17,494 research outputs found
Demonstrating demand response from water distribution system through pump scheduling
Significant changes in the power generation mix are posing new challenges for the balancing systems of the grid. Many of these challenges are in the secondary electricity grid regulation services and could be met through demand response (DR) services. We explore the opportunities for a water distribution system (WDS) to provide balancing services with demand response through pump scheduling and evaluate the associated benefits. Using a benchmark network and demand response mechanisms available in the UK, these benefits are assessed in terms of reduced green house gas (GHG) emissions from the grid due to the displacement of more polluting power sources and additional revenues for water utilities. The optimal pump scheduling problem is formulated as a mixed-integer optimisation problem and solved using a branch and bound algorithm. This new formulation finds the optimal level of power capacity to commit to the provision of demand response for a range of reserve energy provision and frequency response schemes offered in the UK. For the first time we show that DR from WDS can offer financial benefits to WDS operators while providing response energy to the grid with less greenhouse gas emissions than competing reserve energy technologies. Using a Monte Carlo simulation based on data from 2014, we demonstrate that the cost of providing the storage energy is less than the financial compensation available for the equivalent energy supply. The GHG emissions from the demand response provision from a WDS are also shown to be smaller than those of contemporary competing technologies such as open cycle gas turbines. The demand response services considered vary in their response time and duration as well as commitment requirements. The financial viability of a demand response service committed continuously is shown to be strongly dependent on the utilisation of the pumps and the electricity tariffs used by water utilities. Through the analysis of range of water demand scenarios and financial incentives using real market data, we demonstrate how a WDS can participate in a demand response scheme and generate financial gains and environmental benefits
Approximation of System Components for Pump Scheduling Optimisation
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.The operation of pump systems in water distribution systems (WDS) is commonly the most expensive task for utilities with up to 70% of the operating cost of a pump system attributed to electricity consumption. Optimisation of pump scheduling could save 10-20% by improving efficiency or shifting consumption to periods with low tariffs. Due to the complexity of the optimal control problem, heuristic methods which cannot guarantee optimality are often applied. To facilitate the use of mathematical optimisation this paper investigates formulations of WDS components. We show that linear approximations outperform non-linear approximations, while maintaining comparable levels of accuracy
Transit Node Routing Reconsidered
Transit Node Routing (TNR) is a fast and exact distance oracle for road
networks. We show several new results for TNR. First, we give a surprisingly
simple implementation fully based on Contraction Hierarchies that speeds up
preprocessing by an order of magnitude approaching the time for just finding a
CH (which alone has two orders of magnitude larger query time). We also develop
a very effective purely graph theoretical locality filter without any
compromise in query times. Finally, we show that a specialization to the online
many-to-one (or one-to-many) shortest path further speeds up query time by an
order of magnitude. This variant even has better query time than the fastest
known previous methods which need much more space.Comment: 19 pages, submitted to SEA'201
Constraints on Off-Axis X-Ray Emission from Beamed GRBs
We calculate the prompt x-ray emission as a function of viewing angle for
beamed Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) sources. Prompt x-rays are inevitable due to the
less highly blueshifted photons emitted at angles greater than 1/gamma relative
to the beam symmetry axis, where gamma is the expansion Lorentz factor. The
observed flux depends on the combinations (gamma Delta theta) and (gamma
theta_v), where (Delta theta) is the beaming angle and theta_v is the viewing
angle. We use the observed source counts of gamma-ray-selected GRBs to predict
the minimum detection rate of prompt x-ray bursts as a function of limiting
sensitivity. We compare our predictions with the results from the Ariel V
catalog of fast x-ray transients, and find that Ariel's sensitivity is not
great enough to place significant constraints on gamma and (Delta theta). We
estimate that a detector with fluence limit ~10^{-7} erg/cm^2 in the 2-10 keV
channel will be necessary to distinguish between geometries. Because the x-ray
emission is simultaneous with the GRB emission, our predicted constraints do
not involve any model assumptions about the emission physics but simply follow
from special-relativistic considerations.Comment: Submitted to Ap
Universal Local symmetries and non-superposition in classical mechanics
In the Hilbert space formulation of classical mechanics (CM), pioneered by
Koopman and von Neumann (KvN), there are potentially more observables that in
the standard approach to CM. In this paper we show that actually many of those
extra observables are not invariant under a set of universal local symmetries
which appear once the KvN is extended to include the evolution of differential
forms. Because of their non-invariance, those extra observables have to be
removed. This removal makes the superposition of states in KvN, and as a
consequence also in CM, impossible
Description of Atmospheric Conditions at the Pierre Auger Observatory Using Meteorological Measurements and Models
Atmospheric conditions at the site of a cosmic ray observatory must be known
well for reconstructing observed extensive air showers, especially when
measured using the fluorescence technique. For the Pierre Auger Observatory, a
sophisticated network of atmospheric monitoring devices has been conceived.
Part of this monitoring was a weather balloon program to measure atmospheric
state variables above the Observatory. To use the data in reconstructions of
air showers, monthly models have been constructed. Scheduled balloon launches
were abandoned and replaced with launches triggered by high-energetic air
showers as part of a rapid monitoring system. Currently, the balloon launch
program is halted and atmospheric data from numerical weather prediction models
are used. A description of the balloon measurements, the monthly models as well
as the data from the numerical weather prediction are presented
The Role of Perceived Uncertainty, Ego Identity, and Perceived Behavioral Control in Predicting Patient's Attitude Toward Medical Surgery
Medical surgery has sometimes become the only best choice for a patient's well-being. Unfortunately, not all patients have the willingness to live it. Often, therapeutic failure is caused by uncooperative attitudes of the patients which originate from their negative attitudes toward the surgery. This research is aimed at finding a theoretical model to explain psychological factors forming the patient's attitudes. This predictive correlational research was conducted on 99 patients suffering heart disease and cancer continuum who require medical surgery in DKI Jakarta, Indonesia. Research results showed that a commitment aspect of ego identity is able to indirectly predict attitude toward medical surgery through mediation of perceived uncertainty. Perceived behavioral control directly predicts the attitude in a negative direction. This research concludes that patients' commitment towards their identity plays a significant role as they deal with medical surgery
Constraining the unexplored period between reionization and the dark ages with observations of the global 21 cm signal
Observations of the frequency dependence of the global brightness temperature
of the redshifted 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen may be possible with single
dipole experiments. In this paper, we develop a Fisher matrix formalism for
calculating the sensitivity of such instruments to the 21 cm signal from
reionization and the dark ages. We show that rapid reionization histories with
duration delta z< 2 can be constrained, provided that local foregrounds can be
well modelled by low order polynomials. It is then shown that observations in
the range nu = 50 - 100 MHz can feasibly constrain the Lyman alpha and X-ray
emissivity of the first stars forming at z = 15 - 25, provided that systematic
temperature residuals can be controlled to less than 1 mK. Finally, we
demonstrate the difficulty of detecting the 21 cm signal from the dark ages
before star formation.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figures, submitted to PR
Counts and Sizes of Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field - South: Implications for the Next Generation Space Telescope
Science objectives for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) include a
large component of galaxy surveys, both imaging and spectroscopy. The Hubble
Deep Field datasets include the deepest observations ever made in the
ultraviolet, optical and near infrared, reaching depths comparable to that
expected for NGST spectroscopy. We present the source counts, galaxy sizes and
isophotal filling factors of the HDF-South images. The observed integrated
galaxy counts reach >500 galaxies per square arcminute at AB<30. We extend
these counts to faint levels in the infrared using models. The trend previously
seen that fainter galaxies are smaller, continues to AB=29 in the high
resolution HDF-S STIS image, where galaxies have a typical half-light radius of
0.1 arcseconds. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations show that the small measured
sizes are not due to selection effects until >29mag. Using the HDF-S NICMOS
image, we show that galaxies are smaller in the near infrared than they are in
the optical. We analyze the isophotal filling factor of the HDF-S STIS image,
and show that this image is mostly empty sky even at the limits of galaxy
detection, a conclusion we expect to hold true for NGST spectroscopy. At the
surface brightness limits expected for NGST imaging, however, about a quarter
of the sky is occupied by the outer isophotes of AB<30 galaxies. We discuss the
implications of these data on several design concepts of the NGST near-infrared
spectrograph. We compare the effects of resolution and the confusion limit of
various designs, as well as the multiplexing advantages of either multi-object
or full-field spectroscopy. We argue that the optimal choice for NGST
spectroscopy of high redshift galaxies is a multi-object spectrograph (MOS)
with target selection by a micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) device.Comment: 27 pages including 10 figures, accepted for publication in the
Astronomical Journal, June 2000, abridged abstrac
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