A Scalable Architecture for Electronic Payments

We present a scalable architecture for electronic retail payments via central bank digital currency and offer a solution to the perceived conflict between robust regulatory oversight and consumer affordances such as privacy and control. Our architecture combines existing work in payment systems and digital currency with a new approach to digital asset design for managing unforgeable, stateful, and oblivious assets without relying on either a central authority or a monolithic consensus system. Regulated financial institutions have a role in every transaction, and the consumer affordances are achieved through the use of non-custodial wallets that unlink the sender from the recipient in the transaction channel. This approach is fully compatible with the existing two-tiered banking system and can complement and extend the roles of existing money services businesses and asset custodians.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures, 2 table

Smart Operations of Air-Conditioning and Lighting Systems in a Government Buildings for Peak Power Reduction

This paper presents the achievements of implementing smart operations strategies for air-conditioning (A/C) and lighting systems in Justice Palace Complex (JPC), Kuwait during the summer 2007. The peak load of this building was 3700 kW. The achievements are summarized as direct savings between 13:00 and 22:00 h by closing supply and return air fans of 52 air-handling units with a connected load 400 kW, and an additional saving of 550 kW during the same period by optimizing the cooling production and distribution. Also an all time saving of 22 kW by de-lamping, and additional saving of 27 kW through TDC of lighting were achieved. In conclusion project achieved an overall reduction in power demand of around 20% between 13:00 to 17:00 h and reduction ranging from 7% to 15% between 17:00 to 20:00 h

A Digital Currency Architecture for Privacy and Owner-Custodianship

Objective: to present the new approach to perform monetary transactions with digital currency.Methods: abstract-logical, analytical methods.Results: in recent years, electronic retail payment mechanisms, especially e-commerce and card payments at the point of sale, have increasingly replaced cash in many developed countries. As a result, societies are losing a critical public retail payment option, and retail consumers are losing important rights associated with using cash. To address this concern, we propose an approach to digital currency that would allow people without banking relationships to transact electronically and privately, including both e-commerce purchases and point-of-sale purchases that are required to be cashless.The article shows the advantages of cash payments compared to non-cash ones and defines the possibility to transform these advantages into the central bank digital currencies. The disputable issues of commercial banks development under the spread of digital currencies are discussed. The architecture of digital currencies is described, including distributed ledgers technology. It was shown that, for the digital currency to function effectively, it is necessary to include the privacy of end-users into its architecture; measures to achieve that are determined.Scientific novelty: the approached proposed in the article should be used to develop the digital currencies infrastructure. It should be government-backed, privately-operated and ensure that every transaction is registered by a bank or money services business, relying upon non-custodial wallets backed by privacy-enhancing technology, such as blind signatures or zero-knowledge proofs, to ensure that transaction counterparties are not revealed. This approach can also facilitate more efficient and transparent clearing, settlement, and management of systemic risk. We argue that our system can restore and preserve the salient features of cash, including privacy, owner-custodianship, fungibility, and accessibility, while also preserving fractional reserve banking and the existing two-tiered banking system.Practical significance: the proposed approach can be applied in the practical organization of perform monetary transactions using digital currencies.The article was first published in English language by Future Internet. For more information please contact the editorial office.For original publication: Goodell G., Al-Nakib H. D., Tasca P. A Digital Currency Architecture for Privacy and Owner-Custodianship, Future Internet, 2021, 13, 130. https://doi.org/10.3390/fi13050130Publication URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/13/5/13

Peak Power Reduction Strategies for the Lighting Systems in Government Buildings

Lighting systems are the second major contributor to the peak power demand and energy consumption in buildings after A/C systems. They account for nearly 20% of the peak power demand and 15% of the annual energy consumption. Thus energy efficient lighting systems and their smart operation can be very effective in reducing the national peak power and energy consumption, particularly for a country like Kuwait where power demand grew from 6750 MW in 2001 to 9075 MW in 2007 (MEW, 2002- 2008). This paper presents an approach developed to reduce the peak power demand in the lighting. The approach included optimum use of daylight, time of day control and delamping. The implementation of this approach for eight government buildings with occupancy of between 7:30 and 2:30 and peak power demand of 29.3 MW achieved a reduction of 2 MW in the peak power demand (around 7%). More importantly this 7% in peak load reduction and 10,628 MWh reduction in the annual energy consumption was achieved without any added cost. Also, the paper includes recommendations for retrofitting cost effective energy efficient lighting systems and implementation of more effective control

Implementation of Smart Operation Strategies for Air-Conditioning and Lighting Systems for Ministries Complex in the State of Kuwait

The smart operation strategies were implemented for Air-Conditioning (A/C) and lighting systems to reduce the national load at Ministries Complex (MC) in the state of Kuwait. The A/C system in MC is a district cooling system that comprises of 8 chillers with water-cooled condensers and four circuits of chilled water distribution with their independent pumps feeding to 184 air-handling units (AHUs), including 26 independent fresh air units. Total connected load of A/C systems is 8,867 kW, while fan motors of AHUs account for 2,390 kW. Lighting system in MC comprises mostly of energy efficient T12 fluorescent tubes and compact fluorescent lamps with a total connected load of 2,254 kW. Pre Closing Treatment (PCT) between 13:00 and 14:00 h, when the building was still occupied, was explored. Fresh-air AHUs were closed at 13:00 h instead of 14:30. Also, Time-of-Day Control (TDC) for AHUs and lighting systems along with the cooling production and cooling distribution systems was applied between 14:00 and 15:30 h, in line with the building occupancy for each building at MC. PCT and TDC schemes for chillers, AHUs and lighting systems were carried out through the Building Automation System (BAS). Implementation of the smart operation strategies for A/C and lighting systems was successful at MC. The temperature build up did not exceed 1°C during PCT scheme and the temperature did not exceed 28°C during TDC scheme. The savings in peak load demand were 610 kW between 13:00 and 14:00 h, 4,500 kW between 14:00 and 15:00 h, and 6,897 after 15:30 h. The reduction of 4,500 kW at 15:00 h is equivalent to $7.6 million towards constructing power plant and distribution network. Savings of 13,720 kWh in daily energy consumption was achieved due the implementation of the smart operation strategies. These savings led to a reduction of$1,500 per typical summer day of the MEW fuel bill and 8,918 kg/day of CO2 emissions. To make MC building more energy efficient, it is recommended to retrofit AHUs and secondary chilled water pumps with variable frequency drives (VFDs)

Smart Operations of Air-Conditioning and Lighting Systems in a Government Buildings for Peak Power Reduction

This paper presents the achievements of implementing smart operations strategies for air-conditioning (A/C) and lighting systems in Justice Palace Complex (JPC), Kuwait during the summer 2007. The peak load of this building was 3700 kW. The achievements are summarized as direct savings between 13:00 and 22:00 h by closing supply and return air fans of 52 air-handling units with a connected load 400 kW, and an additional saving of 550 kW during the same period by optimizing the cooling production and distribution. Also an all time saving of 22 kW by de-lamping, and additional saving of 27 kW through TDC of lighting were achieved. In conclusion project achieved an overall reduction in power demand of around 20% between 13:00 to 17:00 h and reduction ranging from 7% to 15% between 17:00 to 20:00 h

Smart Operations of Air-Conditioning and Lighting Systems in Government Buildings for Peak Power Reduction

During the summer 2007 smart operation strategies for air-conditioning (A/C) and lighting systems were developed and tested in a number of governmental buildings in Kuwait as one of the solutions to reduce the national peak demand for electrical power that commonly occur around 15:00 h. The working hours for these building are generally between 07:00 and 14:00 h and their peak demand exceeds 600 MW. The smart operation strategies implemented in these buildings included pre-closing treatment (PCT) between 13:00 and 14:00 h and time-of-day control (TDC) after 14:00 h. Also de-lamping was carried out in some of the buildings to readjust the higher than recommended illumination levels. This paper presents the achievements of implementing these smart operations strategies in Justice Palace Complex (JPC) as a case study. The peak load of this building was 3700 kW. The achievements are summarized as an all time saving of 22 kW by de-lamping, an additional saving of 27 kW through TDC of lighting, direct savings between 13:00 and 22:00 h by closing supply and return air fans of 52 air-handling units with a connected load 400 kW, and an additional saving of 550 kW during the same period by optimizing the cooling production and distribution. In conclusion project achieved an overall reduction in power demand of around 20% between 13:00 to 17:00 h and reduction ranging from 7% to 15% between 17:00 to 20:00 h

Implementation of Energy and Power Saving Scheme in The Avenues Mall

This paper presents the results on an energy audit and subsequent implementation of energy efficient operation and maintenance strategies between April 2008 and March 2009 in Phase 1 of the Avenues mall with total area of 170,000 m2. It has cooling production system with a capacity of 7200 RT and prior to energy audit, its peak power demand was close to 15 MW and annual energy consumption was 84000 MWh/y. Overall reductions of 9919 MWh/y in the annual energy consumption and 345 kW in peak power demand were achieved. The major contributors for the savings were time-of-day control for the air-handling units and lighting and optimization of chilled water flow. The project facilitated a benefit of 19838 KD/y to the Mabanee and company. More importantly, it achieved financial benefits to the Ministry of Electricity and Water of nearly 160,000 KD for reduction in power generation and transmission equipment cost and 372000 KD/y towards reduction in annual electricity subsidy in addition to an environmental benefit of reduction in CO2 emissions by 6940 t/y

Could Public Restrooms Be an Environment for Bacterial Resistomes?

PMCID: PMC3547874This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited