Evaluating the New Greek Electricity Market Rules

The Greek Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE), in view of the initiation of the new wholesale electricity market on January 1st 2009 as a Day-Ahead mandatory pool, undertook the design and implementation of a simulator for the market. The simulator consists of several interacting modules representing all key market operations and dynamics including day-ahead scheduling, natural gas system constraints, unplanned variability of loads and available capacity driven either by uncertain stochastic outcomes or deliberate participant schedule deviations, real time dispatch, and financial settlement of day ahead and real-time schedule differences. The modules are integrated into one software package. The intended use of the simulator is to elaborate on and allow RAE to investigate the impact of participant decision strategies on market outcomes. The ultimate purpose is to evaluate the effectiveness of Market Rules, whether existing or contemplated, in providing incentives for competitive behaviour and in discouraging gaming and market manipulation. In this paper the simulator is used to analyze market design aspects and rules concerning the co-optimization of energy and reserves in the Day-Ahead energy market and the efficiency of the imbalance settlement procedure compared to real-time pricing.Electricity Market Design; Market Simulation; Regulation; Unit Commitment

Impact of Reserve and Fixed Costs on the Day-Ahead Scheduling Problem in Greece’s Electricity Market

We sketch the main aspects of Greece’s electricity system from a market-based point of view. First, we provide data concerning the mix of generating units, the system load and the frequency-related ancillary services. Then, we formulate a simplified model of Greece’s Day-Ahead Scheduling (DAS) problem that constitutes the basis for our analysis. We examine various cases concerning the format of the objective function as well as the pricing and compensation schemes. An illustrative example is used to indicate the impact of reserve and fixed (start-up, shut-down, and minimum-load) costs on the resulting dispatching of units and on clearing prices, under the different cases. Our analysis aims at unveiling the impact of cost components other than energy offers on the DAS problem, and provide the grounds for future research on the design of the electricity market.Electricity Market, Day-Ahead Scheduling

Genetically modified maize: exploring consumer acceptance

Recent EU regulations have imposed mandatory labelling of all food products that consist of or contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Labelling should state that "this product contains genetically modified organisms". This study examines how different label messages may affect the attitude of consumers in tasting a specific food product (corn chip) derived from maize presented with five different labels ("organic corn", "conventional corn", "product that contains genetically modified corn", "product that contains genetically modified corn approved by EU", "non- classified corn"). Results of 100 Greek young students show that the label claiming that the product contains genetically modified corn, evokes a deeply rooted negative attitude as more than half of participants (59%) refused to taste even a single piece of the product. The label claiming that the product is genetically modified but approved by EU is viewed as more credible but still 29% refuse to sample. The conclusion is that although the feeling of trust increases considerably when the label message is supported by a certifying agency, still a large proportion (almost one third) of participants of technological level education refuse to taste a product that has been approved by the EU for almost a decade. This result demonstrates with an emphatic way the phobia surrounding genetically modified food. On the contrary, products labelled as "organic" were tasted by the majority of participants, even without any kind of certification. Key words : Genetically modified maize, labelling, acceptanceConsumer/Household Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Evaluating the New Greek Electricity Market Rules

The Greek Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE), in view of the initiation of the new wholesale electricity market on January 1st 2009 as a Day-Ahead mandatory pool, undertook the design and implementation of a simulator for the market. The simulator consists of several interacting modules representing all key market operations and dynamics including day-ahead scheduling, natural gas system constraints, unplanned variability of loads and available capacity driven either by uncertain stochastic outcomes or deliberate participant schedule deviations, real time dispatch, and financial settlement of day ahead and real-time schedule differences. The modules are integrated into one software package. The intended use of the simulator is to elaborate on and allow RAE to investigate the impact of participant decision strategies on market outcomes. The ultimate purpose is to evaluate the effectiveness of Market Rules, whether existing or contemplated, in providing incentives for competitive behaviour and in discouraging gaming and market manipulation. In this paper the simulator is used to analyze market design aspects and rules concerning the co-optimization of energy and reserves in the Day-Ahead energy market and the efficiency of the imbalance settlement procedure compared to real-time pricing

Evaluating the New Greek Electricity Market Rules

The Greek Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE), in view of the initiation of the new wholesale electricity market on January 1st 2009 as a Day-Ahead mandatory pool, undertook the design and implementation of a simulator for the market. The simulator consists of several interacting modules representing all key market operations and dynamics including day-ahead scheduling, natural gas system constraints, unplanned variability of loads and available capacity driven either by uncertain stochastic outcomes or deliberate participant schedule deviations, real time dispatch, and financial settlement of day ahead and real-time schedule differences. The modules are integrated into one software package. The intended use of the simulator is to elaborate on and allow RAE to investigate the impact of participant decision strategies on market outcomes. The ultimate purpose is to evaluate the effectiveness of Market Rules, whether existing or contemplated, in providing incentives for competitive behaviour and in discouraging gaming and market manipulation. In this paper the simulator is used to analyze market design aspects and rules concerning the co-optimization of energy and reserves in the Day-Ahead energy market and the efficiency of the imbalance settlement procedure compared to real-time pricing

Impact of Reserve and Fixed Costs on the Day-Ahead Scheduling Problem in Greece’s Electricity Market

We sketch the main aspects of Greece’s electricity system from a market-based point of view. First, we provide data concerning the mix of generating units, the system load and the frequency-related ancillary services. Then, we formulate a simplified model of Greece’s Day-Ahead Scheduling (DAS) problem that constitutes the basis for our analysis. We examine various cases concerning the format of the objective function as well as the pricing and compensation schemes. An illustrative example is used to indicate the impact of reserve and fixed (start-up, shut-down, and minimum-load) costs on the resulting dispatching of units and on clearing prices, under the different cases. Our analysis aims at unveiling the impact of cost components other than energy offers on the DAS problem, and provide the grounds for future research on the design of the electricity market

Validation of Neural Network Predictions for the Outcome of Refractive Surgery for Myopia

Background: Refractive surgery (RS) for myopia has made a very big progress regarding its safety and predictability of the outcome. Still, a small percentage of operations require retreatment. Therefore, both legally and ethically, patients should be informed that sometimes a corrective RS may be required. We addressed this issue using Neural Networks (NN) in RS for myopia. This was a recently developed validation study of a NN.  Methods: We anonymously searched the Ophthalmica Institute of Ophthalmology and Microsurgery database for patients who underwent RS with PRK, LASEK, Epi-LASIK or LASIK between 2010 and 2018. We used a total of 13 factors related to RS. Data was divided into four sets of successful RS outcomes used for training the NN, successful RS outcomes used for testing the NN performance, RS outcomes that required retreatment used for training the NN and RS outcomes that required retreatment used for testing the NN performance. We created eight independent Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ) networks, each one responding to a specific query with 0 (for the retreat class) or 1 (for the correct class). The results of the 8 LVQs were then averaged so we could obtain a best estimate of the NN performance. Finally, a voting procedure was used to reach to a conclusion. Results: There was a statistically significant agreement (Cohen’s Kappa = 0.7658) between the predicted and the actual results regarding the need for retreatment. Our predictions had good sensitivity (0.8836) and specificity (0.9186). Conclusion: We validated our previously published results and confirmed our expectations for the NN we developed. Our results allow us to be optimistic about the future of NNs in predicting the outcome and, eventually, in planning RS

A Novel Role of Peripheral Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone (CRH) on Dermal Fibroblasts

Corticotropin-releasing hormone, or factor, (CRH or CRF) exerts important biological effects in multiple peripheral tissues via paracrine/autocrine actions. The aim of our study was to assess the effects of endogenous CRH in the biology of mouse and human skin fibroblasts, the primary cell type involved in wound healing. We show expression of CRH and its receptors in primary fibroblasts, and we demonstrate the functionality of fibroblast CRH receptors by induction of cAMP. Fibroblasts genetically deficient in Crh (Crh−/−) had higher proliferation and migration rates and compromised production of IL-6 and TGF-β1 compared to the wildtype (Crh+/+) cells. Human primary cultures of foreskin fibroblasts exposed to the CRF1 antagonist antalarmin recapitulated the findings in the Crh−/− cells, exhibiting altered proliferative and migratory behavior and suppressed production of IL-6. In conclusion, our findings show an important role of fibroblast-expressed CRH in the proliferation, migration, and cytokine production of these cells, processes associated with the skin response to injury. Our data suggest that the immunomodulatory effects of CRH may include an important, albeit not explored yet, role in epidermal tissue remodeling and regeneration and maintenance of tissue homeostasis

The Presence of 2 Proteinases Associated with the Cell-Wall of Lactobacillus-Bulgaricus

Journal URL: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118512081/hom