Information standards to support application and enterprise interoperability for the smart grid

Copyright @ 2012 IEEE.Current changes in the European electricity industry are driven by regulatory directives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time as replacing aged infrastructure and maintaining energy security. There is a wide acceptance of the requirement for smarter grids to support such changes and accommodate variable injections from renewable energy sources. However the design templates are still emerging to manage the level of information required to meet challenges such as balancing, planning and market dynamics under this new paradigm. While secure and scalable cloud computing architectures may contribute to supporting the informatics challenges of the smart grid, this paper focuses on the essential need for business alignment with standardised information models such as the IEC Common Information Model (CIM), to leverage data value and control system interoperability. In this paper we present details of use cases being considered by National Grid, the GB transmission system operator for information interoperability in pan-network system management and planning.This study is financially supported by the National Grid, UK

Smart grid interoperability use cases for extending electricity storage modeling within the IEC Common Information Model

Copyright @ 2012 IEEEThe IEC Common Information Model (CIM) is recognized as a core standard, supporting electricity transmission system interoperability. Packages of UML classes make up its domain ontology to enable a standardised abstraction of network topology and proprietary power system models. Since the early days of its design, the CIM has grown to reflect the widening scope and detail of utility information use cases as the desire to interoperate between a greater number of systems has increased. The cyber-physical nature of the smart grid places even greater demand upon the CIM to model future scenarios for power system operation and management that are starting to arise. Recent developments of modern electricity networks have begun to implement electricity storage (ES) technologies to provide ancillary balancing services, useful to grid integration of large-scale renewable energy systems. In response to this we investigate modeling of grid-scale electricity storage, by drawing on information use cases for future smart grid operational scenarios at National Grid, the GB Transmission System Operator. We find current structures within the CIM do not accommodate the informational requirements associated with novel ES systems and propose extensions to address this requirement.This study is supported by the UK National Grid and Brunel Universit

A critical comparison of approaches to resource name management within the IEC common information model

Copyright @ 2012 IEEEElectricity network resources are frequently identified within different power systems by inhomogeneous names and identities due to the legacy of their administration by different utility business domains. The IEC 61970 Common Information Model (CIM) enables network modeling to reflect the reality of multiple names for unique network resources. However this issue presents a serious challenge to the integrity of a shared CIM repository that has the task of maintaining a resource manifest, linking network resources to master identities, when unique network resources may have multiple names and identities derived from different power system models and other power system applications. The current approach, using CIM 15, is to manage multiple resource names within a singular CIM namespace utilizing the CIM “IdentifiedObject” and “Name” classes. We compare this approach to one using additional namespaces relating to different power systems, similar to the practice used in CIM extensions, in order to more clearly identify the genealogy of a network resource, provide faster model import times and a simpler means of supporting the relationship between multiple resource names and identities and a master resource identity.This study is supported by the UK National Grid and Brunel University

Characterisation of Truncated Mutant Rhodopsin and its Involvement in the Pathogenesis of Retinitis Pigmentosa

Autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (ADRP) is the most common genetic disorders which cause visual degradation, and blindness. 20-25% of cases are caused by mutations in the rhodopsin gene. The mutations located in the N-terminus of rhodopsin produce severely misfolded protein, which has been shown to cleave at the N-terminus removing the glycosylation sites(Tam & Moritz, 2007),(Krebs, et al., 2010). We aimed to further understand the pathology of retinitis pigmentosa by separating full rhodopsin from the truncated rhodopsin of the mutant, and we constructed rhodopsin N-terminus ADRP mutations: T4K, P23A/H and Q28H. Wild Type and mutant rhodopsin were purified using 1D4-sepharose separation. Our results supported papers indicating P23A and T4K show lowest degrees of misfolding. Assuming the glycosylation sites are removed we attempted to isolate the truncated species of the ADRP mutant by Con A-Sepharose which binds to the glycan moieties extended from the glycosylation sites N2 and N15(De Grip, W. J.,1982).We isolated purified ROS rhodopsin and full P23A rhodopsin. We failed to isolate the P23A truncated species, and poor binding was apparent from full rhodopsin in the wash and flow through after binding. Meaning the truncated species if present would not have been isolated. Further alterations are needed to make the Con A-sepharose separation successful

myTrustedCloud: Trusted cloud infrastructure for security-critical computation and data managment

Copyright @ 2012 IEEECloud Computing provides an optimal infrastructure to utilise and share both computational and data resources whilst allowing a pay-per-use model, useful to cost-effectively manage hardware investment or to maximise its utilisation. Cloud Computing also offers transitory access to scalable amounts of computational resources, something that is particularly important due to the time and financial constraints of many user communities. The growing number of communities that are adopting large public cloud resources such as Amazon Web Services [1] or Microsoft Azure [2] proves the success and hence usefulness of the Cloud Computing paradigm. Nonetheless, the typical use cases for public clouds involve non-business critical applications, particularly where issues around security of utilization of applications or deposited data within shared public services are binding requisites. In this paper, a use case is presented illustrating how the integration of Trusted Computing technologies into an available cloud infrastructure - Eucalyptus - allows the security-critical energy industry to exploit the flexibility and potential economical benefits of the Cloud Computing paradigm for their business-critical applications

Music education in the twenty-first century: a psychological perspective

Starting from Hargreaves’ (1986a) review of the relationship between developmental psychology and music education, we characterise the mid-1980s as a point at which the different main strands of music psychology – cognitive, developmental, and social – began to unfold. We move to the present day and beyond, suggesting that a major change has been the incorporation of a social perspective: it may now make more sense to talk about the developmental social psychology of music and music education. Four levels of social influence are distinguished – the individual, the interpersonal, the institutional,and the cultural – and we suggest that the concept of identity may enable explanations of social influence at the individual level. We review some research on musical style sensitivity as an exemplar of this general approach, and conclude by applying the social–cultural perspective to current developments in music education. This gives rise to two new conceptual models: of the opportunities that are offered by music education in the twenty-first century, and the outcomes that might be derived from it

Establishing Social Work Practices in England: The Early Evidence

Social Work Practices (SWPs) were established in England in 2009 to deliver social work services to looked after children and care leavers. The introduction of independent social work-led organisations generated controversy focused on issues such as the privatisation of children's services and social workers' conditions of employment. This paper reports early findings from the evaluation of four of these pilots, drawing on interviews with children and young people, staff, and local authority and national stakeholders. The SWPs assumed a variety of organisational forms. The procurement process was demanding, with protracted negotiations over matters such as budgetary control and providing a round-the-clock service. Start-up was facilitated by an established relationship between the SWP provider and the local authority. Once operational, SWPs continued to rely on local authorities for various functions; in most cases, local authorities retained control of placement budgets. Levels of consultation and choice offered to children and young people regarding the move to an SWP varied considerably. Children's understanding about SWPs was generally low except in the pilot where most children retained their original social worker. These early findings show some dilution of the original SWP model, while the pilots' diversity allows the benefits of particular models to emerge

Chromatin accessibility underlies synthetic lethality of SWI/SNF subunits in ARID1A-mutant cancers.

ARID1A, a subunit of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex, is frequently mutated in cancer. Deficiency in its homolog ARID1B is synthetically lethal with ARID1A mutation. However, the functional relationship between these homologs has not been explored. Here, we use ATAC-seq, genome-wide histone modification mapping, and expression analysis to examine colorectal cancer cells lacking one or both ARID proteins. We find that ARID1A has a dominant role in maintaining chromatin accessibility at enhancers, while the contribution of ARID1B is evident only in the context of ARID1A mutation. Changes in accessibility are predictive of changes in expression and correlate with loss of H3K4me and H3K27ac marks, nucleosome spacing, and transcription factor binding, particularly at growth pathway genes including MET. We find that ARID1B knockdown in ARID1A mutant ovarian cancer cells causes similar loss of enhancer architecture, suggesting that this is a conserved function underlying the synthetic lethality between ARID1A and ARID1B

Intervention Mapping: Physical Activity with Socially Disadvantaged Women - ePoster

Introduction Socially disadvantaged women (SDW) have lower levels of physical activity (PA), health inequalities and poorer health outcomes. These are associated with social determinants of health, e.g. Socioeconomic position and ethnic minority. Developing effective behaviour change programmes for SDW is complex due to disparities such as limited income and/or culturally inappropriate settings. These intricacies are often overlooked in PA policy. Consequently, interventions aimed at SDW often fail to show adequate reach, adoption and/or maintenance of PA. Therefore, we aim to inform policy and practice by developing needs-led PA interventions with SDW using Intervention Mapping (IM). IM begins with a needs assessment and follows an iterative six step process for planning interventions. Method Needs assessment tasks involved regular researcher participation in local PA sessions with SDW. The researcher also conducted 17 semi-structured interviews with SDW and community PA practitioners on the topic of PA. This data was thematically analysed and used within the first step of IM: to create a logic model of the PA health problem. Results Data gathered from interviews shows PA variety and suitable opportunities in Leeds and surrounding areas are lacking for SDW. These insights have demonstrated that the needs of SDW are essential to inform IM, PA policy and practice. Conclusion IM begins with a needs-led approach when tackling the health problem of inactivity for SDW. IM will continue to be used to design a comprehensive tool for practice and inform PA policy for SDW

Experimental and finite element dynamic analysis of incrementally loaded reinforced concrete structures

This is the author accepted manuscript. the final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordThis work investigates influence of damage in reinforced concrete (RC) structures on their dynamic properties through modal testing and non-linear finite element (FE) analysis. Five RC beams were designed with the fundamental flexural mode frequencies in the range of 6.5-18.0. Hz for the uncracked state. Mechanical properties of concrete, such as static and dynamic elastic moduli were determined from standard tests and ultra-sonic pulse velocity readings. The beams were incrementally loaded until the span/250 deflection limit was reached and their natural frequencies were measured from the free decay vibrations. The progressive damage reduced fundamental frequencies of tested beams by up to 25%. The non-linear FE analysis was carried out for RC beams and one two-span slab and the calculated reduced frequencies of the 1st and 2nd vibration modes were in excellent agreement with measurements. This led to the conclusion that, given that the non-linear analysis can capture degradation of dynamic stiffness due to cracking, the future dynamic performance and damage identification on the RC structure can be reliably determined from the same FE model. The results reveal potential of the combined modal testing and FE analysis to improve inspection and assessment of the in-service RC structures.University of Warwic