Special condition wind power forecasting based on Gaussian process and similar historical data

Due to the variability of wind power, it is imperative to accurately and timely forecast the wind generation to enhance the flexibility and reliability of the operation and control of real-time power. Special events such as ramps, spikes are hard to predict with traditional methods using solely recently measured data. In this paper, a new Gaussian Process model with hybrid training data taken from both the local time and historic dataset is proposed and applied to make short-term predictions from 10 minutes to one hour ahead. A key idea is that the similar pattern data in history are properly selected and embedded in Gaussian Process model to make predictions. The results of the proposed algorithms are compared to those of standard Gaussian Process model and the persistence model. It is shown that the proposed method not only reduces magnitude error but also phase error.

The practice of home in old Cairo: Towards socio-spatial models of sustainable living

The article investigates the practice of home as an everyday system for sustainable living in Old Cairo. The idea of home in this historic urban space has long involved fluid socio-spatial associations and made efficient use of space-activity-time dynamics. As in the past, a individual’s sense of home may here extend beyond or shrink within the physical boundaries of a particular house, as spatial settings are produced and consumed according to time of day, gender association, or special events. The article argues that architects working in this context must understand the dynamics of this complex traditional system if they are to develop locally informed, genuine designs that build on everyday spatial practices. Work by the architect Salah Zaki Said and by the Historic Cities Program of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture is described to illustrate the potential of such engagement, especially as it contrasts to more abstract architectural proposals.

"The pride of noise": drums and their repercussions in early modern England

This article draws on a wide range of literary and archival sources in order to explore the cultural resonances of drumming in England during the 16th and 17th centuries. It concentrates not on instrument design and playing techniques but on the varied meanings that contemporaries attached to the ubiquitous sound of the drum. The discussion begins and ends with the unmistakable military associations of drumming. In between, consideration is also given to a range of interconnected but sometimes contradictory resonances that appear to have endowed drums with considerable cultural significance. Drums spoke, for example, of authority and they worked hard to impose order in urban streets. They also played their part in the contemporary culture of punishment, and many miscreants were subjected to the humiliation of public percussion. Beyond this, drums were particularly potent in their ability to express masculinity, and female drummers were rare and remarkable. The primal potency of the instrument also rendered it valuable to the insubordinate, and rioters—like soldiers— were regularly called together 'by the drum'. Lastly, the sound of the drum was sometimes intensely festive and could also be used to publicize special events such as dramatic performances and the display of curiosities. The repercussions of drumming were thus varied, and confusion sometimes resulted when the different possibilities became entangled.

Events: Temporal and Eternal (in preparation)

This monograph develops a theory of events which provides the foundation for a plausible and coherent account of God’s relation to time, and which has independent appeal (independent, that is, of theological considerations). The book is divided into three parts. The first part involves an investigation of those fundamental aspects of time which have important implications for the nature of events, such as whether time is substantival or relational, and whether time is continuous, dense, or discrete. This part also includes a chapter on how these issues relate to different interpretations of the special theory of relativity. The second part involves a defense of the fundamentality of events, and the development of a theory of events in time. The third part considers ways in which we might plausibly conceive of events as eternal entities. This involves an investigation of different ways of characterizing divine eternity, and then an analysis of the possible relations these ways bear to the antecedently developed theory of temporal events. The thought here is that there are certain characteristics of temporal events which can be assimilated to eternity, and that by evaluating the extent to which different theories of divine eternity allow for this assimilation, we will be able to determine which of those theories is most plausible, and therefore which conception of God’s relation to time is most plausible. The basis of this evaluation will be the theory’s ability to coherently account for God’s knowledge of, and interaction with, the created temporal world. One specific issue here is how to account for God’s knowledge of the future free actions of humans (an issue that I address in 'Eternity, Knowledge, and Freedom'), but there are many other difficulties associated with God’s relation to time, such as God’s creation of contingent time, God’s knowledge of what is happening now, God’s dialogue with humans, and God’s causally interacting with the temporal world in general. A successful theory of eternal events, and, in particular, divine events, will provide a framework for dealing with these difficulties.

I have not yet sough a publisher for this work, but intend to do so in 2013, with a target publication date of 2014.