The use of single wire earth return (SWER) as a potential solution to reduce the cost of rural electrification in Uganda

I. P. Da Silva; P. Mugisha; P. Simonis; G. R. Turyahikayo - Electrification and energy provision in rural areasThe rural electrification in Uganda is facing an enormous challenge following the ongoing process of privatisation/liberalisation of the power sector. The Electricity Act enacted in November 1999 provides for more power utilities in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, ending a more than 40 years of monopoly of Uganda Electricity Board (UEB), a government parastatal. One of the consequences of this Act is that rural electrification pass to be responsibility of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development. This ministry issued a document “Rural Electrification, Strategy and Plan”[1] whose overall objective is to increase electricity accessibility in the rural areas from the actual less than 1% to 10% within 10 years. It supposes to electrify 300,000 new rural households. This objective is meant to be achieved using gridextension, mini-grids and photovoltaic solar systems. This present paper considers the possibility of using SWER for grid-extension and mini-grids aiming at reducing costs. Technical and regulatory aspects are presented.The rural electrification in Uganda is facing an enormous challenge following the ongoing process of privatisation/liberalisation of the power sector. The Electricity Act enacted in November 1999 provides for more power utilities in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, ending a more than 40 years of monopoly of Uganda Electricity Board (UEB), a government parastatal. One of the consequences of this Act is that rural electrification pass to be responsibility of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development. This ministry issued a document “Rural Electrification, Strategy and Plan”[1] whose overall objective is to increase electricity accessibility in the rural areas from the actual less than 1% to 10% within 10 years. It supposes to electrify 300,000 new rural households. This objective is meant to be achieved using gridextension, mini-grids and photovoltaic solar systems. This present paper considers the possibility of using SWER for grid-extension and mini-grids aiming at reducing costs. Technical and regulatory aspects are presented

Successful, small scale, manufacturing from five European island regions

The support of the European Commission, through its Leonardo da Vinci Community Vocational Training Action Programme, in this ongoing pilot project- MT/2002/B/F/139000- is gratefully acknowledged. This manual has been compiled by University of Malta Professor Godfrey Baldacchino (the NISSOS Project ideator and academic coordinator) with the kind support of the project’s 11 institutional partners, their delegates and associated support staff involved in the NISSOS Project. These are: Estonia Chamber of Commerce and Industry-Saaremaa Branch (Delegate: Tullio Liblik); Kuressaare College at Tallinn Technical University (Maret Pank); Åland Trade Association (Mika Lindfors & Johnny Mattson); Åland Polytechnic (Anna-Lena Freman, Christer Kullman & Thor-Bjorn Wik); Technological Institute of Iceland (Bjorn Gislason); Institute of Business Studies at the University of Iceland (Gylfi Dalmann Adalsteinsson); Foundation for Human Resources Development, Malta (Helga Ellul, Mario Grixti, Godwin Micallef, John Muscat Drago); Malta Enterprise (Karl Herrera); University of Malta (Roger Ellul Micallef, Saviour Rizzo); Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology (Frank Edwards); the Highland Council of Scotland (Catriona Maclean; Lisa Stephen) and the UHI Millennium Institute, Scotland (Maggie Marr; Anne Marie McDairmid, Stephanie Tristam). Thanks also to the expert independent input of Joe Vella Bonnici (Malta), Ingi Runar Edvardsson (Iceland) and Tage Petersen (Denmark). The institutional support of the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada, is also acknowledged. Responsibility for the contents of this manual and any errors are those of the author and are not attributable to the European Commission or any of the specific NISSOS Project institutional partners.It is common knowledge nowadays that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are very important to economic growth. Their positive contribution is all the more evident in the context of massive lay-offs from large firms and especially appreciated in epochs of long term, structural unemployment. SMEs play an even more pronounced role in the case of very small islands, since the typical average enterprise size is even smaller than elsewhere. Manufacturing is also seen as an important contributor to economic growth and development. The factory has been a symbol of industrial progress for the last 200 years. Manufacturing creates many jobs, usually in large firms, develops technical skills, adds higher value to products and creates many supportive service industries. However, many handicaps can affect the set-up and operation of SMEs which are based in small island territories And are involved in manufacturing. How challenging are these handicaps? Can they be overcome? How? Can some small firms from small islands serve as models of successful export-oriented development? And if so, which? What would be their characteristics?peer-reviewe

'Swer (single wire earth return) systems user applications – optimising the use of this cost–effective electrification tool with suitable end-user applications' – the Ugandan case

The impact of SWER (Single Wire Earth Return) systems on any rural electrification programThe access to electricity is becoming a major demand in all societies in the developing countries. The declared aim of Uganda’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development to increase the access to electricity to 10% of Uganda’s population implies the electrification of 40,000 rural household per year, bringing ‘power to the people’. Access to electricity is directly associated with higher levels of living conditions. Individual households, (rural and urban) when provided with electricity have better conditions of cleanliness, health and self-empowerment. Key institutions in society (private, governmental, non-governmental, parastatal) also require electricity to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of their operations and programmes. The introduction of SWER (Single Wire Earth Return) technology has significant merits regarding cost effectiveness to supply electricity to remote areas. This is especially the case where a strong backbone reticulation system is in place to supply high load centres (such as mines and larger towns, water pumping installations). Additional rural settlements and low demand settlements with clinics, schools, hostels, small borehole pumping installations can be adequately supplied with SWER (Single Wire Earth Return) technology.The access to electricity is becoming a major demand in all societies in the developing countries. The declared aim of Uganda’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development to increase the access to electricity to 10% of Uganda’s population implies the electrification of 40,000 rural household per year, bringing ‘power to the people’. Access to electricity is directly associated with higher levels of living conditions. Individual households, (rural and urban) when provided with electricity have better conditions of cleanliness, health and self-empowerment. Key institutions in society (private, governmental, non-governmental, parastatal) also require electricity to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of their operations and programmes. The introduction of SWER (Single Wire Earth Return) technology has significant merits regarding cost effectiveness to supply electricity to remote areas. This is especially the case where a strong backbone reticulation system is in place to supply high load centres (such as mines and larger towns, water pumping installations). Additional rural settlements and low demand settlements with clinics, schools, hostels, small borehole pumping installations can be adequately supplied with SWER (Single Wire Earth Return) technology

An oceanic current against the wind : how does Taiwan island steer warm water into the East China Sea?

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 37 (2007): 2563-2569, doi:10.1175/JPO3134.1.Along the Taiwan Strait (<100 m in depth) a northeastward flow persists in all seasons despite the annually averaged wind stress that is strongly southwestward. The forcing mechanism of this countercurrent is examined by using a simple ocean model. The results from a suite of experiments demonstrate that it is the Kuroshio that plays the deciding role for setting the flow direction along the Taiwan Strait. The momentum balance along the strait is mainly between the wind stress, friction, and pressure gradient. Since both wind stress and friction act against the northward flow, it is most likely the pressure gradient that forces the northward flow, as noted in some previous studies. What remains unknown is why there is a considerable pressure difference between the southern and northern strait. The Kuroshio flows along the east coast of Taiwan, and thus the western boundary current layer dynamics applies there. Integrating the momentum equation along Taiwan’s east coast shows that there must be a pressure difference between the southern and the northern tip of Taiwan to counter a considerable friction exerted by the mighty Kuroshio. This same pressure difference is also felt on the other side of the island where it forces the northward flow through Taiwan Strait. The model shows that the local wind stress acts to dampen this northward flow. This mechanism can be illustrated by an integral constraint for flow around an island.This study has been supported by National Science Foundation through Grant OCE-0351055

Glueball Interpretation of ξ\xi(2230)

On the basis of the results of $\xi(2230)\rightarrow\pi^{+}\pi^{-}, p\bar{p}$ and $K\bar{K}$, measured by the BES Collaboration in radiative J/$\psi$ decays, combined with the upper limit of Br($\xi\rightarrow p\bar{p}$)Br($\xi\rightarrow K\bar{K}$), measured by PS185 experiment, we argue that the distinctive properties of $\xi$(2230), the flavor-symmetric decays and the narrow partial decay widths to $\pi\pi$ and $K\bar{K}$ as well as its copious production in radiative J/$\psi$ decay, would strongly favor the glueball interpretation of $\xi$(2230).Comment: Latex file, no figure

PopSparse: Accelerated block sparse matrix multiplication on IPU

Reducing the computational cost of running large scale neural networks using sparsity has attracted great attention in the deep learning community. While much success has been achieved in reducing FLOP and parameter counts while maintaining acceptable task performance, achieving actual speed improvements has typically been much more difficult, particularly on general purpose accelerators (GPAs) such as NVIDIA GPUs using low precision number formats. In this work we introduce PopSparse, a library that enables fast sparse operations on Graphcore IPUs by leveraging both the unique hardware characteristics of IPUs as well as any block structure defined in the data. We target two different types of sparsity: static, where the sparsity pattern is fixed at compile-time; and dynamic, where it can change each time the model is run. We present benchmark results for matrix multiplication for both of these modes on IPU with a range of block sizes, matrix sizes and densities. Results indicate that the PopSparse implementations are faster than dense matrix multiplications on IPU at a range of sparsity levels with large matrix size and block size. Furthermore, static sparsity in general outperforms dynamic sparsity. While previous work on GPAs has shown speedups only for very high sparsity (typically 99\% and above), the present work demonstrates that our static sparse implementation outperforms equivalent dense calculations in FP16 at lower sparsity (around 90%). IPU code is available to view and run at ipu.dev/sparsity-benchmarks, GPU code will be made available shortly

Acceptability of novel lifelogging technology to determine context of sedentary behaviour in older adults

<strong>Objective:</strong> Lifelogging, using body worn sensors (activity monitors and time lapse photography) has the potential to shed light on the context of sedentary behaviour. The objectives of this study were to examine the acceptability, to older adults, of using lifelogging technology and indicate its usefulness for understanding behaviour.<strong> </strong><strong>Method:</strong> 6 older adults (4 males, mean age: 68yrs) wore the equipment (ActivPAL^TM and Vicon Revue^TM/SenseCam^TM) for 7 consecutive days during free-living activity. The older adults’ perception of the lifelogging technology was assessed through semi-structured interviews, including a brief questionnaire (Likert scale), and reference to the researcher&#39;s diary. <strong>Results:</strong> Older adults in this study found the equipment acceptable to wear and it did not interfere with privacy, safety or create reactivity, but they reported problems with the actual technical functioning of the camera. <strong>Conclusion:</strong> This combination of sensors has good potential to provide lifelogging information on the context of sedentary behaviour

Unravelling exceptional acetylene and carbon dioxide adsorption within a tetra-amide functionalized metal-organic framework

Understanding the mechanism of gas-sorbent interactions is of fundamental importance for the design of improved gas storage materials. Here we report the binding domains of carbon dioxide and acetylene in a tetra-amide functionalized metal-organic framework, MFM-188, at crystallographic resolution. Although exhibiting moderate porosity, desolvated MFM-188a exhibits exceptionally high carbon dioxide and acetylene adsorption uptakes with the latter (232 cm3 g−1 at 295 K and 1 bar) being the highest value observed for porous solids under these conditions to the best of our knowledge. Neutron diffraction and inelastic neutron scattering studies enable the direct observation of the role of amide groups in substrate binding, representing an example of probing gas-amide binding interactions by such experiments. This study reveals that the combination of polyamide groups, open metal sites, appropriate pore geometry and cooperative binding between guest molecules is responsible for the high uptakes of acetylene and carbon dioxide in MFM-188a