Study of MW-scale biogas-fed SOFC-WGS-TSA-PEMFC hybrid power technology as distributed energy system: Thermodynamic,exergetic and thermo-economic evaluation

Advanced biogas power generation technology has been attracting attentions, which contributes to the waste disposal and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. This work proposes and models a novel biogas-fed hybrid power generation system consisting of solid oxide fuel cell, water gas shift reaction, thermal swing adsorption and proton exchange membrane fuel cell (SOFC-WGS-TSA-PEMFC). The thermodynamic, exergetic, and thermo-economic analyses of this hybrid system for power generation were conducted to comprehensively evaluate its performance. It was found that the novel biogas-fed hybrid system has a gross energy conversion efficiency of 68.63% and exergy efficiency of 65.36%, indicating high efficiency for this kind of hybrid power technology. The market sensitivity analysis showed that the hybrid system also has a low sensitivity to market price fluctuation. Under the current subsidy level for the distributed biogas power plant, the levelized cost of energy can be lowered to 0.02942 $/kWh for a 1 MW scale system. Accordingly, the payback period and annual return on investment can reach 1.4 year and about 20%, respectively. These results reveal that the proposed hybrid system is promising and economically feasible as a distributed power plant, especially for the small power scale (no more than 2 MW).     

Finance and the technology-trade nexus

This paper sketches the contours of the evolving international/monetary system and examines the various roles of the intemediation mechanisms. Then it examines the extent to which the financial system is independent from the “real economy” and the various ways in which it impacts it. The paper discusses some views in good currency on the dynamics of the technology-trade-finance nexus and shows how the financial system influences organization, location and technology choices in meso-innovation systems. The final section of the paper looks at the policy implications that might be derived from the analysis and suggests some directions for the future research.     

Blind estimation of the PN sequence in lower SNR DS-SS signals with residual carrier

This paper presents a method of singular value decomposition (SVD) plus digital phase lock loop (DPLL) to solve the difficult problem of blind pseudo-noise (PN) sequence estimation in low signal to noise ratios (SNR) direct sequence spread spectrum (DS-SS, DS) signals with residual carrier. Of course, the method needs to know the parameters of DS signal, such as the period and code rate of PN sequence. Firstly, the received signal is sampled and divided into non-overlapping signal vectors according to a temporal window, whose duration is two periods of PN sequence. Then, an autocorrelation matrix is computed and accumulated by the signal vectors one by one. The PN sequence with residual carrier can be estimated by the principal eigenvector of this autocorrelation matrix. Furthermore, a DPLL is used to deal with the estimated PN sequence with residual carrier, it estimates and tracks the residual carrier, removes the residual carrier in the end. Theory analysis and computer simulation results show that this method can effectively realize the PN sequence estimation from the input DS signals with residual carrier in lower SNR.     

A simple method of rapid and automatic color image segmentation for serialized Visible Human slices

In this paper, a rapid and automatic color image segmentation method for the serialized slices of the Visible Human is proposed. The main strategy is based on region growing and pixel color difference. A rapid color similarity computing method is improved and applied for classifying different pixels. An algorithm based on corrosion from four directions is proposed to automatically extract the seed points for the serialized slices. Utilizing this method, the color slice images of the Visible Human body can be segmented in series automatically. Also, the multithreading frame of parallel computing is introduced in the entire segmentation process. This method is simple but rapid and automatic. The primary organs of the Visible Human can be segmented clearly and accurately. The 3D models of these organs after 3D reconstruction are satisfactory. This novel method can provide support to the Visible Human research.     

A GPU-based parallel method for evolutionary tree construction

Evolutionary trees are widely applied in various applications to show the inferred evolutionary relationships among species or entities. Neighbor-Joining is one solution for data-intensive and time-consuming evolutionary tree construction, with polynomial time complexity. However, its performance becomes poorer with the growth of massive datasets. Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have brought about new opportunities for these time-consuming applications. Based on its high efficiency, a GPU-based parallel Neighbor-Joining method is proposed, and two efficient parallel mechanisms, data segmentation with asynchronous processing and the minimal chain model with bitonic sort, are put forward to speed up the processing. The experimental results show that an average speedup of 25.1 is achieved and even approximately 30 can be obtained with a sequence dataset ranging from 16,000 to 25,000. Moreover, the proposed parallel mechanisms can be effectively exploited in some other high performance applications.     

Robust passive autofocus system for mobile phone camera applications

A robust autofocus system is a ubiquitous function in today’s mobile phone camera applications. However, due to the power consumption and size requirements, it is difficult for the autofocus function to be implemented into the design of mobile phone cameras. This paper presents a passive autofocus system with low computational complexity. This system uses a novel contrast measurement to determine degree of image sharpness, which can better reflect the information about image discontinuities. In order to gauge the performance of this measurement, a modified peak search strategy is used in the experiments. The experimental results from several typical image sequences validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

A Non-Line-of-Sight mitigation localization algorithm for sensor networks using clustering analysis

Non-Line-of-Sight propagation of wireless signal has an impact on measured distances in range-based localization and will bias the final localization results. A new localization algorithm is proposed in this paper to mitigate Non-Line-of-Sight errors when there are more than enough anchor nodes deployed around the node to be located. This algorithm utilizes multi-round clustering analysis to filter the pre-located estimators which derive from all possible subsets of measured distances. In each round, the method density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise is adopted. Simulations show that the proposed algorithm can effectively improve localization accuracy not only when the measured distances with Non-Line-of-Sight error are minor but also under the condition that all of them suffer random Non-Line-of-Sight error.     

Multi-mode of vortex-induced vibration of a flexible circular cylinder

The vortex-induced vibration of a flexible circular cylinder is investigated at a constant Reynolds number of 1 000.The finite-volume method on moving meshes is applied for the fluid flow, and the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory is used to model the dynamic response of a flexible cylinder.The relationship between the reduced velocity and the amplitude response agrees well with the experimental results.Moreover, five different vibrating modes appear in the simulation.From the comparisons of their vortex structures, the strength of the wake flow is related to the exciting vibrating mode and different vortex patterns arise for different vibrating modes.Only 2P pattern appears in the first vibrating mode while 2S-2P patterns occur in the other vibrating modes if monitoring at different sections along the length of the cylinder.The vibration of the flexible cylinder can also greatly alter the three-dimensionality in the wake, which needs further studies in our future work, especially in the transition region for the Reynolds number from 170 to 300.     

基于延迟均衡的CO_2两相引射器模型研究

引射器对跨临界CO_2引射制冷系统性能有极大的影响。本文考虑CO_2两相引射器中存在的非平衡相变、超音速和壅塞等复杂流动现象,构建了CO_2两相引射器的1D分布模型,并采用延迟均衡理论分析喷嘴中的非平衡相变过程。与实验结果比较显示,所建立的延迟均衡模型能够很好的预测引射器的性能。此外,通过与均衡模型的相比显示,在本文所选工况下,延迟均衡模型计算所得的主动流流量比均衡模型预测值低12.39%~25.30%,同时非平衡现象将延缓喷嘴中的膨胀过程,使得喷嘴出口压力比均衡模型预测值高。本文采用所建模型进一步分析了引射器的结构对性能的影响,结果显示在一定的工况下存在最优的混合室直径使得引射系数和升压比都较高;而当混合室直径一定时,较长的混合室有利于提高引射器的升压比。