Stochastic thermodynamics of hidden pumps

We show that a reversible pumping mechanism operating between two states of a kinetic network can give rise to Poisson transitions between these two states. An external observer, for whom the pumping mechanism is not accessible, will observe a Markov chain satisfying local detailed balance with an emerging effective force induced by the hidden pump. Due to the reversibility of the pump, the actual entropy production turns out to be lower than the coarse grained entropy production estimated from the flows and affinities of the resulting Markov chain. Moreover, in presence of a large time scale separation between the fast pumping dynamics and the slow network dynamics, a finite current with zero dissipation may be produced. We make use of these general results to build a synthetase-like kinetic scheme able to reversibly produce high free energy molecules at a finite rate and a rotatory motor achieving 100\% efficiency at finite speed.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, v1: First version, v2: Major changes, new applications and new results (pumping can always be performed reversibly), v3 version accepted in Phys. Rev.

Two-layer scheduling scheme for pump stations

In this paper, a two-layer scheduling scheme for pump stations in a water distribution network has been proposed. The upper layer, which works in one-hour sampling time, uses Model Predictive Control (MPC) to produce continuous flow set-points for the lower layer. While in the lower layer, a scheduling algorithm has been used to translate the continuous flow set-points to a discrete (ON-OFF) control operation sequence of the pump stations with the constraints that pump stations should draw the same amount of water as the continuous flow set-points provided by the upper layer. The tuning parameters of such algorithm are the lower layer control sampling period and the number of parallel pumps in the pump station. The proposed method has been tested in the Richmond case study.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

A novel condition monitoring methodology based on neural network of pump-turbines with extended operating range

Due to the entrance of new renewable energies, water-storage energy has to be regulated more frequently to keep the stability of power grid. Consequently, pump-turbines have to work under offdesign conditions more than before, which will cause more damage and decrease their useful life. Advanced monitoring methodologies that can balance the degradation of machine and revenues to the power plant has been required. To develop an innovative condition monitoring approach, vibration data was collected from different components of a pump-turbine which is running in an extended operating range. The consequences of operating range extension on the vibration of the pump-turbine have been studied by analysing the vibration signatures. The changing rule of the vibration behavior of the machine with the operating parameters has been obtained. An artificial neural network based model has been applied to build an autoregressive normal behavior model. The results indicated that the normal behavior model based on multi-layer neural net has the ability to predict the vibration characteristics of the machine in different operating conditions. This monitoring method can be adapted to the similar type of hydraulic turbine units.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

L-Band In-Line Remote Amplification for an Extended WDM/PON Ring Architecture

In this paper, a study on a fully passive WDM/PON ring architecture which reaches 19 km distance, while serving more than 1000 users with symmetric several hundred Mbit/s per user is presented. The design is based on SARDANA (Scalable Advanced Ring -based Passive Dense Access Network Architecture) and was generated as an alternative solution, with its novelty laying on the use of L-band in line remote amplification. The simulation of an extended access WDM/TDM PON formed in a double fibre ring with single fiber trees was created. The network’s operation has been tested for several conditions of usage (i.e. maximum number of users,transmission power and pump power) and an optimization of the design has been performed. The target was to achieve, with given transmission and pump power, the reach of more then 1000 users with input power high enough to permit the use of an RSOA at the ONU. The use of L-band signals and special doped fiber has permitted the effective use of RSOAs in the total of the end users.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Fortissat minewater geothermal district heating project: case study

This study summarises the findings of a feasibility assessment for a potential minewater geothermal energy system in the vicinity of the James Hutton Institute’s Hartwood Home Farm, North Lanarkshire in Scotland’s Central Belt. This study aimed to assess the potential for Scotland’s first minewater geothermal scheme in a rural area with social deprivation. While focused on the specifics of the location, the project is conceived as a readily replicable and fully operational minewater geothermal district heating system demonstrator project that would act as proof of concept for duplication elsewhere. This study concluded that, with current support mechanisms, the scheme is technically and financially viable, breaking even or better with a network scenario covering the ‘representative’ communities of Allanton and Hartwood. As might be expected, there are considerable economies of scale, with the scheme becoming commercially viable when the network is extended to the town of Shotts

Sustainable economic development : concept, principles and management from Islamic perspective

The basic concern of development in Islamic economic system is on human welfare. This is in line with the very basic objective of Islamic jurisprudence (Shari’ah ) which puts important to the welfare of the people and their relief from hardship. Economic development should be consistent with this central objective of shari`ah. The center for development process in Islam relies on man as an economic agent. It is man to be educated on the entire development process by integrating sosial development, economic development and environmental conservation and protection. This paper attempts to explain the concept, principles and management of sustainable economic development from Islamic perspective. The paper would start by defining the concept of sustainable economic development and development goals. Next, the Islamic principles for sustainable economic development would be discussed, followed by the discussion on the management of sustainable economic development from Islamic perspective. In conclusion, the paper strongly suggests the economic development process to fully adhere to the Islamic principles as the key for sustainable development which covers both the material and non-material aspects of life. Keywords: Sustainable development, Economic development, management, Islamic economics, economic syste

Multi-criteria analysis applied to multi-objective optimal pump scheduling in water systems

This work presents a multi-criteria-based approach to automatically select specific non-dominated solutions from a Pareto front previously obtained using multi-objective optimization to find optimal solutions for pump control in a water supply system. Optimal operation of pumps in these utilities is paramount to enable water companies to achieve energy efficiency in their systems. The Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (FTOPSIS) is used to rank the Pareto solutions found by the Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) employed to solve the multi-objective problem. Various scenarios are evaluated under leakage uncertainty conditions, resulting in fuzzy solutions for the Pareto front. This paper shows the suitability of the approach for quasi real-world problems. In our case-study, the obtained solutions for scenarios including leakage represent the best trade-off among the optimal solutions, under some considered criteria, namely, operational cost, operational lack of service, pressure uniformity and network resilience. Potential future developments could include the use of clustering alternatives to evaluate the goodness of each solution under the considered evaluation criteria

Biophysics of Purkinje computation

Although others have reported and characterised different patterns of Purkinje firing (Womack and Khodakhah, 2002, 2003, 2004; McKay and Turner, 2005) this thesis is the first study that moves beyond their description and investigates the actual basis of their generation. Purkinje cells can intrinsically fire action potentials in a repeating trimodal or bimodal pattern. The trimodal pattern consists of tonic spiking, bursting and quiescence. The bimodal pattern consists of tonic spiking and quiescence. How these firing patterns are generated, and what ascertains which firing pattern is selected, has not been determined to date. We have constructed a detailed biophysical Purkinje cell model that can replicate these patterns and which shows that Na+/K+ pump activity sets the model’s operating mode. We propose that Na+/K+ pump modulation switches the Purkinje cell between different firing modes in a physiological setting and so innovatively hypothesise the Na+/K+ pump to be a computational element in Purkinje information coding. We present supporting in vitro Purkinje cell recordings in the presence of ouabain, which irreversibly blocks the Na+/K+ pump. Climbing fiber (CF) input has been shown experimentally to toggle a Purkinje cell between an up (firing) and down (quiescent) state and set the gain of its response to parallel fiber (PF) input (Mckay et al., 2007). Our Purkinje cell model captures these toggle and gain computations with a novel intracellular calcium computation that we hypothesise to be applicable in real Purkinje cells. So notably, our Purkinje cell model can compute, and importantly, relates biophysics to biological information processing. Our Purkinje cell model is biophysically detailed and as a result is very computationally intensive. This means that, whilst it is appropriate for studying properties of the 8 individual Purkinje cell (e.g. relating channel densities to firing properties), it is unsuitable for incorporation into network simulations. We have overcome this by deploying mathematical transforms to produce a simpler, surrogate version of our model that has the same electrical properties, but a lower computational overhead. Our hope is that this model, of intermediate biological fidelity and medium computational complexity, will be used in the future to bridge cellular and network studies and identify how distinctive Purkinje behaviours are important to network and system function

A two-way photonic interface for linking Sr+ transition at 422 nm to the telecommunications C-band

We report a single-stage bi-directional interface capable of linking Sr+ trapped ion qubits in a long-distance quantum network. Our interface converts photons between the Sr+ emission wavelength at 422 nm and the telecoms C-band to enable low-loss transmission over optical fiber. We have achieved both up- and down-conversion at the single photon level with efficiencies of 9.4% and 1.1% respectively. Furthermore we demonstrate noise levels that are low enough to allow for genuine quantum operation in the future.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Energy managed reporting for wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we propose a technique to extend the network lifetime of a wireless sensor network, whereby each sensor node decides its individual network involvement based on its own energy resources and the information contained in each packet. The information content is ascertained through a system of rules describing prospective events in the sensed environment, and how important such events are. While the packets deemed most important are propagated by all sensor nodes, low importance packets are handled by only the nodes with high energy reserves. Results obtained from simulations depicting a wireless sensor network used to monitor pump temperature in an industrial environment have shown that a considerable increase in the network lifetime and network connectivity can be obtained. The results also show that when coupled with a form of energy harvesting, our technique can enable perpetual network operatio