Market power appearance through game theoretic maintenance scheduling of distributed generations

The oligopoly structure of the market and the network constraints may produce results far from the perfect competition. Maintenance decisions in an oligopolistic electricity market have a strategic function, because GENCOs usually have impacts on market prices through capacity outages. This paper describes generation maintenance planning in an oligopolistic environment as a strategic decision. In this paper a game theoretic framework is modeled to analyze strategic behaviors of GENCOs. Each GENCO tries to maximize its payoff by strategically making decisions, taking into account its rival GENCOs' decisions. Some GENCOs own DG units, such as wind, diesel, biomass and fuel cell plants. If different GENCOs find out they have the conditions of exerting market power exact in maintenance periods; they will share their data and they will cause some area monopolies. Cournot-Nash equilibrium is used for decision making on maintenance problem in Oligopolistic electricity market. The Cournot-Nash problem is modeled as a mixed integer nonlinear programming optimization problem. The analytic framework presented in this paper enables joint assessment of maintenance and generation strategies. © 2011 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. -All rights reserved

Compliance of Healthcare Workers with Hand Hygiene Practices in the Northeast of Iran: an Overt Observation

Hand hygiene (HH) is one of the most effective methods to prevent transmission and spread of microorganisms from one patient to another, also, it used to reduce the spread of pathogens in clinical settings and to help control outbreaks but compliance is usually poor. The purpose of this study was to analyze the compliance of hand hygiene and affecting factors among healthcare workers (HCWs) of northeast hospitals in Iran. This study was conducted based on observation method for the compliance of hand hygiene according to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. HCWs were observed during routine patient care in different shifts, also the technique of hand hygiene was assessed through hand washing with alcohol-based disinfectant. Data were collected during 1 year, from June 2014 to July 2015 by the infection control teams in the northeast hospital of Iran. By direct observation, we evaluated a total of 92518 hand hygiene opportunities from 29 hospitals in the northeast of Iran during 1 year, with overall compliance rates in these hospitals were 43.42%. Compliance rates differed by role: nurses43%, doctors 19 % and other health workers 29%. In this observational study, we identified that adherence to hand hygiene practice and use of alcohol-based disinfectant was very low in this hospitals, so effective intervention programs to promote adherence to hand hygiene and use of disinfectants could be effective to increase compliance

Monitoring phases and phase transitions in phosphatidylethanolamine monolayers using active interfacial microrheology

This is the published version. Copyright 2015 Royal Society of ChemistryActive interfacial microrheology is a sensitive tool to detect phase transitions and headgroup order in phospholipid monolayers. The re-orientation of a magnetic nickel nanorod is used to explore changes in the surface rheology of 1,2-dilauroyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (DLPE) and 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (DMPE), which differ by two CH2 groups in their alkyl chains. Phosphatidylethanolamines such as DLPE and DMPE are a major component of cell membranes in bacteria and in the nervous system. At room temperature, DLPE has a liquid expanded (LE) phase for surface pressure, Π < ∼38 mN m−1; DMPE has an LE phase for Π < ∼7 mN m−1. In their respective LE phases, DLPE and DMPE show no measurable change in surface viscosity with Π, consistent with a surface viscosity <10−9 N s m−1, the resolution of our technique. However, there is a measurable, discontinuous change in the surface viscosity at the LE to liquid condensed (LC) transition for both DLPE and DMPE. This discontinuous change is correlated with a significant increase in the surface compressibility modulus (or isothermal two-dimensional bulk modulus). In the LC phase of DMPE there is an exponential increase in surface viscosity with Π consistent with a two-dimensional free area model. The second-order LC to solid (S) transition in DMPE is marked by an abrupt onset of surface elasticity; there is no measurable elasticity in the LC phase. A measurable surface elasticity in the S phase suggests a change in the molecular ordering or interactions of the DMPE headgroups that is not reflected in isotherms or in grazing incidence X-ray diffraction. This onset of measurable elasticity is also seen in DLPE, even though no indication of a LC–S transition is visible in the isotherms

Effect of Lipid Headgroup Charge and pH on the Stability and Membrane Insertion Potential of Calcium Condensed Gene Complexes

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Langmuir, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see http://doi.org/10.1021/la504970n.Noncovalently condensed complexes of genetic material, cell penetrating peptides (CPPs), and calcium chloride present a nonviral route to improve transfection efficiency of nucleic acids (e.g., pDNA and siRNA). However, the exact mechanisms of membrane insertion and delivery of macromolecule complexes to intracellular locations as well as their stability in the intracellular environment are not understood. We show that calcium condensed gene complexes containing different hydrophilic (i.e., dTAT, K9, R9, and RH9) and amphiphilic (i.e., RA9, RL9, and RW9) CPPs formed stable cationic complexes of hydrodynamic radii 100 nm at neutral pH. However, increasing the acidity caused the complexes to become neutral or anionic and increase in size. Using zwitterionic and anionic phospholipid monolayers as models that mimic the membrane composition of the outer leaflet of cell membranes and intracellular vesicles and pHs that mimic the intracellular environment, we study the membrane insertion potential of these seven gene complexes (CPP/pDNA/Ca2+ complexes) into model membranes. At neutral pH, all gene complexes demonstrated the highest insertion potential into anionic phospholipid membranes, with complexes containing amphiphilic peptides showing the maximum insertion. However, at acidic pH, the gene complexes demonstrated maximum monolayer insertion into zwitterionic lipids, irrespective of the chemical composition of the CPP in the complexes. Our results suggest

Adaptive data collection algorithm for wireless sensor networks

Periodical Data collection from unreachable remote terrain and then transmit information to a base station is one of the targeted application of sensor networks. The energy restriction of battery powered sensor nodes is a big challenge for this network as it is difficult or in some cases not feasible to change the power supply of motes. Therefore, in order to keep the networks operating for long time, efficient utilization of energy is considered with highest priority. In this paper we propose TA-PDC-MAC protocol - a traffic adaptive periodic data collection MAC which is designed in a TDMA fashion. This design is efficient in the ways that it assigns the time slots for nodes’ activity due to their sampling rates in a collision avoidance manner. This ensures minimal consumption of network energy and makes a longer network lifetime, as well as it provides small end-to-end delay and packet loss ratio. Simulation results show that our protocol demonstrates up to 35% better performance than that of most recent protocol that proposed for this kind of application, in respect of energy consumption. Comparative analysis and simulation show that TA-PDC-MAC considerably gives a good compromise between energy efficiency and latency and packet loss rate

Energy efficiency in MAC 802.15.4 for wireless sensor networks

Recent technological advances in sensors, low power integrated circuits, and wireless communications have enabled the design of low-cost, lightweight, and intelligent physiological sensor nodes. The IEEE 802.15.4 is a new wireless personal area network designed for wireless monitoring and control applications. The fast progress of research on energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks, and the need to compare with the solutions adopted in the standards motivates the need for this work. In the analysis presented, the star network configuration of 802.15.4 standard at 868 MHz is considered for a Zigbee network. In this paper, we analyze the active duration of the superframe and entered the sleep mode status inside this period. It happens when sensors do not have any data to send. The nonpersistent CSMA uses the adaptive backoff exponent. This method helps the network to be reliable under traffic changes due to save the energy consumption. The introduction of sleep state has shown incredible reduction of the power consumption in all network load changes

Trade-off between energy consumption and target delay for wireless sensor network

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) consists of unattended sensors with limited storage, energy (battery power) and computational and communication capabilities. Since battery power is the most crucial resource for sensor nodes and delay time is a critical metric for certain WSN applications, data diffusion between source sensors and sink should be done in an energy efficient and timely manner. We characterize the trade off between the energy consumption and source to sink delay in order to extend the operation of individual sensors and hence increase the lifetime of the WSN. To achieve this goal, the transmission range of sensors is first decomposes into certain ranges based on a minimal distance between consecutive forwarding sensors and then classifies these ranges due to Degree of Interest. It is also shown that the use of sensor nodes which lie on or closely to the shortest path between the source and the sink helps minimize these two metrics

Adaptive MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks in periodic data collection applications

In this paper, we propose a new medium access control (MAC) protocol for wireless sensor networks for environmental monitoring applications. The proposed MAC scheme is specifically designed for wireless sensor networks which have periodic traffic with different sampling rates. In our protocol design, only sink can start and maintain synchronization and also determine the time schedule for all other nodes in the network. We discuss the design of TA-PDC-MAC protocol and provide a comparison with the previous PDC-MAC protocol through simulation. Under different traffic generation rate, our protocol outperforms the previous one in terms of energy consumption, packet loss rate and packet delay

Potential-Modulated Ion Distributions in the Back-to-Back Electrical Double Layers at a Polarised Liquid|Liquid Interface Regulate the Kinetics of Interfacial Electron Transfer

Biphasic interfacial electron transfer (IET) reactions at polarisable liquid|liquid (L|L) interfaces underpin new approaches to electrosynthesis, redox electrocatalysis, bioelectrochemistry and artificial photosynthesis. Herein, using cyclic and alternating current voltammetry, we demonstrate that under certain experimental conditions, the biphasic 2-electron O2 reduction reaction can proceed by single-step IET between a reductant in the organic phase, decamethylferrocene, and interfacial protons in the presence of O2. Using this biphasic system, we demonstrate that the applied interfacial Galvani potential difference ΔwoØ provides no direct driving force to realise a thermodynamically uphill biphasic IET reaction in the mixed solvent region. We show that the onset potential for a biphasic single-step IET reaction does not correlate with the thermodynamically predicted standard Galvani IET potential and is instead closely correlated with the potential of zero charge at a polarised L|L interface. We outline that the applied ΔwoØ required to modulate the interfacial ion distributions, and thus kinetics of IET, must be optimised to ensure that the aqueous and organic redox species are present in substantial concentrations at the L|L interface simultaneously in order to react.M.D.S. acknowledges funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under grant no. 13/SIRG/2137 and the European Research Council through a Starting Grant (agreement no. 716792). A.G.-Q. acknowledges funding received from an Irish Research Council (IRC) Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (grant number GOIPD/2018/252) and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (Grant Number MSCA-IF-EF-ST 2020/101018277)