LV self balancing distribution network configuration for minimum losses

Abstract: please refe to full text to view abstract Please refer to full text to view abstrac

Forecasting model for energy consumption in South Africa correlated with the income

Abstract This paper presents a mathematical model that forecasts the energy consumption in South Africa. The model is correlated to the income of the consumers. The study made use of the real energy consumption audit in South Africa. The mathematical model in this work is developed around the variables identified from the survey. The model can be applied to other utilities worldwide with some modifications in the influencing parameter values. The model developed was used to study the effect of certain indices; such as society, personality, and fixed contribution index on the electricity consumption. Different results obtained and presented in this work clearly show that the income is a major determinant of energy consumption

MYCOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF DIFFERENTLY PRESERVED TILAPIA FISH IN ABEOKUTA NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT, NIGERIA

Fungi load and diversity of differently preserved tilapia fish obtained from Olomoore market, Abeokuta North local Government, Nigeria were evaluated. Fish samples were purchased, differently processed (smoking, salting, freezing) and analyzed for the presence of fungi. Microbial loads on the gills and the skin of fish samples were examined and characterised using standard microbiological procedures. The progression of growth was also monitored within 10-day storage period. The fungi isolated from the differently processed tilapia were Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus spp, Branchysporum nigrum, Candida albican, Candida spp., Fusarium solani, Fusarium spp., Paecilomyces spp., Rhizopus stolonifer and Aspergillus 8flavus. No significant variation (p>0.05) was recorded in the fungal count of the skin during the first day of processing. However, significant variation (p<0.05) existed in the fungal count of the gill of the fish during the first day of processing. On the tenth day frozen fish skin had the highest fungal count while smoked fish skin possessed the lowest fungal count. There were significant difference (p<0.05) in the fungal count of the skin and the gill of differently processed fish samples during the storage. Similarly, significant variation (p<0.05) existed in the fungi count of the gill during the tenth day of processing

Gender Differentia Among Fish Farmers Within Ilorin Metropolis, Kwara State, Nigeria

Gender differentia among fish farmers within the Ilorin metropolis, Kwara State, Nigeria was studied with the aim of evaluating the level of involvement of the different gender in fish production activities, accessing their access to credit, and the constraints faced by them. A multistage sampling technique using a structured questionnaire was adopted for this study, the sample size was 210 using a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS 16.0. 61.90% of respondents were male while 52.5% and 49.2% of female and male respondents respectively were in their active age group of < 30 years. Females were more involved in fish marketing (42.90%) and fish processing (48.75%). There exist a significant association (p<0.05) between gender and level of involvement in fish marketing (χ2=9.20, p<0.05), access to land (χ2=10.69, p<0.05), and fish production activities (χ2=11.83, p<0.05). Access to credit was poor. Constraints faced include poor access to credit facilities, inadequate information, high cost of feed production, and poor water quality. It is therefore recommended that access to credit facilities banks of agriculture, microfinance banks, and commercial banks should be improved on while fish farmers are also encouraged to form cooperative societies as it will improve the capacity building of farmers and ease their credit acquisition for farming activities

THE EFFECT OF SUBSTITUTING MAIZE WITH GRADED LEVEL OF BISCUIT WASTE ON THE GROWTH PERFORMANCE, NUTRIENT UTILIZATION, CARCASS COMPOSITION, HAEMATOLOGICAL PARAMETERS AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE OF AFRICAN CATFISH Clarias gariepinus (BURCHELL 1822)

The effect of replacing maize with biscuit waste (BW) in the diet of Clarias gariepinus was evaluated in a 70-day feeding trial. Four isonitrogenous diets were prepared in which biscuit waste was used to replace maize at a rate of 50, 75 and 100% respectively. A diet without biscuit waste served as control. Each treatment had three replicates stocked with 10 catfish juveniles per tank with (mean initial body weight16.44±2.21g) per fish. The performance of the fish fed test diets was compared with fish fed a maize-based control diet containing 42.94% crude protein. The fish on the test diets performed better than the fish fed control diet with respect to mean weight gain (95.12±2.78g in BW 75 Vs 78.67±3.74g in control) and specific growth rate (3.04±0.04 %day-1 Vs 2.79±0.07 %day-1). Feed intake, feed conversion ratio and the protein efficiency ratio were not significantly different between test diets and the control. The inclusion of biscuit waste significantly improved (P<0.05) crude protein retention in the fish carcass. All the haematological parameters increased as a result of BW inclusion, the converse was however observed in cholesterol and triglyceraldehyde. There was significant difference (P<0.05) in the cost of feed intake and value of fish.Â

Adaptive Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) Analysis of seismic electric signal (SES): A comparison of Hamming and rectangular window

Seismic electric signal (SES) is one of features for predicting earthquakes (EQs) because of its significant changes in the amplitude of the signal prior to the earthquake. This paper presents detailed analysis of SES recorded prior to earthquake that occurred in Greece in the period from January 1, 2008 to June 30, 2008. During this period of time 5 earthquakes were recorded with magnitudes greater than 6R. In this analysis STFT involving adaptively sliding window technique is used, in which Hamming and rectangular window functions are applied and compared. The comparison shows that Hamming window gives better results in analyzing the first significantly changes of SES prior to the EQ. The application of Hamming window resulted in less rippled spectrum shape which is more suitable to be used in characterizing the SES

Synthesis and Characterization of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticle for the Adsorptive Remediation of Petrochemical Effluents

The zinc oxide nanoparticle was synthesized via precipitation method. It was characterized using SEM-EDX, FTIR and TEM for morphology, elemental, functional groups and internal structure respectively. The physicochemical behaviour of a refinery effluent was assessed. The untreated raw refinery effluent from the point of discharge contained very high concentrations of pollutants for all the parameters, ranging between, pH (6.52-6.82), Turbidity (10-12 NTU), conductivity (266-289μs/cm), COD (116-138 mg/l), BOD (14-18.5 mg/l), DO (7.5-15.6 mg/l), TDS (436-486 mg/l), TSS (127-133 mg/l), Oil and grease (14.8-16.3 mg/l), sulphate (113-125 mg/l) and chloride (240-280 mg/l). The effluent was treated with ZnO nanoparticle and reduced the pollutants to the normal permissible limit set by WHO, FEPA and NESREA standard for portable water. The treated effluent sample showed values ranging between, pH (6.55-6.6), Turbidity (4.2-4.5 NTU), conductivity (245-246 μs/cm), COD (39-40 mg/l), BOD (10 mg/l), DO (5.6-10.4 mg/l), TDS (151-183 mg/l), TSS (24-28 mg/l), Oil and grease (7.3-9.5 mg/l), sulphate (100 mg/l) and chloride (200 mg/l). The heavy metals profile that was investigated are Fe, Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd and Cr of which were found above the WHO and FEPA permissible limit, however, on the contact with the adsorbent therefore reduced the metals to the permissible limit. It can be ascertain that ZnO nanoparticle can be used as an effective adsorbent for the treatment of petrochemical effluent

Reconfiguration and load balancing in the LV and MV distribution networks for optimal performance

Abstract: To get the distribution network to operate at its optimum performance in an automated distribution system reconfiguration was been proposed and researched. Considering, however, that optimum performance implies minimum loss, no overloading of transformers and cables, correct voltage profile, and absence of phase voltage and current imbalances, network reconfiguration alone is insufficient. It has to be complemented with techniques for phase rearrangement between the distribution transformer banks and the specific primary feeder with a radial structure and dynamic phase and load balancing along a feeder with a radial structure. This paper contributes such a technique at the low-voltage and medium-voltage levels of a distribution network simultaneously with reconfiguration at both levels. While the neural network is adopted for the network reconfiguration problem, this paper introduces a heuristic method for the phase balancing/loss minimization problem. A comparison of the heuristic algorithm with that of the neural network shows the former to be more robust. The approach proposed here, therefore for the combined problem, uses the neural network in conjunction with a heuristic method which enables different reconfiguration switches to be turned on/off and connected consumers to be switched between different phases to keep the phases balanced. An application example of the proposed method using real data is presente

Prediction of received signal power and propagation path loss in open/rural environments using modified free-space loss and Hata models

This paper describes a modification of the Free-Space and Hata formulae for the prediction of received signal power, P R and propagation path loss, L P , in two cellular mobile radio systems (CMRS), in the Northern Nigeria. Measurements of P R s were taken with a Cellular Mobile Radio test Receiver (Sagem OT 160), in some selected open/rural environments, when the receiver was being moved away from the base stations along the propagation paths. L P s were then obtained from values of measured P R s using an appropriate expression. A close comparison of measurement values and computed values from the free-space and Hata formulae revealed that direct application of these formulae is inappropriate for the prediction of these parameters in the region of investigation, as computed values fell short significantly from the corresponding measured values. Consequently, some correction factors have been introduced to both models and these have produced results which closely matched the measured values

Hardware design, development and evaluation of a pressure-based typing biometrics authentication system

The hardware design of a pressure based typing biometrics authentication system (BAS) is discussed in this paper. The dynamic keystroke is represented by its time duration (t) and force (F) applied to constitute a waveform, which when concatenated compose a complete pattern for the entered password. Hardware design is the first part in designing the complete pressure-based typing (BAS) in order to ensure that the best data to represent the keystroke pattern of the user is captured. The system has been designed using LabVIEW software. Several data preprocessing techniques have been used to improve the acquired waveforms. An experiment was conducted to show the validity of the design in representing keystroke dynamics and preliminary results have shown that the designed system can successfully capture password patterns