into energy system models are conceivable to provide an overview for other modellers. As a result of the discourse, five facets are examined: Investment behaviour (market acceptance), user behaviour, local acceptance, technology innovation and socio-political acceptance. Finally, an approach is presented that introduces a compound of energy system models (with a focus on the macro and micro-perspective) as well as submodels on technology genesis and socio-political acceptance, which serves to gain a more fundamental knowledge of the transformation process.

Energy scenarios describing transition pathways towards low-emission energy systems are commonly used to design mitigation strategies. There is a growing awareness in the research community that energy transitions should be understood as socio-technical transitions and that energy scenario construction should reflect this fact. This paper presents an application of a socio-technical scenario building method for improving long-term scenarios and strategies for the energy transition in Germany. Developing integrated scenarios on a national level starts with employing the cross impact balancing (CIB) approach for identifying consistent societal scenarios. As a first step, relevant context factors are selected and defined (39 descriptors and alternative future developments). Interviews with experts are used to develop a qualitative impact network for the CIB. The resulting context scenarios are then transferred to quantitative energy scenarios by using two different energy models that account for energy demand and supply structures for Germany. A final evaluation focuses on primary energy demand, renewable energy shares, and direct energy-related CO2 emissions. The approach integrates statements of societal and energy model experts and results in an interdisciplinary knowledge integration. This in turn provides insight into the method’s capacity to improve the consistency of energy scenarios and to identify potential societal risks related to the energy transition process.

Energy conversion is a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and energy transition scenarios are a key tool for gaining a greater understanding of the possible pathways toward climate protection. There is consensus in energy research that political and societal framework conditions will play a pivotal role in shaping energy transitions. In energy scenario construction, this perspective is increasingly acknowledged through the approach of informing model-based energy analysis with storylines about societal futures, an exercise we call “socio-technical energy scenario construction” in this article. However, there is a dispute about how to construct the storylines in a traceable, consistent, comprehensive, and reproducible way. This study aims to support energy researchers considering the use of the concept of socio-technical scenarios in two ways: first, we provide a state-of-the-art analysis of socio-technical energy scenario construction by comparing 16 studies with respect to five categories. Second, we address the dispute regarding storyline construction in energy research and examine 13 reports using the Cross-Impact Balances method. We collated researcher statements on the strengths and challenges of this method and identified seven categories of promises and challenges each.

Vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP), a substrate of cAMP- and cGMP-dependent protein kinases, is associated with focal adhesions, cell-cell contacts, microfilaments, and highly dynamic membrane regions. VASP, which is expressed in most cell types and in particularly high levels in human platelets, binds to profilin, zyxin, vinculin, F-actin, and the Listeria monocytogenes surface protein ActA. VASP is a member of the enabled (Ena)/VASP protein family and is thought to be involved in actin filament formation and integrin α IIbβ 3 inhibition in human platelets. To gain further insight into the in vivo function of this protein, VASP-deficient mice were generated by homologous recombination. VASP-/- mice demonstrated hyperplasia of megakaryocytes in bone marrow and spleen but exhibited no other macroscopic or microscopic abnormalities. Activation of platelets with thrombin induced a more than 2-fold higher surface expression of P-selectin and fibrinogen binding in VASP-deficient platelets in comparison to wild type. These data support the concept that VASP is a negative modulator of platelet and integrin α IIbβ 3 activation. Although the limited phenotypic differences between wild-type and VASP-/- mice suggested functional compensation of VASP by members of the Ena/VASP family, alterations in the expression levels of mammalian enabled (Mena) and Ena-VASP-like (Evl) protein were not detected. VASP-deficient mice may provide an interesting model system for diseases in which enhanced platelet activation plays a major role.

Using data for West Germany from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we analyse the impact of transitions from unemployment to full-time employment on life satisfaction, with special focus on the influence of job quality. We apply various indicators of job quality (self-reported job satisfaction, wages, type of contract, and indicators of the fit between the worker and job requirements). We control for the influence of income changes and other factors affecting life satisfaction, using a conditional logit estimator. Results suggest that job quality only matters to some extent, and often people in bad jobs are still better off than those who remain unemployed. This effect is statistically significant for most indicators of job quality, except for workers with low job satisfaction and for those whose new job is much worse than their pre-unemployment job.

In this dissertation, I present novel optical tools for studying the uptake and release of serotonin in living brain tissue. These optical tools include small molecules that act as either substrates or antagonists of the serotonin transporter (SERT) and genetically encoded biosensors that work orthogonally to these small molecules to detect the release of endogenous serotonin in living brain tissue. Together, these optical methods comprise an imaging platform to study the uptake and release of serotonin in living brain tissue. One small molecule, SERTlight, has been employed to characterize the synaptic reuptake inhibitor (SynRI) properties of 12- methoxyibogamine (ibogaine) and its metabolites. Both in isolation and in complex with one another, these tools constitute new techniques for studying the uptake and release of serotonin in living brain tissue with improved spatial resolution, temporal resolution, and ease of use compared to previously established methods. It is the sincere hope of the Sames and Sulzer Laboratories that these tools will enable and inspire future generations of neuroscientists to study the serotonin system at synaptic resolution with the goal to better understand serotonin action in both normal and diseased states.

Vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP) and mammalian Enabled (Mena) are members of the proline-rich Ena/VASP protein family that links the cell membrane proteins, signal transduction pathways, and the actin cytoskeleton. VASP and Mena, substrates of cyclic nucleotide-dependent protein kinases, are associated in different cell types with microfilaments, focal adhesions, cell-cell contacts, and highly dynamic membrane regions. Here, the analysis of mRNA and protein expression, cellular localization, and postnatal development of VASP in different mouse tissues is reported and compared with that of Mena. The expression levels of VASP and Mena differ markedly among various tissues and cell types. The highest levels of VASP are observed in platelets, but stomach, intestine, spleen, lung, and blood vessels are also rich sources of VASP. Mena is abundantly expressed in brain, whereas it is not detectable in platelets and spleen. In intestine and stomach, prominent VASP and Mena immunoreactivity is detected in intestinal smooth muscle cells and blood vessels and cellular membranes of epithelial cells. In kidney, VASP and Mena are abundantly expressed in glomerular mesangial cells and in papilla. VASP and Mena immunoreactivity in heart is associated with blood vessels and with the intercalated discs of cardiac myocytes, where they colocalize with connexin-43. During postnatal development of heart, the level of VASP and Mena expression gradually decreases from neonatal to adult animals. The data demonstrate a clear colocalization of VASP and Mena in cells of stomach, intestine, kidney, and heart. These data and other recent developments suggest that proteins of the Ena/VASP family exert similar functions and may compensate for each other in these tissues.