A troubling trend in public utility regulation

With the increase in stakeholders in the regulatory process, it has become more difficult for regulators to protect utility-customer interests. Requiring utilities to expand their role in serving society has caused regulators to consider other objectives other than setting just and reasonable rates and assuring reliable utility service.     

基于组合双向拍卖的云资源调度方法

针对跨数据中心的资源调度问题，提出了一种基于组合双向拍卖（PCDA）的资源调度方案。首先，将云资源拍卖分为三个部分：云用户代理报价、云资源提供商要价、拍卖代理组织拍卖；其次，在定义用户的优先级及任务紧迫度的基础上，在拍卖过程中估算每一个工作发生的服务等级协议（SLA）违规并以此计算云提供商的收益，同时每轮竞拍允许成交多项交易；最终达到根据用户等级合理分配云资源调度的效果。仿真实验结果表明该算法保证了竞拍成功率，与传统一次拍卖成交一项的组合双向拍卖方案相比，PCDA在竞拍时间段产生的能耗降低了35.00%，拍卖云提供商的利润提高了约38.84%。     

Spectroscopic investigations on high efficiency deep red-emitting Ca2SiO4:Eu3+ phosphors synthesized from agricultural waste

Europium doped calcium orthosilicate (Ca₂SiO₄) phosphors have been synthesized by the conventional high temperature solid-state reaction method in various concentrations from agricultural waste (egg shell as a CaO and rice husk as a SiO₂). These phosphors structure from X-ray diffraction and morphology from scanning electron microscopy have been examined. Concentration dependent Eu³⁺ ions luminescent properties in Ca₂SiO₄ phosphors have been studied from the excitation, emission and decay curves analysis. The ⁵D₀ → ⁷F_J transitions observed in luminescence spectrum allows to determine the site symmetry of the Eu³⁺ ion. A charge transfer band (CTB) at around 260?nm which is due to the Eu–O interaction in the host along with the 4f – 4f excitation bands due to Eu³⁺ ions in UV and blue regions are observed. The color co-ordinates determined from emission spectra varies with concentrations of Eu³⁺ ions and are found to fall in the red region. The decay curves show single exponential behavior for all concentrations of Eu³⁺ ions (0.01–0.4?mol%) and the lifetimes varied from 2.67 to 2.78?ms. It is worth noting that the present material is found to be far better than many red phosphors synthesized by using agricultural waste as raw materials.     

Combination of levulinic acid and sodium dodecyl sulfate on inactivation of foodborne microorganisms: A review

Abstract

The combination of levulinic acid and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) in recent years has shown considerable promise as an antimicrobial intervention. Both ingredients have been designated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) for being used as a flavoring agent and multipurpose food additive, respectively. The use of levulinic acid and SDS alone has limited antimicrobial efficacy on tested microorganisms, and synergism between levulinic acid and SDS has been observed. The postulated mechanism of action of the synergistic effect is presented. The antimicrobial efficacy of levulinic acid plus SDS remains high even when organic materials are present. The other features, including penetration, foamability, and being readily soluble, extend its potential applications to disinfection of difficult-to-access areas and control of foodborne pathogens both in a planktonic state and in a biofilm. These features indicate that the levulinic acid plus SDS combination may have the potential to be applied within the food processing environment on a large scale.     

A self‐scalable load injection service

Load testing of applications is an important and costly activity for software provider companies. Classical solutions are very difficult to set up statically, and their cost is prohibitive in terms of both human and hardware resources. Virtualized cloud computing platforms provide new opportunities for stressing an application's scalability, by providing a large range of flexible and less expensive (pay‐per‐use model) computation units. On the basis of these advantages, load testing solutions could be provided on demand in the cloud. This paper describes a Benchmark‐as‐a‐Service solution that automatically scales the load injection platform and facilitates its setup according to load profiles. Our approach is based on: (i) virtualization of the benchmarking platform to create self‐scaling injectors; (ii) online calibration to characterize the injector's capacity and impact on the benched application; and (iii) a provisioning solution to appropriately scale the load injection platform ahead of time. We also report experiments on a benchmark illustrating the benefits of this system in terms of cost and resource reductions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Integration of imitation learning using GAIL and reinforcement learning using task-achievement rewards via probabilistic graphical model

The integration of reinforcement learning (RL) and imitation learning (IL) is an important problem that has long been studied in the field of intelligent robotics. RL optimizes policies to maximize the cumulative reward, whereas IL attempts to extract general knowledge about the trajectories demonstrated by experts, i.e, demonstrators. Because each has its own drawbacks, many methods combining them and compensating for each set of drawbacks have been explored thus far. However, many of these methods are heuristic and do not have a solid theoretical basis. This paper presents a new theory for integrating RL and IL by extending the probabilistic graphical model (PGM) framework for RL, control as inference. We develop a new PGM for RL with multiple types of rewards, called probabilistic graphical model for Markov decision processes with multiple optimality emissions (pMDP-MO). Furthermore, we demonstrate that the integrated learning method of RL and IL can be formulated as a probabilistic inference of policies on pMDP-MO by considering the discriminator in generative adversarial imitation learning (GAIL) as an additional optimality emission. We adapt the GAIL and task-achievement reward to our proposed framework, achieving significantly better performance than policies trained with baseline methods.     

Intensification of hydrogen production from methanol steam reforming by catalyst segmentation and metallic foam insert

This paper is a numerical study about the catalyst morphology CuO/ZnO/Al₂O₃ effects on the hydrogen production from methanol steam reforming, for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PMEFC). The study is focused on the influences of the metal foam insert, catalyst layer segmentation, and metal foam as catalyst support on the reactor performance: hydrogen yield and methanol conversion. According to the carried simulations, it is found that these configurations improve the reformer performances compared to the continuous catalyst layer configuration. The insertion of metal foam increases the efficiency of up to 75.41% at 525 K. Also, at this reaction temperature, the segmentation of the catalyst layer in similar parts increases the reformer efficiency by 2.11%, 4.23%, 6.77%, and 8.6% for 2, 4, 8, and 16 identical parts, respectively. As well as, the metal foam as catalyst support is more efficient compared to the other configurations, the efficiency is equal to 64% at T = 495 k.     

丙烯酸在石蜡微胶囊制备中的应用

以甲基丙烯酸甲酯(MMA)、丙烯酸(AA)和石蜡为原料,采用悬浮聚合法制备了石蜡/P(MMA-co-AA)相变储能微胶囊。研究了MMA与AA加入比例、油相与水相质量比等因素对石蜡微胶囊芯材含量等的影响,利用扫描量热仪(DSC)、电子显微镜(SEM)表征了所制备石蜡微胶囊的热性能、形貌等。结果表明:AA加入比例过大时,微胶囊易结块,不易形成微胶囊,微胶囊轮廓呈球形,其相变温度为27.21℃,相变潜热为81.58 J/g,芯材含量达到72.32%。     

The Optimization of the Production of Methyl Esters from Corn Oil Using Barium Hydroxide as a Heterogeneous Catalyst

In recent years, vegetable oils, as renewable raw materials, became a promising feedstock for chemicals and biodiesel production. The main products derived from oils are esters of fatty acids, especially methyl esters, obtained by their transesterification with methanol, in presence of acid or alkaline catalysts. The use of such catalysts implies the need for washing operations, which leads to environmental pollution. In the present paper, the response surface methodology based on a central composite design, has been developed to optimize the process of transesterification of corn oil. Ba(OH)₂ in presence of diethyl ether was used as catalyst. A quadratic polynomial equation was obtained. It correlates the reaction parameters [methanol/oil molar ratio (x _r), reaction time (x _t) and catalyst concentration (x _c)] with methyl esters yield. Analysis of variance analysis showed that only methanol/oil molar ratio and catalyst concentration have had the most significant influences on the conversion. The maximum methyl esters yield was obtained using the following optimum parameters: methanol/corn oil ratio of 11.32, reaction time of 118 min and catalyst concentration of 3.6 wt%.     

浅析课程教学与教学相长

教学相长既是教学理念,又是教学方法,它是古人对教学和认知的一种哲学思想。通过目前对教学相长认识现状的分析,结合课程教学,构建了课程教学中的教学相长模型。该模型包含5种形式的教学相长模式,囊括了目前人们对教学相长的所有认识。通过具体的教学实践,阐述了5种教学相长模式的具体应用,证明了这5种模式在课程教学中的有效性,为教学相长在新时期的应用提供了实践和理论依据。