Optimal Supplementary Damping Controller Design for TCSC Employing RCGA

Optimal supplementary damping controller design for Thyristor Controlled Series Compensator (TCSC) is presented in this paper. For the proposed controller design, a multi-objective fitness function consisting of both damping factors and real part of system electromachanical eigenvalue is used and Real- Coded Genetic Algorithm (RCGA) is employed for the optimal supplementary controller parameters. The performance of the designed supplementary TCSC-based damping controller is tested on a weakly connected power system with different disturbances and loading conditions with parameter variations. Simulation results are presented and compared with a conventional power system stabilizer and also with the TCSC-based supplementary controller when the controller parameters are not optimized to show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed approach over a wide range of loading conditions and disturbances.

Combination of Information Security Standards to Cover National Requirements

The need for Information Security in organizations, regardless of their type and size, is being addressed by emerging standards and recommended best practices. The various standards and practices which evolved in recent years and are still being developed and constantly revised, address the issue of Information Security from different angles. This paper attempts to provide an overview of Information Security Standards and Practices by briefly discussing some of the most popular ones. Through a comparative study of their similarities and differences, some insight can be obtained on how their combination may lead to an increased level of Information Security.

The Study of Applying Models: House, Temple and School for Sufficiency Development to Participate in ASEAN Economic Community: A Case Study of Trimitra Temple (China Town) Bangkok, Thailand

The purposes of this study are 1) to study the impact of the 3-community-core model: House (H), Temple (T), and School (S) with the co-operation of official departments on community development to ASEAN economic community involvement and 2) to study the procedures and extension of the model. The research which is a qualitative research is based on the formal and informal interviews. Local people in a community are observed. Group interview is, also, operated by executors and cooperators in the school in the community. In terms of social and cultural dimension, the 3-community-core model consisting of house, temple and school is the base of Thai cultures bringing about understanding, happiness and unity to the community. The result of this research is that the official departments in accompanied with this model developers cooperatively work together in the community to support such factors as budget, plan, activities. Moreover, the need of community, and the continual result to sustain the community are satisfied by the model implementation. In terms of the procedures of the model implementation, executors and co-operators can work, coordinate, think, and launch their public relation altogether. Concerning the model development, this enables the community to achieve its goal to prepare the community’s readiness for ASEAN Economic Community involvement.

Design and Performance of Adaptive Polarized MIMO MC-SS-CDMA System for Downlink Mobile Communications

In this paper, an adaptive polarized Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) Multicarrier Spread Spectrum Code Division Multiple Access (MC-SS-CDMA) system is designed for downlink mobile communications. The proposed system will be examined in Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) mode for both macro urban and suburban environments. For the same transmission bandwidth, a performance comparison between both nonoverlapped and orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) schemes will be presented. Also, the proposed system will be compared with both the closed loop vertical MIMO MC-SS-CDMA system and the synchronous vertical STBC-MIMO MC-SS-CDMA system. As will be shown, the proposed system introduces a significant performance gain as well as reducing the spatial dimensions of the MIMO system and simplifying the receiver implementation. The effect of the polarization diversity characteristics on the BER performance will be discussed. Also, the impact of excluding the cross-polarization MCSS- CDMA blocks in the base station will be investigated. In addition, the system performance will be evaluated under different Feedback Information (FBI) rates for slowly-varying channels. Finally, a performance comparison for vehicular and pedestrian environments will be presented

A New Version of Unscented Kalman Filter

This paper presents a new algorithm which yields a nonlinear state estimator called iterated unscented Kalman filter. This state estimator makes use of both statistical and analytical linearization techniques in different parts of the filtering process. It outperforms the other three nonlinear state estimators: unscented Kalman filter (UKF), extended Kalman filter (EKF) and iterated extended Kalman filter (IEKF) when there is severe nonlinearity in system equation and less nonlinearity in measurement equation. The algorithm performance has been verified by illustrating some simulation results.

Numerical Investigation of Flow Past Cylinderin Cross Flow

A numerical prediction of flow in a tube bank is reported. The flow regimes considered cover a wide range of Reynolds numbers, which range from 380 to 99000 and which are equivalent to a range of inlet velocities from very low (0.072 m/s) to very high (60 m/s). In this study, calculations were made using the standard k-e model with standard wall function. The drag coefficient, skin friction drag, pressure drag, and pressure distribution around a tube were investigated. As the velocity increased, the drag coefficient decreased until the velocity exceeded 45 m/s, after which it increased. Furthermore, the pressure drag and skin friction drag depend on the velocity.

The Control of a Highly Nonlinear Two-wheels Balancing Robot: A Comparative Assessment between LQR and PID-PID Control Schemes

The research on two-wheels balancing robot has gained momentum due to their functionality and reliability when completing certain tasks. This paper presents investigations into the performance comparison of Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) and PID-PID controllers for a highly nonlinear 2–wheels balancing robot. The mathematical model of 2-wheels balancing robot that is highly nonlinear is derived. The final model is then represented in statespace form and the system suffers from mismatched condition. Two system responses namely the robot position and robot angular position are obtained. The performances of the LQR and PID-PID controllers are examined in terms of input tracking and disturbances rejection capability. Simulation results of the responses of the nonlinear 2–wheels balancing robot are presented in time domain. A comparative assessment of both control schemes to the system performance is presented and discussed.

The Key Challenges of the New Bank Regulations

The New Basel Capital Accord (Basel II) influences how financial institutions around the world, and especially European Union institutions, determine the amount of capital to reserve. However, as the recent global crisis has shown, the revision of Basel II is needed to reflect current trends, such as increased volatility and correlation, in the world financial markets. The overall objective of Basel II is to increase the safety and soundness of the international financial system. Basel II builds on three main pillars: Pillar I deals with the minimum capital requirements for credit, market and operational risk, Pillar II focuses on the supervisory review process and finally Pillar III promotes market discipline through enhanced disclosure requirements for banks. The aim of this paper is to provide the historical background, key features and impact of Basel II on financial markets. Moreover, we discuss new proposals for international bank regulation (sometimes referred to as Basel III) which include requirements for higher quality, constituency and transparency of banks' capital and risk management, regulation of OTC markets and introduction of new liquidity standards for internationally active banks.

20 GHz Fractional Phased Locked Loop Circuit for the Gbps Wireless Communication

This paper presents the 20-GHz fractional PLL (Phase Locked Loop) circuit for the next generation Wi-Fi by using 90 nm TSMC process. The newly suggested millimeter wave 16/17 pre-scalar is designed and verified by measurement to make the fractional PLL having a low quantization noise. The operational bandwidth of the 60 GHz system is 15 % of the carrier frequency which requires large value of Kv (VCO control gain) resulting in degradation of phase noise. To solve this problem, this paper adopts AFC (Automatic Frequency Controller) controlled 4-bit millimeter wave VCO with small value of Kv. Also constant Kv is implemented using 4-bit varactor bank. The measured operational bandwidth is 18.2 ~ 23.2 GHz which is 25 % of the carrier frequency. The phase noise of -58 and -96.2 dBc/Hz at 100 KHz and 1 MHz offset is measured respectively. The total power consumption of the PLL is only 30 mW.

Enhancement Throughput of Unplanned Wireless Mesh Networks Deployment Using Partitioning Hierarchical Cluster (PHC)

Wireless mesh networks based on IEEE 802.11 technology are a scalable and efficient solution for next generation wireless networking to provide wide-area wideband internet access to a significant number of users. The deployment of these wireless mesh networks may be within different authorities and without any planning, they are potentially overlapped partially or completely in the same service area. The aim of the proposed model is design a new model to Enhancement Throughput of Unplanned Wireless Mesh Networks Deployment Using Partitioning Hierarchical Cluster (PHC), the unplanned deployment of WMNs are determinates there performance. We use throughput optimization approach to model the unplanned WMNs deployment problem based on partitioning hierarchical cluster (PHC) based architecture, in this paper the researcher used bridge node by allowing interworking traffic between these WMNs as solution for performance degradation.

NGN and WiMAX: Putting the Pieces Together

With the exponential rise in the number of multimedia applications available, the best-effort service provided by the Internet today is insufficient. Researchers have been working on new architectures like the Next Generation Network (NGN) which, by definition, will ensure Quality of Service (QoS) in an all-IP based network [1]. For this approach to become a reality, reservation of bandwidth is required per application per user. WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a wireless communication technology which has predefined levels of QoS which can be provided to the user [4]. IPv6 has been created as the successor for IPv4 and resolves issues like the availability of IP addresses and QoS. This paper provides a design to use the power of WiMAX as an NSP (Network Service Provider) for NGN using IPv6. The use of the Traffic Class (TC) field and the Flow Label (FL) field of IPv6 has been explained for making QoS requests and grants [6], [7]. Using these fields, the processing time is reduced and routing is simplified. Also, we define the functioning of the ASN gateway and the NGN gateway (NGNG) which are edge node interfaces in the NGNWiMAX design. These gateways ensure QoS management through built in functions and by certain physical resources and networking capabilities.

Controller Design for Euler-Bernoulli Smart Structures Using Robust Decentralized FOS via Reduced Order Modeling

This paper features the modeling and design of a Robust Decentralized Fast Output Sampling (RDFOS) Feedback control technique for the active vibration control of a smart flexible multimodel Euler-Bernoulli cantilever beams for a multivariable (MIMO) case by retaining the first 6 vibratory modes. The beam structure is modeled in state space form using the concept of piezoelectric theory, the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and the Finite Element Method (FEM) technique by dividing the beam into 4 finite elements and placing the piezoelectric sensor / actuator at two finite element locations (positions 2 and 4) as collocated pairs, i.e., as surface mounted sensor / actuator, thus giving rise to a multivariable model of the smart structure plant with two inputs and two outputs. Five such multivariable models are obtained by varying the dimensions (aspect ratios) of the aluminium beam. Using model order reduction technique, the reduced order model of the higher order system is obtained based on dominant Eigen value retention and the Davison technique. RDFOS feedback controllers are designed for the above 5 multivariable-multimodel plant. The closed loop responses with the RDFOS feedback gain and the magnitudes of the control input are obtained and the performance of the proposed multimodel smart structure system is evaluated for vibration control.

GPI Observer-based Tracking Control and Synchronization of Chaotic Systems

Based on general proportional integral (GPI) observers and sliding mode control technique, a robust control method is proposed for the master-slave synchronization of chaotic systems in the presence of parameter uncertainty and with partially measurable output signal. By using GPI observer, the master dynamics are reconstructed by the observations from a measurable output under the differential algebraic framework. Driven by the signals provided by GPI observer, a sliding mode control technique is used for the tracking control and synchronization of the master-slave dynamics. The convincing numerical results reveal the proposed method is effective, and successfully accommodate the system uncertainties, disturbances, and noisy corruptions.

Coordinated Design of TCSC Controller and PSS Employing Particle Swarm Optimization Technique

This paper investigates the application of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique for coordinated design of a Power System Stabilizer (PSS) and a Thyristor Controlled Series Compensator (TCSC)-based controller to enhance the power system stability. The design problem of PSS and TCSC-based controllers is formulated as a time domain based optimization problem. PSO algorithm is employed to search for optimal controller parameters. By minimizing the time-domain based objective function, in which the deviation in the oscillatory rotor speed of the generator is involved; stability performance of the system is improved. To compare the capability of PSS and TCSC-based controller, both are designed independently first and then in a coordinated manner for individual and coordinated application. The proposed controllers are tested on a weakly connected power system. The eigenvalue analysis and non-linear simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the coordinated design approach over individual design. The simulation results show that the proposed controllers are effective in damping low frequency oscillations resulting from various small disturbances like change in mechanical power input and reference voltage setting.

Robust Regression and its Application in Financial Data Analysis

This research is aimed to describe the application of robust regression and its advantages over the least square regression method in analyzing financial data. To do this, relationship between earning per share, book value of equity per share and share price as price model and earning per share, annual change of earning per share and return of stock as return model is discussed using both robust and least square regressions, and finally the outcomes are compared. Comparing the results from the robust regression and the least square regression shows that the former can provide the possibility of a better and more realistic analysis owing to eliminating or reducing the contribution of outliers and influential data. Therefore, robust regression is recommended for getting more precise results in financial data analysis.

Dynamic TDMA Slot Reservation Protocol for QoS Provisioning in Cognitive Radio Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, we propose a dynamic TDMA slot reservation (DTSR) protocol for cognitive radio ad hoc networks. Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee plays a critically important role in such networks. We consider the problem of providing QoS guarantee to users as well as to maintain the most efficient use of scarce bandwidth resources. According to one hop neighboring information and the bandwidth requirement, our proposed protocol dynamically changes the frame length and the transmission schedule. A dynamic frame length expansion and shrinking scheme that controls the excessive increase of unassigned slots has been proposed. This method efficiently utilizes the channel bandwidth by assigning unused slots to new neighboring nodes and increasing the frame length when the number of slots in the frame is insufficient to support the neighboring nodes. It also shrinks the frame length when half of the slots in the frame of a node are empty. An efficient slot reservation protocol not only guarantees successful data transmissions without collisions but also enhance channel spatial reuse to maximize the system throughput. Our proposed scheme, which provides both QoS guarantee and efficient resource utilization, be employed to optimize the channel spatial reuse and maximize the system throughput. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed mechanism achieves desirable performance in multichannel multi-rate cognitive radio ad hoc networks.

ANN Models for Microstrip Line Synthesis and Analysis

Microstrip lines, widely used for good reason, are broadband in frequency and provide circuits that are compact and light in weight. They are generally economical to produce since they are readily adaptable to hybrid and monolithic integrated circuit (IC) fabrication technologies at RF and microwave frequencies. Although, the existing EM simulation models used for the synthesis and analysis of microstrip lines are reasonably accurate, they are computationally intensive and time consuming. Neural networks recently gained attention as fast and flexible vehicles to microwave modeling, simulation and optimization. After learning and abstracting from microwave data, through a process called training, neural network models are used during microwave design to provide instant answers to the task learned.This paper presents simple and accurate ANN models for the synthesis and analysis of Microstrip lines to more accurately compute the characteristic parameters and the physical dimensions respectively for the required design specifications.

Design Optimization for Efficient Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers

The exact gain shape profile of erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA`s) are depends on fiber length and Er3 ion densities. This paper optimized several of erbium doped fiber parameters to obtain high performance characteristic at pump wavelengths of λp= 980 nm and λs= 1550 nm for three different pump powers. The maximum gain obtained for pump powers (10, 30 and 50mw) is nearly (19, 30 and 33 dB) at optimizations. The required numerical aperture NA to obtain maximum gain becomes less when pump power increased. The amplifier gain is increase when Er+3doped near the center of the fiber core. The simulation has been done by using optisystem 5.0 software (CAD for Photonics, a license product of a Canadian based company) at 2.5 Gbps.

Virtual Reality for Mutual Understanding in Landscape Planning

This paper argues that fostering mutual understanding in landscape planning is as much about the planners educating stakeholder groups as the stakeholders educating the planners. In other words it is an epistemological agreement as to the meaning and nature of place, especially where an effort is made to go beyond the quantitative aspects, which can be achieved by the phenomenological experience of the Virtual Reality (VR) environment. This education needs to be a bi-directional process in which distance can be both temporal as well as spatial separation of participants, that there needs to be a common framework of understanding in which neither 'side' is disadvantaged during the process of information exchange and it follows that a medium such as VR offers an effective way of overcoming some of the shortcomings of traditional media by taking advantage of continuing technological advances in Information, Technology and Communications (ITC). In this paper we make particular reference to this as an extension to Geographical Information Systems (GIS). VR as a two-way communication tool offers considerable potential particularly in the area of Public Participation GIS (PPGIS). Information rich virtual environments that can operate over broadband networks are now possible and thus allow for the representation of large amounts of qualitative and quantitative information 'side-by-side'. Therefore, with broadband access becoming standard for households and enterprises alike, distributed virtual reality environments have great potential to contribute to enabling stakeholder participation and mutual learning within the planning context.

A Novel Multiplex Real-Time PCR Assay Using TaqMan MGB Probes for Rapid Detection of Trisomy 21

Cytogenetic analysis still remains the gold standard method for prenatal diagnosis of trisomy 21 (Down syndrome, DS). Nevertheless, the conventional cytogenetic analysis needs live cultured cells and is too time-consuming for clinical application. In contrast, molecular methods such as FISH, QF-PCR, MLPA and quantitative Real-time PCR are rapid assays with results available in 24h. In the present study, we have successfully used a novel MGB TaqMan probe-based real time PCR assay for rapid diagnosis of trisomy 21 status in Down syndrome samples. We have also compared the results of this molecular method with corresponding results obtained by the cytogenetic analysis. Blood samples obtained from DS patients (n=25) and normal controls (n=20) were tested by quantitative Real-time PCR in parallel to standard G-banding analysis. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood lymphocytes. A high precision TaqMan probe quantitative Real-time PCR assay was developed to determine the gene dosage of DSCAM (target gene on 21q22.2) relative to PMP22 (reference gene on 17p11.2). The DSCAM/PMP22 ratio was calculated according to the formula; ratio=2 -ΔΔCT. The quantitative Real-time PCR was able to distinguish between trisomy 21 samples and normal controls with the gene ratios of 1.49±0.13 and 1.03±0.04 respectively (p value