Energy efficiency as a resource in the ISO New England Forward Capacity Market

ISO New England, which oversees New England’s bulk electric power system and wholesale electricity markets, recently established a Forward Capacity Market (FCM) that will pay suppliers to ensure sufficient capacity is available to meet future peak loads. Under the FCM, ISO New England projects the needs of the power system 3 years in advance and then holds an annual auction to purchase the resources necessary to satisfy the future regional requirements. This market is groundbreaking in that it was the first to allow energy efficiency and other demand resources to compete directly with generators. In the first auction, held in February 2008, demand resources contributed substantially to eliminating the need for new generating capacity in the near term and to providing low-cost resources to the region’s ratepayers. Two additional successful auctions have now been held. Participating in the FCM requires a considerable and complex bid, financial assurance, and claim activities. Meeting new intensive measurement, tracking, and verification requirements adds new costs. For efficiency portfolio administrators, participation raises policy questions regarding ownership of capacity credits, appropriate disposition of revenues, increasing emphasis on peak savings, and whether traditionally short-term budget cycles should change to enable the longer-term planning necessary to bid resources several years into the future. On the other hand, revenues from the FCM can provide needed funding for additional efficiency investments. This paper describes the FCM, examines the experience and trade-offs involved in participating for efficiency programs, and reviews the benefits of such participation for the program and the region, including the positive value from increased exposure of the part that efficiency can play in our energy mix.     

Radiation modification of functional properties in PVC/mica electrical insulations

Summary The effects of γ-irradiation on poly(vinyl chloride) blended with fillers (plasticizer, lead stabilizer and mica) are presented. Mechanical and electrical investigations were carried out on samples that received doses of maximum 160 kGy. The results on tensile strength, volume resistivity and loss factor prove that poly(vinyl chloride) may be used as electrical insulator after short γ-exposure. Because mica plays a role of absorbent for hydrochloric acid formed by PVC degradation, favorable properties are obtained for dose up to 120 kGy. The volume resistivity decreases constantly while tan δ remains unchanged for a large frequency range (10²–10⁵ cps). Mica content of 14% induces a decrease in unirradiated PVC of one order of magnitude. After irradiation at 160 kGy volume resistivity increases of about five times relative to 40 kGy irradiated samples. At 150 kGy tensile strength decreases only with 10%, and elongation at break presents a light modification in the selected dose range. The largest differences between the maximum current values obtained for applied doses are presented by PVC with the highest concentration of mica (14%). At 40 kGy, when the degradation becomes relevant, the dipoles are not efficiently trapped by mica and the current does not attend a steady state for a long period (more than half an hour). For higher doses the steady-state current is reached after only 1–3 minutes, due to crosslinking. Some considerations concerning the consequences of high energy exposure of poly(vinyl chloride) on electrical behaviour are presented.     

Immunocytochemical analysis of bovine leukemia virus antigen expression in cells of FLK 44/2 culture

The expression of BLV antigens has been studied in cells of virus-producing culture FLK 44/2. Monitoring of reactivity of antiviral polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies with cells of the virus-producing culture performed immunocytochemically has revealed the heterogeneity of the cell population both by different forms and by the level of viral expression. A change in the amount of cells reacting with antiviral antibodies during development of the population in vitro is considered as a result of the cell growth cycle-dependent process.     

Cooling Device Using the Natural Convection, Phase Change of Substance and Capillary Effect

Paper deals about testing of device with gravity assisted heat pipes and about researching of wick heat pipes used to effective heat transfers from power switches of energy converter. At first, to simulate ambient condition was designed thermostatic chamber where was monitoring temperature course on main parts of cooling device （energy converter, air cooler and heat pipes） at various position of cooling device. It was found, if the cooling device is in tilt position the cooling performance is better. But if the tilt angel of gravity assisted heat pipe is higher the heat transfer is lower. From reason improve heat transfer cooling device at tilt angle are manufactured heat pipes with the sintered, mesh screen and grooved capillary structures and tested their thermal performance at vertical and tilt angel 45~ position by calorimetric method. Article describes manufacturing process and thermal performance measuring method of wick heat pipes. This experiment testify that the wick heat pipe is able operate at tilt angle position than gravity assisted heat pipe and application of wick heat pipes into cooling device will improve his cooling performance.     

USING A NEURAL NETWORK FOR SUPPORTING RADIOGRAPHIC DIAGNOSIS OF DENTAL CARIES

This study uses an artificial intelligent model, a radial basis function neural network (RBF), to support radiography diagnosis of dental caries. One hundred and sixty radiography images of proximal faces of extracted human teeth were analyzed by 25 examiners, which diagnosed the presence or absence of dental caries. The same teeth were then subjected to optical microscope analysis, which allowed the verification of their actual conditions. Such information was classified as gold standards, and was employed to training a neural network to diagnose caries by means of radiography images. In order to verify the network's ability to diagnose new cases, data were organized in two subgroups: a training subgroup and a test subgroup. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves allowed the comparison between diagnosis efficacy with or without the use of a neural network, showing that the adopted artificial intelligent model significantly improved diagnosis qualities.     

Nutrient and functional properties of composite flours processed from pregelatinised barley,sprouted faba bean and carrot flours

Mixture response surface methodology was used to study the effects of blending ratio (barley, faba bean and carrot) and faba bean sprout durations (1, 2 and 3 days) to improve nutrients and functional properties of bassoo (a traditional food in Ethiopia). Addition of sprouted and roasted faba bean and dried carrot flours significantly (P < 0.05) increased iron, zinc, total carotenoid (TC), water solubility index (WSI), water hydration capacity (WHC) and a_w. Models generated were fitting with high coefficient of determination R²: 0.74, 0.94, 0.99, 0.99, 0.94, 0.94, 0.94, 0.96 and 0.99 for iron, zinc, TC, condensed tannin, ferric reducing power, a_w, WAI, WSI and WHC, respectively. The study showed blending of pregelatinised barley, sprouted and roasted faba bean and dried carrots flours from 50% to 65%, 25% to 35% and 10% to 15%, respectively, led to achieve desired functional and nutritional quality studied.     

Self-Organizing Map Formation with a Selectively Refractory Neighborhood

Decreasing neighborhood with distance has been identified as one of a few conditions to achieve final states in the self-organizing map (SOM) that resemble the distribution of high-dimensional input data. In the classic SOM model, best matching units (BMU) decrease their influence area as a function of distance. We introduce a modification to the SOM algorithm in which neighborhood is contemplated from the point of view of affected units, not from the view of BMUs. In our proposal, neighborhood for BMUs is not reduced, instead the rest of the units exclude some BMUs from affecting them. Each neuron identifies, from the set of BMUs that influenced it in previous epochs, those to whom it becomes refractory to for the rest of the process. Despite that the condition of decreasing neighborhood over distance is not maintained, self-organization still persists, as shown by several experiments. The maps achieved by the proposed modification have, in many cases, a lower error measure than the maps formed by SOM. Also, the model is able to remove discontinuities (kinks) from the map in a very small number of epochs, which contrasts with the original SOM model.