Day-Ahead Solar Forecasting Based on Multi-level Solar Measurements

The growing proliferation in solar deployment, especially at distribution level, has made the case for power system operators to develop more accurate solar forecasting models. This paper proposes a solar photovoltaic (PV) generation forecasting model based on multi-level solar measurements and utilizing a nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input (NARX) model to improve the training and achieve better forecasts. The proposed model consists of four stages of data preparation, establishment of fitting model, model training, and forecasting. The model is tested under different weather conditions. Numerical simulations exhibit the acceptable performance of the model when compared to forecasting results obtained from two-level and single-level studies

Effect of Enzyme Concentration and Temperature on Viscosity and Betacyanin Content From Pitaya Waste Extract

As synthetic dye has shown up few hazards in contributing in food and textile industries, natural dye has gain its priority in those fields especially in textile sector. In this experiment, pitaya’s waste was selected as a source for natural dye. Thus, there is one obstacle that prevents the natural dye to fulfill the requirements needed in textile industries as the physical properties of the natural dye which is high in viscosity causing it not fasting on cloth which is believed, due to pectin content. In order to come over this problem, this research aim to reduce the viscosity of the natural dye using commercialize pectinase, in a small scale and study the effect of the enzyme concentration and temperature on the reduction of viscosity of the natural dye and also observe the difference in betacyanin content. This experiment was carried out by chemical and also by biological mechanism. Chemical mechanism refers to solvent extraction using water to extract the dye from the fruit, whereas, biological manner refers to usage of enzyme to reduce the viscosity of the natural dye. When enzyme concentration varies form 0.1 % to 5%, the viscosity reduced gradually until the enzyme concentration is 2.5% then the reduction is insignificant. Whereas, the temperature shown a similar result. The highest reduction in viscosity is when the reaction temperature is set at 50oC. It is because, when temperature increases, the rate of reaction will increase and at one point, the rate of reaction will decrease. It is because the enzymes will be denatured at high temperatures. From this research, it is recommended that further studies can be done to the pH and concentration of natural dye in order to obtain low viscosity and high betacyanin content

Unsupervised phytoplankton community detection and analysis of environmental and satellite parameters on each community

Marine dynamics largely affects the phytoplankton community com- position. The distribution characteristics of phytoplankton can reflect spatio-temporal variability in the marine ecosystem, on the other way around. In this work, we study the relation between remote sensing satellite observations, environmental factors and phytoplankton com- munities. First, we employ network-based unsupervised clustering approaches to identify representative communities using metabarcoding data that has been collected both across depth and surface. Next, we investigate the relation between the detected phytoplankton communities and the environmental parameters (e.g., temperature, salinity, nutrients and so on). Our results show that phytoplankton communities are segregated based on the depth and basin. Additionally, for communities where the majority of samples are gathered from the Atlantic ocean, the nutrient levels are much higher than other communities. To extend this analysis to other years, a scientific ship should collect water samples in different years. This would be very costly and even infeasible for many applications such as analyzing the seasonal changes in plankton communities. Therefore, in the second part of our work, we utilize the fact that the reflected light from the ocean's surface that is captured by a remote sensing satellite has a specific relationship with the plankton composition. To this end, we first cluster the samples that are collected at the surface of the ocean. Next, we apply several machine learning algorithms to classify these representative communities from satellite data. Our top performing classifier reached 0.94 accuracy in leave-one-out cross vali- dation setting. The results show three top important features in predict- ing communities are surface temperature, chlorophyll and particulate organic carbon

Biolistic Transformation of Selected Orchid Hybrids for Improved Shelf Life and Cloning of Partical ACC Oxidase Gene from Oncidium Gower Ramsey

The aim of the project was to lengthen the shelf life of orchid flowers to get superior quality flowers. The strategy used was by retarding the internal ethylene biosynthesis pathway through transferring the ACC oxidase gene in the reverse orientation (antisense) into the orchid cells of Dendrobium Savin White and Oncidium Gower Ramsey. This is complimented by isolation of ACC oxidase gene fragments from Oncidium for future genetic manipulation. A tissue culture system was established to provide plant materials for transformation work. Protocorm-like bodies (plbs) of Dendrobium and Oncidium were used to induce callus on half strength MS (Murashige and Skoog, 1962) medium. In Dendrobium, unwounded plbs or wounded plbs were tested to induce callus with Picloram (0, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 mg/L) in combination with Kinetin (0, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 mg/L). Oncidium callus was induced with Picloram (0, 12, 20, 30, 40, 50 mg/L) or 2,4 Diphenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) at concentrations of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 mg/L separately. The highest rate of Dendrobiurn callus (42%) was obtained using unwounded plbs with 0.9 mg/L Picloram combined with 0.8 mg/L Kinetin. Unwounded Dendrobium plbs produced the highest rate of callus (17%) with combinations of 0.8 mg/L Picloram and 0.7 mg/L Kinetin or 0.9 mg/L Picloram and 0.9 mg/L Kinetin. The most effective callus induction (43.3%) for Oncidium was obtained with 5mg/L of 2,4-D. Picloram at 50 mg/L had the highest rate of callus induction (36.7%). Histological observations revealed that callus cells were undifferentiated whereas plbs had distinctive meristematic areas. Regeneration of Dendrobium and Oncidium callus was successfully obtained. Before transformation, a protocol was established for the selection of putative transgenic cells using hygromycin. Optimization of particle bombardment parameters (helium gas pressure and target/macrocarrier distance) was done with GUS assay. Helium pressure of 1100 psi (7580 kPa) with platform levels 1,3 or 1,4 was found suitable. ACC oxidase antisense construct (pPhACOAS1) was used for transformation and after hygromycin selection; one transgenic line of Dendrobium was obtained and regenerated. Confirmation of the transformed "lines" was done by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and Southern Blot. wwwks.Jm- W Y 8 A ACC oxidase gene was isolated from pollinated Oncidium flowers. Physical changes during senescence of pollinated flowers were observed and ribonucleic acid (RNA) was isolated from various stages after pollination (0 hr, 18 hrs, 24 hrs, 36 hrs, 48 hrs, 72 hrs) and unpollinated flowers. ACC oxidase expression from the RNA samples was analyzed through Northern Blot and showed increased levels of expression over time. The Reverse- Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) technique was used to isolate ACC oxidase gene fragments from the RNA samples and was successfully amplified from three stages (unpollinated, 18 hours and 48 hours after pollination). The gene fragments were then cloned into vectors, sequenced and characterized. The nucleic sequence and deduced amino acid sequence obtained from the three different stages had high homology with other ACC oxidase sequences in the Genebank. The analysis of the positive clones obtained showed two versions of ACC oxidase sequences (OncACO1 and OncAC02) which were successfully isolated

The incidence of malignant infiltration in human osteosarcoma biopsy tract

Background: Osteosarcoma is the most common non-haemopoetic primary bone malignancy afflicting the young. Biopsy remains the gold standard in the confirmation of the diagnosis. The placement of the biopsy is of utmost importance as the tract is removed en bloc with the tumour during limb sparing surgery, with the assumption that it is contaminated by the tumour. Tissue conservation, to ensure adequate soft tissue cover, and preservation of function still remains a challenge for musculoskeletal oncology surgeons. This study aims to investigate the incidence of tumour infiltration in osteosarcoma biopsy tract, namely in the pseudocapsule, surrounding muscle, fascia, subcutaneous tissue and skin; in order to explore the margin of tumour infiltration for safe resection of the biopsy scar. Materials and methods: This is a prospective cross sectional study, carried out from May 2003 to March 2005 at Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kubang Kerian, Kelantan. A total of twenty six cases which had undergone either limb salvage surgery or amputation by the Orthopaedic Oncology and Reconstructive Unit, School of Medical Sciences, University Science Malaysia, with the histopathological diagnosis of osteosarcoma were collected. The biopsy tracts were submitted as a whole and examined histologically for tumour presence. Results: Of the 26 cases examined, twenty one cases (80.8%) did not show any tumour infiltration in the biopsy tract. One case (3.8%) had tumour infiltration in the pseudocapsule, two cases (7. 7%) had infiltration to the muscle and another two cases (7.7%) had infiltration up to the subcutaneous tissue. None had skin infiltration