Blackstarting the North American power grid after a nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event or major solar storm

The electric power grid is our most critical infrastructure. This key resource provides the energy required for all other infrastructures to function. In modern times, electricity has become necessary to sustain life. The power grid in the U.S. is a target for terrorists and is vulnerable to naturally-occurring events. Numerous assessments have been performed on the vulnerability of our national power grid to both manmade and natural events.1 Two significant wide-area threats against our power grid are solar storms and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks. Solar storms are naturally-occurring events that have the potential to create large-scale blackouts that could potentially affect more than 50% of the U.S. population.2 EMP attacks occur when nuclear weapons are detonated at high altitudes; although there is no threat of direct blast or radiation dangers to humans, EMP events can wreck power grids. Although numerous studies have been conducted on the effects of EMP events and solar storms on the U.S. power grid, little has been done to plan for restarting or “blackstarting” the power grid after such an event. If electricity from unaffected areas is not available, the blackstart process becomes much more challenging. The procedures required to blackstart the power grid following a wide area outage are very different from the procedures used to restart the power grid following the major but limited blackouts that have occurred to date such as the 2003 Northeast blackout. This document develops a starting point for blackstarting the U.S. power grid based on likely effects on critical infrastructures caused by solar storms and EMP events. Previous regional blackstarts were assessed to glean empirical information on aspects that could be extrapolated to a national blackstart contingenc

Events of daily living classification on an ambient assisted living environment

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia Eletrónica Industrial e ComputadoresPopulation ageing is a global demographic challenge and countries all around the world are facing significant pressure on their health and social care systems in order to mitigate the effects of it. The emerging social aspect introduced some crucial challenges to society and greater demands on the actual health care sector, which led to the emergence and increased integration of agefriendly innovative welfare technological-based care services for safe and independent ageing, including the assisted living technologies based on Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigm and Pervasive HealthCare. The Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) systems intend to provide caregivers with a detailed overview of their Events of Daily Living (EDL), which constitutes a clinical criteria to evaluate activity limitations. This dissertation addresses these challenges and contributes to the Ambient Assisted Living research, by means of a holistic solution composed of a beyond the state-of-the-art AAL technologies, representing a novel approach to assist in the investigation and on the modeling of a subset of Events of Daily Living (EDL), for sustaining independent living and a continual naturalistic assessment of health. The investigation was focused on 1) developing a multisensorial pervasive Research Data Acquistion (RDA) Platform with embedded Ambient Intelligence (AmI), 2) COTS to verify their validity and reliability for healthcare applications. The proposed solution has been thoroughly evaluated in the Ambient Assisted Living Laboratory that showed its effectiveness classifying EDL through the application of the AAL paradigm in the real world.O envelhecimento populacional é um desafio demográfico global e os países em todo o mundo estão sob com enorme pressão nos seus sistemas de saúde a fim de mitigar os efeitos que poderão advir. O aspecto social emergente introduziu alguns desafios cruciais para a sociedade e uma maior sobrecarga no setor de saúde, o que levou ao surgimento e aumento da integração de serviços inovadores de assistência social, de modo a que haja um envelhecimento seguro e independente, incluindo as tecnologias de assistência à vida com base no paradigma de Ambient Intelligence (AmI) e no Pervasive HealthCare, os sistemas de Ambient Assisted Living (AAL). Eles pretendem fornecer aos profissionais de saúde uma visão detalhada de seu Events of Daily Living (EDL), que constitui um critério clínico para avaliar as limitações da atividade. Para enfrentar estes desafios, esta dissertação contribui para a pesquisa na área de Ambient Assisted Living, por meio de uma solução holística composta por uma tecnologia além das tecnologias state-of-the-art, representando uma nova abordagem para auxiliar na investigação e na modelação de um subconjunto de Events of Daily Living (EDL), para sustentar uma vida independente e uma avaliação naturalística contínua da saúde. A investigação foi focada em 1) desenvolver uma plataforma multisensorial pervasiva Research Data Acquistion (RDA) com Ambient Intelligence (AmI), 2) COTS para verificar a sua validade e fiabilidade para aplicações de assistência médica. A solução proposta foi avaliada no Ambient Assisted Living Laboratory, que mostrou bastante eficácia ao classificar EDL através da aplicação do paradigma AAL no mundo real

Modeling & Simulation Education for the Acquisition and T&E Workforce: FY07 Deliverable Package

This report was prepared for CAPT Mike Lilienthal, PhD, CPE, and funded by ASN (RDA) CHENG and the Modeling and Simulation Coordination Office (MSCO).This technical report presents the deliverables for calendar year 2007 for the "Educating the Modeling and Simulation Workforce" project performed for the DoD Modeling and Simulation Steering Committee. It includes the results for spirals one and two. Spiral one is an analysis of the educational needs of the program manager, systems engineer, and test and evaluation workforces against a set of educational skill requirements developed by the project team. This is referred to as the 'learning matrix'. Spiral two is a set of module and course matrices, along with delivery options, that meets the educational needs indentified in spiral one. This is referred to as the 'learning architecture'. Supporting materials, such as case studies and a handbook, are included. These documents serve as the design framework for spirals three and four, to be completed in CY2008, and which involve the actual production and testing of the courses in the learning architecture and their longitudinal assessment. This report includes the creative work of a seven university consortium and a group of M&S stake-holders, together comprising over 60 personnel.ASN (RDA) CHENG and the Modeling and Simulation Coordination Office (MSCO).This report was prepared for CAPT Mike Lilienthal, PhD, CPE, and funded by ASN (RDA) CHENG and the Modeling and Simulation Coordination Office (MSCO)

An Integrated Fuzzy Inference Based Monitoring, Diagnostic, and Prognostic System

To date the majority of the research related to the development and application of monitoring, diagnostic, and prognostic systems has been exclusive in the sense that only one of the three areas is the focus of the work. While previous research progresses each of the respective fields, the end result is a variable grab bag of techniques that address each problem independently. Also, the new field of prognostics is lacking in the sense that few methods have been proposed that produce estimates of the remaining useful life (RUL) of a device or can be realistically applied to real-world systems. This work addresses both problems by developing the nonparametric fuzzy inference system (NFIS) which is adapted for monitoring, diagnosis, and prognosis and then proposing the path classification and estimation (PACE) model that can be used to predict the RUL of a device that does or does not have a well defined failure threshold. To test and evaluate the proposed methods, they were applied to detect, diagnose, and prognose faults and failures in the hydraulic steering system of a deep oil exploration drill. The monitoring system implementing an NFIS predictor and sequential probability ratio test (SPRT) detector produced comparable detection rates to a monitoring system implementing an autoassociative kernel regression (AAKR) predictor and SPRT detector, specifically 80% vs. 85% for the NFIS and AAKR monitor respectively. It was also found that the NFIS monitor produced fewer false alarms. Next, the monitoring system outputs were used to generate symptom patterns for k-nearest neighbor (kNN) and NFIS classifiers that were trained to diagnose different fault classes. The NFIS diagnoser was shown to significantly outperform the kNN diagnoser, with overall accuracies of 96% vs. 89% respectively. Finally, the PACE implementing the NFIS was used to predict the RUL for different failure modes. The errors of the RUL estimates produced by the PACE-NFIS prognosers ranged from 1.2-11.4 hours with 95% confidence intervals (CI) from 0.67-32.02 hours, which are significantly better than the population based prognoser estimates with errors of ~45 hours and 95% CIs of ~162 hours

Aeronautical engineering: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 291)

This bibliography lists 757 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in May. 1993. Subject coverage includes: design, construction and testing of aircraft and aircraft engines; aircraft components, equipment, and systems; ground support systems; and theoretical and applied aspects of aerodynamics and general fluid dynamics

Safety and Reliability - Safe Societies in a Changing World

The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk managemen

Studies on the Cuticlin Homologues of Brugia Species

The aim of this project was to ascertain the existence of the Brugia homologues of the C.elegans cuticlin genes, and to isolate and characterise them. Preliminary experiments in which Southern blots of cleaved genomic DNA from various parasitic nematodes was hybridised to a 32P-labelled fragent of cut-1 revealed the presence of at least one hybridising band in each of the digests, implying the presence of at least one cut- /dike gene in each of the nematode genomes. The probe hybridised to several bands in the B. pahangi digests. During the course of the project various approaches were used in the search for the Brugia cuticlin homologues. The initial approach was to screen an adult B. pahangi cDNA library with antisera raised against recombinant proteins corresponding to fragments of C. elegans CUT-1 and CUT-2. This resulted in the isolation of four clones, two of which carried the same insert, a truncated version of the other two. The full length clone is 2.2 Kb and comparison with the data base revealed it to be the B. pahangi homologue of a C. elegans dead-box ATP-binding RNA helicase gene (f01f1.7), identified during the course of the C. elegans Gerome Sequencing Project. The specific recognition of this unrelated cDNA is attributed to a combination of the following two factors: the rabbits in which the anti-cuticlin antisera were raised having a previous nematode infection resulting in the pesence of antibodies to nematode RNA helicases in the 'pre-immune' rabbit sera; and the high representation of RNA helicase cDNA species. in the adult library, due to the the role of these enzymes in translation. PCR using primers based on the sequence of the Ascaris cut-1 gene (ascut-1) was carried out on B.pahangi genomic DNA, and resulted in the isolation of a 358bp fragment of a B. pahangi cut-1-like gene, subsequently named bpcut-1, showing a 71% nucleotide homology and a 96% amino acid homolgy with the corresponding region of the C. elegans cut-1 gene, cecut-1. Primers based on the sequence of bpcut-1 were used to isolate the corresponding cDNA from B. pahangi day 7 p.i. cDNA (this time-point in the life-cycle corresponds to the L3-L4 moult), revealing that bpcut-1 has an intron not present in the cut-1-like genes of the other nematodes studied. Screening a B. malayi genomic library with bpcut-1 resulted in the isolation and subsequent sequencing of bmcut-1, a 613bp clone which is the B. malayi homologue of bpcut-1. There are three introns in the clone, and when they are removed the coding sequence corresponds to that of bpcut-1, resulting in a 97.5% homology between the two amino acid sequences. Screening a B. pahangi genomic library with bmcut-1 resulted in the isolation of 4 clones which cover the same 17kb region of the B. pahangi genome. The presence of the bpcut-1- specific intron in all four clones allows them to be identified as bpcut-1, rather than bpcut-1-like. PCR using one of the genomic clones with a 5' primer based on the linker region of EMBL3 (in which the cDNA library was made) and a 3' primer based on the bpcut-1 sequence, allowed the direction of transcription of the gene to be determined, and enabled the gene to be positioned within the genomic clone. A 948 by clone was isolated from an adult B. pahangi cDNA library by screening with bmcut-1. Sequencing and analysis revealed the clone to represent a mis-transcription of the bpcut-1 gene; the resultant cDNA is apparently the result of transcription of the non-coding strand of the bpcut-1 RNA. The pattern of bpcut-1 mRNA abundance throughout the mammalian stages of the life-cycle of the parasite strongly implies that it encodes a component of the nematode cuticle: peaks of abundance occur before the L3-L4 and the L4-adult moults, when the components of the cuticle are being maximally synthesised. The mRNA abundance profile also shows that the bpcut-1 transcript can be detected during the intermoult period, but at a very much lower abundance. There seems to be little or no bpcut-1 transcript detected in the adult mRNA, implying that the protein encoded by bpcut-1 is incorporated into the insoluble component of the cuticle at the time of cuticle synthesis, and that it is not renewed throughout the adulthood of the parasite. Localisation with an antiserum raised against recombinant ASCUT-1 showed a cuticular pattern on all life-cycle stages tested. Immunogold labelling showed that there was no labelling of the external surface of the cuticle. Interestingly, there was also strong recognition of an epitope on the surface of mature mf, implying the presence of an embryonic cut-1-like gene which was not detected by RT-PCR using bpcut-1-specific primers