Intelligent renewable energy storage and management system for rural household

The battery in conventional standalone photovoltaic (PV) system frequently undergoes deep cycles and irregular charging patterns, which can significantly reduce the battery lifetime and increase the replacement cost of the system. Battery-Supercapacitor Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS) is the most promising solution to prolong the lifespan of the battery. The control strategy is implemented to distribute the resources of the HESS based on the real-time operating conditions. Despite the intelligent control strategy, such as Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC), is more effective than the classical control strategies, there is limited studies on intelligent control strategy that is optimized based on predicted power demand. Also, it is challenging to integrate the intelligent control strategy with high computation complexity into an actual system with commercial non-programmable charge controller. Therefore, two intelligent control strategies, namely Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) optimized FLC (PSO-optimized FLC) and PSO-optimized Power Distribution Algorithm (PSO-PDA), are proposed to prolong the battery lifespan in a standalone PV system with Battery-Supercapacitor HESS. The objectives of this research work are the development of prediction models for very short term prediction of power demand using basic features, the development of PSO-optimized FLC and PSO-PDA, as well as the implementation of PSO-PDA in actual standalone PV system with Battery-Supercapacitor HESS. The PSO-optimized FLC is novel in terms of its structure as a moving average filter is used to first extract the high frequency power from the power demand then subsequently a FLC decides the sharing ratio of the supercapacitor and the battery. The membership functions of the FLC are optimized using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) based on predicted power demand to reduce the battery peak power. It outperforms conventional systems in terms of battery lifetime improvement (12.81 %) and peak power reduction (64.26 %). However, this system is impractical for real-life implementation as optimizing the membership functions requires high optimization complexity. An alternative novel control strategy, PSO-PDA, is developed to achieve the research aim. The parameters of power distribution algorithm are optimized every minute based on predicted h-mins (h=30, h=60, and h=90) ahead power demand and state-of-charge of the supercapacitor to mitigate peak demand in battery power. With short optimization interval, it can compensate for the prediction error of power demand from basic prediction models and adapt to the varying power demand. The PSO-PDA outperforms the PSO-optimized FLC, in term of battery lifetime improvement (up to 22 %) and battery peak demand reduction (up to 57 %) and requires significantly shorter optimization time per optimization (not more than 20.647 s) than PSO-optimized FLC. Moreover, the PSO-PDA requires only one day of pre-training to be fully implemented in an actual 2-kW rated standalone PV system with Battery-Supercapacitor HESS. Also, it can be tuned to work with the commercial non-programmable charge controller. The experimental results show that the PSO-PDA can improve the battery lifetime by 16.50 % and reduce the battery peak power by 58.58 %. Moreover, the experimental results are compared with simulation results where the findings highlight that the results of the Simulink model only overestimate the battery lifetime improvement by 7.66 %

Adaptive circular enclosure colour distribution geometrical model utilizing point-in-polygon for segregation between lips and skin pixels

This paper is inspired from various boundary determination techniques which are used for segregating colours between background, skin and lips. Basic concept for this technique is based on colour segmentation with CIELAB colourspace utilized for justifiable reasons. Using LAB colour-space, lips colours were compiled into a colour-map and processed accordingly to our proposed algorithm of adaptive circular enclosure. Algorithm output was determined as a series of coordinates symbolizing boundary values surrounding colourmap. Separation of colours is based on these boundaries by creating a freeform polygon that defines if colour-value either belongs within colour-boundary polygon or not. This technique is famously known as the point in-polygon technique. Proposed technique evaluation uses XM2VTS database based on false positive and false-negative to compute segmentation error. Simulation shows proposed algorithm yields segmented error of 5.55% with accuracy of 94.45%

The Future of Malaysia Trade in One Belt One Road

The One Belt and One Road Initiative (OBOR) will open up more trade opportunities for Malaysia due to the two trade routes, namely, the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the seagoing 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. This paper empirically examines the short-term and long-term relationship between Malaysias trade balance, real exchange rates (RER), industry production index (IPI), Malaysias consumer price index (MCPI) and Chinas consumer price index (CCPI) for the period January 2000 to September 2017. The Malaysias trade balance is regarded as an explained variable while the MYR-RMB, IPI, MCPI and CCPI will be regarded as explanatory variables. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration test is employed to estimate the long-run relationship between China and Malaysia. Then the Error-Correction model and the error correction term would explain the speed of adjustment in restoring equilibrium in the dynamic model referred to in this paper. The finding shows that the exports in Malaysia would benefit from the real appreciation of MYR and Chinas inflation. The OBOR will open up more opportunities for Malaysia to generate trade mainly because it involves the belt and the maritime but diplomatic relationship and export constructive policy also important to improve Malaysia trade balance with Chin

Ternary copper(II)-polypyridyl enantiomers: aldol-type condensation, characterization, DNA-binding recognition, BSA-binding and anticancer property

Chiral enantiomers [Cu(phen)(l-threo)(H2O)]NO31 and [Cu(phen)(d-threo)(H2O)]NO32 (threo = threoninate) underwent aldol-type condensation with formaldehyde, with retention of chirality, to yield their respective enantiomeric ternary copper(ii) complexes, viz.l- and d-[Cu(phen)(5MeOCA)(H2O)]NO3·xH 2O (3 and 4; phen = 1,10-phenanthroline; 5MeOCA = 5-methyloxazolidine-4-carboxylate; x = 0-3) respectively. These chiral complexes were characterized by FTIR, elemental analysis, circular dichroism, UV-Visible spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy (FL), molar conductivity measurement, ESI-MS and X-ray crystallography. Analysis of restriction enzyme inhibition by these four complexes revealed modulation of DNA binding selectivity by the type of ligand, ligand modification and chirality. Their interaction with bovine serum albumin was investigated by FL and electronic spectroscopy. With the aid of the crystal structure of BSA, spectroscopic evidence suggested their binding at the cavity containing Trp134 with numerous Tyr residues in subdomain IA. The products were more antiproliferative than cisplatin against cancer cell lines HK-1, MCF-7, HCT116, HSC-2 and C666-1 except HL-60, and were selective towards nasopharyngeal cancer HK-1 cells over normal NP69 cells of the same organ type

Moment-To-moment affective dynamics in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Background: Affective disturbances in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may represent a transdiagnostic etiological process as well as a target of intervention. Hypotheses on similarities and differences in various parameters of affective dynamics (intensity, successive/acute changes, variability, and reactivity to stress) between the two disorders were tested.Methods: Experience sampling method was used to assess dynamics of positive and negative affect, 10 times a day over 6 consecutive days. Patients with schizophrenia (n = 46) and patients with bipolar disorder (n = 46) were compared against age-matched healthy controls (n = 46).Results: Compared to controls, the schizophrenia group had significantly more intense momentary negative affect, a lower likelihood of acute changes in positive affect, and reduced within-person variability of positive affect. The bipolar disorder group was not significantly different from either the schizophrenia group or the healthy control group on any affect indexes. Within the schizophrenia group, level of depression was associated with weaker reactivity to stress for negative affect. Within the bipolar disorder group, level of depression was associated with lower positive affect.Conclusions: Patients with schizophrenia endured a more stable and negative affective state than healthy individuals, and were less likely to be uplifted in response to happenings in daily life. There is little evidence that these affective constructs characterize the psychopathology of bipolar disorder; such investigation may have been limited by the heterogeneity within group. Our findings supported the clinical importance of assessing multiple facets of affective dynamics beyond the mean levels of intensity.</p