Efficient Energy Optimization for Smart Grid and Smart Community

The electric power industry has undergone significant changes in response to the environmental concerns during the past decades. Nowadays, due to the integration of different distributed energy systems in the smart grid, the balancing between power generation and load demand becomes a critical problem. Specifically, due to the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources (RESs) , power system optimization becomes significantly complicated. Due to the uncertain nature of RESs, the system may fail to ensure the power quality which may cause increased operating costs for committing costly reserve units or penalty costs for curtailing load demands. This dissertation presents three projects to study the optimization and control for smart grid and smart community. First, optimal operation of battery energy storage system (BESS) in grid-connected microgrid is studied. Near optimal operation/allocation of the BESS is investigated with the consideration of battery lifetime characteristics. Approximate dynamic programming (ADP) is proposed to solve optimal control policy for time-dependent and finite-horizon BESS problems and performance comparison is done with classical dynamic programming approach. The results show that the ADP can optimize the system operation under different scenarios to maximize the total system revenue. Second, optimal operation of the BESS in islanded microgrid is also studied. Specifically, a new islanded microgrid model is formulated based on Markov decision process. A computationally efficient ADP approach is proposed to solve this energy optimization problem, and achieve near minimum operational cost efficiently. Simulation results show that the proposed ADP can achieve 100% and at least 98% of optimality for deterministic and stochastic case studies, respectively. The performance of the proposed ADP approach also achieved 18:69 times faster response than that of the traditional DP approach for 0:5 million of data samples. Third, a demand side management technique is proposed for the optimization of residential demands with financial incentives. A new design of comfort indicator is proposed considering both thermal and other electric appliances based on consumers’ comfort level. The proposed approach is compared with two existing demand response approaches for both 10-houses and 100-houses simulation studies. For both cases, the proposed approach outperformed the existing approaches in terms of reward incentives and comfort levels

SOME CHARACTERIZATIONS OF α-COSYMPLECTIC MANIFOLDS ADMITTING ∗-CONFORMAL RICCI SOLITIONS

The object of the present paper is to give some characterizations of α-cosymplectic manifolds admitting ∗-conformal Ricci solitons. Such manifolds with gradient ∗-conformal Ricci solitons have also been considere

The Caged Bird Sings: Resilience and Resistance against the Afghan Patriarchal Culture in Nadia Hashimi’s One Half from the East

In a highly conservative society like Afghanistan, which is mainly governed by ancient codes of conduct and tribal laws, the discourse concerning the rights of women is primarily framed by misogynistic men. As portrayed by Nadia Hashimi in her book One Half from the East (2016), every aspect of women’s lives, from education to expression to movement, is monitored and checked by the patriarchy through the perpetration of rigid cultural codes of conduct for women. But even within such strict patriarchal domination, women can create space for themselves to subvert such repressive hegemony and articulate strategic resistance in a culture susceptible to violence. Hashimi’s meta-narrative debunks the totalitarianism and male chauvinism of Afghan culture through its protagonist who resists submission and becomes an instrument of transgression. Since women are aware of their marginal and subaltern positions in a repressive society like Afghanistan, they embody resilience and try to break their shackles. The present article, focused on One Half from the East (2016), highlights how the protagonist’s exploration of the uncharted territory of freedom forbidden for women by performing patriarchal norms like the bacha posh ironically provides a space for resisting patriarchy even while staying within its discourse

Information Retrieval Techniques Used by the Midnapore College (Autonomous) Library Users: A Study

Paper aims to present the results of a survey conducted to determine the information retrieval techniques used by the teachers and students of Midnapore College library, India as a result of the questionnaire-based survey conducted at the library. Out of 100 samples of the questionnaire distributed 93 completed and received for analysis. Study reveals that a significant number of users search information regarding the library material through OPAC despite encountering problems. Lack of basic skills among users was found to be the major reason for not utilizing full features of OPAC and the other reasons are improper query formulation and non use of search operators while surf the web. It is suggested that library should organize quality instruction programmes to improve knowledge and skills of the users

Elimination of Specular reflection and Identification of ROI: The First Step in Automated Detection of Cervical Cancer using Digital Colposcopy

Cervical Cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer in women worldwide. Most cases of cervical cancer can be prevented through screening programs aimed at detecting precancerous lesions. During Digital Colposcopy, Specular Reflections (SR) appear as bright spots heavily saturated with white light. These occur due to the presence of moisture on the uneven cervix surface, which act like mirrors reflecting light from the illumination source. Apart from camouflaging the actual features, the SR also affects subsequent segmentation routines and hence must be removed. Our novel technique eliminates the SR and makes the colposcopic images (cervigram) ready for segmentation algorithms. The cervix region occupies about half of the cervigram image. Other parts of the image contain irrelevant information, such as equipment, frames, text and non-cervix tissues. This irrelevant information can confuse automatic identification of the tissues within the cervix. The first step is, therefore, focusing on the cervical borders, so that we have a geometric boundary on the relevant image area. We have proposed a type of modified kmeans clustering algorithm to evaluate the region of interest.Comment: IEEE Imaging Systems and Techniques, 2011, Print ISBN: 978-1-61284-894-5, pages 237 - 24