Power plant preventive maintenance scheduling problem: a 0/1 mixed integer linear programming approach based on cost and reliability to establish an effective policy

The problem addressed is the Power Plant Preventive Maintenance Scheduling. The problem is taken from the power industry and it requires determining the perioThis paper addresses the Power Plant Preventive Maintenance Scheduling Problem. The problem is taken from the power industry, where providing electric energy to the consumers without interruption is of high importance. This problem is usually treated in the long-term exploitation of electric production systems. It requires determining the period for which generating units of an electric power utility should be taken offline for planned preventive maintenance over a time horizon, usually on a yearly basis. The objective is to minimize the total operating cost while a set of constraints is satisfied, with emphasis on realiability.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Charm Physics at CDF

The study of the charm quark continues to have wide interest as a possible avenue for the discovery of physics beyond the Standard Model and can as well be used as a tool for understanding the non-perturbative aspects of the strong interactions. Owning to the large production cross-section available at the Tevatron collider and to the flexibility of a trigger on fully hadronic final states, the CDF experiment, in a decade of successful operations, collected millions of charmed mesons decays which can be used to investigate the details of the physics of the production and decay processes of the charm quark. Here we present a brief collection of new CDF results on this subject.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Contribution to the proceedings for the XXVI Rencontres de Physique de la Vall\'ee d'Aoste, La Thuile 201

Charm mixing at LHCb

We report a measurement of the time-dependent ratio of $D^0\to K^+\pi^-$ to $D^0\to K^-\pi^+$ decay rates in $D^{*+}$-tagged events using 1.0\,fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity recorded by the LHCb experiment. We measure the mixing parameters $x'^2=(-0.9\pm1.3)\times10^{-4}$, $y'=(7.2\pm2.4)\times10^{-3}$ and the ratio of doubly-Cabibbo-suppressed to Cabibbo-favored decay rates $R_D=(3.52\pm0.15)\times10^{-3}$. The result excludes the no-mixing hypothesis with a probability corresponding to 9.1 standard deviations and represents the first observation of charm mixing from a single measurementComment: 5 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Proceedings of HCP 201

A model based on cost minimization and reliability enhancement to solve the power plant preventive maintenance scheduling problem

1. Introduction and problem description The Power Plant Preventive Maintenance Scheduling Problem (PPPMSP) requires determining the period for which generating units of an electric power system should be taken offline for planned preventive maintenance over a time horizon. The research performed here encompasses a wide range of power plants: thermal, nuclear, hydroelectric, and wind power plants. 2. Model formulation and methodology The PPPMSP is a complex optimization problem. Objectives such as total cost minimization and consecution of a certain reliability level are proposed by imposing an objective function and satisfying a set of constraints. This problem is categorized as a 0/1 mixed integer linear programming problem. Its resolution involves the use of an optimiser. 3. Application example and findings An example based on a high-dimensioned realistic power system was undertaken to validate the model. The findings demonstrate that the model works correctly. 4. Conclusions a) Several costs are integrated. b) Different power plants were considered. c) A wide variety of constraints is included. d) The results could be useful if they are applied to other realistic cases. 5. References Ben-Daya, M., Duffuaa, S.O., Raouf A. (Eds), (2000). Maintenance, Modeling and Optimization. Kluwer, Boston. Ekpenyong, U.E., Zhang, J., Xia, X. (2012). “An improved robust model for generator maintenance scheduling”. Electric Power Systems Research. 92, 29-36.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Stock market interactions and the impact of macroeconomic news – evidence from high frequency data of European futures markets

This study analyzes the short-term dynamic spillovers between the futures returns on the DAX, the DJ Eurostoxx 50 and the FTSE 100. It also examines whether economic news is one source of international stock return co-movements. In particular, we test whether stock market interdependencies are attributable to reactions of foreign traders to public economic information. Moreover, we analyze whether cross-market linkages remain the same or whether they do increase during periods in which economic news is released in one of the countries. Our main results can be summarized as follows: (i) there are clear short term international dynamic interactions among the European stock futures markets; (ii) foreign economic news affects domestic returns; (iii) futures returns adjust to news immediately; (iv) announcement timing of macroeconomic news matters; (v) stock market dynamic interactions do not increase at the time of the release of economic news; (vi) foreign investors react to the content of the news itself more than to the response of the domestic market to the national news; and (vii) contemporaneous correlation between futures returns changes at the time of macroeconomic releases. JEL Classification: G14, G1

Electronic trading systems and intraday non-linear dynamics : an examination of the FTSE 100 cash and futures returns

This paper focuses on dynamic interactions of equity prices among theoretically related assets. We explore the existence of intraday non-linearities in the FTSE 100 cash and futures indices. We test whether the introduction of the electronic trading systems in the London Stock Exchange in 1997 and in the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE) in 1999 has eliminated the non-linear dynamic relationship in the FTSE 100 markets. We show that the introduction of the electronic trading systems in the FTSE 100 markets has increased the efficiency of the markets by enhancing the price discovery process, namely by facilitating the increase of the speed of adjustment of the futures and cash prices to departures of the mispricing error from its non-arbitrage band. Nevertheless, we conclude that the automation of the markets has not completely eliminated the non-linear properties of the FTSE 100 cash and futures return series. JEL Classification: G12, G14, G1

Approximations in Fusion and Breakup reactions induced by Radioactive Beams

Some commonly used approximations for complete fusion and breakup transmission coefficients in collisions of weakly bound projectiles at near barrier energies are assessed. We show that they strongly depend on the adopted classical trajectory and can be significantly improved with proper treatment of the incident and emergent currents in the WKB approximation.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Stock Market Interactions and the Impact of Macroeconomic News – Evidence from High Frequency Data of European Futures Markets

This study analyzes the short-term dynamic spillovers between the futures returns on the DAX, the DJ Eurostoxx 50 and the FTSE 100. It also examines whether economic news is one source of international stock return co-movements. In particular, we test whether stock market interdependencies are attributable to reactions of foreign traders to public economic information. Moreover, we analyze whether cross-market linkages remain the same or whether they do increase during periods in which economic news is released in one of the countries. Our main results can be summarized as follows: (i) there are clear short term international dynamic interactions among the European stock futures markets; (ii) foreign economic news affects domestic returns; (iii) futures returns adjust to news immediately; (iv) announcement timing of macroeconomic news matters; (v) stock market dynamic interactions do not increase at the time of the release of economic news; (vi) foreign investors react to the content of the news itself more than to the response of the domestic market to the national news; and (vii) contemporaneous correlation between futures returns changes at the time of macroeconomic releases.Market Microstructure,Stock Market Dynamic Interactions, Macroeconomic News, High Frequency Data, VAR Modeling, Variance Decomposition