Aggregation of Heterogeneous Flexibility Resources Providing Services for System Operators and the Market Participants

Power systems characterized by large, centralized generation sources and the typical flow of energy from the transmission grid to the distribution grid towards consumers are evolving. The increasing penetration of intermittent and distributed renewable energy generation is forcing system operators to increase the volume of balancing capabilities and procure flexibility services at the distribution grid level that must be supported by the aggregation of small-scale resources connected at the distribution grid. This paper suggests an aggregator framework that provides services for both operators of transmission and distribution systems while optimizes its portfolio to perform on wholesale energy trading markets too. Overlaying phases of multi-period optimization runs are proposed that incorporate stochastic renewable energy generation as well as load forecasts and, moreover, the continuously changing business context while enabling cooperation between optimization phases throughout the business process

Economic spatial modeling of Eger and Miskolc on maps with different GIS methods

In this study we did the economic spatial modeling of the cities of Eger and Miskolc on maps with different GIS methods. The aim was to produce maps that accurately display the nodes and the operating time interval of companies in different national economic sectors within a given city. The geo-referencing of the available settlement planning maps was necessary for the city of Miskolc. Both GIS and enterprise database building are required to produce the aforementioned results, for which we have used various software and methods

Fornication and adultery in the city of Debrecen (1547–1625) compared with the morality of Geneva

To be sure, the more productive field of the international research on Protestantism is related to the subject of social history. In the case of the Calvin studies, for instance, readers will see, much has been written about the operation of the Genevan civil-church administration, consistorial discipline, sexual sins, and family-marital life. Their authors’ outstanding effort was to consult with the original manuscripts of the Genevan Archives. However, the early generations of Protestant preachers not only in Western, but in Central East Europe were trying to commit everything to renew the public morality of people, still the illumination of the Hungarian pastors’ views on the new spiritual and religious dimensions of family life, is still a neglected part of the research. Consequently, it would be interesting to scrutinize, for instance, the public morality related to the sexual crimes of local townsfolk of the city of Debrecen which apparently was the center of the Hungarian Reformation since 1562/63. Doing so, the present research deals with the operation of the law court, the number of cases, the crimes, and motives represented in the Registers of the Magistracy of Debrecen during the period of 1547–1625. Figures and statistics presented by the article point out how important was the practice of forgiveness in the religious life in Debrecen. It is taken for granted that the main results of the study permit to take a brief comparison of the sexual morality of the two Calvinist towns, namely: Debrecen and Geneva. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article is based on the field of systematic theology. The study offers an attempt to understand sexual sins/crimes in their 16th and 17th century theological, judicial, and historical context

Assessment Matrix Based Evaluation of Ecosystem Services in Relation to Land Use Change Scenarios

The ecosystem services are natural assets and services, which are used by humans directly or indirectly over their respective lifetimes (MEA, 2005). Several authors and organizations describe these goods of nature in different ways. Some authors use ecological concepts as the basis for categorization (Norberg, 1999), others concentrate on different human needs (Wallace, 2007), however the most common categories are based on some functional distinction (MEA, 2005; de Groot, 2006; Hein et al., 2006). Authors representing this latter group usually mention the following classification: provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural services. The provisioning services like water, wood or timber are used directly by people. The regulating services are climate regulation, water purification and other similar processes. The cultural services are for example education, recreation potential and spiritual inspiration. The supporting services ensure the clear functioning of the three groups, for example soil formation and photosynthesis (MEA, 2005). The methodology of valuing ecosystem services is an effective decision support tool, because this highlights the natural, social and economic values of the goods and services of the living system for decision-making and planning. Despite the availability of a wide range of valuation methods (Chen et al., 2009; Kiss et al., 2012), there are still unresolved issues (de Groot et al., 2010). Its important elements are revealing the spatial characterization and the dynamics of the landscape and ecosystem services, for which there are effective methods among the dynamically developing GIS analysis tools. This usually does not create a comprehensive inventory of all the ecosystem services, but analysis several selected services in detail, primarily in context with the potentials and land use changes (Willemen et al., 2008). One of the most promising methods of ecosystem services valuation is the assessment matrix, a great advantage of the method is that it can be aggregated at the landscape-level (Burkhard et al., 2009). The major account of the processing and analysis of the historical maps is that allows of understanding of the past human land use, the long-term landscape changes and the dynamics of the landscape. The knowledge of the past also contributes to the exploration of the main driving forces and use them to anticipate the future changes (Swetnam et al., 2011). Modeling of future land use change is proved to be a very efficient method among many types of landscape change analysis (Pontius et al., 2001; Goldstein et al., 2004; Kline et al., 2007), and a frequent tool in climate change analysis (IPCC, 2007), land use planning (Xiang & Clarke, 2003), conservation planning (Osvaldo et al., 2000) and recently it has been increasingly used in the assessment of the ecosystem services (MEA, 2005). The evaluation of the ecosystem services and the modeling of the future land use changes have an increasing role in regional politics. The consistency between these two topics would be a very important step forward (Estoque et al., 2012). In this study we describe an assessment framework of ecosystem services analysis in a pilot area of Southwest-Hungary called Nagyberek, used to be the largest swampy bay of Lake Balaton. The method using GIS analysis of historic maps and recent land cover dataset explores the main land use types. It concentrates also on those driving forces which are directly influenced by the land use of the area. We plan three future land use scenarios based on the main driving forces, with the help of the CLUE-S (Verburg et al., 2002), the integrated land use modeling tool. We select and assess a certain part of the ecosystem services according to the Burkhard’s study (2009), their trends, with the help of the assessment matrix

Comparison of static and fatigue interlaminar testing methods for continuous fiber reinforced polymer composites

reinforced epoxy (CF/EP) composite and a carbon fiber/multiwalled carbon nanotube reinforced epoxy (CF/MWCNT/EP) hybrid nanocomposite. The first, conventional fatigue testing method was the endnotched flexure (ENF) test, which was used as a reference. The second, novel technique was the fatigue interpretation of the double-notch shear (DNS) test. Both tests have been performed with static and cyclic loading to compare the evaluated properties of the different systems, the effect of transition from cyclic to fatigue loading and to demonstrate if the complex ENF test can be replaced by the simpler DNS test. The test results showed the slight beneficial effect of the nanoreinforcement in both static and cyclic load conditions, and the possibility to use the DNS test for fatigue testing of continuous fiber reinforced composites. The SEM micrographs taken of the fracture surfaces of the composites after the different interlaminar tests provide valuable data on the interlaminar failure phenomena of hybrid nanocomposites in both static and fatigue loading conditions

Examination of different grain hardness varieties of the grinding technology properties of wheat

In the mill industry, the purpose of the grinding technology is to separate wheat endospermium and shell and to recover grists. The most important and the highest energy requirement operation is shredding. Flour quantity and quality produced from wheat depends on the variety of wheat that will be shredded, the type of grinding equipment and the condition used before the grinding. For this reason, during my experiments, I ground two grain structured varieties of wheat in laboratory conditions using a disk grinder, stone grinder and roll grinder in air-dry and conditioned states. We measured the equipment’s performance and the produced grist’s particle size distribution, followed by the calculation of the energy requirements of the grinders. In the grinding experiments we compared the ash contents of the different particle sized grist’s fractions to map the wheat’s particular properties