A thorough investigation for development of hydrogen projects from wind energy: A case study

Increasing energy demand has led to a substantial growth in the use of wind energy across the world, which can be attributed to the low initial and running costs and rapid and easy deployment of this technology. The development of hydrogen from wind energy is an excellent way to store the excess wind power produced, as the produced hydrogen can be used not only as clean fuel but also as input for various industries. Considering the good wind potentials of Yazd province, the variety of industries that are active in this area, and the central location of this province in Iran, which gives it ample access to major transport routes and other industrial hubs, hydrogen production from wind power in this province could benefit not only this region but the entire country. Given these considerations, we conducted a technical, economic, and environmental assessment of the potential for wind power generation and hydrogen production in Yazd province. Overall, the assessments showed that the best locations for harvesting wind energy in this province are Bahabad and Halvan stations. For these two stations, it is recommended to use EWT DW 52-900 turbine to take advantage of its higher nominal capacity to achieve higher electricity and hydrogen output and emission reduction. For Abarkoh and Kerit stations, which have a low wind energy potential, it is recommended to use small turbines such as Eovent EVA120 H-Darrieus. Also, economic and technical assessments showed that it is not economically justified to harvest wind energy in Ardakan station. The results of ranking the stations with the Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) and Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution (EDAS) techniques showed that Bahabad station was introduced as the best place to produce hydrogen from wind energy.     

Magnetic Properties of Zinc Ferrite Nanoparticles Synthesized by Coprecipitation Method

The influence of the precipitant and ferric concentration on the magnetic properties of coprecipitated zinc ferrite nanoparticles has been investigated. The nanoparticles were characterized using X-ray diffraction, scanning and transmission electron microscope, and vibrating sample magnetometer techniques. The results showed that the single-phase zinc ferrite with partially inverse spinel structures can be formed at high concentrations. The inversion coefficient calculated by the Rietveld method decreases with increasing of the concentrations, may be due to the crystal growth. The magnetic measurements exhibited that the coprecipitated zinc ferrite nanoparticles were superparamagnet and magnetization decreases with increasing of the concentrations through decreasing of inversion coefficient.     

Probabilistic approach to multi-objective Volt/Var control of distribution system considering hybrid fuel cell and wind energy sources using Improved Shuffled Frog Leaping Algorithm

Deregulation and restructuring in power systems, the ever-increasing demand for electricity, and concerns about the environment are the major driving forces for using Renewable Energy Sources (RES). Recently, Wind Farms (WFs) and Fuel Cell Power Plants (FCPPs) have gained great interest by Distribution Companies (DisCos) as the most common RES. In fact, the connection of enormous RES to existing distribution networks has changed the operation of distribution systems. It also affects the Volt/Var control problem, which is one of the most important schemes in distribution networks. Due to the intermittent characteristics of WFs, distribution systems should be analyzed using probabilistic approaches rather than deterministic ones. Therefore, this paper presents a new algorithm for the multi-objective probabilistic Volt/Var control problem in distribution systems including RES. In this regard, a probabilistic load flow based on Point Estimate Method (PEM) is used to consider the effect of uncertainty in electrical power production of WFs as well as load demands. The objective functions, which are investigated here, are the total cost of power generated by WFs, FCPPs and the grid; the total electrical energy losses and the total emission produced by WFs, FCPPs and DisCos. Moreover, a new optimization algorithm based on Improved Shuffled Frog Leaping Algorithm (ISFLA) is proposed to determine the best operating point for the active and reactive power generated by WFs and FCPPs, reactive power values of capacitors, and transformers’ tap positions for the next day. Using the fuzzy optimization method and max-min operator, DisCos can find solutions for different objective functions, which are optimal from economical, operational and environmental perspectives. Finally, a practical 85-bus distribution test system is used to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Generalized Gabor filters for palmprint recognition

Orientation-based coding approaches have recently been widely employed for face and palmprint recognition where generally, one starts with a set of Gabor filters to extract orientation information and then proceeds to code dominant orientations as features for each point of the palmprint. However, as the Gabor filter is developed to model two-dimensional receptive fields of simple cells in straits cortex, it might not be our best choice when dealing with curved and complex structures inherent in the palmprint texture. Motivated by this intuition, this paper shows that Gabor filters are a subset of a bigger family of filters which we refer to as generalized Gabor filter (GGF). Depending on the values of its parameters, a GGF takes a rather diverse shapes and orientations, which results in a potentially finer feature extraction capability. We show this improved capability by employing GGFs in the palmprint verification process. In applying our method, two different sub-banks of GGFs are defined for the orientation-based feature extraction of palmprints, and when compared with Gabor filters, it will be shown that GGFs have the upper hand in capturing orientation features. Furthermore, compared with the competitive code—one of the well-known orientation-based coding methods—the number of employed orientations is reduced to half. This would automatically compensate for a double usage of the filter banks, which otherwise could increase the time complexity of using GGFs. These ideas are further elaborated using a set of experiments on PolyU II and PolyU 2D/3D palmprint databases. The results show the preeminence of using GGFs both in terms of accuracy and efficiency.     

Multi-level cross-layer protocol for end-to-end delay provisioning in wireless multimedia sensor networks

Frontiers of Information Technology & Electronic Engineering - Rapid developments in information and communication technology in recent years have posed a significant challenge in wireless...     

A multiobjective integrated multiproject scheduling and multiskilled workforce assignment model considering learning effect under uncertainty

Today, organizations try to decline academically expenses using humans and resources in addition to rising managers and operators' satisfaction. Meantime, a very important step in the process of decision is the assignment of human resources, particularly in connection with research and development (R&D) projects in which the system is highly dependent on the capabilities of human resources. In this study, we tried all the assumptions that come true in the real world, considered a model for applied R&D projects to reduce costs and increase the efficiency of projects. Therefore, an integrated multiproject scheduling and multiskill human resource assignment model under uncertainty has developed for R&D projects. Furthermore, it is assumed that the activity processing time is related to human resources assignment that means the learning effect is considered. To demonstrate the proposed model efficiency, the various dimensions instance problem was solved accurately and efficiently in GAMS software, and the results have been reported. In addition, the proposed model is validated through the input parameter sensitivity analysis. The results indicate a suitable performance of the proposed fuzzy mathematical programming model is due to the complexity of the problem.     

Multi carrier energy systems and energy hubs: Comprehensive review,survey and recommendations

In this paper, the multi carrier energy (MCE) systems are reviewed from different point of views including mathematical models, integrated components and technologies, uncertainty management, planning objectives, environmental pollution, resilience, and robustness. The basic of MCE systems is formed by combination of cooling, heating and power (CCHP). The natural gas and electricity are the main inputs to MCE systems and the cooling, heating, and electricity are the common outputs. The regular energy converters in the MCE systems are combined heat and power (CHP), gas boiler, absorption-electrical chillers, power to gas (P2G) and fuel-cell. The generic energy storages are electrical, heating, cooling, hydrogen, carbon dioxide (CO₂) and hydro systems.