Unraveling The Evolution And Diversity Of Giant Plastid Genomes In Chlamydomonadalean Green Algae

Organelle genomes are known to have large sizes and substantial non-coding content, despite conserved coding regions and low substitution rates. Notably, volvocine green algae exhibit significant variation in plastid genome size, with some species harboring ptDNA ten times larger than the average. To explain this variability, my thesis explores two hypotheses. The first proposes that genetic divergence accumulates due to weak negative selection and genetic drift, resulting in similar evolution rates for coding and non-coding regions. The second suggests high evolution rates in non-coding sequences are due to error-prone repair mechanisms. Analyzing new plastid genomes from volvocine green algae, I found a potential for high silent-site substitution rates in intergenic regions. My analysis shows that these hypotheses can be applied to plastid genomes of close relatives to advance our understanding of the mechanisms of sequence evolution specific to non-coding DNA accumulation within the volvocine green algae

Heterogeneous wireless networks for smart grid distribution systems: Advantages and limitations

Supporting a conventional power grid with advanced communication capabilities is a cornerstone to transferring it to a smart grid. A reliable communication infrastructure with a high throughput can lay the foundation towards the ultimate objective of a fully automated power grid with self-healing capabilities. In order to realize this objective, the communication infrastructure of a power distribution network needs to be extended to cover all substations including medium/low voltage ones. This shall enable information exchange among substations for a variety of system automation purposes with a low latency that suits time critical applications. This paper proposes the integration of two heterogeneous wireless technologies (such as WiFi and cellular 3G/4G) to provide reliable and fast communication among primary and secondary distribution substations. This integration allows the transmission of different data packets (not packet replicas) over two radio interfaces, making these interfaces act like a one data pipe. Thus, the paper investigates the applicability and effectiveness of employing heterogeneous wireless networks (HWNs) in achieving the desired reliability and timeliness requirements of future smart grids. We study the performance of HWNs in a realistic scenario under different data transfer loads and packet loss ratios. Our findings reveal that HWNs can be a viable data transfer option for smart grids. 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Acknowledgments: This work was made possible by the United Arab Emirates University UPAR Grant No. 31N226.Scopu

Resiliency of Smart Power Meters to Common Security Attacks

AbstractThe development of Smart Grid power systems is gaining momentum in many countries leading to massive deployment of smart meters to realize the envisioned benefits. However, there are several concerns among the consumer communities and the service providers with respect to information security when it comes to the deployment of smart meters. This paper attempts to address the main challenge related to smart grid information security by examining the resiliency of smart meters to security threats and attacks. Several common information security attacks are being used to study their impact on the performance of smart meters in a controlled laboratory environment. Results obtained showed drastic effect on the functionality of smart meters and their associated data gathering servers

On-Line Detection And Measurement Of Partial Discharge Signals In A Noisy Environment

In extracting partial discharge (PD) signals embedded in excessive noise, the need for an online and automated tool becomes a crucial necessity. One of the recent approaches that have gained some acceptance within the research arena is the Wavelet multi-resolution analysis (WMRA). However selecting an accurate mother wavelet, defining dynamic threshold values and identifying the resolution levels to be considered in the PD extraction from the noise are still challenging tasks. This paper proposes a novel wavelet-based technique for extracting PD signals embedded in high noise levels. The proposed technique enhances the WMRA by decomposing the noisy data into different resolution levels while sliding it into Kaiser's window. Only the maximum expansion coefficients at each resolution level are used in de-noising and measuring the extracted PD signal. A small set of coefficients is used in the monitoring process without assigning threshold values or performing signal reconstruction. The proposed monitoring technique has been applied to a laboratory data as well as to a simulated PD pulses embedded in a collected laboratory noise

Intelligent Monitoring and Control Architecture for Future Electrical Power Systems

AbstractElectrical power systems often operate with significantly larger numbers of small-scale highly dispersed generation units. The need to mange, operate, monitor and control the performance of these systems has increased the requirements of finding new control venues that facilitate achieving a reliable automation that makes disturbance monitoring, classifications and measurements a common practice for utilities. In order to operate such power systems securely and efficiently it will be necessary to monitor and control output levels and scheduling when connecting such generation to a power system especially when it is typically embedded at the distribution level. Traditional monitoring and control technology that is currently employed at the transmission level is highly centralized and not scalable to include such significant increases in distributed and embedded generation. This paper presents an ongoing research work that defines an agent-based distribution architecture that supports ad hoc and automated system configurations emphasizing the strategies for achieving, locating and isolating faults without degrading the quality of services. The overall network is viewed as a cooperative distributed electric power system (CDEPS) and modelled as distributed intelligent agents that work together to achieve a common global goal in an ambient setting. The architecture provides organization interaction protocols that manage, control and restore power to the faulty points within a network of cooperative distributed power systems. A formal specification of the coordination protocols is represented using an Input / Output Automata model

Enhancing the operation of smart inverters with PMU and data concentrators

As inverter-based distributed energy resources (DERs) continue to proliferate in the distribution systems and provide a significant part of the generation, enhancing the visibility of the system for coupling transmission and distribution networks is becoming essential. The paper offers a monitoring and managing approach based on integrating information from synchrophasors and phasor data concentrators (PDCs) to enhance the deployment of the smart inverter, post their dynamic functions and overcome the decoupling between distribution/transmission operations. The proposed approach includes DER monitoring and managing entity (DER-MME) which communicates with PDC units that can manage the smart inverters functions in real-time during normal/abnormal operation based on a proposed fault detection and localization algorithm. Although the approach can be expanded to include several functions, in the paper, the focus was on the momentary cessation function (MC) and how it can be dynamically controlled by the proposed approach to improve the response of smart inverters. The merit of the proposed approach has been illustrated on several transmission and distribution faults that triggered fault-induced delayed voltage recovery (FIDVR) events which are common in distribution networks.© 2022 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY–NC–ND 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Home energy management system embedded with a multi-objective demand response optimization model to benefit customers and operators

This paper proposes a Home Energy Management System (HEMS) that optimizes the load demand and distributed energy resources. The optimal demand/generation profile is presented while considering utility price signal, customer satisfaction, and distribution transformer condition. The electricity home demand considers electric vehicles (EVs), Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESSs), and all types of non-shiftable, shiftable, and controllable appliances. Furthermore, PV-based renewable energy resources, EVs, and BESSs are utilized as sources of generated power during specific time intervals. In this model, customers can only perform Demand Response (DR) actions with contracts with utility operators. A multi-objective demand/generation response is proposed to optimize the scheduling of various loads/supplies based on the pricing schemes. The customers behavior comfort level and a degradation cost that reflects the distribution transformer Loss-of-Life (LoL) are integrated into the multi-objective optimization problem. Simulation results demonstrate the mutual benefits that the proposed HEMS provides to customers and utility operators by minimizing electricity costs while meeting customer comfort needs and minimizing transformer LoL to enhance operators assets. The results show that the electricity operation cost and demand peak are reduced by 31% and 18%, respectively, along with transformer LoL % which is reduced by 28% compared with the case when no DR was applied.Qatar Foundation; Qatar National Research FundScopu

Home energy management system embedded with a multi-objective demand response optimization model to benefit customers and operators

This paper proposes a Home Energy Management System (HEMS) that optimizes the load demand and distributed energy resources. The optimal demand/generation profile is presented while considering utility price signal, customer satisfaction, and distribution transformer condition. The electricity home demand considers electric vehicles (EVs), Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESSs), and all types of non-shiftable, shiftable, and controllable appliances. Furthermore, PV-based renewable energy resources, EVs, and BESSs are utilized as sources of generated power during specific time intervals. In this model, customers can only perform Demand Response (DR) actions with contracts with utility operators. A multi-objective demand/generation response is proposed to optimize the scheduling of various loads/supplies based on the pricing schemes. The customers behavior comfort level and a degradation cost that reflects the distribution transformer Loss-of-Life (LoL) are integrated into the multi-objective optimization problem. Simulation results demonstrate the mutual benefits that the proposed HEMS provides to customers and utility operators by minimizing electricity costs while meeting customer comfort needs and minimizing transformer LoL to enhance operators assets. The results show that the electricity operation cost and demand peak are reduced by 31% and 18%, respectively, along with transformer LoL % which is reduced by 28% compared with the case when no DR was applied.Qatar Foundation; Qatar National Research FundScopu

Developing Educational Smart Grid Laboratory for the UAEU

The goal of this paper is to present the first stage of developing an educational laboratory to teach smart grid design and implementations for both under graduate and graduate levels. Hampden 180 simulator that represents conventional generation, transmission, and distribution power system is integrated with intelligent electronic devices and tied together in an architecture that provides reliable and fault-tolerant protection, control and monitoring. The upgraded laboratory will demonstrate high level of functionality and satisfying the design and operation objectives of smart grid metering, protection, control, monitoring and communication. Part 2 of this paper will discuss and present the implementation stage