FEMwiki: crowdsourcing semantic taxonomy and wiki input to domain experts while keeping editorial control: Mission Possible!

Highly specialized professional communities of practice (CoP) inevitably need to operate across geographically dispersed area - members frequently need to interact and share professional content. Crowdsourcing using wiki platforms provides a novel way for a professional community to share ideas and collaborate on content creation, curation, maintenance and sharing. This is the aim of the Field Epidemiological Manual wiki (FEMwiki) project enabling online collaborative content sharing and interaction for field epidemiologists around a growing training wiki resource. However, while user contributions are the driving force for content creation, any medical information resource needs to keep editorial control and quality assurance. This requirement is typically in conflict with community-driven Web 2.0 content creation. However, to maximize the opportunities for the network of epidemiologists actively editing the wiki content while keeping quality and editorial control, a novel structure was developed to encourage crowdsourcing – a support for dual versioning for each wiki page enabling maintenance of expertreviewed pages in parallel with user-updated versions, and a clear navigation between the related versions. Secondly, the training wiki content needs to be organized in a semantically-enhanced taxonomical navigation structure enabling domain experts to find information on a growing site easily. This also provides an ideal opportunity for crowdsourcing. We developed a user-editable collaborative interface crowdsourcing the taxonomy live maintenance to the community of field epidemiologists by embedding the taxonomy in a training wiki platform and generating the semantic navigation hierarchy on the fly. Launched in 2010, FEMwiki is a real world service supporting field epidemiologists in Europe and worldwide. The crowdsourcing success was evaluated by assessing the number and type of changes made by the professional network of epidemiologists over several months and demonstrated that crowdsourcing encourages user to edit existing and create new content and also leads to expansion of the domain taxonomy

On the microCHP scheduling problem

In this paper both continuous and discrete models for the microCHP (Combined Heat and Power) scheduling problem are derived. This problem consists of the decision making to plan runs for a specific type of distributed electricity\ud generators, the microCHP. As a special result, one model variant of the problem, named n-DSHSP-restricted, is proven to be NP-complete in the strong sense. This shows the necessity of the development of heuristics for the scheduling of microCHPs, in case multiple generators are combined in a so-called fleet

Load control in low voltage level of the electricity grid using µCHP appliances

The introduction of microCHP (Combined Heat and Power) appliances and other means of distributed generation causes a shift in the way electricity is produced and consumed. Households themselves produce electricity and deliver the surplus to the grid. In this way, the distributed generation also has implications on the transformers and, thus, on the grid. In this work we study the influence of introducing microCHP appliances on the total load of a group of houses (behind the last transformer). If this load can be controlled, the transformer may be relieved from peak loads. Moreover, a well controlled fleet production can be offered as a Virtual Power Plant to the electricity grid.\ud \ud In this work we focus on different algorithms to control the fleet and produce a constant electricity output. We assume that produced electricity is consumed as locally as possible (preferably within the household). Produced heat can only be consumed locally. Additionally, heat can be stored in heat stores. Fleet control is achieved by using heat led control algorithms and by specifying as objective how much of the microCHP appliances have to run.\ud \ud First results show that preferred patterns can be produced by using fleet control. However, as the problem is heat driven, still reasonably large deviations from the objective occur. Several combinations of heat store and fleet control algorithm parameters are considered to match the heat demand and supply.\ud \ud This work is a first attempt in controlling a fleet and gives a starting point for further research in this area. A certain degree of control can already be established, but for better stability more intelligent algorithms are needed

Scheduling microCHPs in a group of houses

The increasing penetration of renewable energy sources, the demand for more energy efficient electricity production and the increase in distributed electricity generation causes a shift in the way electricity is produced and consumed. The downside of these changes in the electricity grid is that network stability and controllability become more difficult compared to the old situation. The new network has to accommodate various means of production, consumption and buffering and needs to offer control over the energy flows between these three elements.\ud In order to offer such a control mechanism we need to know more about the individual aspects. In this paper we focus on the modelling of distributed production. Especially, we look at the use of microCHP (Combined Heat and Power) appliances in a group of houses.\ud The problem of planning the production runs of the microCHP is modelled via an ILP formulation, both for a single house and for a group of houses.\u

Demand side load management using a three step optimization methodology

In order to keep a proper functional electricity grid and to prevent large investments in the current grid, the creation, transmission and consumption of electricity needs to be controlled and organized in a different way as done nowadays. Smart meters, distributed generation and -storage and demand side management are novel technologies introduced to reach a sustainable, more efficient and reliable electricity supply. Although these technologies are very promising to reach these goals, coordination between these technologies is required. It is therefore expected that ICT is going to play an important role in future smart grids. In this paper, we present the results of our three step control strategy designed to optimize the overall energy efficiency and to increase the amount of generation based on renewable resources with the ultimate goal to reduce the CO2 emission resulting from generation electricity. The focus of this work is on the control algorithms used to reshape the energy demand profile of a large group of buildings and their requirements on the smart grid. In a use case, steering a large group of freezers, we are able to reshape a demand profile full of peaks to a nicely smoothed demand profile, taking into the account the amount of available communication bandwidth and exploiting the available computation power distributed in the grid

A freak Merino fleece

A freak fleece of a Merino ewe from the flocks of the Grootfontein School of Agriculture is here described.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590;300dpi. adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format

The seasonal influence on Merino wool production

The Merino sheep does not show seasonal changes in wool fineness in a varying Karroo climate provided the feed is kept constant. As regards length, several workers have shown that the rate of growth is constant from month to month (Burns, 1931; Fraser, 1931) and from year to year (Duerden and Mare,1931) if the feed is kept constant. It follows, therefore, that in the Karroo at least there is no seasonal influence on the dimensional attributes of fineness and length which affect the volume of wool produced by Merino sheep, provided the nutrition is not changed.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590;300dpi. adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format

The fibre fineness of South African Merino wool

An analysis of one thousand South African Merino wool samples selected at random and involving the measurement of a quarter of a million fibres is described and fundamental characteristics are demonstrated. Fibre thickness ranges from 7.5µ to 50µ. The bulk, or eighty per cent. of the fibres measure from 12.5µ to 22.5µ. Eighty per cent. of the samples conform to the quality numbers of 60's to 100's. Eleven per cent. are 120's to 150's and it is suggested that these are " hunger fine " and presumably influenced by adverse conditions of nutrition. Eight per cent. are cross-bred and are coarser than Merino quality numbers. As regards coefficient of variability, South African Merino wool ranges from 10 per cent. to 32 per cent. Seventy-nine per cent. of the samples conform to a variability of sixteen to twenty-four per cent. coefficient of variability. The coefficient of correlation between fibre finess and coefficient of variability is given as - • 0754 ± • 0217 and indicates an insignificant correlation. The coefficient of correlation between fibre fineness and crimping is given as - • 617 ± • 0226, which shows a definite correlation, though not a high one. Twenty-eight per cent. of the samples show a perfect agreement between the quality numbers of fibre fineness and those of crimps. The woolman who judges fibre fineness on crimps may err in seventy-two per cent. of his judgments by one, two or even three quality numbers.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format.mn2015mn201

Studies on Merino wool production. Plainbodied and developed Merino sheep. I. The standard of production of a group of plainbodied stud ewes

The wool production and fleece analysis of 50 extremely plainbodied stud ewes are given. The ewes were typical of the sheep of the stud (including the stud rams) and were obtained from a breeder who had consistently bred for extreme plainness, so that this characteristic is successfully being transmitted to the progeny. Thirty-five four-toothed stud ewes, recorded in 1940, gave an average greasy fleece of 13•28 lb.; a clean scoured fleece of 7•47 lb. as bone dry, or 8•7 lb. at 16 per cent. Regain; a yield of 58•4 per cent as dry or 67•7 per cent. on the the Bradford system; an average staple length of 4•0 inches and a 60's quality number with a coefficient of variability of 4•5 per cent., indicating a uniform group. The number of fibres per square inch of skin ranged from 31,700 to 45,000, with an average of 41,600. The average fleece density was 2•51 per cent. Fifteen four-toothed stud ewes, recorded in 1941, gave an average greasy fleece weight of 12•17 lb. with 6•99 lb. of clean scoured wool as bone dry, or 8•1 lb. of clean wool at 16 per cent. Regain. The yield was 58•1 per cent. as dry or 67•3 per cent. on the Bradford system. The average staple length was 3•8 inches and the quality number a 60's with a coefficient of variability of 4•3 per cent. showing a uniform group. The number of fibres growing per square inch of skin ranged from 30,200 to 71,600 with an average of 46,700. The average fleece density was 2•54 per cent. It is concluded that the extremely plainbodied stud here described possesses a good stud standard of production in regard to the total wool, the length, and the fleece density. The view held by many sheepmen that extremely plainbodied sheep must necessarily have inferior fleeces, cannot be substantiated. Not only do these sheep produce profitable fleeces, but by virtue of their smooth skins and strong constitutions, they possess the practical advantages of the plain bodied type. The reliability of judging merino wool production in practice is discussed. It is contended that the judgment of fleece density and quantity of wool is difficult because of the grease factor and an increased need for fleece testing has been experienced. In the stud analysed there is a highly significant correlation between greasy fleece weights and scoured fleece weights and an insignificant correlation between greasy fleece weights and yield. In consequence, the breeder can, by selecting the highest greasy fleece weights, automatically improve upon the clean wool production. This recommendation does not hold where there is a definite relationship between greasy fleece weights and yields.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 300dpi. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format