Merchant Transmission Investment

We examine the performance attributes of a merchant transmission investment framework that relies on �market driven� transmission investment to provide the infrastructure to support competitive wholesale markets for electricity. Under a stringent set of assumptions, the merchant investment model appears to solve the natural monopoly problem and the associated need for regulating transmission companies traditionally associated with electric transmission networks. We expand the model to incorporate imperfection in wholesale electricity markets, lumpiness in transmission investment opportunities, stochastic attributes of transmission networks and associated property rights definition issues, the effects of the behaviour system operators and transmission owners on transmission capacity and reliability, co-ordination and bargaining considerations, forward contract, commitment and asset specificity issues. This significantly undermines the attractive properties of the merchant investment model. Relying primarily on a market driven investment framework to govern investment is likely to lead to inefficient investment decisions and undermine the performance of competitive markets

Extreme Star Formation

Extreme star formation includes star formation in starbursts and regions forming super star clusters. We survey the current problems in our understanding of the star formation process in starbursts and super star clusters - initial mass functions, cluster mass functions, star formation efficiencies, and radiative feedback into molecular clouds - that are critical to our understanding of the formation and survival of large star clusters, topics that will be the drivers of the observations of the next decade.Comment: appeared in "Astrophysics in the Next Decade: JWST and Concurrent Facilities", Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, 2009, ed. H. A. Thronson, M. Stiavelli, and A. G. G. M. Tielens, proceedings of the conference, Astrophysics in the Next Decade, 24-27 September 2007, Tucson, A

Preparation of organic hydrazides

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityDue to the actual high price of hydrazine, this chemical cannot be used in an economical preparation of organic hydrazides. A synthesis of such hydrazides can be envisaged by the reduction of N-nitroamides. The problem is then to find a set of conditions under which no hydrogenolysis of the nitrogen-nitrogen bond occurs. This had been done with N-nitrocarbamates and it was hoped that the results could be extended to N-nitroamides: N-Nitro-N-methylamides were actually used in order to have a more stable N-nitro group. Dimethylation of the hydrazine could be performed either by acid hydrolysis of the addition product obtained with diethyl azodicarboxylate or by heating with pyridinium chloride. After failure to reduce p-N-dinitro-N-methylbenzamide to hydrazine, a new technique was experienced by which the amide was nitrated and reduced directly without isolation of the N-nitroamide. Preliminary results suggested that the electron shifting ability of the R group in molecules of the type R CO-N(NO2)CH3 is very important in their reduction to hydrazine. Several molecules were then reduced with different R. It was found that the yield of hydrazine increases with the electron repelling ability if R. A mechanism involving formation of an unstable platinum hydride is proposed for the reaction. A survery of the addition reactions of azodicarboxylic esters is given with the description of an attempt of "Azo reaction" between diethyl azodicarboxylate and p-N-dinitro-N-methylbenzamide

Limits To Certainty in QoS Pricing and Bandwidth

Advanced services require more reliable bandwidth than currently provided by the Internet Protocol, even with the reliability enhancements provided by TCP. More reliable bandwidth will be provided through QoS (quality of service), as currently discussed widely. Yet QoS has some implications beyond providing ubiquitous access to advance Internet service, which are of interest from a policy perspective. In particular, what are the implications for price of Internet services? Further, how will these changes impact demand and universal service for the Internet. This paper explores the relationship between certainty of bandwidth and certainty of price for Internet services over a statistically shared network and finds that these are mutually exclusive goals.Comment: 29th TPRC Conference, 200

Stochastic forward-backward and primal-dual approximation algorithms with application to online image restoration

Stochastic approximation techniques have been used in various contexts in data science. We propose a stochastic version of the forward-backward algorithm for minimizing the sum of two convex functions, one of which is not necessarily smooth. Our framework can handle stochastic approximations of the gradient of the smooth function and allows for stochastic errors in the evaluation of the proximity operator of the nonsmooth function. The almost sure convergence of the iterates generated by the algorithm to a minimizer is established under relatively mild assumptions. We also propose a stochastic version of a popular primal-dual proximal splitting algorithm, establish its convergence, and apply it to an online image restoration problem.Comment: 5 Figure

Refined masses and distance of the young binary Haro 1-14 C

We aim to refine the dynamical masses of the individual component of the low-mass pre-main sequence binary Haro 1-14 C. We combine the data of the preliminary orbit presented previously with new interferometric observations obtained with the four 8m telescopes of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer. The derived masses are M_a=0.905\pm0.043\,\Msun and M_b=0.308\pm0.011\,\Msun for the primary and secondary components, respectively. This is about five times better than the uncertainties of the preliminary orbit. Moreover, the possibility of larger masses is now securely discarded. The new dynamical distance, $d=96\pm\,9\,$pc, is smaller than the distance to the Ophiuchus core with a significance of $2.6\,\sigma$. Fitting the spectral energy distribution yields apparent diameters of \phi_a=0.13\pm0.01\mas and \phi_b=0.10\pm0.01\mas (corresponding to \Ra=1.50\,\Rsun and \Rb=1.13\,\Rsun) and a visual extinction of $A_v\approx1.75$. Although the revised orbit has a nearly edge-on geometry, the system is unlikely to be a long-period eclipsing binary. The secondary in Haro~1-14C is one of the few low-mass, pre-main sequence stars with an accurately determined dynamical mass and distance