Reduction of Real Power Loss and Safeguarding of Voltage Constancy by Artificial Immune System Algorithm

In this paper, Artificial Immune System (AIS) algorithm is used for solving reactive power problem. Artificial Immune System Algorithm, also termed as the machine learning approach to Artificial Intelligence, are powerful stochastic optimization techniques with potential features of random search, hill climbing, statistical sampling and competition. Artificial immune system algorithmic approach to power system optimization these ideas are embedded into proposed algorithm for solving reactive dispatch problem. In order to evaluate the proposed algorithm, it has been tested in standard IEEE 30,118 bus systems and compared to other specified algorithms. Simulation results show better performance of the proposed AIS algorithm in reducing the real power loss and preservation of voltage stability

Fluid queues driven by an M

In this paper, we consider fluid queue models with infinite buffer capacity which receives and releases fluid at variable rates in such a way that the net input rate of fluid into the buffer (which is negative when fluid is flowing out of the buffer) is uniquely determined by the number of customers in an M/M/1/N queue model (that is, the fluid queue is driven by this Markovian queue) with constant arrival and service rates. We use some interesting identities of tridiagonal determinants to find analytically the eigenvalues of the underlying tridiagonal matrix and hence the distribution function of the buffer occupancy. For specific cases, we verify the results available in the literature

An index based road feature extraction from LANDSAT-8 OLI images

Road feature extraction from the remote sensing images is an arduous task and has a significant role in various applications of urban planning, updating the maps, traffic management, etc. In this paper, a new band combination (B652) to form a road index (RI) from OLI multispectral bands based on the spectral reflectance of asphalt, is presented for road feature extraction. The B652 is converted to road index by normalization. The morphological operators (top-hat or bottom-hat) uses on RI to enhance the roads. To sharpen the edges and for better discrimination of features, shock square filter (SSF), is proposed. Then, an iterative adaptive threshold (IAT) based online search with variational min-max and Markov random fields (MRF) model are used on the SSF image to segment the roads and non-roads. The roads are extracting by using the rules based on the connected component analysis. IAT and MRF model segmentation methods prove the proposed index (RI) able to extract road features productively. The proposed methodology is a combination of saturation based adaptive thresholding and morphology (SATM), and saturation based MRF (SMRF), applied to OLI images of several urban cities of India, producing the satisfactory results. The experimental results with the quantitative analysis presented in the paper

Antimicrobial resistance and genotyping of Salmonella Typhimurium strains isolated from guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) from intensive production farms of the city of Lima, Peru

El objetivo del estudio fue caracterizar 20 cepas de Salmonella enterica a nivel molecular y de resistencia antimicrobiana. De estas, 15 fueron obtenidas de cuyes infectados y cinco de cuyes clínicamente sanos, procedentes de dos centros de producción intensiva ubicados en Lima, Perú. Mediante una técnica de PCR múltiple se detectaron los genes invA, prot6E y fliC, correspondientes al género Salmonella y serovares Enteritidis y Typhimurium, respectivamente. Se detectó la variabilidad genética mediante la técnica BOX-PCR utilizando el primer BOXA1R. La resistencia fue evaluada utilizando la técnica de Kirby Bauer en base a eritromicina, nitrofurantoína, estreptomicina, penicilina, enrofloxacina, fosfomicina, amoxicilina con ácido clavulánico, sulfatrimetoprim y ciprofloxacina. Se determinó la serovariedad Typhimurium en el 100% de los aislados. La evaluación de los perfiles electroforéticos obtenidos por la técnica de BOX-PCR demostró alta homogeneidad, con patrones de bandas de ADN similares. Se detectaron cepas resistentes a eritromicina 60% (12/20), nitrofurantoína 40% (8/20), estreptomicina 30% (6/ 20), penicilina 25% (5/20), y enrofloxacina 10% (2/20). La detección de cepas resistentes puede ocasionar problemas en el tratamiento de salmonelosis en cuyes y la presencia de un solo grupo genético sugiere una dispersión clonal.The aim of this study was to characterize 20 strains of Salmonella enterica at molecular level and antimicrobial resistance. Of these, 15 strains were obtained from infected guinea pigs and five from clinically healthy guinea pigs from two intensive production centers located in Lima, Peru. The invA, prot6E and fliC genes corresponding to the genus Salmonella and serovars Enteritidis and Typhimurium, respectively, were detected by a multiple PCR technique. Genetic variability was detected using the BOX-PCR technique using the first BOXA1R. Resistance was evaluated using the Kirby Bauer technique based on erythromycin, nitrofurantoin, streptomycin, penicillin, enrofloxacin, fosfomycin, amoxicillin with clavulanic acid, sulfatrimetoprim and ciprofloxacin. Serotype Typhimurium was determined in 100% of the isolates. The evaluation of the electrophoretic profiles obtained by the BOX-PCR technique demonstrated high homogeneity, with similar DNA bands patterns. Strains resistant to erythromycin 60% (12/20), nitrofurantoin 40% (8/20), streptomycin 30% (6/20), penicillin 25% (5/20), and enrofloxacin 10% (2/20) were detected. The detection of resistant strains may cause problems in the treatment of salmonellosis in guinea pigs and the presence of only a genetic group suggests a clonal dispersion

Prefigurative politics between ethical practice and absent promise

'Prefigurative politics' has become a popular term for social movements' ethos of unity between means and ends, but its conceptual genealogy has escaped attention. This article disentangles two components: an ethical revolutionary practice, chiefly indebted to the anarchist tradition, which fights domination while directly constructing alternatives; and prefiguration as a recursive temporal framing, unknowingly drawn from Christianity, in which a future radiates backwards on its past. Tracing prefiguration from the Church Fathers to politicised re-surfacings in the Diggers and the New Left, I associate it with Koselleck's 'process of reassurance' in a pre-ordained historical path. Contrasted to recursive prefiguration are the generative temporal framings couching defences of means-ends unity in the anarchist tradition. These emphasised the path dependency of revolutionary social transformation and the ethical underpinnings of anti-authoritarian politics. Misplaced recursive terminology, I argue, today conveniently distracts from the generative framing of means-ends unity, as the promise of revolution is replaced by that of environmental and industrial collapse. Instead of prefiguration, I suggest conceiving of means-ends unity in terms of Bloch's 'concrete utopia', and associating it with 'anxious' and 'catastrophic' forms of hope

Russia’s Legal Transitions: Marxist Theory, Neoclassical Economics and the Rule of Law

We review the role of economic theory in shaping the process of legal change in Russia during the two transitions it experienced during the course of the twentieth century: the transition to a socialist economy organised along the lines of state ownership of the means of production in the 1920s, and the transition to a market economy which occurred after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Despite differences in methodology and in policy implications, Marxist theory, dominant in the 1920s, and neoclassical economics, dominant in the 1990s, offered a similarly reductive account of law as subservient to wider economic forces. In both cases, the subordinate place accorded to law undermined the transition process. Although path dependence and history are frequently invoked to explain the limited development of the rule of law in Russia during the 1990s, policy choices driven by a deterministic conception of law and economics also played a role.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40803-015-0012-

Adaptive Multidimensional Modeling with Applications in Scientific Computing

No abstract availabl

Deafening silence? Marxism, international historical sociology and the spectre of Eurocentrism

Approaching the centenary of its establishment as a formal discipline, International Relations today challenges the ahistorical and aspatial frameworks advanced by the theories of earlier luminaries. Yet, despite a burgeoning body of literature built on the transdisciplinary efforts bridging International Relations and its long-separated nomothetic relatives, the new and emerging conceptual frameworks have not been able to effectively overcome the challenge posed by the ‘non-West’. The recent wave of international historical sociology has highlighted possible trajectories to problematise the myopic and unipolar conceptions of the international system; however, the question of Eurocentrism still lingers in the developing research programmes. This article interjects into the ongoing historical materialist debate in international historical sociology by: (1) conceptually and empirically challenging the rigid boundaries of the extant approaches; and (2) critically assessing the postulations of recent theorising on ‘the international’, capitalist states-system/geopolitics and uneven and combined development. While the significance of the present contributions in international historical sociology should not be understated, it is argued that the ‘Eurocentric cage’ still occupies a dominant ontological position which essentially silences ‘connected histories’ and conceals the role of inter-societal relations in the making of the modern states-system and capitalist geopolitics